altera ego

I don't really want to taste Marmite

2008-06-16T15:41:00.001-05:00

I was told by a friend that while in London, I would write like never before.
Problem is, I don’t feel like it.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve mostly been doing things alien to me; or, rather, avoiding what’s kindred.
I don’t even feel like putting this up on my blog.
I keep thinking that when I move into my flat, or when I become used to work, or when Ben and Virus arrive, or when anything that’s not this & now will happen, I will begin to write again. I will begin to do yoga again. I will begin to be myself again.
When I am not working, or busying myself some other way, I would rather stare at the ceiling. Or stare at the sky. That’s the sad truth. A mourning feeling like when Oma passed and I felt her everywhere out there. A lack of words to sum it up.*
I know my friends back home are waiting to read all about it. Don’t I just love it here? Isn’t it wonderful? I don’t know how to explain that I’m almost alone, but wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The food sucks. Everything is bloodly expensive. The weather can be down right depressing. Here, my sense of smell has finally developed to recognize a permeating sweet scent of stench. I don’t really have anything good to say about this place, but you would have to tear me away from it kicking and screaming. I can’t explain it. Words fail me.*
So I have nothing to declare. Nothing to report.

I can say that I am packing. I will be moving out of P’s place this week. Of course, I feel nostalgic about leaving this room/house/court/street/neighborhood/daily tube ride. I’m a bit afraid of living alone too close to work, mostly because I don’t trust myself. I’ll become a hermit. I’ll revel in my solitude and in the excuse work provides. I’ll work late and come home and indulge myself in a long evening of staring at the ceiling or the sky. I can see myself becoming that woman already.

*What is it about words always coming up short??

Rain and lightening and thunder

2008-01-07T22:40:00.000-05:00

It’s raining hard on Montreal tonight – forecast was for “faible pluie,” and I am considering the amount of bottled water and can preserves I should buy. New York is afraid of planes overhead, but we in Montreal get nervous once it starts raining in January. Ben says not to worry: no chill is forecast after the rain, but when was the last time the forecast could be trusted? The snow’ll melt, that’s for sure. Most of it. And all the dirt that’s been covered by it in the past month or so will surface. It’ll start to smell. Not that that’ll bother me much. I’ve been forever spared the lilacs and all the other springtime scents. It’ll surely snow again before the winter’s over. It’s been that kind of year. Warm. Last year the snow held off until mid-January, having birds and frogs appear out from hibernation. Then the frost came and they died. This year, it’s been just a bit colder. Cold enough for it to snow. Just so. What a lot of people don’t seem to know is that it can only snow when it’s relatively warm – warm for winter, that is. Temperature’s gotta be between -4 and 0 degrees for it to snow. Above that, it’s too warm and the snow turns to rain. Below, the snow freezes up there in the clouds; the sky becomes a sheet of frozen gray. Below that, it no longer snows. When it gets really cold, the snow becomes a frozen landscape, and it stays that way. A congealed world. It’s a cycle: the leaves fall off, it rains, and the rain becomes colder. Then it snows. And then it freezes over for a few months. Then it snows some more before the rain reappears. And then the rain becomes warmer until all the snow is melted away, and the leaves sprout out in a fury. That’s winter. Not +10 at Christmas. And not rain in January. So just in case…
- 4 big bottles of water (must find a spout)
- kerosene for the portable BBQ
- 12 cans of bean soup
- 8 cans of beans
- 8 cans of tuna
- 8 cans of salmon
- 2 big sacs of rice
- cans of veggies: green beans, green peas, baby carrots, beats
- fruits sauces: apple, pear, combinations
- 12 cartons of soya milk
- batteries for the flashlights
- candles, for when the batteries run out

Back in Montreal!

2007-09-25T06:08:00.000-05:00

It’s now 5:45 Montreal time and I have been wide awake for the past 45 minutes. I’ve decided to relate how my trip has ended and, to my dismay, have discovered that I now have trouble with my keyboard… Quite annoying, such switches.

I will begin in chronological order.

Friday, my second to last day, I decided to get out of the center of London. I was not much in the mood for crowds and buildings. I was considering going to Oxford or Cambridge to check out those old schools that house old dreams of mine of studying Eng Lit in the UK, but instead I went to Maidenhead, a suburb to the West of London that not many people have heard about as I had before the time I got in touch with Marc-André on Facebook. We went to high school together and hadn’t seen each other since graduation. I spent the afternoon at his quaint suburban home and we chatted about London, the programming business, and caught up on the past years. I met his wife, a lovely woman. He is a father of one. The last time I saw him, he didn’t speak English.

By 6 PM I was at Canary Warf to pick Claire up from work. It is the most horrible part of London. Developed only recently, it is East of the old financial district and set like a peninsula in part of land surrounded by the Thames. I believe it used to be a port. Now, there is nothing but tall glass buildings. A landscape of glass buildings is a very barren view, one that the few posh pubs that line its ground surface, there to serve the hard-working anybodies in a suit, do not succeed at livening up. It was horrible. I also noticed that the tube stations in that area, just as at Westminster (the most tourist one), all have glass casing along the platform, separating the platform (people) from the train lines and wagon. The glass casing is equipped with doors that open and close as the tube wagons’ doors do. I described them to Claire as the Anti-suicide stations, which made her laugh. I am nonetheless convinced of it, all the more so seeing where these anti-suicide stations (or anti-pushing someone on the rails) are located.

After that we joined Pinakin in Soho for supper and a drink. Guy joined us a little later and we ended up drinking a bit more than expected. We found a club (not a pub, that stop serving at 11 PM) and busied ourselves on the dance floor. We had quite a good time. So much so that the next day, Claire and I pretty much stayed in and took it easy until later afternoon. Saturday night, I had supper with Matthew.

We met at Waterloo station. Matthew had been reading my blog so he knew what I had done (“You’ve done quite a bit!”), and had decided to show me a bit of London that my itinerary had neglected: Covent Gardens. We crossed over on a pedestrian bridge that has, in his opinion, the best view of London. On it there is a plaque that represents the Northern skyline and identifies the buildings. Covent Gardens is on the North shore of the Thames. It is indeed cute, but unfortunately in an overdone way. The old fruit market looks much like the village houses at Tremblant: renovated to look old. The area was mostly busy with tourists (Matthew had worn me about that on the bridge). A mix of restaurants and cobble stones, theatres and pubs. We had a drink and then went for supper in an Indian restaurant. He asked me about my opinions of London (had my thoughts on the food changed?) and we generally conversed about life in London and its surroundings. By ten past 11 he had to scoot off to catch his train and I was forced to walk through the neighborhood because the closest tube station was closed. Strangely, I heard more French (from France) in that area than English.

The next day Claire and I did some shopping so that I could get the last things on my list. We went down to Piccadilly Circus first and then made our way to Camden Town, where Pinakin lives. He came to join us at the tube station and accompanied us to his home (which he owns) before meeting his buddy Russ at a close by pub. After a meal and some drinks, we walked to Camden Market where I was told that I would be able to buy my brother’s extremely vague request of “something cool from London.” Now, my co-worker Michael had told me that Soho on a Saturday night was like the first scene in Blade-Runner. I went to Soho twice at night and could not see it. But Camden Market, even in the light of day, could have very well been the inspiration for that set. Pinakin told me that 10-15 years ago, the market was much smaller. It was located about old stables, and it eventually grew and morphed into a maze of alternative clothes shops, food stalls, antique stores and electronic music booths. I did indeed find there my brother’s “cool London” souvenir.

By the time we finished shopping, Russ had left us. Pinakin, Claire and I went to a pub where we drank and had supper. I liked the place quite a bit. I believe I like the neighborhood quite a bit also. It was like St-Henri, with it’s rich and poor, posh and marginal. Afterwards we went back to Pinakin’s, where we played some music and generally had a good time and stayed too late. (“Putain, il est minuit et dix!”) I’m glad I spent my last evening in London in their company.

The next morning (yesterday), it was cold and raining. I had stayed up later then Claire, doing my best at trying to get my luggage closed. I eventually succeeded, but the suitcase was too heavy and off balance, so the little trolley wheels didn’t quite work. With a broken heavy suitcase and an over-bulging packsack and purse, I slowly made my way to the tube station (sometimes carrying my suitcase, sometimes kicking it like a soccer ball, sometimes pulling it while walking backwards to be sure it was steady, and sometimes trying to push it along like an oversized curling stone), then transferred to another line, then made my way through the train station where a train would bring me to the airport. By the time I checked my luggage I was tired, sweaty, and my hands hurt. I was even glad that I had to check my packsack because the lighter my load, the better! I boarded the plane at 1PM and we took off at 1:30 on what has been the longest plane ride I have ever taken. By 11 PM I was in Montreal (6 PM Montreal time), and I fell asleep like a log three hours later.

I still have to unpack. I should do that now. Last night I basically gave Ben his gifts and showed him the last of my pictures. It’s strange to be back. It smells different here. It smells something I like. Maybe due to the fact that this city has so many trees? And it is much warmer in Montreal than it is now in London. It’ll be strange to be back at work (in 2 hours!). I must say, I really did enjoy my holiday.

Garbage in the Tube

2007-09-21T02:56:00.000-05:00

Wednesday I had my lunch at the gate of Westminster Abbey. I had to rush off to get to the Globe, so I did not walk the 50 steps to throw my trash away into the bin near the entrance, figuring that I would dispose of my leftovers in a trash can along the way. None were to be found. I made my way past the Houses of Parliament, to the Westminster tube station, down in the tube on the platform, and still I hadn’t encountered one. I asked a security guard about it and he replied that there hadn’t been any trash cans in tube stations for the last 25 years for security reasons. Seeing me with my hands full of rubbish, he told me to simply leave it on the banister that stretched out along the platform wall. “Someone will come to pick it up. The stations are cleaned every half hour.” I can hardly believe that to be the case for every station because some don’t look so clean. Then again, I might have mistaken cleanliness with run-down. Nevertheless, in a London tube, it is strangely not frowned upon to litter. I guess, better safe than sorry.

This reminds me of a random act of kindness I saw on the tube that same day after the play. A woman on the platform was coughing something horrible. A young man, a stranger I presume, offered her what was left of his bottled water. She took it and thanked him. She asked him if he wanted it back; he said “no.” Grant it, I wouldn’t have taken it back, but then again I wouldn’t have offered it to her in the first place…

DAY 10... or is it DAY 11???

2007-09-20T19:04:00.000-05:00

I am in London and I am home sick. I am very well surrounded with friends, acquaintances and chance encounters, yet I miss my bosom buddies from back home. Every day I do several interesting things, and am starting to feel tired of it. I don’t think my body functions all that well on vacation… Because I am in London, I don’t allow myself to laze around and read. So I “do something,” and don’t laze around and read. I am starting to understand how people return from holiday more tired than they were before leaving!

I usually set out at around noon. I bring a lunch, which saves me oodles of money (more on that later). Yesterday I was a bit tight to go to the National Portrait Museum before the matinee at the Globe, so I passed by Westminster Abbey instead. I didn’t go inside because the fee is 10 £ (about 20 $ CDN) and had little time, so I took a few pictures of the outside before heading towards the South bank.

The Globe is a recreation of the theatre where Shakespeare worked and presented his plays. It is set pretty much where the original Globe was located. It is an Elizabethean theatre made of wood (uncomfortable seats), with an open roof (if it rains, you and the actors get rained on, and pigeons eventually become part of the performance) with an expanded stage that spreads into the parterre, where the 5£ ticket holders (that’s me!) stand throughout the play (that’s right, the parterre has no seats). I saw Love’s Labour’s Lost, a comedy. The Globe seeks to recreate the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays as they were presented 450 years ago, which means that instead of being scruffy old Shakespeare as most imagine, the plays include music, singing and dancing, there is lots of room for burlesque type physical comedy, and in a whole they are “popular” and coarse (and in some cases, down right vulgar). Also, they encourage the audience to participate in the play, much as viewers used to do, voicing their pleasure or discontent directly to the actors. The standing for 3 hours was a bit rough, but well worth it! It was funny, the actors were engaging and generally I had a great time. They are also showing The Merchant of Venice now, which could be interesting to do this week-end.

Afterwards I practically forced myself upon Valentine (poor thing), a friend of Claire’s who studied Industrial Design in London and now works here. It is the international design happening and thanks to her I got to attend Design Boom, and exhibit of a bunch of young and upcoming designers, from ceramics, to lighting, to textiles. The venue was strange and enchanting: two old side-by-side factories, haphazard, unfinished and unpolished, where the works were exposed in corners, some at the end of labyrinth passages, painted up to suit the needs of the exposed pieces. My co-worker Mike, who had mentioned this design week to me, can now be seriously envious of me! There were people from everywhere, and the imagination and talent of some of these designers is simply amazing. And Valentina is a darling. A memorable evening.

This evening, Claire and I went to the reading & discussion of Jonathan Coe’s new book: The Rain Before it Falls. It took place is a big bookstore on Piccadilly. To my great surprise, this 3 £ event attracted no more than 40 attendees, many of whom seemed to be foreigners like myself. I asked J Coe about it at the end during the signing, and he said that the British audience prefers the biographical type novel. Apparently the turnout was very successful for London. He also said that his Italian audience is much more enthusiastic, and that 12,000 people showed up at his reading in Italy.

Today I walked around a rich department store, Harvey Nichols. I was looking for Harrods, but never fell upon it. HN is overpriced. The customers were mostly older women. Dom’s sister had suggested I go there to try out the sushi bar that’s on the top floor. To my surprise, the food court is filled with bio and fine imported foods. Quite interesting to browse around. As for the sushi, I had decided it would be my lunch. They seat you down along a counter that has a conveyor belt on which various sushi dishes are strolled along. The dishes are colour coded for pricing. The meal was delicious. The sushis did not crumble when bitten into, the fish melt in my mouth, and they had little bean paste treats for desert. The whole meal included miso soup, 5 little plates, and water, and it set me back 23 £ (about 50 $CDN). So from now on I think I’ll be making myself some more lunches…

Today I did get a chance to go to the National Portrait Gallery between HN and J Coe. I found the museum very interesting, but my mood was a bit dampened by a headache. Meanwhile, an official launch was taking place on the ground floor called “Confessions to a Serial Womaniser: Secrets of the World's Inspirational Women” by Jeroo Roy. This city is quite a busy one.

My pics!

2007-09-19T03:27:00.000-05:00

I've found them!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82915402@N00/

I hope the link works with everybody.

Enjoy!

DAY 8: Beautiful London

2007-09-18T18:55:00.000-05:00

A little while ago, I was discussing with Wolf and Denis M the practice of adding tunes to your iPod. I was saying that I was not used to listening to just a few songs form a particular artist, so that I still tended to put a whole album on my mp3 reader. Denis then said that he prefers listening to albums because the not-so-good songs balance out the good ones. He mentioned how he becomes sort of over-dosed with delight when there are too many songs he loves lined up one after the other for his hearing pleasure. At the time, I found his comment rather cute: it is such a Denis thing to say, to be over-dosed with delight. But here in London, where at every street corner I turn unto a new street as beautiful as the one I’ve just left, I at times feel overwhelmed with beauty and delight. The architecture is breathtaking. The streets, with their signs and cobble stones, are almost always pretty to the eye. And what isn’t pretty is it’s perfect opposite: scruffy, worn, street-chic. At times I feel like I’ve already seen it all, quite simply because London never cesses to offer up everything at once. When we’ve seen everything, do we really need to see more of it? To sicken ourselves on the beauty like children who eat too many sweets? And when it isn’t London proper, it is what it offers up. I went to see the Modern Japanese Crafts exhibit today at the British Museum: pottery, porcelain, lacquer of such beauty I could almost not contain myself. The exhibit is very small but very dense. My European friends don’t see London as I do. “Yes, but Claire, compare it too Montreal!” Indeed. Compared to Montreal, indeed.

I have been shopping. Nothing manic. I remained relatively contained. But it is quite difficult not to try everything on… just to try… And I’ve visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the Charles Dickens House Museum. I’ve eaten Fish & Chips, taken loads of pictures, went out in the East end (the “cool” spot for the new-grunge minded). I’ve visited Notting Hill, Soho, the South bank, the City, and Bloomsbury. Tomorrow, I plan to see “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Globe and would like to visit the National Portrait Gallery.

One last note for today: London is busy. It seems like there are people around, everywhere, all the time. To run into someone in the street is relatively common and, because it is a way of life here, people are still quite polite about it. It’s normal to run into people because they are all over the place!

Images are up

2007-09-17T06:10:00.000-05:00

I have uploaded the images of my trip up until now on Flickr. I invite you to look them up, but don't ask me how to do it because I can't figure the dam thing out! And I have spent two hours uploading them, which is wwwaaaayyyyyy too much time for a girl on vacation who's suppose to be enjoying London and not getting frustrated at some stupid web site. So, good luck! Anybody with some words of wisdom are welcome to share them...

