The Dalai Lama

I was sitting at school working on an accounting assignment when Joey and Liza called. They had an extra ticket to see the Dalai Lama at the Bell Center and if I left IMMEDIATELY I could make it.
"I have to leave" I said to my team. "I'm going to see the Lalai Lama."

Thanks to Montreal's excellent subway system and my new-found familiarity with it I arrived at the Bell center in under 30 minutes. The anticipation and excitement in the crowd was no less than if we were queuing up for a rock concert.

When he finally came out it was quite emotional. Around me there were all states: some were shouting with joy, some were crying, some were simply staring.

He's a little man with a huge presence. He walks and talks humbly and keeps his expressions simple and to the point. He does sort of talk around a point at first but he makes his point...his point on this day was one of compassion.

Who should we have compassion for? Everyone. When should we be compassionate? Always.

When talking about the 200 million people that were killed in the 1900's through genocide, war, social unrest and state-sanctioned murder he said that although it was the bloodiest century yet it ended with a message of hope. At the begining of the 20th Century when a nation declared war the people mobilized in the war effort with a national fervor. The last part of the century so people organizing in peaceful protest and large movements organizing against armed resistance. Thanks to the efforts of many the voice of peace and non-violence is growing.

When he asked Japanese about their feelings towards America for the bombing of Hiroshima an Nagasaki he said they have an attitude of forgiveness and peace. When he asks Germans, who had to build a new nation from ashes about their feeling towards the victors of the Second World War he said they had a attitude of forgiveness and compassion. These are two large examples of a movement of compassion and peace that give great home to the new century.

When asked about religious conversion he said it is more important to practice compassion like a Buddhist than to convert to Buddhism. He said that religion is a part of your culture and one should not loose their culture. Conversion should only be done when one sends a life in contemplation and practice and has reached the conclusion that another religion is a good fit for their person and the culture that suits them.

I'm not always the most compassionate person but I try..it's a process learning to be compassionate...and I was inspired to be a more kind and forgiving person having seen the Dalai Lama. Even after reading all his books hearing him was startlingly fresh. He is as laid-back-cool as he is rumored to be...not so much charismatic as simply likable.

The Dalai Lama speaks to journalists in Montreal October 3, 2009.


OK. Back to studying. My first finals at HEC are this coming week: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. If I don't crack under the pressure you can find me Sunday night at B-side on Rue Sainte-Laurent dancing like a crazy crazy crazy manic.

Montreal Apartment

I found an APARTMENT!!

Yesterday my friend Karen asked if I wanted to go read in the park and I walked over to her house and was waiting for her when I noticed a for rent sign in the door of a building that I had noticed last year because if it's beautiful doors.

I called the number and Louise the landlord answered and offed to show it to me right then. She lives in the building next door and shares a balcony with the space that was for rent.

It is a converted attic of a building that is over 150 years old. She put in a huge skylight over the kitchen, lots of windows, painted it white and put it new wood floor. It's fantastic.

I asked her if I could rent it and she asked when I would like to move in. "In about an hour," I said...she could tell I wasn't kidding.

I went over this morning and paid the first month's rent, cleaned my sublet and walked by few posessons over to the new place.

It's perched on top of a three story building so it looks out west toward Mount Royal and catches tons of light. Today it is raining and it was still bright in the apartment.

I am in a word, happy.

Owen arrives on Monday and we'll hopefully move in that night (why are our schedules always so optimistic?)

We don't have a couch yet but we will be accepting dinner-guests, visits from friends and family, and housewarming presents starting this coming Friday, September 4th!

HEC Montreal

School is going really well. We're basically here all the time but instead of stuffy boring money hungry nerds, that you would expect at an internationally ranked business school, there are tons of hip, intelligent, attractive and wholly interesting people.

I heard that there is another American but so far I've only met Nigerians, Germans, Italians, Chileans, French, English, Scottish, Canadian, Mexican, Armenian, Indian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Lithuanian, and Swiss students.

Every Thursday there is an open bar for graduate students in MBA and Masters of Business Communication in our lounge and I've heard rumors of weekly games of dodge ball.

The building looks like an art museum and is spacious, bright, super clean and comfortable to be in.

I'll probably change my mind at some late hour this long, cold and dark winter when I feel imprisoned in the library studying, but for now I love it here I feel very very lucky and proud every day when I get to school.

