sur le toit. in light.

The Montreal skyline at five a.m. is a thing to behold with best men friends.






















@ Nabi, Blanchette & Vincent. je vous aime.

to patrick and the universe

I waltzed onstage directly towards you, confident. (I probably would have been less so if I'd known it was you and all your swagger, glamour, glitter, but I didn't, I'll admit that. For the better?) The little wing of the stage was mine for the evening - a go go gig for free drink - and I would stake it, taking the work very seriously. It was mine, this stage. To dance for hours.

I put my purse down on your dj table, grabbed the edges and dipped down for you, locking eyes, letting my long red hair fall to the floor. Hello, I said at the time, I'm here to dance for your party.

The next day I saw your face on the cover of The Hour. I laughed. I gave you an alias name to match my alias persona, but what a friend you might be if I hadn't lied.

I didn't recognize you today, when I happened into your salon with alternative press in hand, and I took me a minute to place those intense eyes and high cheekbones. You are someone here, you know, which is something. Your energy fills a room. I was a stranger but danced for you all night long , my legs in pain in the morning. For you. For the room. But I would dance again until dawn if asked. ask me to.

Today, when I told you who I was that night your perfectly arched eyebrows jumped. You, you said, were so, so fun. We talked about the next time the music could unite us. You'll know, you said, I'll make sure. As I made my leave, shyly putting out my hand to shake, you grabbed it, pulling me close and planting kisses on my cheeks. You are so much fun.


--

Dear, dear Patrick - and things at work beyond what we can know that keep people bumping into each other here - I want to dance for you all night again. I want to dip for you again. I want a wig for you again. Let me know.

haircuts clark

summer shears: friends, food, wine, clippings and youtube.




smoke is in the air. it is humid here. it is all about to become autumn.
not ready yet. not ready yet. not ready yet. it all begins again in september.

with buildings gone missing like teeth

* missing

I totally fucked my settings

help?

oui & winnipeg

word of the day. word to wed to a noun. word to wed to my finger. word to live for. oui. oui. oui.

---

three years. three! and still I wonder, where is my true home?

---

So the recurring theme of this blog has resurfaced once again, at it's usual, annual time: back and fourth from the land of talk to the land of plenty. How strange it is. How much we forget when we're gone for three hundred and sixty five days, give or take. & how many people and places you can somehow manage to fit into a week of time. Holy shit.

I blitzed through it from start to finish. blitzed! After weeks off from renovated restaurants I worked three shifts to my bone and then booked a flight to Manitoba. "I'll be there at 9:30 tomorrow morning," I told parents, glancing at time and preparing for a white night / nuit blanche of organizing and packing up a place that still feels new, making espresso and drinking it slowly through midnight, taking a 4:20 bus to the airport, 6 a.m. flight and touching down in the 204 less than 12 hours since buying a ticket.

And it didn't stop, thanks to the good times.

There is always that Winnipeg anticipation before boarding the plane: will I be forgotten/ignored, due to a stellar lack of social media? Will I run into someone crazy who will timewarp my brain? (Anyone is possible, really. I saw a girl at PMix who I haven't seen or thought about since the early aughts, when we were obviously both very different people - we actually gawked at each other while making odd conversation and I think I forgot to say goodbye and feel bad, though the chances of seeing her in the next five years are... what?) Will there be anything happening? What's changed? What's the same? Who's haunting my haunts?

And, most importantly I feel, is discovering what I was totally blind to while living in Manitoba. The details I ignored by total lack of context. What nuances I couldn't appreciate. Or the utter romance I couldn't see right in front of my face. This is what kills me each time and keeps me returning.

And because this is quickly going to turn into a Winnipeg diatribe far too long to warrant a brief, but engaging blog post, I will list these things:

> space: four lanes in each direction. a boulevard. a sidewalk. a front yard. space between houses and nothing on top of each other. Also, epic lack of balcony action - why? And no bike infrastructure - what the fuck? There's room. Everywhere.

> sky: each time I find myself staring at it, it's endlessness, it's movement. There was a thunderstorm I saw, miles and miles and miles away, with lightning. the sky is swallowing. it is totally therapeutic. I could look at that sky for hours. I did. It reminded me how small we all are, really.

> the significant bands of native women and girls, teens really, wandering streets. I completely forgot this. I suppose in some sick way their nomadic consistency was normalized to me. I wasn't so shook up then like I am now. I looked/listened more carefully this time, desperately and concentrated. Why are you going missing here in record numbers? What is it that makes you so prevalent to all kinds of abuse and sexism? .... I want them to be empowered. So, so badly. And I feel really fucking guilty and colonial for wanting this, for some unfathomable reason. I also feel helpless, not knowing what "to do" or how "to help." It's just totally fucked up. And, it's made me think about what I really, really want my work to be in this life.

> the donut hole: is where it's all happening. If I ever move back to Winnipeg, which would be a tall order, I would certainly live downtown or in the exchange; the crux of it all. wow yeah.

> potential lovers, but not really: why Winnipeg, why? Curses for throwing good-looking, totally interesting and highly fuckable people in my direction when I'm not even living in town anymore. It's really not nice, or fair, or funny. Timing is everything. I won't go into details, but fuck my (love) life.

---

There is something about Montreal though. You can't even compare them, but I'll keep trying,

more to come and photos I swear,

Lawrence

rings true; ideas

. montreal mirror predictions .

