A New Place to Roost.

Firstly I want to apologize to all four of the people who read the piece I wrote on Calgary and The Calgary Stampede a few days ago.It was a low quality,lousy piece of writing and I'm amazed that anyone bothered with it.I wasn't happy with it ten minutes after I'd written it.

What I have to learn to do is to be more real.You see,I was raised to say nothing at all unless I could find something nice to say.By natural inclination,I am adaptable and tend to like to respond to my immediate surroundings in a positive way,and believe that things could always be worse.Indeed they could be but that doesn't excuse my lying,even if that were not my intent.So once again,my deepest apologies and I promise to try to have a bit more respect for anyone who reads my blog in the future.

So let me tell you how I really feel,keeping in mind that my attitude tomorrow may or may not be the same as it is right now.I've caught myself saying so many times in the past few weeks "man,I hate this city."And I well and truly do,I may as well tell the bare faced truth.It doesn't seem to matter if I'm waking up in the morning or going to bed at night,looking at the skyline or watching someone drift down one of our rivers on a raft,taking the train or walking,I just have no heart for this city,and I wonder why I ever came back here.

I don't want this to sound like sour grapes or a self indulgent pity party,but that's the way it is.I arrived here some three months ago with money in my pocket,rented a room,which are in short supply and then ended up being locked out of that room because my room mate failed to pay the rent.Never mind that I paid my rent.I found accommodations following that,but they are far from acceptable and certainly not sustainable in the long term.I also had a guitar when I arrived and one that was kept here for me by a friend during my eastern sojourn.Both of those are apparently gone since my old room mate cannot be found.They are with all of my cds and the majority of my clothing,not to mention much of the personal writing I've been doing over the past three years.I did manage to escape with the clothes in my back pack which are at least sufficient.Life's tough,then you die.I just didn't count on going to Hell before that happened.

During my time in this infernal city I've endured harassment,theft,flooding,a deliberately set fire,a lay off,default on pay that was owed me,crackheads banging on my door at all hours of the night,unjustified accusations of racism,and the garden variety intolerance of some Albertans for anyone who was not born and raised here.Well,guess what.I no longer have the energy for any of this.I simply do not have enough blood in my body to satiate the energy sucking vampires that are all too common in this city.It's time to find a new place to roost.

I've decided,and to be honest,it wasn't even that hard of a decision,to move west come the end of this week.Give Vancouver a try even if I have to crawl,which is a distinct possibility.Nevertheless,if I were to admit it,I simply hate it here and I just don't see how living in a city I hate is worth the effort.If it doesn't work out,I guess I can come back but I'd prefer not to think about that for the time being.

All of that writing I did about Calgary being an ok place...I take that back.All my readers saw right through that anyway.This is a boom town,like San Fransisco in 1849.A great place to work,but a miserable,low down,mean spirited,unfinished and dirty place to live.And,in point of fact,I don't recommend that you come here even to visit.

Yes,I'm possessed of a very poor attitude tonight and it may change tomorrow.In a way I hope it does,because I hate having a poor attitude.But,in truth I can still see myself looking around at this city tomorrow or next week or next year and thinking how much I hate it here and how I'd really rather be anyplace but here.So it's time to move on hopefully this time for good.And while I do have some very dear friends here,to whom I apologize for knocking their city and whom I will greatly miss,I will not miss the city itself.Good riddance!

Maybe I'll have to give my head a shake.I'm not sure how much of this being more real I can handle.