Owen arrives on the 31st and until then I'm using free minutes to look for an apartment or a house. I still have no student loan but I'm working on it.

Best news ever: using my reusable mug a double espresso in the cafeteria (coop) is only $1.25. Assuming I have coffee for my three meals a day I can survive on a weekly grocery budget of only $26.25! I was a little worried about scurvy until I remembered that I could ask for a squeeze of fresh lime in my gin and tonic on Thursdays? C'est Bon!!

Bus ride

Sometimes daily life is rather the same. I don't think people living in Nairobi or Hiroshima who grew up in Rome or Reykjavík think of the foreignness of the place where they buy their groceries or brush their teeth unless something extra weird happens. When you first arrive however all the minutia and all the mysteries are giant as billboards next to sidewalks. You're constantly rubbernecking to let your eyes get big and your mind go blank so you can take it all in.

Montrealers don't really notice themselves. Sure, they spend time on their looks, or more importantly their look, and talking they do, but I think these things come naturally. They sort of have this, "I'm interested in what I'm doing but I'm bored" way about them. They don't seem to get as worked up as their French cousins. Maybe they'd like to go on strike or smash up a McDonald's once in a while but they probably are holding a coffee or reading a book that they'd like to finish and by then it will be time they worked themselves up for a good raou they'd be late for their buss and they probably have plans with friends later.

I took the Metro (subway) to a neighborhood I hadn't been to yet and walked around. The plan was to walk but I had my laptop in my bag and it started to rain. When I got to the bus stop the bus schedule said that the last bus had come and gone and the next bus wouldn't be arriving for several hours. Standing there under the bus-stop shelter I was daydreaming and staring off when I heard a sound. Looking up, there was a bus stopped with the door open and the driver was waiting for me to get on. I thought, "what a nice guy!"

The bus was busy: there were a Muslim family and the wife was fully covered except here face, a Jewish mom with her littler daughter and a boy who talked in an excited high-pitched banter fairly constantly until he would occasionally fall over and flop and roll around on the floor. Standing coyly in the middle was a teenage couple. They were French-African and hip. He had his pants down hip-hop style and his shirt was open. Across from me was a rocker girl who seemed drunk, and while her head bobbed, as she nodded off now and then, I was noticing her Debbie Harry tee and her chipped blue nail polish. Her nail polish was as thick as the enamel on my grandma's old stove.

The driver driver seemed to be on a mission. The street was not busy but he would accelerate as fast as possible from every stop and intersection. The Jewish kid had tumbled into nearly everyone and was like an little French Tom Thumb Pinata wearing a yamaka. The drunk girl had nearly crashed to the floor twice and the Muslim woman genuinely looked worried.

By the time we had rounded Mount Royal on Rue Parc the driver had effectively indoctrinated everyone into his fast take off routine. This is when he pulled a fast one. As he approached Rue Doctor Pinfield he hit the breaks as if there were an infant riding a Catholic Saint laying in the road. It was really his finest moment. The African kid crushed his girlfriend. The Jewish boy rolled away from his moms outstretched arm like sailor gone overboard but with more acrobatics. Poor rocker-girl wedged herself nicely between her seat and the seat of a artsy but un-groomed man holding a french horn. I myself landed beside the 49ish year old woman to my right who had a blue dragon tattoo and an I-just-woke-up-face.

I had felt so lucky that this bus had come along when I really needed it, but at what price. Looking at all the passengers faces I couldn't help myself. I'm a prankster at heart after all--I laughed out loud--twice. This bus ride was possibly the most entertaining thing one could do for $2. What driver of any public vehicle has ever threaded the great distance between complaint letter and pat on the back with such broad stitches. I hated and loved him.

The best part was not that the bus driver had this "I'm interested in what I'm doing but I'm bored" look on his face the whole time. It was that when I got to my stop he stops the giant bus and as I walked to the door to leave the door closed. Shit. I realized that I might actually be dead. A really bumpy bus to purgatory full of wacky Montrealers would be fairly accurate for my karma. Further, it seemed fitting that when you die do you might not know it so everything would be really surreal and bouncy. I had been thinking earlier in the day about the Jewish faith because I wanted a bagel for lunch from Mile End and when I was looking for the library at HEC I had interrupted three Muslim men during their afternoon prayers. That afternoon I had read an email about MBA recruitment in Africa and the french horn just seemed like decoration. And rocker girl? Well she was obviously a manifestation of my partying past and my there was a Debbie Harry connection with a guy I used to date!

