Room to grow

Weekend trips outside the city are pretty rare for me. Usually by the time the weekend has arrived, Matt and I are ready to hit the city streets in search of some undiscovered excitement. But this last weekend was a welcome break from the norm: my friend Julie invited us along with her twin sister to spend Labor Day weekend at her parent's home in the country. Or more specifically, to attend the Brome County Fair...with barn animals, cotton candy, carnies and all. There really is nothing more down-home than a county fair...Though, those types of events are geared toward children with little or no fear of being killed on shoddy looking carnival rides or eating questionable looking "food-on-a-stick". So, we spent our time petting horse heads and squealing at the little piggies in the hay. After a thorough day of getting animal residue on our hands, we took the secret dirt road to Julie's childhood home.

Julie's parents own a lovely piece of land surrounded by a beautiful, fern covered forest. Just up the road you could see the hills and mountains in the distance. Picturesque beauty...the kind of setting that you might imagine a fairy tale about a little farm girl or magical pig. Places like that let my imagination roam...I could see my younger self hiding in the woods, building forts and pretending to play with fairies in the ferns. Part of me wanted to be left alone there, free to indulge in the beauty around me. The forest brings me some kind of comfort...just sitting there, listening to the wind blow across the canopy. The air itself seems to have some miraculous healing attribute. I wished that I had my camera to photograph the moment, even though the act would lack any ability to capture what I was feeling.

The evening was spent outside on the back porch with Julie's family, huddled around an open fire. That night Matt roasted a marshmallow on a twig for the very first time. Julie and I nodded with approval as we allowed the city boy to participate in us country folk's holiest of rituals.

Elam-sister-reunion 2010 has already come and passed. Having my sister around for the past ten days has been a welcome comfort in a new life that I am still adjusting to. When we are in eachother's presence, its as if no time has ever passed at all...sure there is the obligitory catching up to do, but we are always tuned into one another's brains like a couple of freaky Siamese twins. Though, I didn't realize how much I had missed her until Matt and I dropped her off at the airport. Time eventually soothes the pain of distance, but the constant "goodbyes" keep pulling at the tender sutures. I'd like it if everyone that I loved didn't live on opposite ends of the continent...but what can be done? The future is painfully opaque, and one never knows where it may lead them next. But, I suppose its all part of the human experience...what would happiness mean if it were never tempered by a sting of sadness? Overwhelming joys and painful lumps of sad emotion in the throat: all beautiful, and all necessary.

Wistful lessons aside, it has been a wonderful summer and it will soon be coming to a lovely close (even though I am trying to pretend that I don't notice the leaves changing). It is hard to believe that I have been here for nearly a year! I've come a VERY long way from when I first arrived, suitcases and cat in-hand. I'm a little older now...I FEEL older now. But not in that whiney "oh I still wish I was 18" kind of way. Adulthood is new territory, and its not all bills and taxes either. Its weird...you never really notice yourself turning into an adult, and then all of the sudden you look around and you're like "wait a minuet, I'm driving myself to the grocery store to pick up stuff to cook for dinner...wasn't I just playing in the sprinklers like 2 seconds ago? OH where has my childhood gone?!" But then you get over it when you realize you no longer have to ask your parents to drop you off at the mall or have to finish any algebra homework.

Well, phase deux of summer guests has already passed. This is the furthest north that either of my parents have ventured, and I'm glad to report that their impressions of Montreal have been surpassed. My mom stayed for about two weeks while my dad only stayed for one. Unfortunately he regretted not booking his stay longer...though, I suppose its better than feeling like you can't wait to leave. I know that by the end of it all, they both came to understand why I gave up my home state for this place. As my parents said themselves "Whats not to like?". Summer in MTL is something to behold, for certain. Although, I have this reoccurring dreams where winter comes suddenly without any warning or transition. Everyone around me just says "Oh well, thats how it goes!" while I'm dying on the inside. Summer, why can't you just hang around forever? Blah, I shouldn't be lamenting summer just yet...we are still in the heart of it!


As wonderful as is to be in my current state, there is one thing that eats at me... Its the fact that I am pretty much suspended from doing anything interesting on my own. My pending residency prevents me from working, attending school, leaving the country to visit friends and relatives, or even driving (the non-driving being the most irritating). I know once I get my precious residency things will finally become accessible. But for now I'm stuck in the no freedom zone. There are worse things, I suppose. It will all eventually come to be and I will be free to complain about other superficial shit.

