Medical Marijuana and my Mood Disorders

I use marijuana on a frequent basis. Right now I'm broke, so I have none, which kind of sucks because I'm coming out of a mixed episode. I've been smoking for the past nine years. I've been bipolar for the last twenty-one years. Before I started smoking, life REALLY sucked ass. I had way more volatile episodes, involving violence (mostly towards inanimate objects), rages, suicide attempts, and so forth. The first time I smoked pot I saw a Pink Floyd and The Doors laser light show. Mostly, I kept smoking because it was so goddamned fun.

As time has passed I've learned when I'm using it mostly to alleviate symptoms of my bipolar. As a natural mood stabilizer, it is remarkably effective. During depressive episodes it lightens my mood and eases mental pain. During bouts of insomnia it helps me get to sleep. In a hypomanic or manic state, it brings me down to a more even keel and calms and relaxes me. It has far less side effects than most of the psychoactive pharmaceuticals I'm on. It stops racing thoughts. It basically works on nearly every symptom I can have.

Medical Marijuana is a contentious issue, even for people seeking prescriptions and exemptions for conditions like HIV, glaucoma, chronic pain, etc. But if you're bipolar, woah, people REALLY have issues with marijuana and mental health conditions. This stems from the myth that pot makes people crazy. Pot doesn't make me crazy, PEOPLE make me crazy. The Israeli government has recently approved giving medical marijuana to soldiers suffering PTSD, another mental health issue.

The Canadian Mental Health Association's official position on marijuana is that no one with psychiatric disabilities should EVER get near marijuana. However off the record a number of psychiatrists and psychotherapists will admit to their patients that marijuana is fairly effective in treating bipolar disorder. Some will write prescriptions. A number of bipolar people have come forward about their experiences in using marijuana, whether it's legally prescribed or illegally purchased from street dealers.

Ideally, I do not want to buy off dealers, and I don't want to buy Government approved marijuana because it's dreadfully weak in THC (the active ingredient which helps people) and is tainted with lead and arsenic, FAR more dangerous than street drugs. What I would like to be able to do is to grow my own, just for me, one wee plant at a time. I'd like medical and legal support to be able to supply myself with my own organic hydroponic weed. I mean, for god's sakes, IT'S A FRIGGIN PLANT!!!

Someday, in this next generation, people are going to look back at us and say "damn dudes, you were all backasswards." We're going to seem as dumb as alcohol prohibition.

Anyway, if anyone has weed to give me while I'm broke, let me know.

Mohawk Ironworkers and the World Trade Center

Once when I was more of a bolshi Indian Activist (I was about 11), I mentioned to a white schoolmate that I was sick and tired of us all being sent to rural reserves and wondered why we couldn't have a city of our own. She retorted that we could have a city if we built it. Later when I told my Mum she said "Oh good, we can have New York."

The fact is, Mohawk people are renowned ironworkers, and were involved in the construction of The Sears Tower, The Chysler Building, The George Washington Bridge, The Empire State Building, and most notoriously, the World Trade Center, among a multitude of other New York buildings. Their aptitute for being ironworkers was evidenced during the building of a bridge on Kahnawake in 1886, when construction crews noticed children and adults alike trotting along foundation beams. Currently a quarter of the male population in Kahnawake are ironworkers who commute to New York.

When the World Trade Centers collapsed, Mohawks working on other buildings in Manhattan went to Ground Zero and were part of the clean up crew, often doing the most dangerous jobs. Many of them were descendants of the ironworkers who had built the towers. And a lot of them were also active participants in OKA during 1990. Cleaning up involved seeing a lot of disturbing things like human remains, which haunt some of the workers even now. The destruction of the Towers affected Quebecois Mohawks just as much as Americans. Some ironworkers had completed their entire apprenticeship working on the Towers. To this day, Mohawks are heavily involved in ceremonies and memorials for the World Trade Center. As in Aboriginal tradition, many are also pushing for a spiritual cleansing of this site. We Aboriginals believe that souls of the departed require ceremonies and guidance in crossing over to the other side, to avoid being trapped on this earthly plane.

This september 11, when people start their memorials and mournings, take a moment to remember the courage of the Mohawks in both building and cleaning up the World Trade Center. More people need to remember that Aboriginal peoples have shaped North America throughout history, even creating these skyscrapers which people regard as a modern testament to civilization.

Rewrites

Today I started on my fourth rewrite. Before it was mostly changing bits and pieces, but this is a complete overhaul of the plot, involving a lot more tension and more focus on the main theme, as well as fleshing out roles for specific actors I want to cast. I wrote 18 pages, and I think I'll be able to keep going at this pace for a week and then it will be done. After that, I'm going to have to get an outside opinion, some readings, and possibly tweaking it to make it more feasible within a low budget.

I've finally got an idea of who I want to play the main character, and THAT is really exciting because I've seen her work and she would be perfect in this role. I have a wish list for other characters as well. It's good to finally be able to imagine what they will look like when they're performing these roles.

I think this draft will be a lot heavier and darker, but the pace is also a lot better, and I think it will do a way better job of making it's point.

Mostly, it's just exciting. I want to make something so beautiful it will change the world. That's why I started making films in the first place.

The Hottest Biracial Bitches

"What are you" -White Queen
"Red?" -Red Queen
"White?" -White Queen.
"Pink." -Alice.
"PINK!" -White Queen
"Pink is hardly a color." -Red Queen
"It's a pastel." -White Queen
Thirza Cuthand's Through The Looking Glass

I was surfing around looking for online writings by and about the biracial experience when I came across biracial.com. Wow, I thought, a whole website devoted to biracial people!!! Well, I click on it and it's got total pussy shots and a huge headline proclaiming it to feature "the hottest exclusive biracial bitches on the net." Who knew? And why isn't my face on there?

Really though, I've been thinking a lot about the parallels between bisexuals and biracial/multiracial people. Although I'm not bisexual (I've tried and it always ends up being dumb), my primary romantic attachments have consistently been bisexual women. For a while I thought it was because I consider myself to be a blend of male and female genders, and that I wanted the possibility of transistioning to male without losing the love of my partner. But recently I've begun to think that it is also because I'm biracial. Being someone who straddles the boundaries of race, I find people who do not fit into neat little boxes incredibly sexy.

I also understand the pressure from society to pick a goddamn side and stick to it. No willy nillying around with something as sacred and clear cut as race. White folks think because I ended up with light whitey skin that it erases my ethnic identity and that I should just live as a white person, even though I have very defined aboriginal facial features and grew up within the Aboriginal community. Aboriginals accept me with a certain tinge of animosity, sometimes they think I'm white, sometimes they hate me because I have white privillege due to my skin (nevermind that racism hurts me just as much), sometimes they just want me to deny my Scots/Irish blood altogether. I have trouble filling in forms which want me to choose one race only. Biracial and Multiracial people are emerging as one of the most important aspects to dismantaling the barriers of race, yet so many are closeted, ashamed, and rejected by both or all of their cultures, and critical writings on the biracial/multiracial experience are sorely lacking.

Not only that, but people have the nerve to ask me "but which race are you more?" People assume because I'm so light that I would naturally be mostly white, but ironically I'm nearly three quarters Aboriginal. That all being said, chopping myself up into percentages and measuring out my race is kind of a sick and twisted way of thinking. Kind of like the stupid question people ask bisexuals "but which gender do you like better? Are you more homosexual or heterosexual?"

Another thing I've noticed in the Stupid Things People Ask category is the classic "Which of your parents is white/aboriginal?" This is fucked in a few ways. One, it assumes that interracial relationships is a relatively new phenomenon, when it's been going on for thousands of years. Another is that I'm a third generation biracial person, maybe even fourth generation. My ancestors are Scots, Irish, Cree, Red River Metis (which means I'm partially French as well), and Saulteaux. I have as much affinity for traditional drumming and fancy dance as I do for bagpipes and Irish step dancing.

There is something really revolutionary about people stepping forward and creating communities and dialogue about being on the borders, whether it's bisexuality, mixed race, or being both male and female. My dream is to see a day when all of these different groups band together and tell the world to knock off this divisive shit.

Producer wanted!!! Fame! Fortune! Edjimacation!

Okay, I'm going to do my regular blather a bit after this call for applicants. Right now I need to sound professional.

************************************************
Up and Coming Producer Wanted

Hello, I am an established internationally recognized short
filmmaker moving into feature film writing/directing. I have
written the third draft of a screenplay and am in the process
of applying for cash and mentorship. If my application is
successful there is also mentorship available from Industry
professionals for a first time producer. I have considered
being the producer as well, but I've decided that's too much
to put on my plate at this time and I would be better served
concentrating on my creative growth.

If you would like to move into film producing, this could be
your break. You must be a Canadian citizen, able to get a
letter of reference from someone established in the industry,
and have knowledge of Queer/Native/Mental Health/Poverty
issues. You may have produced one feature already, but no
more than that.

Ideally you are someone who is familiar with the work of
Christine Vachon (bonus points if you've read Shooting To
Kill). You have good money, time, and people managing
skills. You've had experience with film and/or video
production and post. You will be willing to temporarily
relocate to Toronto and work on location in Vancouver. You
understand Independent filmmaking and the duties involved
in being a producer. Brown people, women, Queers, and
people with disabilities encouraged to apply.

