12.21.2023

québécois winter, 2023, cockroach

It’s eerie how quiet snowfall is. You can hear raindrops when they land, that pitter-patter sound they make on impact with cement or metal or the pavement. But you don’t hear anything from snowflakes. They leisurely drop from the sky, floating through the air as if they’re on an aimless stroll before gracefully dropping to the ground. Each one stacking up on top one another that before you know it there’s enough of them to be considered snow, that requires me to put on winter boots and grab the shovel from the mud room so i can forge a path to the driveway.

Winter in Quebec is lovely in a goth way. All the trees are dead, the beautiful fall foliage long dropped off from its branches. The ground is either brown with dead grass or white from the previous night’s snowfall. Daylight is a brief affair; the moon hangs in the sky longer than the sun does. All the birds migrated south and the silence in the skies is felt so loudly. Streets covered with snow that will never get picked up because the union’s on strike, again. This is what being in a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song feels like. The sun has fallen down, and the billboards are all leering, and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles. The band is from Montreal. One of those facts you learn that makes you go oh yeah that’s why their music sounds the way it does.

It’s a good place to be if you’re having a dark night of the soul. If you don’t want to be bothered.  If you want to get hammered and cry listening to Mitski on a couch in the basement until you pass out. If you want to piece together the past 12 months and figure out what the hell to do next.

It makes me regret not learning Canadian French when I was younger. Or transferring to McGill when I had the opportunity. Or having the grades good enough to transfer to McGill when I had the opportunity. Oh, what am I saying, they would have let me in, I would’ve been a foreign student, I absolutely would’ve had a seat along with all the scions of rich Chinese families. 

I guess I could still learn Canadian French now, today or tomorrow. I could move to Montreal whenever I wanted to. There’s nothing really stopping me. I just wonder how much time I have left to make these kinds of changes. What’s the age where I’m not allowed to just leave everything behind because the vibes are bad, where i can’t try to reinvent myself anymore, where I look at myself in the mirror and think this is the rest of your life now? My thirties? Maybe early forties. I’m not sure. All I know is that the clock’s counting down, not up.

**

2023’s over. The calendar says there’s 10 days left but spiritually it feels over. You have christmas and a bunch of bad bowl games and then new years eve and thats it. All there is to do now is to reflect on how the past twelve months for you went.

My year was mostly bad. I lost my job. I got blocked out of nowhere by long-time friends over petty grievances. I feel more distant from my friends and family than I ever have. I got told that normal people think I’m weird and that I have mass shooter vibes. I did too many psychedelics that fried my brain a little bit. I had doomed crushes with women whom I realize now that, looking back with clear eyes, I was only really attracted to because they reminded me of previous romances. Old lovers don’t just go away, you see. They just re-appear in the next one. 

None of these things are really new, though. The story of my life stays the same. New actors reading the same script. I’ve had crushes meant to fail in years past and I’ll have plenty more in the future. I’ve been told I carry shooter vibes more times than I can count. The first one was in college. It was “school shooter” then; it’s “mass” now — a slight update to the script. College. That was 5 years and 4 jobs and 3 cities ago. Where will I be in 5 years? Another 4 jobs and 3 cities? Montreal, LA, I can’t think of a third one I’d want to live in. Maybe Portland. The Maine one. Doesn’t really matter where I go. The script will update, like how a Shakespeare play gets updated for modern times. Think Twelfth Night to She’s The Man. New friends will fill existing roles. They’ll update the set a little bit. Make some reference changes. Swap out Food Bazaar for Erewhon. Bodega will be replaced by dépanneur. 

What was new this year? I didn’t go on any dates this year. First time that’s happened in a very long time.

Well, some other new things were good. The only bright spots of this year. I met aileen and kitty and becca and anastasia and david s and lindsay, all of who are lovely people. I couldn’t have made it through this year without them. I got slapped in the face by veronica so hard my ears were ringing. A 5 star experience. I got into The National and fell in love with them. They’re so good. I knew of them when I was a much younger music hipster but I’m old enough now that I’ve seen enough in my life that I can relate to it better. I’m glad I discovered them at 28 and not like as a 17 year old who blasted Death Grips and Sublime. I saw them at MSG in the summer with Charlie and his friends and they played Demons as my shrooms were kicking in and on the line I am secretly in love with everyone I grew up with Jake grabbed the both of us and said THAT’S YOU GUYS. I love that song. I should write about The National. That’s for another essay. Another time.

**

Akash says he worries about me sometimes. I tell him he shouldn’t. That I’m fine. That I’ll be fine. I recall to him what one of my other friends said about me, that I’m a cockroach. That I’m indestructible and I keep moving and scurrying around, even when the chips are down or I’m gone off a ridiculous stack of drugs. Judging by the look on his face he doesn’t really seem convinced by this. If anything he looks more worried.

Later that night I can’t sleep. I wake up to go take a piss and while in the bathroom I see a cockroach. I grab the can of Raid that’s underneath the sink, shake it a little bit, and aim it at the bug. The first blast of bug spray misses. I see him start to sprint off. I shake the can again and fire at where i predict he’s going to be. Direct hit. I watch the roach run around for a bit when suddenly he stops moving, curls into the fetal position, and dies. I grab its corpse with a paper towel and throw it into the trashcan.