so today at work, for some reason or another, I mentioned this picture I have of me from when I was living in rez at SFU that I took at the ferry  terminal in Nanaimo on a failed attempt to get to Victoria. it’s memorable to me for two reasons;

1. it’s the longest I’ve ever been between haircuts, and;

2. it’s the only time anyone has ever assumed I was a drug dealer because of it.

I’d love to show you that picture, but I couldn’t find it in the box of pictures I thought it was in, so you don’t get to see that.

BUT.

I did find these ones in the course of searching. I now give you the Super Meta Pictures of Pictures of Me From Days Yonder.

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I’m in grade 9. That’s my costume for our performance of the Sound of Music. I was the Captain. the blue hair did not get to go on stage with me. We had to put on the show at Festival Place in Sherwood Park. I was adamant that no, we would not, the high school theater would be just goddamn fine. We put it on at Festival Place. During the puppet show part, two of the goat puppets got stuck together and were getting it on marionette style. Yes. Exactly how you pictured that in your head.

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this is me in the interim summer between moving from Ottawa to starting at SFU in the fall of 2004. I was moody. I took a lot of selfies looking moody like this in hoodies. I think I still have that Shining poster somewhere. Pretty sure I have that hoodie still. It’s my HoC Page hoodie.

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this is me in grade 12. that’s what my room at home, and pretty much every subsequent rez room until some time at SFU looked like. The hoodie, cargo pants and hat was pretty much my go to for that year. I also really wanted to rock a mullet. Note the Ozzman Cometh sticker on the guitar; that is no longer there. Also, I switched between a FIFA Brazil hat and Portugal hat.

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Either grade 11 or 12 when Santa came to visit our school. Santa was our Student Council teacher advisor. we flashed gang signs because we were in high school and thought they were awesome to do with Santa. pro tip for you kids: it’s really not.

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Christmas in grade 10. a bunch of us brought our guitars and amps in because it was a throwaway day before christmas break. we sucked.

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safe grad. pretty self explanatory I think.

think orange sour puss.

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my grandma and I at my grad 12 grad reception thing at the Shaw Conference Center. Note the valiant attempt at the mullet. I rocked that shit. I rocked it good.

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grade 12 grad. our plan was to rent all white tuxes. our moms kaiboshed that pretty fucking quick. So then we wanted coat tails and top hats, but that didn’t happen. or pimp canes. so we didn’t end up doing any of those. Kallal got to do the Bogart. I went for a black tux with, and I quote, “the least amount of that stupid, shiny shit as possible.” A feeling I’ve maintained about tuxes to this day.

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this is either on my way to or from work at the house of commons. Yes, that House of Commons. Where, thanks to my nifty little green pass, I got to bypass Commons security wearing spikes and chains and three quarter length leather coat, and then switched to a three piece suit for work. that was my actual goth phase. I never went all white face, but I did rock the spikes, black stuff, pentagrams, some chains, the leather coat… fuck that was an awesome coat. I picked it up for $70 at a vintage store. it always made me want to listen to the Ramones. the had a tear in it that I never got fixed. I wish I’d kept it, it would be a good show piece. note the FIFA Portugal hat is still around.

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start of my second year in Ottawa when I was an Orientation Leader for the Communication Students Union. We decided ours would be a rock themed group, so I went and bought that wig and hat and shades to be all GnR. this was taken very close to the time of the Firetruck Incident, as well as the Serve The Very Very Drunk Frosh His Very First Prairie Fire. one was more fun than the other. I wore that neck strap for a couple of years. Fun fact! The spikes in that ultimately ended up on one of my guitar straps that I still have.

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this is me and the Giant Nickel. You know which nickel I mean. there’s only one giant one. a bunch of us went on ‘vacation’ to Sudbury for a weekend or something. I don’t think it was reading week… Pro tip; Sudbury isn’t really a vacation hot spot.

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taken on the steps of the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa my first year there. this is the day of The Day I Met Ozzy. I’m wearing an Ozzy shirt and have a ticket to the Ozzy concert for that night in my pocket. it was a fluke among flukes that I met him how I did. I was walking back to rez from the Commons, and walked by the hotel because it was in the news that he was staying there. I ended up running into three 14 year olds who said they’ met his producer the day before and that a package would be at the front desk for them at 5pm. I just stuck around bullshitting about how awesome Blizzard of Oz was. then they found a note in the envelope that said to be at a certain set of doors at a certain time. Thus, the meeting of the Ozzman was set in stone. there’s a little more to that story, but it’s best left for another time.

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rez in Ottawa, 2003. I remember doing this, but I have no clue why. I do know I left those elastics in long enough that when I took them out, my hair basically stayed like that on its own. it was kind of fitting, considering our room looked kind of like crazy guys lived in it.

so, yeah. there you go.

I set Aimée’s phone to remind her to poop.