Old old picture of me

[rikibeth]

This is mostly for David Harmon from Making Light, because he remembers my name from my MIT days, and can't put a face to it. It might also appear on What The Hell? at Shakesville, although I sent them two, and the one with the kidlet age three in it is funnier because of her expression. This would be late 1988 or early 1989.




Also, have some dragons. I've named the purple one Unpronounceable Glyph.

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Now wait; I met you in 1991 and you did not look anywhere near as... "adolescent" as you did in that photo.

Did you really mature that much in 2-3 years? Are you sure?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Didn't we meet in 1990, when I was working at FTP?

I am absolutely certain that the picture is either December 1988 or January 1989, because I can tell from the poster that it's in shadowflyer's dorm room at Brandeis.

I would say that leaving college (after flunking out the second time) and joining the working world changed my mental habits sufficiently to have shown on my face. So would have acquiring my first car -- a serious jump in independence from having to borrow my parents'.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh you little elf! How gorgeous!

Also. I'm so annoyed that you've been dragoning for FIVE MINUTES and have a paper egg. *smies*

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I think my shorter hair is dreadful and I'm glad I grew it out, but thanks!

And eternaleponine, who's been playing longer, gave me that origami egg specially. If my balloon hatchling genders male I have to give it to her. :-/

(edited to fix lj tag)

[mhaille.livejournal.com]

...blonde? really?

[head-shrinker.livejournal.com]

Y'know, for a minute I thought that was the kiddo there. I had to read your post a million times to convince myself that was YOU!

Then again, I also thought the hair there was a wig....

Ah, old pictures. Wonderful when you can control what, when and how much comes out :-)

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Do you have little pointy ears? SO CUTE!

[dpolicar]

Heh. I remember her.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Roux White Minx and 40 volume double peroxide, baby. My mom was so glad that I was dyeing my hair a color found in nature that she paid for it.

It used to get ALMOST that light after a month at the beach frm the time I was ten or so, and I started messing with Sun In and facial-hair bleach to try to prolong it when I was thirteen, and my mom was concerned not about the color but about the potential for frying my hair, so.

Also, by that time I'd hit Cambridge School with Susannah Spock (granddaughter of Dr. Benjamin, yeah) with her green crew cut, and JJ Gonson (now Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields, which I only just realized) with her black hair with fuchsia bangs, and blonde didn't seem that freaky.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

OMG, what is it with everyone and the elf comments?

I think I still owned the four pairs of '80s suede elf boots (tan, black, red, and a TURQUOISE pair) at that point.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

She was your little brother!

[dpolicar]

Indeed.

Man, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Over twenty years, that's the spooky part. It feels like it can't be possible.

[dpolicar]

Yeah.
Maybe it's not... maybe we're all just really confused, and shortly we'll snap out of it and realize we're actually in our mid-20s...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'M 27. I was 17 for a very long time (from age 13 to about 25), so I figure I've got plenty of excuse to still be 27.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Everyone says the kid looks just like me -- it's not ENTIRELY true, the shape of her eyebrows comes from her dad, they're straighter than my pronounced arch, but otherwise, yeah. There's one particular baby picture of her where she's standing at the top of the stairs in the house where I grew up, and it looks EXACTLY like a picture of me taken in that spot when I was the same age. The only difference is, I was wearing a yellow blanket sleeper and holding a white blankie, and she was wearing red overalls and holding a baby doll (which looks like a baby doll I had, so). There's also pictures of her at the beach when she was ten that look startlingly like pictures of ME at the beach, age ten.

It's a little spooky. Someday I need to show you my maternal grandmother's wedding picture, and pictures of HER mother when she was young.

[dpolicar]

That seems fair. I think I was about 23 'till I was 35 or so. This last year has caught me up to 40 in a big way, though. Perhaps older. Hard to say.

[head-shrinker.livejournal.com]

oooh, cool! Family resemblance will drive you INSANE, but everyone else thinks it's awesome. And I think you and the kid look fairly different now, but that's mostly because of hair, I'm sure :-)

Apparently I've gone through phases of looking like everyone in my family. The best though is an ancient picture of my grandpa when he was like, 3. He looks almost EXACTLY like I did when I was 3 - so much that I used to kind of wonder if that *was* me in the picture...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

"It ain't the years. honey, it's the mileage." Medical issues add a lot of mileage, don't they?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Apparently my mother's side of the family has very heritable looks -- there's a baby picture of my cousin Jake that could be transparency-overlaid with one of his father (my mother's brother) and have it match up, or maybe do a stereopticon thing if the picture of Uncle Jerry weren't black & white and the one of Jake in color.

When I saw Jake at our grandmother's funeral in May, he looked exactly like my earliest memories of Uncle Jerry.

[head-shrinker.livejournal.com]

That is so cool. I love how people live on... of course, it helps that I passably like most of my family. And the ones I don't like much aren't very close in appearance or blood. :-)

(Sadly, the person I most look like right now is my dad... I don't mind looking like my grandpa! And I'm sure if I knew my maternal bio grandpa, I probably looked like him too.)

[dpolicar]

Ayup.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Whoa.
You look better now

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think so too. See, I TOLD you I used to be a hippie.