I am in Toronto now; have been for a couple of days. It’s raining. I hate Toronto when it rains.

When it rains in Toronto, the sludge and filth on the roads and sidewalks swell and expand. Thousands of brown, paper cigarette butts rise like loaves of bread in a fallow oven. It is as though Canada’s iconic city has fallen, cursed by its own speed and size, and must wash its scraped and battered knees with too little water and no soap. Choked with pride and insolence, citizens adorned in suits and dresses remain steadfast while steel grates embedded in the sidewalk exhale smoke and stench from the sewers. This city is darker when it rains. Lonelier. Less interesting. Tortured.