Briefly, the film is a love story about an interracial lesbian/
bisexual couple whose love is tested by a psychotic
episode and hospitalization. It's partly a black comedy,
partly a drama, and mostly a comment on the inhumane
treatment of the mentally ill. Creative control remains with
the director as per previous funding requirements.

If this application for funding/mentorship is not successful,
the producer position may still be available in the future
when funding is secured. Additional guidelines will be
emailed to promising applicants. Please submit your
resume and a letter explaining your previous film related
experience, why you want to produce, what qualities you
embody that would make you a good producer, and what
you have to offer to the project. A copy of the script will be
sent to the selected party. Deadline for applying for this
position is September 25, 2006. The deadline for the full
application for funding is October 20th.
Email me at fanggrrl@excite.com (I have a regular email address I use since the spammers found this one, so don't be surprised when I respond from a different addy).

*************************************************************

I was instructed to make dinner tonight. Niblets, potatoes, and smokies. Simple enough right? I mean, really it's just boiling THREE things. Well, I burned the potatoes to shit. They were disgusting. So I put on some perogies. They were taking a really long time to come to the top until Mum pointed out they were stuck to the bottom. By the time we rescued them their innards had burst out of their wrappings and they had turned into a gelatinous goo. What the hell is wrong with me? How can I fuck up boiling THREE things?

I had PMS crabbies today, and it made me feel very uncomfortable, thank god I started bleeding.

Yesterday I had the best talk with my favorite person in the whole world. I feel really lucky to have her in my life. She's amazing in a bazillion different ways and I could go on and on about how lovely she is, but I'll get all shy and awkward. I don't really know how you can get shy on a blog, come to think of it.

HEY! I am trying to track down some people from film school, Miriam Needoba, who I'm pretty sure I have found, and Jessica Rose who is somewhere in Toronto. If you know the wherabouts of these persons, tell them to reach out and touch me.

Okay, this is sophmoric, but also pretty fuckin' funny. From Rotten.com the masterpiece that is "Doughboy Shits A Croissant."

BLACK MOLD! ORNERY LESBIANS! BREE VAN DE KAMP GETTING IT UP THE BUTT!

My Cuz Deanna is back from Regina already, having discovered that their new house is infested with black mold. Among other things, black mold can cause bleeding lungs, asthma, chronic fatigue, depression, dementia, abnormal pap smears, cancer, choking, lower immunity, and even death. The slumlord who rented them the place refuses to give them their money back, and I doubt he'll do anything about the mold because it would mean admitting his property isn't fit for human habitation. Fucking asshole. Hopefully the Rentalsman will deal with him. Jerky jerky jerkface.

Some "petit but ornery" lesbians attacked a sexually harrassing dyke basher and beat the fucking shit out of him and then stabbed him with a steak knife. He's now in critical condition in a hospital, and the "ornery" lesbians are being charged with gang assault. Personally, I wish I had seen it. It's like a scene out of Hothead Paisan. Sometimes I think so much has happened to me in my life that anyone trying to fuck with me should pray I won't really flip out and kill or maim them. I heard about this great self defense technique for women. Keeping your fingers straight without making a fist, and then folding them at your last knuckle (the one nearest your palm), punch the attacker as hard as you can in the throat. It can cause major damage and give you time to run away.

AW FUCK! Youtube had a clip of Bree Van De Kamp having some hot steamy sex from their upcoming season and it was pulled by Disney and I fuckin' MISSED IT!!!! Was it anal!? Oh my god, I feel so deprived.

Brit Comedies, it may be Colonization but it sure is fuckin' funny!

Okay, this is the funniest thing I have seen today. Do you remember that totally crap video by Shakespeare's Sisters called Stay? If you don't, check it out first. I warn you, it's total crap, but if you haven't seen it you won't get the next video.

Okay, this is French and Saunder's parody of the same video, and it is so fuckin' GENIUS!!! I love French and Saunders, they totally kick ass.

I love British Comedies, I think they have influenced my sense of humour so much. Are You Being Served, Mr. Bean, Keeping Up Appearances, Absolutely Fabulous, French and Saunders, and Red Dwarf. Oh man, so many good times.

Okay, veering off the funny angle I found this incredible article linked off of Live Journal For Choice. It's called The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion and it's about anti-abortion activists who go into the clinics they picket and get an abortion. Here's a choice quote: "A few behave in a very hostile manner, such as calling clinic staff "murderers." Years ago, a clinic counselor in British Columbia told me that one of her patients went into the procedure room apparently fine with her decision to have an abortion. During the abortion, at a stage when it was too late to stop the procedure, the woman started screaming "You murderers!" and other invectives at everyone in the room."

Okay, this is just fucked. The Jewish Memorial in Berlin was going to be covered with a certain kind of chemical that would resist graffiti, things were going along tickety boo until someone pointed out that the company making the graffiti resistant chemical was the same company that manufactured Zyklon B during the Holocaust.

Well, I tried to find some more funny shit, but damn, internet pickin's are slim. I shall have to do more surfing. BTW, if anyone finds a clip of Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as performance artists, let me know where it is, as it is my all time favorite French and Saunders skit!

I remember I remember when I lost my mind

Last night was VERY bizarre, filled with racing thoughts, some nice, some sad, some infuriating. I wanted to call up an ex and call her a stupid moonyas for something she said like, two years ago. I started trying to piece the stories of my life together. I was thinking about something seriously fucked up that happened to me eight years ago, and how I only ever told six people about it. I sat up several times to pet Schrodinger and Mister, who were being adorable. Schrodinger has turned into the sweetest kitty cat ever, with a nice deep rumbly purr. They are very good at calming me down. I think I need to adjust my meds, which means another trip to the doc. Oh well.

My favorite cousin, Deanna, is leaving!!! She's moving to Regina today to start classes at the U of R. I will miss her, but I know it's a better program than the pitiful excuse for an art department at the U of S. She is a wicked fly lady, I hope she kicks ass out there.

Anyway, I didn't get a lick of sleep last night, it was very frustrating. I know I'll have a short nap at some point today, but I'm still going to feel like crud, with eyes falling out of my head. Now I'm drinking milk, because for some reason it totally rocks when you're having mental health issues. I think it does something for your brain, and it calms ya down. I remember in the psych ward they were always giving us milk, and I was like "I am not a child!" But it turns out that there is a reason for it.

One day my cuz and I were listening to the radio and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" came on and we both cracked up.

I'm not suicidal or depressed, per se, but I think I may be going hypomanic. Cruddy. It's good that I'm recognizing it, and I also think I know why. My day time meds were moved to The Med Cupboard without me knowing and I didn't take them for a week because I couldn't find them. Also I find I have to put my day time meds in a place where I go every morning and see them, such as beside the computer. I will have to move them back here, or I'll just keep forgetting and fucking myself over. And my daytime meds are the mood stabilizers, and the night time ones are mostly for depression. So yeah, a week without mood stabilizers will do this. Yesterday I was like, ULTRA mega bitch to my mom, and the worst part was that I knew it too and I couldn't stop. I didn't yell or scream at her, I just kept sassing her and not doing what she wanted me to do and being generally unhelpful. Jeez, I wanted to kick my own ass. I haven't been hypomanic in a long time.

I think I need marijuana. Pot totally kicks ass for bipolar, unless you get something that's laced. But it's great, makes you feel happier when you're depressed, makes you calmer when you're getting manic. There are some people who are trying to push for medical marijuana to be made available to bipolar people, but there's a lot of resistance towards giving a mind altering substance to the mentally ill. Never mind that all the prescription drugs we're on are also highly mind altering, they have the stamp of 20th Century pharmaceutical approval, whereas marijuana has only been used medically for thousands of years.

I did Shrooms the other night. Some might think this is why I'm hypomanic, but I think it's been starting for a few days. But what was really cool on Shrooms was that whenever I thought I was about to have a bad trip I'd say to myself "wait a minute, I'm on DRUGS! This isn't real!" and then I would start giggling. I think that kind of mentality is also applicable to bipolar mood swings. I'm not cranky and messed up, it's a byproduct of chemical malfunctions. The trick to surviving manic and depressive episodes is to try to view it as objectively as possible. That's kinda hard, but it really does help. A diabetic with high blood sugar wouldn't feel like a fuck up failure, so why should I?

God, I'm glad I quit that suck ass artist run centre job, I couldn't stand being told I was a fuck up unreliable failure for having a bipolar episode and missing three and a half days of work. That and listening to some dude tell me racist shit about Native people and assuming because I'm a lesbian all I'm interested in is sex. Dude, I'm not completely about sex, I'm about the Revolution!!! Personally, I think artist run centres are the most dysfunctional work environments. So many of my friends have gotten fucked over and burnt out working in those places. I'm not sure why that is. Even call centres are healthier work environments, and that's saying something!! Besides that, I was the first woman to ever have that position, AND the only Native employee, AND everyone who gets that job is hated by the Saskatoon video community. I think people also saw me as some kind of outside interloper, even though I grew up in Saskatoon. Either way, it was wreaking havoc on my mental health, and being shamed for my disability by my boss was some fucked up shit yo.

I have some stuff I want to post here in the next while, but not this post, cause it's totally irrelevant.

I think I need a totally fun, silly, smart, kick ass girlfriend with a good sense of humour who won't go all wangy when I have episodes. "Aaaaaah! My girlfriend is CRAZY!!! I'm dumping her ass right now, I don't care if she's in the hospital, she pisses me off!" Yeah, I definitely don't need a sweetie like that.

