Just as i was never picked to play an “important” baseball position in gym class when it came time to choose teams, i was also never picked for Jesus in any church passion play during Easter.

That’s because i am fat, and Jesus was not. And i’m not talking about the historical Jesus here - no one really knows what He weighed, but given His nomadic lifestyle and diet of loaves and fishes, i wouldn’t put Him past 150 pounds wet. No, i’m talking about White Guy Jesus - about American Bible belt bearded hippie trucker hair Jesus. The guy you see on commemorative plates and airbrushed posters, hanging out near waterfalls and rainbows, surrounded by wolves and unicorns. That’s the Jesus people in my culture are really into. The vaguely swarthy, white blue-eyed roadie for Nickelback Jesus. i’m definitely fatter than that guy.

(Tell me more …)

i hurt myself last week.

It was one of those bad luck moments that i’ve rarely had in my generally charmed. i’ve never broken a bone, i’ve never been diagnosed with cancer, and i’ve never had stitches. One of those is no longer true.

i had just finished dropping my daughter off at day care, which is set up in a little house. i usually bring her stroller through the gate to the backyard and cover it up, and then come back out through the gate and walk home. It was on my way down the driveway from the gate that i stepped to cross over to the front walk. There was a mound of ice there.

It was the kind of ice that forms when a pile of snow dwindles and melts until it becomes a shrivelled, compacted stretch of hard lumpy glass. Thanks to a recent thaw, it was also one of the only patches of ice left in the city. i came free-wheeling down the driveway, nearly skipping like a leprechaun and pleased as punch with myself because i loved my daughter, it was a bright sunny day, and i’d lived my whole life cancer free, with intact bones and no stitches. And then, out of nowhere, my legs flew out from under me to my left.

As gravity pulled the rest of me down, i remember thinking “Hey, legs. That’s not the way you ought to go. You see, walking is like controlled falling. i fall forward, and then put a leg out in front to catch myself. Then i repeat the process, thereby achieving locomotion. But this whole business of you swinging out sideways is entirely counterproductive. You see, for one thing …”

And then i hit the ground.

Or rather, my right knee hit the ground.

Or rather, the icy patch.

Or rather, the lousy sonofabitching icy patch.

At this point, gravity and my unfortunate and recent weight gain formed a pact to do their job in tandem. Gravity pulled me to the ground, while my bulk made sure to make it a hard landing. My first reaction was shock. My second reaction was to look across the street to see if anyone had noticed me falling, because that’d be pretty embarrassing. And my third reaction was to say the effword.

Then i got up, gingerly, and said the effword some more. The effword was, in fact, my fourth, fifth and sixth reactions. It also formed the better part of reactions seven through thirty-five, as i shuffled around in a circle, clenching my fists despite the pain, and uttering “EFF eff eff eff EFF eff eff eff” like some profane choo choo train. Like the Little Engine that Could … Offend Your Grandma.

i chugged around my little circle, the words of my non-existent grade ten gym coach running through my mind - “Walk it off, Pidwerbeski. Walk it off.” My name wasn’t Pidwerbeski, and i stopped taking gym in grade nine after it was no longer mandatory. Hmm. Maybe i’d seen that gym coach in a movie?

i sat down on a little bench in front of the day care to survey the damage. How come it hurt so much? Ah, yes. There it was. i had torn my pants wide open at the knee. i hiked my pantleg up a little and looked through the gaping hole. There, in my leg, was another gaping hole. Apparently, i had also torn my knee wide open at the knee.

There was an ugly little flap of skin, growing paler by the second, bunched up below an inch-wide hole in my knee. There was very little blood coming out of the hole, perhaps because of the way the wound was formed. It was deep, but not deep into my knee towards the bone. It was deep down the length of my leg, if you get my drift.

If not, i have buried an extremely graphic image of my wound below the fold. Please continue only if you have an extremely strong stomach or, failing that, a bowl nearby to contain the profuse amount of vomit you’re likely to spew at the mere sight of this.

(Tell me more …)

i’m in San Francisco again. It’s still a far cry from what i pictured in my earlier post, but i will say that i like it. i like the place very much.

There are just as many homeless people here this year as there were last year, and they’re the most upsetting thing about the city. i really have to wonder at the hearts and priorities of the people living here when there are so, so many middle-aged men - all of them black - wandering around downtown either shouting for money or enjoying a crack buzz. Homelessness is, of course, a very complex and difficult problem in many places in the world. What i find suspicious about so many American cities is that the homeless people have dark brown skin.

Here in Toronto, a veritable “tossed salad” of faces and skin tones, as they say, it becomes a bit of a Where’s Waldo exercise to find black homeless people. Our homeless come in all stripes. What’s more, you get a lot of independantly wealthy “weekend homeless”, who appear out of nowhere on weekends in only the high-traffic areas of town. Some of them, like the bearded guy on the Southeast corner of Bay and Bloor, are destitute.

Bearded Guy lies around in a sleeping bag on the sidewalk moaning, cup in hand. The curious thing about Bearded Guy is that he’s only homeless from Thursday to Sunday, and he’s only on the sidewalk when there’s no snow. It’s exciting to know that he is blessed with a miraculous healing experience as soon as tourist and pedestrian traffic dies down, only to spiral into dire need the following weekend. Quite a roller coaster of a life.

Aside from being black, the key difference in San Francisco’s career panhandlers is that they’re much more creative and enterprising. i walked out of my hotel with a fellow i met on the plane, and a very eccentric-looking but absolutely groovy black guy smooved up to us. He was wearing a caramel-coloured shiny leather trenchcoat with a cool black fedora. He was small and scrappy, like i imagine James Brown to be, and he had crystal blue contact lenses that unnerved me a little. He gave us three restaurant recommendations, told a joke, showed us a mathemagical trick, and told us how to get to the tiki bar i wanted to visit, all before finally hitting his pitch about how he wanted to go down the block and tuck into a big bacon cheeseburger. After all that, i was glad to throw him a few bones.

When i walked out of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Station, a panhandler shouted with open arms “WELCUMM A SAN FRANCISCAAA!”.

Contrastingly, pro panhandlers in Toronto expect you to give them money. The most they’ll do for you is open the door to the subway or to Tim Horton’s when you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself. Most often, you’ll just get a guy robotically chanting “Spare change ma’am. Spare change ma’am. Spare change sir. Spare some change ma’am.” It seems like the difference between a country where everyone is taken care of through social service programs and welfare, vs a country where you’re on your own and completely screwed, while constantly being fed the line that opportunity is all around you and you get out of life what you put into it.

i also hear the sourdough in San Francisco is pretty good.