Toronto In The Summer

Life is a weird thing sometimes. My company has just landed a huge new client; Air Canada Vacations. That means an intense amount of work to get completed before I take my two weeks off to run DexCon. That, in and of itself, isn't really the important thing. The fact that I was finally able to ram my laptop request through IT and collect a shiny Dell up from the Ops centre was the result of that deal.

So, there I am, walking back from work, picking up a flash card and heading for the subway. Just passing Spadina, wandering down College. Laptop in a new bag over my shoulder. Sunglasses that have shockingly failed to be lost on. MP3 player jammed into my ears. A gaggle of female UofT summer students swimming back and forth like tropical fish (with tight t-shirts on, that is) on a coral reef. Suddenly it hit me:

This is what I used to dream about when I was in college...

Alright, that and vast amounts of sex with nubile women. But still, it was a shocking bounce from my feelings of totally helplessness a few months ago. People who know me are aware that I am not a terribly demonstrative person. I rarely have deep heart to hearts that don't involve the application of alcohol, and I find letting a lot of emotion bare to be discomforting. That is why I tend to keep both celebration and depression in secluded personal bundles, not inflicted on the world at large.

But walking down that street in the sunshine, enjoying the warmth and the activity, I got to realise a couple of thing. Not only do I write for a living, but I'm actually writing again. The fact that so much of my personal identity is wrapped up on my writing means that a creative drought is worse than an emotional loss. The stuff that I'm working on is still rocky, still overly rough, but it is my stuff, as oppossed to the tortured imitations that I've churned out in the last year.

I am still in debt, and still poor. But neither as far as I was a few years ago, and the possibilities of actually freedom from those debts is in sight, as opposed to being just a fancible lottery dream resolution.

One of my best friends now lives down the street from me. Coming from a very tightknit social group in London, and mostly making work friends or roommates, I've had a lot of isolation in terms of friends in Toronto. I've made some very good ones, but not to the level that I had. Now, I have someone that I can bother with all the bullshit without the worry that I'm crossing a line. Plus, the fact that Mindy is more bitter and sardonic than I am is funny.

Random memory: I had a picture from a murder mystery we did on-line, and was talking about my friends with Nute on ICQ.

NUTE: Which one is Mindy?
DEX: The dark-haried Indian girl.
NUTE: In the tiny kilt and the pigtails?
DEX: Yup.
NUTE: ...
NUTE: ...
NUTE: ...
NUTE: I fucking hate you, Telfer.

It was simply one of those moments when things just seem to be right for once, especially considering the awesomely shitty circumstances that my life has limped through over the last few years.

So, to celebrate, I intend to take my new laptop out to a patio, drink beer in the sunshine and write about madness, the internet and professional blogging. Might even smile once or twice doing it too.