Oppression is Rude

I'm not out at work, for the two MAJOR aspects of my identity that make people weird, namely being a homosexshual and being a crazy lady. This means I've heard some unpleasant things about "dykes" and manic depressives in the last couple of days. Yes, we are the outcasts. We are the people who make others uncomfortable and scared, either that we'll "dyke out" on them (ugh, straight girls totally turn me off), or that we'll flip out and run around with hunting rifles.

Honestly, homophobia and crazy-phobia pisses me off. For one thing, I'm the most pacifist person you could ever find, the one time I got assaulted I didn't even raise a fist to my attacker. I took my glasses off, mostly because they were getting damaged and in my hazy getting beat up mindset I figured I should save them. So as far as being a violent maniac, it's never happened.

My main concern is that oppression is rude. What gives anyone the right to harrass someone based solely on their identity? And I especially hate it when oppressed groups slam other oppressed groups, and do you know why? Because A) it adds to global oppression, and B) the privilleged ruling class wants us to be fragmented groups. I mean, can you imagine if all the oppressed minorities rose up together in unison? We wouldn't be MINORITIES anymore, we would be an overwhelming majority, with huge power.

I'm glad my new job starts soon, hopefully it will be a little easier to be a complex little Thirza there.

False Christians ruin it for the rest of us

"For now you have hijacked the Son,
Last time I checked He came to light the lamp for everyone" - Tori Amos

It took me a really long time to get around to even considering that Jesus had something to offer me. Not because I disliked His teachings, in fact, he was quite sensible and had the same values I share. No, I didn't consider Jesus because of his followers. Followers like Fred Phelps of God Hates Fags fame, the one who demonstrated at Matthew Shepards funeral. Followers like the rigid Christians I knew in school, eager to bandy about words like Sin and Hellfire and the one true Saviour. They irritated me. For that reason alone I stayed away from Christianity. I didn't want to become narrowminded, didn't want to be like them. Didn't want to invoke the same deity as some homophobic redneck from the Bible Belt.

I much preferred Buddha's teachings, finding truth within yourself by your own spiritual regimine. Having compassion. I still like Buddha. The first time I meditated, I mean, really was able to still my mind, I felt my consciousness expand to include every living creature as myself, from an ant crawling along the edge of a leaf to a killer whale leaping out of the waters of the Georgia Straight. "Can it really be that simple?" I wondered.

Later on, when I went crazy, I started reading the Bible. Not the Old Testament, the grumpy God who was always changing his mind and smiting people. I read the New Testament. The life and times of Jesus. Jesus never made faggot jokes, or encouraged bloodthirst. People didn't even call him the messiah while he was alive, they always called him Teacher. I liked that.

I hesitate to call myself a Christian, for reasons I will elaborate further. However, having had a psychotic episode, having been in an altered spiritual state, I will say that yes, I do believe Jesus was an actual historical figure. I do believe in a God (although I do not consider it gendered).

I DON'T believe that the only way to Heaven, the Afterlife, what have you, is by being Christian. You may be baptized and go to church regularily, but you can still lead a fairly impoverished spiritual life. Consider the example of a very famous "Christian" who leads a very corrupted spiritual life. George W. Bush has turned nearly everything he has touched into crap. He's a dictator who electronically stole the last election and stole the previous one by denying many blacks the right to vote. He gets very angry at any collegues who give him bad news, turning his office into a group of simpering yes-men and women. He has illegally started a new Viet Nam, trashed reproductive rights, and maintained queers as sub-citizens with limited rights, he ignored New Orleans. And yet he is OBSESSED with portraying himself as a good Christian.

That makes me sick. While I still tenuously toy with the label Christian, my loving grandparents are avowed Anglicans, and have been for decades. Gramma does Bible Study, Grampa translates the Bible and is an ordained minister. They love and support me, their lesbian granddaughter, and even do queer rights activism within their church. They are perfect Christians. And yet what they practice seems so far removed from what Bush practices.

In some ways, I think I should call myself a Christian. I think it's time to take Christianity back from those who use it as a tool of oppression. Learning unconditional love, even for figures like Bush, is difficult, but an important spiritual exercise.

Even Jesus knew what his followers could do.

"When the Judgement Day comes, many will say to me 'Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God's message, by your name we drove out many demons and performed many miracles! Then I will say to them, 'I never knew you. Get away from me you wicked people!'" - Jesus

Obsessive Woof woof!

