North of the Border: A Canadian Travelogue

5/23/13 - Evidence that nature doesn't abhor paradoxes like it does a vacuum: at the times you need the most sleep, you sleep the most poorly. Examples include: the night before your wedding day, the night before a final exam, the night before your first day on the job, the night before the big game, the night before international travel, &c., &c.

***

When you chug a 20 oz. bottle of water in line so that you can clear the security checkpoint, you'll shortly need to stop by the little aviator's room. In the first urinal in a men's restroom I entered, a fly was lackadaisically perched by the drain. The sight bore within it an objective. I needed no communiqués from HQ. This was what I'd trained for. I knew my mission from the moment I laid eyes on the insect: neutralize the target. I took aim and fired. 

My shot was true. 

The fly didn't flinch. 

What? How?

Ah, it wasn't a real fly. It was a facsimile, a sticker placed by a poor hand who knows when to incentivize conscientious peeing. I could almost hear the sales pitch made at a custodial supply convention. "Make it a game, and the men will play." True. True. We never completely outgrow our boyishness. Even after the disappointment of discovering the ruse, I couldn't abort the mission. If you have to shoot, shoot at a target. I validated behavioral scientists everywhere.

Well played, scientists. Well played.

***

We knew we were in trouble when we rolled our bags up to O'Hare's G Concourse. An alarm was sounding—not an ear splitting, Take Shelter alarm, more of a nuisance, You've Held The Elevator Door Ajar Too Long alarm. No lights flashed. No attendants scurried about. Some insignificant sensor had been tripped nearby, I deduced. 

We took our seats. I was sure the disturbance would abate momentarily. I gave my wife a reassuring hand-squeeze. The alarm was not alarming to our compatriots, after all. They, who had been serenaded for longer than we had, were nonplussed. The other passengers-in-wait pretended not to notice the grating sound. They talked on their phones, thumbed through magazines, or played on their tablets.

The buzzer buzzed, and we tried not to mind. We could do this. Just block it out. I reached for my book.

Once the pitch wavered not in volume but in frequency. My spirits rose with this alteration. Was it winding down? 

No.

The note endured. 

After twenty minutes, I wondered whether it was not an alarm after all but a faulty mechanical something-or-other. Was the sound a structural flaw's effect? Was it more of a whistle? Could it be the caused by central air passing over a duct seam or a leaky threshold where terminal meets gate? If so, it would never end. How can this still be happening? This is the 21st century! I paid good money... Should I grab a porter? Am I the only one dismayed here? I turned toward Megan.

No. I wasn't the only one.

"I think I'm going to go crazy." Another hand-squeeze was in order. We couldn't lose our cool, not over a trifle everyone else seemed to handle.

Then, as though awoken, another traveler would attend to the sound. She'd look flustered, rub her ear, and scan the ceiling for the source. To find it would be like giving it a name, a means to mollify the dread. She'd grunt to herself. She'd whine to a friend in a text. "Im goin 2 looz it!!!!!" Next, she'd exhale. She'd remind herself we are all of us adults here. We accommodate annoyances. Our world is broken. It's no use inquiring after a fix. "Ma'am, we've already placed a service call. Maintenance will be on their way as soon as possible. There's nothing more we can do. Please take a seat." She anticipates this response, so she puts her head down. She returns to her novel. She pretends again like the rest of us. She doesn't want to be the one to freak out in an airport. She doesn't want to feel the contours of an E.A. Poe story from the inside. Like the rest of us, she has a sense of decorum that discourages her from flipping her shit here in the presence of cool, collected strangers and abundant security personnel.

To the book, then. Follow the words with your index finger. Forget about comprehension. Don't bother with retention. Only follow the slow, methodical movement of your fingertip and flip your ears off to the wider world. Ignore the screech. There's only the page under your pointer, the islands of ink in a sea of ecru. Touch the paper. Strain to listen to the friction of fingerprint against pressed pulp, the peaks and valleys of each surface abrading one another. Can you hear?

All of a sudden, like a dam rebuilt at the speed of the breech, like a wound healed as fast as the rupture that caused it, the alarm ceases. It can cease. She, like the rest of us, exchanges looks of amazement. It can stop. But how? Why not before? No matter. We can drop the charade. The siren is a distant memory. We smirk to ourselves.

We've been through a lot together.

***

Check with any travel guide. You'll learn attempting to speak the national language when you're a foreigner will ingratiate you to whomever you're speaking. Exercising their mother tongue is a sign of respect for their culture. Reading further, you'll be told beginning any exchange with a francophone without first saying "Bonjour!" is tantamount to an insult. Refusing to greet is a refusal to acknowledge another's humanity. Heaven forbid! With two good reasons in the forefront of your mind, you'll commit to saying "Bonjour!" when interacting with a Montréaler.

What you discover when applying theory to practice is that saying "Bonjour!" with your best impression of a French accent will land you in a different sort of trouble than the fear of offense that motivated your greeting selection. The volleys returned to your side of the conversational court are phrases and sentences that sound as though they've been through a food processor. The verbal frappé foams with short vowel sounds and diphthongs. Consonants are a sprinkled topping. Spoken French is an energetic slur, how you'd pronounce following a few too many Red Bull and vodkas. You can't so much as begin to parse the response because there's no point of entry.

Toss the phrase book in the poubelle. You'd best just admit ignorance straight away and spare yourself the humiliation of staring, mouth agape, at a person who may as well have told you the time as told you his life story.

***

Save the Bad News for Last, or a parting shot from our innkeeper

Innkeeper: [turns to leave; turns back] "Oh an aff you haird about our watair?"

Author: [looks at wife; looks back at innkeeper] "Uh... no?"

I: [waives hand] "Oh, yes. Yes. You cannot drink zee watair."

A: [feels himself suddenly parched] "Like, here, in the house?"

I: "No, no. In zee city. It's all bad all over. Somesing about a new pipe."

A: [struggles to process new information] "So what do we do?"

I: "You can still showair, only keep your mout closed."

A: "But what about drinking?"

I: "You cannot drink zee watair. You must first boil it. Zere's a hotpot in zee cornair."

