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!

Happiness is a warm Nun

Today mom blackmailed me into cleaning by saying she was going to take pictures of my apartment and post them on facebook!!! OMG! I was so shocked! I have been cleaning on and off ever since, it's actually coming along really well. I even did most of the dishes.
I'm pretty happy these days, I guess the meds are working. I've had a couple rough days after I forgot to take my meds, but now I'm back on them and doing well. My cousin Jenny is sleeping over on the couch. We were goofing around in my apartment all night, she played this word game with me that was really racy because we are pervs. She's looked in every book of mine that has pictures, mostly comics but also some naughtiness! :O
I need new naughtiness.
I'm glad I'm not one of those anti-porn feminists, because boy oh boy has porn been nice to me! I was in some directed by the lovely Dayna McLeod in Montreal. We were all horny in a women's studies class. When I think about it my feminist art class at ECIAD (*now ECUAD) had some hot girls in it. My Mommy's best friend taught it though and I couldn't step out of line or she would say something about my dykeling years to embarrass me.
When I came out she gave me a dozen red roses to celebrate my being a lesbian. My mom's friends were so cool with it! They just accepted me and that was that It was such a non-issue in my family. I was told the worst thing I could ever do was become a Catholic.
Well, I guess I may as well talk about a serious issue for a moment.
My mom is a sessional at FNUC's Saskatoon Campus. She's been working there ever since I was a little kid, it was called SIFC for a while. She's been there well over 25 years. And right now, FNUC is FUCKED!!! They had their provincial funding pulled because of all kinds of mismanagement, and then the federal funding was pulled. A LOT of shit was shaken up and Guy Lonechild of FSIN did a LOT of things that were needed to fix it up. BUT even after provincial funding was reinstated, the federal funding was still not in place. Chuck Strahl refused to give it back. Even though the board got depoliticized and some people lost their jobs and all kinds of things happened that they wanted. I mean, my god, now U of R is handling the money even. But it might be that the school will still go under. And so this is what my mother is living with, and going to work is getting demoralizing because no one knows what's happening next. People are packing their offices just in case the doors are locked on April 1st, which is when the federal money runs out. They said they would support the university until the end of the semester, but the semester doesn't end until April 20-something!!
So we're all waiting, feeling the angst ramping up and wondering what will happen. And Mom has already been looking for other work. I feel so bad that she put almost her entire working life into an institution and now she might have to find a completely new career!!! It could mean she would have to sell her house. It could mean she has to go back to school. It could mean all kinds of things. I just want to see my mum doing what she loves until she retires with a nice pension. What sucks is her old job never even paid into a pension plan, just the regular CPP.
Most of my family has worked at FNUC, it's a family institution. My Uncle John teaches there sometimes, Auntie Beth taught english and creative writing there, Grandpa taught Cree there, and my Uncle Doug would go in to work with the students in the journalism courses. And Mum's been there for SO long! It seems sad to see that place go down. And I remember when it started going down too, five years ago when Morley Watson started all kinds of shit. People were being fired willy nilly. People were LEAVING because they didn't want to be fired for stepping out of line. My mom got more and more depressed about it.
And now she's really stressed out but is keeping her composure. I think she is anticipating the worst. 400 people will lose their jobs if FNUC closes it's doors. It's grim.
I've been having a lot of feelings about being Native these days. Just feelings of frustration at the level of RACISM within Canada, in particular towards Native people. I just think that's so rude, to steal someone's land and dehumanize them and then bitch about some treaties that people IGNORE ANYWAY!!!! I recently found out Indian Affairs won't cover Seroquel anymore. In fact, they won't cover anything that isn't generic. Our treaty rights cover prescription drugs, but they keep chipping them back further and further. If they didn't pay for my medications I would be spending about 300 bucks a month just on my looney-tune meds. I'm really scared of having to pay for them, that is a lot of cash and I can't afford it, and I NEED them! I know what I'm like without me looney tune meds. LOONEY! ANd TUNEY! Go look in spring 2007 entries if you don't know how looney and tuney I can get!!!

