documents to print

From: Jessica Murray
To: wpl850@gmail.com

hi.

both files should open with word.

j


1) Answering the question of why I.doc

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Answering the question of why I’ve been unable to work over the last few years, and why I feel that this will likely continue for several more, is not something I can do with ease. In truth, this is what I sought out a psychiatric opinion about. I did not come to the process of evaluation with an understanding of the problem but with a desire to better understand it and I do not honestly feel as though my brief encounter with this psychiatrist has left me with a significantly better understanding of the core issues.

He claims that I suffer from weak symptoms of depression and that this is part of the reason that I’ve been unable to work. I cannot deny that the symptoms associated with the diagnosed ‘dysthymia’ seem applicable, but if they’re applicable now then they’ve been applicable continually since early childhood and they didn’t prevent me from working in the past. I do not honestly believe that I am too depressed to function in the workforce on a general basis, but I will concede that my general personality is not ideal for a job in the service industry, which is about the only industry that I am now and likely ever will be qualified to work in. So, there is a roundabout relevancy to the observation. Insofar as this is my personality, and the issue is perhaps wholly described in these terms, this is not a resolvable issue without some form of drug use or psycho-therapy. Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect.

I hope you’ll excuse my biases in favour of empiricism over deductive reasoning, but perhaps the better argument in favour of my inability to work is the fact that I’ve been so unsuccessful in the work force over the last several years. My last period of ‘gainful employment’ ended in mid-2008 due to a layoff. I was then fired twice in 2008, both times due to chronic tardiness that was brought on by symptoms that seem consistent with the diagnosis of dysthymia, before heading back to school to study computer science, partially as a result of being unable to find steady employment. I felt targeted by my professors over the next few years due to the fact that I rarely attended classes. I rarely attended classes due to issues of social anxiety; while I’ve never needed to sit in class to keep up and my grades have always been above the curve, most professors were not sensitive to this at all and, in staggering displays of counter-productive ignorance, decided to pick me out and make an example of me. This led to two predictable outcomes. First, I was forced to stand up for myself and challenge several professors through administrative means. I won every fight. Second, I was then even less likely to attend classes due to the increased social anxieties of being singled out by professors and peers. As an aside, I think that there should be mandatory training for professors about the issue of social anxiety and why it prevents some students from attending class or working in groups. Certainly, making an example of students for ‘truancy’ under ignorant assumptions should be viewed not just as unacceptable and unprofessional but as criminal harassment. Over time, I became paranoid and suspicious of all professors and teaching assistants under the empirical deduction that they seemed to be purposefully singling me out, which made me even more anxious, even more upset and excessively confrontational. I eventually forced myself out of the program a credit short of graduation; I do not feel that I can complete the program with an objective evaluation at this particular institution. My GPA in the program is above 10 out of 12, which is an A.

Accepting that it was best to cut my losses and start fresh, it was in the fall of 2010 that I forced myself out of the program in order to raise the income necessary to undergo gender transition. I’ve been unable to find any significant employment since then. The few jobs that I’ve been able to find have been either part time or commission-based, and I’ve been fired from all of them, except one - a part-time job at a company that was short-staffed and in the process of bankruptcy. When the company eventually failed, I lost employment.

    How many interviews have I been to over the last year and a half? I’ve been to several hundred of them, and in every industry imaginable. I’ve been to dozens and dozens of fast food interviews, including at several of the same restaurants multiple times, and simply cannot get anybody in the industry to hire me. Dysthymia may be to blame, as may be transphobia. To be blunt, I think the culprit is more likely to be a combination of ageism and reverse-classism. With no recent service industry experience, an advanced education and being above the age of 30, this is simply not an option that is open to me. Unfortunately, it’s also the only option that I have without going to school again. If I am accepted into disability, I may indeed enroll in correspondent classes at the other local university with the hopes of putting myself in a better long term self-employment situation.

I was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria more than ten years ago. I’ve always felt as though I am female, but was taught (primarily by my mother) to suppress those feelings as abnormal and wrong. My mother, overall, has had a haunting effect on my life. She suffers from paranoia, schizophrenia and drug and alcohol abuse; she was extremely emotionally negligent and abusive towards me for most of my young childhood, which has left me deeply codependent and very strongly attracted to exploitative and abusive relationships. A few months into transition, I fell into one of these deeply abusive relationships with a young girl that convinced me to stop hormone therapy. We went our ways several years later; I have arguably yet to recover from the emotional damage she caused me, but going back into transition is a positive step forward in the proper direction of the recovery of my ego and self-confidence.

As I’ve been unable to find employment for the last year and a half, I’ve had to rely on the help of family members. My father is wealthy, but I am not welcome in his home due to issues of transphobia. He helped me for a little while and then cut me off in a sink or swim scenario. I ended up getting evicted from my apartment, losing most of my belongings and moving into the spare room in my elderly grandmother’s apartment, which is where I am currently. My grandmother is a compassionate woman but she lives on a fixed income and cannot afford to take care of me indefinitely. I need to find an alternate solution.

    Welfare has not been a valid solution. The maximum monthly amount is not sufficient for any individual to exist upon; as I am currently not paying rent, it’s been cut down to $200/month, which I find to be remarkable. My medication is almost $200/month! The idea of me raising enough money to move away from my grandmother through welfare is laughable. I cannot find employment. I cannot function socially. I cannot stay here forever. Without some kind of significant state intervention, my future, then, appears to be either in homelessness or prostitution or both.

I went to the doctor to try and understand what the causes of the problems I’ve been experiencing are and don’t feel I’ve walked away with a deeper insight than I had before. Depression that is so weak that it cannot even be called depression? That seems so trivial, and so unworthy of aid. However, when the diagnosis is put in the context of what I’ve experienced over the last several years, perhaps a larger pattern emerges. Perhaps my social and contentedness problems are at the root of my inability to find employment and, if that is truly the case, then perhaps, and despite years of denial, I do qualify for disability.

Hopefully, this will be the short term solution that allows me to rebuild my life in the face of an adversity that is larger than I am able to conquer through sheer willpower and hard work. I feel I’ve run out of other options and am asking you for aid out of desperation.

Jessica

2) odsp essay.rtf.

Re: can you please check the storage for boxes

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To:  grandmother’s email address

i really wish i had paid better attention. i was in such a haze that week...

i believe you when you say you can't find anything else. i sort of specifically remember taking a few things down off the wall at the last minute, though. i sort of fear a box may have been taken from beside your car. those pictures would have been destroyed if they were left out there, anyways.

i have a list of about 100 things that have disappeared. everything from a mandolin to a blender; weird things, like half of the keys from my synthesizer, inexplicable things like my blanket. it seems like she just went through and helped herself to whatever she wanted.

i'm doing well, besides that.

odsp essay

Hello.

    I apologize for the late response, but I had a very difficult several weeks and needed some time to reflect before attempting to engage with anybody in any kind of official capacity. My relationship with my father was slightly strained over the last few years of his life, but it remains a loss that I am likely to feel deeply for many years to come.

    I understand that I need to explain my decision to move to Windsor, and will gladly do so. I may even go so far as to suggest to your office that it is a process you should actively involve yourselves with on a regular basis, as the process would have been less erratic had I had a little bit of help with it. I also feel that many people that live on ODSP in Ottawa could have their quality of life profoundly increased by relocating somewhere where the cost of living is dramatically lower. Within that sentence lies the core of my reason to relocate, but it is void of any kind of context. My diagnosis is PTSD, but I feel my condition is more in the schizo-affective spectrum (and merely driven by stress), so to get a proper grasp of the situation requires creating the context through narrative. I'm willing to acknowledge at this point that I ended up signing a lease in Windsor as a function of a stress-driven episode or breakdown; while I hope it is by more than pure coincidence, I do also feel very strongly that it was a positive decision that will help me accomplish the goals that I have.

