I beg pardon?

My mother and grandparents have arrived, which has left me feeling a bit bewildered by the sudden entrance of relatives into my proximity and the old habit patterns which remain. I really don't know how to relate to my relatives the way I can to my friends.
Or it was because I forgot some pills last night. My bad.
But I really think it was the Secret Talk I got after dinner with my family. My mother had been watching me like a hawk all day, and then she leaned in and said, "Your grandparents and I want to talk to you about something."
Oh shit, I thought, I'm crazy and I haven't noticed, and now she's going to send me to the bin again, and god knows what that would provoke-
"We think you pee too much."
"WHAT!?"
"You're only supposed to pee eight times a day. You should really go see a doctor about that. They have medication for it now."
Yes, so now my mother wants me to throw another medication into my cocktail for peeing. PEEING!
There's a comic by Natalie Dee which relates:
I Quit
See more of her daily comics at:
www.nataliedee.com

The bubbles have melted.

I bought a mint Aero bar for my birthday breakfast and I left it in my pocket. The bubbles have melted. It is a chocolate and mint paste.
I'm displeased.

Googly Eyes

I googled her. She googled me. They googled him. He's gone googly. Ah, Google, it's one of my all time favorite things, to google. Especially googling people. Recently I googled an ex girlfriend under Images and found a picture of her name on a tombstone, which I promptly emailed to her.
People have told me they googled me, which always makes me feel weird, kind of like the time I found a friend's webcam site and got trapped in the popups. I tried so hard to shut the windows, but no, they kept coming.
Anyway, whew, that took me back.
I'm glad I have medication.
Well, today is my birthday. The Dali Lama once said that every birthday is really a celebration of your coming death, so celebrate I must. I have some money in my pocket and cigarettes and a small crowd of good friends, going out dancing wearing a sexy outfit, looking for spankings from girls. It's going to be great fun. Every birthday I try to think if I've learned anything over the year. I mean, life lessons, not just what I learned at Emily Carr.
I shall have to ponder while I clean for the mice exterminators.

Nearly there . . .

I met with the prof of the class I was really concerned about passing. We actually had a really good meeting. She told me my attendance was appalling, and I knew that to be true. In fact, it's the worst attendance I've had ever. But she liked my paper, and was even going to keep it for future students to read. That was really great, because I had felt like my paper was so shitty while I wrote it. I guess I was hard on myself. Anyway, basically all it means is that I'm graduating! Yippee!

We also talked about grad school, and she asked why I wanted to go, and told me now the marks they want are 3.5 GPA's, and mine is hovering at a meager 2.974. But she said I could get into grad school if I made a larger body of work, and making my feature will really help. So, looks like that's the plan.

Back to Bunnyhug. It will be really nice to write my script again. I like living in a fantasy world part of the time, I guess that's why I'm an artist. And slowly my characters are starting to develop lives of their own. I'm also really happy about my script right now because a stronger structure is coming into form, whereas before I had really started writing blindly. Anyway, the deadline for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab is coming up in February, so I'm going to submit my script and see if they'll take me.

Wow, so soon I will walk across the stage and get a degree. It seemed like it would never happen.

A Salute to James Dean

In continuation with my recollections of adolescence, I thought it would be wise to mention James Dean.

See, I was a nerd, and queer, and crazy, and I didn't really have a life. Oh there was that naughty escapade with the bisexual witches in grade twelve, and the rave scene I was in, and making videos that went to queer film fests all over the world, but before all that life was pretty grim. Watching music videos, playing video games, reading bell hooks. pimply nerd girl stuff. And I needed some kind of outlet, and it came in the form of the movies.

The movies was where I could dream about who I wanted to be and who I wanted to be with, it was it's own magic world. I was all about finding queer subtext. I mean, I was sticking deep complicated meanings on these movies based on my identity and gender. My two icons were Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.

Ironically my favorite diner in Saskatoon where I whiled away much of my youth is absolutely PLASTERED with James Dean/Marilyn Monroe memorabilia and photos.

I think I wanted to fuck Marilyn, but I was also watching her, trying to figure out femininity. I wasn't around uber femmes in my life, all my cousins my age were boys. It also made me really want to try out smoking. Fuck, she smokes a lot.

