Where I Learned

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For the final project of my Foundations of Digital Images course, we were asked to create a series of nine images which examine space and the way we see it. The aim is to present a new or unusual perspective; an idea which stems from the Situationists, who we've been studying this term. I'll write more on them later, because they are fascinating. We were allowed to use found imagery; the focus was on concept, but I'll take any opportunity to do a photography project. I decided to do something with the palace, and spaces within it which have a unique meaning for me. The goal was to make that meaning more apparent, and maybe remind the viewer of the weight of experience and how it shapes what we see. Anyways it's a little campy maybe but I'm proud of it, which is a new thing, for me, so here you go, blog, enjoy.

Melanna

Melanna has an anchor tattooed on her right wrist. It suits her.
She grew up on a farm outside Calgary where she was home schooled. She is frequently brutally honest, and often charmingly crude. After a string of nomadic years in Alberta, BC, and Europe, she came to Vancouver to attend a college for holistic nutrition. In September Melanna hopes to attend UBC to pursue her lifelong passion for midwifery. She spent last summer fighting forest fires in Nelson, BC. She laughs entirely too loud. Sometimes Melanna eats grains of sea salt straight out of the jar like I eat grains of fresh ground pepper. We will do this at the same time some days, like the yin and yang of flavour addicts.
Melanna is one of the few people I've ever met who still speak as though words are a gift; as though through them truth is achievable. On more occasions than I can count, she has kept me sane; anchored. On as many others, she has made me delicious healthy meals. She makes miso soup so divinely comforting it wraps your insides in a blanket and you huddle instinctively and humbly around the bowl like it holds salvation. Imagine this liquid gold being brought to you when you are sick. Melanna does this. She also dances; in her room she cranks Matisyahu or Miike Snow or Frightened Rabbit or Kid Cudi or Pheonix or gratuitous club anthems like that one about the Sexy Bitch, and just jumps around. Sometimes I join her, and we wholeheartedly shake and jump and yell and twist and flail all thoughts away with no concern for grace or pride until Sexy Bitch starts to sound like perfect innocence.
Melanna looks like the best Sunday you ever had, and like nature. She leaves for a few days at a time every two weeks or so, wearing cowichan sweaters and hiking shoes and a backpack, to see Russ in Kamloops, who is a mountain biker and easy going the way flannel is comfortable. She sounds like sleepovers, momentous revelations, and fire. This is also how she eats; with steady fervour. She smells like home and joie de vivre, and best of all, coconut. I've never met anyone with such a healthy awareness of freedom, and of exactly what she wants and needs, so much so that it feels healthy just to be around her. She is as much an anchor as she is the perfect lack of one. She gave me a bracelet for Christmas. It sits on my wrist right where that tattoo sits on hers, because I want to be reminded of all of these things, because they seem significant to me.

Some choice quotes
Upon returning from a trip to Victoria, when her still-packed backpack falls to the floor with a sharp thud:
(GASP) MY COLESLAW!
Showing me a bottle of pills on her shelf in the fridge:
Emily I want you to take one of these every other day on an empty stomach. I stole them from Whole Foods, they'll really help keep your energy up, and they're probiotic.
To an inebriated stranger, on a dare at the Cambie one night, for which I bought her a coffee every day for some time, followed by a suddenly sober response, and then we high fived and laughed for five minutes in the washroom:
Are you too drunk to get a boner?
In response to a listless comment I made lying on the floor beside the fireplace:
You're very poetic when you're depressed.
Out of nowhere:
There was a paperclip in the washroom at the airport, I knew I should have taken it.

