My Shining

Nearly 5 ½ weeks ago I took a bad fall. Landed headfirst cheekbone down onto the ground. The impact was so hard I knocked myself out and without a doubt gave myself a concussion. What resulted in the following days (besides a killer headache) was an extremely swollen and slightly scratched cheekbone, a puffy eye coupled with some bruising (that eventually represented every colour of the rainbow at one point or other throughout the healing process). I can talk candidly about it now that my friends and family know, and now that I look almost myself again. However, 5 ½ weeks ago it was my dirty dark secret.

The Monday morning following my accident I of course had to go to work as normal. The night before (day one) I didn’t look too bad. My cheek was pretty swollen and there was slight bruising, however I iced it on and off all day so I figured by Monday morning I would be looking better. Oh how wrong I was. Nothing could quite prepare me for the image that appeared before me that morning. I looked like I had been in a fight and lost. My eye had puffed up while I was sleeping and the bruising had grown, leaking under my eye and all around the lid in a perfect line of deep red as if I had intended for the colour to be there. I cringed and thought how the hell was I supposed to get on the bus looking like this? But I did, head bowed down, trying to hide my horror beneath my hair. No such luck. Instead, I looked more convincingly like the battered wife everyone thought I was. You could almost hear the gasps, and my cowering character only helped to confirm their suspicions. It was quite embarrassing and I am not easily embarrassed.

Arriving at work was even more fun. I was greeted with many ‘oh my god’s’ and ‘what happened to you?’ I also got a lot of ‘If you need to talk’s’ and ‘are you sure you really just fell?’ It’s sad to think that society has degenerated so badly throughout the years that the immediate reaction of seeing someone with a black eye is that they must be abused. I used to box a couple years ago. It was full contact kickboxing and I got the odd fat lip and a sprained finger, but never did I get a shiner. I suppose they wouldn’t have even believed me then if I had.

I was happy when the day was over and figured tomorrow would be better. It would be day three since the accident and it would start to heal. Oh how wrong again I was. If the horror that befell me Monday morning after seeing my reflection in the mirror was consistent with a B grade movie I had now graduated to the likes of The Shining. My bosses comment that it would get worse before it got better was bang on. Damn him, I looked like Frankenstein except it wasn’t Halloween. The swelling had not gone done, and the red bruising had now entered the spectrum of the rainbow. I was a walking piece of art, a walking piece of insecure art. Once again, as I boarded the bus I held my head down but I didn’t try to hide behind my hair. Instead, I had it tightly pulled back into a ponytail. I fell. I had nothing to hide.

The reaction at work on day three was more of the same. We had a full branch meeting scheduled that day, ironically a once a year occurrence. My timing was impeccable and everyone got to see me in all my glory. I laugh at it now, but I suppose it wasn’t very funny. That day while taking the metro home, the train came to a sudden halt, lurching everyone who was standing forward, and one young lady into my lap. She apologized profusely and we laughed, because everyone was fine. Then she looked back at me in a double take, having just noticed my face and gasped. “Ça va bien?!” Reaching forward in a gesture of good faith and compassion. "Oui, ça va" I responded with a big smile. Another set of people going home and telling their friends or family- you should have seen this lady on the metro, poor thing, her boyfriend must beat her she had such a black eye.

The rest of the week continued in the same fashion and by Friday my shiner had thankfully shrunken down 50%. I was hoping it would have been gone by then, but I had also hoped that it would be gone by now yet I still have remnants. I hit myself good. The shiner is gone but what remain are a small lump and a very tiny scar from where I had the scratch. (You will be pleased to know mom that the lump is also going away and I am sure one day so too will the scar. )

When I arrived at work in the New Year, a co-worker I hadn’t seen in at least three weeks greeted me. He looked over at me and said, “My god, you still have some of it left”. “Yes, Philip” I responded, showing him the small dent that appears over my cheekbone when I smile. He said it was like a dimple, that gave me extra character and laughed. Because that’s what I need, more character.