FEELING LIKE WRITING

Sorry for the all caps. My computer does that. Not my keyboard, I've tried other new keyboards. It's some kind of computer issue. And if I was younger and felt a little more manic maybe I would actually spend a couple of days getting to the bottom of it. But it's an old computer, and I want a new one, and I just got used to it's weird all caps issue. But when people try to work on my computer they get really frustrated. It's like that Ruth Rendell story where the house is a killer because it keeps making a window bang open and the couple have arguements about how to close it properly until one of them nearly kills the other. And a murder had already happened in that house over the issue!!!
I'm sorry for giving away that plot by the way. I guess I should write "SPOILER" or something.
That's a great term by the way "Spoiler." Drat you, you've spoiled me pop culture!
My mum's really bad at spoiling movies to me. She told me how "the boy in the striped pyjamas" ended. Bad mommy. I Said she could spoil it, but maybe she could have ignored me and said nothing. I was going to see it anyway.
But were you REALLY going to read that particular Ruth Rendell story>>

Or was it Agatha Christie>>>

Agatha Christie's collected novels sold just less that the Bible.

It's LATE AT NIGHT and I am up

I am doing well still on handling my addiction. Still doing it in small doses on weekends, but not at all in the weekdays or on Sundays. And I haven't bought ANY in a month!!! I still want to attend an NA meeting, I just feel sheepish that it's something as "soft" as marijuana that brought me down. I have a LOT more energy now and am getting things done. I finished my video, wrote a grant for the Canada Council, and am spending more quality time with people who are important to me, without getting stoned. Okay, well on the weekends yes. But I spent time with one of my little cousins (who is also in recovery) this weekend while we were both sober from our drugs of choice and it was really nice and made me feel closer to her. My mind has expanded because I'm no longer always thinking about where I can go next to get a hit, I'm not always waiting for the dealer or feeling cravings and having no money. AND I am saving money! Well, I spend it, BUT not on drugs! :D
Plus I am having some REALLY amazing dreams, some of them are a little disturbing. I kept dreaming about broken glass in my mouth and needles in my tits. THAT was weird. But now they have calmed down to just being these bizarre adventures. I wasn't able to remember my dreams while I was a chronic pothead. And dreams are how your subconscious processes things. So how could I process>> I couldn't!
In other news, work is ending soon because my contract is up at the end of the week. I will miss it, but I feel positive about it because if things go my way I will be on EI for a few months and then HOPEFULLY find out my grant was approved. And I will still volunteer at my old workplace sometimes. It was a really nice place to work and I hope Cansask still supports the employment program I was in there. I liked all of the people I worked with and it was amazing to be in a queer environment working for my community.
There's some other sparkly happiness in my life but I don't think I will talk about it here. I will just say that I am having a really fun time these days and am learning more about a side of myself I didn't get to explore for about three years or so.
My puppy is doing well and my new kitty is still being a suckling pain in the neck because she HAS to be on me almost all the time. Although right now she is sleeping next to me on the floor. Whenever I go to bed she curls up next to my head and PURRS and PURRS and it's really cute. I love her, little weirdo! She and Mister play chase sometimes, he hasn't taught her how to wrestle yet, but I think it's coming. There's nothing a cat likes better after playing chase with a dog than to RABBIT KICK HIM! So hopefully she figures that out.
It's spring time! They are making baby bunnies! I saw a baby bunny last time I was in the psych ward, it was in our courtyard and this woman brought me out to show me it eating our pansies. SOooo CUTE! My last girlfriend was terrified of bunnies. I don't know why. She never visited me in the ward, which was maybe good because we were surrounded by brown bunnies.
And I would yell at them "Hausenfeffer!"
Elmer Fudd was always going to make Hausenfeffer.
I'm SLEEPY and I have to get up early and catch the bus. But I was just feeling happy and wanted to stay up late goofing around. I've been thinking about a lot of political issues affecting me these days, and I would like to write a sensible thought out blog about them, but not tonight. This blog changes it's themes depending on my circumstances, and for the past year or so a lot of that was about admitting I had a problem and figuring out how to deal with it. It's a little dodgy when you want to talk openly about addiction and your addiction is to something illegal. It doesn't help to be quiet about it, because it is a struggle, but that illegal part makes it weird to speak about. Considering I no longer keep marijuana in the home, it's a lot safer, but when I did I always felt like a fugitive.
I think maryjane isn't the worst evil, BUT irregardless of what people say, it IS addictive, especially now that there are way stronger strains. AND it does sap one of motivation, energy, intellect (temporarily at least) and just that lovely clear headed-ness that is important for creative workers to have. I KNOW I KNOW that people say it makes you more creative, but I was never able to toy with a thought for long enough to really make something creative out of it while I was stoned.
Oh man, beddy-bye! A fruit fly addendum: THERE ARE still a FEW fruitflies, and I am being vigilent about it, BUT the hordes are gone!!! The traps are working and I just have to redo them and wipe out the remaining flies!

