I was not a Senior Hottie. I don't think.

There's been this meme going around the interwebs this weekend called I Was Senior Hottie, and it's pretty funny - all these bloggers posting pictures from their high school graduations.  There's a lot of late 80s and early 90s fashion going on in there: hair spray, standing-up-straight-bangs, and pouffy taffeta.  My absolute favorite of the series is my pal Varda at The Squashed Bologna - not class of '97, not class of '87:  try class of '77, baby.  Aw yeah.

I'd pretty much decided against posting (just because most days I decide against posting. Sigh. Sorry, readers.)  Then an old friend emailed this, late last night:

Yep that's me, sporting the lifeguard's usually-wears-sensible-one-piece tan.  Mmmhmm.  This was our senior class trip, to Florida. (You can tell it's me there in the middle, because I am twice as long as the other two. Why are the women in my life so petite?)

So fine then, let's go ahead and post a graduation picture, complete with hairsprayed bangs and white pantyhose:

Class of '91 represents, with my sweet grandma

What's the point of all this nonsense? you're wondering.  So what about your high school grad photos? Even if you did post a half-nekked beach one?

Here's the thing, peeps.

Never told you much about my reunion weekend, did I? It was great - a good time had by all (I think). It was silly and brief and all the things you want reunions to be. There was a monsoon and my hair looked like hell all weekend, but whatevs. 

There was one flash of insight, twenty years later.  Over the weekend I remembered just how incredibly multicultural my class was:  Indian, African-American, African, Korean, West Indian, and yeah, Caucasian.  My group of friends mirrored this mix, and we had a good time.  The differences in our skin color never seemed to matter very much.

My flash of insight was this:  in the midst of all this gorgeous ethnicity, there wasn't a huge demand for oversized preppy white girls.  Just wasn't the going currency, if you see what I mean.  So I managed to get through most of those horrible high school years not thinking I was any kind of 'high school hottie.' Far from it. 

And here's the best part of that - when you go through high school without being particularly worried about this, it frees up a huge amount of psychic space for sports, for student government, and yeah, for um...school.  

Now - before I get away from this post scot-free, claiming I trod the vanity-free high road, I will absolutely hold up my hand and affirm that 14-18 year olds are notoriously narcissistic, and therefore of course I worried about my looks. Of course I spent way too long peering into the mirror.  But somehow all those hours with my Paul Mitchell Awapuhi hair spray seemed not to result in a very positive takeaway image. 

And that's ok. 

Yep. By the look of these photos, if big blondes are your thing then maybe I was a High School Hottie.  But, quite simply, I'm just happy that it was something I didn't believe back then.