so, i crashed around 2:00, meaning yesterday was about 20 hours - far too short, for this time of year.

i should be enjoying nice, long 36 hour days in this kind of heat. and i shouldn't be sleeping for ridiculously long lengths like 7 hours - i should be wide awake after three or four.

the stench of pot was weaker than usual but steady last night. even after seven hours of sleep, i'm not 100%, right now.

as mentioned: i'm not partying this weekend. i don't feel like there's much to celebrate, right now. that might let me steal something when everybody else is too stoned to notice.

that gets me through january 2014 (on the politics page).

i think i can get through the summer by sunrise. honestly.

right now, it's time to eat, again.

marijuana is not a medicine, and it is not used to treat symptoms, whatever those symptoms are.

rather, it's a recreational drug that is used in social situations in order to have a good time with.

i'm just not feeling up to going out this weekend at all. i've actually been over this before, but i guess i get the opportunity to demonstrate it, now.

a lot of people would say something like "you're having a shitty weekend, so, relax and smoke a joint - it will make you feel better.". no. if i go out for beers on saturday, or i find drugs this weekend more generally, it's just going to make me more depressed. it's not going to make me feel better. i know that.

drugs can work alright with stress, sometimes. but, that's different. that's "i'm feeling like i need to take a load off and forget about things for a few hours". fine. it usually works best with music or dancing - it's a process of getting away.

but, when i'm actually angry or frustrated or upset about something, drugs are just going to make the situation worse, and the absolute last thing i want.

what i want right now is cold sobriety and absolute social avoidance. i'll go out and have fun again when i feel more like myself.

so, they filed an l2 after all.

i guess that the landlord thought she had to wait until the 27th; she could have filed it the day of.

i expect to beat the l2 if i have to fight it - they lied on the forms. but, i don't want to reschedule my t2/t6 after their l2, regardless of the outcome.

what that means is that i have to carry through with the court process on thursday, because i want my court date first. so, i might as well print the letters this afternoon.

this is going to put me in a tricky situation of potentially having the tenancy cancelled august 1st, without being ready to move on that date. so, this is a gamble. it would be an awful judge, however, that would order an eviction within weeks of the court date...i would expect her to set the date for either september or october.

give that there's an l2, they are not likely to consent to a rescheduling. so, i'd have to cancel and resubmit.

they should have waited until after the 5th. that's an error on their behalf.

so, the politics blog is now filled in from the time i got to windsor until the beginning of 2014.

i finished archiving my link dump in early 2014, which was mostly spent on music, and on youtube debates. again: i don't expect this to be all that lengthy. i hope to get a lot done this weekend.

nothing up this morning. no response from the agent from yesterday. i need to make some calls and eat.

i have to brace myself for the reality that i'm probably going to get overwhelmed repeatedly and spend more time sleeping this weekend than i'd like. it's going to simply be disgusting in here.

but, right now the steam is working relatively well in cleansing the air of whatever the fuck it is that she's smoking.

the down side is that i'm sopping in sweat in my bed, but at least i'm wide awake and not wasting the night away sleeping...

what if it's the drug addict below me that is moving out?

i don't know if the situation is salvageable. it would be a step in the right direction.

four rooms is actually a little better, as it lets me have the following:

1) studio
2) bedroom
3) eating space
4) library (+ cd library)

in the last space, i was planning around building book shelves in the bedroom & cd shelves in the eating space. i was planning on putting all of the shelving, here, in the bedroom.

the four rooms are all smallish, but it will work out fine if you keep that in mind...

and, while i don't smoke a lot of pot, it would be nice to have a patio space out back for once in a while :)

don't misunderstand me. the place is kind of dilapidated. creaky. old. i'm sure there are various things living in it. the bath tub is ancient. the water might not be great. it may be drafty. and, everything about it will require some effort.

but, what i need is a relatively big smoke-free space at a price i can afford, and that is this.

yeah.

i'm not leaving the apartment unattended all day, and advertising it to them. i'm not even sure they'll obey a court ruling.

i'll play the angle that i gave them previous notice of cancelling the hearing, and am consequently giving them the opportunity to reschedule this case or force me to open a new one. and, i'll put in a request to reschedule without them, either way.

the worst thing that could happen would be for the judge to end the lease on the first of august, but

1) i can appeal that &
2) i hope to be out by the first, anyways.

it will also allow me to present more concrete moving costs. i did this backwards last time: i moved a bunch of stuff by truck, and the rest by hand. we'll do this the other way this time.

if i have sufficient time to do it in, and the distance is short enough, it will only be a couple of items i won't be able to move by hand: a couch, a dresser, a desk. i could maybe even put up an ad on kijiji for somebody with a truck, looking for a good deed. or, maybe a moving company will accept the sob story and do it on their lunch break: it will probably literally take 20 minutes.

i think the guy over-charged me last time, because he sent the bill to the city. maybe he'll be willing to balance it out...

it's the moving costs i'm trying the hardest to recoup.

my landlord just put a unit in this building up.

there's furniture that is not mine outside, so it might not be my unit. or it might be.

it's got me kind of antsy...

i'm thinking that we're going to have to skip the middle option, at this point, because i don't really want to leave the unit unattended all day on the 5th if i'm not certain i'm moving out. i'm not even happy about it on the case of certainty - i would rather get out first and sue them after.

the place is shady, all around.

so, i'm just going to give them the opportunity to reschedule outright. if they refuse to do that, the court will be within it's bounds to hear the case as i present it - but i'll also be within my rights to cancel and reschedule unilaterally.

that place was actually acceptable, but i think i got brushed off a little bit. the ad says 825 + hydro. she's claiming it's 825 + utilities, generally.

i wouldn't have gone at all if i knew that. but, why would the ad say 825 + hydro if it's 825 + utilities?

so, she says she'll check and call back. there's some chance she might be wrong, fair enough. so, she has until 8:00 before i call her...

i can be a bit annoying when i want something done :).

there's three stores on the bottom floor and an empty dance club for lease next door. it's four equally sized rooms, and a patio on the roof in the back. kinda perfect, all around.

if it's that easy, great. and we'll be in court on the 5th. we'll find out in a few hours.

i don't have issues with depression, but i do have issues with solipsism, and living in constant drug abuse certainly isn't going to help me with that. i'm actually at high risk for marijuana-induced dementia, because i'm already in the spectrum. my mom has severe mental issues, of the type that probably are genetic. and, ive been through a few episodes...

so, at risk of sounding like i'm under the influence of this drug (and i am.) let me state that, on the remote chance that i'm being experimented on, these negative effects are a consequence of dose.

all that's happening is that i'm falling asleep. i'm not even getting high. i'm just become immobile.

i don't want a drug that's going to "chill me out". i enjoy wild mood swings - it's a part of existence. but, if i don't have a choice for as long as i'm here then please reduce the dosage.

knocked me out again this morning...

i've been having difficulty staying awake the last 36 hours, which is no doubt a combination of the rain and the pot. i slept through her blaze this evening and woke up to a remnant smell around midnight, and with a splitting headache.

the showing yesterday was another ashtray of a house - a laundry room that smelled horribly of stale tobacco, and a lawn littered with discarded butts. just fucking gross...if the guy didn't catch me immediately, i would have walked right by without even bothering to go in.

there's something tomorrow. it's a bit bigger than i might need, and a bit more than i might like, but there's some upsides: great location, right downtown, and on top of a storefront, so probably minimal smoke issues.

it's for july, though. and, i'm not going to be ready to move until august 1st at the earliest. so, it;s just to see it.

at least it's going to be nice this weekend, but i plan on staying in. i need to save money. i need to catch up on work. the stress has been hard on my skin. and, i'm not in a good mood right now, overall.

what does it mean for me to break even?

i signed a lease in 2013 for $650 all inclusive, and the place was perfectly sized. my income at the time was $1075, not including tax rebates. that's about 60% of income - relatively high, but i was happy.

today, my income is $1151. the equivalent percentage of my income works out to $695.95. i'm currently paying $700.

i understand that housing inflates slightly, but it should not be growing faster than inflation.

that said, i know i got a good deal - and i know i'll need to shop for a bit to find another deal that good.

i found one today, but she wants a student. sadly.

so, i got a very quick response on my request to reschedule: i used the wrong form.

