Writing hiatus for the last week and why

I haven't written everyday like I was going to this past week because I wasn't sure what to write or how to respond to what has happened.

On Monday my friend Matthew committed suicide. I found out on Tuesday. It's been a pretty rough week. I went to the viewing on Thursday and saw him for the last time. His funeral was yesterday, and his wake was last night.

I don't know how to convey who Matthew was in writing. He was a very loving sweet creative human being who was suffering from the same thing I have, namely bipolar disorder. I won't tell you what he told me the last time we saw each other, because a lot of it is personal to his experience of the disease. But I will say he and I exchanged stories of bipolar disorder as it has affected us in our lives. He was being treated with a medication I had been on, but really all it had done for me was make me sleep.

When I found out I had a cry, and I have squeezed out a few tears since but mostly I have felt numb and shocked.

Maybe what shocks me the most is that I do know why he would take his own life. Bipolar disorder is no cakewalk. I feel like I've been luckier than most in that I have a really good psychiatrist who has kept me episode free for 4 years or so. Oh sure, a couple of stress related depressions have happened to me, but those were mild compared to the potentially lethal nature of psychosis. Not in terms of me hurting others, but hurting myself. I believed so many strange things, I was lucky not to wander into a harmful situation, like taking a ride from a stranger or thinking I could fly.

The truth is that we don't really know what Matthew was thinking about when he died, except that he couldn't do it anymore. This act of living. I am really going to miss him too, he was such an exceptional human, it's hard to believe someone who had such PRESENCE is gone from us.

I don't feel like this post is going to do him justice.

I told his mother "thank you for raising such a beautiful man." And she said "Thank you for loving him." For my own sense of closure that is pretty good.

I have to get on with life, is the cruelest part. My major presentation for my video editing company is this friday at around about 11am. I have to present the whole business plan. I am going to be working like a dog for this next week. I really really need to get some more work done. It's been hard dealing with this and a (so unfortunately named) deadline. I've been spending a lot of my time talking with friends about what happened. The world keeps turning, even without our much loved friend being with us.

Sometimes I feel having bipolar disorder means being in a near constant battle, always struggling with the undertow of thoughts and moods and the danger of losing one's health so easily. I forgot my medication two days in a row this week and started hearing music whenever the furnace came on. It was pretty creepy, and even though I knew it wasn't real, it still tripped me out and made me want to hide.

Could I have prepared him any better for what it would be like with bipolar disorder? Are we really so ashamed of psychotic symptoms that we don't honestly and openly talk about how our brains can trick us?

Out of the whole spectrum of moods that is bipolar disorder, manic psychosis and depressive psychosis are the least discussed, except in negative terms like people suddenly chopping off someone's head. We aren't taught as a society how to recognize suicidal states, or we are even taught that only the weak commit suicide, that they took "the easy way out" and all kinds of stigmatizing views that keep people who need help from pursuing it.

I had one dangerous night, way back in Vancouver when I was 20 years old. I thought I would do it. I was really close. I was too jumbled for a plan, but it was one hell of a dark night. I ended up calling a crisis line and talking to a volunteer about what I was feeling. That night they hooked me up with a counsellor at SAFER, which is a free counselling service in Vancouver for people having suicidal crises. I saw that counsellor for a long time and worked through a lot of issues. Just knowing I had that appointment the next day got me through what could have been my last night on earth.

The suicide crisis line in Saskatoon is : (306) 933-6200

If bipolar disorder is the battle some of us are fighting, then Matthew was the unfortunate casualty of that war. We can sit around thinking about all the what ifs and it still won't bring him back. But I choose not to believe he killed himself. Bipolar disorder is what killed him.

I hope we can come together as a community and support each other. I'm pretty open about having bipolar disorder, but there are even more of us, quietly relating to each other about what it's like having it. If his death can change anything, I hope it is more openness about mental health issues.

Rambling Thirza

I am trying to do my resolutions but my mom is wandering around this office going "Oh crap" and "these are all yours!" and otherwise cleaning and being annoying. OMG! She left! Hurrah! She keeps making piles of my things and giving them to me. Thanks?

I have not seen any weirdness in the basement recently. I feel a bit relieved. No flashing lights, or black blobs, or little men with big cheeks waving like I saw that one day. Whew! But I am still going to make an eye appointment. I might have some genetic eye disease my mom has, which needs to be checked on.

Do you remember Gattaca where they have their life course laid out for them based on their genetics? Sometimes I worry that is where we are heading. They are starting to do more and more dna tests screening for things and I'm wondering when the insurance companies are going to require a screening test.

Personally, I don't think insurance companies should be allowed to deny someone insurance because of a "pre-existing" medical issue. That's just fucked, who DOESN'T have a pre-existing condition??? And in the states being a woman is considered a pre-existing medical condition because they don't want to pay for women's health issues. Which is ridiculous considering women live longer than men.

Anyway, they are worried about paying for a baby to be born. The insurance companies creep me out!

But back to my eternal quest to be loved.

I got this fortune cookie last night that said "To be loved, be lovable." I sometimes worry I am not lovable enough. I was really worried when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder that I would never have a happy relationship with someone, that I would always be seen as broken and not worth forging a meaningful long term relationship. I used to think it was specifically because I have bipolar disorder that I worried about this, but now I am thinking anyone who is suddenly diagnosed with a life altering medical condition ends up feeling this way.

We are raised to treat partner's like commodities. There's this whole idea that there is a "perfect" partner out there who doesn't fart or have medical issues, who is always healthy and the right amount of sexual and doesn't need fixing and will be able to read your mind! They don't exist, in case you are still looking. That being said, I absolutely ABHOR when someone gets together with another person with an eye for fixing them to be this perfect partner that never cries when it makes you uncomfortable and never gets sick. Someone who will suddenly abandon all their family of origin issues and quit drinking for the rest of their lives. It's kind of creepy to want to change people, especially if one professes to love them for who they are.

Anyway, none of my girlfriends have tried to change me, or if they did I think they failed. But for not trying to change me, I salute them!

Once I was talking about an ex and someone told me they were fucked up. And I was like, well, no, they just had a shitty life, that doesn't mean someone's fucked up and should be chucked out with the trash. I hate how as soon as someone has issues they are seen as disposable people. This is especially true when people talk about persons with addiction issues. It's considered in Canada to be a mental health issue, mental health and addictions are always squished together as services. It makes sense for a few reasons. But it is also interesting to see how the stigma of addiction works in much the same way as the stigma of mental illness. Disposable people.

It's not a coincidence that many homeless persons suffer from both addiction issues and a mental health issue. Because of all the stigma very few people want to house us. Most of the facilities existing in Saskatoon to get people off the streets are strictly sober living facilities. Even the group homes for persons with mental health issues are all sober living. It SUCKS if you don't want to live sober. You have no choice but the streets.

But I'm straying from my original intent of this blog, which was to write about my eternal quest for love as one of societies rejects.

Some people don't realize that persons with mental disability (cwazy folks) are protected from discrimination under Canadian law. They say shit and discriminate to their heart's content and sometimes (mostly) get away with it because the target doesn't have the ability to follow through on human rights charges. I've had one "friend" I am trying to ditch because he keeps saying fucked up shit to me about my disability. I hope he tries it at work and gets his ass fired for being a bully douchebag!

Anyway, I don't really want to be with someone who considers me broken for having a mental health issue that has been stable for years. I couldn't handle being with someone who was that hateful. There's this thing where bipolar folks often pick another partner who has bipolar. I'm almost drawn to that because then my partner could see where I was coming from. It would make things a lot easier in that respect.

But then there's also the idea of double trouble if two bipolar people fell in love. But that's a negative view of it, I think. I'm rambling now.

Arg here comes mum again!

Now she's telling me I have work to do and she is rubbing her tummy. Go away! Good.

I have about 10 resolutions now, but I am only concentrating on three, flossing, writing, and making two videos. I've been terrible at the flossing. And I missed two days of writing. The videos, well, I need some inspiration.

I have a select few women I am secretly considering as possible long term partners. No girlfriend at the moment, I'm not even sexually active right now, but I'm assessing certain women. They are all horribly out of reach right now though, one's in the hospital and we haven't even had a date, one's far far away, and one has had the same boyfriend for years. So even though I think these women are interesting, my chances are actually really slim for settling down with any of them. Which is too bad because all three of them are super cute and smart and seem nice.

Nice is a terrible word for some people. It's like a diminutive kind of a word that makes them feel less edgy. I like edgy and nice women.

Dick Van Dyke had addiction Issues.

Grapefruit has too much acid for some medications and will make you get too much at once. Interesting, I think. More acidic than stomach acid???

Stomach acid is kind of a weird concept. There is acid, and it is INSIDE US! My mom once babysat a kid who didn't produce stomach acid and had to drink a cup of acid before he could eat.

Oh man, what kind of life is that?

It gets worse, he was also highly allergic and could only eat beef, barley, and bananas.

Little Mister is doing well, especially since he has no allergies and eats all the blueberries he wants! He's laying behind my back like a wiener dog lumbar support cushion. He's actually quite comfy for me to have.

