This year I flew to Montreal for Halloween weekend.  Montreal (and its lovely inhabitants) always seem to take my favorite holiday way more seriously than Winnipeg does, so I just couldn’t bear to miss it.  I had a hard time coming up with a costume idea – I eventually went with Gym Teacher – and it wasn’t until I got to Montreal that I realized how low I had set the bar.  Those folks are creative to the max.  At any rate, I arrived Friday morning, just in time to do some shopping (instructions to the cab driver at the airport: “Take me to Simon’s!”) and hit up my friend Brianne’s faculty bake sale at McGill.

The weekend was, in a word, awesome.  Friday night I saw my friends’ band, On Bodies, play at the Playhouse for Faggity Ass Fridays.  The proceeds of that show went to Head and Hands, an organization that does sex ed since Quebec has abolished their sex ed program (worst decision ever?!).  The night was zombie-themed, but I hadn’t prepared a zombie costume.  Luckily, Dallas did my makeup, and did such an amazing job that I scared myself when I looked in the mirror.

Photo by Dallas Curow

We spent the night drinking cheap beer, listening to On Bodies play an amazing show, and dancing sweatily on stage.  Beaucoup de fun.  Afterwards we went to Palaise Royale, possibly the worst restaurant in Montreal, solely for the comedic value.  They have terrible food and worse service, but it was one of the highlights of the night.  Particularly our drunken rendition of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, as the Anglo-hating waitress tried to ignore us/told the cooks to piss in our food.

On Bodies at Faggity Ass Fridays
Photo by Dallas Curow

Saturday was spent lounging and nursing the headache from the previous night’s beer consumption.  I met up with Karen and spent a lovely few hours catching up with her at a coffee shop before heading back to Dallas and Brian’s to get ready for the night’s festivities.  Peter dressed up again as his lady-self, Petra, and quickly became my Gym Teacher alter-ego’s nemesis.  Coach McDyke has no patience for insolence.  We’re in the process of pitching our sitcom idea.  Petra and the Wolf will be a huge hit.  Dallas, Brian and their friends Jennie and Zach dressed each as different versions of Elvis.  Their costumes put us to shame – they were fantastic!

Photo by Dallas Curow

A bunch of people came over to pregame and watch the Habs play Toronto as Dallas and Jennie made delicious cupcakes and pumpkin cake.  We left around 10pm to head to FouFounes Electrique for their amazing Halloween party.  I cabbed there with Brianne and Petra and we managed to get the most hilarious and terrifying cab driver I’ve ever encountered.  Not only was he driving like a fucking drunken maniac, but he was hitting on Petra like nobody’s business, trying to convince her to stay in the cab with him and smoke hash.  It was hilarious and bizarre.

FouFounes did not disappoint.  It took us a while to get in, but the costumes and atmosphere were absolutely amazing.  I’ve never been to a Halloween party where I was actually scared of some of the people in costume – seriously, if you have a fear of clowns, stay far away from that place.  It was intense.  The costume contest was awesome, the winners of which were a group of guys dressed like green toy soldiers, each with his own weapon and pose.  Runners up were Slash, complete with guitar and mini-amp, and H1N1, complete with giant foam hands and head.  One of the costumes that should have won was a woman dressed up like the most convincing zombie I have ever seen.  She was covered in blood and rotting flesh, her hair was in clumps, and she was twitching and shaking all over the stage.  Creepy as fuck.  Unfortunately, her male zombie partner was acting like a total d-bag so they were booed off the stage.

Photo by Brianne Selman

Photo by Dallas Curow

Photo by Dallas Curow

After a night of $1 beers and many a photo-op, we headed to The Main (naturally) for some late night poutine.  Poots and a pickle.  Story of my life.  The Elvii were even serenaded by a drunken old woman who stood on her table and flashed us while cooing “final curtain call!”  It was slightly disturbing and majorly awesome.

My flight didn’t leave until 7pm on Sunday, so we went to Fuscia for brunch on Sunday afternoon and watched a few episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – which is fast becoming one of my favorite shows.  The weekend was a total success, save for the minor heartbreak of losing my camera somewhere between the serenading flasher at The Main and the cab ride back to Dallas and Brian’s place.  I had a billion Halloween photos on that thing (and had kept such a close eye on it all weekend), so I was pretty distraught to find out it had gone missing.  So far, no sign, so it looks like it’s gone forever.  Someone else will find it and hopefully enjoy all of the hilarious photos of Petra, the FouFounes costume contest, the Elvii, and everyone else’s amazing costumes.  I guess the upside is that I can now justify buying a new, fancier camera.  In the meantime, though, I’ve managed to borrow my parents’ camera, so I’m not completely without the ability to document my escapades.