Trapping

I have laid three traps in the most fruit fly infested areas of the house. This time I am DETERMINED to exterminate the whole LOT of them! I've had ENOUGH of fruit fly shenanigans! I don't care anymore about their welfare, even though part of their foreplay involves cunnilingus!
The traps are made out of beer and pop bottles, with sugar, yeast, water, and dish soap inside. They are attracted by the sugar and yeast, and unable to escape because of the bubbles of the dish soap!
I successfully defeated the fruit fly hordes twice in Vancouver, once during the Garbage strike of 97 and another time soon after the 2 weeks of Okanagan peaches left out while I was in Saskatoon! They are nasty little buggers, but not as disgusting as food moths, which I also successfully exterminated!!
I am also successfully on the path to becoming a social pot smoker, meaning only on select Saturday or Friday nights, and then only with people. I've gone a week and a half without smoking ANYTHING! Well, except for the cigarettes. And I am even thinking about being a total non-smoker. No pot, AND no cigarettes. Just cut it right out.
It's been a month of only Saturday use, and then no HUGE sessions either, just enough. And nothing this past weekend at all but booze. But my boozing days might be over too, because I've just been prescribed zopiclone for sleep and have to avoid alcohol. And I'd rather NOT be dead. I am a bit nervous, I haven't taken a hypnotic since my Emily Carr days, when I was getting depressed and had to take something to get some sleep. I remember after I took my first pill it was about half an hour later and I said to the rat "This isn't doing Anyt . . . h . . . i. . ..n zzzzzzzzz" OUT! But the next day I was all dopey and my ex-lover Velveeta said I looked drugged. My doctor said this one doesn't leave you all groggy the next day, EXCEPT you have to be able to sleep for a solid 8 hours so it can wear off. Oh, but this is supposedly the same drug! When I got it, it was called Imovane. My other ex, Amber Dawn, used to sing "I'm leaving on Imovane, don't know when I'll be back again!" Either way, I have a bunch of them and can stick it somewhere for nights when I need a hypnotic\sedative to get me to sleep.
Yet ANOTHER drug. I have so many meds. I'm tired now, I don't even know if I need it tonight, but I want to see how it helps me. It's been hard sleeping since I quit pot. And the doctor says it will be a few months before I feel the full effect of not smoking up. Which is kind of why I'm tempted to quit for longer than just in between the Saturdays.
One notable thing is that my dreams have been REALLY engaging these days. Intense stories and really vivid. Not nightmares, but some are slightly disturbing.
Anyway, now my pill is kicking in, and I have to take my other meds before I am unconscious. Tomorrow I finally go back to work!! I have been sick ALL WEEK! BLeh!

No Pot STILL! But . . .

