listen, nobody expects these third world countries to wake up tomorrow and be beacons of sexual freedom and gender & economic equality.

this is going to take a long time, and it's going to have to come from below.

but, the difference between russia and saudi arabia, or china, is that the russians are actually showing some progress. it's slow. and it's not monolithic; they're moving backwards in some areas. but, it's a start - and certainly far more promising than these other states.

and, i mean, it's not like they're screening for lesbians, right?

it's a silly argument.

i have not had sex with a woman (or at least i don't remember it...) in well over ten years, and it's not been due to lack of opportunity.

as mentioned: i would prefer my own space. but, i don't think there's anything subversive in applying and seeing what they say.

the place could very well be run by third-wave feminist post-grads that think the idea of a transwoman in the basement gives them street cred.

you just don't know until you ask.

another way for me to articulate this is that i have no interest at all in forcing myself into a room that i haven't been invited to be in; i don't want to be where i'm not wanted.

that doesn't mean i'm sanctioning those views. it just means it isn't a battle that has any upside in winning.

regarding applying to live in a "girls only" building...

well, i do identify as a girl.

however, i recognize that this is exceedingly complicated.

the fact is that i'd rather live by myself insofar as that is actually possible. but, i see these units open up from time to time that are essentially basement rentals, with access to the kitchen. regarding that kitchen access, i'll point out that i already own a microwave and could afford to get a small fridge in a big enough basement. i could quite easily organize my meals so that i only need very sporadic access to the kitchen. i pretty much require my own bathroom, though.

i wouldn't apply to a boys only space, because i wouldn't classify myself as a boy - that is not the correct place for me to live, if we must live in gender categorized dwellings. but, i have applied to live in girls' spaces before, and could very well do so again.

is it discrimination if they tell me i'm not a girl and therefore can't stay there? sure. but, i'm actually willing to accept this kind of discrimination as allowable. stated tersely, i would accept the right of cis women to erect cis-female-only spaces - to a caveat.

so, if a property owner decides she wants to split her house up into rooms and only rent to cis-femaless, and the cis-females that live there agree to that, i don't think i have any place arguing against it - that would be invasive on my behalf, because we're sharing parts of the residence. but, if a cis-woman owns an apartment building and decides she only wants to rent to cis-woman, i would consider that to be discriminatory, and argue she should be taken to the human rights tribunal - and that whether she's refusing to rent to me as a trans-woman or as a cis-male is secondary to the female-only policy. this idea would apply equally well to race or orientation or whatever else. and, i believe that the existing jurisprudence actually draws the line at pretty much this exact point.

so, while i'll sue the owner of an apartment building for refusing to rent to me because i'm trans, i do not feel the same animus towards somebody running a rooming house for girls - even as i don't feel any apprehension about applying as a trans-female.

subtle enough?

i just have enough empathy - and am perhaps girl enough - to be able to understand the situation from the other side. even as a transwoman, i might not feel comfortable living in a rooming house with a transfemale at a different stage of transition. i'm trying to avoid a property rights argument, because it's missing the point - it's more about freedom of association. what i think is that it should be up to the tenants.

but, the logic collapses as soon as you start talking about separate apartments - then i go back into trans-activism mode.

we're at a historic juncture where us-russian relations could be taking a turn for a major thaw, and the liberal prime minister of canada wants to start a war in ukraine because he thinks he's fucking rocky.

sacre-dieu; incroyable.

and, deeply embarrassing.

...and, unless they run a libertarian candidate in my riding, i think i decided to vote green in 2019 quite some time ago.

i suspect that the greens are better positioned than the ndp to pick up an anti-war vote, at this point.

whatever hawkish pro-war wing exists in the democratic party simply does not have a parallel in canada, where the liberals didn't just oppose iraq & vietnam but actually even opposed the first world war.

liberal voters in canada expect the party to pursue peace with russia and back efforts by the american president to reduce conflict.

he's going to get eaten alive for these words, by his own base of supporters.

because he thinks he's running for office in the united states...

his father was an important voice for denuclearization and global peace, and i'm frankly embarrassed for him that his son turned out to be a fucking idiot...

i am ashamed and astonished to hear this kind of extreme right-wing pro-war, jingoistic rhetoric from a liberal prime minister of canada.

the guy understands the world through a prism of sylvester stallone movies. he's a product of the american military-entertainment complex.

a dunce, basically.

and, the party needs to force him out before he completely obliterates them.

canada does not understand international relations like it's a rocky film or want to go back to the dangerous days of the cold war, and this man does not speak for this country.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-reacts-trump-putin-1.4749814

i am not a pot-smoking hippie that wants to jam with bongos in a van down by the river.

i am not a drunken frat boy metalhead looking to wow girls to get laid.

i'm not even a straight-edge punk looking to start a revolution (although i have stronger sympathies with this).

what i am is a studied jazz guitarist that writes some kind of classical music for consumption over headphones and wants to do so in a quiet, controlled environment.

and, my hair is long because i'm a girl - not because i'm a rock star.

if i wanted to be a dude guitarist, i'd cut my hair and join a punk band. but that's not what i want to be. at all.