Thames Festival & Brick Lane

2007-09-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

I think I’m dehydrated. And I think I may be a bit mal nourished. The food is a bit weird here. It’s generally quite greasy, and it seems like the grease most used is lard. I bought a loaf of brown grain bread at an outdoor market, and the bread is fairly gross. Claire says that it smells like French fries. Imagine eating bread that smells like French fries!

This week-end there’s the Thames Festival along the South bank. We went there this afternoon and joined up with some of Claire’s friends at a pub. The area was extremely busy, but there didn’t seem to be much going on apart for the kiosques with fried Creole fish patties and New Zealand jewellery. I must say, a sad thing about globalisation is that there are no more specificities for jewellery: everything I saw today I could very well buy in Montreal or at the By market in Ottawa. Seems like such styles have become international… or at least homogenous in the “Western” world. I was surprised that one of Claire’s friends, Guy, a British who worked for several years in France, was aware of the numerous festivals in Montreal during the summer months. I didn’t know that was part of the city’s reputation outside of Canada.

It’s almost 2 AM now. After the Thames festival, we went out in the East end, in the Brick Lane area. It’s considered the dodgier part of London, hence the “alternative” part. Again, there are people everywhere. And everywhere, they spill out from the bars onto the streets. Claire says it’s like that even in winter time. Strangely enough, the bars continue to serve drinks in glass glasses, so by the end of the evening the street was littered with a mix of used plastic glasses and shattered glass. After it all, bus-boys sweep it all up, and I guess the following night, or the following week, everything starts over again.

In Brick Lane I met a Mexican girl who works in the design industry. Seeing that I am visiting, she invited me to accompany her any evening this week to one of the numerous events taking place for the International Design Week (or something along that name…). I would love to take her up on it. But all in all, I may be quite busy this week what with visiting Camden Town with Pinakin, the design stuff with Valentina, a visit with Matthew (if possible), a viewing at the Globe, and the several museums I would still like to see. Indeed, London has quite a lot to offer! People keep asking me whether I’ll be staying the whole of my vacation in London. What with all there is to do, I think I’ll forget about the day trip to Oxford or Bath that I had been thinking of doing. Which reminds me, I also did a bit of window shopping on Oxford Street today. If the jewellery here is much of the same, that is not the case for the clothing. London is different. On that front, London is rather hard to resist… But I have been resisting! Though I do think I absolutely must get myself this really cool coat I saw at New Look because it is quite I bit chillier than I had packed for…

Claire, the palace & Soho

2007-09-15T04:31:00.000-05:00

Claire came back! She arrived last night and we met at a pub next to her place. An Irish pub where I had some Irish lamb stew (with loads of fat) and pints of beer. Eventually, I must eat fish and chips, even if that plate seems too fried and devoid of nutrition… Anyhow, seeing her was lovely. We chatted non-stop until late into the night.

Yesterday, I finally woke up late and finally started feeling not jet-lagged. I lazed around the apartment for a while before setting out to Buckingham palace. Seeing that the Queen is away on holiday to Scotland for the months of August and September, they open up a few of the rooms at the palace for visitors. Mainly the public service rooms. We did not see any of the Royals' private quarters or official work offices. Nor did we see any bathrooms. But the Gallery, the main hall, several drawing rooms, the music room, the ballroom and the room in which coronations take place were all open. They were all very royal, of a style I usually much dislike but seeing that there was nothing but, it passed. It seemed coherent. And, there were no TVs hiding anywhere, which would have been quite kitsch, and would be what I’d expect from a British subject who admires the style just a bit too much to be congruent with the modern world.

Afterwards I walked around along Park Lane and a bit of Hyde Park. Seeing that I was so close to roaring traffic, I asked a British lady about the driving fees in the center. She was very congenial and told me everything she knows: it begun about 4 years ago and was reserved to the West Central district. Eventually, the periphery grew to include the West, part of the East and the South bank. It was also originally only 4 pounds and now for a “day pass” it’s 8. To pay, drivers must call up a number or access a pay machine, which can be found in the dépanneurs. They basically register their licence number. Those who live within the district can buy monthly passes that are about half the price.

Thursday evening I met Pinakin in Soho. A very nice guy. We walked around, had an Italian supper (lasagna is my first actual British restaurant-bought meal), and had some drinks in pubs. The area is very lively. Contrarily to New York City, where the main streets are very busy but once you diverge unto a side street you feel like you’ve landed in a no-man’s land, Soho in London has pubs and people everywhere, and at every turn you are greeted by a street that very much looks like the one you just left. But I did not find that section of town to look like the first scenes in Blade Runner. Then again, maybe my view lacked the misty rain…

Today, it is beautiful out. We may go to the Portobello market, the one we see in the film Nottingham. Afterwards we may have a pik-nik in Hyde Park. I also would like, eventually, to have tea at Harrods. And tonight, we are going out.

London : the city where the streets have no name.

2007-09-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

(I’m sure Bono was inspired after getting thoroughly lost in this city.)

Today, the tube line where I am staying stopped functioning at 9 AM. I wanted to go Downtown nice and early, but what would have been a relatively quick and painless tube ride turned into a very long bus ride. That is, once I succeeded at getting on a bus, seeing that all the working people were rushing into and filling up the buses. I got to my destination (Trafalgar Square) an hour later… and got lost! Came back to Claire’s for lunch and afterwards decided to walk towards Hammersmith. I looked it up on the map. It seemed relatively easy. I had to go South West. Well I went South, to finally discover that I had gone East and that I had to go North if I wanted to go West. And of course, through it all, the streets have no signs with their name. If you are lucky, you can spot a building address with the street name included in it. And tube signs don’t necessarily have the tube station name on them either! This city is quite the guessing game! I asked directions from this one girl who suggested that I stay on the “main streets.” She laughed at my frustration and told me that she was also always lost when she first arrived here, 4 years ago.

I decided to complete my day with something safe: a walk along the South Bank, the route of which is delineated in my London Lonely Planet. It was late day and the walk was absolutely lovely. I saw the Globe -- I’ll ask Claire if she wants to go see a play there with me sometime next week. And Big Ben. And the Eye. Many, many, many pubs and eateries, all of which were quite full. Strange architecture. Old buildings and cobble stone passage ways cramped in with the ultra-modern glass buildings. A prison museum and the Tate Modern. And the Aquarium. South and North bank are quite different worlds, as different as the people who consort within their limits. Once, a Spanish-speaking girl asked me for directions. I wonder, do I look British?

I was pleasantly surprised at noticing the amount of runners this city has. The South bank is full of them. Something people seem to do quite a bit here is run, backpack bouncing around, from their work to home. Quite the time saver.

In London, most of the people I encounter are not from London. I listened for a while to a man play the cello along the South bank. Afterwards, I asked him if he gave lessons. He didn’t understand my question. He told me that he didn’t speak English. I asked him which language he speaks. He replied Polish, or German. I did not feel confident enough to try my elementary Dutch on him with the hopes that he’d make it out, so I rephrased my question. He answered that he plays Bach, and Ave Maria, and so forth. Useless. I smiled back at him and said thank you, and walked my way away.

On a final note, I am proud to say that I spent almost no money today. I “topped up” my Oyster (bus and metro) with 20 pounds (a necessity), put to pounds down for the Time Out magazine, to know how to take full advantage of the city this week, and gave 1.25 pounds to the Polish cello player. And that’s it. I’m so proud of myself! :-)

DAY 1: Shepherd's Bush and my first (jet-lagged) impressions

2007-09-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

Today, I sympathise with all those who move to a new country and must buy food. Canada to the UK is not such a long stretch, but anyone from Asia or Africa must spend quite a few evenings with an empty stomach during the time it takes to realign their eating habits with what the supermarkets in their host countries have to offer.

I also wish someone would have warned me that the keyboards are different. I write every a as a q and the m is stashed in a corner where it can’t be seen. The period is also tricky. I have not yet found the quotation mqrks. I think I will leqve thqt to qnother dqy…

I’m tired yet feel speqded. It’s 8:30 in the evening now. I’ll soon mqke myself some supper. Claire has left behind wine, of which I might pqrtqke.

Here qre my first impressions of London:

The city, at least what I’ve seen of it in Shepherd’s Bush, is quite the mish-mash. The place is what I believe to be a Victorian-era suburb. The streets qre winding and occupied by rows of little qttqched houses. Very quaint. Somewhat fqmily oriented. I imagine for the fqmilies who wish to be near the city and can afford the rising housing rates, quite like the Plateau area in Mtl. Yet the mqin streets, Shepherd’s Bush and Goldhawk, have neglected sidewalks and doubtful looking shops. Nothing glamorous. In comparison, Plaza St-Hubert looks even a bit rich…

The metros are old with narrow passages. Nothing to boast about. Surprisingly less confusing while in them than while looking at a map, but I have a few days ahead of me that may prove me wrong.

I have yet to meet one Brit who is unfriendly. People seem generally very considerate, especially with regards to the little space this country affords. Check-out counters are about a fourth of the size of those at Loblaws. Park benches are readily shared with strangers.

I now understand when people say that the pub is a way of life. People seem to hang in a pub like they would in their living room. Des tavernes, dans le fond. Not an event-worth space.

I almost heard as much Arabic today as English. And not all Englishes are the same. Service people may very well be foreigners still struggling with words and sounds, in which cases clients speak up, or speak slower, or search for synonyms. The poor girl who served me a coffee today had quite the obstacle at trying to make out what my soft-spoken unusual accent had to say. I am in an English land where I must repeat myself, or ask “what”? (Found the quotation marks )

Claire’s apartment is quite nice and actually bigger than what I expected. Very quaint. A building thqt could never exist in Quebec for its open railings and staircase, a bit like what we see as motels along the beach at Old Orchard. Heavy snow would be much too problematic here. Very clean and charming.

Voila!

I must make myself something to eat and try to go to bed not too late. I only slept two hours on the plane and then two when I arrived at Claire’s. Still, I am glad to spend these first few nights alone. They will give me a taste of solitude. And, I was thinking of Claire today as I walked around Sheperd’s Bush, of how she succeeded at dragging my ass across the Atlantic to here, this mythical place I have not yet woken up to. Maybe tomorrow morning it will all seem real? And then this evening I reread my second to last entry in this blog, reading it on Clqire’s computer, in her flqt, in London. And it just goes to show how life can shift sooner than we think.

My cousin Daina

2007-08-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Family is a patchwork of what one person tells one person but not another. Within families, people are composed by bit parts, and they take shape only after years and years and years of listening to them, and then listening to others say what was not said to you. To think a cousin might know more about your origin than you may know yourself!

As she left my place tonight, my head cocked when looking at her make her way down the twirly back steps. I had never noticed the striking resemblance she has to her mother.

a letter to Claire

2007-03-26T18:24:00.000-05:00

I’ve come home, after voting, and it’s quiet because Ben is away. I sit down to get through a few duties, but before I do, I make myself an herbal tea. I think of you. Rosehip and Hibiscus Flowers. I remember that night, two years ago when you stayed over, when the rain came pouring down and Jerem was upset because you were away and hadn’t called. During one of those days I came home and you had had a tea. “Very good tea,” you commented. I never much liked the Rosehip and Hibiscus Flowers. I don’t even know why it’s part of my collection. Yet I’ve drank it over the past two years, and today I stir in some almost-solidified honey and think that it’s my second to last bag of it, and I think of you. Of the look on your face when you came in to find a mohawked girl at the dinner table. “C’est qui?” you enquired in a small voice. And at the clips you wore in your hair that summer, clipping them on the door handle of the van you toured America in. My hair is long now and I’ve bought clips like yours. Finally long enough to fit into them. I’ve finally developed roles of film that had been laying around. There’s a photo of both of you. It’s a very good one. I’ve poured my tea in a large cup my mother had once given me. Part of a set. These cups that come with a saucer each because they’re to drink cafés au lait. I’ve never liked them, but I’ve learned to use them over the years, not seeing them much anymore apart for the shape of them. Like so many things I have, I use simply because they are mine. This tea tastes better with honey in it; it tastes like honey. Maybe I’ll see you again some day. And maybe I won’t have shaved my head off by then.

lazy Thursday evening

2007-02-22T22:00:00.001-05:00

I wonder sometimes if there’s an alter-ego of me out there doing all the things I should be doing, those things a/my projected Self accomplishes as I look on, cheering her on, feeling a slight sense of guilt. I settle on my sofa one hour before my bedtime under a cozy blanket. I think of the time I will pass reading, and I look to my watch to be sure of the time. It is the time I had planned to be drying myself off after my swim. The bus will pass in fifteen minutes and I must hurry if I want to save myself the 30-minute walk coldward to my little humble home. I hide my hair under my tuque to be sure not to catch cold. My eyes are red. My mascara running (should’ve washed that off before coming!). My brown two-piece is damp and rolled up in my beige towel. I might be blowing my hair just a bit more before exiting the women’s room, corn-colored strands flying up and about by the propelled heat of a bathroom hand-drier, it’s spout turned sideways toward my head. This projected Me feels good after her swim. “I should do this more often.” Her and I, sunk in my sofa, create a mental work-out schedule: Monday off, Tuesday spin, Wednesday run, Thursday swim, Friday yoga, Saturday swim and run (why not, it’s the week-end!), Sunday run, and muscle training any second day. A bit of myself at the back of my head tells me that this would leave me no time for early suppers, or after-work teas with my friends, or lessons, or writing, or reading. Indeed, everything gets into everything else’s way. Sometimes I feel that becoming an adult means settling for not being able to do everything, and learning to set priorities. Maybe it is these decisions that split one into a person and one’s alter-ego, which many seem to classify as their past: Young-Me versus Adult-Me.

I do wish to avoid that dichotomy.

after the storm

2007-02-15T21:33:00.000-05:00

Waiting outside, the bunch of us, all strangers waiting and turned towards where the bus should appear, all of us like dogs outside a shop eagerly looking in and waiting for our master’s return. We are all facing one way and not the other, and it is not to protect ourselves from the swirling snow. Last night’s storm laid a powder of fine snow atop an under-layer of thick snow, and this morning it swirls any which way, hither thither. In any direction we cannot see three streets away, the view obstruct by the thick whiteness. The cars, huddled one after the other, crease as they advance, their tires crushing snow. It’s a sound I usually like under my boots, but there’s a sentinel feel to the clamour of the cars that disturbs me. I think, as I look at the red and uncovered ear of the girl standing next to me who has snow drift in her bun of hair, of the sound of her voice when she asked me, “Julie, are you _____’s daughter?” Something in the question scared me, whether her recognition or this odd location of identity, I cannot say; but, my heart skipped a beat. Three streets away I see the bus coming. The time it takes to remove my mit, open my bag, search for my wallet, unzip the compartment where my bus pass is stored, and close my bag, my hand is frozen. My stop is the second on the westward route and I am always assured a seated spot, so I sit down, bag on knees, as the bus creases into a long and slow ride to the metro station, and I write down these lines.

Un poème rapide sur un coin de table

2007-01-27T16:40:00.000-05:00

There’s this obstacle
There’s this obstacle
There’s this way out
But no way
To see it
Out
Of a white page
Begging
For a bit of change
Of one’s memory
Of one’s creativity
Hinged, and fragmented.
Mostly, I would throw these out
Or away
Vanishing in a trash bin I can’t see
Somewhere out there
With one door on my screen
Where I can never go
Where bits of me are loss
Not to be forgotten but to never be known
Because of this obstacle
That I confront
With words that displease me
With assonances that disappoint
Reflecting feelings I find petty
With a way out
Surely
That I cannot see
Blinded, as I am
By my un-letting sense of mediocrity.

A cold Saturday afternoon

2007-01-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

I’m at Café Utopik, on Ste-Catherine St. in front of Berri Square. I’ve known of this place for a long time and have always been curious about it, but never came until today. My plan, after meeting the man who sold me the September issue of Spirale Magazine, was to go to Kilo as a means to soak in my life-before, but, upon exiting Renaud-Bray, I turned westward, away. Something of an imaged riot-ness of the place turned me off: late-morning breakfasts after nights before, served with that attitude that was once mine and that I can’t seem to find patience for now, in my old age. (And this has me wonder if this is what getting older is all about: a loss of patience for those young, combined with a stretched, patient perception of time.)

I’m having trouble with plot. I’m having trouble with language. I cannot write of Montreal in a uni-linguistic way because I have never experienced this city as such, and I could not, because everything I experience diverges any which way through any of both languages that inhabit me, and this city promotes this disparity within me even more. To write this, by which I mean to write in such a way, is quite singular. I have often described myself as a perfect Montreal creation: a location where distinct solitudes meet, leaving me dual in most ways I can imagine. This, I do not know how to write through. And, I am convinced that, ultimately, people do not appreciate pluralities; they are just too difficult.

