It helps to imagine a family.
-- Toronto is the dad. In his youth he was a Lutheran minister. Nowadays he works in an advertising firm making "hip" and "edgy" commercials to appeal to "youths", and he's always talking about "viral campaigns." He drives a Lexus and the one time you saw his liquor cabinet he had like 30 single malt scotches. Only after knowing him for years, it turns out that all that time he was sneaking off on the weekends to bang his hot 20 years younger mistress and sing in a blues/funk band. You heard them play once and they were surprisingly good.
-- Montreal is the mom. 90% of the time you don't know what the fuck she's saying, but the remaining 10% of the time she's offering you weed. Although she's in her 40s and pooped out a bunch of kids, you still find her hot and every so often she'll dye her hair orange or wear salvation army clothes and scandalize the neighbors. You don't know if she's permanently tweaked or if you've just never seen her sober. There are some dark rumors about her former boyfriend being in organized crime, but that just makes her a little more interesting. Despite the age difference, you would feel privileged to go to a bar with this woman.
-- Calgary is the bratty 18 year old son whose overindulgent parents gave him a bright yellow fucking Vette for his 16th birthday. You have literally never had a conversation with this kid that didn't involve: (a) his Vette; (b) bottle service; or (c) bitches (in his Vette). He is the single most uninteresting kid you have ever met, but you can't help but admit that you kind of envy his car. You can't imagine him growing into any kind of decent adult unless he suffers some kind of life altering traumatic head injury. You pray that he will suffer some kind of life altering traumatic head injury.
-- Vancouver is the eldest daughter who had a drug problem when she was a lot younger and seems to be over it now. It was pretty bad, she was losing a lot of weight and had this gaunt face and wasn't showing up to school and everyone was worried about her. Nowadays she is into running half marathons on the weekend and you figure she is probably doing OK, even if she still maintains a somewhat skeevy relationship with her creepy ex-boyfriend who was getting her the drugs in the first place. Every five years or so she reinvents herself, she's been a visual artist, a performance artist, she went up north for a while to learn woodworking and you heard she lived on a reserve for a while but you're not sure if that's true. You like her, and you certainly find her intriguing, but you never know exactly what to say to her and truth is she makes you slightly uncomfortable.
-- Victoria is the grandma. She's been in a coma for the last 20 years but you heard she was a beauty queen in her youth.
-- Winnipeg is the crazy uncle. You heard that he's off in this cabin in the woods working on his "inventions" but you don't know how to get there and frankly probably wouldn't go if you did.
