denial: not just a river

my sister and i have been astounded at the increasingly frequent, ludicrous suggestion that we look alike. people at parties mix us up. when we were on family vacation in san francisco last year, a cabbie asked if we were twins. now, my sister is petite, an ex-professional-ballet-dancer, 4 1/2 years younger than me, and 5'2". i'm 5'8". she also was stunningly blonde growing up, until about 3 years ago, really, and i've had dark, nearly black hair since the day i was born. and i mean, i AM half a foot taller than her. and used to have about 40 or 50 lbs on her when she was dancing. and i'm 4 1/2 years older than her!

however.

i was going to prove this absurd theory of look-alike-ness wrong to you guys by posting pictures of us side by side, at which point we'd all have a hearty chuckle at how people could possibly see anything more than a vague family resemblance between two such wildly different-looking people.

except... we look totally alike in all the pictures i have on my computer. like, same person alike. granted, i only have 1 picture of her on this computer, that was just taken last weekend when her boyfriend came to our house in nj to visit. but i kept pulling up pictures of me to go next to it... and kept going "huh. weird. if i didn't know us, i would totally think this could be the same person. just, you know, making a different face or something."

apparently there might be some merit to this looking alike theory.

so here we are in the 2 most "i swear, we're different people! see??" pictures i could get. in case there's confusion, that's her on the left with her boyfriend alex, looking like they're posing for their engagement photo. i'm on the right, and yes, i'm on a merry-go-round:

omg we're, like, sooooo not twins