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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 them distinctly, coming full force while I wasn’t expecting them. That was the intensity of my morning’s cough was hitting me like a hammer.

 

Okay: asthma runs in my family, and I’ve always had several problems with coughing and congestion and the etc for a few weeks after I get over being sick. I’ve talked to doctors about it before, but I’ve never been formally diagnosed, I know I should, but I haven’t. The last guy said it was made worse by chronic dehydration, because I drink too much coffee and not enough water most days. I’ve gotten better about that. But it would explain why the Montreal air would pack such a wallop.

 

It was the first snowfall of the year, in a city that is colder and drier (even though its moist by a lot of standards, as Matvey would later point out on my last morning here, but I’m from a rainforest) and at a higher altitude (okay, not much higher) than home. Pair that with the late night and the liquor (the same thing happened after that night at the Pioneer Pub, so I could’ve seen this coming), and you have all your reasons why this happened.

 

Boy, what a morning—half of it was the hangover, half of it was the asthma. Between the halves: what a morning. That asthma—or whatever you want to call the persistent cough I’ve had for a month and have gotten a puffer for, see above, yes I know I need to get it properly diagnosed—has been bothering me on and off for weeks, in varying intensity, but this was the first time I was actually concerned for myself.

 

So, I delayed my going back to expozine (this is the 2nd of two days) for a few hours (which is probably for the best anyway, because there’s no particular reason to get there early, some people that I want to see only show up at the end anyway) and worked on a chapter of my novella into the early afternoon. I felt AWFUL. Nothing else wrong with me but the coughing (I had a cold in early November, and I tested negative; this has been with me on and off ever since), but it was the worst it had had been since it started. I was popping Fisherman’s Friends all day long, and switched to tea as soon as I had had enough coffee to stay away. It extreme tight and I didn’t like moving. At once point I gagged so hard I threw up a little.

 

(This here is one of those things that defies literary representation, unless you’re willing to go into a level of detail that will numb more than describe anyway.)

 

But it got better. Between the lozenges, the puffer (which was getting low), the teas, and the steam of a couple hot showers. Eventually, I felt okay to go, and out I went to the bus to get back up to de Castelnau—because it is in fact actually better to go there than go to Mont-Royal if you’re going somewhere along the blue line, especially if you have to trudge through snow—and then over to Jean-Talon. Out, and over to the church just like the day before.

 

This entry will eventually get me looped back around to the poetry night that I mentioned in the previous entry. I am finding this project odd and recursive like that. (Further to that point: as I write this, it is in fact the following day, and I am sitting in the cocktail bar on rue Duluth that I mentioned in the entry for the night I arrived, because I was at a writer’s minger event and then dinner and didn’t feel like going straight back to the apartment after that; I am spending too much money here, on books mostly but also on food and drink. Ah well—I was at a book fest, so of course I had to get books, and here—well, they make a good cocktail here.

 

Speaking of that book fest—)

 

Expozine was crowded and boiling, just like yesterday, or even more so, and I ran out of energy even faster because the snow had forced me to put on even more layers. And I was already sapped of energy from dealing with the nasty feeling in my chest.

 

So, once I had made a couple circuits of the place, (unsure if I wanted to buy any more because I had already bought a lot, although I did buy more), I retreated to the “bar” and waited to see if anyone else I wanted to see showed up. Mainly Sijia, from my old, mostly dead, Montreal-based creative writing group. She’d said she’d be coming.

 

(Sijia Li: the best hand at plotting from that creative writing group I mentioned yesterday. If I write weird jazz solos, she writes three minute pop songs. And she writes them well. Good sense of humour in them too. … I’ve also latched onto her Spotify family plan, and I’ve been enjoying that. I’m listening to Spotify right now, as I write, and I could not imagine being able to tolerate this with ads.)

 

While there, Devon from Cactus Press showed up to get a soda and samosa. We waved to each other, and then when he had his s and s he came over and sat down at my table.

 

I’d met Devon once before this, but I liked him and would like to get to know better. Apart from being grateful that he published my book, he seems like a nice guy who does good work. He also dresses well—I appreciate that. (Notice that I stopped worrying about names? That happened about when I landed here. I’ll probably pick that up again when I’m back home; I’m much antsier about these things at home. Home’s a funny thing like that.)

