It’s Saturday night! (Technically Mother’s Day morning!)  I had a good night, spent time with my friend Laurel.  Lost some money.  BUT I am okay with that. I made lists of all the things I have to do in the next little while.  I need to upload a file to WeTransfer or Dropbox for Entzaubert.  I should try that now.  I also have to make copies of some other videos and send them off to a gallery and a festival.  I have a show coming up soon in Winnipeg, I’m excited to go there, hope I see some old friends. I’m super irritable these days, and have been for the past six weeks since my risperidone was dropped by .5 mg to 3mg.  I thought it would go away, I gave it a chance to settle down, but I’m super crabby and irritable and angry and it’s wearing me down.  Anyway, I am seeing Dr. Conacher on Tuesday and I am gonna see what she suggests, she might bring me back up .5 mg.  I hope she does, it would make me feel a lot better.

I’m gonna meet someone soon! 🙂  Like an actual cutie who lives in a different city and whom I have been having conversations with online.  I’m going down to Regina and we are finally going to meet and have a real conversation!  I’m excited, I have no expectations, she is super cute and I’ll just see what happens I guess.  I’m okay with whatever happening, I mean, we might just be really awkward with each other.  According to OK Cupid we are 98% matched! 🙂

What else?  I am still waiting to hear about this job I applied for, I don’t know if they have done interviews yet. I am still trying to decide about going to Berlin again. I have all the tax forms I need to do my back taxes.  8 years of T4’s and forms and guides.  I just need to find my pencil and some free time.

I am almost gone cleaning up my room to make it “Show Ready.”  I also have to tape up and stack my boxes downstairs. I have sleepy dogs. I am having bursts of creative thoughts, I need to work on them.  I’m glad it’s starting to come out though, because I really need my creativity to get working again!

Also 4 year olds are terrible humans.  It’s some crappy developmental stage.  It’s too bad I’m gonna move away before my nephew turns five and gets nice again.  Right now he’s a hellion who keeps making death threats about everybody and talking about where he’s gonna keep his guns when he grows up!  I also have a suspicion he is getting terrible influences from the kids up north.  Ugh!  Well anyway, he is not my kid!  And thank god for that!

I love Little Mister  and Posey!  My two fur-kids.  They are really sweet.  Posey’s got puppy bad habits still, but Little Mister is this adorable old man now. 🙂  With dignified little silver hairs in his fur!  <3! Okay, it’s late and I have nothing further to say!  AND tomorrow morning I gotta get up and get crepes!  And champagne for her mimosas!

I miss my pal Deanna.  She is just busy, but I miss going out with her to the Coach and visiting.  Ha ha, it hasn’t even been that long since we have gone out.

My neck hurts.  I slept on it wrong.  I hate it.

I had a weird sleep last night, because I was writing something super dramatic just  before I went to sleep.  The night time seems to be the best time to write right now, because that’s when everyone else has gone to bed.  I’ve got six pages written.  It’s going pretty quick, which is surprising.  I guess it’s a story that wanted to be told.

I have so much stuff coming up.  I think I mentioned that in my last post.  I feel like I am finally doing the work I need to do though, I think I might finally be getting into a nice steady creative groove.  I have a lot to think about, and now we aren’t working so hard on the house, so it is getting easier.  I’m looking forward to when I live with roommates who aren’t family though, because I think I will be able to be more myself then.

The dogs are fine.  We got new carpet in the living room and they haven’t peed on it yet!  Yay!  😀  Kristjan is staying until Friday and today he ran into the living room and said “This is one big pee pad!”  Made me laugh!

I’m thinking of using my short story as the basis for my MA project.  I think it would be really good.  And it would give me an excuse to take the special effects class.

I already know mom’s gonna hate my story.  Oh well.

It’s funny, I’m talking about how I need more time to work on my projects, but I am also feeling like I need more time to socialize outside of the house.  I guess I need more friends here.  But I’m leaving.  I don’t know what I need.

Boi Oh Boi is screening at Entzaubert this year, I’m trying to decide if I want to go or not.  It’s a super fun festival and I always have a good time.  I’m just not sure.  I have to think.

So I am ok.  I went out and played Lobstermania and won 60 bucks.  50 in one spin!  🙂  Sweet!

