Everywhere is a Playground

2011-05-24T10:33:00.001-07:00

There's some cool train tracks by the house and an abandoned building I have yet to check out. I'll see about the building soon enough but the tracks are pretty fun the few times I've been.
Stuff is going good with Veera (person I'm kissing). The anarchist bookfair was good times, ran into friends from outta town and went to a number of parties connected to the book fair. Also kids came up from Halifax to go to the bookfair.
and now me bitching about drama. So those kids from Halifax, well they're cool and hot (yay) on the second night they were here we all went to a party and S left early with someone hot. I hung out with L for a bit who seemed unhappy with the party so went home after a short while. Walking home was talking, talking was hanging out, hanging out was sitting on bed, sitting was cuddling, we ended up kissing for a bit and falling asleep. Wake up next day go to permaculture and come home afterward. L is being really cold and distant, no explanation from "what's up?" and "are you ok?", well then. Anyways we all go out to see a punk show and hang out really late at this punk house, there's tension between L and I the while time and after the show while we're all hanging out L kissed this other person. Later in the night we're getting ready to leave L is excited and telling me about how cute person they kissed is, that's great and all and I'm not one to expect monogamy, but communication I guess I expect standard, that shouldn't be too much to hope for...
Anyways permaculture is going great and I'm excited with it so that's good and also we're gonna have a rad party here soon.

mostly awesome

2011-05-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

So I made a fender for my bike, it's been raining a lot and my fender works :D. Also permaculture is fun and interesting, I'm happy it's happening.
So on thursday I went over to Wednesday and L's house for movies, pancakes and a sleep over. Wednesday is cool as shit and had some friends from outta town over, but they didn't get back until after I played cards and talked and hung out with L and the other roomies. Also I have a huge crush on L (as well as everyone else in Montreal). Anyways, once Wednesday and his crew got back from where ever they were 9the park I think) we speculated about watching the movie, but didn't for hours, in the end L was kinda tired and said she would watch it in her room and possibly fall asleep; a plan that I thought was rad. I asked to join her.
So, turns out long movies are long, and we never got through the whole thing, just stopped after a while and pretended we wanted to sleep.
"do you wanna cuddle"
"yes please"
(maybe 15-30 minutes of caressing later)
"this is such a tease"
"I guess we could kiss or something"
being serious and not silly isn't that fun., or hot for that matter.
So i'm seeing someone new, which is fun and exciting, we talked about poly and L isn't sure what she's doing but is down with me seeing someone else and is in a situation of her own with someone else. I'm curious to see where this will go and am happy that it's happening.
Other activities of the weekend (all with Wednesday, L and Wednesday's outta town friends) include but aren't limited to:
hanging out in the huge clothes pile at eva b
me buying a sweater with only one sleeve and some holes in it for a dollar
kissing L
failed attempts at dumpstering
biking around (with an additional person on my bike at some points)
eating delicious foods
movies
cuddles
bitching about the rain
lots of laying around and being lazy

Oh also maybe gonna go to foufou's house tomorrow for foods, if I can wake in time.

urgh blarhg

2011-05-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

Not enough sluttiness going on in my life, also considering making a tumblr, although it'll consume me or something. Anyways yea, I wanna kiss some (new) peeps. And I BOUGHT pizza yesterday with DJ as like an urge you know...
Also if someone ever asks where the slutty punk boys are at just say "ahem" and point them my way!

triple party adventure

2011-04-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Giggles and I and Foufou went on a rad party spree hitting three parties in one night. We met up in front of McGill at around 7.45 and all biked into Point St-Charles (which is much closer than I though) for a potluck/party.
The food was super delicious and there was gummy candy, gummy candy so delicious Foufou broke her vegan to eat some, I'd break vegan all the time if I was a vegan (I've come to accept that as much as I hate the word I most definitely am a freegan). We didn't really cook anything but we rolled in with a small tub of yogurt and some eggs that we gave the hosts who found that to be quite amusing. We ate lotsa candy (and vegan burritos) socialized with some fun peeps and drew on our own knuckle tattoos, mine said FUCK YEAH. We decided to leave after someone with a ton of allergies drank some peanut drink and had to go to the hospital.
We pulled up to a building in a fancy neighborhood and locked up our bikes outside. We tried getting in but were stopped by the locked front door. We walked around and contemplated climbing up the fire escape but decided against it since we didn't know which apartment the party was in. We walked back to the front and conveniently some other guests were waiting out front so we joined them and shortly someone came out to open the door for us. The party was alright. People were dressed up pretty fancily and the music was dancy, however no one was dancing! After to much not dancing we filled Foufou's back pack with beers (and a juice for me) and left through the fire escape, weeee! On our way out we saw a friend in the street and helped them up the fire escape for a more dramatic entrance.
By this time Kunoichi had texted us the address to an Arabian nights themed party which had dancing, fire spinning and all sorts of craziness. We started biking over but my bike broke down.
Luckily Foufou had a wrench in her bag under all the beer (and juice) so we made a pit stop and I fixed up the bike. Also the ridiculous amounts of beer crushed the almond milk in foufou's bag so she chugged it while I fixed up. We took off again once we were both done and then after a bit more searching and door bell ringing got into the party.
It was like, dead zone, a bunch of hippies dressed as gypsies being kinda boring. At least Kunoichi was there and we hung for a bit but then left out of boredom. On the way back Giggles and I found a sidewalk with cracks in it that was spewing water which was pretty cool.
Also I found two bandanas on the floor outside, I kissed someone new (again, yea I know...) and I'm moving into a new house, but that's from a different nights.

Halifax and environs

2011-04-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

CHG and I went to Halifax! We left MTL on Thursday, slept in a rest stop and arrived on Friday evening. This first things I saw upon arriving in the city were (in this order): a circled A on a cafe wall, a punk with a ton of crotch patches and a skate board, and a dumpster full of pita bread and hot dog buns (which went nicely with the hotdogs in CHG's pack that a that a trucker gave us on the way).
Anyways there's a ton of ridiculous stuff that happened and was great, so much in fact that I'd rather just be lazy and make a list of it all instead of writing pages and pages of wonderful prose. Yea, so, behold:
Wonderful things that happened while going to, coming from and staying in Halifax, NS:
Hitch hiking
Sleeping in a rest stop chair
Getting a pack of hot dogs and chips from a trucker
Dumpstering donuts and a sack of potatoes from a truck stop dumpster
Having great conversations with various drivers
Getting free books and a cd from a ride
Rolling into Halifax
Permaculture Work Party!
Dumpstering cookies and chocolate in Dartmouth
Meeting rad ass local punks
Hanging out with people I haven't seen in probably a year
Meeting musicians who's music I know and love in a social setting
Dumpstering a fresh pair of boots
Sneaking into a fort (kinda)
Cat shit
People smoking cigs
Peanut butter and ice cream cones
Hanging out in rad punk houses
Talking about politics and feeling good
Open mic night
Hitching to Fredericton
Racist trucker giving us a ride and racist discourse
Surprising Ice Cream and sleeping at her house
Hitching all day and getting stuck in the rain
Trying and failing to sleep in a motel for free/work trade
Sleeping in a tent behind some dumpsters behind a restaurant on the side of the highway
More hitchhiking
Getting dropped off a block away from my house
Food, bed and cuddles at home!!!

Spring and all that it's arrival entails...

2011-04-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

Going to the park
Exchanging massages
Kissing new people (!!!)
Fixing bikes
Patching clothes
Staying up late with clothes
Pillow fights (!!!)
Biking with your friends
Cooking huge meals for everyone
Ridiculous weather
Traveling (coming soon)
Making new friends
Sleeping everywhere but home
Making music
Jumping and climbing and parkour
Dancing :D

three bags of food!

2011-03-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

1-Arrive home
2-Dumpster foods
3-????
4-PROFIT

punk show

2011-03-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

me and crass kissed :)

A//Political - Who Will Build the Roads?

2011-03-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

We've got a dream in our hearts and we won't give it up!

Insane with desperation in a world so fucking cold and grey
Masked soulless creatures toiling, wasting day to day
Production units, fucking cogs, nothing but a number
Hollow lives, some existence, do you ever wonder?

There must be an alternative to this insensitive way of life!
There is an alternative, but we've got to fucking fight!

How much longer can we exist in this shit world?
The blueprints for the apocalypse have already been unfurled
Government after government has proven fucking false!
Have YOU answers? What's YOUR answer? WE'RE the answer and the cause!

If the government is the answer, it's a stupid fucking question!

Time and again we're criticized by those quick to buy into
the media definition of what is anarchy.
A media whose sole purpose is to serve the rich elite.
The corporations: those whose sole interest is profit at whatever price.
People buy into this shit unknowingly from birth.
What alternative source of information are they given after all? None!
You question, you doubt, you give up!
Rebel a bit and get it out of your system.
There are no alternatives, right? Wrong!
You won't find change in government.
You won't find change in escapism either.
You will however find a change in you, in us.
We are the system.
We are the masses so many speak of.
We are the root of the problem.
We are at the base.
Who will build the roads? WE WILL!
Who will provide the basic necessities? WE WILL!
Who will bring an end to poverty, homelessness, greed, war, death, famine, injustice?
If anything, WE WILL!
We are the alternative! There is no savior! There is no god!
A better leader won't come along!
A better government does no exist! JUST YOU AND I!

grrrlVIRUS

2011-03-21T23:51:00.001-07:00

This blog makes me happy:
http://grrrlvirus.tumblr.com/

Attend parties

2011-03-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

Go to boring parties
Crash better parties
???
PROFIT!
Last night a few of us went to a dance party, it was fun and full of hotties and for a while it was good. However time (and what I consider bad DJing) led to more relaxing and tranquil music which combined with the trickling decline in hottie presence led to me and Kunoichi deciding to leave with Giggles and a friend (Foufou). However when we crossed the street to unlock our bicycles we heard yelling/singing coming from a nearby apartment and saw dancing silhouettes. Foufou and I joked about the idea of simply showing up to said party.
Soon enough we were crossing the street and discovering that the door was in fact unlock and very much open. All four of us climbed the stairs feeling kinda nervous and met a pile of shoes and shortly after a girl in a green dress, we told her that we heard her party from outside and wanted to party with them.
So we're all dancing it up on the dance floor and it slowly dawns on us that we've stumbled into a group of tight knit friends that probably think we're weird as fuck (and maybe a lil sketchy). As we realized how akward we seemed and how strange we felt we left.
But if anything the criminal maxim from Evasion came to mind, "the victory is in the attempt!"

Long week!

2011-03-16T00:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a protest march against the austerity measures being taken by the Quebec government. 10 people were arrested before it even started and charged with conspiracy and possession of a weapon, for sitting on the grass and wearing black. On Monday there was a march to the municipal court and the palais de justice to demand their release. The 10 had their court date that day at 2pm but I didn't make it, I ended up falling asleep at home.
Later that evening I went to UQAM with Dreads and met with Cinema Politica there and watched Dive which is a fun documentary about dumpstering. Dreads and I brought a whole box of found cheese and some others had prepared fruits, vegetables, muffins and dips (all dumpstered). The movie was ok I had seen it before with my parents but I enjoyed it still, there was a quick discussion afterward, which was interesting.
Later in the night I went to Katakombes with Chef and Crow, once we got there we ran into Rainbow and Crass. There were lots of awesome bands (five played that night, all for Radical Queer Semaine), I really liked the Sissy Fist (check out their song welfare http://www.myspace.com/sissyfist) and the Mistake Makers (http://www.myspace.com/mistakemakers). The night was rad, there was good moshing and I ran into a bunch of friends through out. I even kissed someone!
Woke up today, kinda worried. Today was the march in protest of police brutality. Last time I went I just managed to not get arrested (mostly by running through alleys and a bit of climbing). I talked to Kunoichi and we got ready to meet everyone (she took forever, bleh). Dreads was there, as were, Rainbow, Crass, a friend we met recently Kunoichi and I, we got into pairs (I was with Dreads) then headed off.
Once there we mostly stuck to our pairs. There was less people than we expected. Once we started marching things were going fine, and people were chill. However once we arrived on St Denis the cops kettled the majority of the crowd. Stuck between two lines of riot cops people threw projectiles and demanded to be let out. Cops completely ignored the demands, held up their shields and shot off a few stun grenades, yay cops, the kings of douchebaggery!
Luckily a apartment building that was between the two lines was opened somehow and by running through the parking garage and back up some stairs one could arrive into an alley behind the building :D
Some running ensued, a fence was climbed, friends were joined in the process and not long after we had made good our escape (not all of us mind you, at least a hundred people were arrested).
Dreads, the two friends we ran into and I went back to the house and ate and tried to figure out what happened to our friends. After a while everyone went home tired. Final results:
Everyone is free
Rainbow and Crass (and Igs who showed up during the march) were held in the kettle and dropped off at random points in the city and fined $488.
Our friends' friends are fine, as am I and Dreads is good too.

as of late

2011-03-14T13:42:00.001-07:00

What's been up lately?
Well sat was a protest against budget cuts/austerity, which was followed by tabling with Rainbow and Crass and some other peeps. Watched Indiana Jones with the Mount Olympus crew and then rolled off to Giggle's house for food and sewings. All in good fun.
On Friday me and CHG went dancing which was good times I ran into Pines there and we all tore apart the dance floor of course.
Sunday was pretty chill probably since I don't remember anything memorable except hanging out at a potluck dinner.
Yea, but uh, spring is showing it's face around these parts and that's making me smile and such :D

opti-pessi-skepticism

2011-03-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

Today and yesterday were rad, good times. I'm an optimist, I'd like to think, I mean I have a smiley face tattooed somewhere on my body (bonus points if you've seen it). I want to stay an optimist forever, I mean I have more fun as an optimist than as, well not an optimist. As an anarchist and a person that dabbles in skepticism, I feel that I'm slowly becoming jaded with pretty much everything, I'm sure this is a natural part of living in a society that does not support or agree with a very large portion of what I believe in...
Yesterday I went to listen to Scott Kellog talk (he's one of the authors of a pretty rad book called Toolbox for Sustainable City Living) and it was good, he didn't really say anything I didn't really already know (except he talk about a new project he was working on which I'll look into soon). Also last night I went to a poetry reading/spoken word thing at Skidhaus, which was fun and tranquil and pleasant although not particularly super exciting. Today I woke early and biked over to Concordia and attended a conference called moving forward about sustainable and urban agriculture. It was fun and interesting I didn't learn anything new in terms of technical stuff but I enjoyed it none the less, it was a lot of people talking about projects already in place, free food and a breaking into smaller groups and discussing and then more free food. 10 am to 5pmish.
I feel like we're all already in the same boat and things like this are kinda preaching to the choir, it's important to remember though that these events also serve as the "community" aspect (among others) of the struggle for food politics (and all that it overlaps with). It's the thing that keeps people around, reminds people that they aren't alone in their uphill battles for positive change, serves as a support structure in a culture that is often apathetic toward what I feel is important. Yay for things that make me realize that despited the totally fucked-ness of the current situations of a plethora of things (you know, kinda well, everything mostly) that there is no reason to stop trying to make things better and to continue to struggle. Optimism for life! Hopefully...

All nighters and train rides

2011-02-17T23:10:00.000-08:00

Last night (ummm Wednesday night) CHG and DJ came by and we watch with Kunoichi paranormal activity 2 until early in the morning, then DJ went home and Kunoichi took the cat and slept in her room.
CHG spent the night and I got maybe half an hour of sleep total before I heard my alarm and had to get up. Ate a small piece of cheese and got dressed and alla that. CHG decided to walk home while I walked to the train station so we walked together. Such a beautiful morning, I should wake up earlier and enjoy mornings more they look wonderful and feel great!
Got to the station, the woman at the ticket booth said she liked my style :) Slept most of the train ride here. Is it bad that I thought that it was dumb how happy a woman sitting behind me was about recycling bins in a train station?

Stereotypes

2011-02-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Probably a mix between these two with a bit of ninja thrown in for good measure. It's ridiculous how accurate yourscenesucks.com sterotypes seem to be. As Kunoichi and I looked them over we all thought of individuals who fell into them, often the same person...