Back Home

Soundtrack A: All You Ever Wanted - The Black Keys
"Take a step before runnin', yeah,
Take a breath before you die."
It's still dark out when the cab pulls up. Everyone is asleep, I said goodbye last night. From this moment until the one where I see my father I'm in what I'm told is called liminal space. Supposedly such a state of transition creates an attitude, perspective, or state of being that will never exist outside of this stretch between point A and point B, life here and life there, so that what is said, done, or thought by a person in this space would be unlikely to occur elsewhere. When this was explained to me, I was thrilled to come to a new understanding of why I love transportational vehicles of every variety, being awake at odd hours, being in a foreign place, being underwater, and swings.
Last night I couldn't sleep. I was completely packed, and lying on the couch just blinking and waiting for time to pass. I'm feeling it now, in the cab; fatigue and simultaneously, a complete lack of desire for sleep. There are people I need to see. I miss a certain fellow and the curls under his hat. I miss Brother and other friends, their easy smiles and inside jokes and, selfishly, their notions of me. I miss my family. I miss being surrounded by people who have abided all my mistakes and will continue to do so because they can't help but love me and if they could help it they wouldn't. But most importantly, in recent months some things have happened; ugly, sad, natural, and phenomenal things that have wreaked havoc on the part of my brain that tells me my family is a secure and unmovable thing. It turns out we are movable. This is harder to bear from a distance, since I can do nothing but talk and listen and hurt from very far away. These things are all braided together, into a rope that is pulling me home. I am nervously eating the snacks that Melanna packed for me.
"All hands on deck now,
The sea is getting rough again."

Soundtrack B: Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
Taking off is a wonderful thing. Your spatial relation to your environment changes so smoothly, but so fast. A minute ago you were sitting on the ground looking at the men in reflective jackets with their hand-pylons, then a powerful thing happened, and now the entire city is minuscule and you are leaving it behind for the clouds.
"Home, let me go home,
Home is wherever I'm with you."
I start to feel optimism and excitement seeping in slowly. It's in the recycled airplane air. I know this partly because the flight was delayed almost three hours, and I should be accordingly frustrated but I'm not. They are pumping us all full of it, the tainted happy-hopeful air, and when we land, it will spill out the doors along with us and dissipate in the frozen air. I pass the time by listing in my head all the people I aim to hug and the most probable order in which I will hug them, and following that I rank their respective hugging styles and effectiveness. I'm glad my dad is picking me up from the airport, he really puts his all into it. Number one on all three lists. I imagine a dramatic scene in which I see him looking around nervously from across a crowded arrivals area, shout "Poppa!", and run to meet him. The actual high probability of this makes me chuckle out loud, and then glare at the nearest flight attendant. It's not right drugging people like this.
Out the window, I can see a miniature snow-covered Calgary and area, as though it were carved from a Willow tree; a vast expanse of white cut into by the black grid of roads and the edges of little black roofs. And there are mountains here too. They always mark my place like pins on a map. There is a jet of air from the engine moving across my field of view that blurs some of the image beneath it, and suddenly I'm watching a little movie shot with a tilt-shift lens, and I make a note to tell Brother about this. We will go shooting again, and we will go to Wal-Mart in the wee hours again, and we will sing in his car again, and everything will be like it was but also new.
"Man oh man you're my best friend,
I scream it to the nothingness,
There ain't nothing that I need.
...
Home is wherever I'm with you."
Landing is almost as good as takeoff, because everything is shaky and when the wheels hit the ground it's like you're careening down the runway holding down the brakes and hoping for the best. It makes you realize how fast you were going, and also how much you are expecting.
Aisle, bridge, gate, terminal, baggage, doors, a deep breath of cold crisp dry Calgary air in my lungs and a big blue sunny sky then Dad.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Soundtrack C: The New Year - Death Cab For Cutie
"So this is the new year,
And I have no resolutions,
For self-assigned penance,
Or problems with easy solutions."
It's an evening flight this time, a careful step in the planning of a return on New Years day. I can feel my pulse under my temples, pumping bittersweet feelings, exactly like when I left only the bitter has switched places with the sweet, and this time the after-effects of alcohol might be slightly involved. It's dark when we take off, and the city recedes again but it's a different movie at night. All that white white white replaced by black and lights lights lights; kind of like a computer chip, and it's mapping where I went and who I saw and what I resolved and what I didn't all in different colours. I feel healthy. Christmas does that. It's all the family, I guess. All the gathering, and goodwill. The whole time there was a consciousness of the window between arrival and departure, which might have made things clearer, or maybe that's my imagination. I'm having a casual conversation about New Years exploits with a guy next to me who I would probably never talk to under normal circumstances, and I'm wondering if ever in life there is a peaceful balance, or if you always miss a little bit too much of where you're not.
"I wish the world was flat like the old days,
And I could travel just by folding a map,
No more airplanes or speedtrains or freeways,
There'd be no distance that could us back."
For me the best part about this is that I have to believe it was thought up on an airplane, speedtrain, or freeway.