2007 begun

2007-01-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

(Written yesterday afternoon.)

I’m at Café Rico, seated between Caro and Ben. The last time I was here, in November, it snowed for the first time this season. Now it’s spring out. Raining and cloudy as it is, I am told, in London or Paris. My plan of finishing my (NaNoWriMo) novel before my 31st birthday has been unsuccessful. I have not written since my last post on this blog, Christmas cards aside. Already, I don’t remember the names of my secondary characters. My head has given itself up to Night and Day, Virginia Woolf’s second novel, the beginning of which was tedious, long, and rather a bore; but, her writing grows on one, and I am now quite interested with the outcome of her characters issues. Much of her seems to be poured into this novel. So much so that part of every one of her characters seem to be sketched on some facet of her own personality, and that is one of the reasons why the beginning of her novel was so tedious: she describes their inner thoughts and world at length and repetitively, yet she somehow doesn’t succeed at differentiating them until much later in the book (around page 300); they appear too much to be all of the same; it is a muddle of thoughts and feelings weakly portrayed. Her writing is nonetheless fine. Her sentences are extremely well constructed. I sometimes reread one thinking to myself how I wouldn’t have written it in such a way, and then I rewrite it in my mind, and the comparison has me appreciated her writing all the more. I am, for the first time, consciously reading like a writer. A non-writing writer. I would love to know if other writers are crippled with so much self-doubt. It took Woolf about 4 years to complete “Night and Day.” Sometimes she couldn’t work for more than an hour a day. She was conveniently bi-polar and mentally fragile at the time; I’m just scared, and extremely efficient at doing a great number of other things.

Day 30 + 4

2006-12-04T23:03:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the chapter I had been working on since day 22. What more, I like the ending. I like what I did with it. It may still be a piece of crap, but at least a few things in its construction are not completely humiliating.

I have failed the NaNoWriMo challenge. Caro, I am happy to inform, has succeeded. My present word count is 34,461, and I plan on pursuing this book National Novel Writing Month or not!

I must admit I’m starting to be curious what it will feel like to write my second novel. Will it feel the same? Will I? I wonder…

It's snowing out

2006-12-04T23:02:00.000-05:00

(I actually wrote this yesterday.)

I don’t know if I’m becoming more sensitive as I age, but I’ve recently realized the comfort I take in the seasons. It’s snowing out, and watching it fall, gently, is comforting. I’ve been waiting for it to snow for a little while, restlessly. BC and Chicago have received up to 15 cm by now, and snow in those parts are not part of the normal seasonal cycles. At least, not so much. Not so soon. In these parts, we expect it. It’s part of what we’re used to. November is the month when we have our winter coats dry cleaned and our boots waxed up for the season to come. We shut off any draft by apply a film of plastic over our windows. We start eating stews and soups and yummy warm food. We ready up for the cold and snow. This year, the cold and snow have delayed. As saw reports of the West being covered in it, transformed into Winter Wonderlands, it’s remained too warm here, and too rainy. Last Wednesday, it was almost 15 degrees out. Clement. Early fall weather. Abnormal. Somewhat distressing.

Robert Allen

2006-11-22T22:31:00.001-05:00

I’m in the Second Cup in the Gare Centrale. It’s the Wednesday night Nanowrimo meet and Caro and I came to see what they do and who they are. We were the first ones here, the third one being a Concordia Creative Writing student. I asked him if he knew Robert Allen. He answered no, and informed me of his death, two or three weeks ago.

The last time we communicated was in February, a short while after Anne informed me of his skin cancer diagnosis. When I heard back from her last summer, she mentioned that he was doing better. Then he had a launch for a book of poetry. And now he’s no longer with us. He’s left behind a son and several books, one of which he gave to me.

Without Robert, the course of my MA thesis would have been quite different. Gail Scott told me to consult him for ideas about new “experimental” writers. He was the Editor of Matrix magazine and knew many young and talented authors. I called him and he invited me to visit him in his Concordia office, which overlooked the central hallway in the Birks building. I remember barging into the calm abode, panting and sweaty in my winter coat. One of the first things I told him was that “this,” pointing to the radio playing the CBC classical station, was annoying, “Could we turn it off?” He was always patient and generous. He gave me books of Anne’s when I couldn’t find them at Indigo. He gave me a few cigarettes, some wine and some scotch. He sent me copies of Matrix. We talked literature. He spoke to me of the trade, and of teaching, and of the magic of poetry. He once admitted to me that he started writing to impress girls. Indeed, his quill was a fine one.

I won’t bore anyone, or myself, with my ruminations of how I should have gone to that last book launch, and how I should have emailed sooner to ask how he was doing. Instead, I’ll silently swallow my guilt, and hold many minutes of silence to his memory and honour.

Obituaries from:
Véhicule Press
Jon Paul Fiorentino

Day 18

2006-11-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to share that I have passed 25,000 words.
:-)

But I'm still behind...

Day 17

2006-11-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

I’m behind. It’s Friday night. I have told myself that I would go home only when I reach 25,000 words, at which point I will still be 2 days behind. But I’m trying not to think too much about that. Funny, it seems like some days, we just have so many words in us. Other days we are simply victims of our condition.

After work I went to Aux Derniers des humains (At The Last Humans’). Ate; wrote; left. The place got dark and loud. Headed toward the Plateau and now I’m at Caféo, a relatively new café corner St-Denis, Rachel. I’ve got the huge Le Chateau sign staring at me. I’m at 22,407. I don’t know if I can reach my objective… And I hope this place doesn’t close at 10.

Every time someone walks in or out the door, I freeze. Good. It'll keep me awake.

Day 15

2006-11-15T07:31:00.000-05:00

In the Red Violin, one of the characters is a writer: the violinist’s girlfriend. At one point in her writing, her character goes off to Russia (or somewhere). She, being the author she is, must follow him. And so she leaves England, leaves her violinist lover, to follow her character to far away country.

I had always thought this to be silly. Frivolous, even. Fiction is fiction, right?

I’ve been sitting at my computer for an hour. I spend an hour at it each morning because it’s discipline and any few hundred words help move the whole thing forward. But this morning it’s isn’t moving forward because one of my characters has just gone to see a movie at Parc. I checked the theatre’s web site last night and it just so happens that there is a movie playing there now that just happens to start at the time my character goes to see it, and it just happens to be the type of movie my character would see. So I want him to think about it as he walks down Montreal streets, but to have him think of it I must see the movie myself. I’ve tried writing around it, but can’t unless I change characters, which isn’t called for at this time. I have two chapters left to write before closing up the first part of the book. So you see, I must see this movie.

I am aware this might be a luxurious form of procrastination. I am aware the movie might be very bad and not inspire my writing one bit. I am aware I might be imitating Bret Easton Ellis’ form of critiquing popular culture (was he ever wrong when it came to Whitney Huston and U2!). I am aware I’m doing the same frivolous thing as the passionate Red Violin lover. And I am aware that as long as I remain convinced that I can’t write around this movie, I won’t. So I guess tonight I’ll just go see it. There’s a 5:30 presentation. Besides, no warm in supporting the new Parc owner.

Ps: Yesterday I passed the 20K mark !!! :-D

Day 14

2006-11-14T07:43:00.001-05:00

I’m again a bit behind. I didn’t write Saturday or Friday and I think another day last week. Wednesday, I think. Last week was not the best of weeks. My hormones have kicked in, and when they do they sure do appreciate taking up a lot of space. That and other stuff, of course. Because hormones almost always need something else to bounce off of.

As I was saying, tomorrow is the half-month mark. I should be close to 25 K, but instead I’m still working at reaching 20. I’m trying not to become too discouraged. I figure this book keeps surprising me, and keeps teaching me something new about myself. Not so much stuff I didn’t know than stuff I didn’t know I was telling. Every time I think the story is taking a particular turn, it gears off path and goes some other way. I recognize the route because I hear my voice in it everywhere, but surprise myself finding it there. It’s strange because none of the characters are me; the whole book is me.

Day 7

2006-11-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

I have a confession. I wrote earlier that I have sworn myself off books until I finish mine (or the month of November, whichever comes first), but that wasn’t completely true. In the metro I sometimes read magazines (The Economist), newspapers (The Gazette or Le Devoir), or William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Element Style. It’s a book on writing. I haven’t yet made it pass the first chapter. As interesting as punctuation and syntax may be, I think many will agree that it isn’t enthralling just any old time. So I’ve been reading it slowly. Still, I figure that it’ll be a positive influence on my writing. I can’t say that I am applying everything for the simple reason that I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to punctuation and syntax, but I figure it’ll seep in some way.

Good news! My word count as of today: 12,543. 25% is already done! I’m starting to wonder about (and fret a little over) general layout; will this novel even fit nicely in 50,000 words? I might run out of space...

This evening I wrote in two Montreal cafés: Café République on Bernard (in Outremont) and Café Express on Parc/Bleury corner Milton. The Café Express has a huge table in the middle that would be perfect for a Nanowrimo write-in. Pity I only know one other person in this city who’s doing it, and there doesn’t seem to be any “regional leader.” Oh well.

Day 6

2006-11-06T22:36:00.001-05:00

YOUPPIIEEE !!! I’ve got down 10,336 words. That’s 336 words ahead of schedule! I found a great way to quicken up the writing. It won’t work every time, unless style and perspective never changes Still, it helped tonight! ☺

A strange thing: I used to listen to authors who’d say things like “I just write; it’s the characters who lead the story. They tell me where they’re going. Sometimes they surprise me and go off in the darnest directions.” I always found that kind of talk a bit too wishy-washy for me but… it’s true! At least when you’re writing a book the way I am now. I had this one character who I thought was sheepish and shy and it turns out he’s gay, a bit violent and a total manipulator. I just finished my longest chapter on him and he’s very far from what I expected.

Truth be told, writing is exhausting. Before and after work I do this incessantly. I have no idea how this whole thing will unfold but for the moment I must admit that I’m having quite fun with it.

Day 4

2006-11-05T00:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve written 4,640 words. Technically speaking, I’m behind. To write 50,000 words in 30 days means 1,667 words a day, or about 4 to 5 pages single-spaced. This means that four days in, I should be at 6,668 words. I’m 2,028 words behind schedule.

Caro and I went to Café Rico today, a place on Rachel Street that sales free-trade coffee. I wrote for four good hours before they kicked me out at six. I wrote six pages. I was aiming for nine, but I’m still happy. Generally, I’m better off being happy for what I’ve done than unhappy over what I haven’t yet done.

I must admit, though I am completely aware that I might not finish this project with success, my slow start doesn’t frighten me too much. Actually, it reminds me of my first road trip. I drove from Montreal to New Orleans by myself. My first stop was in Toronto, six hours away. I had a lot of trouble that first day. I stopped at Miles-Iles for a nap. In T.O. I stayed at a woman’s boarding house. I explained my driving itinerary to her, and stated that I needed to be up and out by 8. I slept in until 9:30. I left a good hour later. The drive had exhausted me! And, at one point during breakfast, my host said to me disheartedly that she did not think I would reach my destination. Well, reach it I did! The first two days were a bit hard, but once I got used to it I could drive for hours on end. One day I drove for eleven hours straight. Grant it, by the time I reached my destined Youth Hostel I was shaky and hungry and in need of some company, but eventually a five hour trip seemed short to me, like a day off. I could simply look at my map to estimate how long the drive would be. Once I got used to the road, I became very comfortable with it.

I think this might also be the case with novel writing.

In any case, if I don’t finish 50,000 words by December first, I’ll at least have quite a bit more words than on October 31st!

Nanowrimo begins!

2006-11-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

(Written at 7 PM-ish...)

OK, I’m starting now. I’m at Café Esperanza. Caroline suggested the place. I find the name quite well suited. She hasn’t arrived yet. I just ordered because I just went running and if I don’t eat soon, I’ll faint. There’ll be some kind of film projection here tonight and they’ve been playing around with the sound/music, which is annoying. I think I’ll be discovering many Montreal cafés in the upcoming month…

the day before

2006-10-31T19:41:00.000-05:00

Banishing reading had helped. Now I get home from work and if the supper is made, I have nothing else to do. I could go running, but daylight savings time has it pitch-dark outside by 4:40 PM and I hate running in the dark. Tonight, I was thinking of maybe renting a movie. I have also been thinking of working on that scarf I’ve been knitting for the past 3 years. But it seems, when I have nothing to do, I write. Three blogs in fours days, quite contrary to my tempo of these last months.

Tomorrow I start writing my novel. I asked Ben this evening if he thinks I’ll finish it. He answered that he doesn’t doubt that I will. To be completely honest, I doubt it. I know this isn’t the best disposition to start off on, but part of me feels like I am about to step off a ledge. I can see myself doing some fancy footwork, side-stepping the cliff, walking around in circles as I nudge my chin up to tentatively look over the side into the abyss. Like sky diving, some things I’ve always wanted to try but do not because I’m sure to pee my pants. So the fear and humiliation of walking around in a wet and humid seat for the next month has me doubting.

Actually no, just the plunge has me doubting. The plunge and the void. And maybe the landing too.

Montreal, the beautiful

2006-10-29T23:08:00.000-05:00

Robert Barsky is the first to have brought it to my attention. At the time I was a Lit student at UQAM, and he a “chargé de cours,” or temp teacher, of a first year Intro to Literary Theory course. He brought it up because of his own work and involvement with Marc Angenot. Back in 1995, these two men thrived on Montreal for its place&time. Mr Barsky described this city as the port of intellectual exchange between American and European, and English and French, a city where cultures collide in a multifarious yet small-town way. Montreal is the community-cosmopolis. In the 90’s, it was the place to be.

Since then, hindsight has added to the city vibe. The spoken-word scene of the late-90’s was in Montreal or nowhere (at least as far as Canada was concerned). With the writers come the musicians, as this article attests. Funny thing is the temporality of the art forms. Spoken word has practically abandoned Montreal stages. As for the music, most of these bands where formed in the 90’s and are just now seeing, via (super-)stardom, the fruits of their labour.

I bring this up because 11 years after my introduction to the place&time of my city, rent is no longer cheap and I am wondering if “it’s over.” Did the expats in Paris between the two World Wars know of their place&time? And for some, by the time they got there, was it already over?

Time might not be so expedient for the intellectual and literary crew. Montreal might still be a great place for the exchange of ideas. Yet my ‘old age’ might have me be a tad blasé, because part of me feels like I was subjected to a show that’s now over. Like candid camera, I was there but didn’t realize it at the time. Now the joke’s on me, and where off to a commercial break.

The Saturday Before The Day of The Dead

2006-10-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

Today is a very fall day. I’ve woken up with a headache. And it’s raining outside. It’s the Saturday before Halloween, so there’s a party tonight. But dressing up has finally lost its excitement. Actually, reading an article this morning from the Saturday Gazette on Muslin women and the hijab had me realize that dressing down no longer interests me either. Artifice in general has lost its appeal. Jérôme, while walking up University street last night and talking about something else, put it this way: “le charme discret de la bourgeoisie,” the discreet charm of the middle class. Like a pumpkin with its carved triangle-for-eyes pushed back into place and a web of slimy seeds and fibered filaments that harness the inside, too taut to scrap off.

I have nothing to read. Last Monday I finished a very sweet book: “Ensemble, c’est tout,” by Anna Gavalda. Wednesday, the first of November, I begin my novel. After years of suggestion from Patrick and putting off from myself, I’ve decided to do the Nanowrimo challenge. So Wednesday, after the Running Room meet, I’m off to Caroline’s place, my fellow runner and writer, a sushi supper and my iBook in tow. She has an outline and an idea for a main character. I have nothing of the sort. I have the image of a man and a woman discussing in a dark hospital room. Maybe an image of blindness. And a latent desire to write of sex and love in a loving and sexy way. But I’ve warned Caroline that the fruit of my labour will most likely be a strife-full piece of shit. A jack-o-lantern with an abject face. Because I want to avoid the auto-biography, but am not a mature enough writer to write around it. And I don’t know fiction as a form of writing. The result will most likely be seamless, and afterwards I would be able to call it “experimental” – and tacitly insult several authors I greatly admire.

I say I have nothing to read, but of course that’s a lie. I have plenty to read. My bookshelves are gorged with books bought and never opened. But I grow finicky with age. I want what I want when I want it. And now I want a good, captivating little book that I can be done with in two days time, which is hard to find seeing I’m a slow reader. I don’t want to read while I nanowrite. I don’t want to share my imaginary space with some other person’s novel (already written and published, and bought, at that!). I figure that the best way to keep at it is to become as consumed with the novel I will be writing as I would with a novel I would read. So I’m off reading until Wednesday; I am starving myself to be all the more gluttonous in my creation.

