My Favorite Decade

It's Finish The Sentence Friday and today's sentence was "My favorite decade was..."

Easiest blog post ever...so easy that I'm not even going to finish the sentence with words.  One guess what my favorite decade was:

 This was one of my favorite shirts, I wore it all the time.

This was deep in my "visible undergarments phase."

No, I'm not getting married in this one--it was when I was presented

as a candidate for the Arts Society Ball. 

Which sounds slightly more pretentious than it actually was.

I should probably say something like "This is my favorite decade because I have finally married my darling Opie and we are blissfully happy." But we are still early into this decade--I'll say that in 2020.  Besides, this was when I actually met my Opie.

This is Opie circa 1989-what a blondie bear he was!

Besides, what's not to love: Big hair (you should hear about the time I got a perm), I was soooooo skinny (though I thought I was fat, go figure), I had no responsibilities, dance music was fun and not so aggressive (Mike Birbiglia has a hilarious bit about this!), and clothes of questionable taste (wasn't a teacher then so didn't care about inappropriate attire!)




FTSF is brought to you by:

Kate at Can I get Another Bottle of Whine with My Morning Quiet Time

Janine at Confession of a Mommyaholic

Stephanie at Mommy, for Real

Finding Ninee

Read other favorite decade posts here:

Bad Decisions and Big Hair

It's Finish The Sentence Friday again everyone, the brain child of Janine Huldie,   Another Bottle of Whine, Dawn's Disaster, Mommy For Real  This week's sentence is "I thought I was so cool when I..."

 

So, here goes...I thought I was so cool when I decided to get a perm and really go after that "big hair" look.

And if you have never seen my hair, you are probably thinking that this is no big deal, because back in the 80’s and early 90’s everyone permed their hair.

But let me give you a visual , to give you a little perspective.  This is my hair now, without a perm, without trying to make it big, with just the curls that God gave me:

 

 

 

And to really drive it home, take a look at me back then, BEFORE THE PERM, after blowing my hair dry upside down, teasing it, spraying it etc.

 

 

 

The last thing I needed in that mop top was MORE body. 

 

It is interesting to note that I couldn't find any post-perm pictures...probably because my post-perm hair was too big to fit into a picture....in fact, my post perm hair was too big to fit into most doors.

 

Believe it or not, it got worse.

 

Because in addition to deciding that my hair wasn't curly enough, I also decided that it wasn't dark enough.  Take another look at that picture.  That's my hair pre-color--the shade I thought WASN'T DARK ENOUGH.

 

So I went to the salon, got a perm and then a few days later went backand had it dyed it a shade that was supposed to be "chocolate" but is best described as "midnight-in-the-middle-of-a-black-hole."

 

It was NOT attractive. 

 



And even though I was super cool, and all "I know I look good" I still could hear a tiny little voice in my head suggesting that perhaps it was a touch, shall we say, dramatic against my fair Irish skin.  A voice that got louder when I saw the horrified look on my mom's face.

"I think it's a little dark," I said.  "The beautician told me not to wash it for a couple of days, so the color will set.  I think I'll go ahead and wash it tomorrow."

"Honey," my mom said gently, "wash it NOW."

Pretty sure I thought I was cool...but my mom was actually the cool one.

To read about all the other cool kids this week, please click on the link below:

An Allison Hiding In A Claire

This Thursday’s Theme Thursday topic is Which Breakfast Club Character Are you? And this one was tough for me…which is surprising because I love, love, LOVED that movie…I’ve probably seen it 150 times….I can get still get all fired up thinking of horrible Principal Vernon…man, I hated that guy when I first saw the movie. Then, years later, when I became a high school teacher myself and started dealing with a bunch of smart ass kids, I hated him even more.

Because there’s nothing worse than a teacher or principal who is burnt out and doesn’t like kids…I only met one or two of those when I was teaching; most of my colleagues loved kids, loved their jobs, loved making a difference.

But I know how much damage 1 bad teacher can do….and if you interacted with one of those, I’m sorry. Hopefully, you had enough good ones to make up.

Except, none of that answers the question: Which character are you?

And I think I was 2…on the inside I felt like the weird, neurotic basket case. I liked to write, I liked comic books and superheroes and I read everything I could get my hands on. And I worried and got worked up and generally felt like a basket case on a regular basis.

But on the outside I was definitely the Princess….This was me in high school:

(Side note: I wish big hair would come back in style because that’s the one thing these curls do easily!)

Anyway, I wasn’t Prom Queen but my best friend was runner up for Homecoming Queen. And I was on dance team and student council…I wore a little too much make up and I cared a little too much what other people thought of me (soooo glad I grew out of that!) but I think I was nice to people and I never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings or tried to exclude them.

But the main reason I think I was the Princess is because I was hopelessly, endlessly drawn to the John Benders of the world…the ones who are misunderstood, a little broken, and hard to reach. The ones who needed to be saved from themselves…philanthropic dating, you might call it…


Which probably explains why it took me so long to get married…I had to find a Johnny who had just enough Andy to love an Allison hiding inside a Claire.


For other Breakfast Club posts, check out



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