Re: shower - success. i think. but the handle needs some attention.

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

also: there's a water coming from the ceiling in the bathroom tonight, and it's been raining again all day.

i don't know how it makes any sense, but everything seems to be random except the rain...

j

washroom panorama pics

Re: shower - success. i think. but the handle needs some attention.

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

aaaaaaactually, i just checked a second time and the caulking may be a little bit weak right over the spot it was previously leaking. that could explain that bit of moisture.

j

shower - success. i think. but the handle needs some attention.

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

hi.

i just got out and i didn't notice any actual leaking.

i'm going to * this mildly, though. see, it's a little damp (very, very mildly) on the tile in the same spot as it was before. it doesn't seem to be leaking from the shower. i don't know if that's a reason to be concerned or if it's condensation from the wood ceiling or even just me dripping. i'll keep you updated, i guess.

i did notice some kind of little insect, though, as i was looking around. i've seen bugs around there before and just killed them. this one got away, though - and seemed to disappear into the concrete. i wasn't sure if it was an ant or a baby centipede. it was fast. is it possible that there could be some ants in the concrete causing the leak?

google suggests this is possible, but only if there are existing cracks in the concrete. i don't know. i know i saw something appear to disappear into the concrete.

*but i also know i see things sometimes and shouldn't rely too heavily on isolated experiences*. i was thinking about that being a possible problem, and that's when i tend to imagine things. it's actually reasonable to suggest that the reason i couldn't kill it is because i hallucinated it.

so, i guess i'll have to let you know if i see that a second time...

i have seen the odd ant in here, all in the living room near that little storage room, but i've lived in basements most of my life and know it's not really unusual to see what they call 'explorer ants' - even in brand new, finished basements. they're just looking around, and won't come back if there's nothing there to get. it's important to get them when you see them, but it's not necessarily a sign of infestation. the fact that i leave all my food in the fridge should dissuade them. the best way to avoid bugs is to not leave food out...

the handle, though, needs some kind of fix. i sort of assumed that you just had it oriented backwards, which i wouldn't care about, but it's worse than that. the way it was before was how you'd expect it to work - off when it's to the far right, then moving from cold to hot as you turn it to the left, reaching maximum flow somewhere about halfway. somehow, the blend between hot and cold seems to have been broken. *when you turn it to the left it's pure cold, and when you turn it to the right it's pure hot, with no way to blend the two*.

the way i got around that today was to rely on the amount of time it takes for the water to turn from cold to hot. so, i'd turn it really cold for a bit, then pull it back to a very low flow on the hot side and wash while i was waiting for it to warm up. then when it got too hot, i'd turn it back to cold and repeat.

but that's not just ridiculous, it's also really wasteful, and requires a very mild flow to be workable. i don't know how this works, and it doesn't really matter to me if it's lined up right (i don't care if hot means cold), but i think it's really important to get the blend of hot/cold working again so that the temperature is actually adjustable.

j

record runner valued customer card

i also found a debit card for steves that has roughly $50 on it, iirc.

remastered inri000 re-release completed

these are the first demos i recorded, written 1994-1996 and recorded in the second half of 1996. this corresponds to the end of my 15th year and the beginning of my grade 10 school year. on the one hand, it's an intriguing document of a socially maladjusted teenage punk. on the other hand, it's a 15 year-old kid learning how to use a recording studio (and how to play the drums). influences are displayed on my sleeve just a little too loudly at times.

i was attempting to create something that could be described by the words disturbing, schizophrenic, unique, bizarre, twisted. looking back, i think i succeeded more than i realized at the time. this is a difficult listen that would be appealing to fans of very early nirvana, very early sonic youth and soundtrack-era swans, as well as fans of the more difficult passages present in mid-90s nine inch nails. i manage to maintain a strange sense of melody, though. in truth, my current adult self is somewhat impressed with my teenaged self at this current point.

that being said, it should not be forgotten that i was fifteen. i am at times rather crude, and i display a childlike understanding of certain issues. most poetry written at the age of fifteen is not particularly insightful. again, though, i surprise myself at points.

this is the first time i'm publishing these demos in any form. i've remained frighteningly self-conscious of them over the years. over the last seventeen years, the audience has been limited to a single friend, an aunt, a sister and an ex-girlfriend. initial reactions suggested i take some time to perfect my performance skills, particularly my drumming skills. however, this indicated a lack of understanding of my intent in the overall sound. the playing is quite purposefully abstract with the aim of exploring mental illness.

the demos were initially dub-mastered onto a 110 minute tape that would have flipped after the eighth track. that tape was at some point recorded into a soundblaster and compressed very heavily; this is the only source of the material that i still have. so, i had to decompress the files from those 128 (or worse) kbps mp3s and run them through some digital mastering equipment in an attempt to "undo" the compression. what that is is a half-effective trick to recover data that is in actuality forever lost. nonetheless, i should point out that while these files were recorded entirely in 1996, they were substantially digitally modified in late 2013. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, tapes, sounds, percussion, production.

released December 25, 1996

demo #17: suicide

the second part of the two part suite that ends this mess.

it's probably predictable that i ended with a song about suicide. i had to fast forward a section, though, because i don't want to get sued. it remains legally sketchy in a way i'm very self-conscious of.

i guess there's been a lot written about this, and it was a long time ago. that being said, maybe this is interesting in the sense that it's one kid's reaction to it - albeit a few years later, so there was a bit of time to process it.

recorded in december, 1996. remastered on october 30, 2013.

demo #16: viewless

this is the first section of a two-part suite that ends this demo tape.

i was simply being incredibly facetious through the track, to the level that i think my point got lost in the sarcasm. ignored youth, and whatnot; not the tv, so therefore not worth listening to.

musically, this is a bit of a step forward into a bigger type of epic rock. the production is awful; i corrected that when i re-recorded it. the tape, here, gets mangled and blurry at points entirely on purpose.

recorded in december, 1996. remastered oct 30, 2013.

listening to lee ranaldo's last night on earth...

this may be a little out of fashion right now, but maybe that's exactly why it's so refreshing to hear.

on the death of lou reed

well, that's a shame.

i'm not much of a fan. i don't really see how the velvet underground were, sonically, that different than the byrds. i don't hear the novelty, i just hear rather substandard mid-60s hippie folk bullshit. nor was i able to connect with reed's later music or writing very well - it just moved so slowly, and with such pomp. really, i'd consider him to probably - bar none - be the single most over-rated artist of the 20th century.

however, i can hear and acknowledge the direct and substantial influence he had on a large proportion of the artists that i hold in the absolute highest regard. michael stipe. sonic youth. swans. throbbing gristle. peter gabriel.

