I write this, true blogger style, sitting at a table in a café in Montreal . As a matter of fact, it is one of my three most favored things about Montreal , and it almost makes me want to move here, I like this place so much. It’s called Commencal, spelled with a cedil on the c.

Anyway, I just finished up some shallots and seitan, hikijiki, baby spinach etc., and now the lunch crowd is thinning out. I am feeling better, not that I was ill, but on the way over here I had to pee so badly I thought I might die. That’s on account of my drinking a ton of water, which I never do in real life, but somehow I got the idea that when traveling the only way to stay healthy is to drink a lot of water. I haven’t gotten sick, but I have had to pee quite frequently. When discussing prostate health, we call that Urgency.

So I’m here to tank up, because traveling is murder on eating well, and last night, around midnight in the airport, I was trying to choose between the sulfur dioxide of the apriocots and the hydrogenated oils on the cashews, since the Chili’s Too was out of the question.

I know comic riffs on fast food in airports are a little unnecessary, but I have to say that I was almost going to go for it last night, until I noticed the squeal of mayo eeking out the cellophane of the sandwich. And by sandwich I mean a gelid bread like glop with rubber turkey slices on it, piled in a stack of identical sandwiches, different only in how much mayo was oozing out from the packaging.

You know, speaking of real blogging, I kind of wish I was. At least if my site were called something other than my name, then I could be free to tell you the truth, instead of the warmed over pack of lies I have to stick to here. But without spilling the beans on what you are missing, let me say this about that: Often the most interesting things I have going on or hear about are for one reason or another not suitable for this forum, as they would get me fired, or killed, or make someone upset.

I know it is only self censorship, but I may have to spin off a new anonymous site, for all the good stuff where I can speak my mind without fear of reprisals on such verboten blind items as

What starlet got her sidekick hacked, containing the number of the mayor of which city, which—oh never mind. The rumor I was going to tell you is that Gavin Newsom is gay, but really, who cares about him?

Whose boss’s life partner and me have begun a lively email pen pal relationship?

Whose upstairs neighbor is going to get a zotz in the kishkes if he doesn’t stop playing his stupid video games late at night with the subwoofer pointed at the floor, which is my ceiling. Oops. I blew that one.

BREAKING NEWS!

The woman next table over just got the manager because someone stole her bag! She is upset! In French! Now that, for instance, is the kind of news you’d never get from a guy typing in his house, in his underwear, which is what I wear when I type at the computer, since I mostly do it first thing in the morning. And I’ll tell you another sort of coincidence. The last time I was in Montreal , the woman I was with got her wallet stolen out of her purse while we ate dinner. So I am keeping my eye out while I type this. There was just a court case up here where some Skinheads got acquitted from a case of a hate crime, where they held signs that said Gypsies Go Home to fend off some Czech immigrants. So a higher court overturned the acquittal and reopened the case. The gypsies, who prefer to be called Roma, made a point to the court that Roma are not the same cultural or ethnic group called gypsies, and that in either case the Czech weren’t Roma or gypsy. All of which I find oddly satisfactory, in that it satisfies a part of me schooled on the Kurt Vonnegut Jr. School of ironic smirky meaninglessness in the universe. But Montreal , though a beautiful city, it full of Gypsy beggars, just like the real France . And it would appear, pick pockets as well.

It is also -15C outside, which is bracing, but not nearly as bad as it was two nights ago, when it got down to -34C. Knowing that, I got it squarely into my head that if I didn’t constantly drink bottles of water, I was bound to get a cold, which explains all the peeing.

All that said, it’s almost time for me to go back out in the cold, and times like this do so make me regret having lost my beloved shpotziring hat, which I bought in Spain .