Heat

2011-02-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Every time Kunoichi thinks one of my friends is hot I end up sleeping with them, it's kinda ridiculous...
It's not out of spite, it's just we have similar taste and I'm uh a slut :)

so umm, my weekend from thurs to sun

2011-02-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

Thursday:
Sleepover at CHG's house. It wasn't an intentional sleepover, it was supposed to be "all girls" but I stayed late and ended up crashing there. 'Twas a good time, I met some fun people, talked about politics and in the middle of the night discussed almost the entirety of our sex lives and exchanged back massages. It was pleasant.
Friday:
Went to the potato with CHG and hung there a bit. I don't remember the activity that took place in the day time, probably me writing zine and hanging out at home. At night however...
Gypsy night at the Divan Orange was alright, I got all dressed up in proper stereotypical attire (is it more okay for me to do that if I'm part gypsy, and by gypsy Roma). I danced alone for a bit until a friend from the sleepover arrived, (kinda not the cute one I really wanted to see...). We enjoyed a live band which was fun, but not as fast as I wanted. After their first set the friend left and I left maybe ten minutes later. (Had I stayed maybe ten minutes more the cute friend would have shown up and the night would probably have been very different).
Upon arriving home I changed back into dirty patchy clothes and headed to a loft party to meet some friends and ensure that the night didn't die that early. When I walked into the building I saw TKJ and Rainbow hanging outside the door of the party and was happy to see them there. We all went inside together and got some hearts to pin to our clothes (I put mine in my ear instead, because you know, I'm a rebel!). Wizzle and Crass were there and I ran into some other people I know a lil bit. The night was slow at first and kinda picked later and we all danced a lot, I impressed a girl in a green shirt with my dancing (:P). After dancing for a while TKJ and I sat on a couch and shortly thereafter Crass sat next to me and passed out on my lap. We thought this was funny and cute (I WISH CRASS DIDN'T GET DRUNK ALL THE TIME, HOW WILL I KISS YOU IF YOU ARE ALWAYS DRUNK?) this guy with a black hat and grey pants came to my and TKJ and put his hands on our knees and kissed us both a lot, he tasted like mint and it was pleasant except for the stubble. He wanted me and TKJ to kiss but we both knew that wasn't going to happen since me and TKJ weren't feeling that. After a while we walked away. TKJ got up after a bit, and the same guy came back and took his seat, we kissed a lot.
This is new to me... I remember in high school I wanted really badly to be bisexual and now I want badly to be bisexual so that I can identify more as queer, to relate more to gay people, to I don't know...
Anyways I was kinda passive which is not how I am around girls. I enjoyed myself and I was definitely surprised at that. This guy wanted to go home with me (or at least somewhere without that many people), but I didn't want to (a huge part of which was the fact that I don't know how to have gay sex). Iunno, I'm confused about it mostly, not sure I'm interested in sex with men or at least all aspects of it. Long story short I got his number and now don't know what to do.
Later in the night as we were heading out the girl with the green shirt came to talk to me, I asked her if she wanted a kiss but she didn't we talked about me being awesome at dancing for a bit then I left.
Saturday:
Workshop about shoplifting and scams and table diving and dumpster diving. That went well.
That night was Flash's birthday party and it was good times, hanging around and eating foods at his house then karaoke at Squalor house for a bit. Good times were had.
Sunday:
Slept in, didn't do much in the day time. In the afternoon I went to the coop and hung with Igs and Divo and sewed a bit. We went to a potluck with a lot of fake meat and chilled there for a while, jammed with instruments and met cool peeps. Me and TKJ and Kunoichi and Chibi went to the house afterward. From there TKJ, Kunoichi and I went to a party at Kiwi's house (no she isn't back yet), the party was eh, but the night was spent talking with Kunoichi and TKJ talking about relationships. At maybe 4.30 we rolled home and passed out on the bed. (I doubled Kunoichi there and back on the bike)...
Overall a good weekend for sure, I want to be having sex with someone, not much else but yea. That was my weekend.

bike repairs

2011-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

I love hanging out at the community bike shop! I always feel so productive and knowledgeable. I'm not a bike guru at all and probably barely qualify as a bike geek for that matter, but I feel that I can usually figure my way around my bicycle or learn quickly enough. I took the bike in a few days ago and tightened up the brakes, cleaned and lubed moving parts and generally adjusted a bit of everything. The best bike rides (aside from long summer ones that involve carrying home free food) are the ones where you roll home from the bike shop post-repairs on your oh so properly functional bike!
Winter is still around putting sticks in my wheels though, and by putting sticks in my wheels I mean being so cold that my brakes freeze. I totally forgot to re-tighten the back brakes after I loosened them to adjust them, so I'll fix that up soon when I grab my wrench back from TKJ....

Fucked, things are fucked

2011-02-09T09:50:00.000-08:00

It's easy to not realize how terrible everything is and on some level I don't think people can function if all we thought about was how horrible the state of things seem. Kunoichi and I watched a video of a speech Rainbow made post-G20 and before that I showed Kunoichi photos of what happened to her (read: getting shot at and treated like shit by cops). After the video I just cried. It's just too much to realize (again and again) the ridiculous amount of atrocities that happen all the time all around us, and to be fair there is much worse. I wanna be an optimist forever, I want to stay informed and I want to continue to strive for positive change, I also do not want to stop being an anarchist. The possibility of burning out and selling out scare me almost as much as the repression and oppression and hierarchy etc...

I appreciate civility

2011-02-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

There's no reason not to be civil in your interactions with friends (well maybe they're are but...) and I'd like to think most people deserve to be treated civilly because it sure beats getting treated like shit. Explanation:
Welcome to the most straight-forward and civil break up ever. Went over to Spaghetti's house for hang outs, dinners and presumably kisses & cuddles. Showed up we talked and layed around a bit and she brought up that she wanted to change something about our relationship. Basically this; I'm not looking to be anyone's primary partner in terms of emotional investment, I can easily see what we have right now becoming that. Also I know it's easy to do nothing and let things drag on and expect someone to break up with me but that's never fun (it really never is fun). So we should still be friends and eat trash together.
So good! I <3 communication. Maybe I'm just super happy about a "good" break up because the last one I had that didn't involve someone moving across the country was the exact opposite which was super suck. It's strange to be almost excited and proud of a break up, but this was probably the best one ever, no tears, no yelling, no holding back, just good straight forward (although not really abrasive) communication.

Warm weather and like all that that entails....

2011-02-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Weather has been like, how can I put this, as fuckin rad as it can be for winter without actually being spring. I like the warmth, I don't mind the stripe of slush I get on my back and on the bottom of my shorts when I ride around I can go outside without a hat and my ears feel juuuuuust fine. :D
What have I been doing in this wonderful weather you may wonder, hmmm. Here's a quick list:
Ummm an awesome bonfire in an abandoned lot with Igs and Divo and some other folk, music and dumpstered wine and well fire! No cops even came to be mean.
A Harry Potter themed party where there was free (delicious) butter beer, straight from the leaky cauldron. As usual (well not really but still) Mount Olympus set the dance floor on fire and stirred everyone up into a mad dancing rage, ok maybe I'm exaggerating but still, twas an alright time.
Biked around and got slush on my clothes, but smiled at the sun and strangers and got complimented. Also started riding with no hands a lot.
Hung with Spaghetti and we doubled around and hung at Laurier house where I chilled with some fun peoples. She burned her foot some doubling via bicycle is not only fun it's totally justifiable.
Other than that spent way too much time reading this awesome blog, http://www.clickclackgorilla.com
I started from the end and am trying to catch up with the beginning and then I'll subscribe.
Oooh, also, dumpstered a 1/3rd full enormous jug of oil. The only things I worry about (and occasionally buy) in terms of what I eat are oil and spices and one is easy to walk ouf of a store with than another, but that problem is solved for a pretty long time now.
Tomorrow's plan? Well Hang out with CHG a bit then dumpster a bit then consent workshop.
Also national security, umm really, it's kinda a joke, a lot of assumptions I made about government and the ridiculous things they do have been confirmed at the conference "Whose Security? Our Security!", but it twas kinda boring...

oops

2011-01-31T22:52:00.000-08:00

At Faggity Ass I remember dancing with a French hipster girl (she was cute and it was dark). At first I wasn't too serious about anything and just shook my ass on her and her friend. Later in the evening we danced together again but were less silly and more sexy. We grinded and grinded and ended up in that sweaty hip to hip position where the only thing to do is stare at each others faces and rest foreheads against foreheads.
Hips to hips and foreheads touching, a comfortable intensity settled around us and we felt each others breath on our lips, maybe if one of us leaned forward a bit lips could touch or...
Pretty abruptly someone has pulled her to the side and is talking to her, looking upset. Ooops, I can't be expected to know you came here with someone. Time to walk somewhere else and dance elsewhere before one of us gets in trouble :-/

Like I ride a ghost bike

2011-01-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

I'd like to think I ride fast, but the winter is catching up with my slowly. Last Friday my key snapped off in my enormous lock and I had to hide my bike until I got my shitty U-lock back from TKJ. That's not the big deal though, I went to a locksmith earlier and they were able to get the key piece out (fo' free). However, on the way there I noticed a few things:
a) My bike is almost all white, from salt build up
b) Most of my moving parts are covered in frozen slush
c) My cranks are either rusted or very much frozen to the point of moving slowly.
So the things I need to do are, respectively:
a) wipe down bike with a wet rag while indoors, then dry it
b) keep bike indoors long enough that all the slush I didn't aggressively kick off, melts off, then dry those parts too
c) lubricate and allow my cranks to defrost
A trip to the bike shop has to happen soonish, my bike is singing to me and by singing I mean squeaking a thirst for lube and oil and spring. Oh Bicycle, how I too long for the long days and warm breezes.

More dancing and something new for me

2011-01-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

On Friday I went to Faggity Ass Fridays for the first time. It was super great. Basically a very awesome queer dance party. I went with Chibi and two other friends and once we were there I ran into West, Rainbow and a lot of other friends (including the beautiful people I ran into at the Balattou). Danced danced danced! The theme of the night was "gaywatch" so, you know, I wore swim trunks and asked Rainbow to lend me a bikini top which was super fun, it was drenched in sweat by the end of the night but it won me a free drink ticket. Danced with friends, danced with strangers, may have almost kissed someones girlfriend, by accident, almost kissed a friend, not sure if she dances that way, or wants me to kiss her or something else. No idea, on the other hand two strangers kissed me which was fun, once by a cute French girl on the neck while dancing and once by this older guy on the hand who was trying to dance with me, didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. Cute people continue to kiss me though!
Rolled home on the bike, my key broke off in my lock which is lame, I gotta take it to a locksmith because I wanna keep using it, I'm using a smaller lock at the moment. Went to the cabaret last night ran into a jillion friends and had an alright time, CHG(see below) met me there and it was her first time at the coop.
I'm hanging with a friend who I'll called CHG, I'm not sure if she's impressed by me or likes me. It's clear that she thinks I'm cool and interesting, nothing wrong with that, I guess I'm just not used to having people think I'm cool but not necessarily hot, *shrug*. Nothing wrong with that I guess, especially considering there are people that I want to kiss a lot more than CHG... Iunno...

so good

2011-01-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night: super awesome.
Went over to the coop to eat some foods and hang out with people. After some pizza and soup we rolled to a bar called the Balattou which has live world music, people played the kora (an African harp) among other cool instruments. We crossed the street got Belmont stamps and went back to the Balattou and started the dancing up. From there on it was a super feel good night.
Danced a lot, friends arrived, strangers showered me in compliments, I winked at a friend's friend without being creepy, pretty people smiled at me, I got a cute girl's email.
Afterward me and Igs went to the Belmont and ran into a friend. We didn't stay too long because the music wasn't what we expected or wanted to hear. When we were leaving our friend decided to head out also and they gave me a kiss on the cheek on the way out!
So ummm, yea, dancing, and dancing and feeling good and being awesome :)

Parties and poly

2011-01-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Parties last night, one at Spaghetti's house and one here at the coop (I still haven't left). The thing at Spaghetti's house was a folk show, I didn't stay for the music but I did hang out with a lot of fun peeps. Spaghetti and I talked a bit ahead of time and she wanted to hit on a friend of her's from class who was coming over so I kinda stayed outta her way for that. I had great conversations with Flash, about projects and potental and the semi immediate future.
Me and him walked to the coop afterward and ran into a bunch of people there. The party was fuckin rad ass shit! At around 3 the cops came to break it up and kick everyone out, which only led to a temporary dispersal. I came back afterward, socialized a bit and then went to sleep in Igs room with a friend, Igs had passed out but we checked in with her and kept an eye on her the whole night and she was alright. I fell asleep trying to figure out how I felt about Spaghetti and her hitting on other people.
I thought I'd feel hurt, or something, but not really, I felt only a tiny bit uncomfortable and not much more. I read her blog earlier today (it's public and she knows I'm reading it, not some creepy status don't worry) and I don't think anything happened with her and her classmate...
Not sure if I'm actually relieved or if I'm iunno, don't care but in a live and let live way. Let it be know that I do give the proverbial fuck about Spaghetti, she is, very much an awesome person and I'm pretty excited about how much I like her.
Person who I shared a bed with/cuddled with last night was pretty cool and I'm not gonna pretend I don't have a crush on her (among so many others), aside from cuddling not much happened. I considered offering a kiss in the morning as she left but decided against it, I'm not sure how she feels about me and I know I'll run into her often enough that I only want to try that if I'm confident that it'll work out, can't go about losing cool people as friends just because I think they're cute.
Oh also I fixed a flat on my bike and am probably gonna move into the coop at some point in the summer or spring...

Toronto Conference and good news

2011-01-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

Me, TKJ, Rainbow, Wizzle and Crass (two of Rainbow's roomies), went to Toronto for an anarchist learning conference this weekend. It was a great time. I learned a lot and took around 4 pages of notes. We stayed with a friend and their housemates, which was a good time. THe first night we all went out for roti and then Rainbow, TKJ and I visited a friend of their where we hung out and played a game called fat princess which is hilarious and ridiculous.
The conference was good times I learned a lot although I was disappointed with the gender part and the green part, they were so basic, I really feel that they could have been more complex and in depth.
Riding in the car to and from Toronto was a great time as well, listening to music, failing to table dive and just hanging out.
Oh also there was a party that we went to, just dancing mostly and some bad anarchist hip hop, I usually like hip hop don't get me wrong, it's just that these rappers weren't good at rapping.
Back here in Montreal I've been hanging out with Dreads and Australia. She left yesterday to go live with partner in a small town. Dreads and I found a ton of bike parts in the trash so we want to build some bikes soon. Yesterday we found a bouncy castle type thing which was fuckin awesome, jumped and flipped around a lot.
Kunoichi is gonna move back to the house in February! I'm really happy.

People are back in town

2011-01-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

Australia and Igs and Dreads are all back in town I'm super glad. Australia and a friend of her's are staying here for the moment. Today I fixed up my bike with Dreads and Rainbow and now all our bikes ride smooth as shit it's amazing. We ate a huge diner at the coop and watched a movie about the coltan mines in the DR of Congo, kinda very depressing. However the diner part was pretty great, we all talked and caught up and had a good time, TKJ was there also. We originally wanted to go dance to dubstep but then we checked the music and it sucked/was to slow and loungy. Just talked a lot and then came home.

oh, btw, we swammed

2011-01-08T23:46:00.000-08:00

Jer has guests from Jersey up for the last few days, they just left yesterday but they were fun to have around. Apart from dancing it up and stuffs we did one awesome thing that I'm really happy about...
The first place we went to we got kicked out of, that was no fun and the guy wasn't having any of it either, no sense of humor.
We walked into the front doors nodded to the guards and beelined to the elevators and hit the basement button. That was dumb of me, I assumed it'd be in the basement but a sign on the other side of the elevator indicated that what we sought was actually on the 11th floor. Well, we mashed the 11 button, but the elevator only took us up to 10 which was good enough really. We took the stairs up one flight, opened a door, took a turn or two, saw our destination and realized we lacked key cards. Looking through a glass wall at what could be ours, one of ours went around and we don't know how but she was on the other side of the glass!
She disappeared around a corner for a bit and then returned and opened the door for us. We were in, we all went to the bathroom, removed our clothing, felt a bit worried, carried our clothes with us to the deck , left them in a pile beside a chair and waded into the jacuzzi :D Some went into the pool a bit, I liked the jacuzzi a lot but the steam room was good times also.
We didn't bring towels, we dried with the hand dryer and paper towels.

