Girl and City

I’ve always dreamed of spontaneous road trips to exciting cities with equally exciting friends. This weekend, my dream was realized. Early Saturday morning, my friends and I piled into SRB‘s car and headed to Montreal.

Montreal, one of the largest French-speaking city outside of France, the city of smoked meat and designer fashion, Canada’s cultural capital, and the birthplace of the Montreal bagel.
For us, it was a city with all this and more. It was a city where you can buy wine and beer from any dépanneur (convenient store), of which there were many. Suddenly, we were no longer constrained by the short hours and sparse locations of the LCBO (the only licensed retailer of alcohol in Ontario) when we felt like filling up with wine instead of food. It was a city where you couldn’t turn right on red lights. It was a city where we were immediately identifiable as aliens because we spoke English¹. It was a city where there was a boulangerie (bakery) on almost every street, and every single one was better than any bakery I’ve ever walked into in The City. It was a city where people were better dressed, better dined, and better wined.

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1. Although most people in Montreal are bilingual, certain parts of the city contain more English-speakers than others. We only encountered one waiter who couldn’t speak English almost at all. Nonetheless, French is the preferred language, and some locals treat Anglophones (especially tourists) differently. [↩]

It recently occurred to me that if I put all my stories together and tied it up with a neat little theme and some subtle psychological character analysis, I’d have a damn good book on my hands.
I thought after this weekend, I’d have another excellent chick-lit-esque story for you, involving beautiful shoes, good wine, and mysterious men. While I do have a story that contains all of that, it also contains another rather serious and disturbing portion, which makes it difficult for me to recount with my usual dose of humour. But we’ll see how it goes.

Traveling is never my favourite part of these stories, because it’s hard to recreate the anticipation of an event after the event has already occurred. So I’ll skip over the part where I woke up at six am in order to catch a bus to the train station only to realize the bus was never going to come and then selling an organ and a limb in order to pay the taxi fare to the train station and then being literally one second late for the train I was supposed to go on. Skip all that and fast-forward to when I finally arrive in The City.
I was picked up from the subway station by WAF, WAF‘s boyfriend, who I will now call SubduedRageBoy (this will make sense later), and their friend, PotentiallyGayBoy. and whisked away to lunch. In the car, I changed into my new stilettos and used lunch as an opportunity to practice walking in them.
The food itself was not impressive, but the four of us had a good talk over lunch. PGB and I realized we had a lot in common, and if it wasn’t for the fact that we strongly suspect him of pitching for the other team, we probably would have made a really cute couple. Still, I can always use a gay friend; they’re usually the loveliest anyway.
After lunch we went back to SRB‘s house mansion and I started drinking. We still had a lot of alcohol left over from last weekend and I was determined to at least make a dent in the stash. Meanwhile, SRB and PGB were looking up hotels and planning our getaway to Montreal in two weeks time. Somewhere between my first and second glass of wine, I had donned a pair of rose-tinted glasses and felt as if the world was spinning with me at its center, that everything was right and perfect and everyone was lovely and sweet.
The rest of the afternoon seemed to pass at lightning speed (doesn’t it always when you’re drunk having a good time?). I must have been more buzzed than I thought because I almost sprained my ankle trying on WAF‘s heels and then laid down on the marble floor in SRB‘s foyer and pretended to swim. WAF reminded me that we were supposed to go shopping before meeting the girls for dinner, so I tried to sober up. But it was a long and difficult ordeal.

Finally, finally, when I was sober enough to walk on my own, WAF and I changed into our evening gowns cocktail dresses and headed downtown¹. We went to Forever21 and H&M and only ended up buying accessories, then clicked down the street in our heels toward dinner.
The restaurant we were meeting at was famous for their wine list, which was why I had picked it. The girls I’d invited were all chronically late, always, so I had figured we could just hang out at the bar and drink wine until everyone arrived. Unfortunately, the bar was closed (on a Saturday?!?! Do they not want business?), but fortunately, all my friends arrived relatively on time²! We ordered a bottle of wine, had an excellent dinner, and discussed politics and world issues school and boys and our futures as the most powerful women in the world.
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1. We got a lot of stares on the subway and on the streets. Clearly we were over-dressed for shopping. Maybe they thought we were escorts? [↩]
2. Except SSS who arrived dripping and cursing because she got lost and it was pouring outside and she didn’t have an umbrella, the poor thing. [↩]

The last two weeks, I’ve been living the life of a true city girl – going for mid-day brunches, overpriced coffee, expensive dinners, and specialty desserts on a whim. How am I paying for this? By a magic little piece of plastic whose account balance I am not checking because I’m sure I’m almost maxed out and I don’t want such a depressing thought to burst my Carrie Bradshaw moment.