I got a call from my Dad today, which surprised me.  We had a nice chat.  A couple of his dogs died over winter, which was sad.  Dogs on the Rez don’t have very long lifespans.

What else?  I’m in a good mood.  Well, to be honest it is going up and down.  I was doing A LOT of work getting this house “Show Ready” and it was SUPER STRESSING me out!  I was moving large furniture like dressers and tables and then also carrying boxes of books up and down stairs.  And yesterday I just hit the wall.  My body ached, I hadn’t been able to sleep in for a VERY long time, so I was sleep deprived, and I just wanted to cry.  I had it.  I was veering between being extremely upset to extremely angry.  Like, this had been going on for three weeks or so.  And today finally we didn’t have to do much.  Tomorrow is just some tidying in my room and moving some boxes once the new floors are in.  So I think I am ok.

Kristjan is here, which can be kind of crazy.  I don’t know how we are going to do this with him here, because people are starting to come and look at the house on Wednesday and decide if they want to buy it.  So it has to be SUPER CLEAN and Steven is not very good at cleaning after his son.  Which makes me worry I am going to be running around stressed out until Friday cleaning after someone else’s kid.

Anyway, in a fit of pique I posted on Facebook wondering if I could stay at someone’s house until Friday with my two dogs, and I was super surprised when someone actually said yes, especially since that person and I haven’t spent more than five minutes in each other’s presence since 2007.

What else?  I am excited to move away, but it’s a long time from now and I have other things to do between now and then.

1. Write a sci fi short story for Theytus books.
2. Go to Winnipeg for a show at Urban Shaman.
3. Do a performance at the Dunlop in Regina.
4. Make a webseries.

Also I have to go to Regina for Queer City Cinema which is showing Just Dandy, and I have to pack up my stuff and put it in a storage unit until August.  AND find a place to live in Toronto.  Lots of things!

OH!  And do my back taxes for 8 years.

So much.

My head is swimming.

I’m getting requests for my videos more and more.  That’s really nice.  Just Dandy is showing at the Montreal Underground Film Festival this month.  Sight is going to show in Toronto again.  And three videos are showing in Winnipeg.

Edit***** I wrote 771 words of my short story! 😀 Stopping only because I am tired!

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I am having a little bit of trouble with a potential gambling addiction.  This post isn’t about that though, only indirectly.

There is a local bar my cousin and I like to hang out in by the mall, close to the house.  It’s called The Coachman.  And it’s kind of an old persons bar, well lit, quiet, with a room and two walls full of VLT’s (video lottery terminals, but really they are slots).  Anyway, my Cuz and I were having a drink, they have low alcohol beer there so I had a couple of those, and then we whiled away some time playing slots, my Cuz won ten dollars but I won not much of anything.  At the end of spending money foolishly in the back room, I could hear this guy outside talking about women in the bar.  I didn’t know if he meant us or other women, but he was pretty gross, saying things about getting women drunk and taking their clothes off, and I said to Deanna (cuz!) “There’s a gross guy out there.”

We finished up and then left the backroom to go back to a booth and have our last drink, and we were just chatting when this man’s booming voice started getting aggressive.  This other guy was leaving and the Gross Man was following him and trying to pick a fight.  He claimed that the man had knocked him off his chair and the police were coming and taunted the man for running away.  Then he got to the entrance, and I was perfectly positioned to see him from the back fumbling with his zipper and then making a motion of shaking his dick!  I swear to god, the dude pulled his dick out and waved it at the guy!  By then the one leaving was just ignoring him, but what the hell?

The Gross Dick Shaker went back inside, then he went outside, then he came back inside, then he left for good.  He also was aggressive towards other people, demanding to know if they were laughing at him and stuff.  HOLY FUCK!

That is the most fucked up thing I have ever seen happen at The Coach.  Usually it is a pretty quiet bar.  I mean, on the weekends college kids like to go, but they don’t wave their genitals around.

ALSO, what is the deal with waving one’s genitals? Is that supposed to be some kind of Alpha male thing?  I don’t understand!

When he was passing us going in and out of the bar, we’d be like chatting about what just happened and then also trying to be as invisible as possible because clearly he was messed up.