A: [gulps; the 20 oz. of water he drank from the bottle he refilled at the Pierre Trudeau Airport flashes before his mind's eye; stomach begins to cramp]

5/24/13 - Urban transportation is treacherous. With 12,000 people per square mile darting at cross purposes, there's bound to be collisions. When a bicycle has been struck and the wheels and/or frame bent beyond repair, Montréalers lock them to a nearby post/tree/street sign/&c. Bike locks being designed for the singular purpose of securing a bike in place and a mangled bike being of interest to none but the most rabid recyclers, they become foreboding monuments. They lean like wounded warriors against their crutches and bleed rust onto the pavement below for years.

***

Trivia: Dollar signs follow the digits in Québec. The price of a liter of natural spring water that suddenly becomes highly desirable once 1.5 million Québécois can no longer trust their taps is, for instance, 1,79$. Oddly enough, this is more apropos to English parlance than our grammatical convention would have you believe. We say "24 dollars," not "dollars 24."

***

At the Musee de Beau Arts, admission was tiered. The gradations themselves weren't surprising. The parameters were. The base tier covered children. (Children were free.) The next tier covered ages 13-30. (Teenagers through the arguably young adults were $12.) The final tier was for ages 31 and up. (Everyone over 30 was $20.) What a novel scheme! Never before had I seen the costly split happen so late in life. In the US of A, it's the 18 and up crowd who are condemned to cough up the full price. Sure, cultural institutions are known to extend a discount to paupers with Valid Student ID. But in Montréal the load was lightened for those well into the working life! Was the museum's schedule designed not to discriminate against the impoverished of student age who were so poor they couldn't afford to enroll in college? Was it based on the assumption that by 31, you better be earning enough to splurge and if not, maybe you should leave this museum and get back out there, get cracking? I wonder.

***

Johnny Sixpack is MIA in Montréal. You won't find Tall Boy sippers in these parts. Citizens amble along the avenues with bottles of wine proudly swinging uncamouflaged at their sides. Refinement!

***

Fashion is more drab and colorless than I suspected. Isn't France the birthplace of haute couture? Wouldn't this proud French annex hearken to her showy mother's dress? Rather than garner attention, their clothing is subdued. Perhaps this is to clear sensory space for the slurry of quick words.

***

Everyone seamlessly toggles between French and English. The standard salutation, be it in a place of business or a public space, is "Bonjour hello!" (They really do exclaim. Montréalers are much more excited to make your acquaintance than folks in the Midwest. Their energy levels wane from the initial salvo, but still—it takes novitiates aback.) They take their linguistic cues from your response. If the other person replies, "Bonjour!" they speak French. If the other person replies, "Hello," they proceed in English. It turns out, then, a French greeting is not a sign of respect around here as much as it's an invitation to speak French. How can the travel guide writers not know this?

***

Either there's something in the water besides dangerous bacteria or the women are less inclined to wax their wispy mustaches here. Is this to appear more masculine? Is it in keeping with the low maintenance fashion referenced above? Is it an homage to the thin mustaches worn so proudly by the mainland French?

***

A white sticker with black font is affixed to the doors between subway cars. Below the French sentence is printed an English translation. It reads, "It is forbidden to pass through this door." What a dignified declaration! It doesn't brashly forbid the reader from entering. It doesn't cite an enforcing authority. It merely insists that passage is forbidden. Leaving questions of why aside, how could a person do what is forbidden? It is futile.

Back home we would parse the message with in-your-face American concision. "Do Not Open" or "Emergency Exit." If disobedience is especially likely, we'd reference Draconian fines and Byzantine statutes.

***

In an officially bilingual city, language is politicized. Text is schismatic. The placement of one language on top of the other sends a message. Arrangement non-verbally expresses the writer's allegiances. More brazen still, the writer consigns a substantial part of the population to ignorance by omitting one of the two. If only the choice were as benign as an inside joke. Alas, there's nothing funny about brand of partiality. The writer and his/her exclusive audience exchange meaningful, serious propositions with each passed sign, held pamphlet, or glanced at product. To the uninitiated, the content is a public secret. The transmission is akin to a noisy whisper in a peer's ear—it's meant to call attention to itself, to let the left out know they're left out. The outsiders are aware that communication is taking place but can only fill the what with their own suspicions. This is how distrust is bred.

The PC crew tries their best to remain neutral by placing neither the French above the English or vice versa. They print the two side by side. Alas, we humans always think the first place is the best place. Francophone or anglophone, we read left to right. The language on the left, then, is the winner. As illustrated by Québec's unsettled past, a prioritizational slight can be enough to take to the streets with pitchforks/swords/bats/wooden spoons/chains/& c.

(Note: French wins in Montréal by a landslide. English comes first 2% of the time. I've never seen English-only inscriptions, whereas French-only is all over the UQAM campus and most plaques around the city.)

***

The culinary approach taken in Québecer kitchens is decidedly unAmerican. Rather than compete for the lowest prices, they compete for the highest. Rather than searching for the cheapest ingredients, they search for the freshest. Rather than load your plate with a heap of salty filler to enable you hording calories like a squirrel does nuts, they provide you with what a normal, healthy person would require to subsist until the next meal.

5/25/13 - Tacked onto a men's room door in the Jardin Botanique was a color PSA advising the public to use condoms during—when else?—intercourse. Beyond basic textual advice, the poster included a helpful step-by-step illustration of how to open a condom. The poster raised many questions: (1) If I can alight upon how to tear open a packet indistinguishable from all those containing chintzy prizes, ketchup, or Ramen Noodle seasoning, shouldn't I first be receiving remedial training on opening the door in order to escape my lavatory confines? (2) If I'm in need of instruction on opening a condom, wouldn't I also need supplementary instruction concerning the brass tacks of copulation, specifically what parts go where? (3) Assuming I can figure out on my own how to exit the bathroom, where would I be having sex if I'm in the middle of 75 populated hectares of gardens and greenhouses?

***

The Puritans must not have trekked this far north. Québecers are not a repressed breed, at least not sexually. They are not content chastely admiring the human form. They admire what two forms can do when attracted to one another. In the Jardin Botanique proper, a life-sized bronzed sculpture titled "Lover's Bench" rests in the shade of a sugar maple copse. On the bench sat three nude figures, two female and one male. The male was entwined with the woman to his right. The other woman was sitting cross-legged, face averted, feigning not to notice.

