Today I didn’t do a whole lot. I stayed sober, I still haven’t smoked a cigarette, it’s going okay. I saw my psych nurse yesterday, which was good. She told me again she wants me to get into public speaking about my recovery as someone with bipolar, and addictions I imagine. So I am still meaning to do that. Today I gave up on my wimpy pumpkin seedlings, which are limp and dwindled from eight to three. I don’t know what happened! :O So I bought three big pumpkin plants and a cantaloupe plant, to go with my watermelon plant. Going to try and grow some mega fruit and veg!

In two weeks I will be on a plane to Germany. I’m NERVOUS! :O It’s pretty damned exciting though. I have so much work to get done on my video! I need all my shots down, or at least most of them! I am gonna see if I can borrow a tripod while I am there, because carting one around is a pain in the ass! I found an international NA meeting in Hamburg in English on Saturdays, so I am going to go there while I am in town. Just to keep myself checking in.

I found a really good website on addiction, it’s called The Fix. It’s my favorite of all the ones I have looked at so far!

Tomorrow will be two TOTALLY SOBER weeks! 😀 That’s pretty cool. It’s been a long time since I have gone that long without drinking. This weekend I want to do some things sober, like play a game of pool or go bowling. Something like that. Maybe Mini Golf. I want to go to the labyrinth nearby and do a meditative walk through it.

Yesterday I sat in the hot tub and drank soda water, orange juice, and grenadine. That was pretty sweet.

I had this crazy dream last night that I was gonna have sex with Kurt Cobain. WTF???

I saw Men In Black 3 and it was awesome.

What else? Maybe I will go to the horse track again this weekend. Probably not though, I might just mind my own business most of the weekend.

I am not sure what to do about my friends. So many of my friends were my drinking buddies, and now I don’t drink. I have to figure out a different way of relating to them. And some of them are really threatened by me quitting drinking and drugs, for some reason. I don’t know why, I guess they feel like maybe it means they might have a problem too. But I am not going to try converting my friends to NA or AA, I just want to be able to spend time with them without them saying “But you could have ONE drink!”

Well anyway, I should get ready for bed. Facebook is telling me this blogspot.ca address is abusive or spammy. Fuckers! I hate facebook!

Well, I still am not at liberty to inform you, my dear readers, what is new with the home situation. So just imagine it is something that makes me very happy and solves a problem. You can probably guess what it is. I’m still doing well not drinking. I’m doing pretty much everything I did before, except now I don’t drink. At least, not alcohol. I actually went to one of my old bars, the Yard and Flagon, and I had a mocktail and a coffee. And nachos. It was pretty good, I didn’t mind having regular drinks. Even though my friends were having rum and grand marnier and blah de blah drinks. Friday will be a whole week. People keep telling me “Well you could have ONE drink” but the doctor’s office said NO alcohol, and they said it three times! So I think I should follow the doctor’s orders and not listen to friends and family who suggest otherwise. I’m not really interested in getting liver failure. I’ve been feeling my world expand a bit since I quit drinking and smoking up and smoking cigarettes. The night before last I had a dream I was being followed around by this little black horse. It was bigger than a pony but smaller than a regular horse. And at one point it took my right hand into it’s mouth, I was terrified it was going to bite it but it just held it and then let go. I knew somehow that this horse was God! As I understand it. I don’t really think of God as having a gender or anything, and it was kind of intense to be followed around by this Horse being. It was freaking me out because it was SO insistent on following me, no matter where I went. So anyway, actually that was a few nights ago, I wrote those three paragraphs and then left this for a while. I’m doing good. Now it is Friday, I made it through my first week of not drinking! 😀 And it didn’t hurt! And it wasn’t boring! I’ve been going to the gym again. I am not able to do fifteen minutes on the elliptical yet tho. But I’m back up to doing an hour or so of working out, which is good. It’s less than a month until I leave! :O I’m getting nervous, being in Germany for five weeks is quite a commitment! I hope I have a good time. It will be weird being there and not drinking, but it will be good. I don’t need to get drunk. I think even when my fatty liver has reversed itself and gone back to normal, I am going to continue not drinking. I think I have too much of an addictive personality, I could get into trouble! ************ And now it is Sunday! ********* And still no drinking! 😀 Nine Days! I am going to NA tonight. It’s on in an hour and a bit. I need some support. I am tired of people trying to encourage me to drink again. It seems really negative. In six months I am going to get my liver enzymes checked out again, but even if they are back in a normal range, I am still not going to drink. I think it would be better for my mental health and all of that not to. I was a bingey drinker, it wasn’t healthy. Obviously it wasn’t healthy if my liver wasn’t doing well. I’m now on OK Cupid! I got on it after a friend asked me to look at her profile and tell her what I thought. So now I have gotten one message from someone near me, which is nice. I was totally honest on my profile about quitting everything and looking for love, hopefully it gets me some dates! Later On Sunday: Well I went to my NA meeting, and I actually talked for the first time! It was awesome! I got a lot of support and they were happy I had made it to nine days totally clean. I think I will go more often. They have a group everyday out and about town. I might go to a couple more this week. ***************** Monday!********** I was terrified about driving to the airport to pick up Mom, because of the rain and the freeway! BUT I did it! I even had a decent time parking! Yay! I even changed lanes on Millar, which is a terrible place to change lanes! Anyway, Mom is home, and Steven came home, and my weekend alone is over. It was really nice, even though I didn’t do a lot. Maybe it was nice BECAUSE I didn’t do a lot! 🙂 Anyway, that is the last week of my life. The no drinking thing is going awesomely, and I still need to figure out fun things to do. I went to the horse track on Friday, that was fun. They serve booze, but it’s easy not to drink there.

