Biking in Toronto: The Much Better Way

A few weeks ago, I started commuting by bike to work on a semi-regular basis. And every time I leave the bike to squeeze myself onto the TTC, I regret it. On my bike, I bike with danger. Cars hate me, pedestrians are indifferent to my presence, and I know so little about my bike I rode three times on an open quick release. The only thing between me and an early death is a charmingly awkward helmet which makes me look I have encephalitis. 

And yet - I love it. Here I am, riding down the hill near Dupont and Bathurst. Riding? I meant flying. I am a flying mushroom in my giant grey helmet, look at me go. And yes, there I am lurching off my bike to walk it up a hill, because my legs stubbornly refuse to do that thing where you stand up and ride for extra power. I don't care. Because there I am not: getting a purse to a face on the streetcar, waiting for a bus that will never come, or peeling myself out of somebody's armpit to disembark at St. Andrew station. I support public transit in the same theoretical way I support open relationships and vegan diets. It's a good thing. But it is also a terribly annoying, smelly good thing, at least as implemented in Toronto. 

That Toronto's public transit is craptacular is not an original thought. And yet, an entire industry of TTC-themed swag exists. T-shirts with streetcars on them! Button pins of the subway walls!! Art with more streetcars on it!!! Bus-themed... well, buses get no love because they're buses. And yet, I'm sure I've spoken too soon, and somewhere someone is crocheting a TTC bus to stuff and sell. I refuse to remind myself of what is often the worst part of my day, and so I am left button-less. Though I also don't buy any of the bike-themed tchotchkes either, because I don't feel like I've earned it yet. I'll get the cruiser-printed skirt when I know how to pump air into my own tires.

I guess that makes me a cyclist, though I'll never change in some ways. A few weeks ago an Audi (of course: it's always an Audi or an Acura) really crowded me on Bathurst. When I caught them at a red light, I did not hit their car with my bike lock, or yell, or do anything except tap politely on their window and say - once the driver had rolled it down: "Um, you kind of really crowded me back there, so if you could give cyclists more space next time, that would be nice. Yeah..." And then I biked away, into the day, the mushroom-headed cycling avenger.

I Love Bloodsport

I introduced Dan to Bloodsport last night, which might just be my favourite movie. I'll say that The Life and Death and Colonel Blimp or Raiders of the Lost Ark on dating profiles and in public, but secretly my heart beats only for Bloodsport, and its amazing montages:

Watching Bloodsport always makes me want to do two things. First, take up muay thai, because even though the muay thai guy (Paco) doesn't win, he looks like he has a lot of fun losing:

I have always been more of a kicker than a lover, or an anything-else-kind of fighter, and so muay thai really appeals to me. Particularly if it offers me the chance to kick JCVD repeatedly in the ribs. Oh, and second: ban all of these briefs so that JCVD can never assault my eyes again:

Yikes. Sadly, my first dream has never come to pass, probably because no invitations to highly secretive underground martial arts competitions seem to be forthcoming. But the second dream lives on.

Pillow Blog: Supposedly Healthy Things I've Done Recently, and their Worrisome Side Effects

In the tradition of the Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, here's a Pillow Blog: an observational list on some subject or another.

1. Commuter biking: In spite of (hopefully) increased physical health, my mental health has taken a dip as I'm now convinced everyone either hates me (best case scenario) or wants me dead (taxi cab driver scenario)
2. Reducing coffee intake: Productivity down to historic lows; I may, in fact, be sleepworking through the first three hours of my job every day now
3. Meditating before sleep: Oh look, I'm learning to centre myself after a long day at work. Oh look my blood pressure's dropping. Oh look, I'm somewhere else and NOW I CAN'T SLEEP BECAUSE THERE'S NO STRANGER TALKING IN MY EAR

Thoughts on a Wedding

After a busy week, and today's civic holiday, I finally have time to sit down, finish an opened beer leftover from, God knows, Saturday, and tell you all about my best friend's wedding. 

Spoiler: I didn't try and break it up so I could marry the best friend myself. Any similarities between me and Julia Roberts stop at the curly hair. Also, my friend Katie is a great person, and her now-husband Martin is a lovely guy, and they're so perfect together, they finally made me understand why Shakespearean comedies have to end with a wedding. 

I left Canada at 9am in the morning on a Thursday, managing to get on a plane with my bridesmaids dress even though my mother was convinced one, or all of the following things would happen: I would forget to wake up, I would forget my passport, I would forget my dress or I would pack it in my checked luggage and the airline would forget to put it on the plane. None of that happened. The flight was all of ten minutes late, and my greatest concern during the time was why Last Tango in Paris was one of the movies you could choose to watch in your seat - did international flights get the Salo: 120 Days of Sodom option? 

Katie met me at the airport, like the world's most adorable argument against the accuracy of the Bridezilla stereotype. She was excited for the ceremony, because who doesn't like cake and sparkly shit (raw vegans; the Amish.) But she also didn't approach it like we were storming the beaches of Normandy, and one flubbed toast would mean the fascists won. Though I finally appreciated the idea of a wedding rehearsal. Before, I figured they were just for people who had worked dry ice and live doves into proceedings, and you could just stumble up to the altar otherwise. No. At least not with bridesmaids, and not in a church, where hymns are going to be sung. I appreciated knowing when I was supposed to return to my pew, and when I was supposed to march up the aisle, or else there would have been a lot of awkward grinning. 

Though that did come later, at the groom's dinner. Katie and I used to be roommates in university, and our "relationship" was also the most satisfying one I had then, everything else being hilariously, cosmically stunted. Like, crushes-on-profs stunted. I would have gladly been a part of that hookup culture the media is frenzied for, but no one would drunkenly bang me, no matter how much flavoured vodka I drank. The closest I got to anything was with this boy named J, where it was 100% emotional and, now, 100% embarrassing. 

And there he was, next to me and the pasta dishes, asking if I wanted a hug. It came with a gingerly administered back pat, courtesy of yours truly. I laughed about it with Katie later, though there was a bitter taste of nostalgia in my mouth. Years years back, when I was running up my phone bill talking to this guy, I was convinced I would run into him and his girlfriend at Katie's wedding. Except at the time I thought it would be a different groom, and I would still be in love with this guy. And here we were. Some of it had come true, but not the essential parts, and we were older, wiser and so much happier. 

The next day was a blur of hairstyling and photographs, until the ceremony. Katie looked beautiful, wearing a spectacular beaded dress, a veil from her great-grandmother, and her glasses. I'm not religious, and I'm also probably not the marrying kind, but I almost cried when the priest introduced Martin and Katie as a married couple. The ceremony might not be for you, and the political and sociological freight of a wedding is imposing, but the idea of commitment and growth is still there, under everything. And so I smiled instead, and even danced with J at the reception.