The couple was rounding second base. His hands were full, one attached to an arm wrapped around his date's neck squeezing a breast and the other was well on its way to gripping an even more private part. Her left hand spared the sculptor from carving a fig leaf. The two were, of course, forged mid-French-kiss.

To drive home the agony of love spurned and the ecstasy of love requited, the artist provided a visual summation. The loved woman's lone exposed nipple was erect. The rejected woman's nipples were indentations, indicating not just a lack of arousal but an all-out libidinous retreat.

This R-rated scene, lurid and heartbreaking, plays out in plain sight just up the path from the edible garden. Any questions, kids?

***

If there's a chance a child missed his lesson in foreplay, he/she can watch the deal get closed over at the nearby Insectarium. There, in stark 3' x 4' high gloss prints, bugs of all sorts copulate for the audience. Beetles boinking. Grasshoppers grinding. Houseflies doing the horizontal polka. The grand finale: a pair of dragonflies doing what humans would only dream of doing in pornography. I nearly blushed.

***

With all of their black clothes and hushed voices, people aren't as interested in being validated by others. Montréal: the next stage in self-sufficiency.

***

On pronunciation: conversing with our innkeeper, I could see on my mind's horizon I would be shortly uttering a French proper noun. While trying to maintain my portion of the dialogue, I internally vacillated between playing the stupid Yankee or hazarding a native's pronunciation. Midstream, I resolved to speak with a French accent.

Instead of parsing Jean Talon as "Jēn Tăh-lŭn" I tried "Dzěn Tăh-lōn." She cocked her head to the side like a dog that can't register an unusual sound. I repeated myself. Still nothing. Finally, I elaborated as to the cross streets involved. Her light bulb flickered on. "Ah, yes, yes." She then blurted out a sound I can best transcribe as "Zěndlōn."

The French aren't keen on syllables.

5/26/13 - The cool kids wear their pants a little shorter, that way their socks can steal the show.

***

Object lesson: Some tourists—and you can peg them as tourists by their fanny-packs and large-lensed cameras—are terrible to be around. They flagrantly disregard other people. They have no respect for private space. They aren't interested in being even the slightest bit conscientious. They will shoulder you when you're stationary. They won't step aside when you're moving. They will intrude on your attempts at photography. They're like an occupying force wherever they go.

They act like all beings in their fields of vision are objects to them. There are no subjects. That's what spurs your frustration levels to spike near them. You can't induce them into remorse. You can narrow your eyes, scrunch your lips, furrow your brow, clear your throat, and—when all else fails—put as much heat in your voice as comportment will allow. They're unaffected. Is this a consequence of their subjectless worldview? Is it possible to not conceive of yourself as an independent, at least semi-autonomous agent? Is this what happens when you don't think of yourself at all but take your cues from ants that live to scuttle, gather crumbs, and scuttle more?

***

Observations made in a different country than the author's home in support of universal human traits: (1) Drivers have no clue how to react when police cruisers/ambulances/fire trucks are blaring their sirens immediately behind them. (2) Young men will pre-game with cheap beer in public restrooms before social events.

***

Note: If you want to be grateful for sunshine, first take a long hike in the rain without waterproof gear. If you want to fall on your knees and praise the Lord who separated the light from darkness for condescending to  once more separate the waters from the land, first take a protracted hike for three days in stormy, frigid, puddle-laden, Montréal with tennis shoes like sponges.

***

To build on the theme of sexualized culture: an advertisement featured prominently above ATMs shows a young man and woman ardently biting into the same Granny Smith apple. Their skin is flawless. Their faces evoke arousal. Beneath them is a French word that, to the author's lights, shares a common root with 'seduction'. What the image has to do with banking is anyone's guess. Could it be designed to lure you toward the machine with a cocktail of lust and hunger mixed with the color green's association with money?

***

Fun with translation: At the Biodome, an educational poster about the social lives of otters was titled, "Vive la companie!" I imagine this would be literally translated as, "Live the company!" This sounds awkward in English since we aren't accustomed to exhortations to life like the French and Spanish are. Still, with the literal translation the English reader gets the gist. Otters relish companionship.

The poster rendered the French in an adjacent title as, "The more the merrier!" An Anglophone will be more familiar with that phrase. It too recommends the sociability. But how far away are the two phrases connotatively? Rather than command, it observes. Instead of referencing life, it references quantity of beings.  It smacks of false equivalence to me.

On a related note, a female Montréaler sidled up to us in a book store later that day. She interjected within a few seconds. Having overheard our conversation, she revealed she was learning English. Eager student that she was, she insisted on having the last word. At one point, she rolled her eyes back in her head as if consulting a flash card to turn "centreville" into "downtown." I'll grant that -ville and -town are synonymous, but center and down... not so much. Did the French civil engineers and city planners build from the middle out and the Anglos build from the bottom up? I smell a doctoral thesis.

***

We saw a fox today. It was our day's climax. Megan admitted she was more excited spotting a native fox romp in the relative wild than seeing all sorts of imported flora and fauna held captive in the Biodome. I sympathized with the sentiment. Spying on animals or plants behind fences or glass is cheating just like reading the Cliff Notes is cheating. You didn't earn it. An outside party did the work for you.

5/27/13 - No one has been the slightest bit interested in us. Two people out of the 60 or so we've interacted with have bothered to ask us where we're from. In both cases, the interrogation ended there. As with Scotland, we're never as sought after as we desire.

***

Montréal tolerates marijuana like the US tolerates internet piracy. You can do it, just don't make a big deal about it.

***

US cultural exports are not as common here as in Scotland. I have seen far fewer Superman logos. Try as they might to quash our influences, our music proves once more to be fiercely hegemonic. You can't traverse a city block without some era of American pop pouring out of a shop/restaurant.

