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I am a big fan of modern technology. Social Media. Keeping up with old friends and colleagues. Facebook and Google + are alright in my books. I even, due to some recent developments involving free paint from Olympic One, finally concede that Twitter is not only the exclusive online venue for short sighted, self absorbed, idiots*, but instead a free market for impulsive expression, and marketing ingenuity (and free paint!). However there is one facet of new world technology, in which we share so much with everyone we know, that my psyche has yet to confront, and that is, the embarrassing kid photo.

I'm not talking about my kid. Oh heavens no. This new generation will have no place to hide once they've come of age. I've dressed my kid up as a bunny for Easter, a pumpkin for Halloween, and a moose at Christmas time, tagging and facebooking to my hearts content. When I write that I have yet to come to terms with the embarrassing kid photo, I mean the embarrassing kid photos of me.

I know we all have them - and if you say you don't, give me 30 minutes and I'll find one for you. Thanks to the internet, and your mom, these lovely reminders of awkward adolescence can now be broadcast to friends, family, and work colleagues, all without your permission! Even those 14 year old fat-pimply pictures you thought you'd burned and were gone forever are now scanned, digitized, tagged, and ready for public consumption (because your mom got doubles dummy).

The super young baby photos I don't mind so much. I was a pretty cute baby.

Its the middle school years. Oh the middle school years! Lets put it this way, while I might have been reading Francine Pascal at the time, I was certainly no Wakefield twin. In order to take away the power these photos hold over me, and the power my mother holds with her cache of terribly embarrasing middle school pictures, and in an effort to confront this middle aged life crisis I seem to have hit after turning 30, I'm going to publish some pictures of myself as a goofy middle schooler. I hope you all get a good laugh. But don't laugh too hard - the internet holds many secrets, I'm betting some of yours too...

I'm totally taking my cousins down with the ship on this one. Notice the sleeveless shirt, buttoned to the top, and the white, backwards YANKEE cap I was wearing. The Stylin' 90's . Actually this look might be coming back, I need to check my closet at home for more pieces like this.

To the right, CAMO! Short hair. Man's watch. Probably my second glass of wine ever.

To the left, high school graduation. OK, so this ones not middle school, but its still pretty dated. I loved No Doubt, and modeled my hair after Gwen Stefani. I do still like the saree, and also we were sort of supposed to wear those at graduation (in Sri Lanka) but the saree and the hair together give this picture such a new millenium feel to me. Y2K anyone?

I know we all have embarrassing pics out there, and I'm not really ashamed of any of mine, they are what they are, I just thought I'd let ya know they exist - before my mother does.

*Either that, or I've become one.