So if there is any moral or point to telling this story except to laugh at my stupidity, reserve judgement the next time you see someone with a beat up face. There are a million ways to get a black eye, only one being from contact with a fist.

When a bad hair day can really get you down.

Have you ever had one of those days when all you could think about was going home, putting on your fat clothes and curling up on the sofa with the remote? Well, I had one of those days last month shortly before Christmas. It was a Friday and I was having a bad hair day. My clothes felt tight and I was wearing a different perfume than usual that was making my skin crawl and agitating my senses. I just desperately wanted to go home, shower, change and drink a beer. Work was busy and stressful and I had to stay late so a co-worker kindly drove me to the metro. He dropped me off at a different station than the one I usually take, but I was happy, because it was a direct route to the bus I needed to take home. I would get home quicker than if I had followed my normal commute; light at the end of my otherwise gloomy day.

As the metro stop came into view I noticed flashing blue and red lights. I said over to my friend, “I hope that doesn’t mean someone jumped.” “Nah” he responded, “It’s before the actual Metro”. And indeed it was. We pulled up in front and the emergency vehicles were behind us on the corner, so I grabbed my things, said goodbye and hopped out. My co-worker drove away and I entered the metro station, or rather a blockade of people, held back by a yellow and black caution tape barrier and three police officers. In the chaos, I asked the nearest person to me what was going on. She said the metro was closed and they didn’t know when it was going to reopen. ‘Great. Just my luck’, I thought. ‘Now what I am supposed to do?’ I was in the middle of nowhere Montreal at a metro station I was completely unfamiliar with, with no other way to get home. I thought to call my co-worker back, but then decided against it. He lived in the north, why would he drive me to the south. I had no other choice but to stay where I was.

The police officers instructed us all to go outside and wait for the special buses to take us along the metro’s route. I have experienced in the past that it is usually quicker to just chill out and wait for the metro to reopen than to sit in traffic on one of those buses. However, my desire to go home was too great, I had no patience left in me to calmly wait. Not to mention they weren’t providing us with any kind of time frame, something that they usually do so obviously this was a fairly serious closure. I looked over at the kind lady I spoke to before and we both shrugged our shoulders. She asked me where I was going and I said to the south shore, she happily responded that she too was going to the shore so we partnered up and went outside to find the special buses. No matter what age, the buddy system never fails.

Outside we went, and down fell the rain. A cold thundershower was exactly what the day ordered, especially with me sporting around my company’s laptop. There we stood in the pouring rain, waiting for a bus in what we later found out was the wrong line. We were told the line we needed was over on the east side of the metro building so off we went. There must have been hundreds of people swarming around these buses like pigs at a trough. People were squeezing there way into the back doors while others were properly entering at the front. Everyone was pushing and shoving and many were cursing. It was a completely ridiculous scene. My new buddy kept insisting that it felt wrong to her. She was convinced that the direction the buses were going was not correct. I couldn’t help her either way, as I couldn’t tell what was up from down at this point. We decided to leave and check out the other side of the building. At this point what did we have to lose? It looked sceptical as there was no one waiting on the west side, but we quickly asked someone and after learned that we had finally found the buses going south. One quickly came and we boarded it immediately and without trouble. Seemed no one was interested to head downtown that night. Lucky for us as we were able to comfortably find a seat and get warm.

My hair had gone from bad to dreadful, all tangled and dripping wet. My pants were soaked and my shoes had leaked in water. But I was thankfully sitting down on a warm bus, going in the right direction. I got to learn all about my buddies life (a quite interesting one at that) and she in turn got to learn a bit about me. It took me 2 ½ hours in total to get home and when the bus finally did take us to the metro it was still shut down (something about a water main break… riiight).

It seems I had for once, made the wise choice.

