kensington nr i can never think of a comparable area to kensington market in toronto. it's one of the few that hasn't been gentrified much, and it's open-minded, cool, and hippie-ish. the graffiti is impressive, the food is authentic and mostly inexpensive, the park is nice, and the bars are cool and mostly unpretentious. on thursday, two friends and i ended up on the patio of a pizza place that was apparently awarded "best in toronto" last year. it was pretty good. their computer system wasn't working, so the server wrote our bills by hand. he said he was waiting for the technician to fix the computer, and my tired/punchy friend heard "kitchen" instead of "technician," so we started joking about a dishwasher or fridge needing to pull its weight. the server had a lot of tattoos and was saying the parts of the body near the bone hurt the most when getting tattooed, but it wasn't that painful on his upper arms. i've been considering a tattoo but am not good with pain. 220716 ... nr i ended up back there today; i wanted to bike to a mezcal bar there and read on the patio while drinking a margarita. sometimes you just get these pictures in your head and want to chase them. the mezcal bar was packed, so i slowly biked around the streets to find another option. i ran into an author whose book i promoted many years ago, and she told me how much of a coincidence it was to run into me because she'd just had a long conversation with my old coworker with whom she's publishing her next book. she kept going on about how great he is. he and i don't talk much anymore, but i just said that was cool and that i was looking forward to her book. her husband, a photographer who i know as well, walked up with their daughter. her husband was wearing a CBGB shirt. i lamented not having ever gotten to go there. they complimented my bike that i got off the internet in 2020; it has a flowered basket and LED lights in the spokes and coincidentally is the brand "kensington," which it says on the side. i've never turned the lights on when riding, but they amuse me so i leave them on in case i ever end up at a bike party and need a party bike. ironically, today there WAS some kind of bike event; lots of cyclists were riding in a group, some with lit-up bikes. i ended up at a bar i like that has a bicycle theme (which seems to be fitting); they have great music and deejay nights and i wasn't sure how good their margaritas would be, but they actually had them on the chalkboard menu. it was pretty good. i met a woman who was visiting from arkansas, and we ended up sitting together on the patio. she was the chattiest, most outgoing person i'd met in awhile. it was interesting see her chat with all of the normally reserved torontonians; they generally responded positively and it made me wonder if all we really need to open up is for someone to help us out a bit. 220716 ... nr the bartender and his wife were talking to us on his break. he was a bit older, and my attention drifted a bit when they all started talking about marlboros. also, she kept calling levon helm levon helms. 220716 ... nr as i was walking back to my bike, a guy who wasn't quite well mentally looked at me and said "you're pregnant, aren't you?" i didn't respond and kept walking. i do have a belly that keeps getting bigger and bigger, like the rest of me, which i don't like. so no, dude, i'm not pregnant; i'm just getting fat. 220716 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I don't think I've ever seen a bike with lights in the spokes! That would look cool at night. Like a mini Ferris wheel. And if people have to intrude on your space, they could at least say something original! Better was the drunk guy on the bus who asked me, "Are you Russian? Your coat looks Russian." (This was before the war in Ukraine, so probably no malice was intended. But I wouldn't have felt comfortable if he'd kept addressing me.) 220716 what's it to you? who go blather from