i guess he's like that distant grandfather that you only met a few times and didn't really connect with, but that you heard stories about your whole life. i may not feel his absence, but i think i can feel his departure - whether actually or merely as a symbolic date, an era very seriously just ended.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-lou-reed-dead-20131027,0,4221650.story

i'll acknowledge that part of it is a generation gap. i'm so far removed from the 60s pop sound that....it's just entirely alien. i have no first hand experience. neither of my parents listened to this stuff. nor did my grandparents. it was something i'd seen in movies, and never had much of an attachment to.

so, the subtle and supposedly revolutionary differences that existed between the byrds and the vu are just glossed over as minor production differences, which is in truth what they actually are; the velvet underground are only radically different from the byrds if you've been living a reality saturated with byrds-like pop, mass produced as a product, for the last five+ years. if you have no measurable consciousness of anything at all until 15 years after they broke up, and no reference point to approach the era with, the vu and the byrds seem to be remarkably similar.

certainly, the velvet underground seem to have more in common with the byrds than they do with any punk band.

i've tried. a few times. but in the sense that it acts as a precursor to 70s, 80s, 90s acts i like, it fails because it's far more rooted in an era that i don't remotely understand - the 60s - than it is in anything that i do.

i guess it's sort of ironic. you put on an old beatles or hendrix or floyd or crimson record and it still sounds modern. it could have been recorded last week. however, you put on the velvet underground and you're instantly transported to 1966. it is far more tied to it's temporal surroundings than any of the other major, influential acts of the period.

influential or not, they sound far more like their era than they do like anything that followed - meaning that you have to understand and/or like 60s hippie folk pop in order to connect.

...and that it should be understood more in relation to what existed around it, which is what it was in truth a part of, rather than in relation to what followed from it, which it in truth was not a part of.

to put it another way...

the vu are often understood in terms of what they were reacting against. in order to really understand a reaction, you have to understand the whatever that's being reacted against. that's the part of the whole thing that falls apart and that i suspect may fall apart for most people in the long run. i was never normalized to the byrds, the mamas and the papas, the animals and whatnot (i was normalized to the beatles, the who, the pink floyd, frank zappa, led zeppelin, cream, hendrix, king crimson, yes, genesis... ), so the jump from normal to abnormal is entirely lost on me - it just all sounds the same.

but that inherently links them to the 60s, and seals their fate as a "60s folk band" rather than some kind of proto-punk act.

zappa is not a bad comparison as he did the same thing to heavy blues on some level. a flower child may not really hear the difference between zappa and zeppelin, but somebody that likes "progressive music" would instantly.

i'm just showing my ignorance, right? why don't i go listen to those old byrds records over and over so that i can understand them properly so that i can react to the velvet underground properly? if i had any respect for the classics....

but, can't you see that i'd be intimately familiar with those byrds records if they had any legitimate claim to being labelled classics?

so, why should i go listen to bad pop music from an era that ended before i was born in order to properly understand the reactions to it?

see, these are some of the problems inherent in canonizing the velvets. i don't think the music holds up on it's own, and the context is too convoluted to reconstruct. the canonization is premature; within a generation, they will be forgotten.

well, maybe not forgotten entirely, but reduced to a footnote as an influence on more radically creative music.

just to point a last thing out - a lot of the things that the vu get credit for were actually done by pink floyd first, or borrowed from people like reich and xenakis. i don't doubt that the velvets were directly influential. but even if you strip out the "it really just sounds like a byrds 8-track that got warped in somebody's car" criticism, there's *still* not much novel there....

it's really floyd that gets the "first underground rock band" award. and if you've never heard early floyd from this period, you probably wouldn't recognize it.

this is a taste, afaik the only thing that ever made it out to record.

(note that floyd would cite zappa, who would cite varese. but also that there was a fair bit of free jazz produced in the period.

i know, i'm missing the point, it's the lyrics.)

ok. to be balanced. and to backtrack to the "official narrative" of the velvets influencing punk. it's convoluted. i think it should be largely rejected, except in the local scope of the velvets influencing the new york "downtown" scene.

see, you can give the velvets and their members some credit for helping form a bridge between the beat movement and what got labelled the new york punk movement, although it's never been clear to me exactly what new york "punk" had in common with british punk or detroit "proto-punk". don't get me wrong. i like a lot of bands that came out of new york in the mid to late 70s, although maybe more so the stuff that came out in the very late 70s and early 80s. if you toss out the stuff like the ramones, new york "punk" was always very consciously difficult in whatever form it took. that makes it rather unpunk, relative to the initial british meaning of the term.

it's not like i'm the first person to draw a contrast between british and american punk. but it's less pronounced if you're discussing the ramones v. the clash, or the damned, or the sex pistols. there are a lot of similarities there. but going a little under the surface, if you try and draw a comparison between patti smith or television and crass then it's clear you're not in the same genre anymore. "punk", in this context, becomes a sort of buzzword without meaning. the new york "punk" scene, in this context, is hard to understand as anything other than an art rock scene grasping onto a trendy term. but, it was an art rock scene in an artistically dead society; in england, it was more like over-stimulation. so it's not just different genres, but reactions to fundamentally different pressures. in time, ironically, it was the new york sound that dominated london (see joy division), while the uk sound got shipped out to california.

see, if punk in britain was a mod movement about rejecting prog and getting back to the basics of rock then new york was a different thing altogether, partly because prog wasn't as entrenched in the united states. instead, you had disco. and new york punk was definitely explicitly anti-disco. so, there was a shared sort of theme there, but very different in scope. in new york, it almost seemed like there was a push to become *more* prog in rejecting the vacuousness of disco - which became post-punk/industrial - after it accepted a shared theme of beat-driven music *from* disco. yet, a lot of the early new york bands were more a type of art-rock, and it's that art-rock that eventually developed into what became alt rock through the influence of new york "punk" bands like sonic youth.

(although sonic youth is the exception, here. they were initially punk as fuck, even if they were clearly influenced by psych rock and maybe, in the end, became a psych band.)

all that to say that there's a continuity from ginsberg through to ranaldo that passes through lou reed, and that the velvets had a role to play in keeping that "downtown scene" alive during those dark days when disco dominated. but it's a relatively minor role - a curator role.

but, yeah. i like this. you can quote me on it.

"the banana record? yeah, it sounds like somebody took a byrds 8-track and left it out in the sun."

i know, i know - “i think there was a lot of elegance in the lyrics he wrote.”

yeah, i'm familiar with the material, and i know that's what people get out of it. and i've been inspired by a lot of people that he inspired, so i'm getting a lot out of it second hand. i cited stipe and ranaldo specifically.

it just seems to me like he's writing from behind this sort of dramatic screen that exists, that he's presenting very carefully worded works of fiction and passing them off as experiences. it's not just him, i have this criticism of a lot of folk music. it seems like it's an act, in other words. well, of course it's an act, on some level - all art is, and if i was walking around rejecting everything on that level i'd be rejecting all art, which i'm not doing. it's just that, with him, it seems really transparent. so, you're claiming it's honest and naked and whatnot, but what it strikes me as is very produced to *seem* honest and naked and whatnot. which is sort of the definition of contrived.

i'm kind of arguing in the form of a conspiracy, though. the more evidence you present that it's raw, the more contrived it's going to seem. but, isn't it a conspiracy, seriously, when you really analyze it?

i'm getting kind of meta and confusing, but i think what i'm trying to get across there is clear.

i guess relating to it sort of relies on giving in to the fantasy, and ignoring the truth that it's an act. which i'm not usually able to do.

