I Fought The Lawn

One of the more immediate changes to moving to suburbia was the commute. I mean, I’m certainly going to be documenting things of great substance that changed when I became Instant Family Man, but I think this is somewhat significant and I want to get it out of the way.

When I lived at Yonge and Sheppard, I lived in a skyrise above a very busy neighbourhood – a skyrise directly above the subway. Since the building I manage downtown is also connected to the subway, I never had to leave the underground. In the middle of winter, I could take the elevator downstairs in my shorts, saunter into the mall, buy a coffee and a paper, and sit on the subway for a twenty-minute ride.

Now, I get this.

It looks like this every weekday morning, and it looks like this for an hour. I suppose that’s not incredibly bad, but it’s not what you’d call good, either. I knew this was going to be the case, of course, but you never really know how much it’s going to suck until you actually drive it for a week. I don’t mind being in the car for an hour, but I sure as hell don’t like being in the car for an hour going thirty clicks tops.

I find the commute more dreary than anything else. There’s nothing to do. Toronto radio sucks, for one; you have Q107 with the ‘mullet rock’ and The Edge with all the bands that sound the same, and everything else either falls into the category of ‘crap rock’ or ‘wuss rock’. I’d listen to country, but even the country station sucks here. It’s gotten bad enough that even though I’m the cheapest sonofabitch on the planet, I might actually go out and buy satellite radio. I play drums in the car with a pair of drumsticks I bought, but you can’t really do it when the car’s moving, and even if you can (cough), the more responsible motorists are going to glare at you.

I mean, I imagine they would. I’m sure I wouldn’t know.

- BC