Cobb Salad 2

So back from New York, saw Brynnah and went to more village's then the Faux can shake a fist at: West, East, Greenwich. Upon my return who should I run into but one of the local celebrities of the Faux Hill, CiCi Cobstein.
I happened to spot CiCi, everyone's favourite heiress and village dilettante [sic], eating at David's around the time it turns over to Buzz by Night. Now I generally don't like making fun of people's physical appearances, but when you're on the zaftig side of fat, I do like to ask should a person be ordering a salad under this guise: "I don't want any lettuce, replace all the greens with avocado." No. No they shouldn't. But the higher fat quantity of avocado is the least of my worries, right?
Overhearing tales of CiCi's last job and being on the un side of employed I thought: with whom has CiCi been sharing her talents with [besides local cokeheads]? So I did a bit of sleuthing, called up my village informant Holt and ran the gossip through whatever mill used to grist flour up in these parts (uhm... like, we only serve Ace Bakery bread).
And what I unconvered is a classic tale of Faux Hillary so beautiful in its conception that one would assume it to be fictional. Only it isn't.
Upon graduation CiCi decided she wanted to work for a not-for-profit. You go girl! Daddy, wanting only the best for his little girl, arranged a job interview for CiCi at her charitable agency of choice. Yay.
Now do you think it was SO simple; a phone call to arrange a non-existent job? As someone who is unemployed I can tell you that no, no it isn't. To arrange said interview a lovely chunk of change was donated by Mr. Cobbstein to said charity, in exchange for his daughter's employment (gasp!). All's well that end's well right? Wrong. CiCi, always daddy's little girl and business minded at heart, decided that, having won over the hearts and minds of the interview committee with her 'talents', she was going to 'negotiate' for more money and health benefits [Are mani/pedi's covered by OHIP?]. Oy. The charity proceeds to call up daddy and cries poor; we can't hire your daughter unless you pony up more cash. So much like any eight year old needs a pony, daddy forks over the cash and CiCi spends a year working in the marketing department of a charitable organization.
Yet another tale of Faux Hillary Hilarity...

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

It's not too often that I talk about myself, much to the chagrin of Bold who feels she gets the raw deal round the blog.
I fail, however, to give credit where credit is due and I have to hand it to the Rents, Sim Sim Sima and Papa Len for handling the whole je suis gay with utmost class and empathy. So where did the Rents find themself pre-father's day. Why out to the Village (the rainbow coloured one) for dinner at a hot new boite. They raved about the food, the service, and "the nice walk we took down Church Street afterwards". It was "so alive with colour and people". Len even bought a t-shirt at American Apparel. PFLAG here they come.

I'm off to New York to see the non-hormonal sistah Brynnah. Faux in the Apple. GT's all around.

Bard of the Village; The Third Cut is the Bardiest

Life of a nanny:
Your "owner" buys you Starbucks
While you watch the kids.

Inherent Specialization

The problem with Starbucks... (and while I do love the company; sometimes I even joke that "I no longer study Kaballah; Starbucks is my new religion". Anyways the problem with Starbucks )is that it has created a culture of instant gratification and inherent specialization. (Big words eh? I'm kinda intense this week.)

Witness: Lulu mom ordering [and I shit you not] a grande, in a vente cup, soy, four splenda, extra hot, non-fat latte. Fair enough bitch... right? Maybe.
As she leaves her blackberry rings. Thank Sean Preston for her blackberry right? What life-threatening, earth-shattering crisis could this yoga mom possibly be a part of... I'll tell you:
"Yes... hello."
Pause
"Oh you're at which Shoppers Drug Mart?"
Pause
"Well... I was at the Eglinton location and I was looking for a size nine in the black jelly flip flops..."
Let me break down the Faux Hillish for those of you who don't speak the local dialect. This woman, who clearly has NOTHING better to do with her life, was at Shoppers, saw a pair of cheap flip flops that she liked but which were unavailable in her size(and which are probably on sale) so she has had some poor minimally paid employee scour the country for them so she could pick them up. Woman, get a life. Seriously.

I actually blame Starbucks for creating this instant gratification mantra of consumption and for creating a culture where the "customer is always right". [Truly I'm just practicing a bit of university pschology: according to transference psychology it isn't the woman's fault, rather it's society in general, which allows her to get away with it, blah blah blah].
But really IT IS Starbucks which has taught the customer to specialize his/her drink to thesis sized proportions; IT IS Starbucks where consumption is instantaneously gratified and by providing such excellent customer service that by default the cusomters of Starbucks assume that every store plays by the same rules. And that if you haven't gotten the memo via your blackberry is insanity.

Bard of Village Part Deux; Bardier

Todays Haiku:

Grande, Vente, Soy?
So many options to choose
That's why life is hard.

Fat Dan* Quote of the Day

"I just lost sixty grand on the stock market!" Gleefully shouted across the Village.

*Fat Dan is yet another Village Rat. Trust fund baby who tools around the Village doing very, very litte.

Cobb Salad

CiCi Cobbstein... the closest thing the Village has to a celebrity heiress [a la Paris Hilton]has been all over the Faux Hill this summer. And like any afflicted Faux Hillary CiCi is known as a bit of a princess. I know her from our brief respite in grade school when she asked if my parents had a private jet a la hers. No. We drive a Toyota. But I digress.
The Cobbstein family is old Jewish money (circa mid-century). Finance I think but I don't really know and Google searches bring up shell companies upon holding companies. Needless to say, however, there is a LOT of money behind this rather unpleasant girl. What does CiCi do you might ask? CiCi spends a lot of time in the Village ordering salad's at David's.
Tongues, however, have been wagging over the more recent debocles of her existence. It seems that mummy and daddy bought our CiCi a post-grad present - a house! In Faux Hill. Round these parts we're probably talking very high six figures or 1 million plus for an unrenovated Faux Hill pile. Please sir can I have a somemore?
Although not quite house-poor CiCi, always a party girl, took to having high rolling poker parties (texas-holdem is all the rage) as a little side-venture. This lasted till the cops got involved, illegal gambling + drugs + guns = messy PR disaster. So the house was sold and CiCi was installed in a nearby condo avec doorman.

London School of Hardknocks (LSH)

Today, while having coffee with my village informant: Holt [Upper Canada Old Boy turned embittered Village Waiter, you serve $11.00 salads for a year with a BA and see how you feel], I saw a member of the Helmet Brigade (the Helmet Brigade are forty-something + women who get their hair blow dried once a week to the point of consistent hard helmet hair - look around it's all over the place). As a family friend of this particulary Helmet Brigade member (holla holla Linda), I asked how her daugther was doing at teacher's collge. "Fabulous of course! She doesn't like Buffalo... but other then that it's great."
As Linda walked away Holt turned to me and said, "Buffalo? Who goes to teacher's college in Buffalo?"
Ha ha... dearest reader's welcome to Faux Hill where people do in fact go to teacher's college in Buffalo. Why? For the exact same reason that Jessica Goldenstein goes to law school in East Lansing. That is where the progeny of Linda and Jessice Goldenstein got accepted.
Welcome to Faux Hill in 2006 where getting into a Canadian grad school is really really tough :( but getting into some sketchy American grad school that offers equivalency programs, if you're willing to pay top dollar (let's say 20,000 americano - lowball ballpark figure), is really really easy. This is good news if you're thinking of opening an American Apparel outlet in East Lansing; bad news if you tend to think that people should work hard for their future and not simply buy it. Oh wait - this is a capitalistic society, isn't it?
Witness the rise in popularity of going teacher's college in Australia, Buffalo or the favoured grad school of the jetset, LSE. Oh London School of Economics... an interesting case of an international school which has succesfully marketed itself to cash-rich North American's hoping for a bit of Old World Cache (this is an historical consistent... the Vanderbilts foamed with glee at being able to marry off their daughters to poverty stricken British royals). LSE has invented hundred's of master's programs in almost every discipline you could think of... and well to be honest, this kind of shit works. LSE = master's = high paying job... Remember those people who get their teaching degrees from D'Youville College Buffalo will compete for the same teaching job that Sally Smalltown, who worked her ass off to get into teacher's college at Queen's, wants. Who said that life was fair and that we are all given the same opportunities? What do you think this is Communism? Bitches, I saw a Ferrari in Faux Hill today; it's called inheritence... Those who have it have an easier job maintaining it.
So at the end of the day, where does that leave Holt and I? Feelings of imbued superiority and poverty with a mix of a grande Sumatra. Holt, however, did say he was thinking of working on his portfolio for Parsons School of Design... natch.

Bard of the Village

I've decided that as I'm basically the Poet Laureatte of Faux Hill every Friday I will write a new Faux Hill Haiku:

Sittin at Starbucks
Watching Cars Parallel Park
Their Uggs are too tight.

Hired Help

[Warning: the longer i'm unemployed the more bitter I've become]

Yawn... it's so hard to find help these days, isn't it?
A big complaint that I hear from parents (and by hear I mean overhear) is that kids are just floudering at elementary school. There's too much homework, their reading skills aren't up to par... etc... etc... I mean how can little Janey learn both English and French, and Hebrew if she goes to a Jewish day school? One mother pulled her child out of Bialik, a local Hebrew Day School, in grade one because she was worried about her child's poor reading skills.
Hrm... I happened to call my neighbour Linda Goldenblatsternowitz today in order to follow up with a connection she had for my job hunt. Seeing as she herself doesn't really work she must know someone in the working world right? Linda has two youngish boys (13+15)... so who should answer the phone? The housekeeper, of course!
What ensued is the modern day Abbot and Costello routine if Costello was a recent immigrant whose grasp of English was non-existant at best.

FH: Can you tell Linda that Jon called.
HK: Jon?
FH: Yes. J-O-N.
HK: J-O-H-N.
FH: No. J-O-N.
HK: H-N.
Finally I acquiesed.

Now my point here is not to make fun of this woman's English skills. Canada is a country built on immigration etc etc... however, when the unemployed parents of the Faux Hill sit at Starbucks lamenting how their children have poor reading skills - I often snidely think to myself, "if you spent as much time with your beloved children as your housekeeper does and less time at Starbucks maybe little Janey wouldn't have such poor reading comprehension..."

