Sunlight in a Jar

I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing...

It's so good to be back home. I was in Nashville, working and travelling for eight straight days. That gives me moral permission to take today off, sleep in until it hurts to stay in bed, and then jump in the wickedly fresh sun while I do my errands and they take, like, 5 seconds each.

I took my picture for my new Medicare card. I walked in and took a number. 89. The number on the board was 88. Smiles for everyone, smiles for strangers!

I lost my debit card right before I left on this trip, so I went to the bank and got a nice new one. "I had just memorized the other one", I told the teller. "I know exactly how you feel", she said back. Smiles all around!

How long have I been waiting for sun? The good thing about flying in the day, even though I hate travel by plane, is that it's always sunny up there. Sometimes, when it's cloudy down here I try to remind myself of that.

My only counterbalance to this happy reunion is deciding to step out of some reading material I was really enjoying because *someone* blog-stalked me into it and I don't even want to be in the same virtual space. Phooey!

Beautiful Losers

Another drab, grey day. This isn’t the respite from a string of sunny days I used to enjoy. This is just mediocre hell. Man, the weather sucks.

I feel I should own a pair of those glasses that throws UV rays or something on you to enhance your mood. I would love that.

Last night was Axel’s “one night only” in Montreal. In the end, he’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, so I guess it’s not really one night only. But in spirit it is, I think.

How strange it must be to return to the place where you grew up, but haven’t been back to in 6 years, and haven’t lived in for seventeen. Everyone has changed; you’ve changed. And still, some things have got to remain the same.

Sitting in a booth at Blizzart’s last night, my historically old friend Hilary said all we were missing was a visit from Andrea Pahl. There was Jon Webb, our old neighbour and sometime friend of my brother’s, who probably hadn’t seen him in 20 years. I have been waiting for that particular encounter for a long time. I wish I could have seen his face, although apparently it was a bit anticlimactic, but that only reinforces my notions of what’s happened in all that time. Hilary was my friend, but my brother’s age, and he used to chase her around and try to kiss her. Years later, she commented she wished he would try again. It’s always great to see Hilly. Andrea Pahl, who was not there, was Axel’s best friend back in the day, and it’s true, it would have been spectacular to see that reunion.

I wonder, though, if anything has changed that much since the 1980s. Aren’t we still the same people who ran around backyards in the dark; who pointedly ignored each other’s rival gangs from 10 metres away; who sometimes coincided for an anxious game of truth or dare?

We’ll go back to Montreal West tonight for dinner at the Paradis, on Percival, middle block. We’ll sit in a house two down from where the Webb’s used to live, and across the street from Andrea Pahl’s old place. We’ll examine the spot where our own garage used to be and was torn down by later owners of the house. And across the street from that is Hilary’s old house. We won’t know the people who live in any of these houses anymore. But, honestly, I think nothing will have changed. Which is actually kind of too bad.

How Unusual!

So this is interesting. I got an email today from someone at the newspaper I used to work for, in Chile. I was asked if I could… interview Tom Jones in Toronto this weekend.

Seriously!

I had to decline. My brother is coming to Montreal this weekend. He lives in Chile, where he makes tv commercials and rides his bicycle around the volcanoes down there… or something like that. He came to Toronto this week on business and is taking the train to Montreal for one day only. I haven’t seen him in two years, so obviously I’m not going to miss his visit to go in the opposite direction.

Not for Tom Jones, and I can’t think of what circumstances would be so powerful that they’d take precedence in a case like this.

Ouch, have I been watching too much CSI or what? “Precedence” “Case” Take it to trace!

Ene Tiempo

Buf, ha pasado ene tiempo desde un post en castellano. Alguien me recomendó que escribiera en el idioma en que sueño, pero ¿qué haces cuando hasta tus sueños son bilingües? Leía mi diario de vida de 2000, uno verde muy tierno que me regaló la Bubi antes de mi viaje por dos meses a Montreal, a descompresionarme de mi agitada vida santiaguina. Bueno, en él hacía el comentario de que después de varias semanas en mi mundo anglófono, mi diario seguía siendo en español. Pero mi diario hoy, es en inglés. Será porque han pasado muchas más que varias semanas desde mi regreso.

En todo caso, siempre es bueno volver, y escribir para que me entiendan. O para que me entiendan mejor, no sé.

A ver, ¿qué he hecho? La semana pasada tuve uno de esos eventos jetsetteros que porque son de trabajo, no tienen ningún glamour. Volé a Washington por el día a una reunión con un nuevo cliente. Así: ida y vuelta en el mismo día. Al volver, tomé un taxi a mi casa, me cambié de pantalones, y me fui a reunirme con amigos para ver el recital de Sam Roberts, un músico idolatrado acá, que fue al colegio con gente que conozco (onda, Ignaciano). Estuvo bueno.

Esta semana vi dos películas con amigas: Marie Antoinette (me encantó; soy fan de la directora) y The Queen (menos entretenida, pero interesante igual).

En mi pega, trato de controlarme de comer demasiados dulces de Halloween. Así es, a estas alturas todavía quedan montones. Tenemos un especie de kiosko, que maneja otra jefa de proyecto, y cuyos fondos son para nuestras 'actividades sociales', tipo, ejem, bowling. Bueno, después de Halloween, ella trajo todas esas barras de chocolate y dulces en tamaño mini que le sobraron para vender en el kiosko. Ayer me dolía la guata de tanto mini Kit Kat. Me pregunto si eso incide directamente en el rollo que me sale encima de las panties. Ja.

En realidad, tengo puros viajes que contar, ¿no les parece latero? No, pero en serio, si son por pega. La próxima semana voy a Nashville, Tennesse, home of country music. Quién diría. Es una conferencia de profesores de idiomas extranjeros en Estados Unidos.

Estoy esperando la aprobación definitiva de mi jefa para reservar un pasaje a Nueva York para pasar la navidad en Rockefeller Center.

Ah! Esto es clave: viene mi hermano de visita este fin de semana. Estuvo en 2000, el mismo año que yo vine por 2 meses escapando de Lat. 33, Eduardo, el inexplicable odio de JMV, la partida del Pato, etc etc. Les recomiendo leer sus diarios de vida del pasado. El mío por lo menos está de lujo.

Mi anécdota favorita durante esa visita:
Llamé larga distancia a la casa de la Mariana y Pablo, muy tarde, y contestó una adormecida Mariana que me confundió con una polola de Pablo y me dijo "Marcia, basta de llamadas a las 3am!" y me colgó. jaja. Obviamente la llamé devuelta y me reí de ella. Hoy, Marcia es mamá, la Mariana vive en Barcelona y Pablo es papá por dos y está en México. Cuánto tiempo ha pasado desde el 2000, porque para mí fue ayer.

They Call It Murder

At the Halloween party at Jenny's I met a cute guy wearing an orange parka, and a bloody face. I think he was carrying an axe, too. I asked him if he was supposed to be some kind of murderer.

-No, I'm Tom Thomson, he said.

Thwack! It was like a name designed to kill me. Double whammy. I held back a totally irrelevant, acidic comment.

-Who's he? I asked instead
-He was one of the Group of Seven, replied this cute guy, who I later found out has a girlfriend, alas.
-Weren't they painters? I asked, trying to recall my visit to the National Gallery a couple of months ago.
-Yes, he said and held up a photocopy of a painting by Mr. Thomson.
-So you're a murdering painter?
-No, he laughed. Tom Thomson was killed.
-Oh, I smiled.

***
Y para los que piden a gritos un post en español... bueno... así no se piden las cosas!!! :P