homelessness & hopelessness

I'm getting more highstrung about this moving thing. I'm starting to lose sleep over it.

I feel like I should start packing my life away, just in case I have to move in an instant. But the thought of packing my apartment while I lack a place to move to makes me uneasy. What if I wind up living in a storage locker because I can't find a place?

You may think I'm overreacting, but have you looked at what people think living in Vancouver is worth? Most of the rents would require more than 3/4 of my income, and that's with my bump in pay. It's nice that people wanted a rental investment, but COME ON. Who, in their right mind, would pay $1500 to rent a 450 square foot one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver? I guess I'm just too cheap to live well because I can barely bring myself to look at places that cost over $900. Which is why I have nowhere to live.

Some mornings I think about just moving up the street to the park to establish myself there since I'm two months away from living on the street anyway.

Yesterday I saw a listing for a place on 15th and Main, and I responded 20 minutes after it was posted. Unfortunately it was for tomorrow, which I initially said was too soon (I said mid-month was better), but by the time I said I would pay for the whole month (about an hour) I must have been too late because I haven't heard anything back. And so... the fear sets in.

I don't want to live in an area I don't particularly like again because the longterm depression really isn't worth $700 rent. But I would have to completely lose my shit to pay $1500 in rent per month to live where I want to live. Still, places in my neighbourhood don't seem to be readily available. And now I get to fight with students for cheap places.

Cripes, I'm fucked. Look for me in the park rambling incoherently soon.

freeze frame (whoo!)

For almost a year I occasionally teased my friend about owing me a birthday/Christmas present from last year. I didn't really expect one, but he kept telling me he was going to get something for me when he found the right thing. When he was more financially flush, he was hours away from buying me a KitchenAid mixer in a colour of my choice, but I felt like that would throw off our friendship balance because I can't ever even out that kind of financial karma. I nixed his (absolutely thoughtful) plans and we haven't talked of it much since. Except for my occasional teasing.

A couple of weeks ago while chatting on MSN, I sent a link to a new camera Lomo had just sent me an email about. A brown Fuji Cheki instamatic, I thought it was pretty cute but out of my current financial reach. He asked me a few questions about it, leading me to wonder if he was thinking of buying it for me, but he changed the subject and that was that.

Last Thursday we went to a nooner at Nat Bailey and when I went to pick him up he led me to his kitchen table and there was a present. The camera! Glee!

The nooner was the longest regulation time baseball game I've ever been to, coming in at just over 4 hours. The first two innings took forever because the pitchers were throwing balls like crazy and had to be replaced a couple of times. The game was pretty slow and dull for most of the innings, but something happened after the 7th inning stretch. The Canadians were down 2-4 and a new pitcher came up to throw to them. Suddenly there were people on the bases and another 5 points! The game was much more exciting toward the end, making me snicker thinking of all the people who left early when nothing was happening. The other team is the worst team in the league, but it was still a bit of a nail biter. I've got a couple more game appointments this summer before the season ends.

I've been to a few parks the last few days, first to David Lam to have a mini picnic with a couple of girls on the anniversary of the first day of the strike, and then yesterday to hang out with some little friends and Rachel. I also finally got to Portobello West on Sunday with visiting friend Alana; it was great to hang out with her and hear valid reasons why I should move to Toronto. This weekend I'm going to see my parents and collect some fruit, so I'm pretty thrilled about that. Then the househunting begins.

waiting for the third

If I wasn't doing well before, I don't know how to explain how bad things are right now. Avert your eyes.

Upon arriving home this evening I found I had a message from my landlady. When I called, she let me know they will be putting the apartment on the market. This means I have to find a new place to live. As though not having a full-time job wasn't stressful enough, now I get to look for an even more expensive place to live. I really don't want to leave my apartment or this neighbourhood, but I'm not sure I can afford to live anywhere within 25 kms of here, unless I put almost my entire paycheck toward rent and never leave my house.