Dance and explore

2011-01-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

Last night a jillion of us went dancing at the Belmont, on Wednesdays there's dubstep music and it's usually pretty great. However as of late a lot of bro kids have started showing up and less and less hippie kids and other fringe type kids. I can't stand for that, so I told a bunch of people to come it also helped that it was Barracuda's birthday. We rolled in a jillion deep only to discover that the line was a a bajillion people long because it turns out it was the DJ's birthday also. We waited around outside until we got in I checked my hoodie with a friend so we could split coat check.
Well we got in and danced it up and moshed a lot and had a good time, Barracuda even kissed this hot girl <3.
At around 1.30 we split, some of us left and some of us stayed. I was with the group that stayed. We danced more and the next time we moshed some dude tried to pick a fight with a friend for pushing him, which is ridiculous, because well, when you mosh you push...
We brushed him off, don't wanna deal with fools like that. After a while me and Rainbow left. I was in just a t-shirt since I left my hoodie in my friend's bag (I got it this morning). We walked to DJ's house since people said they'd be there, but they weren't so I started walking home as did Rainbow. As I was walking someone stuck their head out the door way of a pizza place and called my name!
I turn around and it's my old neighbor and this girl I had theatre class with. I joined them in the pizza place and we chatted for a bit I used her phone to figure out where everyone was (at my house of course). After a bit me and my friend from theatre walked toward my house and split off to our respective houses. I jogged home and went to sleep...
Today I explored an abandoned building with Barracuda's roomie, it was good times. Not the ideal place for a free store but def a fun time altogether. We checked the roof and both stories and took some pictures. Dumpstered a bit after that. Not much of interest went down after that...

Skidmas and New Years

2011-01-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Skidmas was fuckin awesome. What's Skidmas? Well first of all I'm back in Mtl and Skidmas is a party that went down at Rainbow's house it 'twas a themed party kinda since most people fall into the theme without having to try or dress up (or down). It's like a Christmas party/open mic for skids (read: punks, metal heads, and just marginal peeps). Super fun, making music in the dark, listening to poetry and generally being fun. There no dancing went down but I met some fun peeps. Including Vic. She asked me what I was doing for New Years and then suggested that we spend it together doing whatever was fun.
But before I even got to that we went dancing with her sister and their friends from NY at a club called Parking in the village. This of course resulted in of course dancing, then vic's sister and friends leaving, then us leaving and coming here (home), then us hanging out, then us um... yea...
For New Years we went to Vic's dad's house and ate a huge dinner and hung with family members and just chilled mostly. After ward we went back to Vic's sister's house and ended up staying inside for like 36 hours. It was fun and included watching night Night at the Roxbury but still that's just too much.
Left and walked home except I ran into Divo and we hung out and dumpstered a bit.
Got home and turns out Jer is getting home tonight and Banana is home already so now a bunch of us are here and Jer rolled in with some cool friends so I'm excited to chill with everyone and have a good time. I've been cooped up indoors for way to long time to go tear it up.

Circa Christmas

2010-12-26T19:33:00.000-08:00

I made some gifts for christmas. I made a buttflap for my sister, a drumstick holder for my dad and a bag for my mom. All from jeans I found in the trash among other things. That was cool. The night before christmas eve I went dumpstering with Virgil and found a ton of foods, even cake and pizza :)
Other than that I got some books and a hat and head phones for christmas. Having headphone is gonna be convenient. I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" which was pretty cool, I also finally saw Avatar all the way through great movie, colonization sucks, as does the bleak future a lot of sci-fi depicts, umm, let's not let that happen ok?
Other than that I'm hanging out in Maryland with family it's good times. I'll be in Montreal the night of the 27th probably. Gonna spend the New Year in Montreal. I'm excited for that and Skidmas.
Also I have some awesome tattoo on my arms.

things happening as of late

2010-12-20T11:45:00.001-08:00

Some fun things:
*Seeing Crisis and other NY friends
*Driving down and hanging out in Burlington with Giggles and her roomie.
*Bringing my parents to a freegan (ugh I hate that word, read: dumpster diver) movie night where we saw two movies about dumpstering:
1- The Leftovers
2- Dive
The second was more cool than the first and connected a lot of issues, which I liked
*Going to Food not Bombs and running into the same people as I did, also talking about squatting in Oakland to this cool punk girl.
*Biking across the Manhattan Bridge!
*Hearing loud obnoxious people have loud obnoxious conversations on their cell phones in public places.
*Making stuff for Christmas (a buttflap for my sister, a bag for my mom, for my dad, a drum stick holder?)
*Hanging with family
*Helping out with the free store

Some shitty things include:
-my zipper getting stuck for long periods of time
-going to court
-(kinda) having a cell phone

Talked about my future with my parents a bit, and I'm probably gonna pursue learning permaculture to gain a skill of some sort that will last forever and can be used as work. I'm pretty happy with my craftiness at the moment. I've made a buttflap for my sister and it looks awesome, I'm working on a bag for my mom and I realized I can easily make stuff from trash and people like it. I'll probably make pouches and flaps and stuff and sell 'em on the mountain in the spring or give them to friends or something...
Looking forward to go to dumpster at Trader Joe's at some point before I leave.

Shows and Malls

2010-12-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Not too special, been hanging out with Spaghetti and just chilling. Nothing too crazy, I went to a show with her on Thursday which was fun. Apparently I make her less angsty and cynical than she usually is. Hung with Igs yesterday, we went to hear poetry at a cafe with some other coopers, it was okay, but it gave me and Igs time to catch up since she was out of town a bit and I was up to a lot while she was gone.
Today we went to a mall to table dive, malls are terrible terrible places. Ugh, we ate some Chinese food and a woman we asked for food from was totally shocked and probably appalled that we wanted to eat her left overs. We walked around to browse the various food courts and just got dirty look from people. It's ridiculous, the mall is such an artificial place; it's dry and warm and clean and full of zombies, when outside it's snowy and wet and cold and people seem more alert. Also the only thing to do in the mall is buy shit, bleh...
After that hung with Divo and Igs at the house, he's working on a zine so I'll probably help him with that a bit at some point, we dumpstered a bit and then parted ways, I'm here now but I'm gonna head to Giggles' place to bake food and hang out before cabaret at the coop. I'm excited :)

A wholesome and eventful weekend

2010-12-07T02:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend; gypsy music, house party, folk concerts, now I elaborate:
Friday was Balkan music, we went to (read snuck into) Divan Orange. It was good times dancing Chibi kept getting hit on by creepers who wanted to dance with her which was both humorous and annoying, I got danced on/groped by this cute but very not sober girl. We ran into the guy who gave us a thumbs up last time we were there. It was a good time and the music was pretty good. Of course we got barefoot halfway through it. After getting home me and Barracuda fell asleep watching Night at the Roxbury after I cleaned off my feets.
December 5th, the day I was born and (consequently) Ninja Day! This was a pretty great day because well I was born on it and also House Party at Mount Olympus because my birth must be celebrated! Lotsa people showed up, my roomies made me an anarchy cake and Kunoichi firespan in the courtyard.
As it got late people trickled out and a few slipped in. Those are the ones who we stayed up 'til around 7 in the morning with cuddling and painting bodies and listening to hippie music and generally chilling with. Once we were actually going to sleep V and two other people went to my bed and the rest of us stay in Kunoichi's room on her fold out couch/bed in a big ol' cuddle puddle. Sucks for V though, turns out the two people fucked right next to him (on my bed!) and he lay there through the whole thing...
No idea, I would have left the room if I wasn't involved, bleh, not something I understand, if you're uncomfortable, which happens when people, you know have sex right next to you. But yea I washed those sheets. Someone (Spaghetti) got me a stack of patches for my birthday, which is awesome although I'm usually anti-gift I can't resist DIY charm...
Same person had invited me over for the next day because there was to be a folk show at their house so go I did. It was good times, I ran into someone I kept seeing everywhere but didn't really know and actually talked to them. I met some cool people and of course heard some great folk music, like actually good stuff I was surprised at how fun the music was. At some during the music Spaghetti started scratching my hair (umm best idea ever?) and we cuddled until the music finished. Once the music was done I stuck around a bit to socialize and talk to everyone a bit. Went to Spaghetti's room when people started to leave and hung out and talked a bit drowsily (running on minimal amounts of sleep). We probably talked more than we planned to, and soon only the roomies were left. With permission I crashed the bed and we held each other and pretended to try to fall asleep. Really though we were trying to seduce each other which isn't to hard when both people are trying to do the same thing and we ended up touching lips and stuff...
We didn't get enough sleep...
I'm excited to see where this goes.
Today was tons of snow, lots of it, falling out of the sky and piling up on the sidewalks. Dumpstered cheese after napping upon return to the house. Hung with Divo, dumpstering at pharmaprix and just chilling at the house. I'm gonna be the subject of some documentation about dumpstering tomorrow, dumpstering is getting all cool now.
I wish there was less snow though, it's gonna snow a lot this week...

food and tours

2010-12-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

Gave a tour of the dumpsters in the Plateau on Monday, a bit before the tour I dumpstered a ton of cheese and gave a lot to some of TKJ's roomies who I saw as I was leaving the dumpster. The tour itself went great, I showed all the dumpsters in the Plateau and found a ton of ice cream. Everyone was excited and surprised at the yields and ease of dumpstering. Afterward we hung at the house a bit and then went our separate ways.
Yesterday me and Igs and this guy (Divo) hung out. We mostly sat and talked about everything. But afterward me and Igs went to table dive at Belle Province. We got a ton of fries of course and whe we were leaving we got stopped by an employee, oh fuck!
"I really like what you're doing" he told us, much to our relief. We had a talk about building strong immune systems and food waste and all that for a bit before coming back home to eat some ice creams then Igs went home and I went to sleep.
I've been all housed up the last few days and it's no fun, I need to get out and do cool shit, excited for this weekend I am.

dancing, attempts at dancing and also food

2010-11-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks giving was pretty cool stuff. I went to a childhood friend's house and brought some food. His friends showed up and we all hung out. If I was at all doubting my social skills around not alternative people that doubt has completely vanished. Totally just hit it off with everyone, I guess my mood on halloween just wasn't there and also the people at those parties were preppy/frat as fuck...
Friday was a show dance party at Decadent Squalor, pretty fun stuff, ran into a lot of people I know and moshed and danced and slept over at Barracuda's place since she lives closer than I do, I was supposed to do parkour with some friends but the snow falling from the sky kinda ruined that. Whatever, I hung out at Rainbow's house a bit on Friday before squalor.
Saturday was a dance party that fell through. Rainbow, TKJ and I went to Ste Emilie Skillshare for a dance party but it kinda wasn't as fun as I wanted. Not many people were there and the space was tiny, we spent the whole time eating chips and talking before heading. 'Twasn't super spectacular or anything.
Todays plan:
Candy canes and chess
Poetry readings
???
Profit!

Learning stuff about stuff

2010-11-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

Today was mad educational.
Learned to raise oyster mushrooms from bags of pasteurized hay, about menstruation, and some immigration info as well. 'Twas great. Met cool peeps and am probably gonna give a dumpster tour soon. Tomorrow and Wednesday gonna teach about dumpstering. Kinda excited :)
Thanksgiving is coming up, and lotsa other stuff too.

Gypsy punx for a night

2010-11-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Last night was super great, seems I've been donning my gypsy clothes more than my ninja clothes as of late. Went to (read: snuck into) a gypsy party with Kunoichi and another roomie. 'Twas a great time, we tore up the dance floor then the roomie left and me and Kunoichi danced barefoot, people thought we were awesome and we danced with a strangers and got some compliments from impressed bystanders. DJ showed up late in the night which was kinda strange, and the tension (Kunoichi just broke up with him earlier in the night). Such a good night, and I was in a crazy good mood, while we left I asked a woman if she would come home with me, but she wasn't feeling it. Not nearly as scary asking someone to straight up come home with you than I thought it would be.
Today is gonna include but isn't limited to:
Punk show
Kale chips
Dumpstering
Hanging with Igs and some other peeps
A masquerade party at Kiwi's place
A fuck-ton of biking

expozine and wasted time

2010-11-14T20:38:00.001-08:00

ummm, so fuck computers and the internet, I mean I love them and all, but really they eat too much time and hanging out in real life is definitely better any day.
Anyways, this weekend was Expozine which was really fun, and also really huge. Like ridiculously huge. Tons of zines and comics and arts and crafts other cool thangs.
I went with Igs, we spent three hours there. Afterward we rode around to dumpster but didn't find much. Went to the coop and ate there, checked out the metal venue and hung there for a bit, we felt pretty cool knowing the owner and not paying and hanging in the sound room and generally being cool I guess.
Not much else happened the rest of the night since we wasted a ton of time on computers doing nothing productive(like I'm doing now). In the end I went to table poutine with TKJ at like 2am and Igs went to go paint walls with Ool...
Oh also the night before we (Igs, TKJ, Rainbow and I) went to a hip hop show at Death Church. 'Twas a good time, Micros Armee was supposed to show but didn't, I love their stuff. There was a cute girl there that I heard rode trains and who I've been seeing around, I talked to her and we traded numbers, chances are I have a crush on her, she has a cool hat.

stuff happening recently

2010-11-12T08:12:00.001-08:00

Nothing too too exciting so here's a list:
visit NYC for a weekend
dumpstered a cake on the way back
danced to dubstep on Wednesdays
put a crate on my bicycle
hang out with peoples
watch a documentary called 69 about Copenhagen punks
nothing strikingly memorable...

Halloween

2010-11-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

We dressed as gypsies and the parties sucked.
I dressed as Mr. T and the party was okay.
We all dressed as trannies and the night was wild.
We stole and the cops drove by midway through, they didn't realize we were stealing!
Also the wig I wore I dumpstered.

Toronto

2010-10-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Toronto was awesome, since I did too much to write it all out I'll use bullets to cover the highlights:
*Hitchhiking, including riding in an awesome chrome truck
*Food not Bombs at an awesome skate house called Soybomb
*Really Really Free Market in Kensington Market
*Scamming public transit
*PWYC vegan brunch
*zombie walk
*realizing everyone is vegan in Toronto (Chibi was happy very about this)
*sleeping on the most comfortable legs ever on the ride share back to MTL
*Staying at Awkward House with awesome people
*Getting a facial
*watching a bad chick flick
*dumpstering and then making apple sauce
*being that rad house guest/traveler kid
*looking dirty in a clean cut city
*impressing school kids by standing at the side of the road with a sign
*getting a stack of zines and punk CDs for free
*just generally hanging out with Chibi
*Talking about anarchist scenes in NY, MTL and TO
*Getting a bike rack for $10
*exploring a new city
*meeting awesome peeps

FnB Saturday

2010-10-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was Food not Bombs, it's been started up again by Igs and Ool at the coop. We served outside nearby, but it wasn't much of a success, we ate most of the food and only two people hung out to eat with us. One was a dude in a red jacket that I didn't talk to much and another was a traveller guy who was from BC. After a while we realized we were just standing in the cold, so we packed up and moved back to the coop to eat and chill and do dishes...
Me and Igs were supposed to go to a show but headaches on her part as well as distance and the lack of a bike which pushed us in the direction of watching movies and staying in, Trainspotting was pretty cool, less gross and disturbing than I expected, Afro Ninja: Destiny, a hilarious kung fu comedy which is based on the infamous youtube clip.

fixin bikes, watching movies and talking life

2010-10-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was good times, took a nap and hung out at home, later got a call from Kiwi and we met up to fix up bikes which didn't end up doing much for her). Turns out there's a community bike shop less than two blocks from where I live, which is convenient since Kiwi works in a different part of the same building. Kiwi was messing with her chain and I just gave a tune up to my bike (tightening brakes, cleaning and lubing chain etc...).
We finished up with our bikes and headed to Cinema Politica to watch a movie about an Argentinian community's resistance (and victory!) against Canadian mining interests that would poison their water for miniscule amounts of gold. Smoothest ride ever with functional brakes and air filled tires.
We got back home and made some pasta (yea, I got pasta now) with vegetables and just when we finished eating and had taken out the nut strudel (we being Kiwi, Kunoichi, DJ and myself) guess who walks in? None other than Rainbow!
We sat and ate nut studel and talked about the fucked up things happening in/to the world, kinda depressing, we kinda transitioned afterward to more not sad things and of course Kunoichi told some fun stories.
Waking up early sucks when people sleep over...

