mbarrick | Fuск this wretched city. I saw an ad for what was clearly the studio one floor up from my…

Fuск this wretched city. I saw an ad for what was clearly the studio one floor up from my old skid-row studio that I was living in when I got Tharsis in 1998 (seen here.) It's east of Main up against the tracks. Out the window is a fish cannery and a container port. The tail end of the Gastown railyard is just under the window where freight trains are assembled with prodigious mechanical thunder every couple hours 24/7, warning klaxons from the port cranes go off any time they move, and below is an alley where cars would park with local streetwalkers. When I first moved in I couldn't order out because no place would deliver and if I wanted a taxi I had to walk a couple blocks because cabs wouldn't come to the address. The rub? I lived there when the place was brand new. I was among the first tenants. I was a self employed artist, designer and web monkey. Now with a solid, union job for a prestigious university, I CAN'T AFFORD TO RENT THERE. Now, with 25 years of wear and tear, the rent they want is almost 3/4 of my take-home ...for a studio in an old fish freezer and former overflow for the morgue in the lowest reaches of the Lower East Side. There just aren't enough expletives to express how tired I am of Vancouver.
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