I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my night with Tyler. Had she been a guy and it had been a date I would have walked away really hoping there would be a second, debating when to text to say I had a good time. I managed to wait until 7am the next day to send Tyler an email.

Tyler shaped a lot of 20-30 somethings’ lives in Toronto in the mid 00s definitely including my own. She threw THE best parties for the myspace generation fully equipped with make-out booths, fortune tellers, dance cards and of course those coded single or not-single name(less) tags. I lapped it up. Also under Tyler’s watch I dressed as a zebra and beat a drum down Queen Street and another time participated in a flash mob before anyone knew what that was. Her distinctive artwork graces my bedroom wall and the music of her record label provided the soundtrack for many a trip to the island or summertime bike ride through Trinity Bellwoods. When I think romantically about my early Toronto years, I realize I owe Tyler a big thank you.

So it’s surprising that absolutely none of the above came up in conversation during a cozy Wednesday night drink at a newish Dundas hangout. With Tyler everything is about the present and future. Her present involves acclimatizing to motherhood and balancing that with a thirst for creating her next great project. And don’t think for a second she won’t succeed at both.

We talked a lot about art making and how hard that first seed of an idea is to come by. We compared anxiety notes and our mutual need to fill time. We ran down our own “dance cards” so to speak and filled each other in on new unions, marriages and babies. Times have certainly changed since those early days when we first met. I can’t help but feel they’ve changed more for other than they have for me but maybe i’m just in a glass half empty mood. It’s the dead of January. Give me a break.