I didn’t get my artist fee from my distributor which makes me wonder if my bank information is even correct over there. They could be sending it to someone else’s account, I don’t know! I sent them an email and got an autoresponse that they won’t be back until the middle of January. So that sucks. I have been asking my mom for money and I’m just tired of it and FINALLY my rent cheque went through and didn’t bounce, but with all the things autopaying out of my account I can’t reliably be sure I am going to have the rent at any time. Like I will have it sit in there and all these things autopay and take it. It’s frustrating. I was hoping to get paid my first payment from a gig, but found out today I won’t get it until late January. My Toronto Art Council grant likely won’t be deposited until January so that’s not gonna save me either. I also have to find money for rent again soon for January.

I made an appointment with the bank for Thursday so I can take out what is left of my RSP, but that won’t go through for like, a week. But at least it would give me hopefully enough to pay my rent. Which isn’t even a lot compared to Toronto rents, but I’m still dead broke and no one is in a hurry to pay me.

I did talk about this on my facebook though and some friends sent me enough money that I could get some groceries. Which is good because I was like, down to eggs and cheese. But I’m still poor and there’s still things I need to do. I have some money on my transit pass at least, so I don’t have to worry about that yet. And a goodfood box is coming for me on Thursday and it has nice things in it, so hopefully that helps. I still need to get a chicken for Christmas dinner, but I’m hoping to do that on Saturday so it doesn’t sit around for too long. I also need a panetone. Is that how many n’s pannetone has? I feel like it’s wrong. Maybe it needs two t’s. I don’t know I’m hungry and can’t spell. I did have cheesy eggs tho so I’m not like, as miserable as I was earlier today.

I HATE POVERTY! And I hate when people take weeks to process payments. And I hate poverty Christmases! I called the food bank and made an appointment, hoping I could get something soon, but I can’t go until January 12th. So I’m glad my friends sent me money but also it really shouldn’t be like this. People/Corporations/Funders legit owe me thousands of dollars but I can’t access it at all until mid to late January. What’s the point? Even fucking welfare makes sure to pay people just before Christmas, even tho that usually fucks them over when January comes. It just is all awful and I’m bummed out that I supposedly have a career but at the same time was gonna research where to get a free Christmas dinner, and was wondering about panhandling just so I could afford to eat something.

ALSO of course I have to pay this ridiculous developer membership so that Apple will notarize my video game, and it just seems like a cynical money grab. All it has to do is process something ONCE and that is it. I’m probably going to cancel it as soon as I’m done with it. But it’s causing me to wait to release my game and it pisses me off. AHHHHH. I hate it. And I hate that I have to get rid of the last of my savings just so I can pay January rent. And I hate that I’ve been working on a feature film for years and no one is funding it. It just feels unjust. I’ve also been sidelined in a project I did this past year because the producer was laterally violent towards me and I had to cut them off from accessing me. So now the co-director of that project gets all the credit in all the publicity, even though I wrote and directed almost half the project. But I just can’t let people be violent towards me in my work life, I will not accept it. It’s too bad because it was a good project. But whatever, I can’t fix the world. I can just struggle lol.

I guess this is where I should write that I’m grateful for something because Christmas blah blah blah. I am grateful for my friends and family. But also really disappointed and tired of struggling and tired of lateral violence. So yeah if you wonder “Theo worked on that project I wonder why he’s not in any of the publicity?” It’s because I’ve been excluded on purpose.