The eye of the storm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ode to Olanzapine

Night after night in the bleak grip of darkness
I reach for the Olanzapine
Round white pills of things mysterious to me
It is the drug companies biggest seller
You can't say there are no after effects
The first year was a fog
Emotional flatline
They said I was making progress
Olanzapine zombie rarely speaks
Is compliant
60 pounds in six months
New wardrobe, new stretchmarks, new body
I take this drug so that I can keep up with capitalist demand
To be a productive person
To not think magic still exists
To live
I don't mind the olanzapine
I just hate the idea of forever.

Life is strange

Yes it is. I'm having a sort of spiritual crisis at the moment, a result of deciding to walk away from a very long and intense friendship which was stagnant. I know it was a positive decision, but the negative fallout from walking away (including having my dead pet put on my apartment doorknob and which was stolen before I could reach him) has left me feeling shaken. I want to be able to have the ability to love and forgive, but hurtful actions are difficult to heal from.

Maybe I used to think that in order to truly forgive someone, you had to allow them in your life, even if they were severely limiting your ability to live in peace and love. Now I realize this isn't the case, you can care deeply about someone and still put up big boundaries that mean they can never hurt you again. Sometimes people are just too negative to allow them to influence your life anymore. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to tell them goodbye.

Aside from that, I have been reading a lot of stuff on Near Death Experiences. Quite fascinating. I must admit, it makes me quite homesick for a spiritual land far far away. But dammit, I'm supposed to be here, doing my thing.

I'm also considering moving. To either Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Ontario. Of course, I probably won't, yet. Still, there is a creepy feeling pervading me that this isn't where I should be calling home. I'm really unsure. Too many questions.

Life is strange

Yes it is. I'm having a sort of spiritual crisis at the moment, a result of deciding to walk away from a very long and intense friendship which was stagnant. I know it was a positive decision, but the negative fallout from walking away (including having my dead pet put on my apartment doorknob and which was stolen before I could reach him) has left me feeling shaken. I want to be able to have the ability to love and forgive, but hurtful actions are difficult to heal from.

Maybe I used to think that in order to truly forgive someone, you had to allow them in your life, even if they were severely limiting your ability to live in peace and love. Now I realize this isn't the case, you can care deeply about someone and still put up big boundaries that mean they can never hurt you again. Sometimes people are just too negative to allow them to influence your life anymore. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to tell them goodbye.

Aside from that, I have been reading a lot of stuff on Near Death Experiences. Quite fascinating. I must admit, it makes me quite homesick for a spiritual land far far away. But dammit, I'm supposed to be here, doing my thing.

I'm also considering moving. To either Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Ontario. Of course, I probably won't, yet. Still, there is a creepy feeling pervading me that this isn't where I should be calling home. I'm really unsure. Too many questions.

The Great Drug Debate

There are some people who go crazy and then manage to pull themselves back to normal through natural remedies. In fact, during my early adolescence, alternative medicine is what saved my life. I do not deny the efficacy of alternative means of dealing with mental health. I'm sure if I hadn't gone to see that alternative doctor, I would be dead long long long ago.

So why do I take pharmaceuticals now? The short answer is that I had a psychotic break and what eventually stabilized me were pharmaceuticals.

Now I am just as aware as anyone of the unethical capitalist practices of the pharmaceutical industry. It's a corrupt system, filled with unfairly tilted studies of new drugs, sweeping side effects like death, suicide, and homicide under the carpet.

At the same time, I think it's just as unethical to tell someone whose medication works for them that they shouldn't be taking it. I'm tired of hearing people tell me "you're not crazy, you don't need those medications."

I am crazy. Crazy isn't a forever thing, it happens in cycles, at least my brand of crazy. And while I can function to a high degree, I definately notice if I forget my meds. If I get depressed, you usually won't know it because I retreat into my apartment. If I get hypomanic, most people will just notice that I seem happier and yappier than normal and that maybe I'm doing better. I have only once gone so crazy as to believe I was the next messiah, and that scared the shit out of me.

So I take pharmaceuticals. Big deal. Five pills a day and I'm a-okay. This is how I'm dealing with my mental health right now. There is always the possibility that someday in the future I will go into full remission and not have to take my medication. Likewise, I may always take medication.

As a crazy community, it's important that we support everyone's personal decision as to how they want to address their mental health concerns, drugs or no drugs. To do this, we have to be given more choices, more options. Doctors should be willing to listen to the concerns of their patients about side effects. The psych ward system needs to have group home options for people who are going through spiritual crisis that will allow the course of a psychotic episode to be resolved naturally. In fact, in the States back in the seventies this was done with manic depressives and schizophrenics, and without the use of drugs or restraints, all the patients were able to resume fully functioning lives. Of course once in a while someone would run naked into the yard, but this wasn't pathologized.

And finally, most importantly, crazy people who are stabilized need to be given more supports in our communities. It doesn't help to go to a mental health team and find out you're not crazy enough to be given services.

Mmm, kissin'

I went out last night, got wasted, and necked with two girls and a boy while their friends took pictures. Much fun. I haven't kissed girls in ages, and it's kind of nice to neck when there's no pressure about going "all the way." Plus I look freakin hot necking with girls. I've never had the chance to look at it from an outside perspective. Oh wait, I necked with one of my friends on Super 8, but I never used the footage. It was pretty funny.

I like kissing. I believe I must get more kisses in my life. I used to kiss so many people when I was in my early twenties. I could neck at the drop of a hat. Most of the time I didn't even care to go further, and neither did they, it was just a fun thing to do when you're at . . . certain events. Like fetish parties. There was this one friend I had who was so hot, and we totally necked here and there.

I remember this one time she was helping me get ready for my bartenders exam, and if I recited the recipes wrong she'd flick my nipple REALLY HARD! Ah, good times.

I must admit, if I look at the people who are my close friends now, I've necked with most of them at some point in the course of our friendships. Or else they were my lovers and then in true lesbian fashion went on to be friends after the break up. Sometimes . . . long after the break up. It's hard to remain friends with someone you still desperately want to shag, but I find if there's a nice chunk of time away from them where you get to work through all those bitter feelings, it can work. I mean, all of my girlfriends have been people I like as individuals for different reasons, so in some way I don't see the point of completely cutting them out of my life based solely on the fact that the relationship wasn't working out.

Yes, I am a mature experienced woman.

I'm not a dog!

My current favorite piece of software

I love software. I have always loved it. Editing, writing, photoshopping, web pages, power point, whatever. I have a love affair with each one.

My current favorite piece of software is Final Draft. It makes scriptwriting so freakin easy. Not only does it make formatting it properly a breeze, but it will also do really cool things for your script, like come up with various reports on how many characters there are, give you all your locations, and it can even be used to compare your first draft with your later drafts. How sexy is that?

Anyway, after the last pathetic blog, I decided I would write some stuff. Altogether with today and yesterdays work, I have seven and a half new pages. Woo hoo! Including the sex scene, which was a little hard to write because the last time I had sex with a girl was when Bush got into office. Pretty grim. So I felt just as rusty writing sex as I'm sure I'll be having sex, should I ever have sex again.

I've also realized that in a certain way, what has blocked me from writing this story is that it's a love story, and love has been rather elusive in my life. So I was uncomfortable actually writing characters who fall in love, although more terrible things are in store for them soon.

Soon I have to write the really uncomfortable scenes, the loss of sanity and subsequent hospitalization. It's all very sad. Hmm. And I'll be introducing some more characters.

That's the hard part of writing, you create characters you really care about, and then you have to throw them in a horrible situation.

I tell you we must die

Trundling along with Unemployed Summer. It is Thursday. I applied for two jobs. One is as an Office Services Clerk in a law firm. That would be a nice job to have, considering I've already done it. After writing two cover letters and updating my c.v., I sat around and talked to my mother. Then I watched two episodes of Ab Fab and then Mirrorball. I laughed so hard at the scene where Jane Horrocks sings Alabama Song. That's one of my all time favorite songs when I'm maudlin in a certain "the piano has been drinking" sort of way. Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar. I tell you we must die. I tell you we must die.

I am a veritable powerhouse of creativity at the moment, and yet I can't seem to motivate myself enough to pull my script up and pound away at it. The trouble with the writing process is it's so solitary. That's something I like about it as well, but when I'm on my own, making myself sit down and write is that hardest thing to do.

So I write in my blog.

Really though, sitting around watching well written british comedy series is probably part of my creative process. Brit comedies rule the fucking planet. If I was ever to do a comedy series, I would want to do it with the BBC.

But obviously, I must first learn to have good writing habits. I do write everyday, just not on my script. I must start everyday script writing. What troubles me at the moment is I have fifty-five pages and I'm only a third of the way through the plot, which means I've got more material than I can use. However, I also realize that I shouldn't start chopping away at it until I've completed the whole first draft. Oh it's tiring. Plus one of my characters really needs an overhaul, poor transdude. He's been tokenized, and that's obviously a problem because he's woefully unfleshed out.

I am my own worst critic.

I tell you we must die. I tell you we must die.

I'm off to buy two cigs now. I'll be back later.

Diary Haiku

I apparently have but one thing on my mind according to the haiku engine for my diary site. Here's what it came up with:

are all bacon and
eggs nibble nibble i like
fish as long as it


I am particular about fish. I didn't realize I talked about food so much in my diary. I thought for sure it would pick up my potty mouth.

Life + Pills

Edina - "Remember when you could just wake up in the morning and feel fabulous?"
Patsy- "Yeah, without pills."