Yesterday I got a call from my Doctor’s office. I’d had a blood test the day before and the results were in. My cholesterol is a little higher than it was in 2010. So I have to watch my diet and exercise. ALSO my GGT levels were a little high. So No Alcohol Anymore!

I’d gotten really drunk the night before I got my results, so I guess I went out with a bang. But after I got that call I felt itchy and really wondered about how my liver was doing. Not as good as I had hoped, evidently. I can’t keep abusing it, it already has to deal with all the medications I am on for Bipolar Disorder, so that’s that. I’m not really too depressed about giving up my last vice. I gave up smoking cigarettes on Monday, haven’t smoked pot since January 18th, and now I am turning out to be the most straight edge person. I used to be informally straight edge in high school, I didn’t smoke a joint until I was eighteen (and it didn’t do much for me then) and I had my first drink when I was eighteen too. I knew already I was kind of crazy, and thought avoiding drugs and alcohol would keep me sane enough to get through high school. It worked!

So here I am again, quitting. Quitting EVERYTHING! Shit man, I didn’t expect this to happen to me. I have to live a totally different life now.

SO I am trying to think of what I can do now that I don’t/can’t drink. I listened to Coast to Coast AM shows on Youtube last night and scared the heck out of myself, that was fun! I forgot how much I used to like listening to it. So I tried to buy a subscription to their podcasts, but the visa was turned down. Which is weird because apparently there is money on it! So I put more money on it and will try again tomorrow.

Tonight I was bored so I hopped on the bus and did a loop on the number 6. As I went by the University I realized it was a perfectly clear sky and that Saturdays the Observatory is open. So I went back home and borrowed the car at ten and drove on down. I saw the most awesome thing! Saturn! I could totally make out the rings, it was pretty spectacular! I was impressed. Then we looked at Mars, which was a reddish brown dot, not terribly interesting. Then we looked at a Super Nova in the Summer Triangle which looked like a smudge in the shape of a ring. Apparently Super Novas look like hourglasses, but we see this particular one from underneath (or on top) so it looks like a ring! And tomorrow is the Solar Eclipse, which to us in Saskatoon will be partial. I am going to go to a lecture at 3 to get some free solar viewing glasses and then at 6 I am going to Diefenbaker Hill to watch the eclipse with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, who are setting up some telescopes. I am for sure going to go to the Observatory more often, on nice clear nights. It was very informative and cool! And to think, if I hadn’t quit drinking yesterday I would probably have just gotten shitfaced tonight!

***************** The Next Morning *************

To be honest I had considered quitting drinking for a while. I talked about it at Concurrent Disorders. I was worried about cross addiction, which is when you substitute one addiction for another. Alcohol instead of pot! It was heading that way. So in a way I am glad I have to quit. No more putting it off. It’s kind of a bummer only because so much of my socializing involves alcohol. Now I have to adjust. I read a list of things to do instead of drinking, but they were pretty lame suggestions. Going to the Observatory on a Saturday night was pretty fun though.

