So, America

I'd been living in Canada, will be again, but am here now, for... this. Does this have redeeming features? I used to think this had something over, like, Europe, what with our welcoming multicultural ideals-if-not-practice. On paper, things were sort of OK, or getting better? Except for the gun thing?

No.

I used to be That Guy, That American, rolling her eyes whenever Europeans sniffed at the US for being backward, thinking but not saying, your lot did fascism, your lot still does far-right xenophobia while pretending it doesn't which is that much worse. Well. Our far-right has now merged with your far-rights and we're all going to hell and might as well get the nice sneakers and the enormous high-end pastries while we still can.

So: Redeeming feature enumeration commences now:

-The chocolate croissants at Arcade Bakery are Paris-level amazing. As is the space, and the smell, which announces just how great the pastries will be.

-Housing Works thrift shops sell the barely-if-at-all worn clothing of wealthy New Yorkers with great taste, and I now own... not that much of it, all told, because even used, it's expensive, but a good amount.

-There's this sugar brioche from Aux Merveilleux de Fred. It's nearly $7, which is like $10,000 CAD, but the size of a (large) frisbee and maybe the best food there is.

-Sneakers seem like they cost less but don't - it's just that they're in $US.

-Supermarkets are better than in Toronto. (Drugstores so much worse.)

-There are a lot of gorgeous rich people of the sort you don't see in Canada, whom you can kind of hate-mire aesthetically.

-Shake Shack > Hero, if a comparison were even possible. I will say this about my homeland: We know how to do hamburgers.