The Happy Hormone

So Last Friday came. I was out running one of my events at the Raq N’ Waq on Queen Street near Bathurst. Everything was going well, the weather was warm and cooperating, people were friendly, conversing and the drinks had flowing freely. I had even managed to get a few free from our nice brunette waitress for our group. Still don’t know why though. Then at 11:45pm, my friend Kristina text messages me “Hi. Don’t know if you know, the TTC is going on strike at midnight. You may want to let your members know.” Damn.

I passed on the bad news. As fate would have it almost everyone lived downtown. Phew. Well except for two of us. A member, Reggie lived in Scarborough, I lived near High Park. Both quite far for walking, specially after midnight. As such Reggie paid and made a quick dash, in the hopes of catching a lingering street car or a snaring a cab before the frenzy home began. As the organizer, I am always one of the last ones to leave any event so I stayed until everyone was ready, that was at around 1:15am.

Once outside, most managed to squeeze into taxis. I unfortunately was heading the other way. Thought of catching a taxi –each one I saw however was bursting with passengers– so much of that idea. So I decide to walk… at least part of the way. “It would be good for me,” I sold the idea to myself, ignoring the fact I could just as easily get mugged too.

After deciding on a safe route, backtracking Queen towards Bathurst, then north until Bloor and then west until Dundas West seemed like the better way. As you can imagine, Bathurst was surprisingly busy with cars and people cursing the TTC as they did the same thing I was doing: Getting home. Needless to say, the animosity was quite palatable. It tasted like burnt BBQ chicken.

You will be surprised what comes into your mind when you are walking by yourself for a few hours. Recently I have started looking for a job. ‘Did I say everything I could in those last three cover letters? Was I straight forward enough? When will they call?’ Then once that fades, you start thinking about more meaningful things. ‘Is that where I want my career to go? I don’t want to end up like those people who work for a company for eighteen years, look like zombies and are only going through the motions until quittin’ time!’ By the time a got to Bloor St. existential questions started creeping up and questioning a lot of life decisions. ‘Why am I not married yet? Are you sure?’

Existential questions after only two drinks? Impossible. I thought it silly. It wasn’t the alcohol, that’s for sure.Then again, it could just be that I had the time and place to think. After all, It was beautiful night. Serene.

As I begun rushing west, I began feeling quite lonely as most people stayed near the beehive that’s the Annex in order to catch speeding cabs. I called another friend, Matty who was surprising awake and gave me much needed company for almost forty five minutes before succumbing to her illness: She had the flu and she just went off to bed. Nothing serious! She told me about her week, her trials and tribulations. I was very lucky to have her to chat. When the streets are almost deserted, having someone speaking to you through a phone gives the feeling of walking through an ocean with one long line tethered to the outside world. Funny. Whenever you feel alone is great to just listen to someone who really wants to share her mind with you. In the end, it felt like I had walked for only thirty five minutes. In reality it was almost an hour and half.

Made it home at about 3:00am. My feet hurt, badly, my heels in particular. Kids, don’t ever walk with dress shoes for two hours straight. Is that how women feel after a night with high heels? I felt sorry for female social standards and the obliged footwear. The silly things that come into your mind when you walk for a few hours. I made some choices regarding the jobs I would apply to in the future. I also had a quick reminder of just who my real friends are. The ones who will text message in the middle of the night, warning you about something just because they know out and about. Or who will keep you company at 2:00m, even though they are sick just because they do not want you to walk all alone. Including some realizations of the direction I want my life to go and the fact that I decided to kill myself a little by buying some McDonald’s near my place at that unholy hour.

But you know that, hurting feet aside, I think we should all do these more often. Take the long way. You never know the things you might think of when you make the time. I am sure I will be one of the few to say this, but thanks TTC for your last minute strike.

Just don’t do it too often.

Popularity: 21% [?]

