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I have actually hand-written many of the subsequent places of residence after # 5, on napkins and on the backs of parking tickets, and on the backs of receipts.I'll insert those here on the blog sometime soon.But as a point of reference for me I thought I'd simply make a list (to the best of my memory) of all the places I've lived. I will likely forget one or two, but hopefully they'll come back to me at some point.Here they are:1. Grandma's house on 14th avenue, my first home. We were living with Grandma at the time.2. Baker Estates Apartments. I have very little memory of this.3. The green duplex on 3rd street.4. the condominium complex across the street from the green duplex. (fell from Hilda Magus' 2-story window and broke my arm, smashed in my teeth. I was two years old.5. house on 5th avenue with the cool attic bedrooms, and the onion patch in the backyard.(How old was I now? I don't know, maybe five or six?)6. My step-dad's (not yet my step-dad) house on King Street across the tracks. 5 acres and bears and velvety purple flowers I thought were that thing called poison ivy. I made necklaces out of the dandelion stems in the yard.7. House on 3A street (a block up from the green duplex and condominums)(ten years old to 14 years old)8. Moved to Prince George BC. (there for two years)9. Moved back to Cranbrook, into my Grandma's trailer in Highcrest Trailer Court (not the house she had when I was first born). We were in the forest, on the fringe, out of town. Loved the wilderness but was so fucking depressed for two solid years (grade 11 and 12) I wanted to die.(18 years old now)10. Left home for university, moved to Victoria, lived in the dorms for two years (Margaret Newton 107 where I lost my virginity....and second year in one of the cool townhouses that were made for the athletes during the Commonwealth Games the year before).(I feel like I'm jumbling places now, memory gets sketchy)11, House on Mackenzie Avenue a block from the liquor store which was bad news. Shared it with K and a couple of her PG buddies. I was always cleaning up after them.12. Allenby House with landlord Rich who drove a classic model something nineteen-sixty something porche, which I found pretentious etc. But he was hot and so was Corey, and Majou the super hot model from Montreal who spoke decent English. I got particularly bulimic here, burned a hot butter knife held over a flame, pressed it upon my tummy above the butterfly tattoo and the scar still remains. Shot cocaine on the docks (yeah what a cliche) with a homelss long-red-haired-guy named Leo who smelled like tin and roses when I wrapped my arms around him after the shot took hold, but before the cops came, arrested him, and took me away in an ambulance because my heart was racing way too fast. I felt bad for Leo.(21 years old now)13. Gordon Head Townhouses with the Bob Marley poster in the living room and the pot-smoking girls. I wrote Theresa's mid-term essay on Aphra Behn's Oroonoko for which she paid me $100. She went on to be a teacher.14. Basement bachelor suite on Tovido Lane.15. Suite in James Bay on Oscar Street I think where I got into Fiona Apple. The place was so awesome, shared it with a horticulturalist named Jody. She told me, asked me, to leave a month in because her boyfriend was suddenly coming back from working up north as a horticulturalist also. Got screwed over by a couple of horticulturalists in love. In retrospect I should have told her to leave, not me, but I was young and gutless.16. House on Synod Street up from the church (hence, Synod), a communal style house with this guy, Noel, who lurched around in the rose bushes late at night squeezing the aphids off the leaves. That guy sure hated aphids. Poor aphids.
17. Basement suite on (can't remember the name of the street) off Shelbourne, near Hillside. Not much to say about this place...uneventful but filled with pain.
