Happy Birthday Blog

It doesn’t take much of a detective to figure out that I published the first post here in March.

But, see, I have these places on the web that are my private refuge. I can go there whenever I want, and I can rant and I can rave and I can spew, and I am in the company of likeminded individuals, people whose experience mirror my own sometimes so closely that it can get scary.

And one of those places set us up with profile pages back around last December, and with profile pages came blogs, and so me and my southern confidante, we challenged each other.

"You gonna blog? "

"I dunno. You?"

Now she had a good head start on me. By the time I posted my first post on December 31, 2007, she had a good three posts done.

And so I started blogging. For a while I was able to sustain a pace of a post a day – well six per week anyway. Come February I spent more time commuting and I had to slow down, but I tried to maintain 2 per week.

The problem, though, was this. I didn’t necessarily want the whole world looking at my profile page, and tracing my userID back through all the messageboard posts I’d done and who knows, even into the chat room.

So I came up with a brilliant, and what should have been obvious, plan. I started a “mirror blog.” And so for a while I posted each post in two places. I picked up some of the good posts from the old blog and reprinted them here. After a bit I stopped posting there altogether. Then I branched out and started dj’s groovy sounds, and here I am.

So while my blogging partner writes about her feelings, her life, her search for meaning and fulfillment, I write about beer, and obscure 50s recording artists.

But hey, I’m having fun.

Happy birthday blog.

Montréal

Montreal - Good

Ok overdue, but here it is.

Why I like Montreal:

Beer: Ok you can get beer anywhere, but in Quebec you can get it in the supermarket. That alone makes life worthwhile.

Service: Ok, I know I put this down in the bad category, but consistency was never one of my strong points. I don’t know if this is province-wide, or unique to provincial services offered in this city, but I have never met a rude or unco-operative beaureaucrat. Every single person working for the province in a serve-the-public capacity, RAMQ (medical), drivers licence guys, income tax, Régie de logement (residential tenacies), doesn’t matter, has been helpful and courteous, sometimes going beyond the call of duty.

Music: I have heard Irish music and modern jazz in pubs, I have heard classical music by the Montreal Chamber Orchestra and various student performances. All you have to do is open the Gazette on Friday, and there are all kinds of musical events going on, often for free or almost free. The McGill School of Music will be presenting Britten’s The Rape Of Lucretia in January, and I have this hankering to go…

Art: I know I am making myself sound highbrow but I think the opposite is true – if I were really highbrow I would probably recognize all the sculptures around the city for the kitch that they probably are. But I’m ignorant, and so I enjoy the random works or art scattered around here and there. I also like the Musée des beaux arts.

French: Another entry from the bad category. But there is a good side to it. Living in a city that uses a language that I don’t know gives life a kind of piquant flavour. It keeps me challenged and focused. It makes this city different from any other major city in North America.

La Grande Bibliotheque: well I go there usually once a week. It has an incredible CD collection, about which I’ve written elsewhere. If I left Montreal, I would be as sorry about leaving that library as about anything else.

Having a coffee and danish in the morning at Jewish General Hospital restaurant in the morning before work: I do this about once every two weeks, and it costs me $2.35.

I live here: I don’t live anywhere else. I live here. I don’t live where I used to live, which wasn’t a bad place really, but I didn’t want to live there anymore, and I got to come and live here, and I like that.

Two Holiday Parties

I was at two holiday parties this week.

One was the office party. It was bearable. I got three glasses of blonde, courtesy of my employer, so it wasn’t a total loss. I palled around with the same people I pal around with every day. But I got to drink beer while I did it.

There was no beer at the other party, no alcohol at all, no caffeine, not even in the soft drinks.

I wasn’t sure what I expected when I showed up Sunday afternoon at the annual AMIQuebec[1] holiday party. I’d never gone before, so this year I made up my mind that I’d be there.

I knew almost nobody, a few facilitators, administrators. There was a music man playing a keyboard, and people were dancing, awkwardly, but they were having fun. I parked myself and watched.

It was something I needed to do – to show my face, to be there, to show support. They were there when I needed them, the support group meetings, the one-on-one.

Back when, when I started going, I told my story and blew everyone else out of the water. I went to a number of meetings, told my story a number of times, and it was always the showstopper. How many kids!?? they’d ask Married how long?? At the first meeting there was a girl who looked like a blonde Carly Simon. She was struggling with bipolar disorder, had been in and out of treatment, was separated from her husband who had the two boys. She heard a bit and started filling in the details. I bet this, she said, and that, and I said how did you know, and she said I lived it. That was me, said blonde Carly.

This is not your fault they said to me, what should have been obvious. Get perspective, they said. You’re not alone they said.

Later I found more support online, and I made friends, and I get some personal counselling. But it was that first contact with AMIQuebec that turned my head around in the right direction. And I am their fan ever since.

There was a gift exchange, and I brought a cheap gift, and got a cheap gift back. I guess I stayed about 30 minutes.

I stayed at the office party longer, and I talked to more people, and I had beer, but that first party left me at peace, and with a strange feeling that my being there made a small difference in the world…


[1] Action on Mental Illness