I'm trying to think how long I've been taking pills for psychiatric reasons. I've been on Epival and two other meds for two and a half years now, but before that there were many years I was on anti-depressants alone. It does seem like a very long time. Probably the majority of my adult life.

Before pills, life was really hellish. I think back on my childhood and so much of it was just dark and intense. I really didn't want to live. And I was a kid!

I wish there had been some way to treat me back then. Oh well.

But I do remember mornings when I could wake up and feel fabulous, and the smell of the morning dew as I walked to school was the most sensual spiritual feeling I ever had, and I liked life. That's the weird thing, it didn't all suck all the time.

So now I'm maintained on three different drugs that work together in different ways in my brain and make me able to function fairly normally. I've grown happily accustomed to my prescription, no horrible side effects, but I can't help but wonder what it would be like to not have to depend on pills. I don't want to go off them, because obviously they work wonders. But there are concerns, like say my plane crashed in the woods and I ran out of meds. Or the government broke down and there was no way for me to get a prescription filled in all the melee. What the hell kind of crazy would I go?

Still, the little pills are in no danger of being taken away from me yet. Unlike American's whose health plans only pay for meds as long as you are actively crazy. Once you're stabilized, they take it away.

It makes me cream my jeans

I just found the sexiest thing in the world on the net. I am rendered completely speechless. I think I am overcome with love and lust. If I had this baby by my side, life would be sooooo ultimately perfect. I have missed having my own camera since I lent mine out and it came back BROKEN! And besides, it also became really old technology.

Thirza sells out and goes High Definition. Mmmmm, sweet sexy sacriligious sell out.

A stark reminder in the midst of gay revelry

I've been having quite a bit of fun lately, what with Pride weekend closely followed by Out On Screen's Queer Film Festival. Love and Numbers is screening again on Sunday afternoon at 2, followed by a panel. I've been surrounded by all shades of queer, sexy femmes and swaggering butches and gay men and trannies and bisexuals to be sure. Living in a somewhat cosmopolitan city in Western culture, just newly able to legally marry, things look pretty good for queers here. There still are issues, to be sure. Lest we not forget Aaron Webster, the gay man who was brutally murdered in Stanley Park and whose death was not declared a hate crime. I don't know, but when a lot of straight men attack a gay man with baseball bats, I call that a hate crime.

But maybe hate crime is not a strong enough word for what it really is. What it really is is genocide.

I was reminded of that this week when a friend forwarded on news about two gay teenagers in Iran who were sentenced to death for the capital crime of homosexuality. They were sixteen when the so called "crime" was committed. You can find pictures of their last moments alive here, here, and here.

I have to say, while all the images shocked and appalled me, I think the first one struck me the most, probably because one of the boys looks very similar to a dear gay friend of mine.

Since the Ayatolla's took power in 1979, 4000 gays and lesbians have been executed. How can one not call that genocide?

One might argue it's impossible to commit genocide towards queers, to which I say bunk. What about all the queers shipped off to concentration camps? And while we're a funny culture in society because we pop up in any family anywhere, we are a very tribal people, having had the history of people being rejected by their families and making new, queer ones.

But really, what it comes down to is western guilt. As a queer in Canada, what the hell can I do to make being a homo easier for people worldwide? I don't know why I feel this is my mission, but it is an important question.

In the meantime, I will say a prayer an continue being a raging Canadian dyke.

Welcoming song

I have a screening I curated on tonight. I'm nervous I will be asked to get up and say something. My hands shake when I do public speaking. I thought I could get away with it if I stuck a rattle in my hand and said I was doing a welcoming song from my people. Shake shake shake. Shake shake shake. Shake that groove thing.

The joys of being mental.

Passing

When I came out years ago, I was really confused by the term passing. In my history, passing was related to race, whereas in queer terms it means passing as male/female.

I think as a biracial person, most of the hate directed towards me had to do with the fact that I could easily choose to pass for white, abandon the race, and not bother myself with advancing civil rights for aboriginals. At least, to the outsider it seemed like an easy choice. But I wasn't raised that way. Lightest next to my white grandma in a family a varying shades of brown, I just felt like I was a brown person. I confronted racism in elementary school next to my brown best buddies, I studied my history, I did everything a "good" upstanding Aboriginal was supposed to do.

But it didn't save me the day some brown girls beat me up for being white and not afraid of them. What I remember most is their fury, and the way they kept denying that I could possibly be an Aboriginal.

It was a hate crime, from my own people. I was forced to reconcile the fact that I had white skin, and therefore more privilege.

I think I'm pretty obvious about my racial background. Still, for some people that will never be enough. They will always be jealous that I'm able to pass for white, not realizing the huge internal struggles that this poses.

Eggs

Eggs are a cheap source of protein. This is what I tell myself when I open the fridge and find only mustard, a wilted stalk of celery, and six eggs. I had devoured my spagetti and sauce, and the bacon had turned an unholy shade of green.

After living for a year on pizza by the slice, eggs have become my main staple as a person living in poverty.

Eggs can be cooked in a lot of yummy ways, unfortunately huevos rancheros cannot be created using limp celery and mustard.

I hate eggs. They have become a symbol of my poverty. They should taste yummy, but when they are the only option for consumption, they choke.

"It could be worse, you could have no eggs."

True.

Sometimes I have tried to insert moments of poverty in my videos. Counting spare change, taking pills, but nothing has really captured the feelings of utter hopelessness and desperation that come with such actions. I'm thinking of other things I have done, re-roll cigarette butts, that's a big one, go to the Carnegie, go to Coast's free Friday dinners. Waiting in line for careless sandwiches.

And eggs, those eggs mock me. I want meat. I want stir frys and salmon and tofu curry. I want fruit and crackers and cheese, and beans, and I make long lists in my head late at night, imagining what I would buy if I got some cash. I've grown past the point of living on pizza by the slice and gyros and any other cheap fast food. I like to actually make myself food.

But what can you make when all you have are eggs?

Look Out!

I am ready to shake off a lot of stuff from my life.

Some people aren't going to know me anymore after this summer. That's a positive thing for me.

At this point I have a very very very low tolerance for people putting crap on me.

I am making space for new friends and lovers, so new folks, feel free to invite me out for a coffee.

I'm not quite sure who I'll be by the end of it, or even where I will be.

Soon it's time to drop the axe.

Condoleeza Rice strikes Again!

In case you missed that post, I once had a dream about making out with Condoleeza Rice.

It truly disturbed me.

Last night she was in my dream again, tight hairdo, pinched face, we were in some kind of a boardroom. I considered telling her about my necking dream.

Why do I dream of Condoleeza Rice?! Something tells me I have a politically incorrect bone for the lady.

I have negative 16 dollars in my bank account. I don't know how I have MINUS 16 bucks.

I just need to survive a couple more weeks and an artist fee is coming in. Oh hurry scurry little artist fee!

I should write a letter to Condoleeza Rice and ask her to send me some money.

Someone keeps trying to tell me I am no longer a lesbian because of some meaningless experiments with boys. It's pissing me off. So I haven't played with ladies recently, so what. Why does that make me any less a lesbian than the first four years I was out and celibate because everyone my age was closeted and all the older ladies wouldn't play with me because there's laws against it? I don't understand. Now I feel compelled to prove my lesbianism to someone who isn't even a lesbian, it's stupid.

Just because I've been single a long time doesn't mean I haven't fallen in love with ladies.

Plus I hate that lesbian identity is so fragile the slightest bit of penis puts it in question, whereas gay men can easily have casual sex with girls and aren't challenged.

Goddamn phallus power. My Condoleeza Rice dreams are far more baffling evidence of my lesbian tendencies.

If anything my boy experiments proved conclusively that I am not bisexual. I could write a paper on why, but that's just wasting more energy on something stupid, when I would much rather be spending more time with lesbians, meeting girls, and getting nervous and crushed out on them.

Tell a secret

I've never been diagnosed or treated for it, but I believe I have a mild form of epilepsy. I've only ever had one grand mal seiziure, I remember it clear as day. I remember the way the morning light came in the windows, and I was eating my cereal, probably fruit loops, reading Gary Larson and laughing my butt off. Then my funny bone hit the edge of the kitchen table and I was in massive pain, yelling owie. Then blackness. The next thing I knew I woke up on the livingroom carpet, soft face smooshed into the weave. My first thought was "It must be Monday. Time to go to school."

There's nothing else particularily remarkable, no further grand mal seizures, but I have petit mals. I get them quite frequently. I'll just stare at a small spot and suddenly no information gets into my head. People could be having meaningful conversations with me and quite often I'll "space out." I've learned how to cover for it reasonably well, just nod your head in agreement once you can move again. There actually have been a couple of times I agreed to something that wasn't . . . agreeable. People sometimes also assume I'm not listening to them, which is true but for a medical reason, and then they get all tetchy.

***************Bonus Secret!**********************

I commonly have auditory hallucinations. Ironically, these didn't begin until I started taking pharmaceuticals to combat depression, then manic depression. There's nothing particularily remarkable about these either, quite often I hear my name being called, during withdrawal from Paxil I kept hearing the sound of a huge truck passing by, sometimes just a pounding frequency. When I went really crazy I had very distinct voices telling me things, and church bells. But my hallucinations are pretty benign, and I cover for them pretty well so I can pass as normal. I've just learned not to react every time I hear something similar to my hallucinations. Unfortunately this sometimes makes me look a bit stupid or standoffish if it's not a hallucination.