• Our first wave of summer house guests has already come and gone. Matt's friend from university, Silvie, came from BC to stay with us for a couple of weeks. By the end of the trip it became obvious to her that she had to move back to Montreal. I think this city has that enchanting effect on people...it certainly got its teeth into me.

• After much unneeded apprehension, I have actually started to bike around town. I had to get over the mental hurdle of biking in a busy city and just calm down. The last time I actually biked anywhere was back in my old neighborhood out in East Texas. Back then I would usually just ride down to the lake to go harass some ducks. Montreal is a perfect city for biking with all of its extensive bike paths and numerous parks (with plenty of ducks to harass). Traveling by bike makes everything in the city seem so much closer and connected. And I promise I won't be like those biker-assholes who blow through the red lights and get themselves killed.
  

• The second wave of guests is upon us! This time its the parents and I'm so excited to finally have them see my happy little life here. There is so much to see, do, hear, eat, and buy that I don't even know where to start. I just hope it won't be as blistering hot so my dad won't melt away. I know he thinks that Canada is supposed to be a year-long cool temperature paradise...but SURPRISE it gets hot here too.
  

• It has been agreed upon by our friends that Matt and I are "the power couple". We commonly hear the compliment that Matt and I "don't act like you're married", or that "you guys never fight, its as if you actually like each other". I don't mean to ring my own bell here, but I have to admit that he and I are very pea-in-a-pod like. There seem to be a lot of people who believe that a relationship is hard work and that arguments are inevitable. Maybe its just me, but I beg to differ. Relationships should be easy. If there is so much in-fighting and disagreements, then maybe it isn't meant to be. Life can be hard enough, why bring those hardships into the sanctity of your relationships? I dunno, he and I might have it a little easier due to our laid-back personalities.

• I might be totally late on this scene, but I just discovered the blog, Hyperbole And A Half and I can't stop from reading it and giggling hysterically to myself. Her little illustrations kill me...

• I'm not usually the type to stress out about going to the hair salon, but this last trip opened up some pretty tense feelings about the whole experience. It all started when I saw some adorable shop girl in this amazing vintage store in town. She was pretty much exactly what I wanted to be (I hate that!). She had the cutest bright pink dress on, a pair of vintage heels, and this super short, bright blond pixie haircut. I pointed her out to Matt and I said, "I want that to be me". So I had it in my head that I was going to get my hair bleached and cut uber short. After much deliberation and flipping through magazines to find the perfect style, I made my appointment at the Funky Toque. When I arrived Saturday morning at 11:30 with a slight hangover from the 200 Mojitos I had the night before with Silvie and her friends, I was feeling a little less confident about my brash hair decision. The receptionists sat me down with the haircolorists and I explained to her what I wanted...she pretty much said no and made me choose another color. I went for a lighter, more coppery red. After the dye job I was feeling at a loss as to what to do for my cut...my plans had been dashed and I was scrambling to find something that I wanted. It needed to be different enough to justify spending the cash to have it dyed and cut by expensive city-people. The color actually turned out much better than I thought and the hair stylists sensed my confusion about a cut and gave me this ultra mod bob. I was a bit apprehensive at first, thinking that I would look like one of the Back Street Boys. But to my reliefe it turned out wonderfully swinggy and sophisticated...whew!

• I realize that most of the text on the post went to talking about my hair.
  

What is it with all of these Asian blogs "commenting" on my posts? Ugh, it probably has something to do with getting my account deleted for being suspected as SPAM. Annoying! Yay!

The other day I was watching some recap of the Much Music Award show on TV for some reason and it occurred to me that I have no idea who any of these new celebrities are. Well, obviously I have heard about some of them, but the majority were completely new to me. What the hell is Snookie? Why are people going crazy for a 12 year old boy who looks like an adorable little girl? When did Hannah Montana turn into a ho? Who is Katy Perry and why is she ejecting whipped cream out of her boobs? Ahhh!!

But one thing that drives me absolutely bonkers is everyone and their duck telling me that I need to be in love with Lady Gaga. People are all saying "Oooh she's so original and shocking! She wears Alexander McQueen! She writes her own music!". Excuse me? She looks and sounds like every other pop monster that was spawned from the MTV monster. If you never saw the woman on TV and just listened to her music, you would soon realized it sounds just as bland and homogeneous as every other pop song on the radio. It only becomes more apparent that she is an unoriginal hack when you see her horrendously over budgeted music videos. And why should I be impressed that she writes and produces her own music? Shouldn't that be the prerequisite of EVERY musician? GAHH! Lady Gaga simply exemplifies my theory that most people like terrible things.

