I’m writing you from a coffeeshop in Toronto, one where I used to sit and write chapters of my other books. It’s bright and sunny and hot, but still on the reasonable side.
Lisa was away in New York City for a workshop, so Alvaro picked me up and we went to a friend’s backyard barbeque party. We left fairly early in the evening, and I turned in right away to have a big sleep. I hadn’t slept at all the night before, so I’m still feeling kind of shattered today, and I’ve got a wee bit of a cold that I’d managed to stave off until now.
It’s nice to be here; feels like a summer vacation.
There’s a temptation while walking around these streets to just shop and shop and buy thing after thing to eat. I did just buy a bunch of shirts, but I’d planned on that. American Apparel has some outlets here — they make non-sweatshop clothes — and the Canadian price is about 2/3 what they cost to order in the UK.
As for food, happily this diet thing I’ve been doing where you tinker with your body’s “set point”, or your natural appetite level, and it’s really been working. So pizza slices, slushies, ice cream… Walk on by.
Okay, great experience: I just bumped into the guy who was my first fan, a really lovely guy who’s a primary school principal and was hugely supportive of the play that Cosgrove and I put on here. Ironically, he studied at Edinburgh University back in the day, and still goes back and forth to Scotland. So I may see him over there next month.
He’s gone now, and I’m sitting here waiting until 3, ’cause that’s when I told Cosgrove I’d call him. I just leafed through Fab!, Toronto’s glossy wee gay magazine, and am happy with my reaction to it: “kinda fun”. Pride is on next weekend — I didn’t realise it would be on while I was here — and I find myself not resisting it. No, I don’t have much time for the go-go-party-boi set. Yes, much of gay culture is utter shite. But there’s no reason I have to keep forcing myself into a position of not-belonging just to hold onto a sense of personal taste and discerning.
In other words, I think it’ll be fun.
Likewise, making all my connections yesterday, taking off my shoes, being seated next to someone for seven hours, all that travel-stuff — I didn’t resist it yesterday. It just was how it was, and as a result it was all just fine. I was allowed to smile and be in a good mood. I’m really aware lately that every moment has this binary sort of nature: How do you want it to go?
It’s time to go outside and play.
