what the problem is

second-hand smoke of at least six types:

1) tobacco (confirmed) (hallway)
2) marijuana (confirmed) (downstairs unit)
3) sage/incense (confirmed) (downstairs unit)
4) an unknown sweet smell (possibly oxycontin) (downstairs unit)
5) an unknown acidic smell (possibly heroin) (downstairs unit)
6) an unknown stimulant without a strong smell (possibly crystal meth) (downstairs unit)

symptoms of the problem

- sore throat
- both an inability to sleep for days & an inability to stay awake [altered sleeping patterns]
- heart palpitations
- marijuana contact highs
- headaches
- nose bleeds

i have been to the hospital twice for heart palpitations, restlessness and nose bleeds.

the seriousness of the problem

in addition to experiencing undesired effects of these drugs, it must be stressed that smoke is the leading cause of death.
smoke is the leading cause of death.

smoke is the leading cause of death!

even in the united states, a country grappling with a severe gun violence problem, second-hand smoke kills nearly twice as many people as guns, every year.

this is not a minor annoyance or a mere inconvenience. this is a serious health concern, on the level of asbestos or lead in the unit. lead is, in fact, a component of second-hand smoke.

what the law says

20 (1) A landlord is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards.  2006, c. 17, s. 20 (1).

in the year 2018, it must be understood by everybody - landlords, tenants and the court - that a unit full of second-hand smoke is not compliant and must be repaired to prevent the smoke from entering the unit.

what has already been done

- holes have been patched over with duct tape & plastic tarps at considerable personal cost (~$300). this has been of varying effect but is ongoing. it is clear that this will not be successful in some parts of the unit, which will require deeper repairs to smoke proof the unit.
- i have asked the downstairs tenant to smoke less, to no avail.
- i have called the police, to ask them to ask her to smoke less, or outside, to no avail.
- i have left the windows in the unit wide open, to my own discomfort, to varying effect. this is currently absolutely necessary, as a starting point. unfortunately, the downstairs tenant appears to actually be purposefully smoking through my windows in a possible attempt to upset me. i am merely confused by this.
- i tried to open the window in the hallway, but this was bolted down by staff. the doors to the stairways are also repeatedly closed by cleaning staff, when i open them.

proposed solutions

- hallway: to begin with, can we leave the doors open so that the air can circulate? and, is there not a way to open the windows to facilitate air flow?

i am currently more concerned about my personal unit, and there are four potential approaches to the problem.

1) discuss the problem with the downstairs tenant, indicating the seriousness of it.

i have already tried to speak with this tenant, and have already asked the police to speak with her. in both cases, she made pledges that she has not kept. while the easiest thing to do would be to get her to smoke outside and away from the windows (which would also be good for her health, considering how much smoke she produces, and of so many different types), i understand that this comes with no enforcement mechanism, and that voluntarism is always at the whim of the volunteer. i’m willing to allow a further request to play out, though.

ultimately, success in a voluntary approach requires this tenant understanding the seriousness attached to the dangers of second-hand smoke, including to herself, which is something that both smokers & non-smokers in this society refuse to get their heads around. we are collectively deeply ignorant about this and seem to be unwilling to change or learn the facts.

2) remove the source of the smoke.

while it is difficult to remove a tenant for smoking cigarettes inside their unit in ontario, it is not impossible if it is part of a complaint by another tenant. more pertinent to the issue at hand is that this tenant does not appear to be a cigarette smoker at all, but is rather an exceedingly heavy marijuana smoker (as well as a smoker of other unknown substances). marijuana remains illegal in canada until further notice and, despite the claims of the sitting government, canada’s obligations under international law are likely to prevent full legalization; this is more likely to be a broken campaign promise than an imminent reality. as a landlord, you would be in your rights to remove this tenant for illegal behaviour. and, i can provide information about relevant police reports.

that said, i understand that this would be a difficult and lengthy process with an unclear end point. further, if this tenant were to be replaced by another heavy smoker, the whole thing would be a waste of time.

3) smoke-proof the unit.

as mentioned, a great deal of effort has already been put into duct-taping around the holes in the unit, and some plastic tarps have even been purchased to block off certain areas. but, there are many areas that cannot be approached this way, particularly areas around the cabinets and other built in features, such as the electrical box. i believe that this is a potentially successful approach, but i understand that it will come with some cost to the company.

i suppose it is up to the company to carry-out a cost-benefit analysis: is it worthwhile to smoke-proof this unit, or is the high turnover rate of a smoke-filled unit (and the subsequent legal costs attached to it...) a worthwhile cost of business?

4) end my own tenancy, with relevant compensation.

i would be willing to discuss this as an exit point, if none of the other options are considered worth pursuing. however, i would expect that such a process be carried out formally through the proper social justice tribunal, where a compensation can be agreed upon in mediation, or determined by a judge. my requests for compensation would be comprehensive, but fair.

should none of these options be pursued by this time next month, i will take the necessary legal steps to pursue one of them on my own.

ok.

i'm finally at the point where i wanted to stop and re-evaluate: election finished, vlog begun and back to work.

the vlog & the blog merge, at this point. i quit smoking at the beginning of 2016. but i need to...

i kind of want to get a move on this. there's a thousand pages on the 2016 us election. do i really want to upload this right now?

the flip argument is that i'm kind of stuck in bed until i can get the second-hand smoke issue dealt with. the other half of the apartment is kind of  a dead zone, for now.

i guess the pages split in mid-2016.

i think the signal increases, at least.

right now, i'm hungry - and i need to spend the morning writing an essay for my landlord.

i mean, i understand that there's a physical reality to the addiction.

this isn't a choice...

but i simply don't want this.

you can't even get me to watch a 30 minute tv show. how are you going to get me to waste entire weekends on drugs?

again: i'm just feeling indigestion, right now. it's not serious. i'm probably being paranoid. but, it's just not going to happen; it's not going to be a situation where i'm forcing myself to give up something i like for my health, but a situation where i'm eager to clear something i don't like out of my system, at whatever pain that comes with it.

i'm about as likely to get converted into an opiate addict as a devout muslim is likely to be converted into a bacon eater.

i'm not worried about getting addicted to anything. i am worried about going through withdrawals.

and, i will go through withdrawals, however difficult they are, and repeatedly, if forced to.

i have absolutely no romantic delusions attached to drug use, at all. i understand it's a chemical dependence that my body can defeat. and, about the only thing i'm likely to find myself concerned with is in maximizing productivity - and how impossible that is under the influence of opiates.

if this somehow gets me fucked up, i'm going to hate it, and cry for however long it takes to pass through.

cocaine is something i might develop an addiction to, if i were to play with it. but, my interest in depressants is zilch.

how do i feel?

head is a little blurry. stomach hurts a little. it's mild - just annoying, really. more indigestion than inebriation. if i need to, i'll get to the hospital; right now, i'm more likely to eat.

fwiw, it should be obvious that i don't celebrate christian holidays. at all.

but, this woman isn't going to rise on the third day, if she goes under tonight.

i'm very close to calling them in on heroin.

the smell is of acetic acid, and this seems to happen on friday nights, although it also sometimes smells kind of like soapy wine. again: i have no experience with heroin and would not be able to identify it, but research tells me that it smells like vinegar due to the cutting agents.

