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Sorry for leaving the witty writing out of this one, dear reader, but it’s waaaay too hot to try thinking about words and stuff.

On Monday I spent the day in bed throwing up and nursing what I can only assume must’ve been heat stroke. Much of today was about basic, sweaty survival. An honest-to-goodness heat wave has settled over the city and even parading around completely naked in front of my front windows isn’t helping. Thanks for the suggestion, Pride folks, but it’s not as liberating as I’ve been led to believe.

The weather people say that my flat should stop being an oven by the end of the week. I’m afraid that in the meantime, by leaving my computer on for too long, I’ll be taking the temperature of my living room too close to the point of combustion. Basically, it’s not terribly conducive to either writing or photography (though there’s still plenty left from the G20 protests!) Plus, I’m still trying to deal with my no-means-of-income situation; that continues to eat up precious blogging time.

In the meantime, here’s the 2010 Pride Parade from Sunday. It’s now officially the world’s largest gay/lesbian/trans/etc./etc. parade. It used to be just LGBT but they added so many letters to the acronym this year that I’m just not going to bother taking it any further (there’s even a “25” in there somewhere!). If organizers can manage it, the world’s first international event will also be hosted here some time in the future. Sorry, Seattle. *snicker*

Not much else to say; it was hot, fun, and those Queers Against Israeli Apartheid people just couldn’t keep away, despite initially being banned. Not sure how their message changed between then and now to get them unbanned, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that in the future.

Enough hot air, here’s the fun.

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This week, dear reader, I’m afraid we’re going to have to trek rather briskly to get to our final destination. You see, despite some rather tacit posts around here lately, I haven’t spent all the time sitting on my ass. I once again ended up with a glut of photos that at first didn’t seem to want to go anywhere. Woodbine Beach on a chilly winter night (with a slight detour along Gerrard Street), a sunny afternoon at the University of Toronto campus, and an equally cheery stroll around Yorkville; what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

I mean, it was nice to get outside and do some walking around, but the connections were, unfortunately, not revealing themselves. It left me feeling constipated. Until I sat down to enjoy some quality time on my gleaming ceramic throne. C’mon, you know full well that you do your best thinking in there too, admit it! (Okay, shower is a valid option as well – close second, but still.)

Well, you know, at times like those (“ceramic visions”, I call them), I get to thinking about the circle of life. The distance — theologically, spiritually, physically, and metaphysically — that the meal has gone, for example.

Right.

But it suddenly struck me that these pictures kinda remind me of how I arrived at my own station in life, or, “The Three Easy Steps to Ultimate Success”

When this goes into print, the comments will go on the jacket and in the foreword. ;)
When it’s an abject failure, I can point fingers. ;)

Step 1 – Get All Deep And Introspective (or at least fake it)

It’s good to take stock of what one enjoys in life. I kinda stumbled into what I’m doing today but the roots run pretty cleanly back to the early nineties. Ah, the nineties, KRS One was boogieing down, my now-ex had completed planning the first diabolical stage in my downfall (I didn’t even know her yet!), and I was lugging a heavy backpack and being propositioned by unsavoury gentlemen in Morningside Park on my way to be with my beloved computers at West Hill C.I. (collegiate institute = high school – don’t ask, don’t know). And the other classes too, I guess. Oh, and I had a few friends – outcasts. I know, everyone says that. But I really think we were.

One of my friends showed up at my house freaking out that his dad was gonna kill him. Ended up, that didn’t happen :) I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I think the family was connected to bikers, and this was more-or-less a regular drunken ritual when dad rolled in. They sure looked like bikers. Definitely the other side of the tracks.

My other friend threw a murder mystery game at his house. We all came dressed in costumes. I was a gender-neutral doctor (the invite didn’t specify!).

I don’t mean to imply he was gay. No, not that I know of, he was just somewhat eccentric in that Alfred Hitchcock or Orson Welles sort of way. If you get my meaning.

For some reason, I always imagined meeting K. at some time as an arch nemesis. It’s only fitting that we’d have been childhood friends; I could see him receding into the bitter shadows of the world and, after years of silent toil in the darkness, emerging and revealing some sort of terrifying new weapon with which to obliterate the masses. Unless his demands are met. Send in Agent Patrick.

As cool as that would be, I sincerely hope life’s treated him kindly.

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…continued from part 1.

Regent Park is an original City of Toronto housing project. The projects of Toronto. I’d say there are similar areas in all the cities that make up the GTA. Scarborough has Malvern (did my teens around there). North York has Jane and Finch (played marbles around the corner). And downtown Toronto has Regent Park (a pleasant stroll of a block for me). Out of all of them, I’d have to say that Regent Park seems the most genteel.

The buildings are smaller, and these days the area’s more run-down than anything else. But at night, especially around some of the inner courtyards between the buildings, it can still be a pretty menacing place.

