Wanna See the Ugliest Photo of Me Ever? (You Know You Do.)

You know that moment when you go to take a photo with your phone and your kids are in front of you doing something freakishly adorable, or maybe it's a stupid delicious salad, the image of which you must upload to Facebook immediately as proof that once upon a time a tomato glistened just so...so you click on the little camera icon all quick-like and HolyMotherofSweetJesusFuck! The camera is set on the reverse function and there's your big-pored, double-chinned shiny ass face staring up at you with that line between your brows and your eyes looking down all dumb and caught off-guard, you know? No? Just me? Well then.

Eff the reverse camera mode is all I have to say about that.

For the past 20 years there have been a dozen lost, mythical boxes from my childhood, boxes my mom said she had in storage somewhere. Photo albums and yearbooks, boxes of notes I passed in class, home movies, my prom dress, dried roses and issues of my high school newspaper...my brother and I were convinced it was all gone, the storage unit invoice lost, the contents auctioned off to a very disappointed man with a goatee on Storage Wars. Well slap my ass and call me Judy, as my mom has never said (but I have always thought she should say, seeing as how her name is actually Judy), but apparently the bill remained in good standing and I am now the proud owner of 12 boxes of my past, which is surprisingly like suddenly staring into a camera in reverse. For example, this gem:

HolyMotherofSweetJesusFuck! Note: the haircut that was supposed to resemble a photo of Famke Janssen that I tore out of a magazine and how it accentuates my most-decidedly non-Danish bone structure, the electric blue Space Invaders-meets-Bill Cosby sweater, the or-just-look-like-one Barbizon pose with arms crossed all cool-like, because nothing says nonchalance like standing like that.

It was 1986, the summer before 9th grade on a trip to North Carolina to visit family. My uncle had taken up photography so he took my picture, and the thing of it is, I remember feeling beautiful that day. In front of the camera in that horrible sweater with my bloated awful 13 year old face and puffy hair I remember thinking maybe I was a Danish Supermodel who just so happened to be having a modeling session photographed by her uncle in the basement of a tract home in North Carolina. Surely this happens.

I don't know why I am posting this, the ugliest photo of me ever taken...partly because it's funny, yes. Look how brave I am, posting this picture! I made it to the other side of that round face. But also because maybe there is something beautiful in the fact that I felt pretty then when I was really very not, when there was no reverse function on the camera and how I felt was dictated only by who I was in my head.