You know, the strangest thing about stigma towards the mentally ill is that most people will experience a mental health crisis at some point in their life. It could be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Agorophobia, Post Partum Depression, or Dementia. EVERYONE is at risk for that shit, and those are some pretty tricky issues to get through. So sometimes when people treat me like shit because I'm crazy, I just smile to myself, because one day they'll step through the looking glass and be as fucking looney bird as me.

I want it all!

I've decided I want a Vespa. This Vespa. I still don't have a license, and I know I'd have to get a motorcyclist license too, but damn it looks so fuckin' SEXY!!! I tried to go win this exact model the other day but you had to have a special C95 letter saying you could have one of the 95 keys for the key off. Sad me. I will have to get Vespa wealthy by honest means.

I'm also cursing being in Saskatoon at the moment because I'm desperately seeking the self-titled album by HK119 ever since I heard "Friend for Dinner" on the One Little Indian podcast. PLUS come on, how can you not want to own a cd by a woman who looks like THIS:



But by far the SEXIEST fuckin' thing I want is THIS:



It's not just a PowerMate USB Volume Control, you can also assign it to work as your Jog Shuttle controller for video editing. Coming from an analog background, I have dearly missed Jog - Shuttle controllers. There's just something so satisfying about being able to move images forward with a turn of the wrist. Mmm, Jog Shuttle. Lovely stuff that is. It's only $44 bucks, so I can probably afford it.

french and saunders

Ha ha ha!!! This is fuckin' classic F&S.

Youtube and Me, Happy Times

Once I was standing on a snowy street corner giggling with my mom and her professor collegue about something, when this creepy guy walked past and started muttering about women laughing. "Wow," said Mom's friend, "We can just stand here and laugh and be subversive!"

I've been watching Youtube more and more. I've watched a few DIY clips along with things from TV and movies that have cracked me up. Check them out!! Here are my favs.

Peaches "Kick It" video with Iggy Pop, fighting zombies.

Margaret Cho and Bill Daniels talk about improving relations between Koreans and Blacks.

Margaret Cho talks about Gwen and her job.

Margaret Cho is the comedian on Oliva Cruises and her mom demands to know if she's gay.

A fanvid mixing my fav show, Absolutely Fabulous, to Ultimate Showdown.

Dawn French takes the piss out of Bjork.

French and Saunders try to make a cup of tea admidst existential angst in a Bergman parody.

Sexual Predators in the Queer Community

There has been an online outing of a prominent FTM artist as a rapist, followed up by criminal charges and the "alleged" rapist, Kael T. Block, fleeing the US for France, quite possibly in a white ford Bronco. I only know about this issue based on things I have seen online, tipped off by someone on Friendster, of which Kael is a member. I'm not going to talk about what he did, because the survivors have issued their own statement which you can read here.

What I do want to talk about is the appalling way these women who have come forward have been treated by the queer community. They have been accused of libel. They have been told he is innocent until proven guilty. Lynee Breedlove has said that what should happen is a grassroots mediation process between both parties so that they can discuss boundaries and have a chance for apologies (not unlike the recent case of a rapist whose sentence was to write a letter of apology to the victim). I can't think of anything more traumatizing to a rape survivor than being forced by her "loving feminist sisters" to spend time talking to her fucking perpetrator so that he can "heal." To see so many in the online queer community supporting this perpetrator and alienating these women so much that they feel they have to remain anonymous to protect their own reputations is sickening.

What also sickens me is the opinion by some in the BDSM community, and Kael's own defense, that he's a top who has trouble negotiating safewords. Dude, SAFEWORDS ARE THE FIRST THING PERVERTS LEARN ABOUT! Otherwise we wouldn't fucking do BDSM. And having a woman you've just met and don't know yelling no no no no and pushing you off her while you're sticking your dick in her is pretty fucking clear. As a member of the BDSM community, I know that some people are attracted to it for the wrong reasons. Abuse is possible in a BDSM relationship. For example, if my girlfriend slapped me and I said she could, that would be okay. If my girlfriend slapped me and I didn't want it, like in a fight, it would be physical abuse, and her telling people "well she's a masochist" doesn't make it okay. I have been in a BDSM relationship that got physically and emotionally abusive, and even after I told friends about it, some of them still remained friends with her. That all being said, this survivor isn't even into BDSM.

Which brings me to another issue, back from my queer youth days. My sweet gay friend was raped by a prominent member of the Saskatoon queer community, who had won Gay Man Of The Year the year previously. At the court hearing, most of the queer youth members were there to give support. NONE of the adults in the queer community came out. In many ways what is happening currently is similar here. No support to the rape victims, wanting to turn a blind eye, and being complicit in sexual assault through calling the survivors liars and trying to orchestrate a cover up.

Most sexual assaults are never reported, and this is a clear and very sad example of why. We wonder how we can stop rape, how we can encourage women to file charges, and then something like this happens and we tell the victim to shut up, to stop causing trouble. The mere fact that these women felt they had to describe his assaults in vivid detail to the general queer public in order to be believed is very sad.

It makes me wonder about another prominent FTM artist here in Canada who has sexually assaulted men and women. People still support him, and the people who are his victims don't feel safe or supported enough to name what has happened. I personally won't name him here because it's not my experience to tell, but if anyone does come forward I will support them. As a community we have historically not supported rape survivors, we have supported rapists.

When I first went to Vancouver, I met a woman in a gay bar with a black and blue face, she told a sad story about how she had finally left her lover and was trying to find a safe place again. Her lover was someone at the Centre, a gay and lesbian drop in. Where could she go? Who would believe her?

Needles, metal, cute girl, oh my!

I'd been planning for the last month and a half to get my lobes pierced when my artist fees came in. Mom started calling my late artist fees "Magic beans." "You're magic beans still aren't here," for about two weeks. Then after we came back from holidays, my Magic Beans arrived!!! And I . . . what did I do with them? I bought expensive cigarettes. I bought moderately priced cigarettes. I bought beer. I bought drugs. But I wanted something that would actually, you know, hang around for a while. So today I finally screwed up my courage and got my ears pierced, for the third time.

It might seem funny to all those who know my masochistic history to find out that getting pierced makes me nervous, especially since I'm bipolar and blood tests are a regular part of my life, and since I've done play piercing, and since I've taken a shot of testosterone right into my ass muscle (those needles are fuckin' LONG!), and since I've had arm bands tattooed on both arms, one of the most PAINFUL tattoos to get. But yes, I still get nervous. In fact when I was paying for it my hand shook.

But the lady was really nice, and calming, and fast! She didn't mess around with ylang ylang or counting down, she just had me take a deep breath and let it out when the needles went through. And even though I was nervous about having needles go through what is essentially scar tissue, it wasn't too painful. It definitely didn't hurt more than when I got my labia done. In fact, I think my body appreciated it a lot more than when I got my lobes gunned, it kind of felt good.

I also got to find out the price for Industrial piercings, which I want to get next. After that I'm going to get my hood redone, and then I think I am going to do a nipple.

I don't have my labia piercing anymore. I don't remember why I took it out, I just didn't feel like having it anymore. Have you ever seen a photo of a woman with TONS of labia piercings? It starts looking like a shoe. Besides, it doesn't add as much sensation as a hood piercing, although I hear for straight/bi dudes, a girl with labia piercings is hot hot hot in bed.

I hear tongue piercings are great for sex too, but I don't like the idea of getting noodles stuck around it. And I dunno, at this point in my life I eat more noodles than have sex.

I too am Gwenyth Paltrow!

Props go to the steadfast activists against the exclusion of transwomen at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. Transwomen are now allowed to attend, although the organizer will still be a bitch to them. Check it out at www.camp-trans.org

Interesting news, when Condoleeza Rice was at Stanford, she was a champion to some transpeople there.

I just finished reading S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt, which was so lovely in it's description of life as a butch femme couple, gender, homo/transphobia, etc. I found out the most intriguing, saddening thing in it about the Montreal Massacre. When Lepine seperated the men and the women, there was one butch woman who was assumed by him to be a man and sent over to stand with the men while she watched all the women get gunned down. Obviously it's left her with a LOT of survivor issues. And it also made me wonder, why wasn't this mentioned in the press? The entire thing was about gender, about men and women, but evidently there was no room to talk about someone who had survived because they were genderqueer. Not only that, but the fear she must have gone through, if he'd figured out she was female, she might have been singled out for even worse treatment (I shudder to think how it could GET worse) simply because he would assume she was trying to be a man, yet another feminist trying to make men powerless by usurping them.

I think I would like to make some work about Femme-Butch couples. I find the whole idea of butch and femme so erotic, and I think if there were no men, there would still be masculine women. Plus I think there are strange pockets of butchphobia in the community, even femmephobia. And then I think about how intense and powerful all my butch-femme relationships have been. There is something very complimentary about those roles working together.

Okay, this made me crack up and will keep me going for the rest of the day. I highly recommend blackademic.com for good blog reading.

Thank God For the Library

Ever since my Harry Potter marathon reading week, I've been sticking my nose in books more and more lately, especially since every couple of saturdays I go with my Mum and Gramma to the library.

This time Gramma got left behind. I forgot that I left the phone downstairs until three this afternoon, and by then I think she had pottered off to the library without us. Mum is currently returning all her messages and slagging me to everyone she talks to.

