Tag: montreal

Montreal: -very- rough draft plans

Sunday : Breakfast with Lung in Outremont with Jamieson & co, shopping at Simon’s, duck in a can dinner at Au Pied de Cocho w. Mike Kitt & Lung, dessert there w. Vanessa & Dee, tea and cider after w. Mike, Dee, & Vanessa at Laika on St. Laurent.

Monday: Shopping at the Le Chateau Warehouse, (coats acquired!), Michel’s studio, sandwiches at Atomic.

Tuesday : Breakfast at l’Avenue De Plateau, visit with Michel & Julie at the studio, then Silophone, Body-worlds, and Avesta’s Turkish dinner w. Christine, take-home cake.

wednesday: biodome, pecha kucha at SAT [Société des arts technologiques], dinner at Michel & Julie’s, dancing at Koi w. Dee and Mike Kitt.

thursday: Patati Patata & La Croissanterie Figaro w. Dee and Vanessa, new moon twilight opening w. lung and melanie at star city at 10pm.

friday: write Lung’s Canada Council Grant application essay, dinner at dee’s w. vanessa

saturday: brunch at fuchsia w. christine & Dee, Juliette et Choclat on St-Denis, borrow camera flash, find a teapot for Melanie, dinner at La Academie on St. Laurant, Welcome Winter Prom! w. Mark Berube at 5386 St Laurent

sunday: Pick up picture frames at Zone on St. Denis, Michel et Julie’s wedding, Resevoir, Le Banquis

monday: Work, terible headache, Best Croissants Ever at Au Kouign-Amann, just west of the Mont-Royal Métro stop near Mont-Royal and Rue Drolet,

tuesday: Jean-Talon Market, Santropol, Santropol w. Christine, and animated movie, Max and Mary.

wednesday: pictures with Michel & Julie, Frank Wimart’s movie, “c’est notre histoire” 7 pm, cinematheque, corner of st. denis & maisson, projection room: fernando, dinner at Confusion w. Mike & friend, dancing at Passeport.

thursday: CEILING FALLS ON BED, Breakfast at Le Cafeteria w. Dee & Vanessa, St. Joseph’s Oratory w. Vanessa, The Musee Des Beaux Arts (Waterhouse til February!), dinner & dessert at Rockeberry w. Dee, Michel, Julie, and Vanessa, hotel check-in, dancing at Passeport, tea.

friday: fly back to vancouver

saturday: bus to seattle w. Tony, That 1 Guy, dinner at 13 coins w. Mike, Cherise, Heatbox Aaron, Rafael.

now to figure out how to permanently move to seattle

f4925624

september, seattle, fire spinning at gasworks park

One of the most amazing things about this trip, past the fact that it’s happening at all, is that Tony and I are going to get to spend an entire two weeks together, the longest period of time in each other’s company we’ll have had since we met in 2002. Once he gets off today’s bus, we’ll be inseperable until November 29th.

Tony’s such a fox

Tony

NASA CONFIRMS WATER ON THE MOON.

-::-


Somehow somewhere in the next twenty-four hours, the maddening mess around me has to coalesce into a travel ready me. I’ve no idea how I’m going to accomplish this, as I’ve put all my warm clothes into a suitcase and discovered it’s still half empty, even when it contains a sleeping cat. Apparently over time I’ve renounced being an Owner of Sweaters, or even of Pants or Long Sleeved Shirts, essential ingredients during the last biting Montreal winter I gleefully survived. I suppose today I’ll take a bit of time, disguised cleverly as my lunch hour, and unearth some, though I’m not entirely sure anymore where such things are sold. The Le Chateau sale place is close, though, as is Winners, and if I don’t find anything there, I might as well give up until I can go shopping along Rue St. Denis or St. Catherine’s, a plan that gets shiner with every passing hour.

Most of our plans for Montreal are the shiny sort, (Go Directly To Santropol, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Get $200 Dollars, and the equally obvious Purchase A Warm Coat Already You Foolish Girl), though they did a bit of an unexpected shimmy recently, shaking off the drive down to NYC with Melanie and Lung, leaving us with some uncertainty in regards to our adventures. I remain optimistic, however, even as I face the terrible pressure of being an inexpert wedding photographer, as according to a quick poll over on Facebook, which very quickly took on some serious consistency, everyone’s favourite thing to do in Montreal is eat delicious food, a skill at which I am pleased to claim to be somewhat of a master. Om nom, om nom indeed.

ITEMS STILL MISSING: warm clothes, camera flash, ear cuff, bras, ipod cord, jammies, one lime stocking.

-::-

A beautiful picture of a crescent Earth, taken by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft.

poking a mammal with a stick

His smile crackles, a semi permanent halo. I watch him from the window as he jauntily walks to work, fizzing with the knowledge that I am lucky, so lucky, to have him in my life. As he turns to wave, vanishing behind a building, I smile back, and mock groom the fluffy ears of our shared white monster hat. I love him so much in this moment, as I am sure he loves me, and with that thought, he turns, pouncing from behind the corner with his hands up like paws, trying to surprise me, as if his backpack hadn’t been poking past the bricks as he hid, the feet of a child who hasn’t quite grasped the intricacies of being unseen.