 

Mostly, we talked about publishing. I mentioned that I was looking into self-publishing, because traditional publishing is slow and I write an absurd amount and fast, and he was very encouraging. Which, it was was a boost to hear that from the guy running the traditional publishing venture that published my book. He said that Cactus started as a self-publishing venture: he wanted to get something of his own

 

Sijia appeared as we were talking.

 

(I wonder how many of these entries will remain incomplete and just sit here on my hard drive? A lot seem to cut off partway through, because I make them too long, or end up weird and fragmented, and I don’t want to post them anywhere in that state. It’s a good question. I suppose I’ll know the answer as time marches on.)

 

(I will probably simply stop recording things in this detail after today. It’s getting unmanageable. … And by today, I mean the 4th, which is when I’m actually writing this. Sitting in Bar Suzanne having a second cocktail, which will probably be my last because I still do want to get back to the apartment in time to watch a movie, or read, or do something and not worry about going to bed almost immediately.)

 

(I also do wonder if I will get around to writing a proper December 4th entry, not just the little one I wrote in Olimplico—because it really was a pretty good and eventful day. I saw more of Mile End; I bought some bagels. I worked on another chapter and I went to a QWF (Quebec Writer’s Federation) “Schmoozer,” where I met some lovely people. See, I’m writing about it and it’s not even the correct day. It was held in an old hospital, which is still a hospital but presumably in another part of the building. I got lost on the way there, and I slipped and fell on the way out of that. Snow is not my friend.)

 

(It is now December 13, and I am back in Vancouver. I am editing and expanding these on my llate afternoons home following early shifts I have to wake up at 5am for. I have the time, and I am doing it, but I am tired. Traditionally, I don’t like to work on anything after these shifts, because the work comes out all wonky from lack of sleep. But I have the time, and it seems to be going okay. Except for too much time having passed for me to remember what I’ve written down, and so I end up repeating myself a lot.)

 

I know Sijia from the same creative writing class I met Willow. Back at McGill. We had to apply to get in it. The instructor was Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels—he had written a novel about the inventor of the theremin. That was where I really figured out how to put a story together, and is pretty much the root of most of what I still am as a writer, and most of my career since stems from that once class. I have no idea if it was so important as that for anyone else who was there, but it was a turning point for me. We formed an online alumni-kinda creative writing group years after the fact, and it lasted a few years, but then sort of spluttered and died.

 

(See what I mean? Repetitive. I might fix that when I have more sleep, or I might just leave it, as a testament to the oddball nature of this whole project.)

 

It was nice to see Sijia, since I had not done so even over a webcam since that spluttering death, which is also the first thing I mention to her.  Devon had parted when she arrived, to go back to the Cactus table, which must have been missing him, and she has taken his seat. We catch up—I haven’t seen her in person in seven years, although we’ve seen each other plenty over webcam. She’s moved downtown, and she’s working for a bank. She does write still, now and then. She tells me she was just in the same neighbourhood the night before, for something else, and its odd for her to be around that part of town so often—she thought of that on the metro ride here. Those correspondences always resonate inside me.

 

Soon after, we make our way into expozine together, because she had yet to go inside the maelstrom herself. I can act as a guide this time. We do a little tour, me pointing out good tables that I remember, a poet from Quebec City who wrote a modern version of Beowulf, a comic artist who made a fucked up riff on Mickey Mouse, etc. We pass by the Cactus table, say hi Willow and Devon there. (Today is the first time Sijia has met Devon, and she’s seen him twice now.) We wander up on the stage, where the event has overflowed (An organizer told me they had to fight for that space; I forget if I mentioned that, probably did), and we buy a couple more things from a couple more tables. I’m Christmas shopping now, this is how I justify the expenses: I buy a trilogy of chapbooks from a Verdun poet, for a friend who lives in Verdun; I buy a guide to sex in the holy city of Jerusalem, for a friend from Jerusalem; etc. Stuff is still interesting, and there’s still stuff new to me—it really is an infinity in here.

 

Our cue to finish up is when Devon and Willow themselves pack up their table to go. It’s nearing the end of the event, and its starting to shut up shop. It’s too loud for me to tell if Devon offered me a ride or not, although Sijia says he did—this is never clarified. We go back to double check, but they are gone and the table that had once been crowded with books is now a blank slate.

