triple party adventure

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.

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

bike repairs

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....

Like I ride a ghost bike

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.

things happening as of late

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.

Gypsy punx for a night

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

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.

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.

Too much for a single title

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.