But James Dean appealed to me. Later I would find out it was a gay/lesbian attraction. But what I liked so much was his vulnerable masculinity. I wanted to BE James Dean. He was my role model for masculinity.

I don't know where it went wrong.

Do you suppose it's the bunnyhug?

Hazing Parker Posey

I was recently thinking about the scene in Dazed and Confused where Parker Posey hazes all the freshman girls. There is something about the scene which makes it totally hot. Squirting condiments all over other younger teenage girls. I dunno, I always wanted to interact with the older hot teen girls when I was younger, but I had no idea how to do it. And there was this element of hazing. At my high school select girls were attacked with bingo dabbers all over their face. And it stayed for a really long time. I never got hazed. I didn't want to either. I was going through my angry bleak and cynical year and was just about to realize I was a homo. I wore long hair to hide the growingly obvious fact that I was a butch dyke heading into four years of high school in Saskatchewan.

What mean grim times my friend! It was about a mile from my house to the school, and I walked there rain or shine or snow. Sometimes it was minus 60 with the windchill. I was steadily working my way through the Vampire Chronicles and being very dark and troubled about it all.

Realizing I was a queer was the weirdest experience, next to going to the bin. It's moments like that when your life totally changes. I stopped being so bleak and dark, sort of. I started being less afraid of people. And more afraid, but for different reasons.

I have often wondered if there is a hazing procedure for the queer community. I think I know what it is.

Queer youth groups.

Now I have a soft spot for my youth group days. I did it for five years, in three different cities. And to be totally honest, I always went hoping to score. I had grand dreams for queer youth groups. I went imagining it would be lead by a Parker Posey look-alike who would demonstrate fisting to us, or something else worthwhile. Knitting, even. Instead it was circle check. Man, everybody telling us how their week was, or something. And terrible things would be happening to everyone. Like live coverage of the war stories of trying to find your way as a queer in the world. So sad. I think it made us all crazy.

And then we'd all go out after. Usually to that place with the really great fries.

The second part was where all the fun came in, because people would gossip and flirt. But somehow we had to endure the circle check. Even if someone was still talking after half an hour.

I still know a lot of ex-youth group people. So in a sense it did serve it's purpose as a social bonding experience.

Oh noooo, red pen!

I am editing my final draft of my paper and my red pen has disappeared! I think the mouse took it.

Blue Bunnyhug

I was on the bus today when a creepy eerie thing happened. I guess I have been reflecting lately on turning twenty-seven in less than a week and what I've learned since I was seventeen. How I got more accepting and compassionate for those around me, and also just thinking of all the shit I've been through to get to where I am today. All those years with the wrong diagnoses, all the bad marks on my transcript from when I would go crazy. Anyway, I was wondering if I really am so mature, or if I'm still seventeen.

Then I got on the bus with my friend and these teenage girls who were Paris Hilton wannabes were tittering and making me feel awkward. And sitting next to me was a girl their age, probably from the same school, who looked like the girl from Welcome to the Dollhouse. I hope they didn't make her feel weird. I remember being at the mercy of mean girly girls.

Paris Hilton scares me. And Britney Spears. I've seen whole hordes of Britney Spearses, hey, how do you say Britney Spears plural? Britney Speari? Anyway, hordes, like a biblical plague of locusts, descending on everyone, sprinkling perfume samples amidst the holy rollers that picket in front of the Virgin Megastore. You Will Burn in Hell! But on the way, be sure to purchase our new scent "Capitalist Beauty Queen."

Really though, I love femmes. There is only one thing I would like to change about dating femmes; buying clothes. There is something about it, I dunno, it's a bit like taking your medicine. You know it's a good idea, femmes have a flair for picking out things that make you look good, especially if they groove on butch vibe. However this could go wrong if you're shopping with a femme who secretly wants to make you over into a girly girl for a night. But ooooh, it takes so freaking long to pick something. I go out shopping, I'm like "Blue bunnyhug." And I hunt through all the stores on Granville street and usually it's at the Bay and I pay my money and I have my blue bunnyhug for the year. Or I buy jeans. That's pretty much it for clothes shopping, that's all I want to do. And I wear my blue bunnyhugs pretty much all day year round, so that's it for fashion.

