So, what are you getting me?

What? You didn't remember that my birthday is in one week? Wow. Just... wow. I'm so embarrassed for you.

But seriously. Last year I hosted a poetry party that was a roaring success with 42 comments (that's a big deal for me), and this year I'd like to top it.

Now, recently a number of my writer friends participated in a Twitter meme called #tweetyoursixteenyearoldself and shared pictures of, you guessed it, their sixteen-year-old selves. I couldn't find my own photos in time to play the Twitter game (things move fast over there), but on December 7th, I'm going to post 'em, and I hope you'll join me. Come on, help me celebrate getting another year older by laughing at how ridiculous we looked when we were younger! Or, in the alternative, by showing off how fabulous we were and always will be, dammit.

I mean... as of next Tuesday, there will be an entire person of legal drinking age between me and my sixteen year old self, so I think my plan of drinking and posting photos of myself at 16 sounds totally reasonable. Back me up here. Come play along.

Other childhood photos are welcome if you (1) can't find a photo of yourself at 16, (2) currently ARE sixteen, or younger, or close enough that such a photo would not be sufficiently nostalgic, or (3) just really, really, like another photo more. If you have stories to accompany the photos, so much the better! I'm going to try to get a shared photo album going somewhere that we can all post into, or you can just do a link in the comments once the birthday post goes live.

Hope to see you back here in a week...

(Also, last year at this time I had 83 followers. Today, I have 196. Thank you so much, really. You guys rock.)