There is so much good, original music out there. People just need to listen to it. You want weird? Forget Gaga, try Cocorosie.

I'm back to life!

Yay! I got my blog back! Apparently it was falsely identified as SPAM and the process to get it reviewed and back online is a slightly complicated process. But, the powers that be fixed it and I am as happy as a lark...and Lord knows how happy larks are.

Tonight Matt, myself and some friends got wind of a free Arcade Fire concert that was being held in a mall parking lot in the suburb of Longueil. Seriously, it was a perfect show. The weather was just right, no opening band, we got prime location, and the sound was phenomenal. The show was a "secret" for all about of 3 seconds; there must of been about ten thousand fans there. Neither Matt or I had seen them live, so it was particularly special. There was such an exuberance in the air...the band, the fans, the little babies that hipster moms carted around in their strollers, everyone. Oh lucky me!

Nature is a marvellous force that purveys every corner of the universe. We owe our existence to a momentarily truce that will inevitably be broken by either our own doing or by a subtle occurrence in nature that would make life like ours incapable of surviving. It is only now, as an advanced society of people, that we can turn around and look at the splendor and unfathomable beauty of nature. We see the sunsets, trees, waterfalls, exotic animals, and astronomical movements as things of tremendous beauty. But this is really a recent phenomenon...The fact is that creatures who live under the pressure nature live in a constant state of stress and mostly die a horrible death by predation or starvation. Because we have cut ourselves off from nature, and have mitigated it's presence in our lives we can appreciate the more wonderful aspects of it. But there are those times when we either get caught by the natural world or unwittingly thrust ourselves back into it without the slightest clue of how to survive. Case in point, last weekend with Matt at the summit of Mont Tremblant...

...It started with an innocent motive, "Hey Mary, lets drive up to the mountains and have a nature day...go hiking and stuff". It sounded fantastic to me. I hadn't been outside of the city in months and wanted a little change in scenery. So we got up early and drove the 2 hours north and arrived at the ski resort town thats clustered at the base of the mountain. We paid the 18.00-a-person tickets to take the gondola up to the summit. We enjoyed the splendid panorama view that unfolded before us as we were hoisted further up the mountain. When we arrived to the summit, I noticed these annoying flies buzzing around. Not thinking much of them, we followed our trail map that lead us back down to the base. Now, my first mistake was wearing my cowboy boots instead of a legitimate pair of hiking shoes. This seems to be a common problem of mine: wearing inappropriate shoes. So I didn't really have much traction on the trail. The rocks kept slipping under my boots so we had to progress down very slowly. I couldn't even enjoy the view because I was constantly fixed upon the ground, watching every step.

I think we had gotten so transfixed on my shoes that we had gotten off trail. We were on a steep incline when we agreed that it was now too far to go back...it would just be exhausting hauling our sorry asses back up the slope. But at this point we had noticed that the flies from the summit were getting worse. I put my hand on the back of my neck to feel a whole cluster of flies attached to me by their horrible little mandibles. I panicked. I soon realized these were flesh eating flies and they were swarming us...the only people on the trail and their the focus of their blood thirsty attention. We had to get down ASAP, but it would be another hour or so before we could reach the base. The entire way down we were screaming and swatting and scrapping off clusters of flies off of our skin. They would fly into my ear and down my throat and up my shirt. It was fucking AWFUL to say the least. There came a moment in my panic stricken mind that we just might not make it. I might slip and break my ankle due to my slick boots and the flies would come and carry my body off.

Matt was the one who kept me from slipping too far. In situations like those the bond between your partner becomes stripped down and exposed. All reservations are thrown out, its just you and your partner trying to do the most basic action: survive! We kept each other's spirits up by simply laughing at how unbelievably absurd the situation was. Here we were, stuck alone on a mountain, running down hill like mad men while being eat alive by a swarm of flies. From the outsider's perspective, it must of been down right hilarious. Matt and finally made it to the base...we could hear the PA system in the resort blasting Lady Gaga. I never felt more happy to hear her shitty songs. By the time we had reached civilization, our faces and necks were covered in blood, our clothes dirty, and a crazed look in our eye. We b-lined straight for the car and drove straight home.

Now, I realize that we were not in any real danger. We weren't isolated in the middle of nowhere, and we were not being attacked by bears. But it did give us a taste of what nature has in store for those who do not have the luxuries of civilization. The natural world is harsh and mostly wants to destroy you. The only reason why we as a species are able to flourish is because we have scrapped bits of nature away and built a fortress around ourselves to keep her nasty flies out.