Montreal psych ward horror story bonding

Last night I did the something for the first time. I actually met a couple of folks who I knew only through the internet. It was a gas, and this girl had been in a Montreal psych ward too. When I tell people I was in a psych ward, they truly don't grasp the traumatic horrors that occur there.

First off, you are not treated as someone with an illness, you're treated like a criminal. For another thing, I think they take some kind of course in destroying the last traces of humanity, empathy, and compassion. Personally, I think a lot of the psych ward workers I met, particularily in Emergency, were probably the Gestapo in their past lives. You look into their eyes and it's completely cold and soulless.

Then there's the restraints. It doesn't sound as violent as it really is. I'm all for consensual bondage, but when you're put in restraints it's really fucking scary. Usually it's used as punishment for minor infractions, in my case I wanted to use the phone during nap time, and instead of having a rational discussion about why they had some rule against using the phone, I was drugged and tied down for three and a half hours.

Then there's this absurd idea of medical care. They do not care about their patients. Drug em, feed em, let them watch television, that's your life and it won't get better until they decide to let you out. When I got first degree burns on my hands they didn't give me proper medical attention until two days later, even after I went to them saying my hands were burned. My hands were in agony. Finally one of the few nice staff brought a doc to see me. So they gave me this special cream to put on my hands to heal them. Later, when I went in again, I still needed the cream, but of course I didn't have a chance to get it before going to the bin a second time. I kept asking friends and family to go get me this cream, but they thought I was a delusional nut, so instead they brought me hand lotion which didn't do shit for my poor burns.

That's not the only instance I saw of poor medical care. A homeless man who came to the hospital had gone walking in snow and ice in bare feet in montreal. His feet were pretty cut up, and looked frostbitten too. No one did anything for him until I got mad at my shrink and pointed it out.

They don't care about protecting patients from other patients. There was this gross old man who wanted to gang rape me and even though I protested, they put me in a small ward with him and a handful of other male patients. As a rape survivor, this totally triggered off a whole host of things, none of which helped calm me down and bring me to this mythical state they call normal.

Finally, they have a fucked up attitude towards anglos. If you're an anglo and you end up in a montreal bin, they will not provide you with interpreters and they are adamant about not transferring you to an English speaking hospital, of which there are a few. Actually, not just anglos, I take that back, anyone who doesn't speak French is left to try and make sense of arbitrary rules. There were a few people who obviously spoke very little French OR English, and I have no idea how awful that must have been for them.

Anyway, now I have a friend who actually understands how truly soul destroying a stay in a Montreal psych ward is. And that makes me feel a lot more relieved, less alone about the whole experience. I sometimes get so furious about how casual certain people are about my experience in the bin. I have no obvious scars from the stay. But I am a psychiatric survivor.

One day I hope to transcend from being a psychiatric survivor. I think that day is coming. It's taken a lot of really hard honest soul searching, writing, crying, and most notably, coming back to life. I feel I died in the psych ward. But my own personal ressurection and living has made me a stronger person.

Lesbians

God bless 'em. I've spent nearly half my life proudly being lesbian. Then some questioning years, related to gender. Now it's an identity I feel oddly at ease with all over again. Like a well worn leather jacket. Yeeeah! Women rock my world. They really do. Nothing makes me feel more electrified than feminine flirtatious energy. I love butch/femme identities and sexual frission. I love that my town is filled with brazen leatherdykes who love sticking needles all over their bodies. I love belonging to a sub culture. I love being a lesbian.

I want to write something in honour of all the lesbians I have known who have supported me and paved the way for me to be. And yet, thinking of all the wildly talented and hot women I know across Canada, I find it hard to express how truly blessed I have been to have them in my lives.

Instead, I present to you a montage of my top ten favorite lesbian moments in my life.

1. Riding the back of a butch dyke's motorcycle through the streets of San Francisco one hot summer night.
2. The first time a woman's breasts pressed against mine and I realized I loved female flesh.
3. Losing my virginity to the most gorgeous bisexual in grade 11.
4. Getting shy and flustered when Kate Bornstien liked my hair.
5. Getting shy and flustered when I first saw Annie Sprinkle in real life.
6. Butches bonding over fatty fried foods.
7. The time my vegan lover asked me in the middle of the night if I ate bacon.
8. Kissing a reluctant older butch in a courtyard in Germany.
9. Having romantic baths with my femme girlfriend who actually didn't like baths and would always end up laying naked on the floor talking to me. Actually now that I think about it that was kind of weird.
10. Having meaningless sex with an ex for the purposes of art. Actually it was really fun but I was never allowed to tell her that.

Lesbians. God bless 'em.

The mice are back

God bless 'em. At least now I'm not so pitifully alone.

Pride weekend is around the corner and my dance card is empty.

Someone told me there is no sex in the afterlife. For shame!!

Can Pride 20055555555555 be the year I break my celibacy? I actually just meant to write 2005, but my five key sticks. I fear it may be a much more accurate assessment of my singleness.

More funny

News from Iraq.

Secrets and Rants

Hi, my Netscape is being a big jerk and won't let me sign in, so I am on Safari. Anyway, I found a blog you all might be interested in. It's called Post Secret and it's a collection of mail art made by anonymous folks who tell a secret about themselves. Some are funny, some are sad, it's updated every Sunday with new secrets.

I made a secret card to mail in this week.

And now for a rant.

So I spent a few hours cruising around Livejournal looking -seeking- for another community I would actually want to be a part of. But all the bipolar communities are full of whingers and all the lesbian communities seem composed of newly out lesbians still raging about how their families just don't understand. I'm twenty-seven and I've been openly a homo for thirteen years, so this is all quite redundant to me. God, I've been through being an out homo in high school IN SASKATCHEWAN no less, and I hate listening to twenty-somethings who have just come out whine about oh, my mum's an ass, and wah wah wah, and I just wanna say yeah, thanks a lot.

Thanks for being the homophobic twat who slammed me in high school to protect your reputation and then later when your hankering for pussy gets the best of you, now you want in the community. Well fuck you. I have nothing but contempt for homos who are too shit scared to be who they are when they're a teenager. Thanks a bunch for leaving me and many other queer kids in the lurch, looking for allies and finding nothing. Sorry, that's just my mood today. I know it's scary to be a queer teen, but fucking christ, I did it in the Canadian equivalent of the Midwest so fuck you. And when you're in your twenties you have way more options opened up for being in the queer community, so quit your whinging and go to a support group or a rally or a bar or something.

Down Town East Side Eagle Feather

It has been a long time since an eagle feather came to me. The last time, and first time, I was walking along the beach with my mother when she found a golden eagle feather. It was truly majestic, and she gave it to me. I was probably thirteen or fourteen.

As you know, it's illegal to kill eagles, so getting a real eagle feather is a pretty special thing.

Present day life in Strathcona, I go on a very long voyage on foot to buy pot for a friend, I wind all the way through the hinterlands of East Van, down Commercial Drive, up to a street corner where I meet the dealer who has been developing a rather amusing infatuation. Then I hop on the Freetrain back to my neck of the woods, risking a fine just because my feet are tired. I arrive back at the apartment building, when what do I see, but an eagle feather. Not majestic, but noble nonetheless.

We have a pair of bald eagles in the neighborhood, so it could have come from them.

Or, as my friend pointed out, fallen off of some Indian.

Either way, a sacreligious reward for walking so far, mighty halfbreed, to score drugs.

I choose today to blame it all on my Saturn Return

I only clean when people visit me. How strange. Like, I can live in a sty, but visiting folk cannot. Anyway, there's not really much to tell about my life. Or maybe, there is stuff to tell and I just don't wanna. I think it's my Saturn return. It's kind of interesting anyway, to me, not necessarily other folk. I feel poised to make massive changes in my life. I don't know that they would be changes anyone would notice though, except for me.

Since going a little loco at the end of last semester, I've been on an anti-depressant and my mood stabilizer and my anti-psychotic, and I haven't been terribly depressed since. I've felt way more hopeful about life. This whole unemployed thing is a freakin' nightmare, but I know somehow I'll end up in the right job.

******************living kitchens*******************************
My fridge breathes. It's true, ask Lynn. Every few hours it lets out a great sigh.

Lynn (my neighbor) has dirty dishes. Once I was visiting her and I heard moans and creaking bed noises and it was coming from her kitchen sink! We just call them the dirty dirty dishes.
*****************end***************************************************

I haven't cried in a very long time though, and that unsettles me. It's like, crying is a focused expression of emotion, it's kind of a religious experience really. And it's healing. And I just haven't cried about anything in a long time, whereas before I could cry at the drop of a hat. I don't know which is worse. I miss crying.

That all being said, please don't go out of your way to make me cry. That would annoy me.

I finally have a happy dream to tell you about. My mentally handicapped sister had her 30th birthday party and I missed it, which was sad. But I dreamt that I was there, and the whole family was there, all dressed up. And somehow my sister had connections with the millitary, so they flew in fighter jets across the sky and dropped all these little toys, like swimming noodles and those punch balloons. And my job was to go gather up all these little toys for her.

So I think when I have some money, I'm going to go down to the toy store and buy her a bunch of goofy toys she would like. And marshmallows, because she loves marshmallows. All kinds. There's this really yummy kind she likes that has toasted coconut on it.

Job Hunting and Gathering

"A BFA, what kind of a job can you get with that?" my cousin scoffed.