Sweatpants are the new Black

Oy... I may have to change the subheading of this blog. According to this Saturday's Style Section in the Globe and Mail: "The Lululemon era is officially kaput." AHHHHHHHHHHHHH... This blog began with the pretense of making fun of Lululemon. Is my raison d'etre suddenly finito? Finished before I even had the chance of jumping on the Lulu bandwagon. Sim Sim Sima owns a pair of Lulu's, but once she's wearing something trendy, I can safely say that the trend has undoubtedly expired.
After intellectualizing a bit over the whole situation, I came to an important conclusion: round the Faux Hill sweatpants never really went out style. Baggy Gym Master sweatpants, birkenstock clogs, and a messy-bun have been the defacto Faux Hillary uniform since local residents & owners of Roots, the Budmans, started making their classic beaver logo'd sweatpants (see photo) decades ago. At the end of the day Lululemon was simply a brief affair with a trashy, new money, Shiksa interloper from Vancouver (ew).
You might say that Faux Hill is much like the mob... we also protect our own.

Overheard... (via cellphone?)

So I've been spending a lot of time at the Office (Starbucks in Faux Hill). It's the nexus of my job search and the nexus for realizing the ridiculousness that is Faux Hill.
This morning I was stunned to witness the ultimate if Faux Hillary Hillarity - arguments about cell phones. [Sidenote: It's actually a big day for cell phones at the Two-Fer... Sim Sim Sima just got herself a brand spankin new blackberry (of course she isn't paying for it, WWSD, as if you have to ask. TDSB pays for that shit).]
If you haven't noticed, cell phones have truly become ubiqutous; I mean even the children I've tutored in Regent Park have cellies.
My favourite use of cell phones however are the unemployed mummies of the Faux Hill (ya know the kind who don't work, don't need to work). They have Blackberries. I used to ask myself why until I witnessed something so enlightening I practicaly expected JC to walk in off the street and ask for a no foam, extra hot latte.
Here's what happened to Prada (so named because of her lovely Prada rain jacket) and so overheard by yours truly as Prada happened to tell her bff Gucci (so named because of her lovely Gucci rain hat).
P: "I'm sorry I'm late. I just hit another car."
G: "What happened."
Que some story about how Prada tried to deflty manouever new suv into too small parking space with bad results.
P: "We're going to be late for our mani's." (Mani's = Manicure in Faux Hillish - the local dialect)
G: "Let's call the Spa. I need a coffee before we go."
P: "But I don't have the number!"
And to save the day, wouldn't you know it, Gucci swoops into the Louis and pulls out the Blackberry. Mani's saved... soy latte's drunk. Pay it forward, non?

But really the ultimate in cell phone antics is the cell phone bill argument. I arrived to witness Ms CEO (short blond hair, white pearl studs, tailored tasteful power suit) sitting have a morning coffee with daughter. In front of them were Roger's cell phone bills. I knew as soon as I saw them that this was going to end in disaster.
"It is your duty, as my parent, to pay for my cell phone." The daugther yelled.
"Why do you think you get an allowance?" Asked the mother.
"But I spend it on other things."
"Like what?"
"Dinner. Out. With friends."
Que argument over cell phone bills, which escalated, and I shit you not dearest readers, into tears. The daughter actually cried and accused her mother of being a bad parent. I mean my god! Instilling financial lessons in our spawn. Won't somebody please think of the children?

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to my right...

They're filming a movie in the Faux Hill. This means that there are mildly attractive men in diesel's lurking about.
Now that summer is about to get into full gear the Village is kicking it up a notch, BAM. The patio is back to its usual display of mummies, teenagers, and the oddity who buys lunch at EdoKo, but has to have a cup of java with her tempura (Don't even get me started about this trend - something I'm closely watching and have taken to calling these women Starbetic's. AKA... they're like diabetic, but instead of glucose shots they need shots of Starbucks bevies...)
Inside Starbucks however is a completely different story. Inside, where I've taken to sitting in the laptop aisle, has almost become an office of diligent worker's who have made Starbucsk the Pomo cubicle.
The usual suspects are a convoluted group that are potentially the basic skeleton shell of a Fortune 500 Company (just ask Ken Lay).
They (We) include:
1) Donna... gotta love Donna. Donna apparently is a consultant for gender equality. She lives part time in Switzerland. Donna is fabulous.
2) The Day Traders - Nebish Jewish fellows who are learning how to day trade while living off of family income, I suspect. They're an odd sort, late thirties, who seem to flock to a much older man who is inherently more succesful then them and acts as their guru. They do, however, provide variety to the Bucks... and subsequently you get to hear lines like, "start shortrading gold; its heading for a freefall." It makes me feel like an extra in Michael Douglas's Wall Street.
3) Metrosexual Mike - I don't know Mike's real name. Mike isn't even that attractive in a conventional way... but man o' man... does Mike fill out a skimpy white v-neck t-shirt really fucking well. What does Mike do? I'm not sure to be honest. I worry that Mike could be me in the future (but with A LOT of trips to the gym to work on my biceps)... he seems to have a lot of ideas (he told Donna he was going to start a restaurant that only sold barbecue related things, it was going to be called Que. I wish him all the best.

Lost Souls - Finding a Protege

I havne't blogged in over a week. Intrepid readers may have concluded that I have a job. They'd be wrong.
Yesterday I spent five hours sitting at Starbucks with my Village informant Cam. Cam's sorta a lost soul, amongst a sea of lost souls these days... We shot the shit for hours upon end, discussing what used to be where What a Bagel is (Bayshore Trust), Bank of Montreal (Paper Ideas) the Second Cup (CC-ookies, they only sold cookies; surprise it didn't last very long). Cam then suggested that I become the Village historian... something that well... has crossed my mind once before. Once when he was drunk (which is an occurance that occurs more often then not) Cam suggested that they construct a traffic circle with a statue of me in the middle of Spadina and Lonsdale.
As more and more coffee was ingested topics veered from Faux Hill to various antics of our youthful years and we began to attract the attention of the only other patio dweller... (at 10 degrees it was rather chilly for the botoxed beauties with their bugagboo's) a 15 year-old student at the Collegiate. And in this lovely 15 year-old... I may have found myself a protege. For who else besides yours truly sits at the Starbucks patio with a leather bound journal eavesdropping on other peope's conversations? Just me... and now I may have found my straight female counterpart. The good news: she got kicked out of camp and will be around for the entire summer. The even better news - she was wearing a Forest Hill hoodie - does it get any better then that? I don't think so.

Faux in the Faux

Fine... I'll admit that I'm a complete poser whose landed in the Faux Hill by accident of his parent's good fortune to purchase in the hood pre tullip craze.
When I look around the Starbucks patio I do wonder if it's at all noticible that I'm not quite as rich as the Upper Canada old boy next to me. I mean my jeans are designer, but my Ipod's a black and white model (how embarassing).

Said Upper Canada Old Boy is wearing:
Nike Shox Sneakers: $200.00
UCC Sweatpants: approx $50.00 bucks? However... there is no way anyone can simply wear Upper Canada sweatpants unless they a) go there [tuition is $23,475.00 a year] or b) their boyfriend goes there. I attempt to make eye contact with my mark to assess if he actually goes there or if the pants belong to his boyfriend. No dice. He goes there.
Burberry Rain Jacket: $500.00
Motorolla RAZR: $400.00
Ipod 30GB Video: $379.00
Louis Vuitton Ipod case: $250.00 (although its a bit embarassing to have a Louis Vuitton ipod case)
Polo hat: $45.00

Alas... I'm just not quite as bling. I walked home in shame.

It's My Anniversary

Astute readers will have realized that it's my one year anniversary! Yes it has been only a year since this blog began out of sheer boredom and out of complete hilarity at Faux Hill; yet what a year it has been! In fact this anniversary is almost as important to me as my BirthGay (yes... I came out around my birthday and hence the two are combined into one super duper holiday!).
I'm going to try and create a year in review or something to try and help newfound readers figure out what a Gaygetz is, who exactly the Rama is and what WWSD means. We'll see if I don't find a job before this all happens.

And on that note, I gotta be in the Village for coffee. Toodles!

Mayfair

Today I travelled from the confines of the Faux Hill down to Rosed Ale... Rosed Ale is the alternate Faux Hill - pretty much the same place but without a Starbucks (Egads!) but with more WASP's. It's a trade off I guess... and sometimes to be honest I'd trade Starbucks for a Gaygetz. But I digress... as a Faux Hill boy sometimes you gotta check out the rival 'hoods and see what all the fuss is about.
Mayfair is the annual Springtime Fair held by the RosedAliens to celebrate their good fortune and raise money for local sports teams (no not for the nearby slum St Jamestown, but for themselves. Afterall Holden's hockey team needs new practice gear!). I went along with Kitty and her entire family for a day of good natured establishment fun, basically hung out with the mayor, drank beer and hung out with the future business leaders of Canada (remember that these were the same idiots that did bong hit after bong hit in university; the lines of establishment run about as deep as the Canadian Shield that your cottage sits on in Muskoka). I'll admit that I'm always a bit enamoured with Rosed Ale. I love that at the Summerhill Market you can simply say, "162 Binscarth" and sign a receipt and daddy pays for it all. It's beautiful and small-town esque and something that Faux Hill for all of our private school's and coffee shops just can't compete with. Something else the Faux Hill can't compete with - the Gaygetzym... I mean where else is yours truly going to swoon at this sentence:
"Ya Queen's has been really good for law school. It's quiet so I can practice my squash game." Jake McMaster... you had me at squash.

*

In other news A Nax, the unemployed Faux Hill cousin, will be home shortly. Antics will ensue I'm sure.
She also put a gun to my head and made me write that. Bitch.

Shhh Gossip

As Faux Hill Celebrity (TM) and general know it all... I happen to privy to much of Faux Hill Gossip. I have a team of minions who comb the Forests and Hills of the region looking for smutt on which I can report. Actually I have one friend who works at a resto in the Village and he feeds me shit about his clients. Other stuff I pick up at Starbucks.
So the latest goods and people this is hot off the press is that a certain rakish gentleman habituates the Village on certain nights with his mistress and on other's with his wife...
And for those who think the Faux Hill is too harsh a name for these parts - I suggest you reconsider.

