Sick and tired... of being sick and tired

Wow, it sucks to be ill. This weekend, Montreal found me with physical illness. For one, I've been stricken with plantar fasciitis. Seriously, it hurts to walk and I find myself walking from the Plateau to Verdun every night (because the Metro closes). For those not in the know, that's a trek that often takes a hair under 2 hours and I don't lallygag while I traipse.

Then there is the fever that kept me in bed all day today. It was rough. The sore throat made things none too easy either. Crap! I also went out yesterday (with a sore throat but not too feverish) and played flag football. It was my first athletic contact since arriving in the land of the maple leaf. The first play had me on the floor. I fell and skinned my knee. It hurts. I think the skinned section of knee is infected. But it was also the most fun I've had all month. It's probably been two decades since I fell and skinned my knee. I hope it leaves a scar.

My hand is also swollen from awkwardly trying to intercept a wayward pass. And I get a text from someone who confesses she's at the end of her rope. I refused to give her the time of day.

Back to MY life...

We threw a bar-b-que here at chez Verdun. It was amazing. The roommate cooked up tandoori chicken (all dark meat), and the guests raved and raved. I cooked up burgers which went over well too. The qualifier, however, was the huge-ass Frito pie (a la the Levee) that I cooked up. It beat poutine a lot to none in our very unscientific poll done on the spot with lots of pressure on respondents to nod in agreement.

Oh man, the developments are happening faster than a Parkinsons patient can shake a stick at
'em. ALL the women at the bar-b-que were HOT. And they were so awesome. Except, they were so young and full of promise. And I'm old and crotchety.

Last night, sick, drunk and attempting to wait for the "night bus", I got to talking with another phantom bus awaiter. We spoke of the delightful women here. But in such a way as you'd probably expect from a Canadian. Very cordial, yet altogether engrossing. The word "eh" was bandied about. He once remarked about the "big juicy asses" of the city's Black girls. Long, boring story short, we came to the agreement that the francophone Asian girls were clearly hot in an exotic, anomaly sort of way.

Another night of a thousand footsteps

The Metro closes well before 2am. Last call is at 2:45am. The incongruousness is evident. Anytime I even half-heartedly attempt night time debauchery, I end up taking a thousand steps... home. Last night was no different.

So one girl invites me to sleep on her couch. I suppose I probably wouldn't mind sleeping on her. But, she was going to take a taxi home. Before I take a taxi to hers, wouldn't I just take one to my BED as opposed to her couch? Yeah, and after footstep number 1, there are only 999 left. That decision was easy.

Monday evenings is Arts & Crafts night at the Cock and Bull. And across the street somewhere is karaoke night, every night. I wound up doing both. Made a Quebecois flag, with two marijuana leaves and two fleur de lys.

Speaking of fleur de lys... I can imagine THAT being my first tattoo.

The weather is making me feel menopausal. One day I'm mowing grass and watching my breath in the air, the next I feel over dressed in... anything. The day after is supposed to be a combination of overcast rainy-ness and bullshit!

So my boss' woman-friend/pseudo wife IS smoking back-to-back whilst nourishing a bun in the oven. And she's already got a disabled child. If ever there were a more apparent case for the woman's right to choose movement, I'd be impressed. At least Philip Morris is guaranteed another generation of customers (if anyone still has any worries about the state of our prospective economy here in North America).

Shows! Right, so marijuana is pervasive. About half of the shows I've been to here in Montreal in May have involved the herb. In fact, I walked down Ste. Catherine which is THE strip for tourists and downtowners alike and caught a lung full of the natural mystic. Right out in the open.

At the Piknic Electronik, the folks were out puffing their brains free. In fact, Ms. Yoga teacher and I asked the event security for a light. He smiled and we had his lighter in our hands BEFORE we even finished asking.

Tired of reading about ME yet? I'm tired of writing about me. I sure am.

(Free time)

Had a less than great day... the other day. I got "paid" (In Canada, nearly everything gets quotations). Apparently, I make less than minimum. That, friends and obscene blog voyeurs, is an oxymoron.

