You can't sleep here tonight

The city is going to disallow staying in downtown (Ville-Marie) parks after midnight and until 6am. They say it's a summer problem, of people "in transit" (ie bums from elsewhere) who leave "a mess". "It doesn't look so nice" is what the spokesperson from the city said on the radio this morning.

I consider myself inextricably urban. I have never lived in anything like the country (maybe Nuns' Island in the late 70s, early 80s counts, since it was mostly field and forest back then) and I don't dedicate more than 0.2% of my fantasy life to a life off the grid. HOWEVER, in my romps through town I can't help mourn the erasing of natural space, ie earth. Since my neighbourhood used to be several villages, I imagine what it was like when instead of all the houses and building, there were empty spaces (wide open spaces, i heart huckabees?) between less edifications. I wonder why we haven't bothered saving a plot per block as a refreshing park view. And the thing that irks me the most are the houses and apartment buildings that have covered what was once their front lawn with asphalt. Can you undo that, if you wanted to?

I love gardens, flowers, plants. It seems like a crime to block it all up with cement. Even an unkempt garden in summer is more beautiful than a flat piece of nothingness.

Anyway, this has to do with the park thing because it's one more way in which cities seem to want to stop being a part of the natural world, and want to, I don't know, put a glass ceiling over our heads so even the weather can be controlled? I wouldn't put it past this city or any other. So far, the only justice I see in the world is that no matter how rich the country, its people still have to put up with the weather. Hooray! Isn't it great to be reminded, at least a little bit, that we're all the same?

So what makes us different, in essence, from those "transient" bums?

***
My back bike tire got busted. Don't know how. Left the bike parked at Sherbrooke metro the night of the storm (went to the driving range with Button) and when I got back, I had to ride my busted bike in the pouring rain. Who hates me?

My aunt and cousin are in town for a while. My mother arrives on Saturday and we're all going for a picnic this weekend.

Had waaay too much sushi last night at the all you can eat (but get charged for if you leave food behind) Odaki buffet. With old Laserites Dan, Dave, GF, Marie-Eve and current ones Yu-Shan, Eric and ME!