Twenty years ago, I took my first birthday self-portrait. I’ll share below, but first: at some point I decided that I would take a picture of myself on my birthday every year as a way to look at my face as it changed. Originally I was doing this in the earliest moments (read: right after midnight) but now I am usually in bed then so it’s in the morning. This one is after 1.5 cups of coffee and not enough sleep because a thing I do now is typically be awake for an hour or so in the middle of the night thinking about nothing in particular and also trying to find a position in bed that is not annoying. Anyway, this is the first year I have data going back to the beginning, in a nice round number.
I didn’t start the right-after-midnight thing right away, and this wasn’t even a project in my mind at the time. I was just sharing on Flickr (yes I know it’s still there but I miss Flickr specifically of this era) that I’d been out to dinner for my birthday. I don’t know when I turned it into a thing, anyway, but this was me, as a baby 27-year-old:
What a relic. I mean: wired earbuds?
Turns out, as I’m looking at my face from twenty years ago, I simultaneously have nothing and so much to say. Barely anything had even happened yet; in so many ways I just had no idea. Beyond this, really, I don’t have any intention of rehashing the last 20 years. I am older now than I was then, and my face shows it. I am happier now, too.
I’m going to be honest: I do not particularly feel like recapping my 46th year, either. I am no longer a person who puts everything on the internet, but the very short version is that this year has been a lot.
Highlights include:
- Snorkeling with sea turtles — do you have any idea HOW CUTE SEA TURTLES ARE? Also while on the boat we got to see whales. WHALES!
- Taking the 18-year-old to get her first tattoo (and then not entirely soberly deciding to get a tattoo also because yolo or whatever which is why I have a line drawing of sea turtles above my elbow).
- Having some photos in a gallery show this spring.
- Being in a play again — it had really been too long. The cast and crew are all lovely also, which makes it extra fun. (Opens next weekend!)
- Also having some photos accepted into a juried show that’s opening next weekend.
- Getting a puppy! I haven’t written about her here but please enjoy this photograph of the newest addition to our family, Magnolia June, the never-still land shark. We call her Maggie for short, or Maggie-Stop-Eating-That for long:
Lowlights include:
- Hey did you guys hear about the intestinal parasites that were on lettuce this summer? Yes, I am one of the thousands who got to experience that, and let me confirm that it is as horrible as everyone says. I am also lucky to be allergic to the antibiotic that treats it, so I got to just, you know, have cyclosporiasis for a month. I have nothing good to say about any of it, except, I guess, at least I wasn’t puking? Anyway, delighted to be alive at a time when America is returning to the reasons why Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle.
- Losing Shadow. Every dog is a once in a lifetime friend, and we are still learning the ways Maggie will grow into one, but that big lug left some huge pawprints to fill and I would be lying if I said I didn’t still miss him.
- There are other things, of course, but who needs to dwell?
So far this year I have read 27 books in an attempt to doomscroll less (it helps). I’ve attended only 1 concert, but it was Tori Amos, who is still a goddess.
I have things to do today, so I’m going to wrap this up by saying I don’t know what’s next, but it’s gotta be better than diarrhea lettuce.
Probably.