Since today is my day for Picture of the Day and Kay started off my "birthday week" yesterday with a picture of Avril Lavigne and myself, I have the slightly awkward task of repeating with another picture of me for today's POTD. Officially, Tuesdays are supposed to be photos from the "Let Go" era, but this photo was actually taken 3 days after the release of Under My Skin on May 28th which was the first time I ever met Avril Lavigne.
At the time, the Globe & Mail had just run an article on Bandaids and put a picture of me surrounded by my Avril-covered bedroom walls on the front page of their Arts & Entertainment section. Because of the article, Avril's management invited me to a private taping that Avril was doing for CTV's Canada AM. During the entire Canada AM performance, Avril kept looking over at me and smiling - I just figured it was because I was the only person in the audience who actually knew the words to the new CD.
But after the performance, she walked over to me and said, "Are you the girl from the newspaper?" Amidst the resulting waves of shock that a) Avril Lavigne was talking to me, b) Avril Lavigne knew who I was, and c) Avril Lavigne had now seen photos of my bedroom, I managed to answer, "Yeah, the Globe and Mail." There followed some equally unintelligible conversationalism on my part (I'm sure if you asked Avril now, she'd tell you I'm much cooler at 20 than I was at 16), then Avril thanked me for being a fan and went on her way. I didn't get my photo with her then, but later that night when she performed at Much Music's Intimate and Interactive, we waited by her tourbus where she very happily signed autographs and took photos with a crowd of 50 or so fans. With me in this photo is Bandaids Staff Alumni Jenna and her friend.