***************** Later ************************

There is some good news regarding my home life, but I am not at liberty to explain at the moment. Come back tomorrow for further updates!

This evening I drove out to Diefenbaker Hill and watched the Annular Solar Eclipse with special glasses. It looked AWESOME! I was impressed. Then my friends came and met me and we shared the glasses and then went to my favorite drinking hole, The Yard and Flagon, where we sat on the rooftop patio and I had a virgin cocktail (pineapple juice, 7up, and Grenadine) and a coffee and we all split some nachos. Which is how I discovered I don’t like meaty nachos. Oh well! Then around 9 something I drove home, visited Mum, and finally got a membership to Coast to Coast AM so I can download podcasts! 😀 Going to hear about The Zodiac Killer and Police UFO Sightings and some other shizzle! Exciting! 😀

So that’s the news! I am adjusting to this new life. I think I am doing a pretty good job so far of discovering new things to occupy my time. I am also going to go to coffee shops and sit alone reading all the books I half read, go to movies on my own more often, keep up with events listings in Planet S for free events (lectures, readings, etc.) and so on and so forth. So far my life has gotten richer by quitting drinking, I can use the car more often which is good! So weird to have to quit so suddenly! Oh well, I don’t think I will miss it. I might miss beer, I really liked beer. There is non-alcoholic beer though, if I get really thirsty for old times.

I’ve just come home from the gym, after a very long absence from my work out routine. I think it went alright, got puffy and sweaty and did pretty good. I wasn’t going fast enough on the elliptical though, it kept “pausing” and pissing me off because I WAS moving! I only did ten minutes and I felt so exhausted. Then I walked for a mile and a half on the treadmill. And afterwards my work out partner Laurel was like “Don’t smoke!” and I remembered I had quit and took a lozenge to stave off a craving. So far the quitting has been going really well. I haven’t smoked at all, and haven’t had bad cravings either. The patch and lozenges help a lot.

I gained something like 20 pounds since I quit working out, it was kind of wild! I guess I was eating a lot. Anyway, now I can’t fit most of my pants, which pisses me off. I don’t think I will be able to lose 20 pounds in a month, so I am looking into buying some new cheap jeans and shorts for my trip. I got some new shoes, nice new shoes, and some new keen sandals. They are pretty cute, they are green and brown. Now I have three newish footware type things. Make that four because I also bought runners for the gym this winter. And they have hardly been worn so they are still quite newish.

I’m nervous about my trip to Germany. I hope I have enough money! I need to be really careful with my finances this next while. I am going to be there for five weeks, so I have to live like a local and make my own food and stuff. I am mostly going to be making my video, that will be exciting! So I’ll be nerding out in my room and cooking. And visiting. And showing work.

I’ll leave in exactly a month! Wow!

Someone fucked up my expensive travel adapter for the electrical plugs, which pisses me off because it cost 49 bucks! And I need to go with two because I have so many electrical things to plug in, like my computer and my iphone and my video camera. So I am kind of pissed off. I think it was the Kid. He totally put the USB plug in the wrong way and now it is stuck! 🙁 Sad me!

Steven is working on it.

I have work this week. Lots of work. I am gonna be busy! I missed getting my time sheet in, but I didn’t know I was supposed to get it in until WAY late at night.

My travel adapter finally got fixed, but it totally isn’t for Canadian plugs! I am going to have to take the stupid thing back, and someone already threw away the plastic that is inside the box, so I am not sure they will take it. Shitty! I feel so ripped off, I paid a lot of money for that thing!

Arg! I am so crabby! I wonder if it’s quitting smoking that is making me so crabby. I hope it goes away. Bleh!

