A friend who knows me IRL blogged a happy birthday post for me, along with some (yikes!) photos of what I looked like at 18.

If only I hadn’t been trying so hard, I could have been really cute. In these three photos combined, I have on more makeup than I’d wear in a typical year now. (Most days I skip it altogether.) God love the South in the late 1980s.

Photo goodness (badness?) below the fold.

Molly Ringwald much? This is in my dorm room that first Fall. My roommate was the. roommate. from. hell. She hated me, if for no other reason, although my overexuberance might have contributed (ya think?), because I turned down a guy she was crushing.

Note the Petra poster in the background. Damn, I was cool.

On our way to Casino Night. I think this was also Fall 1989. I’d forgotten about the god-awful striped carpet that lined the floors in the dorm!

Summer 1990 — I was starting to get the hang of not dressing like a crazy person by this time, LOL. Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans.

For all the cute youngness, I like the way I look better now, extra pounds and all. Enjoying my own insides (even when they get crazy) is a big help for that!