I went to the front and asked the driver, "may I get off here or shall I stay on?" I find that in times of desperation it pays to be really really polite.

With a blank face and a shrug of his shoulders he opened the door and I stepped down into the warm evening absolutely relieved that I was both alive and completely entertained by my ability to die, go to purgatory, relive my entire days daydreams and plead with the grim reaper for my return to the living all in the time it took to walk three paces to the front of the buss.

Next time I'm judging some bored looking Montrealers or staring at people on the bus I think I'm just going to relax, let my mind go blank and take it all in.

Oh, Canada, eh!

Canada Day falls on July 1st so it was a bit like the Fourth of July without excessive drunkenness and multitudinous fireworks. 

Here in Canmore we were treated to an annual parade which is quite large and well attended for such a small town. The Calgary Stampede is the week after and several bands, floats, and participants of that debaucherous week of hats and boots start out by participating in the Canmore Canada Day Parade to get in some practice and get their horses used to crowds. 

They don't have a one dollar bill here. It's a gold coin with a bird that looks like a duck on it. The bird is a loon and the coin is know as the "Loony" which is as family friendly and totally dorky as the rest of Canada but it TOTALLY eclipsed by the two dollar coin which has Polar Bears on it. Is it called the "Polary" or the "Bear coin" you might ask and I would say no. It's called a "Twonie." RETARDED. So, anyway, about  a week ago I had ventured into the Dollar Store (not called the Loonie Store as it should be) where few things are a dollar/Loonie but where one can find lots of irresistible crap. I personally fell in love with their large collection of temporary tattoos of the Canadian Flag which I purchased while telling myself they were for my goddaughter Braxton who LOVES temporary tattoos. 

Thank goodness I did buy those lovely little flag tattoos because Canada Day nearly demanded that I get a little festive. I met up with Elizabeth and Alicia, my sexy neighbors down the lane,and we promptly applied maple leaf flags to our selves and were off (sorry Braxton.)  We rode our bikes into town and met up with the ever-amazing Pinta/Snakebite/Dr. Cynthia Lane Ph.D/International Plant Guru. Owen 

closed the museum for an hour during the parade (shhh. that's a secret) and come to meet up with us.

Snakebite and I were pretending it was an unofficial Gay Pride. My b

ubble was burst however when a blue Volkswagen  Beetle full of drag queens drove by and it was full of 

actual women! Gross. Later I 

was complaining about the absence of fags in the Bow Valley and Snakebite offered

 some advice to me. All the women here are broad shouldered, athletic, and slightly masculine. She said if I was trying to tell if they were gay or not then I just had to remember one thing: "They aren't gay. They are straight. They are all straight straight straight." The entire valley is full of decoys! (It reminds me of the Karney, NB ladies basketball team when my sister was in college.) 

After the sunny and warm parade we adjourned to the Century Park where the marching bands were giving an exposition/recital. My favorite band was the Calgary Stampede Marching band. They sounded great, had killer red capes, and we all agreed they had the hottest conductor. They did let me down a little when they played in the park by standing instead of marching in tight little choreographed  patters like the other bands but their sound was extraordinary and they had a timpani. 

All in all Canada day was a success. Yeah there were friends, sunshine, Shriners in little airplanes, marching bands and the smell of barbeque, but truth be known, it's hard to have a bad day when you're wearing temporary tattoos that look like maple leaf flags.

Wapiti

Wapiti (Cervus elaphus) is the second largest (After the Moose) and most highly evolved of the Old World Deer. It is also known as the American elk but here in Canada it's called a Wapiti--Shawnee for "white rump." Wapiti came to North America at the end of the last ice age and expanded their range and population only after the extinction of the American mega fauna about 11,000 years ago.

Owen and I had just hiked up the Spray Lakes and we split up for the last leg, as we biked home. I wanted to ride along the dike that forms the bottom lake and Owen wanted to take the highway--his road bike just can't handle the off-road adventures like my trusty green hill-bombing machine.

