2022
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 7, 2022, 11:25 PM subject 1 – 4376 – 0701
Dear Justin,
Happy New Year. Sorry I haven’t written yet this year. I couldn’t think of a new way to do the subject headings. Actually, I wanted to count all the letters from the beginning and then each letter would be cumulative, we would always know what the total is. Unfortunately I can’t find the power cord for the old hard drive where I *think* the archive of the letters is. So we’ll just go with the system from last year: the number of letter, the daily Montreal new Covid case count, and the date. So far this year Jess and I have been hanging out at home, I’ve been building the wall between our bedroom and the study / Sol’s new bedroom. We’re going to put the roll of fancy wallpaper I got from Judith like 5 years ago or more, up on our bedroom side of the wall. It is going to look stunning. Oh, we’ve been looking at properties again in NB, everything from vacant land to rundown houses on the peninsula to home or duplexes or apartment buildings in SJ. In short, we’re back where we started, uncertain but ready to buy the first thing we fall in love with. We’re starting 2022 still very much in love, enjoying our life together very much.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 11, 2022, 11:25 AM subject 2 – 1827 – 1001
Dear Justin,
Only Tuesday, or already Tuesday, and I think I’ve figured out time travel. We watched Back to the Future last night, and in thinking about that classic paradox – of going back in time, and altering the future – wouldn’t it simply be impossible to return to the future? Like, if it is at all possible, it would be a one-way trip. And, like in Looper, if you altered your own timeline would you suddenly cease to exist – but if that happened, you wouldn’t be able to go back in the first place. Hmmm, guess I haven’t solved anything, the paradox remains.
But it can’t really exist the past or the future, at least not as distinct from the present. I think it is either a perpetual present, with the past and future embedded in that present, or it is present with no past or no future.
Then again, time as we understand it is a human construct…. we just live, we’re alive, we die, the Earth turns and the Sun burns and everything is in constant movement. Nothing is static.
What does this all mean? It means I’ve been reading again, haha. Finally ready Do androids dream of electric sheep. Never realized how deeply misogynistic Philip K Dickhead was. The book isn’t really all that well-written, either. But the constant wonderment of what it means to be alive, that is interesting. I’m also reading a similar book – well, no androids but there is something similar, about what it means to be alive, what one can do with one’s life maybe – Mooncalves by Victoria Hetherington. Here the misogynists are not given space to speak.
I’ve signed on to a short story writing exercise, initiated by Jess’s friend Joe Bagel, wherein participants write a minimum 1000 word story / essay / play every 3 days for a month. 10 stories in total. My pseudo conceptual artist brain immediately contrived a plan of writing exactly 1000 words and then re-using the words in different ways for each of the 10 stories. It could be a fun exercise, but so much work! And as you know well, I am lazy and love to procrastinate.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 12, 2022, 1:46 PM subject 4 – 2460 – 1201
Dear Justin,
My procrastination continues! But there is something soothing about staying home and reading and puttering in the kitchen preparing meals and snacks while both Sol and Rose are in their respective virtual classes. It gives me more time to reflect on Life, the Universe and Everything. I did stay up too late last night – we watched Back to the Future part 2, and then I read into the night, and then slept in, and so did Sol and he missed his drama class. I’m a Bad Papa!
In other news, a city sewer pipe burst at my Ex’s house, flooding her basement, She and the other tenants have been evacuated and do not know when they can return, so I am looking at having the kids for the foreseeable future. If they go back to school it’s not so bad, unless they get Covid, as Jessica can at least come during the daytime. Unless they have to self-isolate. At least I have another home reno project to undertake: Rose’s room. She wants to remove the existing wallpaper, paint the walls and dismantle the elevated bed. I’ll move Sol’s bed back into her room, and he’ll use the couch / bed. It’s actually quite comfortable. Nesting, one of my favourite activities.