    The first thing that needs to be understood would be the rather hopeless conditions I was living in. I stayed in my grandmother's spare room (in a two bedroom apartment) from approximately November, 2011 until July, 2013. She allowed me to stay there because I had nowhere else to go, and it was a safe and stable place for me, but she was openly hostile about the fact that she did not want me there and threatened to throw me out on multiple occasions. By this July passed, I had already missed several deadlines related to me leaving and was expecting to be forcefully ejected around September if I was unable to find anywhere else to go. However, I also knew that I would be unable to find anywhere else to go, so I was more or less just waiting out the time and planning for whatever drastic actions that the inevitable would force into being. In my case, that meant drinking a lot of alcohol with a close friend of mine and ranting out various depression-fueled ballads.

    It would be an error to accuse me of a lack of effort. I state this in defense, and indignantly, as it should go without saying that failure does not imply a deficit of labour as much as it implies a deficit of ability; when we fail, we generally don't do so because we didn't try hard enough, we do so because our strongest efforts were not good enough. To create a market society that necessarily produces losers and then blame the losers is an incoherent position, logically; it is the system that produces losers, who are victims, and the system that must change to get people out of that situation. Should I or anybody else claw their way out, it would merely relegate another to the position. There's no net gain by focusing on the individual, merely a continuation of the harmful mindset that has precluded the problem of splitting society into winners and losers.

    That being said, it seemed as though I found something in June, but the price seemed too good to be true and the conditions on the lease demonstrated as much. I applied for several places throughout June and July but was systemically rejected from all of them. While I was never able to get a response back on what the precise issues may have been, I can take a few guesses - my credit is very bad, there are societal stigmas against people that are unable to work due to disabilities (and many people that question if this is actually really true), I am openly transgendered and I have a deeper concept of classical Greek (albeit not much) than I do of business-normality. Business-minded people tend to interpret me as childish; while the feeling is mutual, artists don't tend to be property agents so there wasn't much chance of me finding somebody I could see eye-to-eye with. The reality is that finding an apartment in Ottawa is something I would not have been able to do without some help from a body of some sort, such as subsidized housing.

    This is a good place to bring up the cost of housing in Ottawa, which is beyond what an ODSP living expenses allotment can be reasonably considered to allow for. You don't have to take my word for this. There was a white paper issued some time last year (Brighter Prospects: Transforming Social Assistance in Ontario. Frances Lankin and Munir A. Sheikh) with a *key recommendation* to calculate living expenses through a market-dependent formula on a city-by-city basis to compensate for the differences in rent prices across the province. In a city such as Sudbury, $479/month may come close to providing for shelter. In Ottawa, it is difficult to find a room for $479/month; bachelors usually run over $700 and one bedrooms run close to $900, generally not including utilities. The white paper suggested increasing living expenses in Ottawa to account for this higher market cost while keeping amounts in Sudbury steady (or perhaps even decreasing the shelter amount). I am not surprised that the government has completely ignored this recommendation in favour of hiding a push for workfare behind a phony attack on ableism. However, the white paper demonstrates that this is a problem that exists, that the government is failing to react to it (or even acknowledge it) and that finding a solution is imperative. As the government will not act to increase the living expenses allowance, I feel anything that I might do to compensate should be commended and possibly studied as a model of action. Certainly, *somebody* has to do something about this.

    The places I applied for in Ottawa were at 80-90% of my monthly check and would have made living day-to-day extremely difficult. They were the cheapest places I could find that I could have actually lived in. I would have likely been unable to afford proper nourishment for myself, clothes, entertainment, or much of anything else besides the cost of rent and food. While I can survive for very long periods on spaghetti and books, that's not much of any kind of existence. I often found myself asking the following question: if they wish to kill the weak, why not just go ahead and do so? Why bother letting us live if the result is a sort of torturous boredom? Did I want to bother with that kind of existence? I was seriously contemplating suicide.

    There are various solutions that could be proposed. One is to find a rooming house, but this wouldn't be possible for me. The reason I'm on disability is that I can't function socially. Putting me into a rooming house is going to exacerbate the problem and throw me into a series of episodic fits. In order to maintain sound mental health, I need to spend a large amount of time (probably close to 90% of it) completely alone - not with an animal, not with a partner, nobody at all except me. So, this is an option that is out of the question. A second would be to get a job, but I'm facing two barriers in relation to this. The first barrier is that I've found finding employment to be very difficult (discrimination due to gender expression, artist/business incompatibility and other more traditional reasons such as a lack of any kind of non-academic experience relative to my age) and the second is again that I'm on disability due to an inability to function socially and could not work *enough* hours to compensate, anyways. A third option was to wait for the condo boom to lead to a crash in the price of rent, but that could take up to ten years and I had to find an answer as soon as possible.

    So, there didn't really seem to be a solution, and often the only thing that made sense was to get drunk and drown away the hopelessness....

    ....until a friend of mine completely accidentally provided me with a solution I hadn't really contemplated: she suggested I move out of Ottawa with her. At first, I wrote the idea off entirely as something I couldn't afford to organize. However, the more I looked into it, the more I realized how beneficial it would be to me if I could find a way to get it done.

    She picked Windsor as a destination, and I ended up here before her, but that didn't automatically place me here. The entire area of southern Ontario has rent at half the price of Ottawa. Even Toronto has areas of low rent housing...

    What I began to see as I was studying the rental markets of cities in Ontario is that it isn't Windsor that is exceedingly cheap (although it is one of the cheapest places), but Ottawa that is outrageously expensive. Worse, from my perspective, is that Ottawa simply doesn't have a low rent market. Rent is mildly cheaper in Vanier, but pretty much consistent across town. I can only guess at reasons for this. It is possible to find a one-bedroom apartment in the less safe areas of Toronto for under $479/month; why isn't that true in Ottawa? Is it because there aren't unsafe areas in Ottawa? Is it because there is a chronic shortage of subsidized housing in Ottawa and this artificially inflates the cost of rent? Whatever the reason, I need to be clear about the precise nature of this subtle point. It may be true that Toronto is more expensive than Ottawa *on average* once you've worked in all of the ridiculously expensive suites on Yonge Street that there is not really a parallel to in Ottawa, either. However, if you're on ODSP or welfare or even working minimum wage, your options for cheap rent in Toronto are considerably better; from the perspective of looking at the market from the bottom up, Ottawa is incomparably more expensive than Toronto. It is the most expensive place to live in Ontario, whereas Windsor is one of the cheapest.

    Coming to this realization was actually very important, as it made me realize that the situation was not hopeless after all - I just happened to be stuck in the most expensive city in the province, by whatever unfortunate twist of randomness. So long as I could find a way out of Ottawa, things might be OK after all.

    It was decided, then, that we'd go down to Windsor to observe the situation. She had friends we could stay with. No decisions about Windsor were made at that point; I thought it would be a good idea to take a strong survey of the entire area southeast and southwest of Toronto before any serious decisions were made and decided to do that by hitchhiking. Things worked out a little differently...

    Before I left, I wanted to spend some time with my father who was at the end stages of terminal brain cancer. After three unsuccessful attempts at surgery, he stopped taking his chemotherapy drugs at the beginning of July. This was a conscious end-of-life decision; the third surgery left him with some brain damage, and a fourth surgery would have almost certainly left him severely brain damaged if it didn't kill him outright. While my stepmother assured me that he'd be alive when I got back, I didn't know how long I'd be gone and didn't want to miss the opportunity to have a real and serious goodbye. The night before I left, we had a very emotional phone call that I felt was a permanent goodbye (he was losing control of his face muscles and therefore his ability to talk), and it triggered me into a state of passive mania for the next week or so that subsequent events only exacerbated. I was getting updates about the situation every few days as I was traveling. As it is, my father died on Sunday, July 28th while I was sleeping in a Tim Horton's in Windsor; I signed a lease on Monday, July 29th to move in for August 1st without any ability to finance, with the sole aim of getting home in time for the funeral. The reality is that I was in a haze the whole time I was gone, was not behaving particularly rationally and barely remember large portions of the week at all. For somebody with stress-related issues, that's a whole lot of stress to try and deal with without reacting in a less than ideal manner.