***

Nearly 300 steps and a mile behind us, we arrive at the Grand Chalet on Mont-Royal. The esplanade boasts an awe-inspiring view, so it's a big draw for city-dwellers and tourists alike. Earlier tonight, an average Monday night sunset, approximately 50 people were milling about the outsized patio. Security cameras would have recorded the following:

an indefinite number of couples, most heterosexual in orientation, most congregating near the carved stone railings, others parked safely on benches ten feet away from the edge, more men than women pointing at various landmarks or buildings, some senior citizens, some adolescents, most appearing to be enrolled in one of the many nearby colleges, a clique of Middle Eastern young men, two clean shaven and one with a pencil-thin beard, a toddler crawling among their huddled feet, having a guys' night out with the baby in tow, the sun breaching the blanket of stratus clouds to unveil itself, the toddler scampering off toward the railings for a closer inspection of the scrub-treetops, the toddler comfortably fitting his head and shoulders through the rungs hewn at a time when public safety and tortious lawsuits weren't such a concern, the toddler surveying the steep grade below, apparently not feeling frightened but, like all children, wanting to break free of any and all present confinement, the little one getting precariously close to the tipping point of a majority of his pudgy mass hanging over the ledge, the unseen men who would be aghast had they stronger paternal instincts likely kibitzing about soccer, the author's dismayed wife rushing over to snatch the child from impending doom, Pencil Beard, registering the blur of the author's wife, turning to see his child's rump nearly slip through the sculpted rungs, bolting toward the child and repeating, "Ahmed, Ahmed!" at a restrained, less than a scene-making volume, his salvific hands clutching Ahmed's hips at the same moment the author's wife grasps Ahmed's collar, the father snatching up the child without acknowledging the almost-heroics on the author's wife's part, Pencil Beard, not desiring to make a big deal out of the near-death event, returning to his crew who haven't budged, the three likely making a pact on the spot never to breath a word about this to Mrs. Pencil Beard, an old man with knobby knees nosily shuffling around the patio in a yellow running ensemble with matching yellow cycling cap with the cutesy brim in the down (i.e., not cycling) position, a different man, not much the shuffler's junior, splayed out in the center of the esplanade all by himself, practically doing the splits, leaning to touch one toe, holding it there, and shifting toward the other toe, the display made intimate by the stretcher's shirtlessness and quizzical by his shoelessness but not socklessness, the man holding each position for so long it prompts squeamishness in the author, the man leaning straight forward to somehow press his forehead against the same plane his bottom is on, in the processing revealing a halo of cropped gray hairs circling his dome, slowly the numbers of people looking out onto the picturesque city at a picturesque time dwindling in favor of looking in at this yogic exhibition, cameras being turned one by one away from the vista and onto the shirtless sage as he rises to his feet and assumes a position associated with the ceremonial inauguration of a sumo wrestling match, knee-to-thigh and thigh-to-oblique each making right angles, the stretcher dipping and with each dip, the shadowed white cotton of briefs emerging from behind the nylon shroud of running shorts, the author's embarrassment for the stretcher's sake rising to such a degree psychosomatic symptoms become a distraction, the sun a revealed orb roughly 12 minutes from the grazing the horizon, now gilding the skyscrapers brilliantly, at least half of the eyes present at the Grand Chalet trained on this Tantric yogi making a fool of himself, nearly nude, in a very public place, the author lost in the stretcher's ability to bend, everyone else increasingly enraptured by the act at once so innocent, like a butterfly emerging from chrysalis, and so sexually charged, like certain slow motion footage, a group of ten exceedingly well-dressed and well-primped young people, laughing and posing for a small crew of photographers, laughing and having a great time being so gorgeous and wealthy, being photographed for promotional material that seeks to compel the rest of us to yearn, the women in dark evening gowns and the men in hand-tailored suits, all equally oblivious to the shows being put on behind them by the sun and in front of them by a man who may or may not be a pervert, the young and attractive professionals being the Main Event for themselves and for each other, a hall of human mirrors, the women's jewelry glinting across the 20 meters from the author to the cadre, everyone of them so happy to be themselves atop this humble mountain, oozing self-assurance, the yogi standing as flamingos can, drawing one leg at a time back into positions that would surely tear the author's connective tissues, the stretcher's eyes open but not focusing on any object(s), his composure indicative of a man who's doing what feels natural to him, what must be done to his 70 year old body after presumably running up to the city's summit, not daring to risk bare feet on the filthy pavement but also needing the room to fan out his toes so that he can balance as he makes an inverted 4 with his legs and brings his torso down to place his lips against a knee with precise and fluid motions, an Asian woman in a chartreuse jacket, fidgeting near her friend, manifesting discomfort, unzipping her jacket partially, reaching back and pulling a portion of the jacket on top of her head, her face peering out of the neck hole and chin pinched by the zipper, her unhappy face being the yin to the young professional's thrilled yang, the author struggling to cycle among the multiplying points of interest without missing anything, a new perceptual ball to juggle tossed at him with the waft of marijuana's distinct bouquet reaching his nostrils, re-scanning the assembled crowd to locate the pot-smoker, scrutinizing the ones not staring at the cityscape, not gawking at the contortionist, not jogging, not cooling down from a run, not the families or the couples, a young man full of bravado perched atop the railing, a leg on each side, wearing dark sunglasses, a lambskin lined bomber jacket, and basketball shorts, exhaling a plume far too large to be a byproduct of tobacco, the toker's mission to inhale as much as tarred lungs will afford him, the toker here considered gazing tangentially at the mountain side, proffering a hit to his Latina lady friend, he an icon of mellowness, cool with toppling over the edge and ready to do so with a smile, our yogi with his legs spread more than shoulder width apart, pressing firmly on the ground directly in front of him, the move loosening a redundant muscle group from what the author knows of Human A & P, the show presenting as increasingly indulgent, smartphones aimed in the opposite direction of North America's prettiest city in order to Twitpic this shoeless man with a silverback's chest, a pony-sized black dog galloping from stage left to join the crowd, his owner nowhere in sight, the Great Dane gaily romping in all directions, a sociable creature, sniffing those who wish to be visited and who wish not to be visited alike, many in the crowd openly pointing at and ogling the stretcher as at zoo animals, the stretcher seemingly oblivious toward all of the attention, the motions eroticized by his toplessness and runner's version of Daisy Dukes, the sinking sun saturating only the top floors of the skyscrapers, the rest of the city doused in a progressively darkening shadow, the dog's owner ambling into the foreground, dressed in a green runner's tank top and matching bottoms, whistling once for the dog to return to his side but doing so half-heartedly, the owner making a beeline to the bomber-jacketed pothead who knows better than to extend the joint to his sporty friend, the toker having a good chuckle about the dog's snout intruding upon a petrified tourist's crotch, the privileged group having vacated the premises now that the available light has become suboptimal, the pair of Asian friends having migrated westward, a miserable face still peering out of the neon jacket's enlarged neck hole and looking as absurd as ever, for whom 62° F is far colder than for the natives, our numbers appreciably diminishing as natural light hands off to electric in the city below, the stretcher having retreated in a flash up to a bench outside the Grand Chalet, the show being over, having donned a shirt and currently tying his shoes after putting on a limberness clinic out there for the thousandth time.

