Getting Away From Me

If, in the world of blogging, one day equals 5 years, my trip to Portland now happened nearly a quarter century ago, and therefore is possibly the most boring thing I could write about.

So, I will- ah fuck it. Okay, just one story.

Before I go to the show I've found out about from the wicked cool girl in the wicked cool zine store beside the amazingly wicked cool cafe, the show which is, I find out, when I get there in my flashy glasses, tight jeans, tight shirt, neckerchief and lipstick combo, a scrappy punk show at a scrappy cafe full of scrappy punk kids and I look, not old, but certainly way out of my way - before the show I decide to go for dinner at a nice vegetarian restaurant called Farm Cafe.

Let me tell you something about Portland. There are queers everywhere.

I walk in, and there's a waiting list an hour long for a table. No worries, I brought a book, and there'll be a seat coming up at the bar in a few minutes, if that will suit. And because I'm in a part of town that's far away from my hotel and is just empty enough to put the edge of a scare into me, and because if I don't eat here, I'm fucked to know where I'm going to eat any time real soon, and because I've got two and some hours to kill before what is going to be a great show but an unsettling experience, it will suit, and well, thank you.

The people occupying my place are two girls, office-butch and your regular femme type, the butch running her hand up the femme's thigh, bare under a light skirt. The three men beside them are Gay gay, plaid-wearing tattooed indie rockers, which is odd for someone who comes from a town where the two categories rarely meet in one person. The two women on the other side of them aren't on a date, but look like dyke to me. Cra-zy. You just don't walk into a random restaurant in Ottawa and find it stacked to the rafters with queer.

But a mixed crowd, the bar be damned. The people who came in after me, for example, were not queer. They were, however, on a date. A blind date. Set up by Rachel. Rachel who must have been good friends with the guy. Because only a good friend would have thought this guy "should get out there." If the Russian - with her hot body, her lovely accent, and her Masters in Economics - ever speaks to either Rachel or the guy who didn't stop talking about how horrible his ex-girlfriend and her children were for the forty minutes they stood behind me, both Rachel and Mr. Bitter will be lucky people indeed.

I feel this guy's pain. We've all been there. It's shitty. Your tendrils are all torn and broken, bleeding sap, but you've got these phantom tendrils that still feel, and what they feel like is still wound all up in this other person. Then there's this other person in front of you, who doesn't even really remind you of your ex, but they're taking up the space that your real tendrils had grown into, so the sensation travels strong up your phantoms, into your brain, and what comes out is a litany of heartbreak disguised as complaints. It feels bad from every fucking side.

But jesus, I mean, come on. You gotta know that might happen going in, and do your best to guard against it. At one point, while eating my Giant Hedgehog Fungus, alternating between picking the unmentioned breading off, loving the taste, and being slightly nauseated by the texture, which was close to animal, but a little too squeaky, and so uncannily like animal, more like something that does, but shouldn't actually, exist, in between these moments I tried to make eye contact with her. Our gaze did meet, briefly, and although I was desperately telegraphing her the message "Go to the bathroom and I will point out, very politely, that you did not, in fact, sign up to go on a date with his ex-girlfriend," either my signals were not strong enough or her receptors were on the fritz. But the gay gay guys and the two bartenders caught the edge of it, and a shared glance bounced around between us.

Eventually, The Economist and Mr. Bitter got a table, and I ignored my categorical queasiness and concentrated on the delightful woodsy taste of the fungus, and daydreamed about finding some cute something or other at the show where I would be thrilled to find my people in Portland and they would be just as thrilled that I'd shown up.

Yes, about that. At least I didn't talk about my ex for forty minutes at the show. I'm just saying.

Done In

So tonight was the night I was going to tell you about Portland. But I'm too fucking tired. No reason to be, since my body thinks it's 7:40, which is not my usual bedtime. But my body also thought it was 4:30 when I pushed it out of bed this morning, so there you go.

Remind me to tell you the one about the bad first date while I was eating a giant fungus, or the one about how the people I think are my people are not the people who think I'm their people. And the one about being invisible, and the one about the human iditarod. And for sure the one about the great cafes, none of which were named Virginia, but all of which were open.

Second Impressions

I love it here. Love. It. Ottawegians, I don't suggest you google "portland weather." It will break your hearts.

It would be rude to tell you how few layers I'm wearing, but what I will tell you is that I pulled my tuque out of my knapsack today, looked at it in bewilderment for a moment, and then thought "Faugh, bullshit!" before tossing it carelessly over my shoulder. Fuck tuques.

Right now, I'm sitting in Powell's bookstore, which is so damn big you need a map for navigation. It's independently owned. Today, after I skipped out on the very boring afternoon symposia, I wandered over to a neighbourhood called The Pearl - full to the brim of amazingingly cute girls and boys. Wherever you go! Everywhere you look!

After doing a bit of grocery shopping at Whole Foods, I wandered along Oak St and marvelled at the independent cafes and bookstores, and again with all cute people, sitting around outside, unjacketed, having coffee and looking relaxed. Outside. In February. The place I ended up sitting was called Stumptown Coffee, and though at first I totally loved it, it started to irritate me after I'd sat for a while. Something too slick about it, too much studied indifference. The art was heavily ironic. Still, they made a fucking good soy latte.

And I got to *pick* it. It wasn't the only option. It was the one I chose to go to, out of all the independent cafes I passed on a 10 block walk of very short blocks.

It is going to be very hard to come home to Ottawa with its cold and cafeless streets, its long grey blocks, and its strangers with no smiles. Though I've been so fucking happy to be here, it may be that people are just smiling back.

Feels a bit anticlimactic to be writing so much after saying I was not going to be blogging cause I'd be all busy, you know, what with the work and the g-spot hunting. But the thing that I forgot about work conferences is that they're fucking tiring. By the end of the day, I don't actually want to talk to other people. I want to drink mint tea in the whitewash buzz of cafe noise and tap tap tap you out a missive.

The only problem with this bookstore is that the cafe bit is in the Gold Room, and the toilet bit is in the Purple Room, which does not seem to be very near the Gold Room at all.

Time for me to pack it in, take a piss, and head on back to bed.