As I neared the rendezvous point I saw several Wapiti going to down to get a drink. I slowed down and got my trusty black D2X out. They were a little far away but with the mountains in the background everything looks pretty photo-worthy.

Just then the crazy Wapiti opted for a swim instead of a drink. I was amazed to see them wade into the reservoir and start swimming. They don't look particularly buoyant but they swam quite quickly. I was snapping intermittently until they scooted out and over the dike and trotted down the valley.

Frankly, I was disappointed when I moved to Canmore that there was no movie theater. I wondered if they just went out with buckets of popcorn and stared at the snow capped bluffs. Lately however I've been thinking about my new library card and the aquatic Wapiti and deciding that maybe I've got plenty of entertainment, I'll just have to venture out to find it. There just might be a evening soon when the neighbors will be asking one another what that American kid is doing with a bowl of popcorn standing out in his yard.

Planned Burns

There is an epidemic of Pine Beetles in the forests of Eastern British Columbia and Western Alberta. It is a naturally occurring pest that has had the unwitting assistance of humans to help it along. Normally forests periodically burn. It's actually very good for them as long as it's not too often and they come back healthier then before. Modern times however have seen us prevent forest fires that were long overdue and we have forests full of trees that are too old to defend themselves from the beetles. A healthy tree can produce enough sap that when the beetles attack it repels them. An older treee however, basically over 80 or so, can't produce much sap and it becomes a breeding ground until it's dead. Once the beetle populations get immense they can even take down healthy young trees and then you have a real epidemic like the one we have now. To slow the spread they are burning parts of the forest this spring.

Even if it is a controlled burn you are still in awe when the smoke plume crests the mountains' ridges. This smoke appeared as we biked away from the house and I took these photos less then 20 minutes later. If it wasn't a planned burn I think I would have been scared witless and headed straight for the river.

Canmore Mountain Treat

Last week wasn't going particularly well. I was homeless, my credit card was pirated, I got a sunburn and Owen called me an asshole. In addition to these fun facts I had hiked to a park to call HEC Montreal for my grad-school interview and just before I dialed three mowers started mowing the park. By the time I got to the second park I missed my call in time. AUH..Siick!

When I had stopped in at the library to check my bank balance earlier and found that my credit card had been pirated and had to call UMB in Kansas City. The first call to UMB was a complete success and Mr. Latourneau was extremely helpful. Unfortunately I didn't have an address as of yet and had to hang up and call back with an address that didn't entirely have as my own and didn't know at all. That's when UMB turned back into the bank I was more familiar with and told me that no card could be replaced to an address out of the country. After many unsuccessful attempts to explain that this was unacceptable I pointed out that Crosby Kemper and the rest of the Kemper clan traveled extensively. What if Mr. Kemper lost his card? Do you you tell them to stay domestic? It's Canada for the sake of Maple leaves and Hockey...not some war torn fraudulent country with shady postal systems and warlords wielding machetes! (PS. Fox news and their fraudulent propaganda can please stop referring to the Canadians as socialists. They're capitalists.)

The week seemed to have been heading down the path a truly crappy week when miracle of miracles we got to move into our apartment early!!!!! Yippee!! I went to the campsite and loaded up the car and had everything (including the bikes) moved-in in under and hour. I put everything in a line down the middle of the apartment and by the time Owen arrived home from work there were no boxes left and everything was unpacked and put away. The kind of joy I felt can only be compared to one of those crazy wives on Exteme Home Makeover who see their new house and, in spite of their obesity and fact that everyone in America is watching, they start jumping up and down. Yeah, I was that kind of happy.

Today I woke up all excited and went mountain biking on Powerline Trail and I BLEW a tire several miles from the house. I didn't even know that was possible on a bike. I had to walk it home. It felt shameful. Every spandex laden weekender from Calgary must have rode past thinking, "what's that homo in the 'Where the Wild Things Are' t-shirt doing out here?"

Defeated, but not exhausted, I packed up the computers and hiked to Canmore. I took Owen his lunch at the Museum and helped move Bud the American Bison (more on Bud later).

As I was leaving a lady named Debbie, who works with Owen, put a treat in my hat. There is a Belgian Chocolatier here in Canmore. I thought I would just have a bite. I then thought I would just have one more. Then one block later, as I entered the library, I put the last piece in my mouth. I started to write about my crappy week but it just didn't seem that crappy anymore.