well, i had previously made a request to move the hearing forward, called a "request to extend or shorten time" form. if the request to move a hearing up is a request to shorten time, a request to push the hearing back should be a request to extend time, right? that's rational, isn't it? so, i used the same form to request an extension that i did to request an expedited case. what makes more sense than that?

it turns out that there's a "request to reschedule hearings" form, but you only use the request to reschedule when you want to reschedule later on (that is, extend time); when you want to reschedule sooner, you request to shorten time. meaning, there's a different process to extend than there is to shorten - despite the form being to request to extend or to shorten.

it's less legalese and more bureaucracy.

worse, there's a caveat: i need to ask for consent to reschedule later.

now, i grasp the value of doing this, don't get me wrong, but the situation is really not consistent with itself. i can unilaterally schedule a hearing. i can unilaterally ask a hearing be held sooner - which is a reschedule request, isn't it? and, i can even unilaterally cancel a hearing by not showing up. but, if i want to reschedule a hearing, i need to ask for consent.

sort of.

i could always cancel the hearing by not showing up, and then reschedule it later by reapplying, right? and, that's what i think i'm going to do...sort of....

i need to write this down because the second-hand smoke is affecting my ability to think clearly, right now, against my will. it's the perfect example of why i need out: i'm trying to carefully work through the logic of planning a move out properly, and i can't focus because i'm forcibly second-hand stoned. i can't be trying to work out recursion relations right now, but how about that? it's surreal, it really is. i'm too stoned to be able to focus on planning to escape from the drugs. fuck.

so, the reason i wanted to file the extension is so i could withhold rent on the 1st. it's just about optics, right? if i withhold rent on the 1st and show up to a hearing on the 5th, they can throw that at me, and i look like a bum. yeah, i'm going to explain the situation and keep paying rent if i have to, but it's better if i just put it off. and, even if i'm still stuck here at a hearing date in october, i can point out that i've paid rent since then, and will until i can plan an escape. at the least, i'm escaping the situation of suing somebody for damages days after i've withheld rent.

but, if i have to ask for consent, the logic of tiptoeing around the situation evaporates.

i have a showing across the street from their rental office tomorrow, so i'm wondering if it makes sense to leave them a letter when i'm there. the letter would say something like "in pursuant to the previous letter..", and lay out a request for consent to reschedule. it's just that i'm wondering if i may catch something over the next few days when everybody else is distracted. the apartment tomorrow looks a little small, but it's cheap - so, if it's big enough, it's good enough, if there aren't smokers (let's be realistic: there probably are). she didn't know, on the phone. then, i caught a standalone house for $600, which would be completely fucking perfect, but the idiot landlord only wants to rent to students, which makes no financial sense on her behalf. odsp is the most stable income in the city. why would you rent to some kids that could move out in october after flunking their midterms when you can get a longterm tenant on odsp? that's just dumb. really, really dumb.

but, it demonstrates the point: i could get lucky. i mean, you can't predict stupidity, but an ideal option just appeared and disappeared in front of me, right? if i can sign something for august 1st in the next ten days, i want to appear at that hearing on the 5th...

the reason i filed today was because i wanted to make sure the board had a week to process it, but it seems like it's only going to need 24-48 hours, if that. in fact, the form specifies 48 hours. so, i could have waited anyways - and probably should have. i may have been saved from a mistake, there.

hey, i'm largely winging this. i've never done this before. that's why clear thinking is so important.

i think i want to lay the situation out clearly.

if consent to reschedule is not granted, i'm going to unilaterally cancel the hearing and refile the same case the day of the previous hearing. i'll have it ready to go and stop at the office on the way home. so, the choices are that we can reschedule the existing hearing or we can start the process a second time. why bother denying consent, then?

well, the answer to that is that they could file an eviction notice the next day - but, if they do that, i'll carry through with the hearing. and, it wouldn't necessitate the need for costs, anyways.

and, if i'm going to give them this letter, i'd might as well wait until the very last minute, which would be when i don't pay my rent, rather than tomorrow afternoon. it may be a nice idea to think i can trick them into giving consent and then not pay rent, but i don't think i have the timelines - and i don't think that wrath is worth generating. i'm still a little apprehensive about an illegal eviction attempt.

but, what if i withhold rent on july 1st, and move august 1st? if i do that, i'll have at least $1200 for moving costs. i'll be broke, but at least i'll have a receipt to take to the court.

the flip side is that if i win money for a new couch & bed then i won't bother to move the ones i have, which would save me a lot on moving costs. i may even be able to try and sell them.

so, i don't want to give them anything until saturday.

and i'm not sure yet exactly what that should be.

it's either going to be a statement that i'm moving on august 1st, or it's going to be an attempt to strong-arm a rescheduling or it's going to be a statement that i've changed my mind and am ready to go for the fifth, in which case the judge will almost certainly reschedule.

yeah.

i'm glad that didn't work...that was a little premature...

i don't actually have to technically file until the 3rd.

now, here's an interesting grey area - what if i get consent to reschedule and change my mind before i file?

i want to specify that i'm not really acting in a shady manner, here. i'm trying to get out as soon as possible, and i'm going to eventually sue them for costs. these things are certain. and, so, to an extent, i'm acting in their interests, as well. what's less clear is timelines. and what i'm trying to avoid is a situation where i move before i'm ready, and just have to do it again.

i guess what i wanted to figure out is if i should make the request for consent tomorrow afternoon, and the answer is that i shouldn't. and, i shouldn't have tried to file today, either - that was premature on my behalf.

also, don't tell me smoking pot is "cool".

to begin with, that's wrong. it was never cool. it's not cool now. the beatniks were losers. the hippies were losers. and, the potheads of today are losers, too.

if your kids smoke pot, it's not because it's cool, it's because they're losers and you're either too out of touch or too lost in self-delusion to clue into it. don't fall into that trap.

but, even if it were true, that wouldn't make it ok - just as all the propaganda in the world from edward bernays doesn't make smoking cigarettes ok, either.

science-based policy is not about what's cool, it's about what's true.

i mean, say it how you want.

it's bad etiquette.

it's impolite.

it's a filthy habit....

...but, understand that this was the premise in the first place: that it's ok as long as you're not bothering anybody, and that once you start bothering people, it's not ok any more....

we need to uphold and maintain the idea that smoking pot is something you do away from other people.

the building i'm in right now is actually a good example.

i'm trying to escape a terrible situation with a government-protected drug addict ruining the entire building, who is being coddled by a property manager that seems to be her smoking buddy. but, the actual owner just declared the building non-smoking, and i've been told that the manager has been instructed to take advantage of the new lease requirements in not renting to smokers.

right now, these buildings are full of smokers. but, as tenancies open up, they're going to be pushed out - and it's going to be harder and harder for them to find a place to stay, while it's easier and easier for me to find a place to breathe.

the smokers will complain, of course. but, i think this is the correct rights balance: smokers should get used to a future where they need to start renting rooms in houses, or buying the houses themselves, because apartments are turning over on this.

and, why should a smoker be allowed to ruin everybody else's good time? it's 2018. we know with absolute certainty what smoking does to people's health. this is scientific fact. and, the premise of agitating for legalization has always been that it's harmless, and this does remain true, so long as the social stigma remains attached to it. for years, the argument was always "they're in a field over there, they're not harming anybody, they'll be gone in ten minutes, just leave them alone.". that argument simply does not transfer over, remotely, at all, to somebody that is sitting inside an apartment building smoking an ounce of pot day after day - that person is harming everybody stuck consuming their filth.

and, this is the literal definition of filth. you're just delusional to deny it.

if we want to transfer the argument over, it should only apply to people that own their own property - and smokers that want to rent should continue to go out in the field, where they're not bothering anybody, as that was the premise in the first place.

so, the longer i wait, the better my chances actually become.

i need a relatively big, non-smoking space for dirt cheap.

i simply can't fit my stuff in a small space, and i simply don't want to live with smokers.

and, i'm stuck here until it comes up.

that's reality...but, the lease changes might be opening up the market i want, too. we'll see.

that building i saw today might be very different six months from now, if they're serious about throwing the smokers out.

if i get into a bad situation, i may have to move into an office space, short term, which isn't as crazy as it sounds. i can claim it's a recording studio. could even get a small bar fridge. there are very, very cheap office spaces around with communal showers that i'm sure nobody else uses; the problem is i don't expect to be able to claim rent.