I have a lot on the go these days. I gotta get cracking! I’m just writing here because I am kinda lonely and introspective. I am still considering quitting drinking. I mean, it would be healthier for me to stop drinking. It would save a lot of money, drinking pop is cheap, at least in Canada it is. It would be a good idea. I just don’t know if I am prepared, I haven’t thought about quitting drinking the same way I thought about quitting pot for so many years. I was really prepared to stop smoking up. I had read everything I could get my hands on and been to concurrent disorders group for a few years by the time I quit. I’d seen an addictions worker and went through the Test, where they ask you all those questions to determine if you have a problem. But that was all for pot and at the time I didn’t test positive for alcoholism. But now I am worried about cross addiction. I don’t want to be addicted to something ELSE as a replacement for my pothead past. So I dunno. I am considering it. I have a friend I am visiting in Germany who quit drinking last year, and so I am going to remain sober when I am around her, which will be a nice change, especially because when we first met I was SO DRUNK! I’m going to try and institute some rules around my drinking while I am there, like only on the weekends or something, because beer is so easy to get and so easy to consume anywhere really. So I have to watch that. Or maybe just not drink at all. I am ambivalent.

Dammit! That reminds me, I was supposed to talk to my friend on Skype this afternoon and I totally flaked on her! Not the Germany friend, my friend Shavonne who moved to Montreal. Poor Shavonne, deprived of my post quitting smoking crabbiness!

Anyway, I guess I should go to bed. I want to fall asleep thinking about being close to someone. It’s kind of nice, those moments when you are conscious but laying in bed in the dark, just thinking about your love. Dreaming of possibilities and remembering past intimate moments. That kind of thing I think is how I’ve maintained being in unrequited love so many times. It’s so passive. But it is like tending the tendrils of their life curling around your heart. Gentle green sprouts of love, just pure innocent love, gripping you and holding you close even when they won’t. Maybe it’s a bad habit. But it always makes me feel so good. She wants love, I just think maybe she doesn’t think of me that way anymore at all. But if she let me, I would love her so well. Sigh. This has turned into more than a crush.

I’m really tired.  I have been waking up early and getting to bed early for a while, and it’s already 9:25pm as I write this.  Mom is watching Survivor, the season finale.  I am writing a blog.

I have calmed down about the whole radioactive world thing.  I am resigned to my fate, and to living my life as fully as I can.  I should.  There is no other solution I can bring to the table.  Just be the best Thirza I can be and continue to live my life.  And surviving.

I really do have feelings for someone.  And I am not sure how to proceed.  I have a feeling they are not mutual, but at the same time I feel compelled to tell her how I feel in the event that there is a possible future for us.  I mean, keeping feelings all locked up inside is pretty bad, especially if there is a slim chance for love to blossom.  And we have been having some pretty intense conversations about our lives, just finding out things about each other and I really like being supportive of her.  I still really value our friendship, and I don’t want to be pushed away if I tell her how I feel and she doesn’t feel the same.  I don’t feel that a friendship with her and nothing more is a bad thing, because I really like her and value our time together, even though it is mostly talking on facebook chat.  And there is a chance we will be living in the same city in the not too distant future.  She’s been talking about it.  I’ve been talking about it.  Who knows?

Anyway, I think I need to tell her when I see her how I feel, tell her in person.  Just because it would mean more.  I am aware I might cry in front of her or something, but it’s something I have to do.  It goes with my renewed commitment to live my life more fully!  No more being shy when it comes to love.  I have to seize the day!  Maybe a totally beautiful healthy happy relationship would come of it.  And if it doesn’t, that is okay, at least she will know where I stand.  She told me she wants to move for love.  But she didn’t say with me, but still, that is different than what she was talking about last summer.  So . . . well anyway, I guess I should switch topics to something else.  I don’t really like talking about feelings the other party isn’t fully cognizant of on my blog.  I talked about Rheanne because she knew I loved her.  But not anymore.  I have finally moved on.

It feels really good to have moved on.  I feel like my heart is finally capable of fully loving someone new.  Before I still kind of kept one foot in the past.  I wasn’t able to give all of myself to someone else.  And Rheanne never really cared that I loved her, she always treated me like I was just some schlub.  Some loser.  Someone who didn’t deserve her.  Now I feel like she didn’t deserve me.

I still don’t know who my wife will be.  I hope I get one someday.  My psychic says I will.

Sometimes I look at the past and all the people who have come and gone from my life, and it starts making sense.  Perfect sense, even though sometimes it is all so random and bizarre.  Like destiny.  My psychic says I have a really good life path.  I think so too.

