lip gloss and black

oh yes, it's true. i bought a motorcycle helmet. i wonder what will happen next.

INSITE - Letter from MP Libby Davies

Dear friends,

I am writing you today regarding the fate of INSITE, North America's first supervised safe injection facility. As you may know, this program started as a three-year study in September of 2003, and the results have been incredibly impressive. INSITE has reduced public injections, reduced the transmission of blood-borne infections like HIV and Hepatitis C, and reduced the number of injection-related
infections. Most significantly, however, is that of 453 overdoses at INSITE, not one has resulted in a fatality. This is strong evidence of the success that this project has had in reducing the harm to drug-users.

However, despite its successes, INSITE is at risk of closing down. The facility exists because of an exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. If Health Minister Tony Clement does not renew this exemption, this facility will close down as of September 12th of this year. Therefore, I am urging you to take action.

If you believe that INSITE should continue, then please let Tony Clement know!

His email address is:

Minister_Ministre@hc-sc.gc.ca

Please send me a copy of your email to the Health Minister if you decide to write, and also send a copy to info@communityinsite.ca. I have included some recent letters that I have written to Prime Minister Harper and Health Minister Clement below for reference. You can also get additional information about the facility at "Insite for
Community Safety" (www.communityinsite.ca). If we can speak with one voice, we can let this government know how people really feel about this important program.

I thank you for your continued support!

Yours sincerely,

Libby Davies
MP, Vancouver East

INSITE - This Magazine blog posting, July 24, 2006

Safe injection site needs support
Posted by mason at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

In September of 2003, North America’s first safe-injection site opened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Operated by the local health authority, Insite is allowed to exist thanks to funding and support from all three levels of government. Ottawa’s role includes a three-year exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The success of the facility has been remarkable — it is used by an average of 607 people per day and provides a clean, health-focused location where addicts can inquire about addiction services and health concerns. This has reduced the spread of blood-borne infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C and reduced public injections in the neighbourhood. In its nearly three years of operation there have been 453 overdoses at Insite, but not one has resulted in a fatality.


Despite this excellent record, Insite will be closed this September if federal Health Minister Tony Clement does not renew the exemption allowing it to operate. Certainly, this is a case where voices from the public would help Clement make up his mind. A citizen’s group in Vancouver has created a website with facts about Insite and instructions on how to tell the federal government you are behind the facility.

In addition, you can e-mail the Health Minister at Minister_Ministre@hc-sc.gc.ca.

INSITE - 24 Hours article - July 21, 2006

Insite has been lifesaver

By MATT KIELTYKA, 24 HOURS

Three hundred and thirty-six crosses overlooking a picturesque Vancouver skyline serves as a chilling reminder to Stephen Harper what life could be like without Insite.

Supporters of the Supervised Safe Injection site erected the makeshift graveyard yesterday in Vanier Park as the federal government debates whether or not to extend the facility's operating exemption, which expires Sept.12.

"In 18 months, there have been 336 overdose cases at the site and the staff managed to revive every person," said Mark Townsend of the Portland Housing Society, which runs Insite. "If the facility closes all of those people would be put back in the street and business doorways and the rate of overdose fatalities will be raise."

Townsend said he is hopeful Stephen Harper "won't do anything stupid" and will continue to support the successful project.

Darryl James, a recovering drug user who uses Insite, said he might be dead if it wasn't for the nurses at the facility.

"About two years ago I overdosed and they saved me," said James, who is taking a drug treatment program because of his experience. "You're saving lives [by keeping Insite open]."

Insite for Community Safety spokesperson Gillian Maxwell said the research done on the program has been "loud and clear" and it would be foolish to cut support.