18. Basement suite on Richmond Avenue up from Camosun College. Mrs. Rogers was my landlady and lived upstairs, kept opening the door to my place, shouting down that she smelled smoke and what was I doing and what's that noise. Started drinking mickies of spiced rum, straight up, all night long. 19. Ultra swanky condo on south end of North Park, downtown, a kind of Melrose Place environment, condo owned by Lisa's Mom, Lisa who had her car and living expenses and condo paid for.20. Moved in with Rob to be my boyfriend for 3 + years, into his place in the house on Caledonia Avenue, across the street from the crack house, the house with the beautiful cherry tree in the backyard.21. Moved up north to William's Lake to be with Rob who I never saw because he was always out putting out forest fires etc. Lived in an ok apartment in the apartment building owned by his parents. His mom who told me I was fat.(23 years old now?)22. Rob and I moved back to Vic, into a basement suite off Cedar Hill Road (I think), which my sister found for us before she went to Europe for two months to live on the farm outside of Rome. Turns out the place was infested with flees.(24 years old? Rob goes up north again in Spring, and returns again in early autumn...the distance kills me).23. Rob and I live in a little apartment across the street from the Vacuum Cleaner Repair shop on Cedar Hill Road.(Rob goes up north again to fight fires, but this time I don't follow. The distance kills me).24. I move into the apartment on Bowker Avenue. Rob returns from fighting fires up north, early in autumn, moves in with me and stays up late looking at porn on his computer.(Second or third? year together, Rob and I, I'm 25 years old and working as an office clerk at UVic finishing up my second undergraduate degree in English Lit, working in Housing for my boss and future husband. Rob and I break up).25. Cool apartment with hardwood floors and alcove ceilings and a cool retro kitchen, but it's on Esquimalt Road and I sort of fear for my life when I walk home at night, because I should.(I start seeing my boss future husband...we almost get 'caught' in my old dorm room, MN 107...oh my god that was funny).26. Lord Simcoe apartment in James Bay. Plush carpet. View of Parliament Buildings and Inner Harbour. Got robbed in this apartment, in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping.27. Caddy Bay apartment across from Oak Bay High (move in with my future husband) on the ground floor...a year or so passes...I start drinking Neo Citran DM to relax, wake up with panic attacks.(26 years old now)28. After a year or so, my boss future husband and I move to another apartment (#29) on the 3rd floor, which we have to leave after a year or so because the building caught on fire...one cat died.30. I move to Vancouver for my MFA at UBC, into the apartment on West 5th in Kits, live directly underneath the landlady who is crazy and has like a hundred porcelain jesuss (jesuses? jesus's? jesus's?) on display around her apartment, and her husband is old and wears an oxygen mask so crazy jesus lady has a big sign on her apartment door that says "No flames allowed, Oxygen Present!)31. A couple of months later I move into one of the graduate student housing condos on campus.32. Move back to Vic after my first fall semester in Van cuz my student loan money falls through...back in with boss future husband, months of hell cuz I am only going to school full time! and commuting back and forth now between Vic and Van...and my boss future husband hates me for not bringing money into the 'home.'(28 years old)33. Boss and I move into the cool upper suite in the heritage house on Roseberry Avenue in Fernwood, the suite from which I could see the spire of the Belfry, where I wrote and wrote and completed my MFA.(30 years old)34. We move into upper level of house on 5th Street up from the 5th street Bar and Grill. Hate it and move out a month later.35. We move into the old heritage house on Beechwood Avenue, best place ever, stay there together for 3 + years.(Boss and I get married in Cuba, Cayo Ensenachos, January 26th, three days before my 33rd birthday).36. Six months after getting married, I leave boss now my husband, move back to Vancouver, little basement suite with bright yellow kitchen on West 13th, spiral into a stupor of DXM (Neo Citran DM), stay up all night every night, sleep all day or go without sleep entirely. Streets feel shifty. I'm losing it.37. Six months later and I move back to Vic, to my husband, back into Beechwood place.(34 years old)38. We move into new house on Foul Bay Road, great place but lacks heart and I feel alone, really alone, live in the basement with my rabbits getting high, while husband and two step-sons (who are now living with us) commune upstairs. Everything falls apart, really falls apart. I'm nowhere, oblivious, probably dying down there. No one, my husband, no one really knows or they don't care. I want to die but I'm afraid to do it, my greatest worry...who will take care of my rabbits?39. Brief period 'residing' in the psyche ward, for about a month. Boss now husband and I break up while I'm in there. He is "done with me." (35 years old, present time)40. After getting out of the hospital I go to NYC, then Minnesota, then live in a camper for two weeks on Island View Road.41. Where I live now, basement suite in my sister's new house on Prior, where I feel like a bit of a loser but I'm working hard, trying to get my shit together...I hope I hope I hope.... (I think that's it).
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