    I did, however, get a place in Windsor; and I did make it home for the funeral. I may have wanted, ideally, to spend a little more time shopping in the area by hitching rides from town to town, but my willingness to do that was itself perhaps symptomatic of the mania I was feeling all week (was I avoiding the pain of facing up to my father's death by escaping town?) and in the end the place I got is something I couldn't afford to have rented in Ottawa. Everything else aside, I feel this is a smart decision that will help me live more comfortably on a very small income.

    I was able to finance first and last ($1300) by taking a loan from my stepmother, and I borrowed roughly that from my biological mother's friend (who was gracious enough to drive) to rent a U-haul for 800 miles and pay for gas. If there are any kinds of programs (such as the discretionary moving allowance, or first/last rent helper startups) that are available to help me pay some of this back, it would help me make this fresh start truly fresh. It's going to take a long time to pay back $2500.

    To answer the question as to why I would move to Windsor, briefly: I simply could not afford to live independently in Ottawa.

    I have attached the essay I initially sent to ODSP a little over a year ago, where I explain the reasons I applied for ODSP and what I hoped to get from it. I do feel as though this move is a major step in getting me along in the process.  To update the situation, I spent the 2012-2013 school year studying Law at Carleton University (and completed a minor in the subject). I feel this helped me work through some personal issues, but do not think I am well suited for a career in this field.

     I am not sure what kind of employment opportunities exist in Windsor, but I am not convinced it particularly matters because I am not confident about my abilities to convince an employer to hire me in the first place. The reality is this: If I am unable to compete with teenagers for service jobs in Ottawa, moving to Windsor is not going to increase my chances, but is not going to significantly harm them either. I am unlikely to find a job either way. I am more likely to secure employment through luck or systemic aid than I am through competition on the open job market. I don’t need more schooling – I have far too much schooling – I need some kind of targeted job training and I need some experience doing something useful (32 years old and with no experience doing anything except reading books is a significant employment hurdle). About the best thing (and the most realistic thing) I can say is that my luck may be better here in Windsor than it was in Ottawa. However, I’m not holding my breath. I’ll just have to see what happens.

Jessica

ugh. i'm ready to pay $100/month just to turn off the fucking radio. honestly.

this pop-techno craze is horrific. never before has there been a more simplistic, watered down, completely fucking boring style of music. worse, it's hopelessly generic. you can't even tell when the songs switch. it's impossible. they're all identical. relief seems to come in the form of sappy new country that was likely written with the intent of ending up in a hallmark commercial. ugh.

i like a very wide variety of music, both very mainstream and not so much, and from just about every time period. i admit i've never liked the radio much, but it's never been so *irritating* that i've sat there sincerely wishing they'd just turn it off altogether...

Re: can you please check the storage for boxes

From: grandmother’s email address
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

I searched through all the closets and didn't find any of your stuff. I do not recall you giving me a box  to put away,other than the painting which I gave back to you.I also went down to the storage room to look & nothing there.Perhaps you have found it,I hope so.How are you doing ? I miss you & willy does too.I must run as Leo is waiting downstairs.

i’m finally migrating to the new laptop my dad gave me a few months ago. switching laptops is painful, but i don’t trust the hard drive in the compaq anymore.

an attempt to caulk the shower. it's leaking on to the floor, but i'm not sure from where. it needed to be done, regardless.

mom
I found out that the truck was $500.10, car was $376(but, I think that is an overestimate(some money was pocketed there).... My trip home was NOTHING BUT ABUSIVE!....I am quite enraged at this person! I really want to just get out of this sick and twisted relationship for good...But, If I decide to have anything more to do with him... I will be charging him for my help that he expects from me...Say bout $20.00 an hour will be my fee to make his meals, tidy up his place, clean his ugly old trailor.....Listen to his big dumb mouth rattle on about unintelligible bullshit! Sorry for my rant... I feel better now. How's it going?? Your pics look like you are getting the place all set up...Looks Good!

$20.00 an hr. wouldn't possibly be enough for me to have to endure the ridiculous insanity of this person!

Jessica Amber Murray
yeah, i suppose i'm renovating. dad would laugh at me. there's still a lot of things to do... i've written up an essay for odsp, and will fax it to ottawa on monday. but, yeah. just setting the place up.

also, facebook asked me tag brian may. lols.

some more photos

panorama of the studio

panorama of the studio starting here.

i need to get some kind of table or something for those keyboards. what i was using previously was the side of a bookcase, which was great because it gave me space for effects pedals underneath. if i can, i'll go find a cheap book case at ikea or something...

so, most of those effects will end up underneath whatever holds up the keyboards.

 the computer will end up in it's logical place, i just need to cut the back of the desk out altogether first (i got some exacto knives today). there will be a speaker (kef studio monitors, for the audiophiles) where the pc is. the pod is under the purple blanket. that little area in front of the pc is absolutely my foot space when recording...

 

that's a firewire interface. it acts as a mixing console, and can record 16 tracks simultaneously, but it's really just a *sound card* and a front-end for cubase (or pro tools, or whatever). there's a disassembled electronic drum kit in the corner...

this is a good set up, because i can just glide over from the keys to the snare and whatever else

 

is early 80s vintage yet? that there's a pretty old bass amp. it's also a fucking loud bass amp. bass amps are multipurpose. this little area is going to hold instruments though. i'll get some stands...

 

i'll have a little guitar corner over here for practicing attempts at reproduction, which is something that's inherently difficult for what i do (maybe you've seen people with those little loop boxes that allow for the emulation of multiple players, but i scoff in the general direction of these things - not remotely sufficient). besides, i'm a good enough player to play three or four parts at the same time. i don't need to compensate for shit with electronic gimmicks.

i had a plan to send the pod into a nad receiver and out into a pair of celestions. i'm probably speaking guitar g(r)eek here. let us retreat to some common ground and begin anew. we all know what a marshall stack is. the marshall stack is a collection of marshalls, stacked. inside each of those marshalls is a driven speaker. those speakers are manufactured by celestion. aaaah. the celestions got damaged, unfortunately. i don't want to take the pair from the living room apart, either. i'm rambling. in this corner, be guitar shrine.

Jessica Amber Murray
you left yourself logged into google. i didn't read your email. could have, though.

ESA
Ok. Uhm i forgot to log outta everything. Please dont read mah shit.

Jessica Amber Murray
don't worry, i'll only post the most embarrassing things i can find in public :P (in all honesty, you can trust me on this. i didn't even hack your facebook account.)

ESA
Hahaha i hope so. Not that theres much thats embarassing. More dirty stuff i dont want my parents to see

Also. How the hell are ya? Youre in windsor!!!!!

Hows the first four days treating you

Jessica Amber Murray
it's not too exciting so far, i've mostly been unpacking and doing fun things like putting up drapes. when i've left the house it's just been to go get stuff. I figure I should have things sorted out by friday, but I may be out of cash until the first....lol. well, this is a big move for me. i took everything i owned. like, i'm buying appliances. a month lost is sort of minor in context.

ESA
What do you mean by a month lost? Also add mackaye on FB

Jessica Amber Murray
well, just that it's going to be a month before everything is set up and life is back to normal.