First Impressions

- that's a big mountain

- right, this is what 12 degrees and no windchill feels like

- people here look you in the eye and smile

Off I Go

If I were a reasonable sort of person, I would be asleep right now, seeing as how my alarm clock is going to go off at 6 am. At which point I will burst out of my nice warm cozy bed, perform my morning ablutions, finish the last bits of packing, swipe on some deodorant, make a smoothie, and race out of the house no less than one half-hour later.

I'm not entirely sure when I became the sort of person who needed to pack a full regular-sized suitcase for a 5-day trip. Probably when I became the sort of person who felt she couldn't manage five days without a run and/or yoga class. Or the sort of person who felt she needed three extra pairs of glasses, various pills and potions to keep her skin under control, an outfit requiring both spectator pumps and back-seam stockings, and last, but not least, enough rye thins, non-sulphured dried apricots, and cashews to see her through 3 days of a conference, functions notorious for only ever serving things she doesn't eat.

Fuck me. What that paragraph makes me want to do is throw one pair of pants, two t-shirts, a few pairs of underpants and socks and my toothbrush into a backpack and take off on another reading tour. Just to prove I can still do it, DIY style.*

The other creature in this house who got all packed up to leave was Freya. The 4th Dwarf swung by in his spaceship, stayed for a cup of tea, said many interesting things, laughed in all the right places, made good friends with my cat, and then squired her away to his abode. He's started cat-blogging her already, and I look forward to reading about her exploits for the rest of the week.

When I race out of the house tomorrow morning, I will be racing towards Portland, Oregon. It's not a city I know a lot about, except there's a vegan mini-mall there, Ian says to have a burrito should the chance arise, and apparently it's home to a vibrant dyke scene.

So, though my main purpose there is to attend a conference, 4D's assessment of my motives may turn out to be true, and I may spend at least some of my time looking for g-spots.

Hopefully, I'll be too busy to blog.



*Jennifer and Lesley? Thoughts?

If There Were a Song About Ottawa

The morning did not start well. When you've rolled out of bed around 10 am for 4 of the past 5 days, 6:30 is way fucking early. I didn't recognize myself when I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, due to, 6 of one/half dozen the other, either my disarray or my inability to focus my eyeballs.

But I finished my bits of packing, including getting all of my christmas presents into my two wee bags. Shelley and Steve gave me all sorts of lovely and delicious things made in Halifax, including a top which is a brighter colour than I normally wear, but makes my tits look almost shockingly large. And then these slippers, which I fucking love. Maybe I'll wear them with the merino socks my uncle gave me. Apparently, word on the cold feet has gotten out.

My cab was supposed to come at 7:20 or 7:25. I booked it yesterday, talking to a slow-talking and kinda confused sounding man. It worried me. My choice for the Share-A-Cab was to get there for 7 am - 1 hour early - or 8 am - 10 minutes late. I generally don't like to cut it too close, but the difference between 7 and 8 feels like more than an hour.

At 7:24 my nerves had nerved up and I thought "Okay, they've got till 7:40 and then I'm calling." At 7:37, I thought fuck it and dialed them. The slow-talking man came on the line.

"Hi, I'm Megan Butcher. I booked a cab to show up at Number Number This Street at 7:20 this morning."

"Oh. Huh. What's your name?"

"Megan. Butcher."

He's flipping madly through what sound like scraps of paper.

"Oh. Huh. When did you make the reservation?"

"Yesterday. With you." I was not my nicest self.

"Well. Well! It's just gone! I don't have your name anywhere. Huh!"

Silence.

I break.

"Oooohkay. My flight is at 8:50. Can you get me a cab?"

"Oh. Huh. Well. Unh, I can maaaaybe get someone to you by 8:20 or 8:30."

It takes around a half hour to get to the airport.

"No. Thank you. I will call someone else."

The first cab company I picked at random from the yellow pages had someone already in the North End and at the house in 5 minutes. I got to the airport with time to spare, but paid more than twice the price for the privilege. On the way there, I was thankful that I am now in a financial situation where that is an inconvenience and not an impossibility.

While I was waiting for the first cab, I flipped through the cookbook I gave Shelley: a copy of my go-to cookbook, The Vegetarian Express Lane Cookbook. It is getting damn hard to come by these days, and that is a damn shame for lazy cooks everywhere. 10 items or less! A limited but tasty palette of herbs and spices! Crazy that's it's out of print. After she opened it, I used bingo dabbers to mark the recipes I particularly liked. Last night, I made the White Beans and Sage, and we ate it at the beautiful table that Steve made, with a nice Pinot Grigio and candlelight. Like a date without the incipient heartbreak.

Steve's present wasn't necessarily the most thoughtful gift I've ever given him, insofar as it was originally a present for someone else. But these mittens are the most beautiful things I have ever knit, so I hope that fact and warm fingers makes up for the lack of thoughtfulness. I also gave him a scarf to match, though it came with the needles still in. The bazillion episodes we watched of The I.T. Crowd ("Hello? Hel-LO! Hel-lo, Computor!") helped me get through nearly another ball-unit of yarn. There's gonna have to be a lot more TV before the S's get here in a couple of weeks if'n I'm gonna get it finished.

If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have written much over the past few days, cause now I got these pictures, but I'm all storied out. Enh, it's late, so no story, just two of my favourite creatures on a spit of land at Cow Bay.

Still in Halifax

And generally, happily so.

My flight was fogged out this afternoon. On the Ottawa side apparently, though when I looked out Shelley's window, I couldn't see the bridge just a few kilometres away.

It was lucky that Jennifer was going to pick me up. I never check my flights, just assuming that things will run smoothly. But Jennifer was going to pick me up, and the timing needed to be reasonably precise and so I checked the flight online. When I saw it was cancelled, I was flabbergasted. It's never happened to me before. I had no frame of reference.

I did what any sensible person would do in such a situation, and asked Steve for advice. His advice? "Call them." Brilliant!

Easier said than done, however. The machine hung up on me twice while trying to transfer me to a person. When I did get transferred to a person, they really had to work at being helpful. Like it hurt, or something.

