Popingay

Bonjour Bitches: The gayest cowboy since Brokeback Mountain

Being born and raised in a city whose main source of pride is the annual largest rodeo in the world, you can say that being a cowboy is in my blood. If by being a cowboy you mean putting on a pink cowboy hat, getting wasted, and making out with guys. I am determined to bring more gay to cowboys than the release of Brokeback Mountain.

Which is why, when our Montreal school-sanctioned activity for the evening promised a trip to Rodeo Rock’n’Bull, I felt compelled to go there and defend my cowboy honour. Only hours before I had another one of my, I suppose you could say, “episodes”. Thankfully I wouldn’t be alone in defending my redneck roots as the all-fabulous Kaitlin in my program hailed from Northern Alberta, and was further into redneck territory than I could ever go. She’s the Patsy Montana to my Dolly Parton (or whatever the hell analogy fits in here—I assume since country music doesn’t qualify as legitimate music, my thirty-second Google search was enough).

What we would find out is that a Quebecois rodeo was kind of like the Epcotting of our Western roots in that it’s a close approximation that was completely hilarious to us. (If you want a similar experience, visit your country’s pavilion in Disney World; seriously, you won’t stop laughing).

If you wanted, you could proudly take a photo of you riding a cow. On a saddle. Like a horse. Because apparently there was a shortage of horses, and cows were the next best thing. And the food proudly featured Quebec staples of beaver tails and poutine, which had as much relevance to country-western cuisine as fois gras.

I was, however, really excited to show off my near-mastery of the Cadillac Ranch line dance that was driven into my brain in childhood gym classes, only to find that the open and exhibition line-dance areas were actually people doing the Electric Slide to Ricky Martin. I don’t even have a witty comment on that, I’m just as confused as you are.

Perhaps the highlight of the night, though, had everything to do with the prominent, centrally-located mechanical bull that was open for riding and gave me the chance to satisfy my every Coyote Ugly dream (that’s a country-esque reference, right? Wow I’m bad at this). Because this got to happen:

 Making the world’s worst o-face, and, for the first time, not riding a penis.

I’d like to believe I successfully defended my cowboy heritage by not being thrown off a bucking mechanical bull immediately, and I lasted long enough to go up a couple levels of crotch-smashing delight.

But at the end of the day, my inability to string together even the most basic of country-western jokes proves that I am much better suited to riding cowboys than being one.

Bonjour Bitches: Mute, drunk, & disorderly conduct; or, public unconsciousness

Within two days of arriving in Montreal I lost my voice. It remains to be determined whether it was the result of simple laryngitis or oral gonorrhoea (I put it at a 50-50 chance of either). However, embarking on a five-week adventure to learn and practice French seems a little ridiculous when you are barely capable of speech and sound somewhere between a 14-year-old boy going through puberty and a diner waitress who chain-smoked for the greater part of 50 years and refers to everyone as “sug”. It was quite pathetic actually. I had a squeak of a voice, and oral activities in class became me gesticulating wildly while making French-like whispers.

I did end up harbouring a secret fantasy of going around Montreal pretending to be a deaf-mute and thereby no longer obligated to practice French as much as possible since my French knowledge at the start of the program amounted to being able to ask for a drink and telling people to go fuck themselves—which in actuality are my two most commonly spoken phrases anyway.

I soon came to the compromise of writing a text in French (being a good little student and all) on my phone, and showing it to people to communicate. It was highly ineffective, and I briefly considered investing in a chalkboard strung around my neck.

Our first weekend after a school-sanctioned activity, our new Quebec buddies were up for some night-on-town madness and took a few of us to a Quebecois bar in the Old Town with an amazing cover band who seriously covered The Black Eyed Peas while making them sound good. There was a considerable amount of beer downed while we danced around in front of the stage, joined in a giant conga-line that stretched around the entire bar started by our little Quebec guide and her roommate, and watched while the two of them threw popcorn at each other on the dance floor. Basically the most fun I’ve had while unable to talk and listening to music that, 50% of the time, I could only partially understand the lyrics to.

However it would all go so horribly, horribly wrong.

There are several major milestones when drinking:

1. When you first feel the buzz.
2. When you’re past driving and basic inhibition limits.
3. When you’ve decided to fuck everything and just get wasted.
4. When you’ve crossed an invisible line and nothing will be right again.

While downstairs in the washroom I crossed that fourth line. The whole room spun around in a whir of colours, terrifying dizziness, and near-fainting, and I knew that I had to go. Not in a little bit, not after the next song. I had to fucking go right now because I had totally lost my shit.

As an experienced heavy drinker I was surprised I’d hit this line (I’m usually quite resilient), but in Quebec beer is the drink du jour and I was (at the beginning of the trip) an inexperienced beer drinker and severely misjudged my limits.

I ran upstairs and wrote a text that I had to go this second, I was fine, and I would find my way home. Amazingly I had the wherewithal to write a sensible French message (part of my theory that drinking vastly improves my French ability—more on this another time), and showed it to everyone. They were a bit concerned, but I waved it off and stumbled out the bar and into a cab.