So, despite losing a bevvy of photographic gems that really do deserve to be shared with the world, this weekend was exactly what I had hoped for.  I just found out that our flights to Mexico this winter have gone down in price, so I’m able to get a credit with WestJet, which seems to me to be the perfect excuse to head back to Montreal and spend another weekend acting the fool.  Poots and a Pickle.

Photo by Brianne Selman

After realizing that my dreams of sandy beaches and fancy drinks with umbrellas in them were not meant to be, I thought that my summer vacation was kiboshed.  But, always the amazing friends that they are, the lovely folks in Montreal responded to my desperate, last minute e-mail request for a possible Montreal retreat with a resounding “yes!”  On top of that, I got in touch with my cousin in Toronto, and she immediately arranged for me to stay with her and her amazing fam for the weekend.  Thanks to these people, my vacation was a hit.

I flew in to Montreal on the morning of Friday, July 17th, and was even able to get the remainder of my pre-workshop assignments completed on the plane.  This trip, like every trip I make to Montreal, was fantastic.  After Montreal, I took a train to Toronto with Dallas and Brian (the last train before the VIA rail strike began…phew!) and went to stay with my cousin, Tannis, and her family.  From there, I went to Vancouver for Simon Fraser University’s Book Editing workshop to learn the ins and outs of editing non-fiction.  Overall, my two weeks away this summer were amazing.  Here are some highlights:

1. Roller Derby

The final match before the championships for the Montreal Roller Derby League was held on Saturday, July 18th, and it was quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had at a sporting event.  The arena was filled with an eclectic mix of people – older couples, children, young people, drunk people – but the atmosphere was positive and exciting.  We were lucky enough to have the boyfriend of one of the players sitting with us, so he explained the rules, some of the ref’s calls, and some of the team strategies as they played out on the rink.  We drank beer (two for $5!), cheered loudly, built a beer-amid, and came up with our own roller derby names (Wrath of Khan, Mark my Words, Dallas Does Derby, and Brian Gofuckyourself).  It was all kinds of fun.  The after party, held at Caigibi, made for some hilarious shenanigans, and was eventually taken to Mod Night at Blizzarts.  There, we danced to awesome 60s music while an Elvis movie played on the screen behind the DJs.

2. Cheesecake and Birthday Wishes

My 28th birthday was on Monday, July 20th, and I had an amazing day.  I woke up early, went for a run, and got dressed up to spend the day shopping.  Karen, Lee, and I spent a relaxing few hours on their back patio before heading over to Dallas and Brian’s for an absolutely amazing Thai dinner prepared by the gracious hosts themselves.  Karen, Lee, Dallas, Brian, Mark, and I relaxed, drank wine, talked, and enjoyed a delicious banana chocolate cheesecake care of Dallas’ amazing culinary skills.  Mark and Brian left for band practice and Karen and Lee retired for bed while Dallas and I stayed up talking about the realities of growing older, the increasing frequency of friends’ nuptials, and terrible shoes.  We capped off the night, after Brian returned from band practice, with some It’s Always Sunny.  Best birthday ever.

3. Just for Laughs with Aziz Ansari and Marc Maron

On Tuesday night we all met up on St. Denis, which was blocked off for the Just for Laughs Festival.  We had dinner at a cheap little Thai restaurant and made our way over to Theatre Saint-Catherine for the Aziz Ansari show.  The theatre itself only seats maybe 100 people, so the show was small and intimate, which was excellent.  All of the performers that night were great – the opener was hilarious, Aziz was funny (albeit a total name-dropper), and the ‘free’ show after Aziz, Marc Maron, was an hour spent drifting between the extreme depression and boiterous laughter.  That guy can tell a story, but Jesus H. Christ he’s got issues.  I even saw Gary Gulman in the audience.  Exciting!