I did have some on Saturday night, when I was doing E with some folks. It was not too bad, I didn't get uber stoned on it. But it was a relapse technically. So I feel like I should mention it.
I drank beer this weekend, but didn't get pukey drunk. Just buzzed. I'm limiting substances to the weekend I think. But I do still want to not smoke pot. I haven't bought any and I COULD have, I got paid. But I didn't. It's a very difficult thing, to stop an addiction. I'm relieved I have a couple days since my last foray into pot smoking. It's been rough quitting before. I really want to be clean for a week, then I think it would get easier. Every day away from it is feeling better. I didn't even think about it today.
I've been working on getting a wider selection of friends, mostly from people I already know and have good conversations with but for whatever reason don't hang out with them aside from when we're in groups of folks. I have a really good community here and I need to be closer with some individuals who I have connected with. Sometimes I forget I have a lot of friends and neglect them. I feel bad about that. PLUS when I was smoking up all the time I just wanted to stay home and get stoned and not deal with anyone. It's good to like to be alone, but if you're being alone just to do drugs, it kinda sucks!!! So antisocial and messed up.
That all being said, artists need to spend time alone in order to be creative. And a lot of artists smoke pot. BUT my question is, would I be more productive if I didn't get stoned>> It's a curious question. So many people say it helps with creativity, but I find it doesn't help me at all, it just makes me kinda STUPID!
I did party pretty hard this weekend, but it didn't feel bad, I was with all kinds of friends and wasn't doing it home alone. Still I would like to not even smoke pot at parties. I guess. See, still that semi-waffling. I need to get over it and just accept that I have a longstanding (12 years!) issue with marijuana and shouldn't bother with it. People say one day at a time. I wish I could just say never, but recovery is a slow process. And it's one that requires a lot of inner reflection.
Here's a song for today, and if you are reading this on facebook, it's a Youtube video of Depeche Mode's Clean.

Day 7 of No Alcohol, day 1 of No Pot

Cigarettes are still okay, for now. Some people suggest you quit cigs AND pot at the same time, but I am not. I want to still have one little flimsy vice to cling to. In a month I might quit the cigs too. Okay well, so far so good, I haven't had a toke all day. Of course I was at my Psych Nurse appointment this morning and then work, so of course I didn't do any substances. But now is the tricky part cause it is usually when I get home that I have a joint. Eeee! But, no joint. And there is no way for me to get any anyway.
It's kind of an experiment, at least that is what I am telling myself. I want to know if I can have a better life if I don't use. YOU KNOW< A better life for someone who has bipolar. All the books and all the experts agree that substance use is bad for bipolar disorder, both because it fucks with your medications and your moods. And I've been noticing that pot smoking is making me sad. I always feel kinda useless and other nasty things when I'm stoned. Depressed for sure. I shouldn't say Always, because it wasn't always like this, but yes, depression seems to be the main thing I feel after I get high nowadays. And why would I even court depression in that way>> It's not rational to chase mood disruptions. And alcohol, well, when I got screened back in the summer for addictions, it said that I didn't have issues with alcohol. But it is a depressant and does fuck up meds, so for now I am avoiding it too.
I'm terrified I am going to lose all my friends because they will prefer doing substances than hanging out with me. I know that's not true, but it feels scary all the same. I tried several times to hang out with another friend without doing drugs or alcohol and we got into a big fight and now we're not friends. I hate that. BUT it's better to not be friends than to be friends with someone who wants to drag you down into the bowels, that really sucks.
I'm going to work on my video tonight. I am excited about this. I can stay up late because I don't have to be at work until 1:30 tomorrow!!! :D
The video is needing a couple fixes and some photos put in. I've already digitized all but ONE photo, now I need to find the proper places to put them on the timeline. And then once I have them placed and at the right length, I am going to try and work with wireframes to animate them a bit, make it really slick. The soundtrack has some sweetness, but it's pretty minimal, I might try and add some more juicy sounds and see if I can make it just a bit tastier. I'm kind of staggered by the amount of material I have amassed to make this video from. I'm especially stoked by the photos I have digitized care of Grandma and Grandpa.
I should really hop to it if I want to have a good editing session.

The phone is still not here.

I still don't have a phone! Meh! I hate not having a phone! Mom explicitly said "Cigarettes or a phone" and I picked cigarettes because I have a long standing issue with nicotine. I also have an issue of needing to use the phone though.
I know I could get a wall phone, you know, with a cord, for cheap. BUT i have no dough. So I have to think of something else.
If anyone has a phone in the Saskatoon area I am looking for one!
I was hoping the woman in distress-phone thief would have put it in the mailbox. What the hell was going on>>>
Those little angled brackets are really question marks. I need a new keyboard and I know where I could get one. I hope it resolves the computer issues.
I am listening to some Metric I hadn't heard before. It's making me happy in a melancholy way.
I haven't had a beer since my one on Tuesday when we were eating before visiting Luke. It feels good to not drink. I've been observing someone I'm worried about and it's made me want to not drink. I don't know if I have a problem with drinking as much as my other weekend and evening substance abuse issues. But it seems like the easiest thing for me to give up for a while, so why not>>
I'm really taking my mental health more seriously now. I want to try to find my peak level of health, living a lot closer to the model for having stability. Like avoiding substances and getting to bed on time and having a routine.
Speaking of which, it is now very late and I should go to bed!