In August I will find out if I got my grant.  This is the third year in a row I am waiting to hear about a grant.  I hope I get it.  I really want to make my film (on video!) Bunnyhug.  I need to commission a baker miller pink bunnyhug straightjacket from a costume designer.  I think I might use that as my poster too, Ellie in the straightjacket.  Although they mostly use four point restraints now, I don’t even know anywhere that uses a straightjacket.

********************** The Next Day*****************

Well I had a good sleep.  Was the first one up, Mom slept in.  I went to go flip my laundry and my clothes were totally dry, which fooled me at first and I was like “Wow, my laundry dried without going in the the dryer!”  And then I was like “Waitaminit!  This washer didn’t even turn on!”  So I finally got it going.  I am aware this is a boring story.

It will be 17 weeks without Marijuana on Wednesday at noon! 😀  That’s a long time!  The longest I’ve ever gone!  It’s now 117 days without it, not even one puff!  I feel so accomplished, finally that monkey is off my damn back.  I don’t even think about it unless I am around it, and then I get cravings but I remember how miserable I would feel when I smoked up at the end.  I’d get so depressed and think of dark things and go dark places in my mind.  And I would get stoned and then get on the internet and look for sites about quitting.  Plus I stunk all the time, like weed.  Or a skunk.  And people could tell I was a pot head!  And when I had conversations on the phone I would space out and drift off and generally just flake out.  And it frustrated some of my friends.  Which I feel badly about.

I quit smoking this morning, at about 11.  I had my last smoke and slapped on a patch and now I am sucking a lozenge and promising myself not to pick up even one cigarette, not to have even one puff.  It’s over!  I am done!  I want to get a month of no smoking under my belt before I go to Germany.  And continue not smoking!  Especially because I only like Canadian cigarettes and would be really desperate to buy European ones!  So that is what I am doing.  I am tired of writing about quitting all the time, but I kind of have to write about it.  Just because it helps reinforce my attempts.

Last time what really helped was reading stories about quitting on About.com’s smoking cessation section.  They inspired me.

I’m behind on my work for my grant.  I need to write a script.  I am mostly goofing off right now, so I should really just get to it and start writing.  I have a bit of free time anyway.  So I oughta work on it.  I wrote a really eloquent thing about why I wanted to make it, including snippets of queer theory.  So I should revisit that.  I am trying to decide if sitting barechested on a horse is too over the top or not.  Except I wanted to talk about masculine identified female bodied persons in plains culture, and a lot of them went hunting and so on and rode horses while dressed in masculine attire, including being topless.  So it would make sense to have a tit shot of me on a horse.  I dunno, I must consider this carefully!  It would mostly be for queer festivals, so it’s not like a lot of heterosexual men looky-loos would see it.

Anyway, maybe I should go work on that instead of writing here.  It would be a good idea anyway! 

Well, what is new? Hmm. I am still clean. I’m feeling pretty good about that. Today I had some puffs off some cigarette butts (my butts) and thought “Well this is gross and desperate” and then went to the store and bought patches and lozenges to quit with. I really didn’t want to buy cigarettes again. So I have a patch and I sucked on a lozenge while it kicked in. The nicotine spray isn’t as effective as I had hoped it would be.

I finally got to see my friends last night. I hung out with Amy Jo for supper and we tried to watch the Zombie Walk but they waited too long to cross the bridge and it started pouring rain, so we went home. Then after watching Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life with her I went and met my friends Aaron and Daniel and we went to Flint and then to the May Day Cabaret. It was super fun! But I had to catch the last bus home, because cabs in this town suck because the city refuses to give out more licenses, so there is like, an hour or two long wait for a cab on Fridays and Saturdays after 12. And if you are trying to catch a cab from a really poor neighborhood, like 20th St, sometimes they will never show up at all! :O

My body aches. My work set up is not ergonomic at all. When I was in training to become a telephone operator, we learned about ergonomics and had a quiz at the end. One of the questions was about a sparkly cup with pens in it and some other things on a desk. None of us answered correctly, we were supposed to switch the sparkly cup with a matte cup. Touchy! Anyway, I don’t have a lot of sparkly things in my office, so I know that is not the problem. My desk is too high. Actually, I should just make my chair higher, then I bet I wouldn’t have a problem. I am so short!