4. Yoga with Karen

One of the things that I look forward to every time I visit Montreal is going with Karen to her yoga class.  Not only is her class itself relaxing and challenging, all at the same time, but the drive there and back gives us a chance to talk and catch up and I really value that time to and from her class.  She’s an amazing yoga instructor to boot, so those classes are good for my body as well as for my soul.  Provided I don’t fall over (ha!).

5. Tattoos with Tannis

After a joke about getting matching Jem and the Holograms tattoos, Tannis and I spent the week leading up to my arrival in Toronto frantically e-mailing back and forth to try to decide on a tattoo design that we could agree on.  What started as a joke became “one of the greatest ideas we’ve ever had.”  Tannis booked us an appointment at TCB Tattoo in Toronto and the swallows were inked into our skin – hers on her ribcage, and mine on my arm.  Matching tattoos may be cheezy to some, but they’re always fun for me.  I’m so glad we got them done.

6. The Badass Shoe Museum

A running joke for the weekend in Toronto: I mis-heard Tannis when she said we were going to the Bata Shoe Museum, thinking she said the Badass Shoe Museum.  Badass or not, it was a great outing with her, Todd, and the kiddies.  Who knew shoes could be so interesting?

7. Birthday Dinner with the Family

On Saturday night, Tannis invited the rest of the Toronto Family – my aunt and cousin – over for a birthday dinner.  Spending time with my family for my birthday felt like being at home, and I was really touched that they went all out, with a cake and everything!  Just being able to hang out with those adorable little kids and to see the members of my family that I rarely get to see was a real treat.  Plus, the cake caused me to fall into an amazing a chocolate coma.

8. Beaches Jazz Festival

After the birthday dinner, my aunt very graciously offered to look after the kids so that Tannis, Todd, and I could head out for the night.  We met up with Tannis’ friend Bianca at the Beaches Jazz Festival.  Queen Street East was blocked off for what seemed like miles and miles, and makeshift stages were set up at every block where different jazz or blues bands would play.  It was amazing: there were tons of people, great music, and we had an awesome night filled with beer and jokes.  The night ended with us waking up my aunt as we microwaved dinner leftovers at 3am.  Good times, good times.

9. Vancouver Solo Redux

The Book Editing program was excellent – just like last year, I met some great people, learned a hell of a lot in a short period of time, and had a chance to see some more of Vancouver.  I met up with my cousin and his girlfriend for dinner one night, and, given that this year’s workshop was much less intense than last year’s, I was able to spend some time alone during the evenings walking around, taking photos, and enjoying some patios.  Vancouver’s record-breaking heat wave was a welcome change from the dreary and rainy weather I’d faced in Montreal and Toronto, and back at home in Winnipeg.  It was a sweaty good time, and I welcomed the solo time to relax and unwind in the sun.

After planning and talking and getting excited about our trip to whichever cheap, all-inclusive resort we could find, my tropical vacation with Meg has been cancelled.  After finding out yesterday (10 days before we were supposed to leave) that Meg can’t go, I’m left scrambling to try and salvage the time I’ve booked off and the money I’ve saved to go away.  New York?  I could, but a week would be too much on my own.  LA?  Mexico?  A week in a tropical location on my own will be too depressing.  But, when all else fails, good old dependable Montreal is always there to catch me when I fall.  After getting some indication from my lovely Montreal friends that it would be okay for me to spring a visit on them at such short notice, I booked a flight to Frenchtown.  Westjet is having a seat sale, so I managed to get a one-way ticket for $99 plus tax, which is the cheapest I’ve ever seen it advertised for.  I’ve sent an email to my cousin in Toronto, so I may make a trip over to Toronto as well to visit her, if that works out.  As much as Porter is a bitch for people who actually live in Toronto (as they fly out of the Toronto Islands and disrupt daily life for the convenience of business people), it’s cheap like borscht.  Maybe I can swing a day trip to Quebec City?  Rent a car and drive to New York City for a night?  Who knows.  I’ll figure something out.  I have to be in Vancouver on July 26th to start the Simon Fraser book editing course I’m taking, but the week leading up to that is wide open.  As much as I know I likely won’t do anything ‘crazy’, I like the feeling of freedom to do whatever I want, while actually having the money to do it.

I may not be spending my 28th birthday on a sunny beach, revelling in the fact that I am now benefiting from the years of busting my ass in school to get a good job and finally having money in the bank, but I’ll be spending it with some of the best people I’ve met in a city that has a piece of my heart.