INSITE

as most of you know, vancouver's safe injection site, INSITE, is in threat of being closed down on September 12th, 2006, only six weeks from now. i am going to post some of the information and resources that i have on the subject and ask that you consider taking action.

i feel very passionately about INSITE. it has become a hub of the eastside community. it is a place for people to meet, to learn safe injection tecniques, to make contact with health care providers, and to be treated with respect and dignity.

if you read further on the subject you will see that it is well documented that INSITE has been an overwhelming success. INSITE has saved countless lives (453 of which have been documented) and improved the quality of life of many drug users - both from the eastside and those who commute in to use the services.

i cannot stress how tragic it would be for the community and for our country to lose this program. if you agree that INSITE should be allowed to continue providing services, please write to prime minister harper, health minister tony clement, your MP, your MLA, and anyone else you feel will listen - and let them know that you support INSITE and urge them to renew INSITE's exemption from Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. i also urge you to pass this information along to your friends, family, and contacts.


Insite for Community Safety

http://www.communityinsite.ca/


Vancouver Coastal Health Authority - Insite

http://www.vch.ca/sis/

she's got you

Somehow, when I was with him, I was exactly who I am now and entirely unrecognizable as the woman you know. Completely me, yet entirely not myself.

I do not sway often, that much is true. Strident. Confident. Expressive.

But somehow, I was entirely different in his arms than in your arms. Today I wonder what you would think of me if you had seen how I was in my intimacy with someone else.

You know they are out there, women and men whose beds I have been in. It is abstract. Just words. Detached stories of ex-lovers. People from my past. Snippets. The stories are merely vehicles by which you may understand me, rather than actual people for you to know or learn about.

And I thought about it today. I thought about who you may have been in the arms of another.

Would I have liked you then? Would I have liked you wearing her kisses, wandering the city, eating in diners, talking politics, exchanging mixed CDs, getting drunk and scrambling for rides home, being in love?

Patsy Cline sings to me today.

this music sucks

I did not end up buying the apartment that I thought I wanted. It turns out that the apartment building had been made with cheap materials + labour (26 years ago) and since then, due to mismanagement/ apathy/ laziness, the building itself has greatly suffered. Water-damage, leaky pipes, ill-repaired balconies, foundation cracks and other nasty things have piled up to the point where the tenants cannot ignore it any more. Had I purchased the apartment that I thought I wanted, I would have had to shell out about $50,000 over the next 5 - 10 years. That would be just to keep the building at ‘fair’ condition.

No way!

So, I walked away from the real estate deal about 5 days before it was due to be finalized. I am thankful for my many friends that sat around the Winlaw campfire with me and helped me to decode the strata jargon. I already knew that things were looking a little rough, but my friendly-friends helped me to understand that this was not the place for me to buy.

The hunt is on!

In other news, it is my first day back at work after being away for 2 & ½ weeks. Getting up at 6:30am was not as fun as you may think.

The visit to Winlaw, Nakusp, Nelson + Halcyon hot springs was *lovely*. Fires were burned, lakes were swum, rivers were enjoyed, boats were hijacked, food was scarfed, books were read, knitting was knit by the light of the bonfire, and hot springs were lounged in.

Along the way I got a little sun, bought a few used books (Girlfriend in a Coma – Coupland, Kafka on the Shore – Murakami, and some Ursula K. LeGuin book that I cannot remember the name of), and was given the gift of an amazing hat (white with pink pinstripes).

As much as I wished that I could stay another week and actually begin to tackle the amazing list of ‘things to do’ that Shea + Steph had created, I was also very happy to be leaving the area around Nelson before the onset of Shambhala. An old flame of mine has been an organizer of this event for years. Every time I run into him he asks me if I will be joining him at the celebration this year. While I sincerely appreciate the work that he puts into this community event, I have told him in plain language that Shambhala (and events like it) are my idea of my own personal hell. The only thing that I would find slightly worse would be if I were locked in a Walmart for a week with the furnace stuck on full blast.

Pay $150 for admission to an outdoor hippy rave? No thanks, I am good.

Anyway, no disrespect intended to my fine dreadlocked event-organizing friend. Though I will tell you one of Sarah’s jokes in order to finish off this rant:

‘What did the ravers say when the drugs wore off?’