He and Hermione, the other wiener dog, and I, all slept in this morning. Mum did too, and Arthur. Why did we all sleep in? I was listening to the top 20 on the radio since 7:30am and still it took me an hour to wake up. I was 7 minutes late for school and felt badly. I have terrible guilt about lateness. Sometimes I am really bad at it and people notice and get mad. But I've been pretty good recently.

I have been working this writing everyday plan for a while and I think it is going well. It definitely jogs my brain and gets me thinking about things. I'd like to add some other new habits to my life. I am thinking of making a mandatory hour once a day of reading a paper book. No ebooks for me, an actual physical book. It would be better on my eyes and open me up for new ideas. And I wouldn't be sitting at the computer, which is a major plus. I'd like to go get some new library books and start. Except I borrowed a learn German cd from the library and it is stuck in my mom's computer. And so I keep renewing it, but really I need to get it out of the computer. I've tried all kinds of methods of getting the iMac to eject it, but it isn't even recognizing that there is a disc in it.

The quandry of technology malfunctions. I hate malfunctions. I hate when I malfunction and I hate when computers do it.

But there are other habits I could get.

I have nearly 3 packages of cigarettes left. I would like these to be my last cigarettes for all time. I'm enjoying them during the january thaw, but by the time it plunges to minus 30 for two weeks I don't want to be freezing outside sucking on cancer sticks! Still! With chapped hands from being exposed to the biting cold. BITING I TELLS YOU! And since my mom's house is non-smoking there is no more opportunity to smoke at the computer in the warmth leaving ashes all over the desk. :(

So I am going to try and mentally prepare this time instead of just one day quitting because I don't have smokes. I feel like my biggest crush ever would want to kiss me more if I didn't smoke, and I don't want to smoke anyway, and she's never kissed me while I have been a smoker. I dunno, she will probably never kiss me again ANYWAY. But yeah, kissing smokers isn't as much fun, and as a smoker I am aware. BUT I am not making it a resolution. Because it has been a resolution for three years, and I am not giving it the honour this year. It's like, 2008's resolution. So pbbbt!
:P

I am not altering my eating habits this year except to continue eating less fat because of my gallbladder. Last time I weighed myself I was 210, which was 7 pounds more than my last weigh in! BUT I was wearing my purse and threw it off me just before it told me my weight, so I don't really know, is my purse 7 pounds? It just might be!

Oh, but I did want to start eating breakfast. I always sleep in and miss breakfast.

And my flossing resolution hasn't been going well. I flossed once. So far this year. I need to do it everyday. It's right beside my bed, I have just been ignoring it.

I am still wearing the wristband from Aqua Boxercise. We had to do this one thing with a noodle where we floated in the water with our bums pointed down and our legs up with our shins and feet at the top of the water and knees and ankles together and then do like, stomach crunches. It was really difficult, but not as difficult as standing on a pool noodle without our feet on the tile. UGH! I felt like a bad surfer.

I posted it on my facebook but not on here, but Dick Van Dyke was saved by porpoises when he fell asleep on his surfboard and floated out to sea. WTF? And thus it is clear, God loves Dick Van Dyke films. I can't wait to see that scene recreated in the movie of his life! I hope he has a drug addiction or something he overcame, because otherwise I don't know if there is enough contemporary interest in his personal life.

Oh hurrah, a google search and I already know Dick Van Dyke had addiction issues!

Man, my hair is crazy today. I should clean after aquafit better!

Anyway, I think that is all I have to write in my blog for today. Now onto other work!

:D

Aqua Boxercise Power Champ!

I am trying to think seriously about goals ever since I turned 30. One of my goals is to work out according to the new time guidelines. So tonight, after weeks of planning, I am going to my first ever AQUA BOXERCISE CLASS!!!! With my mother. We used to do Aquacise together and I like being in the water. And Boxercise sounds so Angelina Jolie for some reason. And Angelina Jolie equals Sexy! So therefore Boxercise will make me rippling and taut and have the biceps of a bulldagger and the swagger of a prairie girl!

On a different note, today my mom gave me a VHS copy of Sarah, Plain and Tall. I would have been more excited if it had Colleen Dewhurst in it.

VHS. Wow, there are people who don't have vhs players anymore. I still do. It's easier than having to digitize everything. Which I should do.

I watched the episode of Storytellers In Motion I was in. There was one error, they said I was an only child! :O Poor Sky. And poor Elijah whoever he is who is my brother. I don't think he ever knows I exist. Weird. Really weird.

I have a terrible fear one day my long lost brother will invade my house with neediness and sleep on the couch eating all the Ritz crackers and drinking all the beer and smoking everything and watching Spike TV all the time. I mean, I don't know what kind of man he is!

I don't mind people not knowing I have a brother, because he is really hardly on my mind, but people should know I have a Sky sister. She's in one of my videos!

Anyway, aside from that I thought it was a good episode, I was kind of giggly watching myself. It's just bizarre to be externalized in that form. I had a good chuckle at some of the earnest faces I was making in the stills during the credits. My mom said I looked like I was tired and needed a nap. Oh noes! Was I tired?

Ha ha, anyway. I am also saying other things in another episode they do where it is a bunch of filmmakers talking about indigenous voice in media. So I saw some of that once.

I have been noticing that I am seeing weird things in only two places, by the front of the house and in the basement. I also notice it often happens on the left hand side of my vision. Sooooo, I am slowly taking note of everything going on with these things to see if it is something outside of myself (ie. meaning I am not crazy or have a detached retina). Although that reminds me, I have to make an eye exam appointment just to be sure.

BUT tonight I am going to Aqua Boxercise, and I am going to start sculpting my blubby body AND have excellent punching abilities!

You know, once I was lifting small hand weights for a while. I wanted that one little muscle at the top of the shoulder that dips down to your bicep. That was all I wanted. I did it for six months before I went manic and then I ended up with this little muscle.

But I did dick all for any other muscles. I could have had a BUNCH of nice muscle definition if I had followed a more comprehensive workout routine.

I think that little muscle is totally flaccid and deflated now. Poor muscle. I can get it back! I will!

I was going to write about setting goals for myself. I am thinking too much in the grand scheme. I have to think about mini goals again. Goals for this week! Some school goals would be good. I have to whip some more writing into shape. Anyway, I keep writing the same thing for goals, buy a house in Saskatoon, get a partner, start a business, make a movie, stop smoking, decide if I am a no good addict, etc etc. I should make it more simple, stuff I can work on today and make progress with. And I have too much stuff to do to print out the MA Workbook and start filling in blanks with personal incriminating information!

I have been thinking about how I haven't really read business plans. I am thinking maybe it would help if I did. The Business Development Corporation has such a small business plan template compared to the one we are doing. So I don't know if they are all different.

We have Bailey's! *evil grin!*

I like being upstairs when I am on the computer, I don't see weird shit!

Do you see what I see?

I learned the other day that flossing adds 6.4 years to your life! So ha! My first resolution is brilliant! AND today I had breakfast too! Which is good for all kinds of reasons. BUT NOT A RESOLUTION.

Anyway, and this is proof to my readers that I am going to try damned hard to be a more consistent writer. One page a day. Well this isn't so hard. What am I writing about again?

One long rambly story about life with a mental illness and a career and race and class??? That is a lot to put into one post. I think I will have to break that down.

Life With A Mental Illness:
I have been seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I am not sure what to make of them, they are either white or black and blobby and just kind of flash on and then vanish. And they are NEVER there when I look at them straight on. I could attribute this to ghosts, and be scared and not want to shower naked anymore. Or I could mention it to my psychiatrist and optomologist. I mean, maybe there is a perfectly logical medical explanation. I am not sure. I hate hallucinations, I only ever used to get tactile and auditory hallucinations, which is why visual ones worry me. I don't really want to see fucked up shit because I have a weird brain. I can deal with disembodied voices that try to give me advice, but seeing gremlins or some whacked shit would freak me out.

And A Career:
My career has been trundling along, not too much new to report, besides me writing my business plan for an editing company. I'm starting to really groove on writing it, and now I just have to go back through it and throw in a few things and adjust some other things so that it is consistent and appealing all at the same time. I also have to get working SERIOUSLY on my Mars script, and I've avoided it for a few months. I need to have it done by either March 1st or April 1st depending on if I feel like I want to try in the regular category or the Aboriginal category. Hmm. It's an Aboriginal video. I might have more fans in that jury.

And Race:
Is the Thirza Half-Red or Half-White?? Today I feel Half-Red!

And Class:
Well I try not to fart in the presence of certain others, but I tend to burp all the time. I just drink a lot of pop! I am embarrassed by some of my body functions. And I hate when toilet paper gets stuck to my lady parts. Especially if I like someone and they take off my undies. But Class? Hmm, I feel like it is tied in with dignity, and sometimes that gets lost in medical situations like a manic episode. It's hard to be classy when you are unstable. Also it is hard to be classy if you are being treated badly because of your identity.


Your Fit of Pique Bonus Paragraph!!!!!!

Because I like you. I would roll around on the floor exposing my belly if you were here, and I would pounce on you and kiss you and . . . uh, wait, I am writing this to everyone. Something else. I am getting ready to do a progress presentation for my editing business to a panel of 4 people on the 21st! By then I have to have my Business Plan and Financials COMPLETE and have four copies printed! I also have to have a DVD of my editing work to show them, at least three impressive minutes! I haven't selected which portions of my videos I will edit together, or figured out how I will edit them together. But I should really do that.