Hoooo doggy.  I’ve been recently enjoying the travel-related benefits of my job, having returned last week from a two week jaunt to Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax.  It was fun, tiring, boring, exciting, and refreshing.  Now I’m back, I’m starting to slip back into my regular routine, and I’m writing this from work when I should probably be reading manuscripts (as I said, back to the regular routine).

Montreal was, as per usual, fantastic.  I stayed with both Karen and Dallas & Brian, as Karen left for Winnipeg (just my luck) two days after I arrived.  We spent the weekend catching up, doing yoga, dressing up for our Mad Men-themed party, sitting in the park, and destroying painfully douchey dudes at pub trivia.  It was all kinds of fun.

The Mad Men party was Dallas’ idea, as her birthday was a week earlier and, let’s be honest, everyone likes a theme party.  We dressed up in our gear and headed to Hotel de le Montagne, which boasts a classy lobby and lounge area, complete with cougars and creepy old dudes.  From there (drinks were $7.50 each, which didn’t really jive with the 50s/60s era theme we had going) we went to Copacabana, which is essentially a room with tables and chairs and beer.  The wall is painted with palm trees and a beach scene, which apparently justifies the name.  After many a beer and drunken laugh at the Copa, we headed to the Main for some late night poutine (or “poots” as Mark would call it).  I had potatoe latka-related chest pains after scarfing my latkas like the world was ending.  That beer sure makes a person lose any sense of control.

Peter informed us after the fact that our Mad Men party quite closely followed with what White People Like:

When you say the words “we should have a Mad Men party,” white people will immediately latch onto the idea and begin planning. By the end of the day, they will have picked proper attire and emailed you a drink and hors d’oeuvre menu. In the days and weeks leading up to the party white people will be thinking of clever ways to make it more authentic.

We’re so white.

Ottawa and Halifax were work trips, and both had their good times and their very trying times.  The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences was held at Carleton University this year, so I got on a bus for Ottawa on Tuesday morning and headed to Carleton to work at Fernwood Books’ display at the Congress Book Fair.  This year was a particularly sucessful year for us – especially in comparison to last year’s coma-inducing Book Fair at UBC in Vancouver.  While I enjoyed working at the Book Fair and the opportunity to check out one of Brian’s presentations, my five days in Ottawa were spent in an exhausted haze, after what felt like a month of drinking beer and eating bad food in Montreal.  The fact that it rained every single goddamn day in Ottawa didn’t help, nor did Ottawa’s air of boredom (is it just me or is that place a yawnfest?).  I did get to spend some time with a friend that I went to the U of Manitoba with – who’s now doing his PhD at Carleton.  That was certainly the highlight of the Ottawa leg: we went to a pub/restaurant that had live music – two men on pianos and one on a bass, who were taking requests.  “Piano Man” was requested about five times.  Outside of selling books at the Book Fair, I was able to walk around and check out some of the other booths, and picked up Shuck, a novel by my friend Mark’s partner Daniel.  I read it in two days, as it was not only incredibly engaging, but extrememly well written and funny.  You should check it out here.

Due to some poor flight plans, I flew home on Saturday night and spent approximately 18 hours in Winnipeg before flying to Halifax on Sunday afternoon.  With the stop over in Toronto, the trip to Halifax took a whopping seven hours – and my Dad and I arrived in the Halifax airport to find that a fire alarm had permanently sealed the doors to the baggage area, thus forcing us to wait for almost an hour for our bags to come out on that little conveyor belt that I’m always so worried I’m going to get my fingers caught in.  The Fernwood office is just outside of Halifax, in Black Point, so we rented a car and headed out into the rainy night for Bev and Errol’s house.  After careening down some particularly terrifying windy roads in the dark with the rain pouring down on us, we made it to the house and to bed by about 1:30 a.m.  The next two days were spent meeting – which was beneficial for a number of reasons, one of which being that I hadn’t actually met half of the Nova Scotia office staff until then.  The office is in what is essentially cottage country, which made for some beautiful walks and views:

We went into Halifax on the second night for dinner, and stopped at Peggy’s Cove on the way in so I could be a tourist and take lighthouse photos.  It was truly gorgeous, and the feeling of salt in my hair from being so close to the ocean was refreshing.

