Oh the glorious midwest. Awkward and beautiful, sandwiched between the uppity folks of the high east and the character of the deep south, unsure of where it stands in the American civilization. Somehow, for some reason, I miss it. I haven’t spent great amounts of time there, but enough to know what to expect. For a brief second while sitting at work, looking out the window, I felt as though I was in Springfield, Missouri or Fort Wayne, Indiana, if they are even considered to be in the borderless midwest. A grey unfamiliarity, a dead downtown street on a warm Saturday afternoon, a kid walking past in a black wifebeater. Whether it is from reading lots of Grapes of Wrath (which I know is set in the south and headed west) or whether Tim Barry’s voice and train-riding demeanour gives me the taste of the damaged air of bars in which you can still smoke, or whether I now live in a house with a porch, I just don’t know. But the Midwest—that car-drivin’, cola-drinkin’, Wal-Mart shoppin’, expanse of land that just doesn’t have a real enough location to have a real decent name—it resonates for some reason.

I guess it is because if there is a Canadian equivalent to the American midwest, I am tits deep in it.