if anybody ever offered me heroin, it is unlikely that i would be able to refrain myself from beating the shit out of them.

i'm not sure why else there would be repeated vinegar smells rising from downstairs. on weekends. it seems obvious.

tonight is a thursday, but it's a long weekend. and, i'm holding back because i don't want an ambulance to wake her up.

it would be the easiest solution, wouldn't it? and, wouldn't it be a matter of time, anyways?

yeah.

what i'm going to do for this month is just level with her - put the facts down on the table and let them determine what way they want to go.

they have three options:

1) prosecuting the tenant below me for illegal behaviour. that is going to be expensive, and they may even lose the court case. but, she may leave on her own rather than fight. even so, what happens if another smoker moves in?
2) spend what will probably be thousands of dollars smoke-proofing this unit, after i force them to via court order. my attempts to smoke-proof the unit have not been successful.
3) just let me break the lease and leave. although i'm going to ask for financial compensation (in the form of moving costs), and it means re-opening a  vacancy, this is by far the cheapest option.

we can talk further in april.

i'm not doing this right this minute, but i'm going to have to search the case law for examples where second-hand smoke - and specifically second-hand marijuana smoke - is considered an "uninhabitable" situation.

A landlord is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards. 

i don't know if there is precedent around this, but i'm willing to make a novel argument - and push it to divisional court - if i have to.

a unit full of second-hand smoke should be considered unfit for habitation.

that said, i'm not going to get the police report for the 31st.

so, this isn't going to happen until april.

and i want to finish 2015, first.

what i'm going to have to do is give the landlord an ultimatum:

- take my smoke complaint seriously, and take steps to remove the tenant below me, or
- fight me in court, understanding that i'm trying to get out of the lease.

they're going to lose a tenant, either way. do they want to lose a law-abiding non-smoker that cares about respecting the building and the other tenants, or a disgusting, filthy ashtray of a person that doesn't care about anybody but herself?

i actually suspect they'll chose the smoker.

and, that's just confirmation that i need to get out.

this is the snoop-turing thesis.

my lease here is until december.

i'm starting to realize that i'm going to have to move if i want to maintain my mental health.

this place is going to drive me insane.

it's a shame; the problem isn't the building, it's the tenants. i like the location...

i'm going to have problems with smokers regardless of where i move, this is true. but i probably have the most disgusting person in the city below me. it's just constant - this person is chain-smoking 24/7. and, i have no serious legal options available to me to stand up for myself.

i don't want to be the person that dedicates my life to winning tenants rights for non-smokers. i have better things to do.

so, i'm going to file a smoke complaint with the intent of getting the board to cancel the lease and have the property manager pay my moving costs out. the landlord is really correct when she says that she can't do anything. but, that means that she should be liable to help me move, then.

if i file a smoke complaint, the landlord is required to make a good faith effort to address it. but, if she's telling me right off the bat that there is no solution to this, then that good faith effort should be interpreted as a way to help me move.

she should have told me that there were smokers in the building and that the place is uninhabitable for non-smokers.

i would request that people get the help that they need.

i just want people to leave me alone.

but, when does a childish crush become an unhealthy obsession?

no mentally healthy adult would behave like this.

fwiw, i was probably being kind in suggesting they're in their 30s.

they may very well be in their 40s.

these people are continuing to go out of their way to eject smoke into my apartment, and i'm just left with two conclusions:

1) it's hard to believe that they're so pathetic that they enjoy this, but it must be because they have some kind of incredibly immature crush on me. i believe it's well understood that marijuana leads to arrested development. but, this is grade school type behaviour. they're acting like a couple of little girls teasing the boy they like.
2) i need to be extra careful to ignore them, as they seem to be feeding on the lack of consent.

(as readers here know, i'm not actively attracted to women, and consider myself asexual.)

but, i kind of want to tell them to go smoke somebody that wants it; i figure they owe me $1000 in labour for cleaning up their constant stream of filth, but they could easily argue that they've paid it off in marijuana that i don't want....maybe i'll just lean over the window and breath the next time i do want to get baked...

it's the smoke that's the problem.

but, it seems like it's really eating that makes me so tired - this is the catalyst.

so, i'm going to avoid eating until the end of the day.

i'm going to print this off and leave it on a few doors.

i'm not convinced that first-hand vaping is much better than smoking. but i've been around the pens at bars, and they don't produce the same level of second-hand smoke.

http://stonerpros.com/reasons-to-vape/

even norml comes right out and says it, although they're also being confusing, and it's kind of maddening.

there have been studies that have suggested that the active ingredients in marijuana - thc & cbd - may have anti-oxidant properties, but the way this is presented pretty much everywhere is grossly misleading.

some of the studies have even gone so far as to suggest that thc might shrink tumours, it is true, but what these studies did is inject the compound directly into the tumour at concentrations that are beyond anything we could imagine. you'd have to condense thousands and thousands of joints worth of thc into a syringe to get these kinds of properties. the amount of thc you get from smoking bud is absolutely clinically useless.

so, these reports say things like "it's true that marijuana smoke has been found to produce pre-cancerous cells...but it also has thc", with the implication that it balances out. but, that is dishonest. marijuana smoke has carcinogens in very, very high concentrations (equivalent or higher than tobacco smoke) and trace amounts of anti-oxidants. they don't balance out.

in very, very high concentrations, nicotine could potentially reverse ageing. but, nobody talks about that when discussing the effects of smoking.

you can wait fifty years for these studies to come back, but unless you've smoked yourself retarded, you know it's going to give you cancer - and there's no use in pretending you don't.

http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/cannabis-smoke-and-cancer-assessing-the-risk

 “Cannabis use could already be responsible for one in 20 lung cancers diagnosed in New Zealand,”
 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cancer-cannabis/cannabis-bigger-cancer-risk-than-cigarettes-study-idUSHKG10478820080129

see, and then she burns incense to cover up the smell.

the incense is probably worse than the pot.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/26/passive-smoking-deaths-who-report

deaths by gun violence: 33,636 (2013, wiki)
deaths by second-hand smoke: 53,800 (1997, california epa)

these are american numbers, to demonstrate the point (gun deaths in canada are far less).

i don't know why they attribute this to a conservative blowhard, rather than a humanist scientist; it's a scientific fact, not a religious opinion.

but it's true.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jun/29/george-will/claims-smoking-kills-more-people-annually-other-da/

"they're not hurting anybody, police resources should be deployed towards people that are harming others."

https://www.theguardian.com/news/reality-check/2013/dec/18/cigarettes-or-war-which-is-the-biggest-killer

so, what's the way out of this?

it's edibles.

if i were a sitting senator, i might contemplate sending the bill back in order to relegislate the issue around making access to edibles easier, and access to bud almost impossible.

as a society, we really ought to be coercing people to start eating it and stop smoking it - not just for the benefit of users, but also for the health of everybody else.

so, when you recognize that complications from smoke inhalation is the leading cause of death in society, what does it mean to argue that the cops are wasting their time dealing with smoke inhalation issues?

smoke kills more people than guns, gangs, alcohol, sexual violence & virtually everything else you can come up with, combined.

if we were to be rational about the data, we would have to conclude that the primary purpose of the police should be to ensure that people aren't smoking anywhere near where it can be inhaled by anybody. they should be in special facilities, that you need to put hazmat suits on to enter.

