I have spent many lonely hours biking to the Harbourfront and sitting lonely by the half real water, listening to the seagull behind me wailing like a newborn child, pretending the colder wind bothers me not. Stuffing my face with a garlic shrimp rice bowl, or a small organic apple from a Koreatown fruit market, or tasteless cucumber, I supress the thought that there is something or someone waiting for me, edging closer to my periphery like some daytime star. I play it cool, I lean my legs against my bike, I write bubble letters in my notebook, those too-good, overused Yeats lines.

On a crowded Sunday afternoon an East-Asian man asks me if he can take my picture. He’s a banker, but it’s a drab job. I say yes; I position my braid on my right side and look intensely. He shows me the pictures, I’m morbidly disappointed. I look disheveled and the framing too. I grab my notebook, write down my email, and tear a sliver of paper. It’s been a few weeks, still no pictures—he had said he would Photoshop them.

For a while I sat on the water taxi dock. Then it was roped off.

There are so so many dogs by the Harbourfront. They all seem quite well-behaved. I mean, the owners too. I personally don’t mind if they don’t wear masks, as long as they’re not spitting to my face. I don’t wear a mask either. I am usually far from people enough.

One thing is that I am constantly surprised by the dearth of Harbourfront lurkers at night. By 11 PM I can usually get away with dancing to 2.5 songs without any inherently awkward encounters. Is there no better place to dream than the water? To scream? To cry? To wonder, what is beyond, what is beyond me?

Call it bullshit; I call it too.