I was climbing last night as usual and I happened to leave at the same time as one of the co-op students who was also climbing that night. At the same corner as the gym is an establishment known as "Jilly's." I've never been there but I believe it is a "gentleman's club" of some sort.
Anyway, I normally wait for a streetcar down the road a bit, but since the co-op was also taking the streetcar I waited with him at the stop in front of this "Jilly's." We were chatting and a young woman came out and joined us in the bus shelter. She asked if we would mind if she had a smoke in the shelter because it was cold out and she "had less clothes than the average bear" on under her fairly short jacket.
Well, I can't say I approve of cigarettes, but I'm generally non-confrontational so I said that would be fine. The co-op and I continued to have a pleasant conversation for a minute and then I noticed that she was in fact smoking a joint and not a cigarette. Then she asked if we'd heard about the accident just up the road. We used this opportunity to exit the shelter and see if this accident meant there would be no streetcars for a while. And at this point we also decided to wait at the next stop down the road.
Not that I have a problem with strippers or marijuana, it was just a damn weird situation and was compounded by the fact that I was with someone I only slightly knew. If I were with a close friend we could have communicated silently and been amused or whatever, and if I were with someone I didn't know at all I could have just done my own thing. But being with an acquaintance who I would have to see again in the near future, yeah, that threw me off.
On a related note, all of the big pictures on the side of Jilly's were boarded over that night, so maybe the rumours of it closing down are true. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Queen and Broadview is prime for condo developments. My climbing gym is going to be torn down in a year and a half for a condo in fact. Unfortunately the people who run the gym only rent the building so they had no control when the owner was given a dump truck full of money for the land. They do intend to move the gym to a new location however, so I hope that works out. It really is the best gym in Toronto in my opinion.
One final thing for the night. One of the random blogs I read, Dooce, just won four awards at the 2008 Bloggies, which I guess is the equivalent of the Oscars or something. It was also ranked number five in a list of the world's 50 most powerful blogs. Craziness. I like reading it because it's amusing and well written. Plus the author posts some really good photos of her dogs and the world around her. The blog is famous because the author was fired from her job back in 2002 for blogging about work. In fact, the name of the blog has been verbed, to mean getting fired for blogging (ie. being dooced). The situation turned out OK for her though, as the blog apparently makes the author enough money in advertising to provide a middle-class life for herself and her family in Utah. Hmm...maybe I should throw up a few Google ads here.