i need to repeat this: smoke is the leading cause of death.

smokers kill more people than gangs.

smoke is more dangerous than guns.

we've got this all backwards.

but, how can we be so ignorant? what's underlying this absurdity?

it's probably some good old fashioned toxic masculinity. for, while it may be true that smoke is more dangerous than guns, fighting smokers isn't quite like fighting gangs. it doesn't have that combat component, that feeling of danger.

but, we need to be more rational about this - and that means getting more strict on smokers, not less strict.

there's this idea that marijuana doesn't kill anybody. i've stated it myself. but it's wrong.

if you were to claim that tobacco doesn't create overdoses, you'd be correct. so, would you then claim that tobacco doesn't kill anybody?

overdose deaths from tobacco: 0.

in fact, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death.

one of the things about prohibition is that it skews the statistics, and i'll admit that it's never going to be easy to separate deaths caused by tobacco from deaths caused by marijuana, because it's such a heavy overlap. when a marijuana smoker gets lung cancer, or heart disease, it's never going to be clear if the primary cause is the marijuana or the tobacco that this person also smokes, along with the unhealthy diet and the sedentary lifestyle. what we can say, right now, is that prohibition removes marijuana from the statistics.

full legalization should hopefully allow us to better understand marijuana smoke as a risk factor for heart disease, for cancer, for emphysema, for diabetes, for stroke - for all the things we've tied so heavily to tobacco.

and, in a decade or two, this idea that marijuana doesn't kill anybody is going to be a surreal joke about how ignorant we were.

09/15 is finally done, and it was something like 3-4 months in size.

october should be much, much less intense.

this may end up being a short day, or i might just be taking a nap. the air in here is far better than before, but i had to hover over a space to block it and it's not clear at this point if it's made me tired, or if i'm just agitated and drained.

i wanted to make some calls but slept all day - again, possibly due to air pollution. hopefully, it's just a nap so i can get on to things tomorrow...

...but, i'm into the last few weeks of the election, now.

the language the cop used was "nice".

it was,

i talked to the tenant downstairs, and she seems really nice.

the cop then underhandedly implied i was a fag for trying to throw her out, rather than trying to get to know her. and, he was absolutely right, although i'd reject the implication that there's something wrong with that.

a lot of people of either gender are going to interpret a 30-something curvy pothead as "hot", and i don't doubt this. but, everything about what's happening is utterly revolting to me.

this is not my type, and never was.

i'm not likely to date anybody of either gender again, but i'd be more likely to go for an underweight straight-edge vegan than a pothead that looks like a stripper. insofar as i am attracted to women, or ever was, i definitely have always preferred the modern yoga body to the traditional hour-glass...

i'm actually just likely to interpret curvy women as overweight. that whole culture around large asses is just gross, to me, and i've always felt the same way about large breasts.

but, regardless, i wouldn't date a pothead. it would have been easier to stomach when i was a smoker, but now that i'm not, it's really a non-starter. it's just not a quality i'd want out of somebody i'm spending a lot of time with...

the reason i was thinking about sarah last night was that i had to call the cops, not once but twice. i was supposed to write this up a little, but the smoke has been so thick in here that i've been having trouble staying awake since i finally crashed on saturday morning...

i think i'm awake, now.

the cops think i'm wasting their time, but i don't remotely agree. libertarians might present arguments about legalization leading to less policing, but this is a guess - and i'm not sure an evidence-based analysis would uphold it. regardless, that has nothing to do with the reasons marijuana is being legalized, here. the government has been clear that the purpose of legalization is to reduce use - especially amongst youth - and not to promote wider use.

the government of canada recognizes that recreational marijuana use is a substantive health problem and is adjusting it's approach to the drug in order to reduce use. nothing in the changes to the laws sanctions or promotes consensual drug use, or ignores the damages created by second-hand smoke - especially to those that do not consent to be influenced by it.

if you think otherwise, you need to educate yourself on what is actually happening.

and, i don't expect it to be legalized, anyways.

if somebody put drugs in my drink that would be a reason to call the cops, right? so, why is it different if somebody put drugs in my air supply?

if somebody was burning paint thinner in the apartment downstairs, that would be a reason to call the cops, right? so, why is it different if somebody is burning marijuana?

we have these irrational ideas attached to consumption. but, if somebody makes a choice to burn any other carcinogenic chemical inside, we reference their choice in the matter as a legal concept called mens rea. that's all i'm getting out of this - that they're making the choice to pollute the air and make me sick, i.e. they're not doing it by accident and are consequently liable for the consequences.

but, drug addicts see themselves at the centre of the universe. they think everything is about them. no; this is about me, this is about my air, this is about my rights.

i was able to get the cops out here late on friday night and early on saturday night, so there will be two reports for me to reference to the landlord. the tenants eventually promised to smoke outside; we'll see if they do or not. evidence right now is sketchy. i'll make the foia request for data tomorrow.

i'll also be getting the hospital records from the times i went in for observation.

the cops kept telling me to call the landlord, but they appear to have gotten the process backwards. the cops are right that there's little they can do, and i understand that, but a warning from the cops is actually less of an escalation than a formal complaint. so, if i'm going to be doing this proportionately and fairly, i need to call the cops in to talk to them before i agitate for eviction. and, if they change their habits to smoking outside, then that request will have worked - they will have saved themselves from eviction, even if what that means is giving them more time to find a different place.

if they don't change their habits, i'll be able to present evidence to the landlord that the police officer identified the smell of marijuana, that the tenant admitted to smoking inside the unit (!) and that there is consequently grounds for eviction, due to illegal behaviour on the premises of the property.

and, what did i really think of sarah over all of those years?

i thought the idea was toxic; it could have only ended tragically. i was, frankly, morbidly afraid of impregnating her. it's a hard thing to articulate: it could have been a sweetheart story, and maybe in some ways even should have been, but it would never have lasted. she became sort of unstable in high school; i might have seriously damaged her. i actually think i did the right thing for both of us in avoiding her.

but, if you could have wiped away those memories, i might have accepted the advances.

you could write a movie about this and only scratch the surface, and it's not what i want to be ranting about tonight, which i've mostly spent cleaning.

i dated a different sarah in the early 00s. there's some substantive overlap in personality, beyond the given name.

actually, i should point out that sarah is responsible for one of the most profound & defining things that anybody has ever said to me, and she probably doesn't remember it - although she probably does remember most of the other things i've posted here.

it was on the bus. we only took the bus together for a few years, so it must have been between grades 6-8.

she sat down beside me - with a shirt on - and actually addressed me fairly sternly, using my full name, as per usual, which essentially nobody else ever did:

jason, everything in life is a joke to you, isn't it? you just refuse to take anything seriously. you think every single possible thing that happens is always a joke of some sort. but, there are things in life that are serious. 

i'm not sure she was right about the second part. but, the first part allowed me to see myself in the mirror in a way i hadn't seen myself before, and it's stuck with me all these years for that reason....

i don't think sarah's crush on me ever receded, but rather went through a number of weird phases, all of which were no doubt outside of any reasonable approximation of reality, but purely in the realm of her own fantasy.