The Bible

Sociologically... the Village is odd. 50% yid and 50% WASP the two solitudes are neatly divided by the regions only thoroughfare, Spadina, which cuts a broad swath down the middle of Faux Hill separating the upwardly mobile Yids to the West and the Landed Gentry WASP's on the Eastside. Both groups mingle sans much trouble in the Village; there was one time when I thought a group of WASP's and JAP's were going to recreate a scene from West Side Story (When you're a JAP you're a JAP all the way, from your first Louis Vuitton to your last dyin' day), but then I realized they were politely waiting for the light to change. In fact I'm propossing someone dispatch me to Northern Ireland to help with peace talks... there hasn't been an uprising round these parts since the great Botox Scare of 1999. This cultural sensitivity is perhaps best personified by Starbucks, which round 'Holiday' sells both Christmas themed shortbread cookies AND some which commmemorate the Eight Crazy nights...
The proliferation of Jews in the Village isn't a shocker... read any good book on Modern American Jewish history and what will you find? Well round the fifties upwardly mobile Jewish practitioners, second generation doctor's and lawyers began settling in establishment neighbourhoods as a sign of newfound wealth, and desire to escape from the Ghetto while emulating North America's WASP Gentry. As a product of this is it any wonder of my own obsession with the Gaygetz (old habits die hard dahlink's).
Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus portray's this obsession with establishment prep in a rather popcorn-esque fashion as nouveau suburbanized Jews form country clubs and "have their noses fixed". In one particularly telling scene Roth describes the family's bar stocked with the best bottles of whiskey and champagne, all unopened of course (because in emulating the landed Gentry... we Jews don't drink - note the absence of a bar in Faux Hill - it's like prohibition here).
And so I present to you my latest purchase, pink and green argyle vans. Because does anything say establishment prep more then pink and green? Add in argyle and you have yourself establishment prep with a British flair... these shoes aren't just a purchase y'all they are a statement.

The Village Tap

I was on the phone with Kitty today; Kitty is like my Rosed Alien mother... or exactly how I picture the mother of my future Gaygetz [basically she offers me a glass of wine when I come to her with my emotional problems, then tries to hug me (awkwardly) before admitting that she just isn't that emotional].
Kitty is to Rosed Ale as I am to Faux Hill... aka underemployed, bitter and simply enamoured with the ridiculousness of our respectively cushy lodgings.
We discussed a friend of hours who had left the family pile on Binscarth... she had found the move to be rather traumatic; Kitty empathized of course, "I'm sure I'd also be upset. If I ever left."
So what is it about Faux Hill that says you're home?
What truly warms my heart every time I laze about Starbucks pondering my directionless life is the Village Tap. The Village Tap is an elaborate dance between cars awkwardly trying to manoever around the overpopulated Village Strip. There is nothing more heartwarming then sitting on a Starbucks patio on the first day of spring and watching a Mercedes Benz shirk itself into non-existant spot.

There are 3 kinds of Village Tap:

1) Geriatric Tap
- generally an old man/woman in a ginormous American built Buick who has no concept of how far back the car actually extends
- Although generally excusable "they're old! they're confused!" Watch out, the Geriatric Tap is exceptionally dangerous not only to your fender but also to pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. Geriatrics aren't only about harming other cars... they're also about jumping the curve.

2) SUV Tap
- this is a new breed of tap brought on by:
post-yoga samsara + caffeine/aspertame withdrawl * stressed out mothers - hired foreign help + unnecessarily large cars + the Motorolla Razr cellphone
= highly unncessary Tapping while attempting a parallel park while on the phone ordering foreign help to feed beloved children lunch even as her own headache grows from combined caffeine and aspertame withdrawl and her mouth salivates in anticipation of sharing a David's salad with similarly unemployed friends as they discuss the uselessness of hired help. Try and do that WHILE parallel parking? Impossible!

3) The Hired Help Tap
- this is the most awkward tap
- the hired help of the Village (aka the painters, gardeners who are sleeping with your wife while you're downtown working for a large mulitnational/playing gulf and siphoning off from your trust fund) often inundate the place over the lunch hour trying to fit their vans into narrow spots vacated by post-yogga mummies hurrying to the Summer Sale at Holt's
- exceptionally awkward because this Tap raises horrible issues of social class that no one wants to talk about - Dude it's Canada

Today as I biked through the Village I witnessed all three kinds of Tap and thought to myself, "I truly would miss this if I ever left."

Craigslist!

Because I'm a) weird b) unemployed and c) a hopeless romantic I read the Craigslist Missed Connetions just about every day... in the hopes that one day someone will write a Craigslist Missed Connection about me: You - stunningly attractive boy at Starbucks in the Forest Hill Village - we exchanged smiles accross the patio... Me - Jake Gylenhaal esque...

Well... Imagine my surprise as I perused the MC's this weekend:

ForestHill 2ndCup ~ just b4 10am ~ light? - m4m - 48

---

Reply to: pers-157976105@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-05-05, 9:31PM EDT


I lit you once, I lit you twice.
You, great pockets, a smoke & 3 coffees. Very sexy accent...
Me, my coffee, my Drum, my glasses...


May I light you thrice?

~
No... he wasn't referring to me reader's [uhm... I only do Starbucks] but a Missed Connection in the Faux Hill and a gay one at that!
Love is in the air!

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

In regards to being unemployed and sans Gaygetgz... I've taken to wearing shorts. Madras shorts. If you can't find a gaygetz... might as well emulate one.

Unemployment...

They are renovating a house down the street (no surprise really... people NEED space for sub-zero's these days) and it happened that in my unemployement I've gotten to see the happy home owner out and about, directing construction workers, directing the gardener (a kept woman of the Faux Hill does a lot of ordering; her entire life is basically a giant life size Starbucks outlet) and well... let's just say that she's used to having work done and I'm not only talking about the house. ZING!
So... what's my point here? There exists in this world a whole underclass of those who don't work, do so by their own choice and are still indepentely wealthy enough that they don't even need to look for a job!
It so happened that I've been hanging out a fair bit in the Rosedale Village (mostly circumstatial and partially practical - I mean if I'm going to meet a gaygetz... I better start hanging out in WASP territory - non?). Today I happened across a member of the Pussy Posse, who as a gang are not really known for doing much other then sitting and drinking coffee; this man, whom I'll call Jesse Raphael, (named for his prediliction of red reading glasses), was sitting with another gaggle of unemployed Rosed Alien men. My first reaction was - SLUT! - how dare he cheat on the pussy posse... but then I realized this wasn't really cheating. This man has literally nothing else to do but sit at various Starbucks's (and can we as a society please think of a better plural for Starbucks?) and gab with other unemployed yet independently wealthy men.
Whenever I mention this independently wealthy syndrome to my mother, Sim Sim Sima, who then reminds me that I am not of independently wealthy means and that I better get a job. I hear Starbucks is hiring...

Backstreet's Back Alright

Now throw your hands up in the air - wave 'em around like you just don't care...

Ya know how on the OC Ryan and Marissa are like always getting back together, fighting, breaking up and its a vicious cycle of Marissa getting into drugs/alchohol/lesbianism and waiting for Ryan to come save her whilst you the viewer are always sitting there yelling at the TV and being like, "fuck Ryan for the love of G-d ditch the twig and come live with me"? Ok maybe that's just me...
Well dearest readers... I'm back... It's May 2006 and I'm unemployed and potentially friendless... yes that's right that whole blip of becoming an advertising maven was a complete and utter joke - I'm all about the words and potentially about making Faux Hill Village t-shirts (because what's a gay jewish yid supposed to do other then become a fashion designer, natch).

In short:
- The jock got dumped - :(
- I renamed my boss Cuntina Whordeiro and then quit
- The Rama attempted a comeback (because people never change and because Ryan and Marissa will always be Ryan and Marissa - the Rama will always be the Rama) - only to be told that he was last season's plot device and like any bad secondary character he won't be getting his own spin off
- I went to LA - it sucks and makes the Village look like South Compton on a good day

Stay tuned dahlink's. I'd write more but I must bank and buy a latte in the Village. Sigh...

Holla Hollah

Springtime for a Faux Hiller

The Village is really a summer thing. I've said it before and I'll reiterate it now. So... a couple of weeks ago on the first passable day of warmth in Toronto would I not happen to spot the classic male Faux Hillary in his summer ensemble: sweatpants, those adidas flip flops that everyone owned in Rez, polo and sunglasses. Yes ladies put those Uggs away the David's patio is OPEN!

Alas I've been busy to recount tales from a blossoming Faux Hill Spring. In short I've dumped the jock, quit my job in MEDIA, travelled to LA (whose bling puts the Faux Hill Village to shame) and have once again found myself back as of May1st: Unemployed, potentially friendless, sitting watching life passby on the patio of the Faux Hill Village. To make matters even better the Rama has reared his summer head only to profess his love for yours truly only days before he gets shipped off to war/ fine an oil rig. Well don't I feel like Sandra Bullock in that awful Hemingway inspired movie with Chris O'Donnell (yum).

In fact... as I ventured into Starbucks over the weekend only to run in one of Those Girls.

"FH how are you?"
"Good"
"I haven't seen you since last summer. When you were here like everyday."
"Well I'm back baby..."

And to that point I found myself this morning sitting and having a latte at the Starbucks jockeying for position on the patio. Uhm... FYI I'm a celebrity god dammit. Does Kirstin Dunst jockey for space at the Urth Caffe on Melrose (that's just a little LA talk, baby). No. No she doesn't. I am the Kirstin Dunst of the Faux Hill Village.

Bugaboo

For some people the phrase bug-a-boo harkens back to the namesake Destiny's Child song with these pullitzer prize winning lyrics:

"You make me wanna throw my pager out the window
Tell MCI to cut the phone calls
Break my lease so I can move
Cause you a bug a boo a bug a boo
I wanna put your number on the call block
Have AOL make my emails stop
Cause you a bug a boo
You buggin what? you buggin who? you buggin me!
And don't you see it aint cool "

Beyonce... who knew you were like a modern day Byron?

According to the Urban Dictionary a bugaboo is an overly annoying person who doesn't stop calling or harassing you.

Around these parts, and I'm going to be brutally honest here, the only urban connotation one could make in the Faux Hill is schleping down to Urban Outfitters for on sale Seven's; a bugaboo therefore is not what the MBrad once called me, rather, it refers to the name of a fancy baby stroller. [Take that Marty, whilst you were telling anyone who would listen that I was a Bugaboo, you were really calling me a stroller - who has egg on their face now??]

The Bugaboo is not just any stroller; at $1100.00, the Bugaboo is the SUV of the stroller world and comes with so many accessories it's like Barbie's Dream House.



Now I'm sure most intrepid reader's are wondering... FH what do you know about stroller's? Have you finally relented and adopted the Cambodian love child that the Rama vicitiously insinuated you would eventually adopt?

Nope... dearest friends: Bold is knocked up (although in wedlock, I guess one could say she's pregnant). And so... round these part's it's all baby all the time. In true WWSD mold Bold... well... Bold has a little bit of Sim Sim Sima in her and is therefore trying to figure out how she buy the Bugaboo without paying the rather exhorbitant asking price. Hair brained schemes involve Brynnah in New York City and taking advantage of free shipping opportunities to anywhere in the contintental United States.

WWSD is, as always, how this family tries to keep up with the Jones' while still keepin' it real. And on that rather Chris Rockian note I can admit that maybe there actually is a little bit more urban in these parts then I had previously thought.

