Red Burrito

Have you ever had one of those mega burritos (from a chain) that are not even vaguely resemblant of any Mexican food, let alone Mexican burritos, and enjoyed it? Well I just went to Red Burritos and... and... I was in heaven. I know sometimes I can be ‘pas de class’!

Everybody Moves On...

So I received this mail today about my previous experiment’s regular meeting and there was this agenda rich with contributions. It feels weird to see this. I was so involved in this experiment and now I have left, and life seems to go on there without anyone so much as blinking (not that I want every thing to come to a drop dead stop just because I left... but it does feel weird). I wonder how long it will be before I will feel this way about Montreal. I’m sure they miss me, just as much as I do them... On the one hand I dig the gypsy in me... the ability to be detached, to just pack up and move... on the other hand it would be nice to belong to some place....

But now old friends are acting strange,
they shake their heads, they say I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained
in living every day.
- Joni Mitchell in Both Sides Now

Today turns out to be an extra gloomy day - I am thinking, today is Wednesday, and shouldn’t I go to my club du conversation du français? Well, if I were in Montréal... I miss them so much... people at the atelier... the laughter, the honesty, the bond...

Winter coats in Vancouver

It’s getting cold in Vancouver and I am still in denial (or maybe not in denial... but I refuse to wear a winter coat anyway). So seeing me in my thin sweater,

office mate : “are you going to walk to the house like that?”
me : “yeah, why not?”
office mate : “err... you must have had a winter coat in Montréal, no?”
me “precisely my point, I would be an embarrassment to all of Montréal if I wore a winter coat in *Vancouver*”
office mate : ”well I am from Minnesota, do you see me going around in a thin sweater?”
me : “well you are an embarrassment to your people”
office mate : “oh for fuck sake... just get in the car”
me : “ok, I’ll take the ride, but not because I am cold... (brrr)”

and to think that I seriously thought of throwing away my winter coat on the day I arrived in Vancouver... I mean like throwing it away in the garbage... I thought, “well it is old, besides I don’t think I am going to need it in Vancouver... well at least not this winter...” It is old alright, but, man am I glad I kept it... my faithful winter coat...

Unfulfilled Love

“only unfulfilled love is romantic” - Maria Helena in Vicky Christina Barcelona I feel my love to the people (and by people I don’t just mean Montréalers, but all those people I met here in Montréal) and the city of Montréal was very fulfilled... hence I go with a less heavy heart than I left Minneapolis... Or it may just be the stress of wrapping up a whole condo, putting it on sale and moving out is still overwhelming me, that I don’t have the time to hunker down in a corner and cry...

Home Sweet Home

It was a good condo, my first condo, the first place that I ever owned... It is like this that I first fell in love with it 2.5 years ago, at its barest, it was still the prettiest place I had ever seen. Over the months it gained character through my part physicist, part neo hippy personality, and it was filled with the voices of many people, mostly friends, but sometimes not so friends, but always people who were so interesting, people from all over the world. Boy friends, potential boy friends, just friends... Dinners, drinks, pot, conversations, political, sociological, moral... The sun shining ever so brightly, it is a perfect reflection of my life here in Montréal - a life lived to the fullest, no regrets... just only not enough time... I could easily come and live in Montréal again and find things to keep my awe.... What a charming little condo....

A few days after I moved to Vancouver, I would look at its pictures, and I think I can probably not stand to see it for real one more time... I might just call off the sale...

René Lévesque

Enough mush mush.. time to vent...

So we were walking in the parliamentary grounds... and there were all these statues of former Québec premiers, among them, my favorite and most respected, René Lévesque. I know he was a vocal advocate of QC separation, but not in this racist exclusive way this Marois woman does. I have always claimed that it is hard to be a separatist without being a racist, with the one exception of René Lévesque. Besides he fits my ideal human - he gave his life for the cause that he thought was right (and actually under him I would have voted for separation, if I hadn’t known what crazy successors he would have, and Marois is not alone, Parizeau also comes into mind...), lived a common man’s life smoking and having café in your neighborhood coffee shops (in those good old days when you could smoke inside coffee shops and politicians could exist without body guards) and also apparently dressed shabbily and smoked his life away (as evidence by the missing button on his statue). To clarify, I don’t care too much for smoking and being the health freak I am prefer non-smoking, but I advocate the right of an adult human being to do what they want... and smoking does impart some romantic idealism.... :) So anyway, this group of people walk up to his statue, clearly at least some of them were Quebecois francophone, just said a couple jokes and posed for photos, hugging the statue or cradling their head in his larger than-life palms... and they did not say a word, about the struggles of the man who fought so they could walk freely and speak French without embarrassment, here in Québec. I wonder what René Lévesque would have said about that episode... probably taken a deep breath of nicotine and said “c’est la vie”... I on the other hand am disgusted...

Bye bye Québec

In a fitting tribute to the place I called home for more than two years, the place I felt most in sync with its people, I spent the last weekend as I did my first weekend here. That warm summer first weekend in June of 2008, I went to Québec City, by train, for a conference (like I wrote here). This cold snowy last weekend in February, I went there again, by train. It wasn’t planned to be all nostalgic... I just realized this while I was on the train... That first weekend I took the train with a whole bunch of people who were in awe of me (and me of them) and we seemed really to like one another. Today two of them are all but estranged, two of them remain close friends... Today I took the train with my best friend, (so best that I will list him as my emergency contact in all the bureaucratic documents in Vancouver and Japan) and my closest confidante. What will our future bring?