And that’s where King’s hero would find himself. I’m sure Stevie wouldn’t be able to resist throwing something schmaltzy into the plot … a basketball, rolling slowly out of the pitch shadows, slowly but with no sign of decelerating, as if being propelled by something other. And just before hitting the man’s foot, coming to a sickeningly sudden stop. He would back away as he gazed upwards, the slowly illuminating multitudes of windows in the buildings encircling him filled with horrible shapes, nausea and fear rising into a knot at the back of his throat, terror pulling his pupils into dense points straining to shield him from seeing what he was seeing … up there.

And now Kingie would wreck a perfectly good horror and have the hero’s dead son stand in one of the windows or some other such bullshit. Why?! Why can’t it just be a purely evil force facing well-adjusted individuals? The baggage gets in the way of the train, if you get my meaning.

I prefer my horror noir. Just a bunch of people get brutally massacred; don’t read too much into it. Sometimes, a shadowy villain is all there needs to be.

So after escaping that horror, King would take the poor sap back up through southern Cabbagetown only to be accosted by some huddled baddie in a toque.

At this point I’d turn off the movie and go to bed.

Great neighbourhood, is what I’m getting at. Full of contradictions, as I used to end my grade eight essays with. As with a lot of other neighbourhoods, the dividing boundary is literally the line down the street. On one side you buy your crack, on the other a hand-blown artisan glass pipe in which to smoke it. Cabbagetown, ironically, is named after cabbages, the only vegetable the dirt-poor Irish immigrants could manage to grow. Luckily they stopped leeching off society and we now have a vibrant and mostly Irish-free slice of old Toronto.

Haha! Just kidding. Those ruddy-haired bastards are swarming over Toronto like Black Death itself.

(It’s okay, I have Irish friends. :D Well, associates. Associate. And I enjoy Guinness. Plus Irish Cream flavoured anything. :D )

Anyhow, there you have it; Cabbagetown, up to the armpits in history and conveniently close. Good on cold days, über-quaint, and bordered by something evil. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably closer to a M. Night Shyamalamadingdong plot.

Sorry, but I’m just going to stop right there before it leads me down some road I’d rather not take. Can’t stand that guy. He’s not even scary!

Before I go, I just wanted to give a shout-out to CardSwap.ca who sent me a nice new year greeting and informed me they were also fellow Torontonians. Easy sell. The site is basically a way to buy and sell used (or new, I guess, whatever turns your crank), gift and discount cards. CardSwap guarantees delivery. This is clearly their time to shine so I’d like to wish them all the best.  I’m certainly not above gift cards myself.

“Your fingers aren’t frozen?”

I had to pause a moment to ponder the question. That’s the problem with brains on ice, they’re just not that quick. Mine especially.

“Almost!”

Was my ultra-witty reply to the beady-eyed parka as it and its occupant passed me on a southern Cabbagetown street corner.

I know, I’m ashamed. It’s why I prefer to write. When the mouth isn’t engaged, it goes a whole lot better. But, in my defence, it was pretty darn cold out there. Those from Yellowknife would probably be out there in their trunks bouncing around beach balls and carrying frozen drinks with little umbrellas, but –14 Celsius (6 Fahr.) is chilly for Toronto. I was double-panted, double-socked, scarved good and proper, hatted – you bet, gloved – oh yeah, ass cheeks – frozen as all get-out. And of course once the ass goes, the fingers are next.

So please allow me to present…

Wanderings of a Frozen Finger

Reflections on a freakin’ cold Cabbagetown

by Patrick

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CABBAGETOWN (haiku)

Cabbagetown is cold

Holy shit! It’s really cold!

Plus I hate haiku.

I … did not enjoy poetry at school much. Repress your words until you hurt, is poetry, to me. No thanks, I’m of the thousand words or more school. I prefer the lazy man’s thousand words, however.

Here are some people with their younguns seeking shelter from the awful cold, well-heeled natives striding past them confidently, callously, and a mischievous elf out on a smoke break. Also, some old lady standing at the corner about to risk her life. I’m pretty sure she’ll hardly be looking one way let alone both. Behind isn’t even on the radar, and the radar extends out to maybe half a meter anyway.

You’re thinking about her now, aren’t you? The old lady about to be potentially banged around by a car. But what can you do? I drove down here many times and when the old people jump out in front of you, you basically treat them like deer. Bust out the binoculars and start looking them over. If it freaks them out and they hustle off the road, great. It’s in everyone’s best interest. But unfortunately, you gotta wait for those old people to cross. I reserve that privilege for when I’m an old fart, so I feel I should live by the opposite side of that  understanding today. At about 65 or so, we earn the right step out into traffic at any point from anywhere. That’s just all there is to it.

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