“i think a lot of his lyrics are really personal.”

well, if you work in the warhol perspective, which is deeply relevant in reed's case, it sort of cheapens it by reducing it to a product. it doesn't help that he's so deadpan all the time - it just sort of stresses the feeling that it's constructed.

”maybe his lyrics don't seem lived in because they're often observational and in the third person.”

i think it's more his presentation, but, putting that question aside, i don't generally find myself at all interested in the subjects he's exploring, either, which is more of a subjective criticism. but i have a general disinterest in music that's focused largely around discussing relationships or largely focused around drug addiction. if i were to name my 100 favourite artists or something, almost none of them would be that type of songwriter or exist in the singer/songwriter/folk kind of category. i could probably ignore the deadpan, perceived lack of sincerity and generally not particularly interesting music if i could relate to his topics of choice a little more readily. when i look at what he influenced that i can relate to, it's often more in the writing style than the subject matter. stipe, for example is quite political; ranaldo is very introspective. stuff like swans and throbbing gristle took the nihilist themes to a different level, and inserted the emotion that reed tends to lack...

demo #15: permission

see, i was never very rebellious. no, honestly, i wasn't. i just sort of didn't care. it was really never a question of rebelling against authority because the mere idea of authority was clearly preposterous. so, it was sort of more like i found myself laughing at the idea that other people thought they had some kind of "authority" over me....even as i found myself in logical agreement with those supposed "authorities" 95 times out of 100.....

i probably would have rebelled a little harder if my upbringing was more strict. it wasn't, though. authority was just something that never really existed, except as a rough set of largely rational suggestions.

you know those charlie brown episodes where adults are all squeaky and weird sounding? that's what i was thinking. although, again, the downward spiral appears as an embarrassingly strong influence. it's sort of ironic to write a song like this based on lines from some other person's songs. thankfully, we don't need to rely on the ingenuity of teenagers to keep the world spinning.

the backing vocals are my little sister. she was pretty little at the time, too. 12, even. also ironic: i told her what to do and what to say. i at least got *that* irony at the time, though.

i still like the bridge section, though.

recorded in december, 1996. remastered on oct 26, 2013.

actually, it turns out man or astroman? has reformed. i'll have to keep an eye out.

first night out in windsor...

a few stories to tell. right now? glad i'm at home, in relative safety.

something i learned tonight is that, in windsor, start time means door time. so, showing up an hour after the time on the poster still means waiting over an hour for the show.

in ottawa, we have le cafe de kcuf. in windsor, we have the phog lounge. variations on the same theme. not dissimilar atmospheres.

waiting forever means too many spiked coffees...

at least the music for the wait was alright. meat puppets. mbv. sonic youth. and perhaps it was fitting that the first band started right as 'the sprawl' finished, given my thoughts on this new area to explore.

silent movie type were catchy, noisy and dissonant. not much that's novel, here. but i like the genre. and their record up on bandcamp is pretty good.

they closed the show with a cover of breed, which was sort of nice to hear. i scattered quickly to another show down the street....

there was a band in the 90s called 'man, or astroman?'. this machine kills robots are eerily similar to that band. in every way. 'cept they're not quite as good.



i wish i would have got to see man or astroman?, actually...

actually, i'm going to choose to not tell the stories i was going to tell. there's certain adjustments i'm going to have to make to living in a smaller city. i think this is one of them.

i couldn't quickly find audio for the second band, worry. it's a hard name to google. the audience they attracted seemed to enjoy faux moshing to it, but it was pretty generic hipster music. the hipster genre du jour is something called 'doom', which is a type of heavy grunge that incorporates screamed vocals into it. i'll give this band a tad bit of credit because the drummer was a bit more interesting in a weird sort of way; he was all agent orange while the rest of the band was all sleep. but, at best the result was 'crust', and crust is rarely worth listening to.

extra annoyance: no human could decipher those vocals.

famines, on the other hand, were excellent. it's a shame the place cleared out before they came on. i've seen this before, where local bands take over shows for touring acts and the place clears out when the locals are done. it's just bad research. extra head-scratching is the fact that there was a band down the street that would have brought in the proper audience. i took the walk, but...

famines is dance-punk done right in the after-punk era: rambunctious, hyperactive and entirely bipolar when it needs to be. bonus: moderately intelligent lyrics.

the walk home was a little surreal. i was drunk enough to slur my speech, but not tipsy or in any threat of passing out. cop cars on every corner...

well, there's been some issues in windsor of late. a pretty teenager disappeared (they found a body in the river and will id it this afternoon). there was a gang related stabbing downtown that involved something like ten people. fires. robberies.

that's not the reason the cops are actually there, though. they've been brought in by the bia due to concern about property damage. there was a press release. people are getting stabbed and abducted and arsons are raging across the city and the police department is being driven by a concern about broken windows (to my knowledge, there haven't actually been any broken windows).

regardless, it might be the first time i was happy to see some cop cars. i was a little uneasy walking home, and knew i would be. recent spate of violent crime aside, i'm in a city i don't know very well. and it was well after midnight.

getting out of the downtown core, i noticed a van was following me. it was turning into side streets, u-turning.....eventually it stopped down the street. i crossed the road. it pulled one last u-turn and zoomed off...

the night person at the quickie suggested that the driver may have mistaken me for a prostitute. apparently, a lot of people work up that strip. it's not the first time i've been mistaken, but it usually happens in the summer when i'm minimally clothed. tonight, my make-up was fairly light, and i was wearing my kurt cobain sweater (or at least the sweater that i think of as my kurt cobain sweater). i can't see how i was drawing attention to myself. but maybe it doesn't really matter if i was or wasn't drawing attention to myself.

i also started wondering about a few things walking back. i'm a new addition to the area. change always breeds uncertainty. my largest concern is actually that local criminals might think i'm a cop. i don't have anything for them, especially if i'm walking rather than biking. but the inevitable question is no doubt: what is this nut doing walking alone down the road at midnight? is she really impossibly oblivious to her own safety? if not, who is she working for? etc.

i sort of decided that i just have to keep going out at night regularly in order to create a comfort level. to normalize the locals to my existence. i'm not going to live in fear. it's not in my dna. if they get used to me, i'll begin to blend in. like a squirrel...

 getting inside the door was a relief, though. more so than i've ever experienced.

....and, now for zesty cheese....