On my holiday I read a book about the evolution of serial killers throughout history; Colonize This, a collection of essays by feminist women of colour; Sex Changes : The Politics of Transgenderism (dude, was that the title?) by Patrick Califia; My Dangerous Desires by Amber Hollibaugh; Romanitas, a book about if the Roman Empire was still a huge superpower; The Hours by Michael Cunningham, and After Dachau, which was really scary because it's about if the Nazi's won and destroyed everyone who wasn't Aryan.

Now I'm about to read S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt, Fast Food Nation, My Parents Were Holocaust Survivors, Why Bad Things Happen To Good People, Mental Health for Urban Indians, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About, and Ishmael. I'm also re-reading Stones From The River because it's one of my all time favorite books, but it's giving me some vaguely Nazi-esque dreams. Just the other night I dreamt I was a blonde blue eyed woman running from the SS thinking "But I'm a German Aryan citizen!" and I had to go into hiding.

I got addicted to Djarum Black clove ciggys on my trip, part of the appeal was that I had contracted what we thought was a cold but evidently was the flu, so I was coughing with regular cigs but not cloves.

Here is me at Arches with a clove (I hope Megan doesn't mind me linking this).



Note the rotund tummy and apparent disinterest in anything beyond The Clove.

I found them here in town, but they are THREE times the price in the States.

I also found out that since I got the flu, it fuct up my eustacean tube and made my middle ear fill up with fluid, which meant I was terribly deaf in one ear and made meeting the mumbly husband of a high school friend all the more difficult to interpret. So now I have to hold my breath, plug my nose, and bear down like I'm going to poop. The indignity.

Which brings me to an old silly story about me, a cute lab technician, and the embarrassing medical issue.

I hadn't found a decent doctor in Vancouver for a couple of years, when something went awry with my nether regions. I had pinworms for the first time in my life. So I went to a Medi Clinic and they sent me away telling me to take Combatrin and it would clear up. So I did, and I still had a dreadfully uncomfortable feeling. So I went to a real clinic and they wanted a fecal sample. It's a really gross process to collect because you basically saran wrap your toilet and take a dump on it and then spoon it up.

But at the lab, there was the cutest girl. And all I had to offer her was my crap.

The clinic called me after the tests came through to tell me I had Salmonella, and judging by the tests I had had it for a fairly long time. This began a medication regime and weekly poo trips to the lab, same cute girl, same old poop in a cup. I did once go on a date with a cashier I picked up at Safeway, but somehow it seemed unseemly to flirt with someone I kept giving shit to.

C'mon and drug me up

Well, I figure after such a depressing last blog, I should keep you updated as to the waning of the Snuff It's. I distracted myself in a stupid way last night (4 Quart pitchers are rather malevolent), and then I got a call from my sweet dear friend Maggie. We chatted and chatted and she cheered me up. She was shocked to hear both of our exes were in a photoshoot together for On Our Backs. I kinda liked the jocularity of it all. And she called me a beautiful butch which made me happy. Margaret has always made me feel better since our first days of art school. She had a unicycle but I never got to see her ride it. Sometimes when I had the snuffits she would let me sleep over and tell me all about her cat and how he looked like Barbra Striesand (He did too!). She has frigging amazing mental health bedside manner. It's really graceful and classy, and not many people can treat crazy people like that.

Anyway, another few reasons for getting over this strain of Snuff It's is that I'm just a really freakin' curious person. I want to know what the hell is going to happen. I feel like an ineffectual spectator to civilization's downfall. I feel sort of like a global rubbernecker. I think I'm so weird because I grew up right near the end of the Cold War. Maybe I would have survived it better if I hadn't snuck off with mum's copy of Where The Wind Blows and started anticipating imminent nuclear war.

I remember one time I wrote a letter to Reagan asking him for nuclear disarmament. I must have been six or seven. He sent me back a brochure about all the fascinating facts of the White House, including Abe Lincoln's ghost.

Thus began my fascination with ghosts.

Once in the psych ward an orderly asked me what my fascination with death was. He seemed to think it had to do with me being crazy. But it's just kinda . . . there. When I came back from France and Germany all my pictures were of concentration camps and graveyards. I'm just kinda weird. But then I've also been struggling with issues of death since my depressive episodes started when I was seven.

One of my meds is being increased, the one that could cause a fatal skin rash. It's also really good for depression, so hopefully that will improve life.

I saw my sister, which cheered me up. She kept sticking her finger up my nose and making me slap her thigh until I noticed a bruise. And she headbutted me several times. I think she pulled my hair a few times too. Sometimes I think I just became a butch so she couldn't yank my hair the way she used to.

I also think I'm just really sad about Christopher still. I had always wanted to be more involved in his life, he was such a goof and I always heard such funny stories about what he was up to. I think it's especially sad and humbling when someone younger dies. Death doesn't seem so removed anymore, it feels present everywhere.

I guess I would say I've also had some kind of spiritual intervention. It's a bit hard to describe though, sort of like feeling outside thoughts enter into your soul about what's going on. Not like hearing voices, or seeing The Virgin Mary (or even the Harlot Mary). Just these emotional messages that you can understand, and sometimes it translates into words and sometimes not at all.

I came upon an interesting fact recently, which in a really weird way cheered me up. It said that the most dangerous suicidal episodes when people actually complete the act are usually the first three suicidal episodes a person has in their life. Afterwards people begin to learn that these feelings are temporary. Even me, these ones have really scared me but the longest each episode lasts is three hours. I still feel sad, but I won't be in the danger zone until the next one. Like waves. I find depression really fluctates compared to mania. Mania increases to tremendous proportions, but when you're in a major episode it's pretty persistent and all consuming for days and days. I never noticed having three hours of feeling slightly normal before going up again. Maybe that's just me.

But anyway, I am WAY past my first experience with ideation, I must have gone through at least sixty of these episodes in my life. I do internet reading on suicide and try to grapple with it logically as a medical condition to keep from feeling too hopeless. And I'm really trying to shed my own stigma and recognize and honour this as a symptom of a lifelong disability and not a true judgement of who I really am. Sometimes I like to make myself feel better by imagining what social changes should take place to preserve the health and dignity of other people with mental health issues. Sometimes I imagine starting a terrorist organization made up of the mentally ill doing outrageous acts of . . . uh, activism. Like peeing on Ewan Cameron's grave.

Sometimes I just go to sleep and have strange dreams about beautiful women and political intrigue. Which I think I'm going to do right now.

The Snuff It's

I have been on a very long road trip with two queer gals and a mother through Western USA. Among the things we saw was the Arches in Utah. some lizards. petroglyphs, cave dwellings in Colorado, some canyons, The Balancing Rock, Devil's Tower, Sturgis, deer, bikers, and a helluva lot of RV parks. I am now an expert in doing sewage dumps, after mum undid the lid and got splattered in liquid poo and refused to do it again. I've seen first hand the RV class system, and dudes, we may as well have been towing around a cardboard box the way those people treated us. One day we were driving down the road when bikers kept pointing and gesturing at us, we discovered our sewage hose had fallen out of it's wee container and was being merrily dragged down the road.

Mister the weiner dog was with us and I was really glad for that, because one night at two in the morning I got the Snuff It's BAD. As in, I had worked out a plan and was about to carry it out IMMEDIATELY. I'm sure it would have been a pretty gory scene had I carried it out. Anyway, I was crying and feeling pretty hopeless and working up the nerve to just go do it and have it over with, and Mister started licking my face, and he just would not stop until I had calmed down. And then he snuggled right up to me until I fell asleep.

I keep getting the Snuff It's off and on and it's really bothering me. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through this time. There isn't really anyone I can talk to about this stuff, because people freak out and get mad at you if you're talking suicide. I guess sometimes I just feel people would be better off without me, no one understands me, people think making fun of me is actually funny instead of abusive and making me want to kill myself even more. And people act like my bipolar disorder is a big burden on them, and besides all of that, I'm just not sure someone as marginalized as me has a fair chance in this world. I'm so tired of fighting and I'm so tired of not being loved. Most of all, I am tired of always wanting to kill myself, and I don't know anymore how to make it stop. What makes me most sad is that I still feel like part of me died in the hospital and is never coming back.

I don't know what else to say except that this pain is really awful and I'm running out of ways to make it go away.

Randomness

Okay, first link, THIS is why I am seriously fuckin' glad I'm not working in a call centre these days. Although to be honest, this lady is SO over the top with her vitrol that it was probably an entertaining highlight of this telemarketer's day. And yeah, most calls are recorded, so if you're yelling at some anonymous caller, it just might find it's way onto the internet somehow.

www.penisland.com is NOT a land of penises, in case you were going to plan a trip there, nor is it a porn site. It's a badly thought out url for Pen Island, a store focusing on pens. For more bad urls from legit companies, check this out.

ART CAN KILL YOU! By now you must have heard of the inflatable sculpture Dreamscapes, about the size of a football pitch with interiors to walk through, it bust through it's moorings and floated forty meters, killing two people and wounding others.

This week a group of brave adventurers are trooping out to see the St. Louis Ghost Train! I've never seen it before, but you can be sure I will write about my experience. Some say it is just car headlights, but I know people who have been chased by the light far beyond the bounds of the railbed.

If Hitler reincarnated, could he be a kitty cat? Check out these Cats That Look Like Hitler.

