Flaming Queen

This is pretty fucking shitty.

I used to live right near the corner of Bathurst & Queen – and yes, I know I'm doing that thing where you employ trivial or tenuous means to insert your own petty, attention-seeking self into
someone else's tragedy. Portland St. was my second Toronto address, Markham St., a block west, was my third. I was vaguely aware that the area had a reputation as a perpetual crime-scene, but I never really saw it, and never once felt unsafe around there. I still miss it. Compared to where I live now, it was downright gentlemanly. (Though I do remember my son, at about the age of four, taking his grandfather for a walk around the old neighbourhood to show him his favourite shops, etc, only to find every doorway stained with blood or vomit, or with someone sleeping in it. And yet.)