I had a massive craving for MSG-er-Chinese fried rice. In New York, you just look for the bullet proof glass and a store front with luncheon specials listed. At such greasy spork establishments, you can easily score a pint of salty, yummy vegetable or beef fried rice for under $4. I figured Montreal is full of Chinese (come on, there ARE billions of them running around, right?), so I should be able to find something analogous, within reason. I query my mate Cody who directs me to Marc and Ste. Catherine. There I find Cafe Wok (or was it Wok Cafe?) which had the cheapest prices of the several restaurants of Asian persuasion in the area.

I walk in, find a seat, grab a menu and peruse. Dudes (and dudettes, where applicable), fried rice in Montreal starts at $6.95. I know, it's play money (what's a Canadian Dollar??) but money nonetheless. Alright, so they've got a special on the General Tso's chicken. Comes with a spring roll, rice and... uhm, chicken. I ask the waiter if the chicken was white meat. "Yes" came his reply. Fuck that, I'll have one. Even agreed to chip in an extra $1.50 to make the steamed rice, fried (which only means they sprinkle soy sauce on it to brown it, and crack an ostrich egg or something into it). Well, I'll never eat there again, and I might only never try Chinese in Montreal again. The "white meat" was all skin and fat and dark. The fried rice was all egg (hence the ostrich crack, if you didn't get it). I ate around the chicken and egg, and was still hungry. Waste of $10 (came up to $8.45 and didn't stick around for my change).

Upon walking away from the worst restaurant experience in my life, I nearly cried. The rain was pouring something fierce and I am poor and starving. And no one in Canada is reliable (like waiters) so I had no one to call up and get to come to a good, cheap place with me. Alone. Me.

But I didn't cry. I've too many testicles, apparently.

In the end, Cody found an art vernissage with free cheese, veggies and wine, it stopped raining, and the yoga teacher rang with the most illest idea; a free concert (K-OS) at the Olympic where weed was smoked out in the open while 30 or so burly, strapping security guards stood and inhaled very, very deeply.

Then Friday pops up, the weather is splendid, I worked for ALL of it and the new boss man with the pregnant-pack-a-day-smoker-girlfriend buys me lunch and pays me more for two days work than the other job did for about 4 or 5 days.

St. Hubert has a half sandwhich and soup for $5.55. Got to try that. Maybe that'll be lunch on Sunday.

Basically, my life has devolved into hunting and gathering (beer and food).

Quotation Marcs

I caught myself giggling ferociously to myself only moments ago. I work for Canadians now. That means instead of working at 7:30am SHARP, I work at "10am". Which means, show up at 10am if you'd like to hang out for a few, first. So I aerate lawns for this chap named Marc. Endearing fellow, really, but quite obnoxious is what he all boils down to. You have to be. See, Marc sells his craft door to door. Porte a porte. Door-to-door sales is a bitch and only the most immune and obnoxious persevere and excel. That's Marc. Anyway, Marc is young and lazy by American standards. So he says I have to be there at 10am, but we never start doing ANYthing until 10:25am at the earliest.

So I went looking for a new gig. And I got one. I got a landscaping gig. The lady calls me bright and early one morning and asks me to come down. I wipe the cold out of my eye and say "ppffftttt, no." So she calls back and got me to come in today. 7:30am she said in the email. I get there at 7:15am. She had this dust-up with the previous help because the guy showed an hour or so late. I'm thinking "that's appropriate, no?" I mean, for Montreal, anyways. Right, so I get there early and shit, only to lallygag until 7:45. Fuckers! I'm there and they're back-to-back chain smoking, Ron and Anika. Funny thing, at 7:40, just before Ron and I take to the road, Anika tells me she doesn't drink, partly because she's pregnant. I now know why Canadians are so flaky and late.

Ron must've burned through 2 or 3 packs of nicotine sticks the nine hours we spent today. My chest is burning. 1 more day. 1 more day.