"Is that flight to Montreal tomorrow at 9:55 am?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"Great, I can bus home from there."
Tappity tappity. Tap.
"Okay, your flight will arrive at 10:40 pm..."

Now, I have not flown between Halifax and Montreal ever before, but I'm willing to bet that it doesn't take more than 12 hours. The direct flights to Ottawa only started Wednesday morning at 6 am. I took a more reasonable 8:50 am flight.

Luckily, I'm all set up to work from home. And by home, I mean "my computer." So I won't take another holiday day, but will probably ensconce myself on the red couch, drink tea, answer email and call into the 1:30 meeting, all while wearing Shelley's housecoat.


I do miss my cat and my fish and my stuff. My regular routine is pretty important to my overall well being. But that's all there waiting for me yet, and I am lucky to have friends kind enough to take care of my animals for two extra days on a moment's notice.

Being here is lovely. Not so much Halifax, which is a great town, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty much Ottwegian through and through at this stage. What I mean is here at home with Shelley and Steve. It's easy and fun. We split a couple beers, we made dinner. We talked about bathroom renos. We watched a few episodes of my new favourite TV show (The I.T. Crowd). We laughed a lot. We drank port and ate chocolate. Milo sat beside me on the couch with his nose on my thigh. I knit.

I definitely don't mind the cancellation.


Bonus Question: Did anyone get the late-80s music reference in the title?

Up the Valley

Eventually, I am going to stop writing about breaking up, the number of times I've cried in any given day (just once), and how far up the ass of sorrow I currently have my head.

But not yet, because honestly, I don't have much else to say. It's what I think about most often. That will change, I'm not worried about that, but I do hope you'll bear with me through this.

Let me tell you, it is a fucking relief to get out of Ottawa. The disadvantage of living two blocks away from your boyfriend is suddenly living two blocks away from your ex-boyfriend. And that's not so much fun. Every time I see a green parka I feel simultaneous jolts of nausea and excitement. They're not so far from each other, as it turns out.

Today, Shelley and I drove out to Wolfville. We hit a Frenchy's, where I bought a couple nice things and a couple odd things. The flouncy see-through top isn't so odd, I guess, but I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to try the periwinkle velour jacket on, never mind buy it. I came out of the change room and Shelley said "Huh. Ironic." Not to worry, she greeted the sheer flounces with the vociferous approbration they deserved.

After that, we hit the Just Us flagship cafe, with a nice little museum that made me want to email Eric, then the Grand Pre Winery just up the road where I bought a nice red to go with our Market dinner tomorrow night. Then a nice tea in the cafe of the cooperative cinema with the handsome and cold-med-groggy M-C. We stayed chatting too late, and missed the sunset sky heading home.

Right now, again, we're tucked into bed. I'm trying not to get motion sick as Milo, who is one of the two dogs I love (Hi Shy Dog!), is scratching his face and shaking not only the bed, but my legs that are on top of the bed, and the laptop that is on top of my legs.

Tonight, we're going to Jane's, a twenty minute walk away on a balmy night. What is halfway between that restaurant and this bed is a bar called Gus's that serves up both beer and Haligonian indie rock. Hard to go wrong with that.

Nights and Days

Ah, the lap of luxury. Here I am, in Halifax, tucked into bed. Just come up from drinking tea in front of the fire, watching TV and knitting, while Steve laughed his big laugh and Shelley dozed. This after a very delicious seafood risotto and, rolling back, an afternoon tucked into this very same bed, but with Shelley and her laptop, scheming and browsing the internet till the laptop lost its charge. This after a yummy bento box lunch, after being picked up at the airport.

Two nights ago, I had a therapy appointment. It was a strange one, since there wasn't much to talk about except the breakup. And though I'm taking that harder than I thought I would, I don't need to be therapized about it. Time and the regular application of stout will work just as well, I think. I won't stop going to therapy altogether, since I've still got the same shit to work through, but it's impossible to deal with underlying emotional faultlines during a mudslide. The appointment ended up being not very useful, but nice. She made good suggestions and said the right things. She also checked that I was keeping myself duly occupied during the evenings. Which are my saddest times.

I assured her I was going to be well taken care of.

Last night was fun. I picked Jennifer up at her house and we met Liz at the Aloha. The music kicked my ass in the very best way, I got one more thing out of my house by giving Liz back her museum registration textbook (long story), and it was great to laugh and spend time with two women who also kick my ass in the very best way. Especially so at the Aloha, which can feel like a bit of a boys' club.

I may have to start watching it on the regular application of stout, however, because when I got home, I didn't do a few things that I promised myself I would get done, thinking "Feh, I'll have lots of time to do that in the morning. What time to I need to get up? Oh, 7:30 will be lots of time." To have a shower, eat breakfast, write Freya's minders a note, put out the cat food, finish packing and tidy a few things up? Not hardly enough time, never mind lots.

The plane ride was a study in contrasts. The packing I finally finished was into a small green 70s-era suitcase. That and my laptop bag were what I brought, both small enough for carry on. Getting onto the plane, the flight attendant checked my boarding pass, looked me over, smiled, and said, in a lovely, lilting Italian accent, "Beautiful suitcase." Compliment me, I'll wave my hand at you dismissively. Compliment my luggage, I'll blush to the tips of my toes in delight.

I found my seat, put said suitcase in the overhead compartment, taking up all the room left over from the in-flight magazines, and started sorting myself out, waiting for the person sitting in the window seat beside me to show up. He did, his strides down the aisle purposeful, a large bag in each hand. He stopped short, looked crankily at the overhead compartment above our row.

"Uh. What's that?" An acid pause before spitting out that.

What I did say? “That is my carry on.” Pointing. “That is not mine.”

What I should have said? “That, jackass, is my beautiful suitcase.”

Souvenirs From Edmonton

These are the only things I managed to bring back from Edmonton. Besides the conditioner from my hotel room for Eric.

Soft

There was a time in my life when a 12 hour workday wasn’t all that out of the question. A couple times, in fact.

When I worked at venus envy, we were a brand new store here, and had the same start up trials and tribulations that any new independent store has. We had few staff because we could afford few staff. So I worked. A lot. Though there were days that I felt dragged out – and those days did increase as the years wore on - I didn’t really mind it. I was getting to do something pretty amazing and I was getting to do it with people I really enjoyed. Especially Shelley. Working with Shelley was not like working at all.