Boy, writing this blog entry wasn't as hard as some other blogs I have written!

Talkin' bout my resolutions!

I've been sooo freakin frackin freeked out with holidaying that I have been neglecting some of my other work. It has been a weird last couple of weekends.



Don't just think about it, do it do it do it!

So I am writing this in between working on school work. I am hoping one day this stupid blog will start making me some money, but I haven't figured out who would be willing to advertise. I am kinda crude, and I did put that adult warning on this blog so I wouldn't have to be a prude.

I am trying to motivate myself this year to have a greater output of writings and other creative work. Including the writing that is not so much whimsical as informational that I am doing for my business plan. All writing is creative, in that word smithy way.

Writing ironically enough makes me want to exercise, because I get some of my awesomest ideas while I am walking around. But it is so freekin cold here! Minus 20! Ugh! But this week we are going to Aqua Boxercise for the first time EVAH! Aqua Boxercise could be my new favorite workout! Punchy yet watery all at once.

I am trying to log into Citrix yet again, and it's being so freakin' pokey. Now I am working on some overdue homework doing my competitive strategy. It's not as complicated as I am making it out to be, but logging in and then getting logged off and crashing and bleh bleh blah. Bloo? Blah. Anyway. My Citrix desktop is all blue and nothing is coming onto it!

I decided to change my resolutions to these three simple tasks:

1. Floss everyday.
2. Write one page everyday.
3. Make two videos this year, or have made one and be editing the other one this time next year.

The whole gym, quitting smoking drinking eating healthy no sugary pop stuff was all too hard. I need to start with small changes I can actually accomplish so I will feel more confident about future tasks.

But I do still want to go to the gym more, especially since I have a leisure card until October!

At the beginning of EVERY year I contemplate ways to better my life. I know what I'm supposed to do, and this is the damn near complete list:

1. Quit smoking . . . anything! No tobacco, no pot, no fun! :(
2. Go to the gym three times a week. They say you only need 150 minutes of exercise a week if you are an adult. Children need an hour everyday!
3. Be better at my career as in actually making stuff AND doing the paperwork!
4. Write in Fit of Pique again, on a consistent basis, like the olden times!
5. Write long emails to women I like about things I am thinking about that I think might amuse them. Mostly with the intent of having a meaningful relationship blossom out of it. I don't really do this anymore? Do I? I do feel gooney writing to some people.
6. Go on a date with someone new. I am not doing myself any favors waiting for women who have no intention of ever leaving their current spouses. Tragic but true!
7. Stop drinking sugary pops. Okay, NO! I love my sweet pop! ALthough I am painfully aware I am courting diabetes, especially with some of the medications I am on.
8. Go to my dual diagnosis group more often. Even if I have only been clean for 12 hours! So they say. They say if you go enough eventually you will stop your self destructive addictive behaviours AND take your meds perfectly too! This leads me to:
9. Take my meds more perfectly. One slip is one too many! I am starting to be more sensitive to missing even one dose of brain chemical adjustments.
and 10. Do more better grooming of my body. Because it's just more attractive and stuff. Also I will be less likely to get jumped as a mentally ill person trying to move through the world.

On the other hand, I feel like Davis in this Corner Gas version of the above Participaction commercial:

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!

Christmas love, shyness, Spinsters and Santa!

I've got this TERRIBLE shyness and nervousness around women I really like! I swear to god, I will sit there when I know I am supposed to ask for a kiss and I just won't ask, my stomach will start doing somersaults and I'll get sweaty palms and I am sure there should be some kind of medication for it but I haven't been on one that works yet. I will get back to you when I find out what it is.

I have recently discovered because of a long standing "crush" (though I suspect there is much more to it than that) that I do exactly the same thing writing an email as I do talking to a girl I like. I hyperventilate in type form, too many exclamation marks and too little substance. I end up feeling like an airhead, a bicep butch instead of a brainy butch. I feel like I want to say all these deep and meaningful things and instead I talk about some other trivia about my life which I am sure she doesn't care about. But then the deep and meaningful things seem too intense to be discussing over email, it seems like I should be talking about them face to face. And until such a time as we do come face to face, I should just hint at meaning. I think. I mean, what do I know? You can't think very clearly when you are type-hyperventilating!

It can take me four hours to write her a three paragraph email! No lies!

It's nearly Christmas time, and every Christmas that rolls around when I am single I have all these morose mooney thoughts about what it would be like if I had a partner I could bring home. It gets so damned maudlin torturing myself with imaginary relationships with various women over the years. And the reality of what that Christmas would look like is so different. For one thing all the women wake up and start working in my family all freakin' day! It's definitely not a laid back experience, and by the time dinner rolls around everyone (the women, specifically) is stressed out. So who knows, maybe I am imagining going sledding with someone Christmas afternoon but really we'd end up in the closet under the stairs arguing about whose family is more dysfunctional.

Oh man, Christmas time! And I have an intangible present of a thing that this person loves to do (nothing weirdo) and I don't know how to wrap it. I mean, I would like to put it under the tree, but I didn't bother with a giftcard solution to this dilemma. I could be total Grade 1 Mother's Day Gift and draw out a little certificate, hmm. Since the present IS to my mother, and since I am a reasonably decent drawer, maybe I should do that.

I was called my mother's "Spinster Daughter" today and maybe that is freaking me out a little. I am 32 years old and I have yet to live with a lover or even bring one home for ANY of the 3 main Anglican Holidays. I've never even introduced a girlfriend to my Grandma, or Grandpa. My Mum has met some though. She secretly wanted to rabbit punch a couple of them, I know that for a fact! But she has never punched anyone.

I think it's all the damn Christmas shows that are doing it to me, any reasonable attractive (read straight white folks, according to tv) person my age in all these shows has a partner and 2.5 children, the .5 often being a baby. And they are all learning some deeper grander Christmas message through this hilarious adventure that could spell the end of ALL CHRISTMASES FOREVER if they don't right this through family love. It's pretty barfy, and I don't think I can expect to learn a grander Christmas message this year through having a wacky adventure with my poor osteoporosis suffering Grandmother where we end up in either a VW Bug in the hinterlands or somehow have to go on a rollercoaster. Oh yeah, and Santa helps us along the way.

"Why yes Chris, I have new spinal bones for you in my bag! Ho ho ho!"

My sister on the other hand loves Christmas. She keeps laughing when ever I say "Ho ho hold the payments!" or "Ho ho ho, Green Giant!" Oh, she loves ho ho hoing but she HATES Santa Claus, with a passion! She goes into a terror if she sees him. Today my Mum and I saw Mum's friend's baby getting a picture with Santa and she just suddenly squinched up and cried like, well like a baby! Poor baby!

Santa doesn't scare me, but I do find him highly suspicious.

Suck my dick Bill W.

I have a new mission now to follow the principles of Harm Reduction over completely quitting my various vices. My friend Mikiki has a good paragraph explaining Harm Reduction on his facebook, it goes:

*Basic Principles of Harm Reduction:

Harm reduction philosophy considers risk taking behavior as a natural part of our world and suggests that our work should be focused on minimizing the harmful effects of these behaviors rather than focusing on the cessation of the behavior.
Harm reduction philosophy supports the involvement of individuals in the creation and/or delivery of programs and services that are designed to serve them. These programs and services must be offered in a non-judgmental and non-coercive manner.
Harm reduction philosophy recognizes the impact of issues such as poverty, classism, racism, homophobia, social isolation, past trauma, and other social inequities on both people's vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with risk taking behavior.

I think one of the main problems I have noticed being a mental health consumer is this constant PUSH for us to quit using drugs and alcohol completely. I understand the reasoning behind this: it means your meds don't work as well. BUT at the same time, why single us out? Alcohol will work as a depressant for anybody, not just persons suffering a mood disorder.

I'm thinking about it a lot ever since Luke came back from the Saskatchewan Hospital. He's in the group home system and he's not allowed to drink at all. And even his nurse wants to ask his doctor for permission to let Luke go have a few drinks once a month at someone else's house. When I was in the group home system, I just hid my stash at someone else's house and still smoked everyday.

And now my nurse says I am doing well and see how good life can be when you stop using? Only I haven't, I still toke and drink and abuse tobacco. I've realized something about myself: I just really like getting crunk!

And a LOT of people like it. I mean, my god, that's what happens at art events all the freakin' time. Most of my socializing is with supposedly sane types who love nothing more than boozing it up and having a big fat joint. I just talk honestly about it. Mostly because my desire to party has been pathologized by psychiatric nurses. Ironically, not by my actual psychiatrist. She has always said it would be good if I cut back or quit, but she's never pressured me, never denied me proper care because I am a drug/alcohol user, basically has just accepted that I will take risks and still be pretty much compliant with the treatment she has set out for me.

Ugh, COMPLIANT. Friggin psychworld speak.

So it's a tricky thing. My profile got disabled on facebook, and I am not sure if it was because of drugs or because I was telling this crazy story about a neighbor in Bad Manors who didn't pay his sex worker and she screamed for an hour outside his door about his dirty scaly dick. Facebook is pretty prudey really, case in point the transman whose profile was disabled when he posted post chest surgery shots. It sucks that we have to follow the rules of Palo Alto. At least they let us say when we are married to someone of the same sex.