OK I’m off to VOX to wrap some plastic over a pipe that is dripping water into the gallery. It was actually dripping over one of Sorel’s sculptures, the fabric triangles on the floor, but in the centre of one of the triangles – so not hitting the sculpture at all. Lucky.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 13, 2022, 9:38 PM subject 5 – 2347 – 1301
Dear Justin,
I quite like being the house husband, or stay-at-home dad. It’s possibly because I like to procrastinate. I finally got around to giving the kitchen and dining room floor a thorough cleaning. Also cleaned the bathroom, including taking the pipes apart under the sink. That IKEA plumbing gets so full of sludge it needs to be emptied at least two or three times per year. It’s a gross job but oddly I don’t mind doing it. I was wondering about the Korean Housewife videos, and imaging making one of my own – such a contrast! Everything is already sparkling clean before they even clean anything in those videos. But alas I am too much of a procrastinator to ever get around to making how-to videos. I still have part one of our Ramsay trailer renovations to finish editing. I guess my heart isn’t really into it. Studio painting I’m scared to begin. And the 10 short-stories to write over the course of a month begins next week and I’m scared to start that as well. Who am I to say I can write? Letters to the PM do not count; it’s practically stream of consciousness. I don’t think I have anything else to say.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 14, 2022, 8:59 PM subject 6 – 2274 – 1401
Dear Justin,
Finished watching Bladerunner 2049 last night, what a visual feast. Watched Black Panther again with the kids for our evening movie. I finished reading Mooncalves, what a psychic pummelling. I’ve started in on A Handbook of Disappointed Fate, and right off the bat author Anne Boyer includes a poem by Miguel James entitled Against the Police. It sums up in a way how I view my own art practice – even though I play by the rules laid down for art within capitalism, I rail against it in everything I do. Here is the poem:
AGAINST THE POLICE
My entire Oeuvre is against the police
If I write a love poem it is against the police
And if I sing the nakedness of bodies I sing against the police And if I make this Earth a metaphor I make a metaphor against
the police
If I speak wildly in my poems I speak against the police
And if I manage to create a poem it is against the police
I haven’t written a single word, a verse, a stanza that isn’t against
the police
All my prose is against the police My entire Oeuvre
Including this poem
My whole Oeuvre
Is against the police
And so weird that last night what I remember most of my dreams is trying to find investors to contribute towards buying up an old temple and shipping warehouses located in an industrial port city. Probably because I have been spending too much time surfing MLS. What is my obsession with buying an old shack in rural NB, or a house that’s gone to the dogs?
Car battery still not dead, took Rose to Home Despot to pick paint for her room, and then later dropped her at a park for a meeting with her friend Fleur’s scout troop. She under-dressed for the weather, despite me telling her all day it was cold and getting colder. Will she ever learn? Time to get those rugrats off their devices and into their beds. I managed to dismantle Rose’s elevated bed no problem, tonight she’ll sleep on her mattress on the couch/bed before making the switch.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 15, 2022, 10:42 PM subject 7 – — – 1501
Dear Justin,
No new numbers available today, weekend. Slept in, then got up and picked up Jessica for her booster shot, waited with her and we went for Tim Hortons and drove up to the lookout on the mountain. Came home and spent the afternoon painting Rose’s room. It’s done! She’s sleeping in the living room while the fumes dissipate. It’s zero VOC and low odour but still, there is a smell. Ordered sushi for supper, not time or desire to make my own. I’m running the car at the moment – remind me to turn it off before bed. Found that the hot water pipes to the tub were frozen when Sol asked to have a bath. Managed to thaw them with the heat gun – and this time I didn’t set the floor joists on fire. I’m waiting until the cold snap breaks, supposedly on Monday, before attempting the washing machine pipes.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 16, 2022, 9:43 PM subject 8 – — – 1601
Dear Justin,
What a day. Slept in, had crazy dreams about some weird art performing at my old house, winging it as per usual. Spent the morning making waffles, reading, drinking coffee, playing 5 crowns with the kids, then sliding, then home to finish organizing Rose’s room. Switched the beds. All the while thinking of topics for the writing challenge: third person, conversational, essays, journals, dialogue, sci-fi, mining personal history, non-fiction, memoire: it’s all on the table, piled up in front of me, but I have no utensils and the table is too high. Everything out of reach. Except of course it is in reach, The utensils are under my fingers tapping away, the only impediment is this messy and cluttered house, this dirty kitchen, these lunches to be made. Do you think they will pre-emptively cancel school, in light of this massive snowstorm we are supposed to get?