right now, i'm paying $700 for rent. $479 is listed as shelter, and then i have to pay $221 out of my other costs. if i can get an office space for ~$300, that would be the same thing as paying around $800 in rent, which is the absolute maximum i'm budgeting for. i'd no doubt have to leave my couch here. but, i'm not sure i can salvage it, anyways - the smoke coming in is really that filthy.

if it comes to that, i'll just lock myself inside somewhere for a winter and get as much work as i can done until i can get out.

hopefully, something comes up soon and i can get out fairly quickly, with costs.

so, it seems like i'm out of options for arranging an august 1st move in date for july 1st.

it's after 9:00 pm on june 25th and there are still listings coming up for july 1st. i need my deposit back if i'm going to move for august 1st. that's just how shit works - and i'll have to argue the point in court, if it comes to it.

i got a letter in the mail today telling me i can pick up the police reports that i filed in march. i'll need to use that as evidence for the eventual hearing.

and, tomorrow, i'm going to have to file the request to extend the court date until...i'm going to guess the earliest dates are in october. if it's denied, i'll plan to go to court on july 5th. if it's accepted, i'll withhold rent on the 1st, give them a letter indicating that i don't necessarily plan to move at the end of the month (and will resume normal payments until i move out, if i don't) and wing it from there.

i confirmed today that i'm going to lose my oesp credits when i move, so i'm better off ramping up the hydo than cutting it down. it's about $200 in credits, so that should be enough to get through as much of the last year of vlogs as i can. but, i'm going to catch up on the rebuild tonight instead - because if the request for the extension gets denied, i'll have to use that document to build a journal, by the 5th. i'll at least have several weeks to create vlogs, after that.

so, i'm probably not going to hit the july 1st deadline, but i might have the last year's worth of vlogs ready to publish by august 1st.

the smoke was not bad this evening, but it's gotten very bad over the last hour. hopefully, she's leaving, soon, for the night.

i don't want to drag this on - i want out. but, the reality is that my resources are limited, and there's nothing to gain by moving into another unit with the same set of problems - i'll just have to go through this all over again.

that unit is going to sit forever.

smokers are going to see the non-smoking listing and recoil. non-smokers are going to walk in and walk right out.

so, i walk up to the building and the first thing i see is a non-smoking sign - and at least 30 cigarette butts littered around in front of it, indicating two things:

1) there are many smokers in this building.
2) the rules don't appear to be being followed.

so, if the first thing i see is a bunch of butts in front of a non-smoking sign, how confident should i be that i'm going to keep the smoke out of the unit?

and, why bother advertising a unit as non-smoking when so many of your tenants are smokers?

so, i'm not impressed to begin with, to put it lightly.

i call the rental office and indicate that i had an appointment at 9:00.

"something changed over the weekend."

she then hung up on me. i call back...

"is the unit still available?"

she said to come back at 2:00.

i don't think i'm going to bother. again: it's a shame. it's a nice, older building. good location. but, full of filthy people...

so, i've rebuilt from july-october, 2013 this afternoon. october seemed unusually heavy, due to getting back on the internet after a two month layoff.

this is also an error-checking process, and i've updated a couple of little things.

i should probably try and get a few hours of sleep tonight, but she's home and blazing non-stop, as she does - just chain smoking one after another. and, i've been through this before. i went through it two weeks ago: i fall asleep in the smoke and then i can't get up until noon.

but, i have an appointment at 9:00 in the morning.

so, i'm tired, but i'm afraid that if i fall asleep, i'll end up too stoned (due to sleeping in the second hand marijuana smoke) to get up. and, as it is, i may very well walk in there with red eyes, and smelling like drugs. that doesn't help my chances in getting out of here, does it?

what a catastrophe.

what a fucking mess...

on twenty-seventh thought...

this catastrophe of an apartment is going to be a space solely of typing and writing.

i will not record here.

and, the alter-reality has advanced into the internet era, now.

so, let me set up the politics blog for the alter-reality, too and move forward as one after i move.

i actually do not expect this to take nearly as long.

there will be a third blog for music reviews, but i'm not touching that at all right now.

yeah.

on second thought, why don't i get that in order after i check the listings after lunch.

i'm also going to need to call the oesp tomorrow, and figure out what happens to these electrical credits.

if i have to use them before i move, i should get the other machine on compressing vlogs for the last year.

i wanted to to fix the other laptop and use it for a dedicated vlog machine, but, right now, that seems pretty distant, with all this chaos going on. i guess i could get these compressed and published for the first after all...even if it's just raw, for now....

i napped on friday evening and woke up friday night after she'd left to go where she goes and finished archiving the facebook page over night. that was planned; it's not acceptable, but it's pragmatic on my behalf to try to schedule work periods for when she's gone. she was smoking all day saturday, but the steam was actually effective in keeping the air clear, and i actually had what was a really long, nice day - not crashing until late on saturday night. i'm at least happy that i had a productive day...

the smell today is mostly of stale tobacco, from who knows where in the building or even outside. but, she is smoking down there...so i don't have the option to close the window....i'm just steaming out as much as i can....

the music vlog is now completely backed up in the master archive. so, the next thing to do should be to distribute the material in the master archive back out to the two vlogs, and also to the music master list. but, i am also going to need to use the master archive to build the journal for the court date, whenever it is. ideally, i'd be able to do that after i've weaved everything together...

i'm going to get something to eat, and then check listings. if i see some more leads for august, i'll wait for the rescheduling request; if not, i'll put that in on monday, after the showing in the morning (which i expect to be a bust, but need to try...). i'm going to get back to what i was doing for the night, and could conceivably get most of the way through the summer done. i'll know in a few days if i need to fast forward or not.

so, the next section to rebuild is from june 19th to dec 8th - and that is the last rebuild. it's all archiving after that.

lastly, i suppose that it would be prudent to run the master list through an error-checking process before i start using it to publish liner notes.

when? before i move. hopefully.

"but, when am i going to write new music?"

i'm probably not going to do that at all.

i'm trying to finish my incomplete works. when that is complete, i will likely focus full time on my writing. when looked at more broadly, my musical career will end around 2011 or so.

there may be loose ends; i may change my mind. but, my reaction to the world around me, as an adult, is through the written word.

if that isn't obvious.

at some point it will click: this drug addict is costing me a lot of money.

in this circumstance, i have to hope the landlord eventually takes it out on the pothead; all i can do is extract damages for negligence.

and, i'm sure he will, eventually.

i mean, if the action was meant to punish this woman for her actions, and it was, then i'm certain she paid dearly, in the end - and there was really nothing i could have done to hold the space, anyways.

i just want to clarify a point, as i'm backing up the music vlog...

the last time i had an argument with a landlord, i put a case for thousands in claims on hold, was admittedly outmanoeuvred (albeit trivially, from my perspective, as i could not have claimed any winnings and there could not have been another outcome) and ended up getting evicted. so, i lost pretty badly, right?

well, it must have cost her at least five thousand dollars to evict me - plus whatever money flowed around under the table (i'm pretty sure some did.). added up, i may have spent $20 on printing costs. maybe. and, any money i would have "won" would have had to be returned to disability. i lost a plum spot, but i didn't lose any money on the move. further, it did become clear over time that she wanted me out, regardless - there wasn't anything i could have done to reverse the situation. even if i had won the case, she would have kept trying to get me out. i was fighting it on the hope that she was planning to sell..

i was clear in all of my communications with her that the purpose of the fines was to act as a disincentive for the continuing harassment, not as a means for me to make money from the situation. i even offered to donate the money to charity, at one point. what i wanted was for the harassment to stop. so, i was actually using the money as leverage - i didn't expect to ever see it. and, the other option was to just sit there and let them harass me, which was unacceptable...

but, the reality is that i didn't incur any losses, so i didn't have any grounds for action.

this is a different scenario. i might not be able to keep rent money, but i should be able to keep damages, and i should be able to apply moving costs. so, this case is worth fighting, and i intend to follow through one way or another.

so, i've got the facebook part of this updated now, and it shouldn't have taken nearly that long, but i was occupied by other things, too.

the next task will be to copy the rest of the music vlog into the master document.

i'm getting there.

really.

it's the society that is sick.

i get it.

that said, i could look at it the other way, too - i should be excited if i can find a landlord with the foresight to advertise with sufficient notice.

it's june 22nd, and there are still listings coming up for july 1st.

and, i've been told by one property owner that if i want to apply for august 1st then they won't take my application until after july 1st. of course, they are requesting first & last.

