01/15 is updated...

ok.

the rebuild is now complete, from the beginning of 2013 forwards.

i'll need to push through 2015 quickly, to double check. but i should be back to where i was shortly.

and, i guess i'll need to be studying the market out of town, soon.

at the least i can say i got this done...and there's not a lot else i could be doing right now....

...& that does complete november, although i still have to format that mega post to november 30th.

you could publish that thing as a socratic dialogue. it's 50 pages on office paper, so you're looking at a 100-200 page paperback.

i'm going to nap a little this morning, though. the headache is gone, but i'm zombified. hopefully, i wake up a bit more fresh...

october is now done.

i would have hoped for more action on the market today,  but what can you do?

i want to catch up to where i was before i get to seriously looking for stuff out of town. two more months. and, about two hundred pages in the doc.

listings still suck.

still no ruling.

still stuck in time.

i did finish september early this morning, and crashed quite promptly.

the smoke was worse yesterday than it's been in a while - although still localized to the hole in the floor - and i think it's had an effect on my energy level.

i'm very tired, right now.

august, 2014 is done.

still no listings.

still no order.

*shrug*.

i was thinking august 1st would be a good moving date because it would help me get in before the influx of students, over the summer - and i was fully aware from the start that i'd be competing with students for spots. that's why i picked this date....i didn't want to deal with the problems around september 1st...

what i'm learning is that there's a lot of people that have set up basement apartments, explicitly hoping for students. a lot of them are overcharging.

what i'm learning is that there's a lot of furnished rooms available in badly cut-up housing, and these people are explicitly looking for students, as well. these people are overcharging.

& what i'm also learning is that even people with normal apartments are prioritizing students over non-students. & these people are overcharging, too.

it's easy to understand why, after a moment's thought: renting to students means they're going to move out in ten months, and you can jack the rent up for next year. or, at least, that's what people are thinking..

yet, it's abundantly clear to me that these people are getting greedy, and the fact that they're overcharging in the presence of an oversupply of student housing is just going to leave them with empty units.

i want to avoid the professionals...these people are scum bags...

but, given that the whole city wants to rent to students, to the point they don't call non-students back, it seems like october might be the better choice than august.

that's what i'm learning.

i guess we'll see.

but, i'm going to wait until the end of august before i started pitching to mom in the suburbs about renting that basement suite unfurnished.

for me, what it means is that i might be looking at a lot of units that are opening up for what is essentially the same reason as this one, and that i need to be extra cautious about the potential of just moving in parallel.

it seems like renting to a pothead creates a deadzone in the units around it that can only be sustainably filled by other potheads.

so, what i would suspect you'll see begin to happen is that these units will begin to form blocks, and expand to take over entire buildings.

the conclusion is undeniably that a single pothead can irreversibly ruin an entire building very quickly.

but, a pattern may be developing: all the empty rental units in what is currently a tight market are in close proximity to marijuana users, it seems.

it makes it seem like everybody smokes pot.

but, we know that's not true...

when this unit opens up, it will fit that pattern.

maybe, the truth is that nobody wants to live near dirty potheads.

is this quitting smoking thing worth it?

i dunno.

but, i'm hardly going to go back to it, now.

yeah. that unit was basically the same thing as this one. slightly smaller bedroom, slightly bigger kitchen, but the same floor space.

same old flooring that doesn't keep anything out...

and, i could smell the pothead below me, walking by the door.

the only substantive difference is that it is $50 more expensive....

i asked the tenant if he could smell the smoke, and at first he said "sometimes", but then backtracked immediately.

listen...

if you're a property manager, or a tenant, and somebody asks you about smoke, please be honest. if you tell me there's no smoke, and there is, i'm going to sue the fuck out of you. it's not sneaky. it's not smart. it's not a save. it's false advertising, and i'll make you pay for it.

non-smokers do not want to live with smokers.

deal with it.

i took an application, but i'm viewing it as a last resort, and expect it to actually be gone fairly quickly - if i was a smoker, i'd be all over it. but, then again, if i smoked, i wouldn't need to move in the first place...

i'm really not apprehensive about calling myself middle-aged at all.

i've been keenly aware for my whole life that i have noting in common with my own age group. and, i think i've demonstrated clearly enough that putting me in close proximity with young people is just going to lead to conflict.

i'd love to move to a seniors home, if they'd have me.

again: i am not a young person looking for a wild atmosphere.

i am a middle-aged transwoman looking for a clean, safe & healthy environment.

july's done.

i'll wait until tonight before i get a start on august.