Well geez, I wish I had thought of that earlier!

I’m really terrified and depressed about Fukushima’s Reactor Four blowing up and destroying most of life on earth. I feel so cheated out of a future. I want to get married and make a feature film and have a family and now it’s not gonna happen! Well, that’s not a for sure thing either. I mean, really intelligent aliens could land with technology we don’t know about and save our planet. But we would probably blow them up if they showed up to help. It’s so fucked. Life is so fucked! It makes everything I do seem really insignificant in comparison! This has been bothering me for a while. They say that it’s 85 times worse than Chernobyl. I never wanted nuclear power. I always thought it was a bad idea. But I’m not running the planet, THEY are.

I had a friend who broke his red fiestaware plate because it was made with a radioactive glaze, which makes them really rare plates because everyone tried to get rid of them. But somehow I think breaking it might be a worse idea than leaving it intact.

Yes, said friend is very very gay.

In case you didn’t know, there is a group of gay men affectionately referred to as Dish Queens who collect Fiestaware.

I like Fiestaware.

Maybe not the radioactive stuff though!

I’m really worried about this reactor though. I am sad that I might never find love before everything goes to hell and I die from radiation exposure. Of tit cancer or something. Pinky cancer. Clit cancer! Oh god, it just gets worse. And yet things are going really well for me. I have a residency. I’m going to Germany. I have a business and am getting clients. I’ve got a chance to possibly get a big grant to make a big film. On video. Everything could be going my way! But I don’t have a lover, which makes me lonely. I would like someone to hold while I am dying of radioactive imagination!

Anyway, everytime I turn around it seems someone else is posting a scary article about what’s happening in Japan, and I can’t do anything because I don’t know how to invent something that can pick up melted isotopes and keep them in water. I guess a Shop Vac isn’t good enough. And I am sure Henry can’t do anything either!

I worried so much about a nuclear incident when I was a kid, but I thought it would be nuclear war. Turns out we’re gonna get wiped out by nuclear power. Great. Same same. They say the Pacific Ocean is already highly contaminated. 🙁

I just hope I can find a girlfriend before the end. Someone who is nice to me and supportive and loving. But I am worried I would settle for less just to avoid being all alone on the Titanic!

