My performance in Prince Albert went well and was well received.  I also did my screening at the Broadway Theatre here in Saskatoon yesterday and it was really good mostly because people close to me who hadn’t seen my work got to see it.  My psych nurse Joan even showed up with her sister and she really liked it.  I got my name on the marquee which was really exciting, I felt like a real filmmaker!  I think that’s the first time ever! 

I’ve made some important realizations in the past few days.

One is about the fact that I keep going back to having the same old crushes or trying to be with past love interests and I finally figured out why.  I want the familiar.  I’m 35, I want to be settled down with somebody and I guess part of me feels like if I was with an old crush/love interest then I would have this nice long history already.  It’s not going to happen, none of my old crushes/love interests want me.  I have to move on.  So I have to remember what it’s like to be excited about being with someone new.  It’s all unknown, which is scary.  But it’s also a fresh start and a chance to be with someone who doesn’t have preconceived notions of who I am and what I am like in a relationship.  Unfortunately all my past loves/crushes knew me or dated me when I was still heavily using, and so I think that has played a major role in why they don’t want to be with me now.  And I have to accept that I am never going to have a chance to be a new person with them.  And that’s okay. 

Another thing I have realized is how much being mentally ill has impacted my life’s trajectory.  When I was twenty or so I was on this nice upwards trajectory in my career and so on.  And then my depressions got worse.  And then I got on meds and suddenly mania was thrown into the mix when I was 24.  And since the manic psychoses have happened, I have been severely limited in what I can do.  It’s not actually so bad comparatively, I only went off my meds once and that was enough to learn I couldn’t muck around with them.  But it has impacted so many areas of my life, my career, my relationships, my ability to simply get through the world.  I need a lot of help some of the time.  I’m lucky to currently be living in the same house as my Mom, but I also am hyper aware that people are constantly judging me for living with my Mom.  The problem with NOT living with my Mom is that I couldn’t find roommates who could deal with me and my dog, and my dog is crucially important to my well being because he’s a therapy dog who does a lot of work calming me down and making me feel safe and grounded when I am upset.  Also the current living situation is mostly good because we all take turns cooking for each other and like the same foods and basically can pool our limited resources and survive pretty comfortably, which would not happen if I had non-family roommates.

ANYWAY, I realize that people are judging me and think I am not paying rent or groceries or some bullshit or that I am just another loser who lives with their parent.  But the disability thing is a major factor in living with my Mom because she does help me out a lot.  And the dog thing.

So those are things I have realized.  I don’t want to be an inspiration for anybody.  I just wish I could have a film career that let me make feature films.  And that I could someday move out and live with a girlfriend.  I’ve never lived with a lover, I’ve never been in a relationship for long enough to move in together.  In some ways I think it’s a bit crazy to live with a lover, what about personal space?

Whatever. 

I went looking around on POF today for local ladies.  There are a few who seem cute.  Anyone who says in their profile that they “like to party” doesn’t make the cut.  I’m starting to realize that maybe I should find someone who doesn’t drink or use.  Which is hard.  I sometimes wonder if I should go thirteen stepping at an NA meeting or something.

Actually, there is a gay AA meeting on Wednesday nights and I might go again.  I went once with my cousin, it was good but I wasn’t ID’ing as an alcoholic at the time.  It still doesn’t seem to fit as a label, addict seems much more appropriate.  If there was a gay NA meeting I would go to that.  Hmmmm.  At the same time, I don’t really like twelve step groups.  If there was a Gay concurrent disorders group I would be all over it.

The problem with Gay AA is that it is on the same time as the Bipolar group, which I also don’t go to but want to attend again.  They gave out bipolar magazines, I forget what it was called BP something or another.  Bipolar Living or something like that.  I guess I could attend one group one week and the other the other week.  Back and forth.  Actually that is not such a bad idea.

My ex Margaret used to say she hated the word Actually.  “It’s so awful, like “Actually your cooking is really good” like they expected it to be horrible!”  She also hated listening to people chewing on the phone!

Anyway, that’s my blab blab for today.

OOOOOOOOH!  No I’m not done yet!  I got my hood pierced for the third time on Saturday at three!  It hurt a lot but for such a short period of time!  Like a couple of seconds, one second when she pierced it and another second when the jewelry went in!  It was awesome, I had such great endorphins after!  I was all WOOOOOOOOOOO!  And now I can’t have sex for two weeks and I can’t get someone else’s bodily fluids on it for a month.  So blah.  I wasn’t gonna get a chance anyway.  But I am hoping it makes me feel more myself, when I took the last hood piercing out it was only because I had to get surgery for my gallbladder.  I really felt sad when I couldn’t get it back in.  I love my hood piercing.  I’m looking forward to a few days from now when I can masturbate again and relearn all the reasons I love having this piercing.