The Tender Bar: J.R. Moehringer

Once upon a time, I read everything I could lay my hands on. I'd devour books, even bad ones, simply because they were there. But as time goes on, I realize that life is too short to read bad books. Why waste my time when there are countless classics that I may never get to? Over the last couple years, I've started so many books that I've never finished, and part of me felt guilty for letting them go. But there is a time and a place fo every book you read, and if it doesn't hold my interest now, maybe it will down the road. Or maybe not. Maybe that book will never speak to me. Or maybe it is awaiting my more focused self to come back to it.

Fred and I were en route to the clinic last week-end, him for his daily wound cleaning (gross, isn't it?) and I wanted to have a doctor investigate the cause of my swollen eye. It was itchy as hell and driving me nuts, not to mention the fact that I had spent a whole week looking as though I was about to burst into tears. As we prepared to leave the house, I ducked into our office to find a good book to read during my long wait at the clinic. Fred passed me The Tender Bar and we were off.

Since J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, the book has long been regarded as the perfect coming of age story. It's one of the only books I've ever re-read, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. But in The Tender Bar I discovered something different. A book that was able to capture the pull between two opposing sides of myself; my drive to succeed and my contentment to sit all at once, my artistic impulses that strive to find every possible medium (even when I'm not conscious of it), and my secret wish that I could find a more direct, obvious path through life. Every now and then, I convince myself that I am deeply interested in law and should attend law school. Not because I care about law at all, but because I want to prove to myself that I'm capable of law school. Because I think about all the travelling I could do if I were a lawyer and had the money to go where I want. Eventually the thought occurs to me that law is often an exercise in semantics and a struggle to find a loophole, neither of which appeal to me in any way. If this weren't enough to disway my application to McGill, I start thinking about how much work law involves, and how little vacation time. All the money in the world but no time to enjoy it. I can relate to the book's author. I understand how excitement to attend university can quickly fade away and your focus can shift, attention can be lost and you begin to question why you decided to be there in the first place. When I was younger, I looked forward to being in my thirties- when all my hard work at school would pay off and I would be well settled in my career. Now that I'm nearly there, I doubt that I will ever reach a point where I feel settled. I can't imagine being able to sit back and say that I had done all I set out, seen everything I wanted to, learned all that I hungered for. I've always been in a rush, but I've never stopped to figure out why. It's not as though I'm running out of time, although I suppose we all are in a way. More than anything, the book helped me to realize that things take time. I've felt frustrated lately, felt like I'm taking a step backwards in doing customer service, particularly since I swore I would never do it again. It's easy to forget that I've acquired a university degree, a year of teaching experience and begun my journey to see the world. I am headed in the right direction, and I need to remember that. I haven't chosen the most obvious career path, but I need to relax and realize that everything about life is a journey and no experience is wasted. I have all the pieces to begin my professional life, I just need to put them together.

All that said, I loved the book. Read it. Time for bed. I just got home from yoga and experienced what 70% humidity feels like. It feels a lot like bedtime.

Hangul

I just stumbled upon an excellent site to learn the Korean alphabet. It even talks! Check it out.

http://www.indiana.edu/~koreanrs/hangul.html

Florescent Lighting Hurts My Eyes (and corporate air makes them swell)

Three weeks have passed since I last posted, I know. I finally recognized that my search for a teaching position was over for the season and would have to be put on hold for the summer. Despite my lengthy cv (or perhaps because of it), I have spent the last two months searching for any job that would pay me to show up... and preferably only to do that. I finally accepted a job as a tech support agent at Brother Canada in the middle of nowhere (Dollard-des-Ormeaux) and grudgingly showed up for my first day of work on July 3rd. Of course, the moment I started, the phone began to ring and all those jobs who had failed to call me back have left me messages over the last three weeks. In any case, the job at Brother comes with such perks as door to door pick-up in the morning and drop-off in the evening, along with fully catered breakfast and lunch, with the occasional snack. These are not, of course, services offered to just anybody- only those who happen to be dating Fred, provided they meet his mothers expectations. Apparently I do, so I enjoy quite the royal treatment. As for the job, it is probably the best customer service position I could ever find. The pay is not bad and the company offers its employees real perks: profit sharing, health & dental benefits, subsidized gym memberships, RRSP, financial recognition for valid suggestions and trips for the employee dubbed the best of the year. The atmosphere is largely laid back- people joke around in the cafeteria and laughter is heard in the halls. It seems there are actually companies that treat their employees well. Bulletin boards in the staff room are packed with activities planned by the social club; trips to La Ronde (amusement park), Super Aqua Club (waterslides), river boat rides to observe the fireworks competition and even a charity baseball game against a local radio station. Charity baseball games? I feel like I've tripped and fallen into a sit com. Except the pay isn't as good and my agent never called.

It all makes me feel a bit guilty that I don't want to be there. My large cubicle sits beside our customer service department; two really sweet women who talk about their kids and puke a lot. My cubicle mate, Joyce, has thus far only spoken one sentence to me. In fact, I'm not even sure her name is Joyce- I've based that entirely on the name card that is glued to her side of the wall. My ears are overwhelmed with chatter. A girl whose name I don't remember sits opposite me talking about her recent trip to Thailand. The boys talk about baseball and pretend they know what they're talking about. They seem to think 'punt hitter' is an actual baseball term. It makes me laugh. The ladies next to me talk more about puke and mucus. I try to focus on the blank page in front of me, though not a single creative or inspired thought leaks from my head. I try to force it, but all I imagine are call center stories about fax machines and silly customers. No one wants to read about that. I definitely don't want to write about that. I need to get out, and fast. The fluorescent lighting hurts my eyes and makes me drowsy, the glare off the computer screen induces paranoia, the empty pale green cubicle walls bring on an odd mix of nausea and apathy. The free coffee keeps me pumped full of mocchacinos, ensuring that I'll be conscious enough to deliver my passionate spiel about fax machines as required.