Oh also, I'm probably going to Toronto with Chibi via thumb this weekend :)

eggs, punks, feelings

2010-10-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

I dumpstered soo many eggs, no really like,probably 90 something of them! All from the supermarket dumpster.
Went to a show last night, it was good times, Igs showed up late and then after her TKJ and Rainbow showed as well it was great. Cerebral Ballzy played, their some band from Brooklyn which was nice. After the show we hung out in the bar that is also part of the venue, some underground probably illegal bar that's awesome to just sit around in.
Talked to Ithaca a bit online, nothing too special just updating each other, I always feel a bit strange/sad after talking to her. Like I want us to be friends, but I don't want to feel shitty at the same time I don't want to abandon the whole thing, iunno...
Stuff is strange for her I think.

roofs and beds

2010-10-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to class and the to the potato to eat Kiwi met me there and totally threw off TKJ by kissing me in front of him. Igs was there a bit later and we all ate together.
After food me and Kiwi hit the roof, hung out there a bit and avoided detection by someone who we didn't identify, and then parted ways. We met later and returned home (some people I bike crazy), the best part was holding hands while riding without holding the handlebars (well until a car honked at us, then it was just funny).
At home we hung with the cats and Kunoichi and just talked until we moved to my room and watched internets and wasted time and messed around and talked about life and stayed up late, and finally fell asleep.

Long ass night

2010-10-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

The original plan was to go to see Vibesquad at Belmont, but that's not what happened, I just got home from a long ass night*. Started by messing around on youtube with my roomies before heading to my friend's house party as a pre-Vibesquad thing, that was okay for a bit, I was with DJ and NJ (a roomie of mine) when I got there and we met up with Igs and her friend. The party was at Pines' place so I caught up with him. We hung out a bit and talked before leaving to see Vibesquad.
Only to find out that the show was cancelled because they didn't get past immigration. We hopped bars for a while but everything sucked, we ended up dumpstering at pharmaprix and heading back to the apartment, DJ was already there because he thought the night was dead zone. While we thought of things to do he left the house to go home. We looked online for punk shows and good parties but to no avail. We were getting ready to call it a night when we got a call from DJ he walked past the Vibesquad venue on his way home and there was a sign on the door with the location of another party meant to replace the Vibesquad one. We looked up the address realized it was super close and headed out.
While we walked we ran into DJ who was waiting and we hung out with this girl who was being chased by her skateboarder friend. Once we got to the warehouse, the show was $3 which is good considering I expected to pay $5. We walked in and started dancing...
We danced a shit ton, ran into a bunch of people we knew and had a good time. We left a bit after all the music finished and just hung out outside the place for a while until a friend invited us all to chill at this huge loft as a sort of after party, we walked a bit and got to this industrial neighborhood (I tore up my shorts hopping a fence for fun), their loft was in a big old institutional looking building and it was huge.
It was a DIY place in that they had built their own mezzanine, had to use hotplates and shit for their kitchen and basically where living in an office space under some type of business permit they were working on. Met a few cool peeps there, some of whom had seen me around apparently. We all chilled there until like 5ish in the morning then decided to head home, 'cept Igs and her friend we left before them...
Got home, Kunoichi was up, kinda traumatized from seeing something stupid and terrible go down in the street, we stayed up a bit to give some comfort and just hang (while I sewed up my torn shorts).
As soon as she left and NJ left the room, I fell fast asleep...

*I started writing this last night at around 6AM

transfolk and trouble

2010-10-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

legal trouble in the past, it's over now and I'm good to go, was a close call though...
Thanksgiving was super awesome, hung with roomies and guests and friends at DJ's house and we ate a ton of foods. A cat came by and hung out, apparently she does that on and off. Later I went to a party at Rainbow's house which is this awesome trans/queer friendly house. Danced it up, dressed genderfuck and generally had a good time hanging out and meeting people. Came home late as shit and when I woke up was told we have two new kittens woop woop!
Also Kiwi came by the other night and we hung out and watched Pickaxe, a documentary about the Cascadia free state and anti-logging actions. She left the next morning but couldn't meet up for parkour because she had to meet people and stuffs. I went to Olympic Stadium with Chibi (she used to live at the house before I moved in) and met up with some activist kids and we did some parkour for a few hours, before heading home for thanksgiving.

misinterpretation

2010-10-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

Talking to Ithaca progressed as the day continued, it all seemed good until I got a poem from her, she wrote it herself.
Some context, after explaining the story of everything that happened with me and Ithaca to Barracuda I kinda realized that I had been in an abusive relationship, I didn't want to call it such, because I didn't want to be a survivor, I didn't want to call Ithaca a perpetrator. I guess I knew it but just didn't want to admit it to myself, anyways what happened happened, can't change the past...
Anyways, back to the poem, it was basically Ithaca saying that she was abusive mostly, but a small part explained how she coped with treating me badly; by viewing me badly and the way it was described was way more than I could take. I took it as a personal attack and felt really shitty, I went to Banana (a roomie of mine) and cried and told her about it, and she's the one that made me see that it wasn't written with malicious intent (Ithaca hadn't explained this to me and didn't want to talk about it...) it made less shitty feeling.
I told Ithaca my new interpretation in an email, I hope it's correct and she didn't see me as a disgusting person...

Ghosts of Boyfriends past or something like that...

2010-10-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I dumpstered a ton of couscous and two melons and apple strudel and I cut my hair. However I wanna write about me talking to Ithaca. We spoke a bit online and it was much easier than I expected and kinda a relief at the same time.
Turns out we felt a lot of the same things, we missed each other, we were unhappy because the other seemed happy (clearly we're stalking each other online). She's taking a short vacation to NB with her boss and his wife, seems healthy for her, like the father she never had.
She appreciated that I took care of her and was nice and realizes that she focused on a lot of small annoying things (not gonna deny that I did lots of small annoying things). I wanna keep in touch.
It wasn't as hard as scary as I thought it would be, was scary in the approach but I'm glad at where I am.

Too much for a single title

2010-10-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

Probably the best weekend ever, way too many ridiculous things happened. Spent most of it with Igs. I'll start on Thursday. After eating some food at the Potato with Igs we decided to spend time in the greenhouse and try to check out the roof, her friend from geography was there, we all went up to the top part of the roof, this time a worker wasn't there so we didn't have to sneak away. Free roam to the top of the roof! We found this strange structure that can't seem to serve any purpose other than being a hot tub and steam room. We climbed to the top and hung out in the steam, then we opened a small door on the side and removed our shoes socks and/or pants and got in the water, which was super warm. After a long while we came out and got our stuff back on (we were soaked) and went back inside for a bit only to go back up later with a different friend and hang out in the steam. We went to a group meeting, ate nachos and were very bored. to make up for it we ran into a friend, shoplifted and ate a tub of ice cream and hung out in the back room of Frigo Vert until we all biked home in the rain or went to class.
Friday, waking up was shitty, I always want to sleep more, but totally worth getting up. I packed my towel and swim trunks and biked out to meet Igs at Concordia. We went up to the roof and were very disappointed to discover our secret hot tub was cold and very not steamy. However the fact that we already had come with out stuff for the sole purpose of hanging out in some body of water was enough motivation to try to find some substitute.
We tried to get on to the roof of a nearby building but only ran into locked doors, office buildings are hard to blend into with mohawks, dirty clothes and dreadlocks...
We walked around downtown looking for a hotel with a roof pool that we heard about but instead found an outdoor pool protected by a small fence. We kept in mind the location and went to eat at the potato scheming to return and re-appropriate for our own hedonistic desires, which of course is totally okay since, no one was using the pool anyways.
After a quick (free, vegan) meal I put my swim shorts on under my shorts and we set out to swim. Once there we opened the gate, jumped in the water and had the best swim of our lives, except not because the water was freezing cold and the shower room locked and under construction, while we rushed our towels and began to dry off, a security guard asked us what we were up to, "we're leaving, it's too cold to swim..."
We walked back to Concordia barefoot with only towels to cover us, people smiled.
Rhizome is another coop, not too long ago we had decided to go there, we stopped at my house and the coop and the pharmaprix dumpster before getting there. The dumpster stop of course resulted in our eating some rice before heading to Rhizome. While we were biking toward Rhizome we passed a train yard and rode along side it and felt very inspired, the trains moved so slowly you could walk to keep up with it. The trains were so close we could almost wipe the grime off them.
After getting lost a bit we found Rhizome and hung out there a bit. There was a workshop, and a drunk guy talking about apple picking and a community lighter and a huge library with all kinds of zines and books about politics and diy and all that, we spent a good chunk of time sitting in there talking about becoming radicalized.
Before leaving Rhizome they coopers there gave us these small cards, buy 4 get a 5th coffee/tea/hot chocolate free cards for a certain chain convenience store, with three rows and the first four coffees stamped off, they had stolen a stack of them and probably would drink free hot chocolate forever.
On the way back we stopped and checked out a train yard, and almost got caught writing on on trains. We biked out after that, but got kicked out when we were about to leave anyways. Was a close call since I think my name is on their security file and they gave me warning a while ago.
Back at the coop we planned to attend a punk show and found a free one. However, Ool was going to a party in the West Island and she wanted us to come with her. The distance issue was remedied with a car, and we were assured that we would return in time to see the punk show. On the way to the party we stopped a certain chain convenience store to get beer, me and Igs decided this would a great time to grab a stamp to go along with our little cards. The party itself was okay, we were the dirtiest kids there, so we danced and were soon joined by a lot of others. It wasn't enough, we wanted to flail and be wild and loose and unrestricted by slow music or social norms. We took some cookies on the way out and rocked out in the car all the way back to the coop and then all the way to the punk show.
The band was setting up when we got there and for the first few songs people mostly nodded their heads but after a few we started a mosh and went crazy. We left after they finished playing and people went to the car, Ool, Igs and I decided to walk home which was awesome because we saw/painted a painted van, ate free food from the trash, tabled dived, danced in an awesome bar and danced to buskers music.
Finally got back to the coop. We though we'd go to sleep but me and Igs ended up checking the internet and the next thing we knew we were on the roof hoping to see a sunrise. Of course the weather was cold and the sun was slow so we never saw it break the horizon because we wanted to sleep and all that.
It's Saturday, I told people I'd teach them parkour, I didn't want to get out of bed, not enough sleep, not enough energy. Nothing motivates better than a promise of free scammed hot chocolate however. Igs and I walked to a certain chain convenience store and got two hot chocolates for free, one left handed one scammed, tried to left hand some kinder eggs but they were noticed and I played it off that we didn't want to buy them anymore.
As we walked back to the coop, we passed a restaurant were a ton of people were talking over food that was probably getting cold. Shortly after discussing this situation we were sitting at a nearby table with more leftover food than we were able to eat. Best breakfast ever.
Parkour was good times, I was teaching QKF a friend I met the week before, later in the day Kiwi showed up as well. We trained, walls were run up, hands bled, grass was rolled on etc...
On the bike ride home me and Kiwi talked about what you wanted, and poly and feelings and relationships. Good talk to have, especially if most of it takes place while we ride bikes. Looks like there's room for me to regain my ridiculous amount of self confidence/self-esteem and see someone casually at the same time.
Picked up gear at the coop, went home, wasted time, went back to the coop for their party. It was kinda suck, me and Igs and Bum (who had came to the party) left to TKJ's house but he wasn't there and the party there was kinda lame. We almost snuck into a church party be realized we were ridiculously underdressed and decided against it because we'd stick out like sore thumbs.
We ended up checking out an underground venue where we found out there wasn't any shows happening, however we ended spending hours there listening to music, eating pizza and listening to crazy stories with the owner, who was an old hippie.
Went back to the coop at 2.30 in the morning and milled about a bit before going to sleep.
Nothing too ridiculous today, just free food in the trash and a great appreciations of the sun.

Melons and Movies

2010-09-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

I have a theory; if you watch a movie and then eat honeydew melon only good things will come of it. lemme give you some context:
Like three days ago I dumpstered two melons (among other things). I expected them to be a bit sour or over ripe. That's all the context you need for now.
Yea I didn't have a control group but I'm pretty sure that everyone that didn't watch a movie and then eat melon didn't have as good a time as I did when I did watch a movie and then eat melon. If you didn't consider yourself control and me and my experiences as treatment. Here's what happened:
Monday was Cinema Politica, the movie Sweet Crude was awesome, even more awesome however was running into Nat afterward, I had been carrying a melon with me all evening to share but never got the chance to. Nat wanted to find the bread dumpster I showed him last week, I was like forget that wanna come over and eat bread and chill? He was down, we doubled on the bike, stopped to dumpster some oranges and then broke open the melon when we got in. The melon (a honeydew) turned out to be the most delicious melon like ever! We tore it apart, roomies came by and we all ate and had good conversation and good times were had by all. Good night :)
Last night I hung out at home a bit and then remembered that my friend Kiwi told me she was gonna start showing movies at her house on Tuesdays. I called halfway through baking some risotto balls and said don't wait for me but I might show up. I kinda forgot about it, but ended up riding there after eating and wasting a bit of time on the internets.
I rode over, locked up and joined in watching the movie, seeing a few familiar people either came over to watch and/or lived with Kiwi. I saw down and watched Gasland with everyone, good times I ended up sitting next to Kiwi after some people left and seats were re-appropriated. Some hair tussling ensued, if you want to stun me and completely distract me from whatever I am doing scratch my head, if I could pur I would.
Anyways we all got up and ate some melon (yea now things get even more awesome, since you know melon has been eaten and movies have been watched). We hung in the kitchen a bit and then Kiwi suggested we watch some parkour videos so we did, except we was just me and her, one thing led to another and I biked home the next morning to get my school stuff and head to class. Self esteem has gone up a bit, I feel pretty happy that I'm not the only one that appreciates that I don't wear underwear...

