naomi lee

After my freshman year of university I moved out of residence and into a building that was located literally 50 paces from the front gates of McGill. The 1915 neo-classical limestone building was 10 floors of hedonistic anarchy (because I lived there) and pretty much hasn’t been renovated since. The elevator, which we aptly named “death trap” was one of those gated things the size of a fridge. It took like 20 minutes just to make it up to the second floor, on a good day. It sucked ballz pretty hard.

In any case, 900 Sherbrooke was home to MANY naïve hosebags from all over zee world.

I myself lived in Chateau Nassau for the next 8 years in not one but four different apartments. A girl needs variety you knowz.

Each apt I called home was vastly different from each other. One apt. would have absolutely no sunlight and another would come with persian rugs, roof terrace privileges and a piano in the foyer. Living in a 4 bedroom condo for 8 years basically amounts to having a shit load of roommates. People graduate, some sublet for just the summer or others coupled up and got their own little humble abode. For me, if memory serves me, I think I had about 30+ roommates by the time I left. Most of them were amazeballs, some were lamesauce. But a few rare ones were hosebags, MY hosebags.

This one magical year, a rag tag group of us became super tight seemingly over night. Maybe it was our mutual love for Mortal Kombat or Danish people and tequila. Perhaps it was the hot tub parties or late nights playing Taboo. We were deemed “Friends” (gone horribly awry) but hell, it was good times. Basically we were two different apartments that sort of merged. 4 guys and 4 girls and a few worthy alternates. We have since grown the fuck up and are all either pursuing graduate degrees, getting engaged, working for the man, having babies, etc,etc cry me a river. But to relive the hosebag days, we have a reunion once a year with a minimum of 3 -4 of us at any given time. 2009 was Montreal, 2010 will be India and 2011 is looking like it’ll be Norway. Youpiee!

Let me introduce you to my hosebag gang:

K-Dawg – West coast beauty who loved skater boyz and gin & tonics. She’s statuesque but approachable. Her laugh is infectious and she always belts out Pearl Jam and U2 using her hand as her microphone. I love this girl to death, she’s my number one hosebag.

Fitta Faun - Norwegian, blonde, mild mannered, obscenely polite and ALWAYS on time. She is also quite the charmer. She thought K-Dawg and I were lazy bitches that didn’t clean the apt enough but when you say it in cute Norwegian accent, how could you not melt?

Port Hardy – Is a sweet, tall white girl from a small town in BC. She liked hockey, beer, rough housing and South America. She also talked a lot of smack, so she fit right in. And yes, my nick name for her was white girl.

Louuuuuie - Formidable varsity athletic, bright and apt engineer, has totally Step Up moves (yes Channing Tatum!) (looks cooler than it sounds) and was my guy BFF. He’s the one that got me into photography and we’re both Capricorns and Capricorns rule!

Mrinal – Fucking Mrinal. He was a sloth that lived on my sofa for months gorging on junk food whilst waiting for his work Visa to come through. That being said, he’s a funny fucker with great jokes, extremely generous and always out for a good time. Also he was the coolest mathematician I know.

Yvey Poo – Yvey Poo is special. I call him the man-boy, the European man-boy. In a certain light I guess you could say he was sophisticated, debonair even. He spoke English and French but could read in German. But in the hosebag light, he was always hungry, always looking for booze and loose women. Typically two beers away from being gay, this French/Vietnamese enigma is my brother from another mother.