Titan Lemonade

[hells_half_acre]

I finally made it up the mountain on Thursday. Unfortunately, it was the first cloudy day after a string of sunny days on which I should have gone. My pictures all turned out slightly hazy and monochromatic of course, but in an odd way I think it's fitting.

People keep telling me that it's easier to find a job if you have a job. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Everyone also tells me that I'll only find someone when I stop looking (then they complain that I don't go out enough, and how am I ever supposed to meet someone). It reminds me of Germany, where you need an address to get a student visa and you need a student visa to get an address.

Sometimes I feel like the working world is some sort of exclusive club. You need to be invited in before you can join. I'm not surprised really though - that's how I've felt about most every social institution or social group in the history of my life. Teenager-hood was something I was never invited into, not that I'm complaining, I honestly didn't want to belong back then. I'd have lost all self-respect. Oddly enough, university is one of the only places I've never felt out of place, at least not once I was passed first year. It's why I keep flip-flopping on the PhD thing. Whether for good reasons or not, I enjoy the slight elitism, I enjoy viewing society as if I'm not a member of it, I really enjoy going to random guest lectures and learning about things that I will never be able to use in "real-life" unless I want to alienate myself at social functions by being a know-it-all.

I feel kind of bad that it didn't work out in Montreal. When I was up on the mountain I looked at all those office buildings and wondered what goes on in them if there are no jobs available in the city. I pictured them all filled with call-centres and computer scientists, and every other profession that I've educated myself away from. We stood on the mountain and Gabe said that one of the buildings looked like a lemon juicer.

"That's where the Titans make their lemonade," he said, "on their way down the mountain."

"I think they'd probably make it before going up the mountain, that way they can have a little picnic at the top" I mused back. "I'm not sure I want to know where they get all the sugar though."

"It's that round building there. It has offices around the outside, but the inside is all filled with sugar."

"Ah," I said, "I wonder where they live."

"They come from the water" Gabe continued, "they live under the St. Lawrence"

"Where do they get the giant lemons? Do they have giant Titan greenhouses"

Gabe laughed as if I was being ridiculous.