Bad dream

2010-09-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

I woke up from a bad dream. I was strange, here's what I remember:
we (me and a couple friends from NY) were throwing a party at a house, but first we went outside (we were in the mountains somewhere sunny with very few clouds). Outside we walked along grassy plains and the ground was steep. At one point we saw a short wide (purple and black?) cylinder that flashed a dull light, somehow I knew it was a bomb and I hit the deck a grabbed a nearby pole (what's a pole doing on a mountain?). The bomb exploded loudly but the shock wave came a bit afterward and almost knocked me off a cliff. After that we were inside.
Inside people were showing up to the party and it was alright, after wandering a bit I found a small room where a few friends were about to swim, I asked someone's parent (they owned the pool) if it was okay for me to swim naked and they were down, I swam around in this really shallow pool that seemed like it was basically a normal room with about a foot of water in it. There may have been more, but I don't remember it.
This part I remember well and it scared me and made me mad. I was biking somewhere with Ithaca (not sure how since she wasn't doubling and didn't have her own bike). We stopped on a street that was under construction and just looked around and watched a steam roller compress the ground. Shortly after an invisible rider, rode by and left their bike in the street (this was completely normal to us). A bit later Ithaca rode away on the invisible person's bike! I walked around a bit to find her and came back to see my own bike stolen (by the invisible person). I told Ithaca that she got my bike stolen and why did she take the invisible person's bike? She seemed to feel bad but didn't care too much, apparently in that dream it wasn't the first time she had gotten my bike stolen.
At that point I started to run, down a street that seemed like Ontario st in Montreal, it was night and it was raining lightly. I may have been looking for my bike, not too sure. I passed a sporting goods store and saw a woman walking out with orange and purple spandex and a helmet walking the same bike that Ithaca had taken earlier it was the invisible rider, now walking around visible, she gave me a strange look but I kept running down the street. I passed a bike rack thing (where people lock their bikes in the city) and my bike wasn't there...

feelin good

2010-09-26T23:20:00.001-07:00

I'm feelin good, in a passive way kinda. Like being in a long car ride and even if you're bored you realize the weather and country side are beautiful and great. Kunoichi is sleeping on my lap and Benji (the cat) is asleep just to my left and I'm listening to Ghost Mice :)

Snacks, ups and knowledge

2010-09-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

Weekend has been pretty awesome so far; nice trash (read chocolate and cookies), interesting workshops and parkour :).
Friday I went dancing at a party/venue with TKJ and Rainbow and met some cool peeps and just danced and hung out, good times. On the way home I checked some dumpsters and ended up going back with a backpack to carry shit back home :D
Yesterday was all about activist workshops part of a forum called "Got you back." Super interesting, learned about prison abolition/solidarity, some projects about safer neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and this morning a workshop on confronting perpetrators of sexual assault as a community, which was very interesting. Afterward I met up with Pines and we did some parkour at McGill, we're both clearly rusty as shit, we fell a bit and did some sloppy rolls. Pines is on the track to getting front flips which is fun to watch. I'm happy with the weekend, might go to a party tonight at TKJ's place, I might study with Barracuda, ideally both I guess...
We'll see.

Fuckin ice cream and shit

2010-09-22T21:34:00.001-07:00

Barracuda is a girl who is cool with my roomies and is from Calgary, I've been hanging out with her on and off, Igs is a cooper that I've been chilling with as well.
Today went to class and then to the potato with Barracuda (we have class together twice a week). Igs was there and we looked at some posters posted around, one was a sorority poster and Barracuda, apparently they were having an "ice cream social" the option was to of course, crash it. It was at 8 so I took Barracuda to the Frigo Vert and the Coop Bookstore (where I got a back patch), before going home.
At home I realized I was locked out of my side of the apartments. I waited out front reading zines from the books through bars thing I wanna join. Igs showed up because we were gonna sew up her dead shoes. I climbed up the balcony and then back down when I found the door was locked. We hung in the kitchen on the other side until someone came home with the keys to let us into the side I live on. I passed Igs some brown tshirt and a patch and I sewed on my backpatch.
Later in the night after Igs left I went to meet Barracuda, the sorority didn't actually have ice cream so left handing ensued and we ate at a nearby with some forks they gave us. I ran into some friends from my first year at school and an ex, it was cool seeing them again.
Free ice cream is delicious, I started telling Barracuda the story about me and Ithaca while we walked around downtown. I realized a lot of ridiculous things I did and a lot of ridiculous things I dealt with. While we strolled we bought candy from some people dressed as fairies and I found an open bag of candy in front of a museum. Shortly after finishing the story we exchanged (more like I was offered and accept) some hugs and then rode home and shared ice cream with my roomies :D
Zine fest and two parties Friday :)

Kittens and veggies

2010-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend Giggles (friend from Montreal) and I hitched west to Jardins de la Resistance on a whim, planning involved included, printing out a google map, dumpstering cardboard for sign and sewing straps to my bag to attach my sleeping bag to.
Planning? Totally unnecessary! We got there in one ride, she dropped us off right in the front yard of the farm. We walked in met people, got shown around and set up camp.
It was good times there; the first night was soccer, and sitting around a fire.
The next day was the harvest party, where we picked vegetables and shelled beans and all that good stuff. By the time night fell the number of tents had more than tripled and there were a ton of people. There was a cute French girl who may or may not have had a boyfriend, we smiled at each other a lot but not much more happened between us than that, I should get on the ball, last September I would have struck up a conversation like nobody's business. Whatever though, a few people got drunk and sang anarchist folk songs in French which was pretty awesome. Sitting around a fire with the Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble was pretty rad. What's not rad you ask? A guy promising us a ride back into Montreal only to sleep with a drunk chick and ditch us without a word, it was as Giggles put it "slimy".
Fear not, we got a ride none the less from a non-slimy though more scruffy looking anarchist (almost everyone there was an anarchist) who invited us to ride with him. The ride was pretty uneventful, mostly silence, some iPod and way more of me thinking about Ithaca and straightedge than I'd like to admit...
All in all a great experience and a super time and I even have some nice garlic that we got from the farm in the cupboard :)

Shitty house parties and good politics

2010-09-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday me and Domin went to Midnight Kitchen to cook up and make art for climate camp, it was pretty fun, just hanging around eating obscene amounts of hummus and playing with spray paint and silkscreens. After that I went home to prepare for this fancy ass party; see below.
Last night was kinda pretty okay I guess. We (me and all the roomies 'cept Kunoichi and one other) got dressed up all fancy and looked all fly and went to a party, but everyone else there kinda sucked, like a lot so me and DJ left and went back home. Back home Kunoichi is hanging out with two friends and we have hilarious conversations about sex and food and drinking. Left after a bit to go to another party which had fallen through so I left shortly thereafter, fortunately my roomies are awesome so we fell asleep watching some cowboy bebop :)
Today was Climate Camp, which was good times. TKJ was there, Domin was there, Rainbow was there, other people that I've seen around were there. The huge hummus pot was there with some other delicious free foods, a workshop on green capitalism, a huge tripod, a welcoming drum song, a direct action workshop, some discussions and generally a good atmosphere.
After leaving I got home to find a few people over for dinner, we all hung out later some of us went out to stores to get food I came home with some (possibly free) candy which made people happy and we had a candy party in the kitchen :)

Good Parties and Bad Dreams

2010-09-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a party, but before I get to that I'll start earlier in the day. Wake up, people's potato, run into TKJ, Rainbow, Bum and surprise Domin, straight outta Toronto, he biked here and is staying here a bit then biking home. We all hung around and chilled for a bit. I told Domin he could crash the house a bit if we wanted to, so we rode home and then started doing stuff for his trip after discussing politics and travel and all that good summer stuff.
Dumpster fruit,
go to the coop and cut them up
meet some of the new coopers while setting up the dehydrator
invite them to come party and bounce
Get back home with a some dumpstered foods and just chilled for a bit with Domin and the roomies. After a while started to get my costume going on, chains and belts all over the place until I looked like a cyber-punk. The party started slow but became super awesome as more people arrived.
At the end of the night, a few of us went to Belle Provence to table poutine, at the end of the night we had clearly won, despite dirty looks from the bus boy, we had tabled seven plates of poutine!
Among those present were: Pines, V, the coop girl who I met the same day (and her whole crew), Kunoichi, DJ, Amp and the rest of my roomies and the old roomies from the apartment as well, and a bunch of other people also. Was good times and a pretty successful party if I do say so myself.
Last night I had a scary dream. I don't remember it in its entirety but here's what I remember:
Being separated from a group of friends and running through alleys/doing parkour to find them only to get lost more.
Being at someone's (a girlfriend's?) house and their mom bringing me my clean laundry and angrily agreeing that I should maybe wear different clothing every now and then.
Being at Ithaca's house and walking around in her mom's back yard with her and her dad. Her dad dropped a syringe on the ground by accident and I jumped back because I was barefoot. After he picked it up and threw it into some bushes (which made Ithaca mad) I nervously touched my pants pockets. Upon seeing this he kept trying to frisk me more and more aggressively until he was actively fighting/chasing me and I was actively running/yelling. That was pretty scary, the idea of getting chased by an ex's crackhead dad (not what he's really like). Was pretty relieved to wake up.

Part of being a slut is being ethical

2010-09-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

I was about to write this when I talked to Kunoichi, about just what I planned to write about.
Last night me Kunoichi and DJ (Kunoichi's boyfriend-thing), were hanging in the kitchen cutting up my hair and talking and all that. I put on Cowboy Bebop (me and Kunoichi are rewatching the series) and ended up all hanging on Kunoichi's bed. After a while we moved to my room and continued to watch there at first DJ wasn't coming but he joined us after a few minutes to work while we watched. We (Kunoichi and I) were pretty cuddly and touchy-feely. We watched a ton of Cowboy Bebop and after a while DJ left to sleep. We kept watching.
I thought back to when I felt a lot of sexual tension between Ithaca and a mutual friend, I remember being totally thrown off and unsure of what was happening. I don't want to put any of my friends through the same kind of shit.
I asked Kunoichi that what we were doing definitely had the potential to incite some jealousy. She thought it wasn't a big deal and we kept being cuddly and watching stuff. After a while we stopped watching and went online a bit.
Kunoichi was falling asleep in the bed at this point, which would have been fine with me if DJ wasn't across the hall probably feeling strange. I told Kunoichi that it's fine if she slept there but I wanted it to be ok with DJ first. In the end she dozed a lot and I was beginning to fall asleep myself, when woke up(ish) and told me she kept having dreams of DJ being jealous, I told her that they definitely made sense. She thought it was a good time to go sleep in her own bed with DJ.
We talked (right before me writing this) about poly and feeling trapped, and not feeling jealous and feeling for more than one person and all that good stuff. She reassured me that DJ was totally cool with us cuddling and being as touchy as we are even though he isn't down with poly (and not everyone is, which is totally fine). I feel a lot better, I hope that DJ isn't just saying he's fine, because it's definitely something a lot of guys (myself included of course) would do. I don't want to make someone else feel weird and shitty though.

Friends, food and uh school...

2010-09-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today; good times with some doubts lingering in my head.
Wake up, try to sign up for classes, fail at doing so. Biked (on my brand new/used awesome bike) to the people's potato and ate there, ran into Pagoda, TKJ, Bum and a bunch of other people who don't have cool names on this blog (yet?). Hung around a with TKJ and Bum mostly, Bum wants to get into parkour again and I told Pines and V I'd start it up again, looking forward to that.
After the potato went to Rainbow's house but she wasn't there, dumpstered a ton of carrots with TKJ instead and started cooking up a huge dinner at his place with his awesome roomie Liberty. A bunch of peeps ended up coming over and I met cool people and shared a dinner table with them all. In the end me and a girl biked home in the rain together with was fun times, I def thought biking in the rain would suck but it was very enjoyable. Now I'm back here did some school stuff. Time to chillax and waste time being unproductive.

mohawks and music

2010-09-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was pretty awesome. Kunoichi cut my hair into a mohawk which I am rocking right now. Not something I expected to happen but it's fun anyways. We had people over, a girl who was here for one of the kung fu movie/dumpster food nights and her friend and an old roomie. We all went out to see a pamplamoose's (sp?) free show. I thought it would be whatever at first and initially it was but as it went on the songs got pretty awesome!
Ran into some school friends at the show which was cool. We all walked back to the house afterward and hung out a bit. Reading over this it doesn't sound too exciting but it was good times...

Scream for it!

2010-09-02T22:10:00.001-07:00

Ice cream, we dumpstered a ton of it, we being me, DJ (a temporary roomie/guy Kunoichi is seeing) and Amp (a roomie). We didn't find any fruit we got lotsa bread, ice cream and some frozen dinner type stuff. Had a lot of people over and just chilled and ate and all that. Sold some old clothes today, set up my room a bit more and cleaned my shorts. Having these roomies is the best, I'm really happy to live here and people are def happy to have me here also. I can't wait to have a bike again though, TKJ is supposed to have one for me that we can fix up for cheap. Gotta get on my school stuff, I've been kinda attempting it without much effort, need to buckle down.
Ithaca is on my mind way much, I'm clearly not over her, I half want to get into another meaningful relationship, but I don't want to have to been in one to feel great about myself, I want to feel great about myself all the time like I did before, I'm slowly progressing there I think though, everyone here is awesome and I feel pretty good almost all the time, just my mind wanders at times...

Back in Montreal

2010-09-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Heyo!
I'm currently sitting in my room in the apartment where I now live with Kunoichi (among other people). It's pretty super awesome, gonna go dumpster. I got here yesterday but slept at a friend's house with Ithaca (probably the last time in a while), now I moved shit around, emptied dusty bags and although there's a pile of stuff on the floor I'm pretty much settled in.
Gonna dumpster later.
Yesterday I went to the coop with Ithaca and a friend, TKJ and Rainbow were there! Good to see them again, really happy. This morning and for lunch free food, how so? table dive of course, this is the way I want to do things :)
TKJ might have a bike for me, we just need a de-railer for it, then you know I'll have a bike fo free!
New roomies make for good old friends. Really happy to be living here :D

Spam and bread...

2010-08-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

...taste like shit, I'd never pay for it, dumpstered/free stuff is supposed to taste better so I can't even how disgusting spam would taste if I PAID for it. Yesterday went to the beach, watched all of Fooly Cooly, which makes no sense, but I apparently have to watch it again to understand anything.
I'm excited to go to Montreal soon.

Thoughts and events since my last post

2010-08-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

I'm writing from a hotel room in San Diego, California. I'm here with my dad, he got us here for free with his frequent mile.
Stuff I did so far: Eat large amounts of unhealthy vegetarian and non-vegetarian food.
Visit a friend at Occidental (free water bottle)
Dumpster some bread and popcorn
Think about Evasion
Spend large amounts of time in a car
Think about stuff with Ithaca
Think about the year I'm going to spend in Montreal
Watch a lot of Miyazaki anime
Finish the zine "There is a Danger"
Meet family members that live in California
Go to a beach
Visit Tijuana, Mexico
Go volunteer/watch a movie at the Che Cafe at the UCSD
Hang out in downtown San Diego
Explore sexuality
Eat a bit more healthfully
Tomorrow we'll maybe go to the zoo or the beach or ride horses...

thoughts from the dirtiest kid on the bus

2010-08-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

I' on a greyhound right now, headed to NYC. When I get there I'll head home a tiny bit then I'm off to Cali later in the day.
I was in spending the weekend with Ithaca, which was bumpier than I imagined it would have been, but overall a good time and definitely a learning experience.
Ithaca feels we're to dissimilar to be in the same type of couple relationship we were in before, I didn't take it well at first, apparently it's been on her mind a bit but she couldn't bring herself to tell me or something along those lines...
We went out with some friends of her's and I felt jealous and sad and anti-social and insecure the whole time. It didn't help that we went to a loud bar to stand around doing nothing. I eventually left and climbed and explored the area on my own, I just couldn't stand it.
Yesterday was much better we watched a movie, hung around the house, went to an anti-fracking social thing. In the night I accidentally fell and broke a stair, Ithaca's criticism affects me so much more than most other people's would and I didn't tell her but still feeling pretty insecure about myself and feeling like I was getting shot down all the time I almost cried just from getting criticized, :(
Things finished on a good note in the end and we've agreed to stay good friends, I definitely need to have some close friends I can count on, I was thinking about it and what I need right now is more core self confidence in the sense that I generally feel good about myself, having spent so much time with Ithaca made that an external thing coming through outside affirmation when originally it was something completely internal in that I could feel great in a room where everyone hated me. The other thing I need is good friends I trust and can talk to about everything, I mean at the moment, besides Ithaca and a few random friends I periodically reach out to, there isn't any one person I can talk to about everything, no person I feel comfortable enough to cry in front of or ask for a long hug from when I feel like shit, I want friends who come to me with their issues if not for advice then at least for support. I can't just make those overnight, but it's def something I'm going to try to develop.

movement

2010-08-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

Flo is here still, she's leaving tomorrow morning, I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. I'm headed up to Ithaca's place for the weekend, then I head back here to catch a plane to Cali for a week. After that week, I'll be back here again and either Ithaca will drive me up to MTL or I'll take a train.
I have a shit ton of zines from printing them at work (fo free!!!) so I'm excited to read them all and show them to peeps. The squat garden got shut down, showed up the other day to find the composter taken apart and half the lot completely cleared, I'd stick around and keep using it and fight for it and all that, but I'm not around here long enough for that, since I'm you know, leaving tomorrow...
All my stuff is packed, I'm not sure what to expect at Ithaca's, I feel that distance and both of us leading busy yet relatively uneventful lives has somewhat deteriorated communications, though we're making an effort, I'd like to think being around each other physically will make things super awesome again.
The free store is blowing up a lot, news stations from other countries wanna do things with it. It's too bad that I met T and got into a bunch of cool anarchist projects only to leave so soon, I'll definitely pick it again when I'm here for the winter. Solidarity.
Oh, also I made a cool bracelet out of an old brown shoelace I had lying around.