-::-

Hundreds of free animated all kinds of films now available through National Film Board’s new iPhone app.

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We’re going to Montreal soon, for Michel‘s wedding to a very clever woman I’m not sure I’ve met and to visit with Lung and Christine and Dee. I’ve hit that place in my travel plans where the imminent departure date has begun to make me nervous. Do we know where we’re staying? Where we’re going? Does everyone know when we get there? Daft concerns, the sort of fretting that helps no one. If I don’t know yet, I soon shall, so put a lid on it, will you brain? It’s not a panic so much as a very low grade adrenaline hum, as my subcutaneous tissue tenses in anticipation, as if I’m about to run in a race, pounding the pavement to music playing slightly too loud but just under the edge of my hearing.

itinerary-ary-ary

Scientists have discovered the monogamy gene.

“Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.” Buckminster Fuller

Yesterday was my sixth month anniversary with David. To celebrate, we went for La Cafeteria for breakfast with Michel, picked up the now-fixed polished aluminum deer head we brought for Christine, (a bit of antler broke off in transit), did our laundry, had pumpkin spiced hot chocolate, went for a delicious pick-your-own-pasta dinner, met with Mélanie and Mike Kitt, then for pie with them and Michel, and decided to move in together.

Nice how I slipped that in, hey? So yes, when David and I return to Vancouver this week, no matter that he just moved, we’re moving him again, this time into my place as Karen leaves for Main St. We’ll be a house of two people, two cats, a rabbit, and a library. I’m strangely looking forward to it, even with the pre-knowledge of Just. How. Heavy. His. Book. Boxes. Are. No one’s ever moved in with me before, not really, not for more than a couple of weeks. I’ve always moved in with them, the proverbial them, the lovers, partners, the boys/men. I think it’s going to be interesting, and less of an adjustment than I might suspect.

Today we’re getting on a train to Toronto with the glorious Christine, who last night came home from work dressed as a sexy ninja, because that is how awesome she is. Once there, we’ll be meeting up with my fellow-monarch-in-bad-timing Shane Koyczan, who just happens to be in Toronto this weekend, and painting the town some sort of appropriate colour, as I glory in being home for a weekend.

For the double-plus, Nuit Blance is running this weekend, so the current plan is to hang out glorying tonight and most of Saturday, then spend as much of Saturday night as humanly possible wandering the all night arts festival with Shane and the funtastic duo that is Zaiden, Will and Mellissa, before breakfasting somewhere delicious and catching an early Sunday morning bus west, back towards Vancouver.

om nom nom nom

Something I can’t seem to get over is how much mind-bogglingly delicious food there is in Montreal, for incredibly cheap.

Today I’m breakfasting on left-over’s from last night’s heavenly Turkish dinner at Avesta, (2077 rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest), and the lamb and the lavash bread, (that they make fresh, right in the window), and the everything is still so tasty that it’s shutting down my ability to process any other input. David apparently just said something to me, but I was too busy communing with my food to even notice. Oh. My. Mercy. Is it ever freaking good. The lavash bread, especially, is an entirely thrilling experience, which sounds insane until you try it hot from the grill. All dignity vanishes as you stuff it into your mouth, your eyes closing in appreciation.

Yesterday we had the foresight to bring a Santropol Midnight Spread sandwich home to be breakfast. I’m not sure if we’ve ever had a better idea. I love Santropol’s sandwiches so much that I was actually disappointed that they were out of posters for sale. I want to be able to put up their advertising in my home. They are that perfect, that delicious, that absolutely addictive. If they catered a war, the war might end. “I’m going to shoot you. Mr. Enemy!” “Wait, have this sandwich first!” “Well, actually, this is pretty good. Thank you! You are my new best friend.”

And I got to have it for breakfast. In bed.

when you’re jonesing, you’re jonesing

Stephen Fry video birthday card to the Free Software Foundation’s GNU project

Tonight I leave for Seattle, which might not be the most clever thing I’ve ever done, considering that next week we leave for back east, (for which I have barely prepared for), but the ticket is bought, the plans are made, and I can’t help but look forward to it. A group of us are going dancing tonight, there’s ANACHROTECHNOFETISHISM tomorrow, then then Nicole rides into town with her imaginary boyfriend in time for Eliza‘s solo show on Saturday which we plan to follow with a night of sci-geek concertry at the Funhouse.

Next week, David and I leave for Montreal, (on the same bus as Karen New, coincidentally enough), and make or break our relationship as we travel together, nonstop for two weeks, six days of which will be spent on in transit, knees together, prairies outside. We’ve had a lot to work out since he took off on me at the folk fest, which hurt him more than it did me, and as he finds it significantly more difficult than I do to communicate, my patience has been eroded away, until I can’t bear to bring anything up anymore. I suspect that being trapped together in a bus will be, at least in part, a last ditch attempt to see what intimacy we can bring back from the ashes of his insecurity. Heavy, annoying, and heart-felt, I know.

Thankfully, there will be little stop overs in Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, and Ottawa! Yay!

In Calgary, Gavin and Michael might track us down for tea, in Winnipeg, my cousin Francis is going to swing by, and I might be lucky enough to reconnect with Darren in Ottawa. One thing remains, however, does anyone here live in Regina?