And finally, if you grew up watching NFB animated shorts, you're in for a treat! The NFB has uploaded FIFTY(!) shorts onto it's website. Click on Large Format if you have broadband. I recommend "The Owl That Married A Goose" and the all time classic "The Big Snit." So come shake yer eyes at this!

Titty Twisters?

Hmm, I start this blog with no clue as to what to write. But they say you should write nevertheless.

I got my eyes checked today, they found a cataract, which I knew about anyway since the last time I got my eyes checked they noticed it. But it's not in a spot that hinders my vision. Anyway, what was really funny about it was that he asked me if I had ever been punched in the eye, because that's what could have caused it. I said no, but in the car on the way home I remembered the time some girls jumped me and my friend Danielle. I think I got punched seven times in the eye. And then ˆ probably had PTSD, thinking back on it now. It took a really long time to get my confidence up for walking in downtown Saskatoon.

Then the other day some redneck yelled something at me from a car. I don't think it was homophobic, but it could have been. He didn't say fucking dyke. It was really interesting to watch my own response though, first I was startled and ready to run, then in a matter of seconds I had my back up and was itching to pound the shit out of him. I was strategically thinking how to incapacitate him, and then I started considering all my options for causing the most amount of pain while he was on the ground. I always thought it was elegant street justice for a homophobe to be severely debilitated for the rest of his life for having the audacity to go after an innocent homo walking the dog. I mean, I was furious!!! I wanted to crack this guy's spine!

I didn't fight back the first time I got bashed, but I think any other times I would definitely go after them tooth and nail, pulling a Kill Bill and ripping out eyeballs kind of thing.

I secretly admire people who can do things like bite off a rapists penis or like my cousin, grab the gun of a rapist and point it straight back at them until they poo their pants.

That all being said, 99.998 percent of the time violence is so not the answer. And most of the time, luckily, you never have to make a spikey fist with all your keys and ram it into some guy's face.

I took self defense after my beating, but it was woefully absent on the issue of female attackers. They say you should just kick them in the balls, but unless your attacking woman is a pre-op tranny, that's really unhelpful. What do you do when a woman's getting rank on you? Titty twisters?

Ch ch ch changes!

Over the past few weeks I've been in a bit of a quandry as to what to do with my life. When Christopher died it really hit home the fact that we all have such a limited time here on earth, and our lives could end at any moment.

So . . . I had some debauched times, involving drinking, loads of pot, gambling, and my first trip to the horse track (I didn't win anything). After that was done, I still didn't feel any better about where my life was headed, especially after some splitting hangovers and watching money fly out of my wallet to the great capitalist unknown.

And some other things were bothering me too, besides not having a job and living with Mum again. Mum's not bad, but it's not exactly appealling to let cutie pies know you're still in your parent's house. Since being treated for bipolar disorder I've gained an excess of fifty pounds, most of it on my belly and rump. The first year the weight gain was so bad that I got massive stretch marks, which made me feel even worse. Lately I've discovered I can't bend over to attend to things on the ground or I start having trouble breathing. I'm getting really fucking sick of being fat.

I went to the doctor today and said I wanted off Zyprexa. Zyprexa, my antipsychotic friend for the past three and a half years. Besides being one of THE major drugs that causes immense weight gain, it is also linked to causing diabetes, which I'm already predisposed to. So I got a prescription for Lamictal, and over the next few weeks will be doing the taper off/taper on dance. Lamictal has it's own drawbacks, including a sometimes fatal skin rash. I never knew skin rashes could be fatal, but there ya go.

Not only that, but I'm going to try to stick to a sensible diet and exercise regime. Tonight I have to mow the lawn, but I'm also going to start going for half hour walks everyday.

My next health task is going to be quitting smoking. I really want to do it this time, especially since I haven't had a sweetheart the entire time I've been a smoker. It's blocking my womanly odors! But first thing is first.

I'm also in the process of getting together a demo reel to apply for jobs as an editor. I am a kick ass editor, in case you didn't know. There was a rumour for a while that all of my early work was in camera, but only Bisexual Wannabe was in camera, the rest was edited together on various machines, some of them very archaic. Also my cousin and I have an idea for a television show that we're going to try and get some development money for. I never thought I'd work in television, but I need a job, and it's a fun project.

Aside from that, life is strange. I thought I would be moving back to Vancouver, but after visiting there for a week I decided not to. I don't know where I would fit in, right now I'm seriously considering either Toronto or Winnipeg, although something tells me I should stay in Saskatoon for a while yet.

In other news, the general consensus among people I know here is that something BIG is about to happen, and not something nice either. I'm talking either a major terrorist attack or a natural disaster, and probably within a few months. I know, that's the most vague prediction I've ever heard too, but something isn't right in the world, there's a weird energy and I can't for the life of me put my finger on it. I googled End of the World predictions and nothing came up that looked remotely like what would happen. I don't think it will be the end or anything though, just some very rough, very difficult times. And probably a lot of death.

But maybe we're all wrong. Ya never know.

Either way, I want to get this spare tire of mine to roll away before the Big thing hits.

SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT!

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My cuz Deanna and I were up to no good over at her friend's place out in the country. We had just said goodbye to her sister when out of nowhere an unearthly noise pierced the darkness of midnight. I was so shocked to hear it that I started smoking my cigarette even harder to try and finish it and get back inside. It came again, an eerie cry that sounded not unlike a woman screaming in extreme pain, like she was being brutally murdered. It came again, and this time it was getting closer.

"What the hell was that?"

I have to admit, my first thought was that it was an animal, but as it got closer and closer and inspired more and more fear, I began to have all kinds of wild thoughts. It sounded so much like it was a woman, what if at any second a bloody woman with a knife in her eye staggered up the walk and shrieked, with her demented murderer coming close behind, ready to destroy all the regrettably stoned witnesses? Not only that, but it was coming so close to the house, and I finally gave up my cigarette and ran inside, where we told everyone what was happening and two men went out to investigate.

They had seen a cougar, or rather, heard it, the other night out near the barn. They imitated the shriek, and the shrieking came back, but when they yelled Hey! nobody came or answered. Meanwhile we were huddled in the instrument room with quivering knees. Convinced it was really "just" a cougar, things calmed down again. Until somebody started hearing things coming from the basement . . . where there wasn't anybody.

It's true, cougars have returned to Saskatchewan, even around that bustling metropolis, Saskatoon. And jesus, they really do sound like murdered women.

Swelter

It's HOT here in Vancouver, as in beads of sweat are running down my face, as in I want to pass out. It's been an interesting trip, full of, strangeness. I got to see a room of sweaty lesbians last night, which was really nice. I've been to the ocean, to various little happenings. I saw the totem pole which had been repatriated by the Haisla. David Sukuzi was there for the ceremony, he got the biggest applause. It's perfect beach weather, and it would probably be cooler at the beach, but I'm now running out of money and can't even go. Life's rough that way.

I REALLY miss Mister and Schrodinger, I get some reports on how they are doing. Mister is in Clicker Training for little dogs, and we still have to work on him ignoring bathroom rules, little doof. Everytime I see a little dog here (and there are a lot of them!) I miss my tiny pals. So far I haven't seen a weiner dog as handsome and adorable as Mister. And I'm sure Schrodinger is getting bigger too, little goof. He's got this really angular little face and such beautiful fur.

Either way, tomorrow night I will have my little friends with me again, and I'm looking forward to it.

I should really venture forth into the hot hot hot and find something else to kill the time. Arg, what can I do with a teeny amount of money in a big expensive city?

Christopher Ian Cuthand February 18 1986 - June 2 2006

We buried my little cousin on Thursday, out at Little Pine reserve. His death was tragic and sudden, and we are all forever changed.

When we talk about him, we can't help but laugh because he was such a hilarious guy. He was sort of shy, but had this cheeky sense of humour, everyone loved him instantly. When I lived in Vancouver I would regularily hear Christopher stories, funny things he said or did. I heard about one time when he finally got his lava lamp and freaked out late one night because he thought the blobs made the face of the devil at him. He had a hamster named Mr. T, and he loved making wontons with my mom. He was just this bright happy sunbeam in all of our lives.

It's been a really hard past week, more so because now we're just expected to go with the flow again, when we've had such intense time together.

He was so young, it really makes you aware of your mortality.

I think what's really pulling me through is this intense faith I have, something I wouldn't have gotten, ironically, if I hadn't gone crazy.

You never really can tell what's going to come around the corner.

Message from a Scraling

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

This is a message being conveyed at Yucca Mountain, one of the biggest sites of nuclear waste. This message has to be created in a form which humans or other life forms 10 000 years into the future will understand, irregardless of how advanced or primitive (hate that word). (wrap your brain around that one!) If that's not scary enough, listen to this. The Shoshone, who have been contesting the nuclear waste site, have a legend that "tell[s] of Yucca Mountain (known as Snake Mountain) and how the snake would rise up as a horrific serpent if it were ever harmed." It's also the site of Shoshone and Paite prayer rings, burial grounds, and sacred waterways. Of course. I mean, talk about the set up for a gory horror movie starring a zombie Graham Greene on a horse.

"This land was sacred to my people since time immemorial, and now I want to EAT YOUR BRAINS!!!!"

Currently the plan is to architecturally construct the site in a very forboding manner, involving large thorny concrete spikes, large black looming rocks, and a sort of unmanned interpretive centre in all UN languages and Navajo (apparently the Shoshone and Paite will be gone by then).

