Killing time...

an aside: <For those of you who know my character Eddie (my sweet alter-ego), 'Eddie' had to have a body scan dealie at the bus station in Ottawa (all the passengers did, not just me!), and Eddie, in good Eddie fashion, hammed it up...spread eagle in a nice theatrical pose while having that rod thing scan my body for weapons and such, while making funny faces at the other passengers. Even I was surprised that Eddie would come out to meet the security guards- gotta be careful!  The movie that we were going to make, 'Eddie goes to Cuba', has been put on hold, and in its place we'll document 'Eddie goes to Haiti'. >

And here I am at the airport in Montreal once again. I know this place only too well now. I caught a 3pm bus from Ottawa, and arrived here shortly after 5pm. I've walked the arrivals floor & departure floor a few times, pushing along my cart with my luggage, and am now sitting at a funky boulangerie. Well, I'm sitting outside of it, at this really cool and very high marble topped island- looks like it came out of an old restaurant or something- it would be an awesome surface for baking!

So, off to Haiti tomorrow morning, and this time, I'm going to spend the night in the airport (it's OK, my mom knows!), hopefully with Mme Clements & Fréda when they arrive on the 9 pm bus. There is a sad lack of comfortable chairs here, I've noticed. Perhaps they don't want to encourage overnight guests?! I'll be picked up at the airport in Port au Prince by some of my group members, and then we'll go build & plaster, finally.

In any case, on the bus trip here, I was trying hard not to look, but the guy sitting in front of me was texting a friend for the entire trip, while at the same time having a conversation with his friend beside him. His friend didn't seem to be the least bit offended that he was texting the entire time they were talking (to give him credit, at key moments, he looked at her and laughed or exclaimed quite appropriately!). Like I said, I wasn't intentionally setting out to read what he was texting, but it was just there, in plain view, a glowing distraction, so um, I glimpsed at it a bit at first, and then I realised I could easily read this one side of the conversation, which went something like:
You're just a regular girl who dreams of...
Awesome cup of soup or...
Chicken.
I know.
Sweet, enjoy.
U better.
Cool.
I would like some...
I think U do need some compliment (actually, he wrote complement)...
Ya I just care about U and hope UR happy.
Everything you could have hoped for? Still hungry?
GOD NO! Ha!
Yup, actually I'm not surprised. You eat a lot and you don't gain a pound. I'm jealous.
Yes, a good size, not grossly skinny, nor overly fat.
I'm serious.
Say, UR a pretty girl.
It's true, I'm lucky to know U...
I did not mean for you to be uncomfortable...
OK good!

Um, yup, I copied it out, just because I thought it would be kind of funny to get a series of one sided text conversations and do something with them. But the glare of the screen was bothering my eyes after awhile, and my attention started wavering, so I stopped with this one snippit of conversation. I felt a bit naughty for copying his words. It's kind of like when you're playing a game of cards, and the person beside you is holding their hand in such a way that you can see all of their cards...what to do?...why of course, take a peek. If they didn't want you to see them, they'd cover them, clearly. So, if anyone is looking over my shoulder while I type this, then of course, they are welcome to copy from me!

***As an aside, a security guard is behind me taking photos...he said he 'has' to take photos of the building. "Comme c'est bizarre, comme c'est curieux, et quel coincidence" (Ionesco, from La Cantatrice Chauve) Yikes, maybe they found out about my text-copying!

It's a curious thing to me, and while once upon a time I thought texting while talking was a generational thing I don't think it is...you've got your texters, and your basic non-texters (like me!). Texters young & old alike will sit there texting other friends while casually carrying on a conversation with real time friends sitting beside them. I can multi-task, actually I'm all for it...and I can carry on multiple chats online at a time (by multiple I mean two maximum...) but the texting while talking thing just isn't for me. Call me old-fashioned, or maybe a luddite (even though I'm not one!), but kind of like eye contact when having a person to person conversation.

Eavesdropping (eyedropping?) on this text conversation made me realise how many mundane conversations occur in this new way...Cool, neat, right, OK, gotcha, You bet, Hmmmm, and so on. So expressive, so eloquent! (OK, I'll admit it- I'm a terrible texter! It takes me forever to key in a simple sentence, and often after all that work I hit delete by accident and have to type it in all over again. I know, if I actually had a newer phone, with a keyboard on it, it would be a different story.

I have a book to keep my company tonight, entitled: Haiti, kenbe la, 35 secondes et mon pays a reconstruire. It's written by Rodney Saint-Élois, a Haitian author, about the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. I suppose it would have been good to read it sooner, but perhaps I'll devour a good chunk of it tonight. Luckily it's written in French, and not Creole, so it will be easier to understand, although I'm enjoying the smattering of creole words so far.