that when i lived in TO I had pictures of BC on my electronic devices
and living in BC, I have pictures of TO.
but that doesn't make it any easier
so long, overseer of spadina- from your sturdy vinyl chair on the other side of your glass paned door. Who'll replace you? Jacob's bikes/other stolen goods? hardlyvintage clothes shopping in kensington with A
maybe it's the music (the tough alliance. 2007/08 staple) or maybe it's the double gin with a splash of tonic I just downed, but I feel like I lost a part of me when I left Toronto. nostalgia's a bitch
ps. sorry sorry hed for being late tonight
i remember when snow used to make me feel all excited fluttery in my stomach.
Toronto changed that. and yes talking about how I hate toronto winters is one of my favorite topics.
this actually looks pretty great:
I wonder what these do:
i let coke slowly ooze through my backpack and onto my laptop. shiiit.
because I work with/for kensington good old boys, my boss knew of a guy who'd take a look at it, and another guy who'd give me half price parts if it was fried.
buddy cleaned it out and ta-da almost like new!
Im really going to miss working at the centre of the universe (and i dont mean the victoria observatory. I love having a boss that says 'yous guys' and his best friend that repeatedly offered to pour bags of contrete mix down my toilets when i was having landlord troubles.
I'll miss all the kensington stories of family feuds, who wronged who, who gives blow jobs for pocket change, who that drunk guy yelling on the streets is, and most of all
meeting so many people who are going out of their way to live a life they love.
Im not even sure I remember why I'm leaving, but the howling wind and frosty streets refresh my memory.
Last night I went for a little good-bye dinner of lattkes with kt. we finished with fortune cookies, which I was eager to read as my future is currently blank. get this: my fortune cookie contained no fortune! Katie does what she does best and tried to put a positive spin on it, which I wasn't buying- especially when her fortune read something like 'ignorance isn't always bliss'.
for anyone in TO interested that reads this today,Im sure Ill be doing some heavy drinking tonight in the generally college and spadina vicinity. exactly when, where and whom with (GR?) is unclear. oh! Jay Spectre and Run with the Kittens tonight at horseshoe right? hmmm.
craigslist rideshare post
best case scenario: dude is going to Ottawa for the sole purpose of offering people a ride so he'll have human contact beyond the 5 strained minutes with the pizza guy and the unnecessary brush-ups against commuters on the subway.
they sell cards made out of macaroni, faded bottles of perfume whose name involves the phrase "if you liked ____, you'll love ____!", oven mitts, and jeans that accommodate a healthy gunt
The dad store sells golf ball cleaning devices, humour ties, socks, and bbq accessories kits.
For Christmas I once gave my mom potpourri (she hates the stuff) I bought at a rummage sale. used potpourri. I seem to remember dyed wood chips being in the mix.
Another time, I gave my dad the ENTIRE PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION as a souvenir. oh lord.
So I'm dogsitting, and the dog is charming but a little nervous. A medium-large dog. Rufus. Two nights ago: Even though the apartment was super hot, I decided to stay the night with him. good thing. at 1:00am Big-D called me. After talking for a while, Rufus started freaking out, but I thought it was from my talking. nope. massive liquid diarrhea all over the floor.
An excerpt from the email I sent Big-D the next day-
oh lord. So last night after cleaning up the puddle of shit, I took Rufus the dog out for a little walk, in case he needed to do another. he did. It was good that it was 130 am so that the world didnt have to watch my dog liquid shit (I would have just muttered how it isnt my dog, which I did when he peed on someones bike). It was bad that it was 130am because I stupidly went out braless in my slinky sleep tank top. Middle of parkdale at 130 am is not the time to be wearing that unless you are looking to score crack at a discount.
I thought last night was bad. this morning Rufus fucking left a puddle of shit on the carpet! so so so much worse! the sounds it makes coming out of his ass will haunt me forever. I had planned on nutella for breakfast (I kid you not).... but after spreading over my toast, I couldn't bring myself to touch it.
