Mont-reality: Feeling Small in a Big City

It's 1960. Robert Zimmerman is a nobody at the University of Minnesota, who occasionally plays some folk guitar music at an open mic.

Soon it's 1961. Robert Zimmerman changes his name to Bob Dylan, moves to Greenwich Village (NYC) and within a few months gets signed by Columbia Records.

Now, two things strike me here. One: the name change; and two: the move from a small place to a big city. The result of these two changes in Dylan's life appears to be worth millions of dollars and a whole lot of fame (as well as a few great songs).

I would like to focus on the second of my observations; that is, how he moved to a big city from a small one, and was soon met with opportunities he never could have dreamed of.

Except that I am going to contrast his experience with that of my own.

Yes, I moved to Montreal from PEI to do my MA and to master my French communication skills. But I have to admit that somewhere deep inside, I had a second agenda: I wanted to capitalize on the "better" and "bigger" writing opportunities in Montreal. Writing has been more than a hobby for me over the years. It is a passion and I have somehow managed to avoid working in customer service thanks to my various writing and editing jobs.

But it's not enough. I do commercial writing as my main source of income. This type of writing—though creative—is not my most dignified work. I have signed a contract that says my employer owns the creative rights to anything I write for them, so the moment we exchange writing assignments for money, I am suddenly no longer the author of these writings (at least legally). And although this type of work is what has allowed me to survive and even keep a bit of savings while still attending school, there is something missing from the work as a creative activity of writing. I long to write something that comes from the heart. I want to publish something that I am proud of; something that has my name attached to it.

So I tried. And I still try. I went to the Montreal Gazette about thirty times, each time submitting a newly revised CV, along with published writing samples and story ideas. I studied the sections in the Gazette that appealed to my writing pursuits: Style, Arts, Books, etc. I read countless articles written by "reporters" that I thought were crap, and I read quite a few that I thought were great. No matter what, I was, and still am, determined to write for them.

Every time I've submitted article ideas to them, they always have the same response: "Natalie," (via email), "We like your idea, however, we do not feel it is a good fit for the Gazette."

I suggested I write an article about the metro parties that are frequently advertised on Facebook, to which I received the response, "Natalie, thank you for your idea, however, this would be a city section article and we have too many contributors for that section as it is."

So that one was just bad luck.

Most of the time I have tried to suggest rather philosophical, abstract and psychological ideas that I suppose might be a little heavy for a first-time Gazette contribution. I thought about my own situation and suggested an article about the challenges faced by small-town artists and musicians who move to Montreal in hopes of having bigger and better opportunities. I would focus on the hurdle of starting a new network of contacts from scratch, trying to survive on a low income and the loneliness of having left friends and family behind. "This is a feature article, Natalie, we are looking for smaller pieces," Their email said.

(Sigh) I suppose I am lucky to receive a response at all. I have been an editor before and I know how difficult it can be to get back to all the emails and phone calls in a timely manner. Then I thought about that. I put myself back in the editor's shoes, since it is he/she who decides what goes in the paper. I tried to think of something that would appeal to him. Just a small profile of an artist to begin with, then if he liked my writing, I could work my way up to the features that I really wanted to write. It would just take one little article to worm my way in.

I thought about every other time I'd gotten published for the first time in a new paper. At the Coast, I suggested an article about a local filmmaker that had made a movie for the Atlantic Film Festival. I had known the filmmaker personally, so I'd had the inside scoop on him. The Coast immediately embraced the idea.

At our University paper, I also had a personal connection with the man I interviewed for my first article. And for Soulshine, I was interviewing an Island band that I had been a fan of even before they released their first album.

So, I have decided to stop trying to think of such clever ideas that are destined for the front page. Right now I just need to get my foot in the door. I need to think of who I know...

I know something will have to happen soon for me. I have submitted ideas to Elle Canada, the Montreal Mirror and This Magazine as well. The only one who responded to me was This Magazine. Although they liked the fact that I was from Prince Edward Island (they are trying to include writers from all over Canada and currently have no Islanders on staff) they didn't feel my ideas suited their Arts section. They were not looking for 2000 word pieces, and if I could instead suggest a 600 word review, I would have a better chance of getting published.

In the Maritimes—whether it was Halifax or Charlottetown—I found it quite easy to get published in the city arts papers. Now, instead of having more opportunities in the big city, I have been rejected every time I've tried. But maybe it is not because of the differences in my location, but rather the differences in the people I know in Montreal compared to the people I know in the Maritimes. In the smaller cities I knew more people. Here I know fewer people. So for me personally, Montreal is actually smaller than PEI.

Perhaps instead of going to publications and saying "Here I am! Let me write!" I should be networking and making friends with people like I always have before.

When Robert Shelton wrote that famous review of Bob Dylan for the New York Times, it catapulted his career. But I'm sure the fact that Shelton had the ability to recognize Dylan's talent and then be the first to write about it also did wonders for Shelton's career, as a writer.

Could it be that I just need to find my Bob Dylan?

Fourth-Grade Philosophy

I'm always talking about how it's not that hard to fit everything—working, going to school, writing and spending time with my boyfriend—into my daily schedule here in Montreal. It's all about time-management, I say. But the truth is, it's as much about prioritizing as it is about time-management. I also like to keep fit, but I don't get to work out everyday because it comes a little later on my list of priorities right now. I do, however, always finish my work, attend classes and make time for my boyfriend. These priorities are so important to me that I don't really have to sit down and define or make a list of them. But there was a time, not so long ago, when prioritizing didn't come so naturally...

