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

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

opti-pessi-skepticism

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...

Parties and poly

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

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.

oh, btw, we swammed

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.

Skidmas and New Years

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.

Halloween

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

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

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

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 :)

roofs and beds

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

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

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.

Melons and Movies

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...

Snacks, ups and knowledge

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

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

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

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

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.

mohawks and music

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...