Shady, baby- shots from my hippy childhood... my angsty teenage years... my geeky college years... my early roadtrippin' gypsy days... my first experiments in artsy portraiture. Don't laugh! :P

The Early Days: when I was just a wee (wee?) lass... gaga-googoo-ing as a baby (and where did my right arm go??)... chomping cake and ice cream in goofy hat at one of my birthday parties... in the zoo, doing my best flamingo impersonation... sitting on the lawn, what a 70's kid...ah, the carefree days of childhood...

...and then there's me, smiling toothlessly at my first snow-woman... wearin' hippy attire & pigtails (and holding a sock monkey!)... and curtsying in ballet class, tee hee...

High School Days: I am "tortured teenager" personified. I could often be found reading, painting, or hiding behind gravestones in the local cemetery. This was definitely my angst-y period- lots of diaphanous babydoll dress-wearing, b&w photo-taking, and dark-music obsessing...

...there I am down there, ditching high school one day with some schoolmates to hang out in a bar in Juarez, Mexico, bad Shady!... and then there's me being a wallflower (and refusing to do the goofy YMCA dance) at Club 101, New Year's 1990... and, then me (and a friend) climbing a very tall tombstone in the middle of the night like a couple of teenaged jackasses...... which is what we were, heh...

College, The Freshmen Year: My major changed more times than my hairstyle did, and I began to go a little further in my mad self-portrait-experiments... baring more skin than I ever had before (but I was still pretty reserved at this point- these pics seemed pretty racy to me back then)! Speaking of bare skin... check out the pics of me, tattoo-less!

College, The Gypsy Years: Geography lessons finally sink in, as I discover my penchant for travel (and apparently, black clothing). These pics are from Ruidoso, New Mexico... San Antonio, Texas... & San Diego/Los Angeles, California respectively... (and check out the shoulder-length hair in the first 2, whoa)

...and there I am below, in an early attempt at homage to an icon (Bettie Page)... it was around this time that I first started doing a little modeling for art projects and such, and found that I liked dressing up and mugging for the camera (check out my 'cheesecake' album for later work)...

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