It's because I am a bachelor. A blue bunnyhug wearing bachelor.

For those of you not in the know, bunnyhug is Saskatchewan for a hoodie.

Clean and Beautiful

I am going to a reception full of funders tonight. I'm taking my friend with me. I said we needed to dress up. She asked how.
"You know, clean and beautiful."
I have to write my paper and the mess in here had totally become thouroughly disgusting, especially with the mouse getting bold. I had to set some boundaries. And there were some flies getting interested, oh it was awful. So I hauled out all the garbage. A mouse had been living in my garbage. Now it's still a disaster zone, but cluttered more than anything. And I have a lot more energy. I think I was seriously depressed and I didn't even know it. I mean, I must have been to sleep so much and not clean as well. I forgot how good it feels to clean. So much more room! And now that mouse will go away.
My name used to be Mouse.
I've just always loved rodents.
But I hate maggots. And I thank heavens that I didn't see any on my cleaning spree.
Oooh, but there's still the fridge.
I'm just glad I'm not a public hazard site anymore. I like my rat, but I got him at a pet store.
Clive's gettin old, he doesn't use his back legs as well. I hope he doesn't pull a Pope and die a long drawn out death. He's so old. I'm going to have to make a decision sometime this summer I fear.
I got some more clean and beautiful preparations to make.

I have a secret. . . .

I have a dirty fantasy in my head set to "School's Out for Summer" by Alice Cooper. It's the sexiest idea I've had in ages. It's as dirty as my dishes, and believe me, that's as dirty as it gets.

Burning Down the House

Maybe I'm playing psychiatrist, but I've recently noted a bizarre fixation/fear with the idea of all my possessions going up in smoke, burning our lovely building. I've often wondered if this obsession is some OCD symptoms coming up that hasn't been previously diagnosed.

So you can imagine it was a shock for me to come home to four fire trucks pulling into the front of my building, along with a stray City TV news van, two ambulances, and one police car. I was so sure it had happened, my apartment was a flaming wreck, goodbye computer, goodbye clothes, goodbye mice, goodbye Clive. Roasted alive so sad. And then I see my friend from down the hall. Turns out it was some guy burning things on his stove, and firemen kept going in and out of the building because he wouldn't let them in.

Crisis averted.

But what a mean trick for the universe to play on anxiety-ridden me.

Dissed-ability

Having a psychiatric disability is a little confusing at times. I got accommodations at school for my sudden decent into craziness brought on by some stress, but it has made me feel all weird. I'm really glad I got it, I don't think I would be able to graduate if I hadn't. But I was so scared to ask for it, so humiliated by the fact that my illness has once again inturrupted my life.

But as I think about it, what am I so ashamed of? Is it being bipolar? Not being able to be grand master student? I think sometimes people with disabilities (and not necessarily psychiatric ones) are made to feel guilty about the things we need to get through the world.

I will not feel guilty for being crazy. Whew.

Graduation is coming up fast, May 7 I will be walking up onto a stage in front of thousands of eciad students and family/friends that I don't know. And mum will be there. And I'll get to grab my degree and hang out with mom and I want to drag her off to see The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman. Mmmm, Nicole Kidman, I wish she still had red hair. Her Moulin Rouge hair was the best.

I still can't quite believe that I'm finishing my bachelor's degree finally! Maybe I'll get to stop being a bachelor soon. Although I've grown tragically accustomed to the bachelor lifestyle.

Scary Models

Ever since watching America's Next Top Model's, models have scared me. Especially that one with the dark hair, eeee, she's like a villian out of a Jacqueline Susann novel. And when Tyra Banks flipped out the other night, I mean holy shit. So dramatic!

And then living your life as a model, ugh, I always think of the movie Gia. Poor queer model.

It's kind of sad that all my knowledge of the modeling industry is mediated, I don't have any first hand knowledge. And anyway, there's not a huge demand for fat butch models. Unless there's a niche market. I guess there probably is, but I doubt I could make any kind of a living at it.

America's Next Fat Butch: Thirteen chubby butches compete for the chance to star as a mechanic in a lesbian porn calendar.

It would be so lovely. I should enlist my other fat butch friends and make a porn calendar.

Ahhh, bipolar!