The evolution of portable music

One of the good things about having a long commute is the extra time a day I have to devote to reading. That is how I chose to pass most of the month of November, hence why I didn’t have any new entries. With my head buried deep in a book all the time, I never had the opportunity, or forethought to observe others around me. It did however become startlingly clear just how many people these days have a portable music player.

When I was a kid I had I a Sony Walkman. Not the cool yellow waterproof kind (that was to come later), but the very fragile will break into a million pieces if you drop it grey plastic kind. I can’t be sure if it was even a Sony. Of course being the 80’s and all, my Walkman played only tapes. I would spend hours after school or on the weekends listening to the radio, waiting for my favourite songs to come on and hoping to hit record just in time to capture the moment (sadly enough using the same stereo I use today). I had tons of mixed tapes. The first ones were recorded from AM radio. I later grew up and moved on to FM radio (when sound quality was becoming important). It was a pretty uncomplicated time. I had my Duran Duran and Wham! tapes, my Joshua Tree and Faith tapes. That was roughly 40 songs, I was happy.

Soon after came CD’s and disc man’s. I graduated from my yellow sports Walkman in 2002 to a shiny blue disc man. Not the kind of disc man that played CD MP3’s but just regular CD’s that held only one album. I was satisfied even though I had just sold the ultimate in portable music players: my car. Trading in tapes for CD’s, car or no car I had moved into the big times. I even had my own CD burner. I no longer had to stand by the radio waiting to capture my favourite song. I could simply log onto Napster and download them for free. Napster’s lifespan didn’t last long, but long enough to create a decent collection of mixed CD’s.

Now there are MP3 players that hold thousands of songs and various downloading software and sites to choose from. The possibilities are endless. Our worries are no longer adjusting the antenna to get rid of the crackle on our radios, but what bit rate to rip our CD’s at. What file types to use: Mp3 or WAV? Not to mention the moral question surrounding Internet downloading. I still buy CD’s, but with the arrival last fall of my shiny little black iPod Nano, the convenience of downloading is frighteningly well, just that; convenient.

I still like to spend my time on the bus the old fashioned way as I mentioned at the beginning, buried into a good book. It’s the only real way to clear your head and get an ultimate release from the day’s activities. It’s just unfortunate so many people insist on sharing their musical choices with me everyday, listening to their portable music players at ridiculous volumes. I guess they have never heard of the damaging effects caused by constant high decibels. Oh well, I suppose that in a couple years they will be all be hearing impaired and the silence of the bus will be mine to enjoy again.

Ottawa Part II

It is safe to say that enough time has passed by since I went to Ottawa that I can write the second half of my story without stress. Yes, I said stress and it all started with the rental of the car. Not for the reasons as I outlined in part I, but for very different reasons. You see I rented the car on a Thursday night. I still had to work a partial day on the Friday and then was going to leave for Ottawa right after lunch. Meaning, I was going to drive the car to work instead of taking the usual bus, metro, metro, bus. Well, let me tell you how absolutely fabulous that was. I left my house a whole half hour later than normal and still managed to arrive at work 15 minutes earlier. Translation: it only took me 25 minutes to get to work. Ok, so it was Friday morning traffic, which for some reason is always lighter than normal, but even if you were to add on an extra 10 or 15 more minutes, it is still over 30 minutes quicker than my transit routine. SO as you can imagine I stressed over this. FOR DAYS. It was all I could think about.

How could I afford a car? I reworked my budget, I started looking online. I decided that I could do it, I could get a car. Not buy a car, but lease a car over four years. I narrowed down my selections to three vehicles. I obsessed! Then I came to the slow realisation that while a car would be a luxury I have lived without for over 5 years, I could continue to live without out it for at least one more. It seems the adult in me is overpowering the child and getting a *gasp mortgage seems to overrule driving around the city in comfort and style. Lucky for all of you! As it means my Blog remains, and the transit stories continue.

So as you can imagine I was pretty jaded for awhile, hence my lack of submissions. But I am back in true form, car dreams behind me and ready for that bus! I think.

