listen: if i have to deal with smoke anyways then it makes far more sense to stay here at $525/month until i can plan an escape than it does to pay market rent elsewhere, and then have to move a third time.

so, it actually doesn't make sense to move, now, until i find the perfect spot.

they'll give me ten days, if the sheriff does show up, however many months from now.

obviously, i'd like to be out of here tomorrow. but there doesn't appear to be a way to do that....

the more i express my displeasure at being made sick by this person's selfish habits, the more she smokes.

there's been a lot of turnover here in the last few weeks. it seems like we have more non-smokers than we did previously. although i actually think it was the islamic festival across the street that scared a lot of people off....that seems to be when everybody decided to move out...

it could also be the neighbourhood, in general. there's a big influx of homeless people.


but, i really hope that some of these new tenants are as disgusted by this woman as i am and make a series of complaints.

the correct answer is to evict this woman.

the reason toronto is different is because it's so filthy rich.

so, yeah - there's art districts in toronto. but, if you want to live in them, you need to have inherited wealth. i mean, it's a big-L liberal place - it has a lot of lip service for art as an industry, and a lot of people that get a lot of grants. but, what that means is that the art district is made up of the children of investors, who have fancy fine arts degrees and no talent, or the children of artist's themselves. and, ironically, a lot of them just end up sitting on overpriced housing until they marry back into old money.

that's not anything at all like the underground art scene i need. it's not cheap rent; it's inflated rent. it's not an escape from hierarchy, it's adopting the status of an artiste. and, it's broadly expected that these people uphold a status quo of big-L liberal values, as they are creatures of the party, itself.

there's a reason that all the musicians out of toronto come from money, or have family already in the business - and why there aren't any underground artists coming out of the city, and never has been.

montreal was always the spot.

but, i'm already in detroit.

what i want is the same thing that artists have always wanted: cheap rent, time to create and a community that is supportive of art as a vocation, which means support for alternative lifestyles.

there is a history of this on this continent. and, landlords have historically played an important role, by providing cheap housing to exist in. but, it's drying up here...the culture is changing, for the worse.

everybody just wants to tell me to get a job and start a family. it's depressing.

that doesn't seem to be happening in america. rather, there appear to be more like-minded people on the other side of the border who are all looking for the same escape - and a potential to build communities outside of traditional structures.

i'm not at the point of failure, yet.

i'm probably going to want to stay here for the winter, at least - even if it means bunkering in here for a frivolous appeal. i could potentially put another $5000-6000 away by paying the reduced rent and waiting out the process, which is less than i'll find anywhere else. it's not what i want, but it may be what i have to do.

and, if i can then take a few thousand dollars across that border, and use it for six-ten months of rent to get the basic tracks down, it might turn out to be my best option. my most productive option.

and, then, who knows what happens next.

i moved from ottawa to windsor on a couple of grand, while living on disability. there's nothing illegal about paying rent, right? as long as i don't work. surely i can get a few miles across that border.

there this idea in the political class in canada that we're going to run out of workers when the boomers retire. that's the reason we're pushing for so much immigration.

if i had mobility rights, i could get to a city like portland, or austin - even if it's just for a while.

we don't have anything like that in canada. it's just a giant, boring suburban wasteland, with white picket fences, two car garages and kids dying of heroin overdoses, because the life of consumerism is so void and empty.

we used to have montreal, at least, but the same thing is happening there. toronto has always been expensive, and had a different kind of culture because of it. and, we lost vancouver a long time ago...

i'm waiting for a call from the gatekeeper that may or may not come, but one of the things i told him was that canada doesn't really exist, yet - or, not in the way it will be understood to history. and, the canada that history understands may be almost the exact opposite of what contemporary canadians imagine it as.

the canada that goes down in history may very well be a deeply conservative place, tied strongly to traditional values of religion and family first. that's the direction we're headed in now.

but, if we had full mobility rights as a part of nafta, i would have an easy solution to my problem, as i would be able to relocate into a liberal and arts-focused part of detroit, rather than being stuck in this sleepy, conservative, family-centric suburb of it.

again: i don't really want to live in windsor. just like i wouldn't want to live in kanata, or i wouldn't want to live in brampton. while windsor is like the poor man's kanata, or the poor immigrant's brampton, the refugee's brampton, it's still increasingly hurtling towards this mindset of boring small town suburbia, with churches or mosques on every corner, and nothing to do but get trashed. there's nothing to do here except raise a family...

what i want is to live in detroit, where there is an urban core dedicated to an urban lifestyle and an urban philosophy - secularism, liberalism, radical acceptance, art as a way of life, etc. but, there's that pesky border, there.

full mobility rights would fix that.

right now, the movement of people is only happening one way, and it's a part of the problem that's developing: it's too easy to get into canada, and too hard to get out.

you're supposed to learn from the intellect that you hold in high regard, whatever it is that you hold up.

the only thing i can think of is that, by turning up the music and saturating the air, she's masking the sound and smell of dirty sex coming from the unit.

why else would you do this?

like, i'm not just saying "this is gross, gag, vomit.". what i'm saying is "my body is having a negative physical reaction to the amount of secondhand smoke in the unit, and i am about to have a fit of violent vomiting, whether i like it or not."

and, of course, if your body wants to vomit in a situation like this, you should let it - because, by doing so, you're ejecting a stew of toxic chemicals, in the only way your body understands how.

the first thing i'm going to do when i get out of here is give myself a rigorous screening for cancer.

and, if i i have to, i will hold people accountable for their negligence.

no amount of pro-rated rent can undo the potential harm this may be having on me.

and, the depth of the damage this is doing to me will not be clear until i'm able to get out.

but, the idea that this is somehow ok is wrong.

it is not ok to make people sick like this.

and, it is not ok for a landlord to ignore complaints of this nature, either.

what is happening to me is a deep injustice. and, the compensation i'm receiving is truly insufficient.

is she a prostitute?

it's that why?

the premise that she just wants to sit and listen to loud music and smoke all night is absurd. there has to be something else going on.

this is not a little bit worse.

this is orders of magnitude worse. ten times, at least.

like, i'm wheezing. that's not something i've experienced since i was a kid.

when i smoked, i smoked a half a pack a day, outside. i didn't live in it.

it's hard to measure how much second hand smoke you're breathing in, but when you smoke outside you don't get that constant exposure.

i have no memories of being sick like this, when i smoked. 

if i file an appeal and refuse to pay more than $525 in rent (the amount the court reduced it to), does that make it more or less likely that they'll finally do the right thing and throw her out?

i don't understand why she's chain smoking and listening to loud music in her apartment, by herself, at 1:00 in the morning.

it's just behaviour that is absolutely baffling to me. i wouldn't have acted like that at 15, 25 or 35 - and i don't imagine i'll act like that at 45 or 55.

everybody else is asleep. i'm the only person that's said anything, but i can't be the only person being bothered by it. at this point, i can't gain anything by continuing to complain. but why would you do that?

the smoke, once again, is making me physically sick - there is a good chance that i'm going to start vomiting. it's almost like the reaction you get when you give a 12 year old kid forty cigarettes, in an attempt to gross them out. i haven't had a cigarette in months, but i'm inhaling more smoke than i ever did when i was a smoker.

it's really hard for me to describe how bad it is. and, i can't take pictures or videos to describe it. but, the windows are fogged up from the smoke. i can taste it at the back of my throat. there's a thin layer of ash on the floor.

she must smoke 50 cigarettes a day. it's just constant. & unending.

it hurts to breathe. my stomach is in knots.

but, i can't find a way out.

and i just don't get it. like, what is she doing down there? what is the purpose of this?