Yes, we all laughed when Anna Nicole was giving her little dog Prozac. Dogs with mental health issues, who would believe it?

Well, now the madness in my family has even spread to my mother's dog. At first my mom was concerned by him barking madly in the middle of the night at nothing. Strange indeed. Anxiety maybe? Well, then he started licking all the fur off his leg. Hmm. And everytime I called my mom, I could hear the dog panting in the background. Excessive panting, barking, licking, a little light went on while Mum started dosing him with Rescue Remedy. I looked it up, and it turns out the little fuzzball has many characteristics of a dog with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

He's got a great personality, he's just very weird. I mean, you can't fault him for that. I've been doing some more research on it. Selectively bred dogs have a higher incidence of OCD, about 2 percent. Most dogs with OCD are male, while most cats with OCD are female. Large breeds excessively lick themselves, while terriers run in circles. If allowed to go unchecked, the dog may stop drinking or eating, so figuring out a way to treat it is pretty important.

Some of the drugs used to treat OCD pups are the trileptic antidepressants, and they are looking into the SSRI's too. Right now I think Mum's going to treat him with natural supplements, but who knows? Too bad no one else in the family has OCD, or we might know more about what he's going through in his poor little doggy head. Apparently they're aware that they're being odd, so they sometimes try to do their repetitive behaviours in private. Other animals usually stay away from them, yes, mental health stigma exists in animals too. I thought the kitties stayed away from him because he rolls them across the floor with his snout.

Anyway, anyone with good tips on OCD in dogs, let me know. And I don't want tips about Home Loans, or any other spam related "comments" crap. In case you're wondering why I've been deleting comments, it's because they are worthless spam comments with links to capitalist sites. Go shove it up your ass spam commenters, before I sic my mom's crazy dog on you!

Internet Conciousness

They say in five years the Internet may become a concious entity, capable of interacting with people and thinking for itself.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Will the Internet get obsessed with conspiracy theories, porn, and gory photos? Will it be benevolent? What about it's opinions on world politics? What if it staged a coup?

Ah well, still five years before we have to worry about it becoming an electronic entity. I wonder what kind of personality it will have? Will it put out podcasts? What if it decides it's Jesus? Dear lord, what if it is Jesus?

In other strange news, military trained killer dolphins escaped into the Gulf during Hurricane Katrina. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Psychiatric Service Dogs

I know I'm DissAbled, but I didn't know I too am eligible to have a service dog. I spent the last couple of hours looking up any information I could find about them. They are trained to do a bunch of tasks, including getting your meds and warning you of an oncoming manic episode. My interest was piqued, and I began to wonder if a mini dachshund could be trained to do all those things. But no, I think he'll just be a pet. Still, maybe in the future I will get a service dog, when I have more room. I do like Goldens.

And I could train him to dance too!

EDIT * * * Okay, I saw a Chihuahua doing service work. If a Chihuahua can do it, surely a dachshund can. ***** END.

My Weiner Dog

He is due to be born on the 22nd. After Christmas my mom and I are driving out to the breeder's and picking him up. He will either be a red or a black and tan smooth mini dachshund. I'm a little worried my mom's boisterous Golden will grab my pup and run victory laps round and round her backyard. Then we fly back to Vancouver (he's coming in the cabin) and TA DA! Weiner dog! If anyone wants to do some puppysitting, let me know. I will try and post pictures of him when I get some.

spindly soup

I hate it when people pay artists way late, excruciatingly late. I'm facing an eviction notice this thursday if I don't scramble up some rent money. I'm for sure getting one small pay cheque, possibly getting another, and hopefully that will be enough to pay off my outrageously late rent. My cupboards are bare, even the mice aren't bothering with hanging out in my apartment. I didn't eat anything today but two cups of coffee (all I really have left), an apple fritter that my co-worker didn't want, and a spindly flavourless black bean soup made with the few things left in the fridge. It lacked jalapenos and tomatoes, looked like something an old lady with tummy troubles would make.

This too will pass.

I rolled four butt smokes, and I haven't smoked for half the day. I should just not smoke again. Actually, I should try those herbal cigarettes. Not pot. Herbal. Smart alex.

I thought I was going to pass out at work. It felt like my stomach was eating itself, and everyone I called was in the middle of supper. Of course.