In elementary school on PEI, the teachers are advised to inspire children to get into the habit of prioritizing their values in life. For me, the fourth-grade health class in which we first tackled the question of, "what is the most important thing in my life?" was my first taste of philosophy (in a classroom setting).

We were kids. Kids don’t think about the gifts they have been given, other than the toboggans they get for Christmas, or the Barbie Dreamhouse their grandparents give them for their birthday. But on this day, we were asked to think hard about a different type pf gifts; gifts like our health, happiness, loving family and education. Of course, I had never thought of these things as gifts: I couldn’t play with them and I had never asked for or anticipated them. I wondered if they really were gifts, since everyone automatically had them. Nobody gave me my health, I thought; it just happened. And school? A gift?

Although I had always loved math, and language arts were a breeze, this health class—which the fifth graders had all bragged was a bird course—was giving me anxiety. I had to make a list, ranging from most important to least important, of all my priorities, which, as my teacher had told us, had all started out as “gifts”. The examples she had given us were supposed to be a starting point, but I couldn’t seem to think of other priorities in my life that seemed to fit in with these ones. Were figure skating lessons a priority? What about school supplies and indoor gym sneakers? Were they gifts/priorities? She had mentioned a loving family, so did pets and plants count too? What about my rock ‘n’ roll popple? I was a nervous wreck.

Then our teacher interrupted my thoughts. “Remember class, there is no right or wrong answer, just follow your feelings…”

What?! Now I was more confused than ever.

Ten minutes later we had all finished our lists. Mine looked like this:

1) My loving family
2) Happiness
3) Precious (my kitten)
4) Michelle and Crystal (my best friends)
5) My education
6) Figure skating lessons
7) Piano lessons
8) Roald Dahl books (I loved them!)
9) Health

I had tried to think of a tenth priority because I liked to always finish with round numbers, but I couldn’t think of one. I had added “piano lessons” even though I didn’t really like them, because I was trying to make the list longer. From my experience as a fourth-grader, I knew teachers liked it if you wrote down as much as possible: the longer my assignment, the better, as far as I was concerned. And I thought I’d done pretty well; the priorities on my list all seemed to fit well together because they weren’t things I normally would have thought of as “gifts”. And I couldn’t really play with them, like I could toys; unless my friends and my kitten counted as things I played with. No, I didn’t think so, since they were alive. So I signed my name very neatly, making the capital “N” with a big curly tail for good measure, and passed it in.

At our next health class, a few days later, I was anxious to receive my corrected list back. I was sure nobody had come up with nine whole priorities like I had.

“You all did very well on your priority lists,” our teacher said, “and I am going to read out one list that was particularly touching and thoughtfully written.”

My heart started to beat a little faster. I became alert. One of my number one goals was to have my teachers choose my work as the one they read aloud to the others. I liked to set the example for the rest of the class, and I liked the glory of standing out. Everyone knew that even though she said everyone’s was good, the one she read out loud was always the best. And I wanted to be the best.

She read the list:

“Number one, ‘my health, because when I was little I almost died since I am allergic to penicillin.’ Number two, ‘my parents, because without them I wouldn’t be here today.’ Number three, ‘my happiness, because, like my mom says, having joy may not be the only reason for living, but it is the best one.’”

Our teacher stopped there and just looked up and smiled at us. Then she passed the paper to Andrea Hennessey, a girl who was in the special class for math and was always the last one to pass in her language arts assignments (she also had quite messy hand-writing).

I couldn’t believe it! There were only three things on her list!

Our teacher started talking again.

“The reason I chose Andrea’s list is because she really thought about her life, and she really showed how and why she appreciates the gifts she’s been given. Her priorities represent things in her life that are most important to her. And she knows this because she understands that although most people we know have a loving family, good health and are generally happy, not everyone has these gifts. Are there any questions?”

My arm shot up.

“Andrea,” I was trying to sound mature, “I noticed that you didn’t include your education as a priority. Why?”

Andrea responded, “Well it is a priority and it would have been next on the list, but I just wanted to show the three things I absolutely could not live without. I think I could live without school. I wouldn’t know my times-tables, but I would live.”

The rest of us got our papers back. I looked at mine and my teacher had put a sharp, red checkmark beside each of my priorities. But at the end, she had circled the ninth one, “health”. No checkmark, no words, just an ugly circle. A red belt around my health.

After class, I quietly went to her desk and asked her why.

She smiled, “Well I just wondered why your health comes last, I mean without it, you couldn’t figure skate, yet figure skating comes before your health as a priority.”

She looked at me. I looked at my paper. Then she continued:

“Well, Natalie, think about it, when you are hungry, when your stomach growls, what is the first thing you do? If you are reading a Roald Dahl book, do you just ignore your hunger because the book is of higher priority to you, as you have indicated on your list? No, you’d go and grab a snack, right? Well, that is part of your health too. That is your body telling you that it needs nourishment. And I think instinctively, no matter how much we love kittens or books or friends, we will feed ourselves when we are hungry. We will tend to wounds when we are bleeding. We will stay home from school when we are sick; we don’t go to school when we are sick, because health comes before education, right? Don’t worry! You did a great job! Now go home and have a great weekend!”

I knew I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of the words I needed to say it. I just stared at my paper as I walked to my bus.