RE: things that are missing

From: stepmother’s email address
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

Everything that was moved from Lexington (stored after your eviction from Bronson) was in the boxes you moved and all the musical equipment you stored was also present when you left here on Monday.......

things that are missing

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address, sister’s email address

i'm actually very perturbed about some of this, but i'd like to begin by merely inquiring about a few things. some of the items that are missing will be easy to replace (like a dish drainer), whereas some of them will be impossible to replace.

the following items are missing. does anybody have any idea what happened to these things:

- a winston electric mandolin. last seen in fisher park.
- a ovation 12-string guitar. last seen in fisher park.
- my blanket. it was in a plastic garbage bag. last seen in fisher park.
- a box containing tax information going back many, many years. last seen on Bronson.
- a box containing genealogical and other research. last seen on Bronson.
- sheet music from when i was taking classical lessons. last seen on Bronson.
- a box that had cassette demoes, notes, cds and other things. this box contained the demoes and other relics of the music i recorded in the 90s and early 00s. last seen on Bronson.
- dish drainer
- one dixon microphone, and the sleeve it was in. last seen on Bronson.
- a box with things that were on my wall, which included a “certificate of provenance” from the band coil and a pencil portrait that sarah made of me, amongst other things. i think my grandmother may have this box.

I've also noticed that my cd collection seems a little light. i haven't sorted through it yet, but i have it catalogued online in a database and will be able to determine precisely what is missing, down to the exact pressing.

again: i don't want to begin by being standoffish. as you can see, a large amount of this is irreplaceable. what i want is to know what happened to it, and for you to help me get it back.

as for the musical equipment, i would at this moment consider it (legally) stolen and would demand it's immediate return.

j

can you please check the storage for boxes

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: grandmother’s email address

hi.

I've got everything moved in. i'll send you some pictures when it's all set up. that's going to take a few weeks because i have to get some tables and shelves and stuff.

there are a few renovations that were left undone, as well. i'll have to ask the landlord about them. they're either not things I really care about (it looks like they were going to change the light fixture in the bathroom....not that i care that they didn't, but it would have been if they screwed the old fixture back in!) or things that will be quick to fix (the closet door in the bedroom was taken off to paint and never put back on). i'll have to do that today.

i'm certain you have a box of mine because it consisted of things i took down off the wall at the very last moment. there was a picture that sarah drew of me, a 'certificate of provenance' from a band called coil and other things that are invaluable to me. if it's not downstairs in storage, it must be in one of your closets. can you do a thorough check for me and get back to me on this?

j

mom
Home now...What a nightmare on the way back! Traffic was horrible going through Toronto area. Wish we would have stayed a few days...Just rented a cheap motel room and spent more time with you...Very glad I was able to spend the time with you that I did...Wish it had been just you and I though...Miss you already! Love You.

in windsor; still alive. kind of excited.

watching somebody literally tilt at windmills was sort of fun on the way in. sort of.

going to be a few weeks before I get the internet situation organized.

seems like i'm getting "free air conditioning" from the guy upstairs. it's a little chilly right this moment, but i'll get used to it and be happy about it if we get another heat wave.

i've had almost all of my possessions in storage for almost two years. a small amount of it seems to have disappeared, and i'm not happy about that, but we'll have to see what i can do about finding out what happened to it. i have a pretty good idea about what happened to some of it (like my electric mandolin, or my beat to shit acoustic 12-string) and no idea what happened to some of it (where did my blanket go?).

it's not like the internet wasn't already ubiquitous two years ago, and i've been a heavy user since the 90s, but unpacking some of these things is a little surreal in the sense of not realizing why i bothered keeping them: an answering machine, a giant world atlas from before the collapse of the soviet union, a copy of webster's dictionary.....

walking home from timmy's last night was also a little bit disturbing. i guess it was a little after midnight. i'm not really used to being catcalled at all, let alone the kind of abusive language i ended up on the other end of for the crime of walking down the street in a pair of tight pants. i'm not quite sure what it is that drives a car full of bros to yell "bitch" at a random person walking by minding their own business, or what the fuck somebody is thinking when they yell at a stranger to "shut their cunt". see, in the world i'm from, that kind of behaviour is grounds for somebody getting the shit kicked out of them. i was a little stoned, and a little shocked, so i just kept walking.....but i'm not shy with my fists, either. if that keeps up, i'm going to end up having to beat the shit out of some of idiots. i got a few yells when i was here before (a literal "hey girl", a "hey beautiful"), but it wasn't anything like that....

besides that, which is something i can deal with, the night's worth of reflection has left me happy about this. things are shaping up well. there's a ton of little things i need to do to get the place set up, and it's going to take a while, but i'm ok with spending the time on it.

Jessica Amber Murray
computer?

ESA
yeah. when u want me to bring it.

you can have the rest of the weed that I found

Re: hi again

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: d’s email address

i do think he'd want you to have those discs.

i'm going to wait until i get to windsor and have thought about it more carefully before i make any kind of list. i'm not very focused right this minute. and, in all honesty, some of those discs may even have gotten mixed up into my own things. i should check that as well.

really, though, it's just those two zappa discs that are screaming out at me to find them...

j

(no subject heading)

From: stepmother’s email address
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

If you are doing anything today I need to know soon.

Re: hi again

From: d’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

Well after reading your 2 e-mails yesterday, I'm left with the following feelings.

1. You are making a great deal of assumptions.
2. You seem to have given yourself a great deal of self entitlement.

Now as for the CD's. I have a feeling you will be greatly disappointed since I likely do not have what you are looking for. You are correct, I do have some of your dads CD's. I do have a few prog things like the Flower Kings, Tomas Bolin, Spock's Beard, Pain of Salvation, Dream Theater. A few others would have been non-prog related such at Gary Moore, Robben Ford, Joni Mitchell. While I did take some discs, I also left a great deal of things since I already own a lot of what your dad had or have a burn of it already. What you should keep in mind is your dad has sold some of his discs and has also lent a lot of them them out over the past couple of years. I know this for a fact since he dropped a small box of CD's off at the Turning Point last year, I drove him. When I went through the disc's I notice a lot that were not there that I know he owned. Flower Kings, Allman Bros, Zappa, Yes, etc.. just to name a few. I don't believe he would sell these bands, so on loan seems more logical. At this point in time, I would recommend you send me a list of the specific discs you are looking for. If I happen to have taken any of these, I will consider mailing them to you in Windsor once you have moved there.

I want to thank you for the good chuckle that you gave me with the father/son analysis you seem to think your dad and I had. I've been in need of a good laugh lately. I have no intent on going into great details with you regarding the bond your father & I shared except to say that it was more brotherly than anything else. I can see how you got confused in your analysis since it could be viewed as a younger brother/older brother relationship since you seem to think age has some sort of relevancy here.

time to go out

ESA
Jess????

R u comi.g?

Jessica Amber Murray
sure

should i go now?

ESA
Lol i sent u like 8 msgs. Yeh im ready

Jessica Amber Murray
they didn't come through....i'll be there in a few minutes...

we decided i should gorge myself with multi-course hintonburger in private and meet up again later

ESA
hey u wanna meet like at 8:30 ?

or smtng

8 ?

I forgot to get u to buy smokes. plus I dunno if u wanna play risk.

that's usually when I stop being tired and headachy during the day

Jessica Amber Murray
yeah, i'm good for 8.

or 8:30

ESA
don't mattah

Jessica Amber Murray
i'll just be sitting here, so msg me whenever.

ESA
kk

yeah you live close.

the hintonburger is a fine meal.

ESA
hey jessica

i'm going to the bank and then the lcbo if u wanna come

it'll be fun!

in about 30 minute s

Jessica Amber Murray
actually, i wanna get one last hintonburger in me, so, yeah, i'll go.

ESA
what does that have anything to do with that?

i'm confused

are you having a going away party ?

Jessica Amber Murray
well, it's in the same general direction... no going away party...

ESA
hmrph

Jessica Amber Murray
??

ok, well, i'm having a smoke and then i'm shaving so msg me when you're ready.

ESA
i'm ready

been up for 6.5 hours already

lolll

practiced piano, went to church, cleaned out my cupboards. I gotta make up for lost time.

Jessica Amber Murray
you said a half hour, that gives me time to smoke and shave. so, i'll msg you in 20-30 minutes then :P

ESA
ok.

or just come in 20 or 30 minutes

are you gonna get a hintonburger after?

Jessica Amber Murray
i dunno, i'll get there eventually.

