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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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