The editors of Syracuse University’s JERK magazine assure me that this is a good thing.

If you’ve been to one of my college events* recently, you’ve heard the story about how I had an interview at J.Crew when I was a senior in college. The job was junior copywriter and I went to the interview in a horrible $29 suit from Strawberry which was a fine place to buy shiny and flammable club clothes but wasn’t exactly known as an emporium for professional wear. Because I couldn’t draw upon my small fortune in unused dining hall dollars, that’s all I could afford. So the hiring high priestess of the J.Crew catalog was quizzing me on my sweatery opinions on such subjects as ribbed versus un- , when she suddenly got all serious, leaned into the desk and asked:

“ARE YOU A FASHION MAVEN?”

I responded as any reasonable college senior in a $29 suit from Strawberry would respond to such a question.

“HA!”

Which was not the right answer. And why I now pay J.Crew and not vice-versa.

If I was ever a fashion maven, I peaked when I was three years old. Just look at me rocking that mini dress, tights and Mary Janes. Now I recognize that my mother is really to be credited for dressing me so well. Because as soon as I was left up to my own sartorial devices the results were none too pretty.

Exercising my right to fashion autonomy is how this:

Turned into this twelve years later:

The 2nd photo restricts any claims I could ever have on fashion mavenhood.

*So next Thursday, April 22nd at the Emerson College B&N is my last college event for the Spring semester. I’ve had so much fun at Syracuse University, University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Rutgers University and I’d love to do another round of college visits next Fall. If your organization can cover my travel arrangements, get in touch with me via megan@meganmccafferty.com

I realize that it’s probably not a good idea to write a post with the word “porn” in the title. But when I see this picture of me (And my younger brother…That’s his arm holding up the turtle from below. I’ve cropped him out because he may not appreciate me posting pictures of him when he was younger, even though he was an adorable, tow-headed, pinch-his-cheeks cherub when he was six. And while I’m writing about my brothers, it should be noted that the genuine mesh-n-foam red star baseball cap belonged to my older brother. I’m quite frankly shocked by this evidence that I once dared to put this hat on my head because this hat was HIS STUFF and when he was 14 years old he would set booby traps all around his room because he was very, very protective of HIS STUFF.) holding up this box turtle, I can’t help but think of the porn star name game. You know, first pet and first street you lived on blahblah. This box turtle was the only pet I ever had. Okay, that’s not totally true. It was THE ONLY PET I EVER HAD THAT I DIDN’T HAVE TO FLUSH DOWN THE TOILET AFTER IT JUMPED OUT OF THE TANK TO MEET ITS AQUATIC MAKER. Yes, I had a suicidal fish before I got this box turtle, but I can’t remember the fish’s name so it doesn’t really count. And I lived in the same house on the same street for my entire childhood, which is why my porn star name is…

OXFORD BITTERN

…the unporniest name in the history of the meme. I always imagined Oxford Bittern as a British, pipe-smoking, snifter-of-brandy-drinking, tweed-jacket-wearing, octogenarian. Oxford Bittern is the kind of humorless gent who might host a poorly-rated program on PBS, not the Playboy Channel.

But every time I see it, I’m reminded that I need to laugh more often.

Especially at myself.

When I was seven, I also thought I was the first person to stand up on my sled. I called it “snurfing.”

The great narcissism of youth convinces you that you’re the first person ever to experience the thrill of whatever it is that you’re doing. It’s like you invented this awesome new thing–be it snurfing or sex.

As you get older, there are fewer and fewer firsts. And you realize that everything has already been done before by someone else. The best you can do is make the old feel new through creative application of your own unique point of view.

The kids did this by turning snurfing into a daredevil team sport, sending pairs, trios and even a quartet of kids down the hill on a single sled. They crashed more than they snurfed, but had so much fun congratulating themselves over the setting and breaking of world records that existed only in their imagination.

I’m doing this by getting back to work on my book.

I’ll try to recapture this enthusiasm when I’m shoveling my walkway.

Me: OH MY GOD.

Dad: That’s some hair right there.

Me: And the outfit? Why? Seriously. WHY?

Mom: But that was the style…

Me: Egad.

ETC.

Obviously, this photo is free from such scrutiny.

* Which, as anyone who watched JERSEY SHORE knows, are the offficial luggage of the Garden State.

The level of layering going on here is just…

staggering.

First grade is the first year of my life that I can remember very well. Fortunately I have no recollection of anyone at Bayville Elementary School taunting me unmercifully for the haphazard, home-cut hair. Actually, I was very popular in first and second grades, a point of fact documented at the end of my second grade journal when I wrote, “I was very popular this year and last year too.”  Things started going downhill socially in fourth grade, but fifth grade is when I totally lost whatever mojo I had and didn’t get it back until like, oh, I don’t know, my senior year of college.

It’s probably no coincidence that first grade is when I started writing down stories with titles like, “What if All The Vegetables Started to Dance?”  in the I LOVE TO WRITE notebook given to me by my teacher. Most of what I can remember from my youth is tied up with what I wrote when I was going through it.  I lost the layers. But I still have that first notebook–and dozens of others that followed–because I LOVE TO WRITE became the words I live by.