ESA
K i'm down with getting a corn dog later

Jessica Amber Murray
(to hintonburger eventually. i'll stop by after i shave)

ESA
except now i'm officially gluten free. Officially I threw out all the pasta and bread from myhouse.

no more pizza and burger and beer for me

Jessica Amber Murray
you're probably better off cutting out the doritos and cigarettes, but i'm always in support of people making more healthy lifestyle decisions.

ESA
no. its because i'm celiac. I don't have the 150 dollars to get tested for it,

but before I had the same symptoms Ive been having, and I cut out the gluten, and the symptoms stopped. but then being "gluten-free" became some sort of yuppie bullshit trend, so I started drinking beer and eating pizza.

Its either i'm celiac or I have colitis.

but like 90% sure its the first one.

And I wont be able to eat doritos either.

Jessica Amber Murray
ok, i'll be there in a few minutes.

Jessica Amber Murray
ok, so what are the logistics regarding monday? it doesn't seem like i'm going to get a ride. i need to get myself and some stuff (it's not a lot of stuff) from here to the truck, somehow. so, my options are as follows: 1) i could take a taxi-van. that's fine, if it's easiest. 2) i could hope nana gets home in time and give me a lift. if not, taxi. 3) the truck could come here first. is it driving by here anyways? 4) the truck could come here second. given that we'd have to take the 417 to at least bayshore, it's pretty much on the way. i'll have everything packed - it'll take 10-15 minutes to get it downstairs and into the truck. any option is fine. obviously, i'd rather avoid paying the cab fare. just let me know what makes sense and what doesn't.

ok...

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address

i'm having trouble finding a ride.

i'm going to try to phone my grandmother again today. she's at her cottage, and it doesn't seem like leo is answering his cell. i know she'll be back on monday, but i'm not sure when. if i get a ride before then, i'll let you know, but it's not likely.

there are a few things that could work, but they all seem to get me there for monday around 5-6. the truck could maybe come here first; i need to get from here to there anyways. i don't know the logistics behind picking my mother up. my grandmother could be back in time. if she's not home by 4:45, i'll call a taxi-van and plan to be there for between 5:30 and 6:00.

...the point being that it doesn't seem likely at this point that i'll be able to get the stuff there before the general moving time.

j

minivan

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: <shuttlejetservices@gmail.com>

i'm just wondering if the minivan is more than the car (with you guys, and in general), and if you do flat rates or everything by the minute?

i need to get a handful of boxes and a table from hintonburg to leitrim, and i'm trying to do it as cheaply as possible.

j

an empty request, thrown out into the void

can you do me a major favour?

can you drive me to my dad's place tomorrow or monday? whatever time is good for you. well, before 12:00 (noon) on monday.

i need a lift, and nothing's panning out. i just need to get some boxes from here to there.

mmmmmaybe we could get a coffee after.

i'm leaving for windsor monday night.

forever.

j

translation: tensions with the russians are rising over multiple flashpoints in the area, so they're looking for an excuse to send in ground troops. the mercenaries they're funding are flat out losing in syria...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/white-house-holds-high-level-meeting-over-security-threat-1.1484273

http://www.insidescience.org/content/liquid-droplets-reveal-clues-quantum-behavior/1349
http://medx.cc/294638665
http://bit.ly/15kqOzN

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-hole-in-our-collective-memory-how-copyright-made-mid-century-books-vanish/278209/

ok, so why did this get released?

scare tactic?

this is what happens when you fuck with us?

and why are they doing it?

humiliation?

it's right out of orwell, but it's nothing new. it's the same kind of shit the americans were doing in iraq. this is how the state maintains order in an uprising: intimidation. like the gang of armed thugs that they are.

i can never understand why they need to flaunt godwin's law like this. there's plenty of comparisons closer to home.

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/brazilian-police-line-naked-protesters-against-wall-gas-and-shoot-them-with-rubber-bullets/

these arguments are sooooo tiring. governments v. markets. blah blah blah.

what few people seem to realize is that this argument is indicative of the fact that liberals/conservatives/libertarians are controlling the debate. we're collectively still arguing over how much intervention should be had. that's their narrative, but it has little reflection upon reality.

the problem in europe is monetary. it has nothing to do with how much or how little influence the governments have over the economy. what is has to do with is how much power local governments have over their power to print money. greece and spain and the other have two options - they can either accept yearly transfers from the more wealthy countries (like west virginia accepts transfer from new york), or they can take their sovereignty back and inflate their currency. the idea that they can just accept a currency that's thirty or fifty or a hundred times more valuable than markets would allow their currency to be is ridiculous - unless they want to accept widespread poverty, third world level poverty, as a permanent condition.

further, walkom's lost the plot regarding this country - a plot that was once plastered everywhere. we have a mortgage monopoly here, and they were able to quietly buy up bad assets. we've separated commercial and investment banking. that has nothing to do with anything any recent government has done, and it's not indicative of a better economic position. we were *not* shielded. we simply didn't dismantle the system that was put in place in the 30s and 40s like the americans did, or go back to the gold standard like the europeans did. we were consequently able to *react*. and they would have been able to react, too, had they not foolishly dismantled all their checks and balances.

it's correct to understand it as a failure of the policies of reagan and thatcher.

that's not to say i think these systems are ideal, so much as i recognize that if we must have markets (i'd rather not...) then they need to be regulated to prevent them from collapsing.

our regulatory systems worked, for the simple reason that they still existed.

and, then you get the "borrowing beyond their limits" folks. as though the 1000% rise in the cost of housing, combined with the 50% decrease in real wages, has nothing to do with anything. it's not that housing is too expensive, it's that workers don't deserve to have modest living conditions. you, over there! go live in a closet! get a third job!

we *do* need more socialism, real socialism from the ground up, and it's coming whether anybody likes it or not. the service industry is the economy, now. fast food restaurants are unionizing. other service sectors will follow. this is a natural process and can only be stopped with excessive violence; they may try it, in all truth, but it won't work in the long run. it's a matter of time before wages go up dramatically. and wages have to go up dramatically. people are borrowing heavily because they're not making enough money to live comfortably. once the wage imbalances are fixed, people will no longer have to borrow so much.

so, can we drop this tired governments v. markets shit? in that sense, walkom is right on point.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/30/stephen_harper_doesnt_get_new_world_economy_walkom.html

she's 14, and she's mostly spouting nonsense. he's...i don't know how old he is...but he's not any more informed than she is. he's consequently an idiot, and she's just 14.

the information on golden rice that she's stating is over ten years old. the most recent strains of golden rice have been shown through controlled trials to have enough vitamin a for the rda in two bowls. it works just fine. she throws the naturalistic fallacy out there; she's 14, she's allowed to not have a strong grasp of anthropology. either mother nature is a constantly changing entity that evolves over time with the input of itself (in other words, creating gmo is working with mother nature by definition because humans are a part of nature), or it doesn't exist at all. further, there are plenty of independent studies out there. this idea that there aren't unbiased studies is a really goofy tactic. as the hosts tried to point out, it can't be tested properly.

he didn't challenge her on any of it, kid gloves, but he's right about her being used as a shill - she's just repeating all the same nonsense that gets shared on social media sites, and (judging from what she said) her research probably consisted of a combination of reading facebook and sorting through badly put together activist literature. the female host challenged a bit stronger, but what the fuck kind of question is "are you anti-science?".

i'm very much in favour of labeling gmos, but they both lose here as far as i'm concerned.

i'm sure somebody will post a fact check on the interview. i'll post it if i find it...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/01/rachel-parent-kevin-oleary-gmos-video_n_3689126.html

http://ciitn.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/pub_view_project_ind.cgi?g_num=20&c_id=2007009

the whole "blind because they're only eating rice" thing is a highly privileged argument. first, it's stated very poorly. it should be stated something more like this:

"poor people in 'developing countries' are only able to afford rice, and consequently suffer from malnutrition."

so, maybe they should eat more carrots or other sources of vitamin a or beta-carotene. ok, well that's what we do here, because we can afford it. it's a socio-economic argument.

either approach would solve the problem. but, is it more likely that the problem is going to be solved through wealth redistribution or through creating a cheap source of vitamin a? what the fuck kind of privilege factors into telling poor brown people to go buy food they can't afford?

it's not like i want to force people to only eat rice, it's just that i'm being a lot more realistic. as a starting point, i suppose i don't see anything inherently wrong with "modifying mother nature". i don't really see why gmos are fundamentally different than building houses. both are adapting to the environment.

but, if we have a serious problem, i think we need to look at all avenues to solve it.

ironically, one of the things about rice is that it's a high yield crop with a lower environmental impact. if we're concerned about maximizing yield out of growing spaces - and we should be - then rice is a smarter thing to grow than carrots.

again, i need to point out the obvious - the kid is 14. if you're just following what she's saying without critically analyzing it, you should really hand in your adult card. sorry.