so, there was a period in the eighth grade where she'd take her shirt off and sit beside me on the school bus, or even sit in the seat in front of me and hover her bra an inch from my nose. i was the only 'boy' left on the bus for the rest of the ride; through whatever mix of coercion and thrill, she had a couple of her friends mimic her, as well. the game was that i had to keep ignoring her - but she was also no doubt demonstrating that she'd grown a pair, since she was little. i was always well trained, and fully capable of continuing to ignore her...but this went on for months....

it wasn't until the twelfth grade that she finally snapped. i had moved across town, so we weren't on the same bus, any more. we hadn't been in any of the same classes in years, either. but, i happened to get on a (city) bus she was also on; we made eye contact, and so i instantly stopped and sat a distance away from her, as i always did. she leaped up and came storming across the bus, screaming at me, startling confused passengers...

you're a fucking idiot. you know that? you think you're so damned smart, but you're just stupid. you're so stupid. so, so, so stupid.

my best guess is that she finally realized at that point that i was never going to stop ignoring her - and i never was.

i don't think i've seen her since.

when i was in the third grade, there was a girl that had a crush on me named sarah. i didn't realize it at the time, but, in hindsight, i'm sure that she picked me out because we both had vaguely latin backgrounds - she was hispanic, even had a very latin name, and i guess i was the only kid around for miles that looked a little like her. i can't remember what country in central america that her parents were from....

she was an awkward kid - quite dominant, in fact. she was a bit of a star hockey player, and known for it. so, she was quite fit - in very good shape. when she wanted something, she took control of the situation and went and got it; that was entirely natural to her....

i was a bookworm - and not interested. she kept trying various tactics, and i kept ignoring her. i don't know if i ever admitted to her that i was actually ignoring her, or if she just always thought i didn't notice; she doesn't seem to have figured it out on her own. she always got what she wanted by taking it, remember. in fact, she ended up escalating quite dramatically, by shooting elastic bands at me.

you know the way: elastic hand gun. you pull the trigger by removing your finger and it flies...

see, as mentioned, i fully well knew that she was trying to get my attention - and i wasn't at all interested. she really wasn't my type; i just saw her as a dumb jock. so, i went and told the teacher that she was shooting elastics at me.

he looked at me like i didn't have a father. "jason, when.."

"yeah, i know", i told him rather brusquely, "but i'm more concerned about my eyes.".

he rolled his own, and separated her from me. i was happy that she left me alone - but she confronted me about it afterwards, with tears in her eyes.

"jason, don't you know why i.."

"yeah, i do know." - i said, while walking away.

in the end, i gave in and let her take me to the dance. in the process, she probably became the first person to realize that i'm transgendered - before i even really did myself; she ended up crudely fag hagging me at eight years old, in the girls' washroom at the elementary school dance before leaving me there to go dance with some actual boys.

this is maybe the first of a dozen similar stories. and, all i can say is that past behaviour is a strong predictor of future behaviour.

i'm going to file a formal complaint for the tenants downstairs due to the smoke, but i'm going to wait until they're not expecting it.

i'm not sure when.

i'm not broadcasting it...

they're growing plants in there. i want to make sure the landlord catches them red-handed.

in the mean time, i'm going to be very quiet, and just carefully go about doing things that are designed to upset them - because i'm convinced that their behaviour is malicious, at this point.

just in case i've been unclear - there's still years worth of music to complete.

however, i have to build the blog to complete the liner notes for inri000-inri074. then, i can move on.

i should be done by now, but life does not exist in a vacuum.

the air has thankfully been clear so far today; the issue last night seems to have just cleared the air out of the room (which is what i wanted).

now, so long as nobody blows smoke in here from outside, i think i'm probably ok. finally...

no.

the ban on smoking near buildings is municipal, and windsor is one of the few cities that doesn't have one.

and, smoking out of a window is most like smoking on a balcony, which is not addressed anywhere - and would be difficult to argue.

there's no such thing as a non-smoking building, here. somebody could put it in a lease, but it's non-enforceable. so, i have no choice but to fight.

at the moment, i don't have an actionable complaint; i will no doubt be told to close the window, which i can't/won't do. i need a large amount of fresh air intake into the unit...

i know this is being done to irk me. so, i've done what i can to mitigate, and i'm going to have to wait them out. they don't want to smoke outside, and will eventually stop doing it.

the heat turned on before 11:00.

after i had blocked every hole in the apartment, they started blowing it in the windows. that's just a lack of respect. i mean, it's one thing when we're talking about competing rights and seeking mutual co-existence; it's another when you're taking about an infringement of personal space. so, i had to threaten the crackheads with police action. it seems to have worked, for now.

it's probably the only thing they would have responded to; i probably didn't have another option. i hate cops, but i also hate crackheads. i don't know who i hate more.

the law in ontario is that you need to go eight feet away from a public building. most people don't follow that, but i'm willing to enforce it. does that mean i can force them to close the window? i need to look into that.

if i can get through the night without being bothered, i might change my mind. but, as of right now, i've resolved to filing a complaint with the landlord tomorrow morning.

what a disaster.

i spent all day taping the windows open, only to have the heat turn off this afternoon, which is not legal.

i repeat: the windows are taped open. they won't be closed again until november.

it's just below freezing. so, if the heat doesn't turn on soon, it's going to be cold in here tonight....

listen: regardless of whatever lies other people are saying about me, the fact is that i had quit smoking (except at concerts) for nearly two years before i relapsed over the move, and the only real purpose of the relapse was as a massive stimulant for those couple of weeks, as i needed it. as i've stated repeatedly: i'll always pick nicotine over cocaine when i need the pick up. this was extended by the fact that i couldn't get on the internet for a month and had to walk around outside every day, and then again by my yearly christmas ritual, which was a little longer than normal this year - but needed, given everything that was happening.

i had no intention of starting smoking again. and, the routine had already been broken, so it really wasn't that hard to stop. by the end of the ritual, i was finding myself trying to figure out how to avoid nicotine altogether over the next ritual. i found myself forcing myself to smoke, and then skipping smokes for days altogether. even if i buy another pack next ritual, i could very well not smoke any of it directly...

i haven't smoked anything in well over a month, and i haven't had any difficulty with it, either.

i said something around this time last year about how i wanted to go to zero smoking at concerts as a last step, and concluded a few months later that this was infeasible until legalization happens on both sides of the border. this is probably still true. but, if my concert schedule stays minimal, it's going to mean my habits will, too.

there is absolutely no reason at all to expect me to relapse again any time soon.

that was another 18 hours of sleep. almost. i got up to eat. hopefully, i'm awake....

i never got started today and am about to pass out early, yet again.

i thought i had this fixed. almost all the holes were blocked. finally. but, the idiots downstairs thought it would be a good idea to blow smoke into the apartment from outside by blowing up through the window sill.

no joke: they are sticking their head out their window and blowing the smoke up. i guess they expect me to close the window? they may just be trying to irk me.....