***

Only on a subway car would you meet a fellow brandishing a 3' length of heavy-gauge chain nestled among unimpressed people. We met such a man at approximately 7:30 in the evening (mighty early for a brawl, thought the author). He stood with his back to the wall, his head held high, and the florescent lights reflecting in white shafts along his sunglasses. His limbs were gangly, the circumference of the chain-bound hand easily exceeding the circumference of the bicep above said hand. That was inadequate reassurance. Being underground, with all of the attendant dangers of limited escape routes, being on foreign territory, and the menacing way he would unfurl the chain, give it a little jiggle so that the metal of the chain would rattle against the metal of the train wall, and wind it back up around his right hand were far too much for the author to abide. Had he already sized us up? Did he catch us consulting a map? Does he eke out a living threatening to lash tourists until they forfeit their wallets? Why was no one else even casting him a corner-of-the-eye glance? Surely this ruffian raises threat levels to fire engine red.

I had to act. I coordinated our immanent escape with a hushed voice. "At the next exit, we'll get off. Everything's fine." We emptied out into a vacant station that, despite the refuse sent dancing by the train's departure, still felt relatively secure. Schooled as I have been in the University of Pop Culture, I expected the intimidator to chase us in vain through the train cars as the subway accelerated, glaring maniacally along the way. Then I recalled that moving between cars was forbidden.

We were safe.

5/28/13 - We reached the bus to Toronto with nary five minutes to spare. Tardiness made for a frantic morning rife with dozens of wristwatch consultations. Our success ultimately depended more on exceptionally speedy mass transit than the accrued savings from sprinting through stations, bounding down/up steps, and triggering palpitations. We rounded the corner to discover our double-decker bus blithely idling at its designated stop. A line of passengers inched forward to board. We were never so thrilled to queue.

People at their frumpiest—stretchy pants and sweatshirts all around in preparation for the lengthy ride—sandwiched us. One rider-to-be was bedecked in the infernal white-knee-socks-and-sandals combo. The drowsiest among us nursed their caffeinated beverages of choice. A couple people ahead, I spied a young Bohemian woman exchange an amorous parting kiss with an equally Bohemian young man.

Our turn came soon thereafter. We presented our tickets and climbed aboard. We encamped at the rear of the bus's first floor. The remaining passengers stowed their luggage and wedged themselves into their favorite poor postural positions. A quick headcount tabulated eight passengers on the lower level, including Megan and myself. The Bohemian took the row directly in front of us. A smattering of men ranging from early twenties to mid-forties rounded out the bunch. 

We passengers fidgeted as the driver ticked the boxes on his pre-trip checklist. Megan and I inhaled therapeutically. The climate was dehumidified and temperate. I systematically loosened the muscles I had subconsciously tightened on the earlier hectic race. Megan watched the Bohemian twirl a clump of her hair and lay it counter to its natural orientation. "I've never seen a girl fuss with her hair to mess it up," Megan said to me. I didn't believe I had either.

Outside, the cargo doors clicked closed. The chauffeur-capped driver waddled to the front, ascended the steps, and assumed his well-worn throne. The folding doors hissed shut. After a touch of gear grinding, we merged onto the street and wove toward the highway. Our ETA not being for another six hours, we settled in. I grabbed my notebook to wrangle the dispersing recollections of the previous night. Megan withdrew her iPod to unwind with a soundtrack.

Ten minutes into our journey, we hit our first metaphorical bump. After cresting a hill with a healthy head of steam, we barreled down on a line of much slower traffic. Like all alert and self-interested drivers, ours seized the opportunity to break. Unfortunately for us, the exigencies of the situation required a more forceful break-pumping than unrestrained riders are ever equipped to handle. We participated in an impromptu demonstration of Newton's First Law of Physics. Everyone simultaneously slammed into whatever surface was before them with whatever body part was most prone. On the heels of the momentum shift gushed a chorus of ows, damnits, and what the?s. A thirtysomething Québecer was most outwardly aggrieved. He made a show of scoffing and snapping his newspaper back into a legible shape.

Strike one, bus driver.

(I wasn't riled by this faux pas. I have ridden my share of cross-country buses. As a result, I am loyally allied to any driver who refrains from intimidating his passengers, setting the thermostat to 55° F to accommodate his/her corpulence, or distracting him/herself by engaging in heated personal phone call after heated personal phone call the whole route long.)

Strikes two and three came twenty minutes later on the same pitch. Cruising at a lively speed, we listed a tad starboard on a gentle bend in the road. Our tires grazed the rumble strip twice in short succession. Megan and I didn't flinch. The Bohemian, however, sprang into action. She leaned aisleward to investigate. To the fourtysomething businessman who happened to be ignoring his laptop at the time, she inquired, "Is he [the bus driver] even awake?!" I nearly chuckled. Surely this outburst was a bit of humor to break the tension. Our neighbors, though, construed the question as an earnest one. The Québecer and the laptopped male both craned their necks to check on the driver's lucidity. The bus's course, its turning as only an actively operated bus can, reassured everyone but the Bohemian that the driver was, in point of fact fact, awake.

No matter. The alarm had been sounded. Our Bohemian became irredeemably concerned. The demons of transportation laid siege to her emotional defenses. With every turn, she gripped the headrest in front of her. With every break tap, she gasped. With every lane change, she whimpered.

When one member of a group is obviously convinced she is imperiled, the rest start to wonder. If she's crying, they consider whether they ought be crying, too. Anxiety spread like fever through the cabin. The other passengers were imagining the clear and present danger in remaining on board. Dismayed looks shot around like so many pin balls. The eyes conveyed, "Aren't we going too fast? Shouldn't we have stayed in the right lane? Did you feel that? Why are we passing so many cars? What's his problem? He's awake, but is he drunk? Is he having a stroke?" While I noted the rising tide of frenzy and Megan enjoyed the latest Vampire Weekend album, no one else could resist the temptation of scrutinizing the windshield and tracking the bus's position relative to the dotted white lines. Second-, third-, and fourth-guesses accompanied all driverly decisions. 

