You mean people actually read this thing?

You know, when I finally get my student loan, I think I’ll rent me an $800 dorm room.  I hear it comes with amazing amenities.

As an update to my last post, I applied for an emergency bursary on Friday which should come through sometime this week.  Until then, my awkward but sincere thanks to those of you who have offered personal loans of various kinds.  While I won’t take your money, I will definitely take your beer and, more importantly, your company.  Poverty is nothing if not lonely.

Honestly, it’s been a hell of a spring, and because of it I find myself on the verge of fucking two things up that are very important to me.  Here’s hoping that the base does not in fact determine the superstructure, and that it’s never too late to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of one’s own ineptitude. 

(Sighs.)  Onward…

 

Still life with reno

The trees have leaves now, little ones that are exactly the colour of the pencil crayon Spring Green.  It’s still cold at night but I open my windows during the day, which are once again portals to the buzz of renovation work that is as much a sign of the season as tulips.

I would have thought that by now there would be nothing left to renovate.  Certainly, every window in the neighbourhood has already been replaced, as has every electrical wire and stairwell.  Perhaps it’s finally come to the installation of diamond encrusted kitchen islands and solid gold Jacuzzis, anything to wring the last drips of profit from a market that has started, finally, to cool.

Whatever the cause, the buzz is the soundtrack to a life that has lately become extraordinarily dull.  I am rationing everything–bus tickets, tampons, iron pills–and the relative success or failure of this endeavour determines my mood for the day.  Today, I spent ten minutes debating whether or not to buy a cup of coffee on my way to Arit’s place.  No, this is no fun at all.

Meanwhile, I read memos authored by a certain unnamed university trumpeting how well it treats its graduate students and I want to scream and cry at once.  Although I remain on the sidelines of the conflict, I hope the union kicks its lying, corporate ass all the way to Quebec City.  And with an ounce of luck, it will.

 

Out

Grub first, then ethics

Appropriately enough, on this May Day a certain unnamed Montreal university finds itself deep in the mire of a protracted labour strike.  The normally docile campus is veritably throbbing with bad faith, as an ever-expanding cadre of high-ranking administrators subjects the thin bonds of collegiality to a campaign of repression and reprisal that reeks faintly of desperation.  These are, if nothing else, interesting times.

Meanwhile, I am still awaiting my student loan, which should have arrived weeks ago and which, in a slightly more perfect world, I would have no need of.  My friends have been quick with kindness, buying drinks they know I can’t afford and offering far more than that, all while politely ignoring the discomfort that tongue-ties my gratitude.  Still, today, I am seething with intensities and disappointments that feel electric under my skin.  I’m in good company, at least.

 

Under the bridge

 

Shift

Suddenly, summer.  There is never a transition in Montreal, no slow blossoming to smooth the change.  One day, you wake up and it is twenty-three degrees, and even the snow is caught off guard.

Befitting the weather, I’ve decided to let some air in here.  You’ll let me know what you think. 

 

Second person

You decide to go for a walk on a night that is evenly split between winter and spring.  Feeling cautious, you put on your dollar-store gloves and think to bring a scarf before letting yourself out into a late Monday dark.

Walking, you feel yourself loosen as you take in a breathful of air, and you notice that the snow is gone on one side of the street but still a foot deep on the other.  Then, you hit your stride and stop noticing much of anything at all.

Instinctively, you turn, avoiding the sidewalk smokers and the rivers of cars that surge every time the lights change.  Instead, you veer toward the place that makes you feel calm and unseen even as a whole city hums around you. 

Here, you take stock of yourself, conceding every hope and ache and fear that runs through you like blood through a waking limb.  Still walking, you let yourself become a shadow that sweeps against blind walls and slouching fences, stretched between alone and not and suddenly mindful of the difference.

Then, a train passes and you stop to listen because you always do, and as its steel chords sound you come back into yourself slowly.  That’s when you notice the cold and the three-quarter moon, whose light will follow you home. 

Blowback

In addition to being broke and on the cusp of a serious relationship, most of my writing energy has lately been diverted to Chapter Two, which is stubbornly refusing to write itself.  As a result, I have accrued a worrying number of half-written posts on a variety of subjects, the vast majority of which fall into the category of seething rants.

Luckily, Paul Krugman has recently tackled one of them: namely, the global food crisis that has been quietly escalating and which last week burst onto the front pages of several newspapers.  I’d feel badly about letting him beat me to it, but then he gets paid considerably more than I do to rant about such things.    

In a nutshell, the price of wheat, corn, and, most crucially, rice has skyrocketed in recent months, and the consequences are being felt in virtually all parts of the non-Western world.  Full-fledged food riots have already occurred in Mexico, Haiti, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, Egypt, and the Philippines, and even the loathsome World Bank is warning that social unrest could spread to as many as thirty countries in the very near future.

Krugman does a decent job of summarizing the causes of the problem, and he pays special attention to the West’s blinkered demand for biofuels, which proves beyond doubt that the road to hell is not only paved but fuelled by good intentions.  In so doing, he reminds us that environmental policies must always take social and economic considerations into account, and that poverty is itself an environmental issue.

I leave you with three articles to peruse: Krugman’s general comments, this excellent piece about the food shortage in Egypt, and a report on the negative consequences of biofuels for food and energy security.  And just in case anyone needs a refresher, here’s a little something on the law of unintended consequences.  Eggheads take note.

Bright spots

The temperature reached thirteen degrees today.

I got my April GST cheque.

He loves me.

Tight

A bright, warm sun.  A cloudless sky.  A chill wind, but above freezing.  It isn’t quite spring but it will be soon.

 

Meanwhile, I am waiting to hear back from the Ontario Ministry of Humiliation and Half-Measures about my summer loan application.  The time between loans is always the worst—a steadily worsening spasm of website-checking and not-knowing as one’s bank account dwindles inexorably to nothing.  It’s why I swore I’d never do this again, and why I routinely kick myself for breaking my vow.

 

I was taught to be good with money, which is to say that I was taught to live in fear of the prospect of suddenly not having any.  Because of it, I budget carefully, at moments compulsively, as though the logic of quantity can be subverted by repetition.  I can still hear my father’s drawl in my head—“You have to plan!”—which I did not take as advice but as a paternal decree.  The Ministry, for its part, remains unmoved.

  

In the interim, life is small and tense.  There is enough for the hydro bill and one more run of groceries; there isn’t enough for a haircut, a vet appointment, or an impromptu bus ticket to New York.  I feel stuck, and this post is a weak attempt to become unstuck.  Humour me, will you?