...but, obviously, the more smoke they blow in, the longer it takes to clear out. fucking idiots.

it's going to take all night to clear. but, the effects are felt.

so, i am once again crashing early due to the draining effects of second hand thc. ugh.

the next time that happens, i'm going to have to dump water on their heads. but, this is also getting into the realm of something that i could potentially prosecute as harassment...

so, my retarded crackhead neighbour is now apparently complaining about the fresh air.

the oxygen is cutting off my carbon monoxide supply and sobering me up. this is a travesty.

hey. it's working. let's hope she's gone, soon.

i've been clear enough about this.

i'm cusp.

but, gen y, to me, is gen yawn - the kids are fucking boring.

mid 30s, right now, is that demographic dip. we kind of don't exist. so, i need to make that choice. and, you're more likely to find me at a 40+ event than at a 20-something one - even if i'm more likely to blend in at the latter.

so, i haven't been going out and doing much.

it's been cold and dreary. i don't want to go out anywhere until it warms up.

but, there's also not anything of interest happening around town.

it'll be a snap decision, but i'm probably going to skip gybe! next week. they haven't done anything i care about in almost 20 years. i'm holding out for another mt. zion disc...

it might be april before i head out again.

but, i said this last year: last summer was probably my last summer spent partying. i'm 37 years old. it's not even about my age, exactly, it's more about my interests. i haven't been shy in pointing out that i'm not exactly fond of the younger generation, and it's to the point that they've taken over all of the spaces - there's not a lot of places left for somebody my age to go, and not be bored.

i hate folk music. gen y rock culture is lame. and, even their techno is boring.

so, getting out to things is going to rely on recognizing an older band, or on identifying something going on at the dso, or finding a jazz band, or catching an aging dj. it's going to happen, periodically. but, less and less...

last winter, i skipped a few things due to the cold.

this winter, i'm just not interested.

we'll see if that opens up or not.

chopin ended up on the cutting room floor.

just didn't feel right.

so, i'm listening to glass this afternoon, instead.

it's the 1998 cd with the full version of the grid.

i remember picking up the cd up in high school, and everybody in my family thinking i'd lost my mind. but, it's great for reading....

https://archive.org/details/Koyaanisqatsi

for this occasion only, i'd be ok in letting some yanks play, too.

if they can make the team.

this is what we need to do.

we'll line up at baffin ellesmere island. they can line up at franz josef.

best five out of seven; winner gets the north pole.

you have to remember that, in canada, the cold war was so frigid that we fought it on ice.

and, i'm not even that young, but that's all i really remember.

lemieux.
to gretzky.
and back to lemieux....

that franco-polish connection.

so, maybe i'll listen to chopin this afternoon.

yeah, i know gretzky is polish.

but, it's going to take more than a symphony of sorrowful songs to get me to shoot the puck in my own net, here.

don't change the topic.

if you want chopin, listen to chopin. it's a free country. i don't give a fuck.

but, don't take away my rach, dammit.

this is why we can't go to war with russia...

i will not accept cheap, second-rate, polish renditions of rachmaninov.

ever.

sorry.

we're going with some classic rach, this morning.

but, i'm not going to insult you by posting some masturbatory, bourgeois americanized version of either of these.

you gotta let the russians do rach. they do it best. it's no comparison. unfortunately, the closest you'll find to somebody doing this right, online, is some polish tart using it as an outlet for teenage angst.

hope it paid off well, at least.

we're not even at war yet, and i have to link to amazon. fuck...

i've done a lot of sleeping, recently. hopefully, i last the day.

https://www.amazon.ca/Rachmaninoff-Piano-Concerto-No/dp/B000025LJW

i'm slow to get started again today, but here i am.

i'm waiting for the guy to come to finish the last little bit of painting...

i really don't enjoy the smoke coming up from downstairs, or living life in a fog. again: i can't understand how anybody enjoys this on a daily basis. it's maybe making me understand why so many drug addicts kill themselves.

i feel like shit.

but, i have to wait until i can get things out of here before i can finish taping the walls over.

i finished august last night, and, again, it took some time, but it was the heaviest month, so far. hopefully, september is a little faster....

i want to address a silly point, just so it's written somewhere.

when i copied all of my comments off of the internet, i wasn't able to get exact dates and times for many of them, and didn't make the effort to be careful about it for others. so, as i'm reconstructing the comments, i'm making approximations as to the exact dates and exact times.

i assure you that i'm not making up new comments. i frankly have better things to do. and, i'll remind you that the point of this is actually to build the liner notes for my aleph-discs: this is a music project. but, a very keen individual could no doubt point out that certain things are not in the right order...

sure.

first - get a life.

second - i'm doing this as best as i can.

all i can do is acknowledge the defect and carry on...

there's a point a little later on where this shifts, and i make a stronger point to record the time and date as i'm archiving.

i just want to post a short explanation for people that are following the 2015 updates, here, and might be confused about what i mean when i'm talking about a streaming proxy service.

you might think i'm talking about streaming over the internet, and not understansd why that's important in trying to fix the mixer. in fact, the terminology is shared - streaming over the internet is largely the same thing as streaming over your operating system. it's more a question of who the clients are.

without getting into an undergraduate lecture on operating systems (and i'll remind you that i've completed 19.5 credits of a computer science degree at a high gpa), i'll just point out that your operating system streams almost everything, from a conceptual perspective. streaming, itself, refers to a transfer of data. all it means is that it is a continuous flow. so, your operating system will accept data from your sound card - or your video card - as a stream of data, just like your network card will accept data from your router in a stream. as you can set up network proxies, you can also set up local proxies, and the entire audio architecture of your computer almost certainly depends on this. it's the same basic thing over all over the major operating systems, but ksproxy.dll is a windows library that is very specifically audio-oriented.

so, i'm not talking about network streaming, i'm talking about how windows communicates with my sound hardware. but, if you can abstract it well enough, it's kind of the same idea as network streaming, just very, very local.

a hostile agent could absolutely take control of that audio stream and redirect it elsewhere. and, for a time, i felt that this was what was happening.

in the end, i decided that the actual problem had to do with a fluctuating magnetic field in the room and i had no option but to try to work around it rather than actually resolve it.

i'm not sure if most people would have even noticed it.

i was up a little later tonight, and am now done eating and ready to start the day.

i haven't smelled any drugs wafting up here yet tonight, so hopefully the adjustments i made yesterday afternoon are good enough to allow me to focus for the day. i've also left the cabinets open. so long as it's cold out, the cold air flowing down should both clear out the passageways a little bit and keep any smoke down there from rising up.

there are other explanations, but let's hope i've got a handle on this.

so, how am i doing?

those nose bleeds are lingering. they're not active bleeds; it's more bloody boogers. and, it's not entirely unheard of - i'm used to getting a little blood in my snot when it's dry, which it is, right now. cold or hot, what i really hate is dry air. the smoke is no doubt a factor. once i get the holes blocked off in here, that's going to need to be something i'll want to deal with. humidifier, maybe. as it is, my last brita filter died on me the other day, so i'm just drinking coffee.

the guy was supposed to come finish the work yesterday, but didn't. so, i've been stuck in the house all week. i'll be able to get out and grab some things - duct tape, steel wool, brita filter - in the morning.

i'm otherwise relatively alert. the headaches have mostly subsided, and there's only two or three places left to tape, for now.

i want to be clear: i'm feeling better because i've blocked most of the smoke. it didn't go away on it's own, i took steps to counter the problem. and i think i'm not at 100% because it's not done, yet.

i would advise that they spend their time doing something else.

there's clearly multiple people down there smoking.

