Raining In Toronto

I like Toronto. You can’t smoke indoors anywhere…but prostitution is legal. Canadian logic is amazing. My wife really wanted to watch me fuck a call girl, but we opted to hit a strip club instead, as I just wasn’t in the mood to gamble with diseases that night. Strip clubs are safer. They all appear to be free here. They’re pretty different than any that I’ve been to in the States. Free to get in, and you don’t tip the dancers unless you opt for one of the optional private dances. The alcohol is, of course, horrible and overpriced. I suppose that’s how they make their money. Regardless, it’s fun. My wife doesn’t enjoy it quite like I do, but she tolerates it well enough. She’s a good sport. Unfortunately, most of the strippers don’t know what to make of her. So she’s like stripper repellent. They normally just don’t approach us. So on that night we were content to watch from our table. The stage was wallpapered with mirrors. There was even a bank of them at a 45-degree angle between the back wall (mirrored) and the ceiling (also mirrored). There was quite literally nowhere for the strippers to stand on the stage that they weren’t exposed in one way or another. There was also a strange chin-up bar that I didn’t fully understand. I hadn’t once seen a girl do chin-ups or even swing on it. It must have just been there in good faith, in case they ever hired an ex-gymnast to dance there. We didn’t hang around long. One beer each and we watched a few half-hearted dancers. We left to get some coffee. It was raining, and my $12 umbrella was apparently made of black tissue paper and feeble old coat hangers. Whenever the wind picked up, it turned inside out like a sea cucumber. The only practical thing to do was embrace the cold wetness. Accept the things that you cannot change. Once at the donut place, the name of which I can’t recall, I was drinking my black coffee and eating a stale donut. While I did this, my wife dried off in the ladies' room. I sat right beside the door, because I’m stupid and was not wet or cold enough yet to realize that the rest of the place was empty. Warm, dry seats abounded, everywhere other than where I sat. However, my stupidity paid off, as I got a close up view of a girl pressing her ass through the door. She had a coffee in one hand, and a cell phone in the other, and tons of flat, boring shit pouring out of her mouth. Her ass, however, was round and full and wrapped in wet denim. Watching it change shape as she squeezed and turned her way through the glass doors was the sexiest thing I’d gawked at that night.

Awkward Americans

My wife and I love Toronto. It’s only five hours away, so we go there fairly frequently. It’s a fun little town with lots of cool things to do. One evening in Toronto, we decided to check out the Amsterdam Brewing Company. It’s a brew pub. We had a pretty good idea where it was, and struck off without much preparation. We got off the subway a little too soon and had to walk a little extra distance. The air was nice. Canadians are nice. The sky was beautiful. So we walked and loved it. Ever so slightly lost, we were only about one or two blocks off. We arrived with minimal trouble. They had outdoor seating in a sectioned-off area on the sidewalk. We stood and waited to be seated, assuming a hostess was coming. A beautiful young girl greeted us, and instructed us to sit wherever we liked. I said, “Oh, sorry. We’re not from around here.” She replied, “I could tell.” She smiled, betraying sincere amusement. I said, “You could tell we’re Americans?” She responded, “From down the street, before you even got here.” We laughed. It was a pretty wide open street, with minimal car or pedestrian traffic. No doubt she could see us approaching. I wondered how she could identify us as Americans from that far away, though. We weren’t wearing or waving an American flag. Our attire was pretty nondescript, and didn’t have anything intrinsically American printed on it, like a Slayer logo or American football team colors. We didn’t try to economically exploit anybody on our way down the street, or declare a pre-emptive war on anybody or anything. I was dumbfounded, not hurt or offended, just honestly baffled. I wanted so badly to ask her to explain what we had done that made us look so obvious from so great a distance. Not wanting to embarrass myself further, I decided to just get a beer and enjoy the evening.

An Ordinary Crucifixion – No. 3

The afternoon air was chilly. Not terribly cold, but cold enough to make me uncomfortable. My wife and I were walking westward on the right side of East Carson street. She walks faster than I do. Often, on a crowded sidewalk, this puts her out a few feet in front of me. Such was the case on this afternoon. At 15th and Carson I watched a shitty old Honda, which was traveling east, make a right. There was nothing remarkable about it. It was a simple turn. The driver used his signals and moved at a slow, responsible speed. My wife was already past the event and not watching. I was watching because I’m easily distracted. As the car began traveling down the narrow side street, a flock of pigeons left the pavement. Pigeons are not valuable. Pittsburgh has no shortage of them. People typically don’t empathize with them. As the car drove down 15th, however, I could not help but sympathize with a particular bird that had not escaped the shitty Honda. It was not dead. It was not flattened. From a solid distance of 20 feet, the bird’s injury was obvious. It leaped out from under the Honda and flopped about madly on the street. It arced up and fell repeatedly, never clearing more than five feet. It flopped and beat its mangled wing furiously. I hoped that it might be able to straighten it out like an inverted umbrella. Very quickly, it became apparent that would not happen. It was more likely trying to throw the wing off completely, just to rid itself of the painful, useless burden. I paused for a moment watching the bird’s agony. I wanted to help, but had no idea how. I certainly have no qualifications to treat the bird’s injury myself. Beyond that, I can’t imagine a veterinary professional offering any help for this animal beyond euthanizing it. Lamentable as pigeons may be, this pigeon’s suffering was no less real or compelling than any human pain. My wife was getting very far ahead of me on the sidewalk. I pulled my eyes from the spectacle and caught up with her. I didn’t mention a word of what I had seen. I didn’t want to burden her with it.

Cats and Dogs

There is no doubt in my mind that dogs are emotionally and intellectually superior animals to cats. As contrary to popular opinion as that is, I believe it is painfully obvious. Testimony to this is a dog’s visible sense of guilt. A dog knows when it has done wrong. A dog knows love and malice. A dog is a dynamic, expressive animal. It learns, feels, and acts, not only according to its instinct, but also according to its reason. It is a layered creature. A cat is an arrogant, base, immature creature. Cats lack the depth and loyalty that dogs constantly demonstrate. Nobody has ever successfully domesticated a cat. They have simply been domesticated by their cat. The misconception of feline domesticity is a reversal of cause and effect. The common illusion of feline intelligence is attributable to the human prejudice that arrogance and emotional instability are traits which imply intellectual and emotional depth. Humans hide behind this façade all of the time, and they also like to project it upon their pets. A dog understands what it is doing and experiences emotional dynamics. It simply has the heart to fight through them. A cat is always one-dimensional, feral, and without heart.

Waiting for a Bus

There was an old man sitting on a bench, presumably waiting for a bus. Suddenly, as though he had been shot in the back of the head, vomit leaped from his mouth onto the sidewalk in front of him. It steamed up from the pavement. Miraculously, none appeared to have landed on him. There was a little on his shoes, maybe. I wasn't sure. Just then, I caught a whiff of somebody’s fresh laundry. A dryer’s exhaust must have been breathing nearby. In that moment, I was grateful for the direction of the wind.