Well, on Thursday at 12:15am I turned 34! I’m in my Mid Thirties! 😀 I am consistently amazed every year I get beyond being 30 because when I was younger my depressions were so severe that I was sure I would be dead before I made it to 30. BUT Here I am, a survivor! I feel pretty good about that. Wellbutrin has helped me out a lot, I forget when I got on it, but it has really worked for me! Last night some friends and family came over and we had a barbecue and hot tub party! It was awesome. We had bison burgers and cake and potato salad! I didn’t have time to make fried bannock though! Oh well! People seemed to have fun! I still have liquor leftover, we had to run around and hide it when Steven was in the hot tub. Because I was leaving and he doesn’t stop drinking, he will just keep going! Then I went with my friend Laurel to Divas, which was fun! She told me I had to find another bar to meet women, but I don’t go to bars to meet women, I just go to have fun. I like meeting potential mates at places where we have more interests clearly in common, like at film festivals and so on and so forth! I still have to have a date with my friend! She was gonna come up to Saskatoon for my birthday, but then she realized she had a prior engagement related to her job that she had to go to! So that was that. Oh well! It will still HAPPEN! I hope! Maybe it would be better if it wasn’t us at my birthday party, because I had to entertain a lot of people! And I kinda want to be focused on her when we FINALLY hang out! That’s the only right way to go on a date! I got into my first accident with the car. I thought I was in reverse when I was straightening the car in a parking space and instead I was in drive and I went up a kerb and hit a handrail! I was so embarrassed. I bent the handrail and made a hole in the bumper and a scrape and flattened a tire! 🙁 I didn’t know what to do so I called Mum, thank god I had my phone. She drove over in Grandpa’s car and I called Affordable Towing and they came and put on the spare tire for 36 bucks. Then I followed my Mum in the car to Kristjan’s daycare and she brought him to the car and said “Auntie Thirza broke the car!” And he put his little finger in the hole and said “Oh no! Car boken!” Then I drove him to our house and Mum met me there with Grandpa’s car and we all got in the car and drove Steven and Kristjan to his mom’s house and we went to see Sky. I wasn’t hurt and no one else got hurt. OH and also I should note that someone from the building did come out to talk to me and I gave them all my info and they were very kind! So yesterday we took the car to SGI for an assessment and got a piece of paper to take to the dealer to get it fixed. That’s 700 bucks I gotta pay! Oi! Today I watched The Iron Lady and felt bad for Margaret Thatcher. Which is silly because she was so horrid. It’s a good film about dementia, but as my friend Stef says, seemed like pro-Conservative propaganda. I am going out to the Freehouse tonight to meet up with my friend/fellow Little Piner/First Roommate Vern! I am excited to see him, it has been way too long! He’s always fun! I am thinking these days about what the hell I want to do with my life. I have an array of choices before me. And opportunities. And I applied for that grant. I am hoping I get it, even though I won’t get the money until January. I’d really like to make my film. I also have to start writing my script for Boy Oh Boy. I’ve got to start shooting soon! I am gonna wait for two more weeks and then start. Grandpa keeps asking me what I am doing, but it’s hard to tell him because he is mostly deaf and I never really know if he heard me. When my grandparents pass on, the only thing I want of theirs is Grandma’s treaty card, because she married my Grandpa at a time when white women legally became Indians if they married one. So she is treaty, even though she is white white white! And so I’d really like to have her card and put it in a little shadow box on my wall. I want to go see Jeff Who Lives At Home with my Mom. It will be 15 weeks without marijuana this coming Wednesday. I feel like I should celebrate it somehow. That’s over three months! I feel so much better now, so much clearer. I hardly ever think about it anymore. ************************ Two Days Later So I was wondering on Saturday night before I went out why birds were still chirping. AND ALSO why they were chirping in my living room but when I sat outside all was quiet. It was DRIVING ME CRAZY! Damn birds. Then I realized, they were coming from my computer! :O So I had to shut almost 60 open tabs on my firefox to get rid of the damn things. Night of the Midi Birds! Then I went out and drank and got drunk and brought Vern home and it was kinda crazy, he slept on the couch for a bit but the next morning my Mum was like “I want you to examine your drinking!” So even though there is still booze here (quite a lot actually) I gave most of it to my Mom and decided to get on the wagon for a while. I am not sure if I am quitting forever, but maybe spending some time away from it would be good. It might help me get perspective on my life, and it would for sure cut down on my costs and let me save some money. I bought “It’s Your Money: Becoming A Woman of Independent Means” today and I am excited to read it. It’s by Gail Vaz Oxlade who does the popular (in our house anyway) Canadian shows “Till Debt Do You Part” and “Princess.” In her shows she gives couples or single women challenges to do and encourages them to find work and so on, and then at the end if she thinks you have improved she will give you 5000 or less towards reducing your debt! One Princess show we watched recently, the Princess didn’t get ANY money! Not even 500. Not a penny! She was really resisting the challenges. ANYWAY, although I make personal video about personal issues, I don’t really want to be a lesbian Princess on her show and be in reruns forever. So I bought her book instead. I have a backlog of books I need to read. I won’t be able to take them all with me on my trip this summer, but I should at least get some of it read. My work ends in two weeks and then it’s just this street patroller job I am doing for a while. Till October I guess, that’s when it ended last year. I’m having feelings for someone I want to express, but last time I expressed them she sort of rejected me. I really wish she liked me. She is indicating certain things, like that it might not be so out of the blue for her to move to Canada for Love. But she is not outright saying she loves me, so I’m still feeling slightly awkward. Because I really want to be able to say I Love You. Because I do and have for a while. Sigh! I am always afraid of saying I Love You. It has turned out badly so many times in the past. I really just want to be allowed to really really love someone, love them so hard and so well that people can’t imagine us not being together. It feels like my love is never allowed or wanted even. It’s not like being rejected is SO bad, but it’s a terrible ongoing pattern of rejection from women I have deep feelings for. I know one day it will change and I will say I love you and probably be terrified and then she (whoever she is) will jump on me and kiss me and kiss me and say I love you too! But until then there is this awkward silence that follows. And crickets chirp and a tumbleweed goes by and then I am turned down. And it’s not like I am falling in love with straight girls, they are always queer. Just not into ME! Anyway, blah blah blah. I’m tired of my heart always ending up in the reject bin. It’s especially frustrating when this friend keeps telling me how much she wants love and a life partner and I just want to say “What about meeeeeeeeeeeeeee? I’m cute and nice and with some breaking in could be a fun lover!” I am aware I still need experience sexually, especially after my years and years of celibacy and limited sexual experience before that. I was sort of active in my early twenties. It’s also funny since I found out she and I share one of the same fetishes. So, hmmmm. And I’m the butch, and I don’t know if I am supposed to make the moves or what the hell. When we got together the first time I don’t remember who made the first move, just all of a sudden we were making out and then I had my hands in some pretty sweet places. It seems to hinge on following her lead, while also indicating interest. The second time I told her I wanted to kiss her and then she waited until she invited me into her house to let me kiss her. It was sweet. I should probably just tell her next time she is talking about wanting a serious sweetie that I would love her if she would let me. I don’t think she reads my blog, otherwise I wouldn’t be spilling all this here. Or maybe I would? Anyway, if she is reading, I hope she knows that I think she is incredibly smart and funny and beautiful and exactly the kind of person I could happily spend my life with nurturing each other. I feel really safe with her and want to explore all of her, her body and her mind and her hopes and dreams! Okay okay, enough of that I guess. They say you feel bonded to people if you have sex with them. It’s some little chemical. I’ve had sex with people without feeling bonded though. But I am really fond of her! I know I could fall in love with someone else though. I just already love her. It’s complicated. She lives thousands of miles away and it will still be at least a year and a half before she could move here. AND I would have to move to a bigger city so she could be involved in the things she likes doing, because Saskatoon doesn’t have a lot to offer her. I am planning to move to Toronto to go to school at York. But that depends on a LOT of things. Like if I get accepted. I’d like to study with John Greyson though, I think it would be really good!