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 17, 2022, 9:02 PM subject 9 – 656 – 1701
Dear Justin,
They closed schools today, the storm hit as predicted, and it does look bad out there. Very low visibility. They made the announcement last night, shortly after I sent my letter to you. This morning I woke early, the remnants of a vivid dream in my head, which I realized could make a decent story, so I jotted down some elements and then stayed up for the day. Successfully thawed the pipes for both the tub and the washing machine. I am in hard need of a shower, and there are piles of clothes to clean. The washing machine seems broken; it is not agitating. This is not good.
Actually, it fixed itself. I think maybe the agitator was actually frozen. Went out with the kids sliding in Jarry Park. Came home with Sol, left Rose at Oona’s, and had a good phone session with my therapist. She is happy that I seem to be achieving a level of banality in my interactions with my Ex, and maybe given the mild anxiety thinking about meeting her to finalize or discuss closure or my feelings based on her actions, that maybe that meeting is not necessary and I can put in writing whatever I might have to say. At this point, not sure if even that is necessary. Picked up Rose – gotta love a Subaru in a snowstorm, getting in and out of parking spaces no problem – and then my Lufa order, then made supper, and then cleaned the kitchen, made cashew milk for morning cereals, washed more laundry, read stories – we’re on our third Shel Silverstein book, Where the Sidewalk Ends – and bedtime is getting easier and easier with the kids having their own rooms. I guess everyone really needs a room of one’s own. I wonder what the UN has to say about it.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 18, 2022, 9:11 PM subject 10 – 871 – 1801
Dear Justin,
So today totally felt like a Monday, as the kids were finally back at school, the morning routine a bit rusty but actually not bad at all. Better than usual, actually, although Sol was definitely not happy about going. I try to empathize with him – I know that school is basically pointless, a place for kids to go so their parents can keep the gears of capitalism grinding away. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. So after dropping the kids off to that place, I went and got my booster shot, then dropped a shelf off at my studio, then the bed parts at Vox. I also started working on the stairwell plaster repair job in the emergency stairwell of the 2-22, which is going to take me longer than expected. The previous repairs all need to be redone, I had to scrape out old plaster and pull out old tape. My hotel parking trick still seems to be working. Now I really need to have a shower – I honestly cannot remember when I last had one. Nine days ago, maybe ten?
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 20, 2022, 8:19 PM subject 12 – 1376 – 2001
Dear Justin,
Another day, another fistful of dollars. My bank account is ballooning! My baby bonus came in recently, and my EI payment, and that last painting sale from Tuck, plus I cashed $900 of the Refresh loan I’ve been paying the past 2 years because I thought I would be short of cash this month. Turns out the opposite is true. I’ll send a good chunk to the Wet’suwet’en and Tiny house warriors land defenders. I went to Vox today to catch up on some email and meet with Geneviève and Valérie about the fall exhibition timeline, and then worked in the emergency stairwell for awhile. I’m a little bit afraid I bit off more than I can chew with that project. I still haven’t gone into the studio this week and the creative writing project is due tonight at midnight and I AM STILL NOT FINISHED. Why is writing fiction so hard? Why do I procrastinate so well?
