Happy Canada Day.

How can you not adore a country where a past Prime Minister declared that "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation," where top-free women are legally protected, that led the world on the subject of same-sex marriage, has its own sex-positive political party, and where the highest award in the land is bestowed upon an advocate for women's reproductive health? Have you purchased your condoms from our national safer-sex resource site? Have you enjoyed its national journal on sexuality?

For a native New Yorker, living in Toronto can be like being in a giant Greenwich Village. Years ago, when I first moved here, I was awestruck by the throngs of socially alternative and gorgeous women of this city. Sisters to the glamorous women of Fifth Avenue can be found along Bloor Street between Bay and Yonge. In the summer, the physically fit set can be found running along Harbourfront, and Queen West, the Annex, and Roncesvalles Village are dense with the deliciously bold, Docs-wearing, cycling, punky tombois that so easily make me swoon.

Vancouver awaits me. Someday. The boreal forests to the north await me. Someday. The Atlantic coast and its kitchen parties await me. Someday. But this otherwise jaded Brooklyn boy really enjoys this sane, relaxed, sexy country.