Forty-Seven messages translated:

Yes, Hello, my name is _______. I’m calling about that cheap-as-dirt apartment post I saw on Kijiji(jijijiji). I am probably the only one that has called so far, so I’ll assume I can come see your apartment tonight and understand why it is the price it is. Call me back  because I can tell you have nothing better to do, my number is __________. Thanks. Goodbye.

One day, Forty-Seven (47) calls. I answered number one at 10am yesterday, then very soon after realized that our phone was going to be barraged with hungry home-shoppers, waiting to take advantage of any basement apartment under $700. Of forty-seven callers, at least one of them has got to be comfortable/desperate enough/cool enough to want a bedroom with a caving in floor, a kitchen with holes in the wall and duct-tape holding the floor together and a need for a baseball bat in the corner of each room. Right? Because I like it here, but liking it isn’t enough for me to sign a year lease and ruin my life forever. Only one Anglophone called. I understand.

The phone rang all day. I was trying to have an emotional conversation over a plate of potatoes with my current visitor, but there was a constant ringing in my ears and unintelligible French slurring recorded on that one 1990’s answering machine that everyone had, white with blue buttons and single red LED number flashing, possibly from the caring hands of General Electric. And because of my high businessman status (waking up at noon) I have to listen to each recording, while they are being recorded, because I’m expecting a few important business-like calls.

But they can have the apartment, as long as I can have my wood baseball bat from 1920 and my wood desk. The government sent me a substantial payment today, I could put a serious dent in renting a nice place.

I’d rather do something reckless.

I’ve never traveled through time. I was in a theatrical production in my grade nine year, I was Professor Filby, and I invented the time machine. Although I look back on that production thinking that I could have put more of myself behind my acting, I did memorize an entire novel of lines, and looked good while doing it. My time machine was composed of a laptop glued to a wheel chair with a giant lever that started up the machine. I still never traveled through time. Until today. We climbed the Mont-Royal, canvas shoes and thin boots up a sixty degree incline of loose leaves and crystallized snow, following directions from a winey source, down the cross, straight from the Big O. We located the low fire just down from the main path, and arrived in a time warp. The time jumped into a new frame, and we traveled with it.

It is Daylight Savings Time in Eastern Standard Time. I’ve never lived in a place that considered this a good idea. Saskatchewan is always the right time. India has the same time across the entire country and doesn’t ever change. That is how you know you live in the right place, when the sun shines on it at proper times at all times, and you don’t have to change an entire institution of indefinite continued progress of existence and confuse the masses.

I woke up at 11am, but I don’t know if it was noon or not. I would expect all of my Apple products to change the time themselves, they practically type these blogs for me, I would be surprised if they couldn’t change my clock based on an internationally recognized system. I don’t wear a watch, so I don’t know what time it was. Good thing I don’t have a job to be late for. Traveling through time isn’t as amazing as you would expect it to be. The future is the same as the past, only slightly more confusing and smells like a bonfire.

I got a copy of ‘John Denver’s Greatest Hits’ on vinyl in the mail today from a friend. The artwork is composed of a portrait of John in a forest somewhere, shoulders up, huge dope-induced smile, Huckleberry Finn style haircut, old leather hat held on his head by his hand, sunshine on his shoulders making him happy. The backside’s layout is similar, although the photo was taken from further away, John is sitting, and there is an aged dog next to him. He actually looks like Kurtis a little bit.

In the kitchen, five steps from my desk, my roommate is planning his wedding with his fiancée. They aren’t speaking English, and they haven’t told me that they are planning their wedding, but it is evident. The annoyed tones, the procreative tension, the debates about money. That’s love, baby.

And I wonder how I always end up living with these people.

Walking to school yesterday I found a rubber popper toy. I don’t know their actual name, but it is a half-sphere with a tiny hole in the middle. You flip it inside-out, set it on a hard surface, and wait for it to turn inside-in, shooting up in the air a few feet of absolute ecstasy. One of my favourite childhood toys, next to the Magnetic Gyro Wheel. Only gravity defying toys impressed me. I picked it out of the gutter encrusted in dirt, washed it off with water from my water bottle, and brought it home for personal enjoyment.  My roommates talk about a day that means nothing, while I try to time the photography of the rubber popper. It’s not easy. Timing the rubber popper, I mean.

I am in the middle of my second laundry day of my two month Montreal existence. I am washing my sheets myself, for the first time in my entire life. Washing sheets is like changing underwear; everyone but me does it all too often. I spilt my bottle of hot sauce on my bed after Pizza City the other night while streaming some episodes. I also spilt half a beer on my bed last week while on a two hour Skype adventure. I still wouldn’t have washed them, but March is a month of guests and sharing beds, so I figured I’d be kind enough to make my room smell less like crotch rot.