Sitting next to the window, I watched the green blur of trees as they zoomed by. I had never stopped reading, or stopped playing because I was hungry before. Come to think of it, had I ever even felt hungry before? People talked about their stomachs growling all the time, but did they actually growl? Mine had never growled. And I had only missed school once that year, and it wasn’t because I was sick, it was because my great-uncle had died and my whole family took the day off to go to his funeral.

When my parents got home from work I helped set the table for supper.

“Dad,” I said, “Have I ever been hungry? I mean, I’ve never felt my stomach growl.”

“Well, you’ve probably been hungry before.”

“No I don’t think I have,” I said, thoughtfully.

“Well it’s true that we make a point of never missing meals in our family. We are all big eaters. I guess eating well is a priority for us…”

“So eating is a priority that is separate from health?” I asked.

“Well it’s part of taking care of your health,” He said.

“But isn’t health a gift?” I asked.

“Well your life is a gift, and your health is part of that, but it’s your responsibility to take care of it after it’s been given to you. Well, I guess since you are only nine, your health is your mother’s and my responsibility. So for kids, their health is their parents’ priority.”

Now I was getting more confused.

“What about my happiness? Is that your priority?” I asked.

“Of course. But happiness is also a part of your health. Giving you love and care is like feeding you good food or taking you to the doctor. Spending time with you and having fun together is just as much for your health as it is for your happiness.”



* * * * * *


It’s true that I never felt hungry as a child. I guess I just always ate something before my stomach had a chance to growl. It was never completely empty.

The first time I felt it growl—I remember—was in seventh grade. I was changing for volleyball practice and I hadn’t eaten lunch that day. My mother had packed me some sort of bean and whole grain rice casserole that I was supposed to heat up in the microwave. It must have had lamb in it because my entire kit-bag smelled like something strong and Scottish. I had pretended I’d forgotten it and only drank the $0.50 cafeteria milk that my parents made me promise to buy. I had laughed and joked with my friends as usual, while watching them eat their jam sandwiches on snow-white Wonder bread or the cafeteria-bought pizza that I was allowed once a week.

It was then that I realized maybe my health and my hunger and all those things that were my parents’ responsibility before, was now becoming something I had to make my own priority.

The Form of Transformers

Last night my boyfriend and I went to see “Transformers” at a huge cinema complex on Ste Catherine’s. The movie has been a box office hit since it came to theatres, but still, we could not believe the crowd that showed up.

But in this post I’m not going to talk about the crowd, or about Montreal or any of that stuff I usually ramble on about. Today, I am going to talk about aliens in the movies.

Though Science Fiction flicks seem to be among the most imaginative of all fiction films, I have to question the level of creativity that goes into actually designing the figure and the shape of aliens in the movies. Has anyone ever noticed that they almost always resemble humans? I don’t mean they look exactly like human beings, I just mean they have similar characteristics. For example, they almost always have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. They almost always have two legs, two arms and a torso. They almost always stand upright.

Look at E.T. Now Spielberg is one of my all time favourite directors, but doesn’t E.T. look a little bit like a decrepit, old man? He has a human-like face, hands with fingers and the sweetest blue eyes ever!

On all of earth—let alone in the universe, or the galaxy—there is way more variation in the shape and form that different species take than that of cinematic forms of extra-terrestrials. Consider a whale. Doesn’t it look completely different in shape and size than a human being? What about birds, insects and plants? Some of them may have two eyes, but none of them walk upright on two legs. And we all co-exist on earth. Imagine the variation in shape among all life forms in the universe!

Furthermore, when an alien in the movies doesn’t look like humans in shape, then they usually take on a human form so that we can have a conversation with them or something. Look at Star Trek humanoids.

They are almost always smarter than us, hence their commonly oversized heads. Or they will experiment with our species because humans are somehow way more interesting to them than any of the other millions of life forms on earth ("Species").

And if they are not smarter, they will be stronger, and thus have a bigger, dinosaur/human type form, like the reptile, salimander, two-legged alien in "Aliens".

If this is the extent to which we can imagine what aliens must look like, then I think it all says a little more about us—humans—than it does about extra-terrestrials. I think it says we are maybe just a little narrow-minded. I mean, isn’t it kind of egocentric to assume that aliens must have a resemblance to humans?

This all reminds me of Decartes and his theories about God (I swear, there is a connection). Descartes said that God must exist. Since we humans can think of the existence of an all powerful and perfect creator, there must actually be one. He proved this theory by showing that every fictional or make-believe thing that humans have ever imagined or thought of, has never actually been entirely fictional. Take a unicorn, for example. A unicorn is a creation of the human mind. Not so, Descartes would say. A unicorn is actually a horse—which really does exist in the natural world—with a pointed horn—which really does exist in the natural world—added to its head. So the unicorn may not exist, but the parts of a unicorn do exist, and it is really in the assembly of those parts that human creativity plays a role.

Descartes said that since we have the idea of a perfect being, of a creator, then some form of this being must actually exist; for how can we have an idea of something without any pre-emptive inspiration for the idea?

But I will only use the parts of his theory that don’t talk about God to support this post. I’m talking about the parts that suggest humans are creative only in the sense that we creatively assemble parts of objects and beings in order to produce a new one. The actual raw materials—the parts of the already existing things—we don’t create out of pure brain power.

Another example: Mermaids. Mermaids are half-women, half-fish. Again humans were creative in that we took parts of two already existing things, and assembled them to make a new form. We did not actually fabricate the entire mermaid out of thin air; we simply cut and pasted different parts of two different, and very real, life forms to create a new one.