Happy Moving Day!!

I awoke this afternoon with familiar aches and pains running throughout my body. It was July 1st. It was not only the late night move that we had pulled off last night that was causing me such pain, but also the memories of how every first of July has been spent since moving to Montreal in 2001. I long for the days when Canada Day meant BBQs at a friend's place, or double time pay at a crappy job. But ever since my first moving day, everything has changed. The very thought of July 1st sends shivers down my spine and thrusts me into a cold sweat. I run through the endless list of things to do, complete with ways to avoid the day altogether. Inevitably, I realize I was forgetting something and continue to panic until the day has finished and I'm sleeping on an unmade bed surrounded by unpacked boxes. The feeling of being completely overwhelmed gradually subsides over the days and weeks that follow, until eventually most everything has been unpacked and found its place. By then, school has started for all the students and other concerns take over as the summer comes to an end. Before I know it, Christmas has come and gone and I awake one morning to find that its a new year. In the midst of the coldest, most miserable month of the year, there is a knock at the door and a postal worker presents me with a registered letter. My hands shaking, I sign his clipboard and nervously turn my attention to the slim envelope. Tearing open the envelope, I gaze down at the enclosed papers. Notice of lease renewal. My landlord needs to know if I intend to renew my lease until the following year. But it's January- how could I possibly know what my plans will be for July? Return by February 28th. Hmmm... one month to ponder what I will do for the next year and a half. I have three choices, none of them pleasant. I can;

A) choose not to answer the letter, automatically renewing my lease until July 1st of the following year, and automatically agreeing to any rent increases specified in the notice.

B) refuse the rent increase and agree to present myself at the rental board court room to argue my case.
or C) decide that I want to put myself through another July 1st move.

A is the easiest option and suckered me into spending three years at my crappy St-Henri apartment. B is unpleasant and too much trouble. For the 2% that my landlord is allowed to raise the rent every year, I'm not about to take him to court over it. I couldn't be bothered. Rental court is buried somewhere deep in the East End, where Anglophones don't like to go. Option C. This is the option that makes my blood run cold. Before agreeing to a July 1st more, it is absolutely essential that I understand what hell it is to move on this day. I would have two months to find an apartment. If I haven't signed a lease by April, it's likely that I'll find myself scrambling to sign the lease for the first apartment I can get in to see, for fear of being homeless on Canada Day. My moving truck needs to booked by May, at the latest, otherwise I'll be stuck renting an overpriced U-Haul, rather than an overpriced Discount truck. I can expect to pay about 300$ for a four hour shift with the truck. If I happen to return the truck five minutes late,I can tak on another 200$ late fees. Then I need to book friends. This needs to be done early, particularly since Montrealers answer their phones very tentatively after June. We are familiar with the tone of voice associated with calls for moving help and our hang-up reflexes more developed than other Canadians. I will spend any spare time over the next few months calling my cable, internet, hydro, gas, phone, medicare and licensing offices to report my change of address. I can expect to spend a lot of time on hold. In May, I need to start hoarding boxes. Grocery stores and pharmacies stop handing them out, some even putting up signs to tell their customers that they are not sharing their moving day boxes. As the end of June approaches, I'll be spending every free moment running about to pack up my things. I'll be expected out of my apartment at noon on July 1st, to allow the new tenant to move in that afternoon. No move ever runs smoothly, and Canada Day moves are no different. As people run here and there, desperately trying to be out of their apartments at 12:00pm and still stay within the four hours with the truck- the architecture of Montreal helps to further challenge your average mover. Appliances being carried, ever so carefully down flights of spiraling iron stairs. Old doorways, mysteriously too narrow for couches to pass through. Already memories of the previous July 1st have faded and I can't remember how I got the couch in to begin with. Hopefully I never again live downtown, where I had the added challenge of dealing with the Canada Day parade that shut down the street Fred was living on.

This year,Fred and I were bracing ourselves for a July 1st move. Luckily, however, a bigger apartment opened in our building and we were able to transfer our lease and move in December. We thought we had dogged the bullet. But inevitably in May, the phone rang and our good friends, Claire and Matt told us they had rented an apartment in our building. For a moment, we were excited by the prospect of having friends in the building. Then we realized what that meant. Another move on the first of July. But Claire and Matt had slightly different plans. If they took a van on June 30th, they knew they could get a longer block of time at a cheaper rate. If the old tenants hadn't left yet, they could leave things at our place overnight. So the van was rented from 7pm, to be returned by 6:30am or pay the nasty 200$ fee. To move Claire and Matt from their
3 and 1/2 downtown (complete with steep staircases) to their new 5 and 1/2 up the street in Côte des neiges, it took the four of us working until 6am. At 6am, Claire returned the van and Fred and I went downstairs and crawled into bed. At nine there was a knock on the door. Matt and Claire hadn't quite finished and had planned on renting a car to pick up the last few things. It being July 1st, there were no cars available. Fred called his mom and asked her if she could drive them to clear out the last few things. They did another three trips, and they finished completely at 2pm.

The separatists really have an amazing thing going here. If this is your typical Canada Day, is it any wonder that the Quebec's national party the week before is so successful? I think it's pretty safe to say that Montreal is probably the only city in the world where its residents spend their national holiday with couches strapped to their backs in blistering heat, too tired to appreciate anything but the cold beer and pizza that follows any move... unless of course you finish moving at 6am.