Life of Pi

2006-10-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

The first (and only) time I met Yann Martel was a few years ago in a writing workshop. It was led by Andrew Steinmetz, who had invited Yann on one occasion to speak to us. He was not yet YANN MARTEL. Indeed, he was just some other unknown anglo-Montreal writer. I noticed his rise to fame on a trip to New York about 5 years ago. I was walking along, passed by a bookstore and noticed that it had nothing but Life of Pi in its storefront window. I thought to myself, “Good for him! It’s great to see an unknown anglo-Montreal writer receive some attention. More so South of the border!” In the few following months, Life of Pi/Yann Martel became the stellar Canadian writer he now is (until, maybe, his next novel?).

I never read his book. A kid on a boat with a lion never struck me as a particularly enticing story. I did buy his book. I found a copy in a used bookstore on St-Laurent that was in good condition and going for 7$. I figured I’d read it eventually. That time came two weeks ago.

There was a small stir that brought me to reach for that orange-covered novel somewhere in a pile in my bookcase. Her name is Julie and she was in my running clinic. While on a run one day, she talked to me about not only having read the book, but having fallen into the groupie trap. She followed Yann everywhere, which I image limits itself to readings. This book profoundly moved her, and that’s mainly why I decided to give it a try. (Plus, I figured it would follow up nicely Forester’s Passage to India.)

The book is written in three sections. The first section is part narrator/writer speaking of his experience getting to know his subject, part recounting of the subject’s childhood growing up in an Indian zoo held by his father. The second section is long. It recounts the subject’s experience living on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger (and a few other short-lived wild animals) after the boat that is bringing his family to Canada sinks in the Pacific. The third part is the transcript of an interview with officials.

Julie had warned me that many elements of the story are left out. She might have been referring to the book’s last section. (I know she spared the Richard Parker punch.) Do carnivorous algae islands truly exist? Can a tiger be tamed? Can we go blind by hunger? Can we avoid sharks on a raft? The officials don’t believe the story. So Pi obligingly makes up a new story, one without animals. This new story involves people, though some elements in it are quite similar to the original version. These similarities do not go unnoticed by the officials. They prefer the first version, though ultimately they do not decide upon which one to believe. The first version is better; the second is more realistic. The book ends with this duality. And the reader is left asking herself the same question as the novel’s officials: “Do I believe the story I read in the second section of the book? That long story I have invested myself in? That brought me to believe it? Or is the second version true, the one that’s more realistic and at the same time less enchanting and harsher by its humanity?” Was the story we read, the second section–so practically the whole novel–a lie?

The book’s conclusion reminded me of my friend Jerome who, a few years back, spent several months in India. Upon his return, his favorite Indian imitation was smiling, nodding his head sideways and saying, “Yes, yes, the same. But different.” In India, when he would go to a restaurant and ask if the meal was the same that was served the day before, the waiter would invariably reply, “Yes, yes, the same. But different.”

Now either the sense of difference is lost to Indians, or the sense of sameness is lost to Westerners. And that is, I believe, the key to Life of Pi. The two stories are true, because though they are different, they are the same. Likewise is Pi’s faith in Vishnu, Allah and Jesus pushing the idea of holy-trinity beyond the borders of different and differing religions. These religions, their ideologies and rituals are quite dissimilar, but God, who transcends religion, is ultimately the same. Similarly, Pi is the tiger, the cook is the hyena, and his mother is the orangutang. The "who's who" and the "what's what" are unimportant because ultimately they are the same. Though different.

On Running

2006-10-04T18:49:00.000-05:00

You may not know this, but running is a world of its own. Case in point, a friend invited me to supper a few weeks back with a bunch of his friends that I had never met. A free seat was to my left and only one guest was missing. Her pals, seated at the other side of the table, pitied their unpunctual pal, thinking she would spend the evening dining next to strangers. Lo and behold, the late-comer was a girl from my running clinic! And so we chatted most of the evening about running, quite an enjoyable conversation for both her and I. Later that evening another girl, my running-buddy’s friend, introduced herself as Catherine “who doesn’t run but is still an interesting girl.” Her introduction somewhat puzzled me. Had Caroline and I been so engulfed to make others feel left out? Maybe so. Or maybe they just couldn’t possible understand…

Training for the Montreal half-marathon made me realize the interesting intimacy runners come to acquire of their city’s streets. We come to recognize the patterns of the pavement. We know the potholes, cracks and patches. We know where to expect a slight slant on the length of a street, something to which car drivers are completely oblivious. Traffic, and the people and cars who compose it, are transitory entities; they pass, while we run, and then re-run. We know our city streets like no other.

I did 1:02:42 at the Montreal half-marathon. I improved my time from the Quebec City half by 2 minutes. I’m proud of that, but a bit disappointed to not have done it under 2 hours. Why, just 1:59 would have satisfied me. Really, I shouldn’t complain. I ran the Montreal race with a cold. The day before I felt like I was entrapped on a boat, walking to the rhythm of uncontrollable waves. I missed our clinic’s pasta supper. I was resting, saving all my energies for the next day.

Only a runner will know the inebriating effect running has on the runner. I once went running with a hang-over. Moaning and complaining all the way to my run (I was meeting up with some friends), I ran our Saturday morning 5 K without any trouble. My body wasn’t tired and my head didn’t ache. The feeling my brain was a dried-up raisin came back once the run over, but while I was running I felt fine! And that is how I ran Montreal: I felt fine!

That is to say, my head did and sinuses felt fine. My quads starting feeling very stiff after the first 5 K. Especially on my left side. I’ve never had such stiffness before. Then my left knee starting hurting. At 17 K, we had a long stretch along PieIX to do. I had never realized before that PieIX is a hill. It’s a very subtle hill, but it’s inclination is constant and long. At this point I was tired. I started having trouble breathing. That’s only ever happened to me while I was doing hills. PieIX shouldn’t have been an obstacle, but it was. I loss pace. By the end of the race I was happy and limping. My left knee was very soar and remained that way for 2 days. My legs were stiff, which was not the case after Quebec. My body ached of a cold and two half-marathons in two weeks. I was due for a little break.

After Montreal, I didn’t run for a week. It felt good. But it felt better to start up again. It felt… natural. My body propelling forward, quads filled with blood and legs speeding up, and the world passing by in my peripheral view. On my first run I started thinking about running and cartilage and everything runners do to preserve their knees: cross-training, work-out breaks, supplements, anti-inflammatory pills, running on asphalt over cement and grass over asphalt, expensive high-tech shoes, knee braces, and so on. Some try to make us believe that running isn’t natural because it uses up our cartilage and damages our bones and ligaments. I’m suspicious of these claims. We are upright mammals equipped with all the bodily material needed to run. What can be more natural than running? Moreover, I am suspicious of them because it is when I run that I feel most natural. So much so that I now what to bring my running to different heights. I want to run in snow and cross-country. I want to run up mountains in the dark with a headlight on my cap. I want to deviate rocks rather than potholes. I want to smell wet autumn leaves rather than exhaust. Because I know, because I can feel that running is very natural. What isn’t natural in the least are asphalt, cement, and cars. No, I will not have a TV-watcher tell me running is unnatural, even if I’m aware that they can’t possible understand… unless they start running themselves! ;-)

This entry began after reading two great articles from the October Runner’s World issue (because running is a world of its own!) that I would like to share:

Running in Extremes: Danger

Running in Extremes: Dedication

Baby Steps

2006-09-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight is my first Monday night. And rather than be here, or elsewhere, doing this, I worked overtime. For an extra hour and a half I stayed, alone, at my work desk writing emails and updating spreadsheets. Then I wrote up my time sheet and locked up. Walk-metro-bus ride home, but first a stop to the store to pick up pads and bread and bananas. With an extra quart of frozen yogourt, two cereal boxes and some parmesan cheese, I made my way home in a light rain. I put the groceries away, offered myself a glass of chilled Martini Rossi, cued Billy Holliday and checked my email. Now, I sit down to write. In 20 minutes Ben will be home. I have rice to make for supper (which I should start now), a present to pack and a bill to write up. So my first Monday night will be a subtle one. Short and peripheral.

But first, a bit more Martini Rossi…

Usually, I stop before even starting. I have found myself the perfect topic to fret about and muddle over: the material, or the tool, or the weapon. Like a pair of shoes, the perfect one does not seem to exist. Let’s examine the options.

First, the pen. I must admit, I’m a pen girl. Not a fountain pen girl. My appreciation does not border on the phallic fascination. Nor a Mont Blanc type, because working at Birks as a girl I quickly noticed that those were the (expensive) pens with plastic shafts that most often broke in an unfixable and unreturnable way. Cross pens are nice, but to be honest I am a bit more particular than to simply enjoy the name of a pen. My pens are given to me, or chosen by me at Staples. Their sole common trait is the black ink that flows from them, though its thickness may change. I always have my pen with me. It is the pen I always write with. I usually carry along a second pen or pencil, in case someone might ask me for a pen. That way I may be obliging, without risking the potential loss or theft of my pen (lord knows the amount of friendly kleptomaniacs there are out there!). I may search my purse, fingers browsing through books and odd receipts, to resurface, a smile upon my face, with my second pen/pencil. Reassured of my kindness as I stretch my arm to hand it over, I think to myself, “I am not selfish, I may lend this and not mind not having it returned, or seem overprotective by enquiring when it might be returned.” Yes, a pen girl am I.

Pens are generally used on paper, and here my dilemma begins. Journals serve their own purpose: to write privately what one secretly wishes will one day be discovered and published and hailed as a great retelling and portrait of their life and times. It’s for personal avowals. It serves one’s own personal pride (on the good days) or is rebuffed as useless (on bad days). Then there are notebooks. These are a bit better because they may tend towards the scrapbook, hence the elimination of horizontal lines. Hand writing changes from day to day. And if one wishes to truly let go of their Ego (for lack of a better word), how could one do so along the confines of lines? Scribbling should never be done along preset lines. But then again… is one really scribbling? What if the next great American, or at least Canadian, novel is to come of this scribbling, how do you find yourself in a scrapbook, among doodles? The whole structure is much too confined because the pages can’t be mixed and matched. There’s no cut and paste to a notebook, which is its ultimate downfall. (Please don’t consider scissors and glue; it should be obvious that my notebook is no place for sticky collages.) Also, there’s something much too temporal to these writing books. I never feel comfortable starting up in one with a last entry dating back months, sometimes years. It makes me feel like there is a lack of cohesion to the whole thing. But then again, I hate keeping notebooks filled mostly with blank pages. They seem to be a waste. Tear out the written pages for a clean start? Don’t even think of it! What would I do with the torn out pages? (Don’t even dare think of a trash can…)

I admit, I am much too accustomed to the luxuries of word processing software. I can write, and then erase, or grab a large section to place it elsewhere. Indeed, writers of old would certainly find this generation to be quite fickle, with our delete buttons and spell checks. But these electronic devices do have a downside: the save button. After one writing session, the piece must be saved, which means it must be named. Now, please tell me how can one name a doodle, a scribble, an exercise?
Doodle1.doc
Doodle2.doc
Doodle3.doc
Etc…
One ends up with a total lack of description. How can one find oneself in such a folder? With no other visual cue as a name? And, what would the folder be called? Doodle-september2006? This system has always left me perplexed and frustrated.

So as you can see, I have many obstacles to surmount simply to begin. I’m thinking a good start is by not over-thinking the issue. I will have to begin in earnest next Monday. But I confess, I might write another entry to my blog sometime this week. I might also write a bit in my notebook. Indeed, like pairs of shoes, I might as well have many different tools. That way I’m sure to have one for every occasion, every day, or anyone of my humours.

The Runner

2006-07-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

I’ve been frazzled. Of late, I mean. More than lazy, and unwillingly so. Slothful. In a fleshy way. A messy way.

So you see, it isn’t only the writing I have put off. It’s the bowl of cereal, the cereal all ate, with a ring of hardened soy milk fossilizing to its center, on my night table, among scattered bottles of body cream and such. It’s especially the piles of clean clothes stacking up, pilling up new dust and cat hairs. And the piles, papers, envelops, photocopied insurance slips, newspapers and magazines on running, news, wars and American foreign policy. My cats have stumbled their way through my curtains, which now shows a hole like a gash. Have I tried to clip it back? No. I’ve mentioned that it’s time to change them. They’ve been turning from white to yellow, what with the rays of the sun, and all. My surroundings are in a state of disarray. Even Ben has started to complain about it. He asked me this morning if it’s the result of some instruction from my therapist, some sort of way to “let things go.” A pattern practice, maybe? But no. It’s completely natural, unprompted, and spontaneous.

The collage I put together for Oma’s funeral — propped up on a bookshelf, fell behind it, mangling the photos. It’s been like this for a while. I haven’t put them away. Pressed them down, back in their proper photo albums. I’ve left it as such. Mangled. And part of me feels this is sacrilegious. Or that’s it’s a sad metaphor. Of me and her. I tell myself often that I will put them away. Like I tell myself that I will compile those insurance bills and send my claim, to receive a much desired return. But days pass. Ben picks up the yucky cereal bowl and adds it to the dishes he practically always washes by himself. He doesn’t clean up after me, as he shouldn’t. So the rest of my things remain in disarray.

One shouldn’t think that I am a complete slob. I do go to work. And I do look presentable. Why, just last week I got a hair cut. I work good long hours. My bosses are satisfied with me. On my off-hours, I run. I’m training for the half-marathon. 21 kilometers of meditation. Closed in on myself. The pith of me. I’m quite disciplined. My determination surprises me. (I won’t call it stubbornness: too pejorative.) I’ve come to think that if I wrote as much as I run, I’d have the base of something finished already. But I’ve put off writing. I don’t know why. Quite spontaneously, naturally. Not to think black on white? Maybe. Most likely just not to think.

Walking in the park last night, I remembered how much I went there last year. Last year, I knew the ducks by heart. And morning had a different light. And it was god awful hot outside. Writing my thesis, caught in that moment, I could not have imagined how far time and space can propel you in the span of one year. It’s all so different. Hardly recognizable. And part of me suspects (and voices only when that one drink too many has been consumed) that I will get bored. Surely, I will get bored.

time for a break

2006-05-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

These past three months I have:
1) started a new job (in quite a high-stress environment);
2) finished my TESL certificate by doing a praticum course and a Latin course;
3) transformed my 87-page MA thesis into a 25-page article for publication (fingers crossed);
4) at the end of it all, I had to say farewell to my dear Oma.
Today was my last exam: Latin. I had deferred it because of the funeral. Now, I am officially finished everything. I'll come home after work and have nothing to do. I feel like a horizon is opening itself to my view, large and limitless. A nice feeling.

a memory

2006-04-30T21:08:00.000-05:00

I’m sitting in front of my laptop. My quaint mini portable iBook. I’m writing up a study sheet for my Latin exam. I’m writing with one hand as my left hand holds the good page in my schoolbook. I type with my thumb, index and major fingers and remember my Oma’s typewriter. She had one of those heavy ones. An old one. Like what you’d see in the movie Naked Lunch, except not portable. To erase a letter we’d have to back-space and stick an eraser ribbon between the sheet of paper and the ink ribbon and re-type the letter, covering it up. I remember my loving this typewriter. (I think Shawn now has it.) I remember writing on it, pretending I was writing a book. And Oma telling me that I should take typing lessons to learn how to type quickly and well. I was impressed when she told me that she could type without even looking at the keypads. She took typing lessons in Holland when she was a young woman. She told me how they would practice in school typing with some sheet of paper over their fingers so they wouldn’t see the pads.

In Loving Memory of My Oma

2006-04-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

Some out there are aware that last Monday, Easter Monday, April 17th, my Oma (which is the Dutch word for grandma) passed away. She had suffered from Pick’s disease , a degenerative mental illness. Strong as she was, she lived on many years after the disease made itself manifest and even survived a broken hip. Yet these past months, she was fading. Two weeks ago she became ill with pneumonia. She stopped eating, and weakened.

The funeral service was yesterday. All things considered, I believe she would have liked it. My cousins Shawn and Daina sang, my mother read a poem and my uncle Francis read a scripture from the bible. My aunt Margaret wrote a beautiful eulogy. A lady from the church spoke on behalf of her friends from church. I also spoke. I felt it was necessary to address her illness, something that had caused much pain to those who love her. What I said is below. The minister, who knew Oma, said a nice service. We sang her favorite hymns.

It has been a very tiring and emotional week, and I haven’t yet shed my last tear over my loss. Oma was much loved and will be greatly missed.

----------------------------------------------

I would like to start by reading a passage from the Tao Te Ching, which is Chinese philosophy. This is chapter 50:

Between birth and death,
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death
also number three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they live their lives on the gross level.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to
thrust their thorn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.