This past weekend, I was in The City and met up with two girlfriends (WriterAndFashionista and SlantedShanghaiSmile) for a little reunion. We met at WAF‘s boyfriend’s house (actually, mansion), and in true Candace Bushnell fashion, we started drinking early in the afternoon, opening and pouring copious amounts of Soho (lychee liqueur) mixed with peach schnapps and OJ, rum, and white wine (in that order) for each other. We’d been planning to watch Sicko, but once the booze started flowing, we were happily chatting away, never leaving the kitchen counter except to visit the washroom. At first, the three of us were simply having a good time, smoothing over our time spent apart with alcohol-assisted conversation. Soon however, we were deep in girlfriends-commiserating zone, and the drinking took a turn for the dramatic. We began knocking back shots of rum instead of sipping on our peachy, lychee and orange juice cocktails, and before I knew it, we were flushed and giggly. We started talking about the boys in our lives, or lack thereof for some of us, and inevitably they started grilling me about MFL.

“Why aren’t you two back together?” They demanded.
“Huh? Why would we be back together?” I asked, blinking blankly at them.
WAF rolled her eyes. “AW, AW‘s boyfriend, ALS, and I have been trying to get you two together since 2007!”
Still, I stared blankly.
“Remember? Bubble tea? Karaoke?” She shook her glass at me and the ice cubes clinked.
“Ohhh,” it finally registered what she was talking about. “Well I thought there might’ve been some hope there too, at the time, but now, nope,” I said decisively as I took a gulp of wine.
“What do you mean nope? You two are like meant to be together!” WAF exclaimed as she poured herself another shot of rum.
“Like Rachel and Ross,” SSS added helpfully, grinning as she swayed in her chair.
“I thought so too, but nope. There is no way. We are not getting back together. Nuh uh.” I was resolved. There is no way in a million years MFL and I will get back together, I told myself. Not only does he have a girlfriend, but I don’t want to get back together with him. No! Of course not! Why would I? I definitely wouldn’t!
“What if… he didn’t have a girlfriend? What if he dumped his girlfriend right now and came and asked you back? What would you say?” WAF persisted, as if reading my mind.
“Um…” I was suddenly thrown off track. “No, no, that would never happen. No.” I tried to regain my composure and my resolve.
“Ok, but what if? If he asked you out right now, would you say no?”
“Erm…” I squirmed in my seat, unwilling to admit that I’d probably reconsider. “I don’t know…” I darted a quick glance at SSS for help but she was staring happily at her cocktail and still swaying her in chair. “I don’t know.”
Exasperated, WAF rolled her eyes at me and gave up. I drained the rest of the wine in my glass and poured myself another.

MFL-grilling session aside, this was exactly what I needed. Despite how I’ve been filling up my time in University Town so I don’t get lonely or bored, I’ve been yearning some good company and good wine. And that’s exactly what I got this weekend.

I have a love-hate relationship with Sundays.

Sometimes, Sundays are wonderful. I wake up bright and early to the sound of birds chirping away outside my window. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the world could not be more saturated with possibilities. I roast a cup of coffee, make myself an enormous breakfast, and start planning my day.
Other times, Sundays are the worst. I wake up half past noon with a splitting headache and what must be the world’s worst hangover. My breath reeks and I look like a zombie because I didn’t bother washing off my eyeliner before going to bed. My room is a mess because I’d been looking for that one cute purse the night before and then had promptly ran out the door. I stumble towards the kitchen and down a vitamin pill and an extra-strength Tylenol with a glass of juice, then collapse into a heap, waiting for my head to remove itself from my body so I would stop feeling this unbelievable, pounding agony.

Today was one of those “Good Sundays.” What makes today even better is that tomorrow, I don’t have class! In fact, I don’t have class again until September!

So instead of studying for exams, I celebrate. In the manner of a true foodie, I cook, I blog, and then I cook some more. This must be what it feels like to be an addict.

First-year for me was a year of partying four times a week, drinking way too much vodka, kissing boys I’d just met, coming back to my dorm at 4am and then falling asleep outside my door because I was too drunk to fit the key into the keyhole. And I’d wake up feeling sick and hurting all over and I wouldn’t know what to do except run to the washroom and wait until it passes. And I’d swear to myself that I’d never drink again. Sometimes, by the time I’m done, it’s too late to even bother going to bed (if I actually wanted to make my 8:30 morning class) so I’d just go down to the caf and have a long breakfast with Zee, debriefing each other on the night’s events before dragging ourselves to class.
And then we’d do it all over again.

I didn’t really have a problem with this party-girl that had somehow appeared within me. As far as first-year university goes, this was the norm. But deep down, there was always a small voice saying – this isn’t you. You don’t wear makeup and show too much skin and click around in fuck-me heels. You don’t drink until you can’t see straight and you don’t make out with strangers.

Sometimes, in the middle of kissing some random boy whose name I don’t remember, or never bothered to ask, I’d pull back and look around. What am I doing here? How did I end up here? And who is this guy? He’s probably not going to call tomorrow, or ever. He’s probably not going to remember my name or what I looked like or even the fact that he kissed me. And then I’d push him away without a word, because there’s no tenderness in his kisses and no warmth in his arms.
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