If you think that's awful, consider this fact. Mount Rushmore, with those looming white man faces, is considered a sacred site by the Lakota. And it was good for their ar-thur-itis too. Actually, I just made that last part up.

But if you want to know something really trippy, Vikings called us scralings. Scralings, isn't that hilarious? It's like something out of Lord of the Rings or a really bad text video game.

Hands up all the queer girls who are ogling the Pepsi commercial

Last year around this time I wrote about Parker Posey's sexiest moment as the bitchy senior who sprays the freshmen girls down with condiments. Now I add her latest achievement, the Pepsi commercial. I would never call Pepsi commercials an achievement normally, but she is so freakin' cute in it. Someone said she looked dorky, I guess she makes dorky kinda hot though.

I've gotten hooked to the freakin' ad, and everytime I hear the jingle I drop whatever I'm doing and stand slack jawed in front of the television set drooling. And apparently I'm not the only one.

In honour of Parker Posey day (which I have just made up), here is a series of links. If you're a Parker Posey fan, you might find some of the links probative.

The commercial in it's entirety Although it sucks that Parker Posey doesn't come in until later, it does show some new Parker Posey Pepsi footage, oo la la. Including someone shoving her! That makes two terrible things to befall our heroine in one ad, the second being when that idiot man throws her up into the air and she doesn't come back. It would have been cooler if it ended with her booting him in the groin and taking his wallet. Any other suggested alternative endings, please post them in the comments section.

If you have not heard of Parker Posey you have obviously been living under a rock. But there's the Wikipedia entry for her.

At my graduation screening I was in the middle of a mixed episode, and screamed out to the audience "Hey! This isn't Josie and the Pussycats!"

An old friend who lived in the same crack neighborhood as I saw Parker Posey in our neighborhood park where the crack dealers hung out. And maybe you're thinking "Oh no, she was probably doing something more innocuous and movie star-ish like cocaine or marijuana," but believe me, all they sell there is crack. The only other thing people go to that neighborhood for is to visit the art centres. Drug trade, art, due to economic circumstances the two seem to go together. Who knows, maybe Parker Posey was just hanging out in a scary neighborhood. She didn't dance down the street or anything wild.

On a googling expedition I discovered this lovely stanza under the promising title "Parker Posey cum":
Parker Posey cum
Parker Posey lesbian
u several in they're etc.
ours eg nor j.
with has where's
latter masturbation had becoming
except end otherwise k co her
Parker Posey ..

Happy Parker Posey Day!

Survival Tactics

In the wild, animals hide their pains, injuries, and illnesses so that they won't be dinner for various carnivourous megafauna. As humans, we'd like to think we are different, but this is so not the case. Especially for those of us with invisible disabilities. Although we're entitled to accommodations, we still try REALLY hard to act normal. Crazy people especially (such as moi) have to behave impeccably well to not be percieved as lacking in the skills and wherewithall to get through life. If our disability is getting obvious, or we're starting to have a breakthrough episode, it gets really hard. It's not so much that people care what you're thinking or feeling, it's that people want your behavior to not interfer with their lives. Also, if you're in deep emotional pain, you could get passed over for that promotion, that job, that apartment, etc etc. People don't like to be around crazy people because either a) they don't know how to deal with a crazy person, or b) they think you'll kill them.

Not only that, but to be publically identifiable as someone dealing with mental health issues means you're also prey for any of the millions of human predators out there, be they sexual predators, violent predators, or even a certain dude I know who twice tried to steal my apartment and possessions and toss me into the street. You get stuck in slum housing in a rough neighborhood working a low paying job, or worse, living on the meager amounts disability pays. I think stigma plays a huge role in the fact that a large number of people with mental health issues are living on the streets or in rundown buildings.

And then you might want to survive by not telling anyone that you have an invisible disability. But what about the sick days you'll have to take at some point when meds need to be changed? Or if you have to go to the hospital? What about that uncomfortable abusive feeling you get when someone starts talking shit about crazy people?

I'm still coming out of a depressive episode, a rather mild one really, but still totally fucked and horrid. But I only thought about suicide for one hour, and that was a new record for me. Unfortunately I did think about cutting, which is something I've only ever done once five years ago. I still feel pretty crummy, and I know it will be another week before I'm operating at full capacity. So I wear the happy face. Not because I am happy, or that I feel I should be happy, but just because if it looks like my episode is as bad as it really is people will get pissed off and I'll probably get hassled a lot by people who want me to snap out of it.

It's just a survival strategy, don't show weakness.

Fuckin' Epson

I've wasted a goodly amount of new ink trying to get the printer to work. Now I find out after googling that Epson Stylus CX5400 is NOTORIOUS for fucking up with clogged ink after three cartridge changes. This means: 1. They make more money off ink by wasting it. 2. They make more money by charging ridiculous prices to "repair" the printer. Luckily this can all be solved by a very involved cleaning (NOT "head cleaning," I mean actually taking the thing apart and using citrus clean and a wire in the hose). Head cleaning has so far done ABSOLUTELY nothing to get the printer to print, in fact it is making it worse. All this and I have a deadline coming up to submit my screenplay to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Which means I probably will end up going over to my mom's to print after all. So the point is, don't buy Epson. Do research before you purchase a printer so you don't end up with a pathetic lemon like mine.

Heavy sigh.

I got Schrodinger a huge cat "tree" today. Basically it's a two level carpeted cat gym with a small box with round doors on the bottom. a sisal scratching post and ramp to the second floor, where a round cat bed is perched. The legs are also covered with sisal and there are SIX (kinda ridiculous) rattley balls dangling from more sisal rope. I thought he would need it so he can hide from Jago, cause I know he'll be kinda pissed at me and especially at the dog. The surprising thing is that it only cost about 55 bucks. The funny thing is he's nearly the same color as it.

Anyway, cripes, I gotta get to bed.

28 years old

Today is my birthday, and the first thing I did was a prat fall off my bed, reaching for the snooze button. My new kitten Schrodinger was very alarmed, especially since one side of the futon was on the floor with me, while the side he was on had catapulted him up in the air. Poor little guy.

Schrodinger just came home on Sunday, and he's still getting used to life here. He missed his sisters and mom for the first day, but now he's just being a regular kitten, goofing around and playing with his huge collection of toys. I can spend hours just watching his hilarious antics. He sure does cheer me up. Life already seems very different. And when the dog comes, it's going to be even more different. He's a really funny cat, he gets pissed off if his litter box is too dirty, he just mews and mews until I clean it.

Anyway, hmm. Every birthday I try to write what I've learned about life in the past year.

What have I learned?

I've learned that sometimes fulfilling your dreams means you have to go into a different direction than you imagined. I've learned a hell of a lot about writing a screenplay. I've learned that it's best to be who you really are, instead of pretending to be someone other people might prefer. I've learned about psychiatric service dogs and what they can be trained to do to help mitigate my illness. I've realized that I'm a deeply spiritual person, and also that even though I firmly believe in something (ie, and afterlife, the being some call God), other people are also entitled to their own beliefs. I've learned a lot about living with bipolar disorder.

I hope this next year will be good. A lot of things happened when I was 27. I got my BFA. I finished the first draft of my first feature. I had a dissolute unemployed summer. I worked briefly in a homophobic office. I moved back to Saskatoon, and got my first nice apartment and decent job. I started hanging out with an old old old friend again. In all, it has been a good year.

And life will be irrevocably changed . . .

I've talked in the distant past about my desire for a service dog. I've spent hours researching and planning and scheming and thinking and more research, and it is starting to come to fruition. I've got the toys. I've got the time. I've got the money. And I've met the dog.

He's very smart and beautiful, with a really adorable face that can change like quicksliver from mild inquisitiveness to full on friendly face with a great big smile. He's quiet and gentle and smart as a whip. He's housebroken and knows some commands. He's got a sweet little pointy face and a dedicated nature. He's a year old, which is good because little babies are a lot of work.

This is the year long plan for the young man:
1. Take him to obedience school (clicker training)
2. Start getting him acclimated to public places, people, and new situations
3. Start doing task oriented training (hopefully with the help of a qualified trainer who's trained psychiatric service dogs)
4. Take the Canine Good Citizen Test
5. Continue on to advanced task training, alerting, more obedience, and more public spaces
6. Take him to a service dog organization to get him tested and given service dog i.d.

I've also considered, just for fun, to take him to agility.

You may be wondering why I want a service dog. Yeah, I take meds, yeah, I'm going to start counselling, AGAIN, but there are certain things a dog can help me with that all the rest can't:
To alert me to oncoming episodes and get me to a safe place to deal with it.
To remind me of medication time.
To ground me when my mind starts racing by inturrupting and focusing on me.
To calm me when I get anxiety.
To alert to panic attacks.
To wake me up in the morning.
To give emotional support when I'm depressed.
To remove me from social situations when I'm overwhelmed.

And I'm sure my list of things he can do for me will grow with time. It's going to be very different. And I know I'll probably feel exhausted at times. But in the long run, he's going to do so much for my quality of life. And I'm going to have to adjust to caring for a very small and important being. I know I'll also run into obstacles, especially since Canadian law doesn't fully protect Psychiatric Service Dogs in the same way American law does. It will be hard, getting access rights, having training difficulties, finding the PSD handler's community, getting crapped on for having such a small service dog (Canadians still consider service dogs to be big guys, even though in the States toy breeds are also used), getting crapped on by other people with mental health issues for even having a service dog. It's all going to be full of it's own ups and downs.