To recap: yesterday I moved into an apartment at 15 Shellian Lane and had a fantastic interview with HEC Montreal. Today I had a short but energetic bike ride, learned to change a bicycle tire, enjoyed a picnic in the park with Owen, spent several relaxing hours at the library, met a North American Bison named Bud and I ate one of the biggest and most delicious bars of chocolate I've ever had in my life. Whew.


Chocolate makes everything better.

Where do you live?

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Owen and I rushed across north America, from Montreal to Canmore, to make it to an all-staff meeting at his new job. I being the most curious person ever to ask all the wrong questions did not realize that getting here on Monday the 25th would mean that even if we immediately found an apartment we probably would not be able to move in until the 1st of June.

"Holy crap," I thought to myself, "where the hell are we going to live until then?"

For Owen there was an easy answer to this question: We would live in a tent in a campground.

For me there was an answer which was equally as simple: We were going to be homeless.

Camping and homelessness share many qualities but the main difference is that when you are camping you have a cook stove or firewood and all of your possessions are not filling a Subaru Forester like a 3-D Jenga game. We looked like gypsies. The car was full to the gills and there were two bikes heaped on the roof. If we slammed on the breaks, or were in an accident, we would be buried in an avalanche and it would take some equivalent of the jaws of life to liberate us. Maybe my sister's husband Byron could just stand on the pile of wreckage and have an auction. It would look like a garage-sale got hit by bomb.

Homelessness has always been one of those things that while being a reality is what happens to other people. Poor people. Drug addicts and old hookers. We were pretty and young (well Owen is young, I'm youngish.) How did I suddenly find myself with no address?

I went swimming at the hot spring on Sulphur Mountain yesterday (after climbing Sulphur Mountain). There was this little boy I dubbed Splasher. He was shy and kind of nerdy but he we hit it off. When Owen and I were changing I was walking around the locker room looking for a swimsuit spinner. Splasher was walking out with his dad and the little man asked me where I lived. Hell. How to answer that? Could I say KC, MO? It might sound sound foreign and sort of cool but I definitely didn't live there anymore. Should I say Montreal where a lot of my stuff is but where I've only ever spent about 4 or 5 weeks? Should I say Canmore where my socks and underwear are but where I literally live in a tent by the river and have no address, no shower and running water?

Where do I live? Such a simple question--until I thought about it. When you're having an adventure where do you live? Where do you live when you're out living?

For the last 8 years I have known where I lived. I lived in Kansas City. I knew that. I wasn't particularly happy and was desperate for an adventure but I knew exactly where I lived. Then I moved to Montreal and for a few days I lived there. I could prove it. I had possession there and an address and a few friends who could vouch for me. Then I got in the car with a bright-eyed art-lover who radiates with youth and freedom and I drove across North America to a beautiful mountain town where I have no visa, no job and no address other then, "the green tent beside the Bow River."

So standing there wearing only a green towel I had not felt particularly exposed until a wee man in a stripped oxford and tiny little khaki pants asked me where I lived. Clayton? Auckland? Lawrence? San Diego? Kansas City? Montreal?

"I live in Canmore, Alberta," I said.

"Oh, that's where I'm staying. I have to be there at 9, that's when I go to bed."

Genius, little boy, genius. When did the verb 'to live' get an address? This might be why so many of us are unhappy...why I was unhappy...Confined...Boxed in.

We don't need to be addressed and localized. People are nomadic to their very core historically and maybe genetically. We need to start asking, "where do you stay?" When the droll exposition of conversation with new friends starts we should say where we stay and then tell them how we live.

Since I left Kansas City I've stayed on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Indian Wells and Canmore in the Rockies. Since I left Kansas City I've really felt like I'm living and I since I met Splasher I don't feel homeless anymore.

I stay in Canmore. It's kind of odd and counter intuitive but I don't have an address and I absolutely feel like I'm at home.

Greetings from Canmore.

I woke up early this morning. Actually I woke up very early. I still had my cellphone on Montreal time and forgot to change it. Owen had to get up at 8:30AM and I wanted to get up and start apartment hunting and exploring Canmore. When the alarm went off I got up, dressed, and was making coffee when Owen asked...

