Aug 122017
 

That title makes it sound like my birthday was super terrible but it actually wasn’t, for once.

Here are some photos of my day, before the MAIN EVENT which obviously was the G-Dragon concert which yes, I am still crying about. In fact, earlier tonight, Chooch and I were on a walk when I wistfully said, “I still can’t believe how close I was to G-Dragon” at which point Chooch said, “Help me” to some lady sitting on the porch of a house we were strolling past.

I might have a problem.

LOL I do. For sure.

But back to my birthday! Henry and I woke up all bright & early because I was rearin’ to go. Our pre-concert plans involved “going to see the water” because if we’re near water I like to look at it while keeping a healthy distance. Henry looked at a map and realized that the Air Canada Center is actually very close to the lake.

But first, coffee.

I hatethat phrase. I wanted to see what it would feel like to actually type it out and I’m here to tell you that it felt super douchey and if you ever see me wearing a shirt with some trendy slogan on it like that, please feel free to knock over my $8 cup of Chemex-brewed designer beans.

But yeah, we went to Boxcar Social for morning beverage, and then walked to to the Purple Penguin for breakfast sandwiches and I was super difficult with my meatless requests but the friendly guy at the counter was super happy to help me get the breakfast sandwich of my dreams and I made sure to go back to thank him before we left for being so accommodating. I try not to be That Veg-Head but sometimes I just gotta speak up and ask for something without meat.

God, Toronto is such a chill city. Please adopt me, Canada. I can’t take it here anymore!

Took the street car thingie downtown. I was really getting used to public transportation by then and it’s a good thing because we used it A LOT on that day.

The water. ^^^

Chris recommended that we take the ferry to Toronto Island but Henry looked it up and it said it was “closed” until the following day.

Ok.

I wouldn’t have believed him but he showed me the website and it did say “closed until 7/31” on it, so no island adventures for us.

We saw these cute Corgis and then immediately missed Chooch because he is OBSESSED with Corgis lately which is cute but also annoying because he does some weird excited arm flap thing when he sees one.

I just can’t be associated with him when he does that weird derpy shit.

Henry made me go inside this Purina Pet thing which had a Rainbow Bridge area where people could write messages to their deceased pets and tack them up on a board. I write one for March and then immediately felt depressed because I’m just not “over” it and probably never will be, nor do I want to be. She is so special to me.

Meanwhile, there was the whole section of walls with pictures of pets and accompanying stories of their acts of heroics and sacrifice, which I made the mistake of reading some and then promptly started sobbing. I caught up with Henry who had wandered ahead and wailed, “Why did you bring me in here???”

I had to sit on a bench until I was able to be seen by the public eye again. Wouldn’t be my birthday unless tears were shed, so here’s to keeping tradition alive.

We decided it was time to start walking back away from the water and into the city to find somewhere to eat for lunch. In hindsight, I’m not sure why we hadn’t solidified lunch plans before leaving the airbnb, but whatever–I guess it wouldn’t be my birthday without my blood sugar dropping and my dormant homicidal side awakening.

We got caught in a horde of Blue Jay fans converging on the Rogers Centre, and then we came upon the front of the Air Canada Centre, where I needed to stand for an unlimited amount of time, waiting for the huge video screen on the front of the arena to flash something for G-Dragon’s show because I wanted to take a picture. We had to endure ads for Katy Perry and other dumb things, but finally, the Act III: Motte ad came up and I quickly snapped a picture. That’s when I noticed two girls nearby doing the same thing, so we laughed about it together and my heart felt so full because I was already connecting with other G-Dragon fans! Other people who get it, finally!

We walked through the inside of the Air Canada Centre, because it seemed like a very common thoroughfare for pedestrians. This is how we learned where we would need to go when we came back later, because there were already VIPs lining up inside, maybe about 75 to 100 of them. It was a little after 11am at this point, and check-in for the VIP tickets wasn’t until 3:45. I could tell Henry was briefly worried that I was going to decide to forego food and get in line with everyone else, but I just don’t think I have that endurance at this age! So we left the Air Canada Centre and continued our walk to the nearest subway station.

Everything was fine at first. We decided on some vegetarian place, so we got on a subway and then a streetcar, but while on the streetcar, Henry realized that he must have gotten “turned around” map-wise when we came out of the subway station, because he had us on a streetcar going the opposite direction.

This was phase one of preparing for my fire-breathing dragon act.

