So, there has been a brief blogging break, but I’m back. This time with something to say about pictures.
Family pictures.. While I’m all about making memories and such, I’m also a decent human being which makes family pictures a tricky subject. Let me clarify this right now, this is not my family I am referring to, but families in general. It has been my experience that anything involving photography and family is going to be a problem. Take the Gabrielsen white sock-black suit fiasco of ’03. It was tragic really.. We got all the family together, everyone looked decent, everyone was THERE, but all the boys decided to wear white socks with their black suits. Some say it gives the picture flair, but I look at that picture & think ,“Wow, those white socks match Melisa’s wedding dress perfectly..”. Nice one boys. Then there is always the issue of coordinating the color combinations. Everyone has their own style, and I say to each is own just as much as the next person does, and just because I happen to be voted most fashionable in my high school days doesn’t mean I should have any stronger say in what we put on our fleshy bodies… But then again maybe it does… No one looks good in orange. Pumpkins look good in orange, and kids dressed as pumpkins for Halloween look cute in orange. Not grown human beings, I don’t think that the first word I want to pop into my head when I see a family picture is “Cute pumpkins..”. Okay, looking past the problem of colors and onto the picture day itself. If you’re a Gabrielsen you show up late. That fact is about as reliable as the sun rising and setting everyday. I’m sure other families are the same way, so what do you do? Tell the late ones that the pictures are actually a ½ hour earlier than they really are? Who is to decide who is always late or not? What if that person(s) finds out, they aren’t going to be nearly as obliged to flash those pearly whites for the man with the cam when all they can say is “DIRTBAGS” instead of “CHEESE!”. Why do you yell cheese anyways? We are grown adults people. Do you want me to feel like a five year old, because if so then you are going to need those squeaky toys and objects to get my attention then too. I remember one time when we went to go get our pictures taken at a professional studio when I was probably 7 or 8, my mom turned to me and said, “Don’t you dare let them touch you with that snot-infested multi-colored feather duster. Smile dang it.” Okay, maybe she didn’t say that, maybe I just thought to myself: I will never have that gnarly dust collecting heap-of-weird be smothered in my face or my children’s for that matter. Plus, I swear half of the kids end up sneezing right as the picture is taken, or they have that really concentrated sneeze face, but I guess as long as they still look at the camera?... Here is the other issue, I do not know many women that like to be photographed when they are pregnant, nor do I know any teenager going through puberty who is dying to work it for any camera, anywhere… So how do you schedule something like that? What, you take a look at the calendar, then little Suzy and her body reeking of adolescence, back at the calendar, then say, “Okay, 3 years oughtta do the trick…”?? No, that would devastate young Suzy and probably cause a stress pimple to appear on her face. Now I am not saying I am exempt to this in the least. In fact, I was going through my mother’s photo box the other day and reminiscing of younger more innocent years, when all of the sudden I wished I was dead, or that someone had run over me, or that I was blind. Any of the previous would have been a much better alternative to looking at my pictures ages 11-14. Middle school sucked obviously, and luckily someone thought that would be a great time to snap a million pictures featuring yours truly. Why? Why me? Why then? Why that shirt? Why those braces? Why glass? All these unanswered questions lay before me. What is even stranger is that since then, it seems that my life has gone undocumented… Coincidence? Probably not. In fact, definitely not. See, I’m convinced that families half way love you, and half way love to have blackmail on you. Its fine really, because since everyone has the same secretive motives, it makes everything balance out..
So I'll include proof of my debacle with teenage years & include that fact that this sits on my refrigerator in my apartment with a post-it underneath saying...
"HIYA! Hungry are ya???"
If you can't laugh at yourself, no one can.