Soundtrack D: Wisconsin - Bon Iver
In the cab the driver is asking me about my holidays. I seem to have arrived during some sort of heat wave; the windows of the taxi are open to allow the sounds of seagulls and the warm, humid air to rush in and cloud my mind with the salty, damp smell of ocean and moss. This scent has no place in my thoughts and now the driver is saying in the mirror, "How were your holidays?" He can see I'm distracted and is not annoyed by it, just keeps asking things and waiting patiently for my vague and abstract answers; faltering stabs at conversation. He must know the distraction is a sad one. He must know I'm trying not to let my mind wander. It's too soon to be missing the place where I was, mere hours ago, but I can't help it when the cutoff is so abrupt. The rope that brought me home was a reassuring thing, it was strength and direction, and now it's been loosened and released and I'm floating in between. I can't decide if this trip, there and back, is the best of both worlds or the breaking of them. I'm happy, and lucky, I think, but there are things I can't bring with me and don't want to leave behind. I'm crossing my arms and folding my hands, but I can't get rid of the warm, shadowy feeling on my stomach where his arm was, forever ago or seconds ago. And I don't know how to bring it with me, but I can't get rid of the shape of his shoulder, or those fuzzy hat-head curls, they're etched into my hand. We pull up in front of the palace and through the window I see Parisa dancing.
"That was Wisconsin, that was yesterday,
Now I have nothing that I can keep,
'Cause every place I go I take another place with me."

Soundtrack E: Is There a Ghost - Band of Horses
Kevin and Parisa help me bring my bags up the steps, and I get inside and say brief hellos to everyone before tearing off layers in my room. It is so hot I can feel the red when I touch my face. The house is a mess. My room appears thankfully untouched, however, even though I left my doors open and my mattress in the upright, house party condition. Stragglers from last night's New Years extravaganza have carried the after party well into the following evening, and have since started again. I visit in the living room for a while, until Parisa tells me Melanna is home. When I knock on her door, she looks shocked to see me, and quite suddenly I'm overwhelmed with the relief of her company. We sit on her bed and the stories come rushing in rivers from our mouths. It's late now, but seeing Melanna again feels like sunlight. This is not hard to imagine in her bright room with it's sky-blue walls and the warm breeze drifting in through the open window. She gives me a bracelet from Nelson, which she excitedly assures me will fit my tiny wrist, and tells me I look healthy. She says I am glowing. Eventually I say goodnight, return to my room and throw myself into unpacking.
I remember the feeling I had the day I moved in. It was thrilling, not exactly like this, but similar. For the moment I am happy to be here, and to have been where I was. I want it to last as though every day is the day I get back. I work until there is nothing left to do, and when I finally lie down, it is the night before I left. I blink and wait for time to pass.
"I could sleep,
When I lived alone,
Is there a ghost in my house?"
I have not yet arrived. I don't know when I will. Vancouver is calling me back home, another life here awaits my return, and it seems I am not waiting to fall asleep as much as I am waiting to wake up.
"I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep,
When I lived alone,
Is there a ghost in my house?
When I lived alone,
Is there a ghost in my house?
My house..."