Falling asleep in a haze of shit smell was not fun. There were several more puddles of poo after that, but all outside thank god. So the world did get a chance to watch the dog liquid shit after all. I won't get into the logistics of dealing with that. I've already gone into way too much detail.
ok, I'm busy busy, but I can spare 5 while the dishes soak. My super cool cousin and her boyfriend were in town from BC this weekend. Me: Swearing up and down the whole time the the weather isn't usually like this(cold and rainy); in my experience, a shakey sentiment at best in any location.
At The Red Room, we had a table near the stairs to the washroom [ever notice that every Toronto bar has their washrooms at the bottom of a steep and rickety set of stairs?]. A rat, not a mouse, a huge fucking rat comes running up the stairs and under the shoe of the nearest fella. I made large hand gestures and unintelligible half words, it fled back down the abysss before anyone else saw. It made another appearance as I was leaving the washroom, this time another girl was there to witness it too. I'm a social shrieker- I do it if everyone else is doing it. She did it. I did it. I always get embarrassed at my primal girly scared sounds. but there it was.
Just as I was trying to convince myself that the Red Room beer taps were clean enough to get draught from without getting doubly hung the next day. Alas, the next day beer shits, along with the rat, indicated otherwise.
oh wow, I just got back from the Annex, where there was a shooting! I was dancing with headphones through the isles of dominion when it happened but I walked out and CHAOS. The road was closed from Spadina until past Brunswick, tons of police cars. A shooting! in the Annex! The annex is like the Victoria of Toronto. it was outside (or in, dont know) the Brunny (if the annex is victoria, the brunswick house is legends). A lot of confused girls and boys decked out in their brunny wear, not sure what to do next. I'm sure soon enough there'll be a stream of cabs ushering them to Richmond Street. Cantina Charlies or something. I've never been there, but I bet that people who go to Cantina Charlies foam parties also go to the Brunny. oh ho ho how superior I am.
gross it is so muggy out. I walked to King and Bathurst and by the time I got there I had this sharp pain in my chest, from the smog I'm sure. At Spadina and Queen, the CN tower (a 10 minute walk away) was hazy, faded and hard to see.
gross gross.
in the summer, it is fresh air I miss the most.
oh also I've developed this sort of masochistic love of chinatown in the summer. so packed with people. so noisy. so stinky. so stifling. it doesn't get more Toronto.
oh, the sketchy place.. I totally meant Suba, that second floor club that always has leerers and women dressed for 30 degree weather standing outside smoking all year round. Ive never actually been inside though. The Savannah Room on the other hand offers 3 dollar pints before 9pm, real cowhide barstools and improv nights- which I should check out. even without the sandwich board telling me so, I can always tell an improv night because there is at least one cocky overweight guy standing outside talking loudly, and a couple of guys pacing in the nearby alley, throwing lines at each other.
that is all
you know those things in magazines where they compare two people or things based on a bunch of categories and who wins for each? huh? ya know? well I've pretty much been doing that with Toronto and Vancouver for the past 6 years. Here is the latest:
Toronto: epic summer Thunder Storms with heavy rain you can run around in
vs
Vancouver: Grey cold and drizzley, generally with no end in sight
clearly the wins goes to Toronto for this one.
As Alicia and I sat down to our pints on the patio of Ronnie's last night, the downpour began and we all had to run inside. The patio holds about twice as many people as the bar, so it was packed but since we had seats it was just fine with me.
I wrote this at about 12:30 last night and didn’t post.
I’m pretty sure I just saw a prostitute finish off a blow job in the front seat of a car parked on College Street. College Street! Right by Spadina. Not a surprising area, but geez, even at midnight on a Monday it is never quiet enough for a discreet in-car bj. Maybe the dude didn’t feel like having to navigate the maze of one-way side streets (where I live), or maybe the working lady wanted to stay on a main road for safety reasons. Or maybe she didn’t want to have to walk all the way back to her spot.