in actual fact, i don't write, listen to or even have much respect for the type of music that is associated with heavy drug or alcohol use.

and, again, i've been very clear on this point for a long time: i am a nerd. i listen to nerd rock.

i know pretty much every genesis record inside and out, but i've never owned a metallica record, or even bothered to listen to one all the way through.

your distorted preconceptions are a consequence of your own refusal to listen, not of any inaccurate projection on my behalf. i was crystal clear. i really was.

i actually like the 40 degree heat, and am sad to see the heat wave go. at least it's still relatively warm.

so, i'm looking at listings that are proudly boasting central air, or working the a/c in the price and it's just like...i want to open the window in the summer, guys. i don't want your a/c.

it's not even an irrelevance. i explicitly do not want to live in an air conditioned space - and it's not a cost thing, i legitimately find the a/c uncomfortable, and the humidity very nice.

i've pointed out before that i'd really be happiest in a tropical rain forest. and, maybe the reason is because i have relatively near ancestors that lived in one.

i keep pointing out that i don't really know where my paternal grandfather was from, other than that he was dark skinned. but, a sleeper theory is that he may have been south asian because my dad had an unusual blood type.

my dad loved the extreme heat, as well.

i'm getting ahead of myself. i need to see what the pay out is first. and i need to have the money in my hands.

but, if this was just a few thousand dollars less, it would be workable.

and, note that it's also 1100+ square feet - about twice as big as i'd need.

if i can find an 1100+ square foot house for $40,000, can i find a 550+ square foot house for $20,000?

i'll keep an eye on it, but i don't think it's realistic just right now.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-house-for-sale/windsor-area-on/spacious3-open-plan-bungalow-mobile-home/1368388853?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

it looks like i'd have to move to thunder bay or sudbury or something, and that's...

i'm not ready, yet.

i want to finish the discography, first - so that when i make that move, i'm just bringing books.

there are empty lots for sale here for around $20,000.

and there are houses to be moved off of the land for around $10,000.

that's less than $40,000.

but, i'd have to find a way to cough up the cash to move it...

you know, i always expected i'd move to a cottage one say, once i got a little older and didn't care about the city life any more. and, that's what is available in this price range: cottages in the middle of nowhere.

i'm not there yet.

here's another crazy idea...

could i buy a house?

well, if i get a big enough payout, is that enough for a down payment?

i don't want a fancy place, i want an area that i can keep the smoke out of. and, one of these little houses i've seen come up for $650/month in rent is absolutely good enough.

it's probably not feasible. i'd have to sign a 50 year mortgage or something. but, what's the cheapest house here that i can find...

in america, you had chattel slavery; in canada, we had the underground railroad.

in america, you conquered and often slaughtered the indians as you moved west; in canada, we signed treaties with them (except in bc), offered them protection from american settlers & tried to make them more british through coercive assimilation policies. mirror reflection...

the general constant is that the basis of canadian civilization has largely been constructed in reaction to american civilization - less in terms of open opposition, but often in terms of learning from mistakes. so, in many ways, canada is america's sober second thought. and, that is the canadiana, the canadianism, the good governance of canadian history - that we pay very close attention to what america does, but we don't copy it the way a colony might, but rather understand the flaws and benefits and try and learn from and improve it via careful empirical analysis...

if we've strayed from this path recently, i can only suggest getting back to it.

of course canada shares a common history with the united states, but it's as reverse images of each other.

so, canada was initially a weakly populated french colony that was conquered by the british by accident. the british were colonizers in the true sense of the word, but the french were mostly interested in trading with the natives. so, the british created high density colonies and then expanded them, while the french scattered small trading communities at a day's travel distance from each other, from the mouth of the saint lawrence to the mouth of the mississippi - new orleans, st. louis, detroit, montreal...

when the british conquered canada in 1763 as a part of an unrelated conflict in europe, it was essentially handed over to the natives. it's not really clear if the british thought they'd seriously hold new france in the long run & the natives spent decades waiting for them to come back. but, for the purposes of our story, we have to point out that, in 1763, canada was almost void of british settlers - it was a french & indian colony, conquered in the french & indian war.

the first major movement of british citizens into canada actually happened between 1776 and 1793, as a consequence of the revolutionary war. so, while america fought a war for independence, canada inherited the loyalists - a shared history, but a mirror reflection.

the second major wave of immigration into canada came during the potato famine. given that the population of canada was very small at the time, this was a major event in our population history. in america, the irish were absorbed; in canada, they really changed the nature of the country. mirror reflections.

likewise, our constitution was written roughly contemporaneously to the american civil war, in the mid 1860s. confederation was 1867. and, we wrote our constitution to reject american governing traditions, because we fingered them as the cause of the civil war, which we didn't want. so, in canada, the division of powers is almost entirely reversed - and that's not an accident, it was done on purpose. the canadian framers believed that the cause of the american civil war was the constitutional protection of states' rights, and they made sure to keep it out of their own document because of it. mirror images.

and, i could continue, but i don't want to get too contentious by defining difference into the 20th century.

canadians don't broadly know the details, but we live the difference, intuitively. it's a true cultural, intergenerational memory in the sense that it's blurry in minutiae, but very real in broad scope.