return (my love) to sender

It's probably a universal truth that most good things come in small packages.
Last week, the universe, with much help from Michelle, provided me with some empirical proof of that fact. On my front stoop, no bigger than a shoe box, and with my name scrawled across the front in blue marker, sat the most perfect surprise I could have ever hoped for.

Packed tightly into one little parcel were at least three 'outfits' worth of clothing, trinkets, and homemade insignia designed by Toronto's most creative little mind.

She knows just my taste, just my size, and just how to make me beam from ear to ear. All week long.

Although I'd love to showcase everything, I don't have the time – so here is just one of the many sparkling treasures that "ma belle" sent.

I can see your nipples

Have you ever found yourself half-naked, "half in the bag", and fully mortified, at first because you're there, and then because you're actually enjoying it?

No?
Then you've never been invited to a peg city pool party.

If you haven't had the rhetorical pleasure, allow me to illustrate the circumstance.

Picture this:
It's 29 degrees, without wind, or shade. Empty energy drink cans make rattling sounds as Haiviana clad feet kick them across a makeshift dance floor. The DJ rotates multiple adaptations of Alan Braxe and DJ Tiesto "hits" so loud that even the neighbours are inadvertently popping and locking in the privacy of their backyards. Your tattoos have never seemed so insignificant, and you're reminded, repeatedly, why a navel ring was never a good idea. So, you and the six or seven people that you actually know stand on the south-west corner of the pool, readily sipping sponsored vodka until the booty shorts become less ridiculous and the cowboy hats start to look kitschy-cute. Soon, you're dancing, and shouting and using the porta-potties as needed. No shame. Sunstroked, stumbling, and six hours later, you make your way home, still damp and delighted but sobering slowly, only to review your photos - with complete disbelief.

This. Actually. Happened. Like a Kid Rock video that lasts all afternoon.

And the best? You'd do it all over again next summer.
But don't tell your cool friends.

the souvenir

There is something so beguiling about European pop music. It's semi-intolerable and super incredible all at once. Whenever my friends go to Europe, I ask not for t-shirts, or key chains, or knock offs, but rather for DJ sample discs. The free kind that they hand out in "da clubs".

Obviously this video, corresponding to one of my personal favourites, has been sponsored by American Apparel, the Dutch gay community, and your grandmother's lamp shades.

In a word? It's perfect.

a hobo stayed here, last winter

I don't know much about Iceland. My last name isn't Sigurdsson, and the only historic Viking I've ever cared much for, if at all, was Randy Moss. But this weekend, for lack of both a) better alternative and b) very much gas money, a few of us headed to Gimli to take in the Icelandic festival - Islendingadagurinn.

Really, that’s what it's called. Try saying that with an Invisalign.

A closer drive than most weekend getaways, Gimli is actually a very decent beach town when everyone isn't seven-"beer"-deep and wearing plastic, horned helmets. Every year, the township of Gimli throws a soirée-of-sorts at the local rec centre, and reels in a swarm of fine, young individuals. Yes, there was a plethora of pooka shells, flip flops, and Kokanee on tap, but there were also a handful of wonderful people with whom I'm always game to dance.

'When in Rome', they say, so with styrofoam coolers packed too tight with cheap beer, little makeup, and high hopes, we amused ourselves with the rest of the fair skinned, blonde headed masses.

Later, Cliff had some of us back to his perfectly retro (yet sadly underused) beach abode to pass-out. Hospitable to most, with the exclusion of few. No foxes allowed. Quite snug amid wood-paneled walls, we slept soundly until sunrise, then beached, brunched and left back home for the city.