Jessica Amber Murray
did you get your dad's netbook yet? can you get it by monday?

also, what are you up to tonight? i think i'm finally feeling social. yesterday was fucking ridiculous, i spent all day tracking my dad's cds down at used stores...

ESA
uhmmm dunno what i'm up to... sleeping. not feeling superrr social. maybe we can hang out tomorrow? and i'll give u your laptop

Jessica Amber Murray
that works.

ESA
Saweetttt

bicycle?

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address

how much would you want for that bicycle? or do you want me to just take it off your hands?

i kind of screwed mine up a little worse than i thought. i was trying to straighten the handle bars, and i ended up losing a lot of the ball bearings that allow the front handle bars to turn (i twisted the wrong allan key open). it's still rideable, but it's not very safe unless i'm moving fairly slowly because turning is very jagged.

i took a walk down to the closest store and the guy in the store said it'll cost about $50 to fix it. i mean, i just need to get the ball bearings in, but i've never done that before, so i'd rather get somebody to do it. the thing is that that bike in your garage is the same model. so, if i can get that bike cheaper, it would make more sense to keep the one i have for spare parts...or fix it and keep it as a backup in case i've got a flat or something. i had two bikes for a long time and found it very convenient for that reason.

j

Re: my father's cds

From: the surviving uncle’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

Well, it sounds to me like you have a pretty good handle on the situation, all of them actually. People rarely deal with the real issues and if they do, it's usually a long time coming. Nobody expected your dad to go as quickly as he did and as you well know it's not something that could have been predicted with any kind of accuracy. You had a chance to say goodbye and that's what counts. Often, we don't get that opportunity.

there were frequent occasions when my dad talked about leaving her. he always said he couldn't leave her because she'd self-destruct into a rage and possibly even harm herself. i'm a little worried she's in the process of doing this, but i don't know a way i can help and i'm even worried that if i try it'll make things worse.

We talked about this often. He did his part and though he may have hoped you would have some sort of relationship with her, he didn't really expect it would happen as he was not delusional. I wouldn't send anything to ferris as it really no longer concerns you in any way. Let her family worry about her. Your dad wanted you to take care of yourself and for you to be happy. So do that. Do it for you and do it for him.

We (your dad's family) do very much consider you family, so keep in touch and let us know where you are and how we can reach you. If there is anything we can help with, let us know.

Re: my father's cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: the surviving uncle’s email address

i'll be picking my stuff up and leaving on monday.

it turns out d has a bunch of them. i'm hoping he'll let me sort through them. there's only a handful more of them that i was hoping for, but, if not, in all honesty, the fact that i have at least a few is sort of enough. most of the stuff i wanted is really easy to find anywhere: dark side, sgt peppers, aladin sane...stuff that you can get for $1 at any garage sale...but stuff that i was really attached to. off of the top of my head, the only other things i was hoping to find were joe's garage and the apostrophe/overnite sensation split.

she's actually giving me a lot of stuff, and i appreciate that, and i do trust her to at least not destroy the things i have. i can only hope that trust is properly placed. if there's significant damage, i'm going to have to sue her. she *is* legally obligated not to harm property that doesn't belong to her, and she understands that. if she chooses to act otherwise, she'll have to take responsibility for that. i don't want to do that, obviously...

the thing i understand is that this isn't actually about me, even if it seems like it is at first. when she's upset or does things that don't seem to make much sense, it's rarely about what's on the surface. what she does is pick scapegoats and then heap all kinds of abuse on to them. i mean, she's obviously upset right now, and has a good reason to be. what she's doing is taking out all of her grief and anger and frustration and hurt on me because i'm the scapegoat she's picked for that. she doesn't require a good reason to do that. often, she doesn't require any reason at all, or will make up a reason to justify it. if i want to get clinical, it's sort of a classic example of somebody passing on abusive behaviour across generations.

so, maybe she's a little upset that i wasn't there at the very end. i don't really know what to say other than that my relationship with my father is something that existed between my father and i. i spent a lot of time with him the week before i left, because i wasn't sure if he'd make it until i got back. and i even asked her - is he expected to make it through the week? should i reschedule? and she told me it would be fine and i should go. on top of that, i had a really emotional conversation with him the night before i left. it was a goodbye call. it felt final. despite what she said about him making it through the week, when i left i felt the goodbyes had been said. i expected to not see him again. and i was at peace with that. again, that's between me and my dad, not between me and the stepmother.

to an extent, she might be internalizing that. she told me he'd still be here when i got back, and he wasn't, so she might be feeling guilty about that. of course that's not her fault, and i wouldn't blame her for it. but if she *feels* like it's her fault, then her response would be to reject that guilt and project it on to somebody else. and, of course, i'm the convenient scape goat. it's even easier, in this circumstance, given the context.

so, she would be able to construct an elaborate fantasy about me not loving my father as a shield to protect her from that guilt that she shouldn't be feeling in the first place. if i didn't love my father, i shouldn't get anything from him.

this seems complex and arbitrary, but she has a lot of complex issues, and i've dealt a lot with them over the years. i feel i have a certain power of psycho-analysis through experience. it's certainly *something* like this - she is *somehow* projecting all her hurt and sadness on to me as a release, and it's neither my fault nor does it really have much to do with me at all.

but, you're right - i can't talk it through with her. i always needed dad to do that.

it's just a few more days...

when i'm gone, she'll key on somebody else. it's not going to end until she can come to terms with things and understand what she's doing. but, realistically, just about every approach has been tried over 35 or 40 years, so i don't know what's going to happen.

there were frequent occasions when my dad talked about leaving her. he always said he couldn't leave her because she'd self-destruct into a rage and possibly even harm herself. i'm a little worried she's in the process of doing this, but i don't know a way i can help and i'm even worried that if i try it'll make things worse.

i'll probably wait until i leave and then send something to her brother, ferris.

j

Re: my father's cds

From: the surviving uncle’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

J, people do hurtful things. Sometimes all you can do is try be be a better person than the ones hurting you. You are aware of what is going on and I believe that the only stuff you will get is the stuff you have retrieved on your own. As much as it hurts, at least you have what you have gotten back. The only cd's I got were given to me by your dad and they were 10 or 11 cd's that were the dead uncle’s. You are not in a good bargaining position and need to play what cards you do have, well.

I'm not 100% certain, but I believe strongly that a box of your dad's personal effects have been put aside for you with your things. I would not even ask about them. All you would be doing is saying, "here is another way to hurt me". I would drop the cd issue, there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it. There is not much to figure out, I think what is going on is pretty clear.

Speaking from personal experience, what I would do (and what your dad would tell you) is do nothing. Don't inquire about anything else. Just get your things as soon as possible and with as little fanfare as possible. Sometimes taking the high road brings surprising results. You are in a very tough spot, try to not let your feelings make it worse.

If you are not in a position to get your things to Windsor right now, maybe the best thing would be to hire a small local mover for an hour or two and put your stuff in a storage locker for now. At least you would be able to see what was given to you and you would know that it is safe.

