chasing that with a hike up to the top of table mountain on a gorgeous day only served to reinforce my reconnection to this city's power.
the past couple of weeks have been incredible, i feel reset and reconnected, and i'm quite bummed about the fact that there're only another couple of days left before i'm out of here. i love montreal and i know i can't stay here, but i really don't want to leave!
i was going to go shopping but decided to spend the stunning sunny afternoon on the beach with sagirl instead - a much better idea! after an incident a few years back when i got burned during a really quick beach visit, i was a little concerned in spite of having put on sunscreen. after a while lying on my belly facing away from sagirl, enjoying the sun on my back, i suddenly felt like my skin was tingling and just at that moment sagirl piped up: "totalwaste, are getting paranoid about being burned? well you can stop, i'll let you know when you need to worry."
whoa (O_o)
...
granadilla lollies cost R20, which is ridiculous. they're also a little smaller than i remember, even if they're just as awesome.
...
my aunt and her kids came over for drinks and debate, which was a lot of fun, and on tgtbt's recommendation my mother and i went to takumi for dinner. firstly, the place is beautiful and the service is excellent. there weren't any vegan options but everything looked really good so i decided to do the sushi experience properly: boy, am i glad i did! everything was absolutely delicious and well presented, by the end my mother couldn't eat any more and i finished everything only because it tasted so good. win!
dreams of airports after america enforces anti-modesty laws to filter out the religious, and about staying in a small community in a generically foreign country.
...
my mother and i went shopping in town. from the parade through grand central and golden acre, we managed to find a pair of shorts for me. it was only when we hit st george's mall that i found a hat i liked, and we did a full browse of greenmarket square before i figured out what beads to buy.
the moment that most entertained me was walking away after telling a seller that i wasn't interested in arguing and that i'd give her two minutes to consider my proposal. she changed her tune when i returned.
i can't say i enjoyed doing that, but at least i'm not feeling jipped about my purchases.
the sailors were barbequeing on the beach but that didn't really fit with my other plans, so i decided to go with protoplasm to the party in hillcrest quarry. that didn't actually fit with my other plans either, but i didn't really think about it properly and in retrospect i'm rather glad i didn't :P
the subset of the afrikaburn crowd was something i couldn't get a handle on the entire afternoon / night, every now and then i'd register that the only odd man out was me because it was my first event. the crowd included people i went to school with and my niece's new sisters-in-law, which was quite funny and cool.
the music when we arrived was terrible, and the dj after played a lot of empty beats which was boring. after that, though, things got real. the fact that i had deeply entered an alternative state of mind made my introduction to what techno has evolved into an insane experience, i simply could not get a handle on what i was hearing and i've been informed that that's more or less the point. there's something so incredibly strange about dancing to a beat that changed two seconds ago but in such a subtle way that you're not sure why you're off, and something very cool about music that involves such a wide range of electronic that within a single minute you can be standing and nodding your head, dancing like it's disco and stomping like it's psy!
my hippie feet served me well the whole night, i'm extremely glad that i've maintained them so nicely :D
using the public toilets barefoot wasn't too bad - they were kept pretty clean - but there was a moment towards the end of the evening when i was standing by the urinal:
i was in the act when an arm shot across my vision in a most disturbing manner. the guy next to me was trying to settle a can on the sill of the window above us, and i was certain that it'd fall on me the second he let go. eventually he got it right, though, but i still kept an eye on him - peripheral vision only, of course - and was horrified when i registered that he was swaying wildly and struggling to unzip. once he got that right and started to pee, he was too far away from the urinal and swaying too much to not miss at some point.
urinal etiquette be damned, i thought, i'm not having this guy wet my feet!
i told him that i would be very grateful if he would just take a step forward. i was so relieved when he obliged - i was so worried that in whatever state he was he might get aggressive - and i walked out of there with dry feet.
there were only two upsetting moments at the party:
the first was when a dj dropped a tune with a religious sample about jesus' second coming, there were a lot of people on psychedelics and that's *so* unfair whether it was done in jest or not... it actually ejected me from the dance floor for a while :(
the second was me telling protoplasm that i didn't know how i'd feel about the music if i'd been sober. i realized as i said it that it was the stupidest statement of the night because i'd feel exactly the same way, but he suddenly disappeared before i could take it back and i stressed about it for about five minutes until he returned and laughed at me :$
there were plenty of fantastic moments to more than make up for those, though, so that's alright :)
i was most amused by the sexy german girl we'd gone with passing out on my shoulder while we waited for protoplasm with the car keys - you'd have to be pretty tired to find it comfortable enough :P
i was still high when i returned home at 4am, and only a little concerned about how i was going to get up four hours later to go hiking with airplane. i knew i needed to eat but the peanut butter on toast i made was far too sticky. my mother introduced me to coating it with marmalade, which i'll definitely remember next time as a bloody good idea! we talked for a bit before she went to bed, and it was then that the penny dropped that i only have a couple of days left to say goodbye to everyone...
... how did three weeks pass by so quickly?!
i got into bed but my subconscious was too busy turning imagined white noise into techno for me to sleep; i plugged in to my ipod and that drowned me out of consciousness pretty quickly. good timing, too, because in the morning the battery was drained so i finally remembered to charge it for the flights :P
...
i had no problem waking up, it was an absolutely stunning morning! i drove to airplane's and we headed out together to table mountain. it's cardio up (heavy breathing) and skeletal down (stressed knees), we didn't stop talking the entire way and had a really good time. we went to hudsons for burgers (their veggie burger's good even if it's crumbly) and drinks afterwards; about halfway through the meal the past day caught up with me and my system downshifted. we said goodbye and i drove home, showered and rested for fifteen minutes until my mother came home and we went out for drinks with cousins.
twice, with different cousins. and lots of drinks.
by the time we got home i was completely broken. i had just enough energy to eat my mother's first attempt at cooking tofu - not bad - and lie down on the couch, but suddenly i realized that i needed to brush my teeth and get into bed. i'm so proud of myself for not passing out on the way, i was that exhausted that i was sure that might happen!
to be fair, the book was written in the nineties, but it still upsets me.
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