A half an hour in, the Bohemian began to quietly sob. Tears marked a climax of desperation. She dialed her mother for comfort. She babbled incoherently into the cell phone. Two of the male passengers were transfixed. She was their damsel in distress. They watched her shudder and strained to hear her muffled lamentations. Their courage swelled. They would overcome their own apprehension for her sake.

The thirtysomething folded his paper in half like Clark Kent called to arms. He chivalrously yelled, "Driver! Driver! Someone is sick! Pull over! Pull over!" The fourtysomething added "Stop!" for good measure. They hollered a few more impassioned pleas. To heed the shouts, the driver averted his eyes from the road, craned his neck, and yelled, "What?" He was again commanded to stop. In his overhead mirror, he could see the mangy-haired blonde reddened and curled up fetally in distress. Himself alarmed, he decelerated and pulled over to the shoulder. (Note the upping of the danger ante was precipitated by rider—not driver— action. First, our knights shouted at a person concentrated on his task at hand who, naturally enough, was startled. Second, the biggest safety no-no thus far was a consequence not of carelessness but of conscientiousness, the instinct to answer when questioned.)

Once parked, the bus driver quit his post to address the commotion. As his progressed down the aisle, I realized how much he resembled Kris Kringle. His belly was, on this occasion, full of bewilderment.

How To Make a Bad Situation Worse, or a transcript of an exchange between novices and an expert

Driver: "What's the matter?"

Fourtysomething: "You're going too fast!"

Thirtysomething: "You've got everyone on here panicked!"

D: calmly "I... I don't know what to say. Is this about?... I touched the shoulder twice. This is a big vehicle. The wind. It happens."

40: "You have to slow down."

D: "I'm sorry but we're going the speed limit. I don't know what to tell you."

30: "You're going too fast. That girl is crying!" [points at the Bohemian]

D: "I... I'm sorry. I don't know what to say... I've been a bus driver for 23 years."

40: "She's crying."

D: "I'm sorry but we have to keep a schedule."

30: "Take a half hour, an hour. Take two hours. The most important thing is that we get there safely."

40: "You could be more careful. Maybe you could instead of cutting over just before you have to change lanes maybe you could slow down earlier and do so more gradually. Maybe you could do that and go slower... For a tip. It's just a tip."

30: "Safety is the most important. We need to arrive safely."

D: "Of course. I'll certainly go slower. I apologize if I've upset anyone, but there's nothing to worry about. I assure you. Everything's fine."

Mental disturbance split and reproduced once more on our mobile petri dish. The driver, having been berated by his passengers, retreated in shock. He shifted into drive. We eased onto the highway, accelerating at a snail's pace. We didn't abandon the confines of the slow lane  any more.

The Bohemian's condition did not improve. She softly muttered apologies around sniffles. Despite reducing our speed by a quarter, the Bohemian persisted to cry. Her weeping was the only disruption to the otherwise uncomfortably quiet bus. The fuss/attention effectively shoved the young woman farther off the cliff of rationality. The men's intervention confirmed that something was awry, that she was rightly ill. Through the gap in the seats, I could see her hunched over. Megan offered her a tissue. She accepted.

Unprompted, the young woman blurted out in a quivering voice, "I was just in a bus accident." The nagging riddle of what the hell was going on was instantaneously solved. Her inexplicable behavior suddenly made sense. The kiss was as sensual as it was because it felt like it may well have been a kiss goodbye, as in a Last-Kiss-Before-I-Die sort of kiss. Her risable query was as deadly serious as it was because she'd survived a crash where an identical motion was brought about by a driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. Her prior trauma twisted her current experience. We were on different rides, she and I. I was on my way to Toronto. She was on a high-wire, hunted by clowns with cobras for necklaces and tarantulas for bracelets.

She did all she could to endure the passage of another hour. Her fortitude had been depleted. The young woman pleaded in a barely audible and thoroughly exhausted voice, "Bus driver. Bus driver." She was finished. I relayed the message to our captain without undue excitement. Negotiations yielded a compromise between an immediate stop and holding out the scheduled one. All parties agreed to deposit her at the nearest gas station (which, given the sparse population of Canuck hinterlands, was graciously twenty minutes away).

For all of the drama down below, the top level couldn't have been less worried. 1/8" of reinforced metal sheeting separated the petrified from the placid. When the author ascended the stairs to inform the topsiders of our unplanned intermission, the attentive listeners meekly nodded.

Our corporate nightmare drew to a close. The period intervening her surrender and her exit was ample time to take stock of what we'd endured. From a personal perspective, the young woman was inconvenience incarnate. She ruined our trip and set us back an hour with her foolish decision to give over-the-road travel another try. She nearly caused another calamity and surely overheated a few amygdalas. From a removed, humane perspective, my heart broke for her. Her agony, while not mapping reality, was plenty real. She was trapped inside a mental jail and the rest of us were keyless. The most we could do was work to commute her sentence.

Beyond the author's conflicting emotions, what did we learn today?

(1) Contrary to the bromide, fear itself is not the only thing to fear. More accurately, fear is the most frightening thing. In the throes of fear, any ordinary phenomenon can morph into a terrifying one. A fiery crash at 100 km/h is a legitimate thing to fear. A run-of-the-mill turn indication on a normal commute is not. When afraid, the latter can be as frightening as the former.

(2) Make up your own mind... with the aid of other minds... and the facts, too. Relying solely on your own judgment or the judgment of one other person is risky business because you or that other person will be a poor judge when in the sways of paranoia, inebriation, prejudice, & c. Forgoing a fully survey of the situation sets you up for a mistake.

(3) If you fall off a horse, it's good to get back up. Nevertheless, don't pick a wild mustang as your next ride. Take the old mare out for a few laps. If you've been in a horrific bus accident, there's no shame in taking the train. Try a city bus and work your way up.

(Postscript that doesn't fit into the narrative above but is informative about Canada nonetheless: For much of our trip, we were flanked by blooming lilac bushes. Beyond them, acres of virgin woodlands and  sporadic fences guarding clear-cut swaths of now fallow farmland stretched to the horizon.)

