i can't get a clear answer from the property manager, so i've asked her to call her boss.

i suspect the truth may be something along the lines of the property owner wanting to kick the smokers out, and the property manager being on the side of the smokers. so, she's trying to stand in between and being obstructionist on purpose.

i mean, if i'm to take her at face value, she doesn't seem to understand her own job. and i don't think that's true; i think she's just playing stupid.

so, the manager is not a willing participant, here, and i may find myself with somewhat of a pyrrhic victory, as a result. but, it's not clear to me yet if they're going to follow through...

the owner may jump at it, while the manager drags her feet.

but, i need to be clear: i can't tolerate this situation. and, if i don't get a prompt response, i'm moving to the next step.

i quit smoking 2.5 years ago.

i have no patience for being sick like this.

:(

Request for Renovations in The Unit Below Me

this is a backup letter. she hasn't ruled out eviction, yet. i don't expect her to follow through, though....

===

In my previous letter, I identified four approaches to addressing the problem of continual plumes of second-hand marijuana smoke coming from the unit below me, which is making me sick/inebriated and rendering the unit uninhabitable.

I need to reiterate that this tenant chain smokes marijuana for hours at a time. She must smoke upwards of 30 thick joints a day. This is not casual or occasional use, but sustained drug addiction on a level that I can barely comprehend. I can’t imagine what kind of negligent doctor would prescribe this; it seems cartoonish, truly. I’m repeatedly getting really, really high on nights that I want to be completely sober; trying to read when you’re baked is extremely unpleasant. It’s hard to focus; it’s hard to stay awake. I’m also finding myself with a smoker’s cough. I can only imagine her own cognitive state, or lack thereof. So, my claim that the unit is uninhabitable is in no way an exaggeration, unless, perhaps, you’re a Rastafarian. No sane person would merely accept this.

I also now suspect that she may smoke cigarettes, after all. It’s just hard to tell because she smokes so many drugs...

It is obvious that the first approach - a simple request to smoke elsewhere - is not viable, and will not be mentioned further. This tenant does not appear to understand the health hazards of second-hand marijuana smoke, and/or does not appear to be even remotely concerned about the well-being of the people around her. She simply doesn’t care if her habits are making the other tenants sick and/or inebriated when they don’t want to be. Sadly, she may even think that the smoke is healthy.

You initially decided upon the path of removing this tenant below me, but have since decided against that option. I frankly did not expect you to pursue this option in the first place and am not surprised that you’re not following through with it.

That leaves us with two further paths to attempt: we could try and renovate the unit, or you could agree to release me from the lease (with compensation). This letter outlines my perceptions around renovating the unit, in a last attempt to maintain my tenancy in this building. I have decided that I will not sue to force these renovations, that I would rather sue to end the tenancy, so this is up to your discretion to pursue in order to maintain the tenancy; if these renovations end before they are successful, i will move directly to the next option of asking the board to end the tenancy in a reasonable time frame, and with compensation.

My sole concern is my health. This is the most important thing in life - maintaining one’s health. And, I frankly don’t expect the renovations to be successful.

To begin with, I should point out that i have already gone to great lengths to try and keep the smoke out of this space, and that it has ultimately not been successful. It took me some time to understand what was happening, but I believe the situation is as follows: whenever I block an area, it merely moves the smoke to another one. So, I do believe that I was initially successful in blocking the smoke from entering my bedroom, but this ultimately just pushed it into the hallway. When I tried to stop the smoke from entering the hallway, i merely pushed it back into the bedroom. Now, the seal I created in the bedroom is broken, and the smoke is coming in both spaces, once again. I think you might want to imagine this like a balloon filling up from two separate directions, and then popping on both sides - leaving me no better off than when i started.

So, it seems to be the case that once the smoke has entered the subfloor, it has nowhere to go except out; any serious attempts to block the many holes in my space will merely create more holes, as the smoke forces itself out elsewhere. Caulking this unit could actually damage the flooring further, as the substantive amount of smoke being produced merely finds other ways to escape the subfloor, by enlarging existing holes or creating new ones. So, in order to prevent the smoke from entering this unit, it will need to be kept out of the subfloor altogether. Any renovations must consequently be done in the smokers’ unit, rather than in mine.