but, they couldn't fit enough people in the room to overpower the cold air pushing down from 6 wide open bay windows, 24/7. and, they'd choke to death, if they were to try.

if there's any damage done to the floor, it will be from the smoke, not the temperature.

so, it's no surprise that the crackheads downstairs aren't good at physics.

i have enough of the holes patched that i'm clear-headed enough that i'm getting some work done; if i've been a little slow the last few days, it's more that i've been distracted, and partly by the need to patch holes..

so, here's how the physics with this works.

so long as it's relatively cool out, opening the window above a smoker will flush the cold air downwards. further, the smoke will escape out the window.

the end result is that i get fresh air, and they get cold. perhaps very cold. but, i can't care, so long as they're blowing smoke through the electrical fixtures in an obvious attempt to piss me off.

i'm perfectly happy to sit here in a sweater with the windows open for the next month. the air in here is clear enough, right now, and just going to clear out further, as i patch up more and more holes.

and, the more i'm annoyed the colder it will get downstairs.

that said, the maintenance person should be here today to finish sanding the bedroom, at which point i can start smoke-proofing that space and moving things in, which will let me smoke-proof the larger space, next.

i don't feel like my time is being wasted, because i have to work this out, anyways. but, it's unclear to me why they're wasting their time with such obviously childish behaviour.

but, i need to be clear: i'm right about this.

history will uphold this plight.

and, i intend to win, in the long run.

so, how am i feeling?

well, given that i'm caught up on sleep, it's not that strange that i'm having a long day. i'd better get some sleep in the next 12 hours, though, or i'm going to find myself back at the hospital.

and, i will keep going to the hospital until they give me the right answer.

i'm not high. not racing. not feeling palpitations. i'm getting a mild nose bleed, but it's dry in here, and i need to clean the remnant smoke off the walls and floors. it's suspicious, but it could be a coincidence. my headache never fully went away, but it's currently manageable.

i've patched up the worst area for now, and it does seem to be having an effect. and, i've got the windows wide open. but, the wind has not been blowing directly at me since the first onset of winter, and i'm above hot air rising, so i'm actually getting a lot of negative pressure. the forecast suggests that the wind might shift in my direction this morning.

thankfully, the landlord was here this morning to patch the hole in the bedroom. he's suggesting it may need two more days. but, my hands are tied until i can get in there.

see, i need to clean in here, but the space is packed full of stuff. i really need to be able to clean in the other room first and then slowly move things in, which will give me enough space to clean in the main room.

i've decided that i need to use a brute force approach, which means taping over every inch of the walls. it's going to look like a rubber room. but, that's what non-smokers are going to have to be doing to deal with this.

i am of course in support of marijuana legalization, at the least, but i would also support a law banning smoking inside of apartment buildings. as it is, property values for older buildings are going to crash when this becomes legal. we're going to see the creation of "pot houses" that nobody except pot heads want to live in; on the other hand, we're going to need to pay a premium to avoid living with potheads. it's going to be a factor in further class stratification. and, the people forced to live in these buildings due to low income are going to incur all kinds of unnecessary respiratory diseases that are going to bog down the medical system.

expect a lot of people in the hospital complaining about smoke inhalation over the next few years....

i'll eventually have pictures up, and i'd fully recommend that people emulate this approach, if they're in the same situation.

for now, like i say: i should be getting tired soon, and will have reason to be concerned if i don't. but, i'm otherwise feeling ok - besides the little bit of blood in my nose, and the mild lingering headache that i think should lift when i can finally do a good clean.

but, i mean....

i've been crystal clear that i reject the claim that i'm not working.

not only am i working, i'm working harder than you are, and i'm being more productive than you are, too - because, at the end of the day, nobody cares about that hole you get paid to dig.

you're just brainwashed...

sorry.

software should be free in both senses.

you would expect me to take a harshly realistic view on software piracy, right?

i do not and never will have the means to purchase audio software. so, i can steal it or just not use it at all. as such, i'm not actually cutting into anybody's profit margin, because i was never going to buy it, anyways.

if it was a guitar or a synthesizer or some other physical object, i'd buy it in a pawn shop. that's the better comparison; and, either way, the creators aren't getting paid.

that said, i'm an artist, and keenly aware of the need to convert my labour into food, or starve. but, i'd prefer to lean towards a ubi or gai than towards an enforcement of property rights. and, we can have this debate this decade, but it won't be long before property rights aren't a serious option, and programmers are uniting with artists in their requests to abolish the market.

after doing some cleaning and taping this morning, i really feel better than i have in days.

but, i don't think the crackhead ever made it in last night.

it's just confirming what i've been sure of...

i've got some spaghetti in the microwave. let's hope i can get something done after breakfast. i'm due for a long day, but i need to avoid being drugged in order to do it...

i need to make sure, though, that i get tested for heavy metals as a part of my yearly blood tests next month.

lead poisoning also leads to aggressive behaviour, although it doesn't explain the high i got last night.

i wonder if lead or arsenic may act as a catalyst for certain stimulants...

the crackhead is yelling outside my window to let her in.

hey!

hey!

lol.

all i'm thinking is that maybe i can get some fresh air tonight if she can't get in...

the test came back negative, and, while the doctor at least heard me out, his suggestions were no less silly: not only have i never had anxiety before, but one does not get high from anxiety, and i was high as a kite.

the connection between the second hand smoke and the effects i experienced is too obvious to be altered in my mind.

so i'm left with one of two options:

1) my tolerance to meth (or crack.) is so ridiculously low that i got scary high from an amount that was so low that it didn't even show up in the sample. this is actually consistent with my past experiences with drugs: my tolerance for everything is extremely low. i need to take children's dosages....and that itself might be the answer to the quandary: i'm going to get smashed from a smell, in the first place.
2) whatever stimulant they're smoking was not tested for - so is neither meth nor crack. i have no further suggestions, right now. glue?

i don't know know what the next step is, but i know that if i continue to get high from this second hand smoke, then i'm going to continue to seek medical attention until we can figure it out and devise steps to address it.

something i could try is taking a sample of the air in the apartment to a lab.

and, i could also try and replicate the urine test, and see if i can tweak it to be a bit more sensitive.

i may end up moving, in the end, but not until i can figure out a way to get the landlord to swallow the costs. this is ultimately their legal responsibility, not mine.

...and there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that i'm taking drugs to combat the effects of other drugs.

i feel ok, now. i just ate four bags of doritos, which i would not have otherwise done. my metabolism just got tweaked up and down; that's what happens. i'm not going to fall for the drugs, but i'll fall for the munchies. this time, anyways.

so, what's tonight's saga?

i started getting floaty around 9 or 10, and overwhelmed about 11:30. same deal: odour wafting up that seemed kinda like pot, but didn't feel like pot when inhaled.

i didn't get a headache tonight, so i wanted to work through it, but, like...

i can't grasp how they're giving this shit to kids to get them to focus. i could understand giving kids marijuana if you wanted them to focus, because it wipes away the distractions; it turns off the noise and lets you focus on the signal. uppers, on the other hand, exaggerate the noise and drown out the signal. i could barely sit still, and barely look at one place on the screen. my heart was racing, and my head was buzzing....

so, i did two things:

1) i drank a lot of water.
2) i sat down in a yoga pose and did a lot of deep breathing, basically waiting out the high until it was gone.

is that why you're not supposed to drink the water in the ganges?

that's probably not what you're supposed to do on meth. but, you're not supposed to drug people against their will when they're trying to read, either. fuck.

about a half hour later, it was time to get up and urinate. i've now got three bottles to submit for testing in the morning...

i fully expect to get the same response.