Anyway, to friends who thought I unfriended them on unfriend day, no I didn't, facebook hates me. Or someone on facebook hates me. The day my profile was disabled someone sent me this vicious private message saying I shouldn't talk about psychiatric meds if I am using drugs and alcohol. WTF?????? Pretty pissy, and I was wondering if SHE reported me, but I really don't know.

Anyway, I like being bad sometimes. I still want to quit smoking, and that would probably be the best thing I could do for myself. But the rest of it, ah heck, as long as I don't hurt people I think it's okay. I try to be good about it. I'm not a mean drunk or anything, and I don't drink or smoke and drive, and I don't get stoned or drink before I go to school or work. So I think I am going to accept myself as I am. Not every former psych patient has to be a friend of Bill W.

Update on my life, school, love, sledding!

I've been working on my living space in the basement. So far I have unpacked about 7 boxes, pretty much ALL books. Since putting them on the bookshelf in my bedroom, the energy has changed. I wonder if there is something emanating from books based on the energy invested in them as a reader. I kind of think so. If I was a ghost I would haunt my favorite book probably.

School has been going well! I guess I haven't updated on that front, I was accepted into a Self Employment Program paid for by CanSask and put on by Praxis School of Entrepreneurship. So I am learning all kinds of stuff about business. I'm keenly interested in the subject matter, and I have some really good ideas about the business I am going to start up. I've thought about it for five years now, and I think I have enough leads on loans and even ONE non-repayable financial assistance from INAC which SHOULD help me get an editing business off the ground. And I already have a foreseeable future client who needs a ton of footage edited. So I think I should be able to live (although very austerely) and pay off the first year of my loan and be able to cover my expenses. And then HOPEFULLY I will start making a decent profit and actually do things like put money in my RRSP and save for a down payment on a suitable house with a backyard for Mister.

I've been in a good mood. My Mum has been coming up with ways for us to have more privacy from each other via renovations in the basement to make more of a suite down here, and a workspace for my business. I'm also feeling surprisingly good because of a change in medications. One of my antidepressants that was giving me bad side effects has been lowered, and the side effects have gone away, and I am feeling much happier!

I got some new clothes, since I have lost weight and don't fit most of my pants. I just need a haircut and I will look decent!

Anyway, after a while of floundering around trying to figure out what I can do for my life to get better, I think I have a plan! And I think it might work!

I've been thinking seriously again about the possibility of settling down with one woman in the near future. I really feel like I'm in the headspace to have a serious long term relationship. I just don't know with who! I mean, I have these sweet daydreamy ideas about who, but I don't have anything concrete or hammered out. I'm open to falling in love with someone new. But I am also open to revisiting an old lover. Anyway, I keep thinking of different possibilities. I know based on what a trusted psychic told me once that I am REALLY really close to being with the person I will be with for the rest of my life. Plus I just have a feeling about it.

While all THAT is going on, I'm actually quite content being single at the moment. When I was younger I really felt like my worth was tied up with my relationship status. But as I've aged I've realized that I'm just as valuable as a single person, just doing what I do and devoting myself to growing as a human.

One of my friends recently told me "You gotta find someone to settle down with." And I was like, "I don't GOTTA, it would be nice but I'm okay now!" I mean, I want to settle down, but I don't want to settle. I still want to be super in love. I know it happens for me, I know what it feels like. I don't want to end up in a lacklustre marriage with someone who either I don't love to the max or vice versa.

I went sledding last night. Only made it down the hill one and a half times! The first time I was on this foam Mongoose sled and as I went down my sled headed for the slide covered in ramps. I didn't want to hit all those ramps, so I tried to steer away. The sled turned right around, I was going backwards, suddenly I flew off, hit the back of my head, rolled a bit, and stood up to watch my empty sled go ALL THE WAY down the freaking huge hill.

I didn't go down with my friends the next time, and while I stood there a car pulled up and a bright light shone on me. It was THE COPS! I was stoned and when he asked what was going on I just said "They're sledding" pointing to my friends at the bottom of the hill. IN the dark? he asked. "Okay, just checking." And then he went away! I was so worried I would get busted for the roach in my cigarette pack.

The LAST time I went down the hill I went on a Krazy Karpet. It was going so freakin fast and wild that I put my feet in the snow to brake. BAD IDEA! My face was sprayed with snow for the next minute going down that Stupid Hill! It was embedded in my hat, my mittens, my glasses, I think I even breathed it in! I gave up on sledding after that.

GREY CUP tomorrow! Er, later today. I hope the Riders win, because then we get to hear Saskie folks screaming with joy!

I don't give a damn about my bad reputation

It's been a while since I have written. Again. I am so bad at keeping up with my blog!

I've been thinking a lot about privacy and why I started writing minutae of my life online since I was 20. It's been twelve years! And with my real name for six years! Or whatever. In this very blog!

I guess one of the reasons I am thinking about privacy is because of how many people google each other and this blog comes up right under my facebook profile in Google when you type in my name. I mean, in a way it is great, because I feel like this whole thing is an art project, and people can contact me. And then I think about this art project's impact on my life and how many people would have major prejudices or assumptions based on information contained herein and pass me up for jobs, housing, or end up treating me as less than human or weird in other ways. But I still feel like it's important to do things I find meaning in, like talk about the politics of having to share private space because you have a mental illness, or look at the progress of Bunnyhug or other projects I've done or am working on, or personal struggles that take up considerable time and energy and limit my creative output or productivity or just life quality.

One of my professors way back when told me I was in danger of just being a persona, and in a way it's true because I seem to mine my own life struggles to create some kind of image of what it's like to be so marginalized. But still, it's an image. And sometimes the public/performance me is so different from the private me, and there really has always been a private me. I mean, everyone has SOME secrets they have never told anyone.

That takes me off on a tangent. I was listening to tv the other day while toodling around on the iPad and I heard this announcer for a Jerry Springer/Dr. Phil type show saying scandalously "These people have fantasies they have NEVER told their partner!" Like it was a bad thing to withhold private, possibly embarrassing information from your partner. I don't know about you but fantasies can be about really extreme things, some of which could be illegal or horribly dangerous or just gross in practice rather than as a concept. So if you want to just keep it a private personal fantasy then why should you tell your partner?? It's kind of stupid. Some things your partner doesn't need to know about! My god, this whole brutal honesty thing is pretty rank, sometimes it's better to just keep something in your own head. And sometimes you just want to keep a few secrets.

Anyway, I could always "prune" my blog, or something like that, although it feels so self censoring, and I was trying to get away from internalized censorship (although I realize it sounds different after reading my thoughts on certain secret personal fantasies). I will just have to suck it up and stand proudly by my bad reputation as a notorious underground crazy halfbreed lesbian video artist. Who drinks and smokes pot and cigarettes and always tries to quit.

NEVER QUIT QUITTING YOU QUITTER!

And she put a poop in every one!

Well, I was unceremonially turfed from Employment Insurance on the 9th of October and am not getting ANY money for the rest of the month. I've been applying to JOB after JOB and not getting called or emailed for a SINGLE interview! I've an appointment to get on Social Assistance (aka The Dole, Welfare, Sucking off the tit of the Taxpayer, which would be myself). I'm starting to worry that my marginalized identities and issues are what is keeping me from employment, since I have never had such bad luck getting a job before. Mind you, I was willing to do Market Research Interviewing before, and now I have put a stop to it because I hate it so much. There are plenty of other jobs that I would love to have and would be really good at, but they don't even call!

I tried to go to CanSask to get funded to get a diploma as an Admin Assistant, but they refuse to fund me because I have a degree already and should be working in my field. However film and video just tanked in Saskatchewan when the Sask Party killed SCN. Plus that industry wants 15 hour days and that would drive me insane after a couple weeks. Seriously, I would have a six week stay at the Dube Centre if I tried to work in my field. And I don't know about YOUR world, but six weeks in a psych ward and then four months in a group home not being able to masturbate is my idea of HELL!
Plus it is depressing. And I would probably get open sores on my feet again (maniacs really REALLY like to go for LONG WALKS).

Anyway, I couldn't afford to live in a group home and be employed, because it cost 1500 a month last time and I had to get on welfare to cover it. At best I make 1200 bucks a month, it's really pitiful.

ARG! I think I should just start my own business. I've got an idea for running my own video editing company, all I really need to start up is the equipment and a place in my living area to do it. But the equipment is pricey! I've got all the training, it would be a good fit. Hmm. We will see.

In other news, well, not much really. SaskEnergy are being dicks about returning my deposit to me, they only owe 46 bucks, but they have been taking their sweet diddly time about returning it, I ended my service with them at the beginning of August, and now it is late October! And I changed my address with them and everything! Fuckers!

My Auntie starts calling everyone fuckers when she is really really drunk!

I'm not drunk.

