so, what's going on with me, personally?

i'm now at nine months completely straight-edge (in the sense of choosing abstinence) and have been out of the pot lounge apartment for five months. i think i'm reaching a turning point in terms of regaining my cognitive abilities, and undoing the damage caused by the marijuana - i'm having longer days, certainly. it seems to be a process that operates in a progressive manner, meaning i think i should hope the effects continue to decrease week over week. at the least, i think it's clear enough that if i had concerns about permanent damage then they weren't grounded - even if it takes months and months to completely recover. it's taking a long time, but i am getting better. slowly.

at this point, i can't imagine ever smoking another cigarette again, ever.

the second-hand (tobacco) smoke came back in yesterday, though, and left me unproductive for a good while, just waiting for it to lift; there's not a lot i can do besides hide under the blankets when it does come in, because i just end up hacking and wheezing for hours, otherwise. it seems to have mostly lifted again, now. i dunno. really - i don't know. there is an older woman's voice upstairs, from time-to-time, often at odd hours, and it might be the source of the filth. what i know is that the weather is finally set to break in a few days, and i should be able to start to get to the bottom of what's actually happening when it does.

there's three possibilities that i think are likely:

1) it could be the heating system. i don't think it is, but i can't rule it out, yet.
2) somebody upstairs is smoking, periodically. the thing is that i don't know how it's getting in here, as there's no clear source. that said, i think this is somehow the right answer.
3) it's just the neighbourhood. but, again - i don't think it's getting in through the windows. i don't think this is actually true.

the source actually seems to be below me, somehow. but, i'm in a basement with tiled floors. if there's anything below me at all, it's just the water table - and this isn't something abstract, it's second-hand tobacco smoke, clear as day.

so, the fact is that i don't understand what's happening.

if i can prove somehow that somebody upstairs is smoking, i'm going to have to sue to get out of the lease. the process i went through last time where i gave the owners a set of options to choose from isn't relevant in this scenario - it's his house, and i can't tell him what the rules are, but i can sue him for damages relating to a breach in the contract and demand release from the lease as i do. if i decide it's the neighbourhood, and i can't fix it, i'm going to have to move away somewhere else, which will be a more typical give-notice-kind-of-thing. and, if it's the heaters, i'll have to figure out if there's a way to clean them. the key thing is needing this awful winter to end so i can try and figure it out...right now, i'm just locked inside by the snow and ice.

the long term says we should be past the worst of it next week. let's hope that's correct...

and, how about the court situation?

the cops are required by statute to get me my report by the end of the day. it's technically saturday that is day 120, but they have no reason to ask for an extension to monday, and i fully expect the report by the end of day 119. that said, i don't actually expect anything at all, except the need to call the opird on monday. as mentioned, i'm not deciding on a next step until i read the report...

and, what have i been actually doing?

i don't think i mentioned it here, but i picked up a third external drive on sunday morning. you can get a 2 tb external drive for $100 nowadays. i picked this up for the purposes of housing data for the alter-reality, and have actually nearly filled it up over the week - although that will no doubt cut nearly in half once i've sorted it. it's almost done, anyways. that's been the week - not all that productive, really a lot of waiting, but i'm in a bit of a bottleneck on it that i'm almost through...

the last remaining issue with this is how to find that email, if it exists, and it's becoming increasingly clear that it doesn't. the fact is that it's going to be years before i really need to worry about this too much, but i nonetheless need to have some process to sort through what physical media i have in a systemic manner. at this point, i haven't been able to open the email i found in that virtual machine, but i haven't exhausted my options, i don't think. rather than sit down and go through each thing one by one, i should try everything i can with that one virtual machine and then approach each physical disc using everything i've already tried. am i going to find anything, in the end? well, i won't know until i've tried everything, and i won't know i've tried everything until i've given up on the vm.

so, that's the substantive progress report - i'm copying over a large amount of data right now, and on the brink of getting back to the rebuild.