There are two things Oma did not want in life: she did not want to end up in an old’folks home, and she did not want to lose her mind. These two things were given to her. What more, she had to live with these for the last 6 years of a life that had already been quite trying. To watch her mental health deteriorate was difficult for all those who love her. It was also very frustrating. That question, in the deep of our hearts, was (and is) unavoidable: how could her god, whom she loved so much and served so faithfully, do this to her? How could he afflict her with the two things she wished to avoid? Personally, I couldn’t help but wonder how cruel this god she loved is.

At the same time, I am 30 now, and one thing I’ve come to know is that what you want is sometimes quite far from what you need, and sometimes what you want comes in a shape you originally despised.

I was speaking with a co-worker this week who lived a similar experience to mine. His grandmother passed away last year after living the ten last years of her life with Alzheimer disease. In our conversation, he mentioned the Pope John Paul II, and what he said I found particularly interesting. The Pope, though suffering from Parkinson’s, another degenerative disease, and a number of other ailments, refused to abdicate his position. Throughout his papacy, John Paul was a staunch defender of human life. This was obvious by his opinion on abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia. Yet his example gave a different twist to staunch Catholic beliefs. This man, who was extremely athletic in his youth and active throughout his life (like Oma), accepted his illness as a part of life, and refused to hide this part in the confines of the Vatican’s hospital. Using himself as an example, he showed the citizens of the world that life does not stop when the body is frail, when speech is difficult, and when reasoning may come to be blurred. He showed us that human life in all its forms is life. And all these ideas we have of strength and health and performance as defining factors of a human being must be seriously questioned, because being human isn't something you prove, it's just something you are no matter.

Moreover, John Paul had an interesting view on the spiritual life of those who suffer degenerative diseases. He mentioned that such a disease allowed him to live his spirituality differently, in a way that could not be experienced when full of health.
At this point I would like to bring to your attention the Beatitudes, which Oma always wore around her neck in the symbol of the Huguenot cross. I would like us to think of the 6xt one, from Matthew 5:8 that says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Now, we all know that God works in mysterious ways, and we know that the brain is a mystery. We cannot possibly imagine what was going on in Oma’s mind in those last years; we can only guess. She might have forgot the Beatitudes (and hence not mind losing her cross). She might have lost all notion of religious theory. She might even have forgot the word “god.” Her mind might have become a tabula rasa, which would have left her her heart, pure and glowing. What we saw in those last years was not Oma “degenerated,” but Oma as she was in spirit, the essence of her humanity. This disease with which her god afflicted her might have been a gift in disguise; it might have been a way for Him to share with her, in her human form, a spiritual closeness to Him that cannot be known. Pure of heart, she might have had the chance to live those last years closer than ever to the God she loved so much.

I would like to finish by sharing with you a poem by Emily Dickinson, that I dedicate to my family.

After a great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round—
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought—
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone—

This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—

Death Notices (04/19/06)

2006-04-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

TAVENIER, Cornelia "Cora" (nee Tuit). On April 17, 2006 after a lengthy illness, Cora has gone to be with her Lord. Predeceased by her husband Herman and son John. Loving mother of Nettie (Raymond), Francis (Wendy), Fred (Margaret), Edith (Cam) and Elizabeth (Shannon). Cherished Oma of Martin, Julie, Daina, Laura, Shawn, Meagan, Joseph and Nicholas. Visitation at the McGerrigle Funeral Home Inc., 70 Lambton St., Ormstown, Qc. on Friday, April 21 from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. Funeral service on Saturday, April 22 at 1 p.m. at the Franklin Centre Church of the Nazarene, 825 Grimshaw Rd., Franklin. Interment at the Ormstown Union Cemetery, Ormstown. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Women's Auxiliary of the Barrie Memorial Hospital, 28 Gale St., Ormstown, Qc. J0S 1K0, would be appreciated.

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

2006-03-19T23:24:00.000-05:00

I try not to become too personal in this blog. My perception of what might be personal may differ from that of other people. I can explain the process of installing an IUD, the news of the suicide of an acquaintance, or my everlasting internal turmoil with regards to language without feeling unveiled. I can even admit this without feeling unveiled. I don’t mind that my life be an open book, as long as I chose which chapters may be read. For this reason, the rest of this blog will be written in code. My code. Because I can’t write without getting all this off my chest, this stuff too personal for your eyes to read through, yet that I allow you to read as a narrative. Make of it what you will, as you do with everything else you read of what I write:

There’s a light that exists in homes that cannot exist elsewhere. This light is seen through the eyes and is carried by whoever holds those eyes. And there are sounds. From kitchens. Pots and pans clattering. Knives cutting against a cutting board. Water from a tap. All dulled by the distance of rooms. Odors exist, but they are not real smells. They are memories of people and places. Sometimes, they are memories of something that was never really known, or that seems always to be forgotten. The most pungent ones are the ones that hit the senses hardest. But sometimes, when the light is right, it comes, softly. And then something is remembered, and then is forgotten. But the shimmer of what remains is enough.

So I handed him my bottle
And he drank down my swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette
And he asked me for a light

Voices and stories that are meaningless without all the meaning we attach to them. Strings of thoughts become places that existed, and still do because they once did. Lights and shadows, lying on a sofa, listening to the sounds from the kitchen dulled by the distance and walls. Eyelids drooping on a stiff upright neck, watching a sense of home manifest around me, and fill me. If people are places, they are then also terrains. And landscapes.

Perspective can’t always be seen. It takes different eyes. I’ve finished a book recently. A Million Little Pieces. An Oprah book club book. And I have really nothing to say about it that hasn’t already been said. That happens when so many people are talking about one same book, or thing. For example, I had an idea for a blog. I mentioned it to a classmate. She works in a bookstore. She inadvertently made me decide not to write it. Not now, in the least.

I am in high-absorption mode. That’s another way of saying that I am bloated. Large and fat and floating up too close to everything. I would be light if it weren’t for my being twisted strained. This dual. Between lying on the sofa watching slants of light and listening, just listening, to supper being prepared, and thrashing into everything trying to embrace it all with flapping arms & strained shoulders. My shoulders, so bony and so square, of a skinny-assed flanker, holding up a stiff neck and drooping eyelids. All I can do now is listen for familiar voices, and look forward.

I allow myself to write run-on sentences using too many commas because I am French, at times, and that’s how we French create patterns and arguments and trails of thought. We are paradigmatic and it is my license. And now, I best be going to bed.

I HATE LANGUAGE !!!

2006-02-15T19:18:00.000-05:00

This is a rant. My first one.

Language sucks. It sucks because it is filled with rules one must stick to in order to be properly understood, yet language seldom succeeds at being what it is supposed to be: a mode to communicate. Of course, we get words across. They are spoken. Then they are heard. And then there’s understanding, or so we say. I won’t go into that. Anybody who has ever had to deal with words knows that they, more often than not, fail in the end. Words fail me. Yet I must stick to outdated and sometimes unjustifiable rules of syntax and grammar to get my point across. I must follow rules so that my words don’t fail others. Am I the only one to see this as problematic? Isn’t this, simply put, the definition of imperfection? A perfectly flawed system? This would not be such a problem if there weren’t so many rules, and so many in so many different languages. Of course, anybody who only knows one language cannot comprehend what I am saying. (I take that back, some uni-lingual writers might know.) There is this image of the poet as the one who moulds words. Who labours to shape a text into a perfect piece of words that call up perfect images. I see this poet sitting at a wood table in a dark room by the light of a candle. His chemise is open and we can see pearls of perspiration on his chest. He holds his hand to his forehead in deep meditation. Suddenly he looks up in hope. But then the hope dies away and boredom, or deception, take hold of him. He looks back down, but in a minute the epiphany strikes him again and he starts dipping his quill in his inkpot, dabs it on the side and writes away! The fluffy filaments of the feather dance a fluttering dance as his words are laid down. Perfection. A job well done, he heartily grasps his jug to swallow a heavy gulp of wine. Can a gulp be heavy? Surely not. There must be a rule about “gulp.” I learned in Grammar for Teachers that each word has their inherent grammar. So language has blatant rules (many of which make little sense) and intrinsic, metaphysical-type rules. And among all that I stand frustrated, over and over again.

People tell me that I’m lucky to speak two languages so well. I admit, my English is better than most, and my French is far better than many. My dilemma comes down to the fact that I’m self-conscious. Like you wouldn’t believe. It allows me to write well, which makes me all the madder when I make a stupid mistake. And those stupid mistakes, folks of all languages have made a point of bringing them to my attention. These stupid mistakes are Gallicisms, or “des anglicismes,” or what they call in French “des fautes d’inattention,” which translates as typos. My point is always understood. My communication is perfect. But my language use, no matter how good it is, is always flawed. Teachers have repeated this to me endlessly. Peers also, especially the uni-lingual ones. I’ve even started wondering if the “uni-lings” out there have united against me. Is criticizing my words an evil way to serve their own mono-language complex? Does putting me down make them feel good?

The French have always thought that my mother tongue is English. The anglos, French. The true story is a bit more complex than that. Due to hearing problems, when I was young I spoke a language that was a mystery to all save for my mother and brother. I learned how to talk when I was 3. With limited language skills (had some catching up to do!) I was put in French immersion. From then on I went to French school, so I learned to read and write French before my mother tongue. I should also mention that my mother tongue is not my mother’s, who’s Dutch. Am I English? Am I French? In what language do I dream? (I’ve been asked that more than once.) In what language do I count? Well, I count in French because I did math in French. I think of God (when I do) in English because I went to an English church when I was a kid. I talk semantics in French, and psychoanalysis in both. I also swear in both. I actually do everything in both. For a long time both were one to me. People say I am lucky to speak two languages so well. I know I am. But sometimes I just can’t help feeling sad and discouraged and frustrated that I don’t know one language perfectly. I’d like to shut them all up! All those "Bein c't'une block" and "Well, she's French." What do they know about language? Nothing other than its naturalness, which I sometimes feel I'll never have in either of my languages. Some days, the more languages you know, the more words you have to fail you.

Dumas to Brossard to the Victorians

2006-02-08T22:21:00.000-05:00

I got first pay cheque last Friday, so I decided to buy myself a gift. Dumas’ book was my goal, but instead I stepped out of the bookstore with three books: Les trois mousquetaires by Dumas and Nicole Brossard’s Langues Obscures, a book of poetry, and Picture Theory, an experimental novel. For those who don’t know, Nicole Brossard is one of the biggest and definitely one of the most innovative Quebec writers. If people don’t know of her it’s because she seldom makes best-seller lists. Her writing is too difficult to please a general public. But in academia, especially in the fields of feminist and experimental prose, she is headwoman of Quebec letters. Embarrassingly, I had never read her. I had picked up Picture Theory at the library a few months ago but didn’t make my way too far into the novel. At that time I wasn’t much in the mood for an intellectual challenge. Can’t say I am now, but I wanted some of her novels on hand. She greatly influenced authors that I know and admire, notably Gail Scott, who was a big influence on Anne Stone. Basically, Brossard is the trailblazer of a movement of French Quebec women writers that began in the 70’s and resonated all the way to the other side of the language divide.

All that being said, I haven’t started either of the three. I browsed through Brossard’s poetry book (very very promising read) but I basically don’t have time. I am taking two classes at Concordia and have started counting the weeks. I am very careful not to overload myself and to remain focus. A new job + 2 classes + an article (that I’m supposed to be working on now instead of writing a blog) is a lot to handle. It’s already ten o’clock and I’ll be falling asleep at my keyboard in a matter of minutes. So what I read on the bus on my way to work is a book I started before Christmas; one with which I have accepted a slow relationship. Actually, it’s very interesting. It’s called The Victorian House. It’s a history book that recounts how the Victorian middle-class lived, room by room. It offers quite a different perspective and an amazing amount of insightful information on their day-to-day habits and customs. Very enlightening. It definitely gives the impression that London in 1850 was a very dirty and difficult place. When I get home in the evening and look at my tiny apartment (that doesn’t need to be a social statement), my three great cats (that I own because I want to and not because I have mice or rats), my washer and dryer (I might one day go into the details of their laundry habits, but let me just tell you that if they had a piece of clothing made up of different colours, they would un-stitch it, wash the colours separately and then re-sew it when it was dry, which they did because they had to use different techniques and soaps to preserve the different colours and materials) and, yes, even the vacuum cleaner, with a table spread with delicious and nutritious food, I feel amazing lucky. This look into the past has got me reflecting on how good we have it, and how much we have.

about Thomas Wolfe

2006-02-03T07:55:00.000-05:00

My friend Steve, one of my UofM pals, is one of the best known Canadian Thomas Wolfe scholars. Now, is that because he’s such an outstanding scholar, or because there are so few Thomas Wolfe scholars that he sticks out as a lone enthusiast? I, knowing him personally, would vouch for the former but, truth be told, there are indeed very few people working on Thomas Wolfe. And by Thomas Wolfe I don’t mean Tom Wolfe, the author of The Bonfires of Vanity. Thomas Wolfe is a modernist who was born in 1900 and died about 38 years later. His work is little known even in academic circles. He doesn’t tend to be comprised in “the canon,” which means that we haven’t read him in school. Exclusion from the canon does not mean that a work or an author isn’t noteworthy. It does make them less readily available, and for students who read so many books that they seldom get to read the books they feel like reading, there’s just no time to invest in them. That would explain why after having known Steve for four years I had found time to buy two of Thomas Wolfe’s books from second-hand shops, but not read them. Two weeks ago while looking through my bookshelves for something to read (why buy a new book when I already have so many to chose from?), my eyes fell upon my Thomas Wolfe books. Seeing Steve in my mind’s eye complain that none of us (our small circle of UofM buddies) have ever even read the author who made him want to study literature, I picked out one of those.

Since then, I’ve found a job. This is great news. The underlying message is that my reading time has suddenly been drastically reduced. And I, unfortunately, am not a patient reader. Not even for short stories! I am half way through The Hills Beyond and my desire for it has started to wane. There are parts of it that are truly beautiful. Some passages are very poetic. Sometimes it is a delight to read. But my general feeling is that he is too self-absorbed. He is one of those writers whose topic is pretty much always himself. Auto-fiction, as they call it. Unlike Anais Nin whose modernist effort not to come to a book’s end was to write diaries incessantly and publish them all, Wolfe writes about himself in a fictionalized manner. This wouldn’t be so disturbing if it were not only the practice than the importance he accords to it. What I mean is, he does not only fictionalize his life as closed circuit stories, he permits himself as an author to step inside the fiction he writes and criticize, and comment, and mention himself one time too many. Why Modernists found that writing about oneself is the ultimate topic, I don’t know. Why Wolfe’s self-absorption is so bothersome to me, I’m not sure. I feel there is an element of self-importance to it that I find snooty and daunting and has me dare the author with the impulse of questioning him: “Why would I be interested in you? Why should I read you and your spleen? What interest lies in it for me?” Is it, in a way, self-critique? Is that the question I ask myself about others’ possible interest in reading me?

If Wolfe were alive today, he would be a blogger. One of my sorts. I’ve felt for a while that an author who can’t manipulate a story, and by story I don’t mean a biography, is not much of an author. Of course, that’s a harsh opinion. More self-critique? Let’s stop asking questions. Besides, the alarm just rang and I must get ready for work. Wolfe will remain on my bedside table but I think I’ll pick up a new book today. I feel like reading Dumas’ Three Muskateers. I hear it’s a story you can sink your teeth into.

Belle du seigneur

2006-01-24T15:41:00.000-05:00

I finished Cohen’s Belle du seigneur last weekend. Half way through the novel, the Seigneur wins over his Belle and they flee together. The other half consists of their perfect love, a love that depends only on each other, their dual company. They are cast-aways. The deserted island the Seigneur offered his Belle was a real one. You see, this novel couldn’t be considered one of the Twentieth Century’s Great Love Stories without taking on one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest points of contention: the identity of the Jew.

We learn towards the end of the novel that it takes place in 1936. The Nazi regime has branded Jewish people, their commerce, and their homes. Anti-Semitism is mounting, or, rather, is becoming aggressively straightforward. The Seigneur has lost his job at the United Nations because of his stance on international immigration laws regarding Jews. To meddle in countries affairs is risky, but to reproach these democratic states of anti-Semitism is unacceptable. He loses his position, which means that he loses everything because as a Jew he has no other back-up than money. His family and friends don’t occupy powerful seats. He was the exception. His fire causes a free-fall. He becomes nothing more than a rich filthy Jew, the lover of a beautiful woman he lies to, deception being the only way they can continue living their fairy tale life.