so, what is the expectation, then? are they expecting to rent solely to people moving away from parents? from break-ups? from eviction notices?

or is this just a good example of the short-sightedness of capitalism & the self-destructiveness of accumulation?

i don't know, but i'm learning the lesson: by following the rules, i'm getting burned.

you'd think they'd stop making the same mistakes and begin to realize that if they want a good tenant then they should advertise a month ahead, but that's going to mean losing a month's rent - or taking a bad tenant to court. so, the bad tenants set the rules, and the property owners follow along, out of greed. what ought to be a way to determine a stable tenant from an unstable one gets abolished; the idea may have even been largely forgotten. the market here operates entirely on the last minute. people live week-to-week. tenants get evicted mid-month, and move in on random dates. it's complete anarchy in living arrangements...

allowing my landlord to hold last month's rent, then, puts me at a disadvantage, as i can't compete with people getting evicted, or students saving up deposits. or, not unless i take matters into my own hands.

it needs to be one way or the other: if we're going to have first & last, it ought to be enforced. and, if we're not going to enforce it, we ought to get rid of it.

i can't afford to give my landlord a $700 gift for negligence in maintaining the unit. sorry. so, i'm going to have to take a bold stand, and argue the point in court: in order to be a serious participant in the market, i need to reclaim my last month's rent deposit. otherwise, i'll be here forever.

i'd suggest that the landlord write her mpp a letter requesting stronger enforcement of this rule on the market. so long as i continue paying rent regularly, such an action should not affect my credit.

the air quality in here tonight was horrific, and i spent the evening sleeping as a result. i think i'm alert, now, and ready to get some work done over the quiet hours of the night & the morning.

it took a few hours to clear my sd card off. i'm clearly not going to make the july 1st deadline, but i am still vlogging.

i'm going to have to make some calls in the morning, but the non-response from my landlord regarding july's rent suggests to me that it isn't coming - which means i won't be able to move on july 1st, even if i find the perfect spot. but, it also means i might have to withhold rent, without a clear intent to move.

there is some possibility that i could convince somebody to let me sign a lease for august 1st on an empty unit, but it's not likely.

the way this is supposed to work is that you're supposed to sign a lease for the next month, and then use your last month's rent for it. that way, everybody has proper notice and can plan. but, this doesn't seem to be reality at all. the units on the market are either available immediately or for july 1st. i have every reason to think that i'm going to run into the same problem next month - meaning that, by being responsible and following the rules, i'm just going to get burned. i could even be in a situation where the unit sits empty because the landlord would rather gamble, and we all lose - stupid, sure, but that's capitalism for you.

so as long as i'm not staying here for free at any point, i think that, if the situation comes in front of a judge, i'll be able to win the argument. and, if i can't find anything for august, i may even be able to get away with keeping august's rent for moving costs, so long as the issue eventually comes up in court.

but, keeping july's rent means i'm going to have to fight the case on the 5th, unless i fax in a request to move it forward.

yeah...

i'll think this through properly for monday.

right now, i want to try and finish what i didn't finish yesterday.

how is the air quality in here? well, the pothead appears to have reappeared, unfortunately. i'm feeling tired and drained from it, it always hits you between the eyes, but i'm hoping i can blow it off for a few hours at least.

i'd like tonight to be an all-nighter, to get these loose ends tied up early in the morning and to sleep next in the afternoon. we'll see if i can struggle through the drugs and accomplish this or not.

when somebody says 'non-smoking', that means "no inhalation of combustible material in the form of smoke particles", namely:

- no smoking tobacco
- no smoking marijuana
- no smoking crack or cocaine
- no smoking crystal meth
- no smoking heroin
- no smoking sage
- no smoking oregano
- no smoking plastic
- no smoking rubber


no inhalation of burning things. period.

that was devastatingly disappointing.

i was expecting a female landlord; it turns out that was the actual landlord's mom, and the landlord is some jockish looking frat boy that works in construction or something. he lives downstairs.

the ad said no pets. they have a large dog on the ground floor, and one presumes that living there means dodging the dog on the way in, through the fenced yard. what no pets apparently means is "my dog does not play nice with others".

the ad said no smoking. but, this frat boy smells like a bong, and is clearly smoking pot in the kitchen below me. there are vents coming up from downstairs.

"when somebody says non-smoking, that doesn't mean pot."

it doesn't? in what universe?

so, i thought i was getting the top of a non-smoking, pet-free house with a nice, quiet older female living downstairs - and would instead be living on top of a pothead frat boy with a violent guard dog.

i would also gain the privilege of buying a washer & dryer.

no thanks. next.

back to the drawing board...

no new listings today.

well, there's one that i'm going to hold off on for now, and put aside - it's just a little too expensive.

i saw something this afternoon, and while i feel it was acceptable, i didn't really want to jump on it. it's going to be a lot easier for me if i plan a month ahead so that i can just use last month's, rather than have to write a letter to demand it. they want july. if the existing landlord writes me a check for last month, it should be an easy move; if she doesn't, it's going to be...let's use the word tight.

if i get this sorted out in time, i will plan to reactivate the court date, which is on the 5th - and that could get me a large settlement, or a larger win. could. if that doesn't work - or they just don't pay - it's going to be tight, for the rest of the summer. and, moving, itself may prove difficult.

the one i'm seeing tomorrow night is for august and that's a lot better, in terms of finances - it means i'll have an extra $1300 to plan around, and i'll know the outcome of the court date by the time i move.

on top of that, it was just a little further out of town than i'd like. and, while the unit is convincingly non-smoking, it's also off what is really a highway through the middle of the city. the fact that i went in rush hour reminded me of this. the one tomorrow is in a cul-de-sac, with a park around the corner...

i mean, i don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. and, i could miss an opportunity on the first spot - which is maybe what i even subconsciously want. do i really want this space? it would be that much easier if i could take it for august...

if i don't get this worked out by july 1st, i'll need to pay my rent, and flip the process over to planning for september. but the $700 i have in savings should increase to closer to $1100, which will make the process a little less tight if i have to do a quick move for august. if i do absolutely nothing at all, i should be able to put aside about $300/month, and $400/month on gst months. so, if this drags on a while, the process gets easier to afford.

and, if i lose an eviction case without compensation, i may just stop paying rent to try to mad dash it out, too.

the easy solution is to move into the place i'm seeing tomorrow night.

how's the smoke situation, here?

they've both disappeared, apparently. or maybe they both sept all day. we'll find out soon enough....

i got a few months done last night and hope to finish off the rest of it tonight.

today was spent looking for apartments, and while i was largely disappointed, i think i've got a good lead for thursday night.

i'm hoping to finish the review section tonight.

as is always the case, this is taking a little longer than expected, but i've got the list updated from the time i moved to windsor until the time i started up the vlog, now.

what i was intending on doing was making sure the facebook page was properly archived, but i decided i had to update the concert reviews in order to comprehensively do that.

i'll be carrying through with this until i get up to 06/16 - so a little less than a year. then, i'll be keeping it up to date as i catch up.

anything before the move to windsor will come up in the alter-reality.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/index.html

and, of course, the most boring thing in the world is...

having a paying job.

to hell with that.

sitting on a patio and drinking and talking about nothing? painfully fucking boring.

sitting in a field and smoking pot? deathly boring.

campfires? sing-alongs? dinner dates? watching movies? i'd rather be sentenced to torture.

give me purpose, or give me death.

no, you know what's boring?

what's boring is getting fucked up by yourself.

that's boring as fuck.

again: i've never been more than a sporadic, social type smoker - and my tolerance has always been very low.

there is no point in my life where that much pot of that intense strength would have done anything different than knock me out.

and, you can see why i'm so pissed off about the situation; i had better things to do today than sleep for 12.5 hours.

the smoke started coming in around 3:00 this morning and knocked me right out. i've been sleeping ever since. 12 hours of sleep? it smells like pot, but it is affecting me like an opiate. second hand.

so, i lost the day - what will probably be the nicest day of the year. right when i was feeling clear-headed and detoxed, too. :(.

let's see if i can finish what i was doing before i get something to eat.

actually, i've been straight edge for almost three weeks (excluding coffee and drifting smoke) and i feel pretty good about it.

given the circumstances, i don't expect to go out much this summer, and might not go out at all; therefore, i expect to be sober pretty much from now until hallowe'en.