And there are many more examples, like centaurs, or any make-believe organism that has more than the natural amount of any common characteristic; like animals with two heads, six eyes, twelve arms or any other number of something else. This also works the opposite way: a Cyclops. Playing with size is another way to make a natural being seem imaginary, like the ROUS’s (Rodents Of Unusual Size) in “The Princess Bride.”

I realize that for the sake of the movies, they have to make the aliens somewhat human-like so that the human characters can actually communicate with them, but I do yearn to one day be completely wowed by the creative shape and form of a cinematic extra-terrestrial.

Big in Japan

Dear Tamoko Watanabi (name has been changed),

Thank you for your concern regarding my ability to read the pencil scratches you have left in the margins of your scanned manuscript j-peg files. I really think it is polite that you take responsibility for your sloppy penmanship. Oh, and that reminds me, thank you for scanning each page of your 200+ page document, and saving them all as individual sideways j-peg files which each take approximately 30 seconds to download, and an additional 2 minutes to crop and zoom into. You must have correctly assumed that I was joking when I asked you to save them as one big PDF file. It was a funny joke, wasn't it?

Oh, and I almost forgot, thank you for emailing each of those j-pegs to my personal account instead of sending it via the internet, using one of the three choice transferring methods I listed in a step-by-step fashion in a previous email. Your innovation has proven much more convenient. Also it is fun for me to reorganize my personal inbox and to spend twice as much time reformatting your mistakes. Fun.

If I am forgetting anything, I am truly sorry, for I am indebted to you in oh so many ways.

Cordially,

Natalie Pendergast


That is what I wish I could write in an email to a client of mine. Unfortunately, the sarcastic tone that I wish to express would not register. Tamoko Watanabi is a Japanese professor. She has written a book, and, thanks to the advice of a mutual connection, employed me as the indexer.

At the beginning, we thought the matter of my living in Quebec and her living in Japan would not be a big deal, especially since communicating via Internet is so easy. But over the past month or so, I have discovered that one person's perception of "easy" is not the same as another's.

Tamoko sucks at computers. She makes using the computer for a simple task into an impossible feat that is complicated, discouraging and emotionally stressful. What's worse, she is embarrassed about it, so when she makes mistakes, or doesn't get it, she will just pretend everything is perfect. Weeks later, I am stuck with correcting her errors.

She has also requested my help with acquiring English language books and sending them to her as PDF files, as well as correcting her spelling and grammatical errors in her book. However, she did not tell me she was expecting my help in these areas until after she expected me to have finished them.

I did bring to her attention some common mistakes she was making. For example, since she learned French as a second language and English as a third language, she sometimes makes the same mistakes as a French person would make; i.e.:

When she says,

"Canadian literature is well-known at the Japan."

Of course she means to say,

"Canadian literature is well-known in Japan,"

but since she learned to say,

"La littérature canadienne est bien connue au Japon,”

which literally translates to,

“Canadian literature is well-known at the Japan,”

one can see how easy it is to make errors. And when I wrote back that she could even say,

“Canadian literature is big in Japan,”

she was completely confused.

Eventually I have stopped struggling to make Tamoko understand either abstract concepts, English idioms or computer stuff. Now I just let her do things her way, no matter how long it takes her, how inconvenient it is for me, or how little effort she makes to communicate with me. I’m just too tired of listing out step-by-step instructions over and over again for her.

And I think she is very intelligent and hard working. She is a professional and she writes books. Writing and getting published is no cinch. I just think she is too impatient to take the time to learn something new. I think she is too mentally lazy to think about things from a new perspective.

One thing she has got going for her, though: She is the most polite person I have ever met, on or off the internet.

The Problem With Waving

One day my father took me downtown. We were running errands. We heard a car honk as it passed by us on the street. But it wasn’t an angry honk. It was a quick, double-beat honk. The friendly, “hello” kind. My father immediately, almost impulsively, responded to this sound with an enthusiastic wave and a smile in the direction of the vehicle. At this, I peered into the windows of the car, trying my hardest to see who it was that he was waving to. Was it a cousin of ours? Was it a neighbour? A colleague of his? But soon the car was out of sight and I had not caught a proper enough glimpse of its contents to make an accurate identification of the driver.

“Dad, how do you know who it was in the car? Did you just recognize the vehicle as one of your friends’?”

My father still had the residual curvature of his warm smile at the edges of his mouth, though he was looking ahead as we continued to walk down the street. “No,” he said, without looking at me.

“Then how do you know who it was?”

“I didn’t.” He was still half-smiling and looking straight ahead. Now I was confused. If he didn’t recognize either the car or its driver and passengers, then, it is very possible that the honk was not even intended for us at all. On a street half-full with pedestrians, other cars, and shops, there was really only a slight chance that it was us that the car was greeting. And for that matter, the chance was even slighter that it was solely my father to whom the honk was directed. With such a great probability that my father was mistaken in waving to the car, which was in all likelihood full of strangers, I couldn’t help but imagine the car-load of people laughing at my silly father who naively waved back at them like a lunatic. “Who is that weirdo waving back at us?!” They would joke, “Does he think we just honk at anyone? What makes him so special to be the ‘chosen’ one to whom we honk?”

Embarrassed for my father, I decided this issue could not go undiscussed. For his own sake, and to ensure that he did not repeat his mistake in judgment.

“Dad, do you realize that they probably weren’t even honking at us?”

“Yes, of course I realize that, dear.”

“Well you must have looked pretty ridiculous if you were waving at strangers like that,” I said, in a tone that came out a little harsher than I had intended.