Some days I really hate being crazy. Today is a perfect case in point. I felt too hugely fucked up to go to school, even though I had a presentation due. Too much of a mess. My paper is still not done and I'm still tired. Last night I got so wired up, my hands were shaking, it was a terrible sight. I don't really have that much work to do on my paper. But my anxiety went through the roof. I've never been so freaked out.

That's a lie, I've been freaked out way worse than that. I love conspiracy theories, but when you think you're living in one, it totally sucks.

Anyway, this leads me to the debate around how to explain to my professor that my bipolar disorder is acting up and could she please give me an extension and another day to present? I mean, bipolar is such a weird illness to have. In the first place, it's all in your brain, and no one looks at your brain on a daily basis unless you are in some kind of medical testing facility. In the second place, it makes really simple daily things seem insurmountable at times. And it's really hard to communicate to people why those things get so difficult.

Plus living with it is like being super sensitive, emotions get cranked up, depressions are like being buried alive, mania's like riding shooting stars. And somewhere in between is this place called normal. How do we ever attain the goal of normality?

Reasons to be paranoid

This is just getting really sad.

Cramps

I have cramps. I don't know why they are here. It's not even the first day of my period anymore and I am crampy, and it makes me crabby.

It seems the aliens were interested in the Pope's funeral, they did a little fly by. One of my friends thinks it's a good thing, a little inter-galactic gesture of goodwill.

So I finally heard back about my grad application. I didn't get in. Which is good and bad. On one hand it gives me the chance to work on some more projects and not be in school trying to do them, including the big feature I am still plugging away on. On the other hand now my future financial situation is a little bleak, much like my puberty. However trying to live on the meager funds my reserve gives me for going to school has been totally taxing on me, I can't remember being so poor. So maybe being out of school will make things a little easier.

I still have to write a paper and then I'm pretty much done.

Now I just have to find a job. Sigh, I really hope someplace decent is hiring, like Chapters. I could work in a bookstore. That would be nice.

Just please, no more call centres!

Near Death Experiences

I have never had a near death experience, although I have had the wind knocked out of me. I'm doing some homework and listening to my favorite radio program, Coast to Coast AM. It's not on the air in Montreal, one of the reasons I didn't like living there. It's a super crazy program, sometimes they talk about earthquakes, sometimes ghosts, sometimes aliens, remote viewing, all kinds of things that I like.

Tonight the topic is near death experiences.

I hope there's something after we all die. It seems like such a shame for someone to gather so much life experience and then just die and have all that disappear with them. Plus I don't like the idea of never getting to see someone again.

I hope there is an after life for rats. If there is, I know Nikolas is there, waiting for me.

Nikolas was the best rat in the entire world. He was my best friend for the majority of my art school experience. I got him when he was just a little baby, a fussy triangle face and climbing all over me danging off my glasses. He liked to steal my food, once he got away with an entire pie. He would also dance on my feet until I picked him up and carried him around. He hated granny smith apples, once I gave him a whole bunch and he just flung them out of his bowl, all stubborn. He was also the victim of two unfortunate meetings with candle flames, totally singeing his whiskers.

One he tried to eat my thai food, but it was too spicy and he started licking the carpet trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

He also gave dirty looks to my lover any time we had sex in front of him.

I hope to see him again, I know he'll be dancing at my feet, asking if I brought him a pie. His death devastated me. He was pretty special, no other rat has charmed me so completely. I used to sing Hey Nicky you're so fine to him.

Feelin' Wibbly

Some of you may be curious to know about today's long awaited psych evaluation. I went to the neighborhood mental health team with my list of relatively minor complaints, but in the interests of staving off a manic episode and effectively destroying my chances at graduating this year, I thought it best to be as honest as possible. Yeah, I can't go to sleep until three or four am, and then I can't wake up until two pm. I'm bummed out, stressed out, and then once in a while I feel myself start to soar like a paper kite in the wind. Just feeling wibbly moods.

While I was there two people were carted away to the nuthouse by cops and paramedics. I didn't see it happen, I left before the shit went down, but the ambulances were patiently waiting outside, two more mental casualties of downtown eastside living. I was kind of glad not to see it, because I knew it would totally bring on flashbacks of my own pitiful cop escort to the bin.

