the scowl

it's actually been a very long time since i can remember needing to employ "the scowl".  you know the look i'm talking about - the one that broadcasts to everyone around you that you've had a right sucky day and that now would be an inopportune time for a stranger to ask what time it is.

the scowl is a look that is performed by a percentage of the population that increases in direct proportion to the size of the city.  so for example, i believe that there are fewer than 100,000 people living in nanaimo, bc, and people there are pretty smiley. back home, edmonton used to be around 750,000 people - a little harder to get smiles out of people, but overall not a huge number of scowls.  here in T.O. with its nutball 2.5 million resident, i often find that i'm the only one in a 2 block radius with a smile on his or her face.  i see the scowls everywhere here - crossing the street in the financial district, waiting for the subway doors to open on monday mornings, hanging around the bar waiting for someone to take a drink order... just about everywhere - and it has started to wear me down.

perhaps it just took longer for my innate positivity (laced with my own special blend of sarcastic and sardonic herbs and spices) to get worn away, or perhaps i didn't get enough sleep last night, or maybe it's just too cloudy outside.  i don't know.  i do know that fighting my way through union station, pushing against the crowds trying to get to tonight's leafs game, i couldn't find my own smiling protection from the siege of grimaces and i succumbed.

- g

song of the day for allowing the scowl to grab you: in the waiting line, zero 7