Inspired by my friend's post over here, I've decided to respond with my own little exhibit of cringe-worthy hair and clothes from the 80s. (I'm limited to the very few photos that my sister recently scanned in and e-mailed but there's plenty of material here. Sadly.) Welcome to the Awkward Years (11-14), where my nose outpaced the growth of the rest of my face, hair became progressively worse, and the criteria for selecting clothes became "the louder the better."

This first photo is the end of cute childhood. I'm in the front right foreground with grandparents, aunts & uncles, and my dad in the background (holding the dog) with my siblings in the other corner. I think the pigtails may be Daisy Duke inspired but I have no proof of that.

Okay. Brace yourself. Just a yearish later, I have entered the scary years. I got an ill-advised perm at the walk-in hours at the local beauty school. Why, why, why? For the love of all that is hair-related, why?! I hated it immediately. As one neighbor kindly commented, I looked like a lion who put his fingers in the power outlet (I know, I know, lions don't have fingers...the mixed metaphor only enhances the bluntness.) I cried and cried.

And look! If only I could have told all my school friends that I am 25 years before my time in layering a long sleeve shirt under a short sleeve one. They were not so convinced of its coolness at the time.

It's hard for me to explain to friends who didn't know me back then just how HUGE I always felt growing up. There's only 3 years between my brother (the next youngest) and me but take a look at how what that looked like, size wise:

No, that is not my mother sitting there--it's me at around 14 and Matt (behind me) is 11. Yikes. I even look bigger than my dad here. I've made peace with the size genes I got but at 13 I felt like an amazon woman among cute, talented people--a dinosaur among gazelles. (Hmm...maybe I still feel a little like that still...)

And the pink and turquoise! I was very into vests...another outfit that surpassed this one (wish I had a picture) was when we visited Washington DC around this same time. This is what I wore: a white tuxedo shirt, white skirt, red vest, and red bow tie. And white shoes. I thought I was the very picture of urban coolness but in reality I looked like an ice-cream vendor.

Oh, the eighties...why were you so cruel?

If you are up to more cringes, drop by the cringe book, which invites submissions of embarrassing journal entries from those Awkward Years. I don't know if I'm that brave yet but I'll let you know...