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html

24-10-2013: silent movie type @ phog, windsor + this machine kills robots, worry & the famines @ villain's, windsor

their music:
https://silentmovietype.bandcamp.com/
https://thismachinekillsrobots.bandcamp.com/
https://thefamines.bandcamp.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html

event listing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/168999913304700/
https://www.facebook.com/events/568493106551319/

video:

new profile pic

pre-concert persies set (24/10/2013)

so, i can't make it across the river until i get that stupid card. and, because the stupid card is going to cost twice as much as i thought, i have to wait until after the first. i therefore can't write show reviews...

i can point out what i'm missing, though.

this is tonight in detroit. i would have enjoyed this, too.



stupid borders.

one day, we'll tear their system down and set their flags on fire.

patience.

Re: out of ideas for the shower

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

i can commit to being there.

j

RE: out of ideas for the shower

From: the initial landlord
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

Jessica, sorry..... I had to work this week and I intended to send you an e-mail but one thing came after another. I will set the repair for Saturday morning providing that you will be there and nothing else complicates the timing.

that crispy basement air, how i missed you.

it's been far too long.

demo #14: mosh pit song

back when i was a silly kid, i wrote some silly punk songs for other silly kids to be silly kids while listening to them. the tendency dried up when i hit my mid-teens and became sullen and withdrawn and totally into imaginary guitar solos, but there's a handful of these scattered in the old stuff.

the track was obviously sped up for effect. but it's sort of weird that i feel the need to point out that i sped this one up, and didn't feel the need to point out where i slowed tracks down, isn't it?

recorded in december, 1996. remastered on oct 22, 2013.

Re: out of ideas for the shower

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

hi.

i'm pretty patient, and very reasonable, so long as things are being worked towards and i'm kept up to date as to what's going on. i know there's a lot of factors involved in getting things together - time, labour, etc. i'm not a demanding person and don't want to be a demanding tenant. however, you had indicated monday or tuesday. it's now tuesday afternoon. when do you expect to drop by?

j

demo #13: guh

more silly teenage angst, intersecting with more rejection of religion and quite a bit of misanthropy. i may make an interesting observation or two, but the reality here is that i sound just as brainwashed as the masses of people i was looking down on...and if i'm going to criticize myself, or feel embarrassed, it's on that level of a lack of originality, rather than the actual content.

this is actually a sort of a neat track, though, musically, i think.

recorded in november, 1996. remastered on oct 21, 2013.

this new melt banana record is going to be insane to see live

the new melt banana disc is phenomenal. the alvin-joins-ministry thing (i suppose there's already an al in ministry, maybe it's a metamorphosis) is still in place, but there's a massive influence from vision/creation/newsun era boredoms, and it's taken it to a completely different level. this is one of the best INDUSTRIAL records i've heard in a long time.

more to the point, this is going to be awesome to see live. i don't think i'm going to get my stupid card in time. if you're near where they're going, though, i think you want to not miss out on this tour....

dropping a link to “walkerville mixed tapes”

hi. i've only been in walkerville a few months, and i'm exclusively a studio artist, but here's some stuff to sort through if you'd like to.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/

demo #12: the wonderful noise

i suppose this is my first real "noise" construction. i was going for a sort of an "obliviously insane" feel. like, imagine bach just losing his mind one day down at the cathedral. i think i hit it, overall, but the tools i had available to me at the time weren't the best; this could have been more unsettling than it is, if i did have access to better tools (i was thinking that at the time). this was constructed on a 4-track tascam with the aid of a kawaii and a few effects pedals....there were no computers involved...

the "hurricane" part of the noise was constructed by looping little bits of sound over themselves. this is oversimplified, but basically it: i took every cassette i could find and dubbed them all on top of each other. not simultaneously, but in different bits. so, i guess if you had more advanced wave analysis tools you could deconstruct that...

the rest of the noise is multiple tracks of guitar noodling through multiple effects patches, mostly high feedback.

a part of the composition involved fucking with cords and pressing pause while i was mastering it. i was sort of playing with the fantasy/reality split. i wouldn't have been able to articulate that then like i could now, so i'll just sort of let that be. i was thinking in terms of being awoken out of a dream.

please use headphones.

recorded in nov, 1996. remastered on oct 20, 2013.

Re: [Ticket#2013102010009848] TekSavvy Invoice for account # CID290674

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: Accounting Department <accounting@teksavvy.com>

that's perfect, thanks.

j

Re: [Ticket#2013102010009848] TekSavvy Invoice for account # CID290674

From: Accounting Department <accounting@teksavvy.com>
To: death.to.koalas@gmail.com

Hello

Thanks so much for the email. I have verified in your acccount that you were active on 10/02/2013 meaning your billing cycle is the 2nd to the 1st of every month.However being a prepaid company we do bill five days in advance thats why your invoices are due on the 29th of every month. As per your request we can mae them due the first of every month to accomadate your pays thats no problem so that means your invoice that shows currently owing for 10/29/2013 wont be due till 11/01/2013

Thanks for choosing TekSavvy and please don't hesitate to email us back or give us a call at the number below!

Re: TekSavvy Invoice for account # CID290674

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: accounting@teksavvy.com

hi.

my hookup date was oct 2, 2013. that would suggest to me that my payment date should be on the second of each month, *if* i understand things correctly.

it may seem like a silly thing to point out, and to an extent it is. however, i sort of like the idea of payment being at the beginning of the month rather than the end of it, because i get paid at the beginning of the month. it would simplify my life greatly.

so, i think the invoice should be modified slightly, and would like it to be if it should.

j

i had to firmly end things after she asked to drop by

Shelly Teagan
Hey jess. Can i come visit you this week?

Jessica Amber Murray
are you coming down to windsor for some reason?

Shelly Teagan
Oh no. Im just depressed and want to travel a bit.

I might just hang out in guelph

Jessica Amber Murray
erin, i wasn't sure how to bring shit up with you. i found myself in a really difficult position last month. when i say i wish you the best, i mean it in absolute sincerity. even as i was trying to wind things down, i couldn't bring myself to hang you to dry when you needed somebody to talk to. i may or may not have made a good judgement call regarding timing, but it was a thing that was going to happen. maybe we could meet for coffee to talk if you come down, but i'm not comfortable with you staying here. i think i know i'm being paranoid, but there's just this competitive streak you have that really scares me and that makes me feel really vulnerable to being taken advantage of. i just have some really profound trust issues and certain bells went off. i need to follow my gut.

Shelly Teagan
Im a little confused and dont know what youre saying. You dont want to be my friend? Was i shitty recently?

Its ok i get it. I hope youre doing alright.