I found Meetup.com quite by chance. Now for those who do not know, Meetup.com is a Web 2.0 social website in which like Facebook for example, members can find like-minded individuals, but unlike Facebook, then meet in the real world and, well, do whatever those interests are on an ongoing basis. You see, I was looking for a language group as I was forgetting my Spanish faster you could say ‘Dos cervesas y tacos por favor.’ So what better way to practice then to speak the language with other native speakers? Maybe even make some friends to boot.

Anyway, so I decided to bite the bullet and joined the Toronto Spanish Speaking Group. Overall it was good, however Richard the organizer left a lot to be desired. Like not showing up to any of his own meetups for example. In fact he never showed up to any outings and after a few attended events I relented to the possibility he was likely imaginary or the work of someone’s fiction. Specially, as I would later find out, if an organizer does not select a time or location, Meetup.com will automatically pick both for you. That’s what I call full service. But you would have to be abnormally dense not to get bored going to the same Starbucks again and again month in and month out. So I became a bit disillusioned.

Eventually curiosity got the best of me as the thought of organizing a group myself kept on marinating in my head. So without much dramatic ado I jumped right into organizing the TO23-35 Social Group.

Just like all group we started small. However we pretty soon exploded… 100 members, 200 members… then *boom* past 300! As of this writing membership is 667 and counting. Not bad, not bad. Then within the year a second group followed, the TO25-40 Social Group. Yes, the names are pretty almost carbon copies, but the demographic is on average older. How many members on that one? 461! And counting… As you can imagine lots of outings and funny adventures occurred within the group, a highlight would be the couple who not only met but ended up married after meeting in one of my groups. Now that has to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

How do I choose events? Well, a few tequila shots help… no wait…that’s not it. Basically I pick locations through experience. Having been a party kid in Toronto in my younger years helps. I keep track of the never-ending stream of event s going on in the city at any given moment. We have gone patios, lounges, nature walks, indoor rock climbing, roller-blading, museums, movies, wine tastings, dinners, brunches, you name it. Pretty much anything that sounds like a great time to be had by all. That’s the easy part. The hard part is the colourful mating dance I must enlist myself to do with managers of establishments I want to do business with. As locales will not reserve busy nights unless you pay a ridiculous premium in advance or with your first born or a pint of blood from your mother. Selling off a next of kin may also do the trick. They are that anal. Sadly, I can see their point since they do not want to do have empty spaces on a busy night, but that is not the best way to woo future repeat customers. Although so far we have done pretty well. Over 105 events so far!

But all in all, it has been quite the adventure, and an excellent opportunity to meet and see the people and the city of Toronto. I would highly recommend it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Just in case you are wondering, I can almost feel the strangle-hold of irony chocking me as I write this. You see, about two years ago I had an interesting conversation about the ‘Year of the Blog.’ My friend and I spoke about ease of accessibility and amazing technology penetration in North America. After a sad and ill-timed prostitution joke or two later, we continued. Just two years ago, blogs although abundant in number resembled an endless field of useless weeds. With only a few leaving the rest behind as they sprouted high, both in content quality and lucrative aspirations. But since then the playing field has changed drastically. The weed field is now millions of times larger. Yup, that’s about it, really.

Now everyone and their illegal gardener Ortiz has one. So what do they write about? Pretty much anything. But when I mean anything, I mean anything. Is this a good thing? With over 50 millions bloggers as of last year and hundreds of thousands of posts a day of people dispersing and rehashing the same stories over and over, one would think the times of a draconian, government controlled media outlet to be a thing of the past –Uh, China anyone?– okay, fine. Aside China that is… –how about North Korea?– okay, fine! In North America, at least… but then I think about the war in Iraq and the ever missing WMD’s… Argh! Forget it. I give up.

So the real question is what is a blog? As the name implies it began as an online log, people would write their thoughts, maybe use it as a portafolio piece *hint-hint*. Whether the writing was childish, deeply insightful or just plain dumb, the point was that they were people’s thoughts, ideas and dreams.

