deavling into emails

I got this emial yesterday, its from my friend ian in dublin, he is a canadian! We met at this pub my first week there, I had gone to this protest and met this guy joe there who was going to be in my program at UCD, he took me out to this pub grogans, which I have come to know and love. While there he was like your canadian, he is canadian . . .so ian and I bonded. The bonding section led to talking about queer activism, so he introduced me to claire and now clare and I are moving in together and we are moving into ians house. Here is ians discription of the house.

Its a great house, 10 minutes from town on a bike, 15 from the ocean, probaly 2 minutes from the Dublin Food coop. Its an old house in Ringsend - kind of this pocket of Dublin in the rare aul times surrounded on all sides by the still raging celtic tiger, with cranes dominating the skyline building trendly flats. Its in the epicentre of the song "I met my love/ by the gasworks town/ Dreamed a dream by the old Canal" (or so I imagine) - you step out the door and there's the gasworks to the left (currently being converted into trendy flats) and the canal's just a couple of blocks away.

ahh, its a three bedroom and the third bedroom is in the attic, which I'm hoping to move into myself. Ian is moving out for october 1st but he has a room empty now for me to move into and clare will move in shortly there after. The only problem with the house is the landlord wants to renivate, it will take three months to get the licence to do so. Subsiquently we might only be able to stay for the three months OR if we can stay longer she will jack up the rent to unforseen levels. I don't have allot of confidence in any rent control in dublin.

I got this other email yesterday that is so cute from this guy I met driving up to the anarchist u retreat, I had invited him to come to the going away bash and he never showed. I knew that he had been sick plus he lives deep into mississauga so that might have contributed to him not making it. his apology email was so cute:
i really wanted to see you again tobie, i think you're really nice and i would
like to be your friend how cute is that. it sounds so innosent.

thats all the email exposing I will do for today.

its a sad day when tobie went away

Last night was the most lovel evening, I am left will complete feeling of relaxation and happiness. At one point this guy said 'Tobie there is so much love for you', referring to the elaberate decrative fruit plate that kevin and craig put together. Perhaps more generally to the space, the people and the energy that went into the event. It was small but complete wonderful, just before people showed up regan asked if I was getting pre party gitters. I said no which is kinda wierd since I can be a freak at these kinda things. I figured there were a few factors that lead to this relaxation. The first was that it wasn't my space and I would not be running around organising but it still feels like home. Second was that I only invited the people I really wanted to come, people who I had spent time with this summer (except for jen-but it wasn't wierd) and I didn't sent a mass email to 50 adn am unsure of who will pop up. Instead I individually invited each person there and knew who was coming for sure. It was good 15 people who were all from difference places in my world and this collectic mix of people blended together so nicely.

At the end of the night when it was only chris, regan, kevin, shannon and dave left - there was this song that r,c,k were trying to find to put on. The whole cd was hilarious, like the homly girl song and the love letter to myself. When they got to the song they had been looking for I wasn't paying that close attention to the lyrics anymore. Chris asked if I had heard the line I shock my head and started to listen closer. the next line was "it was a sad day when tobie went away" that is the course of the song! I didn't even know that I had a name song let alone a name song that was so specific to this current time.

close to tears I held regans hand and said thank you.

last year it was bjork's concert on the 3rd that stuck with me, that left me with a warm feeling when I entered a new place. this year it will be this party . . .

a future disturbing look at another society . . .or shoppers drugmart

yesterday I went to eat breakfast with a few friends downtown, the restaurant was in the entertainment district and right near this new shoppers drugmart. When one of the girls goes on about how great this one is I easily go allong with a trip there, I am a fan of the shoppers. When we walk in I do a double take, I feel like I just walked into max the day when edward was becoming ginger and needed makeup. It was so high class, the make up area was not a small booth inbetween the creams and perfums. It was its own seperate section with the high end brands listed on the wall the way the Bay organises their makeup. This section was complete seperate from the rest of the shoppers, in hopes not to intaminate it with the normacy of the rest of their products. The major section of the store had the same products as anyother shoppers, but made it look a bit more upscale. Then their was the food section which included veggie burgers, soy milk and flax oil. I was impressed, I started to think the logo 'everything you want in a drug store plus more' was going to their head and soon shoppers drug mart would be talking over major corporations, that it would be at par with lablaws having its own babysitting.

On the way out I was drawn to the 'gift idea' section near the cash, they had a full wall of cd gift certificate size packages hanging up. this is when the level of disturbance went through the roof. This wall was seperated into three section. Romance, adventure and pamper. The first one I picked up under the romance section was almost four hunderd dollars. It was one night at this hotel, 1/2 a bottle of champaing and 6 chocolate covered strawberries. The next one under adventure I believe was again near 400 and it included a 24hour car rental of some fancy car, with 100 km. Then there was another one around 400 in the pamper section that was a full body wrap, a thai massage and spa treatment.

Its true I picked up the most expensive one in each section, the prices ranged from 100-400, but that is not the point at all. What disturbed me is how these major purcases were put next to the cash with the chocolate bars and gum and tabloit magazines for those last min bordom percases while you wait in line. That romance and adventure could be marketed in a single 4 by 4 inche paper and cd slip. How it felt the next step would be a pill, red for passion, blue for adventure and yellow for relaxation. That these were gift ideas. As if 400 is something you buy at shoppers last min when you relize you forgot your partners birthday or your anniversary. How there is no real thought of what you the person would really like. Not to mention the max amount of time with all these was 24 hours. Maintaining that you can have a break from reality and still be back in time to read the sunday paper and ignore your family before going back to work and having your job suck out your life energy until once again you need to run to the 24 hours drug store to get your fix.