I’ve left the country! No, not for good. But Glenn had a free airline ticket up for grabs and I have no job, so I figured I’d take a brief retreat to Montreal for a few days — someplace cheap and close where I can hole up in a small room or in coffeehouses without distraction from TV, constant internet access, and the damn cat. I’m trying to write up lesson plans for this next semester (somebody IS thinking about the children!) and make a dent in some tedious coding projects that always seem less important than a nap or Gilmore Girls when I’m at home.
The plan has been working so far, but I have a new appreciation for New York’s smoking ban. These Canucks really like their cigarettes, and my itchy eyes and smelly sweaters are the proof. Since I’m passing a lot of my time in coffeehouses, I’m surrounded by smoldering tobacco on all sides. Yes, smoking makes you look cool (Kids, I hate to admit it but it’s true — at least if you know how to hold a cigarette properly), but that shit really does stink. Also, lung cancer! Don’t forget the lung cancer. (This PSA was sponsored by viewers like you.)
Most of the time that I travel, I’m horrified by the idea of a city having a “gay village,” a place where all the gays hang out since that’s where all the gay bars, restaurants, and boutiques are clustered. Since the temperatures in Montreal are hovering somewhere above absolute zero, though, I have a new appreciation for the gay village phenomenon. It’s comforting to know that I never have to travel further than five blocks to find food, hot beverages, eye candy, or someplace to cut the rug for an hour or two. It may be an upscale ghetto, but it’s also a model for the kind of urban experience I like — a variety of services within walking distance, people who know each other everywhere you go (luckily, the gays barely notice you if they don’t think you’re cute, so the solitude of my retreat remains unsullied), and thriving businesses holding their own against the encroachment of big chain stores. Maybe the threat really posed by the gays isn’t to marriage after all: maybe we pose more of a threat to Wal-Mart and Starbucks.
Firstly… Dan, I want to introduce myself. I’ve been reading your blog almost every day for about a month (I even went back and read a good chunk of the archives). It appears from your musings that we have a great deal in common. Perhaps one of these days I will get my butt in gear and start my own blog.
Secondly, I must say that I enjoy living in NYC, where I don’t have to travel too far for life’s necessities. However, driving out to the ‘burbs for some big box shopping really helps with our household budget.
Keep up the good work!
Steve, what is this “driving” thing you speak of? It sounds unpleasant. It’s certaonly nothing I’m familiar with. Kidding aside, I find that bog-box shopping tends to make me buy much more than I need, but my daily errands to the local low-price markets in my neighborhood are thrifty in terms of both price and quantity.
It’s not the driving that is unpleasant, it’s dealing with Potamkin VW that is.
You shop daily?
Just about. There’s a great little grocery store right next to our subway stop, so we tend to shop based on what we run out of, or what we feel like having for dinner that night. Loaf of bread here, carton of milk there, freshly roasted chicken here, bar of soap there, and so on and so on.