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Got up yesterday morning in one of those moods where you want to bounce on the bed and go, “Get up, get up, get up. We have to go DO something.” We had a free day and I wanted to see some of Toronto. I resisted the urge to do the five-year-old version of a wake-up call, managed to be much more grown-up, but it did get everyone up, and preserved my dignity. Dignity is one of the first things that goes when you go on tour together, but a girl can try.
Left to our on devices Jon and I flounder when we have a free day. It’s an unfamiliar city, and the few free moments we have usually come in the middle of tour, like now, so we’re too tired to research, or it just doesn’t occur to us that we are really, truly, going to have free time. But Charles had been to Toronto before, so we asked him, “Where should we go?” Then there is that moment of difference of attitude. Charles almost always finds a way to have a good time when he travels, even if it’s business. He just has a knack for finding fun or different things, and letting all the stress go and having fun. Jon and I, not so much. Okay, me, really not. I am a stress bunny, and that’s not likely to change, but yesterday we tried to embrace the philosophy of fun and do what Charles would have done if we had not been with him.
We went to Queen’s street. How to describe it? Hmm. It’s got some of the flavor of New Orleans, but that’s not quite it. It’s as if New Orleans got together with the Village (Greenwich Village) in New York, and came up with a younger sibling, but again that’s not quite it. I’ll work on describing it later, but for now let’s just say, it was fun. There are all kinds of shops from designer names to The Condom Shack. No, really. Didn’t actually go into that store, but the name alone is too fun not to share. Queen’s street is a place to wander from shop to shop, and just browse and go, cool. But we did find a shop down a flight of stairs that was way fun.
Borderline is a clothes shop, but that doesn’t do it justice. This store is what Hot Topic wants to be when it grows up. It was sooo cool. The three of us had the best time shopping. The store had great clothes not just for women, but for men, too. In fact the guy side of the store was so fun, that I just stayed and helped Jon and Charles find stuff to try on. What I saw, at first, on the girl’s side just didn’t interest me. Then once we got the guys squared away, the gentleman that was helping us, said, “What about something for you?” I said I couldn’t find anything. He said, “What about a corset?” I said, “Cool.”
He found me an outfit that was both sexy, and comfortable, a very rare combination that. Okay, everything but the shoes, but the shoes kick-ass, and for club-ware this nifty I’ll suffer a little for the art of it. The women will understand what I mean, when I say, that I wanted to know if the outfit worked, and all I had to do was step out of the dressing room and see the look on Jon’s face. The gentleman who had been helping us, and who it turns out owned the shop, smiled and said, “You’re welcome.” I think he was talking to Jon.
The wonderful gentleman who helped us put the outfits together, and especially mine, had a real eye. We all had fun shopping, and got wonderful outfits. I shop like a guy, so basically, three guys shopping and none of us got bored. It was way too much fun for anything but happy.
If you guys are good we’ll put up pictures of the outfits later.
Then just down the street went went into an Oakley store and Jon bought new glasses. Like I said, Queen street has lots of different shops. Then, we had to leave Queen street because we were meeting an old friend of Charles’s at another store far enough away that we had to get a taxi. Northbound Leather was one of the best leather shops we’ve ever seen. The smell of rich, good leather wrapped you around at the door like expensive perfume. Yum. The store had everything from leather coats, to very adult leather. There was even a leather tuxedo, which made me think of Jean-Claude. There were other outfits that would have been more appropriate for some of my other imaginary friends in their days jobs as strippers, except, it would probably be a little too leather for a St. Louis crowd in real life.
By that point, I had about shopped myself out. I’m not joking when I say I shop like a guy, and I’d had about as much shopping as I could take even in a shop as fun as this one. But Charles’s friend helped me persevere, and I found some stuff. One of the dresses I may actually wear to a convention this year. We’ll see. Some club-ware can become hall costume, and some cannot.
Jon found some leather pants to replace a pair he had years ago, and Charles tried to be good and resist temptation. So much leather, so little time.
Then we all went to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Pleasant conversation, good food, and just the end of a fun day.