It is true, BFA's, or as they are affectionately known, "Bachelor of Fuck All"'s, are a whole lot of work with dubious credentials at the end. But surely a major in Film/Video must add up to something. Dear god, all that learning how to use equipment I could not afford.

Anyway, there's a job opening as a technician at ECI. Which is a bit ridiculous, going back and working for the school I graduated from. On the other hand, I was taught how to use all their gear, and I was a technician intern.

My protein sources are sad. I need to buy some groceries. My potatoes are all rotten. And I need to take out the garbage.

I had a long nap today.

Recently I had a nightmare I was trying to move into a new place and everytime I was moving in I would find dead murdered bodies everywhere, I was screaming and running away, eee. Finally I told my friend who was helping me find a new house NO MORE MURDERED PEOPLE. Strange dream.

Boy - Part 3 TMI

************Do not read if you don't want to hear about testosterone's effects on clits********************
The two weeks is up, I do not have a mustache, I am beyond the hot flashes and higher body temperature. I am still not planning to transition into a man. However the one thing I was hoping for has happened. My clit got bigger. I am probably exaggerating, but it feels twice as big as it was before. For a masculine little dude girl, this is an exciting development. My sensation even feels slightly different, which is awfully cool.

Did my sex drive go up? Nah, not a whole lot, I'm fairly concupiscent as it is. That's a fancy word for horny, yes it is.

Either way, the whole experience has left me feeling more comfortable in my body as it is. I consider it another form of body modification that I've chosen. Apparently it will stay the same size, unless I opt for further hormone treatments, in which case it will get bigger, but that whole body hair lowered voice thing scares me.

I like being a lesbian boy the best. All these parts of mine are nice, and I want to keep them as they are.

High Femme Haiku

High femmes, I love you so,
yet you are scary, how can this be?
Is it the pointy shoes?

Someone buy me this . . .

. . . hot transfag porno.

I Heart Too Much

"You love too much."

It is true, I have fallen in love a fair number of times in my life. We'd taken some kind of online test, and I had been fussing with dirty dishes as I casually called out my answers.

Me, a woman who loves too much.

How many times are you allowed to fall in love in your life without looking like a ridiculous teenager?

When I was younger, with my first sweetie that I was with for a year, there was this friend who kept falling in love with a different person every month. I think I saw her go through like, four or five girlfriends. A woman who loved too much.

But who is to say that just because you fall in love with a number of people, that it is a bad thing. What's wrong with loving more people?

It's a bit ridiculous to think I love too much, since I'm twenty-seven and have only had three girlfriends, and can fall hopelessly in love with people for years without anything ever actually happening. I just don't see the point of only having one big love in your lifetime. Plus I just like that in love feeling. I guess I'm a pretty intense little dude when I'm in love. It's been many years since I wrote a poem to a girl though.

Anyway, this summer is looking like much fun because for the first time in years I have a nice set of multiple crushes, on various cute smart ladies. Assorted flavours. Even if nothing happens with anyone, it's entertaining as all hell. My close friends are now used to listening to me spin grand fantasies involving people they don't know. I honestly don't know how they can stand it.

$101.00

I won $101 dollars playing pull tabs at the Sufferin' Dufferin last night. It was enough to buy mysef and two friends two rounds of import beers, and some extra to fiddle with. I'm really tempted to buy a DVD I have wanted for a long time, since this is extra Surprise money. Hmm. What to do. . .

*******UPDATE***************
I bought the DVD for cheap on eBay.

:D

I have kandy korn!

Without a care in the world

This morning a terroist attack rocked London. And I la di da'd around all afternoon on public transit, not a care in the world, shopping. I bought pricey honey-carmel scented soap and candy bath melts. One Roman Dirge baby T (fat girl in skintight T alert!), three panties, and two cute t shirts from Old Navy. And that was about it. Then I split a 6 pack with a friend because I promised I would buy her beers. And that was my day, it was lovely. If I got major artist fees I would shop every day.

I'm not feeling the hot flashes as much, maybe that part of T is over. People ask me if I am going to keep taking it. I would have to say, no, not unless something really happens to change how I think of myself in the world. I'm pretty comfortable in this wacky gender called Butch Dyke. I think it's a place I want to keep living in for a while.

In fact, I almost feel more girly after having tried T. It's hard to explain. I will mine my daily thoughts for a way to explain it. I do know that the other day I was shaving my legs (I haven't done that in about six or seven years) and I thought "This is not a manly thing to be doing." Same with wearing the Dorothy's-Ruby-Slippers nail polish. And buying a T shirt that says "I am a little fairy princess."

I'm just a 21st century gender terrorist.

Manic Panic

Yesterday was a weird day. I found out I had gotten my money from my reserve for graduating, so I did a happy dance and smoked a joint. Then this morning I checked my mailbox and ta da! A nice little artist fee. It's like getting paid to be me.

But last night the weirdest thing happened, a friend told me she thought I sounded manic, and for some reason it made me really angry. I think because the last time she said that, next thing I knew cops were at the door. But I was manic then. And then I got really confused, and had to run over a checklist in my head of manic symptoms. Not talking too fast, not getting involved in big plans, I did feel happy, but that was probably mostly due to having some cash in my pocket. Either way, I did not feel like I was manic at all, actually yesterday I felt pretty sluggish and tired. And depressed. Until I got money.

Because in a capitalist society money = survival.

Another online friend said she gets pissed when her bf or mum tell her she seems manic because it feels like a form of control. I think that's what made me mad, just that pointing out someone is manic is a lot like saying "Go to the Hospital you Subhuman fuckup!" I don't know, no one ever tells you you seem crazy in a calm way. It's never a normal event.

Man, I don't even know what I am trying to say.

So I did do a thorough check in of me, and I can pretty much confirm that I'm not crazy. In fact, I feel pretty even, and I'm still faithfully taking all my medications, including a pretty heavy duty anti-psychotic that can knock a manic episode on it's ass. I know there's always the possibility of breakthrough episodes, but I just don't think I'm having one of those. I think I'm pretty stable. Hmm . . .

Of course now that someone outside of me has mentioned it, now I have to do check ins on myself for the next week, which is a pain because people hate when you seem self absorbed and pre-occupied. At the same time, I probably was going to check in on myself just because of the T anyway, so it's no big deal.

If it's not one thing, it's another

I trotted off to the post office and picked up my new phone, spent the next hour changing some phone numbers so they were stored to my sim card. Replaced the sim, and fiddled around with all the new things on my new phone. It has polyphonic ringtones. Get this: when my phone rings, it sounds like an actual old phone! It is so cute! I was terribly excited and thought oh yay, my life is turning around.

But then I went on friendster and got an admonishment from a friend for mentioning accidentally touching his cock, AND found out someone I like is currently taken, which they never bothered to let me know. I mean, it's not like I demanded that she keep me up to date or anything, so I can't really complain, and besides that she does live VERY far away. As for the cock thing, I dunno, maybe I have really bad boundaries. Growing up native, people just routinely made lewd crude jokes all over the place. I mean, some of my elders have thoroughly embarrassed me by teasing me about my sexuality, not in a mean way mind you, just, I dunno, that's what they do. It's an Indian thing. If you've never experienced it, you wouldn't understand it.

Anyway, I felt cruddy for a while, and didn't even have the chance to call mum to vent because she's up in Northern Saskatchewan at a cabin on a lake, lucky woman. Then the worst thing happened: Internet Explorer decided to be fucked up. I click on it at the little icon bounces up and down like it's yelling "I'm ready, I'm ready!" and then it just stops, and doesn't open. All "Fuck you!" Sigh.

It's overcast and I am still on the job hunt. Bleh.

But at least I have my phone again, an even better phone, a cuter, lighter, smaller phone.

The T isn't doing anything to me besides giving me the occassional hot flash. Not a Menopausal Woman hot flash (those look way way more intense), but hot flashes nonetheless.

I'm grumpy. I'm going for a walk before it rains.

Boy - Pain in the Ass (Part 2)

We were prepped, we were ready. The needle was fearsome. My friend let me hold it for a while before he wielded against my bare bum. 50mg of depo-testosterone, all that kaffufle and it just came down to this ridiculously benign looking amber fluid.

We went to his bedroom, where I bared my butt and got into position.

Deep breaths. He had a very nice bedside manner.

"Aaaah! I"m nervous!" It reminded me of my trips to the piercer, that nervous energy that crawls into the palms of your hands and tickles like you gotta pee right now.

"Have you ever done play piercing?"

"Yeah, just surface stuff on my arms."

"Well this won't even hurt as much as that because it's only breaking the skin once and it's coming out the same way."

We did some more deep breathing.

Then I was ready.

It was a sharp pinch, and then it was over. I thought an intramuscular injection would hurt a lot more, but it didn't really. I'm sure if I had to do it every two weeks I would think it stinks though. I felt a bit giddy, general euphoria. I had done it, there it was, it was in my system. Who knew what the next two weeks would hold for me?

One of the first effects I noticed was a tingling in my crotch, not a I have To Pee tingle, more, I dunno, a This Turns Me On tingle. Not quite, but that's the closest I can describe it. And I felt my body temperature rise. My hands seemed warmer.

And yet, the sky didn't fall. Later on when my friend's boyfriend kept wanting to watch boxing on tv, I didn't connect with it because of boy-hormones. I mean, essentially I feel pretty much the same as I did before.

Another friend got a shot, she called me up today and asked if my clit was throbbing, which it isn't really, but I have only been awake for a short amount of time.

