Friday, January 23, 2009

Scanner Addict

Last night I came down with scanner fever. I found a cache of old photos and for six straight hours I scanned and tortured friends by posting on Facebook. I lost track of how many times I said to myself, “What was I thinking?” Some highlights:

1975 - “Who here needs my papers? Let's get this moving, people!” I'm all business when it comes to summer camp. Best. Day. Ever. You know, if I had to pick one photo taken over the last 42 years that most captures who I am, this would be it. Overly packed, overly eager, and capable of carrying all my own stuff.

1987 - We look like a low-rent St. Elmos Fire cast. Notice the trunk had been transformed into a bar. Also notice party pants of the guy standing far left. I went to this event with a beautiful Norwegian exchange student (he owned his own tux! So European). Not long after this he drove himself to Las Vegas in his Porsche and tried, unsuccessfully, to commit suicide. I hope it wasn't my shirt. He lived, thankfully, to see his mug on this cheesy photo.

1987 Keys to this look:
Lipstick - Estée Lauder All Day Cinema Pink
Eyeliner - Lancôme Electric Blue (application: sh*tload)
Hairspray - Sebastian Mega Hold in the the can the size of a baseball bat

October 1987 Dear Diary, Peggy and I went to the Cal-Oregon Game! Berkeley is sooo fun! And everyone here is, like, soooo smart! We both wore our shoulder pads under our t-shirts, natch, because it's, like, 1987. Pegs even busted out the pearls and I wore my big red Vuarnets! Go Ducks!

1990 - My 24th Birthday party thrown by Chris Ritter. Apparently my husband was there but I did not actually meet him for another year and half. He had no interest in me this night. Go figure.

Blond doesn't work on me but it didn't stop me from trying. BTW, I never took the tags off that dress and returned it the next day, reeking of Tequila. I know, I'm gonna burn in hell, blah, blah, blah...1991 - A very bad idea. Going from blond to auburn with a quick and unintended stop at Bozo Red first. I was on the Clairol hot line for like two hours that day. Thanks, Daves.

Working for the man at Microsoft. And by working I mean playing solitaire. This was before I learned about proper desk placement for optimum game playing. Ankle length stone-colored Gap jeans date this photo at 1992.

1993 Okay. Where do we start here? If you own this dress, please identify yourself. I'd like to kill you. I borrowed it from someone for the Microsoft Christmas party. It's a whole lot of look, no? I'm a dead-ringer for Bea Arthur on Golden Girls. Seriously, though, who loaned me this dress? Tonya?

Ah, I wish I could do this all day. There are so many other gems. But, alas, I have to go make my child a waffle. If you upload any of your own old pics, please let me know. I'd like to laugh at other people who put shoulder pads under their t-shirts.

9 comments:

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

how in the world do you remember the brand name of your lipstick. you're hilarious

Christy Raedeke said...

Ha-only because that lipstick was epic. I wore it for years, way past its prime. You can now buy it on ebay as "vintage makeup" and that makes me feel really, really old.

Miles Inada said...

There's so much here. . . my mind boggles. . .

Hardygirl said...

I could insert my face into any one of those pictures and it would be MY life.

Except the one with the Bozo hair--although I had an episode with "sun in" that could come pretty close.

I keep hearing scary murmurs that shoulder pads are making a comeback. Who's in charge of that stuff? Does he or she ever look at vintage pictures on Facebook? Have we learned NOTHING???

Anonymous said...

My favorite photo?

The 1987 style tips.

God, that frosted lipstick was a good look!

Christy Raedeke said...

Shoulder pads are coming back? I secretly long for the day they do. Seriously. For some reason I dug that look. After all, with football-grade pads in, your waist looks a lot smaller.

SF - Somehow I doubt you could have ever looked like a dork.

Jenni - If I ever get my hands on some Cinema Pink I'll give it to you - you could rock it even now.

Anonymous said...

YOu forgot to mention that the other girl in the pink lipstick - Tina - won the contest to be the Black Velvet Whiskey model and was on all the billboards.

Katie Anderson said...

Oh man do I LOVE your blog. You are on FIRE I tell you!

Graeme Stone said...

I second Katie. If Redoubt is getting ready to erupt, girl, you done gone and exploded.
Christy, I've had a terrible week. Construction workers keeping me from sleeping, home woes, boyfriend woes. And you made me LAUGH. Those pictures, the descriptions. It's a combination of Salon.com and Charles Phoenix, a guy here who has a photo of the week, and always with hilarious captions. I could write you a one-woman show from this sample alone. Now there's an idea...