The maniacal leftovers...

Once we were many. We'd gather every Saturday at The Only and chat. Well, chat suggests that it was intimate and personal. We'd out-yell eachother in friendly and entertaining ways. We'd "what-if" eachother till the cows came home. We'd invent, create, design, suggest and share. As a joke, Cosmo and I started calling us "The Danforth Square Table," after "The Algonquin Round Table," a group of writers, actors and general wits who would join together for lunch at The Algonquin Hotel in NY during the 20's. I've always wanted to be Dorothy Parker. No one knew what Cos and I were talking about, but there was lots of that going on and so we were tolerated.

Now we're a few. We gathered together yesterday, first time in ages, and minus two of our founding members and various hangers-on.

Somehow we managed to be louder than all the other days combined, including that one time where there were eleven of us at a table that sits six.

Thank goodness I can safely say that it wasn't a manic kind of loudness. Well, it was, but not in that way where all present are aware of those who aren't present and are trying to fill those spaces with voice. Don't get me wrong, we were definately aware of who wasn't there, it's just that the five of us were so many on our own that our voices helped to make the spaces full in a much more natural way.

By the end of the conversation, no one would sit at the back of the cafe, where we were. Whether it was a slow time for the cafe or we scared everyone away doesn't matter. We were alone and free to be as happily loud as we wanted.

And boy, did we want.

The end of the conversation, by the way, came when we became aware that one among us had never visited Silver Snail. We high-tailed it downtown.

Now all of us are well-versed in the glory of a geekdom mecca. It's a beautiful world filled with the new and shiny and the old and obscure. Filled with lust of a really silly kind.

For instance, I procured two new Sandman comics which I'd been coveting, and an American McGee's Alice figurine. (Thanks, Eric!)

New items added to lust list: Family Guy figurines. Has a murdered television show ever had so much posthumous steam?

Most of all, though, there's a signed cloth-bound book of Gaiman's Snow Blood Apple for much less than unsigned copies have gone for on eBay. I know, I've been trying for two years to get my hands on one.

I've decided I'll have a job this week so I can feel un-guilty (Making up words is fun) about charging the damned thing.

The rest of the afternoon involved us pissing off people looking for parking spaces and just continuing The Only's converstation in the sunshine of downtown Toronto. Part of this was the plotting of our newest media attack: A comic. There'll be more in the next few days about our comic on here, but for now I'm tired and I feel it's better to just keep my mouth shut about this one for the time being. It'll be a wonderful surprise, trust me. Anyhow, this planning involved a lot of tearful laughing fits, and we can't wait to share the cause with the world. Well, "share" is too benign a word. More like "force upon," but you'll all thank us. Trust me.

I miss the days when I'd spend the entire afternoon downtown. People seem less aware of loud and obnoxious on Queen Street. No wonder I've always felt so at home down there.

The t-shirts and stores have changed, but it still feels like home.