once we'd moved to gatineau, i was sent to saint-aloysius elementary school for three years. it was horrible. in addition to the verbal abuse and general mental fuckery i was dealing with at home and to the the constant bullying from neighbourhood kids because i chose to speak english on a regular basis, i also had to deal with mainstream, suburbanite brats at school. every single day was a struggle and no amount of money in this world would be enough for me to go back and relive any of it, without the confidence and knowledge i possess, today. no way.
there are no english high school in gatineau or aylmer so all the anglo kids from those two towns join the ones in hull, where there are two, d'arcy mcgee and philemon wright. before heading to the former, though, i was part of the second last grade to go to junior high in the district (since then, like with most of québec, kids finish grade six and go straight to high school, which is grade seven). anyhow, about one-hundred-and-twenty of us occupied the second floor of an elementary school in hull and learned how to switch from class to class, start calling "recess" "break" and go to experience the thrill of leaving school grounds at lunch.
i immediately tried to find friends that i hadn't previosuly known and found the most common ground with a girl named kim. she was the closest thing to a real grunge kid that i'd ever met, wearing oversized cardigans and sweaters over band t-shirts with baggy corduroys or jeans that were frayed at the hems. she wore very little make-up, if any at all, and her blonde hair hung in straightened but nonetheless messy strands, usually covering one of her eyes. we walked around at lunch, talking about music and boys. i talked about the boy i was "in love" with but had moved to québec city over the summer and she talked about her eighteen-year-old boyfriend she had sex with several times a week, smoked weed and got drunk with. we were twelve. i enjoyed her company a lot but felt juvenile around her and often felt embarrassed after describing what i'd done that week-end (which was usually biking to the library, borrowing thirteen books and biking back home to read them in my room). i would say things like, "i wish we could study shakepseare" and she would say things like, "i'd like to give my boyfriend a big, wet, french kiss."
within about three months, another girl, annelie, sometimes joined us for lunch or sat with us during gym. she had blue hair, piercings, twenty-hole docs and a patched up perfecto and she wore plaid or combat pants. annelie also had sex with her much-older boyfriend on a regular basis. she talked about bands that i had never heard of and soon had me drawing up posters and stickers of their logos. before i looked any of this up, i was drawing an actual skinny puppy beside that band's name. a few other girls who knew and loved the sex pistols, ministry, the dead kennedys, gwar and a bunch of these other then-strange bands saw what i was doing and asked for art of their own. i had screwed myself by pretending to know all about punk and industrial music and so i couldn't now go back and ask annelie to let me hear examples on her walkman. it wasn't until i got to high school, the next year, that i managed to hear snippets, started browsing through other people's music magazines and listened whenever anyone spoke about any music i had yet to hear. it was annelie who started all of this, in grade seven, though and, to this day, i am grateful to her.
by the time the new year had rolled around, some of the popular jocks had noticed, through kim's curtain of hair and beyond her baggy sweaters that she had beautiful blue eyes, a clear, creamy complexion and really large breasts. we started to get invited to the mcdonald's, down the street, for lunch, with the popular crowd. we were only invited because half of us was kim. i got pushed out quickly enough and, before i knew it, kim was wearing what everyone else was wearing, tying her hair back, wearing make-up and sending the same nasty looks my way that most of the other girls did.
the only time i ever asked for anything specific for my birthday was when i asked for a pair of ten-hole docs. the only time i ever got what i wanted for my birthday was when my parents picked up the aforementioned boots for me in chicago, while on their way back from a trip to texas. i got these just a little over a year after meeting annelie and, had i been allowed to wear patches, torn clothing and military garb and to shave and dye my hair, i would have done so at that time, too.
by the time we all got to grade nine, kim was sporting fake tans and wearing pastels. one of the outfits she wore more frequently was comprised of pear green, flared dress pants, a white and pear green, floral, short-sleeved blouse and silver, open-toe, high-heel sandals. this oufit gained her the nicknames "la poire" (the pear, in french) and one i came up with,"malibu what-the-fuck-is-she-wearing barbie", among a slew of other ones. she was, of course, a cheerleader and was known as one of the dullest tools in the shed but people tried to look passed that because of how heartbreakingly spaced out she actually was.
three of my best friends, at the time, playing around in front of the school.
this was the committee for the trip to europe, which i don't think anyone even ended up going on. i'm the one in the middle, sitting on the floor. the beautiful asian girl seated at the bottom right was one of the only people to ever stick by side through whatever anyone threw at me. sadly, she passed away when we were twenty.
here's a group shot of the decorating committee, which should have been named another-excuse-to-get-out-of-class-as-often-as-possible committee. i'm in the top row, second person (sort of), with the bob and the cream, angora sweater (even then in the 90's, i knew how to dress). with some of the haircuts and clothing in this photo, i wonder how, in the name of hell, i got picked on for the way i looked. wow.
la poire is in this photo...
i guess i'm also grateful to kim. she showed me what i never wanted (or want) to be. my vintage shopping experiences, my insane stepmother and the general douchebaggery that took place every day at my high school bred within me a pure disdain for conformity but "la poire" became a symbol of this for me and, no matter how mean her friends were to me, whenever she was present at the time of bullying, i just couldn't take it as seriously.
in two-thousand-three, i became a dj. before i knew it i was spinning ministry, skinny puppy, front 242, frontline assembly and a whole bunch of other bands annelie had made known to me, back in nineteen-ninety-two. she was just being who she was and not giving a shit about what everyone else thought, when were just kids. it took me many more years to be that confidant and to proudly wear whatever i felt like wearing. and i do believe that i would have eventually found my way to punk rock but she definitely planted that seed for me.
my daughter took this photo of me nineteen years after i met annelie. another lifetime, for sure, but that t-shirt says "strummer 77" on it, there's a misfits patch on the back of that vest and i was wearing plaid, tuk sneakers. this is the type of outfit i wear when i go to a punk show... or sometimes just to the market, like on this particular summer day. wherever annelie carron may be: big ups, girl. you made a difference to me.
(and even though i vowed to never ever turn this into a series of photos of me standing around in my backyard wearing whatever it is i'm wearing, like so many other style blogs out there, i do have to share photos of myself with you from time to time! note that the side of my head is no longer shaved and that, while it is still two-toned, the proportions are different.)
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