Jessica Amber Murray
i don't think it's any one thing, so much as a culmination of observations. the approach you're taking to existing in a social reality will probably serve you well in the long run, once you can get beyond the institutionalized daycare system that the elites have constructed for us, and is keeping people chained to their own ambitions pushing into their late 20s. it's exactly the quality that i lack, and has kept me from being able to succeed socially. but, that juxtaposition puts me in a situation where i'm in deep peril in the medium-term because i'm not equipped to respond. it's not that i don't want to be your friend. i actually sort of do. i rather like you. it's that i've come to understand that it's not safe for me to continue along that path, that there's an inevitable endpoint that will cause me harm. i realize you might not fully understand, and i'm sorry if you don't, but i have to keep myself sheltered from certain things. and, i do hope things work out for you in the way that you want them to.

Shelly Teagan
Lol i dropped out of school if that makes you feel better. Also i have no ambitions anymore.

Baha. I seriously dont give a shit about shit.

this elite, institutionalized daycare!!!!!

Jessica Amber Murray
well, that doesn't make me feel better. why did you drop out?

Shelly Teagan
I think i want to go to algonquin and become a technician or something.

Jessica Amber Murray
i dropped out several times and went back, if that makes *you* feel better. i was going into third year when i said "fuck it, i'm going to get a job in a coffee shop and make music". i took the semester off, drank a ton, had a lot of fun and then want back in the fall. yeah. i was kind of getting the impression that maybe you wanted to study something other than music.

Shelly Teagan
I was trying to show you how un-competitive im being. Lolll.

Anyways i might not come to windsor this week. I might go to guelph only, and midland maybe

Jessica Amber Murray
that's very competitive of you :P

you shouldn't try to change yourself for others.

Shelly Teagan
Im confused again. Damnit!

Bahhh i cant win!

Jessica Amber Murray
always trying to win...

Shelly Teagan
Shitt..... nvm. Ok gotta run. My phone is about to shut off.

Jessica Amber Murray
listen, i wouldn't make you sleep outside, either. i just think we should be going our separate ways. good luck.

Shelly Teagan
Lol ok, jess. See ya.

Jessica Amber Murray
and, erin, just one more thing? realize that i'm not happy about this, that it hurts me to do this, probably more than you. now, i'm having this fear that you wanted to come down here to see me, and it's like a stab in the heart that i responded like i did. you know that feeling you get when your emotional hormones just go haywire? but, that's exactly why i had to.

Shelly Teagan
Youre just trying to find reasons to cut people out so you can feel more alone than you already do. Im not taking it personally. I just feel bad that you feel like you have to alienate everybody you know

i picked up this little one person blender (500 ml) for $10 and it's pretty much the greatest thing ever. one banana, one peach, a handful of strawberries and some vanilla soy, all blended up. it's pretty much all i consume, now.

well, that and tomato sandwiches. and some eggs and pasta every few days for some protein.

demo #11: schizoid

this is another one of the creepy tracks where i'm exploring mental illness from the perspective of an isolated 15 year-old; the person in the song is dealing with satanic voices that are keying on traumatic childhood taunting and suggesting violent outbursts as a means of self-defense. this has induced a serious level of agoraphobia.

musically, this is one of the tracks that are a bit of a step up. i'm kind of shifting from learning how to use the studio into actually using it.

recorded in november, 1996. remastered on oct 17, 2013.

RE: is a passport required for a nexus card? **13-41051** link to **13-40951**

From: "CBSA-ASFC_CONTACT" <CBSA-ASFC.CONTACT@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca>
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

We recommend that you contact the NEXUS Enrolment Centre nearest you for assistance. A directory is available at:
http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/prog/nexus/location-eng.html

Also, you may contact the following NEXUS Canadian processing centres during regular business hours:

•    1-866-496-3987 for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba residents
•    1-800-842-7647 for Ontario and United States residents
•    1-866-399-5887 for Quebec and Atlantic residents

Should you wish to obtain more information on NEXUS, we invite you to consult the Canada Border Services Agency Web site at:
http://www.nexus.gc.ca

Thank you for contacting the Canada Border Services Agency.

Re: is a passport required for a nexus card? **13-40951**

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: CBSA-ASFC_CONTACT <CBSA-ASFC.CONTACT@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca>

i appreciate the response, but you didn't come close to answering my questions.

is a passport required to apply for a nexus card? does having a nexus card come with an implicit assumption of having a passport? can a nexus card be used as a replacement for a passport?

maybe i'll give you a call tomorrow...

j

installation file:
FileFormatConverters.exe

RE: is a passport required for a nexus card? **13-40951**

From: "CBSA-ASFC_CONTACT" <CBSA-ASFC.CONTACT@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca>
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

You may qualify to participate in NEXUS if you are a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or the United States and have lived in Canada and/or the United States continuously for the last three years.

You may not qualify if one of the following applies:

•    you are inadmissible to Canada or the United States under applicable immigration laws;
•    you intentionally provide false or incomplete information on your application;
•    you have been convicted of a serious criminal offence in any country for which you have not received a pardon (for U.S. background checks you may be questioned about your full criminal history, including arrests and pardons, which may exclude you from NEXUS);
•    you have a recorded violation of customs, immigration or agriculture law; or
•    you fail to meet other requirements of NEXUS.

Effective June 30, 2012, Canadian and American citizens living outside of Canada or the United States or who have recently returned to either country and have not previously been able to meet the three-year residency requirement are now eligible to apply. In addition, certain permanent residents are also exempted from the three-year residency requirement. For further information on any of the above, please visit the NEXUS Web site at:
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/prog/nexus/elig-admis-eng.html 

Both Canada and the United States must approve your application for you to become a member of NEXUS. If you do not meet all of the requirements, your application will be denied.

Should you require additional assistance, we recommend that you contact the nearest NEXUS Enrolment Centre. A directory is available at:
http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/prog/nexus/location-eng.html 

Also, you may contact the following NEXUS Canadian processing centres during regular business hours:

•    1-866-496-3987 for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba residents
•    1-800-842-7647 for Ontario and United States residents
•    1-866-399-5887 for Quebec and Atlantic residents

Should you wish to obtain more information on NEXUS, we invite you to consult the Canada Border Services Agency Web site at:
http://www.nexus.gc.ca

Thank you for your interest in the NEXUS program.

is a passport required for a nexus card?

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: contact@cbsa.gc.ca

hi.

i've just moved to windsor. i'd like to get the proper documents to be able to go over to detroit to see some concerts. nothing particularly difficult in the request.

however, i'm finding the reference requirements to obtain a passport to be very difficult. i just don't know a lot of people, nor do i know anybody that could act as a 'guarantor'. finding two references is difficult enough; four is virtually impossible for me. that's not a reflection of my fitness for very short-term cross-border travel, though, it's just a reflection of my social skills.

in searching for alternatives, i've found the nexus card. it seems like this process interviews me directly, rather than asking me to provide references. that's a process that is better suited for me to go through.

i'm just a little confused as to whether a passport is required to apply for a nexus card. i have a valid birth certificate, a valid health card, a valid sin card and various other things (although i never took the time to learn to drive, and consequently don't have a driver's license). i'm unclear as to whether the application is requesting a passport AND a birth certificate or a passport OR a birth certificate.

i'm also a little confused about the longer term usefulness of the nexus card. i've read some things online that suggest that, should i be stopped, i would be asked for a passport. yet, i'm looking to get the nexus card because i can't find the references to get a passport.

so, i guess the question i'm asking is if a nexus card is something i could use as a valid replacement for a passport in the context of just going over for a few hours to catch a show and then coming back.

j

there may be a way around this. there’s a thing called a NEXUS card that’s designed for “low-risk” cross-border travel, and relies on a personal interview rather than a set of references.

