Apr 17, 2013 (Wed) vlog from my archives

I recorded this vlog in my room that I rented in a multi-unit house along Keele Street, close to the subway station on Bloor.  I saw the ad for this room for rent in Kijiji, if I'm not mistaken.  I was the first one to come view the rooms that were available because the owners had just put up the ads in the market, so I got the privilege of picking the largest room, which was situated on the ground floor of the 3-storey house.  I shared the bathroom on the ground floor with another would-be tenant whose room was also on the same floor.  I think I paid $500 a month rent at that time.  I was receiving ODSP social assistance, which was such a big help for me.  Without it, I wouldn't have been able to afford a roof over my head and pay for my HIV medications.

By the time I recorded this video, I would've been living in Toronto for a year, if not two years, after having moved back from temporarily living in Hamilton, where I lived for two to three years as I completed my accounting diploma at Mohawk College.  Judging by what I said in this video, it looks like I was struggling to find stable employment.

Towards the end of the video, I talk about spending time with my friends the previous weekend to celebrate our friend S's birthday.  S and I met in the late 90s through my our mutual friend, A,  They knew each other from volunteering with a youth empowerment no-profit.  When we all graduated from high school in 1999, myself, A, S, and our other friend L would spend Saturdays at the Toronto Reference Library studying during our first year in undergrad.  At the time, the three of them were attending U of T, and I was in my first year at York's Political Science program (where I eventually dropped out mid-freshman year due to financial hardship, and, also, tbh, school was getting in the way of my sex life).

I have a lot of memories with S, but one memory that stands out is her writing on my birthday card that I am stronger than I thought, and it was a note that she wrote while I was really struggling with sobriety.