Airport run

Montreal is now having its second worst summer since records began. Temperatures are 8c lower than usual. The sky is unusually grey and more and more storms keep thundering through; bringing masses of moisture as they do. Into this washout arrive our friends Gareth and Amy; and luckily they're people who really know how to entertain themselves... as we won't be around for bits of their trips and the city is doing all that it can to stop them venturing outside.

But I've set them a couple of 'go order a French breakfast, en Francais" tests and challenges and I'm sure that they'll rise to them. Must go and collect them, and then jet off myself

Photos to follow..

A weird feel in the city

New York is hot and it smells of sweat and garbage. But that's not the funk that seems to be in the air. The city that was defined by frivolous consumption now seems ill at ease with the very idea of ease itself... sitting awkwardly at pavement cafe tables suddenly very self aware. It's as though everyone here caught a glimpse of just how ridiculous their life had become and suddenly become self-aware... unable to relax back into the mode of 'all is good here in the greatest city in the nation'

It's not the hangover I'd been told to expect, it's a clumsy, awkwardness. As though the whole city is looking for a new definition of what constitutes an acceptable good time. If it's not Carrie and the Girls then it's what? who?

Californian cities get to keep their identities as laid back, creative and hippy
Seattle and Portland get to keep crustiness
The midwest gets to wallow in the decline of the rustbelt
While Miami maintains its sass and Latin spirit
And Boston still has its university

But what of New York - that small island off the coast of America that has lived as the amplified spirit of unconscious consumption? What does New York do now?

It's a question that seems to be being asked in the awkwardness I see all around me...
Answers on a postcard please

Highlights / Lowlights

Our friends Gareth and Amy are coming to stay later this week - which is of course the cue for me to start looking at the weather, checking out new and cool places, feeling responsible for their every second in town and generally fretting over all of the things that I can't affect... or effect... I think that it's the former... we shall see. Anyway I'm trying to relax and I have some work (my first since December) to distract me. So all is good there.

The good thing is that G&A (A&G sounds too financial) are pretty good at entertaining themselves...

Anyway they've been doing a lessons learned from their HIGHLIGHTS and LOWLIGHTS thing on their blog recently and it started me thinking. What have been my highlights/ lowlights over the last couple of years. And the weird thing is that there seem to be more of them since 2006 than I can remember in the previous decade.

I'm spinning this toward being a sign of real positive growth. Of being more aware and more in touch with my emotions than I have been previously, of the thick lacquer of British reserve cracking some under the strain of life... but it could just be that I'm bipolar and in need of a litany of medication available only in North America.

So without further ado here are my lessons learned of late


NO EXPERIENCE CHANGES YOU UNLESS YOU ALLOW IT TO

People believe that Cancer makes you wise. That walking up to the precipice of the valley of death, having a good old peer over and then deciding to bungee that than jump right now makes you somehow wiser. The truth is it first makes you wise, then smug and then you forget all about it and turn back into the asshole you always were. This process takes about 6 weeks. Unless you decide to not only look for enlightenment - but to implement some changes to. It took me 3 years to do that. But finally I feel as though I have.


PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN ANYTHING

I've always been one for jettisoning people as we moved to the next place and the next adventure. It's not a deliberate thing but new cities throw up new challenges and bring new people into your life and before you know it you're thinking - "whatever happened to whatersface?" Which of course is a recipe for unhappiness. What matters are the people around you. Do everything you can to keep close to your friends (Facebook helps enormously) and you won't go far wrong


SOME PEOPLE ARE EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES

If you surround yourself with the kind of people who are without a spark for life it's easy to get sucked into the moshpit of misery. They'll suck you dry and then move onto the next person with their low energy, their lack of belief and their motivation-less wandering. If you have a friend who brings you down tell 'em so.. if that doesn't work... boot 'em to the sidewalk. The occasional complaint is fine, decades in the doldrums ain't


LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE

I lived in a town where the weekend highlight was a tour of the municipal dump. I did what I could to make the most of it, but ultimately it was an uphill struggle... and you want to have your breath taken by awe and beauty, not by struggle and the constant quest to find something to do. So do what you can to love where you live. And if it feels hard more often than it feels freeing - get on a Greyhound and head on out (be careful not to get beheaded though)


BOUNCE

It's good to bounce. To be childlike. To be free. To not care. So bounce. Do new things with enthusiasm. Sing too loudly. Jump in with both feet. Commit. Be silly. Wear something age inappropriate. Enjoy not caring. And do it with other people who don't eaither. Life's too short to be adult all of the time.


GET FIT and LEARN A LANGUAGE

It'll help you think. It will get you laid. It will stave off Alzheimers. It WILL get you laid.


More tomorrow.... gonna go throw Pizza Sauce at Jude now...