To escape their charades, he goes to Paris. This trip is his last effort to regain what was lost: his French nationality and a position, any position, that could give him a place in the social realms of the world. He is refused. Rich yet spat on. He walks the streets of Paris with a wandering eye that glimpses all the “Kill Jews” painted on alley walls. He drinks in pubs with unknowing men who, in their drunkenness, swear to friendship, and then hiss their disgust of Jews. Unassuming. “It’s all the fault of the Jews.” And the Seigneur agrees, because how could he disappoint them? He questions these Jews, the Jew himself. A none-believer yet ostracized for his race, or his religion, or his lack of nationality. He becomes the Wandering Jew and drags his innocent Belle along with him. They are perfect in their beauty, and that’s all they are.

The novel’s critique would not be complete without a critique of love stories. The Seigneur, a man who loves his Belle beyond passion, a man who longs for hugs and kisses on cheeks, knows that what maintains her love is the role he plays, the Don Juan he assumes. He actually sees little interest in sex and “deep-mouth” kissing, but he knows that women do. He knows that with women, passion must be kept high in order to hold their interest. He even hits her once to disorient her. He does this because he knows that her sub-conscious is getting bored. Bored with love and passion and their desert island where no one from “good society” might tread. Bored with him.

Eventually, her sub-conscious catches up to her consciousness. She then becomes base. She plays her own games to try to keep his interests, games that he agrees to only to please her and that actually sicken and sadden him. Sex games, for the most part. Dressing up like a little girl. Inviting another woman to their bed. Soiling the purity of their love to keep things interesting and passionate, the fairy tale finally comes to an end. After a day of sniffing ether, she swallows a glass half-way filled with sleeping medication, and offers such a glass to her Seigneur. He had predicted during his raving Paris trip that their relationship could only end in suicide. Is does so a little over two years of their being together. They die lying next to each other on a bed in the Ritz.

I don’t really feel like spending too much time on the twists and turns of this novel. A thousand and one hundred pages gives ample space and time for the author and reader to get to know each other. To be honest, apart from enjoying the ride, I don’t really know what to say about it. A suicide because of perfection, which is fake and disappointing. Like a morbid look at the “ever after.” Yet 50 years removed from the writing of this novel, it gives both a good view of one person’s struggle with racism while being deceptively anti-climactic about love. He spends half the novel explaining the mediocrity of the “normal” man (the Belle’s legal husband) and the viciousness of “good society” (her mother-in-law) to then spend the latter half explaining the angst of ideal love. It then takes the lovers 20 pages to kill themselves. Did the author get bored with the subject? Did he want to hasten the end to spare the reader its negativity? Was he unable to write in detail the detriment of the relationship? Are we supposed to imagine it? It might be strange to say, but the author could have made this book longer. His novel didn’t make me disappointed in love. I just thought the two characters were disillusioned, and that I find sad. They could have worked so well together if only they had been reasonable. (Who wants reason? What does reason have to do with love? ) Fifty years removed, I come from a very different time, it seems. And I’m still looking for the love story that glorifies it not in its passion, but in its frankness. A real love story. Not a fairy tale nor a fling. Some might doubt that such a story could make for good reading, but I’m sure there’s something interesting to be made of it.

ticker

2006-01-15T23:30:00.001-05:00

wounded here this spot inside of me lonely because alone because of lies or at least half truths that creep up suddenly and what do I have to complain about anyways I’ve never had anything to complain about really except of what I let people do to me it often comes down to that it seems as gestures of self-preservation but part of me doesn’t believe not this time not this case anyhow because it’s when you let the drama get the best of you but sometimes it gets the best of others and then they’re hard and mean and say mean things but again what right do you have to have it bother you because what do you have to complain about anyway but still wounded here and alone in this spot a weight that can be felt inside tangible and cavernous and I’m awaited to open my arms because mother love because I have nothing to complain about and inside is left unattended or expected to a dismissible side effect but I can’t open my arms because of this weight here this spot in my chest cavernous that sinks and draws me down and draws my arms down numb and unfeeling and so tired and weak they can’t hold anything the strength to smooth everything over and pretend tomorrow that nothing was said except for an after taste not in the mouth but the arms and chest where they remember the cavern where words resonate and drill the memory with time flowers falling over it in shapes of “I love you” and other such words like leaves over a pit in the ground a booby-trap where things get caught it’s so important to be careful why and when do people believe it’s OK to stop becoming daring and saying things that are wrong and daring to play that game because it seems that in such cases what’s most important is to win some game one I got to know before I became an expert at it I have too much experience and it sickens me by its stupidity and uselessness and its meanness that game which is who can better hurt the other or outwit them depending on your vocabulary who can get away with the most truths and who paralyses the other first by way of show of tears I’ve never done before not that way because I know it’s a sure way and too proud to play such a base card but sometimes they are not part of a ruse they just appear betraying you your feelings your pride because it feels so unfair but who am I to complain right I’ve always been self-centered melodramatic selfish like pennies falling down a well the words clatter down until you can’t hear them anymore or just a fait sound an echo but then other words get thrown down bigger ones because they always become bigger because the game is to see who can throw the biggest words down the other’s well who can make the loudest echoes block it maybe then cavernous feeling alone with echoes ringing but no sorry because it hurts to hurt one must feel sympathy it isn’t easy there are no real winners and the guilt is hard envelop me please but no sorry to be brushed aside swallowed tomorrow morning with the morning tea and so things go on quite well really until the next time counter on ticking maybe something will happen to change maybe something small will interfere or maybe next time it will be for a new reason like a boiling-point to be reached for steam to let out maybe it’s only that a cycle to endure and watch it coming and watch the words to avoid playing some stupid game and to avoid being hurt made to feel guilty because really what do I have to complain about anyway nothing of course just a word or two nothing really nothing

my birthday wish

2006-01-03T17:44:00.000-05:00

My birthday is extremely inconvenient. It is on the most boring day of the year. Everything is closed, even Indigo. What more, most people are either with family or nursing a hang over — as I might be. My birthday is January first, which is, apart from Christmas day, the worst day to have a birthday.

This year I have decided not to expect anything from anybody on my birthday. No phone calls. No emails. No cards. Instead, my birthday is to be celebrated next weekend. Indeed, for my 30th I have decided to organize a weekend get-away with a few friends in the Mont-Tremblant area. I’ve rented two chalets. It’s a huge thing to organize, but I’m finally starting to be quite excited. Last night was the evening I had planned to organize the suppers: Friday evening a quick but hardy meal, Saturday night the whole kit and kaboodle birthday bash. Of course, I have helpers. I called Pedro during the day to confirm our meeting. Pedro is our sexy Portuguese jack-of-all-trades friend; he can fix your car and make a three-course meal for 20 guests. I called him at around two in the afternoon.

“Uh, Julie… didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Oh. Didn’t you hear about Maxime?”

Maxime. A friend of theirs. A guy I met at their Christmas evening supper (for all their loser friends who have no place else to go, like Ben & I). He was extremely friendly. We talked about his deceased father’s love of Japan, the Japanese girlfriend his dad had and his long lost Japanese half-brother. He had offered to Ben and me his father’s old Japanese books and dictionaries, seeing that he didn’t use them. He invited me to his buddies’ annual tourtière party, which was last Thursday and to which I didn’t go. Ben wasn’t in the mood and though I really wanted to go I decided not to without him; I’ve had a petty fight with a girl who was to be there and didn’t feel like putting myself in a vulnerable position, what with her possibly being disagreeable and my not knowing very well the other invitees. I stayed home and wrote about solitude instead. I left a message on Maxime’s voice mail excusing our absence. I was thinking of calling him on the 30th. I found him quite nice and didn’t want to be impolite or inconsiderate. But I didn’t.

“What? What happened?”

“Maxime killed himself the evening of the 31st. He hung himself. His mother found him. Didn’t anybody tell you? … Are you still there?”

I chocked a “yes,” and then a “no, nobody told me.” I wasn’t close enough to him or his close friends. The only person who would have told me is Mumu, I thought, and she must be too devastated to talk.

“Look Julie, I won’t be able to help with the supper. It’s a bit rough around here. And we don’t know when the funeral will be, so we might not be able to make your party next week-end, if his funeral is next week-end.”

“Yes, yes. I understand. Don’t worry about it. Charly and Anik also offered to help. We’ll take care of everything. And, Pedro…”

“Yes.”

“Could you please keep me informed?”

“I will. Bye Julie”

“Bye.”

Of course, I’ve heard nothing since then. I’ve checked the city’s obituaries and found nothing on Maxime. It feels so unreal. His being feels like a memory that never actually happened. Like a ghost. To think that while he was preparing his death scene, I was having a five-course meal with Maïté, her sister and a friend, Fred, Johnny, Liane and Ben. I was at a supper to which Maïté had told me to invite anybody who might have no other place to go. The friends I had invited had other places to go. Not having spoken to Maxime, I hadn’t invited him.

I do not fool myself with the thought that I could have saved him. I didn’t know him well. He might have been depressive, or suffered from some other mental illness. He might have been planning his death for a while. He might have been planning it the evening I met him. His generous offer of his father’s Japanese books might have been a way for him to ride himself of his possessions, an elaboration of his will. He left notes. Of course, I know nothing of them. I just feel I met a really nice guy, and missed something.

When Ben came home from work last night he gave me a big hug. The only thing we can do is love each other well, and do our best to love well those we care for. Which is what my birthday week-end will be: an occasion to share quality time with my closest friends. That’s all I want for my birthday.

Farewell Maxime.

confessions

2005-12-29T18:54:00.000-05:00

All authors will tell you that to write, one must know solitude. Marguerite Duras has written an entire book on the subject. She speaks of a house where she was isolated, though in her Duras way she claims that solitude was with her even when she went out for a drink at the nearby pub or had guests over for supper. She speaks of solitude as a state of being, as a veil that covers and permeates. With others, she is always alone with her book. Yet she needs the house where her solitude may take form, where it weaves into the veil she then carries with her outside and in the presence of others.

I once read in a magazine interview that Yann Martel wrote Life of Pi over a span of fours years, some days writing pages it of it and others just a few lines. He, too, spoke of the solitude of the author, yet he mentioned how difficult a forced solitude can be for the one who writes. He spoke of the dual existence: the one with people, to know them and observe them, and the one alone, to write down the outside.

Authors also say that to be an author, one must write. And write. And simply write. Lucia Etxebarria writes always, or so it seems. She has worked as scriptwriter, a journalist, and a writer of essays, short stories and novels. I’ve only ever read her novel Amour, prozac et autres curiosités. It’s beautiful. She wrote on her website that authors write.

I have always saved myself from the conceit of calling myself an author by stating that I don’t write, not always. And I don’t always enjoy it. Writing is often hard because words are part of a faulty system, because rereading myself is seldom as I had planned it and because I become intimidated by the last piece I wrote if I should happen to like it. Writing can be an extremely distressing process. And it can reveal so much, even if the reader doesn’t realize how much of me he or she is reading. But at other times how little. And the best way to hide yourself behind your writing is by writing what pretends not to be you, like an thesis or some other school related paper, or like a blog entry about the books you read, or like something historical, empirical, and whatever else that evades popular conceptions of auto-fiction, or auto-non-fiction.

I have always been one to enjoy my solitude. Social and talkative as I may be, I have always relished my time to myself, looked forward to it and savoured it. But these days my solitude has been playing a nasty trick on me. It has turned on me. It is counter-productive. Days at home stretch out into weeks. I become domestic, as a means of procrastination. As my days lose their purpose, so does much else in my life, or at least my perspective of it. And at times, when all the laundry is done and the cat hairs discarded, at times I can’t fight it anymore. Solitude leaves me and I become lonely, and alone. And I wait for the hours to pass so that something might happen, something outside of me that might help propel me back into some kind of active state. I wait, lying on my bed, watching my ceiling. Books gather in piles, their words too heavy to read. My blog is not updated because I feel no use or purpose of putting thoughts into words, and can scarcely assemble my thoughts anyway. All will to work, to be productive in the most remote way, leaves me. I become desperate of a desperation that can barely express itself, so lethargic it is.

Claire and I were to have a writing exchange. I had some ideas. What more, I had some resolution. But days pass and I don’t even know how to start, where to write, by what medium, how to assemble, what won’t get on my nerves as the mere thought of it already does. I don’t even know under what title to save it, or in which file. It is complete formlessness, matching itself to me and my lack of motivation, and my resulting frustration.

On good days I realize it’s because I have “nothing going for myself.” Most people tell me to take advantage of this time and to relax. I can’t seem to do that, and inertia seems to deaden me all over. Stupid horrible state. And to think one day I'll look back on these days and will surely envy them.

can't sleep

2005-12-23T06:56:00.000-05:00

I had a dream. I was in a club and while calling a taxi a mean looking hooker took the cash from my wallet. I was left walking the dark streets trying to find a taxi I could pay by credit card. I approached a group of university age kids who were heading home to the West Island. I decided to go with them figuring that the West Island is closer to home than wherever I was (funny how lately I’ve been dreaming that I’m going in a wrong direction). So we started walking through a forest. After a while the dream had us camping in the forest. I spotted a big black wolf with a monster-large head, a huge fleshy mouth and big fangs. It scared me and I hide in one of the tents, waking everybody up warning them that a wolf was near. It came towards the tent I was in and we all huddled in a corner, the one opposite it. As it paced around the tent slowly as a predator sure to catch its prey, we inside the tent moved away from it, always opposite it, contracted and aware and hoping the thin screen covering the tent was enough to shield us. Then I fell slightly behind. A long thin tongue slid out of its mouth to wrap itself around my right-hand pinky finger. Before pulling me towards it, Monic, and ex-colleague from Seville, in an effort to save me, took out two crisp bills that she started handling in the hopes of distracting our enemy. It worked. The end of the dream is a muddle. I woke up shortly after.

I received a call yesterday inviting me to a job interview for a promising position. I am honestly extremely excited about it.

A few months ago, Mireille drew my tarot cards. She concluded that I am in a period where many routes are open to me, and that I am confused about which one to take. I don’t remember much else about her reading. Besides, this element she felt particularly strongly. Then again, I was completely aware of this. When I was younger, I had a theory that when I did not know what to do, best do nothing. Now, I believe I should prefer to do anything. That is the direction I am going in: anything; as long as it is fulfilling and can help me achieve some other (which ever) greater good for my personal advancement. I am quite happy with this anything for it is better than nothing, yet at times I hear a ticking that I find bothersome. This ticking is telling me that I’m not getting any younger. It’s counting away my days and closing doors of opportunity. Wanting to stay wide open for everything, this ticking whispers in my ear that I can’t have it all, especially as I grow older. Who could be so eveil as to tick away in my ear like that?

I read an optimistic sentence the other day from Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “You are never to old to become who you were supposed to be.” (Or something like that.) This from a woman who spent most of her days secluded in a bedroom writing poetry. I wonder who Elizabeth Barrett Browning thought she was supposed to be. As for myself, I only have illusions, dreams I dare not admit here, that are usually halted by rationality. Some days, looking ahead, life seems much too short. Deceptively so.

I couldn’t fall back asleep after waking from the dream. My mind started busying itself with lists of things still needed for Christmas. Now it is 7 AM and the alarm clock just went off, which is the stereo, and it is playing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. I've been awake since 4:30. This will surely be a tiring day.

Tupperware ladies are still out there!

2005-12-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

(I actually started this post last Tuesday. It's a week late. I had some trouble finishing it.)

Last night I was invited to, and attended, what I consider a cultural event far-removed from my usual cultural outings: I attended the regional Tupperware Ladies’ meeting. They have a meeting every Monday, but this week it was special because they were presenting the new catalogue, hence new Tupperware stuff. I went there with Charlie, a friend of mine who’s recently joined the legions of Tupperware enthusiasts, Vida, a new recruit she hooked in a mall, and Matilda, Vida’s daughter. My friend, a natural social butterfly, has become mesmerized by the whole shebang while remaining completely lucid of the retro and kitsch effect being a Tupperware Lady has. She brushes all that off with a giggle, and her friends can’t help brushing it off also, realizing that it’s quite in her nature to do such a thing, and then accept to host a party for her. Charlie has that affect on people, which explains my presence last night at the T’Ladies’ regional meeting.

We arrived there at 7 PM, right on time. We bought our on-special $10.00 cake carrier, were given the program devoid of a program and seated ourselves in our designated-by-manager seats. Seeing that the meeting didn’t seem to be starting, I wandered around. There was a table lounging the right-side wall displaying liquidation items. The stage was arranged to look like a kitchen with many cupboards, a fridge and a functional stove. There were two pantries, which Charlie pointed out to me. One was a “before” filled with boxes and cans placed whichever which way, some powdery substance spilled on a shelf and generally looking like your basic food cabinet. The other was an “after.” It was filled with Tupperware containers of various shapes and sizes, all labeled and arranged for easy retrieval. My friend oohhed and aahhed as she showed me, pointing out the marvelous-ness of being orderly. I reminded her on our way back my already excessive orderliness and my personal efforts to accepting more mess in my life, recounting how an ex of mine once opened the food cupboard in front of me and started misplacing all the cans with the hopes of curing me. As for the rest of the stage, it was arranged like a normal kitchen that served to display the various uses of the various Tupperware products.