Now it is more about posting something and off the press. Anything people think cool and more importantly, before anyone else does. Take this example: A British guy named Bill gets his laptop stolen. He understandably gets pissed. Then next day logs on to his Flickr account and finds a picture of the thief’s face mistakenly uploaded because the thief forgot to log off bill’s account and sign on to his OWN Flickr account. Don’t believe me, click, here. Before I go on, this is a perfect moment for me to add, there is no such thing that will ever be ‘idiot proof.’ Idiocy, like life will always find a way.

Anyway, keep reading at the bottom, there is post upon post of people saying, “Oh my God, I must blog this RIGHT NOW! They post the picture on their blog and rehash the same tag-line, over and over and over again. What is the point of that? So they can look at themselves through a mirror and say, ‘I blogged. Therefore my job is done!’ In the comment section there are at least fifteen people who have posted that they blogged the pic onto their blogs and the link to their own blogs and asking everyone to take a look. Like, ‘hello!‘ we are at the source why go to a blog? Aside to answer the blogger’s cry for attention? Never mind that Bill just lost over a $1000 dollars in computer equipment.

On that note, an interesting point was raised on last week’s Stephen Colbert Report’s The Word segment a few days ago about Andrew Meyer and blogging. Mayer was the student who not only got jumped by six security guards but also taser-ed for asking one too many questions at a John Kerry event in front of an assembly full of students. Every one stood silent and motionless as Andrew screamed ‘Don’t taser me!’ Thank God for all the people who blogged about it the very next day while Andrew sat in jail. Great way for the blogger generation to lead the charge of civil protest and.

So where are we going to go from here? Aside living our writer and exhibitionist’s wet dreams, are we becoming a society of people whose social discontent, whether larger or small is displayed not through civil outcry but in really mean posts on blogs? Go, go society!

Man, I have an urgent to go for walk.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Ah, Paris, the City of Light and the capital of Amour… this is exactly what the French have been propagating for decades. Is it true? Would you find true love? Face the epiphany of your existence by strolling through its streets while writing on your silly journal and sipping an overpriced (€4.70?!) cup of coffee? In one word? ‘No.’ In three words? ‘Yes and no.’

The city is by any world standard a true cosmopolitan metropolis. Trees and parks abound. Beautiful neo-classical edifices along architecture from different centuries can be found literally on every corner. The city hosts some of the world’s most famous art galleries and museums. A Latin-based language which sounds more like a poem than it has a right to when spoken does add to the charm of the region. It would be almost impossible to find fault. However I am confident in my talents, so let’s begin.

An ancient settlement with archaeological signs going back as far 4200BC reveals the inhabitants of the area had some serious head start in which to perfect their now famous baguettes and croissants. But hey, this is why the world is not a fair place.

Paris, which original Roman name was Lutetia, began to be known by its Gaulish name of Parisii after six centuries of Roman occupation. So around 5AD the name got into vogue and has stayed on like a cheap suit for the next sixteen centuries.

Now, Paris is renown for the snobbery and rudeness of its people, which can easily be found at numerous locations and in copious quantities the moment you open your mouth. However in their defense, with over 30 million tourists a year and therefore 9 times the entire population of the Région Parisienne asking the same stupid “I am lost. Where is the Eiffel Tower?” question in languages other than French year in and year out; its commendable they haven’t stopped being rude, snapped, taken an AK-47 and legislated open season on tourists. Since even a blind man shooting randomly could take out more than his share per capita of tourists. Really, it would be like firing a cannon into a school of fish. It’s that easy.

Let’s not all play saints here. Since the beginning of time and this includes the Bible, there has been an inherited local disdain for tourists and interlopers of any nation or kingdom (Let my people go!). Thus Parisians can hardly be found at fault when realizing the quagmire they are in: A positive cash flow from tourism which also doubles as a dilutant of local culture.

Simply read what Le Lido and the Moulin Rouge where originally all about and how they have devolved throughout the years in order to satisfy tourists’ cliched expectations. This a social danger which few modern cities have to deal with. However Paris as the most touristic destination in the world will have to face this threat soon or later.