I'm excited to see how this works for the next couple of weeks it's in my system.

********I have a phone again! A friend is lending me her ancient cell phone so now the temp agency can get in touch with me, and people can ask me out on dates. Ask me out on a date while the T makes me horny!********

Boy - Part 1

I think I went through the biggest part of my gender confusion when I was about nineteen years old. I remember this one time I was telling an older butch friend about a dream I had where I was a boy, and how it really made me wonder where my gender stood. There was this other woman hanging around, non-butch, totally didn't get it, while my friend just kind of nodded and agreed that any masculine woman these days has a moment where ya wonder, am I male or female?

There is this opening story in Stone Butch Blues about how the protagonist, Jess, is constantly asked if she is a boy or a girl. This was the constant question of my childhood too. Are you a boy or a girl? To think that even adults think they have the right to interrogate a child on their gender, that is sick.

At this point in my life, eight years of really doing major soul searching on whether or not I wanted to transition into a man, I have accepted that my gender is a question more than any answer. More than any allegiance to a binary, I have come to terms with living on the border of boy and girl. I know I wouldn't be happier with a more masculine body. Hair, deep voice, no, that's not really me. I don't feel completely comfortable inside a girl body either, but it's something I can work with until the day I shed this body and go to the other side, where something tells me I won't be a boy or a girl.

At the same time, ever since I was nineteen, hearing the fabulous stories of what a shot of testosterone can do, I knew I wanted to have that experience. Only once, a needle sinking into my butt, a couple of weeks of male hormones, possibly one or two minor physical changes. My dalliance inside maleness. And eight years after making the decision to temporarily modify my hormones, to possibly put a couple of gendered questions to rest, some trans friends of mine are giving me a shot.

It's the most exciting thing to happen to me all summer so far, and so of course with summer night drinks with friends I've excitedly told them about this new development in my life.

Okay, so I've had trans friends for ages, I mean, ever since I was in youth groups. I knew shit came at you for being trans, transphobia, yes, I thought I was really prepared for it. I also somehow thought that because I have educated and informed myself about transgender politics, I dunno, everyone else would have done the same thing.

Anyway, people have really freaked out about me getting this shot. They've challenged me on my gender, some people even said I wasn't butch. They've tried to talk me out of it. Some people have said they don't want to hear about how it goes. They've demanded to know what my body is going to look like after having one shot (this is a strange one, because my body is my own business). I'm just being an open honest dude about it and realizing that my openly transgendered butch status is turning me into an Other on a daily basis, with weird taunts about why in the world a nice girl like me would have a shot of T.

We decided we would do it this weekend, and I'm seeing them tonight. I'm a little intimidated by the needle, more so than what's going to take place in my body. The last time I got a needle in the butt was just before they strapped me down in four point restraints for three and a half hours. Soooo, being a leathergirl, of course I have to re-enact the scene to reclaim that moment in my life. My friends aren't tying me up, but we'll probably have a nice chat about boy hormones and ladies and things of that nature. It's an inch and a half long intramuscular injection, and apparently it can really hurt. I can take it, but that doesn't make me like it any.

This is an experience I just have to have in my life, a chance to see what difference, if any, having testosterone in my body makes. It comes from a deep desire to understand and know the human condition. And even though people have been really vocal about not wanting me to do it, it is my own journey that I'm on, and this is just one of those destinations I have been planning for a long time.

I doubt I will decide to continue taking hormones, but then again, no one can say with certainty what the future holds.

Filthy Lady

I was plodding to the bath to wash away the day. My landlord was making the Canada Day rent rounds. I gave him rent money, then he said "The Fire and Health Inspectors came to the building last month."
"Oh," I say very innocently. Shit shit shit, that was just before the Big Clean of 2005. That was when I could barely make it from my bed to the door. It was awful, and the mice were having some kind of carnival in my boxes.
"Your apartment was filthy."
"I know, I've cleaned since then."
"I have to inspect it again next month."
Sigh. What I hate is that these "inspections" so far haven't come with any warning. I know bc tenants rights have changed with the Campbell government, but I don't know if the old rule that you had to give 24 hours notice still stands. For all I know he could drop in any time he feels like it. Like a Santa Claus with no presents.
But I'm embarrassed that he saw my apartment when it was at it's all-time worst.
At the same time, I am glad a lot of other tenants in the building have mental illnesses, so he doesn't turf you out right away or scream or anything. He's pretty decent overall.

Result Report

Candidate Name: Cuthand, Thirza
Candidate ID: cuthandt
Candidate Email: f-------@excite.com
 
Evaluation Name: Administrative Support Skills
Evaluation Date: 6/26/2005 7:30:25 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Questions Completed: 43 of 43      
Elapsed Time: 14 Minutes 34 Seconds
Questions Correct: 35
 
Overall Score 81%
   
Scores by Level
Basic 88%
   
Intermediate 94%
   
Advanced 55%
   
Scores by Category
Administration 73%
   
Filing 100%
 
Math 70%
   
Spelling 83%
   
End of Report

(Thirza can change the world through proper filing!)

In Search of Femmes

Sometimes straight people are exceedingly stupid.

My last girlfriend and I were making out in front of a Scotiabank security camera, my eyes were peeking at what we looked like, tongues slipping and sliding inside girl mouths, when I heard a surprised man's voice say "Thirza?"

It was some guy from school.

"She's not gay," he said of my sweetie, the woman I had just been macking on, the lady with dildos and harnesses and whips and lesbian porn in her bedroom.

"Well, no, she's bisexual," I said.

"No, she's straight." He was convinced. No way a girl could be that feminine and enjoy the company of other women, much less a rather masculine woman.

Some would argue that queer people are just as stupid. I think I have mentioned before the prevalance of dykes who shun uber-femme women in the community. I can't tell you how many of my lovers told me their pissed off stories about being given dirty looks or ignored outright by card carrying homos.

It does make for some awkward moments, being a butch who likes femmes, who especially likes bisexuals, to carefully choose who is safe to make the moves on. And it's true, in my life there have been many gorgeous femmes who turned out to be straight girls. But that doesn't mean every well coiffed lady is straight as an arrow.

My left Foot

My left foot is in a terrible state of affairs. First I got three itchy red bumps on my sole, then I smashed my second to baby toe into a wheely chair and badly sprained and bruised it. It hurts to walk, which I do anyway, because it's one of those pains in life that is bearable.

But highly annoying.

Neurogastroenterology

It is the study of neurons in your gut. We each have two brains, the big one in our head that gets all the attention, and the little one in your guts. Yes, there are seratonin receptors in the gut, along with numerous other neurotransmitters.

I have often wondered about the effects of bipolar on my body. I know how it affects my thinking and mood, but what about other things? Like when I was a kid, I used to get awful stomach pains before gym class, my all time most hated class. Later on someone told me that stomach pain in children is sometimes a type of migraine, which I ended up getting throughout most of my adolescence. Which I later found out is part of being bipolar.

There are other funny things about neurogastroenterology. Like this thing I have discovered recently where I feel physically ill around women I find attractive. I live in sheer terror of the day I meet someone so cute I puke all over them.

Born Nerdly. Since 1978.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I was a bit shy of technology. I was so anxious, I was sure if I touched it I would break it.

But geekness overcomes all.

I'm pretty comfortable learning tech stuff now, which is maybe why I had so much fun learning PowerPoint for the last three hours. I haven't learned a new program in such a long time. I love learning them, it's like doing a puzzle. It uses my brain in this completely fulfilling way. Anyway, I still have to learn Excel, which won't be as much fun I'm sure. I mean, slotting things in boxes, eh. At least PowerPoint is kind of a narrative medium.

I learned it by going back and forth between my PowerPoint program and an online text tutorial. I've never done online tutorials before, except for website programming. Damn, I should do some refresher courses in websites, I haven't made one in ages.

I've heard a rumour in the arts community that Arts Councils are going to start asking artists to submit their grant applications in an electronic form, ie PowerPoint. Soooo, anyone writing grants may as well learn the silly program now. It's really simple, and you can do some pretty funny things with it.

Excel. Le sigh. I wish I was learning something more fun. Oh well, it's an employable skill to have, may as well learn it too.

Wrecked @ Wreck Beach

In order to get this temping job, I have to do some online evaluations of my skills of an office worker. There's about eight tests in all, including tests on Excell and Powerpoint, which I have never used although I'm sure I can learn quick. So I was going to drink some coffee and spend some time doing the tutorials for these programs, then taking the test and voila, ultimate temp.

It was Saturday night and I figured I would probably just learn it Sunday afternoon and do the online tests that evening. So when my friends invited me to hang out with them, of course I said yes.

We went to Wreck Beach, but it was the evening so people were clothed. There were herons and two seals. The herons had a nest way up in a tree above our section of the beach. The seals would swim up to us, looking at us, and then went away. They hung around for a very long time. They would swim by and stare at us, and they chased away the seagulls. I'd never seen seals in Vancouver before.

I have seen the killer whales though, on the ferry to Victoria, a number of times. I have dreams of killer whales. They're huge.

It was really late when we were finally talked out and shivery and tired. We climbed back up the stairs. There are 390 stairs going from the road to the beach, really windy stairs. We took three breaks on our journey upwards. Huffing and puffing, I wondered what I would be like if I was still a smoker. Ugh.

We reach the top and the car is gone. Then we see the tow truck driving away with my friend's car. Goodbye car.

My friend sits down and puts his head in his hands.