Stefano

Gian Stefano Brigidi is an Italian from Rhode Island. He is in the second year of his Ph.D. in neuroscience, which is how he met Kevin and came to live in the palace. He works with rats, and every Tuesday he gets a little glum, because that's the day he has to kill them. Stefano skateboards when the weather is nice, and has a certain smile you'll only see when he's dancing. He usually showers at least twice a day because he says Italians are greasy, so he always smells wonderful. He is an excellent hugger.
Stefano is a master of cuisine. I could write a poem about the way he cooks chicken; the spices, oh and the pasta! A Tuscan dream, the pasta is. He keeps his wooden spatula on his grocery shelf, away from the other, less magical utensils. He keeps special spices in his room upstairs. The best part of all this is that when you compliment him gushingly on his cooking, he will sometimes respond not in words, but in hand gestures. First he will motion towards you or the food, hand outstretched, palm up, as if to say, "well, you know". Then he will kiss his fingers and lift them towards the ceiling, basking in the truth of your words, and in his own culinary artistry. This is something to see.
Stefano also likes the following things to a slightly abnormal degree: the noise city buses make, hummus and pita, white v-necks (he owns thirteen, and a few in other colours), sesame snaps, stories of my many awkward incidents, action movies (we call this man time), and being gangster.

Some choice quotes
Tipsy and reaching for the beer fridge:
Let's get this boat- ...whatever... going.
Later that same night, out of nowhere in no particular context:
We're like ABBA.
Regarding city buses:
You see, the older diesel engined buses, and the newer articulated buses are powered by these massive displacement turbo engines that just sound marvelous. I think the older ones are air-cooled, and so they take on a sound similar to that of old Porsche 911s, raspy, hard, and loud.
After meeting Kevin's girlfriend Jessica for the second time, as she is leaving:
It was nice m- seeing you... again... (looks at his hands in confusion and embarrassment) how...?
Via text message, saying goodbye on the day he goes home for Christmas:
You are a desert flower.

Kevin

Kevin has lived in the palace flophouse for the longest time out of everyone; about two and a half years now. He's in the third year of his Ph.D. in neuroscience at UBC, where he does experiments on fruit flies all day. He is twenty-seven. A friend of his is a drummer, and keeps a set in the basement that Kevin practices on. He's pretty good.
The first time I met him I was with my dad, in Vancouver for a few days looking for a place to live. The palace was the last place I saw, Kevin asked us to come over at ten o'clock the night before we left. He put water on to boil while he went over the basics, (rent, buses, beach) and threw some peas in before giving us a tour. My dad said afterward, you belong with these people.
Kevin is a good person to know, because in the morning he will knock on your door and shout your name until you wake up and go for coffee with him. He is a good person to know, because he is very casual about being hilarious, and because when he gets drunk he will fix things around the house, help you with your homework, put together your bike, demand that you pat him on the head, and fall asleep on your arm. When he cooks Chinese food or edamame, he will always offer you some. Kevin sometimes plays strange atmospheric music with snippets of zoologists' voices from the 50's and children spouting gibberish that somehow makes you feel like you're at sea. He will also insist on taking you out for a pint on your birthday even if it's a Tuesday and you're both tired and no one else will go. He is a good person to know.

Some choice quotes
In the alley on the way to Coco et Olive on a sunny day, with a scowl on his face:
It's so f***ing pleasant out. MAKES ME SO HAPPY.
After having people over the Thursday before Halloween, setting up a projector, and arranging the couches theatre-style in the living room, while getting himself a beer, with a smug look on his face:
These are the only spirits I believe in.
That same night, after watching Paranormal Activity, which was actually terrifying:
Didn't need dry sheets tonight anyhow.
At a pub hidden in an alleyway behind industrial buildings and called the Narrow for very literal reasons, (bar along one wall, tables along the other, and a space the size of the aisle of an airplane in between) after Paul asks if Stefano is coming:
I think so. ...He's so handsome.
(Paul: I hope he sits next to me.)