Back to the city today: Its huge. It’s over-priced and it takes some time to get over the ever-present musky smell of dry urine around the Seine. Especially in the hotter months. Now I am not saying the city is filthy, just that it has a huge nightlife and not enough public washrooms. Trust me, you can find almost anything along the Seine. From book-stands near Notre Dame encompassing the renown second-hand book market on one side to thong-only wearing retirees catching sun along really shocked stares from tourists on the other.

Their subway (Metro) is massive yet needed since the metropolitan area of Paris is over one hundred square kilometers. Interesting to know that due to the historical nature of the city core, no legislation allows for the low-density buildings to be torn down and create the infrastructure of say New York or Toronto with their sky-reaching high rises. Therefore France as a whole is a very flat city. As such, most inhabitants along with the financial district, in their quest for space have moved into the suburbs. Thus having the rare situation where the center of the city has an old town vibe –but with lots, and lots of cars.

Oh Paris, you are a true Metropolis, in both size and style that is is truly your own. France too lives up to its reputation as a country where ANYTHING you order to drink at a restaurant will cost you more than a glass of wine. Including water. Yet like in Spain, I hardly saw drunken people, especially taking into consideration just how accessible alcohol is. Toronto should learn a lesson here. Importing a few better cheeses would not hurt. Are you listening Toronto? However, it is the lifestyle which is the biggest difference. Even as a financial, fashion and artistic European powerhouse you cannot shake the feeling that somehow they are doing a little more living than North Americans. Whether it comes down to the food, their outlook, their jazz or the musk of urine during hot summer nights, I have to admit that a part of me fell in love with Paris. Just not with their $#%$@!@#% overpriced coffee. Avoid it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The one thing to remember if you ever travel to the south of Spain, specifically to Andalusia, the second most populous province, the birthplace of Flamenco, Bullfighting and pretty much every single Spaniard cliche us Westerners hold dear, is that people there smoke. A LOT. Sure, there are beaches, Roman ruins, a historic castle on every hill –or every other block– and more churches per capita, that by now every Spaniard can easily afford to coldly kill three priests and still get into heaven by proxy. Yet nothing will hit or leave a longer, lasting effect than their tobacco.

Spain is truly a smoker’s nirvana. I felt guilty for not smoking enough and looked at ways to integrate myself into this culturally rich, gray-lunged society. A task in which I excelled! And as a plus, I have now been back for over two weeks and there is hardly a trace of my smoker’s cough! Well worth it. However if you don’t smoke at all, are a tourist and do not speak Spanish, just skip the country altogether. Go to a wimp smokers’ country, like France. Aside from delicious nicotine, which you will learn to love or become a master at holding off your gag reflex as your body struggles for survival, Spain is quite a breathtaking country. The weather is hot and dry, covered in yellow clay and almost arid inland, yet oh so breezy near the sea.

Fish, pork and beef are in abundance. Always, ready to be served at one of the many Tapas restaurants which litter the region. If you hate falling into tourist traps you will be pleased to know that non-tourist friendly and therefore easier on the wallet areas abound. All that is needed is an adventurous spirit and a fifteen minute walk in any direction away from gift shops selling badly punned T-shirts, over priced photographic books and to no surprise: engraved ashtrays. Knowing Spanish helps, as most Spaniards can’t be bothered to learn English but if you are adventurous, then you would not be above using some pointing and sign language to get what you want. The staff will be understanding, helpful and only mock you once you are gone.

About the most annoying and yet refreshing thing in Spain, especially for Westerners is the Siesta. Entire towns screech to a halt from about noon to about 4:00pm, as if the whole city goes into a deep slumber. During the August’s month-long celebrations, they can go for even longer. Restaurants will re-open at 8:00pm, so expect to have dinner at around 10:00pm. Every night. That’s just the Spanish way. So pack a snack if you are planning to meander through the older cobbled-street cities.