 

I leave with Sijia, since we’re both taking the orange line, and we make our way to metro Jean-Talon. I tell her I miss the writing group, and would like to see her writing again sometime soon. This is true. (I’m in a writing group based in Vancouver now, but they’ll never be anything like that first again—it was the bud things started from. You can’t do that over again.) At the same time, as we approached station Jean-Talon, Sijia looked around for a place that sold bread. She’d promised to pick that up, but had forgotten. We talk until the train stops ar Mont-Royal, which is where I get off.

 

Back at the apartment, I finish work on the chapter I started earlier while my phone charges and I myself recharge to be ready for the poetry event happening later, (that I already talked about in the entry for yesterday that I actually wrote there, the night of the day I’m writing about now.)

The cough is better—the fresh air did it good, I think. I hope, An extra cup of tea or two doesn’t hurt. And I’m off again after about an hour, because I want to get there soon enough to make sure I can have somewhere to sit—Willow says it’ll be a full house.

 

The bar is in my old neighbourhood, and I’m looking forward to getting there. Something spiritually satisfying to go back for an event like that.

 

I take the 55 up to St-Joseph, then walk east along that boulevard, as the snow continues to fall. I remember I was just writing about that spot I got off the bus at, when I was four thousand miles away last week. I make my way around street construction, nearly get run over by that snow-clearance thingy, and then arrive at the place—which I remember having seen when I’d lived here, but never thought about going inside of.

 

The place feels French enough that I’m shy about using English here. I awkwardly order a Cheval Blanc in bad French, and do not ask about food even though I will need food and am unsure if they have it. I go to a table near the window, start sipping at that, message Willow and find out she’s already there. She comes over, introduces me to a couple of the people who I was shy about speaking English in front of, people who turn out to be poets and writers. When I go back to the bar and try to order another drink, the server, feeling bad for me because my French is so awful, switches over to English. I joke about that, relax a bit. I order my dinner.

 

I already wrote about some of this night. It was an event called called “Dead Poet’s Society.” Devon was the MC, and a good MC; assisted by Derek, a poet I met last time and got along with, whose book I have a copy of but have not read yet. It was an open mic in which the participants read one (or two, some people did two) poem(s) by a poet who is now dead.

 

I read “Skunk Hour” by Robert Lowell. Somebody broke several rules and read the lyrics to “Pizza Galaxie,” a song by Les Cowboys Fringants, who, as far as I know, are all still alive. The most memorable poem of the night was one by someone named Artie Gold: it was about the pope fucking a chicken. Don’t ask, because I don’t know. I did enjoy the poem—I’m unsure what it was about or what it was for, but its one of those poems that have to stick with you. I note to myself that I’ll have to read more of Artie Gold on my own time, back in Vancouver. Maybe not that poem, but I liked the style.

 

It was good to be sitting in the company of poets, feeling in the company of poetry, in a city where poetry thrives. I don’t get that much in Vancouver. Maybe its somewhere, but I can’t find it, and I expect it isn’t there in the same measure. Vancouver has other things, but not that. It is good to be here. I feel homesick as I look past the heads of the gathered to the snow falling over the neighbourhood that had once been my own. I wish I was still a Montrealer.

 

(Two lines I made sure to record at the event, after they came up in conversation:

Between the city of Cohen and the city of Bukowski.

Be strategic with your leg breaking.

I didn’t record any further context, and I don’t want to add any now.)

 

Afterwards, walked back down St-Denis with Willow, Derek and Willow’s boyfriend, Jean-Guy--a francophone poet. (I wish I understood enough French to read him, too, because here's the only one going along the street with me whose work I don't own.) . I appreciate the company: my chest is still bothering me, the ice is slippery, and its no fun to walk back that far in the cold and dark. And it’s good company.

 

I forget all of what we talked about. I remember near the end Willow and I were talking about her day job, which is teaching English as a second language to local French speakers. People who already have a base in English, in a professional setting. It’s an interesting perspective on your own language, she tells me, to teach it to others. You can’t think about it the same way.

 

We part ways at Rachel—they go east, I go west. I call home, so that I still have someone to talk to, and then consider stopping in at Big in Japan BAR for one drink before I go up. But it is closed on Sundays so I’m out of luck. I go to ground.

 

Upstairs, my lungs are still not happy. I stay up a bit to let them settle down and then go to sleep curled up in a ball—which is good for that—hoping that they’ll be better tomorrow.