Reflections on 2010, like a Christmas letter, but a blog, and betterer!

Dear loyal Fit of Pique reader!

I have been happy to feel your ever so silent support as I have dealt with the last year. It all opened with a bang in January when my cousin went off his meds and had a massive medical emergency involving police and blood and blindness and most of the year spent in the provincial hospital up in North Battleford. Where we visited him all that time, taking him for McDonalds and bringing him smokes and clothes. Do not underestimate the need for cigarettes while in an institution like that. It's a small joy. But they all add up. I know they are unhealthy, as I have been quitting on and off for seven years! Anyway, moving on from that incident, things for my mental health front have been pretty darned good this year, a few momentary slips with sleepless nights and so on, but overall pretty good. I lowered one anti-depressant and went onto another and DIDN'T get depressed!

I did struggle with my own dual diagnosis this past year, like last year. I was either not smoking up at all for weeks or else smoking everyday when I wasn't working. I really wanted to come to some kind of resolution on the matter, either a medical report detailing how medical marijuana is useful for bipolar disorder, or to say FUCK IT and give up completely and start painting happy little trees in my spare time instead. Or even better, ACTUALLY work on my career as a famous video artist. So what happened in the end was this report came out that said marijuana wasn't as bad for people with bipolar as it was for people with schizophrenia. Which I have noticed when smoking up with schizophrenic friends. They don't respond well to it. Even my cousin who had the emergency this year says he doesn't like it. I think it makes the paranoia worse. So anyway, as you can smell, I didn't quit for good, but I have opened up to the idea of taking detox vacations from it from time to time. I noticed every time I quit smoking up my dreams would come FLOODING back and blow me away with symbolic imagery that heightened my experience of my life. And so, as you can see, I find that important. Which is why the solution of detox vacations has come up. It's a start anyway.

I was on EI for half the year and went to Berlin and met amazing people and got stuck in Heathrow for 24 hours and I went to Vancouver and premiered my newest video and saw old timey friends!

I was on welfare for one miserable month but was saved by a CanSask program for Self Employment where I am currently being taught how to write a business plan and run a business. I am starting a video and film editing company and I am also going to try writing a Canada Council grant AGAIN. I didn't get my Research/Creation grant this year for Mars: The Maiden Voyage, so I have to put together more support material and writey stuff.

My love life had a recurring character this past year but it mellowed back down into a more friendly friend thing and so really there is nothing to report on that front. Oh, but I had at least three major crusholas this year, one old longstanding crushola that I still feel gooney with, a far away crushola, and a friend crushola. Tapwe!

My Grandfather turned 93 this year several days ago and while we were eating cake downstairs at his residence these ladies were talking Cree to him. And he told me, "When they're speaking and you can't understand them, just say 'Ah, tapwe!'" Which means "Ah, it is true!" Naturally you can imagine the kinds of things old Cree women say (I dunno, can you? It's pretty crude sometimes!) and so me saying "Ah, tapwe!" when they are discussing intimate details of their husbands might not be the best idea. Trust Grandpa to get me into trouble!

Overall 2010 was a good year, I think. For myself, not for my cousin, who is now in a care home here and learning how to live without sight. I never intentionally went off my medication and when I slipped it was never for very long.

I got an alarm clock/music system for my iPod from Mum for Christmas, so I spent an hour scouring through my mp3s making a playlist called "Sex Attack!" so that I can put on appropriate sexy music should I need to set the mood. I have to say, bad music during sex is just awful. It's like being tortured. Although now that I have mentioned that I bet there are people who get off on being heavily involved in sex and unable to change the music. That's just not one of my fetishes.

OH I KNOW what happened to me this year!!!! I moved in with my mother! And it was going to be temporary, but now, what with this economic climate and rental prices being so high, I am going to stay until I have enough for a down payment on a house. Sooo, judge away! Actually only in North America is there shame about multigenerational living arrangements. Yes, I live in my mother's basement. BUT I don't play World of Warcraft and I pay rent!

So I don't quite know what is happening in 2011 for me. In a perfect world I will be going back to Berlin, and running my business, and getting my Canada Council grant, and making a video, and being allowed to fall in love with someone. I say "being allowed" but really I mean falling in love and the other person falling in love back. Mutual love!

Tomorrow morning at 7am EST I will be on Bravo! My half hour Storytellers In Motion episode is airing and I am recording it on the DVR and finding out what I said in the first half! I've only ever seen the last fifteen minutes!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I will be spending the evening having quiet drinks and conversation with some laid back people, and then off to bed! Nothing crazy, just good times and hopefully the cab won't take ten million hours!