What worries me is that the staff there is often just women, and this situation really needed a beefy bouncer.  I’ve known women bouncers, but I don’t know if the waitresses there can be as effective.  Such a worry.

Anyway, as we were leaving I said “I wonder if there are surveillance cameras out here,” and just then spotted a camera with the words “Surveillance Camera” printed on it to make it even more obvious, pointed straight at the dick shaking doorway.

After that I drove Deanna to McDonalds and she bought me large fries.

Well, life is okay right now.  It’s Good Friday, I have nothing to say about that except there is snow everywhere and the roads suck.  I have a really gross cold, it’s probably the worse today that is has ever been.  I slept for most of the afternoon.  It’s pretty yucky.  And Posey keeps taking my kleenex everytime I blow my nose!

We watched The Deathly Hallows 1 and 2.  I still cried when Dobby died.  DOBBY!  Nooooooooooooo! Poor little dude!

I had a dream I suddenly went crazy.  Like just out of the blue, started having really weird thoughts and got an inscription on a silver ring that was just a bunch of gobbledygook and there was something about Beyonce.  And then it turned into a sex dream.

I’m having a lot of sex dreams.  I don’t know what that’s about, it’s been a long time though!

I’m hoping there will be more women to date in Toronto.  Although who knows, things could always be just as weird.  BUT it sure as fuck isn’t a small prairie city!

I’m so tired.  I hope this cold goes away tomorrow.  Mom had it for like, a week!

Little Mister was depressed earlier today.  He kept laying in a bed on the other side of the room and staring at me with sad moist weenie eyes.  I am starting a campaign of cheering him up by picking him up and giving him cuddles and pets and kisses, and the odd sneaky treat when the other pups aren’t around.  I’m worried he’s jealous of the baby dog.  I don’t want him to think he isn’t special!  Little Mister is such a great boy!  He’s tops!

Anyway, there was a cat video festival, and Laureen Harper (wife of our fearless leader) was hosting it, and someone asked what about the missing and murdered Indigenous women and she said “Tonight is about homeless cats.” (not sure if those were the exact words but it was along those lines.)  Anyway, there was a mini flurry of cats and dogs with signs saying they care about missing and murdered Indigenous women.  Little Mister and Posey had a sign too!  Here they are:

I don’t know how I am going to write this post.  It’s kind of a complicated story with someone who will remain anonymous (although I’m pretty sure all my friends can make a good guess as to who it involves).

So a number of years ago I had a drunken one night stand with someone in Germany.  Then the next year I went back and had another one night stand.  Then I sent a flirty email when I got back and she told me she didn’t feel anything for me.  Then time passed and we were chatting a lot on facebook, about a bunch of stuff we had in common and what was going on in our lives.  Anyway, I got feelings again, and for a few months I was trying to figure out how to tell her.  And then we were back in the same place and I kissed her hello and that was ok, but it was like, a dry kiss, no tongue.  ANYWAY, then we had drinks and I told her how I felt and it was super awkward, and I asked if I could kiss her and she was like, no.  And I felt really crushed, because that’s how rejection makes me feel.  Anyway, we had an awkward rest of our visit and then when we said goodbye I kissed her again but it was like a dry kiss like when we kissed hello.  AND THAT WAS WRONG!  I was so clueless and I don’t know why, I didn’t really associate it with like, a kissy kiss.  Anyway, when I got back to Canada she sent me this email about how upset she was with me and how uncomfortable I made her feel and UHHHHHHH!  She said we shouldn’t talk for a while and that she would talk to me when she was ready.

That was in 2012.

We were friends on facebook until tonight.  But she put me on restricted profile and I couldn’t see anything of her page unless she made it public, which she never did.  And she did that right after the email to me.  A few months later I sent her a super apologetic email explaining that I understood why she was upset and stuff.  And I left it at that.

Anyway, it seems like she’s never going to take me off restricted profile.  So tonight I unfriended her.  I give up.  She’s never going to forgive me.  And I feel really guilty but there isn’t anything I can do about it now.  And I have to move on with my life and pay attention to the friends I have now who love me.  AND my life is changing and I just think I have to let go of the past.    And cut my losses.  I fucked up an important friendship.  And it sucks.  And I still hurt about it quietly.  But like, what can I do????  NOTHING!  She doesn’t want to talk to me, I can’t send her another email, I don’t even know why she didn’t unfriend me first.

And it kind of pisses me off.  Why didn’t she unfriend me?  We had no contact, I could never see any of her statuses, and I was so afraid to make it a mutual restricted profiles thing in case she unfriended me.

But you know what the funny thing is?  I can see exactly the same stuff on her profile as being not her friend as I could when I was her friend and restricted.  It made absolutely no difference.

It’s sad seeing friendships disappear.  I really did like her as a friend.  I’m not one of those assholes who feels like platonic friendship is a losers prize.  It would have meant just as much if we could still have chats about life on different continents.

I also hate feeling like such an asshole.  I don’t like making people uncomfortable.  It’s weird, telling people about my feelings is such a stressful thing, and there’s always this fear that it will wreck a good friendship.  And for the most part in my life I have had positive experiences with confessing feelings, even when the other woman doesn’t feel the same.  But this time, ugh.  I just feel like a rapist.  It’s gross.  I feel like any minute someone’s gonna write a post calling me out.  And I don’t know, what’s that gonna do?  And I kind of want someone to tell me I’m not a creep.  And I kind of want things with her to go back to being friendly friends.  And I don’t really know how to make this a story with a happy ending.  It doesn’t have a happy ending.  I unfriended someone I really wanted to be friends with.  Because it didn’t make a difference anymore, we weren’t friends anymore anyway.

And that makes me sad.  Aw fuck, I hate crying but I know I am supposed to do it because I swallow back my tears so often.  So fucking often.  It’s hard having feelings.  And hearts that break in slow motion.

But I do feel really fucking guilty about making such a massive error with concerns about consent.  Fuck, do I ever feel bad about that.  And I wasn’t even drunk, I was sober.  I should have known better than to closed mouth kiss someone who already said they didn’t want to kiss.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I want to take accountability for it, which is maybe what this post is about.  But also I don’t know what to do with that.  I already sent her the super apologetic email.  I guess this is just me explaining it in a more public place.  Fuck.  I can’t do anything more than this.  It depresses me so much.

I wish that instead of being absolved of your sins you could be absolved of being creepy.  I hate being a creep.  Ugh.

Anyway, I think that’s about all I want to write about this.  It’s getting late, and I’ve got to drive Little Mister to the groomer’s tomorrow morning bright and early.

So my Cousin Deanna has been staying with us the last couple of months.  She left a house where our other cousin, Steven, was staying.  Anyway, today we found out his house was on fire.

And not just like, a little fire.  It was a big fire.  We dropped by to see the damage and find out if anyone who lived there was still around.  The roof was full of holes, and the 2nd and 3rd floor windows were blown out with smokey soot stains all along the outside.  Steven came around the corner looking totally depressed.  I guess he was the one who noticed the fire.  Anyway, its completely uninhabitable.  A couple of fire people came up to us to ask Steven questions, and one of them was an old friend from high school!  It was her first day following the fire inspector around.  We had a quick chat and she gave a speech on fire safety issues when it comes to hoarding.  One of Steven’s roommates had a lot of stuff and that’s why they had to make a hole in the roof and hose it down that way.

Anyway, it’s been a dramatic day.  Steven had gotten a new place to live for the end of the month anyway, BUT it’s the end of the month, still like, under three weeks away.  So he is staying with us.

I’m doing ok, but Mom is worrying about the condo she was trying to buy and wondering if she will even be approved for a mortgage because she has no job.  Pretty gloomy!  We are fixing up the house anyway, I’m pretty keen on getting away from the shitty neighbors.  Their kids have no boundaries.  They were raised in the country and don’t know anything about city living or being respectful.

BLAH!

It’s two in the morning.  I realized I really need to put rules around my gambling.  I’m doing it too much.  BUT I’m gonna try harm reduction stuff and do things like leave my bank card at home when I go to the casino, and have limits on lottery tickets.

I also need to write a list of things to do.  So I am writing it here to make myself accountable.

1. Put my name on more waiting lists for co-ops in Toronto.

2. Do at least five years of back taxes so I can get my refund from Sasktel money and some GST payments.

3. Write everyday!  Even if it’s only for an hour!

4. Ummm, I can’t think of a fourth.

Anyway, it’s late.  I need to redirect my obsessions/addictions to something less costly.  Maybe I will masturbate more.  But I’m in Mom’s house, it’s awkward, I only feel comfortable when everyone’s asleep.

So much paper!  I looked at EVERY piece of paper that was in those boxes!  I had three piles, one for keeping, one for trashing, and one for sensitive papers I need to shred before recycling.  In the end I had one bankers box of letters, old statements from distributors, writings, and various bits and bobs that I thought I should keep.  I realized I moved some really junky stuff like People magazines from 2003.  What do I want with that?  I let go of a LOT of things!  I really don’t need it.  And it takes up so much room.

I have two boxes left which really just need some adjusting and then they can be put back in the corner with the other stuff I am moving.  I don’t have so much now, it’s mostly archived video tapes.  And film reels.  And books.

Next it’s the upstairs room.  I have another big box of stuff in my room, and some other things.  Just clutter stuff that I can put in a better place.

We also did some speckling and Mom painted, I have to clean the fan, Deanna cleaned the sun porch, we have to move Mom’s office downstairs and the bedroom upstairs and a bed in another room over to another room.  Whew!

The more I can pack to put away in storage for future moving to Toronto, the better.  I might have to store stuff for about two and a half months between when Mom and I move to the condo and when I leave Saskatoon for good.  But if most of my stuff is ready to go, it will simplify my life, and give me more time for looking for a place in Toronto and also getting my back taxes done.  AND I have a grant I have to finish up here too!

Busy busy busy beaver!

I’ve been helping Mom get her house ready to sell.  She has found a two bedroom condo that she has a really good chance of being able to buy, provided she sells this house.  So there has been a lot of searching for flooring, trips to Home Depot, cleaning and sorting.  I had about fifteen boxes in the basement which have been sitting down there for ages, and I ended up FINALLY going through them and deciding what to move and what to throw out, or sell in our upcoming garage sale.  There were many spiders.  I only ever saw flashes of them running away.  BUT I have pared my belongings down.  Now I just need to go through about five boxes of papers and magazines and stuff.  I’m going to go through them upstairs with Mom’s shredder next to me.  Shred old bills and film school handouts that I don’t need anymore.  And bank statements.  And stuff like that.

I have also been helping get the interior of her house looking good.  I washed walls so she could paint, and I polyfilla’d some holes and dings, and put new fluorescent tubes in the sunshine ceiling in the kitchen.  It changes the place DRASTICALLY!  I mean, we were down to one bulb, and it was just getting dimmer and dimmer in there.  I also have to wash the fan blades, and help with decluttering.  And in ten days I have to keep the house SPOTLESS for when it goes on the market and people are coming in and looking at it.  We will have six weeks to sell it, then our job will be packing things up and throwing things away and selling stuff and giving stuff away for free.

I have a lot of old Filmmaker magazines I don’t want to take with me.  I might keep the Fortean Times tho.  I really need to work on it.

It’s getting so nice here!  Finally plus temperatures!  There’s still some snow drifts hanging out in the shady spots, but they will be gone soon.

One nice thing about doing such a deep clean, especially with the basement boxes, is that I have found some stuff I was really missing!  Like I found a sock monkey my friend Louis made for me, and I found a nice shirt from Lane Bryant I had been missing for almost a year, and I found my special rock I was missing for ages.  I really love that rock!  I found it when I was about twelve or so, and it always had this feeling like it held secrets.  For instance, it’s got a bluey grey surface, but when you hold it in front of the sun light can go through it and it’s sort of a golden colour.  I’m not sure what it is, Mom thinks it’s amber.  But I’ve always had it, and sometimes it disappears and I worry it’s gone forever but it always comes back!  It’s magic!

I also found a lot of old video tapes, film reels, and cassette tapes.  And some DAT tapes and a 1GB thingly doo!  Some of that I won’t be able to use, BUT because of my paranoia about letting go of crucial media, I am keeping it.

Keep all the things!

But stuff I moved like old candles and other crap, that can go away.  Nobody needs that.  I don’t need to move it.  BUT photos and the like, I’ll keep that.

I’m wiped.  I gotta go sleep.  Posey is getting a longer snout, it’s quite cute. She’s laying in my lap, having a snooze!