Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Ass

So, as you may have gathered, the flavour of this here blog has changed over the past several weeks, without question due to the marked improvement in the quality of my life since I moved to Vancouver. I do promise, at some point in the near future, the inevitable YYZ/YVR Comparison Post, but in the meantime, before I delve into Vancouver’s Pride Weekend festivities over the past few days, I wanted to deliver a parting shot — a sucker punch, if you will, to my former home city.

I spent a large part of last week in Toronto and it was a bittersweet trip.

First the bitter: Toronto is as broken, if not more broken, than when I left it in mid-June I know, I know: it’s unfair to cast aspersions at a metropolis suffering through a city workers’ strike which left garbage piled high (and rotting), residents unable to escape the putrefaction of the city for the island beaches and thousands of kids unable to show up for summer work or to cool off in city pools. But, fuck it, that’s reason enough to cast aspersions right there.

Though it’s not like the weather in Toronto this summer has been particularly conducive to beach or pools, anyway:

Toronto, 29 July 2009

And while the Yonge Street corridor was curiously bereft of the usual re-re-re-excavations (for irrational or, at the very least, for unknown reasons) on every block — due solely, I am sure, to the fact that work orders weren’t generated by striking employees — the stupidity and incompetence which wounded my psyche on a daily basis was nonetheless intact. The development of 1 Bloor, of which I have previously written, teetered dangerously in the direction of dissolving and was offered a last-minute reprieve, albeit with a shortening of the tower by twenty floors.

And then there’s Toronto’s Eaton Centre:

Toronto Eaton Centre, 29 July 2009

Actual conversation:

“Oh, that’s great. Two-thirds of the doors at this entrance are blocked off, and for no justifiable reason.”

“What’s your problem? You can still get in and out!”

Which, of course, encapsulates precisely what is wrong with Toronto: it strives for mediocrity, attains Third-Rate Shithole performance, and then is actually defended by its citizens as world-class greatness. Criminy.

That was the bitter part — with a healthy dollop of legal ineptitude on the part of my former landlord, which current negotiations prevent me from describing in further detail at this time.

The sweet part was that I got to hang with my co-workers who, despite the modern accoutrements of long-distance communications technology, I really fucking miss. Like, a lot. And I also was fortunate enough to spend some time with some friends who are very much instrumental in who I am today and, for that, I shall love them forever. They are among the finest men I know and… Well, I won’t say anything more because they know how I feel and I know how they feel.

Yes, there were tears. And shut up.