....& the thing about bmsr is that it would be nice to hear them live up to some of the potential they're hinting at, but never do. all you ever get from them are these boring little pop songs. when will they take the next level of abstraction and do something interesting with the form they're playing with?

in a different circumstance, i may have gone to see the stargazer lillies and stayed for the headliners. but, i shouldn't be wasting cash, right now.

but, i mean it wasn't...

sometimes, i try to grapple with a trend and, in the end, walk away from it just concluding it's not for me - i give it a fair hearing and rule against it sort of thing. but i actually do listen to it before i trash it.

i never gave that garage rock movement that existed at the time a second listen; i had about as much interest in the strokes as i had in calypso music.

it was just completely out of my sphere of interest.

i actually don't think i've ever bothered listening to a strokes record all the way through.

i had friends into that scene, but i always thought it was stupid and avoided it pretty strenuously, from the start. there's really nothing that came out of it that i ever liked at all.

i may even go so far as to say that my reaction to it at the time was something along the lines of interpreting at as the final death blow to rock music as an art form - and, in hindsight, i may have been right.

there's just nothing going on but empty retro regurgitation - it's literally indiscernible from what it's copying. meaning it's the reduction of the form to a parody, a novel act.

and, i suppose that doesn't matter much to you if it's what you've always known, right? but it was actually really frustrating to see the media pushing this empty trash, after experiencing the high points of 90s art rock, which was actually relatively popular.

i spent the early 00s listening to post-rock.

ok.

so, i know how i'm doing this: i believe in the right to fresh air, and that second-hand smoke causes cancer, so the management is discriminating against me based on creed by not accommodating for those beliefs.

but, what i'm going to ask for in restitution (basically, every cent i've paid in rent) overlaps with the tenant application i've suspended - for now. if i go through with that, and i'm awarded rent (which i did ask for), i'll be awarded damages twice - which they don't allow, for good reason. what that means is that i can't really file this until july 1st at the earliest.

if this somehow works out and i sign a lease for august 1st before july 1st, i'll need to reopen the tenant board case and put the human rights case on hold. i'd expect the judge to reschedule the hearing, and that's ok. i just don't want to double-dip.

if i'm sitting here on july 1st without a lease for august 1st, i'll mail the application before i pay my rent.

that means i've got a few weeks of work ahead of me, hopefully.

i'm willing to argue in court that atheism, science & secular humanism all fit the definition of a creed, as laid out here.

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-preventing-discrimination-based-creed/4-creed

the ohrc does not appear to be legislated to determine analogous grounds - it needs to interpret existing law, not write new law. the landlord & tenant board has the same mandate.

i'm going to have to derive my own grounds from enumerated ones, then.

if i feel like i'm being discriminated against due to being a non-smoker, what is that? i guess, using the logic of the people doing the discriminating, the reason i'm being treated differently is that i don't belong to their club - for that is how they see it, they see pot smokers as belonging to a club, and non-smokers as being outside of it.

i consider this absurd, and always have - potheads are the losers that think they're cool, but everybody else knows are losers. the actual cool kids just walk by and shake their heads and snicker. and, i've always approached smoking marijuana as doing something that was very deeply uncool, to the point of being a celebration of being outcast. but, one of the points i'm going to have to make in these hearings is that smoking pot isn't binary - it's not like you smoke every day or you don't smoke at all. most people that smoke, smoke infrequently; it's this idea of daily use that is unusual, and frankly deeply uncool. but, the building is full of habitual smokers (including management, apparently), and i'm not in their club, so i don't get equal treatment.

so, this seems to be the basis of the differentiation in treatment - i don't smoke every day (or even every month), so i'm not in their club, so i'm not cool, so i don't deserve equal treatment.

i don't want to be in their club, either. and, that would be because i don't have the same beliefs that they do. they seem to believe that smoking pot makes you cool, and they seem to believe that habitual pot use is not detrimental to your health, either - both beliefs that are not shared by the club i'm in, which is the club of atheistic & scientific secular humanists.

in my club, we believe in human rights - such as the right to fresh air. we also believe in the science that tells us that smoking is harmful to our health - both in the short term and also in the long term. by not accommodating these beliefs, the management is consequently discriminating against my creed of atheistic & scientific secular humanism.

so, that's what we're going to claim here: discrimination on grounds of disability regarding my bronchitis as well as discrimination against my belief in science & my belief in human rights.

i was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis from exposure to second-hand smoke when i was very young, and it has in fact acted as a trigger for many, many years.

i've periodically needed a puffer.

now, i haven't been triggered as badly as i could be, but it's because i've taken so many steps to deal with the issue - steps i've been demanded to stop, and eventually threatened with eviction over.

but, the actual grounds i'm being discriminated against is on not smoking. i am being treated differently, and the reason is that i don't smoke. rather than have my concerns addressed, i've been asked to leave. so, i really want to find an analogous ground argument...

afaik, all of the existing precedent for this is in british columbia, so this is going to be pushing new legal ground in ontario. call me the trailblazer, here - the pioneer.

i was hoping to get this done tonight, but spent hours dealing with a termite swarm. it's at least mostly stopped since i closed one of the six windows in this place, which they seemed to begetting in through - and w which there are now dozens of dead termites on.

i'd never seen this before, but apparently they fly into the lightbulbs, where they procreate, and their wings fall off. i've killed a handful of queens in here since i moved in, but i thought they were ants....they're termites....

*shrug*

i'll sleep on this and see if i can scheme something up in the morning. because i want to make the point clearer: they are discriminating against me because i don't smoke, and specifically because i don't smoke marijuana.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B79Yz_e6a6XNc3MyektfeGptWlE/edit

or london...

i'm a city person, ok?

i'd be horribly bored in the suburbs.

if i had the cash, i'd move to a really, really big city like los angeles or houston.

this is a picture taken from outside my window.

you'll note that the table is so close to my window that i need to remove the screen and lean out to take a picture of it; i cannot see this table by looking out my window. that's how close it is - a foot, at most. if you pull the closest chair out and lean back on it, it's literally touching the building.

would you accept a group of people sitting there and chain smoking, or would you fight it any way you could?

you'll also note the empty alcohol containers in the wrong recycle bin, which are likely the actual root of the problem, regarding why this woman is behaving so unreasonably.

i think a better idea is to:

1) prove she's lying.
2) present the hypothesis that the reason she's lying is to distract from the actual reason she wants to evict me, which is that i'm threatening legal action over negligence.
3) demand costs & compensation for wasting my time, as i follow through with the negligence case.

honesty is the best policy, kids.

we can even break this down using logic.

given that she received the court date for july 5, why would she attempt to evict me on a noise complaint, if i hadn't given her that letter?

i must have given her that letter at letter at some point after i wrote it, which is the day of the noise complaint.

given that i can prove that she's lying on the n7, i could probably even deny there even was a noise complaint at all.

i mean, she didn't call the cops like i asked her to...

in fact, the n7 is so obviously an attempt to evict me because i don't smoke that i can use it as evidence in the human rights case.

the n7 is also full of false information, and i can prove that it's false using the journal & the vlog. i could even get the whole thing thrown out by proving that they're liars, in court.

this is again just stupid on their behalf. they'd have had a much better case by just being honest.

she showed up at 10:20 to receive a letter; i was asleep at that time. she claims she showed up for a noise complaint, that's a lie. then, she dated the n7 to 4:20 - several hours before she actually showed up, and pretty daunting evidence of the actual motive.

again: i don't want to stay here. but, i'll be happy to use their stupidity against them.

hopefully, i get a judge that's willing to actually listen to the evidence. but, it's secondary to the point, because i'll appeal, anyways.

so, i got my eviction notice. it's not surprising.

i'm going to have to file a human rights complaint, in response. i don't deny the basis of the complaint, but i'm going to defend myself on freedom of expression grounds, and claim the landlord's negligence is the source of the problem. i think they have a tough case to win in front of them, but i'm preparing for divisional court, as well. and, when the time comes that i do move, i will re-open the case to recoup costs.

is moving an option? well, to begin with, i need to restrict my options. i'm currently paying $700/month + electricity, but the electricity is free (due to the rebates). it would be about $25-30/month if it wasn't free - most of it spent on "delivery charges". my actual electricity bill is less than $10/month. given that i'm saving about an extra $60/month on the estrogen being covered, and either the ndp or the liberals had actually budgeted for rate increases, i was actually considering looking for units in the $800-850 range, which would probably be necessary to avoid the smoke - which is the point of this exercise. i'm going to be in the same stupid scenario if i move somewhere else with smokers.

