Montreal is Better with You

Much like the music.

I just spent the last three days since getting back into Montreal with the Heather Blom of legend and folklore. So happy to have her here! Last night was our night out - instead of going to the Bloody Beatroots, Heather decided she would rather skip the 40$ cover charge, and we ended up at B Side, a bar conveniently located around the corner from my apartment.

I love the music, which is wildly eclectic, playing everything from the Beatles to 2002 Eminem to Biggie to 60s swing music. It's fun, and I wish I could convince people to go with me more often.

That said, I did horrifically run into someone I had hoped I would never see again.

I would have prefered this trio, hands down

I glossed over in my Yes. I am that Smell post, sent from the Montreal airport after just barely making it there, that I had been doing tequila shots with my students at 3:00 am. What exactly had been glossed over, was that the said shots had been bought for us by a threesome of Spanish guys, a grouping as eclectic as B Side's mix tapes; one 20-something boy who was in fact rather attractive, if not slightly lisping, one in his late 30s who insisted on telling the fortune of one of my students, and a third, whose age could be anywhere between mid-to-late thirties, with a paunch and shitty beard. This third amigo approached the table after the others, uninvited, pulled up chairs and had already settled in, and the following was, without elaboration, the creepy dialogue that followed:

"Hey! You play McGill Rugby."
"Uh...What?"
"Yeah, I saw you the other day and you were wearing one of those McGill Rugby sweaters."
"Excuse me?"
"You were at Place Milton. Wednesday morning. You were wearing your red McGill Rugby sweater and were waiting for a friend. You were waiting for about 45 minutes!"
"Yeah...uh...I did."

This was, as you can imagine, fairly unnerving, because it was entirely accurate. My friend and I had miscommunicated where we were meeting, and I did end up waiting for her for 45 minutes in the restaurant, during which time I played around with my camera, taking pictures of the fresh snow, the cute diner, and, oh yeah, inadvertently my soon-to-be stalker.


What nice, charming coffee cups. What a cozy little diner on such a blustery day. What a normal looking sociopath sitting by himself across from the photographer.





And though I'm sure I brought this upon myself by giving him my, albeit fake, number, I did go to pretty obvious lengths to assure him that he and I would not be seeing each other again. He tries to kiss him, and to such a maneuver I did not respond with face-saving grace, but instead shoved him and yelled at him not to do that. Too subtle - he assures me that he will kiss me in 2011, to which I respond that that is highly unlikely.

So perhaps there is a God, and he has a perfect, cruel sense of irony, because, of course, I run into this man on my first night out in Montreal since.

Is persistence a virtue, or a sign of brain damage? He missed the hint when, after trying to get my attention by creepily stroking my stomach as I walked by him, unaware I was doing so, I looked up, my face I imagine went blank with horror, and I kept walking whichever way he wasn't. He also must have figured my friends were just overly protective, when, after tapping me on the shoulder, Heather came between us, got up in his shittily bearded face, and threatened in a way only Heather can, "Oh no you don't! Turn around buddy! Go!" He finally cornered me, at which point I feigned not realizing who he was, passively allowed the kiss on the cheek and hug, which turned into beard based molestation of my neck for all of 2 seconds, and then he disaapeared.

With a lock of my hair, I'm sure.

Am I missing the really obvious warning signs that cause an audience to groan and scream at the protagonists of horror films right now? I don't know, I didn't watch Swim Fan.