I would like a steak, or some crab. Maybe some king crab legs. I would like cheese. Fried Salmon. Toast with honey. A nice shiraz.

In a couple of weeks this will all be different. Heck, tomorrow my family is helping me out.

Friday I plan to go for sushi with my friend Lynn. I hope. If the rent doesn't completely wipe out my cash.

Don't support the Red Cross

Unless you don't mind having most of your donation go towards ambigious "war funds."

In the hands of God

It's been a couple of years since I went crazy. I think I always believed in God, as I understood It to be. Not the God of bible thumping hellfire and damnation, but a loving God, a Just God. After going crazy, I am convinced there is such a being.

That's the part of going crazy that no one understood, or even acknowledged. For myself, going crazy wasn't some major self destructive thing (although yes, it did damage relationships and so forth), but rather it was like a very intense Spiritual boot camp. Going crazy lets you touch God, and that scares people. Suddenly the mysteries in the universe click into place and everything makes sense. I finally understood that I was God.

See, and that is exactly where people get pissed off at me, because it's an audacious thing to say and then they assume that it means you think you are the One and Only God. Which isn't true at all. What I really mean when I say I am God is that we all are. That's the whole point of us being on this earth. We all split off into seperate souls so that we could learn, grow, and eventually go back to being God. We are all the same person.

It's a startling revelation, and one that is bound to look "crazy."

Going crazy was the most spiritually enlightening event of my life. It gave me wisdom in a way I never would have gotten from sitting in church every Sunday. And it was also undervalued and unappreciated. No one expects you to walk out of the fires of psychosis with deep understanding of spiritual tenets, when the reality is that many of us do. We just don't talk about what we've seen because people get nervous.

Once we were seers, we were valued for our visions. Now, we are just subhumans, scary and dangerous and objects of scorn. And yet, the so called Mentally Ill have for eons been bringing religious and spiritual insights to the world. What do we do now when anything we say is subject to "time to up your meds" or "you're happy, I think you're manic" or "have you told your doctor about this?"

I believe Crazy people have a lot to offer society, more than some understand. It would be wise for more spiritual councelling to go on in psych wards, where someone can talk about what they went through. It's not always the prettiest experience, sometimes it's downright terrifying, but there is some truth within the maelstrom of insanity, and those truths should be honoured.

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!"

A scary, yet funny story about a katrina survivor, the man, and some goons. Note the Mr. T t-shirt.

Underprivilleged

I'm sure by now you have heard Barbara Bush's incredibly disgusting comment by now. Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge said "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.
We couldn't do it, but God did."

I know people are really turned off by the idea of thinking of race and class being an issue in the atrociously delayed response to the disaster. No one wants to think that racism and classism are alive and well. Or if it is, don't talk about it. But IT SO OBVIOUSLY IS!

And even though we're up here in Canada, probably being smug about not having the same problems, imagine if a large disaster affected a Canadian community that was largely Aboriginal. Would people be glad to see a large portion of us wiped off the map, conveniently dislocated in time for the development of a new resort? Or would Canadians actually rise to the occasion and give help to fellow humans in need?

Would people downplay our suffering by saying we were underprivelleged anyway?

By the way, stop trying to colonize my blog with bullshit spam comments. I know you don't give a damn about what I write, you probably don't even read it, and if you want to advertise here you have to pay me. I'm not cheap either. I may be underprivelleged, but I do have class.

 

Handball

Disclaimer: This is not an entry about fisting.

I'm sure by now most of you are aware I was a massive nerd during my formative years. Now I'm an artist, which is quasi cool, but I'm still pretty much a big nerd. Anyway, as a nerd, I never did very well in P.E. That's PhysEd. I suppose I got used to the constant horrors of competive education. I was weaker, therefore I was the loser.

In high school we had all become friends with each other. The nerds, the outcasts, anyone who didn't fit in. We were pals and had grand adventures and dramas. And we all sucked at P.E.

Anyway, one strange day we were all on a team against some of the most popular girls in the school when we learned of a wonderous new sport.

Handball.

We were light on our feet and nimble, making passes effortlessly and getting goal after goal after goal.

We kicked serious handball ass.

Why handball, I don't know. But I was disappointed when we didn't get to play handball the next class. It felt good to finally win. We were all really quiet about the whole thing, and at one point I even wondered if we had kicked ass. Then my friend Heather said "Remember that day we played handball and kicked ass!"

