I closed my eyes and the water rose up over my shoulders and rushed into my ears

i'm trying to decide if this is a little too preachy and "lookithowgoodiamandyouarenot" to send.


Hey Shannon,

I'm not e-mailing you to call you a bunch of bad names, just to say that: what you did was shitty. If you were unhappy here you could have told us you wanted to move out and we would have let you, but leaving us a note on March 1st was a really indecent, unkind, selfish decision to make. We welcomed you into our home, shared our food and our time with you, and I think we deserved a little more respect than a note the day rent was due telling us you were leaving. You left four people with low incomes in a really tight spot. This doesn't make you the hero who triumphed over a bunch of assholes, it makes you the person who wasn't brave enough to act like an adult and give notice. It makes you the person who left a bunch of people to take responsibility for something you were not mature enough to deal with.

As I said, we wouldn't have had any harsh feelings if you had told us you wanted to move out around the time you deleted all of us from facebook (a couple of weeks ago, maybe?) We would have been irritated, perhaps, but at least two weeks would have given us time to find someone new. As I recall we were never unkind to you, we tried to make you feel welcome, and I'm sorry if you felt differently- you never spoke to any of us about any issues you might have been having so we had no idea. I thought you were a pretty decent person and I enjoyed hanging out and talking to you, so I'm confused about why you thought it would be ok to treat us in such an unkind, low manner. If we gave you any reason to think we would have acted unkindly to you giving notice, I'm sorry for that as well, but you treated us very unfairly and are forcing us to pay money we don't really have because you decided running away was easier than dealing with the situation. I hope you find the strength in yourself to deal with future situations in ways that are not harmful to others because perpetuating a cycle like this hurts everyone. Like it or not you acted in a really unkind, unjust, cowardly way and for that, I feel sorry- I would rather be in my position than yours in this situation.

Take care and I hope the city treats you kindly for the rest of your stay,

Siobhan

 


a building caught on fire down the alley from us last night. luckily, no one was hurt but at least 8 people lost their homes.

This is the tattoo I just got:

This is my horoscope for the week:

I dare you to say yes to a possibility you've said no to in the past. I double dare you to try an impossible thing before lunch each day. I triple dare you to imagine you're a genius at inspiring people to like you and help you. I quadruple dare you to drive overly stable people crazy for all the right reasons. I quintuple dare you to fantasize that your so-called delusions of grandeur have begun to contain more than a few grains of truth.

Hmmm.

So, clearly I have not been keeping up with el-jay. I honestly mean to, but then I don't. I get distracted, or what I have to say is, ultimately, too much to say. I've been having a good-bad few weeks. I'm not actually sure where to start, if there is a point starting or if I should just say that I've been turned inside-outside-inside-out, a little. I feel odd, like I'm not going to make sense. I was going to tell the story of my bruised face (accident involving my bike and my fist and some mud and a hill) and my 6 hr biking trip (from the Plateau to Verdun to the Old Port and back home to St. Henri again) and how I've cut my hair again (short on one side, shorter than I've ever had it...the other side is longer. I like it.) Maybe about what I've done this week (watching a meteor shower on the canal) or what I'm going to do (queer bookfair this weekend and then probably the pride parade.) But it seems like too much to spit out right now.

And Jill just walked in and recounted to me a story I told her about how whenever a member of my family came home from Vancouver, they had to bring coconut buns. Then she handed me a coconut bun. So I'm going to go make tea and eat the bun. But I'll probably be back when I have more time.

we're moved in...6 hrs up and down stairs to the 3rd floor. But we're here! With no internet....

I was thinking today that I might want to get a tattoo of a blackberry bush on my shoulder, maybe even a quarter sleeve (though dad- usually so unconservative- once told me he thinks sleeves are the least comprehensible tattoos ever.) I went to google image search to see if I could find other people's blackberry tattoos, and came up with images of the electronic Blackberry device tattooed on people's bodies instead. Sigh. I don't understand that but whatever, whatever people want. For exmaple, I still want blackberries.

Because they grew alongside my house, because I once decided I wanted to be reincarnated as a blackberry bush. Mostly for the way each section breaks open in my mouth.

Yesterday we went to see the Drag Races at Montreal Fringe and despite having to stand for two hours, it was pretty amazing. The ladies were hilarious and very, very dirty (at one point during some intense simulated sex between an audience member and a contestant, I could feel the mum standing in front of me with her daughter  cringe.) The point of the Drag Race was that each contestant complete this series of tasks: Pick an audience member, make them up, ride a trike to a table of drinks, make a drink and walk through a tire-course, serve the drink to the audience member and while they drink it, jump rope (if the drink is judged to be bad, you have to go back and remake it) then pick a number and dance/lipsynch to that song onstage. There were two teams- one of professional Drag Queens, one of Fringe Festival actors/directors/etc- and one winner from each team. None of my favorites won, though Jill's did. The event was mostly in French, but I'm happy to say I understood all of it which kind of surprised me because I can read and understand French, but often humor is lost on me because I simply do not know the slang. I get why people fall in love with Drag Queens, though- they are so beautiful and have such huge personalities you can't help but feel a little fluttery around them.