A feeling I got the other day

Before you go on, let me reassure you this is no normal feeling. Living where I am living, I am developing some complexes that are a bit beyond my control. My sense of security and property are definately always in question here. My orange chair on my balcony was stolen. I find people smoking crack on my outdoor mattress. People go by at 6am making a racket also about crack. There's a tent outside my landlord provides for the local junkies and hoo-hahs, and he just reconstructed it. My old neighbours took exacto blades to the old tarp and so when I was sitting in my now stolen chair I used to be able to see bums go in there and try to defecate and so forth. Two laptops across at the new neighbours were stolen. My P.E.I Roommate leaves his window open and he doesn't see the madness. In the midday and early hours of the morning i can hear prostitutes arguing or crying with their respective pimps or security guards or whatever it is those men do. They're more like male cheerleaders really, only far less bubbly. And don't forget, rich people used to dump their wealthier trash in my lot. My roommate tim had a party here and someone painted my door. Someone also threw out an art bottle I was working on, and then made a joke about having thrown it out artistically.

So this is a rough collage of where I feel like I'm living. And there are complexes coming out of it all. When I go to nicer neighbourhoods I really notice because I can't believe that the doors are unlocked, or that they have left some of their stuff outside or in places easily penetrated. And then I have to remember that these people feel safe.

But forget those people; they're where they are, they maybe pay a bit differently or just got luckier. What fundamentally shakes me is how pathetically cheap the situation is. Ottawa is the housewife city of Canada that is more interested in making visitors comfortable and happy than the residents who occupy these streets full time. Ottawa's police keep bums looking for change out of the market and in the locals's neighbourhoods. The Capital aspect cannot show signs of real life. I live in the asshole of the market where tourists interests end and prostitute-crack-savagery interests begin. I try to decorate this slum a bit and get trouble from landlords and over-enthusiastic police or capsules of authority that can't wait to have something to push around. Put a camera around my neck, rub sunscreen all over me, give me a stupid ottawa hat and we'll see if the trick to this place is to look loaded and therefore the most important person in ottawa. See if police on bikes show up to clear the crack heads out of my way.

This place is getting me down. I need a job, and I'd really like to get some propane to bbq and build a community through food. I need better company in this area.