We walked and walked and walked and found an isolated deserted bus loop at two in the morning and caught the second last bus of the night. By the time we got home it was three in the morning.

I feel wrecked, but I still have to learn Powerpoint and Excell, take my evaluations, and go to my screening, all in the next twelve hours.

Crumbs.

Law Office Drag Donations, Anyone?

Well, the job hunt continues. I did get a call from an employment agency looking to place someone as an office services clerk in a law office. It's work I've done before, way, way, in the past, so I'm up to the job. However I don't really have a wardrobe than lends itself well to a law office. It's perfectly fine for a call centre, but eee, I don't think jeans and a t-shirt will go over well in a law office, even though I have gotten away with it before.

Aside from that, I'm just surfing jobs sites and then taking breaks to look up mini dachshunds, like this little fellow down in Washington, or his even more handsome brother. Just coveting puppies. I think either or them would be perfect for me, and oh so cute.

People have been acting pretty funny about my wanting a dog at the end of the summer. Some people are really happy about it, and then others get all grumbly and parental about the whole thing in this really ageist way that flies up my nose.

27 and I'm still dealing with ageism. I guess ageism is always there, it just changes. Whatever. Fuck you ageism!

Stef if you are reading this and it's still Wednesday night, call me.

Tomorrow night Fit of Pique: The Zine will be showing at the Helen Pitt, along with many other zines made by emily carr students and others! It's at 102-148 Alexander, 7:30 pm. Do come and flirt with me. And buy my zine.

My one regret about quitting smoking is I never did learn how to blow a smoke ring.

Thirteen days smoke free, and I am very very proud of myself.

Freak.

Today I had a massive nicotine crave and went for a walk to chill out. As I was walking along I came to a part of the sidewalk that had bushes on one side of it and a fence on the other. And there was one of THOSE sprinklers. You surely know the kind I mean, lean jets of water shooting out in a staccato like an AK-47 gone awry. It was "Shook! Shook! Shook!" coming at me, and there was nothing I could do but run as if my very soul depended on it. So I RAN! And then I stopped just as abruptly, because of course a sprinkler doesn't travel that far.

So I continued on my walk and saw this lanky figure coming towards me with a big bag of laundry on her back, sunglasses, and a straw cowboy hat. Her hair was coming out every which way, and I thought "What a freak."

I get closer and it's my ex girlfriend.

"Were you running from that sprinkler?" she asks me, sort of laughing at me.

"Yeah."

"I didn't see it until now, I thought you were just another freak in the neighborhood."

Another task accomplished

I've finally submitted my final write up of the videos I've curated for this year's Out On Screen. It's the Aboriginal Queer program, a really difficult theme to program because there really are so few aboriginals making openly queer work. It means you have to be a little more lenient about content, because not everyone's making videos that scream "I'm a big queer native pervert." Except for me. Ha ha, no, there are queer aboriginal filmmakers, it's just we're in such short supply.

Either way, it looks like it's going to be a really great program. It's got a nice even mix of men and women, although there's no trans voice in the mix, which sort of sucks. I guess I'm trans, but I'm not super ultra trans. I'm just transgender butch. Whatever.

But at last I no longer have to worry about what's going into this year's program. Now I can just concentrate on looking for a job. Yay. Much fun.

I'm totally wired and twitchy from too much coffee. I drank two cups and a can of coke and it's only 1:43. When my friend Lynn gets off work we are headed to the beach. It's perfect beach weather.

Sick

The other day I was hanging around with some folks when the most disturbing thing happened. I was talking with a friend about getting a dog, and how sometimes it takes a while to housebreak a puppy. I mean, I have raised two puppies in my life, I remember cleaning up poop. Anyway, this other guy just says "No no no. You can housebreak a puppy in three weeks, you just have to rub it's nose in it's shit." And my friend is nodding, and they're all being very "We're older than you and know best."

Ugh, I have never hated a fellow human so much. I did serious heavy duty research in how to raise and own a dog over years of my life, reading all the books, going to obedience class. And if there's one thing I know is that it's cruelty to animals to rub a puppy's nose in shit. What you're supposed to do is keep your eye on it and scoot it outside when it looks like it's going to pee or poop. And be ridiculously vocal and happy when they do it outside. I mean, would you rub a babies face in it's own shit to potty train it? No, and a baby doesn't even have the same highly developed sense of smell that a puppy has.

So I was really mad last night. I really hope they don't expect me to be like that when my new best friend comes home, whenever that is.

The endless saga of my Cell phone

The other day the antennae on my cell snapped right off in my hand.

"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"

'What? Hello? Are you there?"

"I'm here, I'm here!"

"I can't hear you at all."

"Arg!"

I am phoneless. Again. I went to the store today to get a new phone, but the one I wanted was too expensive UNLESS Customer Service mailed it to me in 2 to 3 business days, in which case I could save 50 bucks. Why? Why why why? Does that make any kind of sense to you? I mean, there it was, right in the store, I could have just gotten it then. Instead they have to put it in a wrapper and put postage on it and mail it out to SAVE MONEY. Weird.

Besides that, my phone had gotten a bad habit of turning itself off at random moments.

My new phone is really cute, it's a flippy one too, I like those better than non flippies.

Oh yeah, so I get home and call the toll free number to order it AND THEIR OFFICES ARE CLOSED! Yet their store downtown was open? Ugh, I hate Fido sometimes.

So basically, if you call me before wednesday, I will be able to hear you perfectly, but you will only hear fragments of me. It is sad.

Missing furry friends

The other night, when I couldn't sleep, I started really missing Clive. It was the exact situation where he would run up to me and start licking my nose, being goofy and making me laugh. I've always had pets, I can't imagine living without some sweet fuzzy thing to play with and take care of.

And then I started thinking about all the things I could do with a weiner dog, how it could sleep on my bed watching videos with me, where it's food dish would be, how I could rub it's wet little nose on my nose, going for walks, sharing ice cream. I was having a total dog owner fantasy, the likes of which I haven't had since I was a kid, pestering my mother for two solid years to let me get a dog.

I was a persistent person. I'd read "Old Yeller" and "Where the Red Fern Grows" and something about boy adventures with their best furry pals made me yearn for a fellow of my own to romp with. Never mind that the dogs always died at the end of the stories. I mean, they weren't rats, they wouldn't die in three years. So I thought.

Either way, having a dog is more responsibility (and more fun!) than having a rat. And since my biological clock's ticking, giving it an outlet by having a little puppy around to raise and teach good dog manners seems the best option.

But I still don't have a job, eBay didn't get back to me. My next application is at 1-800-U-Got-Junk. If I land the job I'll be able to have a pup!

Puppy puppy puppy.

Never expected to feel like this

It's day 6 of not smoking. While I've pissed out all the nicotine 3 days ago, I am still going through hell! I can't sleep because suddenly my body's getting twice the caffiene it normally gets. As a smoker I'm used to having a high tolerance for the stuff, but no more! I'm moody, I'm crabby, I have cravings and then ignore them. I'm breaking out in big zits all over my chin, and I'm coughing up phlegm. The whole things is pretty disgusting, and I feel like a crazy person. I guess I had never realized how toxic it was.

It's horrendous agony and I don't remember quitting the last time being so difficult. I almost had a smoke just so I'd get a decent sleep, instead of wrestling around with the duvet, getting a slick sheen of desperate sweat. Thrashing around and watching the sun come up.

But today I had to run for the bus, and I didn't get out of breath.

A bottle of milk . . .

A loaf of bread, and a stick of butter.

I need a toaster.

Day four of not smoking. I am still having crappy sleep.

I should go to the store.

Stupid . . .

My fridge was broken. For as long as I have lived here the fridge has been broken. And on the dare of my mother I opened it today and took out three rotten things to throw away which had been sitting in there for some months. Like a block of cheese, which was brown and fuzzy.

And then later tonight I inspected the fridge after airing it out and finally found the on switch.

I'm currently trying to figure out how I can have lived this long without a fridge, and why I never noticed the switch before.

My shopping list tomorrow will include butter, juice, condiments, milk, fruit, vegetables, and other perishable items.

I'm excited.

Unfortunately, now my can opener is missing.

Stench, grime, paperwork, and dust

Cleaning this apartment has been a lot like embarking on an archaeological excavation. I haven't found King Tut's tomb, but I have found the detrius of several unfinished scripts and video ideas. Re-reading some of them has been terribly delightful, though not inspiring. I can see why most of them didn't even make it to tape.

I'm also proud to say that I am three days without a cig! I'm so goofily happy about it. I can smell things, taste things, and I'm not so smelly. I'm more kissable too.

Of course I'm cranky as hell and whenever I'm trying to sleep I end up tossing and turning all night. But this will all pass, so they say. The cravings don't bother me, I haven't been tremendously triggered yet, but the insomnia is a pain in the butt.

I read today that clearing away the clutter in your home is a way to bring new things into your life. Soooooo, maybe I am finally after many years clearing some room for a girlfriend. Or dates anyway. I'm terribly excited to finally have this mess behind me.

And I will be able to invite someone over and say "Welcome to my gracious bedroom."

Of course hooking up me t.v., dvd, and vcr is more difficult than it should be. I don't understand, I thought I had the modulator in the right order. If anyone has tips on which is hooked to what, please let me know. Right now it's DVD to the modulator to the VCR to the television. Maybe it has to go right to the television? ??? Bloody degree in film and video and I can't even hook up my dvd player.

fucking EXPENSIVE!