Yes Heather, I still remember it.

In Search Of

Do you remember that show? It was one of those paranormal shows. As in "In Search Of Ufo's," "In Search Of Bigfoot," and so on.

Well, my quest is not nearly so supernatural. I am In Search Of A Weiner Dog. I got a part time job today, and it boosted my spirits (and my income, having been unemployed all summer). So I am in a better spot for the next month or so from other sources (none of which are paranormal either) and I want to get my dog. I'm working part time, I'd have time to be around him. I want a boy dog, because bitches are hell to live with.

Soo, want a pup. But they are rather pricey, to say the least. There's some cheaper dogs being sold in the States, but I haven't run any numbers through a currency counter so it might still be really expensive. PLUS then I would have to get them shipped, which would probably make them just as expensive as the ones around here. However, there are more moderately priced dogs in Saskatchewan.

Next task: Convince Mother to drive to Lloydminster and pick up my weiner dog.

Actually, the next task is really for me to make some sense out of a huge amount of financial issues, including two big bill payments. But I really do miss having a little friend. I've had pets almost my whole life, and it's weird not to have one. And I'm ready to have a new little friend, time's passed since Clive moved on. And I'm lonely. And it would be a good reason for me to maintain a schedule. Plus I am such a dog person.

Anyway, I'm off to virtually window shop mini dachshund pups.

I have been absent

For a few reasons. One, and quite possibly the most likely reason, is that I ran out of anti-depressants and I've slid into a little depressed hole. Crap. I've been borrowing anti-depressants from my neighbor down the hall, but she's not there tonight, or last night. And I am all alone. Howl!

Anyway, I have actually been doing a lot of reading on the whole New Orleans disaster. It's really criminal. And now the mayor is worried that all the floating chemicals and oils and gas and so forth on the water could ignite. That would make this disaster even worse.

Some people are even calling it genocide, which you know, it really does look like that. It's really creepy how they're blocking all kinds of aid from getting in. Who knows. I am sure everyone has some motive going on behind the whole thing, there's so much politics involved. But why make out your government to be weak in times of crisis? Especially a country that is so into war and being top dog of all the world? Doesn't this make them look highly ineffectual and therefore a prime target?

See, that's what confuses me, I can get the racism/classism stuff, but making the country seem unable to respond to crisis during a war on terror? I don't quite get what they (they, the thems, the suited folk that make decisions) are aiming to get out of the situation.

As for life, eh, I might have work tomorrow, which would be nice. Part time call centre job. Yep. I also applied for the Customer service rep position at the Bay, which appeals to my colonized body in some way. I think I would make a great halfbreed CSR, Aboriginals working for the Bay in the New Millenium! Training starts in October.

I guess, aside from falling into a puddle of despair (it is not a deep black bleak pit of despair), I am doing alright. Waiting for cash to pour in, reading affirmations on abundance.

I am a tender flower, worth all the gold bullion in the world, someone will give me a job.

The eye of the storm

I was listening to radio reports the night the hurricane headed for New Orleans. New Orleans, I had always wanted to visit it. Such a romantic, haunted city. Of course it appeals to me.

I've been watching and reading all of the news coming out of there right now. The media are really downplaying the sheer horror of the entire catastrophe.

I could tell you some of the stories coming out of there, but it would also be filtered information, so instead I will try and find some blogs that will give you some idea of what's really going on.

Interdictor is guarding a web hosting server in New Orleans armed with provisions, a gun, and a live feed from their building. This blog really gives a view into life in the city as it is right now.

Katrina Refugee is from the viewpoint of someone who made it out of New Orleans.

Gulfsails posts hourly via cell and noticed a shark swimming in the murky streets.

I don't know if Sciguy is there, but he's a great source of information on the aftermath of Katrina.

Something creepy tells me this is only the beginning of worse times. I'm sure you all know I live on a massive fault line that is just aching to release. I feel woefully unprepared for a natural disaster, even though I'm more or less healthy and have a copy of the Survival Guide. If worse came to worse, I would pack all I could on my back, hop on my rickety bike, and cycle to a scene or city of less devastation, occasionally turning on my cell to post here via audio blogs. That being said, I feel like something is coming soon, and I don't really want to be here when it hits.