We left Halifax on Tuesday evening, and I got back to Winnipeg around 11:30 p.m.  With Thursday and Friday spent manning (womaning?) a book display at the University of Winnipeg, and the weekend spent working on the new house, it’s taken a while to feel like I’m back to my normal schtick and not running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.  For now, I’m in Winnipeg, and focusing on Matt and my upcoming move, after which I will be planning a trip to an as yet unknown tropical destination, and a week in Vancouver for a book editing workshop.  Winnipeg hasn’t even had a sign of summer yet and it feels like these supposed “summer” months are already booked up.  Somewhere in there I need to get back into some sort of guilt-induced running and exercise regimen, and try not to guzzle beer whenever acceptable. Two weeks away from home and I’m a complete disaster.  Crossing my fingers that after the rest of the summer’s events I don’t end up developing a split personality or subscribing to Scientology.  Sweet Xenu.

This past weekend I flew to Montreal to partake in one final au revoir to Concordia and all things MA-related.  Convocation was on Monday, and the weekend was spent catching up with friends, and catching up with the city that I’ve always felt I left too soon.  It was glorious, albeit far too short a visit.

Thanks to Peter for the Photo…

While I know that I’ll be back many more times (I can’t seem to stay away), it was still sad to leave on Monday, especially given how happy I was this weekend just being back in the city and seeing everyone.  While I know that right now I’m in the right place (living and working in Winnipeg), there is still, and will likely always be, a part of me that wishes that I had never left.  Montreal is the city that got away.

On the shuttle bus ride to the airport Tuesday afternoon, I was thinking about the conversation Matt and I had this past summer about moving to a different city, and whether or not I’d still want to move to Montreal if the friends I had made all decided to leave.  I’ve realized that my answer would be a resounding ‘no’.  Living in Montreal without the people I’ve met there would be the same as living elsewhere while they’re all in Montreal.  It would be a reminder that I had missed an opportunity, or something along those lines.  I’m still not sure that I really know what I’m talking about, and perhaps the sentimentality has taken over my ability to form coherent thoughs, but I suppose I’m just a bit bummed that this last trip has made it clear that I’m definitely a Montrealoutsider (Peter’s appropriate terminology) and never really had a significant enough chance to be a Montrealler.  Any tiny bit of French vocabulary I once had has disappeared, my knowledge of the city has been reduced to three or four main streets, and the tourist feeling you get when you’re in a city you’re not familiar with felt all too strong this weekend.  I’ve been thinking over the past few days that I’d like to take French lessons, but today I’m wondering if that’s not just some effort by my subconscious to prepare myself for a midnight bolt to the City of Smoked Meat.

As cheezy as it sounds, part of me has been mulling over ‘what would have been’ had I stayed in Montreal, learned French, got a job, and lived in some darling neighbourhood with picturesque walk-ups and local fruit and vegetable markets.

But, back to reality.  There’s still no reason why I can’t go back.  And go back I did this weekend, and it was fucking fantastic:

I recently found out that a photo I had taken of Ben’s Deli in Montreal will be featured in the Schmap Montreal Guide. I had posted the photo on Flickr, and someone asked that I post it in a Montreal-related group, and a while later someone else contacted me from Schmap.  I feel special.

This news also makes me realize how much I miss Montreal.  My flight to defend my thesis was booked yesterday, and I will be there from September 7th – 11th.  That is the exact week that Karen will be in Winnipeg, though, which is both cruel and unfair.  I always get so excited at the prospect of going back for a visit, so I’ve decided that for as long as there are friends in the city, I will make it a priority to fly back and visit at least once or twice a year.  It is, after all, only a few hundred dollars for a flight, and everyone I know there has a couch (ha!).  Doing things that make me happy is a new focus of mine, and visiting Montreal and all of the lovely people I know there is definitely one of them.

Easier said than done. Fuck me, we have bed bugs.

I’ve had a weird rash/random pattern of itchy bumps on my arms, upper shoulders, and sometimes my face for a long time now. It started in September 2006 when I moved to Montreal – my skin is very sensitive, so the move and resulting climate change caused my outer layer to COMPLETELY freak out. Even when I came back to Winnipeg for winter break, the change of atmosphere and moisture caused my skin to dry out like crazy, pretty much as soon as my flight entered Winnipeg air space. Basically, my skin is hella cranky. I’ve learned to deal with this (read: ignore it) over the years.

