Seniority, part 2

As a followup to yesterday's senior picture post for Bev's challenge, I want to share a few more photos today.

Not only did I hate my senior pictures, they also weren't usable for the school yearbook. The photographer swore they'd be fine. But of course, they weren't.

So I had to get a second headshot taken. This time I went to the fancy studio in town--the place my sister got her senior pictures taken. I wish we had bought some of these, because this one shot turned out better than any of the pictures from my senior session. It scanned like crap because I had to smoosh my yearbook into the scanner, but it looks more me than any of the ones I posted yesterday. The dimple is in full effect!

By the time my college yearbook picture was taken four years later, I had more going on than just the dimple.

Way more. Indeed, the fat was in full effect. My face had ballooned to epic proportions. I blame the free bagels and cream cheese at my coffee shop job. And the free half and half that I occasionally regularly dumped into my free coffee. With all the carbs and fatty cow's milk I gobbled down, I was quite the heifer. I have no idea what was going on with the lipstick. I guess I was trying to draw attention away from my massive chin. Mission not accomplished.

When I finished my third year of college, I had enough credits to graduate with my journalism degree. But I was only 20 years old and totally unprepared to go be a grownup... not to mention that I knew that I didn't actually want to be a journalist. So I decided to get a second degree in women's studies to buy myself some time.

That extra year yielded me a bit more perspective and a lot more lard. Had I gone to grad school, I probably would have gained another 50 pounds. Luckily for my figure, I was all set with school after 16 years of summers spent at smart camp, testing out of high school classes, and rushing through college's condensed summer semesters. My horrific grades my last semester definitely showed how completely I had checked out of academia.

All's well that ends well, of course. It took me a couple of months after graduation, but eventually I found a job I like and a man I love.

And speaking of that man, this is Jason's boot camp graduation picture. It was 2003. He weighed 135 pounds. By the time we met in 2005, he had bulked back up to a healthy 175.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of Jason from high school. He didn't get a yearbook and his parents never bought school pictures.

I know, isn't that tragic? Who doesn't buy school pictures of their kid? To be fair, he says that he didn't photograph well as a teenager, but I still would have bought one for posterity's sake.

Oh well... It's all the more reason for us to get lots and lots of pictures taken of the two of us!