My reduction of soft substances has gone upward and onward in the last couple weeks. I am making some good improvements and my dreams have also become epic adventures of epic awesomeness!!! Retelling my dreams has become my hobby again. And I am noticing how most of them are really about me assimilating the issues I faced during the day, or just themes. Ie. I was looking at this flash developer job (which I'm unsuited for, but was curious) and then also read a Japanese webpage about a cat named Maru and then had a dream I flew to Osaka to learn military website design! Of course I missed my flight there (remnants of my horrific time trying to get home from Berlin) and had to fly to 14 different cities around the world to get there on time for my training. And we kept setting off atomic explosions and had to fix the Internet with Liquid Helium.

I visited the Synchotron for the first time the week before and learned all about this amazing particle accelerator here in Canada, the ONLY one in Canada. Supposedly a city with a Synchotron grows really fast, and I've noticed Saskatoon getting bigger and bigger. We are now the most spread out city in Canada, which is kind of problematic. I hate to say it but we need more apartments rather than more houses, we keep sucking up farmland. Which used to be MY LAND (now I'm just being an aboriginal show off!).

My medication regime has been working out well, I fucked up a week of meds though, but I've been back on track for a week now and my moods are pretty good. I go see my psychiatrist next wednesday, and my psychiatric nurse, Joan. Yay! They are one of the reasons I'm reluctant to leave Saskatoon, they have helped me out A LOT! I've not needed to be in the hospital for well over three years! This upcoming April will be my 4 year anniversary of being in a ward, and I'm a little nervous. I am hoping that I will manage to keep up with my treatment and not need to go back again. Since then I have had some depressions, but if I was horribly suicidal since then I don't remember it. What I do remember is that I went through a break up last time I went crazy and for months and months her name would just go through my head over and over. I'd wake up and think "Rheanne" and someone would ask me a question and I'd think "Rheanne" and I'd be sitting on the couch at the group home watching Turner Classic Movies thinking "Rheanne, Rheanne, Rheanne." I'd go to Banff and be trying to work on something or listen to speakers and all that went through my head was "Rheanne!" Aw fuck it was AWFUL! Thank god that is over! Did I mention I listened to Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon over and over too?



Those were the most awful days of my life! The grim desperation coupled with the inability to masturbate next to an 86 year old schizophrenic with dementia who was my roommate (as in, the bed next to me roommate) and the towels were always pooey in the morning. Sigh! I know I said living in the Downtown Eastside was kinda hellish, but this was REAL hell. I totally don't mind talking on a payphone at Main and Hastings next to someone smoking crack, that I can tolerate. Group home life, on the other hand, without access to Internet, that sucked!

You might be surprised (unless you have read all of this blog already) that poop outside of the toilet was a hallmark feature of my mornings as a child. My sister has a profound intellectual disability and fingerpainted with the brown stuff before we all woke up. Almost. Every. Day.

The only time I was upset by it was the time she put a poop in every compartment of my Matchbox Racecar Suitcase!!! :O

Thinking about creating a job.

My EI is set to run out and I have to figure out some way of getting an income. I'm going all over the place trying to think of a job I really want to do, there are a few I am interested in. I should really think seriously about CREATING a job for myself rather than looking for one. I mean, I'm a FREAK! I have tattoos and I am part of various minority groups that have trouble finding work because of discrimination. Not only that but I am open about my disability and people feel like it's a disability they can stigmatize and be prejudiced about. Like there's this concept ALL bipolar people have fits of rage, and I haven't had one of those since I was twelve. I get angry, but I'm pretty good about controlling it. It's not an issue in the workplace, that's for sure.

Besides all that, I am going out a lot more these days, which is nice. I went bowling the other day, which I haven't done since 1996. I was terrible. And then just going to events and so forth. It's been fun. I go out a lot more now than I did before. When I was mainly hanging out with one friend a lot. And then we had a fight and now I have more friends.

I almost moved to Winnipeg abruptly. But then it didn't work out and I stayed here, in Saskatoon. I really like Winnipeg, but I am also content living here. So it was a confusing situation to be in.

I'm trying to line up some freelance gigs to get me some money to live on for the next month or two. Money, ugh! I hate that we all need it.

I applied twice at the Casino, it would be so easy not being able to gamble there because I've only ever gambled 15 bucks there altogether. And I'd get money TAX FREE! But anyway, so far they haven't called back.

But I like the idea of working for myself. It appeals to my desire for independence. The only big problem is I don't have the right equipment to actually start up an editing business. My computer is obsolete and I don't have enough hard drive space. And my screen and speakers could be better too. I really need to do something about it. I'm looking around for some grant situation that would let me have like, three or four months of living allowance and capital cost money. That would be sweet.

Pimps and dealers

It's about that time again, to start thinking of intelligent things to say in my blog. I feel like listening to me figure out my life must be boring. I just want to stay relevant.

I've been trying to think of a way to help out Rebecca Belmore. She's being sued for more than 750 000 dollars from her old dealer Pari Nadimi Gallery for breech of contract when she chose to leave the gallery and stop a sale. It's pretty appalling and incredibly mean and spiteful of the Gallery.

You know what it reminds me of actually? PIMPS! When a woman wants to leave a pimp she has to pay him a certain amount of money.

I can't imagine being in that predicament, either as a sex worker working with a pimp or an artist being represented by a Gallery that won't let you leave without going completely bankrupt. It's just scary, and the case would set a precedence for future dealings between artists and dealers. Plus I know Rebecca, and I highly value the internationally acclaimed work she's been doing for years. There's no way she has 750 000 kicking around.

Ugh.

I seem to recall drinking and sitting on Rebecca's lap once while announcing to everyone in the kitchen at the Grunt that I had just taken a shot of testosterone. I remember everyone's head whipped around, it was so funny. Like OMG!

The last time I saw Rebecca was in the spring when she was in town while her partner Osvaldo worked on something artsy.

If I had a job I'd be inclined to send some money, but I only have EI and it's pretty skimpy. If YOU, my fine blog readers, want to donate some money to the cause, check out Rebecca Belmore Legal Fund on Facebook, they have links there to all the news and blog articles about it. I'm still plotting what I can do, I might auction off a small collection of my videos on DVD or something. I'd make a nice hand drawn cover for it too, it would be a collector's item! I suppose I could make a few of them to auction off. Yes, that makes sense. I have worked with Rebecca on a video for her performance, she was great to work with. So clear about her vision.

On to other news. Well, I have been doing more investigating into possible careers. I'm in particular intrigued about being a copywriter. I love writing, and people say I'm a strong writer, and I like thinking up ad slogans, believe it or not. I sometimes read copy if there is nothing else handy in the bathroom, like flyers and backs of shampoo bottles. Ah yes, made with crushed pearls, that was some good shampoo.

Oh, I just got word we are heading to the track at 7, gotta start getting cute. I heard a lesbian is meeting us there. And you know how much I like lesbians.

In which Thirza talks about wanting to be a grown up.

If I could do any job I would want to go colonize Mars, really, be stuck in a tin can for 6 months and then shiver in the freezing cold of a 0 degree Centigrade summer. Then get stuck in the tin can again and come home.

However so far that job only exists in my script. So I have to find something else.

Five years of film school has made me suitable for what exactly? I can't work on set because the 15 hour days and super extremes of doing that kind of work would make me literally insane, and nobody likes an insane Thirza. Oh sure, it SOUNDS kind of cute, but only in hindsight. I can be really annoying when I am crazy. My ex-girlfriend can attest to that. I've tried to get editing jobs, but I never get called back or anything. I did some freelance editing for my friend Ariel once, but it was out of the goodness of my withered heart and I don't think I got paid, although a lovely video was born.

I've considered getting a small business grant that would pay for capital costs so I could start a Final Cut Pro editing business. But I need to work on my reel more before the money will come in.

I am also accepted into an administrative assistant diploma program, but I've been having trouble getting the cash to actually go to it.

I have also been toying with the idea of writing copy. Actually I have already applied for a position as a copywriter. It would be fun and creative and I would write all the time. But I would also have to be selling at the same time. As an anarchist punk that is a bit of a strange concept for me to grok. I'm sure as I develop marketing skills I could apply it to my filmy-video career and get better at selling my own creative ideas so I can get money and make art! But I know all my friends would say I sold my soul to advertising. Still, the idea of doing that kind of work intrigues me. I once had this great ad slogan for KOA Campgrounds when I was in grade two and we stayed at one. KOA is A-OK. I still think it's a great slogan!

Nevermind all that, the real reason I am looking about for a career that pays more than what I am doing now is because of my furry family. Getting evicted was the best thing that ever happened to Mister. Now we're living in a house with a backyard. It's temporary though, I don't plan on living with mom forever.

Little Mister LOVES the backyard!!! He always wants to go out there and sniff about and pee and poo and he is always a straggler when it comes to going back inside. He has made it VERY clear that even though I got a small dog so I could live in apartments, he wants a house with a backyard!!! I can't afford a backyard on my own.

This means I have to get a roommate, for the first time in YEARS! I'm a little hesitant. For one thing, I have had good and bad roommate experiences. Some have felt like strangers even a year later. And some I still talk to and am friends with, but living together was just not working. For another thing, well, I would like to be the one in charge of the house. You know, the first one there, the one who gets to say "You have to move out" if it isn't working, not the one who has to move. It's just a matter of personal security, to know that I will have a solid living situation I can maintain until I buy my own house.