But I’ve gotten soft in the years since I left venus envy. I’ve been at my current job now almost three years, and because it’s officey, there’s rarely anything that can’t wait till tomorrow.

But now I'm in conference world, and everything needs to be done either now or 5 minutes ago. I started work this morning at 7 am. Not bad, considering that most of my co-workers were at the conference centre at 6. Now it’s almost 7 pm, and I’m waiting for people to show up: the bus leaves for the West Edmonton Mall in 15 minutes and I don’t think anyone is going to show up.

Edmonton seems like a nice city. Not that I’ve seen much of it. The Shaw Convention Centre is nice for a convention centre. From the registration desk, where I will spend at least 6 hours of my day tomorrow, I get to look out over the North Saskatchewan river.

On the way in from the airport, I saw the Edmontonian version of the Byward Market. It was three degrees outside, and there were lots of girls wearing hot pants. It's on the other side of the river from my part of town. I’m staying right downtown, and even then all I’m getting to see of it is the 8 blocks between my hotel, the City Centre Mall (where I get my elastics), and the convention centre.

Okay, that’s a lie. The first day, I walked out of the convention centre and took a right instead of a left, and ended up on the seedy block. Those are my souvenirs. I'm too fucking tired to deal with them right now. Later, later.

Getting Ready

Tomorrow, I leave for Edmonton. I'm going not for fun, but for a conference that my work is organizing. Somewhere along the way, I thought it would be a good idea to have a volunteer coordinator. And volunteered myself for it. Like with the iron, a smart person who does stupid things.

Normally, if I were about to leave for a few days, I'd be going nuts cleaning and doing laundry and tidying and buying wine for the housesitter. But I'm not going to have a housesitter because Freya is going to stay at the vet's while I'm gone. Eric, being his regular nice self, emailed an offer to take care of her. "Hmm," I wrote back. "You might want to wait to make a definite decision until I explain everything."

Later that night I showed him the insulin and the needles and read bits of the care sheet out to him. When I got to the part about how she might die if he got it wrong, he thought that maybe the vet's would be better.

I was super nervous about starting her on the insulin, but she's been fine. Better than fine. She's stopped drinking so much and she seems less lethargic. She's actually quite alert in that photo.

Giving the needle is awkward. I'm at the stage where I can see how it might go easier and faster but don't seem to be able to make my fingers do it. I think longingly of the practice shot with the vet tech, where Freya was nervous and so just sat there. At home, where she's more comfortable, she starts walking away from me, or flops down on the floor just after I've gotten the needle in. Oh, fun times indeed.

But no, no crazy scrubbing or bubbing, none of that, just an 85 ride to Boyd St with Freya in her rucksack, open at the top so I can peek in along the way and picking out my clothes for the next few days. And getting my apartment and myself cleaned up for a shit hot date with my lovely paramour.

Housesitter Ian Deserves a Medal

When I go away for more than a couple of days, I like to find a housesitter. While Freya would be okay with someone dropping by once or twice a day for some food and a couple of pets, she wouldn't be happy. She likes to be around people. She likes for people to make laps so she can sit in them. She likes for people to lie down so she can purr a bit and then flop down on them, and then spoon with them after she slides down their side. That's the kind of cat she is.

I like to find a housesitter who would appreciate a week or so on their own - someone who lives out in the burbs, or who has roomies, or misses cats, or something. They're doing me a huge favour by staying Chez Butch, so I like to feel like I'm doing them a bit of a favour back.

Ian was a perfect candidate: roommated and cat-misser. But I think he got a little more than he bargained for.

The Wednesday before I left, he came over and I gave him a tour and we went over the notes I'd made for him. The entire page of notes I'd made for him. Apartment quirks, what to do in case Freya got sick, contact numbers for friends. I called the vet and gave them his name, I emailed Grace to see if she'd be available to drive Ian and Freya to the vet's in case of an emergency, I called my landlord to tell him that if there were a problem, Ian would call. I left my upstairs neighbours a note. I left Ian detailed notes about all the people who knew.

In short, I went kind of bonkers. I'm still not quite sure what tick had gotten under my skin, because jesus, I even emailed Ian from Halifax to give him yet one more ridiculous "just in case" instruction. He must have thought the place and my pet, not to mention my brain, were made of glass.

Point 5 under "apartment quirks" (right under "turn shower taps 5 times for water") was "ants, mice, bats." Listed from least to most scary. Ian was holding the paper as we went over it. His eyebrows shot up. "Bats? For real?"

"Yeah, sadly. It's high season too." I paused, feeling guilty. "I probably should have mentioned the bats beforehand. But you probably won't get one." He couldn't tell, but I was crossing all my fingers and and all my toes.

When I got home from the 'fax, there was a note on the table. "And check the phone message from Mark," it said, "Pretty funny." Now Mark is a funny guy prone to making penis jokes, or, well, drawing penis jokes. So that's what I had in mind when I checked the message. It was not a rude joke about the male member, but detailed instructions on how to deal with bats. As soon as I realized he was serious, I gasped and looked around the room. My eyes instantly zeroed in on the guano on the wall above the TV. Poor poor Ian, I thought, what a housesitting disaster.

I was thinking, too, about the cat puke.

Steve and I picked Eric up at the Halifax airport on Sunday night. After all the hellos and the settling in, Eric and I sat out on the lanai in the dark. He seemed a little quiet, maybe a little tense, but I put it down to travelling and being somewhere new. We chatted, there was a lull. He turned towards me.

"There's something I need to tell you," he said. I could feel the shot immediately, each molecule of adrenaline another worst case. "Freya's okay, I went and checked," he continued, and my shoulders came down from around my ears. "But she threw up on your bed." I started breathing again. "On your new sheets."

Aha.

"But she's fine?"
"Yep, she seemed normal."
"Ah well, sheets are sheets. If Freya's fine, I can buy new sheets."
"And no one's slept on them."

As it turns out, I don't even have to buy new sheets, because Housesitter Ian did an amazing job of cleaning them when the stain was fresh. He washed them. Twice. With stain remover. He washed my mattress, even.