5/29/13 - It disappoints me music that used to be hip/indie/underground is piped into trendy shops in the service of capitalism. Neutral Milk Hotel sets the mood for yuppies to reach into their deep pockets and drop down their disposable income. What has happened? I deplore the unavoidable fact my generation is slowly taking the societal reigns.

***

Transcript of an exchange with a server inspired by a menu item titled "curry chicken/stewed chicken":

Author: "Hi. Hello. Um. What's the difference between the curry chicken and the stewed chicken? It's on the same line."

Server: "The stewed chicken is sweet like an... um... barbecue sauce and the curry chicken... what should I say?" [shrugs]

A: "Whatever you want."

S: "It's curry."

***

Transcript of an exchange with a tour guide after she hesitated taking a flight of stairs:

Tour Guide: "I'm wary of steps now."

Author: "Oh?"

TG: "Yes, terribly. Ever since I fell off a pyramid."

A: "Oh, wow! Really? You went to Egypt?"

TG: sternly "No."

A: [blinks]

TG: "What about the pyramids in Mexico?"

A: "Ah. You went to Mexico, then."

TG: "Well. Yes I did."

***

Toronto is the most conscientious city I've visited. If you unfold a map on any sidewalk, four Torontonians will flock to give you directions. Toronto: the world's biggest small town.

***

Strange: The author continues to run across more pot smoking than alcohol consumption in public.

***

Tip: If you want boost a space's vibrancy, pump up the volume on the stereo. It casts curmudgeons and wallflowers out like a spell. You can create a lively atmosphere without bringing in more living beings.

***

Contrast: Toronto is more frenetic than Montréal.

Contrast: The subway cars and wider and have more scheduled stops.

Compare: Tim Horton's are omnipresent. 

***

In Ontario, French appears only on consumer goods. It seems the decision-makers aren't concerned about their Québécois brethren knowing how to navigate the city or what this piece of art is titled. They are, however, concerned francophones can distinguish hand soap from body wash prior to purchase.

5/30/13 - Additional observation made in a different country than the author's home in support of universal human traits: (3) Old people are predisposed to scolding younger people. As evidence, we were dressed down by an octogenarian crosswalk guard one sunny morning.

Context: Megan and I, having had numerous occasions to ambulate in our combined 50 years of being upright/bipedal, being no strangers to traffic lights, and possessing working knowledge of the rules of the road in industrialized nations, ventured with confidence onto the crosswalk of a six lane road. At the start of our walk, the red hand intermittently flashed and the adjacent counter indicated we should complete our trek in 10, 9, 8 seconds.

Midway through the crossing, the guard held up his little sign for us to read STOP. We picked up the signal like a base runner consulting the third base coach. Stop we did, in part out of obedience and in part out of pity for his stoop-shouldered silhouette. Once we obeyed and came to a halt, he waved us toward him with his free hand. Incongruently, he kept the sign in the upright Do Not Pass position. Figuring actions spoke louder than words, we resumed our course.

The baseball-capped gentleman laid into us about our recklessness the instant we stepped off the street.  His harangue was introduced with a directive. "You have to watch the lights!" The two of us waited in deferential silence for a pause in his speech. When the opening presented itself, I lodged a brief but respectful dissent. I anticipated, having objected to his charges, Megan and I could break away and once again advance toward our destination. The guard would have none of it. He refused to concede a stalemate. He regaled us with tales of roadside gore.

"That spot there," he said pointing at the asphalt, "is where a young man tried to cross the street. He was struck by a bus. Went through the windshield."

"Uh huh."

"See that spot there?" he asked, pointing elsewhere at the asphalt.

"Uh huh."

"A little girl tried to cross there. Hit by a car. Killed."

"Uh huh."

"I've had 18 people die at this corner in my time."

"Wow. That's a lot. [pause] Well, we'll keep on being careful. Thanks for your concern."

"Yes, be careful. Watch the lights."

"Yes sir. We did and will continue to."

With that, he relented.

My first thought upon leaving our guard behind was roughly 'why would you stick around in a voluntary  (and superfluous) position where you spectated so many people being maimed and/or killed?' My second thought was roughly 'could this self-appointed guardian with his tiny, non-legally-enforceable sign and his penchant for mixed messages have been partially to blame for a percentage of the fatalities?'

***

Non-English language disputes are acutely entertaining to me. I can't get hung up on the words and their definitions. All of the communication becomes non-verbal. The utterances are music, beats and rests, melody and rhythm. This must be how the audience can still glean so much emotional nourishment from foreign language operas.

***

Cosmopolitan, or a transcript of an conversation overheard in passing

Man: [speaking in unidentified Asian language]

Woman: "What the hell are you talking about?"

***

Melville said it earlier and more eloquently, but I can't refrain from echoing the assessment. There's just something about the water. Being proximal to a yawning body of water on a clear day sets a person straight; looking out at the endless sea gags the incessant inner-monologue. The enormity of it is stultifying. Top the tableau off with a little shade, a few clouds, and a gaggle of birds, and you can skip your next psychiatrist's appointment.

***

Waiters/waitresses who excessively fawn over me activate my shame response. I suppose this means I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool bourgeoisie.

***

Odd: Toronto has a quarter of the graffiti Montréal does. Where's a behavioral scientist when you need one?

***

Contrast: Montréal is big on museums. Toronto is big on business.

Compare: Montréal and Toronto are endowed with scenic nearby islands.

Contrast: Montréal is a wine city. Toronto is a beer city.

5/31/13 - Witness how, after many days of physical exertion, the mind is less prolific. Our animal spirits pool elsewhere, mending tears and reabsorbing bruises.

***

So much depends on timing. The next rain, think about a person struggling to tote her belongings through your city at just that very instant. The next beautiful day, think of a person who has flown away to foreign land yesterday or who is landing in your neck of the woods tomorrow.

***

If you happen upon socks or shorts hanging in the basement of a restaurant, a poor sap probably lives down there. I'll leave it up the the reader's discretion whether or not to overlook the plurality of health code violations.