If we are to embark upon this process, I would expect a continuing conversation, as it will take several attempts to resolve the problem. I’m not going to be able to give you an easy request - this is going to go on for a long time. I cannot concern myself with how this might affect the other tenant, as that basic concept of respect is not being and will not be reciprocated. But, to begin with, we can look at the following actions:

1) caulking holes in the unit downstairs - especially in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, closets and shelving units.
2) the shelving units in the downstairs unit may need to be rebuilt altogether, as this is one of the worst sources
3) the ceilings below me badly need to be sealed.
4) i suspect that the water closet downstairs is a major source of smoke entering the subflooring, as it is then coming in through the bathroom fixtures. this will need to be sealed. note that caulking the bathroom in my unit will just force the smoke into my bedroom, and that fixing my own water closet will just push it back into the bathroom.
5) the tenant appears to enjoy “hotboxing” the closet, which is sending smoke into both my living room and my kitchen. her closet will likely need to be rebuilt.

more generally, i suspect that there is substantial smoke damage in the downstairs unit and that the only serious solution is going to be in fixing that, where it is found. all that caulking up here will do is push the problem around under the floor. and, i suppose that you’ll have to talk to the tenant about those costs, as they are ultimately of her creation - this problem is ultimately rooted in the damage she’s already done to her own unit.

i need to reiterate that i will not sue to force renovations, because i’ve come to realize that the damage to the subfloors is too great, from however many years of smoking however many different things. i will work with management to resolve the issue for as long as they would like to try to resolve it, but my next step will be to ask the board to let me out of the lease. reasonable compensation will be enough to cover the costs i’ve put into smoke-proofing the unit and the expenses required to allow me to move somewhere else.

when she's not coughing and hacking and heaving, she's crying or cursing - but she sounds drunk more often than stoned, so who even knows what she's on. if it's medical, it's not helping with any symptoms, that's for sure - not with anything physical and not with anything emotional. and she has that patty/selma croak in her voice that makes her sound like she's on the brink of shooting up a playschool.

this is a scary person, through and through.

i mean....

i have to file the complaint before i can apply to get out of the lease.

and, even if i win, it could take forever.

i just want to get away from this person. now.

i'm actually hoping that they don't follow through with the secondary complaint, so i can just go ahead and apply to get out of the lease.

i just want to get out of this place, asap.

this woman appears to smoke upwards of a half ounce of pot a day. 

i'm continually astounded by this.

it's like something out of a cartoon.

but there's no end to it. there's no reprieve. it's just constant.

and, it's terrible for my skin :(.

i mean, i keep pointing out that i'm going to have the same problems in the next place: that there isn't a solution to this.

but, i'm living on top of what is probably the most disgusting person in town.

she's chain smoking marijuana, for hours. she's bringing people in to smoke with her. there might not be a perfect answer, but the status quo is almost the worst situation imaginable.

actually, i should...

this is just logic. i'm not an engineer. i can't even build a paper airplane.

but, if trying to tarp over the floor leads me to the conclusion that i'm just moving the smoke around, it follows that the problem is that the smoke is getting into the subfloor - and the actual renovations that need to be done are in the smoker's unit, not mine.

i'm just wondering to myself what kind of reaction that would produce in the smoker. if i could get a court order to renovate her unit, would she stick around for it?

and, would they just pay me to leave, instead?

but, this is what i need to present: that renovations need to occur in the unit below me.

i have nothing to lose by upsetting management; i don't want to be here.

i spent some time tossing and turning, but i'm ultimately still awake - tired and angry and frustrated, but still awake.

i'll have to give them until wednesday, but i'm going to be making a call on that day.

we initially had four options:

a) talk to her

that's clearly not going to work.

b) get rid of her.

