More Better New Years Eve!!

Happy New Year's eve!!! I am going to a rave named after sex workers standing in the cold. Kinda strange that bit I know. My friend Carrie Gates is VJing at it so she scored me a ticket. I am not sure what to expect, I haven't been to a rave in a really long time. I don't know how late I will be able to stay out either, I kind of want to wind up chilling in my apartment for the later part of the night. I find that much safer if altered states of mind are involved, to end up back in a residential property with a small handful of friends. Or one other friend. Or my cousin who sleeps on the couch sometimes when she wants to stay past the late bus.

I won't be seeing my cousin though, she's doing something else. So it will be kinda weird, logically we usually just always hang out with each other. But I'm trying to branch out a bit friend-wise. Just because it's getting lonely when it's always my one best friend. I need some variety. I need MORE people to sleep on the couch, or in my bed. But probably the couch. It's a good couch for sleeping on.

My mom and Laurel and I have this ongoing joke about the perfect personals ad to hook a Native man would have pictures of the television with cable box, the opened well stocked refrigerator, and the couch. It's perfect really, all the essentials are there! The rest is just minor details.

For anyone really, that is pretty sexy when I think about it. I would answer a personals ad like that.

I wanted to take pictures of my clean apartment and post them online, but I haven't washed the dog stain off the floor yet and I feel like it would just disturb people. And I don't want to wash the floor right now because it's late and I don't want to keep the neighbor up. Plus Mum always said cleaning at night was a sign of madness. And I'm trying not to do so many mad things. Maybe just a few. Writing at night could be considered mad, but not if you knew writers.

Wait, let me back up again, does it seem creepy that I would post pics of my clean apartment online/ I didn't think so myself. I once took pictures of a moderately messy apartment of mine and emailed them to a friend who I was commiserating with on living messy lives. But I never sent her the worst mess, I was just too ashamed. Ha ha! But I'm just so PROUD of having a clean apartment, I want to show it off. But I don't like having that many people in my apartment at a time. It's like a virtual tour. But the facebook version.

Horders is an intense program. I'm glad I've kept A&E so I could watch that and Intervention.

Anyway, Mum said that since I cleaned up she could see that I wasn't a hoarder, I was just lazy.

Is that better/

Or as my cousin would say, More Better/

My question mark key no longer functions, so all of those forward slashes should be replaced by a question mark, because I'm the author and I say so.

The Kitten is Here and Xmas is OVAH!

I guess I should talk about the new kitty. She has been here for one week and two days. She is a tortoiseshell Manx kitten and about 6 or 7 months old. She's extremely friendly and purring almost ALL the time! She's super special, my friend Shavonne hooked me up with her, one of her friends was giving her up because of various reasons, and even Shavonne fell in love with her which is funny because she isn't a pet person.

Poor kitty had to be alone all during Christmas and last night when I got back she was attached to me all night. She kept stealing my pillow and purring right near my face.

She was growly, hissy, and spitty to little Mister for the first week, but now she has gotten used to him and goes right up to him and sniffs him. She hasn't figured out that he is a potential play partner yet. He's great at playing with cats. I suspect they will figure that out soon.

She has a little stub of a tail and doesn't know how to clean her bum properly yet.

Her name is Lynxa, and I am trying to figure out if I want to change it.
It's time to go to bed and I'm not done writing! :( I will try to write more tomorrow!

Creativity!!! Fun!

Tonight is party night. But my party companion passed out, and I am awake, as some partying can make one. So I have been editing for hours. And it's been really great!!! I have a whole fresh perspective on my project and have finally begun to come to terms with the fact that it's just a long video. 46 minutes without closing credits. I think it is interesting. At least to the family. I mean, I aspire for it to be interesting to everybody. It raises interesting questions about race and being mixed race either as a couple or a self.
And it makes me feel in awe of my ancestors. All the stories, and the journeys. And the love. And my Grandparents really are my model for a lifelong couple. It's rare, it seems.
I love partying so hard I end up making art.
I am uploading a rough cut of a small part of my video onto my facebook account. I'm kind of curious what people will say. I'm feeling a lot better about my video anyway. For a while it seemed all unwieldy and I didn't know what to do with it and felt lost in a maze of footage in a story with no clear directions. But now I am seeing some structure to it. The history is so interesting, especially when it is so personal. And I have the perfect ending, and the perfect beginning, and now I just need to put in some more of my beautiful footage and record some voice over and figure out how to make the effen titles import properly. Oh yeah, and build more of a soundscape. I wish I had better sound effects, somehow "Indian Attack" and "Indian War Whoops" don't fit in with my general concept.
46 minutes. Something makes me wonder if I have the ovaries to make people pay attention for that long. But I want to do a 20 minute comedy after this, and get someone to produce my Bunnyhug feature which is currently 120 minutes long. I'm still going to make the odd 5 minute video though.
I wonder who's going to show such a long video. It seems intense. I have no idea who my audience is. I'm going to try and raise some cash to rent a theatre for a screening of it. Just to show some Saskatoon folks, including my family. But it will also be going to my distributors. Where the hell they will send them off to, I have no idea.
I also have to choose and scan in some photos of me doing family things with my grandparents, because I was really close to them my whole life and that's part of the video. I have some cute ones. There, I picked them, now I just have to scan them. Ugh, I don't feel like doing THAT right now.
Well, that's my story about my WILD party night! I need to have some more of these. Or just stay excited about my project. My point is that I finally see an end in sight of al of this editing. I know where my project is going!! I might have it done so I can get money in the fall!! And then tackle my next huge ambition, a dirt cheap science fiction film!