Over the past few months these little itchy bumps have been driving me mental, so I made an appointment with a doctor, who referred me to a dermatologist. I saw the dermatologist on Monday this week, and she said that they looked like random bumps. They could be bug bites, but they could also be the result of bitchy skin. She prescribed me some cream and suggested I check for bed bugs. As soon as I got home, I got Matt to help me check the bed, just for peace of mind. I have checked our bed for bed bugs pretty regularly – I thought I had them in Montreal, so I became obsessed with them, researching them online and earning what I would argue is a self-taught PhD in the little bastards.

We pulled off the bedding, and there was nothing. We inspected the mattress, nothing. We pulled the mattress and bed skirt off, and VOILA! A kingdom of tiny bloodsuckers, bowing to their all mighty givers of nighttime bloodfood. Awesome. There weren’t millions of them, only a few, but it was clear, we had bed bugs.

We stood around looking at each other for a while before we got on the phone, calling the landlord, a pest control company, and residential tenancies, to find out what our options are and what we are responsible for. Long story short: the building pays for the exterminator, as long as they don’t feel that we brought them in, and our insurance will not cover anything. I’d rather we had an earthquake, to be honest. At least we’d get new shit for free.

After organizing everything, bagging up our bedding and putting it outside, and sealing the room-of-doom, I had a mini-meltdown. Bed bugs, for anyone that knows me well, are my worst nightmare. After thinking I may have them in Montreal (a city known for bed bugs), and having to deal with that notion on my own, I went a little nuts. Luckily, however, a very nice, francophone exterminator came and told me that I had nothing to worry about in my teeny downtown Montreal high rise bachelor. No bugs. Stop freaking out. But it was still scary to think that I could get them SO easily…my building had lots of international students, I lived in a high density area, and bed bugs are notoriously difficult to get rid of – it often takes numerous fumigations and throwing out all of your furniture and starting fresh to truly be rid of them.

Living in Winnipeg felt safer, bug-wise. It isn’t as densely populated and doesn’t have as many high rises or tourists. A few months ago, however, local newspapers and stations started warning that bed bugs were becoming a problem in Winnipeg. Gross. But, since I was a Doctor of Bedbugology, I was content that we were good to go. We even got a new bed frame in February, and thus had to take apart and move our bed in order to put together the new frame. I spent an hour sitting on the floor of our bedroom, face to the box spring at many times, and didn’t see any of the tell-tale signs. I’ve traveled a bunch in the last six months, but each time I’ve been with my father, and he hasn’t gotten anything, so I figured I was safe.  Not so.  My guess is that they’re Winnipeg-born. Fucking Winnipeggers.

Our apartment, as lovely and full of ‘character’ as it is, is right next to the back lane, behind a busy pub and near many restaurants and residences. The garbage bins sit right under our bedroom window, and the apartment below ours is vacant (and has been for a long time – it’s storage now, apparently), the windows to which have only recently been boarded up. The floorboards in our apartment are all loose and full of cracks, the baseboards have holes, and the windows aren’t installed properly, leaving very cold drafts in the winter (but a nice breeze in the summer). Bugs, it would seem, should be taking over our humble abode.

And they are. Mitch, the exterminator (the Mitchinator?) came to our place yesterday at 1:00 p.m. to assess the place and determine that we did in fact have bed bugs. The first words out of his mouth when he walked in were “Oh no” – the cracks in the floorboards and the corners of the baseboards will apparently make it very difficult to effectively flush out and kill all the buggers. At any rate, Mitch explained what he’d have to do, what he needed us to do in order to get rid of them, and how to prevent them from coming back. He told us to expect to have to be fumigated “as many as five times.” We have two fumigations scheduled – one of which took place this afternoon.

So, we spent yesterday afternoon, evening, and this morning packing up everything in our apartment that is washable – bedding, towels, kitchen stuff, clothing, carpets – sealing it all in garbage bags, and taking it to our local laundromat to clean it. Heat or extreme cold kill bed bugs, so in order to sanitize our stuff, we had to wash it in hot water and put it in the dryer.