i have to continue my due diligence on this, but it's a very difficult and probably unsuccessful process. and, it will no doubt embolden her, if she wins.

c) fix the unit.

i'm giving up on this.

i initially thought i had the bedroom fixed up, but what that did was push the smoke into the bathroom and hallway. so, i patched those areas up, and it just pushed the smoke back into the bedroom.

i patched up the closet the other day, and it just came up a few feet to the side of it.

i had to do the experiment to see how bad it really is, but it seems like i'm not just patching up holes, but in need of replacing the whole floor. i kind of realized i'd need to tear out some fixtures, but it's beyond that, i'd have to tear down the whole unit. really.

the smoke is just going to have to come out somewhere, eventually. and all i'm doing by putting down tarps and taping up spaces is moving it around - i need something much deeper than this.

so, i'm realizing that i can't win this fight on these grounds. it's really gotta be that one of us leaves.

d) let me out of the lease. 

this is going to have to be the option i pursue on around the 1st of may, unless i get a clearer response over the next few days.

so, it's not going to be a letter. it's just going to be a call. i'll have to update her on the situation: the n4 didn't work, and my attempts to smoke proof the unit have led me to the conclusion that this would require replacing the entire floor. i consequently need management to dedicate itself to removing the tenant below me, or prepare to have me try and escape the lease.

i can't live in filth, like this.

as should be obvious, i don't care if people smoke pot, in the abstract.

i just don't want them to plume smoke into my unit, which i've always kept completely smoke-free.

i have never smoked inside, anywhere.

and, when it's obvious that people are blowing smoke in my face to upset me, i'm willing to use whatever tools are available to me to get them to stop.

i don't grasp the intent of people that want to split the world into binary choices of smokers and non-smokers. that's like arguing that everybody who has a glass of wine now and again is an alcoholic. most people measure their alcohol intake on a monthly or yearly scale, not a weekly or daily one. so, it shouldn't be that hard to understand.

enjoying a glass of wine now and again doesn't mean you want your bedroom to smell like vomit and urine. likewise, enjoying a toke when i'm out at a concert doesn't mean i want my pillow to smell like a bong.

this is not binary.

there is a very wide spectrum.

and, i am an extremely infrequent smoker that doesn't want to live in a hazy environment.

she's having some kind of party downstairs, so i have the windows wide open, and will have to keep them open all night - and potentially for the next several days.

it's hard for me to understand how a grown woman could act like such a child. she's received multiple complaints about second-hand smoke...so she throws a smoke party. how do people this stupid exist? and, how are her friends so irresponsible?

if she keeps it up, she's going to get evicted. and i don't care..

see, and it was mostly actually pretty much ok all week, after she got the n4, too.

i suppose one of two things is happening, right now.

1) the n4 in ontario gives you a week to change your behaviour. i suspect that her warped concept of logic interprets that as "i can get away with smoking as much as i want for the next week".
2) she's just ignoring the n4.

either option seems to be an attempt to upset me.

i can't do anything tonight, except take note of the utter childishness of this. but, if the situation doesn't improve immediately, i'm going to file a second complaint on tuesday.

and, there is a good chance that i'll have to call the cops tonight.

the new screaming females record is getting strong reviews. i actually gave it a wide berth, as it's been clear for a while that the band may be..."growing up" a little. i've been getting the impression for a while that the lead singer may be feeling sort of suffocated, in a role that she walked into before she was old enough to define who she really is, and that she's been role-playing for a few records - and ultimately wants out.

i get the impression that she's a lot more of a "normal" twenty thirty-something female than her persona might suggest, and that she's going to need to find a way to get out of this now completely phony teen-goth-angst schtick, one way or another.

she might actually secretly be a big green day fan.

that said, any substantive fears i had regarding the record appear to be being pushed off to the next one. the record starts off as strong as any other, but slows down quite a bit in the middle. it's not about soft or loud for me, but i just don't like country music, and when you take the kick out of punk rock, country music is what you're left with. it's more of an urban/rural thing....