***

Vacations remind you of time's latent phenomenological density. Of course, annual milestones like birthdays or holidays provide a touchstone for time's passage. You can think, "Yes, it has been a while," and into your head streams a few of the past year's highlights. But you don't thoroughly understand how that "while" happens. The how slips by unnoticed in the routines we establish. It's screened by the familiar guideposts we pass every day.  Recall how hard it is to recount when asked by a friend/family member what's new or what you've been up to. Time slipped down the drain and you didn't even notice. Cue the familiar refrain: Where has the time gone?

On a trip, the how is etched in stark relief. On vacations, you bear the full weight of seconds. Time thickens. An extra minute spent drinking every last drop of the natural spring water you bought but didn't wind up needing can be crippling when, later, five minutes separates you from getting to be where you need to be and being stranded.

When there's a fixed time span, when in the slot between leaving and returning you're liberated from your routinized restraints and your habits that disperse the reality of time through reducing the sheer volume of minute-by-minute choices, you rediscover how layered time can be.

Beyond greater opportunities to exercise one's will, you also want to forget vacations less than you want to forget normal living. (Not that you want to throw your life back home away. Rather, your life migrates towards the waste bin and you're often too busy to spare it from the heap.) You want to commit this all to memory, you want to store it like an archive, capture it like a camera, but you can't. Time drops into the abyss and you along with it. You're reminded of  time's ephemerality, a marriage of preciousness and cruelty.

***

Vacations are to life what life is to death. Treasures. I am so privileged to have been able to take such a long trip so far from home with such a lovely woman.

6/1/13 - Odd: At a church-sponsored book sale today, the Mission Impossible theme song's opening stanza reverberated from an unseen piano through the corridors. Sacrilege.

Odder still: The remodeled bathroom within the church above housed a couple Stations of the Cross in stained glass. The architects had very different designs originally. I imagined standing, relieving myself where votives once flickered their loving remembrances. These are the sacrifices we make for progress.

***

Remember: everywhere you go on a trip is someone else's home. Even if it's not a city or a town or otherwise humanly populated, creatures dwell there. 

Remember: home is a relative term. Ask yourself, "How can I make my home experience more like my vacations?"

These are the perspectival shifts our rationality affords us.

***

Evidence our priorities are messed up: what in the USA are 'vacations' are 'holidays' elsewhere. We conceive of holidays as prescribed official days off. Everyone else thinks of holidays as vast expanses of time, weeks on end to be off of work and seeing the world. People nearly look at me sideways when I say I'm going to be away for ten days back home.

***

Oh, air travel! You fickle temptress! Even after rushing to arrive three hours prior to international travel in compliance with official Toronto Pearson Airport recommendations, navigating circuitous customs queues, winding through the serpentine security lines, scampering marathon distances to far off gates as best as you can with the 30 extra pounds in hand (even though you have plenty of time, it being a When in Rome type psychic pressure to rush in airports), taking your pick of the seating litter, smirking to yourself about the silliness of your previous departure anxiety, opening a book and reading at a leisurely pace, self-satisfied with how good you've become at this jet-setting game and how in control you are, pausing to nibble on some trail mix you packed because you're so on top of things, noticing a glaring lack of airplane at the other end of the gate with an hour to go until the scheduled ETD, on a lark, checking with staff just out of curiosity about potential issues regarding our conspicuous airplanelessness, being reassured about a setback of ten minutes at the most due to light drizzle in Boise, wadding through seating area rumors and scuttle about delays and domino effects, a plane finally taxiing with less than twenty minutes to spin around and take off punctually, after the painstaking process of loading a plane with polylingual passengers and monolingual staff, after all of the last minute hold-ups like conversations between attendants and airport staff at the plane's door that strike the author as far too chummy and drawn out given the accrued postponements thus far, after finally shutting the  cabin door and reversing thrust out of the gate, waiting patiently through the safety spiel that hasn't been altered since the 1970s, of course the seat cushion doubles as a flotation device, yes, yes, the bag may not inflate, how could I forget about meeting my own respiratory requirements before a child's?, after revving up and cruising onto the runway—after all of that, the goddess of air travel can still hurl an Inclement Weather in Des Moines bolt at your humble MD80, and you can lie prone, dead in the water, a lame duck literally on the precipice of freedom. Oh, she'll get you one way or another.

***

Fear is the original plague. It's highly contagious among the susceptible: the old, the confused,  the tired, and the uninitiated. Flight attendants understand this. They've passed courses in counseling. That's why they grin so large. That's why everything is fine and will be A-OK until way, way past everything has incontrovertibly gone to shit.

***

Ever wonder what happened to ghost stories? We've adapted them to modern times. Today, we tell tales of secular purgatory, of emergency room run-arounds, and flight cancellations. "If you listen closely, you can hear the part of me that died of aggravation haunting the halls of Gate 17."

***

Once you're aloft—more aloft than even the clouds are aloft—how can you remain perturbed? How can you be troubled looking down on that cottony white blanket, that surreal amalgam of liquid and gas, density and diffusion, motion and stillness. There is no tension in heaven.

6/2/13 - Occasionally, you may have the misfortune of undergoing a daymare. A daymare is a waking nightmare that immediately follows a terrible night's sleep ('sleep' in this case being a misnomer, an entirely too generous term for a period of horizontal positioning the author fecklessly assumed the previous night and the early rise that ended the 'sleep' being precipitated by the terrible and increasingly certain knowledge that the author would be misfortunate enough to undergo back-to-back daymares). I would delve into greater detail and indulge my dark side, but I shan't. To do so would be of no benefit to the author—since what's done is done and a wound won't heal if you pick at the scab—and it would be of no benefit to the reader—since she would either be induced to snicker at the recounting of the absurd course of events that combined to create the daymare here obliquely referenced or be offended at what would, by necessity, come off as snively relative to truly dire human tragedies like murder, rape, abuse, poverty, war, &c, &c. Let these words be a tombstone for the unnamed daymare.

6/24/13 - How dare the author allow the parting words to be ones of woe! Hasn't he learned conclusions can be soberly drawn only after the march of time has put some distance between the present and the past? Days later, ask: was the inconvenience not worth all of the memories and wonderment? Would you not keep the travel with the travails if you could have it no other way? Of course. Of course! The bitter with the sweet, the sickness with the health. The good is better than the bad is worse. Such is life, no matter the soil on which it lives. Such is the reward in perennial human practices that reproduce the darkness and light in miniature so faithfully: matrimony, education, labor, play, travel, &c., &c.

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