Juniper, a fuzzy glimmer in ma eye!

This blog won't be all about Juniper, but since he will be the big new change in my life I should mention him, and he does deserve the title. I am having trouble getting to sleep, so here I am, wanting to blog because I read some good ones today.

Juniper is a dilute orange and white tabby kitten. No, not a MAN, I'm not moving a human male into my apartment. Just this sweet very cute kitten from the country, someone who's been around a little dog and hopefully will fall in love with my little dog and I'm hoping will make me being gone less stressful for my pup. My pup has been barking while I've been gone, more than he used to when we had Schrodinger. Sooo, well we'll just see what happens when he has a friend. Either way he used to get more exercise when he played with a cat all day, and I think he needs someone to play chase games with.

But also, I love cats. I'm not a cat person, more of a dog person, but I admire the different traits of a cat that you can't get with dogs. Like head nuzzling and purring and the insistent meow of a cat when you're not quick enough to sling out some grub. And they way they always look out the windows for hours, staring at the birdies and daydreaming of kitty carnage! Beneath the cute kitty fur beats the heart of a killer!

So I have to get ready for him to come home this weekend, if all goes as planned. Scrub out the litterbox so it doesn't have Schrods smell on it, clean the bowls and clean the apartment. Get a couple brand new toys for him, something on a string. I still have catnip from Schrodinger, but kittens aren't interested in catnip. Only grown up cats like catnip. At least, that has been my experience. I don't know why that is.

I'm a little bit daunted by the idea of breaking in a brand new baby! Kittens are tremendously difficult characters. Schrodinger was always trying to kill me when he was small. Either way I am not going into this assuming he will be all sweetness and light. I know I'm going to end up with scabby arms, it's just a given.

Anyway, that's the poop on the new kitten!

In OTHER news, I saw this terrible news story today, with an accompanying video! Zikerria Bellamy, a 17 year old African American Transwoman, was applying at a McDonalds in Orlando Florida this summer to be a shift manager. The manager taking her application made her fill in the male/female gender box and got upset when she marked down "male." This is the voicemail she got from one of the managers later, saying "We do not hire faggots." Have a listen:



UGH! How am I going to indulge my sick cravings for fries and "100% beef" with this injustice tainting my already dodgy meal choice?

It really makes me think about how many times I have seen a visible trans person working in customer service. Once! My mom and I met a transman at a PetLand/Cetra/Smart/Idontrecall who was well into transition but still just those whisps of the past were in his voice. It's similar to how rarely I see a butch dyke working in customer service. No, not quite, I must admit I have seen more than one butch dyke doing customer service work. But I do remember what it felt like to have someone be all up on my qualifications until they meet me and see the short short hair and the boy clothes. Butchphobia kinda straddles the line between transphobia and homophobia. On one hand, it is because you are obviously a lesbian, and on another, it's because you don't fit in with the gender binary.

Apparently Morgan Freeman was born to play Nelson Mandela. At least, that is what the television is telling me today. When you go crazy, as in a full blown psychosis of either the manic or depressed variety (I've never had depressive psychosis but it must suck!) the nurses always ask if you are getting messages off of the television. Yes. Yes I do, and have, and will. Right now it is telling me that hoarding can be solved by the aid of a clean up crew and 1 800 Got Junk.

Actually, my mother has been learning a whole arsenal of new lingo from A&E to apply to my life. Her favorite right now is Hoarders, as she believes I am one. I think I am messy, but not a hoarder. All the same she has started making jibes at me. A case in point: When helping tidy she asked me "Are you saving these menstrual pads or will you let me throw them away?" Before you get grossed out, they were not lovingly arranged on my bookcase, or even strewn across the floor, they were IN the garbage BY the toilet! They were clearly on their way out! And I'm not one of those artists that uses menstruation as part of their practice. My response was a plaintive "Muuum!"

HOWEVER, she does have a point. I know this has been an ongoing complaint in my blog, that I must clean, but I really do have to clean!! I let it build up until even the fire department takes issue. OKAY, not always, but in Vancouver the fire marshal came into my apartment while I was gone (the landlord gave us no warning) and said it was a hazard. And it was because it was two rooms and too much stuff. But it's more reasonable now. No boxes everywhere. But there is paper around my hallway, and things to trip over in the night, and if there's going to be a baby here something has to change!

I'm just hoping she doesn't take her cues from Intervention. I really don't want to be sent to Palm Springs to recover from marijuana use/abuse. Or DO I? Nah, I'm not fancy enough to get to Palm Springs, I'd be in Calder here in Saskatoon. I don't wanna go to treatment! I just want to be a responsible party-er.

My psych nurse got the lady who runs dual diagnosis groups to call me, but they are all during work hours except for one I could go to on the 31st. But LADY! That is NeW YEaRS! I'm for sure not going to quit drinking/toking then!