To John Denver, and the sender of his goods.

There is a cat that lives outside my home. He peeks in the window every now and then. If it was really cold out, like Saskatchewan cold, or Everest cold, I’d probably invite him into my home. I don’t especially like cats. I’ve met maybe two cats that I remember liking, and that is because they didn’t rub up on me like some dancefloor slut, leaving handfuls of hair on my pants, or they didn’t take a swipe at me like a chained up monkey. But this guy is different. Maybe because he is devoted, sitting at the window for at least four hours the other day. Or maybe because I met him on a day that I was about to burn down my apartment in boredom, loneliness and rage.

Largely because I think most people are tired of my angstful posts and would like to see something upbeat and positive, I’ve been enjoying photos lately. What is more upbeat and positive than a young cat trying to survive in the big city? There is a dead bird outside the apartment, in the gutter, trampled and soft, probably there since autumn, preserved by the salt and gutter snow. I want to tell the cat to go finish it off. Eat the beak and whatever remains. Get rid of this bird that I step over everyday. Clean up your city streets.

So I wanted to name him. The cat. Here are my ideas, please choose one of the following, but I’m open to suggestions.

Henri (French, pronounced En-Ree)
Raja (Hindi, meaning king. I met a kid who had two pet goats, one was named Rani and the other Raja. He talked to them and they slept in the house. He loved those goats.)
Jules (French, like the author of  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
Donald (like the name of a fat kid that lived in White City)
Heathcliff (my favourite cartoon cat)
Louis (either French or English, like the dude that was a coke addict at my old office)
Mr. Aubergine (French meaning Mr. Eggplant)
Westley (Late addition, suggested by Jeremy. I’m liking it.)

I got home from French.
I wanted Pizza City so bad.
Nine dollars.
Extra Large.
Lundi et Mardi.
I fell hard on the skateboard ride there.
Speed wobbles.
They were playing erotica on the HD TV,
In the restaurant.
I blistered the roof of my pizza hole.
I skateboarded uphill home,
XL box in hand.
The pizza was cold upon arrival.

This is how I know.
I’m in the right city.

At my happiest, this is what I look like.

It is hard to be a fan. I’m in a Habs bar; Habs memorabilia on the walls next to postcards of Krishna. In an hour some free blugrass music will be played. Lots of bad glasses from the eighties, plaid shirts, bad shoes, and good attitudes will pack into this dive. It smells like hippies (you know the smell). Two students, one with a bad flame tattoo, the other wearing a tanktop that promotes unsupported breasts, are drinking pints and doing mathematics calculations and Psychology papers next to me. And the intermission highlights have only shown all of our ex-Habs league wide that are actually doing something for their teams. Everyone vocally protests their hatred for Carey Price, but if he put on Halak’s sweater, no one would even know. It’s hard to be a fan in Montreal, I can’t imagine being a player.

It’s hard being an anglophone, unilingually. Many see it as a privilege, blessing, but it is truly a curse. There is less opportunity unilingually, rather than a life of opportunity like they say. And even though I’m in classes and my accent is good because of the hours of French hockey I watch, I am in no way anywhere near bilingual. But if I put on a beret and some unneccesarily huge boots and a black and white striped shirt, no one would notice. It is hard to he unilingual in Montreal, I can’t imagine being someone who wouldn’t feel bad.

It’s hard being negative at the end of the day, even though I’m so good at it. Skateboarding to the bar wearing a hoody in the month of March. The Habs come back in playoff style fashion. I talked to the old man in the sweater vest in the corner of the bar about music. It is hard to be negative at the end of it all, when things overall are not bad at all. I can’t imagine being a cynic.

Me: Me and Paul, or Paul and I. There is a proper way to express self in a grammatical situation, just like there is a way to properly express self in life. The ‘Me’ that is referred to in any setting is often thought of as best, central, of great importance, which is why it feels more comfortable when in dialogue to be placed first (Me and Paul), because it is in the forefront of our own minds. Even the word ‘me’ is only ever used when referring to one’s self (you don’t talk about someone else and use the word ‘me’, you only use the word when talking about yourself), and is only ever used subjectively. ‘Me’ is held in high regard by any person. It is when a person begins to revere their own ‘me’ too much, because the person thinks that they are the only one worth being with, they need something to take them down a notch.

vs.