Forty-five minutes after our arrival, the presentation began. A lady with short hair and who spoke with a perpetual smile was our MC. She stood up front, next to a podium, and proceeded with what would become an extremely long and confusing presentation of the best Tupperware sales ladies, meaning those with the highest sales. She presented the highest sales of all the reps, then the highest sales per team, then the manager with the highest sales, then the highest sales in Canada and the ranking of the reps of this region who made that list, then the teams of the region that made the national list, and so on. (There were other classifications, but I was eventually quite confused with their distinctions and only clearly remember those listed above.) To make the presentation more dynamic, our MC invited each honoured rep to come forward so that we may see her and dutifully applaud her success. At one point I leaned over and asked Charlie if there’s any jalousie and competition between the Tupperware ladies. She assured me that no, they were all actually happy for the winners and encouraged their success. “How convivial,” I thought.

When our MC was done with this presentation, she proceeded with handing out bonuses. Once again, bonuses were attributed to the reps with the highest sales, then reps per region with the highest sales, then managers and then manager per region with highest sales. Once again, all recipients were invited to come forward to be recognized and applauded by all.

When the bonuses were handed out, it came time to honour the people at the meeting who had been the hostess of a Tupperware party. All hostesses of the month of November were invited to come to the front of the room (there were almost 30 in total). The MC then counted upward by $100.00 chunks. If a hostess had sold within a bracket, she was to raise her hand. The MC, who, poor thing, had trouble with any name that wasn’t French-Canadian, would ask the hostesses with raised hands how much money her party made for her rep. The monetary value stated, we would applaud her, after which she could return to her seat. Gifts were given to the hostesses who made the top-10 list (so the ten women who had earned their reps the most revenue). The “best hostess” was a young woman, who is surely about my age because we have the same name, it being one of the most popular names to give to baby girls in Quebec in the late seventies. Julie’s party sold more than $2000.00 worth of Tupperware gear. She apparently had transformed her basement into a mini-auditorium were 30 people assembled to listen to her rep.

When this was done, our MC came to the main event of the evening: the new Tupperware products that are included in the new Tupperware catalogue. These products were displayed on a table next to the podium. They had been hidden all evening with a sort of paper veil. Drum roll. The veil was removed. Heads peeped up to get a good glance at all the new stuff that can be sold. Our MC, all smiles, made a point of showing off each new product, stating its price and how it may improve any woman’s kitchen. She also explained the new exclusive offers for hostesses. “If you host one party, you get a thank you gift of the ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware of a value of $29.00 for free! If you host a second party or more, you get another ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware for free! So just by hosting two parties you get these two gifts, of a value of $58.00. That plus your 15% discount if you sell between $500.00-$1000.00, it’s like making $100.00 worth of cash!”

Meanwhile, one of the managers was kind enough bake a Christmas cake. She used one of the baking trays from the new catalogue, plus the angled measuring cup (which I admit is a great idea), the silicon spatula (which I eventually bought from the liquidation display, being aware of the virtues of silicon), the Quick Chef chopping container, and so on. The cake, made with a store bought mix and store bought icing, costs only $16.00 to make, quite a save for a Christmas cake! Apparently it was good. Unfortunately it didn’t feed the whole of us assembled and Tupperware ladies are quite voracious when it comes to cake. Then again, I’m sure Charlie wasn’t the only one to have made her way to the meeting without having had any supper, expecting it to last the regular 45 minutes rather than 3 hours. This would also explain why ladies started trickling out after an hour and a half.

After the cake was served, the meeting was coming to an end. Our MC conducted a raffle, which Charlie won. Then gifts were raffled to those in the room who had signed up to be hostesses. I won a thermos. Then gifts were given to those in the room who had signed up to be Tupperware ladies. I received 2 plastic glasses that these ladies are quite crazy about. And finally, it was over. I had arrived their a skeptic and left the meeting with a bag full of plastic stuff, a cake container so big I have no place to store it, a Tupperware party planned for the 7th of January and my name on Montreal’s list of Tupperware ladies.

Please don’t be fooled. My enrollment is due to the same reason that made me accept Charlie’s invitation: to please my enthusiastic friend. Yes, I admit, I did toy with the idea of being a rep for a party or two, just for the fun of it… “Maybe MP would be a good candidate… It could be fun, for a laugh.” But my aspirations soon waned. What I take away from that evening is rather a roomful of smiling-clapping ladies who go there to encourage and be encouraged. Seemingly secluded for various reasons, Tupperware offers them a social setting. What more, the ever-present dollar seems to reign over their ambitions. These ladies who become frenetic over stuff, over all the stuff they can buy at a rebate so it’s like saving money even if they are actually just spending it. And this stuff is to be used in the kitchen, or to receive guests and host parties, secluded in a home that can be an awfully lonely place when stuck their alone. Theirs is the cult of money, and the cult of what lasts forever. Boxes that bind and hold, made of material that’s freezer-safe, microwave-safe and resilient to wear and tear. Order. Everlasting.

I don’t mean to denigrate the product — which is quite good even if rather expensive and why oh why would somebody want that much plastic in their home! — or the positive aspects it brings to their employees. I’m sure many Tupperware ladies are very good sales persons who deserve their bonuses like any other sales persons. But the fact that the vast majority of Montreal’s regional Tupperware ladies are overweight and don’t appear as very stylish is hard to overlook. It is hard to imagine some of these ladies as sales reps for a more mainstream product, and harder to imagine them as part of the corporate world. One advantage to the trade heralded by some of these ladies is that they chose their own schedule and make more money than they did in their old jobs. Considering that a successful Tupperware lady makes about $1500.00 a month, after (Quebec and Canadian) taxes that roughly amounts to an annual salary of $25 000.00. Now why is it that these ladies, these good sales persons, can’t earn more than 25K/year in a “real job”? And why is it that they need an environment that claims to be so family-like? No, I take away from that evening an image of a roomful of smiling-clapping women whose smiles and encouragements seem filled with something empty, something rather sad. Indeed, there’s something problematic with this whole Tupperware affair.

is long really slow?

2005-12-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

I am now at page 333 of Albert Cohen’s 1110-page love story Belle du seigneur. Before starting it, I had wondered how someone could write 1110 pages on love. My friend Carole, who is French and has read the novel a few years ago, jokingly replied that the French can talk endlessly about love. Though that might be true, Cohen’s tactics are a bit different. Almost through the third of the story, all the reader knows is that the “seigneur,” a top official at a fictitious United Nations agency in Geneva, is awe-struck by a beautiful young woman, who is a fallen aristocrat and married to one of his employees. The plot is still in its beginning, while the narrative treads along oh-so slowly. Every detail of some specific situations is given. The dialogues and discussions are given in full. Cohen expands so thoroughly upon the behaviour and speech of his characters that the reader cannot but be submerged in his world, or more precisely: his criticism of his world. When Solal, our hero, presides over an assembly of the directors of the United Nations with the simple order of the day to address the General Secretary’s enquiry regarding “actions in favor of the goals and ideals of the United Nations,” Cohen aptly exposes the directors’ useless rhetoric (so as not to lose face) to such a useless question (to which the General Secretary did not even fathom an answer). Solal’s opinion of his daily farce is discreet throughout. The author expresses the idiocy of the situation by transcribing the directors’ empty statements, and then sums up his opinion by writing that the stenographer was voraciously transcribing the discussion, all muddled up by their talk because she was intelligent. Quite a reproof. And quite funny. But the author’s humour, criticism and irony would be lost if his text were to be truncated. It is his style that must be savoured in its length or never explored, discouraged or intimidated by the width of the book.

Which brings me to think about length. I read Vanity Fair last Christmas. When starting it I braced myself. “This book is long. I won’t have finished it in two weeks. Before beginning, I must promise to give it time, the time it’ll take.” As ridiculous as it might sound, it demanded a commitment. It is an absolutely delightful book, but, being a book of which the chapters were published once a month for a magazine over a period of several years, it does not conform in the slightest to our present perception of time.

Then I think of Memoirs of a Geisha, which I haven’t read, having bought Inoue Yuki’s version instead, but that many girl-acquaintances of mine have. I remember that the main criticism was its descriptions. “I’m really not interested in reading about some flower for about two pages.” Knowing what I know about Japanese culture, a two-page description of a flower is the least to be expected. They are a people who avidly pursue throughout the nation the bloom of their cherry trees, incorporating this race into their nightly newscasts. A society that seems dichotomist as far as time is concerned, they are able to embrace the slow and more than willing to reflect upon the beauty of nature.

My background in communication studies tells me that our reading patterns have greatly changed with the advent of new media: TV, films, video games. Ben recently read Mcluhan, a text I should revisit for what he says about the types of media. I remember him stating that reading is a visual medium whereas television is an auditory one. But about narrative? TV stories don’t give details about the surroundings. The person watching sees the environment so doesn’t need it to be described to her. Meanwhile, the show must last a maximum of 45 minutes. To keep the viewers interested for so many minutes, and to have them zap back to that station when the commercials are over, the story must be suspenseful. It is therefore completely plot oriented. Plus, a teaser of each segment is introduced in the preceding segment, which I’ll call the hook. (A plot and a tease, it almost sounds Québécois…)

To say that readers don’t want any details is false. No details equals a story with wholes in it, one that must be recreated in the reader’s mind in order to make sense — this is an idea I elaborate in my MA thesis, hence an example of such books would be Anne Stone’s Hush and Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood — which demands a lot of work on the reader’s part, much commitment, and often simply much too much. The (popular) reader wants the story told to her, yet in the simplest of ways. The work of the popular author is to gage the amount of detail given to make the story understood easily while advancing the plot, and possibly/ideally infusing it with some sort of personal style. In a way, the (popular) reader must know where she’s going while being teased the whole way through. It is the gauge of these writing devices that either make a novel an “easy read” or not.

Last summer I read that the humanities department (if I remember correctly) at McMaster University incorporated a new reading schedule for their undergraduate students. The aim is to form their students with an added general culture that should help them to better understand the world around them. All entering humanities undergrads were therefore to read M.G. Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Curious about what so many fresh minds would be considering as general culture, I picked up a copy of the book. I was encouraged by it being a national best seller and the winner of the 2003 Giller Prize. The premise is an exiled man of Indian heritage brought up in Kenya. Hiding within the snow banks of a Northern Canadian town, Vikram recounts his story. Each chapter consists of a lengthy bit on his upbringing in Kenya and then the tease: a few paragraphs written in the present and of the present, something about how he became the man he is. It is the tease because the reader must continue reading the long chronological story if she wants to understand how he became the horrible and worst money-laundering criminal of African history. Meanwhile, the development of the character, in this book quite directly linked to the plot, is deceptively one-dimensional. His life’s crisis revolves around the brutal slayings of two of his childhood friends. The narrator keeps coming back to this one event to epitomize the racial pressure in his country. Other perspectives are addressed but only lightly so as not to give too much food for thought or to muddle the reader with an overly polemic text. Also, this repetition works as a refresher for the subway readers who might not be disposed to give their full attention to such a long (400 pages) novel. The novel’s topic is interesting and, to its advantage, post-colonial. It’s writing is simplistic and plot oriented and contains successful tease tactics. It is a perfect combination for a fashionable award-winning novel. Not exactly what I look for in a novel, but I guess it’s up to me to be wary of bestsellers and prizewinners.

Then again, Cohen’s novel won the Académie française’s Grand Prize for novels in 1968.

good books or good readers?

2005-12-09T17:27:00.000-05:00

Some books are so unpleasant that one does not feel much inclined to spend large amounts of time with it, especially in one sitting. I’m reading such a book. Ben keeps asking me why I put up with it. I used to be obstinate with books. I would read a book I had started until the very end, no matter how much it annoyed me, or put me to sleep, or made me depressed. Then I met a guy who changed all that. I do not remember his name and surely wouldn’t recognize him if I were to see him in the street. We studied together, and during my first semester at l’UQAM in Literary Studies I would often go out for coffee with a group of classmates, of which he was part. One day we were talking about the reading of boring books and he said that if he doesn’t like a book, he just leaves it to its own like a meal one doesn’t appreciate and doesn’t force oneself to eat. And just like that, I was converted. You bore me: I leave you on the night table. Your writing seems unrefined: I laugh at you. You loose my interest: I discard you in a corner where you soon find the company of balls of dust and cat hair.

Of course, this contradicts my idea that it isn’t most books that are bad, but most readers that are. To be a good reader, one must be able to acquire a book, to tame it. The good reader must be a chameleon and be able to change herself to accommodate the world in which she immerses herself. She must adapt herself. She must learn to surf the writing and the story at hand. She mustn’t be lazy. There is no reward for the lazy reader; she will invariably end up picking up the same book over and over again, with, of course, a different title and a few changed narrative elements such as the setting and the name of the characters. Surely, it is nothing but ill will to put all the blame on the novel.

To accommodate my seemingly opposing views, I shall hypothesize that the rapport between the reader and the novel (or any other type of book or writing) is a relationship in its own right, as any other relationship between two people. Just as we are not always inclined, on a specific day and depending on our attitude at the time, to see a specific person, so it is with books. Also, as we sometimes meet a person on one occasion and are not particularly impressed by her, we can meet that same person on another occasion and find her interesting, or amusing, or she may even qualify as a potential friend, it is likewise for the books we pick up. To turn a relationship into something valuable from which we learn and grow, one must be prepared to invest one’s time, to keep an open mind, and to remain as understanding as possible (of course, there needs be a minimum of mutual affection). This is true for the people we meet as well as the books we read. And just as not all people are destined to be our friends, or even to affect us in the remotest of ways, some books can easily remain on our bookshelf unread, or may be discarded, or may never be bought at all. It would be utopist to believe that all relationships are worth our time, or to hope that they will all be rewarding. So energy must be given where in turn it might be found; and such investments might change over time depending on how one might change oneself.

As for the book I am presently reading, I have remained faithful to it for two main reasons: 1) I know that if I were to pick up another book to be read simultaneously, I would eventually neglect this one entirely before having finished it; 2) it is not so much a relationship with the book that I seek than one with its author. Indeed, one aspect of doing an MA that I greatly appreciated was being able to read the entire published work of two authors. This was made particularly clear to me while going through the oeuvre of Djuna Barnes, who covered different media and genres over three decades. I liked getting to know an author in such a way. It gave me the impression that I was following her through time, watching out for her evolution. I enjoyed noticing how her style changed and how parts of it remained the same over years of writing. It was fascinating. It was so fascinating that I have decided to do the same with Virginia Woolf, which now has me reading her first work of fiction: The Voyage Out .

This book is about a young cloistered British girl (she’s 24) who travels to the Argentines and is left in the care of her aunt, a woman who I suspect was written to a certain extent as a portrait of the author, who wishes to “bring her out.” In other words, she wishes to make a reasonable person of her. Rachel, the young girl, therefore discovers the world through the people who inhabit Santa Marina’s hotel, a flock of British travelers meant to portray the different levels of British society (not to say caste); it serves as a microcosm where our protagonist can meet, mingle, and make her mind up about these various people. It is long-winded and extremely daunting. I used to read prefaces and introductions though they bored me; now I read them though they tell me how the novel ends. The book’s Introduction states that this novel expresses Woolf’s “coming out” as a novelist. It is where she first worked out her style. Unfortunately, this is all too true: the novel reads like a long practice piece of social study and commentary that comes off much more precisely, and with much more wit and cleverness, in her subsequent novels. To top it off, her heroine dies at the end. I have no inherent problems with the death of the main character at the end of a story. I usually deplore the run-of-the-mill happy ending. The problem with this one is that it feels like Woolf had Rachel die simply to contradict the happy ending, and without being able to find a more original way to disrupt reader expectations she simply gave her a tropical illness that finishes her off. It seems so obvious and, hence, pointless. These are the workings of what I call an immature narrative.

I put up with this novel because I want to come to know its author. I’ve already read several of Woolf’s novels, but I wish to re-read them, to re-discover them, and to see where her style changes and where it stays the same. I want to watch her improve has she grows older and wiser, as her admiration for writing such as Joyce’s expands, and as she allows herself to make books rather than babies.