I didn't get a psychiatrist, because they say their services are primarily for people who can't look after themselves. However I did get a new medication regime, now I'm on 1500mg Epival, 5mg Zyprexa, and 20mg Celexa. The Celexa is new, although I've been on it in the past. It's worked relatively well, except for making me as disinterested in my own genitals as I am in non-politically relevant art. But who knows, maybe that side effect won't happen.

I have to say I have a remarkably zen approach to my drug cocktail these days, I even had a good chuckle at the side effect profile of Celexa. "Coffee-ground" vomit, erections lasting more than four hours, lactation, black stools. I had a friend who started lactating on one of her meds, she called it her geysers of plenty. Once one of my girlfriends accused me of lactating in her mouth spontaneously. I still don't know if I really did.

I've been assaulted with breast milk!

The doc was impressed with my recall of the many and varied psych drugs I've been on in the past five years or so. I remembered which made me manic, which made me anxious, what stopped working.

Paxil is an evil mofo to get off of, by the way. Withdrawals from Paxil have been compared to the illness experienced by heroin addicts trying to get clean. It really does a number on your body. I remember shaking and quivering and getting auditory hallucinations that sounded like a big truck wooshing by going clunk clunk clunk. I would run to my friends house to get emergency paxil to tide me over until I could go to the doctor again. And by that time it had stopped working!

But I remember when it first worked for me, and I looked at the little flowering plants and admired their tiny lives.

I think there is a two tiered system for crazy folk. One for the people who lead reasonably sucessful lives, and another for people who can't take care of themselves. But what about folks stuck in the middle? I guess I am still trying to find my place in this crazy world.

School Screams!

Primal end of semester/end of bachelor's degree screams: "Aaaaah! Ahhhhrhrhhghgrr! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Eeeeeeeeeghhlhbla! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!"

In other words, I have a shitload of work to do. But I'm happy, because today I wrote a seven page summary of my research for my Professional Practices class, which I am supposed to present tomorrow morning bright and early. I even have a few good websites to show the class along with my presentation, which is nice. It's not powerpoint, but dammit it's something.

One thing that troubles me, however, is that I need to write 5000 words. That is a lot of words. I hate it when profs say "write such and such many words." Why not simply say "Write fifteen pages, double spaced, twelve point font." Who knows.

I've had three requests for my videos in the last two days. It's kind of nice. And so far I've been getting positive feedback for my zine, Fit of Pique, at least from the three friends I gave it out to. It's a nice thing to read when you're sitting on the toilet, pooping out your eyes. (read the last post if you don't get it)

Aside from that, I am feeling like my career is chugging along again, I think it went into remission when I flipped out.

I recently re-read an article about Clint Star and his untimely suicide. It made me feel sad. The art community sure does lose a lot of our colleagues to suicide. I wonder what we could be doing in our community to prevent things like this from happening.

Go check out this funny dubbed GI Joe. "You ain't no pimp, dude!"

Filling the blank computer snow

Why am I writing so much? Could it be hypergraphia, the need to write constantly? No, I'm just in the middle of doing research and creative writing gives me a bit of a rest. Actually, it's late, I should quit while I'm ahead. I got a lot of work done today, considering I got stoned and watched Robocop while dyeing my friend's hair. I hadn't seen that movie in years. That big robot that shoots up that guy scares me, I mean the giant robot, not Robocop. What a freakin intense boy film. We should have watched something funnier.

I'm tired, but wired, the worst kind of feeling to have this late at night. I think sitting at a computer screen does something to your body. Kinda poops out your eyes.

That's a really weird image, now that I think of it, someone pooping out eyes. Sounds like something Bataille would write.

Eye poops, is there no dignity?

You, you're Uninvited

My short film Anhedonia is screening at this year's Uninvited Film Festival in Paris. Ah, Paris. I would kind of like to go. I haven't been to Paris in ages, and I wonder if I would like it more going there without a broken heart. It's such a great city to walk around in, not to mention the sheer plethora of art that is exhibited there. Last time I went the Pompidou was in mass renovations, so I didn't get to see it. I did, however, get to see the Louvre. I remember seeing this great sculpture of an intersexed person, I think it was Roman. I was looking at it and this guy pointed at it and started gesturing wildly and hissing bad french words I was glad to not understand.