Oh man, GROWN UP TALK! Careers and houses! Next I'll be talking about getting a wife.
Oh hell, why not? I want a wife still. I don't know who. I used to think I knew who, but we haven't talked in a couple years at least and I'm pretty sure after our break up that she doesn't intend to ever be my wife. I haven't planned anything about the wedding except that our singer will be my ex-girlfriend Velveeta performing as Velvis, a femme Elvis impersonator. I don't imagine it will be a huge costly wedding. I'm going to wear a tux, but my Mom explicitly says I cannot wear the one I have and I will have to buy a brand new one. The rings will not be super expensive, I'd rather make a nice video than have a 10,000 dollar ring. The diamonds will be Canadian, with those teeny polar bears etched into them microscopically to prove it.

I have wanted a wife since I was like, 17, but 32 seems to be a nice age to get one. Better than 17 that's for sure. When I was 17 I mostly wanted a girlfriend to prove I was lovable, not necessarily because I was in love (although I was). My last visit with a psychic she said I would have one more break up and then end up with the woman I would be with for the rest of my life. Forever seems like a nice amount of time to be with someone. Most of my relationships I have felt like I just got to know my girlfriend and suddenly we were broken up. None of them have lasted very long. My longest relationship to date was a year and a month.

And I am HORRIBLY SHY when it comes to ladies. Which is my major stumbling block. I feel all flustered and get really DUMB because I am thinking naughty things and how cute they are and forget to be a good conversationalist. And then even after doing intimate things with women, I don't know how to take it to the next level very well. I could be totally HOT for someone but end up playing all cool because I don't want to seem like a nerd who really REALLY likes someone. Although I do and am probably telling everyone else how great this person is and how I want to marry them maybe.

The other thing is most of the partners I have had have been VERY into polyamory, and wifey talk turns them off. AT THE TIME. I have totally seen them get married later, to OTHER people. I just attract the polypeople. I don't know why. I don't mind it, I've done it, I don't get jealous easily (we all get jealous sometimes). I don't even envision my marriage being monogamous, although I could be monogamous pretty easy too. But getting married turns off a lot of my current and past lover type people. They say it's about ownership. I'm a bottom, I kinda get turned on by the idea of ownership. I have kinky thoughts about marriage.

BUT what is the point of getting married if I don't have a paying career or a house, even a rental property? No one's going to marry me and move into my Mom's basement with me. I am aiming to move out for January or Febuary, and I am aiming to date someone for two years before getting married. So I'm not SO CRAZY yet that I am plotting to be an instant grown up next year. But at 32 going on 33 in April I would like to be MOSTLY grown up. I have a degree! It gets me a bit more respect in the art world, but not that much more money. I have a career! But it doesn't pay more than 4000 a year on a good year. Maybe 20 000 when I have a grant, but that's still just eeking out a living now.

Maybe when I become a decently paid copywriter I will know how to sell myself through words to potential wives and be able to buy a house to put them in. THEM. Ha ha, I'm not a mormon, I would have one wife. And maybe or maybe not we could have other girlfriends or lovers, but I'm not picky either way.

Director looking for Direction

My EI is due to run out in October sometime and I have been getting frustrated with my job search. I've been trying to find work that is: Within a 30-40 minute commute on transit, has regular shifts in the day time so I don't fuck with my circadian rhythm, is full time or 35 hrs per week, and HOPEFULLY is in an office. Oh yeah, and pays at least twelve bucks an hour. But hopefully more. Although I have also applied for two jobs at the Casino, both cashier jobs. Cage cashier would be amazing just because I'd get to meet all the winners. Of course then I would only ever be able to gamble at Casino Regina or Moose Jaw. But I'm not a casino goer really.

Beatrix kitty got spayed and has been having a rough time. She cries whenever I pick her up. Right now she is cuddled up in my lap, with her purple cone on. It was Hermione's cone when she got spayed. We have many different sizes of cones in our house for animals. Once my rat had surgery and came home with a teeny cone on. Poor Nikolas.

I was told about this one job, being a Special Constable, where you answer calls for the police department. But then I did this investigating into the hiring process and application and it was like 25 freakin' pages long, all about EVERY possible crime you could ever be involved in. Like giving away drugs, or using illegal software, or smoking pot or doing drugs or being in possession of stolen property or being part of protest action groups! Some of it I had done and most of it I hadn't, but to be sure, later on in the recruitment process they do a polygraph test! And they enter it all in your record that future employers could access, and could prosecute you!

So yeah, I don't want to go through that for a job!!!!!

I'm actually wishing I could just make art. And in fact I should get my act together and write 20 more pages of script for my Mars video and grant, which is due at Canada Council by the 1st of October!!!! And I have to write a very detailed budget for it because I am applying in Production this time. And it would be good if I also made a new short to submit as supporting material. It's just something I keep forgetting about working on in addition to my job hunting. Usually I work on my creative stuff late at night, when people are asleep. But instead I scour all the good places for want ads these days.

BORING! Looking for work is so boring. And reading the application for Special Constable was depressing. And I just want to be a famous artist and make a living off my work. No more eeking out a living in call centres. Just be a big shot and travel and be brilliant all the time and get away with outrageous behaviour because I'm an artist after all. I suppose freelancing as a jack of all media trades wouldn't be bad either. A melange of creative/technical work. It would make me happy.

I SHOULD be earning more than I do, I feel, anyway, having gotten a bachelor's degree. But it seems like bachelor's degrees are the new high school and master's degrees are the new standard. And BFA still means bachelor of fuck all. Sure I went to Emily Carr, but do people outside of the art world have any concept of what that means???

Still, career planning and plotting and doing is kind of sexy to me. I may not have always had a girlfriend, in fact mostly not, but I have had a career for half my life. Too bad being a marginalized filmmaker/video artist doesn't pay well. I think I should save up for an appointment with my favorite psychic again and get some direction.

Labour Day Weekend Video Challenge!

I don't know, maybe I will inspire someone else to make a video from conception to completion between now and Monday night, the end of the long weekend. I was with an old friend from film school today and we were in a camera store and I picked up a MiniDV tape and decided to make my first High Definition Video. I'm soon going to be in possession of one of the newer FCP's that can handle the HDV format. I suspect my mom's computer can burn Blu-Ray discs. Either way, I need to try That format out because it's going to be the usual thing. Even though I personally have neither a High Def TV or a Blu-Ray player. Grandma says everyone speaks a different language now. She can't keep track of all the technology terms and doesn't really care to either. I kind of admire that, that willingness to totally not even have an email account!
So HDV eh?

Well first of all, I have NO IDEA what to make it about. I know I would like to get some footage of the clouds and the grass and the river. I think I would like to wear some kind of outfit. A good hat at the very least. I'm not sure what the content could be though, like what issue or theme or conflict is going on. Recently I have been thinking about butch identity as a subject, but then I'm really conflicted on what to say about it. I find it more interesting to just insert butch characters without having to explain. I know some people have been slamming Saskatoon to me without ever having been here, so I want it to be kinda about why I like Saskatoon, but not in a Move to Saskatchewan promotional video thing. That would just be weird, I would want major money to do something like that.

I think I want it to be very Lesbian, with a Native nuance and some sprinklings of genderfuck and maybe sex somewhere in there. I suppose this means I should do some writing. I am envisioning a monologue, although a voice over dialogue would be a different twist on the whole thing. I kind of like giving myself all these parametres on a project and then creating something specifically to work within that. It makes me problem solve things and consider things more creatively than if I could do it all perfectly with millions of dollars.

The reason I am using voice over is because the best mic I have is a hand held mic and after a new computer, my next purchase will be a boom shotgun mic with a puppy and everything! <3 I could try and rent a boom mic, but I don't have extra cash besides the 4.96 I spent on the tape.

I am constrained by what I have, and the fact that beyond borrowing, I can get no more! I have no lights, ONE good mic, a few friends who can move around and say mouth words, the Fireworks festival is on this weekend, I have a fedora and a sailor hat and some suitjackets and a tux. I have three dogs and one cat. It's been sunny and mostly green so far, I have a friend with land outside of Saskatoon that has natural prairie on it, all hilly and everything. I have a scanner and Photoshop and can import stills into FCP. I have access to creative commons sound effects.

I've been interested in telling native ghost stories and the paranormal and also some creepy slasher story has been going through my head for the past couple years. But I don't have enough fake blood or the time to make a fake head.

So that's where I am at with my project. As part of my project I will try to check in once a day and report on how I am doing making my first High Def short! Labour Day Weekend Video Challenge!!!!

So join me, it doesn't even have to be a video, make a piece of art. We'll all upload it onto the internet on Monday night, or more likely Tuesday night, and then go oooh at each other's work.

By the way, yes I see the irony of doing work on a holiday. But I like making art, seems a good way to spend some time.

Leave me the topic for the next blog, brain no work

I am eating jellybellies and trying to think of something intelligent to say. I'm REALLY working hard on getting to be a better blogger. I am going to try and write one thing a day. Even if it is really really short. Just to get back into my writing habits. It seems I do facebooking all the time now, instead of casting these rants off into internet land where just ANYONE can come across them.
Although facebook keeps changing it's privacy settings and then there's your junk waving in the wind for all to see. So who knows.

