people watching

one thing i love to do is watch people; to sit in a pub or a café or a park and watch the world go by... but lately i feel like solely an observer. like my whole life is simply a spectator sport. as though i'm on the outside of everything, looking inward...

i like to watch hockey, but i don't play it. i like to tune into my old friend "the doctor"'s australian radio show on the internet, but he doesn't know i'm listening. i'd love to have my own family, but instead i live with one. even my job is something i feel like i can do without ever really being present... and tonight, on my way home from attending nelly's shoe competition thingo, i stood listening outside a garage where, within, a full-on domestic dispute was taking place... and it was really odd to be present for (and yet, entirely removed from) an argument so passionate that voices were raised to screams and where the entire episode ended in sobbing.

and i long for anything to move me to that degree...

no point, as always.

hockey... to the death !

last night, dale & i watched the sens slaughter the leafs (and then the leafs comeback to almost smoke the sens). game tied 5-5 at the end of regulation. overtime ? no score... as the teams prepared for the shootout, i began to spout off about how there would be SO many 50-goal-scorers this year, due to the significantly higher totals in each game.
dale disagreed... so we made a little wager.

off the top of our heads, we each pick five players. heatley, ovechkin, jagr, gagne, zetterberg for me. naslund, hossa, palffy, kovalchuk, thornton for dale. three seperate 'competitions': total goals for all 5 players, most 50-goal-scorers & an 'average' of the middle 3 [as in drop the top and the bottom player & average the three leftover]. winner gets a case o'beer. but, because a single competition isn't enough for the two of us, we decide to create a 'backup' league. the prize ? dinner at the foggy... dale takes murray, demitra, blake, jokinen & havlat. i take lang, briere, satan, modin & d.sedin.
i think i've got him beat... except the choosing of sedin... but it'll be a good competition. and i'm stoked...

last week, i was sortof devastated, in my excitement for the 'new nhl' to start, that i didn't manage to find a pool to join. in the '03 playoffs, i won my pool [600 bucks, no shit]. i beat the pants off all the boys by selecting players mostly by looks. 'course... :) and last spring, during the world championships, i joined a pool with lenobuddy and his mates. i came in 6th of 12, but got major kudos for 'drafting' the best goalie in the competition --the little-known swedish starter, henrik lundqvist.

b'superstar suggested, last night, that the gauntlet be thrown down between the sedin twins & the lundqvist twins (bro is a forward in the swedish league) in a death shootout. or we could split 'em up (team henrik & team 'other brother'). no matter which way, i figure the team with HL will win, as he's the only real goalie. right ? yeah. i have a life...

and, speaking of deathmatches: i had a dream last night that i was in a knife-throwing battle with some badguy who wanted to kill me. he seemed to have an endless arsenal of blades, of various shapes & sizes. mine was small but i would've been able to do some damage if i hadn't thrown like a girl. which i did. then i had to run. the chase was on, but i ducked into a house where the girl tenant was going to UW & was taking fine arts. so we had quite a nice chat, over tea, while the psycho murderer dude tried to find me somewhere outside.

*sigh*

my queen street boyfriend

when i first arrived in toronto for work, in the spring of 2002, i loved to wander queen street, drink coffee & write in my journal [wait...uh... i STILL do that !!!]. as the city became more familiar, and queen west became my 'hood, there came tiny subtleties that made me smile & feel entirely at home. minute overlookable details that seemed placed just for me to notice, if i so chose. like james, the blazer-wearing singing bum who could seamlessly from "hey jude" to "rhinestone cowboy" as he sipped coffee on the starbucks patio. or the wee plaque on the non-descript building that i must have walked past hundreds of times before ever noticing [see attached photo]. and the guy that has come to be dubbed my 'queen street boyfriend.'

some historical journal entries on the subject:

December 9, 2002: "... the two mystery Toronto men who I see all the time on the street (one guy lives in the old lofts on abell, I’m sure, and the other might in fact have once been calgarian ?)…"

Feb 23, 2005: "...as we stepped out onto queen street, the dude I see all the time walks past us. I say to z “hang on a sec” and I turn to susie to explain how I see that guy ALL the time and… z hangs up. my initial reaction is to throw the phone as hard as I can, because I am SO mad I don’t even care. of course, I don’t do this at all, but instead yell FUCK really loud and feel somewhat better. my mystery queen street friend turns & looks back… "

this guy has become an enigma. i see him ONLY on queen street, but at various times of day. he walks on the south side about 95% of the time. i've seen him east of bathurst once or twice, but never west of strachan. his hair used to be cropped short, but he has, in recent months, allowed it to grow slightly unruly. he mostly walks alone but i've seen him once with a girl. his pants are an inch too short and he has really geeky sneakers. he wears a royal blue track jacket most days, even in summer. he is familiar to the point where i fight the urge to say something, only because i know the truth would shatter the imagined world where he is the perfect one for me...

but last night i was drunk. and he was there. and i couldn't let him slip by without at least finding out his name... i approached him on the street and he seemed very self-assured. cocky, even. i should be thankful that he was more flattered than freaked about the situation, but in the end, he was really not that interesting. i discovered he went to UW, which is probably why he seemed familiar from the beginning (not from calgary, but from waterloo as it turns out). we had a drink, talked a bit & then he slipped off into the night...

ahhh... my queen street ex-boyfriend...

[no point, obviously...]