Jessica Amber Murray
hi. you guys have passports, right? could i use one of you as a "guarantor"? i just want to be able to go over to detroit to catch the odd concert. the process to be "allowed" to do that seems really ridiculous, but this is how things work... i hope things are going well with you guys. life here has been different. i went into a little bit of a funk when i got here (the whole process of moving here was just really overwhelming, with everything happening all at once), but i'm starting to get out of it. really, i'm glad i had the time away from people and free of external pressure to reflect, heal and adjust - and enough things to d to keep my mind occupied. it's what i needed. but, yeah, if i can use you as a guarantor it would make this process a lot easier. as it is, i'm going to have to rely on some documentation and argumentation...

The Oldest Aunt’s Wife
no passport enhanced driver license would that help

Jessica Amber Murray
no. i don't even have a g-1. thanks anyways...

The Oldest Aunt’s Wife
no will a enhanced help you get a passport

Jessica Amber Murray
no. or at least i don't think so. i should probably check to make sure though.

The Oldest Aunt’s Wife
we can help

is it an identity

you can put us down as knowing you

Jessica Amber Murray
i'm sorry, i'm not understanding the question. i have two choices. i can get a guarantor (somebody with a passport, i'll check to see how flexible that definition is) + 2 references or i can just go with 4 references. reality is i have 0 references, so going with the guarantor would make it a lot easier to further argue with odsp documents, etc.

i could use you as a guarantor, but not a reference, because you're family.

The Oldest Aunt’s Wife
what does a guarantor have to do

Jessica Amber Murray
i'm under the impression that a guarantor is simply somebody with a passport, and that itself is enough to act as a reference. i have to look further into that... very little of this process is making sense to me, so i'm not really expecting to find a valid purpose or explanation.

The Oldest Aunt’s Wife
let use know if we can help

Jessica Amber Murray
i will, thanks.

i really don't have the slightest idea just how big this sprawling metropolis in front of me actually is.

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/07/22/how-sprawl-got-detroit-into-this-mess/

(the corporate tax cuts spurred on by neo-liberal nonsense couldn't have helped)

the new ranaldo disc is really stellar, btw.

you know, i don't mind the border people doing all kinds of inane checks into my history. in the end, they might not like my politics, and it might harm my employment opportunities (if it hasn't already, and i'm sure it has), but i don't expect that to be a serious limit on anything i actually want to do in life. i don't find surveillance to be particularly bothersome, not even at a deep level. i dunno, call me a political voyeur or something...

...but the reference requirements are really quite onerous. if you don't know anybody with a passport, you need to find four people that aren't family and have known you for more than two years and they have to vouch that the information you provide (which is mundane shit like address and work history) is valid.

i couldn't even find one person that's known me for two years well enough to verify that.

nor is it really useful in any kind of...well, anything. security wise, references are stupid. i've been through this argument with employers. do you expect me to give you a bad reference? really, what the process is doing is determining if the applicant has the social skills to build personal friendships or not. that's at least arguably valid in an employment situation. it's of almost no value in a passport situation.

all of this is so that i can walk over a bridge to see a concert, maybe have a few beers. to spend money in the local economy, if you want to phrase it like that.

i'm good at 'splainin'. i can run off odsp documents, write an essay. i'm sure i'll convince them.

...but the whole process is really quite stupid, regardless of the angle it's being approached from.

demo #10: mellon collie & the infintesimal wing

i wish i took the time to clean this up a little more, but i don't think i thought i'd be sitting here 17 years later talking about it...

so, i'm trained as a blues guitarist. everybody knows that the way to prove you're a real blues guitarist is to do a cover of little wing. that's just how it is.

however, i kind of felt a generational disconnect. i mean, i love hendrix and everything; that's kind of obvious, if you listen. i just felt little wing needed a bit of a punk rock update, and i thought it might be neat to merge it with a more contemporary piece - the opening track on the smashing pumpkins' double disc opus.

so, that's what this is. mellon collie and the infinitesimal wing.....

recorded in nov, 1996. remastered on oct 15, 2013.

RE: out of ideas for the shower

From:  the initial landlord
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

I will come by and we will figure out how/ when we will get this done.

Please be patient, I will have to go and look where I can buy another shower that will fit just in case when we pull it out it gets destroyed.

demo #1 cover art

demo #9: terrorists

i really don't want to upload this, but i want to be comprehensive in getting everything up, and i actually really like the musical aspect of parts of this (especially the end section, which is one of the creepiest things i've ever managed to successfully get out).

lyrically, this is the most embarrassing of these tracks, and not because i was being a goof on purpose (which is true for most of this stuff), but because i was trying to be insightful for a change and failed badly. i have no idea why i mixed the vocals so loudly but it's irreversible....

well, again, i was 15. systemic analyses were a little beyond me, and further beyond the people surrounding me.

i guess i could at least say that the version of things i was exposed to didn't make sense to me. hence the first-person satire, in misguided biting punk rock prose.

i should also point out that 'terrorist' in 1996 had a different meaning that younger people may not be able to connect with. terrorists were people that blew up abortion clinics in the deep south, gay night clubs in germany, federal buildings in oklahoma, churches in northern ireland and synagogues in montreal. while terrorists always identified as religious extremists, the religion they connected to was not certain and, at least in the mind of this individual, the assumption was that they were usually christians and probably white supremacists. i didn't get properly programmed after 9/11 because i avoided media; to this day, i still assign white supremacist christian groups as the primary suspect in any kind of attack , and tend to hold to it until evidence surfaces. when you keep that in mind, the song makes a little more sense.

recorded in october, 1996. remastered on oct 14, 2013.

aloha

hey.

i'm not entirely piecing together those apparent wedding (?) pictures, but i do hope you're happy. and safe.

life here is sort of quietly hectic. like, i don't have a worry in the world. i love it. but i've got so much stuff to do.

i've got my website up here:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/

it's a primary focus. i hope to finally have the shell done in the next few hours. it's taken far too long to sort through. then, music...

...and reading.

i guess we always had different perceptions on the value of existence. you were all about the body, and physicality; i was all about the mind, knowledge, abstraction. maybe it's funny that i'm the empiricist and you're the spiritual one?

