This is me in grade nine

You know that Barenaked Ladies song, "This is me in grade 9"?

Since I'm off to my highschool reunion this week I'm taking a trip down memory lane ....

And this really IS me in grade nine, my first day at Canterbury High School for the Arts in Ottawa, next to my (fraternal) twin sis, right.

Yes, my glasses are the size of my head.

I agonized long and hard over my outfit: my fave skinny jeans (in style again), a cotton tee worn under an oversize cardigan borrowed from my sis, and plastic beads picked up the year before in England - plastic beads were ALL the rage back then (as they are again now). You can't see them but I think I wore flats - either that or the very strange boxer-inspired boots I picked up that year. Old army bag I bleached a fish-belly white, don't ask me why.

My sis's look was a little more 1980s pop: Billy Idol hair, plastic red earrings and kerchief at the neck, Flashdance-inspired cut sweatshirt with Esprit de Corps jacket over top (God we wore that thing from grade 8 until it must have disintegrated), and best of all, those red harem pants, bought that summer in some strip mall in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with our dear cousin Clayton.

We were still so green, and I think our innocence and enthusiasm showed through in our garb.

That was the best autumn of my life. And Canterbury was a great school. So looking forward to being there again.