see, i openly admit i hold prejudices towards rural culture. i try to rationalize them in real-world situations as best as i can - i try very hard to treat people fairly and not judge them and people that run into me in real-life will uphold that - but i simply don't want to celebrate anything to do with rural americana style culture. and, i have to be blunt: this culture really doesn't accept me, either. this isn't out of nowhere with this band, or with alternative/grunge music in general, but it kind of sticks out here.

that said, it's only a couple of tracks - minor enough to reduce the problem to the suggestion that the record has a bit of filler in it.

i preferred the more direct attack of the last one; this band excels when it's in early pumpkins mode, recycling sabbath riffs and just rocking out. but, it's a strong enough record, for the moment.

i do remain apprehensive about where they're going, but i'm also in total solidarity with complete honesty, even if i end up tuning out as they get more and more accessible.

and, i'll always have time for that tone.

i expect the show next week to be worth attending.

i slept in, so i'm certainly 100% staying in. if i was out anyways, i could talk myself into dealing with the cold for an overnight binge. but, it would be stupid of me to wander into the cold with intent, with a bicycle or not.

i have a gut feeling that the set was lacklustre, or at least was relative to my own tastes. as mentioned: i'm rather fond of their work with son lux, but i don't have any interest in 00s indie rock, more generally. if i was the person everybody wanted me to be, i'd care about sufjan stevens or the dirty projectors; the fact is that i don't, and never did, and that it was really never likely that i was ever going to.

the piece that lott wrote for them sounds commissioned, and i've always had such a problem with that - because it's always so obvious. you can't write good music in exchange for money; it has to come from somewhere, it's not just a market operation. it sounds uninspired; kind of flat - disappointing, given how emotionally engaging lott's work usually is. this is somebody that has a talent for being compelling. you could argue he has charisma, or something. so, how did the work end up so dry?

you put a price tag on it, that's how. you had to work around complicated schedules. you gave it time lines. you set goals. all of these things can only ruin art.

at some point, it became a product - and art cannot be commodified and remain art.

which is not to say that i don't hope that other people enjoyed it, so much as to say that i don't think i would have, and that this is much, much further from where i exist than perhaps would like to be imagined.

i took one of those 7/11 caffeine boosts this morning, and i'm still wired; impressive given that i had several drinks last night [2 jagers, 1 mikes & 2 strong beers]. i should be tired, but i'm wide awake...

i braved the cold last night, but the truth is that what i did was stupid. i was in some serious danger of hypothermia, and probably only staved it off because i'm in such ridiculously good health. i don't want to do that again tonight.

my bicycle is still where i left it, but the lock is frozen. this is actually a big deal, because having a bicycle would solve most of these problems. then again, i could also take my canada bike with me...hrmnnn...

i'll need to get some sleep, first.

in the time i've been in detroit, i have a total of one blackout, in the fall of 2016.

that was the night i woke up in somebody's car, a male that thought i was cis and was trying to fuck me.

i have a complete recollection of all other nights.

honest.

really.

no, seriously - i do. i know i look messy sometimes, but i'm almost always in control of myself.

no, wait.

i have been there in my conscious existence.

twice.

i didn't pass out either time, though.

wait.

i think i know where i was that night, now.

"didn't i see you passed out at..."

like i could answer that. like i could remember where i was passed out at.

but, i've never been to this place in my conscious existence. and the one night i blacked out, and woke up in somebody's car, was the night i was supposedly in that neighbourhood.