"but, you need to be in very close proximity to get the effects of second hand smoke."

yeah, that's what they said about cigarettes for decades, too, if you'll recall. let's do the test and see what comes back. that's empiricism. if you're going to walk around in that lab coat, you've gotta fucking act like it..

it's 8:00, and what's going on?

well, i'm feeling alright. the sum total of the smoke inhalation yesterday afternoon appears to be that i'm a little tired - and that i have a rash on the inside of my arm, that may be due to some nasty perspiration.

the remaining smell i'm getting is that smell you get when you cross a mild dish soap with heavy grease and let it sit. so, imagine using dawn to let a pot full of hamburger grease sit.

they could be doing dishes.

ugh. let's just hope it's gone by tomorrow.

once again, i would have liked to get more work done today. there's still some chance i could get a second wind.

i mean, i'd like to know how often it happens that kids taken away from meth addicts are then prescribed meth to deal with the symptoms created by their parents being addicted to meth.

it's fucking insane...

...and don't even get me started about the absurd idea of giving meth to kids to fight a condition that doesn't even exist.

that's a type of abuse that boggles my mind.

i just want to point something out, though: i've run into the pcp problem before, i'd say on average every six-ten months, but this is the first time i've been convinced that i've run into meth-laced marijuana, and i'd have actually been the first to suggest that such a thing doesn't exist, if somebody had presented it to me before last week.

i'd be skeptical if i were you, too.

but, i'm good at logic, and i'm pretty much convinced that this is what we've got, here.

moments after i published the last post, i got bombarded with what felt like a chemical weapons attack: smoke coming from every room of the apartment at the same time, with an especially powerful concentration in the kitchen, which is a few feet away from any window and consequently almost impossible to neutralize without letting it air out.

it seemed both co-ordinated and intended to upset me.

the one thing you can do is try and steam it out by running hot water and burning water on the stove at the same time. but, the hot water was out - strangely. this is twilight zone shit, really.

about an hour in, i started to freak out: i had been drugged against my will yet again, and there was nothing i could do but escape. but, i couldn't escape...it was coming from every direction...

as somebody who has hotboxed many things, i would hazard a guess that there was roughly ten grams of pot released into the air over that hour. this wasn't a j or two. this was an onslaught...like they were burning open leaves as incense...

once again: i didn't feel stoned, i felt agitated and angry. i wanted to smash something in. the headache was creeping back (and is still there, nine hours later).

what does meth do? well, some of the literature focuses on the hormones, but this isn't really what a user actually experiences, despite the drug industry propaganda. the only hormonal reaction i'm getting is a headache, which is probably an acute withdrawal symptom. but, i don't want more drugs, i want to detox

what meth (also called speed) does is give you a really short burst of energy, followed by a really terrible crash. if you're dancing, you might look like this:

do they look that ridiculous?

worse.

because they can't dance like that. rather, they flop their arms around and stamp their feet like children having a temper tantrum. it lasts a few minutes - twenty at the most, but usually more like five. they can be easily identified by how obtuse they appear. and, then they zoom off the floor and go pass out somewhere.

the sensationalized media portrayal of meth is just that. most people at the rave really actually just have a few drinks, maybe a few tokes. mdma is fun, if you can find it. if you're of legal age, you probably know better. balloons are quite popular, as well. and, the people taking uppers that last the night are mostly taking very small hits of actual cocaine up their noses. these little spoons they carry around...

the speed addicts are really rather rare, and are the isolated losers; they don't last on the floor very long - because speed isn't an endurance drug but a short burst and a long crash. the effects of the drug might last you 12 hours, but the high is only a few minutes, and you'll spend most of the night struggling with the come down in the bathroom or outside by yourself. as addictive as it is, you often hear things like "i made the mistake of trying that once....never again...."

that's if you're dancing.

what if you're having an awful fucking day? then, that burst of energy is going to manifest itself as anger, as violence. and, that's what i've been going through repeatedly with this: the smell pisses me off, and then the effect of the drug takes over, and i get very uncharacteristically angry. i yell and scream for a few minutes, it passes through my system in an hour, and then i sleep it off for ten-twelve hours.

and, i don't want this to happen again. ever. there is no reason at all that i need to tolerate being drugged against my will - and arguments that i do are ridiculous. if you think that being a liberal means getting stoned because your neighbour is, you don't understand liberalism so well.

today, i stormed downstairs and banged on their door and demanded they cut down their intake. and, it seems to have had enough of an effect that i'm starting to clear it out of my system.

so, i'm going to give them a grace today, tomorrow.

but, i'll be at the clinic early monday morning if this happens again tomorrow night.

i've also decided that i need to apologize. i don't yell at people like that. it's deeply uncharacteristic. i need to explain that i believe my behaviour was a consequence of second-hand smoke exposure, and that what they're smoking is clearly laced with something. i'm going to present meth as the most likely culprit..

but, how much smoke is getting up here?

1) enough that i can see it in the apartment. clearly. a stranger walking in here would assume i'm a smoker just via what they can see with their eyes.
2) enough that it's frizzing my hair out.

it's a lot...

i'm feeling far more alert, today...and i didn't go through a messy phase last night, although i slept a lot...

if i'm going to catch meth or crack in the urine, it's going to need to be within a few hours of being poisoned by it, so there's no use in going today, because i didn't feel it last night.

we'll see what i feel like in the morning.

i mean, if they're done, they're done. i mentioned that it wasn't bad until a few days ago; some of  the vocal snippets i'm hearing from downstairs suggests that some parents or grandparents may have been away for the week.

that would explain everything....

i understand that the way meth is supposed to work is to mess up your rewards system. you end up addicted to a hormone, and not to meth itself.

but, my response is not give me rewards, or give me death!

rather, it's stop "rewarding me" and fuck off.

maybe there's some connection to the fact that i've never been a keener. i've never had an interest in being at the top of the class, or working my way up the ladder, or really winning at much of anything - i've always preferred to project mediocrity in the physical realm, and then be a god in my own fantasy reality. so, what meth is doing is setting off a hormonal reaction that i've never craved in the first place. and, i'm not craving for more, but pleading that they turn it off.

as i've always said: what "reaching for the top" means to me is that i must have left my beer on the top of the book shelf.

being awake for days is fun.

and, being stoned is sometimes fun.

but, being awake and stoned for days is the definition of hell.

i don't need or want drugs to help me stay awake for days at a time.

the manic phase is far more enjoyable when it's organic, because it doesn't come with an artificial buzz.

getting out of the apartment this morning took me away from the poisonous smoke for long enough to allow me to come down, which gave me an opportunity to actually sleep this afternoon, and i took it over running around looking for a means to incriminate the source of the smoke.

i'll get the drug tests done in the morning.

i have the windows open and my winter jacket on to compensate. but, there will no doubt be plenty more poison wafting up tonight.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pharmaceutical-drug-company-doctor-physician-payment-disclosure-transparency-1.4169888

occam's razor is that the doctor was/is a shill for the pharmaceutical company, and was just looking for a new victim.