Save our Bus - The Faux Hill 33

So in the Saturday Globe and Mail there was an article about how the TTC may cancel the Forest Hill 33, the lone bus that travels through the Faux Hill Village, connecting Faux Hillary's with public transit since 1978. Now I've got to be honest, Faux Hillary's don't do public transit. We do our parents' SUV's until they buy us our own cars and in the mean time we get chaufered around to climate controlled malls like Yorkdale. We do carpool until we get our G2's. [Not me personally I take public transit, but I'm atypical.] Furthermore, a Faux Hillary mom ain't gonna be caught dead on the subway either. That much Louis Vuitton hasn't seen so much underground since Marie Antoinette was imprisoned in the French Revolution and look how that turned out.
The article portrayed the Faux Hill as per usual... tony, monied and perhaps synopsized by this gem of a closing sentence: "[But] the nannies and kiddies are entitled to public transportation too."
A couple of points that I feel must be made as a local resident of the Village:
1) "A lot of the nannies and housekeepers of the people of Forest Hill ride it." Thank you local resident Roy Boyce.
2) I don't care how many people ride this bus, and judging by the many SUV's in this neighbourhood I'm thinking few residents use it... I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the Faux Hill Village 33 will never be cancelled. "You can take away our back door garbage service but you can never take away our BUS."
To quote an entirely fictitional character I've constructed, but whom I feel is the Faux Hill Alpha male archeteype:
"This is Forest Hill bitches, you can't take shit away from us. It's called entitlement, we've got a bus, you don't. You wanna run for reelection next year and you want us to contribute to your candidacy... uhm... you took our away our bus. The bus that carries in our housekeeper. She's now fifteen minutes late everyday because she has to walk in from Eglinton and you expect a donation? I don't think so."
I think that really sums it up, no?

Gaygetz - Redux

My affinity for non kosher meat is wildly known and is perhaps best personified by the dog-eared copy of the Preppy Handbook placed above my desk. In my mind there really is nothing better then a cute boy in Madras shorts holding both a tennis racquet and a glass of scotch.
It so happened, however, that I recently found myself at party (cowboy themed - I dressed as Jake from Brokeback, natch) where upon a lovely lad with beautiful eyes took it upon himself to hit on me. He was kinda like Rama 2.0 - cute, small, toned, with exceptionally pretty eyes. The lad, is an actual mentsch, as in he went to Jewish camp, had an outrageous over-the-top bar-mitzvah, and grandparents live in Florida. On this particular evening the two of us took it upon ourselves to discuss the finer points of growing up gay and in the Faux Hill, to quote, "Jewish sleepover camp: breeding ground for the young homosexual." I found myself surprisingly smitten.
There was something oddly comforting in our flirtation, something that harkened back to a comment by Sim Sim Sima, "your father used to date non-Jewish nurses; at the end of the day, he knew what type of wife he wanted. You always want to stick with what you know. And what you know is kosher meat." I'm paraphrasing her; fine I added meat comment, so sue me.
I began to question my attraction to the Gaygetz, was it all simply boyish whims and emotional immaturity? Would I, at the end of my twenties, find myself looking for love over blintze's, copulating with a Jewish Doctah and fretting about the colour scheme for our milk and meat plates?
The evening's catch, Josh, was at first the perfect mix of Gaygetz and Yid. He even went to Neuchatel, the same waspy private prep school that once harbored such past boyfriends as the MBomb, [this thought made me do a little bit of mathematics: 80 students a year go to Neuchatel. Approximately 35 are boys, of those 3 must be gay. Out of the two years that the MBomb and Josh attended I assumed that there would have to be about six faygeleh's. I've now attracted 2/6... considering I haven't even met the other four my Neuchi batting average is pretty fucking sweet.] But I digress...
As we chatted I thought maybe Josh was less affected then other neighbourhoud Faux Hillary's; maybe we could wear matching Faux Hill t-shirts and make sarcastic comments together about Uggs. Even more importantly Josh was doing his master's in something that didn't involve Law School, a surprise for a Faux Hill yeled, maybe he had enough Gaygetz in him fo me to appreciate. Perhaps it was time, I thought, to put a posting my proverabial posting on Jdate [Which had recently come out of the closet and begun to welcome boy on boy Jewish action] and hook up with an actual Yid.
By the end of the night though the Gaygetz treaty held true, I was no longer attracted to Josh, who had excused himself to one of those very Jewish, camp oriented house parties that I had never gone to, and I realized that my affection was merely misplaced on his waspy nose and not his kosher meat. Sim Sim Sima is right, I want what I know and what I know is non kosher.
I've found a new muse: http://waspdate.blogspot.com/

In on the Joke

The purpose of this blog was to recount various tales from the heartland of the Faux Hill. For a while such tales had dried up... it was winter and there is only so much I can say about Uggs that hasn't already been said at this point. Yoga moms generally run from pilates to Starbucks to SUV's without stopping to chat. Bubbie's and Zaidie's head to Florida. I even found myself busy at my ridiculously sycophantic job in media. Trust me it isn't cool.
Alas! Christmas break happened and I ran into one of "those girls" (Uggs, Louis, odd Jewish accent, copious amounts of Jewish studies classes on the transcript). My run in with Lindsay fullfilled my seasonal tale of Faux Hill-arity. Truthfully I sorta like Lindsay even if she looks and acts like every other classic Faux Hillary. We've always had a good on campus conversation relationship: "Finals... ew." Lindsay is also a bit more interesting then the rest of her pack of besties, she has a nice boyfriend who studies Peace and Conflict Studies at NYU. He is ridiculously attractive and has that sorta Montreal Jewish Male (is he gay? vibe...). Trust me, Montreal Jewish Males (MJM's) = mama's boys = at least 15% gay. And hence when my mother tells me she has a nice Jewish Dr she wants me to meet in Monteral I shudder and think of his baggage.
But I digress... I ran into Lindsay as I was going to hang out with the Jockular boyfriend (oh right, somewhere along the way I picked up a MAN as a boyfriend, like a big beefy man who raps) while Linds and her sexually ambiguous boyfriend were leaving EdoKo (overpriced sushi for Village rats). It was quite the reunion tour for all involved.
"Oh my god! How are you!" Exclamation points ad nausesum...
I of course wanted to know about her time at Law School. [See my posting on the Law School Disease as to why this is most classic situation ever.]
But unlike most of her sister's Jessica had bucked the Osgoode trend in order to study at some mid-westnern state school. She regaled me with tales of Abercrombie clad frat boys from Virginia and Oklahoma who for some reason found her hilarious and, eyebrows raised, "quite the individual." As she said this she laughed and guffawed, "Me? An Individual? Are they serious? I mean look at me... I'm a carbon copy of every other girl around here." She continued,"So I suggested maybe a class trip. If they think I'm so special I figure I'll take them to Forest Hill, where there's gotta be like five thousand of us. An army of us in fact." I pictured said army, "back off, we'll hit you - with our Louis Vuitton clutch purses."
As we said our goodbyes, "kissses!" I realized why I had always given Lindsay more credit then most. If you're going to be a stereotype, at least get in on the joke.

Happy Chrismukkah!

There are many things to be said about this photo of Steven Harperstein lighting a menorah... but really I think the picture itself is worth a thousand words. Happy New Year.

Callback Episode

A lot of people are always asking me "FH why are you so goddam funny?"
Well this week I learnt that my hilarity may be found in my jeans - and no I'm not talking about my Seven's or Paper Denim's (ho ho ho on that joke, eh?)...
It appears as if Papa Len may be from whom I've inherited the funny bone.
Last week Papa Len found himself at the Faux Hill Public Library picking up some books and video's (WWSD - Sim Sim Sima doesn't rent from Blockbuster she orders from the library - dahlink it's free.) As he was browsing he noticed two of the Village's finest Faux Hillary's - we'll call them Hilary and Amanda - sitting in the magazine section of the library. What were these two 15 year-olds doing? Why they were playing with each other's hair! And so as Papa Len made his way to the front check-out desk he looked at them, interupted the intense game of Hair Salon that they were playing, and said:
"Excuse me, but I have to tell you that your hair is amazing."
Zing. Go Papa Len go.

Bynnah and the Friday Night Dinner

Friday night - the sabbath - to us yids is family time. And so over the past friday the FH family sat around the dining room table (and yes the rug looked fab) - Bold, Papa Len, Sim Sim Sima, M Poo and our adopted shiksa - Brynnah.
Brynnah, the blond haired, blue eyed temptress that she is, is really a political refugee at the two-fer. Her parents have been admonished to the backwards city of Edmonton. Brynnah has now become the family Shiksa (seeing as I ain't bringing one home); she declared this over Friday night dinner as we celebrated her birthday - until KB suggested that being a shiksa wasn't such a badge of honour. In fact it is sort of a derogatory one. Educated and now simply Brynnah, she admitted that she was just happy to be part of the family.
Now Brynnah is much more of Sima's child then Papa Len's. Although in looks she's clearly adopted, in personality Brynnah and Sima are peas in a pod and have spent many a morning discussing the finer things in life over latte's at the breafast table of the two-fer.
Unlike the rest of the FH family Brynnah can, however, carry a decent tune and so after the cross cultural blessings on bread, wine and candles, the family retreated the living room for a concerto as Brynnah offered to sing for the family a couple of her best opera songs; in fact songs she had just sung at an audition for Opera school in New York City.
"I'm going to sing Handel's Messiah." Brynnah declared.
We all blinked.
"It's a Christmas song." Papa Len nodded, as if knew what she was talking about.
"Ya know hallelujah." She sung.
"I love that song!" We all declared. "Sing that part." I shouted.
"That's a chorus part." Her own confusion mirrored our own confusion.
And sadly I realized that you can move a girl into the Faux Hill, give her a yiddishe name, but she's still the only Brynnah whose going to become an opera singer. I mean really, what do Jews no about Opera? Is Barbara Streisand taking Yentl to Lincoln Centre this year? One can only hope!

"I've Got Soul but I'm not a Soldier"

Today a random thought occured to me as I shuffled quickly out of St Clair West Subway Station's Heath Street Exit - a mere stone's throw away from the Faux Hill Village - what would people do if I suddenly stoped, stood in front of the elevator & started singing the Killer's "All These Things that I've Done"?

What Would Sima Do?