Visitors, guests and garbage

2010-08-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

V left, he ran his race and came in 3rd in his wave of 250 people, good stuff I think.
Now Flo is here, she called me on my cell while I was at work and asked if she could stay here a bit and told her yea. Nothing too exciting as of yet, went to grub on sunday with V, dumpstered tonight with Flo. and I'll visit Ithaca this weekend which I'm kinda excited for. Montreal soon, which is also exciting, Cali even sooner but I don't really care about Cali that much, dunno why...
Also the squat garden is gonna die methinks, the composter was taken apart, a lot of the weedy areas were cleared and the pallets from the composter were tossed into the garden part of the lot.

running around and dumpstering by accident

2010-08-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Today is pretty fun so far, and we haven't even gone to the party in Greenpoint yet.
On governor's island there was CTF, but not just regular ol' CTF, like zombies vs Commandos CTF. Yea I went and it was fun, if you don't know V is staying here for the weekend to run a race in Brooklyn on Sunday. It was good times, ran around, met cool people and all that.
Came back home, worked on the garden and while removing trash from the lot, found a whole box of unopened and still wrapped reusable shopping bags! Pretty awesome if you ask me, I'm gonna give them out and drop some off at the free store and alla that.
Now though: food and then party and then sleep and then watch V race.

Sharing, do it!

2010-08-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Yea, gift economies, also anarchy in action, like mix them together outside of a dry politico-economics texts book:
Sunday, Food not Bombs, gift economy, share food. Hang out afterward for the meeting and discuss stuff that hasn't happened yet. Later that evening, head over to T's house (T is a guy I met at grub, who is an anarchist, ex squatter, dumpster diver etc...) to help set up the free store, yea yo, and there was a meeting in the news and more people want to know more about us. We're becoming somewhat of a big deal (ok maybe not that big of a deal but still though). It's a tent, with a lot of stuff in it here's the catch, it's all free! It's fun stuff, we talked about press, out reach and events and then just hung out. I talked to a guy who's been riding trains for ten years about trains and talked to TFG (T's roomie, among others) about Montreal and just talked and talked to everyone about everything until, oops 2am.
Yea I went home a bit late.
At work I've been printing a bunch of zines all day. I got a shit ton now and might even print a shit ton more to give out to peeps.

talkin trash

2010-08-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty alright I must say. I found out a friend wants to open a squat in NYC, probably Brooklyn, so I'll help him with that if I'm around. I went and watered, pulled weeds, added compost in the garden. Read books at home, ate dumpstered stuff.
At 1PM I was at Bluestockings getting interviewed. Interviewed? about what you ask? Initially just dumpstering, but of course it led to discussion about politics (read: anarchism), economics (read: anti-capitalism/gift economies) subculture (read: subculture) and generally just interesting stuff. When it's all done (it's for a book) I'll get a transcript, and I'll probably try to get my hands on the book it's in as well when it's out. I probably have some time before then. Until then though, I'll just uh, work at the Brooklyn free store, enjoy summer BBQs and do Food not Bombs!
Also yesterday went to see a Books through Bars movie screening/benefit. Brought a bunch of food along; some trash some taken from work, was okay. The fun part was dumpstering on the way home, check the picture.

Trash, food and foreigners

2010-08-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Weekend was pretty super awesome as was tonight.
Sunday, woke up around 11ish and read a bit, Bigs was asleep on a mattress we set out for him. After getting up and eating a tiny breakfast we biked over to ABC no Rio for Food not Bombs. We got there a bit late, but hadn't missed out on much, apparently no one brought food so nothing got cooked. However there were cupcake tops so we each had one and then gave out the rest at Tompkins Square Park. There was a show there but the people in the band that was about to play were fuckers, they were badmouthing homeless people and crust punks and generally being lame and obnoxious, needless to say we quickly left. There was a couple (Change and Burn) from Toronto, we talked about the G20 and punk houses and it turns out they know Green Boots, it also turns out I should check out Death Church in Montreal because it's supposed to be awesome. We parted but only after finding out we'd meet each other at Grub later anyway.
Me and Bigs went to Bluestockings because I wanted to put up a flyer about the squat garden (I'd put one up at ABC no Rio as well). We ended up just chilling there for a bit reading. Went home and napped and felt hungry (cup cake tops just aren't gonna you know, cut it).
post nap: left on the bike, stop at chain pharmacy, buy shoelaces, left hand snack food and chapstick :) Arrive at Grub after only minor confusion. Grub is awesome as usual, meet people, eat food, keep talking to Change and Burn (they're down to host me if I'm ever in Toronto), agree to buy them a band shirt and deliver it somehow when I'm in Montreal. One person I talked to I'm gonna see this Saturday, she wants to interview me about dumpstering and freeganism though I don't like the term.
Today I went to work (bleh), my mom got me a digital camera (expect to start seeing pictures on this blog more often now). We stopped in the Lower East Side to try to find a newspaper, according to Burn I'm in a picture at the Star Fucking Hipster show, but we failed at finding it. It's cool though I saw NinjaSonik hanging out in the street! Got home, read a bit, went and dumpstered at Trader Joe's, returned home with ridiculous amounts of food. Ride Bikes, Eat Trash!
(I should finish making/writing my zine)

Since, Bigs and bad parties

2010-08-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Friday: Went to work, worked, lunch break (left handed a meal), worked more, got off work, biked to Bluestockikngs and worked on my zine, it's not done yet but almost. It's gonna be called "Ride Bikes Eat Trash" and will be about whatever I feel at the moment I'm writing it. After writing (and reading) a bit I looked at the time and decided to head north again. You see my plan was to meet Since (yes I was finally able to get into contact with her) after her work and then hang out and do something. Biked up, met her and we decided to go to a free concert in Brooklyn. Taking the train with my bike always makes me feel strange. The concert was good times, the music was awesome rock with a really intense lead singer/guitar and there was an great great violin. The one thing that bugged me was that I couldn't kiss Since, she wasn't down because sitting behind us was a group of people she know and would have felt weird kissing in front of. Affection, I realize how much I like and desire it while Ithaca was in Colorado.
Anyways, after the concert me Since and her mom went to eat in a dinner which led to interesting conversation in which I you know, made sure I didn't talk about stealing, anarchy and digging through trash so I wouldn't alienate everyone but myself (talking about bikes is okay though). Biked home after food and slept after some internet.
Saturday: Wake up, waste time online, go the work on garden; change list online, water plants, make fliers build a composter out of pallets. Returned home and gathered all the zines I posses (not that many) and bike into Williamsburg for a mini zine fest (even saw some anarchist graffiti on the way, which I of course surrounded with my own anarchist stickers). When I first go to the place I was kinda disheartened by how small it was but quickly started interesting conversations with the zinesters, talked about superheros, art, finding stuff, bad boyfriends alla that. I picked up a(n anarcha-)feminist zine and sat down to read it when the girl behind the table yelled to me that it wasn't free, I reassured her that I just wanted to check it out and that I would return it to her. After skimming for a few minutes I brought her the zine and told her I wouldn't rob her because that's fucked up, she let me keep the zine I was touched, a free zine? for me? aww shucks. I checked out the other tables and not much politics going on, mostly artsy things and personal artsy things. I went back to the feminist zine table and traded a copy of "Fighting for our Lives" for the second and third issues of the zine I got for free (it's called Hoax if you're interested). I left the zine fest shortly afterward.
At home I showed my mom the zines, and we ate Mexican food across the street. During the meal I realized I was late to meet up with Bigs and a few other friends, I finished my meal quickly and biked there fast...
Turns out I was the first on there. I waited around and read Hoax. When everyone convened we walked into the park and sat within hearing range of the music and just chilled on a blanket. Afterward it was food time (oh noes, only $10 and I had planned on using that to get in a party later tonight), we were gonna eat at a Chinese restaurant. Luckily for me one of our friends had to go to a neighbors' of hers and watch a dog, we all agreed to order our stuff take out and eat there. At that point I decided fuck it, I'm still not gonna pay for food, on the way to the neighbors we stopped at a supermarket, I bought a plum and left handed a microwave Indian diner.
Speaking of awesome free stuff, on the way to meet our friend's we found spray paint and acrylic paint in someones trash, gonna have to start writing things on walls soon. Ate and hung out at the neighbors house a bit and then Bigs and I left to go to a party. We had a hard time finding it and were lucky when a person from the neighborhood told us the correct address. We climbed up too roofs before finding the "rooftop party" in the basement of a building, but it's okay, because even though it took forever to find, and kinda really sucked once we got inside, we didn't pay cover since we entered through the back :)
Today is gonna be Food not Bombs and Grub community dinner, woop woop.

Biking to work, hanging with Ithaca and meeting anarchists

2010-07-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

This week has had it's ups and downs since Saturday. Ithaca was here, she left this morning and I won't see her until the end of August, (we're going camping and then she's dropping me off in MTL while she brings her stuff home). Her being here was really cool, but I felt strange and was sad a lot because I felt that I liked her a lot more than she liked me (which of course wasn't the case), which happens I guess when you're thinking to much and not talking enough. Communication it's still a ridiculously important thing, for serious, if you interact with people learn to communicate well! What did we do? Food not Bombs, really really free market,bike around, hang out at bluestockings, read zines at ABC no Rio, read zines at home, yea I know, but believe me when I tell you that Ithaca isn't anarcho-punk, I guess she's just down like that.
I'm working now, :( I have a job. I work at the French Consulate. I make calls and look at papers and doing nothing interesting (except slack to read Evasion every now and then). I bike to work ('cept today because of rain and heat) which is the best part, I cover like 100 blocks in anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes including the Manhattan Bridge, so that's usually the funnest part about my work. I've decided that I'm only gonna buy vegetarian food, no money towards meat as of before yesterday I think or maybe it was Friday I decided either way though I'm not ready to only buy vegan, what about cheese you know?
Right now I'm waiting for food to arrive (yea I know, but hear me out, it's to early to dumpster, nothing to cook in the fridge and I'm not gonna start shoplifting hardcore from the supermarket across the street from my parents house, that's bad form), then I'll probably head to anarchist black cross to send out books and probably run into this guy I met there last time that also does food not bombs, he seems pretty chill and seems like the kinda guy I can count on to get into trouble doing anarchist stuff (read: wheatpaste). Also the Squat garden is progressing nicely.

Star Fucking Hipsters and arrivals

2010-07-25T08:38:00.001-07:00

Went to an awesome show with Crisis and a friend of his, was a bunch of local bands (including the infamous) Star Fucking Hipsters. We moshed and skanked and moshed and skanked, until the music stopped. Afterward I went home on my bike hoping Ithaca would be back, she wasn't, but after maybe 15 or 30 minutes she walks into my room and I smiled. She'll probably be home by Tuesday which is soon which I think sucks but whatever.

Work and a show

2010-07-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

I have a job!
I'll get paid a lot and I'll have something cool to put on my resume woop woop.
Now I get to bike from Brooklyn to 73rd street every weekday (and bike back home too).
I get to wear fancy formal clothes.
I can even sit in an office all day and hang with my two pals phone and computer, they're machines!
I'll never have to worry about what to do with all the time between 9AM and 5PM ever again (on a weekday, I dread the boredom I'll experience on the weekend).

I got a job at the French Consulate, I'm sure it won't be that bad.
I went and saw Yula Berri and the Extended Family tonight, it's "romantic punk" which sounds pretty awesome, kinda a mix of ska, punk, the Spin Doctors, horror movie sound tracks and a few elements I can not name.

Excited for Saturday, punk show with Cipher and Crisis (but no traveling in August with Cipher since I have work now), Ithaca gets back, and probably going clubbing :D

I got some books and stuff worked out

2010-07-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Crimethinc books came in the mail today, I got Off the Map, Evasion, Recipes for Disaster and some copies of Fighting for our Lives along with all the stickers, posters and other goodies that Crimethinc sends away with all their packages.
I couldn't really enjoy it though because I felt like complete and utter shit. Had talked to Ithaca online the night before and the conversation ended abruptly and badly. I felt terrible all morning and for the first time in I don't know how long I curled up and did nothing but cry. I sent way more emails than I received. In the end I went out and did stuff (only because I had to). Took my sister to the hair dresser, watered the squat garden and went to buy formal clothes with my mother for a job I might get.
Got back home and checked my mail. Ithaca had sent me a number where I could contact her and we talked, she knows how I feel, I know how she feels, things are back to normal. Not feeling like shit is pretty great I must say.

Hunting, eating and talking

2010-07-18T20:57:00.001-07:00

Today was super awesome although a bit disheartening immediately before writing this.
Manhunt on governor's island. Was great fun, Shorty was there along with a bunch of other friends. We played a round in this old fort before getting kicked out, then played two rounds in a field. 'twas a blast. Caught lotsa people, got caught, ran around and even jumped over stuff. Talked to a friend from Capture the Flag and she's gonna take me to a show to hear some "romantic punk" music which is a new genre apparently, looking forward to a show. Left kinda early to go to Grub.
What is Grub? Grub is an awesome community dinner held twice monthly by an anarchist collective. Food is mostly dumpstered and mostly vegan. I picked up two zines and some food and everyone ate on the roof. At first I was slow in socializing and meeting people but I had told and hear a bunch of awesome stories by the end of the night. I traded phone numbers with people and hope to see them again. Biked home feeling happy (and super hot, because of the heat and my ridiculous social skills).
Got home talked to Ithaca online and she's unhappy, why you ask, from what I can tell the fact that I'm not very jealous or super shocked or something means that I'm either a robot or I don't give a shit. From what I can tell neither of those are true. Yea I'm usually detached, but that doesn't mean I don't care, maybe it means I'm a robot...
Iunno, we'll see.
:-/

Local, organic, mutual aid and travel

2010-07-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Went down to the garden about an hour ago to water the plants, a neighbor and her daughter saw us walking with the watering cans and came along to see how the garden was. She was telling us about getting grants and possibly buying the lot from the city or owner for $1 since it's been abandoned for years. After we finish watering it we're standing around talking and some guy rolls buy on a skate board and asks who's lot it is, it's a squat. He tells us he's down to help out and has a truck and experience and some people who would be down to help out which is cool. I passed him my number and later he called and we decided to set something up for later in the week. It's cool to just get help like that, visibility helps a lot I guess.
Also talked to Cipher a bit and we're gonna travel around a bit in August, set aside the 1st until the 20th. We want to do the Anarchy Summer Camp (http://selfdescribed.org/?p=447) and then do the Western Maryland Zine Fest (http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20100607002621901) then come home. We'll probably hitch there and back. It's be cool to find some people heading there or back to NY though to make things easier but if it doesn't happen than whatever.