Weird day

Some woman came to my house to use my phone but took it with her and never came back. And then the cops showed up, and this cop asked me what was going on so I told him about this woman going off with my phone. And anyway, he went to where she said she lived and it doesn't exist. So now I have to get a new phone. I unplugged it after she was gone for too long. So it's inactive. Still, I liked that phone. It was all a little creepy.
The phone thief!
It's kind of a boring story Mum says. Which is true, but it's still unsettling. My phone!
The cop asked me if she looked like she could be a drug addict. Well, ANYBODY could be a drug addict, so I said yes. Could be. I didn't ask her though. She looked like a regular person.
All that trouble just from answering the friggin doorbell!
I went over to Mum's house and fell asleep, listening to her and my Auntie discuss visits with Luke. Right now I am alternating between tasks, I just took a break from writing to load a gig of music onto my cousin's ipod. And then I also did facebooking and THAT was about it. And writing.
I feel like I've wasted my Saturday, I got thrown off by my phone theft. And then I was going to go ut but I ave no phone. So now I'm just going to watch South Park and then go to bed.

Jackson

She tried to change her name to Jackson once, but everyone liked calling her Velveeta so much it didn't work. Boy do I miss her, I call her all the time because I never know when I will actually get to talk to her. She's single boys and girls, so someone should really scoop her up now. Ha ha, we dated ages ago and it ended badly. BUT somehow we became friends after all that.
She hates facebook and says she will never join it. It's kinda too bad, except then it gives me an excuse to call her because she doesn't see all my news online. And there is always something NEW to report.
Jackson is also the name of this really old cat I remember who was scrawny and always got a claw stuck in the rug.
And Jackson is also a notorious family in show business.
I never ate Velveeta, I mean, not the cheese anyway.
She sends hilarious emails that are only three lines long, they are so minimalist.
I have her balls in an envelope waiting to be mailed. I always forget to do it when I have money and only remember when I don't have money. It's been three years at least of hanging onto these balls of hers.
I like all my exes, now that we're not dating anymore. I notice there is always the one month of no sex that foretells the end. That's always weird. Total blue clit!
I'm still hung up on one ex who rarely ever speaks to me, and then it's only by email. Not even facebook. Email. It's pretty sad, I miss her. But then you know I was thinking, all of my exes are pretty amazing, am I just hung up on this Particular x because she is local>>>
Things that make me hmm.
It's important to think locally when making romantic choices.
But considering my choice babe is not interested and hasn't seen me for three years despite living in the same city, I should really expand my horizons. I could always import a girlfriend. I'd just have to be REALLY cute! And as low maintenance as short hair!
Yay! I"M HAVING LUNCH WITH MUM! Running off after hitting post to get dressed and go out!