Maybe it wasn't a blow job at all and she was just getting a map out of the glove compartment. Located in his lap. And that still wouldn’t explain the tell tale post bj swipe of the corners of her mouth.
And just maybe she wasn't doing it for money; they could have been patrons of the perma-sleazy Savannah Room which is just steps away from the car. But I’m pretty sure I saw her in a car with another man about 2 hours earlier.
gosh I love to speculate
It was just so damn conspicuous
Went to Pacific Mall for the first time. Friend summed it up perfectly: Chinatown in a box. oh, but minus that horrible fishy-death smell, hooray. It's out in the 905s... where, I'm not sure, things get pretty fuzzy for me once highways are involved. I live steps from 'real' Chinatown, but this was fun. Pirated DVD stores a-plenty, better selection than the guys selling them on a blanket on the sidewalk. The only thing I bought was delicious bubble tea and a terrible Sweet & Sour noodle dish that made me really really sleepy.
It was embarrassing when I approached some lady in a uniform who I thought was offering free samples of walnut cakes (Korean potato stuffed donut type things. delish).. I asked where I could buy the walnut cakes, started to reach for one before I saw her look of horror and luckily stopped before things got too too humiliating. I got a good look at the container and it turns out she was holding her lunch of mystery meatballs. oh god.
Never did get the walnut cakes. I live 15 minutes from Little Korea, home to the best walnut cake shop in town, so there.
oh! I also bought a box of 'Winter Pocky'. If you only ever buy one kind of premium Pocky, make it Winter Pocky!
So apparently while I was gone, it turned to full on spring in Toronto! right on. these days when I leave it is kensington I miss the most. I have about one more day of not being busy so I better make the most of it. puttering time!
ugh nyahnsn[stryi.
last exam (not ever, sadly) at 9 this morning, running on 3 hours sleep and not a lot the nights before. Finished 15 minutes early, walked out and sat in the sun across the street and listened to this (give it a chance).
Smoked a much deserved joint, waited for my friend to finish and listened to this. sun soaked and high by 11:11am. lovely.
We ended up stuffing ourselves with beer and food at sneeky dees. Yum. actually don't bother with the guac and cheese omelette. Suddenly it was 4pm and we were sorta drunk, talking too loudly and crudely. I heard about this thing going on around the corner from my place- a garage sale held by the cobrasnake?!? (sort of epicentre and early player in the sceney hipster world). I was just drunk enough to suggest we go watch the people and make fools of ourselves... but when we got to the place we saw the most obnoxious ridiculous hipster uniforms standing around outside, being seen and it was all too much... had a good long belly laugh and kept on walking. we both needed to pee for the millionth time anyway.
Came home fell asleep and now I feel like shitey shite mcshiterson
oh. god. turns out it is hosted/associated/circle jerked by the band I am supposed to see tonight. I don't think this is going to happen. I think I might just watch a few episodes of The Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and fall asleep in a pile of my own superiority.
I think I need to work on limiting the amount of parentheses I use.
I always forget how great it is to go to Kensington market in the morning. A few of the benefits:
-The day old bread at My Market Bakery still has a worthwhile selection. Big bag of still soft garlic cheese bread, bagels and multigrain baguette for a buck!
-No line at the cheese shop(s). One of the cheese shops seems to exclusively hire cute scruffy guys (ie exactly my type), but I generally forgo that in favour of the one with the older guys who are happy to discuss and recommend cheese and offer you a million different slices to try before you decide.
-The oddball singing lady is usually there in the mornings. She sings all of yesterdays hits, off tune, off key and off rhythm. It sort of works, but maybe I just think that because she sounds so much like me singing. Today her fake microphone was a carrot and she was wearing a new looking mumu on top of her 'regular' clothes. She was singing Time After Time. Her sign said WANTED: A job in children's television.
- I can take my time shopping for sunglasses and hogging the mirror
-Apparently this is the time of day when my favorite bulk store brother gets high and listens to Neil Young while restocking! oh- note that I literally mean brother. There are like 6 of them that run the place.
-The fish shops odor is less pervasive