Dirt and glass

2010-07-16T20:49:00.000-07:00

Hung out at home all morning, tried giving Virgil a call but he was asleep, never called back, whatever. Since told me last night to expect a call from her so we could meet up and hang out at the MoMA, but you know it's Since and all our plans seem to fall through...
Only one thing to do, go the squat garden with my sister. We moved out more debris, turned most of the earth and-
Wait, phone call from Since, basically: come to the MoMA, there's a documentary. Oooh okay, sounds like a plan.
Head home, remove sneakers, put tools away, wipe away some dirt, prepare to leave while explaining plan to my mother and she's sayin-
Wait phone call from Since, basically: the movie is full, umm iunno, yea ok I'll call you when it's over (I guess she's still in the movie...)
Return to the squat garden with plants and sister and water and mom and tools. Finish turning the earth. Make a pathway from discarded bricks and rocks, cut finger on glass, dig holes and plant things, add water, take picture, go home, half expect Since to give a call, eat dinner, stay upstairs and read a bit (the phone has reception there and you know Since might call :-/ ), lose patience and go down stairs, hope Ithaca is online, have to tell her about possible change in plans for the day she gets back, check random websites, get inspired to travel, send a message to Cipher about potential travel, read a bit more, write blog...
Here's a pic of the squat garden so far: except the uploader put it at the top so yea...
Haven't been feeling as upbeat and awesome as of late, can't pinpoint why, *shrug*
Oh also, talked to Pagoda online about squatting got some tips which was cool :)

Cancelled plans and free movies

2010-07-16T00:50:00.001-07:00

Today's plan was as follows:
See Since
watch a movie together
cuddle
feel less shitty
Today actually happened as follows:
Call Since about once an hour until approximately 7, at which point I had decided that I'd leave to the Anarchist Black Cross and possibly meet up with Wedge at a party. So roll out on a bike to Anarchist Black Cross (ABC)and hang out there, spent most of the time there learning the basics of their set up and wrapping dictionaries in brown paper to send to prisoners. A guy showed up and told me that the ABC no Rio Food not Bombs was up and running which is good news to me (I'll go next next Sunday, this Sunday is Manhunt, hopefully Crisis will show up). When ABC ended I gave Wedge a call and asked about the party, he said it was dying and that they'd probably go see a movie (shit yo! movies cost money) I told him I'd show up, but that I was broke as fuck.
At the party we just talked and hung I recognized and conversed with a few familiar faces. Then we all got kicked out (time is up) and headed to some bar, hung out there for a while just kicking it (I still don't drink, straight edge since forever yo). After the bar people started heading toward the movie, I wanted to bounce at this point but was told we would see it FO FREE! so I stuck around. On the way to the theatre Since gave a call and apologized for standing me up which I told her was okay because I didn't sit around at home doing nothing anyway. Also on the way there I ran into some friends and one of them told me a cool place to get messenger work so I'll check that out. Got to the theatre, put our bikes inside because we're fancy like that (you know how we do on some VIP shit up in here, lol 'cept not) and walked into the room to watch Inception for free. It was an awesome movie, see it (I'm encouraging you to see it, not necessarily to pay for it). It's kinda a mind fuck throughout especially the ending, watch out.
Afterward just rode home while I was on the phone with my mom, riding mostly with no hands. Made me realize how fast I am, made it home in like ten minutes going slow with no hands, imagine how fast I would've been tearing it up with handle bar usage and no phone pressed to my ear!
Home now, gonna read some "Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing" which just came in the mail today or yesterday, I don't remember and then hit the sack. Also supposed to meet up with Since tomorrow and go to a museum, in the morning I'll probably work on the garden with Virgil if he's down. I'll see...

feeling shitty

2010-07-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

At first I wasn't going to write this and I felt like writing this in a notebook and starting a journal (reading "Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing" make me wanna start a journal), but I decided fuck it, I mean no one reads this and the people who do I trust (yea I trust you, be flattered). Why do I feel shitty?
I think it's a combination of the following (in no particular order):
Feeling distant from Ithaca
Not being able to see Since because of shitty logistics
Not having the same crew of friends as in Montreal (I need to make some literally rad friends)
Having spent a night in jail and consequently not feeling the shoplifting thing as much and of course the general shittyness of that whole situation in general
Knowing that Ithaca is probably gonna start seeing someone (this I feel is stupid, I mean I gotta walk the walk if I talk the talk, I'm surprised this is even part the shit that's getting to me, I guess it's because the feeling distant is also here that it's getting to me)
Feeling lonely despite efforts to be social
I kinda just want someone to give me a huge hug and kiss and really mean it. I tried to cry but I can't, maybe gender socialization is deeply ingrained in me, maybe I'm just not sad enough to cry, I don't remember the last time I cried, is that healthy?
Hopefully I'll see Since later today and tell her about the shitty night in jail and cuddle in front of a movie and maybe do other things. If I can't contact her at 7 I'm gonna go to the Anarchist Black Cross to hang out there; meet people, make new friends, find people who might be down to garden in the squat garden. I gotta call Virgil and ask if he wants to work on it tomorrow. I should probably look at the bike messenger dude that Cipher's dad told me about.
I'm thinking I'll be less sad if I have work, but at the same time that's pretty shitty, it won't mean stuff is less shitty it just means I won't notice it as much, which is, you know, a great way to make the world a better place, just kinda stop seeing all the problems...
Maybe I got too used to Ithaca being around and making me feel good. In Montreal when I was seeing Pagoda and Ice Cream and Ithaca, I never dealt with stuff like this, I guess it just didn't come up. Iunno, I've always felt that poly was good for me because it kept me balanced, never too worried about any one relationship because I knew that at the end of the day there was always someone I could hold/who could hold me. Not that I don't want to be in any kind of invested relationship, that's not it, I really like what is going on with Ithaca and I, it's been since April that we've been seeing each other which is longer than I've ever been with anyone before and it's nice. There are ups and downs but they seem worth it. I feel as though I'm ranting, but not even sure what about...
I wanna squat a building, open a community center, never pay rent, do food not bombs, and generally spread what I consider to be anarchist alternatives to the shitty capitalist bull that's happening now. I mean it could totally be worse. I guess I'm just discouraged a bit from doing anything illegal because of the arrest, and the finger prints and the photos and the getting busted shoplifting it all took place to close to each other. I shoulda stole the map of Manhattan, I would of totally gotten away with it and it would've kept my theft-confidence up...
I'll see what's up with what...
writing this felt good, if you read this you're awesome I guess...

Shitty night and today

2010-07-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

Before yesterday I went to see a concert in Central park with Wedge and another friend, but it sucked to we left. We were walking to Time Square to meet a friend. As we walked along 42nd street and long story short I got arrested for carrying a "gravity knife", which is apparently illegal. I spent the night in three cells. At around 7.30 PM yesterday I got out and I have to show up to court the 20th of September (that's great you know because it's not like I'm gonna be going to school in Montreal or anything...) Staying in jail is shitty. I went and hung out with Bigs and Wedge and some other friends the night I got out but I was super tired so I couldn't really enjoy it. Today I'm supposed to see Since and watch a movie which could be good times.
Talked to Ithaca and she's having a good time in Colorado. She might start seeing a guy there which is cool with me but is starting to feel shitty, I'll have to deal and I'll learn from it as well.
Wanna work on the squat garden more soon...

The Beginnings of a Squat Garden

2010-07-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today I started the squat garden I wanted to start. I tried calling a few people to come help out but only Virgil showed up which is fine with me. We grabbed some gloves and gardening things that I found in my laundry room and went to the spot. It was full of trash, much more than I had realized, we started filling up a trash bag...
We used the old bricks to "fence" off an area that would be the garden and also a small area to the side to be a compost pile. We pulled weeds and removed the roots before composting them, moved rocks and wood, we tried to level the garden floor a bit, we'll need to use the stones and sticks for that, with some earth from the part of the lot we haven't started yet. After it started to get dark we went home, made a squatter flag, went back, tied it to an adjacent fence and then left for good. I'm excited to keep working on the garden in the future.

Long weekend

2010-07-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend was good times, 'cept Friday which was pretty boring; had planned to hang out with Since, but she flaked. Saturday was good times, I stayed home in the morning and ordered some books I wanted online (crimethinc stuff mostly). Afterward I headed into Park Slope to a friend's block party where I hung out with friends. We went to an arcade for a bit and then back to the block party. My friends Bigs and Wedge had come by then and all three of us went to a party after stopping by Cipher's house to pick him up to come with us as well, (his dad gave me some good info about bike messengers).
At the party it was pretty standard, not much of any interest, the host and a lot of her guests were lesbian (which is fine in my book) but that group kept to themselves a lot and so I hung with Bigs and Wedge and a few people I knew and the groups didn't mix much :(
As the night grew old various party things happened: people made out, someone puked, someone passed out, people enjoyed greasy food, people played drinking games etc...
A bunch of us went to go sleep at a friends house to finish the night.
Brunch in the morning at a dinner, tabled a huge meal, pancakes, potatoes, waffles, French toast, was almost queasy from how much I ate. Hung out in Barnes and Nobles, I contemplated stealing a map of Manhattan but decided I'd only do it if I got a job as a bike messenger. Me bigs and Wedge went to Prospect and cut towards the front of the line to a concert. While we were waiting for the gates to open some guy tried to be smooth and cut in by befriending a group of young people behind us. This one girl was ICE cold and totally ragged on him until he came to us and saw that we really didn't care so he suck with us. He stuffed beer into his pants and was generally humorous. The concert itself stretched on forever, Talib Kweli, The Roots, and a bunch of bands under the banner of OK Africa performed. Unfortunately Talib only did maybe 5 minutes of performing, the Roots however were awesome so that was good. The problem was that most of the OK Africa were boring as fuck so waiting for the good acts was lame.
Left the concert and hopped on my bike and rode home.
Talked with Ithaca online a bit and now I'm writing this and of course reading anarchist propaganda...

Free books and other DIY projects

2010-07-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

Today I made a squatter symbol patch and scanned in and uploaded the book "Off the Map" (which you should read). I'm planning on starting a guerrilla garden not far from where I am, but I'm not sure what to plant, I can plant beautiful stuff or food. For food I'm not too sure about the soil quality so I'd have to check that out, but it would be nice to have free plant food for everyone to take. The beautiful option would show people that there's potential in vacant land and that kind of thing, but isn't as utilitarian in the end.
I feel like wheatpasting some more also so I'll have to print and copy some posters I like and get to that.
Read and/or download "Off the Map" here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34137454/Off-the-Map
Share it and upload to other sites and all that, if you're afraid of copyright stuff, don't worry this book isn't copywritten...

Departure and Detainment

2010-07-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today Ithaca left next NY, she'll be back a bit in about two weeks. We spent the morning in the house and then hit Manhattan to get a gift for her friend in Colorado (where she'll be the two coming weeks), we went to the whole foods market after reading a bit in Bluestockings. Afterward we went to Union Square and went to the whole foods there to get some food for her trip and for lunch. On the way out I was carrying Ithaca's shoulder bag and she had her backpack, she was a bit behind me and I heading out alone. After I breached the doors I was confronted by two men who barred my path with their bodies...
Long story short they found some food in my pockets and in a lot in Ithaca's bag and gave me a criminal trespass warning, so I'm not supposed to be in any whole foods again, Ithaca to apparently but they didn't take her picture and write down her (false info).
Luckily my lunch wasn't found, neither was the birthday gift I got for Ithaca or the things we took from the other whole foods :).
We ate (free) lunch in the park at Union and then just hung around until we met up with Ithaca's friend hung at a bar a bit and then I left Ithaca at the subway where she headed to her bus. Have fun in Colorado.
In terms of slutiness, we made an agreement; I can see Since and we can have sex but I can't go down on her, also I can't have sex with people I haven't known for less than 24 hours, we also agreed that I'd keep Ithaca up to date on what I'm up to in terms of being a slut. I told Ithaca I'm fine with her doing what she wants as long as she is safe and doesn't feel pressured into it, fuck letting people take advantage of you. I didn't tell her I'd like to know about what she does in terms of being a slut, but I'll send her an email about that afterward probably. I know jealousy a bit more now and it's a shitty feeling but with the distance and time gap I don't think I'll suffer any negative repercussions if Ithaca decides to mess around.
Also I might become a bike messenger soon and last night Ithaca got a pretty cool edgy hair cut :D

graves, food and parks among other things

2010-07-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

Before yesterday was a day all about cheap food. Took Ithaca and a friend that's staying here to see DUMBO, where we dumpstered some (read: a lot) of pita bread at a bakery. After checking DUMBO a bit we headed to the lower east side to go to Bluestockings but ended up in wholes foods where I grabbed some all purpose soap and some cream for Ithaca's skin, she bought some hummus and lemonade, we went to the park nearby and had a picnic thing while we watched people playing basketball. I started to feel a bit strange at this point but I wasn't too sure why...
After foods we hit bluestockings and then went to my mom's friend's place to talk and hang out a bit, there I realized I was feeling strange but wasn't too sure why. We left after a bit and went to get bubble tea and Chinese food, I didn't buy anything but was able to table dive a soup and a whole order of noodles from a table nearby, after seeing me table the soup and noodles a girl nearby passed me a dumpling which was pretty awesome :D.
The whole ride home I thought about why I was feeling weird and settled various thoughts in my head while Ithaca and my mom and our friend talked in the kitchen. Everyone split up and I told Ithaca I wanted to tell her things in private at some point. She joined me a bit later and I explained to her that I felt jealous of her and our friend, not for any particular reason other than the way he carries himself and the atmosphere that hung around us at my mother's friend's place, Ithaca was stroking our friend's hair while leaning on me, which my mom's friend commented on, somewhat poking at the idea that we were a triad or having threesomes which Ithaca jokingly agreed with.
"Feel no guilt in your desire" I say this all the time whether it's about sexual preference or polyamory or whatever, and I explained that in the end I thought it would be totally okay if Ithaca did like our friend or if they had a history or anything like that but I felt uncomfortable not knowing what has happening. It turns out that nothing is happening in between them (despite a few sexual jokes and comments on his behalf that made me feel uncomfortable because they were about Ithaca) and what I interpreted as sexual tension was nothing, that's just the way he carries himself. I felt reassured and relieved. I feel it was the fact that I didn't know how Ithaca was feeling that bugged me more than the idea that she might like/be involved with/want to experiment with someone else.
Yesterday we all rolled into park slope, We checked out the food coop and got a tour. On the way out I ran into my yoga teacher from high school, she's going to start teaching martial arts and no longer teaches yoga to youth, she teaches adults with mental disabilities now, I wanna check out her martial arts class and see her again because she recently visited China and I'd like to hear about that.
Afterward we headed to the library and dropped Ithaca there and rolled around the park. we stopped twice; once to sneak into a cemetery (which went smoothly, except that we got spotted by a park worker but he was on the other side of the fence and didn't catch us) and once to read books by the water. We left after reading a bit and found Ithaca in the library and went home, watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and just hung around the house.
Today was alright too, woke early and went to the beach, our friend spent the day doing his own thing, he went to the MoMA and hung with a friend of his in Manhattan. After the beach I went to a friend's birthday in the park and hung there while Ithaca stayed home and then accompanied my sister on her "date" (she's been flipping out about this French guy that's visiting NY and staying at his grandmother's/my mom's friend's place). A bit into the "date" Ithaca sent a text saying she felt like a third wheel and I should come by, I stayed a bit longer at the park and then headed to meet them all near Union Square. Once there it was the same thing, sit around in Union, steal from Whole Foods, walk around alla that. Came home after that, where I am now.

Camping and being thrifty

2010-06-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

For the last three days I was camping with Ithaca, my family joined us for the last two days, we got back a few hours ago.
However, my last post was pissed off and in writing about what I was angry about I neglected to mention a variety of awesome things that happened, probably on the day before the day I posted. Me and Ithaca left the house pretty early and went into the Lower East Side and hung out in bluestockings reading and laying around. After ward we checked around Chinatown for some tapioca pearls which we found after maybe half an hour. Having accomplished that we headed back to Brooklyn with the intent of finding coconut milk (never happened), buying train tickets to go camping, and finding a tent for under $50. We bought tickets and bike permits (which I think we could have got away with not buying) pretty easily and then headed to target for a tent, while there we saw a few things that could be of use to Ithaca, a sleeping bag for adults that cost too much, and an XD card that also probably cost too much (but I didn't actually check the price). The solution: put the expensive sleeping bag into the box of an inexpensive sleeping bag and rip the packaging off the XD card, of course you know I didn't do any of that because it's bad, but Ithaca has a new sleeping bag and a new XD card for her camera ;) We stopped at teh library to see if books I had ordered had arrived but they hadn't so I'm probably gonna stop over tomorrow to pick them up, Ithaca has to drop books off as well...
Camping was good times, we rode bikes to the train and rode from the train station to the campsite, we stopped to free some stuff at a chain store and stopped to eat on the side of the road before arriving to throw up our tent. We spent most of our time camping at the beach or hanging around the tent, not super exciting but still pleasant and enjoyable. Parents, sister and her friend joined us after the first night and we all hung together mostly on the beach still. This morning we broke up camp, rode to the train, and rode home.
Might see Since later in the week or during the weekend.

