You can't go home again

Oh, my darling Toronto, I've been gone not six weeks and what has become of you? I returned last Thursday for a week to find my favourite bookstore gone, one of my most frequented restaurants trashed and burned, my former employer 1.5 publications and 20 people thinner, and my friends jumping at any sight of an unmarked van. Oh yeah, and then there was that earthquake...

That some of this was no surprise made the other bad news harder to bear. I found myself a tourist in my old town, naked without the bill-paying and other demands on my time that stymied me while a resident (still easier than wandering rootless in New York, where I am just a tourist with a local phone number). I would have felt better if I could have dropped in on Pivot for (not that) old times' sake, but they're off for the month. At least the Scream Literary Festival went off without a hitch, and that people are still drinking and fighting as ever. Next year I shall attend as a member of the paying public, and my liver will thank me.

The fundamental point here is that I loathe change, when I am not its agent. That cities are alive is what I love about them, and a bit of death and decay only makes room for new growth (if only the new wasn't so often in the form of branded collaborations and pre-fabricated real estate), and none of this would have been any easier to take had I been around to witness it firsthand. So maybe it's not the change, but the insult to my ego that my old room won't be preserved just as it was when I left it. Sniff.

Thanks to Jenny, Aaron, Elisabeth, Luke, Lindsay, Allison, Em et al for couches, hugs, frisbees, one-speeds, slow dances -- all salves to the scabby little wounds on my heart.

New Yorkers pay more tax than Swedes

So Mr. O got his very first paycheque today. Considering we've been here for a month now, we were pretty excited about it. Let's just say that Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket wasn't all we'd hoped it would be.

New Yorkers pay 45% of their income in federal, state and municipal tax. That'd be okay if, say, in return people here received universal health care, or day care, or subsidized post-secondary education. Okay, to be fair, a monthly pass on the MTA is only $85, compared to $121 for a TTC metropass. And sure, there's a lot of grass to be mowed in Central Park, and all those bike lanes to be installed and then sandblasted off again in Williamsburg, and oh yeah, a few good wars to pay for. I am all for paying teachers and sanitation workers and judges and engineers, they do good and important things. But Iraq? Ugh, I feel so dirty.

But 45%?! Seriously? I thought this was the land of the cash grab, of laissez-faire and free markets? You know, pay less in tax and give that money right to the grubbing insurance companies -- I mean, private sector. Really, we made more on less in Canada. And the Medicare and Social Security contributions are money that, as non-resident aliens, I am quite certain we shall never see again, even if we require health care or social benefits. The next time somebody refers to Finland as a socialist state I'm going to shove a W-4 up his or her nose.

I feel a Michael Moore moment coming on, maybe I'll put on a fat-suit and go stand at the border with a bullhorn, shouting "It's all a marketing scam, you've been tricked!" But that's probably because I'm the immigrant who's been tricked; this is probably something all of you knew, saw it in a Michael Moore movie or something. 

P.s. I am really not in a Canada Day mood this year, but I am making a maple syrup glaze for the fish tonight. That'll have to suffice.