I'm not sure a medal is good enough.

Halifax, Pt. 2: Besides the Barfing

The Halifax of my memory is breezy and cool. Not humid and burning hot. But that's what it was last week. Eric and I spent a lot of time walking around various neighbourhoods looking for shade. Eric and I and Shelley and Steve spent a lot of time out under their cabana, what I liked to call the lanai. We ate and read and chatted and drank beer. This picture is not the best picture I've ever taken, but I think it captures our activities fairly well. The visiting, the whole trip, the hanging out, was so easy. I loved it, but it also made me very sad that we do not all live in the same city. It's not fair and I'm going to stamp my feet.

Because I'm not in much of a story telling mood, I'll just jot down things we did that I enjoyed, and think that you should enjoy too, if you are ever lucky enough to be in Halifax.

1) The market. It's open every Saturday, so I actually got to go twice. One of my very fond memories of Halifax is going to market at 7 on a summer morning, buying big bags of peas and bunches of carrots, then going to catalogue for 5 hours at the DalTech library, which had windows that opened, facing the harbour. I would turn the music on loud, munch on peas scooped right from the shell and catalogue old reports from the CMHC.

2) Quinpool Rd. I actually hate Quinpool Rd. It feels like a strip mall. But Eric and I hit a couple of neat stores on it. Gaudet Optical is where Hilda gets her glasses, and Hilda, hands down, has the best glasses going. But I was in a funk by the time we got there, so it ended up like bra shopping. Every time I tried on a pair of glasses, I thought, Ugly. Uglier. Ugh. How can you be that ugly. I stopped trying on glasses right about that point. We poked around for a bit more. That is, until we got upstairs, and I let myself be cajoled into trying a couple of other pairs on. These ones took the pressure off of trying to look good.

Then we went to Aqua Creations, where we looked at every tank, and Eric told me about various fish controversies and pointed out his favourites. It sounds like something girlfriendy to do, like I would just suffer through it to make my man happy. I assure you that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe it was because I wasn't looking at my unhappy mug in bad glasses frames. But I learned a lot. In fact, I now know the difference between a sunfish and a pleco. Which I did not know before. I also know that fish people can get some weird about making new species for no good reason.


3) Bach's Cafe. It is a place who loves J.S. Bach, coffee, music and polar bears. They don't love air conditioning, apparently. But I love them.

4) Gottingen St. When I first moved to Halifax, my racist cousin told me I should not move to Gottingen St. Because, you know, that's where all the "gangs" were. And yes, it's likely there are gangs in the area. But he was using it in its Canadian Racist form. Gottingen is a great street and I ended up living not far from it. It's changed a lot since I was there, some places gone, some sprung up. If there were a few more trees, I'd have walked it even more. As it was, Eric and I walked it a couple times from stem to stern, once to get beer from Propeller Brewery, where we saw people buying growlers.

One of those times, Eric ducked down beside the Marquee, a den of iniquity for me back in the day, to see if they still had a terrible mural up. They do, of Ray Charles. I could put a picture of that up, but jesus, it's just ugly, so instead, I give you a picture of Eric that catches my breath every time I look at it. Hot and damn, he's a handsome man.

5) The reading. It went quite well. We got about a dozen people, I think, who seemed to enjoy all the readings on offer - Edwina Etiquette made a surprise appearance. And we raised $54 for the Bursary Fund, which made me really happy. Rita McKeough told me I was maybe a closet performance artist. That thrilled me to my toes. High praise indeed.

6) Shelley and Steve and Milo and their house. I had a great time staying with Shelley and Steve. Milo is such a cute dog. Their house is this sprawling, i'm-always-turning-the-wrong-direction house that is cozy and homey. They have supernice roommates named Rita and Mark. I adore Rita, who is a crazy brilliant performance artist. Mark seems very nice, though I don't have as much of a sense of him. He laughs a lot and sleeps very soundly, which is useful if you're going to be barfing in the bathroom next to his bedroom. I got to help Shelley organize her room a little bit, and we got it looking even homier.

Shelley and Steve are welcoming and thoughtful, inspiringly so. Shelley had put her lovely organic cotton sheets on the bed and made our room up so beautifully. I hope that we were half as good as guests as they were as hosts.

Also, did I mention it's not fair that we don't live in the same city?

7) Point Pleasant Park. I suggested a walk around PPP because we were post-barfing and the park is easy to get to by bus, and easy to have a quick and shady walk around. I thought. Unfortunately, I was remembering the pre-Hurricane Juan PPP. It is not so shady now. Where there once were trees, there are no trees. Only grasses and bush. I would stop and gape, sweeping my arm over the panorama of solitary trees and scrub, then stabbing my finger at a lonesome copse of pines. "This! Used to all be like That!" Beautiful cycle of renewal, etc., but still, shocking. We dragged our tired carcasses around some now very bright trails, ate a bit of left-over pizza, and collapsed happily in the shade by the bus stop.

This sign confused me. There's high voltage in the fountain? Or is it a pastiche homage to Electric 6?



So back to regular life tomorrow. I can't even remember what's going on at work, which is good, but might be surprising tomorrow. I've got a Special Top Secret Project that I need to get done by the end of the week. And I seem to have become addicted to the sweaty yoga, so I'm going to try to fit some of that in too, hopefully with Ariel. And I have gifts to give and babies to smooch. All in all, time to get back to regular old life.

Halifax. Pt 1.

For the first couple of days after Eric arrived in the 'fax, he and I had a running conversation about which one of us was on vacation and which one was on holiday. It went a little something like this:

"Nice to be on vacation, eh?"
"Or holiday."
"True." I paused to absorb the possible thesauratic implications of this. "Wait. Holiday?"
"Yeah. We're on different kinds of trips."
"Ah. Gotcha."

But you know, I didn't gotcha. I mulled it over. The next day:

"So okay. Which one of us is on holiday and which one of us is on vacation, then?"
"Well, you can't have a working holiday, but you can have a working vacation. You did the pride booth and you're doing a reading. So you're on vacation and I'm on holiday, because I'm not doing anything at all like work."

Right.

Conversations like that are one of the many reasons I feel unbelievably lucky to have found Eric.