Tawdry Editing

I worked on art all day today because the buses weren't running, and then later I heard they were but on special routes, and in the end I didn't go to work for the second day because there is snow all over the friggin place. But I think the buses are running mostly normally tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don't remember what time I am supposed to be at work. I shall have to inquire via email.
Anyway, I drank four cups of coffee and edited ALL DAY! I put one thing in that I kind of want to take out now, because it doesn't fit. It just doesn't feel right. It's NASA footage and I think I should use it, if ever, in another project. I don't want to use the same clip over and over again. People will think I am super in love with it, when I merely find it useful.
That's just tawdry editing.
I finally saw the end of a documentary I was in, in an APTN series called Storytellers in Motion III. One episode is ALL about me! I laughed so much, ha ha ha, both as a viewer and as a participant. Everything I said I would giggle about. I never realized I did so much giggling. Also I said the C word, ON TELEVISION! Ho-la!
Well that was just too funny, my Mum and Auntie were watching at the same time, along with my friend Laurel and her Auntie. And quite possibly Laurel's mom as well. But you know, it's on television, I'm sure lots of people saw it.
And if you want to see it too, you should start watching APTN.
I'm trapped with all this snow, or I was. We got 35cm in two days, a huge fluffy white DUMP on the province, and quite possibly Winnipeg as well! Mum says it came from California. I hope it didn't bring any H8 with it.
But I just saw what looked like the number 4 go by. I'm almost positive. Not something out of Sesame Street, no, a BUS!!
I'm liking this being productive, now if I can just work it into my rest of the week, I think I will actually be done my video!!! I'm using a lot of creative commons\public domain shit. It makes me a little nervous! I want to be able to show it on t.v. if anyone cares to, because then I would make some money!! It would be nice to earn some kind of living from my practice.
There, I just watched the whole thing through and wrote down the exact things I need to do to finish it! I am going to get someone to come and look at it and tell me what they think, hmm, who should I get> Mum will only come if it's clean!
I did clean a bit today, it's a bit nicer. Not nice. Nicer.

Big Emergency 2010

Luke had a BIG EMERGENCY this January. He had been off of his medications since November and shortly after his mother left town after the holidays he ended up stabbing himself and being rushed to the hospital after police wrestled the knife away from him. He stabbed his body and his eyes. BOTH of them.

So it's been a few weeks of him being at RUH in the observation unit and THEN he has recently moved to another hospital which has a psych ward. He looked pretty sad when I first saw him, he was pretty out of it with being not-sane AND being on heavy duty pain meds and tranks, not to mention the damage to his body. But today I saw him and he's doing way better, he gets better everyday. He's making more sense now, although he doesn't like to leave his room much. I think he is mostly frustrated that he can't see.

Luke can't see. He is blind. It's pretty friggin intense and I feel for him. His eyes are looking better than they were, the scarring isn't that bad, but it looks pretty rough still. He's going to need some cosmetic surgery on some of his scars and some rehabilitation to deal with whatever sight he has left and his ability to get around. I am hoping he at least can see some light and shadows, because that's what my friend Preston can see and he is fairly independent, him and his cane.

One time Preston, Deanna, and I were having a conversation about caning and SM and he suddenly said "I have a cane" "Really> Let's see it!" He of course pulled out his cane he uses to walk with. We had a good laugh.

Soon Luke will be moved, along with all the other psych inpatients in Saskatoon, to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health. Which is right where my old psych ward, Hantelman, was. I am going to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health on Wednesday during their open house to see the new facilities. When I was an inpatient back in 2007 I only saw blueprints for the new ward. I remember it was shaped kind of like a big gun. My main concern is that there be individual rooms, not the gawdawful double occupancy rooms of yesteryear, that keep you from being able to jack off. Yeah yeah there's a curtain but I still make noises, and it is embarrassing when you are someone like me who takes an average of 20 minute to come!

And masturbation is important to people's mental health. Everyone except for people trapped in sex rehab, where it is banned! Poor Tiger. I think masturbation is important for daily release of stress, I am appalled by all situations where people can't masturbate because of their living quarters. It's really sex negative.

Okay, back to the main topic, no more digressions on transgressions and their emissions!

Anyway, they say the new building is beautiful, and it also has a lovely view of the river. NONE OF WHICH LUKE WILL BE APPRECIATIVE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE!!! But hopefully they have some good activities he can engage in, I was told they had a hot tub but no one took me down there when I was an inpatient.

I remember the ward for really dangerous\super crazy people was downstairs, and when I went down there to get weighed this white girl hissed at me "You don't know what traditional is!!!" Which I found kind of intimidating, for various reasons. Mostly that it's a charge often leveled at indigenous people by other indigenous people who feel indigenousier than thou. Also that it was a white girl telling me this.

Later I met her on the grounds having a smoke, and she told me she got messages off of her vision box. I didn't know if she meant television, but I didn't want to inquire.

Ah, the messages, and herein lies the rub. Many messages get relayed to one during a period of "craziness," and some, believe it or not, are actually very positive and irrevocably change humanity for the better. Other messages are not so good, case in point, poor Luke. I don't think he even knows why he did it, and I sure as hell don't know. I can surmise that it had something to do with what he was seeing and didn't want to see. But I really don't know. And we really don't know how much of his vision he will get back.