WWSD is a question I've probably asked myself since I was bar-mitzvah'd about ten years ago (fuck I'm getting old). It's hard to encapsulate the antics of my mother in one blog posting, but she really is a special lady... truth be told today's posting is, however, based around a little nugget of motherly wisdom from everyone's favourite anagram.
It so happened that in our effort to keep up with the neighbouring Schwartz's, Cohen's & Goldenblatt's the FH family bought one of those nice black cast iron urns to put on the front porch of the two-fer; Bold got the old clay hand me down. In the summer Sima and I planted a nice arrangement of pink geraniums. Alas as the leaves in the Faux Hill (like, uhm, this is a Forest, right?) have turned into brilliant reds and yellows, and subsequently fallen to the ground [causing quite a traction problem for the neighbourhood SUV's let me tell you], our pink geraniums have begun to wilt; something a bit more seasonal was required for the two-fer. Something that screamed, "we don't celebrate Christmas, but we still need to decorate the front of the house." Something beyond a wreath was deemed appropriate. And so, being the dutiful son that I am, today I found myself schlepping down the garden district to purchase a much needed red berry & winter green arrangement. As Sima and I were arranging $100.00 bucks of cut tree branches in the black urn, she remarked, "this is the problem with possessions. We purcahsed this and now it requires seasonal attention." I suggested that since she was such a luddite hippie that she should return the rug she had just purchased for the dining room and we could live out in a shack in the woods; maybe a real forest? "Don't be stupid." She answered.

Confessions of Bold

Bold, everyone's favourite role model (married long-time sweatheart after 8 year courtship; currently a third year pediatrics resident; home owner), would like her fan club to know that she has returned her birthday gift to Tiffany's.
She is, however, still Bold and Proud. Just an FYI.

For anyone who has a 12inch 'BOLDIE' action figure the limitted edition Tiffany Accessory Kit has been discontinued; the value will be credited to your Visa/Mastercard.

Cheers.

You Give Great Foam

"You give great foam," are not words a gay guy really likes to hear. You give great head on the other hand, is a more marketable commodity. However, while working once at a coffee shop in I swear I was hit on by a guy who told me that I "made the best damn hot chocolate in Dublin." Gay innuendo asside, the Faux Hill Starbucks ain't a place to cruise. When the forty year old woman in Lulu tells you that you give great foam, she ain't insinuating that she wants to dyke it out with you. She's being serious.
So... with foam on the mind, I wound up at Starbucks, around midday, as I had been feeling nauseus and decided to take a sick day from work (& yes this blog will for sure wind its way up as a cautionary tale about people who get fired because of their blogs... but whatever). The day was for my MENTAL HEALTH.

This is what transpired:
I was in line with three ladies, Lulu, Dior and Dior's friend Gucci. Lulu had already ordered and was waiting to pick up her much needed treat, she was post yoga afterall.
"I'd like a soy, one splenda, no foam latte." Said Dior.
"I'd like a lactaid, two splenda, extra foam latte." Said Dior's friend Gucci.
I ordered a plain latte. I'm a simple guy with simple tastes.

As the four of us (which one of us didn't belong? Was it the gay guy without any fancy duds?) waited for our drinks... Lulu began commenting on the barista's technique.
"Joanna," she said, "I just want to say that you give the best foam." And on second thought... I may need another mental health day to recover!

The C List

I used to consider myself a McGill Celebrity... like an A-Lister... alas back in the Faux Hill, I've become a mindless Faux Hillary, or at best a potential candidate for the Surreal Life. Thankfully my celeb status got a little bit of boost this week.
I found myself at Holt's (a place where every Faux Hillary is glad they came and Joe the Doorman knows your name...) wherein I bought myself something ridiculous and expensive because it has an alligator on it. I needed a cashmere hat, right?
Post purchase and riding that wave of euphoria that comes with buying something I was walking along Bloor when a red minivan pulled over, the windows rolled down, and a chorus of about five girls shouted out the window, "Hey did you go to McGill?" I nodded and laughed before telling them how my BA had purchased me a one way ticket to the two-fer and an entry level job at an advertising agency. But I'm not cynical about it because I love the two-fer and my life, really I do.
My four years at McGill and semester of being an on campus celebrity (think Veggierama instead of Mary Kate eating breakfast at the Ivy in LA though)apparently still matter to some however, even though these days I've been relegated to the back pages of US Weekly and I've become just another faceless Faux Hillary with a pair of Uggs*.



*I don't really own Uggs.

Happy New Year?

Papa Len & Sim Sim Sima decided last summer to Christen (watch and wait for the irony) my WASPy friends with Yidishe names (did it hit ya in the groin or were you prepared?); Caitlyn became Channah, Bridget became Brynah, Trevor became Tevye and so on... [To keep pace with Sima and Len antics I suggest you visit their own blog at wespawnedboldsharon.blogspot.com] I suppose however, that their joke was reflective of the fact that for many Faux Hillary's their entire world is a Jewish one. This became apparent over the recent days as the Village was swarmed - no longer by marauding packs of teenagers in their SUV's - but with out of towners visiting the Faux Hill's numerous synagogues to partake in a little bit of Jewish New Year Goodness. The streets have been jam packed with so many luxury SUV's over the past few days that its like SUV Mardi Gras - high gas prices be damned!
This blog began with a simple question: "Why do so many people wear Lululemon?" and to this day I can't figure it out. But, jokes aside, it was part of a much greater problem; the village breeds conformity... [and I ain't just talking about Gucci fanny packs, which are a) ugly and b) pretentious].
Case in point: Family Friend Dan (see previous blog entry) sent out one of those emails annoucning his new cell phone number, it was signed with: "oh and happy New Year to anyone on this list who is Jewish - oh wait, everyone is." Funny, sure; but also sad because if your world consists entirely of Brynnah's and Berol's, we foget that everyone doesn't always wear Lulu. So on this New Year's Resolution is not to ask why everyone wear's Lulu but to realize that not everyone does. Happy New Year to Jews and Shiksa's and Shaygetz's alike...

The Other Hill - Part Deux

The T-Hill, that other outpost of Torontonian Judaism, has reared its head this weekend. Bold is celebrating her birthday along with another friend, Shosh of the Thornhill Shoshana's. Yours truly has been put in charge of decorations. I was thinking a tasteful trip down to Teatro Verde for a nice planter, a stop at the Flower District @ Ave and Dav for some floral inspiration before artfully concocting a display mixed with floating tea lights. Those from the T-Hill, had a different idea. M-Poo called me this morning to warn me about the decoration intervention. It appears as if Shosh's husband was stopping off to get streamers and balloons.
Background noise (courtesy of Bold): "I will not have balloons and streamers at my party."
M-Poo whispered into the phone: "The problem is that you have a mix of two cultures - Thornhill and Faux Hill."
Truer words have never been spoken.

I Just Want a Shaygetz

Awhile ago I, whilst being angry at Starbucks (in general), I asked Sim Sim Sima and Papa Len why we ended up residing in pretentious Faux Hill. "We liked the house", they answered. I suppose what's not to like about the Two-Fer (the name I've bestowed upon the familial compound)? We have four bedrooms, a den, a backyard... It's GT's over here.
But as a part of a cultural minority, Papa Len and Sim Sim Sima settled in Faux Hill for reasons beyond the tudor styling of the Two-Fer. The Faux Hill and its predominantly Jewish residents, provide a nice protectorate where Sim Sim Sima and Papa Len's offspring (Boldy and me) could be raised in a culturally Jewish neighbourhood with the hope of potentially meeting a culturally similar mate. Faux Hill is like sending your kids to Jewish day school or a jewish camp; only unlike those cultural outposts of latent twenty first century Judaism the Faux Hill is 24/7; it is the twentieth century version of J-Date. And that, in its beauty, is the insiduous nature of the Faux Hill, which is nothing more then a self confined breeding ground for potential Cohen-Greenberg nuptuals.
Alas, a trend within these parts is rebellion, as kids will be kids... for most Jewish boys the spectre of rebellion lies within the cold confines of Rosedale, where a blue eyed-blond haired temptress with decent pedigree and OLD MONEY lures a nice Faux Hill mentsch with her shiks-appeal. A Shiksa is the derogatory term used to describe a non jewish girl who marries/dates a Jewish boy. And really whats not to like about a WASPy mate? Instead of the overly emotional hysterics of a Jewish family, our young Faux Hill lad, gets a glass of scotch and stone cold silence at the dinner table, as his mother, sadly geshries (Yiddish for shrieking) at how her beloved Joshua is dating the gentle HaverGal, Taylor Morgan Pratt.
And for the rebellious Gay Jewish boy of Faux Hill? The reality is not so different, Shiks-appeal, or in my case, Gaygetz appeal still rules. A Gaygetz?
To define: a Shaygetz is the male version of a shiksa, and a gaygetz is a term that I've modified to describe the succession of Pretty White Boys With Problems (PWBWP)that I've have dated. And like the nice Jewish boy who brings home a WASPy shiksa for Rosh Hashannah dinner, I've realized that I as well am only attracted to Gaygetz's. All of my PWBWB have been of the non kosher variety. I have been infatuated with my gaygetz's because of their WASPy last names such as Bradshaw & Payne, their small upturned little noses, their goyishe but beautiful blue eyes, the fact that they all offer me a glass of scotch at the door and the fac that they are all shockingly emotionally despondant.
As I jogged through the Faux Hill the other day, however, I realized that my infatuation with gaygetz's is pretty classic Jew-boy mentality, the Gaygetz, much like the Shiksa, still has the appeal of The Other. And I realized, that just because I'm gay, it doesn't make me any less of a neurotic Jew-boy. Portnoy would be so proud.

Life in Slow Motion

Dearest Readers, I have become lost... I dated an actor and got dumped via e-mail only to realize that everyone has baggage - only most people don't carry a Louis Vuitton. And so tonight, I yearn, ne long for a place where everybody knows my name (Cohen, Stern, Golden/Silver-stein, blatt, burg) and where most people's baggage is in fact a newly purchased Louis. Tonight I returned to the Village. Spooky...

*

It was a dark and stormy night in the Faux Hill; or as dark and stormy as it gets in these calm monied parts. An air of pervasive calm has prevailed over Starbucks; the teenage riff raff has come back from various camps in Algonquin Park and have departed for wannabe ivy league schools in Montreal and London; the Village has been reclaimed by its rightful citizens - the tax payers and by its future tax payers - law school students.
My most frequent interaction has become a various nodding routinte with these future home owners, comical only for its repitition:
"You look familiar." I see one girl in Lulu and I know...
"You were in my class." She says.
"McGill?" I ask.
"Jewish Holiday's; or some other Jewish class." And as we update each other on various summer exploints, current life plans, she tells me how she's finished her first few days of law school. She shows me the courseback with pride, as secretly we both count how many Jewish studies classes she took to get were she is. How many classes padded that CV in the quest for the holy grail: 4.0.
And so the cycle continues this fall in Faux Hill... the new generation arises as the old lingers on a patio sipping chai latte's proud of their accomplishments and David Gray laments on the ipod, "life in slow motion, somehow it can't be real."

