Go Local!

Returning home from New York  last month was hard. From a vacation in the Biggest Apple of them all, seeing theatre, going to museums, concerts and even a brunch with old friends and their famous writer parents, to then return to ... Toe-ronto, or Trono, as we locals pronounce it, or rather, mumble it (when asked where we're from we can barely say our city's name aloud, we have such little pride). The gastronomical analogy is that it was like going from a spicy Thai curry to a cold piece of dry toast (though in all fairness T(o)ron(t)o sports some killer Thai options).

But, you know, when the sun is shining and the weather is sweet, when t(h)ree little birds are by my doorstep, when Ai and I can walk from our midtown apartment to a pretty ravine, walk silent amongst a forest of green, I think, gosh darn it (no I do not; I think, fuck!), I don't need 5th Avenue. I certainly have no desire for Times Square. And the Greenwich Village Paul Simon sang about, where "$30 pays your rent," let's just say the up and coming Paul Simons, they aren't living there. They aren't living close to there. You'll say they're all in Brooklyn. I say, shit, on a day like this I don't even care about Brooklyn and the hipster music it's producing. CBC Radio 2 keeps reminding me we have all the great music we could want right here. And once the leaves come back to the trees and the people return to the streets, with each passing year, and each newly risen condo, Toronto for all its conservative, uptight woe, gets a little bit denser and a little bit buzzier. When you can spend an evening on a Bloor street patio drinking a Creemore, watching the multi-coloured crowds go by, you realize it is a pretty great city after all.

Also, when I have my first heart attack and they rush me to hospital I won't have to worry about whether I brought along my credit card(s).