If you are a night-owl you will be utterly comfortable with this lifestyle, while others will wonder how exactly can Spaniards earn a living. I did. Same goes for the food, supermarkets simply do not exist, groceries stores which are smaller do. However they are few and far between. Alcohol is an entirely different story, you will find booze every where digestible matter is sold and likely it will be cheap. Especially in the capital of Sevilla where with its two million inhabitants is the largest city in Andalusia.

It is interesting to note in the week I traversed the land, I never saw one local drunk, the only ones were tourists, who were both loud and obnoxious. It made me feel how my ex-girlfriend probably felt when I used to get boozed up on red wine many years ago. I felt embarrassed for them. As if we all had been invited to the same party, and they were my annoying cousins I never talked to or liked, who got stinking drunk and everybody looked at me for an explanation. Strange since while in an unknown country, being foreigners can, and does unite complete strangers. An odd and brief comradery which luckily and quickly subsided well before we reached the next street.

People drink, with the goal to hang out and socialize not get inebriated. You will find tapas restaurants bursting with people drinking beer and ‘Tinto de Verano,’ a refreshing red wine and lime flavoured soda drink. Sangria is left for the tourists as no local in their right mind would prefer so sweet a drink in such dry heat.

Ah, the South of Spain, a land where passionate and energetic dancing, lisps, Moor and Roman architecture, castles and Mosques are poetically inter-winded. The land Muslims conquered in 711AD and the rest of Spain spent the next 587 years extirpating. But on the upside they taught the whole of Europe how to bathe! But that is another story which I will probably cover in another blog entry.

Ah, Andalucia, where you can sustain a family of four with wine for a week for less than it costs to feed them for a day. You will forever have a special place in my heart and now, after visiting you, a dark spot on the x-rays of my lungs.

Popularity: 15% [?]

St. Patrick, the patron of drunks everywhere is coming to Toronto. Starting today, the festivities created to test the resilience of the human liver and kidneys began with a loud cheer followed by countless of gallons of green beer being poured throughout the city. You go liver! Break down that bitchin’ alcohol!
Our dear Saint Patrick is one of the Catholic Church’s most misunderstood Saints. Perhaps only second to Jesus and Saint Valentine. Don’t you think that if he had known that because of him millions of people would push the limits of their kidneys year in and year out that he might, I don’t know, promoted a healthy eating habit as well?

You know, to balance things out?

…Or whatever happened to Brigid of Kildare and Columba? The other TWO patrons or Ireland? Have you guys even heard of them? They are probably the ones that advocated healthy eating.
So, to celebrate I will be having a small get together as part of my social group at Hemingway’s in Yorkville. What a better place to toast a drinking holiday than in a bar named after one the 20th century’s most celebrated lushes? And a decent writer to boot.

Here is the link to the outing.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Best Buy opened a huge location five minutes away from my place. So I decided to go for a small stroll and browse through the wares my big blue and yellow neighbour had to offer. Especially since there is a three story Future Shop –which was acquired by Best Buy in 2001 for a thrifty $500 Million– three minutes north on Yonge Street. As some of your may know, I have been homebound for a while yet I was curious to see what a futile exercise in laissez-faire capitalism looks like these days.

Obviously I have been out of the personal electronics must-have’s loop for some time. As little did I know the first pentad of the new millennium has been utterly overrun by the MP3 player.
Sure music is valuable for self-expression and one of the highlights of being human, but since when do people must have a musical player attached to their ears everywhere they go?
I swear I can’t count five people down the street without one bopping their head left to right to some unheard beat. You would think them crazy if it were not for the tell-tale cables running from their pockets to their heads.

No Sony, your Walkman is been buried and dead, so don’t even try it, I won’t be writing about you. Just stick with your cellphones and playstations. Any who, I simply could not believe the store, aisle after aisle, if not of MP3 players themselves than of accessories for the damn MP3 players.