Think Inside the Box

Bold Sharon is perhaps the oddest member of the Faux Hill family. Besides her ever increasing 'boldosity' [she was christened Boldy McS after numerous arguments over the surprise party that we planned for our parents last year. For an example I will recount the 'party sandwich incident', wherein yours truly made an executive decision and ordered party sandwiches without consulting her. "What do you mean you ordered the party sandwiches? Those people (by 'those people' she was obviously talking about the international party sandwich conspiracy) are always trying to rip us off... you probably ordered too many. Next time, get a price quote, call me back and then order." This was an argument based on $150 of party sandwiches, so we aren't talking big money here... and they all went. Boldy further distinguished herself as Bold by pushing me aside in a display of superhuman strength and shouting, to my friend Brynnah and Brock, "THEY'RE GOING TO RUIN THE SURPRISE.]; anyways... besides her increasing 'boldosity' Bold Sharon has a habbit of not being very Faux Hillary, even though she grew up here her entire life. Sadly Boldy always placed herself on the fringes of FH society wondering why she isn't as fashionable as "those people"; by those people she is referring to those stricken with Faux Hill-iticis. At thirty, however, Boldy has finally gotten so bold as too demand something from Tiffany's from her beloved husband and man who knows tolerance, M-Poo.
Tiffany-bling is the ultimate mark of the Faux Hillary. It's like a cultural touchstone that symbolizes ones origin. But unlike every other Faux Hillary, Boldy shockingly, has nothing from Tiffany's. Nary an Elsa Paretti heart, nor silver dog chain can be found in her jewellery box. This to insider's is shocking:
Kitty: "Your sister doesn't have anything from Tiffany's? Weird."
Matt: "I mean given the socio-economic standing, I find it shocking, unheard of."
Brynnah once declared, "I think it has something to do with the Bat Mitzvah, but every Jewish girl has at least something from Tiffany's." And finally Boldy can meet the mold, as M Poo has taken the plunge and thought inside the box... but true to form, Boldy directed him at a particular piece, much to the sticker shocked eyes of M Poo. And just because she's Sharon has become a bit more Faux Hillary, doesn't mean she's ain't still bold. And that is why we love her.

Your Hair is Amazing

As a guy I don't really 'get' hair. For those who don't know what I look like... my head is actually shaved; and every two weeks I whip out the automatic hair clipper, set it to option three, and shorn my own hair in the bathroom as my mother shrieks, "you have to do this here? Now?" About the most exciting thing to have happen to my hair recently was the purchase of a CORDLESS hair trimmer. I spurged ($60.00) on a fancy Phillips machine, thinking that I save about $25.00 a haircut anyway. The new machine is also, according to the good folks at Phillips, "Lubed for life" and let me tell you something dearest readers; we should all be so lucky.

For girls, however, especially those of the Faux Hill bent, hair is a completely different story. For the Faux Hillary, hair, hair care and conversations about hair are so important that hair will probably be the topic of the next great Faux Hill novel - The Great Hairsby. I realized this insipid obsession with hair while eating lunch with Papa Len at The Restaurant. The Restaurant - aka United Baker's - is rather mediocre dairy restaurant over populated by Jewish grandmothers who live in the surrounding neighrbourhood but who's children have decamped a couple of blocks south to much more affluent Faux Hill. Yet every weekend much of Faux Hill migrates five minutes north for a rather mediocre omelet with Bubbie and Zaidie.

Papa Len and I ended up commiserating about my love life over a bowl of split pea soup as two of the Faux Hill's finest ended up next to us.

The conversation transpired as follows.

"Brad and I were just in Restoration Hardware for three hours. I'm schvitsing."

"Ew. What did you buy?"

"Nothing we were just looking at linen."

Silence. Then Exclamation!

"OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU HAIR."

"I just got it highlighted and layered."

"Your hair is AMAZING."

And suddenly... I realized why Papa Len started buying the split pea soup in takeout form. Her hair may be amazing, but I had lost my appetite.

The Family Friend

When you come out and then move back to Toronto your old high school friends are generally pretty happy for you. For the most part no one really says anything, they just smile and nod politely when you admit that you hate boys and that you just broke up with your boyfriend in Alberta... This has been my experience, and for the most part it's been pleasurable. It is afterall 2005. Last weekend I had a rather different experience while having dinner at a family friends house. The rents were on the Cape and I was invited out... after dinner I drove their son, Danny, to a friends house. Danny - around my age - just came back from a stint working in New York City and is going to law school this fall has never been a fav of mine, although our parents desperately have wanted us to be friends, we just never clicked. As I drove him around, I realized why.
"So are you seeing anyone?"
"No. I just sorta broke up with someone." I answered.
"I hear when people come out they go through a really slutty phase."
Silence. [Although part of me wanted to say - yes some "gays" do; but then they contract deathly diseases, ya know the "gay" disease.] For once however I had no witty remark, or caustic comment... So silence ensued.
"I always thought you were gay. I just never said anything."
Silence.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes."
"Are you not going to respond?"
"I try and keep my life pretty private... so..."
And thankfully by then we had reached our destination and Danny exited the car with promises to keep in touch as I shook my head. Another lawyer I thought... just what the world needs.

What if I fell into a Crater in the Faux Hill Village

Last Sunday I sat reading Freud at Starbucks. This isn't a joke people and yes it was pretty "meta" - as in Josh Schwartz/OC meta... like I'm reading Freud, audience, do you get how fucking smart and self important that reference is?
But really... where have I been? Who knows really... I'm sure if I had blogged over the past couple of months I would have multiple self important stories about my sordid life neatly and wittily catalogued - alas the daily affirmation of my own wit are but distant memories these days; like errant coffee grinds at the bottom of a tall starbucks latte.
In short... I broke up with the Rama; as much as someone can date and subsequently argue over email, got a real job, in advertising - a job description that seemingly no one asks any more questions about... "The FHillary, bubeleh, he's in advertising." Saw the M Brad in Montreal, who ran away like a little rabbit.
*
Actually a really funny story just popped into my mind, one which I will run with and detail to you my loyal readers. To most "the Village" in Toronto is codeword for Forest Hill. However, to some, to those with an affinity for the same sex, rainbow flags, and Diesel t-shirts, "the Village," refers to the Church and Wellesley gaybourhood. It so happened that one night after my Business Law class, my friend Matt and I ventured out for a drink on Church Street. Matt was having a small argument with his boyfriend, and yours truly, permanently single, decided a drink in the Gaybourhood was exactly what Dr Cher, patron saint of all things gay, ordered. As we sat on a patio we eventually struck up a conversation with a lovely professor, who was in town for a conference. By the end of the night enough stollen glances had been exchanged from the much older professor that this young pup realized if he so wanted he had a very interested bite on his rod - which was sadly getting a bit rusty with disuse.
And so we flash forward to the next night, when yours truly meets said professor for drinks... a lovely conversation ensues, we discuss coming out, academia and I realize that although this will clearly end in a one night stand, at least it will be an impressive notch on my belt- a notch that can be hotlinked to ratemyprofessor.com. And so after the good professor swipes the amex card to pay for our drinks, we go back to his hotel room, where I kid you not, he declares that my left toe is bigger then my right one... and soon enough lips locked, clothes in a minor disaray a caveat is presented, "my partner is driving in from Detroit. How do you feel about Philipino's and threesomes?"
As I grab my t-shirt I state with certainty, "I don't mind the first and I've never been in the latter. I gotta go." And with a smug smile on my face I flee the Delta Chelsea and go home to the computer - low and behold, "Professor X - don't waste your time ladies on falling in love with this eye candy, he's gay." "Professor X - gives really hard reading assignments." And I laugh...

But I am Le Tired/ Variant B

In truth I haven't been to the Village in like a week. Quite frankly I've become irrationally scared of the place. If we remeber my Village lifestyle history we happen upon the Pussy Posse - yes that infamous group of fifty year old dot com millionaires and day traders who sit there every night. They scare the crap out of me to be honest and every time I've been down in the Village, either driving though there, or going to the bank, the Pussy Posse is there, drinking coffee and talking about pussy. The last time I went to the Village to do some work I actually sat in the Second Cup patio because I didn't want to run in to anyone.

*

In other late breaking medical news, the CDC has identified a new variant of Faux Hill-iticis. I call it Faux Hill-iticis Variant B. The symptoms of Variant B are similar enough to Faux Hill-iticis, but with one shocking difference: those who suffer from Variant B don't think of themselves as infected at all. To quote the daughter of a family friend at a recent Sangria/BBQ who was gushing about her Birthright trip, "I also really needed to get away from those Toronto Forest Hill Jews." Now one would think that said daughter, who later lamented the fact that it was sunday and Yorkdale closes early, is an easy diagnosis of Faux HIll-iticis... alas with that comment, however, the intrepid doctor can diagnosis her with the much more malicious Variant B stream. It's like SARS people, but less deadly, and with more Coach.

*

Inquiring minds I'm sure at this point are wondering how is Rama? Well I've given him a new nickname - Pot; this after he got all huffy when I told him that - egads - went on a date with someone else. Rama, at home in Calgary, suggested that I shouldn't be so picky or I may wind up alone. To which I responded, "is that the pot calling the kettle black?" Rama, ne Pot, has taken to writing me every day and has also taken to espousing my fabulous characteristics in his emails, (like being cute, charming, witty, etc...) but we're still just best friends forever. BBF SWAK. Lame.

The Roomate

When you date someone, you have to contend with their roomate, and subsequently as a roomate, you have to contend with your roomate's significant other. It's a not always easy dance to be honest. The M Brad's roomate and I always had a decent relationship; we discussed very little beyond pleasantries and generally I tried to stay out of his way while simultaneously laughing at his on line gambling habit with him.
So with a bit of uprehension yesterday I happened to run into the M Brad's roomate, Lipton. Now Lipton and I haven't spoken since January; I believe we saw each other every day at McGill and gave each other awkward looks that I always assumed meant that Lipton wanted me dead... but alas it wasn't so. Lipton saw me, walked over and asked how I was doing, what I was up to, my summer plans, etc... etc... I asked how his roomate was doing (M Brad) he's apparently doing well - although from my perspective he's being self destructive in Montreal, but whatever. Up until this point, this was probably the most reasonable and adult conversation I had with anyone associated with the M Brad, ever. I wished Lipton a safe trip to Europe, before he grabbed my hand, looked me straight in the eye, and said very meaningfully, "take it easy, ok?" And thus another nail in the coffin of closure as Lipton's very adult, very reasonable approach was just another hint that even those associated with the M Brad are aware of his emotional instability.