Beautiful Cheap Living

SATURDAY

I'm up at six. Showered, dressed, and ready for the day by seven-thirty. In this house early mornings belong to the silence. Everything is so still, and every piece of furniture waits patiently for the earliest riser. In these fresh hours you move around stealthily, past dark windows, past evidence of last night's after party on the coffee table with the map of the Georgia Strait under the glass, past umbrellas and sombreros strewn about, past dishes stacked in the same basin sink that's likely been there since the house was built in the dirty thirties, and still the waves you make are tangible. I load the Seagull with some fresh film before gathering my things and stepping out the back door into the rain. For a moment at the gate, I take in my sleeping palace where it stands in dim morning light, then close the latch and head out the alley towards the bus stop.
The ninety-nine takes you right downtown with fewer stops. I've planned this trip online, coordinated the right times, double checked and triple checked. Sitting there, though, among all the sharply dressed morning commuters, I feel that familiar sensation of going somewhere I've never been, taking a route I've never taken. It's a panicky feeling; I'm looking at all the street signs along the way, as though the bus might veer off course. Suddenly there's something blocking my view. I can't see what street we're at, and the illuminated sign bolted to the ceiling that spells the name of the next stop in bright yellow dots is not illuminated. This conversation happens with the man next to me:
Me: Excuse me, do you know what street this is?
Man: Where are you going?
This is infuriating, but I must keep calm, this man knows where he is and I don't.
Me: I need to get to the Canada Line, I'm going to the airport. Is this Howe street?
Man: Oh, you're good.
The bus is pulling to a stop just as he is making this useless comment. I'm perched on the edge of my seat and my panic is manifesting itself in my darting eyes and stick straight posture but most of all my overwhelming need to hit this man.
Me: You mean I should stay on? Do you know where to get off for the train?
Man: Yeah, you can catch it later on at (some unrecognizable street name) if you want.
With only seconds to spare I make a final effort.
Me: Is this Howe street?
Man: Yep.
In the space of an instant I am off the bus. As it pulls away I am taking deep breaths, hitting restart, reassuring myself that my plans were well made and thoroughly reviewed, feeling relieved that I'm back on my feet, in control of my direction. Then just as I am reaching something like calm I glance up. This is not Howe street. I close my eyes and curse that man and his family.
For four or five blocks I move forward in an angry hurry, utterly lost, my initial confidence naught but a memory. Then I see it in the distance. I miss the entrance the first time I pass it, no doubt the first person in history to do so. Finally I'm inside, heading down the stairs, all the signs are right and the worst is surely over. The next train to the airport is in eight minutes. I look at the time. Nine-seventeen. I don't remember the time I had planned to be here, but this feels like late. I don't give up. There is a fellow beside me with some luggage. I don't want to dread interaction with strangers; I've always liked that feeling of unfamiliarity, in a way the conversation has a limitless potential, so I try again.
Me: You're going to the airport, yes?
Man with remarkable ability to be clear, concise, and honest when answering questions: Yes I am.
Me: Do you know by any chance, how long the train takes to get there?
Wonderful man: I'm sorry, I don't. I've never taken it this far before.
The word "far" comes through my ears, forms a heavy knot and sinks slowly to the pit of my stomach as the train is pulling up. I get on, wishing I didn't realize that this is my fault.
Wonderful man: There's a map here, let's see. We are here, and I know it takes about ten minutes to get to King Edward...
He is pointing with his left hand at the map, tracing the path of the train with one finger while the rest hang in a loose curve. In a moment of insanity I want nothing more than to be this man, calmly riding a train to the airport (where he will doubtless arrive early and maybe read), helping a stranger who is far less at ease without the slightest hint of patronizing pity or superiority. The hand is moving steadily towards the last stop, which in my mind I rename "Impossibility".
...so from here to the airport is probably...
He considers.
...I would say no less than a half hour.
Sally was very specific.
No more control tower tour. No more dials or switches, no more lights. No more planes overhead, or scratchy radio voices saying things like: All systems are go. Just a few minutes of limbo before I can get off this nowhere train and cross these nowhere tracks to the side that brings me home. It is still raining heavily outside. On the way, Sally phones me. Next time give me a call, Emily. Sure thing. At no point did I have her number.
