West Coast Living

When I'm at work, I work hard... at living up to the stereotype of the disgruntled Easterner. In short, I celebrate the following:

1. Smoking (although I haven't since that brief flirtation with tobacco in aught-eight)
2. Grease-laden foods
3. Toronto
4. the Montreal Canadiens
5. Concrete

While disparaging the following:

1. Camping
2. Sunflower seeds in everything
3. The Sunshine Coast
4. the Vancouver Canucks
5. Crab traps

Secretly, however, there's a sugary nougat centre beneath my prickly exterior. I like Victoria. I like taking the ferry back when it's not dark and raining, so I can watch from the deck as the postcard-pretty islands pass by. There are purple starfish, used bookstores and Eccles cakes as far as the eye can see.

Or at least until your eyes get to Saaanich, at which point things get pretty residential and unexciting, but still. Lots of fun to see before then.

These are all lovely little comforts, but I'm also fond of making rent and keeping things in the pantry besides lentils. I'll need to find a job after my internship is over, and the word on Fort an Douglas streets is that's not the simplest of tasks. So I'm cruel to Victoria and it's many delights because I don't want to fall in love with the city, and then regret moving back to Toronto.

However, every mean word about the sunflower thing was in earnest. That's just whack.