i've got a few showings in the next few days, but i'm not really excited about any of them. i expect the building i'm going to see this afternoon to be full of drugs, for example. but at least i'll be able to cross it off...

i've been completely straight edge (except coffee.) since memorial day, fwiw - which is not particularly unusual for me, even if it's not reflective of recent habits. i have a history of staying sober for months at a time. so, have i officially grown out of intoxicants? i guess we'll see. probably not. but, i plan on staying completely smoke & alcohol free until i move, at least.

that should make it easier to identify smoky apartments, i hope.

i'm going to be extremely picky. i have to be. i don't want to do this again. but, if i end up in the same situation, i will do it again, too.

yeah.

so, i think what i'm learning here is that evicting the tenant below me would not have been sufficient to solve the problem.

i do think she's gone. and it is way better. no question, but, it's not good enough.

and, that's kind of what i reasoned. well, what i decided was that she'd likely be replaced by something as bad, or worse. i mean, at least she works. what if she was down there all day? egads.

i may be stuck here another month, but i'm confident i made the right choice in getting out.

so, that gets me through june....

july may be a little slower, but nothing's coming up in the listings, so i'd might as well be industrious.

can i get this done before the sun comes up?

can i stay awake that long?

i'm due for a long day...

still raining.

market still sucks.

no response from the adjudicator.

hopefully, i can get through most of june by midnight. and, hopefully, the rest of the week is as productive, if i'm stuck here for another month - as it is increasingly appearing as though i am.

if you think i'm too crazy to start a band with, then you're too conservative to jam with me.

...& that was a quick movement through may.

as the air has legitimately cleared out, i've been able to stay awake a little longer over the last few days - although i say that as something is wafting in, i think from a different unit, perhaps a few floors down.

i've picked up a nasty smokers' cough, though, i'm not exaggerating. it's that tightening in your chest, and that constant inability to be able to cough out the obstruction. i thought i'd gotten rid of that...alas...

market still sucks.

on to june...

so, that's april.

as expected, it was a little shorter, and i expect that to hold for the rest of 2014.

the market is not opening up like i hoped, but i do have some showings on the weekend.

back to looking for the day...

i think i need a personal update.

i appear to have forgotten to mention that i finished rebuilding february, 2014 on the 10th; i think i thought i'd get through this fairly quickly, and not need to update. i guess i forget that i spent most of march with a broken recording machine. it was a heavy posting month. but it's done now...

how's the smoke? well, it has gotten dramatically better, but i wonder if the heat is a factor. the flip side of that is that the a/c might be off downstairs, which is a sign suggestive of the idea that she has left. that said, i've also been very ired this week for some reason, and my sweat smells alarmingly like marijuana. so, i don't know. it's weird all around, it really is.

i would expect that the posts will start to slow down again soon. i guess we'll have to see....

i'll need to stay in on monday because of the weird message about the electrical. i don't currently have any showings planned until saturday.

i filled out an application, but i don't intend to move into that unit; it's far too small.

she's been blazing all day. again. gross.

i intend to get some work done tonight.

i don't care where the pot store is located; i'm not going to be in there very often.

my biggest concern, location wise, has always been access to downtown. i've wanted to be close to the downtown strip, and close to the tunnel - because that's how i get across.

i suppose that the tunnel is still going to often be the easiest way to cross, even after the bridge is built. it depends on where i'm going, right? and when i'm coming back.

the key thing about the bridge is that it means i won't have to wait anywhere any more - i can just bike through at 3:37 or whatever.

it's maybe the space between the bridge and the tunnel that is optimal, then. but, i should be a little less dismissive about sandwich. it might be boring as fuck for right now, but it will be nice when the bridge is built.

i'm going to take a walk around the block to see something, but it's surely far too small.

i was again knocked out cold by the pot this morning.

i'm 60% asleep...barely awake...what a sad excuse for an existence...

no new listings to take note of, just the big apartment buildings. i'm going to have to start a deeper search on monday, i think. that's how i got my spot in 2013 - i found something that was only listed at an obscure site.

i'm going to try to get some work done tonight, but i suspect i may end up sleeping all night.

i have no intentions of doing any partying at all, whatsoever, until i get this sorted out. life is not about the time you spend partying, it's about what happens in between.

where does the compliant worker get her mind-numbing drugs from?

the state.

and, who tells her it is "cool" to get stoned, and non drug users are "uncool"?

the corporate media.

do you get it? because orwell got it, and huxley got it, and bakunin got it and...

