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.