Oh, and Ottawa. You should go. Really.

Happy Halloween!

Date: October 2005
Location: Atwater Metro Station
Reason for the horrific attire: unknown

Ottawa Part I

Last weekend I went to Ottawa to visit some friends who were in town for a conference. (I must confess at the start that this isn’t going to be a transit story, but rather a transportation story so I figure it qualifies.) Usually to go to Ontario I take the train, but seeing as though Ottawa is less than two hours away, I opted for the convenience and freedom of a vehicle. So I decided to rent a car. I went online and searched out the best deal I could find. Knowing that the car would cost more than the train in the end (due to gas, parking etc…), I wanted to get a good price. I made a reservation and was all set. Thursday night after work I went to the gym and then went downtown to pick up the car. I got to the rental office at about ten to seven all sweaty and starving from my vigorous work out, anxious to pick up the car and go home. I gave the representative my reservation information, credit card and drivers license. In a few minutes I would be on my way.

“Miss, did you know that your credit card has expired?”
“Excuse me?” I answered perplexed.
“See here,” pointing to the expiration date, “it expired in August”, he continued.
“Well that can’t be” I responded, realizing how screwed I was. “I never received a new card from the bank. Is there something you can do? I need to rent this car”.
“No Miss, unless you have another credit card”.
“No, not on me.”

In my effort the get out of debt I stopped carrying my credit cards with me. You can’t use them if you don’t have them. Seemed like a brilliant idea until last Thursday.

Searching for a solution I finally asked, “Can I just put money down instead? For collateral?” Realizing how stupid a comment that was I mustered a sheepish smile and laughed slightly. A cash deposit on a rental car! Oh here sir, let me write you a cheque for $10,000.

“No ma’am, I can only rent you the car with a valid credit card.”

Crap, crap, crap, I thought to myself. My other credit card was at home and it doesn’t offer rental car insurance, so my deal of all deals daily rate would then turn double adding on the rental company’s private insurance. The train was looking really comfy at this point.

“Can I call home and get my other credit card number?” I asked desperately.
“No Miss, I need to swipe the card in computer. Look, we close in five minutes, maybe you can come back tomorrow with a credit card.”
“No, I can’t, I am supposed to leave tomorrow.”
“Well, you can come back later with your credit card and rent through National next door. They are open until 11pm.”
“hmm… but they are more expensive…”
“You can still have your rental with us and they will process it”.

Well, this seemed like an idea and quite obviously my only choice, apart from cancelling the trip altogether. It did mean that I was going to have to take the bus home, pick up my other credit card and then take the bus back downtown. All this would take a good couple hours. It was at this moment I really missed living downtown…

I left the car rental place and headed to the bus terminus. I decided to call Eric on the way and see if he had some miracle solution. I had him check my desk and all over the apartment for mail from the bank with a new credit card. I didn’t want to go all the way home and come back armed with a credit card that was going to double my rental fee. Unfortunately he had no luck and never found a new card. He did offer to bring me my other card though, and save me the return trip home. I realized that this was my only option, as a last minute train fare would cost way more, so I turned around and went back to National to wait. I had plenty of time to stew over the mess I had made and get really frustrated at my negligence. An otherwise inexpensive weekend was now going to cost me a fortune.

Eric finally arrived, card in hand and I got my car. It ended up costing me double what I had planned on just as I had estimated. At least I was fully insured.


... to be continued.......

The Comb

Who knew, but it seems the Afro comb is back in style. I have seen two people in a period of ten days who had an Afro comb stuck in the back of their head. Now, I accept the fact that most styles eventually come full circle, but the Afro comb? Who ever thought it would be a good idea to walk around with a comb in your hair? It's like chopsticks. I have never understood how someone could keep their hair up using chopsticks. What's next? A knife and fork? I think maybe the next time I wear my hair up I'll jab a spoon in there for good measure.