So who is the man in this $4.3 billion MP3 player market you ask? Who is at the top of the hill and the source of ravenous envy to all its competitors? Why the aesthete that is the Ipod of course. With 70 million sold in the last five years the Ipod commands now what Apple has been having wet dreams since its inception back in ‘76: A mass audience who also happen to be rabid consumers.

As I walked through the rows of Ipod speakers, car holders, stereo add-ons and the ever needed Ipod socks (just $39.99 for a pack of six) really, I am not kidding. I could not help feeling a little stupefied by all of this. Perhaps ‘overwhelmed’ would be a better word. After all, Apple is not the only one throwing their weight around. Other companies like Dell, Toshiba, Scandisk, Samsung and many others have jumped into the bandwagon. After all, if you build it even if it sucks, someone is bound to buy it.

So on that note, just when you think you can see the end of the party crasher’s line. Here comes big brother Microsoft, elbowing everyone –as usual–out of the way as it tries to get in before MP3 players are passe.

Microsoft obviously not happy there is a market in its road to world domination it has yet to get its sticky fingers on has created what they call an ‘Ipod killer.’ So what is the name of this late entry? It is the Zune. Now on paper this product sounds great. It has a bigger screen than the rest of the competition, Wifi and as such you can share MP3s on the go.
It sounds all great and good until you start finding the Wifi will only work with other Zunes.
That you can only play transfered MP3s three time in three days, after that the song becomes unplayable, unless you buy it from their on-line store. This includes your own collection which you may own fair and square. Heck these includes your own creations! So if you are a musician, don’t put your original work in the Zune. What is the point of sharing then?

However what I found out on my trip to both stores is that at this point in the MP3 market companies are not just selling you a digital player. Oh no. You see, a music player is no longer just music player. It is much more than that. At least that is what millions spent in marketing keep on stating, shouting and dancing in ad after ad: ‘Our Music player doesn’t only play music. It more… It’s cool. Its a media and social event all by itself. It’s an artistic expression, a bold reflection of your raw and unadulterated id for God’s sake! It will get you laid! What are you doing standing there? GO BUY ONE NOW!

Just remember before you buy any of Microsoft products –and in fairness any other product in the future– the Zune is a first generation device. The reviews have been negative for the most part. Not to say that even big brother might not have a good thing going in the future. However right now, they don’t. If you decide to purchase it anyway for this Christmas season, don’t be surprised if you get a little too acquainted with windows such as this one:


Oh, one last thing. The future is in all-in-one devices. Not just on Mp3 players and media players and so on. Apple and its competitors are slowly heading into that direction but will surely take their time until consumers wise up.

For those who are wondering what I have used when needing a music player: I bought myself a smartphone almost two years ago. Put a 1 gig memory card on it and since then I had a colour screen bigger than an Ipod, a phone, a media and MP3 player, plus a voice recorder, pda and Internet browser all for $250. It pays to be an educated consumer, even if does not look as cool as an Ipod.

Update 18/11/2006:
Man uses Mp3 player to hack ATM’s in the UK! Read here.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Ah, the opportunity to write a few words on the beauty of not having children. ‘Sure,’ some of you may be think ‘as you get older, you’ll change your mind.’ Well, I would not be too sure about that.

As I get older –29 in July- I have been invited to a few parties in the last couple of years where my girlfriend and I have been the only ones without small children. Wow, after only a couple of hours I could not wait to rush home, flop on the couch, kick my legs up and enjoy…silence, complete and utterly uninhibited silence. Inventors: be aware, if you could can silence, mass-produce it and then sell it, you would be the MVP of Nobel laureates.

It is amazing the squealing that can come out of a two year old, sparing no eardrums in its wave of destruction and early deafness. Now imagine a whole horde of them! Running up and down, left and right, hardly ever running into each other, as if able to hear their shrieks bouncing off furniture and everything else.

