Six years in a private junior high and high school was definitely interesting. My school was progressive, secular and high pressure. It hung on the British structure, from uniforms and boarding to being put in one of four “houses” when you were admitted. My graduating class was unprecedentedly large at a whopping thirty five girls, and my time [...]
Posted in Beauty & Bodies, Her Life, Stories about forever ago, Things to swear by | 92 Comments »
We started going west when I was about ten. We had never taken a road trip, but in the middle of another child custody stalemate, between another move to another school and packing boxes to move to another house my mom thought we could all use a vacation.
“Banf-f!”
She pronounced both F’s clearly and winked at [...]

There are two books I read last year that I loved, but that hit too close to home. Eat, Pray, Love, about a divorcee who uses a year to go find herself in Italy, Indonesia, and India, and Kabul Beauty School, about a beautician who leaves her family to go to Afghanistan, and ends up [...]
Posted in Her Life, Stories about forever ago, Things to swear by | 53 Comments »
There are some experiences that put you firmly in a “before it happened” and “after it happened” territory. Moments that define how you look at the world. And they always seem to be moments that start normally enough.
It was St. Patrick’s day, I was 19, and I hadn’t seen Alex in months. Her short spikey [...]
Posted in Her Life, Stories about forever ago, Things to swear by | 47 Comments »
When we were little, we lived in the country.
There were horses in our little barn, cows and farm animals across the road at my friend Brent’s house. I knew which electric fences were on at what time of day and how hay is loaded into the lofts of old fashioned barns. I knew that when [...]

I’d had medium length hair for years. From grade seven on, I was shoulder length and by the time that grade twelve was over I was officially done with my old identity. I decided to take a year off school to recharge my batteries and enroll the next year with a totally new group of [...]
Posted in Beauty & Bodies, Stories about forever ago | 23 Comments »
There is something about live performance that puts me back together again – it can be music, theatre, whatever – but there is something about sitting down and watching someone conjure something that is otherworldly. Not to borrow from Brookem’s book of course!
Watching Death Cab for Cutie take the stage and pull the crowd in [...]
