I like to alternate pure tourist days with almost local days. Today I had one almost local plan – to take in the Pride CB Living Library at the McConnell Library. An early phone call confirmed supper with an old friend, so now I had two plans on an unplanned day 🙂 The Travelodge is close enough for me to me willing to walk to the downtown. The sun wasn’t as relentless as it has been. So the walk took about thirty minutes, with photo & text stops.
The main drag is now in tatters – empty stores, some of which were posh now are dusty vacant remain Lots I did stop in at a couple & picked up some books, trinkets & to ask about obscure east coast music. Stopped for lunch at Flavor – which wouldn’t be out of place one the Danforth. Decent coffee, good service & excellent bacon & eggs with an exceptional in-house sour dough bread. Stopped in at Heritage Museum but nothing much there but it has taken over the superb old Bank of Montreal building.
Hit another souvenir shop for more trinkets. A coffee shop & finally the McConnell. Four members of the lgbt etc community shared some of their coming out – it was like an AA talk without the alcohol. They each brought in focus very different aspects of the queer experience: pan, intersex, non binary, cis, not cis, lesbian experience. Sometime funny, sometimes sad, always real.
All of them had some sort of community to come out into & found support for their process. I did remind them that as someone who lived in CB the 60s/70s they had a very different experience. Too bad there wasn’t any of the older generation available for the panel to give it a more complete historical context.
Walked back to the hotel, relaxed a bit, showered & out for that dinner with an old friend. Too much food, too stuffy an apartment, but at least she was within walking distance. I find that’s one of the good things about opting for a hotel this visit – I have seen parts of this city that I have never seen before. 
Here’s a brand new piece I wrote at Flavor.
Morning Moment
the old home town
not in ruins
yet –
tatters
remodelled for the tourist trade
some shops only open
when the liners are in
cruise ships
with so many passengers
the population is doubled
for a couple of hours
I grew up here
before the liners
made this a port of call
escaped when I was young enough
to enjoy my freedom
now old enough
to know
I escaped with my life
I felt then I was in a prison
but didn’t understand
I was under a death sentence
the old home town
familiar
storefronts of abandoned shops
schools burned down
washed away
dead friends
nostalgia not memory
brings me back
I don’t want to revisit
as much as reframe
to make new moments
to be what I wasn’t
once upon a time
maybe to be
what I am not even today
so what do I say
to a message
‘dick this morning?’
will I be
some old guy in a past self
who was a prisoner of shame
or do I let myself
become a man
who takes this moment
to exchange blow jobs
before eight in the morning