Paradoxically, I like children, just not the ones I can’t give back. I enjoy playing with them and I mean with them, and not some sort of twisted mind game of my own Machiavellian design. No who can borrow Daddy’s wallet without him realizing it competitions or my own favourite version of hide and seek, were they hide and I go seek another glass of wine. In fact, I think I would be a great father and nurturer. Just in patience points alone I have managed a good karma trust fund that could be easily used to raise a child. I have just made the decision not to have any.

However, you know what I would like to do? I would like to turn this sucker and point the spotlight at you for a moment and ask you the question: ‘why would you like to have children?’ A lot of people say ‘well, to have a family, of course.’ Now, what the hell does that really mean?

You were once one (partner excluded) and now you have to be many? Concerned the gene pool is getting a little impure and adding a few of your own drops will chlorine it into a grandiose Olympic pool? Nah, no one really thinks like that. Or do you have a need to pass the family flag down the next generation? Or do you want a mini-me version of yourself, doing the same things you did or worse, the things you didn’t get to do. Play the piano, sports, be a pop star or any other lost dream? Millions of parents live precariously through their children every day. It’s a human species pass-time. This scares me the most. That and the rare type of people who use children as bargaining chips, heck one of my best friends had the catch 22 fortune of being born in a family of good stature were her mother’s main intention was to get pregnant to keep her husband from leaving. Yes, good stature, bad marriage.

Now, I am not saying that people should not have children. That is not only outlandish but also outright stupid. No, I would not say that. However it is fair to say people should not assume having children is the end all of all relationships. That is just what is expected of us in our society, nothing more.

At the very least, everyone owes it to themselves including the ‘must have one or two’ in the crowd, regardless of how sure you believe you are, to question the why to the need. It could be that you might want children for completely different reasons than you thought and that is dangerous. At least if I am making a wrong decision I am not dragging a new life down with me, just my girlfriend or whomever I am dating, but she can always leave. Tell that to a five year old: ‘Scram Pete! I changed my mind. Go become feral or something.’

By the way, since the topic of children is what is known as a ‘deal breaker’ in relationship lingo, make sure it gets discussed as soon as it is suitably possible. You don’t want to fall in love only to find you are incompatible in the breeding department.

The more I think of it, the more I am done with children. Perhaps selfishness is the reason guiding us all. Some have the dream of the 2.3 children (Canadian median), the white picket fence, the minivan, and some don’t and I love it. Would a woman change my mind? It’s hard to say, I love my lifestyle.

By the way, I am not a would-be playboy, thinking I will have an endless string of women in my pad forever. Nope my name is not Hugh. Quite the opposite, I would like to settle down just not with kids. There are women who would agree with me out there. Even if most of society and family will continue to remind us that our natural clocks are ticking away, particularly to the ladies. For the most part we have been relegated to outcasts, but notice that we are a growing demographic, so outcast for not much longer.

So, hang there, and enjoy a nice quiet weekend brunch. Personally I am a fan of poached eggs and a good cup of coffee\tea, served on a nice outdoor patio. Ah, life is good.

I think the last time my sister; mother of two got the chance to do Brunch was…well, I am not even sure, it has been that long. I would say at least 9 months before my niece was born. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Before I go, I wanted to add this last thing my friend told me happened to him last year, which reflects society’s awkwardness towards us non-breeders. I remember a short conversation that occurred at their lunchroom between Dwayne, married with two children and Brad, married with none. They are both in their mid-forties with decent paychecks to boot. One drives a minivan and is so busy on weekends that he, as a salesman actually gets more physical rest at work than at home. This is a real story.

‘Do you ever regret not having children?’
‘Me? Why?’
‘Most people have a few kids by now.’
‘You know Dwayne, now that you ask…yeah, I have been thinking about that…’
Voice getting quieter now.
‘…You know, I would easily trade the two houses we rent-out, the four times a year me and Lydia go on vacation, our two convertibles and the freedom of waking up whenever we want just to have the single opportunity to have a few kids.’
Dwayne’s voice quiets down to meet his.
‘…Uh, really?’
‘HELL NO! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I LOVE MY LIFE!’

Popularity: 3% [?]