19 Comments
User's avatar
LAP's avatar

Drip coffee is an easy one to fix. Bring it back!

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Sad_Mom's avatar

Being able to give people the benefit of the doubt (and it being given to me!)

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Leah McLaren's avatar

benefit of the doubt not lost here -- I give you mine!

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Hal Weiner's avatar

I miss the days before the Internet when AOL was the only chat line available and had 100,000 subscribers

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Leah McLaren's avatar

AOL people are the best kind of Millennials, in my experience

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Vian's avatar

The point. Sometimes I miss it. And if I had but world enough and time (and a different sex), I might miss having a colposcopy.

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Victoria's avatar

Love this.. I work in marketing and I miss when marketing plans were just, tv, print, radio, magazine, outdoor . I mean that was it! Your could not even advertise in the Cinema. Now you have unreal media blocking charts with tab after tab because of all the options. It is stupidly exhausting. Sigh I also

Miss reading Leah McLaren on Saturdays ( I feel like it was on Saturdays?) in the Globe & Mail . O and newspapers that used to be weighty and not flimsy & only carrying stuff you already read online. Xox

PS was Level

5 in Toronto ? It sounds familiar. I was a Body Alive gal myself - that Al Green he was a classic

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Carolina's avatar

College west of Palmerston

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Victoria's avatar

Knew it! I feel like I knew people who went there. Body Alive was at Young & Davisville .. we have a great spin club on the Danforth now called Loft Cycle - there is crazy music & some shouting at their classes!!

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Leah McLaren's avatar

I feel this conversation about Toronto gyms in the naughties is the entire justification for me starting this newsletter.

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Victoria's avatar

You betcha! Currently on the King street car heading to Royal Alex should that make you feel nostalgic!!

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The Feral Astrologer's avatar

This is fantastic. I was trying to remember why smokers lounges never bothered me before, and now I can smell smoke a block away. I miss smokers lounges for a lot of reasons, mostly the camaraderie, I think.

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Leah McLaren's avatar

I never went into them but now I wish I had.

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Carolina's avatar

On things that I miss. A long story and a full circle.

I used to be a regular at Level V (still miss it) and used to love Jen’s spin class. By serendipity Jen ended up being an instructor at my gym (RIP Barreworks) and for a couple of years I was happy on my bike. Anyway as one does I googled Jen to see if maybe she was teaching somewhere because I miss it so much. No luck but I found an article about the Tour D’Afrique which you wrote. Then it struck me that I think you were there as well. At Level V. Then I found your substack and followed because of nostalgia but stayed for the writing.

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Leah McLaren's avatar

OMG Level V! Jenn's spin class! Jenn! I miss all of those things quite terribly. It wasn't so much a gym as a kind of social club. Did you know Jenn works in publishing? She taught spin on the side. That girl could start a cult.

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Carolina's avatar

It was all so good for a while. She definitely always had a following. The only person who could make me show up for a 2 hour ride at 8 am on a Saturday and 7 pm on a Thursday.

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Leah McLaren's avatar

the music — and the shouting!

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Dr Lily Dunn's avatar

Don’t get a puppy!!

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Dale Estey's avatar

Oddly (and rather thankfully) I don't miss any of these.

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