I'm setting into my basement house. I've been trying really hard not to set the dogs off in the middle of the night. But I've done it a few times, and I even set some popcorn on fire at 11 one night and the smoke alarm went off. I felt pretty silly, banging on the alarm with the end of a broom while holding a pot of melting butter.

Anyway, I'm back from Vancouver, and that was great, I got to see so many old friends! It made me remember what I liked about it. But I still missed Saskatoon and was happy to come home and see everyone I know.

I need to get back into writing dialogue again. That's so much fun. It's like just being able to talk to myself and not be crazy! No no, I pooh pooh on your treatment, can't you see I am busy creating!

Actually that's an interesting discussion, if medication restricts creativity. Some people say it does and some people say it doesn't. Then again some people can get shakes and tremors from certain meds that other people do just fine on. I think the worst medication for my creativity was Zyprexa, crap that sucked! Risperdal and I are on okay terms though.

It's hard to really figure out though, because if you've been through a hypomanic episode then you know the ultimate in creative highs, and everything kind of pales in comparison after that.

Mum got an iPad. It's really nice, but you can't do facebook chat on it, doesn't seem like you can anyway.
Oh I should go to bed. Well there, I wrote SOMETHING today. Now I'm going to go away and try to plot further content. I could write a story or essay with some specific elements. Leave a comment about what I should write about!

SO MUCH has changed!

Well, I am back from Berlin, which was AMAZING and hopefully I will be going back next summer! :D The bummer news is that I didn't get my grant, apparently because certain people on the jury couldn't fathom how a documentary related to an application for a fictional drama. FUCK! Technically nearly all my videos have been classified as documentaries, ironically enough. A lot of them end up at Hot Docs anyway. Still, some people couldn't connect my support material to my application, so no money for me! :( Now I'm fucked and have to find some kind of job as soon as possible.
AND I got evicted from my apartment. Right now I'm living in my mother's basement again, because I can afford it and have my pets with me. A pet friendly apartment in Saskatoon starts at 610 bucks, and that's in the dodgy area of town. A nicer area costs around 850 bucks. And I have all these debts to pay off, and save up damage deposit. And 1000 bucks a month on EI is not very much, when you get down to it.
BUT whatever, life sucks sometimes. And Berlin didn't suck, and HOPEFULLY my trip to Vancouver this next week won't suck either, because I will be seeing some old beloved friends and screening my video for the first time EVER!!!! Of course I have no money to go though, although the ticket and hotel are paid for. Mister got colitis and I had to shell out some money for him to get treated so he wouldn't POOP OUT BLOOD!!! Poor little guy. I love my Mister dog. I don't want him to feel sick.
BUT what is good in my life?
Well, on a plus side my moods are EXTREMELY good! Not manic, or hypomanic, just good. I don't feel depressed these days. I've been able to deal with some crap without giving up all hope. I HAVE been smoking some weed on occasion. I'm not really ready to give it up entirely, so I'm doing the Harm Reduction route and doing it less and less. I've generally enjoyed it, and it's not so gawdawful when I don't have any. I haven't had any for a few days now actually. It's different doing it at my mom's, because I can't smoke up on the property. Actually, my last couple days at my apartment one of my new neighbors started stomping around complaining about the illegal smoke coming out of my apartment, and I was like, oh fuck. BUT I was leaving, so whatever, I just kept toking with the window open. What did I care? I already knew from the maintainence meetings that they didn't care if someone had a hashpipe in their house.
I've been thinking a lot about issues like mental health, and medication and if it is evil or not, and Butch-Femme (or Femme-Butch) relationships, and how I want my damn Admin Assistant diploma so I can get some decent paying job that will let me afford a pet friendly apartment in a nice neighborhood like City Park or something.
The MAIN problem with getting my schooling done is that I can't afford the living expenses. I could get CAn-Sask to pay for my tuition, but they won't give me any money to live, so I'm screwed. And Saskatoon Tribal Council will pay for it all, but they run out of money not very long after their next fiscal year starts, AND you have to bring them a letter of acceptance and frigging Saskatoon Business College doesn't give me my acceptance letter until a month before classes start, which isn't enough time. And STC wants an acceptance letter for a specific date and not just a general acceptance letter saying I could start anytime their classes start. I've been accepted since last spring, BUT because of all this bureacratic shit (sorry for the sp) I haven't been able to start my program. ARG! I want to go to SCHOOL! I want to get my diploma so I can actually be qualified to apply to these seriously decent paying office jobs. There are so many, but the GOOD PAYING ones require a diploma or certificate. Oh sure, I could be a receptionist, but it would only pay 75 cents more than minimum wage. FRIG!
So, well, I'm not SO DEPRESSED about all that, although it is HIGHLY frustrating. I've been having a surprisingly good string of luck with super HOT HOT HOT femmes I like, although not a serious relationship. I'm pleased as punch about that, it's always nice to kiss people who are genuinely attracted to you. And vice versa. I guess that Is why I have been thinking about Butch-Femme (Femme-Butch)dynamics. When you start bringing Top-bottom into it all it gets even more complicated.
Anyway, maybe you are wondering why I don't get student loans or why my reserve won't pay for me to go to school. Well, I owe 2000 bucks to student loans and haven't paid back more than 150, and they don't look kindly on that. ALSO my band won't pay for my school because I already have a bachelor's degree. If I was going for my masters, that would be a different story. BUT I don't really want to teach, even if everyone in my family has been a prof. I just really want a job that pays decently and that there are enough of that I could quit or take time off to make my videos/feature films when I get grants or get green lighted.
Aw man, so many barriers to me being an admin assistant who makes videos! POOR ME!
I've been thinking about way more profound things than all this, but it's hard to put into words on a Saturday night at 2am when I really just want to be drinking with my friends in the hottub and everyone is downtown dancing. There's a new gay club in town but I haven't been to it yet. I'm scared it will turn straight like pee in a pool the way the Viper Room did back in the 90's. I should go down before it does.
Also I owe everyone money. That makes me not want to venture out AT ALL! If I hadn't been evicted I wouldn't owe quite so much, but I had to pay for movers, who did a shit job, and the carpet cleaner, who did a great job, and my damage deposit hasn't come back to me yet. And other money is on it's way, but who knows when I will get it.
SIGH!
Aw, this wasn't meant to be a downer post, I just felt the need to update my blog readers on what was going on with me. And it turned out to all be downer. No magic Mars video is being made, just a lot of cover letters and crap. I'm writing the script though, I will try and make my video. And now that I know what confused jurors, I can avoid it the next time. Although I still think it's crap that people think you can't do multiple genres of videos. Why not do Docs AND Dramas????

Urine smell -> Flower Smell! :D (True Stories!)

Mister is digging through my pockets and finding every candy possible. He's a very snoopy dog. I have photos of a wallet he rifled through and the money he took from it, and also when he went through Deanna's purse and took out her pouch of tobacco.
I have HOT WATER and Coffee Filters again! And heat, which I don't need because it is summer. No more going to Mum's to shower! Now I can actually stay clean! I'm one of those people who showers everyday. I've been doing every two days and it's yucky. Sometimes 3 days! :O But no more! Now I am going to be clean and serene. You know what I mean.
YAY! I just had a nice hot shower in my own apartment. SHOWERS! And I'm supposed to get curtains this week. Hurrah for Curtains! Now I can masturbate in front of my computer! Really, it's been ROUGH! Curtains are a necessity. Even for people like me who write tell all blogs for over a decade of their life!
Actually, I don't tell all anymore. I tell some, and leave the rest to word of mouth gossip. I'm no slouch, there's not much to do sometimes besides gossip about mutual aquaintances, sometimes it's the best small talk.
I need some monsieur net. I used the last of the floor cleaner and there is no multipurpose cleaner on hand, just Vim with Bleach.
Later:
UGH! I just washed part of the kitchen floor with this "orange scented" generic cleaner and now it smells like burning rubber! Blech! Maybe if I smoke a cigarette the smell will go down! Oh no! I'm smoking! Shameful downward spiral!
Next thing you know I'll be smoking crack! :O
Actually that is one thing I have never done, and will never do. I've watched too many crack addicts to want to be one. It's sketchy. Especially when they are looking for a rock in the cracks of the sidewalk. DEPRESSING!!!
Funny the limits I put on my drug using behaviour. Like such and such is okay, but THIS is NOT! So sad.
That smell is going away. Phew! And maybe I will have some tea instead of this coke. But mostly I think I should finish washing the floors. Cleaning to raise my self esteem.
Floors are washed! It's starting to look nice in here, ACTUALLY. Amazing.
Much Later:
Okay, well now the dishes are done and I took the garbage out and I cleaned up a Mister Mistake. I even washed under the dog dishes, which I always neglect. And I dyed my hair again, now it's a deeper pink, not so orangey. I like it. I left roots in. I don't have enough for bleach.
While I have been doing all of this I have been thinking about many things. Mostly lottery dreams. Foolish things, but that faint hope is so appealing.
I bet if I made the perfect film, I could make a million dollars. I wonder.
I've also been thinking of video ideas, but my brainstorming would sometimes be interrupted by me trying to figure out what a dark organic blob was on this or that.
I saved my suitcase I had bought to go to Scotland! Mimi, my mom's old grumpy vengeful cat pissed on it, but I got this stuff called Nature's Miracle Urine Destroyer (for cats)! And now it just smells like flowers.
True story, that one.
And it's really good because I don't want to smell like cat piss in Berlin.
Angry cat piss.
I just found my electrical adaptor! With a usb port so I can charge my iPod anywhere! :D Into the clean suitcase it goes!
I haven't gotten my results back on my big grant still. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, or while I'm gone! :( Not much time left before I leave. I was hoping to hear something about it before I go so that I can plan my life accordingly.