People think service dogs always are on the job, but that's not totally true. He's going to be able to come home and be a regular dog, with lots of toys in all varieties and walks and playing fetch and romps in the dog park. He's even going to be able to have occasional sleepover/vacations with certain people so he has some down time. He'll play with other dogs and be best friends with a kittycat and get to make goofy faces and have controlled treats. He's even going to travel with me for a month in August to Utah, Ontario, and Quebec. I'm not bringing him with me on business related trips until I'm sure he and I have a good relationship and he's well behaved. After that, where ever I go, he'll usually come too, helping me along across time and space!

So if you see someone in a movie theatre with a long haired black and tan mini dachshund in a "service dog in training" vest, it's probably me.

Butch-Femme Misconceptions

Being butch, I get a lot of weird ideas about my sexual identity. One is the ever popular heterosexualized game "Who's the boy and who's the girl?" In bed, they mean. Like only ONE person is ever allowed to do penetration and only ONE person is allowed to be penetrated. It's very unimaginative, and probably one of the better reasons they should stay to boring het sex.

But when you're a shy boi who wears the pants, immediately it's assumed that you're the penetrator and your more girly sweetie is the one with her legs in the air. And yeah, there are a lot of butches and femmes who operate like that, and good for them. But just because some of us do that doesn't mean we're all like that.

I'm a bottom. That doesn't mean I'm not into strapping it on or lubing up my fist, but for me, what really does it is some luscious femme with a big silicone boner under her skirt (or pants, or overalls, or whatever she likes to wear). Some people say this means you're not a butch, to which I say bullshit. Masculine men and women everywhere like penetration, and I don't think it means you have to start wearing lipstick.

What other butch misconceptions are out there? Hmm. That we're pretend men or want to be men. Yeah, it has to be said that there are a number of butches who eventually embrace their own maleness and come out as fully fledged FTM's. But that doesn't mean ALL butches want to be men. A lot of us are happy in our female bodies, even as we do shop in the men's section.

Coming out as butch was really confusing, because I think I'm so gender complicated. I tried wearing boy undawears because I thought it was expected of me, but in reality I feel way hotter wearing ridiculously feminine bras and panties. Plus boy gaunch were way too contricting around my ample girl thighs. Elaborate lacy things underneath a veneer of masculinity is HOT HOT HOT, and some of my partners have thought so too. I still remember the terrific thrill I got when a lover of mine tore off my button up shirt and found a fancy green and black lace brassiere underneath. And I remember how my femme lover was always enamoured of my pink frilly panties she would find under my jeans.

That all being said, sometimes I do like stuffing things down my pants. My favorite all time stuffer was a banana covered in a condom. As the day progressed it got mushier and mushier, until I finally threw it away, condom and all, into a garbage can at Emily Carr. I wouldn't be surprised if a hungry art student fished it out and ate it.

Off topic: Once at Emily Carr there was a garbage sign with a label which read "This is Art, not a Garbage Can." People threw garbage in it anyway.

One other thing I hate about butch misconceptions is that we're traitors to the female of the species. I think we're actually an integral part of the female experience. We've been on the vanguard of many political movements, and not just the queer rights movement. I hate that butch is considered an insult by some queers of my generation.

But what about femmes, you may ask?

Femme misconceptions run just as rampant, if not more so. I think the biggest complaint I've heard from my femme lovers has been how hard it is for them to be recognized as queers, not only by straight people, but by queer people too. I remember one time I was necking with my high femme lover in a Scotiabank ATM when some dude from ECIAD walked by. She started doing something else while I chatted with him.

"She's not gay," he told me, even after her tongue was down my throat right in front of him.

"No, she's bisexual."

"No she's not, she's straight." He'd never even talked to her but because she was a femme, apparently she couldn't like pussy.

But it happens with dykes too, ESPECIALLY if you're lover's bisexual. Because it's assumed that they won't ever consider a girl as a serious long term partner. And there are some bisexuals who lean more towards one side than the other, but you never really know what will happen when love just clicks.

I think my current favorite theorist on butches is Judith Halberstam. If you haven't read her work you should really check it out. I'd like to read some femme theory if I can get my hands on it, but with no dedicated homo book store in S'toon, I'm open to recommendations so I can order some in.

I've heard the crabs screaming

It's slowly becoming a birthday tradition for me to munch crab, drink champers, and live large, if only for one day. Because what else are birthdays for but belt popping fullness on food you'd ordinarily never eat?

I may have waxed romantic on crab dinner before, but now, out here on the prairies, with nothing more exotic than Red Lobster, a good crab dinner is hard to find. I don't want merely frozen legs doing a chorus line on my plate, I want a whole goddamned crab, curled up in it's own last moment of agony on my plate. I want oysters on the half shell, doing their last dance down my gullet.

I must say though, I do have a wave of regret about crab. I find it difficult to eat one if I've heard it screaming, which was why having a fancy restaurant kill it for you was so appetizing. They say crabs can't scream, but I was so sure I heard it once. Maybe it was just the sound of boiling water running through it's tiny body. Or maybe it did scream.

I recently purchased 11 dollars of snow crab legs. Frozen in a chorus line package. No screams for me.

But for my birthday, yes, we're going to have to buy live crabs and lobsters and kill them. I don't think I'll be able to look!!! But I'll definitely be able to chomp away at the wee crustaceans.

See, and this is probably the only reason I would be a vegetarian if it was the OLDEN days. No way could I chop the head off a chicken or chase a bison off a cliff. I'd be too squeamy. I'd say "um, I think I'll just have these berries, thanks anyway," and then they'd (the neighborhood) would all laugh at me as I got diarrea. And they'd probably be annoyed at me for eating all these berries.

(Name that comedian)
"I will hide these berries under a rock. There will be no berries, and some animals will die."

I recently purchased crustacean cutlery. Some shell cracking instruments and some long pointy forks with wee spoon like devices on the ends of them for pulling out MEAT.

Which brings me back to vegetarians.

Now I don't mind vegetarians, unless they start harping about my diet (dude I'm native, we FREAKIN' love meat!) but I heard a rather disturbing rumour about vegetarians some years ago. I may even have mentioned it here. But it's SO bizarre that it bears repeating.

I heard that vegetarians eat human placenta because it's the only meat that doesn't involve killing something.

Now that's sick!

I thought it was just an urban legend, but then I asked my good friend "New Man X", who was at the time an avowed vegan.

"We were going to eat my best friend's placenta" she calmly replied, well, with a hint of saliva creeping out of her mouth.

It was too much, the thought of a group of vegans hungrily frying up placenta. I heard it's a good cure for post partum depression, but ew, that's pretty desperate.

Now that makes the screaming of the crabs sound much more tolerable. I mean, I imagine menstruel clots are pretty similar to placenta, but I wouldn't collect them and make omelets, ya know what I mean?

The Icy Blast of the Past

I recently had the most ridiculous dream, involving my ex-one-time-lover from high school and Nicole Kidman. We were wearing top hats, sitting next to Nicole Kidman at a premiere. Nicole was going to be in a film I was making which was completely in German (I don't speak German and I doubt Nicole does).

Now, I wasn't as surprised to find Nicole Kidman in my dream, considering since I've moved to Saskatoon I've had celebrity cameos in my nocturnal slumbers on a fairly regular basis. But I was surprised to see Miss X (her name is unique enough that she would be justified in giving me a boot kicking for naming her), since I had thought of her only rarely in the intervening years since adolescence.

But it did give me pause for thought. For one thing, I was pretty awful as a teenager. I did a bunch of stuff I regret. Hormones are so crazy when you're a teen, and jealousy is horrid. I was fucked up and confused and mean, and I was way too preoccupied with the advice and opinions of others. I think as I've matured, I've wanted to go back and try to make amends.

I found her email, sent a message of apology, and you know, I really have no expectations. I won't even mind if she never emails me back, I'm just grateful that a dream pushed me towards trying to fix something that went terribly wrong. Maybe it will inspire me to be more open in future relationships.

She's still as beautiful as when she was a teenager, and I was awkwardly crushed out. I hope that time has given me the grace to act more honorably towards those I love.

I'm shrinking!

I may have mentioned the terrible flu I got just before I moved, how I lay in bed for a week and didn't eat, and consequently lost so much weight my pants were falling off. Well, I've been eating, way better food too, and still, the weight is slowly slipping off me. I'm wearing my "skinny" pants now, which are still pretty big, and now they're starting to fall off too. Someone even told me I had baggy clown pants, since my butt is getting smaller and smaller.

It's so weird, just when I was starting to be comfortable being fat, now I'm losing weight. Pour quoi?

It could be because I'm eating less junk food. It could be because I'm smoking next to nil pot, and hence having less munchies. It could be because I have a job that entails moving around. Who can say? All this, and I still haven't signed up to be a member of the Y yet, which is on my list of things to do.

Two of the most important things for a wee bipolar person like myself to do is to eat healthy and get lots of exercise. Finally I'm in a financial position where I can actually realize those things. Sure, exercise is sort of free, but to actually have some spare cash to get a subsidized membership to the Y and access to their gym and swimming pool is kind of amazing.

Next week I get my first Good Food Box of Organic veggies and fruits. PLUS I have been drinking this really yummy protein shake my mother showed me how to make.

