she won't stay at home.

If only these were more like the kind of boxes in my life right now:



Fifteen hours, eleven cardboard boxes, three rolls of bubble wrap, two rolls of packing tape, a suitcase and just about every Fiona Apple, De La Soul, and Wu Tang album ever made and I'm just about done packing. Twenty-eight hours from now I'll be hauling ass across the U.S. border; Mexico, here I come!

Kidding..

But it's sure a nice thought.


.

it's all good!

In the old days, I could count on my dates to stay faithful at the very least until the end of the night. Not like my dates could really count on the same from me, but that's to be expected. They know what they're getting into by asking me out.

Instead of accepting a second date invitation (Yeah, right.), tonight I am staying at home in bed with a bottle of wine & the Beastie Boys. All of them.

Jealous?

tonight it's 8-tracks and 6-packs while i hit that.

I don't think anybody is as excited for the NOTORIOUS release on January 16 as I am. Too bad I'll be living in Toronto and won't have admitted my true, secret love for Biggie to any of my new friends by then. I'll be attending alone. A bottle of red hidden in my purse as my date. The way it should be.

Last night I ran into a guy I dated on and off this year from Febuary until August on my way to yet another exboyfriend's roommate's rap show. We each had a king can in the alley behind the beer vendor in Osborne Village, something we used to do together quite often. The fact that he left before he had even finished his left me as emotionally unsatisfied as the near-litre of cheap beer left me feeling physically. Biggie's "Fuck You Tonight" meant something completely different last night than every other night before it. R. Kelly had no place or purpose in my bedroom when I got home.

Damn.

i see the lights of a city.

Coming home to Winnipeg is bitter sweet for me. After leaving my mark on most of Queen West this past week, I finally touched ground back in this sleepy, somber city on Saturday night.

For those of you who Facebook or my mother hasn't told, I'm moving to Toronto in two weeks time to take the Culinary Management 2-year diploma program at George Brown College. No summer vacation for me, folks. I'm in it for the long haul.

Moving away, it will be refreshing to leave the house without seeing a parade of my ex-boyfriends (and men I used to regularly swap spit with) or a band that is fronted by Greg Lowe.

But I have to be honest. There are some things I really love about this city and that I really will miss. Most importantly, I have recently found out that drinking king cans in the alley is not something they do anywhere but Winnipeg (how on earth has this trend not spread?). Drinking king cans in the alley in the hot, humid summer here seems like more of a hobby here than an action. It's what you do between acts at the pyramid to save money (Half the price for twice the beer? Heck yes.). More often than not this summer, it turned out to be what you did INSTEAD of acts at the pyramid.

I can handle only so much hipster pseudo-electronica.

You only have $3 to your name? You can skip the niceties of sipping soda on the Cousin's patio and take your favourite gal to the nearest back alley for a cold one. Obviously, that's where you come in, Brianna. You can keep the $0.15 change.

Over a pitcher of Halifax's finest with a new friend at a really tragic bar down the street from Lee's Palace, our meeting spot, I found myself feeling pangs of sadness when I detailed this Winnipeg pastime. What will I do when I live in Toronto? Plan that I'm going to want 950mL of shitty beer at 2:30 in the morning? Keep my fridge stocked? What will my landlord think?

Drinking a king can in the alley with a cute boy you just met gives you 23 extra minutes to judge whether or not you're going to grace him with your presence again (or in some cases, let him take you home). Alternately, if he doesn't know what you mean by 'grabbing a king can', he obviously has a screw loose. Or he hasn't lived in Winnipeg long.

I have so many questions. Since king cans aren't an option, will my neighborhood LCBO stock the 1.18L bottles of Molson Dry? Will some 'cool' Torontonian pass on the number of the illusive illegal dial-a-bottle? I give myself 'til mid-November to figure it out or I'll have to break down and ask my parents to ship a box of them with the rest of my furniture. "Careful with that box! That one is full of king cans!"

I will miss the Woodbine Hotel. I will miss pitchers of Two Rivers on the Cousin's patio. I will especially miss hangover breakfast at the Nook. Fortunately for me, Toronto seems to be the city that everyone passes through on their way to somewhere better. Me? I think I'll be sticking around for awhile.

To my friends in Toronto, old and new, I hope you'll stop by my new place in the next month for a bottle of wine.. or two. This girl can drink. Photo credit goes to whoever the genius behind www.winnipeglovehate.com is. Kudos, my friend.