December 5, 2023
2023-12-21 09:36
Today has been an eventful day, easily the most eventful of the trip so far: it’s nearly 4AM on the 6th now, and the day hasn’t ended. I just got back. I am well and drunk, and it’s far too late to write about any of this. Let me try again tomorrow, or later. Perhaps on the plane. I don’t know when the next time will be: this end of the trip is so compressed, and there is so much happening that these last days, as I look back at them (I’m back in Vancouver now, I couldn’t even finish this on the...
December 4, 2023
2023-12-19 23:39
I am in Cafe Olimpico on St-Viateur. This is a place I’ve wanted to go since the time when I lived here but have never before got around to visiting. It’s good. Old-fashioned decor, the way cafes used to be in the golden ages, but shiny and loved not a speck of dust; not a theme park either, this is a neighbourhood cafe (even if there’s the odd souvenir to take)—it’s busy, but not overcrowded (I’m able to get a table both times I’m here, no trouble; it’s a comfy kind of busy, a bustle), and frie...
December 18, 2023
2023-12-18 23:47
Sitting now in Grounds for Coffee, at what had been the last free table in the place, with a chai latte. It’s five o’clock, and I’m here largely because I wasn’t in the mood to just collapse and be tired in my pyjamas having done all that I needed to do today.
Or, most of what I needed to do. The minimum I could tolerate having gotten done.
I sound silly; I am silly. It’s prep for Christmas, plus some more work on my website. It has an “About Me” page now, and a couple more backlogged po...
December 3, 2023
2023-12-18 15:26
This was the morning of Montreal’s first snowfall of the season. I felt blessed to be there for it: it had been six years since I’d been present for a first snowfall here.
I laid in for awhile in the morning, staring out at the closed curtains the street traffic was behind. I don’t know how I knew there was snow out there, but I did, or maybe that’s a false memory (but a good one, so let me have it.) I think it was actually peaceful, despite my heavy eyes. Then the fishhooks came—I remember ...
December 16, 2023
2023-12-18 15:26
I am still drowning in the backlog of Montreal stuff, but I’d still like to try to keep writing new stuff for this. Backlogs were kinda not part of the original idea of this, and I’m unsure to respond to the existence of such a thing.
Go with the flow, like one always does. Nothing is its own original idea.
Went to Corbin’s birthday party today, after work. It would’ve been the last of my work shifts before a day off, before, but I took that PC shift so now I’m working tomorrow. At least no...
December 2nd, cont
2023-12-17 19:49
This will be a sort of feverish series of fragments about the last 24 hours or so.
I am just sitting down before a poetry reading in a still-quiet bar on St-Denis just above St-Joseph (Bar La Marche à côté—very Francophone, I feel although I’m not equipped to judge) sipping a Cheval Blanc (I can talk about beers here: we don’t sell any of these) and waiting for people to arrive. I was just nearly run over by one of those snow-clearing vehicles, but I managed to leap into a snow bank and her...
December 15, 2023
2023-12-15 21:07
I am very tired, but I would still like to write something. It’s been a few days.
I’m doing that week of 7am shifts, and I accepted a sixth shift in a row—Sunday, nine hours, as a PC. I wanted the PC shift, and I thought it would be better to have Monday off, rather than Sunday.
Meanwhile, I’m working on editing and expanding my Montreal writing. It’s turning into something. I don’t know if something good, but something. I've been enjoying it. Sort of. It's also been a pain, at t...
December 12, 2023
2023-12-12 21:05
First shift of a week of 7am shifts today. That means I get up at 5am, make breakfast, chug two coffees, then be out the door to get a bus at 5:45.
It’s not so bad if you get enough sleep. I don’t always get enough sleep. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the full eight. It’s too unusual a time for me to have to go to sleep.
I got six. That’s pretty good, for the first one of these shifts. It’s usually more like four and half.
Did my shift, got some Christmas shopping done on t...
December 10 & 11
2023-12-11 15:37
Rode out all the way to Coquitlam yesterday, all the way across down on the B-line and then all the way along the Millennium line to Lefarge Lake (I can’t even call that across town, although that would be simpler, because its going even further than that), because I was invited to meet up and see the Christmas Lights there. With one of my friends who I’ve been having trouble connecting with for over a month—this happens. So I wanted to go hang out with them finally, and, plus, I felt I would on...
December 9, 2023
2023-12-11 15:36
Not done yet. Soon.