The recipe is as follows:
Add 1 quarter of soft tofu to 8 ounces of orange juice (or other juice if you prefer, I've been using Pineapple & Orange Fruit and Veggie juice). Blend with a hand blender. Then add in five frozen strawberries, chopped up a little bit, and blend that in too. Next add two heaping tablespoons of frozen blueberries and blend again. Next, add one tablespoon of golden flax (or regular, but golden looks nicer). Stir and drink!

Don't go all hardcore and live on JUST that drink, but as a breakfast substitute it's pretty decent and healthy.

Yes, maybe I am finally winning the battle of medication side effects. I felt pretty betrayed by such a drastic weight gain happening all because of meds that I need to be stable. Not to downgrade the Sexy Fat Girl movement, because fat is sexy. I guess, I just missed being able to go into a store and find things that fit me.

Of course, the flip side of this is that the last time I lost weight, I went into full on mania. A strangely common side effect of mania is that we all look so svelt. Then again, I don't feel manic, my sleeping patterns are fine, and while work has it's own stresses, it's not as stressful as the situation I was in when I flipped out (ratty apartment with nothing, not having a bed, living with someone's abusive boyfriend, living in Montreal and not speaking any french, blah blah blah.)

Oh yeeeeeah! I am a GOD!

This morning I turned on my computer, only to see it do something completely heinous and evil like NOT RESPOND AT ALL!!

I shouldn't say not respond at all, the power light came on, only to go into epileptic fits of blinking madness. And then the fan went into overdrive. EEEK!

I checked some stuff quickly online, then went through my terribly slim manual that came with the thing. Then I decided it probably had to do with the RAM, due to the blinking lights, then went into the guts of my computer, took out both RAM cards, and then reinstalled them.

It was a little nerve racking, being so involved with the guts of what is a pretty crucial part of my life. So many ways to fuck up. But it worked! The computer's back up and running and I didn't have to take it down to some repair place and spend my pay cheque.


There is one thing I noticed though, which is that the inside is awfully dusty, I'll have to get a can of compressed air and do some tech-y dusting.

I feel like a god. There is nothing like knowing you can conquer technological problems. I think that's why I love my job. It's sometimes like doing a really abstract puzzle.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try and install Linux on one of my partitions. We'll see how it goes.

Three years have passed

It's been three years since I stepped out of the hospital to freedom. I had no money, so it wasn't long before I was back as work, still crippled by my experience.

The hospital. It's such a bland sounding word, nothing near the sheer horror of really being there. I mean, really being there. I remember confusion, and an overwhelming sadness. I'd wanted to kill myself before, but there, I was really ready to do it. I didn't know if I would ever get out, there was a lot of talk about behaviour, being good, as if having a psychotic episode automatically makes one the opposite of good, which is evil. I remember not knowing what was expected of me. For most of my stay, I made my bed every morning.

I have never made my bed before or since.

But there was this thing, about being normal. About not having religious thoughts. Who decides what is normal? Who makes up these standards?

I remember nurses talking down to me like I was a child, and how much I resented that.

I remember being forced to capitulate to the psychiatric health care system, and how much I resented the people who put me there.

I remember abuse, being put in restraints twice, for hours at a time. I remember bruises from the orderlies, and being screamed at for no good reason at all.

There is still an overwhelming sadness about the experience, about being degraded solely for having a mental illness. About being treated as a disgusting subhuman, and being blamed for things I could not control, and some things I had nothing to do with. Once an alarm went off on it's own and I remember an orderly coming into the room where I was sleeping and screaming at me that I had something to do with it, it was my fault. As though I was such a powerful crazy person that I could do things in my sleep.

I remember it was the first time in years that I got to eat three meals a day, instead of the one meal I had been subsisting on for ages.

I remember the loneliness, alienation.

It changes you. Once you've been hospitalized, once you've gone to that dark place, people look at you differently. People are scared of you. People try to control you afterwards. People assume you are a broken human.

As time passes, I find that the people I trust the most have been hospitalized too. It's an experience that almost becomes an identity, because you know that the only safety is with others who you can turn to who have been there too.

Three years have passed, and it still makes me cry. I guess I should celebrate the fact that I haven't been back since. But sometimes, I just feel frustrated that so much happened to me there and there's nothing I can do about it.

I know someone who was sexually assaulted when she was in the hospital. But no one believed her, because she was crazy.

Recently a bus driver taking some patients to another hospital stopped for a drink. When he got back, all the patients had escaped. So he picked up some people and offered them a free ride, what he didn't tell them was that it was to the hospital.

It took them three days to convince the staff that they weren't patients.

It could happen to you, even if you are sane.

Dreams and my big butt

I was listening to my favorite radio program when they started talking about how maybe, just possibly, our waking life is really the dream state, and our dream state is the reality. I pondered this and happily went into dreaming, thinking, wow, what if this is my real life.

I dreamt it was summer, and I was on my way to the Osbournes house, to see Ozzy and Kelly and Jack and Sharon. Someone had written in their bathroom "Our friend Thirza has a really big butt."

I got mad, and wrote "Fuck you," underneath it.

The night before Columbia from the Rocky Horror Picture Show had been tapdancing through my dream.

Yeah, I don't really believe that's my reality, although it sure is entertaining.

A Question of respect

I've been thinking a lot these days about the reaction of the Muslim and Western worlds to the Danish cartoons. While I in no way agree with violence, they do have a valid point. Although Christianity has never forbade depictions of Christ, Muslim law is very clear about not allowing depictions of their Prophet. And while we may disagree with certain Muslim laws, such as forbidding homosexuality, respecting their rules about Muhammed is relatively easy. Don't draw Him.

Especially when tensions are already running high with the current colonization of Iraq. Because let's face it, that is what is going on there. As a person who comes from a colonized race, I can see that clearly this is an issue of subjugating a race.

Now I hear there's a bounty on the head of the cartoonist, which is sad.

But what it comes down to is a question of respect. If we ever are to get on good terms with the Muslim world, we have to respect their differences. Otherwise this whole cycle of violence will just continue, on and on.

The horrors of Personals

Personals really kick the shit out of one's self esteem. I spent the latter part of the evening surfing various personals sites desperately seeking Miss Femme.

First of all, they ask for various pieces of information, like race.

Now, I'm biracial, and I like to be upfront about that. If I were to check the box saying I was European, well, I might end up with some racist bitch who hates Aboriginals. But on the other hand, I feel like a liar just saying Aboriginal (which by the way, none of the sites have, it always has American Indian, which is wrong on so many levels.) because I'm a pale little chickie and I feel way more comfortable choosing the middle ground where I actually live. However, a surprising number of personal sites don't allow for choosing more than one race. Pick one dammit! It's a sad reflection of society today.

Secondly, gender. I choose to live in a female body and be masculine, and I'd much rather choose a box marked Other than female or male.

Thirdly, I'm butch, no matter what my mother tries to tell me (or other obnoxious straight people for that matter who automatically think butch means ugly), and I like femmes. I feel most at home in butch-femme relationships. To me, an option for "I am a butch seeking a femme" seems like a given in a dyke personals site. And there are some (one) site specifically for that, but as far as I can tell there are no people from Saskatoon there.

Yes, it looks like I will never find a girlfriend. And besides that, how the hell do you screen for people who are bipolar friendly? As soon as you tell someone you have a pretty damned heavy duty mental illness, they run screaming for the hills. But to not tell someone, that's even worse, because why have a lover who you can't tell everything to?

I've been told my standards are too high (ie, more obnoxious straight people who don't recognize the fact that a gorgeous femme would be attracted to an equally gorgeous butch), but when I think about certain past lovers, I recognize that at numerous times I threw my standards out the window, mostly involving staying with abusive partners until friends told me I was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

And then there's the section for weight. Yeah, I'm fat. But how do you word that. "a few extra pounds (like twenty or thirty? Who decides how many is a few? Is it only ten?)' I don't like putting in heavy, I dunno, maybe it's my own internalized fat-phobia. Maybe it's because I am big but it looks really good on me. I dunno.

All this and I truly think it's an exercise in futility. I've really tried to stop being lesbian the past year, in the hopes that at least I could find some comfort with some warm body, but dammit, men just bore me sexually.

Maybe I'll just have to get famous and find some star struck woman.

My nipples are going to fall off

Yes, I come from Saskatchewan. I mean, I really come from here, my ancestors wandered around hunting bison and I now wonder . . . HOW THE HELL DID THEY STAND THE COLD!!??

Oh sure, Vancouver has the glum drawback of raining for weeks on end without a break, but at least one is moderately warmish.

That was the thought racing through my head as I endured the coldest day this winter. It was -27 this morning, and felt like at least -35 when I went home.

There’s not really any reason to complain about it, since my work and home are within quick walking distance to the bus stops, and by now I have figured out my route and the relevant bus schedules. But even inside at work I ended up wearing mittens, which don’t really jive with coiling cables. And yes, my nipples were hard as rocks and felt like they were going to pop off my breasts, roll down my shirt, and scamper across the floor.

HOWEVER, today I finally got hooked up to the internet and cable t.v. (with 200 channels!), I stocked up on 181 bucks worth of groceries, and I am gonna stay in and relax with food and entertainment. Plus I get pornography on my television for the first month! How could I complain?

Yes, it looks like with enough preparedness, even subzero temperatures are bareable.