I have often stood in front of my closet, in preparation for a night out, and said in desperation “I have NOTHING to wear! I have NO CLOTHES! GOD!” Not true, folks. I bagged it all up yesterday, and I have 9 garbage bags of stuff. NINE! Together, Matt and I have 25 garbage bags of washable items in our little apartment. Sweet mother of god. Almost $200 later, our stuff is clean, sealed in new garbage bags, and sitting in my parents’ garage, awaiting the time when it is safe to come home. Since we’re getting fumigated again next week, we’ve decided to leave the majority of our clean stuff out of the apartment, only taking a few towels, a sheet, and some clothes, to save us from washing everything again.

On top of the horrific number of hours I’ve spent at the laundromat over the past 48 hours, our place is a fucking disaster zone. We had to move everything away from the wall, clear out our closets and pantry, and clean out our bottom kitchen cupboards. Things are sitting in the hallway, on tables, on our desks…it’s a mess. Mitch explained that we’ll have to leave the residue from the fumigation for 30 days or else it won’t be effective. We’ll have to wear shoes inside, he said, because it will be sticky. We will be living in a sticky, smelly, messy, former bug haven, hoping and praying that the one female it takes to fuck it all up doesn’t survive and end up laying 300 eggs in the floorboards again. Sweet jesus, hell on earth, I tell ya.

When it really sunk in that we had to deal with this, I freaked. I have a thesis deadline fast approaching, a pre-workshop assignment due on Friday, and no money (no money for all the laundry, for the new bed we’ll have to buy, or for the possibility of new couches…fuck me!). Bed bugs are quite possibly the worst addition to that mix. So, I burst into tears for a little bit, hugged Matt for a bit more, and then wiped away my mascara stains and got to baggin’. Aside from the stress, having to deal with this is embarrassing. Bed bugs conjure up the image of a dirty, tiny apartment with a stained mattress on the floor. Not my cute apartment that we so diligently clean every weekend. Bed bugs are for the hulls of some 17th century explorer’s ship, not for me, thanks. What’s next? Scurvy? Come on.

But, being embarrassed doesn’t really help anything, so I’m over that now. Which is good, seeing as at the comedy show last night, Matt opened his bit by announcing “My girlfriend and I just found out that we have bed bugs…” Oh god. So everyone knows. But that was followed by his “Apology Letter from my Bed Bugs” (since they won’t write one, he did, you know, for peace of mind), so it ended in laughs, not tears.

Right now I’m sitting in the clothes I wore yesterday, sweaty because it’s so hot outside and the office (where Matt, Smokey, and I are hanging out while the bugs die their chemical-induced deaths) is like a sauna. We still need to go back to the apartment, drop off the cat (who, by the way, is in total heaven in the office…all the carpeting means he can scratch his nails til his little heart’s content), have The World’s Quickest Shower, pick up some food, go get my Mom’s car vacuumed (for her peace of mind, since we’ve been using it all day), and drop it off at my parents’ place. I’m just praying that we don’t end up passing these fuckers along to my parents – through my working at the office, through using the car, through storing our clean laundry at my parents’ place, or through the cat (although we were told that they leave animals alone when there’s humans around since animals are much more sensitive to the bites and chomp as soon as they feel it, unlike us Sleeping Beauties).

I’m also praying that it only takes two fumigations to get rid of them. Matt and I, while before were perfectly happy staying in our place, are now ready to move to somewhere that is more secure from the creepy crawlies. Our building is basically a giant neon sign to gross life forms of all kinds, what with the holes in the windows and walls, or the homeless guy that lived in the boiler room all winter. Something with, you know, an air-tight bubble is what I’m looking for now.

And, if they don’t all perish in the foggy chemicals that have been sprayed over our belongings, I would hope that I can at least train them to carry us and our bed to the kitchen or TV so that I can at least benefit from these new roommates.

Rather than provide some lengthy explanation, get a load of this:

It’s amazing how long it takes me to get back on track after being away from the grind.  Good, in some senses because that means that I have obviously had a really relaxing time, but not so good in the sense that it’s taking me FOREVER TO GET BACK ON TRACK.  Yeesh.