again: i thought this place was better, but then the downstairs tenant started chain smoking pot and the smoker moved in next door. it's worse. i can't make that same mistake; i'll just repeat the same bullshit over and over again and have to move over and over again.

but, now that i'm bracing for cuts to income, i'm looking for something in the range of $700 all inclusive. that's a maximum. i cannot consider anything more expensive than that. nor am i going to move somewhere that's too small for the gear...what's the point of that...

surprisingly, there is a potential spot, but i need to ask about smoking. i suspect there's probably smokers there...

i'm going to have to keep looking, and there's no reason i can't change my mind about the court date at the last minute, although we'll see what the judge has to say about that, i guess. but, as of now, i'm preparing to dig in.

frankly, this is a stupid move on their behalf. they're going to spend thousands of dollars trying to get me out of here, when i'm trying to get out as soon as i can, anyways. and, they're just emboldening me to continue the protest, if i'm going to court, anyways.

i've pointed this out a few times before, but i actually don't think i should have to do it.

i'm writing my own story, a story told from a first person perspective and that has one character in it. my story certainly intersects with other stories, but i'm not telling those other stories, and i don't intend to tell those stories.

we don't have to compete over the primacy of these stories; they're all equally valid, and should all exist. this is almost by definition; my story is not your story, but our stories are all intertwined, too. nor is there an official story of any circumstance or event.

i might be a character in your story, if you'd like - or i might not be. you're not going to be a character in my story, though. or, not unless i knew you many years ago, you won't...

so, tell your stories as you'd like them to be told, and i'll tell mine as i'd like it to be told, too. sometimes, they'll overlap, and sometimes they won't. neither is more important than any other. and, if there are historians collecting stories for some perverse reason or another, they will consult all of them and weigh them as they may...

i grew up in the 90s, which were a period where the gender imbalance in music started evening out, but which was still overwhelmingly skewed towards men. i don't want to apologize for listening to a skewed sample, given that the female musicians of the period were overwhelmingly commodified for their looks.

i'm not going to listen to bad music because it was made by girls, or ignore good music because it was made by boys. i'm a musician - i care about the sound art. i don't think my record collection needs an affirmative action program, or that gender parity within it is an ideal to strive for. so, yeah - my record collection in my formative years is overwhelmingly male.

not exclusively. there's lots of female voices in there. but, overwhelmingly - and that's a reflection of the culture, not of me.

if you wanted to be a girl in a band in the 80s and 90s, you had two paths: you could either date somebody in one of the bands (which is actually fairly common in underground music of the period) or you could market yourself with your body. it kind of didn't matter how talented you were or you weren't, that's just how it came out in the wash. the talent consequently existed largely on the fringes, and, even so, only managed success though sexuality. for example: tori amos is talented, but that's not why she sold records, unfortunately.

i guess it hit a breaking point in the mid-00s, and actually flipped over some time around 2010. nowadays, it's very difficult to find any interesting music made by men at all. entire genres are dominated by women. even guitar music is dominated by women. the only type of music that young men seem interested in making is bro-rock, and it's this like weird gym class culture that i've never wanted anything to do with. from psychedelic music through to industrial music, women really dominate the entire spectrum.

and, so, while my formative years were spent listening mostly to male voices (not exclusively. lots of girls in there, too.), nowadays i'd guess that women take up upwards of 75% of my listening time.

i think we all tend to default to certain periods in our lives, and that these periods tend to expand. contemporary music converts itself into memories over time, and my posts will even out in gender as that process unfolds itself.

i like having an appspot site, but deploying it is always something else.

i've always deployed over the gui. last time, i had to find a way to upgrade to python 2.7, because it would stop serving if i didn't. today, it was giving me ssl errors. as best as i can tell, my local ssl python libraries are out of date and i have to upgrade to a later bugfix, but the installer past 2.7.7 seems to require accessing the dot net framework in a manner that i consciously dismantled, making the install impossible.

i fixed it by using the command line.

so, i'm back to doing what i was doing, now, and should be able to push through the main facebook page before the next sleep. one of the things i'll be doing is replacing old events with links to the concert site. this is the first one...

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

but, i'm not a noise musician, though, and never was.

nor was i ever a fan of the stuff, either.

is the suggestion, then, that it would be rational and healthy to just breathe in the carcinogens and shrug it off?

it's the society that's sick. i get that, too. that's a constant. but, sometimes it's more surreal than usual.

so, the anger flows from the anxiety. i get that.

but, if your "anxiety" is rational, is it still anxiety?

the reason i'm angry is that i'm fearful of the effects of second-hand smoke, both in the long run (cancer) and in the short run (shortness of breath, coughing, tiredness). and, in fact i can demonstrate that my fears are grounded, as i've experienced these consequences.

so, when do you stop talking about anger as a consequence of anxiety, and start taking about anger as a rational reaction to objectively demonstrable fears?

however this plays out, i'm going to need to work the anxiety angle, and it's not like it's wrong - the anxiety is real. but, the consequences are real, too. so, how is that a disorder?

An Update on The Situation in Apartment 15

I need to begin by stating the following:

- The situation in the apartment has not changed since my previous communication.
- That is, the second-hand marijuana (and, now, tobacco) smoke coming from the downstairs tenant remains constant & oppressive, and is continuing to affect my enjoyment of the space, my quality of life & ultimately my health. This unit remains uninhabitable.
- As you have refused to make a good faith effort to address the problem, you remain negligent under the appropriate case law.
- As you remain negligent, you remain liable for property damage resulting from the tenant’s behaviour & you remain responsible for providing me with moving costs to get me out of the unit.
- Further, I still want to move out of this unit as soon as is possible.

What has changed are questions around the feasibility of a plan to move until questions are answered about the depth of the new government’s pending cuts to social assistance. I live on disability due to severe concerns around my mental health, and specifically an inability to exist in social settings without behaving erratically due to stress (“social anxiety disorder”). I simply can’t handle the stress inherent in what most people consider normal social interactions. You can make appeals to whatever ideals you want, but it won’t prevent me from becoming episodic. The working reality is that I am of little threat to myself so long as I am able to avoid situations where I’m forced to interact with the people around me, but I have a history of conflict with the people around me and of being terminated within weeks of being hired due to conflicts with employees and management - my disability is hard, and there is little chance of me ever entering the workforce again. I just need to avoid people, that’s all there is to it. I think my tenancy has reinforced the point: I can’t deal with living with another tenant that doesn’t care about the consequences that her behaviour is having on me, and thinks she has some kind of right to make me miserable and sick. My contempt for this woman is astronomical.

On June 7th, the people of Ontario elected a majority conservative government on a non-platform of undisclosed cuts to social services. As no actual plan for cuts has been released, other than a pledge to do a “line by line audit in search of ‘efficiencies’”, it is unclear how deep the cuts to my income are going to be. However, if one is to take the previous conservative government as precedent, cuts of upwards to 50% should be expected. It is impossible for me to sign a lease at this point, until exact numbers are determined.

I understand that uncertainty is a fact of life, but this is how people react to uncertainty: they have to change plans, they have to downsize, they have to make due with what they have. I desperately want out of this unit. Over the last several years, I have placed a primary importance on my health. I changed my diet in 2015 to be more healthy, I quit smoking at the beginning of 2016 and I rediscovered my bicycle in 2017. But, I am now unfortunately left in a situation where I have no choice but to compromise my physical health to maintain my mental well-being, until more information is available.

I do not have a driver’s license; I’ve never driven a car before. I decided when I was a teenager that cars were destroying the planet, and I would do my part to counteract that by relying on alternate means of transportation. In hindsight, it would have probably been unsafe to let me drive, anyways, as the social anxiety would have likely led me to road rage: I would not have been able to deal with rude drivers. Over the years, I’ve held to this moral decision as best as I can. While I don’t exactly regret that decision, it means that moving is a very expensive and difficult process, now that my father is dead (and my disability prevents me from meeting friends). The reality is that I am going to need to hire movers, so I am going to require hundreds of dollars in costs to move. The city runs a service, but I used it to move in here less than a year ago and am not likely to be approved again so quickly.

