Night & Day: Two Views of Montreal

I started off the evening in clogs and super skinny jeans, a hotter look than you might think, at least according to the catcalling population of Little Burgundy. I was propositioned three times between the Metro and the Canal.

I was on my way to a 5 à 7 at the new loft of an old friend from back in the days when I worked in the corporate world. The party had a class reunion feel, aided and abetted by the retro look of the place. I wouldn’t have thought that an almost empty loft could look so eighties, but this one really did. That’s why my friend bought it. She’s going to renovate. And then she’s going to flip it, or so she says. The second story bedroom has cathedral ceilings and a 280-degree wrap-around deck. I might have a hard time selling such a stellar view.



The 5 à 7 turned into a 6 à 9. The blue sky turned grey, the wind came up and it started raining as I made my way up from the Canal to the Metro again. Clogs are really comfortable but super skinny jeans are only good for standing up in. I spent three hours on my feet talking to people I’d only just met or that I hadn’t seen in years, and occasionally confusing the two. By the time got home I was beat. But home was just a pit stop. I had to come up with a whole new outfit for my friend Sherwin’s birthday and head out again.



The outfit pressure was considerable. Dress up, Sherwin said. Wear something you wouldn’t normally wear. What wouldn’t I wear to a transvestite’s birthday party? I settled on motorcycle boots and a silver tube dress. On the 55 Bus back downtown there were a bunch of huge guys making a lot of noise. When I got up to get off one of them said: I wish this were our stop. It sounds dumb now but at the time I thought it was kind of sweet, a demure send off into the Saint-Laurent at Sainte-Catherine sleaze.



The only thing Sherwin’s birthday party had in common with the loft warming party was the eighties feel. Quite a few people took the dress-up theme down a sequined beaded fluorescent route. Not Sherwin though, he wisely stuck to a svelte little spaghetti-strapped black dress. I love it when the birthday boy has more cleavage than I do.



Oh, and it’s possible that both parties had glass coffee tables in the living room. At Sherwin’s, every now and then you’d hear the loud glass-on-glass smack of a very drunk person misjudging just where the glass might be and putting their beer bottle down way too hard, like a bird flying into a plate glass window.



There was a crazy view out the rear window. I’ve never seen those buildings out anyone’s window before, I said to a woman I’d just met. Oh they look all right from here, she replied. But up close? Whoa. Mexico City.



Waiting for the bathroom I met a girl who’d only been in Montreal for two weeks. She and her friends had just been walking down the street and someone invited them up. That keeps happening, she said. She looked all of 15 years old but somehow fit right into the eighties dance floor scene. I’ve been in Montreal for 17 years now and I sure am glad to have friends in high and low places. I’m not always sure which is which. Both have such great views.
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