Should snow tonight, weatherman says I'll wake up tomorrow with white on the ground. Lots of boots walkin around Toronto, the shoes here are super tempting, and I've bought 4 sweaters. Been out every night since arriving and am sleep deprived. Since my colleague wasn't available my second night here and I did not want to stay in the room of the shitty hotel my company put me up in I had a quick thought to check the internet for any locals who were online at the moment to ask what seedy bar I should go to. Only one person came up and he sounded surprisingly interesting, hot too, with lots of great music and political references. After chatting I could see he also had a fun sense of humor and said he could be talked into going out as a tour guide for some girl from California. I agreed to call him when my meeting with the west coast ended at 10:30pm and we'd go from there. When I called, to my surprise, we were both still up for it and he wondered if he should come pick me up. He was not far from the bar and could swing by. By this time I was ready for adventure so I said, "What the hell." He said, "Young lady, after I pick you up we'll have to talk about you getting into cars with strangers and I'll have a talk with myself about picking up strangers." LOL "Yeah," I said. "I know. But I feel like you have a good essense so I'm gonna go with that."
"Alright, whatever."
"I can," I said, "I can tell." So we went.
He took me to a seedy bar, as I so requested, in a funky part of the city where a local band was performing to the delight of an downtown artistic crowd. Think Beastie Boys meet Sex Pistols. The lead singer, who looked all of 19 and had the baby face (rosey cheeks and all) of Paul McCartney and sang with the abandon of Sid Vicious, had a ton of charisma and a wild sense of humor and our two strangers shocked at their good fortune bonded over love of the absurd and good music. After beers, late night greek pita sandwiches, a run to his law office (aclu, civil rights lawyer type) to pick up some files needed for trial the next morning, I got an idea of who I was dealing with. Walked into his orange-red painted office lined with bold art and black and white photos of fjords in Newfoundland, an authentic kilim that he was proud to have picked out himself and antique teak English colonial furniture with a charming disheveled clean mess strewn about I felt like I recognized him. Like, I know this person. Never having been to Toronto, then having an evening like this, I felt the sexiness and foreigness of The Year of Living Dangerously without the war and poverty plotline.