This, obviously, upset me. So I called my mom. She's usually good at calming me down. Unfortunately she got a call from my aunt this morning, letting her know that my grandfather has water around his heart. They've attached a pump to try to remove the water, but there is a high likelihood that he will digress rapidly and die "soon." Things don't look good.

So... ya. Really don't feel like talking to anyone ever again, but if you happen to know of an apartment in Mt. Pleasant... I can't believe I have to go back to living underground. Maybe this is proof I don't belong in this city.

picking stuff

I've had a lot of time on my hands recently. This is not about idleness; on the contrary, today was productive and I was glad not to work. My bank account, however, would beg to differ.

My friend Sara and I happened to run into each other after work on Sunday and decided to get a quick drink and catch up. We've been meaning to hang out for ages, but one or the both of us always winds up busy. The chance meeting encouraged us to make firm plans for this week, so we decided we'd meet up today. She's very DIY and has mad skills in the kitchen and with handicrafts, so we generally have loads to talk about. She suggested we go berry picking since a few berries are in season and the wooded areas around Vancouver are full of bushes. I'm also a fan of urban foraging, liking the idea of collecting public resources that would otherwise rot. Sara mentioned that the parks board has talked about planting apple trees in parks and I totally support public apple trees.

Because I no longer have a U-Pass and because I had a hair appointment on Granville in the late afternoon, I chose walking around UBC over trekking to North Vancouver (will save that trip for August). We organised stuff for lunch, met up at Main and headed toward the endowment lands. From the bus Sara could see thimble berries, one of her favourite wild berries, so we wandered along the road to pick what we could see. She noticed a cherry tree, so we picked as many as we could reach (which wasn't a very good amount, sadly. Note to self: grow another 4 feet to reach the upper branches) and were lured into the woods by spots of red on shrubs. A mountainous berry that looks like a small blackberry (not blackberries because they're still flowering) and salmon berries caught my eye and I added as many as I could find. These are almost out of season, so my haul was small. We found a few thimble berries, but not many more than a few to eat; they're pretty tasty considering they're so small. Since huckleberries are fully in season, we decided to concentrate on those.

We walked around for a while and stopped at a grassy area just outside the park to have lunch. Cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables (are olives considered a vegetable?) and mugi cha made for a perfect picnic lunch and sustained us for the rest of the afternoon. Our focus shifted to which direction to go to maximise our huckleberry gathering.


Sara is much more of an expert, having picked urban huckleberries before. I've only ever picked mountain huckleberries by force when I was a child on camping trips with my family. It was fun for a while, but we often couldn't leave the area until we each had a 4L ice cream bucket of berries. It was hard work. I'm used to dark blue/purple huckleberries; these were shades of red. We stuck close to the path and picked what we saw, but hit a choice thatch about an hour before we had to leave. I managed to pick three cups of berries with moderate effort and Sara got way more than me. The effort will hopefully be rewarded by huckleberry muffins, huckleberry cheesecake or something else that I have no idea how to make yet, but will discover somehow. The berries are in my freezer.

My haircut is hard to see right now. I was more concerned with getting my colour straightened out and that looks pretty good, I think. I can't tell because this particular cut is meant to highlight curly hair, so my hair is really curly right now. I think the colour looks better, but will have to wait for a few days. I love getting haircuts, even if I'm not immediately sure about how I feel about my hair. My fake sister-in-law does my hair and is fantastic at what she does; the highlight for me is the scalp massage and I would let her do pretty much anything to my hair for one of those. Actually, I do let her do pretty much anything she wants to my hair as it is.

Being drunk by 4pm suits me more than I would think it would. If this becomes a habit I might start to be concerned.

Martinis are $4.81 + liquor tax at Cafe Crepe. This is good news for mild alcoholics.

it's official: i'm a loser

I heard from another librarian that the girl I thought would get that UBC job did get that UBC job. I haven't heard from UBC, but apparently everyone I work with knew I didn't get the job before I was unceremoniously told. So...

This means two things:
1) I have to figure some other way to get to Chicago this fall as cheaply as possible. It is what I cling to for sanity.
2) I am unhireable.

This makes me sad. Why did I bust my ass for two years again?