Considering what is going on, I think that's your best bet. If you don't feel you can trust someone or a situation, then don’t.

thankfully, i was at least able to recover some of the cds. it cost me a day in phone calls and bus rides, and $107 i don't have, but i got around 45 of them back, including a large percentage of the ones that were very important to me. there's just a few more i hope i can track down.

RE: moving day

From: stepmother’s email address
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

Just make sure if the truck is cheap it is not leaking oil or it will have to stay parked on the street. Monday evening sounds fine but I will confirm.

A few hours notice to stick the rest of your stuff in the garage is fine.

moving day

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address, d’s email address

he says he can get the truck between 4-6 on monday. he's a truck mechanic, so he's puling strings to get something cheap, and that's sort of the best time frame he can give me. that means he'll be there between 4:30-7:00. we'll be loading up and leaving monday night.

i know monday's a holiday. i dunno if it's actually a holiday or not, though. as it's a holiday, i understand it's not the same as dropping by after work, but that's when he can do it. that being said, i don't know if that means it's a bad day for you, d, or if the 5:30 thing no longer applies or what...

if the truck is there too early, i guess i can go down and grab a sub or something.

now, my grandmother is at the cottage until monday night, so she's not going to be able to drive the few things i have over. i suppose multiple bus trips would be out of the question because i'd have to show up by myself (and that's scary, or something; whatever, not worth it). so, i'm left asking around for a ride. i need to ask: if i give you a few hours notice, would you be ok with a friend and i dropping off what's left? i could maybe give you more than a few hours, but i can't say. you'd literally just have to open the garage door for five minutes.

if you're not ok with a friend and i, i guess the other option is me asking around with people you trust. does anybody have a van or a large car? that would make the most sense. it's just bags of cloths, a couple of small boxes and a table that i could take or leave (i found it downstairs, and i like it, but if i can't move it out of here then so be it). i could do this saturday, sunday or monday morning depending on who is available when.

j

Re: cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: sister’s email address

well, i told you i wanted them, and you kept telling me you had nothing to do with it.

you could have offered to sell them to me. and you know what's ironic, sister? i would've given you up to $5/disc. some of them, i would have paid more than that for.

j

hi again

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: d’s email address

ok, i've got the story cleared up now. my sister fessed up when i told her they had her name at cd warehouse.

so, you went through it first. ok. i was actually able to get most of what i was looking for back at vertigo or cd warehouse. i suppose you already had most of it.

having my dad's copy of dark side, sgt peppers, the lamb, texas flood....i found them. it cost me $107, but i'm just ecstatic they're not lost.

the thing is this: i feel the conditions that led to you going through the collection first have to do with the stepmother's dislike of me, and not of my father's wishes. i mean....i think you would have got second pass. sure. but i'm his kid, y'know? i really think he would have given me the first one. and i think i trust you to agree with that and reverse the error that's happened.

that being said, as for what you probably grabbed, i'm probably only interested in a minimal amount of it. i guess you grabbed the porcupine tree and some of that recent swedish prog and marillion and other stuff of the type. i was never really able to get into that, and it doesn't have a place in my childhood. the only thing off the top of my head is the zappa, if you even took the zappa, damn i need to find that zappa, and even then it's really just a few that i have an emotional attachment to - the ones i'd really like to have are joe's garage and the apostrophe/overnite sensation double. well, that and i guess i was looking for that holdsworth disc. we saw holdsworth a few years ago in the same theatre we saw the lamb in last year...

i don't know what *your* attachment is to these discs. i know you're quite a bit younger than my dad was. i think i interpreted a mild father-like relationship, perhaps unstated but mutually understood, and i never felt jealous or anything. maybe there were certain father-son levels that i wasn't interested in or able to relate with him on. maybe there was a mutual void filled there, and i don't want to take that away from you.

for me, getting copies misses the point. i can download it for free on torrent sites. it's the actual discs. i don't know if you're feeling the same way or not, or if making copies would be sufficient for you.

in the end, i don't want to take away anything that you feel is important to you. that's not my goal, or aim. i just want to collect a few things that are important to me. and maybe if there's a few where there are mutually strong feelings, we can split the difference.

i'm just as reasonable as he was, if not more so.

...but if you could bring those discs to the moving day so i could take a look through them, i'd be eternally grateful. i promise i'll only want to take 10, maybe 20, maybe even less than ten.

j

Re: cds

From: sister’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

what was i supposed to tell you? she asked me to do something to help her deal with it, i did. it was nothing against you.

Re: cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: sister’s email address

ok. i've sent an email to d. i'm going to have to ask to go through what he took.

between vertigo and cd warehouse, i picked up bowie, genesis, gabriel, yes, elp, crimson, bruford...a lot of prog stuff.

that's not the point. you lied to me repeatedly.

j

RE: cds

From: stepmother’s email address
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

your sister took the Cd's downtown at my request so she had nothing to do with all this other than carrying out my wishes. I have also kept some CD's that I wanted. If you chose to spend the money on CD's so be it.

Remember, I need notice for your belongings and it has to be between 5:30-8:30.

Re: cds

From: sister’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

d went through the collection first shot. i assume he has most of the zappa/crimson/genesis/prog stuff, so what i DID sell was mostly lame leftovers that NOBODY wanted; generic sarah mclachlan, soundgarden, radiohead, stuff there are a million copies of.

turning point, vertigo, CD warehouse. that was it. she asked me to try to get some cash for what was left, so i did. i didn’t keep any of the cash, of which there wasn’t much. i didn’t do it to hurt your feelings or anyone else’s; what was left was stuff you certainly wouldn’t have had any “emotional attachment” to, believe me.

the stuff you want is most likely at d’s. if you want to contact or debate with him about it, that’s your prerogative.

Re: cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address

ok.

i'm very upset right now. i've learned that the bulk of the cds were sold by my sister. her name was left behind in the transaction.

i've so far spent $107 on cds that my father would have liked for me to have. i understand that everything was left in your name, but i really think you have a moral responsibility to carry out his wishes. certainly, at the very least, i am completely positive that he would rather i had the cds than see them sold for $1/piece. i do not remotely think that my father would share whatever vendetta it is that the two of you seem to have against me. your behaviour is revoltingly selfish.

especially you, sister. didn't i just give you that jacket out of the kindness of my heart because you had an emotional attachment to it? then, you turn around and get rid of the thing i've expressed an emotional attachment to for a paltry sum. i don't understand this behaviour. it's very hateful and inconsiderate.

so, i'm just going to reiterate. this is probably the last time i'll contact either of you, except to pick up my things early next week.

1) i think i'm morally entitled to be repaid for the $107 dollars that i shouldn't have spent in the first place. i don't know who ended up with the money.

2) even if you don't want to do the moral thing and pay me back, can you at least tell me where else to go to find the rest of the cds? i've so far checked vertigo (where i got some back), cd warehouse (where i got some back), record centre (where they said nobody came in) and turning point (where they said the sister came in and only sold dvds). i'm a little skeptical about what the guy at turning point said. were there cds sold there? if there were, i'll buy them back. was there anywhere else i should go and look?

3) specifically, i'm very curious as to the whereabouts of the frank zappa cds. there are a few random things i was looking for and couldn't find, but i couldn't find *any* of those.

sister, i no longer trust you. there's no chance of reconciliation.

j

Re: my father's cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: the surviving uncle’s email address

i took a run around town and got about 45 of them back for $107. the stores were all really sympathetic and sold them back at cost. i got the genesis back (including the lamb....except selling england for the pound), the gabriel, bowie, crimson, srv, yes, elp, and a bunch of random stuff by like tom petty and bruce cockburn. the one big thing i couldn't find was any zappa.

the whole scenario around it is really depressing me. i asked my sister about it several times and she just kept saying she didn't want to get involved, she didn't know anything about it, i had to talk to the stepmother, etc. like, right when i left today, it was one of the last things she said. but, when i called cd warehouse, it was all in her name. she was the one running them out...

like, i just don't know how to mentally compute this. cd warehouse sold them back to me at cost, which was $1/cd. at vertigo, it was $3/cd. was that really worth it to her? was lying to me worth it to her?

on top of that, i had *just* made a huge sacrifice for her. remember that jacket he gave me a few weeks ago? your mother was all excited about it fitting me, and i ended up going home with it. well, it turns out that the jacket was the one he walked her down the aisle with. truth is i liked the jacket and would have wanted to keep it. it's a nice jacket, and it's just going to sit in her closet. but i decided that it was more important that she had something of his that meant something to her, so i gave it back to her.

