I remember a frosty fall afternoon sitting on the steps of Concordia's side entrance, discussing the philosophy of linear algebra with my brother-for-that-semester Dennis.
Dennis, who'd finished his graduate degree in philosophy out of sheer gumption, and then proceeded to start a graduate degree in Software Engineering, in the Honours program that I'd barely gotten my sorry ass into.
Dennis who despite the great steel trap of his brain, didn't come to Lyon to study at the INSA with me, despite wanting to so very badly, despite the thousand better reasons that he had to enjoy France, because he hated paperwork.
GOing to France that first time, unlike last year, I had to do all my own paperwork. My passport, my visa, my banking, my this my that, a hundred trips to the consulate with a different paper each time, with a different stamp from a different floor of a thirty-odd floor building on the odder end of downtown Montreal.
On top of that, there was the paperwork to get accepted to the INSA-Lyon, the letters of recommendation from teachers, a list of equivalent courses that I would take, the permission from the Dean (who gave me a surprisingly hard time about leaving) and on and forth and I still have a fat agressive folder, home of the thousand papercuts to remind me of those three initial weeks.
Cristal is facing a similar amount of paperwork, taxes included, and her hatred of the pap�rasses is most of what is delaying her from coming here.
Today I am facing the same brouhaha again. Today I am beginning the long trail of papercuts that will turn me into an Official Ontarian.
Today I am trying to swallow the inbred QUebecois prejudice that somehow I am selling out in the process.
I mean, compared to the thousand ways I sell out everytime I don a skirt and heels, this is nothing.
The car insurance guy that I spoke to didn't help any when he admonished me for moving to the "big smoke".
And I'm pretty sure it isn't the finality that bothers me, because paperwork is infinitely undoable, evidence of my endless trips across borderlines.
And it isn't TOronto, because I am coming to love the endless chains of healthfood stores, the lightning-quick wardrobe changes of Kensington Market, the post-modern pakistani music that plays at the upper end of little India.
The way this city is a thousand cities in one, the way everyone can be so perfectly Canadian and yet so utterly enrolled in an entire handful of cultures simultaneously, doing grocers in Chinatown and going shopping in Little Italy and browsing for wines in Little Potugal.
The way this city really is too large and evidence of a big flat North American expanse - unlike Montr�al's eccentric smalltown-ness, the way the too-largeness is evidenced by humour that cuts heavier and deeper, the way art has become cinema has become larger and wittier, but less religiously meticulousness.
I miss the stubborn pride of Montr�al, the way it carries its own history like well-oiled white whiskers that have never been trimmed.
I miss the stubborn pride of Montr�al and the condominium disease that is spreading across Toronto's skin sometimes sends my stomach on queasy backflips, but there are greater and worse differences and I am happy for the choice I made in coming here.
However.
I am still staring down this mountain of paperwork, all of which expires in Quebec in three weeks, car insurance and safety checks and emission checks and registration and my driver's license and my medical insurance and CAA and Unemployment and on and forth
and I have to admit that it is more than a bare breath intimidating, but I've done it before
and today I began doing it again in earnest.
And if I lose sleep tonight it's alright, because it'll be the uneasy tossing and turning of obliging myself to accept something that needs accepting, and maybe I'll dream of Dennis and wonder where he's gotten to and if he ever learned to bite the bullet despite the bile clambering against peristalsis in his abdomen.
And if I lose sleep tonight it's alright, because in three weeks I'll be losing sleep over turning twenty six years old and wondering how I got this old without having accomplished nearly enough.
Which just goes to show how much I've improved --
I didn't say without having accomplished anything.
Addendum: I just heard back from that project that asked for my rates and proposal.
They said what I'd asked for is exactly in the area they were willing to work with.
They'll be getting back to me soon with details.
Time to start re-learning Java and XML and see if I can dredge any Oracles up from the back of my brain.
Because those technical exams?
They're not going to be easy.
p.p.s The Terrorkraft (DJ Hellraver from New YOrk), Hoicico, and Haujobb concerts last night kicked sharp little gothy ass. Now THAT was music that kept my fist in the air, unwavering.
I've got MC and her excellent taste in music to thank for the experience.
And my assemblage 23 t-shirt.
And the slight giggle that rises in my throat everytime I think of how those two boys from Buffalo were incapable of dancing without looking back at us, how Dennis (different Dennis but still just as nice) really is a total sweetheart, and how Peter the DJ (a different DJ Peter but so much the same) kept hugging me everytime I went by.
Maybe he was on something. But he's got a beautiful smile that makes you feel really welcome everytime he hugs you anyway.