Easiest $70 I ever made

Whoa - I made $70 today just by lying on my back and not moving! I even got to lie back and think of England.

I was doing an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) study. I had to keep perfectly still for 2 hours while magnets loudly whirled around my head inside a very claustrophobia-inducing machine that looks like this:



There were some computer tasks to do, for which they mounted a mirror in front of my head and fed a keypad into the machine. For other parts I just had to lie very still. It wasn't so bad, since I think I fell asleep during one of those. While this was a great way to make a quick buck, it's sad that people who need MRI's done for brain tumors and aneurysms and the like have to wait several months. "Canadian universal health care" I can think of at least two things wrong with that phrase.

I'm told I'll be e-mailed a picture of my brain sometime soon. Fuckin' A.

"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused"

It turns out that the human body does actually require sleep. I would like to know why mine has stopped responding to this need. The results have been pretty funny. I thought it wasn't even affecting me until yesterday when I:

• Left in the morning without shoes on (and took about a minute to notice)
• Later, after about 6 shots of yummy espresso served by a yummy boy, I left my place to drop off a plant, without actually taking the plant with me.
• Upon realizing this I went back inside my apartment building to get the plant and tried to take the elevator to the appropriate floor.
• Despite pushing the button for the fourth floor, I followed some lady off the elevator on the third floor.
• Walked into the wrong apartment. It's the one right below me and it seems that they too leave their door unlocked. I figured it out before anyone in there noticed.
• After having dropped off the plant and taken forever to pick a place to eat (sorry 'bout that) I got on the wrong metro line on my way home.

Tomorrow I hand in my application for the job at the memory clinic of the psych hospital. If I get that job I will have far too much in common with my clients. I'm going to give myself an hour to try to fall asleep. If it doesn't work I'm just going to have to smoke a bowl, though that might not do much for the short term memory problems.

Summer in the city

Now that I'm once again forced to consider leaving Montreal, I discovered that I truly love this city. The tree lined streets, gorgeous architecture and cute little restaurants are all well and good, but Montreal is really made great by its eccentrics (click on the title for a great link describing them all much more eloquently than I do - scroll down to "montreal weirdos").

The official first sign of spring is seeing the biker-tricycle guy. He looks like a Hell’s Angel in that he has a long beard, a bandana tied around his forehead, jeans or leather pants, biker boots and a Harley Davidson muscle shirt. Every part the biker look except that he rides a tricycle – you know, the one for grownups who never learned how to balance a two-wheeler. He’s a Montreal icon. Watch out because if you get in his way he will not hesitate to run you down and he can really get that thing moving.

This spring I have yet to see the guy who drums so intensely on his steering wheel that you’re sure he’ll crash his car. He’s usually around later in the summer, blasting Dire Straits and rocking out with an intensity that makes most professional drummers seem meeker than your average mouse. To tide me over until that gem comes back, there’s a guy in NDG who plays a pretty hardcore harmonica from his perch on a park bench. Today I was eating an apple for breakfast on my way to the bus and smiled at him. He stopped in the middle of his song and asked “C’te tu t’une belle pomme?” Yes. Yes it was and for some reason he made it even better.

Yesterday I think I found a new favourite. Let me paint you a picture: I was standing on the metro feeling rather bored when a skinny 20-something white dude walked on. He stayed for several stops, so I got to study his absolute perfection in great detail. He was wearing skater shoes that were badly torn up, shpantz, a non-descript t shirt under a shirt with weird patches all over it. He had a kazoo hanging from his belt. His hair fell exactly on the axis between unkempt and dreadlocks. It was piled on top of his head and was kept in place with a big vandal-sharpie pen, a toothbrush and a slide whistle.

Though he may sound really random and dirty, he was more like a whimsical cartoon character that came to life. I got the impression that he probably smelled like plain soap and that one could use the pristine white toothbrush to wipe away even the gravest of transgressions. In a world where everyone else has their wallet, keys, watch, MP3 player and book to read on the metro, it’s refreshing to see someone who decides that all they need for the day is a bus pass, a slide whistle and kazoo to make some music, a marker to write on walls and a toothbrush (because dental hygiene is important). Fuck pockets, purses, satchels and all that noise; you can just put it wherever it wants to go and use it to keep your hair out of your eyes.