for pick up

My city has spent the last 36 days wading through rotting garbage, mouldy food rewarmed by what sun we ever get, putrid smelling, soaking wet copies of The Metro, and raccoon droppings left behind by the most wretched of God's scavengers.

Today, it's all over. Victorious we rise from heaps of steaming, reeking waste – and all in time to take on another pending challenge.

Two weeks ago, my mother phoned. I was walking to work, and remarked, just barely, about a garbage receptacle that had busted open, spewing remnants of the neighbouring Pizza Pizza onto the pavement, like a first year student.

"I swear, Carli, I will cancel my trip if that strike is not over by the time I'm supposed to come…" My mother can't stand a used kleenex left on the counter, let alone a month's worth of garbage decorating every city curb within a 10 block radius of my downtown front door.

My mother is a demanding woman. That's putting it mildly. I've learned that she always gets what she wants. (Or maybe I've just learned to always give in.) Either way, Caron Rothman is a woman of her word. If the strike didn't end, her flight wouldn't land.

As I log on to my browser this morning to check her arrival time, the block lettered words flash across my homepage:

THE STRIKE IS OVER!

And her flight? Of course it's on time.

all that redbull

The last text reads: Let me know how it is, and the feasibility of me being able to buy a ticket if I come later…

The time is 11:38 PM. Later seems too late. But not tonight. Tonight, there's nothing but time, most literally, because Time Festival (too easy) is staying open until sun rise, for those who have the energy, or other means, to last.

Never in my life have I seen a venue this big, this full. I turn to a guy and say that back home, the only place this big is a Costco, and it's never open this late. He doesn't really laugh, but thinking back, it wasn't actually that funny.

You know you're at a super-cool Toronto party when:
Crystal Castles takes the stage, and we watch from a blocked off area, safe from a heaving crowd, but not at all from the pushing. Even very important people push. Her mic isn't on and I wonder if that's a mistake. Probably not. She flicks a lit cigarette into the crowd before drinking directly from a bottle of Jack Daniels, and beautifully tripping her step. I think we're supposed to be impressed. (Look, a rockstar.) Instead, I'm searching the audience for the poor sucker who certainly got burned. He won't feel it until tomorrow, when he's really feeling all of it. He probably won't even remember how he was burned, which is too bad, cause that might be a good story. Burned by a real rockstar. At Time Festival. Or it might not.

I'm told the music outlasted the darkness, and Sunday morning saw thousands of girls flag cabs with one hand, while holding their shoes in the other.

The first text reads: That was fun for one time. I don't think I'll do it again though. I'm going to eat some waffles now.

patience tastes better

Ever since New York, where I had these, I have been dying to do this.
For fear of fires, severe injury, grafting followed by insurance claims, I didn't.
Instead, I waited for:

Can you guess where I am?

the best things in life are ______

If I scratch your back, I'm told you'll scratch mine. Truth be told, this city is full of itchy people who all have a skill to share, a talent to showcase, a face to sell, and not a penny in their pocket. Everyone talks about 'these recessionary times' as if it were the end of days. For some, it might be. For most, who noticed? Like any period of (what we're told is) change, we can figure new ways to survive, adjust, amend. Like adaptation. Now, we're told that we're a nation, no, an entire civilization learning to live with less, forced to ditch the frills and snip along the dotted lines for super savings. But while the economy dips and dives, and slips below the leisure line, everyone I know (see: no portfolio, part-time workers, full-time dreamers) can't hardly feel a quake.

In crisis, everyone comes together, comes to rely on everyone else, and in turn be relied upon. No money, no problem. Near paucity makes people want to be nicer, or at least more helpful. Why? Because where there is someone who wants, there is also someone who needs.

Example: Designer friend knows writer/stylist friend. Writer/stylist friend is on a deadline. Designer friend wants exposure, writer/stylist needs per-word paycheck. A match made in haggling heaven. Throw a beautiful ginger girlfriend into the mix, and what do you get?

A happy designer, a compensated writer/stylist, a stunning photo, a spread in Eye Weekly, and proof that although the best things in life might not be free, some pretty great stuff can happen when everyone you know is habitually down and out.

carli m.i.a.

It's been so long since I have written anything (that I'd proudly or freely share), or blogged, or composed anything more than an e-mail or restaurant listing or a "10 Hot New Ways to (who the fuck cares)", or so it seems, at least. Abandoning a blog is like going a while without calling an old friend. The longer you go, the more there is to tell and ask, but having to rehash life over the absent days, weeks, or months will take time in itself. Time that I don't always have. So another day, or week, or sometimes (so horribly) a month will go past until I have the time. But by then, there is even more to tell and ask. It's exhausting, and off-putting, and probably makes me sound like a lousy friend. And by using the intended parallel, a lousy blogger.

I'm so bad at playing catch-up so lets skip the pretence, and move on. Let's act like it never happened, while everything was happening, and wake up tomorrow like yesterday didn't come. And I'll try to be a better friend. I promise. I'll blog about you everyday.

From now on. Starting tomorrow.