“Well that is a risk I was willing to take,” He responded. I walked in a state of silent shock. Why would my father subject himself to ridicule like that? He just put himself out there to be laughed at, and by whom? By a group of hooligans in a passing car. They don’t deserve such satisfaction at my father’s expense. I felt angry at the car, and angry at my father for allowing himself to be victimized. And why did he need to risk anything anyway?

My father must have noticed my silence. He stopped and looked me in the eyes.

“I understand that it may be embarrassing to wave at someone even if you don’t know them, but consider this: what if you wave at someone you know and they simply don’t wave back for whatever reason? Maybe they are unsure as to whether your wave is intended for them. So to avoid possible embarrassment, they decide to ignore you. Now who is left feeling embarrassed? The person who made the original wave.”

“Yes, I have been in a similar situation…” I said.

“So, I always wave back, whether the greeting is intended for me or not. If I end up a little embarrassed, it is worth it. It is worth saving another person from embarrassment.”



Needless to say, in Montreal I often end up "a little embarrassed". That's the problem with waving.

Darwin the Student

I am working. I write and do other tasks for various websites that are governed by a big international directory company (I won't say who, since I don't know what my future blog entries will say about them, good or bad). Sometimes I create the whole thing from scratch, most times I write the filler paragraphs, catchy taglines and teasers. Almost every business I write about in the grand city of Montreal, is French in origin. I mean the owners' and workers' language of choice is French, but they are Quebecois in culture. Doing the write-ups is not so hard, it is the translating and communicating that sometimes gets muddled. Although I would rather be writing novels and bossing myself, I can't really complain too much about my current employment situation.

It was not too long ago that I had a much more unpleasant job. To get by in Montreal those first few months, I took a job with a tutoring company (I won't say who...) who would assign me to several students per week. I actually loved all of my students. For the most part, they were great. However, since this particular tutoring company specialized in helping kids who have either learning disabilities, personal/family problems or social problems (i.e., low self-esteem, etc.) the job soon became a lot more difficult than I'd anticipated. As someone who loves school, I found it frustrating to try to inspire these kids who hated it. And what's worse, I couldn't empathize, I couldn't understand their distaste for homework.

Here is an example of one of my tutoring sessions, taken from my diary at the time. I would estimate the date to have been around November, 2006:

It’s 4:30. I tutor Darwin (name has been changed) at 5:30 but since I need to buy some supplies at the bookstore I will leave now. I brush my teeth, stuff my ears with the little phones attached to my ipod, lock the door and continue down the hallway to our building’s main exit. Then I turn around, unlock our apartment door, and hurriedly grab my suede gloves.

Once I enter Darwin’s house a familiar feeling of frustration washes over me. Darwin is a nice boy, he really is, and I know he means well. But he is not real. He says things that I know are censored, things that do not reflect what is going on in his head. He is passive and submissive and does not think for himself. Or, if he does, he keeps it a secret. At our session today we are tackling French and math.

“So Darwin, when an adjective in French follows a feminine plural noun, what kind of accord must you add to it?”

His eyes barely open, his back curved from his slouching habit, he looks to me like one of the tired men who sit around me on the metro that I take home every night.

“True,” he breathes.

“What? Darwin, pay attention. Ok, what changes do you have to make to the spelling of an adjective if it follows a feminine, plural noun?” I ask.

“Uh… eehmmm… ess?”

Amazed by his ability to articulate sound while his lips remain closed, or barely parted, I almost hesitate before positively reinforcing him.

“Great! Yes, you add an ess, and what else Darwin? I know you know this.” After a huge pause and several other examples I finally give up: “an ee, Darwin, an ee goes on the end of the adjective in this case.”

“Oh ok, yeah, I was gonna say.”

Swallowing my frustration, I steer the session in a different direction. "Get your math book, it's time to find some percentages."

"Um, yeah. I don't know where my duo-tang is," He says.

"Well, I didn't ask for your duo-tang, Darwin, I asked for your math book. The textbook."

"Right, well, I was just sayin'." He gets up and moves to his backpack. He unzips the front and takes out the battered book. He goes through these motions slower than anyone I have ever seen do anything. I sigh.

I open to the first page in his math book's chapter on percentages. I quickly and neatly copy out the first problem. It is a simple one. Starting with a fraction, I clearly write down the four steps it takes me to arrive at a percentage. When I look up at Darwin, he is drawing a pattern of small circles, all connected, on a piece of loose-leaf. They look like fish eggs.

"Darwin, were you watching me?"

"Wha? Oh, yeah, I didn't know you wanted me to."

"Ok, follow this example and try to do a problem on your own." I take out a new piece of paper and line it up beside the one I'd been writing on. I look at the original fraction and add two to the number on top and subtract two from the number on the bottom. So that this second example is no more difficult than the first one I'd taken from the textbook.

"Darwin, listen please. I want you to take this fraction and follow the steps that I went through with this first example, to arrive at a percentage. If you follow each step correctly, you can't go wrong."

"But I don't know why I have to divide the top number by the bottom one. Why? That's how come I can never get this stuff; 'cause nobody ever explains anything." He throws his pencil down, leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms over his chest.

When it is time for me to go I look at Darwin’s thirteen-year-old hands and notice how fleshy they are. They are bigger than mine, and despite my Celtic roots and his Portuguese ones, whiter too. He is still so young, a child in fact. His face expresses exhaustion, although I don’t for the life of me know why, the boy barely used his brain for most of the hour I spent with him, and I can’t imagine he used it much at school today either.