The Bannock Girl has clean fingernails! :D

I am waiting to hear about my Big Grant, but I did get a little grant to travel to Berlin, which has made me pretty happy. I am looking forward to going, I haven't traveled overseas since I went to Scotland. And for a Queer festival! Yay! I can only imagine what kind of trouble I could get up to.
I'm feeling pretty positive about finally implementing these BIG changes to my life, like quitting pot and smokes and cleaning up around here more often and walking the dog on a regular basis and remembering to groom myself properly. I don't want to just stick a hat on anymore.
It's such a terrible thing to one day fall into the stereotype of the mentally ill, talking to myself with greasy dirty hair and a sink full of dishes. I just need a bathrobe and I will be all set, maybe some slippers if I am really living the high life.
Today I volunteered by giving out bannock for almost two hours. Well, it was probably just one heavy duty bannock duty hour. People are very funny about their bannock. Some don't care for it, which surprised me. Some white people don't call it bannock, they call it bread. Whatever. It's greasy and good!
I even cut my nails so no one would look at me and go "Ew! The bannock girl has dirty nails!"
The bannock girl needs to bleach her hair and put in more Manic Panic.
I was surrounded by the police at Aboriginal Day, they were all doing their good deeds for the community, and there was the treaty day mountie shaking hands and taking endless pictures with Indians. I only got 5 bucks this year! :'( My cousin Steven got 85 bucks! That's a lot of accumulated treaty days! He could buy 85 jars of baby food! Or a few days worth of groceries!
One treaty day I accumulated enough to get a swim suit.
I didn't see them giving out bullets though, I don't think they do that anymore.
If you give someone bullets and money for gas, you can get a dead deer. Sometimes they will butcher it for you too! It sounds so black market and badass, putting a hit out on a deer.
Venison is my favorite wild meat.
30 people became millionaires during the last Lotto Max draw. 30 people!!!!! And this next time there are 55 draws of 1 million each. I've got to get a ticket again~! This 50 million dollar jackpot is tantalising me! It seems so much easier to gamble for my riches than actually put real work into accumulating wealth.
Accumulating seems to be the dominant theme of this entry.
I have noticed I have more energy without pot in my life. And it makes it easier to do things like clean and tidy and groom and create.
I am reading all this new information now about how the psych medication I am on make me at a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes, and metabolic syndrome. And that it basically adds up to a premature death. Sucks to be me. I mean, HOPEFULLY some newer better meds will be unrolled in the next few years. They've learned a few more things about how bipolar works and are working on treatments specific to those mechanisms. Soooo, I dunno. But I really have to use my time wisely. No more dicking around smoking weed and giggling about something that happened to me in high school. What if I die when I'm 60? That's only 28 years from now. Already more than half of my life is over if that's my timeline.
Which means I have to put more time and energy into my practice. A lot of my practice is me sitting around and thinking. It's not very interesting to watch. When I write I go out for a lot of walks alone. I really need a kitchen table because that's where I do my longhand and my sketches. And then there's driving around shooting things and setting up lights and convincing friends they can act for 30 seconds or whatever. But so much is sitting around being a bum, so it seems.
Oh yeah, and all that internet surfing, doing research into things like the geology of Mars, or reading books and watching movies on certain subjects or in certain genres.
I like my life. I just want to live it past 60.

Memories of Birthdays long past!

My Birthday is coming up, as I have been telling everyone on Facebook. Really! I will be 32 years old next Monday the 26th. For someone who didn't think they would live to be 30, that is a long time! And now that I am beyond 30, I am viewing life in a much different way. For one thing I have to get together a strategy for sustaining my life, instead of just burning out.

I've quit smoking cigarettes. It has been since Wednesday at 2pm that I have had a smoke. But to be honest I had three cigarettes on Friday night. BUT none since. And I didn't ask for the first one of three, I thought it was drugs and I was drunk. But none since, no bad cravings. I was popping lozenges on top of patches A LOT the first day, and then less and less in the days since. Today I've only had about three of them, on top of the patch. I can smell things now, like the fresh air. Which I SWEAR to GOD smells like a Bounty dryer sheet to the newly ex-smoker's nose. AND I have maintained not smoking pot everyday. I had some at a party on Friday night, but that's it, just weekly tokes. I still want to get down to NO toking. I think it's a worthy goal for myself. I don't even really care about the feeling it gives me anymore, the being high feeling. It's suddenly so unimportant.
UNFORTUNATELY I seem to be getting DRUNK with more intensity than before. Like REALLY drunk. I have to back off from that a bit. I really don't want to replace getting high with being drunk, because both states are incredibly annoying to others. I'm not a mean drunk, but I can be a stupid drunk. And I don't like being stupid.

Every time I get around to my birthday, I always re-evaluate my life, my morals and beliefs and ethics. I try to grow as a person. Some birthdays I am better at this than others. And this birthday I am torn between going out and getting FUCKED UP like is normal for one of my adult birthdays, or doing something entirely wholesome like have a picnic. I suppose there is room for both. I just want to have some fun, do something profoundly interesting with some people.

My friend Louis Cruz from back in my second home of Vancouver sent me some photos tonight of us getting drunk during my 27th birthday back in 2005. We were so cute! And it looked like it was so fun, just me and my friends hitting the pub and then going to the gay bar, me in Louis' sailor shirt and my sailor hat. I often wonder whatever happened to my sailor hat. It was low key yet ridiculously fun. I want to have another birthday like that, a dress up get drunk and dance birthday. I should really organize something. I also wanted to have a hot tub party at my Mom's, if she was out of town. But I don't know yet if she is going to be out of town for sure.

YIPPEE! She says I can have a hot tub party at her house on Saturday night! Except we can't stay too late.

Unpaid Blogging Work Ethic: And how to send weird messages that wig people out

I am always hearing this stuff about how people make themselves so famous because of blogging. And end up making all this money off their blogs.
I never made ANY money off my blogs! Sometimes I PAID money to have blogs. And mostly that is self-esteem based, I feel like I am not writing enough to be worthy of being a famously wealthy/enterprising blogger. I did once have this idea about making some Genderfuck t-shirts with my sketchy ink drawings of differently gendered silhouettes. Which would bring in some revenue. I guess. But then, life catches up with me and I go through different phases of my life of being able to write something everyday to not writing much, ever. And it's not always because I don't care, it's often because I am too busy or sometimes too depressed. Uh, unfortunately when I am Manic I write ALL THE FREAKING TIME! About weird shit. Everywhere! Literally, I will be walking down the street while manic letting little weird pieces of paper with strange stories fall out of my pockets. It's a really bad idea sometimes, to write! You can write yourself into all kinds of terrible situations! I had a burning once, of the Writings. I had access to the internet for such a short time, and then got into trouble and went home and wrote all kinds of little books full of all these thoughts I had. And then I burned them four years later. And then fuck, I went crazy a couple months after doing that and wrote all kinds of NEW things everywhere, and had access to the internet!
The Dube Centre has internet access for patients now.
I'm worried, I have never had internet access from a ward before, I might write all kinds of funny things. I am not in a ward now! I am actually at home. But my cousin was in the ward recently and I saw their new computer. I started remembering all the strange emails I wrote that wigged people out! I know all the things I would write from a ward in the future would be wigging people out, just by virtue of me being able to write from a locked ward.
Some people don't realize this, but there is also a phone anyone can use during specific hours on most wards. It's just been the internet that has been slow to be introduced to psych wards.
It sucks not having access to email, or your voice messages, or any other place to contact people besides through other patients answering the phone and finding you, and if not finding you then being sane enough to take a message.
AN update on my cousin: My cousin Luke is now at North Battleford in the big hospital doing some extended programming and stuff for a year or so. It's this really old timey hospital from the 40's that had a morgue and has some graveyard on the property and it's pretty institutional, but he is safe and hopefully will grow into a more stable being. His life's been pretty up and down, mostly down, so I hope this stay helps him out. Poor guy, it must be so boring. They make psych wards as boring as possible so as not to disturb people, but it gets pretty tedious. Even with the occasional person acting out, there's not a whole lot to do besides smoke cigarettes. And even that is getting phased out. Except at the place Luke is at, he can go outside and smoke cigarettes. But not at the Dube Centre because you can't smoke anywhere on Health Region property. Even when I was at Hantleman we had to walk all the way to the river to smoke. No smoking in the parkinglot. You have to stand just OUTSIDE of the parking lot.
And now Hantleman is an office building. Or will be.
But with care I will not have to spend time at the Dube centre using the computer and sending weird messages to the world. I have to be more mindful of taking my medications.
Little Mister wants to go to bed. I think it's time. Little Mister! Don't sleep on the floor!