Well, I am finally starting to feel like I've got a tenuous hold on things. I'm trying to help turn my life around, by doing self-interested good deeds, like cleaning this sty and quitting smoking! Today marks 24 hours without a cigarette! I am very proud.

I've got this theory, this nagging worry, that my smoking was a major factor in not having a girlfriend. I have never had a girlfriend while I've been a smoker. And I've been a smoker for a very long time!

Being smelly is not fun for other people. Oh sure, you get used to it, but whew, around everyone else you're a walking ashtray.

The huge big reason behind quitting though is that it is fucking EXPENSIVE! Apparently I spend over two thousand dollars a year on cigarettes alone. And I'm not even a really heavy smoker. I mean what a waste of money.

Moving In . . . Still

I have been taking advantage of my unemployed status to clean and organize my apartment in between internet searches for jobs. Yesterday I attacked the dirty dishes, the gross countertop, and my very cluttered desk. Today I was going to unpack my cds when I finally found a crucial piece of my bookshelf. La la la, moved things around, and now it's up! All I have to do is fill it with crap and hopefully these boxes of THINGS will finally be out of my space.

I'm excited by the prospect of finally having a home I can invite friends over to. And perhaps even a LADY friend. I've greatly missed having a place to bring someone back to where they won't start thinking there is something very very wrong with me.

I applied for a job at eBay yesterday, being a customer service representative. I haven't heard back yet. Ugh, I really have to work on my resume again. I have a bazillion different versions for various jobs, but some are woefully out of date.

I'm tired of being poor. But maybe having a clean and organized apartment will perk me up.

Julie Andrews is a Lesbian!

My Mary Poppins crush has been sated. I'm kinda lazy today, so I've decided to post a link. Go read some more celebrity gossip, it's better than People!
Get me Gossip!

Safe, Insane, and Consensual

I have the fortune of having friends who are the best conversationalists. This morning over poached eggs on toast we debated the term Safe, Sane, and Consensual, and whether it excludes people diagnosed with mental illnesses from leather communities.

I think I was thinking about it because I had been reading an article by Pat Califia in my old copy of the Second Coming. The topic was abuse within the leather community, which was pretty challenging in itself. People don't want to admit it, but there's some fucked up shit that goes down in our community. Abusers are in every community, and in a minority community why not use our small networks to protect people from them? Anyway, la di da, skip along, reading this article, when I come across this sentence talking about dangerous people and how "there are some women with mental illnesses," implying they shouldn't be in the leather community.

I think.

I was tired and didn't think about the book until the next day over the eggs.

"Does Sane mean you can't play if you're mentally ill? Are bipolars banned from the play party?"

"I think Sane has been used to mean you're not drunk or stoned, but maybe you're right. That's awful."

I doubt very much this means I have to bring a note from my doctor saying I'm sane enough to play, but I do wonder about this linguistic exclusion of Crazy folk. It's just another way to demonize us. And I wonder if there are people getting booted out of the leather community for being out as Crazy.

I wonder if I will get booted out.

Gross. And Funny.

My apartment is gross, and the mice are starting to chew important things like 16 mm negatives and such. ARG! I hate the mice! And I miss my rat. I miss him in his spectacular health though, and the end he was pretty old and scrawny. Sweet little feller. I did love him. The irony is a few days later a close friend also lost her fuzzy friend. We ate KFC in remembrance. Why KFC I'm not sure except I was hungry and that was the closest place.

When I was in high school there was a KFC parked conveniently across the street. The scent of KFC would waft across traffic and settle on hungry teenagers with disposable income. I actually didn't eat there all that much. I ate in the cafeteria. Once I was gorging myself on that month's craving, pizza pretzels, and the girl I would lose my virginity to said she thought I was cute stuffing my face. I didn't say anything back, because my mouth was full.

We were sort of lab partners in biology class, she oohed and ahhed at my strength ripping open a clam, and then she entertained me by throwing squid legs out the window onto a boy she didn't like. Now whenever I smell formaldehyde, I think of the absolute wildness of teenage lust.

If I had the chance to go talk to me when I was that age, I think my advice would be to respect women no matter what. Even if you think they're acting bizarre and ridiculous and maybe even mean, don't be a jerk back. Have some class in your exit, if you can.

I have a jar of liquid latex on my desk and no one to paint it on.

It is red.

Hmmmm . . .

I want to, no, need to make a video, soon.

And I do have a jar of red liquid latex. Maybe I can tell that story about being the whitest looking kid in the family. And how I wanted my race to show. I tell ya, I was a racially tormented child. Oh well. Someone's got to live on the borders. We can't all fit into nice neat little boxes.

I feel like a total borderland creature. Let's see, would you like a quick run down of what it looks like? I have a vast collection of books practically oozing out of every corner of my apartment. My desk is strewn with fast food containers because my fridge is broken. My pills are staring at me in the face everyday when I sit at the computer so that I'll remember to take them. Even my computer desk top is a mess. Files and folders and jpgs and mpegs everywhere. And a bunch of goofy wav files.

In the end, there is truly no greater pleasure than the chance to witness a man running down the road with his ass on fire.

How much is that doggie in the window?

I think there are several motivating factors in my life that are leading me to pick a dog for my next pet. For one thing, while the sugar gliders were a cute idea, I'm not too fond of something large and fuzzy leaping onto my face while I'm puttering around the apartment. Plus I would need to feed them monkey food, and I don't know about your pet store, but mine do not sell monkey food.

Plus, I want to commit to something. I want to say "Okay, I'll deal with your shit, as long as you give me unconditional love and devotion." And besides that I'm having weird biological clock ticking and maybe with a dog I could focus all my mothering needs on it. I don't think I would dress it up though, that's just a bit weird.

So I've been online window shopping for miniature dachshunds.

What else have I been up to? Oh yeah, I watched Rob and Amber Get Married. Boooooring! Where was the tension? It was a disappointment.

Next blog: Will she wake up in time to look for a job? Will her phone ever get reconnected? Will the mess ever be clean!? Stay tuned . . .

Weiner dog

I've decided that at the end of the summer, I am getting a weiner dog. I've been thinking about it for a while, and a mini dachshund would do alright in the apartment I'm living in. Plus various people have offered to be the puppy's friends, so hopefully when I'm at work he'll have time with other people, socializing. The last thing I need is a neurotic dog. I think it would be good for me, he'd keep me active, and he wouldn't die on me in three years.

I really do love dogs. I'm such a dog person. The thing is, I'm a big dog person. I never thought I would consider having a small dog. But the fact is I'm an urban dweller and I don't forsee myself having the space for a big dog in my near future. And dammit, I want a freakin' dog. What I've discovered in my research is that weiner dogs think they're bigger than they really are (I would make a weiner joke about here, but I chose not to).

My friends are excited about this turn of events. I'm excited. All I have to do is find a job and get some extra cash to buy a dog. Oh, and clean this god awful apartment. Otherwise I'd be sure to lose the little guy. I've been researching nd looking in various ads, checking out the price of my new friend. I even scanned the ads at the BC SPCA. There were some lonely golden retrievers there, which made me sad because that's the kind of dog I used to have. I can't believe anyone would give up a golden. They are the sweetest dogs. Mine used to follow my sister around, making sure she didn't get lost. He was pretty cool.

But I can't possible give a golden the lifestyle they need. So miniature weiner dog world, here I come!

Special Clive Memorial Tribute

Clive the Fancy Rat, a cream colored terror from the mean pet stores of Montreal, came into my life almost three years ago. He was accompanied by his brother Vincent, who later died of repiratory disease. He was a distinguished animal, watching me survive a manic episode, and finally crossing the country to be here with me in Vancouver. He had to disguise himself as a hamster to be allowed onto the plane. When not battling the discrimination and stigma of being a rat, he enjoyed nothing more than to clean his owner's ears, poop, and eat headphones and books.

His bad ass reputation began with a series of confrontations with other animals, including cats, Golden Retrievers, and an attacking chinchilla, which was soon seen scampering away with Clive in hot pursuit, mouth full of fur.

While all these acts of petty assaults seemed amusing enough, things came to a head in 2004 when he devoured the miniature hamster of some friends who were rat sitting him, a grisly incident which left him with nary a scratch.

He survived a near euthanization when the vets decided he was going to live, even though he had an awful absess, and an SPCA worker chased me down the street to come back and get him.

Clive mellowed with old age, and never attacked the many mice which roamed the apartment. On the few occasions I fell asleep and left him out, he always went to the same garbage bag to curl up in and sleep.

Bon voyage Clive, and put in a good word for me.

Trauma T.V.

Did any of you watch CSI and ER last night? Holy crap. I have never felt so traumatized, oh well, except for that night I was waiting in a friend's place for their unwanted roommate breaking in. Yeah, that wasn't very fun. But jeez, the stories last night. My friend told me that Quentin Tarantino had directed CSI. You could tell. For one thing they buried Nick alive in a box, and fire ants started to eat him alive. Poor Nick. Bad things always happen to Nick. Yeah, so then ER starts, and a whole party house falls like the World Trade center collapse. Totally freaky.

Then my friend had the nerve to suggest watching House of Wax, and I was just full of trauma. I didn't want any more.

It's a fascinating phenomenon to see how much we as a culture like watching traumatic stories. I mean, how many prime time slots are filled with stories of crime? Law and Order (SVU, CI, etc.), CSI (NY, Miami), Cold Case, and a few others. And sometimes they are on every night! It's wacky. It's like we're fulfilling some primal need to scare ourselves. Even when I think about my reading choices, murder mysteries. I mean, how grisly.