I'm turning into the alley, approaching point A, never having reached point B. At the gate, there's a light in the window. Melanna is dry in her pajamas and laughing and dancing wildly in our living room. She is bright joy; motion; arms and legs and eyes that don't give up, twirling and singing and illuminating a home under the gray drizzle. When I get inside she's there with her friend Helene but I can think of no words that are better than a hug. She doesn't ask for any explanation, just grins big and says: I'm glad you're back. You look like a drowned rat.
I decide to take my bike into the shop. I need to do something productive before noon or I'll drown in this sense of failure. My bike used to be my dad's, the same one he rode when we used to go for family bike rides along the paths to Confetti's Ice Cream in Calgary before they closed down. A mechanic I know from the bar I worked for all spring and summer painted it red with blue and yellow accents, and my mum brought it over on the plane when she came for Thanksgiving, taken apart and packed in a box. Kevin, drunk and wearing his lab coat, put it together perfectly a few nights ago and even pumped up the tires for me, but he didn't have the right size of wrench to attach the handlebars, so I have no control of the steering and have to guide it several blocks down Broadway to Ace Cycles on it's rear wheel. I am the first customer of the day. No charge, it was no trouble at all. Even in full working condition, I walk it home. The street is busy and wet, I don't yet have a helmet, and to be honest, the whole way home I'm trying unsuccessfully to remember the last time I rode a bicycle. I don't trust that old saying. Still, that shiny new paint, those spinning spokes, the optimism reflecting off that reflector. I get home, run up the steps to throw my bag on the couch, and head back out in the rain.
I hope it always feels like this. In the alley, cruising over fallen yellow leaves, cutting through every puddle like it's a little red sea, laughing nervously at every wobble and triumphantly when my turning gets quicker and tighter. The best part, the easy part; the long stretch between turns. I get a little braver each time, go a little faster. Speed feels like winning at something. I hope I never stop loving the wind in my face, further evidence of this motion I'm propelling, or the cool mechanical roll, on rubber you can feel tracing it's pattern on the cement. I hope no amount of water rushing from the skies can ever wash away this most basic happiness. I am soaked through to the bone, and this is a great bicycle.
Back inside I'm on the phone with Vanessa, a good friend back in Calgary who lives and breathes soccer and has graciously volunteered her time to the university team. They're in town today to take on UBC and she has some time before the game tonight.
Me: What's the rest of the team doing?
Vanessa: Homework.
Me: Lame.
Vanessa: I know.
It sounds like she's eating something... probably soccer.
Me: Good thing you have a cool Vancouver friend. You're so popular.
Vanessa: I'm kinda worried about hurting their feelings.
By the time I get to her hotel downtown, we have about an hour and a half to spare before she has to be at a team meeting. We wander down Granville Street trying to cram all our stories into this time slot and looking for a place to eat. We end up at Cafe Crepe. She tells me about soccer and school and I tell her mostly about my roommates. While we're eating, one of her teammates calls. When she gets off the phone, I have a mouthful of bananas and strawberries and nutella and she has to go; the meeting is at two-thirty, not three. Her coach is wondering where she is. She throws down some cash and leaves very apologetically. We have said good things, but not enough. The rain has finally stopped when I get outside, so I walk through the streets of downtown and over Granville Bridge, stopping in the middle to look out at the boats and the mountains and over to the left the busy markets. When it picks up again, I catch a bus home.
Aussie Pat's on his way over to go to Vanessa's game with me. I met Pat last summer at Molly Malone's in Calgary. I was out with my cousin and he was passing through town with two friends from New Zealand, and the five of us shut the place down. We ended up running into them again the next weekend when we went to Banff on a whim, all three of them wearing those shirts you buy at gift shops with bears on them. It turned out that Pat had recently moved to Vancouver so we kept in touch. Aussie Pat is my first Australian friend, and that seems to me to be a milestone, which is why I usually introduce him as Aussie Pat, rather than just Pat. He doesn't seem to mind. He has brought his Canada umbrella, big and red and white and glorious. It will be dark out soon, so I switch the Seagull for the Nikon and we head out.