Why are you doing this to me, O'Canada? And your ladies, hot as they are...? Are they flakers too? This one lady I know is soooooooo lazy. And the yoga teacher, is on a different speed altogether. By right, she gets high praise for not canceling on me. We hung out two or three times. But that's where Canadian reliability ends. Maybe her folks just never smoked while pregnant with her?

'Cause EVERYONE else here does (smoke). They really could use a couple of those New York State Smokers' Quitline commercials. Actually, I'm certain these folks sit around all day and watch television.

Anyway, I'm down on Canadian people, but not yet down on Canada. Besides the flaking and the smoking this place has amazing potential. Unfortunately, I just may have to debride the losers surrounding me.

And I haven't gone crazy...

The people here... are FLAKY! Maybe it's just that I need people? It could all just be me.

I think I'm making good progress. But then I get flaked on. People are so nonchalant in Canada about doing or not doing things. Which I can almost understand. I think I may be a bit much for people sometimes, especially the Canadians. Eh.

But yesterday I went to Brewtopia. They've got excellent beers and such. So I run for the strongest thing they've got. The Belgium. The bartender lady looks me square in the eye and says "it's strong!" Apparently she's never had a Blithering Idiot. Or a QUAD. Or a Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. In fact, when/if I get back to the States, I've got to find a 120 and pound it.

Right, so I sit on the Brewtopia terrace and I sip on my half pint of 9% Belgium (by the fucking way, it's the only beer that wasn't a dollar off; it was all day happy hour Monday) and I notice one of the two lesbians looking at me. I really thought I was mistaken. But then from down below two other girls called up to me and asked if I'd seen a girl with short jean shorts walk pass. The lesbians got very keen on me now and started whispering to one another. Baffled, they called to me about 8 minutes later to ask if the girls were asking about a short girl going into the bar. Without giving them the mind-your-own-business-bitches face, I humored them and told them they were wrong-ola. But they started to chat me up, I invited myself over to their table and we made a good hour out of it. We exchanged numbers and had a mega cool Montreal conversation. This sort of shit is exactly why I came here. And one of them was really searing hot. But a lesbian.

Sooooo. I'm pretty sure I'll never see them again. That's how these folkses work.

WAIT! As I'm typing, a Canadian has rung me. Yoga teacher. Wants to go to some sort of improv. Says she's tired or something. BUT, I've got something to do. So I'll ship off now. I'll add a pic to this post upon my return.

Joie de Vivre

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (Centre Canadien d'Architecture) had a massive fete! They opened at 11am Samedi and closed at 7am Dimanche. Yeah, I took part. Yeah, I made a huge piece in the build your own museum workplace. I called it La File and had anyone who took part, and who wanted to, sign it. It was a hit. So naturally I became an instant ladies magnet.

I've also discovered that if the Francophones (women) see that an Anglo (me) is trying to learn French, they like him. So I've got a strategy. And a couple friends. And a beer-a-day in the park habit. And pictures. They'll be on MySpace soon. And a link will exist to the right... eventually.

The picture is from my walk home. At 5:30 am on Sundays, the Metro opens. Which means that after I got breakfast and wanted to retreat to my humble abode, I needed to walk. So I hiked it. I had to cross this canal (La Chine Canal, I believe) at maybe 5am. I saw it and I immediately felt like I live here. Fuck, it's going to be hard to have to leave.

Je habite le Montreal

It's been forEVER folks, hasn't it?

Every so often, I high tail it to somewhere with some sort of obscure allure. This time I took directly to the Great White North in search of... meh, I wish I knew what I came in search of (other than French Canadian women) or why.

Alls I know is that I've embarked on a new adventure and among my most frivolous goals are learning "le langue" and meeting and slaying the many French Canadian "femmes". Slaying may be going a wee bit too far, eh? Okay, maybe embarking on a few... if you know what I mean. You know what I mean? You know what I mean!

Alright bitches! Here we go.

So I get here on a Tuesday. It's Friday and already I've had a night where I drank about 8 glasses of wine and peddle home on a BMX that's far too small in a torrential downpour, and drank beer in the park. Pictures to follow. Sooner rather than later.