up...down...together
it's morning in the city and the paper's at the door, your coffee's on the table and your shoes are on the floor
up...down...together
up...down...together
the weather today across the gta calls for periods of snow and then some rain
up...down...together
up...down...together
let it out, c'mon let it out, it's a long day ahead and it's only just morning
up...down...together
up...down...together
the train is now boarding, this is your final warning
sometimes in this city it is not easy to meet people. no one really wants to talk to you because they already have enough friends, acquaintances and people they just met in the last hour. no one wants to start a band with you because, well, they're already in five, and attempting to create a new "scene" in this town is about as useful to anyone as an extra button on their nicely pressed vintage shirt. so i say "fuggeddaboutit!" be anonymous and have fun with it. take a good walk and discover that buildings, windows and trees can be your friends too.
such was the mood on my way to class this morning. i could have sat in a dim studio for four hours with a bunch of people who don't give a fuck while our instructor spent the session just correcting all the cabling errors the last group left behind for us to fix. and all for what? so we can mix some whack cacophanic tune with so many tracks stacked on top of one another that it's like the tower of babylon in a pro tools folder. no thanks.
so instead of going straight, i turned right as i got off the streetcar on bathurst and headed westward to the far reaches of the queen west expansion. i finally found a place that is trying to kill me. a small diner near the hotel stretch fed me, for the price of 3.95, a pile of potatoes that looked like they'd been glazed with paint, three shimmering sausages, a coffee and FOUR EGGS!!! i got so much energy from all the protein and caffeine that i could have thrown a table over the bar. it was a great meal but now i can't have breakfast for a week.
from there, i proceeded through the grey area between portugal city and little italy. a little shop on dundads west near ossington housed a display in their window of portraits taken by their photographers over the years. grey pictures of children on their communion days rested for eternity behind cheap glass under fake gold frames. men, who by all accounts must be either old and withered or dead by now, shine in their prime as slick-haired gentlement on the store's walls.
on mansfield ave. between grace st. and bellwoods ave., a franciscan church has yet to take down its nativity scene display from its front lawn. larger than life dummies dressed in biblical shepherd clothing advertise a long since passed passion play, and stand watch over the manger. draped across its side walls hangs a sign in italian and english that says:
ILLUMINI UNA CANDELA PER IL VOSTRO CARO
LIGHT A CANDLE FOR YOUR LOVED ONES
inside the hut are several large, transparent candle holders that house white candles. around these glass monstrances are tape strips with names like "vecchio" and "andolini", but no first names. beside the church sits a palatial home with a statue of the virgin mary holding her baby boy on her lap. it looks at you so personally that you can't help but think it's a friendly presence.
gradually i stepped lightly towards my annex paradise after two or three hours on my feet. on ulster st., a mobile window washer on his bicycle recites a joke about president bush to a female friend. "jokes are ok," he informs her, "so long as no one's getting made fun of. i don't like mean jokes or racist jokes. but newfoundlanders tell the best newfie jokes ever!" they part ways and he waits at the traffic light, radiating a kind of modern-day gallantry perched atop his bike with his long red beard flowing from his cheeks and his scottish tam resting on his head. with buckets and squeegees slung over his shoulder, he rides off to go wash windows. chim chimeney cheeroo, i almost sang.
rastafarian city workers, their big bright hats clashing with their orange jumpsuits, take posters down from the streetlamps on harbord. the fish and chips store owner shovels the slush from his sidewalk. central tech high school students skip class and fuck around outside the pizza place. beautiful university girls in their long skirts and black tights walk home from lectures with books in arm. today is a cloudy, average day, and nobody is really up to anything special that i can see, but such a day is what keeps me living here in this, my beautiful city, the place of my birth.
but what's a walk in the west end without a trudge up the baldwin steps? from there i look down at dupont, spadina and bloor and further beyond, breaking through the haze with sheer force, the CN tower and the skydome. this is one of my favourite spots in the city, as it's one of its the most elevated points. one day i will go to the top of casa loma and get an even better view. i was always too afraid of climbing those tourets when i was a kid and therefore missed out on a lot.
a man walks up the steps carrying his bike, upside down, on his shoulders. the tires extend sideways as far as his arms would, and he rests the seat on the groove bewtween shoulder and neck in some ritual exercise that makes a proud pedestrian like myself gasp in horror.
it's time to go home.