It rains heavily for the duration of the game, and we sit on the sidelines watching as dusk comes and goes. The sky is something tremendous that makes the well-lit field look eerie. I watch my friend in the number four jersey running back and forth, shouting things I don't understand. I see, or I believe I see, moving subtly across her face, every minor frustration: at being assigned to a defensive position, at calls made by the refs and coaches, at her inability to communicate with this team the way she does with Callies Major. In a very selfish way I am relieved to feel as though I still know her that well. Calgary loses, harshly, but Vanessa is as ever a goddess of composure. After the game she crosses the field to meet me. I introduce Aussie Pat, and we talk for a while. She is soaked through with rain and sweat and effort, and I miss her. It is a surreal thing to be standing in the middle of a dark and drenched field with this friend from what feels like ages ago. We can see each other so clearly, just like we always did, but there is a barely detectable thread tied to each of us. Mine is rooted where I stand, and hers is pulling her home. She has to leave.
Me: Come back for a real visit.
Vanessa: I want to. I will.
Back at home I change into dry clothes and make Pat and myself some pasta. We sit around with Melanna and talk about tonight. Pat's friend's band is playing at the Rickshaw.
Pat: Basically it's four bands covering each others songs, and playing a few of their own. They're not all great bands, but my friend's is pretty good.
Melanna has a strong craving for pie, so Pat walks with us down to Aphrodite's on 4th Ave, then goes on his way. It is a good thing to have a neighbourhood pie place. Nothing is better for a tired and rainy day. We're in woolly sweaters and sweatpants. Pie asks nothing more from us. Our server is Ian. He makes helpful suggestions and talks about the weather without being boring. A very pleasant fellow.
When we get back, I'm getting ready to go out again when Parisa comes home from her most recent adventure. She seems dissatisfied at present. I ask her if she'd like to join me and am surprised when she agrees. I shouldn't be, I remember what it's like to want distraction.
We walk down to 4th to catch the bus, and at the stop after ours, Ian gets on. From the back of the bus I make eye contact with him, point, and say to Parisa: That man served us pie. Now that I've done this very odd thing, he is forced to sit and talk with us. It goes surprisingly well.
It takes a while, but we find the Rickshaw, which looks exactly like an abandoned theatre, and might be. Pat sits near the sound booth waiting for us and we cross the floor to a makeshift bar and order drinks. We missed the first two bands, but Pat's friend is in The Good News, who are on last. Throughout the third band's set I still feel out of place, like we haven't quite arrived somehow. Parisa too is quiet, although it's hard to talk over the sound blaring from the speakers. In the break between bands I try taking pictures, but it doesn't feel right.
All this melts away when The Good News take the stage. Every member is immediately charismatic, the songs are good and get better when they start playing originals. Soon I stop caring about all the important and trivial things that usually swim around in my brain. For an hour or so I'm no longer interested in anything about my day. They have my undivided attention. The last song is Stomp. It starts with a short verse sung a capella, and then a riff comes in, one of those quickening, stirring riffs that makes you smile and tap your foot without realizing it. The guitarists are spraying beer on each other and laughing. The keyboardist is trying to convince the bassist to sing along for the chorus, which he finally does with an endearing nervousness. The lead singer dances in a way that is best described as catchy. Everywhere I look I'm entertained, and as the song builds up, so does the show. A guitarist from the previous band is on the stage in his underwear and suspenders, stepping over the drums and singing along. The drummer is kind of hopping around in his seat. The bassist has come out of his shell and is singing with abandon. Band members are hugging each other, the lead singer is lying down on the stage and turning in circles, getting tangled in the feet of the guitarists, who are soaked in beer by this point. For the finale someone invites the crowd on stage and now it is pandemonium. Everyone is singing and dancing, plucking at guitars and twirling around the keyboardist. There are five guys on the drums. It sounds amazing. I suddenly realize I'm laughing out loud. Everything is absurd. My Saturday flies by in my head, and quite suddenly, it makes perfect sense. I love this moment. I love this song. I love this band. I love this city.
I Love This Song.