Another couple days later, about 10 hours into our 36 Hours of Food Poisoning No Fun, I wandered into our bedroom from the living room, where I had been alternately reading the shittiest mystery ever, passing out, worrying that I might puke again, and feeling very very sorry for myself. Exhausted from the 15 foot trip, I sat heavily on the side of the bed. He woke up.

"Hi baby. How are you."
He blinked an owly gravol blink at me. It wasn't a real question anyway.
"So. Is this a holiday or a vacation?"
That got me a smile.
"This is a vacation from our holiday."

Neither of us had ever had food poisoning before. And even now, we're not sure. We spent a lot of time walking around out in the sun without hats and not drinking very much water. Because we're, you know, bright like that.

The trip actually ended up being quite a few firsts, the big ones being our first long trip together and the first sick together. Considering the fact that I miss him terribly after spending 6 nights and days with him in a fairly small room, I think we did alright.

The start of our Romantic Food Poisoning was Wednesday. Wednesday night was going to be a really fun night for Eric, Shelley, Steve, Aurèle and A's brother Phil. We were gonna see rock and roll on the high seas. Or, more precisely, the Maynards on the tall ship Silva.

Early in the evening, Shelley made us a delicious dinner of tofu and greens and rice, and then Eric and I wandered downtown for drinks with A. and P. We ended up at the Split Crow for power hour - a buck a beer from 9 to 10.

(This picture is the closest I will ever get to looking like a beer commercial girl. That is A. to my left, looking blurrily bemused.)

Ah! I can hear you saying, Megan! Sweetie! When you drink too much buck-a-beer beer, you don't get *food* poisoning.

But my response is ready: I was about to go on a boat and take gravol. So I drank only about a third of a glass to be polite, and then sat there, waiting to get anxious about being late for the ship.

We weren't late. In fact, we spent quite a bit of time waiting on the pier, where to pass the time I took a few picture of the stomach ache that was starting to get quite poky.

Apparently, the show was quite good. Nausea felled me early on and I missed it all. I did spend about 10 minutes of one band above deck, but I was shaking so badly that Steve lent me his hoodie to put on top of the sexy little t-shirt, 2 sweaters, jacket number I was already sporting, and A. gave me a fistful of ice. I stared stupidly at my fingers gripping it as my arm went numb. "It always makes me feel better," A. said, shrugging. The fact that it didn't totally give me the creeps meant that it felt pretty good.

Then I ran downstairs because I thought I was going to throw up. Eric came down not long after and stroked my hair and showed me the pictures he was taking of the actual party. I could hear the bands really well, so it was almost like being on deck. Shelley and Steve kept coming down for very nice visits too, taking care of me and keeping me company, even though the gravol had taken away most of my sentences. Though I do believe it is one of the few times in my life I have muttered "Yes, I would like to put my head in your lap," without the slightest whiff of salaciousness.

I worried for quite a while that I was wrecking people's fun, because E. and S. and S. kept having to come downstairs to visit me. But then, even in the haze, I realized that if I had said no I can't go, none of us likely would have been anywhere near the music. So this, really, was a happy medium.

That everyone was so nice to me is one of the many reasons I feel unbelievably lucky to have found my friends.

Okay, so a lot more went on in Halifax than sickness and sentiment. But it's late and I'm still a little dragged out from being sick. Tomorrow, more.

Ahhh.

I'm sitting in Shelley and Steve's kitchen right now. Shelley's making a delicious dinner (risotto!) and Eric and Steve are floating around making plans and having showers and Milo the adorable dog just barked because Mark just got home and Shelley asked into the air "Who barks too much?" and Milo was too busy barking to answer.

All in all, perfect. Last night Steve and I drove out to the airport to pick that very cute Eric up. The sunset, through which that very cute Eric was flying as we drove. One thing I love about Halifax is the skies.

One thing I will tell you before I sign off is that I fucking love my laptop. I have all my music, all my software, access to blogging, access access access.

I tried to blog earlier, and although we've been doing lots, my brain is on vacation mode and I couldn't think of how to frame it. So I likely won't be writing much this week, but instead, drinking, walking, reading, and seeing.

Maybe the occasional photo. To close, here are a couple of pictures of Shelley and I on the Lawrencetown Beach this aft.

New Dutch Oven

Things we did not take pictures of:

- the cocktail menu placemat. Aurèle ordered a Tom Collins. It wasn't very good.
- the guns on the wall. All locked up, thank heavens.
- the hot buffet. A hot buffet at the New Dutch Oven? Mmmmm.
- the ketchup.

NYC: Shopping

I have been hearing two things about "my blog + NYC": when are you going to put up the shopping post already? and why aren't there any pictures of you in NYC? Alright already.

I like to think of myself as someone who is not a shopper. But of course, I am. I like buying things. I like having new things. My sister was here this past weekend and referred to me as a collector. I balked a little bit, but had to concede. It takes a huge effort not to buy another typewriter. What prevents me from being a pack rat is that my need to purge items is as big as my need to get new ones.

This trip to NYC at least involved shopping with a purpose:
1) Clothes that fit my happy fat.
1 a) Jeans that didn't make me feel like a sausage.
2) An outfit to match the killer shoes I bought the last time I was in NY.
3) Thrifting.
4) A corset.

1) Forever21 was probably the wrong place to go for this. I'd wanted to make it there, since Suge over at Babycakes had posted some very fun pictures. It was fucking bananas, both times we went. We got there Thursday night, almost at closing time, and I tried on a few dresses that I thought would suit me. And then I thought they might suit me in a better, i.e. bigger, size. I also tried on some jeans that were pretty good, but I didn't love. But bought anyway because they were cheap.

Those jeans. I am going to wear them until they fall off of my body. They are magic jeans. F21 managed to make a pair of jeans that are tight enough in the ass to make me look like I've got an ass, and yet loose enough in the thigh to prevent feeling like I'm about to be eaten. It's a heavenly combination and I have worn them more days than I have not since I got back. They're in the wash right now and I am sad that it will be at least two days until I can wear them again.

Going back Saturday was probably a mistake. It was after our Central Park picnic.

