Mortified

Went and saw Mortified tonight as the second portion of our Try New Things (TNT! Hell yeah!) club with fun friend Nikki.

For Part I on Saturday, we traveled North to Edgewater for Ethiopian food at Ras Dashen. After washing our hands like we were scrubbing in for heart surgery, we were ready for the shared, no-utensils meal. It reminded me a lot of Indian food (good thing!) with lots of layered spices, vegetarian items and copious amounts of bread. The Ethiopian bread was not quite as amazing as naan, but still good. Injera is flat, spongy and sour, perfect for scooping up the lentils, spinach, lamb and many other things we ordered.

Back to Mortified. The idea behind the project is that people use journals, photos, videos, letters, etc. from their childhood and "perform/read" them for the enjoyment of others.

My favorites were the slam poetry written by a closeted, lesbian 14-year-old girl and the letter from Nintendo to a video-game-obsessed boy who was urged to work to earn money to save up for the new, Super Nintendo he so desperately wanted (complete with examples of how to earn the money: yard work, newspaper routes, etc. Thanks for nurturing the spirit of capitalism, Nintendo.).

The show was opened and closed by the Blue Ribbon Glee Club (that's the PABST Blue Ribbon Glee Club to you, sir), which was noted as Chicago's finest Punk-Rock Choir. Awe. Some.

I got my new passport photo taken this weekend since mine will expire in March this year. Since I'm still holding out hope that I'll get to Japan to see Jenny sometime, I wanted to keep it current.

In the spirit of Mortified, I thought I'd share my old passport photo with you before saying goodbye to my 17-year-old self forever.

Before you get a good look, or if your eyes haven't already been captured by the madness below, remember that this is before I discovered make-up and also apparently before the invention of eyebrow tweezers.

I was trying SO!HARD! not to smile since they told me I wasn't allowed. Doesn't that just look like the face of a young girl, fresh with the exhilaration and opportunity to leave the country for the first time?

I had stopped by the local AAA office on my way to work (Shout out for LuLu's!) and just needed to get this photo taken so I could wing my way to France and England with the rest of my French class that summer.

This year's photo went much better I think. That Walgreens photo employee can really make magic happen with her white, roll-up background and cheap, digital camera.

Is that even the same person?

Apparently I'm quite a chameleon. I can blend in with late 90's Midwesterners better than Mayim Bialik. (and OH! how I longed for one of those obnoxious, flowered hats of hers. Side note: "opinionation" is not a word no matter how catchy your show's theme song is. Who wrote that, anyway? I'm guessing the same people who thought bootylicious deserved a spot in the dictionary.)

Anyway, I don't know if I'd really say I'm "mortified" for showing that picture. Maybe that truly embarrassing moment will wait until I post my 7th grade class photo. Not to get you too excited, but there were glasses, a silk shirt and an Elvis lip curl involved. Stay tuned.