My (almost) original eyebrows

This photograph was taken when I was 18 years old. I made that green dress without the benefit of interfacing or stays, which it obviously needed. Still, I was a first year design student at FIDM and was only just beginning to develop good drafting skills. In this photograph I'm visiting my mother in Stockton California*, the armpit of the universe. It's not surprising that when I first got into design school at 17 years old and my mom decided suddenly to move to an armpit of a city and gave me the choice to move with her or stay in design school and make my way in the world with no support...

I chose design school and squatting at my best friend's house until we finally got a studio apartment together in San Francisco. Her mother, who is an incredible woman, never blinked about letting me live with them. Or if she did (and why wouldn't she hesitate to take in a chainsmoking mental teenager whose mother suddenly moved to Stockton) she never let me know it. Nothing but kindness and also she taught me to make lasagna.

Those eyebrows are unplucked, unshaved, and unwaxed. They are, however, slightly enhanced with brow liner. I used to have such large brows and now they are so much less substantial. I kind of miss those big brows. Now when I don't darken slightly with pencil they seem to only be half brows. Which don't make me look good.

I really can't say what's up with the pink shirt with pearls. It's like I was doing "Nancy Reagan visits the Renaissance Faire" look. (No one knew that was a look until now.)

I remember that I took the Greyhound bus up to visit my mom and brother. I had my hard shell forties suitcase with me which has since burned up in our attic fire and which I still sorely miss. It was so sturdy (and I was 115 pounds lighter) that I could use it as a seat while waiting to be picked up at the station.

Very cinematic of me.

Smoking cigarette after cigarette sitting on my old suitcase with my parasol protecting my pale skin from the punishing sun of the central valley.

Probably reading something serious like Thackeray.

I must have been a sight.



*It is very funny that nicknames for Stockton include both "all American city" and "most dangerous city in California". Yes, that sums up the US amazingly. As a whole that is our spirit. As Israelis say: we are all really fucking scary violent people with guns, us Americans.