So, let us suppose that I move to another apartment on August 1st, as was my plan, and the government cuts my benefits by 50% on Oct 1st. That is almost certainly going to mean I’ll need to move a second time - or that I’ll end up homeless, altogether. It is going to be hard enough to find costs to move once, and I insist they will eventually come from you; finding moving costs a second time is an impossibility. I must wait, whether I like it or not - and whether you like it or not, as well.

I will state this yet again: I want to move out of this apartment as soon as I possibly can. Right now, “as soon as i possibly can” means “as soon as the government announces the numbers attached to it’s plan to cut disability payments”. So, I can commit to starting this process a second time within days of that announcement. But, I cannot sign a lease at this time, because I have no idea how deep the cuts are going to be.

As such, I regret to inform you that I will be suspending the application I previously filed, SWT-16361-18, to ask the court to sever the existing lease. While I will need to appear at the hearing, it will only be to explain the situation to the judge in order to cancel it. I will bring a copy of this letter to the hearing. I may or may not launch a second application once the cuts are announced, depending on whether you co-operate with me or not - I will need to determine what the best step forwards is when that happens.

The lease remains in force, and I expect to go month-to-month after that until the situation is clarified, if it takes that long for it to be clarified. This is not ideal for anybody, but it is necessary given the circumstances.

I understand that you may want to react to this letter by attempting to evict me, in which case I would request that you wait. As mentioned, I am unhappy here and want to move - but i can’t, or not yet. As i want to move, but cannot, i will have little choice to fight any eviction attempts to the full extent that i can - including launching appeals to the divisional court. When you can’t do something, that means you can’t do it - even if you really, really want to. Further, I am certain to react to an eviction attempt by launching a human rights complaint, which I am acting with restraint in not filing as it is. Attempting to evict me is going to cost you thousands of dollars that you’ll never recoup - and is likely to fail, at that. As I want to leave anyways, it is in your self-interest to co-operate with me in waiting until the cuts are announced and then settling for costs, which is what I’ve been requesting all along.

For what it’s worth, I voted for the greens.

In the meantime, I have requested repairs to the unit and received no response on it. I am re-printing that letter.

just in case i wasn't clear about this point.....

the alter-reality will run from 1996 (2016) until 2013 (2033). if i make it that long...

i'll be 52 in 2033, which is probably my life expectancy. neither my father nor my grandfather made it to 60.

put another way, the idea is that i'm going to catch this blog up to itself in real-time, from 20 years prior. and, that is something that i should be back to writing relatively shortly, i hope - and that i'll keep up to date on when i get back to it, too - i hope.

so, i'm not going to focus too heavily on writing concert reviews or anything else from before mid-2013.

unfortunately, it took me two tries due to word crashing, but i've got the music facebook page synced now, at least.

it's long past time to eat. & i'll take a look at the personal facebook page once i have - if i can stay awake.

the air quality in here today has been dangerous. i don't understand how a person can sit and smoke pot for twenty hours at a time, but it's repeatably demonstrable. she doesn't come home from work and smoke a joint, she comes home from work and smokes an ounce.

my tactics worked well enough today in helping me avoid passing out, but they're not sustainable.

yet, i have no answer in the short term, either.

*shrug*.

stoned again; don't want to be.

*shrug*.

can't do anything about it except drink more coffee.

i'm making progress on this.

it's been brutal in here all day, but i have no course of action at this point to resolve it besides running the hot water to try and steam the space out.

i don't understand why she won't go outside like a decent person would.

i hope that when the cancer does finally hit her, she has a long and painful death.

worst case scenario, i may have to go back to school to avoid getting a job.

like i say: i'm going kamikaze.

the first thing i need to do is consolidate my existing facebook posts, after the hook-up. so, i'll be copying my facebook posts into the master documents. i might be quiet for a few days.

i'm actually glad i didn't sign anything. i could have been in for a disaster scenario.

given that everybody knows that doug ford is going to slash disability, i'm at that much more of a disadvantage - if you're a landlord, and you know assistance is going to fall, why would you sign a lease with somebody on disability?

if he had put out a platform, we could at least plan around this. as it is, i have absolutely no idea how big my check is going to be a year from now, or what i'm going to have to do to adjust to less money.

the bottom line is that i don't want to spend my last six months or my last year fighting court battles.

i'm going to focus on completing the discography, and prepare for the worst.

that likely means i'll be staying in more, too.

i'm back in a race against time: how much can i get done before doug ford signs my death sentence?

i'm kind of back in the mindset i was in over 2014 & 2015.

what's the use in quitting smoking if you're planning on killing yourself?

but, then i got my disability renewed...

now, i'm not sure that's going to happen, so i'm back to planning for suicide.

i don't think i'm going to pick it back up. but, i'm falling into apathy around it. so, maybe it's making me sick and ruining my quality of life? i'm going to fucking die anyways, right?

as mentioned: i'm less angry and more embarrassed.

i can't believe so many of us fell for such shameless charlatanism.

and, now we have no idea what he's going to do, because he didn't tell us - we just have to look at the harris government's record and fill in the blanks.

again: doug ford is not some kind of new type of politician.

he's your standard right-wing ideologue - more like paul ryan than donald trump.

i should expect the worst.

yeah....i....

i have absolutely no idea what the government is going to do for disability amounts. i suppose there's an obscure possibility that they could put through the gai - which i was kind of half planning around. they claim they'll let the experiment through, but whether what ford says means anything or not is a coin toss.

they could freeze it, which i could deal with.

or, they could slash it by 50%.

the harris government was downright savage in it's attacks on social service recipients, so there's precedent for something very damaging. and, the economy couldn't handle what that would do, either - unemployment would shoot up to 20%. we'd be dealing with an extreme homelessness problem.

but, i expect the next four years to be very dificult for poor people in this province.

it does not make sense to do anything at all until i get some idea of what they're doing. the reason he didn't release a platform was because he knew people wouldn't like what he was cutting. but, that means i'm stuck in the dark.

i need to wait.

yeah, i...

i have no idea, right?

i get $1200/month. if i move somewhere in august, and that gets cut to $1000/month, i'll probably have to move again right away.

it doesn't make sense for me to plan to move until he announces how deep the cuts are.

i'll have to call to explain this morning.

i may just have to call my landlord to explain that i can't afford to move right now, due to instability in my income source - and all of this conflict is going to have to drag on.

so, what's going to happen if my benefits get cut?

i don't really know what the point of telling me to go work at a fast food restaurant is. there are people with kids that need the job. and, i'm not socially capable of dealing with anything more complex than that, either.

when working was a task, i could deal with it - i could go waste however many hours was necessary in order to save numbers to apply to some purpose. but, when you take away that task, and tell me it's forever, i'm left with what's essentially a death sentence - and the reality that i'd rather kill myself.

the problem is that i don't feel i'm done yet. i have a lot more work to do, before it's time to die. the question is whether i have enough time left to waste at a job or not.

i do think that it's a given that doug ford is going to cut disability rather drastically; this is going to hurt me quite a bit. and, i'm almost wondering if i want to cancel the court process in the short run.

i may have to make a call today.

that was a crash last night, but it was a healthy one.

i need to pivot starting today.

but, what i'm going to do over off hours is the following:

1) copy the existing music blog into the master music document.
2) copy the master music document into the complete master document
3) carry on with the same process as previously.

today, i need to vote - for the greens. get some salami. get some ventolin. & get to looking for somewhere else to live.

so, how do i want to do this?

on second thought, i'm going to need to sync everything up until the end of 2016 before i can release inri000, because that's when it releases in the alter-reality. yeah. & then i'm...ack....i'm going to have to catch up to where i am after all, so i can date the 1997 alter-reality posts to current posting. yeah...

*shrug*.

i should at least be able to start writing notes in the alter-reality by the time get through 2016.

i''ll also need to start editing vlogs again once i get to mid 2017. hrmmn.

it could be a while still, after all.

i have now reached the hook-up; the music blog, while incomplete, is abler to narrate back to mid-2013.

i'm going to continue to push forward with this for the rest of the night, but i must focus on apartment hunting tomorrow.

i still have two years and counting of rebuilding to do, but the focus of the process is going to shift, because i should be able to build the final liner notes for inri000, which means i should be able to get back to the alter-reality and build notes as i go for these release, as well.

so, i'm going to be rebuilding through 2016, writing alter-reality posts and closing the liner notes on discs, simultaneously. that should start within a week or two and run until i catch up on the rebuild up to where i am at the moment i catch up.

once the alter-reality is caught up, i'll try and keep on track with it in real time. &, if i'm lucky, i should be able to get started on period 3 shortly after the move.

so, this place in the end appears to be being utilized mostly as storage. i really wish the people around me weren't revoltingly disgusting, but so be it - i'm almost back on track.

the actual purpose of what i'm doing should be more apparent fairly shortly.

it seems that i would have to rely on precedent from bc if i were to go forward with this.

i do, in fact, have a puffer from exposure to second-hand smoke as a child.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/pair-handed-8k-after-rights-denied-by-smoking-neighbours-1.809848

ok. i'm sure i'm up now.