I did some mild berating of his weakened manhood {“Isn’t that like the #1 thing you fucking MEN love to brag about, your inherent ruling over maps? Your built-in navigational systems? Your compass-like dicks pointing the way?”) while we waited for another streetcar to take us back the way we came, thanks for wasting valuable time, Henry.

He kept apologizing and trying to laugh it off because hahahaha even men make mistakes once in a decade, hahhahaha. STFU and feed me you son of a bitch.

We get on a streetcar and a few minutes in, the driver makes an announcement that some road is closed and now the streetcar wasn’t going the way we needed it to go so Henry was like, “LET’S JUST GET OFF HERE AND FIGURE IT OUT” and by this point, I had reached full-blown hanger and didn’t care about going to whatever vegetarian place we had chosen anymore, I just wanted food in my fucking mouth, or an iced latte, so whatever came first was FINE BY ME.

But Henry insisted that this damn restaurant wasn’t too far away so he had his nose glued to his phone maps while I stomped along like a petulant child and I didn’t care who witnessed it at this point because the zipper ties on my true bipolar self only hold for so long and then the real Erin is devouring the fake smiles and sweet voice of Fake Erin because SHE HAS BEEN LOCKED UP FOR A WHILE NOW AND IS FUCKING FAMISHED, MOTHERFUCKERS. YOU’RE NEXT, HENRY.

Henry kept trying to make jokes but I was purposely walking several feet ahead of him because that’s what I do to punish him and I don’t think he ever really notices. We eventually did come across the restaurant he chose but it turned out to be inside some mall-like building so I spat, “Oh I’m not eating inside a mall, just no” like this was some terribly offensive thing for whatever reason and Henry had this, “Are you fucking serious?” look on his face but then remembered who he was dealing with, the girl who constantly adds to “Do Not Like” list on the fly but then tries to act like it’s always been that way, like how could you not know that, Henry? After 16 years you’re just now learning I won’t eat in a restaurant in a mall-like thing? UGH. DON’T YOU EVEN KNOW ME.

[Sidenote: I had declined a Fitbit weekend competition with Octavia because I figured Sunday would be such a bust, full of standing around at a concert all night and how would I get in any steps? But thanks to all this madness, I’d still wind up having over 22,000 steps by the end of the night, and that was even with all the standing in pre-concert lines that we would end up doing from 2:45-7:00.]

“Well, there’s another vegetarian restaurant a few minutes down this way,” Henry calmly said, consulting his phone. We crossed a street and he said it was literally a few 100 feet away, but out of spite, I chose this restaurant called Sin & Redemption instead because that’s just the kind of fucking asshole I am.

“But the other place is literally right—-” Henry started to say, but I had already walked inside this regular-people-food establishment after glancing the menu posted outside and seeing that they had a veggie wrap.

The host told us to choose somewhere to sit in the awkwardly-spaced out dining room, which only had one other table occupied, but Henry was being so indecisive over where to sit because he was worried about upsetting the Queen, so finally I yelled in an angry sing-song voice, “OMG JUST PICK SOMEWHERE” while flashing a sweet smile at the host.

Jesus Christ!!!

This place was awful, literally the only bad choice of the whole trip but that’s what happens when you listen to the hateful voice in your head and choose a place out of spite.

Our waiter was too busy having a clandestine relationship with the waitress, my wrap had no taste, Henry’s omelette was the size of an orphan’s fist, and the waiter took my plate away from me before I was finished eating my frittes, which was the only good part of the meal.

But this is what I do on my birthday — I throw tantrums and self-sabotage, so happy 38th birthday to me, to me, to me!

Henry and I barely spoke on the subway and streetcar ride back to Leslieville. By this point, it was nearly 2:00pm and I was past due for my second coffee refueling, so I demanded that Henry go back out somewhere and get me an iced latte while I laid on the bed and pouted. Before he left, I yelled after him, “And you’re not going to G-Dragon with me!”

He came back with an iced latte and a butter tart, my first and only butter tart in Canada. It was delicious and I didn’t give him one single bite, but I did allow him to go to the G-Dragon concert with me. Which is where we went as soon as I finished my butter tart! And if I’m being honest, I think a lot of the day’s badness was directly related to my mounting stress and anxiety over the concert—I was a nervous fucking wreck up until the moment we were finally inside that arena, in front of the stage. 

The rest of the day was so much better (I had one more moment of anger but that was directed toward LiveNation so Henry got to be on the same side as me for once because now we had a common enemy) but in the grand scheme of things, it was so good that it completely negated every single “bad” hunger-related moment that happened earlier and I can easily say that this was the best birthday of my life, terrible lunch, bad directions, and all.

Say it don't spray it.

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