Perspective

I recently saw a family friend whose daughter passed away. We chatted briefly and eventually got onto the topic of dogs as another family friend was in the process of putting down their dog. I told by this family friend, "from my perspective, these days - it's only a dog."
I suppose that it's been a year of figuring out that perspective; and in our world things can change in an instant, that one second when I met the M-Brad for example, led to a series of catacylsmic events that could have been avoided if I had stuck to studying at the Law Library and not the sixth floor of McLennan.
And so today... as I awoke up and realized that Rama had sent me eight one sentence emails about nothing, there was much too much more important things going on in the world. Word from Sim, Sim, Sima -just decamped to London - had yet to arrive as to whether or not she was ok and dearest KB was live and well if not a bit shaken up from the confines of her residence room in London as well. Papa Len was sitting freaking out in his office, his hear growing whiter by the minute...
And in that one instant as someone's world can come crashing down, someone's perspective changes.

Outbreak

Spoke to my friend J Lo last night. She's recently been struck with a case of "Faux Hill-iticis." She much like many of the neighbourhood girls has applied to law school and is waiting to hear back from her number one choice - Western. What's she been up to since? Well... when we spoke she was in London decorating her boyfriends apartment and playing house. Her words not mine. I suggested she get a job when she opined that if she wanted to she could work for her parents as a medical secretary. J Lo... much like every other girl who has been diagnosed with Faux Hill-iticis has never worked a real job. She has never handed in her resume to a Starbucks, folded a t-shirt at the Gap, scooped icecream as Baskin Robbins, or waited tables on Eglinton. Her resume experience is working for her parents at a medical office, how lame is that?
But to quote Coombs, who was quoting Elizabeth Darko, at a party the other night, "It doesn't really matter, they're just biding time till they squeeze one out." I suppose the alpha male in Coombs was a bit crude, but he didn't mean his comment in offence or in sexism, he meant it in truth. Years after the women's liberation movement,after bra's were burnt, there is still a sick subculture of women who will never work but rely on their husband to be the breadwinner. They will sit, post yoga, in the Faux Hill Village discussing whether or not to go to Yorkdale or Holt's. What's sad of course is that these people are worth more then that... they've just contacted a disease that renders them useless.
Be carefull though Faux Hill-iticis is contagious and it's spreading.

David's by Day, Buzz By Night

Remeber when you first had sex? How it was sort of squishy and a tad underwhelming?
David's by Day is a mediocre lunch spot at the centre of the Village. It's sort of the type of mediocre place that Faux Hill 'celebs' go, not because it's good, but because in the US Weekly pages of Faux Hill [gossip] someone can simply say, "Oh guess who I saw at David's? [Insert JAP name here]". It's the Faux HIll version of LA hotspots like The Ivy, where Mary Kate was seen brunching... etc... etc...
David's by Day is like the cool table in the elementary school cafeteria. All the cool kids in Faux Hill go there for lunch and they sith with their besties orin their Channel sunglasses and with copious amounts of Louis on the patio people watching and hollering at their friends as they pass by, "yoo who... Becky! OH my G-d come join us."
I had never before been to David's by Day before last week [a shock I know] and then I finally gave it up and lost my David's V Card.
I've never been, because A) it's lame and B) I never felt cool enough. But as I've become a minor village celebrity this summer I thought I might as well relent and well - give it up. I've now been twice in the last week; actually I was invited a third time, from a group of lady friends who happened to be sitting down for lunch and hollered after me, wondering if I wanted to join them [once you've entered the circle, its tough to get out]. The verdict? Well... my wrap at David's was a bit squishy and a tad underwhelming.

Faux Ho Meet Boho

I've decided that I'm going to turn this summer into the summer of the date. And so with determination I've now gone on two dates in the past week. To quote ER, "You're a DATOR." Admitedly I use such endevours to frustrate lonely Rama who (after beaing told that I went on two dates with one guy) responded passive agressively, "so you're seeing someone?" Well not really Rama, simmer down their kiddo, I'm still sitting in Toronto pining for you and you love it.
Date number two saw yours truly a little out of his league. I met my friend Debo and her friends at Sneaky Dee's on the sketchy side of College (well as sketchy as College gets, but about a block or two east of the martini bars). She wanted to set me up with a fresh off the boat artist (from Halifax; not from France or some European locale, that would have been hotter). Sadly as the table waxed and waned with various writers, film-istes and people variously affiliated with the Gladstone Hotel, I realized that I just wasn't that artsy; or I wasn't THAT type of artsy. Sure I write, a lot, but I have no desire to sing Seasons of Love in a dirty bachelor apartment that reeks of patchouli.
In that realm, I was only a voyeur (shit my jeans could have paid for someone's rent) and there is admittedly a part of me that enjoys the more expensive things that a life if Faux Hill has accustomed me too.
Pretentious, sure? Self admitted, yes; I mean I'm the kid that used to go to Pusateri's with KB for lunch, carrying an empty cake box to pretend that we actually shopped there.

Sadly my week long dating blitz has left me pining for a little bisexual in Alberta who shops at Caban... and who wears expensive jeans only "because I have big thighs" sure buddy, I'm just calling for the return of Seven on Seven Action. K?

Same Shit, Different Patio

If I were to draw a triangle connecting Toronto's three most affluent area's one of the three points would undoubtedly hit Faux Hill, one would be centred somewhere in Rosedale and the third point would probably be at the corner of Cumberland and Belair in the heart of the city's tony [sic] Yorkville.
And so there this intreped Faux Hillary found himself having coffee with a long lost pal debating the merits of bisexuality. One would expect that, being a bit out of my Faux Hill league, a different patio would imply a different set of people to watch. Not so in Toronto - a city of 5 million, but where Yorkville is an extension of Forest Hill, only with a big Holt Renfrew at its centre and not Kitsch Boutique.

Random People I ran into:
The Pussy Posse - not content to sit all night at the Faux Hill Village Starbucks, they spend their day's checking out tail in Yorkville. I suppose its better then the potential underage tail of the Village. Thank god for small miracles.
Bold Sharon - the sister, making an unusual Yorkville run, "but I'm not a DINK [Dual Income No Kids], I swear."
My neighbour, Lisa Golden-blatt, stern, stein [insert jewish name] part of the over forty, "I wear Sevens like its my job because I have no job" set.
And my first year frat boy friend Dave McWaspy Last Name and his brother Pete, he's going to camp (he's 22) and then his father arranged a job for him at a marketing firm (but really my hatred for his ilk is perhaps best reserved for another posting, its really too lovely out to be bitter); however to quote my friend Kitty, after fooling around with him, "he has a pencil-sized dick."

Thank God for small miracles.

Who Wants Another Friend?

When I first met the Rama it was the end of March. My assumption was that because I randomly started talking to him in Veggierama it was clearly evident that I was interested in more then discussing the poor quality of muffins, right?
My reality at the time was, who the fuck wants another friend? I certainly don't. And I don't even mean that in a, "I'm so cool and have SOOOO many friends" type of way. But how many best friends can a guy have? Three/ four? Any more and your beholden to too many late night phone calls about how boys suck, or how when you're fifty you and 'the boys' are going to to go New Mexico, find a shaman and smoke peyote (yes Manty of course).
Alas beyonds the Rama I managed to pick up another best friend late this year. Jessica and I were in a year long history class together (and really from my history[sic] history classes just aren't a great place to meet people - M Brad, case in point). I thought we had developed a nice class friendship; we saw each other in the library, we studied together every now and again and our conversation never veered from German History, ever. We had a purely lovely class relationship that was destined to end with the end of McGill; or so I thought. But alas Jessica seems to want more. A couple of days ago, she added me to her msn, fine... then one afternoon she started talking about some guy who she loved that she was supposed to meet but she somehow mixed up the time; a bit weird, but when she ended the conversation, "thanks, I really needed to talk to a friend..." I got even more weirded out. Friend? Does this mean I have to buy her a birthday gift? An e-card is my limit to be honest.
Yesterday's msn, however, took the cake, "I'm coming back to Toronto, we should hang out this weekend." Not to sound callous, but weekend is a pretty big step for a new friendship, isn't it? Weekday drinks, coffee, maybe a book club, but Saturday night?
And so I ask what to do? There are many books written about how to break up with someone; or how to tell if a guy isn't into you. For example, "He's just not that into you" has a place on my bookshelf but why hasn't someone written, "I'm sure you're a great person but I just don't want another friend." Well... I'm off to research my new summer project, look for it at Indigo, it'll be a Heather's Pick by the end of the summer.

Hidden Agenda

I'm actually incensed at the recent shenanigans of the Canadian Parliament. The Conservative Party has threatened to fillibuster the passge of the Liberal/NDP budget which would prolong the current parliamentary session; however, it appears as if Harper and his crew would cease its planned fillibustering techniques if the Liberal government differed passage of Bill C-38 (the scary gay marriage bill) untill the fall.
Classically Martin has dithered around the situation by refusing to dig in his heels to protect his governments legislation arguing that its up to Harper to decide when the bill will be passed; why is it up to the leader of the opposition, when the Liberal's, NDP and Bloc all support C-38, ask Martin.

But more importantly, I must ask: What is now at the heart of the Conservative Party, social conservatism, or economic conservatism? If the Conservative Party is so willing to sacrifice its economic conservatism (this is the NDP budget that increases social spending by hundreds of millions of dollars) for some pseudo socially conservative vision of Canada, then this Conservative Party will continue reap its own downfall; fine don't support gay marriage, you've already lost my vote, but to placate the religious right above your own economic principles, you've now lost my respect.
Conservatives? Oh right we lost the progressive name a long time ago. Today we might as well call Harper a Republican.

The Pick Up

My dear friend Mandy has been attempting to befriend a Sanjay Gupta look-a-like at her place of work. She's made the requisit eye contact, attempted to befriend and has now decided, "That he's just not that into her." She thinks so because he just doesn't seem to be returning her advances. Being master of the library/veggierama hook up, she's turned to me for advice.

Here's the thing: Everyone is playing some sort of game, most don't acknowledge it, but EVERYONE is playing it. This is complicated of course by the fact that no one knows the rules of anyone else's game. In Mandy's mind, it's Sanjay's turn to initiate conversation. But in Sanjay's mind, well... we don't know what's going on in Sanjay's mind, he could be playing hard to get, or he may not realize that the lovely Mandy wants to jump his bones. When the M Brad and I iniatiated our ill fated library romance, he continued to invite me to drinks with him and his posse at BDP. In his mind this was an invitation, in my mind this was not; "BDP? His friends? Maybe HE doesn't like me?"

