My trip to Kingston was quite eventful, to say the least! I went up last Tuesday - Thursday, the week before I started work at my new job. It was definitely a spontaneous adventure, since I hadn't 100% secured a place to crash that night, and didn't have her number/address on me! :)

Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, since i did tell them last weekend, and they were aware that I'd probably be coming up that week.

TUESDAY

Back to class
On Tuesday I went to a Social Justice seminar class with a friend, basically right when i arrived. Other than catching up with the 4 friends there, this was one of the best parts of my trip. It was very interesting being in another university class, feeling totally comfortable in the room once i got in. It was also a great topic this week, having a guest speaker and touching on gender issues in public schools. I could tell that this class didn't have much structure, since we didn't speak too much about "gender" at all, but rather used that as the spring board for general class discussion.

The guest speaker was a Drama / English Media teacher from a local public school. She was self-identified as queer as well as diagnosed with ADHD. Her story was incredible. Her struggle with being queer and literally almost being forced out of a job was amazing. Basically, this teacher endured an 8 hour interrogation meeting by 3 levels of the board, put to tears and literally screaming "where the FUCK to i sign to resign" with (luckily) the union rep RIPPING THE LETTER OF RESIGNATION from her hands. So why did all this happen? A young boy told her that he was gay and wanted to come out to his very narrow-minded parents. This teacher spoke to him about his parents (I think she also had them before) and discussed whether it was the right decision. She gave him additional literature to read and after some talks he decided to tell them.

They LOST IT.

...and they blamed it all on her. After finding all these queer pamphlets and reading material, they asked the boy where he got this "propaganda" from. When they heard it was from this teacher, they went BALLISTIC. Hell broke loose, and this teacher had her life ruined for about 5 years because of it. The superintendents, board members, etc. were yelling "WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THIS FROM!?!" she proclaimed, "the FUCKING GUIDANCE ROOM DOWN THE FUCKING HALL!!!". That shut them up!

You know what the kicker was? Her advice, after talking about his parents and his life stage at the moment, her opinion was to NOT tell them. Heh. Stupid narrow-minded straight parents!! Finally, after 5 years she received a letter from the mother aplogizing for all they had caused. She told her how they needed someone to blame for this, and this teacher was the easiest to point at. Finally she gets redemption! Man.

What also impacted me was her struggle with the staff. After teaching for about 11 or 12 years now, one teacher has FINALLY started to say "hi" back to her. Each morning she would say "Hi there " with a smile, and they would just look away. To find out that they're now finally acknowledging her existence is sad, but at least a little bit encouraging. I think about some of my teachers and their old fashioned ways, i can totally see problems with them. If the educators possess this internalized homophobia, imagine their influential and authoritative power over their impressionable students.

The teacher also spoke about the "fake" ones, who are pretending to be supportive but aren't. You later find out that they're backtalking to their teacher friends/spouses about you. That hurts, b/c it just reinforces how hard it can be to trust and to continually read between the lines.

Key lesson? The key takeaway from her talk was to first "play the game" to develop contacts, reputation, and prove your ability ...THEN take action for changes. When you do so, you have that support network and proven performance record. If you aren't totally perfect and NOT an exceptional employee, then they will fire you on that infraction. To go in and start havoc will not get you anywhere. Sucks eh? But change takes time...

Cheezy Time
After that I met up with more of my friends, and soon there were 4 of us out to dinner at an upper class restaurant. There was a bakery-style storefront, with a restaurant in the back. My friend's girlfriend worked there, so we thought we'd give the place a shot.

Little did i know that it was a fine dining CHEESE CUISINE menu! Heh. But it was all good, they did have a few other dishes i could eat.

After dins, we went to a great coffee shop called Smokey Joe's. It was an artsy coffee shop setup as an co-operative. It had that indie-toronto coffee shop flavour to it, minus the music. It ranges from whatever the employees want, which can be Fefe Dobson to RAGE to DMX! :)

WEDNESDAY
This day was crazy, mainly because of the interesting Kingston by-laws that are not readily communicated to newcomers.

Basically, there is an unspoken by-law that states that no automobile shall park at ANY street from 1 a.m. - 7 a.m. in the winter months. After I parked on Tuesday and my friend and I triple inspected the signs to ensure it was legal, I found an empty space when I walked out the next day.

MISS MAZDA WAS TOWED!

She was taken from me. Poor girl! I felt horrible. I had to go down to the Kingston police station and get my car released. I tried to plead ignorance, but i'm sure they've heard that sob story before. Apparently it's been around for 30 years. fancy that eh? I'm sure it's a critical cash cow for them now, and loving every cent of it.

The tow yard was out in the middle of Kingston nowhere, in a sketch area. Luckily one of my friends was available to bail me out and drive me there. This place was straight out of Deliverance. There were 3 guys, one looking like the head honcho, a guy resembling a younger and skinnier bubbles (left image), and a guy looking like he just got back from sexually assaulting the neighbourhood Kingston wildlife. Oi.

After that ordeal, I headed out for dinner at a cool korean/sushi place called Ta-Ke, and later went out to a bar to see a few bands play. I had heard of the first band, Marlowe, who i think it based in Toronto. The second, apparently nominated for a Juno, was called "The Stars". They were both cool bands, sounding a bit like Broken Social Scene. The Stars had great stage presence and performed like seasoned musicians. It's the kind of indie/electronic music that is great to listen to, but a bit hard to pay 100% attention to. I like having this sort of music on while doing other things, or chilling / smoking up to :) - But great stuff still.

I also ran into an old high school friend, who apparently spotted me while at the bar. It was great to see her! It's been years man, and she looks great! She's definitely a Queens girl, now off to Australia on exchange next week. Wicked eh? I'm sure she'll have a blast.

That night I contemplated driving back to Toronto. I was sick of thinking of the status of Ms. Mazda, and since I'd be going home early Thursday, I thought "why not?". Of course, flashbacks of my crazy driving trip to Ottawa and back came back to haunt me. On that trip Ms. Mazda and I drove in the late afternoon to a DMB concert in Kanata (near Ottawa) and came back home late that same night. That was an ugly scene, b/c no one else in the car could drive. OI!

I didn't want to go through that again, especially since I would be alone driving this time and could easily pass out and find myself in a ditch or somewhere more devastating. I stayed there the night and chanced it at the overnight underground parking lot... Turns out it was all good and my car was still there the following morning. Fiewf!

...In Retrospect
Overall I had a great time and would do it again. Despite the little mishap with the ridiculous cash cow by-law, the trip was a good time. And even that experience wasn't that bad, and kind of funny when you think of it; it adds to the excitement of the experience i guess :). I was so happy to reconnect with some of my friends there @Queens, and hope to see them sometime later this year, hopefully in the summer at least.

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"