*shrug*.

well, i guess i went out after all, huh?

the magic stick was bopping. nice to see.

but i should have asked around about after parties instead of making assumptions. it seems like people wanted to even bring me there, as they noticed me and asked me about it, but i took off right away in an attempt to get to one asap. big mistake - the place i went to was empty, and i ended up back at the diner.

i had fun at the show. and i needed that, too.

i'd kind of like to go out tonight and dance to some guitar-driven funk, but it's just too fucking cold.

i'm not fat; if anything i'm a little underweight.

but, the "fat guy on a computer" idea is much closer to the truth, when it comes to figuring out who i am.

and, the evidence demonstrating this is so overwhelming that only a complete fucking dipshit would argue otherwise.

but, this is a note to would-be trolls: the cia is so incompetent at what it does that if you troll it for whatever reason, it will spy on you.

forever.

to be clear:

what i am doing right now is running through a master document of comments i have put aside. it is 6200 pages long, but this is set to grow quite a bit as i copy data from 2016 onwards from the blog back into it. it contains posts i made to facebook, google+, youtube & all kinds of news sites, going back to about 2008. it is not comprehensive, but i do wish that it was...

i am taking comments out of that master document from 2013-2016 and posting them to two separate blogs:

1) the political comments blog:
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca

2) the music blog:
http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca

the reason i'm doing this is to create a combined master list for the music blog, going back to 1996. i have chosen 2015 as the start date for the political comments blog, but will eventual fill that in backwards, as well - with as much information as i can find. in the short run, once the gaps are filled, the political comments blog will exist from 2015 onwards.

the focus right now, however, is on the master list for the music blog, which is currently about 1000 pages, but is also going to grow quite a lot in the next few weeks. this needs to exist in these two mirrors from 2013 onwards. i will also be building it up in the alter-reality from 1996 onwards; i am very far behind on this.

i have to do this in order to close inri000, because the last part of the process is incorporating a pdf of the relevant portions of the music blog, which includes reconstructed notes from the 90s, and notes regarding the remastering process, from 2013-2018. this will be repeated for each release, moving forwards.

but, you're too fucking incompetent to even read that, aren't you?

"she's just working for the russians."

you fucking retards...

if i had been able to use my gear over 2016, i wouldn't have spent all the time i spent analyzing the american election, and i wouldn't have produced all of this writing that they seem to find so damaging.

then, they claim i'm working for the russians because i'm able to correctly deconstruct the situation. no - i'm just wasting time, because i can't use my gear, because it has a very obviously audible bug in it. this is a situation of their own creation. call it blowback, even.

some people waste time by playing games on their phones. but, i'm a nerd. so i waste time by analyzing elections.

i'd rather use the gear.

but i can't record or mix over an echo or a redirected stream that i can't get rid of...

why haven't they figured out the obvious?

because they're completely fucking incompetent.

that's the uncomfortable truth: these frustrations are a function of their own uselesness.

if they were anywhere close to halfways competent, they would have figured out years ago that there is nothing to accomplish in spying on me, and left me alone to create.

as i've stated before: i don't even care if they spy on me.

i'm too boring to care. i don't do anything illegal; most of the time, i don't do anything at all. they can spy on me all they want...

that's not what's so amazingly depressing about the situation.

i need my gear to work; it's that i can't get the loopback out that is so saddening and frustrating and depressing.

i'm of no threat to anybody at all, but the state is intent on ruining my ability to create, in order to listen in, for no reason i can even make sense of.

it seems like the intelligence services have installed the same loopback software on this laptop that they had previously installed on my recording pc.

the best way i can describe this is knowing your phone is being tapped. if you're talking to somebody on the phone, you can hear that there is a third person on the line because the connection sounds "open". you can hear the empty space on the other side of the third person's line..

i've had to modify my network architecture to take account of this, by only connecting to the internet through a defined access point [although there are two, with the other one in the living room to watch videos on]. this appears to be being installed at the hardware level, because reinstalls after disconnecting from the internet haven't resolved it. and, i'm not even sure if these open lines are connecting anywhere - or merely distorting the sound signal.

because i've set this computer up this way, as an access point, the eavesdropping is acting solely on the level of an annoyance. i'm not mixing on this device. but, i don't understand what the point of eavesdropping on somebody that posts their entire life to the internet is.

and, i need to reiterate, yet again, that this is harmful to me - because this is what i do; this is my art.

