The small pleasures of winter

*the smell of a cigarette being lit in the deep cold

*taking a short cut to the metro and hearing piano music from inside the Les Grands Ballets

*sliding my feet into already warm slippers

*watching the squirrels nibble on nuts I left in the backyard

*fur-lined hoods

What else?

What does community look like?

I was catching up on a week's worth of blog reading this morning when I read a recent post by the extraordinary Roseanne (whom I’ve never even met in RL, even though she lives just a few blocks from me and we seem to be living parallel lives) over at It's all yoga, baby. In this post, she makes a visual representation of her community - that is, who she knows and how she knows them.

Wild at the thought of possibly making venn diagrams, I dropped everything to draw my own community.

Ta-dah!

I started out by defining the main areas of activity in my life where I met/meet people. Plotting out the different communities was fun - but not as fun as drawing arrows between communities to indicate multiple links. I have one writing buddy - Alexis - who was originally a school buddy, who is now also a work buddy and a neighbourhood buddy. And she's starting tango soon. And she's done yoga in the past.

Most of the arrows point back towards the Mile-End/Plateau because that's where most of the people I know live/work, so there's more traffic in that corner, but understandably so. In fact, now that I think about it, there are probably a few more arrows that could have pointed towards the Mile-End/Plateau segment.

Two things to note:

1) My family doesn't link up to any other sphere in my life other than geographical location.

2) I have a whole segment of friends that I met through social media (excluding blogs) - like Patra or Jay. Although these people have since joined other segments of my life (Patra also now belongs to "Writing Buddies" too), the point of origin is the Internet.

Having completed this diagram, I feel more confident that I must be doing okay in the running-my-life department. I have a variety of segments and vectors, indicating many friends who share the same values and interests that I do. My life looks very busy and full when seen in 2D - a nice counterweight to my usual, "What, me? I don't do anything - I'm boring!"

If you don't see where you fit in this diagram, let me know so I can revise it. I want to keep this on my fridge so that if I'm having a pity party one day, I can look at it and put things back in perspective.

So get to it! What does your community look like?

Why I'm a bad Montrealer

Here are the top eight reasons why I'm a bad Montrealer ( I tried to come up with ten, but I couldn't get past eight).

Warning: On a few occasions, you may want to accuse me of getting old. Truth is, I already felt like this when I was 16 years old so you have no grounds - haa!

1. I don't like festivals. Festivals = crowds with sharp elbows, bad traffic flow and in-your-face backpacks. And I hate crowds. I'll happily buy a ticket to a show and make appropriate noises from my seat, but don't ask me to see free shows during the jazz fest or Just For Laughs. I'll say no.
2. I don't like shopping. I tend to shop like a marine. My shopping trips are strategic strikes: I go in, I get what I need, and then I get the **** out. None of this browsing through every t-shirt on the rack or debating between turquoise or green for an hour. Buy and get back outside pronto!
3. I don't like the tam tams. Remember all I said about point one? Take that and add "music that sounds the same" and "drunk McGill students".
4. I don't know anyone who works at Ubisoft. And considering I live in the Plateau, this is astonishing as Ubisoft employees comprise approximately 76% of my neighbourhood. To compensate, I do know people who work at Cirque du Soleil.
5. I have never made out at the Mont Royal lookout. Like number four, I am confident that this will change in the near future [fingers crossed].
   
6. I don't like Irish pubs. Although I used to frequent them often in university and in my 20s, Irish pubs now make me cranky with their shrill Celtic music and clusters of drunk frat boys from Massachusetts singing "What do you with a drunkkken sailor?"
7. I'm not a huge fan of Leonard Cohen or Mordechai Richler. They're legends and brilliant artists, but they just never conquered my heart, what can I say?
8. I will not wait in line for food. Beauty's does make a nice pancake. And those restaurants along Duluth serve delicious food. Am I going to stand around with 20 other people waiting hours for a table? No! I will go to one of the city's other fine eateries, because when I'm hungry, I want to eat.

There may be more. I'll let you know. In the meantime, I'll work on my list of reasons why I'm a good Montrealer.

Photo was affectionately borrowed from CrissyAlright on Flickr.

Slippery sidewalks

No, I am not going to rail about the state of Montreal sidewalks. I'm going to rail about the people who can't stop railing about the state of Montreal sidewalks instead.

Oh, the irony, I know.

As Powell and I were driving back from Vermont today, we happened upon another talk radio show urging callers to share their complaints about icy sidewalks, snow-bound streets, etc.

Perhaps the radio show host doesn't really care about the sidewalks. Perhaps he simply needed a hot topic that would get the phones ringing. But I've had it with all this complaining already.

Allow me to make a few friendly reminders:

• The Ville de Montreal does not run this city. Nope. Mother Nature runs this town. We live in a place that experiences deep winter, so stop complaining that getting around is hard. Sometimes all the salt and gravel in the world cannot counteract the whims of the Big M, so don't waste your time pointing fingers and muttering. Hello!? Any of you remember the Ice Storm of '98? In the Tremblay vs. Winter bout, I'm putting my money on the white giant. 

• If most of you wore decent boots, walking would be a far simpler task. For example, UGG boots and leather booties with three inch heels were not made for our harsh winters. So don't give me that shocked look when you wipe out in your dainty footwear and I fail to shower you with compassion.

I love listening to talk radio and engaging in debate (even if it's only yelling "You tool!" at my car radio), and as an avid walker, I too get frustrated with slipping and sliding, but I am soooo tired of listening to the world complain incessantly about situations that can only be accepted, and not modified.

Be upset that a closed coroner's office is delaying the funeral of a Canadian soldier. Be saddened that financial woes may have led to the deaths of three children in the Saguenay.

But icy sidewalks? Leave earlier. Take public transit. Buy crampons. And be grateful that winter is the least of your worries.

Palanca gets a digital camera

Guess what? I've joined the 90s and purchased a digital camera! To inaugurate the arrival of my new Canon Powershot, I bring you a snapshot of my favourite grafitti.

Scrawled on a brick wall, corner of Prince Arthur and Clarke. If you can't enlarge the image, it reads:

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero.