It’s seven days into the year. I taught my first class of the semester yesterday. I actually had an easier time than last semester, which I think is because of a few things. One, it’s now the SECOND class I have ever taught. Two, I get to stay in one building all day except for when I cross the street for lunch. I also had more money so I got a bacon cheeseburger for lunch, which was way better and might be this semester’s go to lunch, last semester I was doing chicken BLT’s. Although I have been eating SO MUCH red meat the last week or so. I made a beef tenderloin roast for New Years Day dinner and ate it for a while, before that I had made a beef bourguignon which took a while to eat. So it’s been beef all over. I need chicken and fish and pork and also I might make a halloumi dish today (depending on if the fresh ingredients are still good or replaceable).

The train ride home last night was only mildly delayed, so it wasn’t too bad. I did my two thc gummies like usual and had a pleasant time.

Posey and I went to the vet today so she could get her wellness exam and two vaccinations. She was a pricey lady, she also had to have a blood and urine test, so that was 450 on top of meds and the wellness check itself. They also want to do another echocardiogram for her heart which is $$$ and not in my budget this month. But I gotta save pennies for her.

I paid off most of the new Macbook Pro I had to get last year. It’s already been paying for itself though because now I can work so much faster. My old Mac was sluggish and would crash all the time. It had so much wrong with it. But also I was able to give the University back it’s laptop because I was done with it, so now I just have this nice sleek fast Macbook that actually works and can run more than three programs at a time.

My solo show opens soon! On the 18th of January at Doris McCarthy Gallery, 2pm to 4pm! In Toronto! Actually, in Scarborough!

I’m continuing guitar lessons this week. I get to see him on Thursday. I’ve managed to get a lot of practice in during the break, which is nice. I even broke my first pick which was amazing. And also makes me think maybe I can move up to a firmer pick. I was doing 0.5mm picks (and just got a lot of them!) because they were easier to handle while I was learning upstrumming. But now I think I’ve mastered that (or am better at it anyway) and maybe a stronger pick is better for me now.

I am waiting for some exciting packages to come. I ordered some audio gear from Long & McQuade and I’m going to start recording myself a bit so I can learn what I sound like when I’m playing and/or singing. I have been able to talk through the lyrics of Help I’m Alive while I’ve practiced, but I know I haven’t nearly mastered it at all, and I need to learn to sing along. I am almost wondering about taking singing lessons.

I knew this singer when I was a teenager named Carla-Marie Powers and she was convinced everyone could learn to sing. I don’t know. She was certain. And my therapist has said it’s possible. My family practically heckles anyone who tries to sing though so I’ve been very discouraged from it, even though I do like singing when I’m home alone.

The guitar playing and singing is still mainly a personal thing and not something I do for others yet. And I still don’t know when I’ll be more public with it. Sometimes I post it on my Instagram, but only the guitar playing. Not the singing.

I’m starting to notice which chords sound good together. Learning songs has taught me a lot about how they are constructed which is interesting. Like where the same chords will repeat and how the order will change but it’s the same stuff. I don’t know, it’s interesting. When I was in film school I paid some attention to music because I could see how as a time based medium it had some connections to film. And obviously people put music in films. But thinking of editing a film in a way similar to constructing a song has kind of intrigued me. But I still only ever listened to music at that point and didn’t make it. So hopefully I can kind of have some carry over between my musical pursuits now and my understanding of short films. And feature films.

Posey KNOWS I’m waiting for special mail and keeps alerting me that mail is here. But she’s wrong most of the time. The letter mail already came, but the packages did not.

The political landscape looks so bleak right now. I do not want Canada to become the United States, that would be the worst. No healthcare? Ugh, I have so many healthcare needs. Poorly maintained infrastructure? Ew. Transphobic laws? Gross. And also the United States has a weird backwards relationship with Indigenous nations. Canada sucks, but I think we have a little bit more of a better deal up here than the people do down there. BUT UGH even if that doesn’t happen, we have PP wanting to come into power and he’s Putin’s little stooge and going to privatize everything and make it shitty. The worst timeline.

I’m honestly impressed that Russia managed to dick with so many countries elections. Like yes it’s terrible, but they figured out how to do it without invading.

I’m trying to be online less. I think a lot of bots and government run accounts on Facebook and other sites have made the internet largely useless. Bluesky was great for a while, until the moderation team decided to bend rules for transphobes and betrayed their base. I don’t know what’s going on with that now though since I subscribed to a transphobe block list.

Anyway. I think I am looking for more teaching jobs in the future. I was googling them but there’s nothing near me in the near future that I feel interested in teaching. I’m just gonna have to keep my eyes out on the career boards etc. I don’t want to move though, which makes things difficult. I just want to stay in Toronto! And I’m also not ready for a full time job yet, I think I want another adjunct gig or two after this. I don’t know.

I did get my Evil Fire draft done over the holidays, and redid my step outline for another feature, and read an old feature I wrote and figured out how to redo it. So the writing IS happening.

I worked on my video game yesterday in my studio and made major errors and edit undid a lot and then finally fixed it, BUT also I updated it to a newer version of Unity. So I’m hoping that helps in my programming. Especially since the students are learning this newer Unity version, so I gotta know what they are talking about when they come to me for help. I think the animations are working better in this version, but I know I gotta sit down and just move all around the level and make sure the states are changing properly.