‹ Back

Note: Wrote this on the airplane back to Vancouver, to fill in the missing day. It’s not really a proper diary entry, but:

 

Woke up with jet lag and a hangover. This waking up happened very slowly, over a period of about a couple hours—I kept falling back asleep before I finally force myself into the shower. Jetlag will do that to a person, seeing as my body thinks its 5 and not 8.

 

During this period, I hear from my friend Matt, who I  wanted to see while I was here—he proposes brunch. I invite him to the place I was just about to go to for breakfast. He agrees. I have that shower and then go out to have a walk until its time to arrive at Le Vieux St-Laurent.

 

No coffee until I get there—I haven’t found out where the coffee maker is yet.

 

We have a good breakfast/brunch, stuffed together at a tiny table. It’s a 70s-style diner place, wonderful. With huge portions. I came here two or three times when I was here in May. I’ll always remember it because the guy who brought me to my table the first time was from Surrey, and my waitress used to work at the same place as my best friend’s dad. Stuff like that will etch itself inside you.

 

I got a greek omelette, because I thought maybe that would help with my hangover, he gets ornate waffles with one egg on the side (for protein). We talk about website design, our jobs, and etc. I don’t remember it all from the vantage point of the plane back to Vancouver, which is where I’m really writing this, but I remember it was lovely. Good to see him: we were never super close, but I hope to see him every time I’m in town. Good guy. He has an excellent website about the Montreal Metro that I knew about even before I met him (https://www.metrodemontreal.com/) that helped build up my transit nerdery. Montreal’s a good city for that anyway—you should see the work they put into each station. You can, because the website has pictures.

 

Then I go back to the apartment, take a look at the novella I mean to start work on while I’m here, (hopefully today), locate the coffee maker and verify also that there are grounds, grab a reusable shopping back and set out again for Segal’s. Get some groceries there—just minimal stuff, so that I can be sure I’ll finish it while I’m there.

 

Get a coffee on the way back, Dispatch on the corner of Duluth. The bag I chose to take with me is falling apart, so I carry it carefully so as not to risk everything smashing on the pavement. (This is a foreshadowing of what will happen with my suitcase at the other end of the trip). I put the groceries away, and then sit down with my coffee to write.

 

I’m working on the hellish second chapter of the thing: a feverish 1st person ramble. It’s the only thing I really deeply care about finishing while I’m here, because there are so many edits and so many knots to untie in it, and there are so many additions to copy out of my notebook. I managed to get started on it the night before at Bar Suzanne, which was wonderful, and I badly want to get past it today. And I do make some progress smoothly, about two albums worth (I measure my time working by how many albums I can listen to all the way through). But then that jet lag and hangover catch up to me again, and I find myself stepping away from it and sitting on the couch attempting (and mostly failing) to read. I think it’s around four o’clock. Since I’m not accomplishing anything there, I decide to head out for a bit.

 

I walk all the way into the McGill Ghetto to The Word. In part because I miss a bus, but I don’t mind the walk—even though it’s starting to drizzle. I get a nice shot of Mount Royal and the cross lit up on top of it in the twilight, as I’m approaching the green rind of it along Rachel. Then I proceed south along Parc,  the side of the mountain my companion in the dying sun, and the edge of downtown there ahead of me. (This is the closest to a downtown visit I’ll do the whole seven days there.)

 

I’m going to the bookstore to look for a specific book, that Mark thought we could read together and I said I’d look for it while I was in Montreal. The Famished Road, by (Sir) Ben Okri. They don’t have it. So I buy two other books, one by an Yoram Kanuik, an Israeli Jew, and one by Celine—balance, you see—and then move on.

 

Twilight along Milton. Brings me back a little: the university is right there, I can see it. I wonder if I’ll keep walking and end up on campus this twilight. I wonder for a moment, but then I duck into Lola Rosa instead. I have one beer there, copy out the passage in my notebook that I was finding so painful to work on back at the apartment. Satisfying. Satisfying that its in this old place, that I retreated to… well, once or twice. I didn’t come here much. But I have a right to be sentimental about these places.

 

Then walk back to Parc and board the 80 back up into the Plateau. Its starting to rain harder, so I’m happy to get back.

 

All I do the rest of that evening that I can remember is work on that chapter. Surely I must have done something else, but this is all I remember. … No—I remember what else. (This here is the biggest pitfall of writing too many days after the fact, in a time so full: one forgets things.) That was the night I went out for ramen. Matvey recommended it when I was in Big in Japan BAR the night before. Just down Rachel. He said one has to wait to get in, there is always a line, but you just leave your name there and they’ll text you when it’s time. So I go. I leave my name. I go to the SAQ and buy a local wine to bring back to Vancouver, and drop it off at the apartment. I sit down and write out a bit more of the chapter, then I get my text and I’m off to ramen.

 

They stuff me at a tiny counter stuck in a corner, facing a bare wall. But the ramen really was amazing, so no complaints. I do need to have more ramen.

 

I go back, finish the chapter. Read a bit. Then try to go to bed, but the jet lag keeps me awake and so I watch an short movie about an IDF member and a Palestinian nurse who are in a relationship. It’s good. I finish that, then I phone home. I look up the filmmaker, who played the Palestinian nurse, and appreciate knowing who she is and what she does. Then I fall asleep.