The Thin Line (Between Thick and Thin)

I got my cold hands from my mother. I remember being younger and watching her do the dishes. My father would offer to do them for her. He would offer with shininess on the skin under his nose and above his lips. It looked like plastic skin to me. My mother would always say that she preferred to do them herself, even when she was tired. She enjoyed doing the dishes because her hands were always cold. The hot water was soothing to her fingers. The steaming dishes that she placed in the strainer, like her hands, would cool quickly in the air of our pantry.

But that was long ago, not that her hands are not cold now. They are. Just that dish doing and things like that don’t perplex me like they used to. I don’t sit around wondering what motivates people like my mother to do things like the dishes anymore.

My hands are still cold though. On a different body, in a different province, are these hands: the same as my mother’s.



What has been perplexing me lately is of equal insignificance though. I think about accents. I have worked and tried so hard to speak French with little to zero English residue. Unfortunately everyone always knows I am Anglophone. But what is weird is that some people will say, oh, you speak French well with very little accent. And when I meet English-speaking Francophones I sometimes say, oh, you speak English well with only a small accent. But really, what am I comparing these people to? Other Francophones? They all have thick accents; it’s just that some are thinner than others.

But how do we know that when they hear us Anglophones speaking French, we all have thin accents and some are just thicker than others? So when they say I have only a small accent, couldn’t it be true that I have in fact a bigger accent in French that they do in English but since they can only compare me to other Anglophones, also suffering from thick accents, they only hear mine as small? Even though it is big? So in relation to other Anglophones small, but in relation to others in general of all languages, who knows? Could be enormous!

Metroface

The Montreal metro is full of surprises!

Actually, no. What was once a twice-daily adventure for me has now become a chore of necessity. The first few months of metro taking were a blissful time of people watching and imagination. I didn't mind staring at people--their unique flaws, their clothes, their expressions--and making up stories in my head to go with them. I never spoke to anyone or asked the desirable: "So, what's your story? (grin)". I just consumed every detail of their faces, their hands, their body shapes. Since there are so many different ethnicities in Montreal, I became aware of the fact that I am really different from everyone on the metro. And could it be? I am tall! ... Well, compared to other women in Montreal. On PEI I always felt sort of plain and average, but now, here, I was standing above everyone. I could see the tops of people's heads. In flats!

I made eye contact with everyone. Willingly. I tried to give knowing looks to other metro-takers when the driver would announce a delay. I would give my seat to the old and decrepit. I would read the paper over other people's shoulders. I would talk to small children and smile flirtatiously at babies. I would hold my books tightly against my chest if I felt a stranger's eyes taking too much liberty.

But after a couple of months I started to notice more than what people on the metro looked like and wore. I started to notice their expressions and how they were feeling. Aside from the small children and babies, the strangers on the metro all seem to have one thing in common: a vague look of malaise on their face. Whether they are staring out the window at the black blur of passing tunnel, or at nothing in particular, they almost never catch my eye. They know I am there, but they'd just rather not let me see into them.

But it's more than that. There is a certain "metro face" among the Montreal daytime metro-takers. It is a face of indifference. A half-dead, half-asleep look that says, "I'd rather be anywhere but here." It is a blank, bored face in a sea of others, and the fact that it is universal and common is what keeps metro-takers wearing it. I've come to the conclusion that most people who are early in their career of metro taking, are like me: they look forward to the adventure of seeing a variety of new and unusual people, up close. That's why babies are intrigued by my playfulness, and the metro in general; they are newcomers to the ride. Then, over time, the washed-out metro face of everyone else becomes contagious. People who have been taking the metro for a long time prefer to go unnoticed. They want to blend into the background. They don't want to be bothered, and they may even have a slight fear of strangers. So they start to copy the metro face look in an effort to lose their individuality among the crowd of like expressions.

When people like me start taking the metro, we are thirsty for all the new encounters with worldly Montrealers. But then, we start to realize, these people don't want me to know their story; they want to keep their story private. Could it be that I make them uncomfortable just by smiling at them or catching their eye?

So I have figured out the psychology behind the metro face. Now my only worry is that I too might start wearing it. I caught my reflection in the window today and I thought my neck looked so long it might snap. Then I looked at my expression and it was a happy one.

No, I don't think I will ever become a metroface. Even when I don't want to be there, I simply take my mind elsewhere, and that fantasy is what dictates my expression...

Stawberry Blonde (Emphasis on "Straw") II

Ontario Street is not known for its great shopping, its sensational apartments or its exciting nightlife. It is more of a marginal city street, unfit for tourists, fit for struggling artists and low-income singles. In short, it is not a street that tries hard to impress.

I couldn't understand what had attracted me to the little salon on Ontario. It was easy to miss and so small that it only took cash. The lady who booked me in also turned out to be the same lady who did my hair. Her name was Audrey, and she looked to be about my age. On both the day I booked my appointment and the day of my appointment, I noticed that Audrey was impeccably dressed. This is not something out of the ordinary in Montreal; most women are impeccable in appearance. But there was something different about Audrey. Her hair was, what else? Strawberry blonde. It was very short and chic--buzzed from the neckline up, with long, wispy, bangs, elfish, pointy sideburns and the cutest little cowlick pointing upward from the crown--and somehow made her look even more feminine and delicate. It was like a blonde 1950's Elvis cut, minus the heavy, rectangular sideburns. I could picture her hair greased and combed back from the front, with just the tiniest curl hanging down in front of her forehead, but the way she wore it--bouncy and tousled--was better. With pieces falling forward and into her eyes every now and then, she looked like a coiffed masterpiece, who just rolled out of bed.