Beautiful Cheap Living

FRIDAY

There's a sort of clothing fair in the student union building, and I have time to kill before I have to meet Sally in room 125J, so I browse. I find a black t-shirt with a snarling blue cougar featured on the front under a banner that reads: Where Legends Roam . There are also bikers in the corner, and possibly flames involved at some point. I give the girl in the booth ten bucks and immediately send Melanna a picture of this gem. Her reply: I will wait for you until you get home.
Sally is carrying various folders and loose papers which she shuffles around to free her right hand and open the door to 125J. She says: So you're Emily. Affirmative, Sally. She takes my ten dollars and writes "paid" beside my name. While I'm adding my signature to the line, she reminds me to bring along my Aviation Club card tomorrow, and be at the Jade sculpture by the international arrivals gate at 9:45 am sharp. A minute later and the group will leave without me. Important business, this is. Can't have anyone delaying matters. I ask about pictures. Sally tells me the occasional photo of the equipment is fine, just be careful about getting too snap-happy in the control tower, we don't want to distract the people working there, or our tour guide.
Outside, the campus is shiny-wet and bright and flush with colour under a dim gray sky. Now this is a sky, this is a grand and mysterious sky. It is hazy, vast, and dark. There is a foggy feeling everywhere, but close range objects appear sharper than usual. The clouds have no border, just waves of thick and thin, as a hastily painted background. There is no source of light, there is just light. It isn't raining, the air just moistens everything that moves through it. The little hairs at the edge of my forehead curl in the damp. This is a sky that means a different time of day, one I've never come to before. It's not evening, or mid-morning. There is no name for this new hour. It creates the sensation of having nowhere in particular to be.
On the way home, I stop at the corner second hand store and buy four shirts for eight dollars. She also lets me keep the hangers. I am thrilled. I cross the street twice, turn into the alley; slick with autumn leaves. We are the third gate. The yard is wet overgrown grass. I climb the steps, open the door to the kitchen. Parisa is making a sandwich. She approves of my thriftiness, and we plan to meet up later tonight with Brian and Connor, who we met at Elwood's last weekend and discussed movies with at length, to watch the game. Calgary is playing Vancouver again, and Parisa and I agree that it's great fun to hurl insults at each other for the couple of hours our rivalry lasts.
Melanna emerges from her room and I show her the roaming legends shirt. She is fairly certain it will fit him, and that he will enjoy the animal's ferocity. She has been looking for weeks for a shirt with a cougar on it for Russ, who lives in Kamloops and whose t-shirts-with-Canadian-wildlife-on-them collection is missing said beast. The two of us go for coffee at Coco et Olive to celebrate. This is a very good place. There is art on the walls, dreamy panoramic sky-scapes. The tables and chairs are all antique looking and charmingly mismatched. The patrons are much the same, but with an air of intelligence. And the coffee and baked goods are a new brand of heaven. Melanna pays, to thank me for my keen shopper's eye, and we sit in the cafe for an hour or two drinking lattés out of bowls; laughing and talking mostly about sex.
At home again the three of us girls are getting ready to go out. Tomorrow morning Kevin and Stefano are leaving for a neuroscience conference in Chicago and won't be back until Thursday. In case we miss them Melanna writes this note and puts it on the fridge: YO BOYZZZ! We all look super hot. Too bad you missed it. Have a rad time being nerds. We'll be thinking of you. Love, Melanna, Emily, and Parisa. Melanna is meeting a friend in North Van, but we all leave the house together, and actually coordinate our exit out the back so that we are mid-conversation as the door opens, like we're in a movie!!!
Parisa and I walk down to The Shack to watch hockey with our new friends. We all chip in on beer and nachos, and watch my hometown outplay my new town 5 to 3. Hours of good cheer and merrymaking go by and around midnight we are ready to go home; I have to wake up early for my tour of the control tower, and Parisa wants to nap for a couple hours before she meets friends at 2:30. The girl is in every way a social butterfly, and she operates on a different schedule than most. Our evening has been for her something like brunch. We get home and stagger up the steps into the kitchen, where we find our note turned over and an answer written on the other side. It reads: WOMEN... You all must take good care of yourselves whilst we men are gone on our journey of adventure, in search of great prosperity. We will return with a large bounty of the finest grains, goats, and milk. In return, we expect you to bear us many children, and to look after the homestead once we grow old. Farewell fair dames. -The Men