...but i'm happy here. i've found something.

erin is still in ottawa, if you're curious. i wanted to have my own place, i was clear about that from the very start. i didn't really trust her, and i didn't really like the other people that were planning on coming down. she ended up unable to find somewhere to stay in windsor, so she stayed there. honestly, i'm sort of happy about that. our friendship was based on being mutually antagonistic. we're both always right. etc. so we just fought, and maybe we both enjoyed it on some level. yet, she's a lot more competitive than i am and it brings out this really mean streak. near the end, i got kind of *afraid* of her and wasn't really sure how to cut off communication.

that seems to be over with, now, and i'm very relieved about it.

if you're ever in the 'hood, you should drop me a line.

but this email is to say congratulations. i think.

jess

i think i'm starting to realize that yearning for a return to the simpler time invoked by 60s pop culture is the conservatism of the new generation, largely brought on by an influence from their grandparents.

it's really just a shift from 40s/50s imagery to 60s/70s imagery.

installation file:
touchpad.exe

installation file:
cardreader.exe

installation file:
sata.exe

installation file:
product number.txt

a typical conversation with my psychotic mother

mom
How come you deleted my comments off your post? Or did you? I do think though that one needs a passport these days to get across the border....But, I may be wrong....

I finally broke up with "you know who"....I am afraid though.....I am almost afraid to even leave my place...But, I don't think he would strike so soon......If anything ever happens to me...It would be him, as he has threatened me on numerous occasions.......I just don't know how to handle this situation....Perhaps listing his name was not so smart, or maybe it was??......I just don't know what to do......

It could be him, or other(horrible characters) he knows....He has threatened me about them...But, I don't even know who "they" even are?

I have witnessed some insane behaviours(sp?what is the right spelling then) from him on numerous occasions....He is a very scarey man!

I think he may have keys to my apartment..Because when he left the other night, I locked the door promptly behind him, and when I got up the next morning....My door was unlocked!.......

Keys, that I NEVER EVEN GAVE HIM!.........

I guess the first thing, I should do, Is change my locks....I have two of them...

jessica amber murray
the spell check is american spelling. i never liked the guy at all, although we only met briefly. that's about all i can say. if changing your locks would make you feel better, you should do it.

mom
Yes... I will have to wait till next week to put the order in down at the main office here in my building...Although, I wonder if they would do it sooner...Prolly Not....I think it costs $100.00...Not Sure...Think so though....They(management) kinda think I am nuts already though...LOL....

Who cares what they even think at this point....If it will save my life or the contents inside here....

Yes, I know...Sounds a bit on the melodramatic side....But, I have been dealing with someone who is truly insane...I believe....

I am going to share something that might sound insane....But, on nights when he leaves here all angry and stuff...A dead prostitute shows up somewhere...Or goes missing....He used to make this horrible joke about putting a person in his septic tank.....That, that would be the best way of disposing of a body....

He has even claimed that alive ones were put in there!

He screamed at me that I knew too much!...Whatever that means??

jessica amber murray
that sounds really creepy, mom. if you have some information about missing prostitutes, or you think your life is in danger, you should really go to the police.

mom
Yes... I know...But he has threatened me with my life if I even mention the police...

jessica amber murray
btw, there are a number of 'normal' pieces of id that the border cops will accept. they'll even accept a parking card. i don't have anything like that, though. health card isn't listed. getting a passport should be easy, it says it takes ten days, so i'll go down on tuesday.

mom
And if I was to go to the police...What do you even think they will even do? They really are rather useless for the most part.....He even has police friends.....

jessica amber murray
i think that if you have evidence of a serious threat against you then you can put a restraining order on him and possibly get him tracked. i think you have to be pro-active in some sense, though. you can't just sit there and wait for him to come get you.

mom
I don't really have any evidence of any sort at all....

jessica amber murray
i mean, this guy isn't in the mafia or something is he....? hell's angels? if it's something like that, you're maybe right. you should maybe be thinking about finding a way to move. staying at nana's for a bit. i dunno. otherwise, it's probably the best choice.

if you claim he's threatened you, a judge might believe you. probably, even. it's a risk, sure. but, if the other risk is waiting around, i'd personally take the pro-active option.

mom
He's not hell's angels or mafia...But he claims that he knows people from this exact class of people....

He has mentioned names to me before...but I can't remember them...

Never thought I would have to..

jessica amber murray
those types of organizations are very professionally run. if you want to use that word. but you get the idea. they're businesses. the hell's aren't going to randomly hit somebody. it would put their operation in jeopardy. and if the boss found out somebody was fucking around like that, their own life might be in danger.

mom
He just has a really big mouth!....And I would just ignore what he was blithering about for the most part.....

jessica amber murray
in order for him to be able to follow through with a threat like that, he'd need to front some serious cash, and he'd have to find somebody that's on their way out. it sounds like he's bullshitting to me. still, it's hard not to take it seriously.

mom
He has money...

Stashed away....He is into all kinds of illegal shit!

He knows that I know this...

demo #8: boogeyman / depressed

listening to this all these years later has been sort of interesting. my influences on this track are really blatantly obvious...

it's actually a pop song. honestly. it's also maybe the only song in this collection where i give my age away clearly. this couldn't have been written by an adult.

the instrumental at the end is also something i spent many hours playing, by myself, and is also much older than 1996.

recorded in oct, 1996. remastered on oct 12, 2013.

demo #7: phased out / blue

this is actually two tracks, but one sort of functions as an intro to the other. sort of.

the instrumental beginning is something i used to play for hours at a time in my room by myself as a sort of calming mechanism. it's much older than this demo....

the second part is, lyrically, an obvious homage. again: i was 15. on the other hand, i think it captures my idiosyncratic sense of humour quite well. musically, it's a noisy, messy and yet catchy thing - one of my favourites in this group of tracks.

recorded in october, 1996. remastered on oct 12, 2013.

out of ideas for the shower

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

i've tried the things i know how to do and they haven't been successful.

i think i've narrowed it down to the drain, but don't know how to fix it beyond that. i don't know if it can be fixed without pulling it out.

i need to reiterate that it gets worse with each shower because the grout is slowly dissolving. at first it was only leaking near the toilet. now it's leaking near the front, and dangerously close to the kitchen. so, there's a factor of time involved in fixing it.

j

so, you know you're not free, and you're struggling to be free....

