No Privacy since I was Twenty-One

It’s been ten years of blogging, secret blogs to start, then sometimes I let people I know read them. Then I started my first blog when I was nuts. BUT, I went back to blogging with my real name after that. The Vancouver Years, Part Two.
It was all an experiment. I don’t know if it actually gives me support, I am only sometimes actively involved in commenting and interacting with other blogs. It is a great way of feeling plugged into the disability community online. Which is a pretty wicked blogging community.
I guess I am thinking about privacy ever since I read about that woman who lost her disability insurance claim (for severe depression) just because she smiled and did some fun things in some photos on Facebook. But what the hell? Did they want her to be slashing herself on Facebook or something? How can you evaluate someone’s mental health based on some photos? Can my mom do that next time she gets worried about me, email the jpegs to my pdoc that prove commitment is the only solution? I mean honestly.
I do sometimes worry about the privacy I have given up by writing honestly about my life on here. Anyone could come along and judge me based on any number of things, my drug use, my bipolar disorder, hypergraphia, even just that I’m an unrepentant butch dyke. But fuck em. I do get a kick out of keeping a blog, even if I haven’t been the best writer these days. And in a lot of ways I do feel like these personal details are part of my politics. How can I talk about mad rights if I am too afraid to explore the vagaries of my grey matter?
So I have a new job, and I am pretty happy about this. I had my first day on Friday and I go back tomorrow! It’s 35 hours a week, which is perfect because 40 is too much for me for some reason. It’s an office type job in a Queer environment, so I really feel comfortable. I didn’t exactly feel comfy saying I was a dyke at my last job.
Which is a bad sign, I think.
I’m staying clean for the weekdays I think, or as clean as possible. I don’t have cash because I spent all of my last cheque already and I haven’t gotten paid from this job yet. And when I do get paid it won’t be very much because I won’t have worked a full two weeks. Money is a strange invention of human kind. Stupid little pieces of paper and coins pretending to represent gold. ANYWAY, I don’t have anything to spare on smokeable fun, so it looks like I’m going to be jonesing and feeling frustrated this week. Who knows though, maybe if I get through a few days of being sober, I will want to stay so for a while.
In fact I am thinking about being straight edge for a month, just to get everything bad out of my body and you know, kinda cleanse myself. See what it’s like to not do any drinking or drugs for a LONG period of time. And a Month is pretty long for me. It might inspire me to stay sober. Or to use far more sparingly than before.
It’s a thought.
In totally other news, me, my mum, our two dachshunds and mum’s golden retriever went out to the country for a walk. And Arthur disappeared. He had found a porcupine and was going after it repeatedly and barking and getting pissed because he was hurt and he wanted to hurt what was hurting him back. So anyway we drove back into town straight to the small animal clinic at the University. He had 300 to 400 quills in his mouth (lips and gums), face, chest, front legs and paws!! Poor Arthur.