In the cab I felt a familiar rumbling and knew that I would be sick. At this point the cab driver kicked me out of the cab after five minutes of driving to my residence (because he was a jackass and because I had lost the ability to see anything but desperate paths to vomit) and I stumbled out of the cab directly into traffic before finding my way to the sidewalk and getting my bearings. (If you think I may have an alcohol problem, this moment may end up in a letter you read to me while sitting around a circle with my loved ones—I actually didn’t end up vomiting when out of the cab, but I may vomit if you try that intervention bullshit on my ass.)

Now I knew two things:

1. I had no fucking idea where in the hell I was.
2. I was terrified I’d be picked up by the cops for being ridiculously drunk in public, unable to defend myself because my French is awful, and I had no voice even if I wanted to try.

My thought process went something like: “shit, fuck, motherfucking son of a bitch fuck what the hell do I—aaah!” as I noticed a couple of cop cars driving by. In retrospect their sirens were on and they probably had better things to do (like fight crime) than notice me, but I was scared nonetheless, and I had a sudden bolt of brilliance. I knew how to solve both my problems at once.

Because in front of me was a large city map that you find scattered about Montreal on the sidewalks. I could simultaneously find out where I was and how to get home, and hide behind it from the police (for some, still inexplicable to me, reason I thought the police were watching me).

The problem was that I couldn’t see straight for the life of me, and I was still paranoid about getting arrested in my first week in Montreal. So I did what any sensible person would do:

I smashed my face right up against the map.

With one eye closed I could make out details of the map, and as I rubbed my face around to figure out where I was, I finally put together both my current location, and how to get home, which, thankfully, was only about a 7-minute walk. After figuring that out, I seemed to have exhausted what little brain-power I had left, and I then woke up a few minutes later with my face against the map. Let me repeat that:

I passed out standing with my face mashed into a tourist map on the street.

Thankfully it was only for a few minutes, and thankfully I was not robbed, raped, or arrested. I stumbled home learning a valuable lesson about misjudging your limits with an alcohol you’re not overly familiar with.

I would end up going out the next night with reckless abandon (a story for another time), but by the end of the trip I learned to handle beer as well as I did any of my usual liquors, and I knew that I could bounce back from absolutely everything because fuck you alcohol, that’s why. You may have won this battle, but I most definitely won the war.

Eating ice cream in public makes me feel violated

It’s no big secret that I’m not good with heat. I don’t mind the occasional warm weather, but what I’m talking about is heat-wave-old-people-and-children-dying-oh-my-god-can’t-I-just-die-Hell-must-be-cooler heat. Which for whiny, heat-sensitive me is anything over 20 degrees Celsius. Anything in the hot or humid range turns me into a sweat-monster who soaks through all his clothes and desperately fans himself with such pathetic instruments as his iPod—anything for the slightest breeze.

It’s no wonder, then, that a summer/travel staple is the ice cream shop. I love ice cream. Fucking love it. If I were given free access to an ice cream shop I would eat the shit out of it faster than the subject of an oral sex joke about lady-bits.

So why does ice cream leave me feeling distinctly dirty when eaten outside the comforting confines of my home when I’ve recently faced romantic rejection? It’s because I feel as though I’m being either privy to someone’s most intimate moments between someone’s mouth and genitals, or I’ve let them be privy to mine.And I’m not one to judge the sexual proclivities of others, but surrounded by a gaggle of international and sweaty tourists is not the place for that business.

I want you to think about the way you eat an ice cream cone—particularly if it’s the extra-tall spirally kind of soft serve. How do you eat it? There seem to be three schools of ice-cream eating thought (which I think may be a direct reflection on the eater’s oral sex competency):

1. The Blowjob
   This person sucks on the cone as though it’s a penis and the creamy white goodness is worth the languid, full-mouth stimulation. [I’m of this school. Guess why.]
2. The Licker
   Perhaps the most common representation in cartoons because it would otherwise look pretty obscene and difficult to explain to ratings boards. Still, it’s a fine way to eat the cone, especially should there be any dripping down the sides. [I have a terrible deformity in shape of the shortest tongue in the world and so find myself deprived of this joy. Thank god no one expects cunnilingus out of me.]
3. The Biter
   Although the most efficient way of getting as much ice cream in your mouth at once, its oral sex implications worry me.

No matter which way you like it, you still look like you’re making sweet, sweet oral love to your dessert, and although I might think it’s pretty great to watch some attractive Euro boy go at it in the street (or whatever you like), the general ratio between people you find attractive and those you don’t skews very much to the 1:100 range, and as a result you people you find no attraction to, old people, family, and children all partaking in this, and that’s just really uncomfortable (though if you’re attracted to any of these groups, just leave them out of the list—except children and family, you monster).

It really only gets worse when you’re talking popsicles, because giving a confectionary blowjob is really the only way to eat it. In fact, of those things that, when looking back on it, probably indicated my fabulousness, next to me idolizing She-Ra and secretly believing that I would one day be a Sailor Scout (the Sailor Moon Stars series left me believing that boys too can become magical, ass-kicking princess in mini-skirts—shut up), it was definitely popsicles that hinted to my future love of cock. I remember really enjoying deep-throating popsicles as a kid. I liked it going down the back of my throat and being all juicy and sweet. And I’m sure that some future Freudian therapist will look at this and promptly declare me some sort of terrible sexual deviant.  Which would be a pretty accurate description.

But since ice cream and popsicles aren’t going anywhere as I slowly melt into a puddle formerly called human, I guess I’ll have to put up with the scary public porniness of it all. And enjoy those few who pull it off.