The Downward Spiral. Way Downward.

Some people age well, and some people just slowly fall apart. I came across these mugshots last night as I was procrastinating/feverishly perusing for similarly twisted content. They follow a young woman’s courtship with the NYPD from 1983 – 1997. In the first photo, she looks like a legwarmer wearing young co-ed, right out of a John Hughes movie of the era. In the last photo, she looks like Dana Plato. Had she been exhumed.

In addition to this poor girl’s slippery slope, these photos can serve as a time capsule of sorts. In photo 4, circa 1984, she’s got a sweet Deb from Napoleon Dynamite haircut happening. And the very next photo is really the beginning of the end – the Linda Ronstadt look. Photos 8 and 9 I like to call the ‘frontseat crack money blowjob’ phase – and by number 10, judging from the Wendy O’ Williams hairdo, it looks as though those blowjobs had moved to the alley beside CBGB’s.

Now, I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that this woman was a prostitute. My powers of deduction defy the mind, my dear Watson. I say ‘was’ because if her rapid decline has continued at the same rate as depicted in this series of photos, she’s now a sun-dried tomato on a salad at the Brooklyn Au Bon Pain. A sad montage which should be hung in classrooms all over the continent.