i also need to point out that the logic is backwards - much like these smokers, that think smoking through my windows is going to get me to close them. unfortunately, the reason i've been spending time posting to the internet is that my recording gear is not functioning, partially because it's been hacked by the cia. this has been going on for years, now; i could and probably should be mostly through period 3 by now, but i haven't even been able to start it. so, they keep spying on me, for what reason i'm not entirely sure - maybe they think i'm secretly in kahoots with something or somebody, although it's hard to understand how the fact that i'm an introverted loner isn't obvious, given how much time i spent ranting on the internet.

it should be obvious that i simply don't have time to be in kahoots with anybody because i spend so much time typing. it's obviously the only thing i do, or have been doing for years.

so, the more they spy on me, the more typing i do - which is the thing they seem to want to prevent.

if they would stop spying on me already, i'd get back to doing what i actually care about.

again: it would be one thing if i wasn't so transparent, if i didn't type so much. but i'm literally constantly posting: videos...music...comments...essays...it's at the very centre of my existence. what can be accomplished by bugging the audio on my laptop?

again: i'm not running for office.

i don't care if i'm popular.

i'm not trying to appeal to the in-crowd, to hipsters, to the cool kids, whatever.

i am trying to sell weird music to nerds.

link on the side.

i have a really strong fashion aversion to any kind of jackets.

if you look at the options, they're all unacceptable. leather jackets are the most disgusting fashion decision in the history of fashion; denim is perhaps a close second. they're both utterly pretentious looking. then, you have to accessorize them...and who has time for that...

when it's so cold that you need a jacket then so be it. but i'd rather stick with the kinds of big, clunky things you get at walmart, and wear them as sparingly as possible.

the dmst show in december was an exception. but, i tend to just avoid the problem by staying in until i can just put a sweater on. that means i need the temperature to stay above five degrees, and the weather just hasn't been able to accomplish that.

i actually simply forgot about the lightning bolt show. i guess my head was elsewhere. but, i'm not sure i would have went. haven't heard any new material, and the weather was horrific. that said, it was a saturday, so i could have in theory made it home.

it's more the kind of thing i'd want to go to if it's nice out, because it's nice out.

the construction on the tunnel could be a problem for me this spring because it means i can't get to weekday shows without doing the overnight, and i might not want to do that.

that said, the weather is finally set to turn next week, it seems. i know it's been nice on the coasts, but detroit is stuck in a blocking pattern that has had us hovering at freezing for weeks. it felt like february all the way through march: dreary/overcast, cold and unpleasant. and, april has been shit so far, too.

even if it was a few degrees warmer, i could handle some things, but this is still winter jacket weather, and i just don't enjoy going out to places when it's like this.

i'm considering maybe going to see ymusic at the cube on saturday, but i don't know what they're going to play. i know them through their work with son lux, but i'm really not interested in their other projects; 00s indie rock is really the dredges of boring bullshit, and not worth trying to convert into a serious artform.

october is now complete.

i'll start with november after i eat.

so, they gave us both n4s.

i'm to stop opening the windows in the hallways and stop propping the doors open. we can talk about that later. for now, i can deal with that.

she's to stop smoking in the unit.

my n4 is bullshit. i have to presume that hers is, too - but it is at least true that her habits are interfering with my enjoyment of the property, and fairly substantively, in the form of contact highs and nose bleeds. i just spent yet another day barely able to get out of bed because i'm too tired to move. i'm hoping the rain saves me, over night...

i haven't seen her n4, i was just told that she received it. so, i don't know exactly what it says. i know that it's almost impossible to follow through with this kind of threat, so i'm not holding my breath. but, i overheard her talking about it on the phone, and she's at least upset by it - so i've got a good starting point.

windsor is cheap. she seems to have a job doing something overnight. what she wants is a place where she can chain smoke marijuana and listen to loud music. because this area is so cheap, she's better off renting a townhouse - maybe with a friend or two. she's just not living an apartment-friendly lifestyle...a desire for gratuitous drug use & loud music really requires renting or buying a house....

so, they've at least done their due diligence, in promptly responding to my complaint, and we'll see where we are with this at the end of the month.

for right now, i'm going to let the air turn over with the rain and focus on the rebuild. i'm fully expecting to need to continue taping & tarping, but we'll see if i can back to setting up the studio tomorrow or maybe the next day.

let's aim for getting through 2015 as a transition point.

but, i mean, i don't make rock music.

i'm not a rock musician.

i'm an experimental/classical composer.

so, if you want to work out your fantasies about sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll then you're going to need to find a rock star, first - and that person is not me.

in my existing discography?

i'm stone cold sober through every nanosecond of it.

i have never recorded a single part drunk or stoned.

sorry.

