What do you get when jack frost and a snowman have a love child?

A Montreal winter.

Things are, well, cold. Montreal cold. Fucking cold. I've fallen on my ass twice since winter started, but I seem only to do so when I have some sort of shopping bag in my hands. The gods of revolution biting me in the ass for buying shit? They were just groceries I swear! Anyway, this is my second winter in Muntreal and fourth semester at Concordia. This means I've lived here for a year and a half. In that time I've managed to make several good friends, two of which (arguably the two most important, one lover, one buddy) have up and left for the tropics of for six months. The audacity. If only I had it. It makes me wish I wasn't in school so I could work as much as I needed to and take off when I had the cash. The other complication is that living in Canada as a non French speaking (gulp) American means I'm on a visa and don't have all the work privileges of a Canadian. I was thinking about getting my permanent residency once I graduate, but then again, I don't even know if I want to live in North America, or any America for that matter. Thats still a complicated matter that will require some thought over the next year or so.

So, I'm here for the winter with tons of reading to do and my two bestest buds off on their own adventures. I should probably make the best of having a lot more alone time without a love to spend it with but I can't help but feel the melancholy eating at my joints like some old lady with arthritis. So I've set ten goals/important things to do for myself:

1. Learn to play that goddamn guitar before Bo comes back and claims that I didn't learn, and steals it back from me
2. Start writing seriously and send things to publishers
3. Make some more stuffed animals and sell them this spring at the Tams for extra ca$h
4. Go on my own adventure (West Coast??) this coming May and June. Anyone want to join me/meet me there/let me sleep on their couch?
5. Find a smaller apartment by July
6. Keep up with the avalanche of school work that has descended on my head since Monday
7. Start taking pictures again
8. Save as much money as possible
9. Keep organized
10. Stay positive through this goddamn miserable winter
    

So now I'm going to hobble off to read about a 19th century french hermaphradite for my Gender and Sexuality in Literature class. If anyone is interested, it's a memoir written by Herculine Barbin, translated by Foucault after the former's suicide. It's called "Hurculine Barbin." The story is, she was born and designated a girl, raised as a girl and then began to show "tendancies." The law then declared that she was he and our poor hero(ine) could not cope with the change in lifestyle. Pretty interesting, a bit erotic and medically graphic. I'm enjoying it.

I also cut my bangs today in a fit of wanting change and I must say they look pretty bangin'.

Okay Montreal, stay warm.