The next book on my list is Cohen’s Belle du seigneur, a classic French love-story. I am hoping its magic will blend well with Christmas, while keeping myself in check not to hope too much of it lest I cannot mold myself into a good enough reader for it, and end up disappointed.

tales and a cabbie

2005-12-05T00:09:00.000-05:00

I went to listen to stories tonight. A friend invited me yesterday. The event took place at the Sergent Recruteur brewery, one of Montreal’s several micro-brewery-cum-bars. I guess the word “tales” better translates “contes” than “stories” does. These tales were told by a French-Canadian man named Denis, who’s last name I don’t remember. He told mostly funny tales set a few hundred years back in rural Quebec. They involved men that go by the name of Fanfan, Jean-Guy or René Angelo, and most of them featured the Catholic god-fearing French-Canadian’s most threatening menace and enemy: le Yâble, known in English as The Devil. Going there, I was expecting to have Quebec folk-tales told me, some of which I know well but only because I’ve read them, my French-Canadian side not being peppered with story-telling uncles, though my mon’onque Jean-Guy could liven up family reunions with his accordion. I guess you can say that my roots are more musical than literary.

The friends I was with are French, and they claimed to perfectly understand the teller’s New France jargon, or rather old French Normand accent. I found it special because Denis spoke almost exactly like Ben’s father: the same tone, the same speech, the same facial expressions, and the same accent. It felt like I was sitting there listening to my boyfriend’s dad, though a more versed and long-winded version him. I had half a mind to ask the teller if he comes from the Bas St-Laurent region, but thought better of it. By the end of the show I started having stomach burns (due to my meager supper, I’m sure) and being uncomfortably hot (due to the heater next to which I was sitting). When the encore set was done, we quickly left, and I jumped into a taxi with several other girls.

The taxi driver was a large black man, quite dark of skin and with thick lips. He sat in a stoop, leaning towards me who left the back seats to the three other girls. We discussed the evening while the driver occasionally interrupted us. He asked one of the girls if she was French. He made a joke about the French being the audible minority. He was friendly though maybe a bit unrefined and I had the impression the girls did not particularly welcome his comments and interruptions.

When the two last girls were dropped off, who had paid the entire fair up to their place, the man continued towards my stop, the last one. He didn’t re-set the meter and I, always doubting others’ sincerity, asked him about it. He told me not to worry about it and that when we get to my place I’ll just pay the difference of the fair. He said that if he starts the meter again I’ll then be charged an extra 3,75$, and that he understands that I can’t pay it. The man had assumed, rather correctly, that I am a student. He said how he understands what it’s like to be a student seeing that he had been one for so long. I asked him what he studied. “Fine arts.” “What fine art? Painting?” Turns out he studied literature and afterwards got a degree in fine arts. He paints and sculpts. He said he then did a DEP, which is Quebec’s high school professional diplomat, in graphic design, but that he found the courses unsatisfactory because they did not delve into the subjects with enough depth. To this I agreed. Now he is working towards a college degree in graphic web work. At this point he asked me about myself, seeing that he was doing all the talking. So I said that I just finished my MA in English Literature.

“So you have read Shakespeare.”

“Yes.”

“And Edgar Allen Poe.”

“Yes.”

“And Stephen King.”

“Uuhh, no. But I do know of him.”

“Ah! You read the big names! Yes, I was told to read Shakespeare when I was a kid, but I never did. I was too busy reading Voltaire. But you know, that has been my downfall. I never learned English and if I would have learnt it, I wouldn’t have so many troubles as I do today.”

By this time we had reached my place but my cab driver, who’s mother, surely wanting to make a polite man of her son without any suspicions of his later trade, always told him not to leave a girl standing on the corner, found that we got there too quickly. So he talked on. He told me that if he knew English, he wouldn’t be stuck driving a cab to pay off his 35 000$ student loan. I replied that though knowing both languages in Montreal certainly helps, it is by all means not an easy ticket to a job.

“Well then what is the point of all this studying? It is purely for our own pleasure. To know more for our own intellectual advancements. But surely now, with your English and your MA, employers see that you are educated and want to give you work.”

“That’s actually not the case. Employers see my MA in Literature and wonder how I can possibly want to work a 9 to 5 good paying job. Surely I would rather be doing something more… literary.”

By now I was out the door and he was stooping lower in his seat to keep his eye on me while we talked. He told me how it is horrible that I can’t find a job, but that he is sure I’ll find something. When I suggested that the problem is that our values are off-track, he told me that he respects me. And then he said, “Quand tu te respecte et que tu trouve quelqu’un qui te respecte, là, tu deviens poète;” “When you respect yourself and when you find someone who respects you, then, you become a poet.” Of course I prefer hushing that voice in my head that might hear more in his comments of his respect for me than what honest propriety calls for, and prefer attributing these last wise words from a Montreal cab driver to Ben. That way I know that if I ever come to be called a poet, it will be in large part thanks to him.

reasons to be happy

2005-11-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Ben’s and my 3-year anniversary. I made him supper: salmon tartar, steamed vegetables & salad, and ice cream with fudge brownies for desert. Nothing extraordinary. I also slightly transformed our living room/office into a green (his favourite colour) love shack and there offered him an auditory experience. I had picked up Jeck, Yoshihide and Tétrault’s “Invisible Architecture #1,” a voyage in itself. The night before we went to see Wilde’s The Importance of being Ernest, which was playing at the Saidye Bronfman Centre. I had never seen any of his plays performed. I much enjoyed it.

Today, I feel like I have so much to say, so much of which I don’t feel like sharing here.

What I will say is what I would like to know: what makes people happy? What makes you happy? Where do you find your sense of accomplishment? Is that even a priority of yours? How much of that comes from work, i.e. what pays your rent?

I wish more people read my blog so that I could actually get some answers. In the meanwhile, my question is “out there.” I throw it out into space and hope for a few answers to shower down on me some way or another.

a day in the mall

2005-11-25T13:27:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, Carmen and I met at the Complex Desjardins. We sat on various benches, going from one place to another to stop by the pharmacy, then buy a hot chocolate, and then simply to sit. We had settled in the food court where I was showing her pictures when this man, who seemed like he was merely walking towards the exit, stopped next to us and says to Carmen, “Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that you are a very pretty girl.” Needless to say, he interrupted our conversation. We had not looked at him nor had we tried to attract his attention in any way. We were just sitting there minding our own business. Having addressed Carmen, he then glances at me and says, “And you are also a very pretty girl.” We acknowledged him by looking at him, without saying anything and expecting him to go his own way. But he stays there next to us and tells me, “Give me your hand.” (In French, because he was a French Canadian, to give one’s hand connotes a handshake more precisely than it does English.) By then I had had a good look at him. He appeared stained, like a man who isn’t necessarily dirty but looks as if he cannot clean himself of some sort of accumulated filth. The creases of his skin were marked by an unnatural brown. He was thin enough, and his built seemed like that of a tense man, with tight tense muscles wrapped around solid and angular bones. His eyes were round and protruded from his skull. They had an intense look about them. Something about him was off, so I naturally answered no to his request, which he then repeated. I said no a second time. His hand was outstretched towards me, waiting to receive mine. He repeated another time, with a hand gesture punctuating the air and his voice becoming harder, “Give me your hand.” Finally I did, because I felt he was becoming aggressive and did not want Carmen and me to be in any worse a situation. He took it, shook it, and then brought it towards his face as he bowed to me. I tensed up. Maybe he had planned to kiss it, to show that he is the image of some sort of gentleman, but he could surely feel the stiffness of my arm. He brought my hand to his forehead where he rested my ring to his brow for a few seconds. He then let it go and left.

I gave him my hand to get ride of him. I gave in to this shady stranger to avoid a potential reprimand more offending than the original request. Within a few seconds, I negotiated worse case scenarios and acted accordingly. But when the man had left, Carmen assuring me that she watched him go up the escalators and out the building, I became angry. Why did I have to negotiate about what I want to do with my own body? Sure, one can say that the man meant no harm, he simply wanted to compliment two pretty ladies. One can say that I overreacted, that I am overcautious and untrusting, as all city dwellers eventually become. But then again, why should I give my hand to a man I don’t know, who is rude enough to interrupt my conversation and that I don’t instinctively trust? Why must I, as a pretty woman, be put in such position? To give my hand might be harmless, but if I don’t want to, why should I be made to? Why is it that I loose power over my will and my body to assure its safekeeping from the demands of others upon it? Because of his aggressivity, his desire was met, while my will and my body were transgressed. Shouldn’t I have the most rights upon my body? And wasn’t he being rather un-gentlemanly by not respecting my will?

When he left, Carmen said to me that she always becomes defensive in such situations. Through the whole scene she did somewhat look like a cat, crouching back, watchful, and ready to attack. I don’t think men realize what potential threats they can be. A dark night. An alley. A night out boozing when you start talking just a bit too loud and act just a bit too forcefully. A tone of voice. I hand gesture. Mindlessly walking from the bus stop to your apartment in the evening, walking just a bit too close the woman ahead of you. So many times a man might be causing the woman next him to tense up, or look back, or hasten her step. Even the nicest and most harmless man, one completely oblivious to any threat he might pose, can cause caution. A separation of worlds brought on by our bodies. How strange this separation: the men oblivious to it all and the women defensive of each and every one of them. How strange and how lucky they are to be able to walk around at night and speak to strangers without that slight but ever-present fear, somewhat crouching back in case she needs to attack.

me and my IUD

2005-11-23T15:57:00.000-05:00

Something quite significant has happened to me recently: I lived through the most painful experience of my life; I had an IUD installed 2 weeks ago.

The reasons of my going down this birth-control route were many: you don’t need to pick it up every month, which is convenient when travelling, on the long-term, it’s economic and, especially, I preferred a more mechanical system than a chemical one, of which the long-term effects doctors cannot seem to come to a consensus.

For years, IUDs were not installed in women who had not had children, such as myself, because the cervix wasn’t considered naturally dilated enough. Now, for some reason, that no longer causes any problems. The procedure is simple enough: first, the doctor freezes the cervix, which involves an uncomfortable prick, much like getting your gums frozen at the dentist’s, with the difference of it being done way up between your legs. This is supposed to make the whole process less painful (so woe on the woman who goes “natural”). After this, I believe a straw like device is inserted through the cervix into the uterus to create a passage for the IUD. The latter is then pushed up into the uterus, its cross-bars are opened to form a T and the straw-device is removed. The doctor must then cut the cord to a suitable length that will permit the IUD to be removed but not be too bothersome during intercourse.

My gyno, a very sweet woman, had warned me that the putting in place of the IUD would feel much like two very big menstrual cramps, one when inserting the straw-thing and the other when the device itself is placed. The term menstrual cramp was not one that sufficiently prepared me for the pain I would experience. It was like a menstrual cramp, but “very big” is an understatement. The pain was magnificently overbearing. Starting from my womb, I felt a menstrual cramp that had exploited, the repercussion of which resonated throughout my body. Cramps in my quads almost paralysed my legs. My head spun as it realized the amplitude of the pain, and the fact that it was not stopping. I didn’t scream. I just cried, repeating over and over again “ça fait ma.” My doctor pressed her hand against my stomach, a welcomed gesture I am not sure was medical or empathetic. She had installed everything as fast as she could, but the cord was left to cut. I was bleeding and didn’t know what to do with my body that could hardly move due to the pain as well as the after-shock of the pain, lying on the medical table tensed and limp at the same time. I asked my doctor to get my boyfriend, who was waiting in the reception area.

Strange thoughts occur to you when you experience such physical pain, like the thought of unfairness that it is always the woman who must suffer so. Or the thought that anything coming in or going out of ‘there’ is unnatural, that a uterus must be left on its own and is always better off when barren. I resolved never giving birth, never getting an abortion and never taking out the IUD, which is as painful though apparently not as long as putting it in. Also, the sublime effect of pain, and how it can never be properly written, as I have not properly written it here. What is pain written and has anybody ever accomplished it? Could I try? Could I have a man be more than sympathetic to it, could I make him understand?

Ben came to the room. With hindsight, he must have left quite useless, the sweet man. After just lying where I was for about ten minutes, it was time for me to make the effort to stand up; there were other patients after me. Ben tried helping me, doing his best supporting me while trying to put on my panties and place a sanitary pad in them, which I am pretty sure he never did before in his life. His efforts, though appreciated, were all wrong and he seriously got on my nerves – which had me guess at what delivering women feel. Who would have thought a few stickers could be so complicated? Meanwhile, I was leaning lower and lower on my doctor’s desk, sweating cold and, apparently, as white as a sheet. With my underpants finally on, I was sat down, my doctor raised my legs unto her desk and gave me a shot of something that was meant to regulate my heart beat or blood flow, one of the two, I can’t remember which. After ten more minutes I painfully made my way to a rest room with a sole reclining chair. By this time, the endorphins kicked in. Hugely sarcastic due to the ever-present pain in my stomach and legs, I confused Ben even more by cracking one joke after another. And it dawned on me that if instead of getting an IUD installed I had just went through labour to produce a baby boy, his name would be Horace. I had never thought of that name before and I don’t particularly like it, but at that moment I would have growled and screeched with a determined stubbornness at anybody who would have opposed it. Horace it would be. Weird.

We eventually had to leave the doctor’s office. The man at the door downstairs was kind and brought out a chair for me to sit on while we waited for the taxi he had called for us. As for the taxi drive home, I could have done without it. Every bump and every sharp stop, of which there were many in this cab, produced a new shock wave from the core of my belly to my limbs. I withheld my tears as I withheld shouting at him to drive more gently, though my shout surely would have exited my lips as a murmur.

This was on a Wednesday. Being over-zealous as I tend to be, I had a gum graft scheduled the next day. I made my way to the dentist’s very slowly, hardly able to walk. It was the third graft I’ve had done so the procedure no longer intimidated me. On the other hand, my body surely would have appreciated a rest from pain, shock and pressure. I did nothing the whole of that week-end except rest.

I share this today because I am presently going through a related experience: my first menstruation since I’ve had my IUD. I am cramped longer than I have ever been. But that’s OK, nothing some Motrin can’t take care of. Yet this is a new experience. My body isn’t reacting as it usually does. And I have these strange pains in my womb. Not just the pressure of a menstrual cramp, like the womb being squeezed. Now, as there is squeezing, I at times feel a sharp pain from the insides, like blades inside of me jutting out. Sharp and acute, within the persistent pressure of a cramp. In my right side, and my cervix maybe? I can’t place it, but my body rolls up around it like a coil, searching heat and for it to stop yet somehow expecting a new pang, defensively. Menstrual pain is tricky. Though I am not used to this kind and have no idea how my body’s contracting will accommodate this new mechanical device, I think I will go for a walk. Would I be old-fashion in thinking that a walk might realign my insides, have things fall into place and become normal again?

from Plautus to M. Bean

2005-11-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Comedy, slap-stick style, hasn’t changed since the time of the Roman Republic. I learned this in last Thursday’s Latin class. It got me thinking that humans, laughing at the same things for the past millenniums, come to appear like fish turning around in a small round aquarium. The human race lives in a bubble, and we keep repeating ourselves, from the patterns of dominant nations (i.e. Rome versus USA) to the minuteness of our humour. If there is someone looking from the outside in on us, how unoriginal we must seem. How elementary and ant-like.

it's cold and it's winter now

2005-11-19T08:20:00.000-05:00

It’s 8:30 Saturday morning. It’s turned cold, and the world outside looks isolated and sterile. Light snow is falling to the ground. Small and light snow flakes. The sun has risen but hides behind grey clouds. Everything is beautifully quiet.

I’ve been doing a language exchange with a lovely Mexican stage actress who is in Montreal for the year with her husband. We meet once a week and chitchat, at times in English and at times in Spanish. I find we get along quite well, which is a good coincidence. Yesterday being the first true winter day, we spoke for a while about the weather. I love watching someone discover this place. She asked me what I loved about the winter. I told her of the whiteness but forgot to mention the quiet and sense of peace. I told her of snowstorms, a concept she hasn’t yet encountered. I also told her my idea of the effects of climate on temperament. I have a hypothesis that Quebecers, and maybe to an extent Canadians, are generally temperate in their views (political & social) as a direct result of the climate we live in. It being so extreme, with hot and humid summers and freezing winters, and so uncomfortable, we don’t look for extremes in other parts of our life. We seek a certain level of comfort because we know physically, and maybe without consciously knowing it, how difficult it is to live at one end of the spectrum or the other.

At this, Carmen brought up the fact that here, for the first time, her husband and her look at the weather report before venturing outside. And she questioned weather this constant need to relate one’s physic with the exterior climate changes one’s way of relating to nature, and to what’s exterior to the self. I had never thought of that. For me, watching the weather channel is a given, which I take for granted. She also remarked that she found that the warmer weather in her country might have a negative effect on some, rendering them lazy. “That age old Latin stereotype,” I said, but she believes it to be true for a certain amount of the Mexicans. She says that if one doesn’t need to work hard to eat, just needs to stretch out one’s hand to reach for food, than they don’t take to working hard for that food. This I wouldn’t know, but as she was speaking I was imagining the generations of Québécois mothers in their kitchen working day-in and day-out on preserves to last the winter.