i mean, you'll note that it's the employed worker that is the pothead, and the unemployed anarchist that isn't - and you'll note what the drugs are doing to this employed workers' revolutionary potential, as they likewise harm the productivity of the unemployed anarchist.

the pothead worker doesn't want to start a revolution; what the pothead worker wants is for the unemployed anarchist to get a job.

this is not some accident, it's by design. and, it's what everybody on the left (except marx.) has always seen as patently obvious.

my position has been clear for years: i reject schedules.

i don't want to live on a 24-hour clock.

some days, i want to go to sleep at 5:30 am; other days, i want to wake up at 5:30 am. and, if we can't be free to set our own schedules, what does freedom mean? is that not the definition of freedom?

so, if somebody is infringing on this ability (be they a boss, or a pothead), are they not restricting your freedom, by definition?

these are actually very basic left-wing arguments; this is not a conservative viewpoint. i'm appealing to ideas of autonomy and self-ownership, and i'm attacking those that would restrict peoples' freedom by enforcing their habits on others. that's the very centre of left-wing thought.

there's a reason why all of the dystopian literature places drug use as a central component of statist mind control. what i'm typing here should not be surprising; i'm really just living through something that every single leftist 20th century visionary saw coming from a great distance away.

waking up stoned on a saturday morning from your neighbours' early morning second-hand smoke is pretty awful. it's just kind of like "i just slept. i shouldn't be tired. that's why i slept. what's the point of sleeping, if you're just going to wake up tired?".

ugh.

i need to be up early until i can find something else, but i won't start calling until after 9:00.

because i'm a fucking polite canadian.

fwiw, she is of course still smoking inside.

my lease is cut. i will determine whether i am going to file a human rights complaint or not depending on the ruling i get. documentation, moving forward, is not particularly worthwhile.

what i'll say is this: the situation is not different than it was previously, and there is no reason to think it will change, moving forwards, unless the property managers react to the settlement by attempting to evict her. so, the assumption should be that i'll be dealing with this pretty much constantly until i leave, unless i state otherwise.

i didn't really sleep this week, as i had a lot of video editing and journal compiling to do. i tried to get up around midnight, but i really actually mostly just slept for the last 12+ hours - a needed and very much wanted sleep. i'm up now and ready to start a new day...

the temperature fell sharply over night and it's actually quite nice, right now. i like the heat & humidity, but i was developing a mild rash from exposure to it and did need a bit of a break from it. it's actually going to be a bit cold this weekend, and balance out to "seasonal" again for next week.

today, i need to look at listings. tonight, i'm going to clean a little. i'm going to have more flexibility this month, at least until the ruling comes in the mail, but the basic situation hasn't changed - i still need to save money to plan for the move.

the lease is done on sept 30th, so i need to be out by october 1st at the latest. i'm confident that i can do this, and that it should prevent me from needing to compromise too badly - i think this should be enough time to get what i want.

i think my arguments went over well, but it's not clear what kind of damages i'm going to get. i think i probably got moving costs, or some abstraction of it. i'm not going to get cleaning costs, but i might get an abstraction of it in pro-ration. i don't expect costs for furniture or dry-cleaning - and knew that would be almost impossible to get. that was meant almost solely as leverage for mediation; i didn't actually intend to go to trial.

the big wildcard is that pro-ration. if i'm here for ten months, that's $7000 paid in rent. i asked the court to determine a percentage, because i claimed i couldn't quantify that kind of hardship - but what i was really worried about was lowballing myself. i would have asked for something in the 10%-25% range. but, i know this judge is very sympathetic to non-smokers. if i asked for 60% and that was too much, she could have kibboshed it; if i asked for 25%, i could have been missing out on an opportunity for 40%. so, i instead left it at the court's discretion to determine a percentage - under the expectation that such a percentage is going to be higher than any guess i could have made. it's a sneaky algorithm to optimize my return. 30% is over $2000; 10% is a month's worth of rent. but, it relies on the judge not seeing through my ruse - or at least being sympathetic to it. i mean, i volunteer that it's manipulative, sure, but it's not so terrible, is it? is the judge not best qualified to figure this out? am i not putting myself at a threat of lowballing myself by presenting a percentage, or harming myself by appearing too greedy?

we'll know in a few weeks.

for now, i'm glad that there's some certainty about things...and eager to get things back in order.

the time spent preparing was not wasted: i've now sorted through vlog data from most of the last six months, which i needed to do anyways. i should be back to rebuilding from 2014 on within 24 hours.

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...