Thick Psychedelics.

First off, I am pleased to announce that my portfolio is OUT OF MY HANDS. Who knows if it ever made its way into the right hands (as the drop off department was closed when I arrived frantic apres work), but gone it is. I really screwed up the front of the giant stationary two night before drop off, while spray painting a stencil in the deadened dark of another blustery night. Wind and no painter's tape paired with black spraypaint resulted in a look of horror and then tears on my part. Where is my mother? She was no where near reachable and I sat on my hands at my desk, staring at the hours upon hours of work I spent on that giant envelope, struck with a single strike of paint.

Well, it is the inside that counts. The woman who I found in the Beaux Arts department in the Visual Arts building (hopefully soon to be home for my printer self), gasped when I handed it to her. I thought it was from the big streak of mispaint. Apparently it was not. Fingers are crossed, I feel pretty confident.

Yesterday after walking in the door at 5:30 and feeling one million times lighter (knowing there were no art lists to strike), I put on some work clothes and got to work! I wish I was the kind of woman (like my mother) who can have buns rising, dinner in the oven, soup on the go, dishes washed and a load of laundry drying all at the same time, but alas I am not that kind of woman (yet). I did scour my bathroom, tidy my room and get the house in order before Chanel arrived for a Sad Dinner at the Ladypad (the home of Lo et moi). She came with arms full. Beans and weins, licorice, yogurt, millionaire juice, KD l'original and chocolate were laid out and we ate well considering our mental states.

The weekend was to blame. The weekend was to celebrate. And celebrate we did. Our Pieces queen Lola turned a quarter of a century and what a party it was. I followed (and sometimes led) in a Helen Kellar manner, blind and deafened with extreme joy. My eyes remained on a man of the woods for the entirety of the night, and yet I remember little. We ran nine strong through THRONGS of people out and about for Montreal's famous Nuit Blanche (white night) where art institutions stayed open throughout the night. At Cinemateque, I had my forced photo taken with an elderly gentleman (everyone was confused, me especially) and laughed as we ran to the Belgo to attend a Party of the Stairs (I titled the party as such as we shuffled up one GRAND sets of stairs and down the other with hundreds of people in a circular manner. The party was on the staircase, it was very surreal), through the Old Port apparently and then onto UQAM where I came to once more in a giant ballroom fit for royalty. There was a video projection (Montreal loooooves video projection) and noise enough to groove to. Long body in stripes, a man in a wool blanket as a jacket. Lo and JJ running in circles, a beautiful trio of friends I am happy to remember: Antim a classical composer and opera singer, Tanya a woman of true sass and the lovely Fernando who had the identical laugh to Eddy's. What a night.

I left UQAM alone and walked home to my soft bed. I woke to a party in my kitchen and an early morning shift at EM. DRAGGGGGGGGGGG. It was a bit of a shitshow, but I went in with a one named mantra and finished well. On Monday I hustled downtown clutching my giant baby (in portfolio form, not Leo form) from one mode of transportation to the next until I ended up in front of the Visual Arts building. With a change of hands and the portfolio dead and gone, I walked to the nearest quiet spot I could find in the dark of Montreal's downtown and WEPT to my sister while she chose wallpaper for her giant baby Olive. Oh Erin, you are the woman to call. It felt great to announce what was finished to someone I love and trust with my whole self. She shrieked in all the right ways and then we talked SHOP.

This doesn't make any sense. I don't care. Ding dong the portfolio is dead. Next project? Some giant flowers for Chanel and Nabi's upcoming Flower Power ball. Jill Z, if you are reading this, I need to learn how to DYE! Wish we lived closer, as a dye party is in order. Flowers are on my mind these days. Flowers and the ever present crest. I think I found my crest! I found it on someone's sweater, who would have thought? I have begun drawing again in the quiet of my room, the nameless cat on my bed as I work by lamplight. Life in March in Montreal, exciting times ahead.

Reading has also taken precedence once more now that I am To Do free. Lo lent me her copy of Patti Smith's memoir titled Just Kids. It is inspiring me to head to New York, try a life there. I want to live on the second floor of the Chelsea Hotel in 1969. Maybe I already have. Read it. Here is an excerpt:

Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed.

It leads to each other. We become ourselves.

For a time Robert protected me, then was dependent on me, and then possessive of me. His transformation was the rose of Genet, and he was pierced deeply by his blooming. I too desired to feel more of the world. Yet sometimes that desire was nothing more than a wish to go backwards where our mute light spread from hanging lanterns with mirrored panels. We had ventured out like Maeterlinck's children seeking the bluebird and were caught in the twisted briars of our new experiences.

Robert responded as my beloved twin. His dark curls merged with the tangle of my hair as I shuddered tears. He promised we could go back to the way things were, how we used to be, promising me anything if I would only stop crying.

A part of me wanted to do just that, yet I feared that we could never reach that place again, but would shuttle back and forth like the ferryman's children, across our river of tears. I longed to travel, to Paris, to Egypt, to Samarkand, far from him, far from us.

Oh Patti. She writes beautifully. Excerpt taken from pages 79 and 80 of Just Kids. I too long to travel (to India, to France, to Eastern Europe were I am hungry for more more more). But fantasy will have to suffice as roots are taking hold now that the Great Melt is upon us. Montreal flip flops between Winter and Spring like a confused 'tween. All I see are flowers and woods, sure signs of Spring growth.

I am free, just like Cat Power.