This is what I looked like just before we went in. I am tired of lugging around the giant bag. I am hot from sitting in the sun and wearing a sweater. (I am wearing my new jeans. Look at how my thighs do not look like sausages.) This is not the best time to be going into a store full of empire waists, baby doll dresses, tunics and teenagers. I tried on a bunch of medium-sized clothes and most of them made me look like a 32 year old trying to fit into my high school clothing. I was busting out of the medium and the large looked really large. I came away with one dress and the knowledge that I have hit the point in my life where going into stores like that is stupid.

And I got mall-head. Which made me buy the dress. I like it, and it's pretty, and it was $20, but it's an empire waist and shows off a lot of cleavage. And you know, that might sound enticing in print, but in person, that's going to mean a lot of people giving my stomach meaningful glances. Hopefully they'll actually ask me if I'm pregnant and I can say "Oh no, my belly always looks like that," and watch them writhe in embarassment.

2)Sometimes when I am away, I do weird things. The last time we were in New York, I bought chocolate brown and rose pink high heels. I have never worn those shoes because I have nothing to wear them with. I do really like them though. This time, I was bound and determined to buy something to wear them with. Now I have a pink and brown skirt with sequins on it. Weird skirt to match weird shoes. Now I really like them both, but will have to find somewhere to wear them. New York 2009?

3) We managed to hit one thrift store. Next trip, I am only going to thrift stores. We went to a church thrift store - St. Luke's - and the prices there were about twice what they'd be in Ottawa. Skirts were $8 to $15, for example. But the quality? Holy shit. On one pass through, I managed to find about 5 skirts, a couple dresses, a couple pairs of shorts, a bra and a pair of shoes. And not an empire waist in sight.

I got all Gollum-like at one point, when I found these shoes.



These are Campers. Campers are Very Expensive Shoes. Very Expensive. This pair is in *perfect* condition. When I asked the price, and the nice church lady blithely responded with "Fifteen dollars," I wrapped my arms around them and whispered "My precious."

4) A couple days before going to NYC, I found a corset at St Vincent de Paul. It was $4, so I bought it, even though it was 15 minutes before closing time and I couldn't try it on to see if it fit. It almost fit, and I could see that the ways in which it did fit meant that I really needed - yes, *needed* - to have one that did fit. I thought I'd keep my eye out while we were thrifting.

On the rainy Sunday, Shelley and I spent a chunk of time at a cafe on Orchard St. before trudging through the rain to go to a feminist bookstore called Bluestockings. We passed store after store with their grills closed. And then one sign caught my eye: Orchard Corset - the Bra and Girdle Fitters. We walked a couple more stores and I thought to myself, should I bother interrupting? Do I actually drag Shelley back to stand around while I do yet more shopping? Apparently some instinct knew yes, because I was calling her back before I had decided I would.

It was our most quintessential New York experience for me.

We got buzzed into a tiny room, probably about 12' wide. There was a counter along one side, and a broken sewing machine on the other, holding up a tv with shitty reception that was showing some kind of cooking show. There was a giant man behind the counter, a counter covered in boxes and slips and a laptop where he was watching something that probably wasn't a cooking show. He taking up about a quarter of the available space. There was a short, stocky woman working with him. Sullenly. The only time she spoke was to yell sizes at him from the fitting room.

They stared at us when we walked in.

"Yes. Can I help you?" He was friendly, but confused. I'm not sure we were his regular clientele.

"I'm looking for a corset. Not something frilly and sexy. More substantial."

"Take your jacket off."

I complied.

"Your sweater too." It was weird. I'm not usually ordered to take my clothing off unless something more fun than bra fitting is about to happen. But this was completely asexual, and so there was some dissonant firing going on in my neurons. He was very nice and business like.

He decided my size like he was telling my fortune.

Once he'd assesed size, style and make, he eyed the wall across from the counter. It was floor to ceiling boxes. He spent two seconds roving the shelves, heaved himself out from behind the counter, took out the corset he thought I would want and handed it to his assistant.

"Go with her behind the curtain."

The size was slightly off, but I loved it and walked out of there with exactly what I wanted.

When I was done, Shelley decided that she wanted a bra too.

"Take your jacket off." She was already starting.

"Turn around. Hmm. You're a [redacted]."

"Actually," Shelley replied, "that's going to be too small. I'm more like a [redacted]."

"I -" and he paused to smile a knowing and superior smile, "I have been making bra patterns for 34 years. I'm sure you're a [redacted]. Here." He handed a bra to his assistant. "Go with her behind the curtain."

I took pictures of my rubber boots and the walls. Not long after, the assistant yelled out "She needs a [redacted]." The same size Shelley said she would need.

Our corset man was flabbergasted.

As we were leaving, he eyed her tits some more. "I can't believe I was wrong. I've never been that wrong. Turn around again."

She obliged.

"Your back. Your back is definitely a [redacted]. But, ah! your ribs! You've got depth."

I love New York City.

NYC: Seeing and Doing

I was looking over the list of things that I wanted to do while away, and you know, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Thursday afternoon, after deplaning, cabbing to our lovely guesthouse, hieing ourselves to the well-oiled noodle-serving machine that is Republic, looking at dresses (more on that later), looking at skirts (more on that later), going back to the hotel to drop the (hint: filene's basement and forever21) bags, we hit ourselves with the dykey stick,* and strolled down Hudson St.

See, one of the plans involved going to a dyke bar called Henrietta Hudsons. See, last time, we got spooked by the thought of going to HH because of a description we read in some guidebook - we both envisioned L-Word lesbians. Fabulous and fashionable and Big City Queer. So we went to Rubyfruit instead, which, as Shelley put it a year and a half ago, "Are we in Dartmouth?" There was a lot of hockey hair and high-waisted pleated jeans.

We passed Rubyfruit. The same women were outside, smoking. We got to HH, paid our outrageous 10 American Dollar cover EACH, and walked into a fishbowl of a room. Bar along the right side, lined with women. DJ booth in the back corner spewing out pretty awful 80s music: "Forever Young" by Alhpaville was the first song I heard, and it was by request. A ring of women against the other walls. The record practically came to a screeching, scratching halt as everyone turned around to look at the New Girls in Town. They either thought we were not worth their time, or a couple. Judging from the sore lack of cuteness I saw, I choose to believe the latter. A lot of trashy cleavage and trainers with sweatshirts.