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 21, 2022, 1:28 PM subject 13 – 1602 – 2101
Dear Justin,
Just what we needed, another cold snap. Did manage to thaw the washing machine pipes so Jess can do laundry before it gets way too cold. They are predicting -30 by dawn tomorrow. I managed to get my short story mostly finished and submitted before the midnight last night, and Jess read it and considered it not half bad, for a first draft. I’ll expand on it and maybe the characters, spin them into different chapters. It’s quite the deadline, every three days for a month. I’m heading to the 2-22 to add a bit more plaster. I don’t want to leave, because it’s cold out and I’m a pussy, but I’ll never finish the job if I never go in.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 25, 2022, 11:13 PM subject 15 – 616 – 2501
Dear Justin,
We slept in this morning: I had mistakenly set my alarm for 8:30pm. It was fine, we lazed about in bed, drank coffee, talked, had sex. The usual, and I mean usual in a good way. Comfortable, we’re well-tuned to each other I think. We had some ramen for lunch and then I headed to the 2-22 to work on plaster. It’s coming along, almost finished the second coat on all five floors. I’m using the ready mix now but only realized as I was transferring the contents from the bag in a box to a cleaned out bucket that the bag in a box is 16 litres and the buckets are only 12. I had once watched someone more skilled than I cut the bottom of the bag and squeeze the plaster out, and it seemed easy. It’s not. And in trying to scrape and scoop the plaster out I was getting it all over my hands and that stuff is so much stickier than I realized, and I’ve been working with plaster for years. Just haven’t had that much of it on my hands at once to realize that it is very close to glue in consistency. Reminds me now of the fluids draining from my nose, hopefully a little bit of the sickness is leaving within each tissue.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 26, 2022, 11:00 PM subject 16 – 859 – 2601
Dear Justin,
Better add at least one more to COVID count tomorrow. I was going to spend the afternoon with Rose but last night my cold became worse, my throat sore and developing a dry and scratchy cough, up most of the night. It didn’t seem like a wise idea to go out even with just a cold, but I took a home COVID test just to be sure and lo and behold, I’m positive. So now stirring about wondering what to do with myself. Clean the house, I suppose? It can always use a good cleaning. Check real estate listings? Watch Netflix? Write my next submissions to the Anarchist Midnight Zine collective? Install the rear hatch supports I finally ordered a couple days ago that arrived today? No way am I doing car repairs outside today, it’s like -21 or something. Did I tell you that since the fall both rear hatch supports are broken, and I hold the hatch up with a broom handle, always in fear it will slip or snap and crush me under its surprisingly heavy weight? I think it would easily cripple me. And we don’t want that. So in the end I spent the better part of the day watching episodes of Firefly after taking some mushrooms – which led to me having the usual existential thoughts while trimming my beard and having a shower. Jess and I did a little Cosplay of Mal and Jess as Kaylee. I don’t have the right pants, boots, shirt and no suspenders to speak of, but Jess has a great pair of oversized coveralls and can make her hair up real cute. Ok we’re going to listen to the latest Spout Lore while unwinding Jess’s first weaving on her new tabletop loom.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 27, 2022, 10:35 PM subject 17 – 729 – 2701
Dear Justin,
Only Day Two of my self-isolation and already I’m going a bit stir-crazy. Tried to read but couldn’t focus. Tried to research images to paint but got disillusioned. Did manage to sweep and hand-wash the dining room and kitchen floor. Did go out to start the car to make sure the battery is still alive. Did respond to some emails but have yet to follow-through on demands for estimates on potential projects because procrastination? Maybe I am just lazy, except I’m not because I actually want to go to work. I am thawing water pipes so we can do laundry. Maybe there is nothing wrong in hanging around the house and getting over Covid. One doesn’t need to be busy and productive all the time.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Jan 31, 2022, 10:36 PM subject 20 – 179 – 3101
Dear Justin,
Had a smooth start to the week, kids up in time, no shouting or rushing, got them to school on time and returned the car, took a metro to meet James and Myles for a floating shelf system hang, it was a bit complicated but our measurements worked and the mid-century modern teak wood probably Danish design is really cool, but it did take a little longer than expected, James had to mill some extensions for the spring-loaded support poles as the ceilings are higher, so I had to push back a phone call with Darren, my NB potter friend whose old house is up for sale yet again – I might have told you about it, we talked to him last year about it, and I think my Ex and I talked with him back in 2017 or 18, before things went sideways with us – anyway I walked to Jess’s because the metro was down in the middle of the afternoon, weird, and we spoke to him together and he put me in touch with his former agent who called me back later and we’ll possibly probably drive to NB this weekend to go see it, but meantime I’m thinking maybe we should just buy land and build on it, kinda like Plan A, because I applied for a mortgage with my bank just to see if we can get accepted and though we haven’t heard back I know what the answer will be, and besides we have been watching all those “build your own tiny house” videos for 2 years now and I think I’m ready, anyway I had to walk home get the car get the kids and get home for my 4pm talk session with Yaël, then made Onigiri and fresh rolls for supper and had a zoom call with Ahahita about making her a backlit LED light-table shelf, and now I’m cleaning up for bedtime to talk with Jess about all these potential life-changing plans so goodnight and oh just shut down the pipelines already also I am so sick of hearing about that fucking convoy. Them you can ignore, just like you and the media conveniently keep forgetting about #shutdowncanada
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
DEAR PM 