(i'm not actually going to sound like lou reed because i don't write or record folk music. but you get the point)

i just kind of need to get this point down.

musicians don't actually do drugs when they're recording. they might do drugs between recording sessions. but, a musician trying to record something on drugs is going to probably be out of tune, out of time and unable to creatively approach much of anything.

drugs don't make you smarter. drugs don't make you more creative. and, drugs don't make you more productive, either. what drugs do is make you dim-witted, uncreative and slow to react.

you'll end up making trash that sounds like lou fucking reed at his worst.

go ahead and look into it. ask your favourite musician: have they ever recorded anything stoned or drunk? if you have any taste, the answer is almost certainly that they haven't - or, if they have, that they wish they could go back and fix it.

sorry.

so, this is the real importance of getting the smoke out of the recording space. yes, my health is important - &, yes, my gear is important. but, i need to make sure that my recording space is free of outside air contaminants; otherwise i'm not going to be very useful when i'm trying to multitrack guitar parts, or play a drum fill in 17/8.

i should be rebuilding for the next few hours, at least.

i took advantage of a lull in the smoke to start rebuilding the apartment. i'm pretty sure i have the bedroom secured, so long as nobody smokes in the window; i've rebuilt the space so that everything is on the other side, and it's a more rational construction (closer to how i wanted it in the other apartment), so i'm happy about that.

what really happened was that it rained, which freaked me out a little, and made me realize i'd have to flip the living room around, too. so, i rebuilt the bedroom altogether. and then i started rebuilding the living room...

the rain was the best possible thing for the air quality in the unit, so i'm excited about more rain over the next few weeks, and a possible return to seasonable temperatures mid-month. it was so clear in the unit, that i thought maybe the letter had succeeded in modifying some habits.

it was about 3:00 that the illusion lifted, as a plume of smoke came up behind the closet - where i was setting up my keyboards - that was powerful enough to knock me out.

i now have that entire area tarped over, and i'm back to the waiting game, to see. i'll have to give it a week or two to see if that's enough...

i can't have my gear sitting over a smoke plume. i mean, my health is concern enough. but, if it's powerful enough to get me stoned, it's powerful enough to damage electronics.

as to the mechanics of this, it must be fairly exotic. occam's razor suggests that it seems like what is happening is that somebody is hotboxing the closet - that there are multiple people smoking in the enclosed unit with the intent of preventing circulation. but, there's no functional ceiling in the closet; the truth is that it's a dumb place to hotbox, because it's all just pluming out upwards.

another possibility is that she might actually be burning herb as a part of some kind of ritual, which just sounds like a waste of drugs, but explains why the cabinets are such a recurring problem. she may have some kind of shrine under there or something, and she may keep moving it because i keep blocking off the air with tarps.

whatever the source of this is, it's not a single individual smoking. it's either somebody burning it like incense, or it's multiple people burning large blunts at the same time. and, when it comes up in these waves, it hits you like exhaust from a bus or hot air from a hand dryer - if you're standing in it, it's like taking a deep hit on something. and, it's knocked me out, now, several times.

it's maybe easy to understand why the tape isn't working in some spaces, then. this isn't just a run-of-the-mill smoker. this is a smoke machine, of some sort. and, i'm going to need tarps or serious renos to resolve it.

i'll know by the end of the month whether i'm able to stop it, or if i'm going to need to seek a way out of the lease, with proper compensation.

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.