trudeau is a religionist.

he doesn't care about queer people.

he's just flogging us for cash.

stop falling for it.

listen, i'm not about to be restricted by your bourgeois conceptions of floor design.

i'll put my bed in the fucking kitchen if i bloody well want to.

so, i did put an application in for something, today.

i'm a little apprehensive about it. it's at the back of the building, and i didn't see any butts back there; all of the butts were in the front of the building. there's empty lots around the building, too. so, i'd really only have to seriously control for the tenant below me, who doesn't seem to smoke.

it's a central air unit, which is actually illegal. you're not allowed to recycle air between units. i guess that, if the issue comes up, i can give them a nice ultimatum on that one, right? in theory, it should be easy enough to put a solo line in. and, they'd have no choice but to do it - or face a lawsuit i'm sure to win. there's no ambiguity on this point at all, in the law. you can't do that. but, maybe they've already fixed it and it's a non-issue...

it's also a little further from downtown than i'd like it to be.

the upside is that it's actually cheaper than where i am right now, by $25/month, and it's not measurably smaller in terms of usable space. the kitchen is a little bigger, and the bedroom is a little smaller, so it balances out; i can put the bookshelves in the kitchen, instead. the living room is a little smaller,  but there's some extra space in a personal hallway - which roughly balances out, given that where i am right now doesn't have an entrance, and i'm putting my shoes on in the living room.

the building is actually rather similar to the one i had to leave, but it's an upper level rather than a lower one. i'll admit that i could see myself getting on management to move me downstairs if it opens up.

as always, the biggest drawback is the smoke, but all i can do is keep learning and keep adjusting. i can't foresee the future, or predict things that aren't obvious. like, they could build a rooming house on the open side. then, i'm fucked.

so, it's not perfect, but it's good enough to try to get out in front of on. & we'll see how that goes.

i'm trying to keep the amount of things i'm purchasing to a minimum, because i'm essentially ready to pick up and move at any time. but, i do need to eat. so, i'm at the grocery store, picking up some fruits & veggies, some cheese, some eggs...

i come up to the cash register, and it's a tale of two refugees.

now, i didn't see what actually happened, but my proclamations in this space will neither convict or acquit this man, so let us assume, for the sake of the narrative, that the accusation from refugee #1 (the store manager) was true: that refugee #2 did in fact bring his kid into the store in order to steal something, perhaps a loaf of bread.

i don't think it's right to ask the question of whether it's a crime to steal a loaf of bread; i think it's right to ask the question of whether it's a crime to force people into choices such as these, especially if the premise was escape from a scenario where there was no bread at all. what is a greater crime: to lack the resources to distribute bread to all that need it, or to deny bread to those that need it when it is abundant? it seems like a silly question, when framed properly.

but, what other outcome could we expect?

refugee #1 speaks excellent english, and is probably underemployed, if clearly well fed. he could have probably emigrated here outside of the refugee system. and, perhaps he did.

it is not clear if refugee #2 understand enough english to comprehend the accusations against him, and he might very well just be doing what he's always done - and perhaps what his parents always did, too.

the manager was enraged, perhaps because he saw himself reflecting back at him. his enunciations focused strongly on the premise of the child being the guilty party, the implication being that teaching a child to steal is in some ways worse than stealing. but, who owns this property? and why is this theft?

i watched the manager, a big and well-nourished man, pick this scrawny, underfed fellow refugee up and throw him across the store, to the quiet amazement of onlookers, as though he was carrying out an application of sharia law on the spot. he then grabbed him by the nape of the neck, and dragged him out of the store.

i do not know what happened next.

but, i suspect what i witnessed has happened before in this country, and will happen again.

anti-racism activists need to understand that this process has been poorly managed, and that some serious changes in approach are immediately required to prevent some serious consequences.

i mean, to begin with, i wouldn't describe myself as this person's "ex-boyfriend"; while the relationship was complicated, "ex-partner" or even "ex-girlfriend" is a more accurate description.

second, when you've been friends with somebody for six, seven, eight years after a break-up, are you still that person's ex or are you just their friend? i'd argue for the latter, and to hear that i'm still being described as an "ex" is to introduce a dimension into the situation that i'd actually thought was long abolished.

but, in hindsight, this is somebody that didn't bother to close the door to urinate when we'd been broken up for five years. she was clearly hanging on to things that i'd long let go of.

i still don't know what's going on, exactly, and, at this point, i guess i'll have to accept that i never will.

but, the fact is that we got along well for over five years after we split up. we'd go for lunch periodically - often around her birthday. i remember when i took her to mexis when she got pregnant the first time, and convinced her to start eating meat - a year after we broke up. i remember going for a walk with her near dow's lake around the tulip festival, three years after we broke up.

she invited me for dinner in her apartment four years after we broke up, and asked me to bring flour. i brought flowers. get it?

it was around this time that i rejected a threesome with her. she got a little weird after that...

but, she didn't really get distant until i told her i was back on hormones, about 2010ish - 6 years after we broke up.

and, as far as i can tell, what's actually going on is that she's mad at me for being queer.

a year after the fact, two years after the fact, three years after the fact, i thought she'd get over it. at this point, it doesn't seem like she is going to get over it...

so, let's say you've got a friend, and that friend is important to you - and you think you're important to that friend, too.

and, yeah, maybe you've had sex with that friend in the past, but, since then, things have changed - maybe the friend has children to raise (and maybe you don't want to be a part of a family, or don't want to take on that responsibility), and maybe you've even gone through a gender transition, in the mean time, so that you and your friend actually identify as the same gender, and in fact always did, over the entire length of time you've been friends.

now, let's say that your friend gets the idea that you're trying to sleep with them, and have been trying to sleep with them for years, and the whole friendship was a ruse - despite the fact that you actually haven't demonstrated any sexual interest in your friend at all, or even any sexual interest in your friend's entire gender for years and years.

what the fuck do you do in this situation?

it's a catch-22.

you could try and call your friend and explain that you're not sexually interested in them at all - but, if your friend is convinced of this, repeated calls are just evidence of pestering for more sex.

you could try and show up at your friend's house and explain it, but if your friend is convinced of a sexual motive, however flimsily, and refuses to talk to you, then that is also just more evidence of a sexual advance.

further, you can't just ignore the situation - because unless you get your friend to get this crazy idea out of their head, they're going to spread rumours about it, and it's going to have a negative effect on you.

so, in order to get your friend to knock off the delusion, you have to keep trying to talk to the friend - which just proves, in your friend's mind, how obsessed you are with the imaginary sexual advance.

the surreal part of this is in the idea that your friend could be so daft. it's not such a crazy thing to imagine, excepting the clause that your friend couldn't really be that stupid, right?

well, maybe your friend really is that stupid.

but, the other possibility is that your friend could be reacting to the lack of interest. maybe your friend had more romantic interest in you than you had in them, and is angry at you for not reciprocating - and so is fabricating a scenario, for some kind of gain. maybe the friend is a little embarrassed about some aspect of the situation; and, falling for a queer person that just wants to be your friend (but really does want to be your friend) is kind of embarrassing on some level, sure. maybe the friend is mad about the lack of interest in raising the kids, or about the gender transition. maybe the friend is holding a grudge over the rejection of their own previous advances, and looking to get back at you.

i guess the lesson to learn is that this person isn't really your friend, at all, are they?

but, regardless, the necessity to get your "friend" to acknowledge that there never was an advance remains - and the catch-22 continues into perpetuity, until they admit it.