Listening to Poolside's "Tropical Heartache" makes a Canadian winter much easier to cope with. The fantasy of a Costa Helada lifestyle brought to warm, heart-beating, booty-shaking reality. Why I can almost see myself roller-blading and break-dancing along Harbourfront now. And I'm doing both simultaneously!
Toronto has some similarities to Los Angeles. No, it's not necessarily a compliment. Discuss.
Author's note: Reposted to this blog on February 14, 2018.
My issues with gender non-conforming behavior/bad, hopeless drag deserves a fuller treatment. The short version: I don't get why gender non-conforming behavior is such a big, new thing--Gays and lesbians have been doing it for years. We were gender non-conforming before gender non-confirming was cool.
Probably not a big revelation, but I think gender non-conforming means a lot more than wearing a dress or sporting a butch haircut to show how "radical" or "woke" you are. It's about resisting stereotypes of what the conventional wisdom says it means to be a man or a woman. And that involves so much more than clothes, make-up, and hair. I have straight friends who are gender non-conforming--they live their lives as people, not as 1950s archetypes.
Oh, and with RuPaul in the world, there is no excuse for bad, hopeless drag.
Author's note: Reposted to this blog on February 14, 2018.
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Hipster ghetto superstars, that is what we are.
If beard length and fullness coupled with a preponderance of ethnically vague, sloppily stitched boho clothing were signs of wisdom and knowledge, my Toronto neighborhood would be known as Little Ancient Greece.
And oddly enough, it's on the East Side, well south of Cabbagetown, even south of Cabbagetown South. Just imagine if we were in the epicenter of Toronto hipsterdom (generally West Side, from what I can tell). We'd be known as Little Genesis/Big Bang/Creation Story Heights.
Author's note: Originally published under the title "Culture shock." Republished to this blog on February 10, 2018.
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They are everywhere. Beards. Man buns. "Sometime Samurai" hairstyles. Believing scooters and skateboards are viable means of transportation. Making ironic wardrobe choices that are still somehow au courant and stylish.
Welcome to Toronto. Hipster paradise.
If I were more invasive and more of a jerk, I'd take photos of these hipsters in their (un)natural element. And I may do so yet.
But suffice it to say, they are legion, they walk among us, and they're not going anywhere until they uncover the next trend, they turn 35 and really need to get serious about gainful employment, or they're all mowed down on the street (by accident) for riding their skateboards and scooters in traffic.
(Trust me. I've seen it happen.)
My most recent favorite hipster sighting was on the number 1 TTC subway (sorry, I don't know the names of the lines just yet) between Museum and Union Station, seen maybe this past Thursday or Friday. He was a very handsome guy--underneath all the hair and the consciously grungy clothing, that is. A dark lumberjack beard, close-cropped hair on the side with a shock of a dark 'do that he was meticulous about keeping in place, swept up and over to the right side.
I saw him breathe in, his strong chest swell underneath his t-shirt, revealing a hint of fur. Be still my heart (and everything else), I thought.
But then I thought, too, can you imagine kissing that? Making love to that? All that beard and all that hair. That's what the entire encounter would be about: Passion and pompadours. He'd no doubt be too narcissistic to make sex enjoyable for anyone but himself.
Maybe 20 years ago but more likely 30 years ago, I would have gone head over heels, especially if I thought there was the slightest glimmer of interest from him--although I am sure it would have gone nowhere, the thrill of the chase being his turn-on and my turn-off, leaving me lonelier and sick in my gut.
Thank goodness I've moved on and matured in many, many ways. Toronto makes me realize that in a good way. I like it here--in spite/because of the hipsters and because/in spite of who I am now.
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Editor's note: You can also view a version of this with sound via YouTube:
Yonge and Bloor, Toronto's highfalutin' economic epicenter (or so it seems to me). And who am I to say no? Although plenty said no to me: I struck out at J. Crew, Zara, Roots, Banana Republic, and especially Holt Renfrew's men's store, which featured some gorgeous designer clothing, accompanied by some stuff better left on the Paris runway--or perhaps I mean the Paris runaway. HR for Men: Where Canada's Aspirational Eurotrash Come to Shop.
But I mined haberdasher gold at The Bay. Which probably says more about my sense of style (and waistline) these days than I care to admit. Nevertheless, they were beautiful shirts (and, OK, a tie, too), sort of a plum hue, which seems to be my colour de l'année.
And speaking of aspirational Eurotrash, have you met me lately?
Still very new to Canada, I'm in between paychecks, having finished one job and now starting another within the last month. Nevertheless, I didn't go the Route of Credit because I don't yet have a Canadian credit card and am trying to give my American ones a bit of a breather after the move.
So I did the, ahem, practical thing: I used my new Canadian debit card.
Now come on, I needed to know it worked. Really, I owed it to the bank and the hiccuping Canadian economy.
And if I don't watch out, I really will owe it to the bank. Really, money doesn't grow on trees, not even in Canada.
Author's note: Posted to this blog on February 9, 2018, at 8:46 pm.
I originally wrote this post on my other blog soon after I moved to Canada. Now I'm trying to concentrate all my "Canada posts/postes Canada" (hardy har har) in one blog, this blog.
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I still feel like I should live in Montréal--somehow it speaks a lot to my spirit, my inner life, even if my French is paltry and pitiful at the moment--but I'm enjoying being happy up here in Toronto.