‘This music sucks.’

frank's wild years

just look at what you’ve won!

okay, two things:

- i have officially been accepted to become a volunteer adult literacy tutor. i spent almost two hours with the organizer of the i-care program and learned much more about what the program is like and how it actually *works*. sentence fragments can’t even begin to tell you how EXCITED i am. my training and practicums will take place in september and october. hooray!

- remember the apartment (see july 6th posting) i put a bid on? remember how they didn’t even bother to reject my offer and instead accepted an offer from another buyer? well, here’s the thing: when people put an offer on a place it is always subject to a bunch of other things happening (ie a building inspection, a review of the strata minutes). in this case, the offer that was made was subject to the securing of a source of money to pay the seller.

guess what?!? the folks that put a *better* offer on the place have been unable to secure their financing. therefore, as of midnight tonight, the seller is free to go into negotiations with another potential buyer. that’s me!

to keep you abreast of the situation, i have resubmitted my offer (this time at $7,500 more than i offered last time - - - and also about $3,500 more than my self-proclaimed *absolute maximum*). i should know by early tomorrow if the sellers have accepted my final offer.

this may mean a whole domino effect of things that need to be done over the next 7 - 10 days and a further gamut of things that need to be done in the subsequent weeks. if things check out well and the building inspection and review of the strata minutes don’t freak me out, i plan to take possession on august 15th.

anything could happen in the wild, wild, wild world of real estate.

pinball wizard

lief made the tastiest thing a couple days ago. just like yvonne and david, he seems to be able to just throw a bunch of things together and produce a fabulous meal. food ninjas. you guys are food ninjas. i hope you keep feeding me.

i think it went something like this...

COLESLAW, LIEFLY

salad ~
1/2 med head red cabbage, shredded or finely chopped
1 large carrot, grated
large handful of snap peas, chopped
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 cup sunflower seeds (unsalted)

dressing ~
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs rice vinegar
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp garlic ginger hot sauce

throw all the salad contents into a bowl and toss it around. blend the dressing ingredients in a seperate bowl. add dressing to salad mixture and toss it around one more time.

this recipe makes a monkeyload of coleslaw. i thought that using only a half a head of cabbage would keep the salad to a dull roar, but i would say that this produces about 8 servings.

eat it.

hem of your garment

i had been planning on leaving for winlaw two days ago, but because of the miraculous gift of Unholy Alliance tour box seats (avec free booze + vegetarian snacks), plans changed. me and the posse will be leaving at a decent hour on saturday morning.

i have booked from july 8th - 26th off work. if you check your calendar, that means that i have this whole week off work to prepare for the trip. i thought that this meant i could sleep in, putter, go to the gym and go swimming, do a bit of shopping (for shorts, a new bikini top, some kicks, my first pair of flip-flops, etc.), and browse for masters programs online. so far, none of those things have really happened.

busy. against all odds, i find myself BUSY.

here’s the good news: tomorrow (today, technically) i have my intake interview to become a literacy tutor for the program run through douglas college. the i-care program (individualized community adult reading education) allows folks to be linked up for one-on-one literacy tutoring.

because of the enormous social assistance and community program cutbacks, programs such as this one have suffered immeasurably. i am sure that i will learn more about it as time goes on, but it has become increasingly difficult for literacy programs to: 1/ find the clients that need them most 2/ deliver their services to those clients without breaking some sort of governmental rule.

from what i understand, the i-care program is only able to intake and train about 20 volunteers per year. they have an intensive intake process and a lengthy and specialized training program (i think it is 6 x 7 hour training classes).

if you have ever thought that the process to get a job was competitive and unwieldy, imagine doing that to get a volunteer position. anyone who read and/ or edited my intake application will surely tell you that the intake forms were *intense*.

if i am not admitted to become a tutor this year, i will not be terribly upset. there are individuals who have been on the waiting list for a couple of years. i will try again next year!

the moral of the story is that i will be in a 1.5 hour interview (which i am sure will include some tests of my grammar and spelling!) this afternoon.