I: After looking at ‘me’, and loving the ‘me’ too much, humility comes into the picture, and ‘I’ comes into place. When something hits your mind and reminds you that the ‘me’ you love so much is a lowly, self-righteous, self-loving buffoon, you realize how despicable you really are. And from there, ‘I’ is born. I now believe that my deep rooted distaste with humanity springs from my own personal discomfort with myself. It is entirely reflected off of myself, and although I like to think I am different, I, my own person, is the reason I dislike any other person. Because the ‘me’ is brainwashed by ‘me’, that ‘me’ is top notch. The realization of the ‘me’ leads me to the admission of the ‘I’. ‘I’ is used linguistically when admitting to fault, or when an awareness occurs. I am now aware that I am what is wrong with the world. And I think that is a good thing to be aware of.

Winner: You. The winner is never Me or I. It will always be You.

Today was the first day in three years that I have gone to school. Today was the first day of my life that I walked to school.
But no, it wasn’t real school, where the chief objective is success, but it was language school, where the chief objective is force so much new language down your throat that you will have no choice but to digest it and use it for many years later, or at the very least vomit everything back up in short term and accented fashion.

Je suis completely screwed.

A fellow student of the language of love noticed the Hindi inked on my right arm, asking if it was Korean. I told him it was Hindi. He asked what it said. I told him, ‘no problem’. He asked me how my Hindi was coming along. And I cringed. I felt ashamed of myself, turning my back on my ‘roots’, on my beginnings as a sophisticated human, and learning a new language instead, for personal gain only.  But knowing my life’s record for commitment, it likely won’t last long and I’ll move on to learning Korean, or swing dancing, or knitting.

On Friday my young dream of going to McGill University will finally come true, I am enrolled in the Department of Psychology… as a test subject. I have made so many poor jokes about joining different universities in the past, that it is too late to stop them now. I have the opportunity to be tested in stressful multi-tasking situations. I don’t really know what I do, but I will make $10 in 45 minutes. That is more than $10 an hour, in case you were wondering. Under the table, no taxes. Who needs to go to school when you can make coin like that letting the ‘doctors’ probe you?

Rumour has it that there are full time French courses in Montreal where the government pays you to go to school. The same amount as Employment Insurance, plus $200. There are other rumours that if an outsider moves to Quebec, a year after the day the outsider gets a Quebec health card, university becomes cheap or free. Hey Obama, that is a health care system I can get behind. But even with free school, I’m not sure school is worth it. When I worked retail, a day that Travis and I were playing actual mini-golf in the store, my auntie came to visit. She asked me when I was going to go to school and get out of the pitiful life of selling women’s dresses. I said, ‘I’m still not convinced of the merits of institutionalized education.’ to try and sound as eloquent as I could without having an English degree. And though my opinion of the terribly designed system of education is tired and over-announced, here it arises again. Education is good. Systems are bad. A system that gives ‘brains’ but not minds. I read more pertinent and interesting things now than I ever have and ever could in school. I have gained more in my past three years of self-tutoring than I feel I would have anywhere else. But learning a language alone, is not so easy.

But now I have a student card. Fifteen percent off of sandwiches and bus passes. Totally worth it.

Unemployment: Day 6

I have always wanted to ride the Metro from one end to the other. Curious as to exactly what the trains do when they reach their ends. To see the sights from one end of the the city to the other, smell the body odours of those from Laval, and hear the whines of spoiled Saint Laurent children, while feeling the cold hard hemmorhoidal pinch of cold hard plastic that allows only right-angled posture and leg to leg commuter rubbing.
I had decided which of the subway stations was my favourite, Place St. Henri, high ceiling, rotating sculptures that connect the main gate to the station below, great pizza across the street, quiet, on time, empty. But I realized that I hadn’t seen anywhere near all of the stations. To make a proper decision I needed to see more of them, and eventually, all of them. Cote Vertu on the northwestern tip of the Metro’s reach, and Montmorency, almost a full circle around from Cote Vertu, across the water in Laval. I walked to Sherbrooke station, nearest my house, on the map, a station to the left of the only three line transfer station, Berri-UQAM. If the Orange Line stations were letters of the alphabet, Sherbrooke would be the letter N, in between the A of Cote Vertu and the Z of Montmorency. I rode N to A to Z to N. Total trip time, approximately three hours of metro time. I stopped for slices at Cote Vertu. I got out for a walk at Montmorency, which was unknown to me, not technically part of the STM system, so I had to pay an extra $2.75 to get back on the train.

Nothing particularly interesting happened. A few cute girls sat beside me. I child behind me screamed for five stations straight. I read for two and a half of the three hours of commuting. There is something about the underground that makes a man feel alright. And I expect that if you ever come visit me, you’ll now have the Metro map memorized. From A to Montmorency.
Why bother getting a job ever again?