wildcat

THe weekend in Vancouver for Matthew's film, Keywords: trying to get on to the 7pm ferry, we got to Schwartz Bay early and ended up on the 5pm ferry, which wasn't loading until we got there at 6pm. It left at 6:30. Too much time spent in the eerie stench of the Ladner Exchange (there's nothing there but a bus exchange!), followed by a vomit-drenched bus ride with a bunch of carousing teenagers. At least we didn't have to pay, because apparently the fare box was "smoking." We saw no smoke. Immediately, I developed a weird acne derivative on my eyelid; I suspect it was induced by the pollution in the air, actually. As a side note, the human eyelid is suspiciously similar to the human foreskin. Anyway, we went and met up with Andrew Smart at the train station and went back to his house in Gastown.

After that, we met up with Brown, and some guy named Aaron (who was typically from Prince George and strangely coated in pink). We met up with Matthew and Gavin at this girl's house - her name was Carmell, and her house was an old S&M Dungeon slash brothel. The downstairs used to be used for tying men up to medical tables and beating them. The second floor has glass walls on one of the bedrooms so that you could watch bondage displays. Wine was consumed, witty Noel Coward banter went on, and later we left to go back to Andrew's to crash. Matthew wanted us to stay out with him and go to the Odyssey, but Michelle was crashing, and we were all more in the mood to relax.

Saturday: Tsunami Sushi for what amounted to brunch. I woke up at 7am that morning and produced to be a case of ADHD for no apparent reason. Everyone else got up at 10:30, and Andrew went to work. Tsunami was excellent, though; on our way there, the HEU strike parade followed us through the streets of Vancouevr and we then ate vast amounts of sushi. The sea urchin was terrible, though, and I don't care; no matter how sophisticated I get, I'll never enjoy that. Then we shopped, having only two hours to do it in before we had to start meeting up with people. This was a weird afternoon and can only be encapsulated in a silent film montage with rousing piano music, us chasing into various stores and eventually settling on Jupiter on Davie for a quick martini (which took forever to get). Dinner at some Italian restaurant in Kitsilano. Matthew's film, which was the cream of the crop, no bones about it. I was appalled at some of the shit coming out of UBC film school in comparison to, say, random films made in WRIT 320 here, which is only one class. The equipment was better, but in terms of ideas and basic things like strong cinematography? Pwah. Matthew's was astonishingly good, of course, and the awards afterward felt a little too political for my tastes.

Ended up at Andrew's place by 1:30 am, after four hours in the Gobi desert slash theatre, an hour and a half of drama at a local Greek restaurant, and two fucked up cab rides. The driver should never try to fill out the visa form while driving at 1 in the morning, downtown Vancouver, in the pouring rain. We drank two bottles of wine and went to bed at 3:30am.

Sunday, we were awakened by trains going by - Andrew lives by the tracks - a marathon, and some man shouting the Psalm about the Shadow of the Valley of Death at 9am. What? Eventually we got to Yaletown for a brunch with the boys at Melriches, which was fabulous, then a trip to Chapters. I bought Haroun and the Sea of Stories. We took off on the skytrain and started off for home.

It was good to be back in Victoria that night.