Audrey's head was slightly disproportionate to her body, in a good way. She was tall, but with small features, and a thin waist and neck. Her large head gave her the overall appearance of a tall child, which is undeniably beautiful. Though she was slender, her face was round and full; so full in fact that her cheeks dimpled uncontrollably from the pressure of her smile. The first day I met her; she was wearing tight black jeans and just a simple yellow tank top. She wore a black bra underneath, but it didn't look trampy since she had only a hint of bosom. Her shoes were metallic, strappy heels, and she wore them like she was born in them.

The second time I saw her, she was wearing a just-above-the-knee red pencil skirt with an empire waste. On top she wore a striped navy and white t-shirt. Both items were worn snug, and both had nautical details that made her look like she was a pin-up girl posing for a 1960's Navy crew. She wore white spheres on her lobes and her face was bare except for some burgundy eye makeup. She was amazing.

I typically think a smile tells you how a person feels about themselves as well as how they feel about you. When Audrey smiled at me, her expression did not match her overall appearance. Her smile said she was shy, reserved and somewhat nervous. But not nervous in a way that makes her untrustworthy. She had an open face. It made me feel welcome. I smiled back.

She was the complete opposite of the hairdresser I'd been going to all these months, the hairdresser from France. Audrey was not professional to the point of being cold. She made me feel like we were girlfriends talking about how we would do each other’s makeovers. She embraced my straw-like locks and touched them with careful fingers. She studied my eyes, my complexion and my expression. Then she made some suggestions.

"I think you should cut a lot off. Simply because it is damaged, and beautiful hair is all about healthy hair. Then I think we can give you some bangs... Kind of like Sienna Miller's. I will add some lowlights, but I don't think you should stray too far from the blonde. It kind of suits you, and besides, it's summer." She said the last part through smiling teeth. Audrey was positive and honest about my situation and I trusted her.

"Let's just flush out these copper tones with some more subtle hues and take out any left-over green from the ash toner you used." She didn't think I was silly for ruining my hair. She just wanted to fix it. She didn't judge. She smiled.

For the rest of my visit, I spent my energy trying to get to know my new hairdresser. She was born in Poland. She went to a private school. She loved designing clothes. She had an Italian boyfriend. She was vegetarian, and allergic to milk. She loved fireworks and live music. She didn't want kids; at least not yet.

These are things she told me about herself. Other things I learned about her from how she was. Her voice, the words she chose, the expressions on her face, her body language. She looked straight into my eyes when she spoke to me. She had steady hands. She drank a lot of coffee. She smelled like flowery soap. She chose words carefully, hesitating and pausing between phrases while she searched for exactly the right words. She often waited for my reaction to what she was saying, before showing her own emotion through her facial expressions.

We talked a lot about Montreal.

When she was just finishing the cut, I could already tell this was going to be a good one.
It was something of an inverted bob, with long, in-my-eyes bangs. The whole cut was staggered in this and that direction. Overall it looked like a long, slightly grown-out bowl cut. I felt like a Monkee. I felt beautiful. This haircut felt like me and that was what I wanted. I felt cute and happy, and I couldn't believe how long my neck was and how sharp my clavicle was.

I paid in cash and gave Audrey a sizeable tip. I made it as obvious as I could--without appearing phony--that I loved what she'd done. I asked her advice on maintenance. I gave her a big hug, and I walked back to the metro. Hair Hell was officially over. Now, to begin enjoying Hair Heaven...

Strawberry Blonde (Emphasis on "Straw")

I don't like following trends too closely. In fact, I prefer to stand out a bit. But when it comes to hairstyles, I generally just go for cuts and colours that look good on me and flatter my eyes, skin and bone structure. My hair is naturally brown; light brown, I guess. When my boyfriend suggested I bleach my hair light blonde (à la Paris Hilton), I flashbacked to a few years ago.

Calling my family "middle class" would be generous. Considering my Dad gave me a $40 budget for my prom dress, I was used to having to improvise when it came to my hair. My prom hairstyle was an enormous afro (my hair is naturally straight). During my late teens I experimented with punk colours, effects and androgynous looks so that I could express myself in an inexpensive way. Having no money forced me to be creative with whatever I had.

Around the age of sixteen, I started to branch out from my usual peppering of gold throughout my long brown locks. I wanted to be noticed so I asked my artsy cousin to paint some neon green into my gold highlights. My boyfriend at the time was a the lead singer in a punk rock band and I wanted to look like I fit the role of his girlfriend (although he had a natural auburn hair colour, he was heavy with piercings, tattoos and a slightly scary dog collar; what can I say? I liked bad boys). The green turned out pretty nice. Since it just sort of coloured over the lighter highlights I'd had, it looked subtly cool. When I came back from a trip to Italy, I was ready for some expressing-myself-through-my-hair excitement once again. This time, however, I bleached my entire head to a light, white-blonde colour. Then I dowsed my hair in a hot pink, glue-like substance that was guaranteed to create a most unnatural colour. I rinsed it out, conditioned and blow-dried. Then I combed something of a bouffant shape into my shoulder-length tresses, liquid eye-lined my lids and spread mascara through my eyelashes. The result? Incredible. My complete look was something of a head-turner. I was young, I had a great summer tan, and I loved to show off my legs. I didn't have a care in the world and I walked around like I was hot stuff. I definitely got noticed.