We bought a too expensive too strong drink and avoided the beer. Here is a reason to hate America: beer. I love me some neat whisk(e)y, and I have been known to imbibe the occasional gin and tonic, sure. But really. I do not love hard liquor, and I like mixed drinks even less. If I'm out, I want a guinness or a creemore or a fuck, 50, I don't care. Not a damn import that still tastes like piss. But I digress.

We sat in the corner and listened to the terrible music and watched the room. We mostly said "This drink is very strong." or "It's been a long day." or "We were intimidated by this place?" or "The Blonde *is* here with someone." See, The Blonde was a Bird of Paradise, by which I mean, she was Done Up. Bleach blond hair, 4" high heels that looked expensive even from across the room. Tanned legs that stretched for approximately one mile up to, well, my jesus. Honey, if your skirt is so short that you have to uncomfortably perch on the edge of your stool and self-consciously cover the pink with your sheepskin coat, then maybe you should think about a few more inches of skirt next time. Meretritious, Steve would say. I couldn't stop looking - my god, her legs! - but I sort of hated myself for looking each time.

Friday night, we went back to Rubyfruit, which was pretty fun, but again with the bad music. We made up a lot of stories about the people around us, and gamely danced for a few bad songs. It was not loads of fun. But neither of us is drinking as much these days as we were on our first trip. I think that made a big difference to the fun level.

That night, getting into our pyjamas, Shelley said, "You know, I think we've been going about this the wrong way. Do we go to dyke bars at home?"

"No," I said. "We don't like dyke bars at home."

"Then I don't know why we keep trying to like them here."

Truer words. Saturday, we kicked it into high gear Taylor-Butcher style. Before Rubyfruit, we'd been to a great bookstore - run by a volunteer feminist collective - called Bluestockings. Where we heard about the Anarchist Bookfair. I didn't get a picture of the fair itself, but here are all the zines I scored there.

At the fair, we heard about a workshop the next day about sexual healing for queers. The title was much less flippant than that. When we got there, in our rubber boots, the workshop we wanted was cancelled. We stayed for the end of "It's Everyone's Fault: Sexual Violence in Small Communities." It was good but sad. There was a genderqueer woman there who looked so much like Eric that I kept turning around to goggle at her. She kept looking quizzically back at me, not sure if I were being supportive, cruising her, or being snotty about what she was saying. I somehow thought that saying "Sorry I keep staring at you, but I miss my boyfriend" might be an awkward thing to say.

We walked 8 blocks and got soaked.

Friday night, mustabeen between dinner and Rubyfruit, we checked out the Knitting Factory to see what was happening there. If the Gossip were playing there the next night, maybe there was something equally cool that night. Nothin doin. There was something jammy in the basement and cover band awards in the main space. "Do you happen to have any tickets left for the Gossip?" Shelley asked. "Nah, everyone's gonna be here for the good show."

Turns out, too, that I'd read at the Knitting Factory. At an open mic after our PMR performance. Weird to find that out nearly 3 years later.

We didn't bother going back. It's not the kind of place where people stand outside trying to sell tickets. And TriBeCa feels a fuck of a long way away from the West Village.

It was nice to kind of relax about "having to do stuff" and try to just experience the city like I lived there. I spent a couple hours each day in a cafe called 'Snice, just down the street from our room. Don't let the name fool you. It was beautiful and wonderful. I love cafés. Those hours really energized me.

Shelley mostly napped while I was caféing. Those naps really energized her.
And sometimes she joined me. This is first breakfast on Sunday.






*Well, I kind of tapped myself and ended up one smidgen more dykey. "Should I wear the neck scarf?" It probably made me look more gay, but I'm not sure it made me look more like a dyke. Shelley just got dressed.

NYC: Weather

Sunday was really a bit of a writeoff, what with the fucking insane rain. We were on the top floor of our guest house. The rain pounding on the skylight woke me up at about 2 am on Sunday morning, and it just didn't stop. It rained and rained hard for over 24 hours. At one point, we walked about 8 blocks - 8 short New York block, no less - and my jeans were wet through. We holed up in a cafe and read the paper and checked email and generally just tried to dry out a bit. It was grey and miserable.



It would, in fact, have been the perfect day to go to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which was one of the things I really wanted to do while we were there. But you can only see it by guided tour, and we never managed to get tickets - they were sold out or I couldn't get a hold of anyone on the phone to pre-order them.

Or we just didn't feel like it. Because the thought of trying to concentrate on Culture with clammy thighs was monumentally unappealing. So I drank a giant cup of coffee. And looked at my new green rubber boots.



Everyone in NYC is wearing rubber boots. Scratch that. Very very very many stylish NYC women, as well as some adventurously stylish men, are wearing rubber boots rain or shine. I am quite chuffed with mine. Shelley bought black ones. Without them, I think we would have stayed in our room, since the one pair of leather boots I had with me would have been soaked through after 4 blocks, and those same four blocks would have soaked through both pairs of Shelley's sneakers.

The rest of the days were lovely, however. Lots of sunshine, but even when the sun was hidden, it was still bright. And warm. I had my jacket open most days.

We ate a picnic in Central Park on Saturday and watched a Very Happy Rollerskater skating around and singing to herself and generally trailing a good mood in her wake. There were lots of other skaters there too.



I will tell you that people in NYC use their parks. After Central Park, we went to Union Square to look at dresses (more on that later) and found an open market full of flowers and organic food. I bought Eric some Curry Sauerkraut, and the guy in line in front of me paid $68 for less than 3 lbs of beef tenderloin. I hope his dinner guests liked it. Rest assured that Eric's sauerkraut, although local and organic, cost much much less than 68 American Dollars.



Along with warmer weather goes flowers. I will also tell you that New Yorkers do a very lot of prettiness with a very little space. After one particularly stunning front plot, Shelley turned to me and said "Don't ever let me say my garden isn't big enough to do something beautiful."

And the magnolia trees! Everywhere and out in full bloom. They're Shelley's favourites.