As such I've ruefully realized that the Rama and I have embroiled ourselves in an elaborate game of lord knows what. Inquiring minds I'm sure are wondering, just what is going on with that attractive oil worker? Right well... after some testy emails regaring Gay Paris, the word deluded was lobbed around, the Rama and I have resumed our usual email chats. Recently I received an email which coalesced my realization that the Rama and I are participants in some sort of elaborate dance.
To wit, the Rama, has emailed to declare that although he has little time to respond to my last email, he thought he'd email me just to let me know that he's alive and ok in Northern Alberta. Thanks buddy... I was losing sleep wondering why I hadn't heard from my non boyfriend in Alberta.

Deposed Retail Heiress

Deposed monarch's are sort of sad; I say this without ever having met one, but I'd assume it sort of sucks to have once been Crown Prince of (insert minor Prussion state like Westphalia); yet currently being an unemployed, yet seemingly decadent loaf. The problem of course is that as a former monarch you're used to the finest money can buy and even if you are a deposed monarch you sort of have to pretend that you still have the means [with the hope of marrying back into wealth]; only you don't actually have the means. And sadly you no longer have the peasantry of said minor Prussion state to financially support you.
With a tear, of course, I happened to see the wife of a former retail scion shopping at the GAP (with her family's department store now but a name, she has to buy her khaki's somewhere doesn't she?). Seeing as anyone who has read the Globe and Mail over the past five years knows how her idiot husband and his family squandred the vast family fortune we all know that there isn't as much money behind those manicured nails as she'd like us to think. Yet retail heiresses are about as close to royalty as this country seems to have had and as such, even deposed monarch's, are treated with an air of respect in Midtown Toronto where her family name still consures up memories of Christmas Parade's and Department Store glamour.
Yet one's experience with deposed monarch's highlights the fact that money, even old, depleted resources, can't buy class. Said heiress was partacking in the seemingly disgusting trend of shopping with one's housekeeper who diligently holds piles of clothes at the checkout line as they are asked, "Milly, did YOU see anything for yourself? I'll buy it for you."
Handout for the help - I suppose it's in keeping with her families tradition of philanthropy.

The Other Hill

There comes a time for the Torontonian Jew to accept the fact that North of Steeles (NOS) exists another, predominately Jewish Hill; 905's answer to Faux Hill is of course the rather charmless Thornhill. And so with determination and Sim Sim Sima's car I found myself on the 401 with the intent of sussing out the other Hill and saying bon voyage to my friend El Huerd before he leaves for Israel.
Every time I try and go up there I attempt to check my snobby Faux Hill attitude at 416-905 divide, but Thornhill sucks; it is utterly charmless. First of all its far, maybe not geographically, but if I have to get on the 401 to get somewhere, I may as well be driving to cottage country. It's also ugly. This I don't even think is being snobbish. This is a fact - Thornhill is land of the giant, identically similar houses that are overshadowed by their ginormous two car garages. I get the economic, "not everyone can afford to live in Forest Hill" argument, but the T-Hill ain't cheap, and these people aren't poor - the multiple luxury suv's which crowded Huerd's street are testament to the financial wealth of his neighbours, Thornhill is for some - a choice. A choice to choose poorly built, identical monster homes on winding cul de sacs interspersed with highway like main streets and charmless strip plaza's.
Alas, you can take the boy out of Faux Hill, but you can't take the Faux Hill out of the boy.

The Summer of the Graduate

A while ago I declared to Sim, Sim, Sima that this was my summer of The Graduate. She wanted to know if I was hoping to find an older woman to bed and I of course laughed and said I was hoping to bed an older man. Sima didn't find my hilarity as funny as most would, but she did helpfully declare, that securities are the new plastics.
Yesterday, of course, was quite topical to Graduate shenanigans as the original Mrs. Robinson, Anne Bancroft, died; here's to you Mrs. Robinson, may ye rest in peace. Yesterday I also agreed to be my neighbours pool boy, thus fulfilling a life long dream of being a POOL BOY. As my neighbour walked me through the ins and outs of watering her flowers and skimming the pool, I coulnd't help but feel a bit - appreciated shall we say, by this well preserved older Faux Hill woman of leisure. Sadly, I'm neither interested in her, nor her only child - a daughter; rather I'm hoping for some sort of hot cousin (ala Ryan in the OC) to come live in the poolhouse.

Rediscovering my Love of the Book

In the immortal words of my favourite English teacher, Ms. Carrier who declared to her OAC English students, "Green Grass Running Water may be the last book you will all ever read." She was of course being a bit facetious, but I'd imagine that for some of us in that class, it may have been the last non-school book many of us read. This summer I've decided to rediscover my love of reading, seeing as the last five books I've read were school related and on top of that most were written by Philip Roth.
Today after my morning Starbucks I ventured up to the Faux Hill Library to get out some books and get back on the Reading Rainbow. I sat in the New and Notable section with the intention on finding something relatively new and potentially notable to amuse myself with.
Ha. I've never seen such crap. Most novels are portrayed as a tale of self-discovery as "Alexis - a newly widowed woman, whose path to self discovery leads her from Morocco to religious self discovery in India." Or, if not self-discovery then a tale of stunning hardship and woe, "It was 1920 in Dublin, the year of the great coal strike, and for the Pierce family it was a winter of internal strife, unbridled romance and passionate loss." Ended up with a book about Las Vegas pool sharks. Should be good.

The Law School Disease

Today is LSAT day. This means that most of my friends are stationed somewhere writing the Law Schoot Apptitude Test (this being one of the four test days a year). Law School Here We Come! (to the tune of California, by Phantom Planet)
As a holder of a Bachalaureate Arteum, BA Hon, Law School offers some sort of sick fascination for us political science and history majors - who aren't really qualified for much; no one wants to publish the 102 pages I wrote on the Weimar Republic do they? Most of my BA friends have either written the LSAT's, are writing the LSAT's today, or are studying for the LSAT's. Las summer it was like a thing, "I'm studying for the LSAT's." End conversation. I've even surrounded myself by law school wannabe boyfriends, both the M Brad and the Rama want to go to University of Toronto and study corporate law - I'm hoping they both get in, date and compare notes.

Why is this? Well, as a son of a lawyer, an embittered but lovable dreamer whose inner Holden Caufield just wants to sit in a beachside shack in Maine, I suppose I've realized that law school isn't exactly the ticket to financial freedom that most people think it offers. You wan't to make money as a lawyer - its doable, but there are way too many lawyers and big money often comes at the expense of working for a large soulless firm who will work you to the bone in the hopes that you will one day make partner. Lord knows that Sima would also bludgeon me repeatedly if I donned the altered mantra of New Hampshire, "Law School or Die."

When I first got back from Montreal, upon running into some of "those girls" (the classics) at Starbucks I asked one of them how her first year of law school had gone. "It's hard" she responded and thus ended our conversation. Of course it's hard, sweatie; sadly your four years of McGill Political Science, with a minor in bullshit Jewish Studies Classes, didn't quite prepare you for the rigours of law school. I suspect this isn't an isolated incidence of people going to law school simply because there is nothing else to do and realizing that they HATE law.

Sadly, law school, for most people is Default School. A couple of weeks ago while talking to my friend Papa Smurf I lamented the fac that I have no idea what to do with my life. "You aren't going to like my advice" he replied, "but write your LSAT's and go to law school." Default Option A, thus presented by a little man in red pants from Thornhill. Too many of my friends simply write the LSAT's and go to law school simply because there is nothing else to do; or at least there is no other simple option. The paved road of life that we all go happily along with, ended at McGill Convocatio and the future requires an off road SUV to navigate. Sadly this is what we've created; a society of people who wish to be lawyers because they aren't quite sure of their other options - but the reality is that they don't know their other options. But like most things the Law School Disease is tied to financial security. and I suppose for that fearful Forest HIllary in all of us who wonders how we are going to replicate the Centre Hall plan lifestyle of our parents, law school, seems to offer the only ticket to a future of Starbucks, Muskoka, and Diesel jeans. Securities may be the new plastics, but its all about credit, be it cards or your rating.

There are choices people. Things exist beyond the mainstream; shouldn't we all zest for a career that we are actually going to enjoy and not enter simply because we have no other choices. We deserve better then Default School; of that I am certain.

So Much Village, So Little Time...

The Village has been one spicy meatball of late. I've taken to spending hours sitting at Starbucks while turning my Nightline volunteer experiences into a television show - "Nightline the Series".

I've thus learnt the schedule of who frequents at what time.

10:00 - 11:30 - The Mummies

Early morning sees Starbucks packed with post-Yoga mummies. Today I happened to have breakfast Jody and Casey and their newborns. Jody had Channel sunglasses while Casey had Dior - this is how we differentiate. We chatted briefly about Tom and Katie, classic, before Jody whipped out the phone to book a manicure and pedicure. Other events on their busy schedule included a debate on which shopping was better - Yorkdale or Bloor. I think we all shed a tear when Jody lamented how the shoes she had ordered at Holt's had yet to arrive. Me - I was blinded by the size of their diamond engagement rings.

11:30 - 1:00 - Lunch Hour

Lunch sees Starbucks sadly taken over by packs of marauding youngsters from local schools. Today however, I invented a new phrase - "Village Rage". It's sort of like road rage, but involved me yelling at a group of grade seven students who sat at Starbucks eating meat patties and not buying anything before leaving their mess for the staff to clean up. Being the good samaritan that I am, I hollered back at them and ordered them to clean up their shit. Me - Patron Saint of Starbucks.

4:00 - 7:00 - The Pussy Pack

The Pussy Pack is a group of middle aged men who I've managed to befriend. Stock brokers and mostly retired dot com millionaires these men oscilate between talking about pussy and cars, with a bit of, "back in the eighties we used to do lines of coke at Sassafraz." They seem to like me; yesterday I so impressed Peter that we're going to be collaborating on a screenplay together in the near future. Me - mini movie mogul.

So much village, so little time...

Upon Being "E-Dumped"

So invitations to Paris from Bisexual Albertans don't constitute a relationship, according to Rama.
Wrote this in an email to KB and decided it was most poetic:
"Life after... of course. Tomorrow a job interview, tomorrow maybe
I'll run into someone on the subway who I fall madly and deeply in
love with. Tomorrow holds all of the possibilities of the future.
Tomorrow is a beautiful day. Of that I must be sure of... because the
past... the past... has thankfully past."