Two weeks passed and my pink locks soon became a washed-out peachy-yellow colour. It made me look ill.
I considered redoing my pink look, but decided I was tired of it. Instead, I toned my blonde to a light, Debbie Harry shade that would keep my punk look intact. I rebleached the roots and toned it all to a white-hot colour that would have been the envy of Gwen Stefani. And, once again, I was pretty confident about it.

By the fall, I was starting my first year at university and my blondeness was becoming less flattering against my fading tan. I let it grow out a bit before dying it all to match my brown roots. The whole time, no matter what my hair looked like, I maintained an attitude of confidence. If I pretended to be hot, others would believe it too.

Aside from a few spontaneous red dye days, and one angry bang-chopping day, my hair has remained pretty conventional since my late teens. I have kept it at a medium length and haven't strayed too far from my natural colour. Until, that is, my boyfriend suggested a makeover, or rather, a blonde-over.

I suppose I had forgotten the blonde episode I went through during my Debbie Harry stage, or maybe I just remembered the good parts of it. Either way, I decided to give it a try once again.

I went to my usual hair salon a few blocks away, on the first day of the third month following my last haircut. And this is how my appointment went:

“Bonjour, j’ai un rendez-vous à neuv’heures et quart?” I say to the lady behind the counter at the chic hair place. “Pour des mèches?”

“C’est ça.”

I sit down and talk about Christmas with the lady from France who is the best highlighter I have ever had. She and her colleague talk about Santa and the parade and things like that; I am half-tuned-out since it requires some concentration to gather meaning from their mix of French and Quebecois accents. But then they ask my opinion. “Est-ce que tu es Catholique?”

Although I could have understood, I pretend I don’t and the Quebec girl looks guiltily at the French woman. She asks her how to say something in English. Neither of them knows that the term they are looking for is “wise men”. I pretend I don’t know either.

Then the French one says (all the while the Quebec girl holding a piece of my hair up while the French one paints chemicals onto another piece) that it is the wise men that brought to gifts to Jesus that started the trend of Santa Clause. I don’t say anything.

Then she says, thinking I don't understand, "Je ne sais pas pourquoi elle veut ruiner ses cheveux." She says this in a low voice and her eyes are darting around the store as she tries to make it look like she is talking about anything but me. They continue to exchange a look of judgment about my bleaching choice.
But in my mind, it is very simple; I know women like Cameron Diaz and Scarlett Johansson do not have naturally light blonde hair, so if they can bleach theirs effectively, then why can't I? I already explained all this to my hairdresser, but she didn't seem to understand. She pulls at every piece aggressively, as though she is angry with me. Now she is the one expressing herself through my hair.

I had told her I didn't want to hear her opinion; I just wanted her to answer yes or no. Could she or couldn't she make me look like Cameron Diaz. She had shrugged.

I open my eyes after the relaxing head massage and towel dry. My hairdresser slowly reveals what lay beneath the towel. My first reaction is one of mild shock. Is this me? I am an open-face pineapple. But I cannot let her know that I am dissatisfied. I want to pretend that I had intended to look like this and I knew I would look like a pineapple, and I'd be damned if I stayed a brunette, when I can look like this.

I make no reaction and continue to read Chatelaine as she combs and plays with my hair. Thirty minutes, a cut and a style later, I am on my way out. I stop to pay. Usually, my once every three-month haircut costs me $145, tip included. I wait for the lady to tally up my bill.

"Deux cent, soixante-six, s'il vous plait," she looks up and smiles at me like an angel.

"WHAT?" I think. I take out my visa and pay in silence. I do not add a tip. I leave. I put the hood of my jacket on and walk home. I try on different outfits in an attempt to improve my yellow head syndrome. Nothing works.

I sit and study, sulkily, until my boyfriend comes home.



What transpired over the next few months was a chapter in my life I like to refer to as, "Hair Hell". I had spent too much money on my botched blonde hairstyle (although my boyfriend told me to go back and complain until they gave me my money back, I simply could not let that horrible hairdresser know that she'd been right about ruining my hair), so I couldn't afford to get it redone right away. I tried to redo it myself.

To even out the yellow in my hair, I tried a variety of toners. I tried ash, beige, and strawberry blonde. I tried everything to neutralize the copper and gold banana peel shades in my hair.

Nothing looked natural and I spent a lot of money on special shampoos and conditioners to keep my tresses soft and moisturized. Even those didn't work.

Although the toners mellowed the vibrant yellow of my hair, the texture was becoming more straw-like with every new application of colour. I discovered, through experimentation, that the colour that best suited my freckly skin tone and blue eyes was definitely the strawberry blonde tones, but the constant damaging affect of the chemicals was turning it into dry, brittle, splinters of what my hair used to be like.

At the end of Hair Hell, I began to research other hair salons in Montreal. I was tired of being a slave to toner and I was tired of my opaque, strawberry blonde (emphasis on "straw") helmet of dried-out splinters - they were a fire hazard! I called around, comparing prices and asking about services. My boyfriend must have been relieved about my decision, for he'd had to put up with spontaneous bursts of tears over the course of Hair Hell, and must have been getting tired of it.

One day, as I walked down Rue Ontario, I came across an alternative looking salon. It was sandwiched between two tattoo parlors and featured a couple of leather-clad guys sitting on the front steps. I gingerly stepped in. I didn't really ask any questions, I just made an appointment for the following week... TO BE CONTINUED