He says today he was yelled at by some guy in the movie room for complaining that he couldn't see what was going on. He told us when he gets his sight back he is going to find that guy and challenge him to a fight. Oh Luke.

Don't forget about The Art!

I have forgotten about The Art. It's sitting on my computer in the drive named Parker Posey, because I had a crush on her from the scene in DAZED AND confused where she is yelling "Suffer Bitches!" And spraying freshman with ketchup and mustard. Anyway, The Art is sitting there, needing some attention. Some high detail pruning and applying of sound and MORE visuals. It's a really pretty piece of Art, I think. But in between working and having a life, I haven't devoted myself to finally finishing it.

It needs a voiceover, for one thing. And it needs some more titles, and the entire list of credits is ALL Cuthands. It makes me feel funny, like there must have been more people to thank. But no, it was mostly us. I'm glad people were interested enough that it was made. I hope it finds an audience.

But I've been neglecting me Art, and this was the year I was going to go hard on my career. It's terrible. Tsk tsk.

To be fair a family emergency did greet us in 2010, and that has involved a lot of phone calls and some hospital visits and then just general worry time. Art totally gets interrupted by life, and sometimes for good reason.

xcx says the cat!

Later, like a few days later, I am finishing this post. Well, I have still been neglecting the art, although I did digitize an old tape of mine from 1999 and got some stills and deinterlaced them and compressed a MPEG 4 of it and loaded it onto Facebook. It's not as perfect as I would like, but I always end up going some different route to get it to upload and no matter what I do it looks weird on my end. I hate watching videos online actually, I would prefer to go and see them in a dark room with other people. Especially the sexy videos.

Once I sat next to this woman I liked, and we were watching something and I forget what, but she made a wet noise! I have no idea how else to describe it. I have often wondered what she was doing! Sometimes I really do never find out these things.

My perfect idea of the afterlife is that we just get to ask questions and get answers. Like "What was the wet noise> Who ate the pube cake> What was HER name> Did Jesus really live and do all those things> What did the very first language sound like> What were those lights over Cranberry Flats> And why oh why do people go crazy>" And then I could move on, ya know, these things wouldn't be WEIGHING ON MY MIND!

But maybe life will always insist on keeping it's mystery. There will always be more questions.

Mister likes Pistachios, Cheezies, and Hot Rods. He's quite the Sausage.

Do I like being marginalized> I don't know why I am asking myself this question. It's just that I was going to write "Do I like living on the fringes of society>" and then thought I was really meaning marginalization. In either case, the answer is no. It leads to a lot of hunger and issues with clothing and proper housing. Not that I am currently suffering from any of those issues, but I have in the past and then the future is always unclear. I've also seen a lot of other persons with overlapping marginalized identities struggle for basic things other people take for granted. Like finding a job, or being able to support themselves on a limited income. It's rough.

Plus if there aren't any representations of your particular situation, you feel the need to create some so you don't feel so alone. Actually, that is probably a good part about being marginalized, the creative things which come out of living with that kind of oppression.

Not that you should oppress people just so they make good art. OMG! Colonizing the arts!

I work with video, but that was invented in like, 1951. It's not a precontact specifically European medium. I dunno, there really are very few mediums out there that only one group of people uses. Like, everyone's had some kind of paint and some kind of fabric design and you know, the list goes on. Everyone carves! I used to do carving. But I dunno, that was a long time ago.

Diversified Diversions and Career Building: The Themes of 2010

Last year I was trying to tackle WAY too many precise goals, and accomplished maybe ONE of them. I AM NOW MARGINALLY CLEANER! I did not kick any of my addictions for significant periods of time though.

So THIS year, I have decided to take a different route towards the same end. I am going to find MORE fun things to do that DON'T fall under the category of substance use. And I am going to try to do them sober. It's a challenge, but if I can get the hang of it, I hope to channel it into accomplishing my second goal for 2010: Building my filmyvideoey career up, and also getting more employable skills.