....but what would you do if you *were* free?

the other message inbox. just checked it for the first time in a while...

some spam. expected. but the kind of messages that randoms send off out of nowhere, like, i just don't get it. just trying to flip it around, like, could i ever ever ever see myself just randomly suggesting a bdsm hookup to a total stranger over facebook? not that i'm into that in the first place (definitely not), but the sheer gall required to actually make that request is just.....

maybe it's just more evidence that i am not a member of your species.

some of them are sort of cute and funny. no, i don't think i'm going to iran any time soon, but i appreciate the compliment.

most of them, though, are just......i don't understand how people can actually have the nerve for this.....

deleting 95% of my facebook "friends"

i actually deleted almost everybody, so don't feel singled out. the list is down to family (or people that are practically family) and people that i feel post content that i find to be interesting. it's just a handful of people.

it's not really personal, it's mostly about moving on and leaving the past behind. chances are that i just decided i wasn't interested in what you were posting and didn't really want to read it anymore. so, chances are that i don't dislike you, and that wasn't the reason i deleted you. it's just that the past is the past and i'd like to place it there explicitly.

however, i've also come to learn that the vast majority of people in this world have broken hearts. by that, what i mean is that they are fundamentally broken people. broken by a system, perhaps, but jaded to the point where they are fundamentally unable to be 'good'. they may not even realize that, or how their views and actions have been so deeply shaped by the paradigms of neo-liberalism. the optimist in me wants to believe that we can all work through this together, that the solution is some kind of group therapy, but the realist in me understands that the vast majority of people are simply too far gone. i've come to understand that 'friends' are consequently more often liabilities than assets, and that nobody can ever really be trusted in our society beyond a very base level. i've been burned, pretty hard, and need to take the initiative to stay away from people that i'm convinced will eventually stab me in the back. think of it as preventive action.

i have my feed set for public updates. it's set up that way because i'm not opposed to people subscribing, or people i've deleted continuing to read my feed. if you don't want to continue receiving my posts, you can click the little rotated > in the corner of the post and choose to hide all updates from me. alternatively, you could block and unblock me.

i wish people luck in the future. i just want to get away from the past.

i'll remind people that i'm on odsp for ptsd and, whether the diagnosis is rigorous or not, there's no question that i had a profound mental breakdown that was largely driven by a reaction to how other people discarded me. i'm still struggling with how to cope with that, and how to adjust, but i remain convinced, looking back, that i ignored a lot of warning signs under the misguided hope that goodness of heart would prevail in the end. i may be overcompensating, but i can't risk triggering myself backwards, and i request that people simply respect my decision in the context of me feeling it's a necessary step to maintaining my mental health. i feel i can get out now largely unscathed and without collapsing into any sort of episode. just respect that, please.

Re: shower again, and check

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord

just an update on this...

i think i've been able to determine it *is* the drain and it *isn't* the pipe. the experiment that i did was that i dumped pot after pot after pot of water into the drain. this reproduced the problem of water under the platform (i could tell by pushing on it and hearing it squish). i stopped before i created a leak, but that was enough to convince me of the nature of the problem.

i've also observed water draining into the crack around the drain. in fact, the crack seems to fill up and then spill over into the drain. i don't think it should be doing that, so i'm going to seal it tomorrow. i don't want to seal in moisture. i'll let you know if that works.

i have a good feeling about this working. if it doesn't work, i'm going to have to agree that ripping it apart would be necessary. that would really reduce the problem to a drain issue under the platform.

but i'm confident i've ruled out pipes. that's good news.

j

enjoying the new night birds record

this is something else i probably would have written a review of back in july if i was living on this planet at the time.



the reason night birds are so refreshing is indeed nostalgic. this was one of my favourite sounds growing up. it basically doesn't exist anymore. finding these guys sorting through reviews a few years ago was like coming face to face with a leprechaun.

installation file:
MIDIGuitar32.exe

installation file:
MIDIGuitar32.dll

installation file:
JamOrigin_KeyGen.exe

i've been watching this spider here for several hours, now. it's been crawling around me every which way, over ceilings, behind canvasses and apparently along axes that i'm simply too primitive to comprehend. could it be hunting me? naw...

it's just looking for somewhere to park a corner web to catch little insects. i don't mind a spider or two. i've seen grosser bugs down here (what are those goofy ones that tumble around, over-enthusiastically, anyways? they remind me of retrievers, sort of. some kind of centipede, i think. but they're built like hyperactive, bouncing squares. i'm always suppressing a giggle, and then they get away.), and if the spiders can help with that then that's a good thing. if they get out of hand, in comes the vacuum, but one or two at a time is fine.

then, why does it seem like this web is going to be roughly five by five? feet, that is.

fortunately, the spider seems a little confused about my movement. let alone about my weight. see, it seems to think i'm likely to throw myself directly into the wall. well, i guess it throws itself directly into the wall. it's just relating it's own experiences the way that it knows how. perhaps? what else can explain a five by five web in the middle of a wall?

so, i'm debating my strategies, here. i have to admit i'm a little irked about my perceived role as a food source. fucking eight-eyes. yet, i admire the thing's sheer insolence.

mom
I don't mind a small spider or 2...But the centipedes give me the creepy crawlies!

jessica amber murray 
they're too hilarious. i want to toss a frisbie at one....

mom
Well... I have had one or two crawl up my jean pant leg in the past...Yikes!

jessica amber murray
ok, do you mean the big square ones? i don't mean the long ones. i don't think they're actually centipedes, but i think they're related to centipedes.

mom
It was the long thin brownish ones covered with legs and they are fast!... Not sure what the big square ones are?

jessica amber murray
yeah, that's not what i mean. those are just yick. i mean these awkward looking things that really have four big legs. when they run, they're constantly just off balance enough to make it look like they're going to fall over.

they sort of gallop.

it's hilarious.

mom
LOL...If you say so...

jessica amber murray
i'm generally ok with bugs. the only really freaky moment i can recall is the time i got attacked by a praying mantis. and those things are actually huge. i don't know if you've ever seen one - first and last time i have.

mom
No...But one time a walking stick was on my arm and kinda freaked me out....

jessica amber murray
i was coming home very early in the morning from a party, and it flew in the door when i opened up, sat on the ground for a second, and then lunged itself at me. i got my arm up in time to knock it down, which also smashed it into the wall. i panicked and went after it with a frying pan...

it was at least a foot long. i thought it was a bird at first...

mom
OMG! Yikes!

jessica amber murray
worse, was nobody believed me. dad just laughed at me and told me to stop doing so many drugs. then, a few years later when i saw a shrew in the basement (and i know the difference between a shrew and a mouse, thank you), it was just like i got attacked by the praying mantis and i should stop doing psychedelics...

(it's important because most shrews are poisonous, so you don't want to treat them like mice!)

the one that went after me was bright, lime, glowing green.

i don't know if this guy realizes that thing is poisonous. i find most people don't know this. i spent too many hours reading biology books as a kid, i guess.

Jessica Amber Murray
sssssssssoooooooooo, i guess you found somebody else to talk to. probably more healthy. fwiw, i'm currently sleeping in the afternoons/evenings. it took a long time to respond because i was sleeping from around noon to around 7:00. but that's in constant flux, likely to change within a few days....

Shelly Teagan
That is so ridic

No i didnt find anyone to talk to

Just havent had tine to respond

Its all like a bunch of dudes all the time

And confusing mah brain