...and then a few hours later she goes and sells the one thing i had expressed an emotional attachment to?

like i say, i don't really want to get everybody involved in this, i'm just really hurt and confused and don't know what the fuck to think other than that i can't trust a word coming from them and have no path to follow in discussing it with them directly.

j

mom
We need the address and postal code for your new address in Windsor. Please contact!...K....Don's cell number is *******....Trailor *******.....

Don's home...*******

Jessica Amber Murray
i thought it was the stepmother at first. she may have sold the first batch on tuesday. but the second batch on wednesday was my sister. she signed her name over at cd warehouse, and the dude at turning point knows all three of us... the reason why this is particularly maddening is: 1) i told her i wanted to look through them. it's not about the monetary value of the cds. she only got like $3 each at vertigo and $1 each at cd warehouse. it's about the time i spent listening to them, the emotional attachment...it's the ONLY physical objects i wanted....and the fucking $1/disc was worth more to her than that... 2) i asked her several times about it and she bold-faced lied to me. flat. bold. lie. nobody can trust a word she says... it's 805 marion. Windsor, ON N9A 2J1 . i have the keys and a lease signed in my name.

i spent all day tracking them down. in the end, i got about 45 back for $107. i kind of expect she'll refund me for that and tell me where the rest of them are. the big thing i couldn't find was the zappa discs... i'll check messages to see if don called.

i wasn't expecting them to give me the cash, but i was expecting them to let me buy some bottles and leave. apparently, they're not licensed for that. ok. fine. i believed that...

as i was leaving, somebody asked me where my sign was. yeah, well that's why i didn't think it was such a great idea to eat there. glass accidentally ends up in food all the time, you know.

so, i stood outside the door for a few minutes trying to scalp it. eventually, the manager came out and accused me of trying to sell them back a gift certificate that was given to me by the victim in the wage theft case. of course, that's honestly not true - it was really given to me by my grandmother. manager wasn't willing to accept that. we had a discussion about whether i was legally entitled to stand on the sidewalk or not and i eventually agreed that, because i was soliciting, i should walk down the street a little.

"anybody going to vittoria trattoria? gift certificate here! get your gift certificate here!"

they came out to shoo me off three or four times; it's a good thing i'm fast on my feet, because a few times it seemed ready to turn into a chase....

i did *almost* sell it, but in the end the guy didn't want to wait an hour and a half. in total, it didn't look like i was getting anywhere. so when somebody came up to ask me for change for the chipwagon, i sent her in to get a nice meal instead.

RE: cds

From: the stepmother’s email address
To: "'Jessica Murray'" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

Your father left everything to me and what I do with his belongings is up to me....If I want to sell things, give them away or flush them down the toilet that is none of your business!

If you want to buy CD's for $75 that is your business.

Jessica Amber Murray
it was my sister that sold the cds. after i told her i wanted them. and then she denied it. i will probably not speak to her again.

mom
Did you hear anything yet from Don?...I haven't yet...

Is that you blowing around like a fiend out there?....I can't believe how windy it is outside on my balcony.

Hello..

How many cd's are we talking about here?...Although knowing your father...There must have been many. And many tapes and vinyl too?

Are you you sure it was her and not the stepmother

Re: my father's cds

From: the surviving uncle’s email address
To: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>

I'm going to keep this very brief for the moment. I don't know if I can help, but I'm going to try. Please don't act on this for today, leave it until tomorrow as I need to talk to a few people. I know that may be hard but don't think it's going to help for anyone to get their backs against the wall any further. Trust on me on this.

my father's cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: the surviving uncle’s email address, d’s email address

i'm sorry i have to do this. you can be certain that i don't want to do this. but my hands are being forced...

my father wanted me to have his cds. he told me as much repeatedly over the course of several years. there's no doubt in my mind about this.

i want my father's cds. i have a lot of memories attached to them. i don't care what they're worth in dollar amounts. like, his old beat up copy of the lamb lies down on broadway is probably worth about $2. it's priceless to me....

out of all the things that he had, it's really all i wanted. i'm being cut out of the money, and i don't really care as long as i get the cds that are important to me.

i'm having a really hard time determining what happened to them. as far as i can figure out, both my sister and my stepmother are lying to me about it. i have no understanding of why they would do that, other than to spite and hurt me. they have a history of behaving in ways that are designed to spite and hurt me (and a long history of telling blatant lies).

i asked them on monday not to sell them. apparently, some of them were sold on tuesday and some of them were sold on wednesday.

the stepmother has told me she sold some of them, but she won't tell me who she sold them to. i've called around a bit. i was able to buy about 20 back from vertigo. record centre says nothing came in. turning point says the sister came in on wednesday with a handful of things and mentioned the plan was to give the good stuff away to “his friends”.

...after i've told them i wanted them...

...and, again, there's no doubt he wanted me to have them.

i don't want to drag you guys into this, but i don't think i'm going to get anywhere talking to them directly. it seems to be that there's a goal to ensure i don't get anything of his. as one example, i've asked about the sports awards and things he won when he was younger. i know for a fact he kept them in a box in his closet. that box contained his precious personal possessions. there was a defensive player of the year award, some hockey cards, some pins, some of his father's things, etc....according to the stepmother, such a thing never existed. yet, i know it did. she may have just thrown it out without thinking, but to lie about it indicates the presence of a deeper prerogative to ensure i don't get anything.

i think the easiest way to do this while causing the minimum amount of conflict is for you guys to just accept any discs that are offered and then let me take a look through them. i would be hopelessly grateful for the opportunity to do that.

part of me wants to just take everything and listen to it all very slowly, but the reality is that there's a lot of stuff i'm more or less indifferent to. but the stuff i am interested in - the genesis, the zappa, the srv - is just completely priceless to me.

it's not the music itself, i can download that for free, it's the fact that they were his discs, and the memories attached to listening to them, to exploring them, etc.

i know they both understand how important the opportunity to sort through this is to me and i just don't understand why they're being deceitful and obfuscating about it.

j

Re: cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address, sister’s email address

ok, so i got a bunch of them back from vertigo. some bowie, some crimson, some gabriel....these were some of the ones that were important to me.

they were very human about it and sold them back to me at cost. it was still $75 for around 25 cds. i'm going to ask you to contemplate whether that's a cost that you think i should pay out for something i'm absolutely 100% certain, with no space for doubt, that my father wanted me to have.

the ones that are most important to me are the genesis and the zappa. what happened to those ones? there was also a few other crimson discs i couldn't locate.

i also went to turning point and the record centre. the record centre had no recollection of anybody coming in, but turning point told me my sister came in yesterday with a handful of “common titles” - he mentioned that she indicated that a lot of the cds would go to “his friends”

sister, were those his cds or yours? did you sell anything there yesterday? what?

i'm going to email d and the surviving uncle. i expect that they'll give me the discs, as that's what my father would have wanted. we can skip a step, here.

i'm not angry, so much as i'm shocked. i don't care what the discs are worth on a monetary basis. the memories attached to them are priceless. a few of his discs would be the only thing of his that i wanted...

j

cds

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address

i'm sorry if this comes off as trite, but it really isn't from my perspective, this is actually incredibly important to me.

can you tell me who you sold them to? i'm going to try and call around.

j

Re: moving

From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: sister’s email address

he had a box he kept all that stuff in.

j