It's fun to work on my career, except for sometimes, like when I have to get it in the mail before 4:30 or whatever. Deadlines stress me out. It's probably why my hair is so thin. ha ha!

Anyway, those are the two personal things I am going to try and work on this year. The end result will be a more active career again with the possibility of finding a way to be a mostly full time artist, and also the ability to have fun without getting blotto, and thus being able to have a broader sense of life than the relatively narrow constraints I live in with my addictions. I'm tired of wanting to leave places so I can go home and get stoned. I'd like to be able to just stay drinking tea with a friend until the bus before bedtime, not caring about sucking on some burning leaves. But I'm not ready to completely give up. Just be more well rounded. Even though I just found out my local offsale does delivery.

And I want to make more INCREDIBLE art and get more FAMOUS and fall in love with a beautiful WOMAN who will be in love with me for being a FAMOUS ARTIST! Well not quite, that sounds kinda shallow actually.

So maybe I will write about That this year.

I also realize I haven't written about a major thing which has happened in my family. I don't want to disrespect anyone, so I think I will write about it and how it is impacting us another time when I am not sleepy. Just suffice it to say that my cousin who was my best friend when I was a kid got off his meds and got sick and hurt himself pretty badly. And he is in the hospital right now and those of us who are spiritual are praying and those of us who are atheists are sending positive thoughts to him. He's getting visits from us and his mom is here with him. I am glad that the police were able to come to his aid and I really wish he could see. It's made me think a lot about how fragile humans are. And how much I wish he knew he was loved.

Welcoming 2010

Well remember I said I was going to that rave Well, I didn't think I would be able to stay the whole while. I was sure I was going to get bored and feel old and come home. But I didn't!! I had a wicked time with these friends of Carrie's and we danced and drank and sat and went out into minus 30 weather for smokes until about 5:30 when we headed over to Carrie's and just hung out talking and picking records to play in this intensely random way. It was lovely! And we got to talk NERD talk, like software and equipment and art! And we traded bad art stories and stayed up. And we stayed up until 10 and then I came back home cause they were all preparing for bed. I usually don't sleep at all after a night like that.
It was so much fun and I made new friends!!! I'm glad the night turned out like that, it was more fun than last year. Not all of my New Year's Eves are memorable, but this one was.
OMG! And New years right at midnight was the seventeenth anniversary of me discovering I was a lesbian. I was hugging my cousin's girlfriend at midnight (god, she's probably reading this right now!) and I just realized I really REALLY liked her breasts pressing against mine. And that was when the light went on and I was like, This IS SERIOUS! I'm fourteen years old and I'm a lesbian! And I knew immediately too that I had a definite preference for women. I realized no man felt right to hug, but she DID and it was amazing and also terrifying at the same time. And I didn't know what the next step was. I kept a terrible secret for a month and twenty two days and then I sat my mother down and came out to her and immediately burst into tears because it was so SCARY! And my mom was totally cool and picked me up some lesbian books from the Ottawa Women's Bookstore while she was doing a council jury. And she was the very first person I ever told.
My mum and I are kind of a set. when I lived in Vancouver I would call her every day, sometimes just with nothing to say but I wanted to hear her breathing. And since moving back here I have been able to spend a lot more time with her.
One really nice thing I did with my mom this New Year's Eve was I cooked a totally new recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook. Ground Beef Wellington. It was SOOOOOOO good! It was impressive and not that hard to make. And because my apartment was clean we spent time at MY place for a change. Mum only ever comes inside to clean otherwise, and then she never wants to just goof around. But my new years project totally spruced the place up and she actually took her coat off and hung around!!
It is so nice to come home to a clean house.
My kitten is getting in the way of me writing. She likes to be as close to me as my pet dog, no, even closer because he doesn't mind spending time on the couch while I'm at the desk.
My kitten still has no name. She is so cute, but I haven't hit on the right name for her yet. She's really loving and funny and sweet. She's SO different than Schrodinger. Schrodinger was more independent.
Well, I don't have much else to say. I could prattle on but somehow I feel like my ability to think of something of importance has abandoned me.

More Better New Years Eve!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that better/

Or as my cousin would say, More Better/

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

The Kitten is Here and Xmas is OVAH!

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

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

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

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

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