I also saw a painting by David of the Sabine Women. The story is "We are in the early days of Roman history. The Romans have abducted the daughters of their neighbors, the Sabines. To avenge this abduction, the Sabines attacked Rome, although not immediately--since Hersilia, the daughter of Tatius, the leader of the Sabines, had been married to Romulus, the Roman leader, and then had two children by him in the interim. Here we see Hersilia between her father and husband as she adjures the warriors on both sides not to take wives away from their husbands or mothers away from their children. The other Sabine Women join in her exhortations."

I remember the painting was huge, bigger than it seemed in art history class. I looked into the haunted eyes of the children stuck in the middle of the battle and it reminded me of how I felt as a biracial person. I nearly cried. It never made me feel so emotional when I saw the slides of it.

I wonder if I could get a travel grant to go.

My 12 Inch Stapler

Yo dude, check out my twelve inch stapler! It's long, hard, and heavy, and it has purple staples.

Okay, so maybe it's not that exciting, but it sure was pricey, as far as staplers go. I'm awake late and tomorrow I get to see one of my best friends/ex lover after years of being on the other side of the continent from her. She's here for a few weeks, just as all this school stuff is finishing. But of course I'm gonna make time to see her, I don't know when I'll get the chance again. She didn't bring her man with her, which sort of disappointed me because I wanted to scope him out and make sure he was the right dude for this lady.

Some lesbians get really upset when their ex lovers go on to have partners that are male. Like they've been betrayed, like it's the equivalent of their ex saying pussy's really stanky compared to dick. Or that they've sold out for hetero privillege. Or easy access to sperm. Some lesbians operate on a strict no-bisexual policy, and then wouldn't you know it, their ex lover falls in love with a man anyway.

Personally, I like dating bisexuals. I like playing with my gender in the bedroom, being a dual gendered person. Two of my ex's have gone on to settle down with male partners, and the other two ex's settled down with female partners, and they're all happy with their choices. I didn't get picked, but whatever. I'm more or less content with my ex's remaining ex's. That sounds like a support group!

Ex's Remaining Ex's, 6pm, Community Centre, bring your baggage, snacks of bitterness provided.

Really though, I think my longstanding (since grade eleven! Woot!) preference for bisexual women stems from this desire to be recognized as both male and female, and to be desired for it. Besides that, bisexuals are freaking hot, boys and girls. Period.

Now I'm going to go play with my 12 long inches.

Getting away with art

I have two major projects due in the next couple of weeks, and I'm quite swamped with it all. Luckily I found out tonight that I can make an art project for my science class, instead of a regular paper. I am studying hallucinations, the lovely/scary friend to mental illness, along with many other illnesses as it turns out. In particular I'll be looking at visual hallucinations, and since I've already learned a bunch of stuff on making a zine, I'll be making a book, with some clear pages that have images that will overlay on top of other images.

My experience with visual hallucinations is really limited, when I went crazy I had auditory and sensory hallucinations. Nobody ever told me you could feel things moving on your body when you go crazy. It's true, you can! They are quite startling, one happened while I was manically talking to my best friend and I told her about it. It felt like a cloth was moving under me, wriggling and bumping me trying to get me to stop sitting on it. Thank god those days are in the past. However, when I've had migraines I get really AWFUL visual disturbances. My vision goes all yellow, blurred, and opaque, except for a tiny spot in the centre of my field of vision. It makes walking in the world really scary, and then I need to rush home and hide in a dark room for a few hours until it goes away. Luckily it's been a long time since I've had a migraine, I used to get them all the time when I was a kid.

The first time I got a migraine I was walking with my school group through the University campus, and as I was looking at the snow I realized I couldn't see. It scared the hell out of me and I didn't know what to do. I was scared I would never see again.

Another time I went deaf, but it turned out I just had too much ear wax.

(eeeew, the crowd says)

Anyway, the world of hallucinations is fascinating to me, especially as a video/film artist. And I think it will make an interesting one off book project, although time is running out and I will have to devote many hours this coming weekend to getting the whole thing due in time for Monday's class. But after making my zine, I think I know how I can do it.