Do you know what time it is?
Um...8:30?
No...6:30.
6:30...not pretty.

Later, like two hours later, I re-got-up and looked out the window of our room and took the above photo. There are basically majestic mountain peaks in all directions. The three peaks on the left are called Three Sisters and are the easiest to recognize. I wonder if they have their own names? As a twin I can say that they should each have their own names and be treated as individuals or they will probably get quite aggressive and competitive.

The town claims to have 12,000 residents but it seems smaller. I mean it falls somewhere between Norton, KS and Westport, MO for size comparisons. There are few streets and not many buildings over two stories. I walked around and checked out the trail along the river and the downtown area. It's all that rocky-mountain-beautiful you get in Colorado without all the jackass Republicans and California transplants. In addition it's all impeccably well maintained. I'm surprised that it isn't more expensive.

Owen and I have found apartments listed for under $1000 and if you're willing to have roommates you can pay as little as 400 to 600 to share a house. I wish I had know about Canmore when I was going to UMKC I would have abandoned KC every summer! We're going to look at a place this evening that we both hope we like since the landlord seems like she wants us to rent it she works in the same building that Owen's gallery is in. The only problem is that it's not available until the 1st and that would mean six more days of living in a tent...."Egh, sick," according to Steven the Navajo Tranny.

Victoria Day!

When asking around Montreal I was basically only informed that Victoria Day was, "a holiday." In French it is Fête de la Reine. I did a little Wikipedia and found that it is a Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May, in honor of both Queen Victoria's birthday and the current reigning Canadian sovereign's official birthday, ie. The Queen of England. It is considered an informal mark of the beginning of the summer season much like Memorial Day in the USA.

It turned out to be quite sunny and warm today (70F) and the parks and cafes were busy. We picked up our friend Katya and headed for Mountain Equipment Coop so I could get the requesit (sp) sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and hiking shoes for our summer adventure to Alberta. Along the way I looked out the window and this lady is in rapt coconversation at a cafe and her breast is literally dangling out there. I was like, "what the fuck?" Then she sort of half-hazardously raised this baby up and it starts to suckle as she and her two friends keep yapping. You would have thought she was giving a first person testimonial of the birth of Jesus?

I'm all about the right to nurse in public. It's natural, and as mammals we have all either done it or are nail-bitters. There is a fine line however between nursing your baby and plain old "getting your tits out." It was a nice cafe. We were in the middle lane of Rue Park (aka Park St.) and I did not get a photo of the situation that really shows the bravado/exhibitionism of the mom/wet nurse but I think you get the idea. She kind of makes curb-side prostitutes seems shy.

Let's Bike up Mount Royal!

By 7PM we were needing to get out of the house/room and Owen was adamant that we jog up Mount Royal. I reminded him that I was the guy who had asthma, allergies, bronchitis and a sinus infection just a few days before and was in NO condition to jog up anything. Owen suggested I follow along on my mountain bike and that he would, "jog at a grandma's pace."





I took some photos along the way. We live on Rue Hutchison in the McGill Ghetto which is sort of congested and piled with tall apartment buildings towards downtown, but as you move toward the mountain it starts looking quintessentially Montreal. They buildings there have the wrought iron stairs leading to the second floor where the North American French put the front door. It looks fantastic and just in case the place gets buried in a shit-ton of snow it could possibly even prove useful.

Biking is maybe as important to the Montrealer as drinking, speaking French, and dressing cool. They have bike lanes so you don't get ran over and they even have stoplights just for the bicyclists that illuminate little bike silhouettes to let you know whether to peddle or stand there and look cool...tres bien.
















The sun was setting as we got to the top of the mountain and the vista out over the city is lovely. I think you can see all the way to Vermont.

Sunday Restday

We didn't manage to wake up until 5PM! It took another hour before we could manage coffee or Cream of Wheat. Owen was downloading songs that Robert Heishman sent and I took a little break from dancing and started the shower.

"Are you talking a shower?" Owen asked.
"Yeah, it's time to start the day," I said.
"What? It's barely 6."

The studio apartment is very full today. The great majority of our stuff is in storage but there is plenty still to go. We have a path through the place but there was a bike in the kitchen which had to move to the bedroom/living room so we could make breakfast/dinner. I don't think I'm claustrophobic but this situation is still problematic.