Doing a'ight

I'm pretty proud of myself these days. I've been feeling more and more competent, and having had some more or less steady work has made me feel better about myself, oddly enough. I'm scheduled for a job interview at a post production facility tomorrow, which is really exciting. If I get the job I'll be an Avid DS Operator. Fancy fancy! I'm glad to be working again, mostly because I need to get out of a huge debt load. I really hope I get the job, because editing is something I love so much. And it would be a good opportunity to see how feature films are edited, as opposed to the short projects I have worked on. Besides that, it would be nice to have a job in a field I was trained in.

Yep, life after film school is okay. I'm so glad I went back and finished my degree.

A State of Grace

Nobody every paints the Virgin Mary changing Jesus' s diaper.

Recently I was on the bus, without my trusty ipod since Clive ate my new headphones and I stepped on my old ones, which had only been working on one side. Anyway, a small child was behind me, at the age when their voices are really high pitched. It was just squealing and hurting my ears, and I was like "Dear God, how do parents put up with that?" And I thought about creativity, and states of grace.

I'm in a pretty creative period in my life after a very long bleak stretch of nothingness. There's a feeling that happens in the middle of a creative process. Suddenly things become very clear, and for myself anyway, I always enter a state of rapture. I just stare and I'm somewhere else, floating in the clear air, like when you find the right notes to play. There's this hum that shoots right through me, it doesn't last very long, maybe fifteen minutes at the most. It's a state of grace.

And I just wonder, since there is some connection between parenting and creation of any kind, is there a state of grace in child rearing?

If you look at all those paintings of the Virgin Mary, she was totally grooving on something. She's a one woman ad campagin for motherhood that one. I mean, who can compare with the Mother of God.

I feel conflicted these days about the prospects of motherhood. I'm not sure about bringing a person into the world who has a really good chance of inheriting a life-long chronic illness that could drive them to suicide. On the other hand, that's what the Nazi's were all about, stomping out bipolars in a big drive to purify the genetics of the race. And there are really good things in my genes too, it's not all bad. Ah whatever.

Weird.

Total Overhaul

The other night I had a great conversation with my friend Robin (hi Robin!) about our respective call centre jobs and why in the world people would choose such a way to make a meager living. She pointed out that basically the reason people do work such as ours is to live a double life, doing something else you're passionnate about yet for some reason doesn't pay the bills.

It's true that in the past few days I've been a working stiff again, I've been having more and more time to think about the feature film script I've been doggedly working on for the past two years. I think I have finally had a breakthrough on it. I've realized that certain elements which were there in the beginning have kind of petered out, such as a sub plot about a dead brother. At the same time a much stronger theme of the effects of living in poverty has manifested itself in a much more interesting way. I've discovered that the past two years of writing has really been workshopping my characters, and that I need to do a total overhaul of my script to make it have more of a structure, as well as paring away the various sub plots which are needlessly taking away from the main story. It's pretty humbling to realize that of fifty-five pages I have written so far, I will probably only be keeping thirty pages or less in the final draft. Such is the life of a writer.

At the same time, ideas are starting to sparkle and shine again, which is great. I've been in a bit of a writers block, probably because I went back to school for a year, and that took up my intellectual headspace. But now I am freed, ironically enough, by a job that I don't have to take home with me. While it's sad to not be working in my field of expertise, at the same time I'd much rather devote my creative energies to my own projects.

Whenever people ask me what I'm working on and I say a feature film script, I can almost always feel the internal eye rolling. I suppose it does sound kind of pretentious or something. The kind of project someone could embark upon and never complete, yet gives them some kind of weird cachet. In truth, sometimes I have nearly thrown in the towel. I sit to write and my characters get grumpy and don't want to say anything, sometimes I have a brilliant idea but "reality" says I shouldn't write it that way. Mostly my struggle has been getting this little feature to have a stronger direction and message, while it has thus far prefered to meander in aimless conversations between characters.

But I'm finally optimistic. I'm going to try and set a deadline for myself so I can take it to some scriptwriting workshops and hone it even more. I refuse to rush a final draft just so I can say I wrote a feature. I want to be able to say "Hey, I wrote, directed, and edited a really important feature," and have it be something I can be proud of. One of the things I'm liking the most is that even though it's tackling some really quite dark material, it's still pretty comedic. Even though I do love creating quite dramatic serious work, my first love is and always has been comedy with a political message.

So call centre work's not so bad when exciting scenes from an unborn film are running through your mind.

Time seems to be seeping

Okay, I know how hokey this may sound, an aboriginal talking about her dreams and what it means. But I'm telling you, I think time is slipping backwards into my dreams. For the past year, and with increasing frequency, I've been dreaming things before they happen. Strange things. Like the tsunami. I had a dream about being in a building with a tsunami rushing in. And then two months later it happened. But now I'm getting more and more little snippets of the future, really vague simple stuff. Nothing like "The world will end at two pm and I will be eating a pink donut!" But stuff like this pipe, a sort of sherlock holmes pipe, then the next two days I saw the exact pipe in two different television shows.

Time is a funny entity. It loops, it can split off into two or more timelines, it can go backwards and forwards. I would really like to experiment more with time in my films.

In my dreams at least, future images are showing up like clues. So bizarre. And I keep falling asleep at regular hours. How weird is that?

Work is aggreeing with me so far, I'm remembering how to do it. First day, I'll get better. I just wish people weren't so hostile.

Hmm, why are we so hostile to strangers doing a job? And to strangers who can't find a job. You can't win, someone's going to be mean to you no matter what you do.

Meeses!

I caught a mouse today, in a pink plastic cellophane bag from Ruebenesque, a store for fat ladies where my mom bought me a fancy shirt-thingy. It was eating popcorn from Kernels, Double Hit, freaking mouse, I wanted to eat that. It was cowering in the bottom of the bag so I picked it up, went downstairs, and set it free in the alley. It darted across the street, attracting the attention of a bored kitty cat. Last I saw the cat was in hot pursuit under a fence. I doubt very much the mouse lived. It kind of defeated the purpose of setting it free. Oh well.

My graduation ceremony went well, I didn't do a prat fall on the stage or anything. And I even got to graduate with some of my old art school buddies. That was nice. Sally Potter, the director of Orlando, was there getting a honourary doctorate of letters. Afterwards my mom spotted her leaving and pushed me in her direction so I could tell her how much I liked her work. She was very gracious. I always feel so nervous around famous folks, because they probably face that all the time. Who knows though, I have limited experience with fame. Oprah's not exactly banging down my door wanting to see what the views of a halfbreed leather dyke video/performance artist are. Not that I mind terribly, I'm shy. I'd probably pee my pants in front of a live studio audience.

Peeeee!

They'd think it was some sick NEA funded statement.

So now I officially hold a BFA with a major in Film/Video. I must admit, it's pretty cool to think my studies are behind me. But at the same time, there's the challenge to remain a practicing artist while juggling work, and learning how to keep making work without all the support offered in school. It's strange. And even as that's closing off to me, there's also more opportunities, like being able to apply for grants again.

Back to the drawing board

I've been offered my old job back. It's kind of funny, to end up back where I was. At least it's in an air conditioned building now, before it was brutal working there in the summer. So I guess I'll take it, I need the cash. And I'm going to keep looking for work, a coffee shop would be nice. Editing would be REALLY nice. Whew, life after school is weird so far. I'll get used to it. At least I'll be making money again. I start working on Monday. I already know their computer system well, so hopping back on the phones won't be too bad. It's just temporary, while they need the staff. That's fine by me, as long as I can get another job in time.
Anyway, aside from that I'm just hanging out with my ma, goofing off. Soon it will come to an end. But I sure am glad to know I'm not going to struggle to find a job soon.

The long day

Today I drove with my mom and a friend out to Merritt to pick up my stuff. Merritt is my Dogville. I lived there for four months during adolecence and left being totally crazy. Oh, nobody said I was crazy, but I was, crazy. Add to that the fact that my only outlet was at the shooting range, and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Lampchop's Playhouse, before Lambchop died. I was going to pull a Columbine if we'd stayed, I was being bullied and sexually harrassed that much. Maybe that's why years later when Columbine did happen, I thought "Hasn't this already happened?"
Anyway, bad memories, BUT my stuff was there from when I left Vancouver. It's been shuffled around the country staying in different relative's basements or storage areas. And now I finally have it all! Opening the boxes was like christmas. It probably sounds really materialistic. But most of my stuff are books, videotapes, film, and items of personal sentiment. Like the Marvin the Martian figurine my mom gave me. Oh, and diaries. Tons of diaries. I've kept diaries since I was thirteen. Some people burn theirs. I don't want to burn mine. They're kind of useful for me to remember where I was at specific points in time. And who I was.
Anyway, me and my things are reunited after a very long day. Hurrah! I feel somewhat more normal, I haven't had my stuff in years. Now I just have to fit it somewhere.

I am a bad rat mom

This morning I woke up, looked around all groggy, and then realized that Clive's cage door was open. He was not inside. I remembered falling asleep while he was crawling around. He was no where on the bed, and my apartment is still quite a bit messy. Added to this the sudden realization that there was Warfarin in the apartment for the mice.
I was in a state of distress when I found him curled up, happily sleeping in a garbage bag. Rats will be rats, after all. I picked him up and kissed him and said "I'll never lose you again!"
He's such an old rat, I'm amazed at his determination to keep living. It's inspiring.