Mostly, I am just relieved I don't have to write another paper. One is quite enough for this semester. I still can't believe I managed to write three papers at the end of last semester. Wow. That is insane.

School makes ya crazy!

I'm glad I'm almost done. Soon I'll be at the grad ceremony, with my mommy, finally getting my degree. And after that I have to find a job.

I still haven't heard back from grad school. I have some tentative plans in the event I will have to find something else to do, it would just be nice to hear a yay or nay and move forward on something. I hate ambiguity, except in gender, in which case it is sexy.

Launch of the Fit of Pique Zine: Coming soon!

The first issue of the paper Fit of Pique zine has finally arrived! There's things about it I would change, given the chance and the time, but overall I am pretty happy with it. Finally after about four years the Bottom's Manifesto has been set into print, and even though it's been published in another zine, the short true story I Could Kill Myself With My Panties has a really nice section, complete with illustrations. I even dug up an old short lesbian vampire story.

So if you are looking to trade or buy the zine, it's 3 bucks plus the cost of mailing it (I don't have an estimate for that yet). Email me and I'll give you the address to send cheques to, or wait around a while longer while I find a distributor. fanggrrl @ excite . com (without spaces, I'm just trying to fool the roving spambots)

That was pretty much my day, copying and folding and looking for an appropriate stapler.

The class in which this zine was created will be having a launch/opening of all the students work. I will keep you updated on the wheres and whens. It's a great chance to broaden or begin your zine collection.

Close friends: You'll be getting your copies soon!

Portrait of a Maniac

Today I did some volunteer work at the school's art auction. My piece went for 45 dollars. It was a steal of a deal. I actually really liked that piece, I wouldn't have minded taking it home. It's was a lomo photo of a bunch of goofy trinkets and knick knacks for sale in a store window. The colors came out really lovely. Plus it's such a classic manic image, oooh, things to buy that are worthless really!

Anyway, in between doing tasks I surfed online, looking up comparative execution styles (the question: is lethal injection really as humane as we think?), and poverty and mental illness (the question: which came first? The mental illness or poverty?) The answer, according to various studies, is that poverty is a factor in many mental illnesses.

Ever since going crazy I've been on a journey to understand why. Why did I go so ravingly psychotic? Me, a generally calm, laid back individual. There's genetic factors, to be sure. I am far from the first person in my family to go insane. But then as I was leaving school and waiting for the bus, I considered my economic situation when I was running up that hill to fly into cold blue air. I thought in the interests of illuminating the process of going manic, I would explain my lifestyle in the months leading up to my episode.

I was poor, and new to a city where I didn't speak the language. My apartment had bullet holes in the walls and cracks, I was sleeping on a child's mattress on the floor in a sleeping bag. Our couch was from the street, the television didn't have an antenna and you had to tie it to your toe to keep the picture clear. I smoked pot everyday because then I didn't have to care about the terrible surroundings I was in. We ate kraft dinner and anything else that was cheap and could be cooked in one pot. We had plain muslin curtains and a swiffer. All my belongings fit into two suitcases. I read academic theory a lot, hoping to find some kind of an answer to a question I didn't fully understand at the time.

The question was about poverty.

I wasn't eating right, I couldn't, I didn't have proper kitchen utensils to cook for myself like I had in Vancouver, and besides that, good food cost money. I was self medicating, I was depressed and for good reason, anyone who had been in that apartment would feel lousy. I felt like urban lichen, hanging on desperately to a life in a big city. But lichen doesn't really live, it just exists, always hanging on, tenuous, ready to be ripped from it's moorings at any moment.

Add in an antidepressant at a really high dose, and I was due for trouble.

I think the hardest part of putting my shattered memory of those times back together is seeing all the triggers that were happening for me, and blaming myself for not avoiding them. Too much drinking, too much pot, too much Effexor, not enough soul friends (as in, people you can truly bear your soul to, something I have a hard time doing with people, with some very notable exceptions). I was a car crash waiting to happen, dancing on a razorblade.

My film is now taking a more interesting direction, looking at the crushing poverty of the working poor Urban Indian and her spiral into madness. I think it give my story a much more political bend to it than the themes I've been working with thus far.

They didn't need to do a study to find out poverty causes mental illness, I could have told them that.