In June of 2013, I had just "broken up" with my landlord in the village at York University and moved down to live in Toronto proper, in bachelor apartment, 15 steps north of Bloor and Dovercourt. One of the first days I walked into my building, keys in hand, I met
@mikedineeeen as he was checking the mail. I was immediately enamoured. Mike is so kind and so funny and so smart, and for two years, we were neighbours in the sort of way that a young kid from a small pulp and paper town in BC imagines you will be neighbours with people in your apartment building when you move to the city.
Mike recommended me places in the neighbourhood.
He and my friend Wes conspired with a bunch of our friends to send me video birthday greetings.
He invited me over to watch Girls and Broad City. He came over my first Christmas alone in Toronto to make spritz cookies.
He encouraged me to get out of the house to go dancing, to join their softball team.
He helped me put together my ill-fated TVO audition.
My second Christmas in the city, we sat in our stairwell, and he helped me record my mum’s favourite christmas carol to send to her as a gift.
He came out to support our theatre company when we put up a strange, beautiful little show about sex education in the basement of Lemon Tree Creations.
After I left Toronto in 2015, he was always open to meeting up every time I was back in town. I’m sorry that it was so few times.
For a long time, so many of my messages to Mike were, "Hey, do you still get mail to B-757?”
2 years into living in Wells, Mike sent me a message asking for my address. A few weeks later, a poster tube arrived on my doorstep, and in it was a print of the city of Toronto, all the neighbourhoods. It was a rush of memories and moments. A reminder that we are the sum of so many structures - places lived, landscapes learned, and people loved.
I cannot imagine the devastation that those closest to him are holding now. I'm sending so much love to his partner, family (blood and chosen), and the hundreds of people, I am sure, holding memories just like mine.