15 hours of sleep.

you want to argue this isn't affecting my quality of life, my enjoyment of the property and, ultimately, my health? despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, the law is on my side here; i have all of the rights, all of the rules and all of the social norms on my side. smoking is not a right; that's an insult to the concept of rights.

it doesn't matter if you "believe" in rights or not. it matters what a judge rules. laws are not subject to personal beliefs, they're objective rules that everybody has to follow. and, it doesn't matter if you "believe" in the science underlying the action or not, either.

i don't believe in beliefs.

it's far easier for me to go after the property owners than it is to go after this woman, who appears to be a legit fucking dunce, but if i don't win the case against the landlord, i'm going to have to take her to the human rights board, directly. that's going to be time consuming, and it's going to drag on for a long time. but, somebody needs to compensate me for this rights infringement.

my understanding of the law is that there's two layers, here: the tenant-landlord layer & the human rights layer. i believe that the way the law is meant to operate on the tenant-landlord level is for me to sue the landlord, and for the landlord to recover costs by suing the other tenant, in turn (perhaps in small claims court, for negligence). but, if that fails, i'm absolutely planning to take her to human rights court and making her pay for her behaviour.

smoking inside an apartment building is no longer acceptable behaviour in the 21st century, and we all need to stand up for our rights to ensure people aren't getting away with it. i'd encourage everybody to utilize the tools available to them to crack down on inside smoking and get smokers out of residential areas and into the bars, where they belong.

no.

i'm still stoned.

still need to sleep it off.

the secondhand smoke knocked me out cold again this morning, this time for twelve hours; splitting headache, sore threat, no energy & hot rage - i was unable to do anything but sleep.

it still smells disgusting in here, and i still feel terrible, but i think she's gone for the night, so i need to take advantage of it to try and finish up to the hookup, between coughs and wheezes. i'll have to fill that ventolin prescription next time i'm out.

a part of the problem is the weather. despite the fact that the windows are open and the fans are running, i'm not getting any circulation. we should be back to normal temperatures again on thursday. let's hope it stays nice and hot. this cold weather is depressing...

i feel like i have strep throat, or something.

she's smoking pot at 9:00 am, again.

unfortunately, i'm feeling a little woozy from it. again.

i can't lose another day, i have to finish this.

i feel like i'm chain smoking.

she just doesn't fucking stop.

my throat is raw. i'm coughing. i'm sick. i'm angry.

i never chain smoked like this; i smoked a half a pack a day. she's smoking three, maybe four. i'm inhaling more smoke now than i did when i smoked...

ok. seems like the rain passed.

hopefully, we can get a nice breeze in here the rest of the morning.

back to work,....let's try to get done this today.

it was bad enough on the evening of the 4th that it knocked me out cold.

now, i'm going to have close the windows for the next several hours due to the rain and shiver under the influence of unnecessary air conditioning and powerful second-hand drugs.

i'm not going to sit here, shit-faced on drugs i don't want, trying to sort through data. what a sad proposition. rather,  i'm going to hide under the covers until the rain passes. which means i'm going to lose another day. sadly.

i'll be glad to get the fuck out of here.

i can't get that here, & it's triggering the fuck out of me.

i don't need or want chemical treatments, and attempts to force them on me are just going to agitate me further.

what i need is isolation: alone time.

and clear-headedness & sobriety.

once again: i don't have depression.

i'm not a depressed person.

i don't need treatment for depression.

what i have is a social disorder that makes me exceedingly agitated around fucking idiots, and unable to deal with people. i get angry when i'm agitated in this way and can potentially get violent.

i just need to be left alone.

and i can't deal with this fucking pothead. i'm on the brink of going down there and beating the shit of her.

there she goes again.

9:00 am on a monday morning. high as a kite. place smells like a dead skunk's asshole. it's truly absolutely revolting. thankfully, i've got some air flow this morning.

i need to reiterate that the reason i can't just deal with this is that i need to be recording in here, eventually, and i need to be clear-headed to do it. i know there's a popular mythology that musicians do drugs in the studio, but it's just completely wrong - it's a complete myth, a complete fantasy.

the ability to ensure sobriety when recording is paramount; this place is worthless to me if i can't do that.

i'm a little slow to get started today, but i'm back at it, now.

i've got a breeze blowing directly in, which is nice. this apartment only has windows on one side, so i only get a breeze when the wind blows one way. so, that's helped with ventilation. the stench has come up a few times, but i'm not feeling any effects from it just right now.

i'm going to lose the day, but hopefully i'll be past this tomorrow.

ok.

that gets me through june.

and, i'm not going to eat - i'm going to fall asleep. i'll have a bigger meal when i get up.

50 pages and twenty days left. so, i could even get to calling tomorrow afternoon.

and, i will need to put it aside after that.

http://www.who.int/hhr/activities/tool%20box%2010069_Smoker.pdf

the constitution doesn't apply at the landlord & tenant board. but, if i were to launch a human rights complaint - and i'm thinking about it - i'd be arguing that it's an infringement of s. 7, the security of person.

and i will state this clearly once again: if you don't have the right to sobriety, you don't have any rights at all.

i am once again under the influence of a drug that i don't want to be under the influence of at this time.

and, again: i can sit back and wonder, but at the end of the day, i don't care.

what i care about is my own right to clean and clear air, my own right to sobriety and the fact that it's being infringed upon right now.

i've been around marijuana my whole life, but i've never been a pothead and i've really just never understood the desire to become one.

we only exist for a few decades. sobriety is such a treat. why waste your life away like that?

she's been chain smoking by herself for over 8 hours.

i just don't understand who thinks that's a good night. if i were her, i'd be so tired and drained and depressed that i'd feel like i want to kill myself.

and, if i didn't have the window open, i'd be passed out like a fucking heroin addict - from the smoke at the end of her joints.

again: she must have spent $100 tonight to stare at the wall by herself. it's just incomprehensibly stupid.

if you don't have the right to decide when you're sober and when you're stoned, then you don't have any rights at all.

i think i have every right to stay in and be sober on a saturday night if i want to, and am entirely grounded in claiming she's infringing on my right to clean air and sobriety.

the marijuana chain-smoking has indeed returned as of a few hours ago, and i'm at this point sure that i can tie the fact that i'm tired and sore to it. i've had a few plumes come up, and it's just got me feeling disorientated and unpleasant.

again: this is terrible pot. it's like taking valium, it's not a fun high at all - i just want to sleep another ten hours.

but, i'm going to drink a lot of coffee instead and try to get back to work.

that was an unexpectedly hard crash; i just slept for ten hours and woke up with a sore neck. i'm suspicious of the weather, but we'll see how i feel in a bit.

i think i can get done may before i get something to eat in the morning.

i smelled some pot this morning when i got up to eat, but it's clear again tonight with a caveat - she seems to have started smoking cigarettes very heavily. so, now it smells like cigarettes instead of marijuana. which is...it's not going to get me stoned, but is it why i'm sore? i dunno. it's also a saturday night, so she may have had somebody over smoking.

i'll also point out that there was again a strong smell of bay leaves this afternoon, which she seems to start burning when somebody complains about the pot. it wasn't me, and i don't think i'm the only complainant at this point.

like i say: i want to get to the hook-up before i start looking for august 1st. that might be tomorrow, might be the next day.

right now, i'm sore and tired after waking up a little after midnight, but the only thing i smell just right now is cigarettes.

so, that gets me through season 6 - up to the end of may 19th. there's one more season of videos before i get to the hook-up, and roughly 100 pages of data to rebuild.

i need to stop to eat, but could conceivably get most of it done by midnight.

the master music document is now over 1200 pages. 

the door mat is still there.

hrmmn.

funny.

no pot again tonight.

there's heavy nicotine, but the source is somewhat unclear, and it might even be partly smog.

i'm going to "check my mail" and see what's going on down there.