but, is there a chart? and is somebody taking orders?

you can never be sure what they do or who they call when they turn that corner...and mu experiences have made the paranoia hard to completely shake...

i think they'd jump at the opportunity to wipe me out. sure.

and, to the fucking dipshit calvinists left standing, get this through your thick heads: my aversion to labour has nothing to do with drugs.

i am sober, and i still don't want to work.

and, if i had to waste all fucking day at some stupid waste of time piece of shit job, i guarantee you i'd be more interested in blasting away my individuality in a blaze of dead brain cells, because i'd have nothing else to live for besides my own self-destruction.

i've told you repeatedly that this is a philosophical position, not a mental illness. and, people of the future, in a post-labour world, will look back on me as the only sane person on the entire fucking planet.

meth really isn't so dangerous - er "doctor" in windsor, ontario

my neighbours are smoking meth.

it's making me sick, so i went to the hospital.

they tried to prescribe me opiates as a painkiller.

fucking society. here's my prescription: destruction.

i'm not straight edge, but i'm a punk at heart, and i don't want to take non-recreational habit forming drugs unless i need to.

i have no interest in living in a designer drug society that prescribes a different pill for every problem.

so, you could imagine my frustration when the doctor listens to my description of being drugged by my neighbour's second hand meth smoke and responds with a suggestion to prescribe me painkillers.

i'll stick with aspirin, thanks.

"we don't prescribe aspirin."

yeah - i bet you don't have a contract with them, do you? you fucking pusher...

the thing is that she didn't drop it. she insisted that i accept an iv. and, i called her on being a pusher and stormed out.

all i wanted was a write-up for a vitals blood test. i want to know what they're poisoning me with, and how much damage it's done.

so, i'm going to try the clinic, instead.

fuck...

my basic position is that i don't care what the consequences are for them.

i care what the consequences are for me.

i think this is what i'm going to do:

i'm going to go to a clinic tomorrow and ask to get tested for everything they can test me for. then, i'll take the results to the landlord & the cops and ask them to move on it from there.

because, i don't know.

but, i'm starting to change my mind: i need to know.

it'll be clear and concise: my neighbours are smoking something, i think it's meth, it's making me very sick, and i need medical attention.

should i go to a hospital for detox?

i might...

if i become convinced it's meth, i have no problem sending the cops in over it.

might they even be able to tell me if it is via blood test?

i'm not there yet, but i'm close.

the symptoms need to be gone by the time the sun comes up.

i'm leaning towards it being meth.

this is a good summary of how i'm feeling.

http://www.methamphetamineaddiction.com/the-five-most-common-meth-withdrawal-signs-and-symptoms/

ok, everything else aside, july of 2015 was actually a heavy posting month so let's hope i can pick things up in august.

the plumber fixed the shower but left a hole in the wall for smoke to seep in through, so i've moved into the living room until it gets plastered over. of course, the retards below me followed me in here - because they seem to be trying to get under my skin. you have to just ignore immature people, like that, and maybe hope somebody decides not to break for them, the next time they cross the street. they're obviously feeding off of my discomfort, due to there clearly being something wrong with them.

all of the windows are open and they will probably not close again until december. but, it's warmer in the other room, so it would be rational for them to stay on the other side of the building. hopefully, they take the bait.

i feel like i'm being harassed, but there's no use in letting whatever they're drugging me with get me upset about it.

all i can do is try and get as much oxygen in here, to fight the constant tension headaches being caused by whatever kind of hard drugs it is that they're doing, and i still have no idea if this is a meth addict or a crackhead, down there - because i've never been in direct contact with either substance.

i just feel tired, yet can't sleep. it's constant headaches, and constant stomach aches. i'm getting tracers, but it's not different from what i was getting with the migraines, and think they're being triggered by the headaches rather than by the drugs. so, you tell me: is that meth or crack? i don't know, and don't really care, i just want to air the place out.

there is no possibility that i'm going to ever enjoy whatever the fuck this is.

so, as has been the case the last few nights, i'm going to try and get some work done, with little confidence in my ability to do so. i will probably spend most of the night trying and failing to sleep.

i'm not normally somebody that has difficulty focusing. when i sit down to do something, i normally have a really laser-sharp focus; i'll spend days or weeks lost in a task, to the expense of things around me, and not really care.

so, this is something i'm not sure i've experienced before. i have no memories of this, at the least.

i almost feel like i'm not the same person, or something.

the emotions i'm feeling are a combination of anger and frustration. it's making me want to lash out at something or somebody. it's beyond uncharacteristic. it's almost got me wondering if somebody's put something in my water, or something, as this is what i'd imagine that somebody on anti-depressants is likely to feel like.

but, i know it's the smoke and i know i just have to wait it out.

i do not think i suffer from depression. i have never been seriously diagnosed with depression. i do not think i have a chemical imbalance. and, if somebody is drugging me against my will, that person or entity should face severe penalties and consequences: because this is beyond unpleasant, and in no way medically jusrified.

i'm literally feeling an urge to beat something into a pulp. i'm somebody that has been on testosterone suppressors for almost ten years; that does not make sense. and, i've never experienced that before.

it's not pot. i don't know what it is; i've never done anti-depressents. i've never done cocaine. i've never done meth. i've never smoked crack. i don't know what they taste or smell like, or what they feel like.

but, i know that this is the worst i've ever felt in my life.

i've got almost nothing done in days because of this....

i'm not going to be able to handle much more than a few more days like this without freaking out.

so, the shower had better be fixed, soon, so i can start taping these holes up.

there's going to be a violent confrontation if i can't keep the smoke out.

meth is not something you fuck around with.

an accidental overdose could lead to mass organ failure and instant death.

with the exception of heroin (& derivatives), it is singularly dangerous amongst "recreational" drugs.

i would literally go down there, knock their down and beat the shit out of them on the spot. i'd then blame it on the second-hand smoke wafting up, and intend to win the argument.

are they smoking meth down there, or what?

fuck...this is simply hellish...

also, they finally updated my electricity balance.

it's at -39.50.

that's right: enwin is crediting my account by $40 for february.

well, use less electricity, then.

i don't feel stoned.

i feel really, really, really hungover.

i got a few hours of sleep this afternoon, but i woke up disoriented, and i still feel like i had a lobotomy. my brain just feels gone. i'm not really here, and i don't like it at all. i'm taking aspirin every 5 or 6 hours and it helps with the headache, but not with the disorientation. i've also consumed something like two pots of coffee over the last 48 hours, and it's only barely helping me fight this crappy woozy feeling.

the plumber replaced the broken cartridge this morning, but he had to rebuild the system to do it, and now there's apparently a leak in the pipe behind the shower head, so he's going to have to come back tomorrow to tear the wall down.

i'm actually looking forward to this, because it should give me a better opportunity to patch the holes in the wall, in the long run.

i might not stay awake very long. but, i'm going to try to work through july tonight. and, then i'm going to need to pull everything out of the bedroom so he can work with the plaster in the morning. and, like i say - i'm ok with this, because it will give me a chance to tape the walls down.

the temperature outside has fallen, but i don't really care. i'm going to need the windows open until i can find a way to stop the smoke from seeping in.