Have you fallen in omnidirectional love these past few weeks? Are you swooning with such reckless splendor that at times you feel like you're swimming in mid-air?

You have an urgent need to be caught up in a vortex of free-form affection. Your receptivity to being tickled and spun around by an almost insane outpouring of libidinous empathy is crucial to your education. Boisterously tender feelings are what the cosmos are aching to fill you with.

--- lovevelo.velolove

someone gave me a parting gift three years ago: four letters. (e,l,o,v)

two words are made of these letters and, incidentally, the word has changed form in my new room and home. Mostly I have been unscrewing, allen keying, greasing, steel-wool-ing, breaking down and building up a bike. Thinking about mechanics. Yep, it's happening: stereotypical hipster mile end twentysomething making a fixed-gear bicycle to ride in the winter in her apartment. Yep, wouldn't be happening without the red-blooded American twentysomething messenger bike mechanic roommate. Yep, we've devoted a room in our house to whips even though we said we wouldn't. Yep. love velo. velo love.

Good read lately? Bike Snob NYC - the book!

----omnidirectional?

Woah. what a concept. fuck. my. life.

So, maybe you knew this already but I'm single. ono. for the first time during a Montreal summer in my life. So what, right?

Wrong. During a Montreal summer, shit goes crazy for the singles. Something jumps in dark alleyways and crowded dancefloors, on bike paths and in all-night water parcs. Hanging out on balconies bbqing or smoking. Picking up groceries. At the pool. It's bat shit bananas. People! Lusty, lusty people beyond words to describe them. gah.

I'm not going to get into the details. I'll tell you when I get into town, but the most interesting one of allis that lately I have been ... ahem ... pursued by a couple. An "open" couple. A NYC-bred but living in Mtl couple. It's unconventional. This, obviously, has made me really start wrapping my brain about 'monogamy' v. 'plurality'

This, coupled with bouts of no-consistent-spoon blues is just too much. I don't know what to think!

A new friend is currently making a film about the montreal sex scene, which I am very interested in. The open couple in question gave an excellent interview for the project, I'm told. When I can link it, I'll link it and it will be the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me on this blog.

They invited me to an insane body painting party yesterday, and the relics of the night - regular faces in my neighbourhood coffee shop (recently reopened!) - donned the marks of sexy artfag shenanigans via streaks of faded acrylic on tanned or freckled skin. Holy painted plurality.

I often wonder if I can go there, really.

---my wpg

so I'm back again in, like, a day. I'm not ready.
I spoke at length about this with many winnipeggers to date: going back makes you question everything. There's this six-month itch of wondering where you'll fit - here or there - and who you'll be on the flight back "home"

--- lived for weeks without the internet

& I loved it. I almost objected to getting it because we actually read books and listened to the CBC 24/7 and it was lovely. Life without the internet made me seriously consider it as a necessity in an apartment. (maybe that's what the office is for!?)

Life is just too sweet without it: knocking door to door, waking up neighbours from naps, leaving notes to invite you over. we making many, many meals, leafing through yellow-paged, dog-eared cookbooks. Random afternoon salads and tea when a friend nips in on a whim.

Heck, life without the internet is great. Once it came back, I wasted all kinds of time in my underwear obsessively reading (news, blogs and internet garbage).

the internet changes everything and I actually might prefer the real world.


---- flight.

Is expensive, but necessary?
damn I wish Karmen was coming with me,

LB

touch the universe

best trip ever. one of many consecutive French nights out.

(miss my ginger), LB

Clark

I am a completely different person; (& I know this sounds insane)

Notably, it's because of Clark - the rue-cum-man of the hour at the moment in my life. (Figurative men are the best kind)

Laying together long nights listening to the random cyclists along bike path outside our window, or spending sunny mornings sitting on the back gallerie with espresso to lips, a book in hand and clothing on the line in the breeze, or eating epic, friend-filed breakfasts, brunches, lunches, mid-afternoon salads and bbq dinners consecutively since moving in, Clark has been, quite frankly, the best thing a not-really-working gal could want for the summer.

And I am ever, ever so grateful that our time has also been peppered with people - mostly winnipeggers mind you - who have dropped in at random, rejuvenating this change, nodding me on, reminding. My lady love was here, followed by my mother, my cousin and a friend. Everyone partied with the best of them, but props to momma for not giving into the peer pressure to smoke up at our "goodbye H2L guido party" or disowning me for dressing like a dirty jersey shore knockoff.

H2L is like another life when I think about it now, which is crazy because it was my life for three years. But it's done. It's over. We've moved on, and some of us even have poke-and-stick tattoos to remind us of our postal code.

Dancing until the sun was up on the front balcon and taking in the Molson sign, the clouds in the sky, and how the light hit our supple, swaying bodies, it was the last morning on that balcony with the cars going by and the elders in rocking chairs. It was the last look at the Jaques Cartier in the morning, (an old roommates voice in the back of my mind: "if you hate it here you can see your way out") or the CBC star at night, lighting my way home from wherever I was on the mountain.

It was a great last everything. Salut Maisonneuve, merci beaucoup for being, literally, my new home...







----

And later, when everything was built and pret, "this is the best it’s ever been," she said on my bed with a frame.

I don't know about that last bit, actually. Maybe the best in Montreal so far, but maybe it's too soon? How can you organize experience hierarchically? Everything is different now, and it feels good, but better? To be continued... (and new apt pictures to come!)


----

Lawrence