while i did have visions of sleeping late, racing around in the pool, and eating leisurely meals this week - - - it is hard to feel too put out by the opportunities, work, and excitement that have come my way this week.

by the time operation ‘go outside and play in winlaw’ begins, i am sure i really WILL need a vacation.

get excited: one of my other tasks for this week is to bake *two* cakes for jules’ birthday. if you have been invited, i urge you to come. surely you do not want to miss the chance to give lots of love to jules on her birthdoo and also feed your face with:

- dark chocolate layer cake with coffee frosting

*and*

- frosted apple spice cupcakes

flavour!

two too many

Yes, it’s true.

Yesterday I put an offer on an apartment. Today I found out that the offer had not even been rejected, but entirely overlooked by the sellers. They are now in negotiations with another party who offered them a ‘sweeter deal’. I was not given the opportunity to counter-offer… so now I am out of the game.

Above you will see a couple photos of the place. Understandably, it was the kitchen that I was most in love with. YUM!

Therefore, there will be no purchases of *biblical* proportions this week, unless that truckload of bibles things pans out.

I had expected that purchasing an apartment would be:

a/ less complicated – who was I kidding?

b/ more stressful – but I guess I have never had much of a ‘sense of doom’

The only reason that I put an offer on a place so soon was that the apartment really was too good to pass up. Most people know that I have been saving as aggressively as I can, in hopes to start looking in January 2007.

Now that I have done the legwork to establish a real estate agent (thanks again, Urs) and a mortgage broker, I think that I am going to go full steam ahead. I am in no hurry, to be sure, but it would be nice to be settled in to my own place before hexmas this year.

Me, Lief and Miss Missyfuss look forward to having you over for tea + shortbread… if all goes well. I may even give in and have a real live Christ-mas tree this year, just for the novelty of it in our new home.

:: sigh :: I cannot pretend that I am not disappointed. I had really fallen in love with the little apartment. But it was not meant to be. Lief reminded me that better things are always around the corner… if you are looking for them.

In which case, I am going to have one hell of a lovely home to invite you to. The hunt is on!

title and registration

there will now be a reason to celebrate the fourth of july.

today, lief bought his first motorbike. for those of you playing along at home, the bike is a 2000 W650 kawasaki. isn't it purdy?

i am excited and just a little jealous.

if you stay tuned, there may be another outrageous purchase some time in the next week or two.... a purchase of *biblical* proportions.

at dawn they sleep

the fact that i remember what i was doing last year on canada day kinda freaks me out. i guess it makes sense though, considering the fact that it involved a host of cheeky anti-canada day festivities + george forman grilling at my house. as i recall, last year at this time my kiddy pool was already set up - but no one went in it. red and white cupcakes were eaten.

a friend of mine (who is from ottawa) remarked on how low-key canada day is here in vancouver. she has been finding her first year here to be a lot to adjust to. are west coasters less patriotic or just too laid back to care? hard to say. comparatively speaking, *nothing* happens on canada day in vancouver. who knew?

i don’t remember canada day being a big deal in winnipeg either, but that may have been because i was so much more interested in the onset of gay pride day. so really, who is to say whether the prairies get more excited about our national day than BC does? not me.

i hardly even noticed it was a holiday, truth be told. yesterday i woke up and finished washing massive piles of laundry over at L’s house. our 15 year old washing machine has called it quits, so i will be spending many hours washing clothing and linen at other people’s houses for the next week or two.

after clothing was dried and folded (5 hours later), L and i went to take a look at an apartment in new westminster. clearly, the apartment is $20,000 out of my price range (not that my mortgage broker would agree) and clearly i am in love with it and would make a down payment tomorrow - - - if i thought it was possible. i could easily call that place home.

the rest of my day was spend preparing food for today’s hair-chopping party and pressing about 200 buttons for a client.

it’s the day after canada day and instead of having a hangover, I have a sore back from hunching over the circle cutter + button press and i smell like garlic and mint from handling food yesterday. sounds good to me.