I left for Montreal a week ago Thursday, and spent 6 glorious days there.  I went because there was a conference at Concordia University – Feminist Research at Concordia – and any reason to go to Montreal is good enough for me.  I gave a paper (my first!) on the Tuesday, and spent the rest of the time hanging out with friends and taking in the city’s beautiful weather, far from the ice storm that I left in Winnipeg.  The conference went well – it was very casual and informal, which made it far less nerve-wracking than I thought it would.  Brian, Dallas, and Mark came to hear me present, which was great.  I was on panel with two other women who gave papers related to feminist methodology (:yawnfest), one of which was very interesting, another of which provided us with all kinds of comedic material to use for the rest of the night as we drank vodka and played Guesstures at Dallas and Brian’s place.  Both my supervisor and another professor from the program were there, so it was good to re-connect with the school environment that I’ve so badly missed.

I also had a chance to meet with my supervisor, which was good in that she was not angry (or at least she didn’t show it) about my lack of progress, and also good in that I now have some pretty tight and quickly approaching deadlines to work with if I plan to defend my thesis in September.  I had imagined, for some reason, that defending in September would mean that I would need a final copy done by, oh, a few days before the defense?  Not quite.  I need to have a final, final, no-more-changes copy in to the department by August 15th.  Which means I need to get my final copy to my supervisor by mid-July so that she has time to read it, give me feedback, and allow me time to do revisions.  Holy crap.  Also, because I’m (hopefully) going to attend Simon Fraser’s book publishing workshop in Vancouver from July 6-19th, I’ll need to have everything done before I go.  That gives me…EIGHT WEEKS to write my entire thesis.  Holy shit!  Two goddamn months.  For the whole thing.  Holy mother of god.  Anyway, apparently I work well under pressure (that’s what I keep telling myself), so I’m just gonna give’r and see what happens.

Outside of the important academic goings on that took place in Montreal, I also had my fair share of decidedly non-academic and very much booze-related good times.  Without going into painstaking detail (seeing as I only have EIGHT FUCKING WEEKS to write my thesis, I should keep this short), I can briefly mention that I had my tarot cards read again by Duncan, this time accompanied by Karen; enjoyed a gay dinosaur-themed evening; took in my friends’ band On Bodies at Indyish; drunkenly downed Sangria at the Copa and shortly after followed it by three of the Main’s potato latkas; wandered, amazed, around Tam Tams on Sunday afternoon and watched a medieval battle, a throng of dancers surrounding a drum circle, and various jugglers and Jesus-lookalikes; attended Karen’s incredible Body Attack cardio class at Goodlife; and kicked some serious Guesstures ass with Mark.

It was a damn good time.
Unfortunately, however, I won’t be going back to Montreal at the end of May like I had hoped.  I was going to be there to do a book display for Fernwood at a communications conference, but it didn’t end up working out as nobody wanted to shell out the moolah to send me.  I might end up in Vancouver for Congress, though, which would be fun – both because I’ve never been, and because Dallas, Brian, and Karen may all be there at the same time.  I don’t want to get my hopes up, though.  Ohhhh god I hope it works out!

The only negative aspect to my time away was that on Sunday evening at one of my favorite Montreal restaurants, Cafe L’Etranger, my wallet was stolen.  Dallas, Brian, Mark and I met Karen there after our adventure at Tam Tams (to which I should probably devote a whole post since it was such a weird and awesome experience), and while I was busy shovelling my Mulan sandwhich into my face, two sketchy fucks sat down at the table behind us, stole my wallet right out from my open purse that was on the floor between my and Mark’s chairs, and took off.  I didn’t even realize what had happened until another restaurant patron came over and told us that he thought something fishy had happened.  After the initial “oh FUCK”, I realized how lucky I was that it was my wallet (complete with $45 and a maxed out credit card…joke’s on you, suckas, I’m a student!), and not my MP3 player, camera, cell phone, or – gasp! – thesis notes.  Since I’ve been back I’ve had almost everything replaced, and only spent a few days feeling like a child whose wallet contains only 30 cents and a Safeway Club card.  Lucky for me, Karen totally saved the day and supported me for my last few days there.

I’m at work by myself for the next little while as my parents are in Cuba until the second week of May.  Being at work alone is okay, but since I’ve been back it’s been a bit of a gong show.  Case and point: I just got the call that an event that I’ve helped organize (although not related to the company directly) and for which invitations and a poster have been made does not have a location booked.  It’s taking place on May 21st.  Sweet jesus.  So, needless to type, I need to get that sorted out right now, instead of writing about Safeway Club cards on my stupid blog.