Fucking shit

2010-06-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty awesome all day; woke up, made pizza, hung around the house all that good stuff with Ithaca. Later in the day I hung around the house and did stuff for school and to prepare for a camping trip we're leaving for tomorrow. That was all good. I had planned to see Since and watch a movie with her but getting a hold of her is pretty much impossible and I kind of expected that. The plan was to see Since and then meet up with Ithaca again and go see my dad play and dance at a club. Things didn't go that way which is okay. I tried contacting Ithaca a few times calling and via text and leaving a message (I never leave messages I hate them), I had a strange feeling in my gut. When I was finally able to get to Ithaca (having completely abandoned all plans of watching a movie with Since) it was too late to see my dad but not too late to go dance it up, so we met up at the train station. I probably asked her about her day because we were discussing it and how she spent it with this guy who bores her (I don't understand why you would go out of your way to hang with someone you're bored with, I know boring people but I never initiate activities with them, this throws me off a bit) and went to see a movie with him, I'm totally okay with that, what I'm not okay with is Ithaca letting people kissing her if she doesn't want to be kissed, I'm not okay with her letting people do things to her that she isn't feeling and her not doing anything about it. If she was down with guy and was interested this wouldn't bother me, but that fact that she isn't and that he kissed her (despite a ton of negative body language) and she let him. IF SOMEONE IS DOING SHIT TO YOU THAT YOU AREN'T FEELING, LET THEM KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD FUCK OFF!!
There's nothing wrong with telling someone "no" in any situation, not just sex stuff but anything. If you want something ask for it, if you don't want something say "no", say "fuck that" say "fuck off!" whatever it doesn't matter, get the message across in a way that can't be misinterpreted. Fuck!
Also guys, stop being pushy pricks, learn to read body language and if the body language isn't positive hop the fuck off, shit!

Summer heat

2010-06-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last posted on here, a lot has happened since my last post.
First off Ithaca is back in BK which is cool, we're finally spending time just us two which is turning out pretty good: interesting and deep conversations, nice hang outs, good sex. I'm not sure what we're doing right but it's enjoyable. We talked about all kinds of things and turns out the night she left she was feeling mad because of a phone conversation we had but we straightened that out. Things are going good at this point although I feel some distance at times but that's always been there. I realized that I don't fall into my expectations in terms of jealousy, I learned that Sara slept with an ex while I was in NY and she was still at home and I was totally okay with it, completely calm and unperturbed, I always heard such terrible things about jealousy but I guess like so many other things I feel differently about it than most people do...
Since is a girl I've know for a very long time since my childhood in fact hence the name. I've had a crush on her forever, and her brothers are pretty alright I hang with them on and off. We talk online occasionally and I always felt that she was bored with her life and very interested in the "adventures" that took place in mine, I kept telling her to go out and live dangerously, to make her own fun etc, but to no avail. When I got to BK I told her and we agreed to hang out, hanging out of course took forever to come by and kept skipping ahead when I felt I was close to it. But we finally got to hang out and it was good. I told Ithaca about it but she wasn't too warm to the idea (I'll get to this later). At Since's place I hung with her and her family, making and eating dinner and watching a Miyazaki movie (Ponyo) which was actually pretty awesome and super cute. I forgot how it came up but we ended up talking about the roof and I of course suggested we go up. We hung with her family more, after bugging her a bit and various family members branching away to do their own thing we went up to the roof.
The roof was great, a nice view, a decent temperature, lots of open space, I need to climb roofs more again. We went to the top of a structure on the roof and just as we sat down it began to rain lightly, clearly nature has a great sense of romantic timing, I mean what better way to enjoy a first kiss with a long time crush than on a roof immediately after it begins raining? We danced and kissed and ran around and got soaked and finally went back inside. I hung there a bit more then headed home. (Yes I did tell Since I was seeing someone else, being a douche isn't something I wanna strive for).
Back at home Ithaca was already home and in bed, her day with her pal turned out to be shitty, we talked about that and we decided to make some agreements about our poly habits; she wants to know about what I may/plan on doing with other people and she also wants to say what she feels about it and give her take, etc, I guess I didn't realize it but each time I went off to see other peeps I would tell her but never ask how she felt about it, if she was okay with it, etc. so we agreed on doing that which I feel totally makes sense. This is also when I found out she slept with an ex while I was here.
Some cool things we've done recently are: picnic in the park, long and interesting discussions, making jam, dumpstering to say a few.
Today was my aunt Robbie's funeral, Ithaca came to Philadelphia with the family and met the family on my father's side which she found interesting.
I wanted to go to Punk Island 2010 (look it up) upon returning, but after calling Crisis to find out about it we were both disappointed to discover that I had ended at 5PM :-/, whatever, I plan on hitting the beach tomorrow so it's all good.
Also it's supa dupa hot out.

Posterbombing, stickers and food theft

2010-06-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an alright day. Hung out at home along in the morning being productive and picking up my sister and stuff. Later on in the day I was going to meet up with Ithaca in the city see museums and all that but I got a call from Crisis who I had called earlier and we met up and hung out in Manhattan instead. There we got food at whole foods and ate while we watched this guy break dance and also watched a guy try to feed a pigeon out of his hand which was hilarious because the pigeon was crazy and just strolled around and occasionally went for the food before flying away multiple times.
After we left Union Square we went to blue stocking and read books for a bit and picked up some stickers. We put a lot up on the way back to Brooklyn (note: doubling someone who isn't my sister or a light girl on my bike is much harder and them doubling you is scary as shit). We went to my house and hung there a bit, made some wheat paste and cut out posters. Once we finished that we headed to Park Slope and put them up, which went by much more smoothly than I thought it would have.
We were gonna sticker the neighborhood as well but Ithaca called and they were outside the house but afraid to ring the bell and wanted me to let them in so after we put up the last poster I headed home and we prepared for Ithaca and her friend's departures. Ithaca will be back either Mon or Sun. We ended up in the bathroom (her friend sleeps in the same room as us, we have to use space creatively) and were messing around and I think I gave Ithaca a crazy orgasm that I've never seen before, so I'm happy with that because you know I learned something new and did something cool. Went to bed, woke up, saw everyone off, returned to bed.
I wanna go to a post office soon so I can get blank stickers to put up my own stuff.

Political Graffiti

2010-06-07T23:16:00.001-07:00

Also I'm becoming really interested in street art as a means of doing political/activist/anarchist stuff. I'm thinking of a lot of stuff:
Guerrilla Gardening
Stickers
Stencils
Regular old spray paint and markers
Chalk
Thinking of forming a crew of like minded folks, raiding a home depot and decorating the streets.

Ithaca isn't New York and the LES isn't the MTL

2010-06-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

Summer is upon us! Alas I've been disappointed socially in a few areas of my life in terms of my summer so far. Ithaca and I are going through a rough patch, at first I thought I was jealous (wow, I didn't even know I could feel that way, this is new to me) of her spending time doing fun stuff without me, but we talked a bit tonight and yesterday and she feels smothered, we've been spending so much time together in close proximity living together and alla that, that it seems less meaningful and also that I'm not "doing what I want" the same way I did in Montreal, (ie just following whatever impulse led me to whatever event and if Ithaca wasn't there whatever) which makes sense since in retrospect I was trying to make sure I spent a lot of time with her while since she was here. I'm probably gonna try to make an effort to spend time with whoever I feel like, I never thought I'd be clingy but I guess that's kinda what I was doing...
I was thinking to myself that I should start seeing someone else as well as Ithaca like I was in Montreal, that kept her "on her toes" so to speak and also made sure I didn't make any one person or group feel that I was giving them too much attention (think: Ice Cream and Pagoda). I have a few people in mind that I would be happy to be in some kind of relationship with, it may be a problem of course since you know when Ithaca is in NY she sleeps at the house.
The Lower East Side, highly romanticized both in my head and in the book Resistance is very cool, but isn't what I expected of it. I mean I guess I was looking for a militant youth scene like in Montreal but that's not the case and I may have to create that scene on my own (Crisis and some other peeps maybe). The scene is a lot older and seems to be less about direct action in the militant sneak around at night or yell at protests sense.
In other news Ithaca is gonna head home on Wednesday until probably Monday to work more. This'll let me get into a good social routine that doesn't revolve around her and allow me time to (pretend) to look for work and see all the friends I haven't seen yet (potential lovers included). I guess it was ridiculous to think that any one person could fulfill any and all desires any other one person has, you need a network of friends and lovers and family and acquaintances and strangers and all that.
Also I wanna start a squat at some point in the not too too distant future, probably in Brooklyn in my neighborhood. Ideally I'd fix it up, throw up some solar panels and only pay property tax and maybe internet (fuck cable TV, fuck land lines, I'll find a way to heat up water fo free too probs). Of course the house would be green as fuck; recycling, compost (shit included), water reuse/conservation, bike stuffs, dumpstered and gardened and shoplifted foods, maybe some chickens, etc...
Yar it's summer I feel that there's a lot of potential!

food, punks and lasers

2010-05-31T00:25:00.000-07:00

For school turns out I'm currently in fail standing, which means I need to get special permission to enroll and basically see if I can go back to school in Montreal or not...
Yesterday nothing special hung out with people and that's it. Today went to ABC No Rio for Food Not Bombs but it was locked and we ended up just bringing the unprepared fruits and vegetables to the park and leaving the boxes out. I'm gonna try again next week see if it turns out better or not.
Also went to a punk show in Tompkins Square which was good times. There wasn't much of a circle pit most of the time but it came on and off and was pretty cool. It was conveniently located close to where ctf was going to take place and where we would have served if we actually had cooked for food not bombs...
CTF was lame because it didn't happen instead we played laser tag which isn't nearly as fun, still fun but not as much as I was hoping for. We played and moved and played and ate and played so it was a good time in the end. For food I got some nuts and chocolate from a chain pharmacy (fo free) and someone passed me an extra taco, earlier in the day I found a grapefruit on the floor and I ate that before what was supposed to be CTF started.
Ithaca is supposed to arrive on Wednesday instead of Tuesday :(, it seems like it's taking forever-ish.

(re)discovering NYC

2010-05-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've been up to quite a bit since I got here on Sunday and it hasn't even been a week yet. I have a bike, it broke a few times, I fixed it a few times and now I hope it'll be fine.
I went to the Bluestocking cafe on Monday to hear a talk about the summit that took place in Cochabamba on climate change and I learned a lot and a lot of issues that I knew existed became a lot more interconnected in my mind. A big idea I learned besides interconnectedness of issues is that the cause of probably the majority of problems is capitalism, yea maybe I'm a little bit late, but now I know...
At the Bluestocking I met a guy called Joey that told me a lot about the activism and punk scenes in NYC and what I should look for. From what I can tell and the protest I went to (more on this later) the scene here is docile and composed mostly of people older than myself, (I prefer/am used to a youthful militant scene; see Montreal circa now). We talked about anarchist groups and various issue groups and just politics and stuff in general, it was good to hit it off quickly after getting back into the city. Even found out about a free punk show going down Sunday, so I'm excited about that.
After leaving the Bluestocking I called Crisis since I knew he was in the area and we met up, he was riding long boards with his friend from out of town. We crossed the Williamsburg and got lost in Queens trying to get to downtown Brooklyn to dumpster, which was pretty lame but in the end I brought home some fruit from a dumpster that I ran into by chance. Crisis became pretty punk since the last time I saw him, long boards and mohawks.
I hung out with the old park slope crew a bit and it made me realize how much I've changed, M:tG and video games don't interest me nearly as much as they used to, I wanna do activist stuff and sneak around and mosh at shows and dumpster and share with my friends. I went to go see Cipher and he's doing okay, still playing WoW, lol. We talked about our summer plans and he isn't too sure about hitching and would prefer a car :-/. We've all experienced deterioration in our ninja skills since neither of us (or Crisis either I suspect) have been keeping nearly as sharp a vigil on our skills as we used to.
Yesterday I went to a protest against Pacific Rim wanting to mine (read: poison drinking water) in El Salvador, not being able to (because no one wants to drink cyanide) and suing the government because of that (I mean it's only reasonable to go after people who don't let you poison them, right?). I was disappointed when I first arrived and didn't even join the protest, I sat and watched as about ten protesters handed out pamphlets to passersby and spoke close to their table and held up a sign, FROM BEHIND A POLICE FENCE! In Montreal protests are so large that they could never be contained within fencing and I'm sure if police attempted to conflict would erupt. Maybe I've been spoiled by the Montreal scene, I hope I haven't been. As I as sitting to the side watching I saw a friend from high school and we talked about travelling and bikes for a bit then he left and I went to help with the protest, no point not helping, there was a little bit of street theatre towards the end but it was very cheesy and cliche, in the end before leaving I traded contact info with this photographer so I'll write him an email soon asking what's up and how did the photos come out (can I have the ones with me in them?). Joey from Bluestocking told me I should be organizing shit instead of joining it since I'm used to wilder things and I'm starting to think he's right, so far the things I've seen and heard about activism seem too tame in my view. I'll see what I feel after Sunday, and when I know more about my summer, I'm supposed to work for the month of June, I wanna travel to the west coast and squat beach houses with TKJ, Rainbow, Australia, Domin, and Rainbow's friend, they wanna hitch from Toronto after the G20 which I also wish I wasn't missing. Just found out I can't register for classes in winter and fall until I get "special permission" because I didn't do well in school :-/ so that may play a part in something as well.
The plan for Sunday is to do food not bombs at ABC no Rio and then head to a free punk show at Tompkins Square park afterward (ABC no Rio serves there anyway so I'll probably be able to go straight there after serving). It'll help me get a feel of the food not bombs and maybe find people who are down for something more invigorating than what's happening already...
We'll see what happens, either way I got some posters that I've passed to my mom to photocopy at her work, I'll wheat paste them around when she brings them back. I ordered Expect Resistance from Crimethinc last night and I'm excited for it to come and all the posters and zines and stickers that'll come with it :D. I'm also happy and curious to see what happens when Ithaca gets here, but I'll probably have to add more padding to the bed since I almost sleep on the floor and she'll probably want it softer.

Back home

2010-05-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm back home in NYC!!! I'm really excited to be home and see my family. I came home a day early and surprised my parents and sister, they were all really happy. I got a bike! My dad and I went to a bike shop and the owner is cool with my dad and gave me a free bike because my dad is gonna fix up his drum set, I put my mom's rack on the back and set up a crate and threw some duct tape on the seat, it's a master piece lol.
I think I got the whole me feeling weird in Homer thing figured out. Ithaca's house is full of tension (between her and her siblings and parents) and we had an interesting discussion last night about how she was raised and raising kids and family environments and her situation at home and it cleared up a lot for me and helped me learn a lot about both myself and Ithaca. Being in that stressful environment with all the tension between everyone and seeing Ithaca being treated like shit and giving everyone shit and just the general conflict that was common place combined with the boredom of being not in a metropolis got to me the last few days and I kinda shut down socially, being a lot quieter and reserved and generally being in a neutral state between happy and sad, it wasn't super shitty or uncomfortable but I'd rather be happy all the time like normal...
All's well that ends well and I'm well now, I hope that Ithaca doesn't stay negative after leaving her home and arriving because if that's the case I don't think I'll want to keep what we have going honestly. We'll see what happens when she's here.
I've been looking at things happening in NYC soon and I've found a lot of cool stuff to show up to; there's a protest soon, a lot of anarchist groups I wanna check out, THREE food not bombs, a environmental activist bike co-op and an activist cafe/bookstore among other things.