An open letter to Liza Minnelli.

Dear Liza,

I saved your party-hatted face as my desktop background. Does that freak you out? I hope not. Today I walked around and around my home thinking of you. The only thing it is missing is you. Christmas is coming; you better be too. Same bed, same girl, same top bun, same shit; different pile, different babe lair.

Come all ye faithful.

I miss the shit out of you.

Poaching internet because I don't have any.

Love you, Madge.

ps: I will send my address as soon as I learn it. Yes, I know how ludacris that sounds.
pps: You are falling love??!?! Wicked.

Land of babes.

Coat in my throat.

One more thing: no trouser's were found (I gave up/lost all faith after combing every last one of the racks at Zara [to no avail which is okay because I have come to the conclusion that trousers are for thirty year olds who have a handle on their finances]) but I did rope in one hell of an unnecessary jacket. Get ready, Winnipeg. Keep your eyes peeled for a walking hairball on heels come Wednesday. Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.

Her Madgesty is en route, faux fur et al.

*JJ and Richard, I miss you already (I am still in your white and wood living room). Shit.

Also, here is a list of the new vinyl safely stowed in my carryon. It is going to be a very good winter.

- Timber Timber
- Dev's Cripple Crow
- old, old Fleetwood Mac
- Bell Orchestre
- Mt. Eerie
- Vetiver
- old Band of Horses

Table pho one.

There is a giant tiger head on the dining room table. It is so casual just sitting there, it is comical. Oddly enough, I just finished rereading my favorite book about Mabel Stark, world renowned tiger trainer from the 1920's circus scene. I was born the Year of the Tiger. I also like stripes. Therefore, therefore nothing.

The light is low, so low I know my Dad would be concerned if he were to enter JJ's living room right now, but I like it. JJ is snoring in bed, Richard is tucked in across the hall and with sleep having escaped me, I am curled in the white and wood living room typing and thinking about a million things. One of those things being tigers and the circus and photography and how good the Mount Eerie/Julie Doiron collaboration is. Tomorrow's To Do's include stocking up on bagels before I go and clocking an hour or two with Lo's French-from-France artist beau Remi at his work table (who is nothing short of a genius with ink and expensive cardstock oh oh oh), maybe visiting the Belgo and Le Cagibi one last time even though it makes me sad and ashamed of a certain phone booth heartbreak when I walk through the door. But the coffee is the best there so I have no choice but to muscle through the initial regret and find my table in the front window and settle into the fading paisley arm chair (that I have fallen in love with and claimed as my own) with Mabel Stark and an allonge in hand; sans regrets.

Sorry.
Moving on.

My time in La Belle province has been so warm and so warranted and so good for me thanks to the people that I am surrounded by. The company of Richard and JJ and Loco is a constant reminder that home is something we carry inside of ourselves. But on the note of home, I miss mine and am looking forward to going home to a home, not just to a bed in someone's something. I want to stay up late with Devendra and Timbre Timbre and put my new saddle on my Surly and go for a long night ride so long as the snow has left town. If the snow is there when I return, I will still lovingly change over the old saddle for the new and hang up both bikes for the winter season.

Good, I am looking forward to being in my home.

Yesterday I ate my Sunday Thanksgiving dinner alone in a Pho noodle house in pretend Vietnam, Montreal. There were so many long tables laden with eight hundred kinds of food for so many three to four generational Vietnamese families (oblivious to Canadian Thanksgiving) that I was caught off guard when my chest heaved from missing my own family. It was a good lesson Mother, a lesson on the importance of attendance that rooted itself in the depths of my body. I won't be going anywhere for a while. I sat there, head bowed slightly, my pens and drawing pad speckled with chicken stock and gave thanks for my own family and friends and the Vietnamese food in front of me and the city that has been such a pleasure to explore alone. Montreal, I am giving thanks. Thanks for being unreal. (Photographic evidence to come, refer back).

I am thankful for you, and you, and you.

Why do I love Vietnamese food so much? I guess I am a Vietnamese tiger at heart.

Trouser talk.

There is something about this photograph that makes me take all the extra and unnecessary steps to view it again and again. I have no words, other than to say that she is a lady who wears trousers perfectly. And that is not easy, in my humble books. I suppose it is safe to say that I am in the market for some trousers. Interesting.

We are so young.

I am in JJ and Richard's white and wood apartment in pretend Europe, Montreal. They have french windows (I know) and plants that are growing like manicured and babied weeds. Richard looks so handsome when he smokes standing up. JJ is in the background laughing on the floor. Today Richard shot a Fuji polaroid of us standing outside of their lovely home: me in stripes and the Hawk's specs, braids wound around my head, JJ in black and leather and fur, curls flying. We are laughing and looking silly in the crisp black and white photo. I just looked at it now lying on Richard's desk beside his pretty bell jar, just before I approached the computer to sit and to record the day's day. Too much to write. I stood looking at it over Michael's shoulder thinking that someday I will look back and think "God, we were young once". Because we were. Because we are.

We are so young.

So anyway, with that concept in mind, I am in Montreal--land of french bagels and gay babes--being young. Last night we tromped down the street in heels to dance at some ridiculous bar in the Village. Sadly no one told us there was a Wood Nymph slash Spirit Animal avec headdress theme. Lo befriended a fellow crow with a token Montreal lesbian haircut and wore the most amazing feather headdress of all time. Only Loco. But before all that, Loco, the light of my life came to JJ's pre crow-jam with lips dripping red (amazing amazing) and a bottle of red in the crook of her arm. At one point when the three of us were squawking on JJ's bed, shooting the shit at rapid fire pace, one of us stopped for a moment and shed light on the fact that the three of us were finally in the same room together.

Long. Over. Due.

They are so lovely. This morning we ate brunch, haggardly, partook in a lung or two, and got ready for the Pop Art craftsale in Mile End. This was around the time when Richard thought it appropriate to take our photo on our merry way out the door because we were being such ridiculous girls. (I do not remember the last time I have been such a girl. This coming from the girl who spent the summer being anything but ladylike... no wonder).

We had a lovely day. Long walks in wool tights and heels in coral leaves, bagels and cream cheese, vinyl shopping in church basements (Devendra, Timbre Timbre and Bell Orchestre scores among others), meeting friends new and old in the neighborhood, sipping the best coffee in beautiful cafes (everywhere), eating pastries, talking silk screen shop with secret co-op printers (new art for my new home) and taking so so so many photos. The best part was standing on a street corner in this beautiful neighborhood with a bag on my shoulder filled with new vinyl and watching someone walking down the street towards me with a very familiar swagger. Sure enough, we came closer to our respective stoplights and hugged in the middle of the avenue, neither of us paying attention to anything else. Only Alfie; no words necessary. It was a brilliant day. I like this city a lot a lot.

One girl, two bikes.

This morning I woke up in a bed, in my bed, sat up and looked into a beautiful room filled to the tits with broken down boxes and two bicycles (two bicycles in the same room again?!?!? It cannot be! Yes it can) and two giant golden windows that span from floor to ceiling and plants in their rightful spots and a fakey fireplace. Ohmygoodness, it feels good to be home. I have been waiting to type that for a very long time. It feels good to be home. (Liza you will shit).

It feels good to be home.
It feels good to be home.
It feels good to be home.

This is my home. Better quality photos to come post Montreal.