So it looks like I will have my part time summer job again, wandering Riversdale looking for used needles! It was a fun job to have last year. I really liked it. It was like a treasure hunt, only the treasures were USED NEEDLES! And I’m not afraid of picking them up. I’ll have to work longer in the evenings three days a week, what with my other job of editing videos. Which is starting to come together. Right now I am working on a project. I have to get at least four more hours of work in this weekend to keep up. That’s okay. I’m going to try and keep up with my job and really get some hours in so I have enough to go to Germany this June/July!

I’m excited to have my summer job back! I wonder where this years hot spots will be? I know a lot of them from last year when I was working. The only time something dodgy happened to me last year was when I found a needle and then a wasp chased me away and was like, stinging me and stuff! For the most part people in that neighborhood are happy someone is getting rid of potentially biohazardous materials. They are very respectful and tell you where they have seen needles. Because everyone has a stake in their community, no matter how poor those people are. Sometimes people think poor people don’t care about where they live, but that is so not true. People care. People don’t want their kids jabbing themselves on some strangers needles.

And I liked walking for three hours a day three days a week. It was good for me, got me some kind of fitness level. It made me not so sedentary. I never cared that I was chubby, but not being completely sedentary made me feel pretty good.

My job is awesome, my editing job I mean! I am excited about it! Lots of stuff to do! My needle pick up job is awesome too, but I am right now only doing the editing job. It’s been all importing footage so far. But I feel pretty happy knowing there is a lot of footage to pull stuff from, and the footage looks good! It’s all high definition, which is REALLY nice!

I’m starting to realize that just maybe I will be able to have a fully functioning editing company. So far it has been very abstract. But now after doing a bazillion things like incorporating and getting a business license and a bank account and so on and so forth all on my own money, I think I will be able to do it! This is the first time I will have money coming in from an external source.

I got an accounting program for my Mac FINALLY! It’s AccountEdge and so far it is really user friendly! Except when I went to register the damn thing, it kept telling me “You must be an administrator” and I AM! Then after an hour of trying to troubleshoot I read the email I got when I upgraded it and it said to wait a whole day before registering! Fricken fracken hell! Anyway, expect to hear more about my accounting software. Neural Net, the Mac store in town, uses it, so I figured if it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for me!

I have to clean my office tomorrow because my client is coming in on Wednesday to sit with me and do some editing. I’m not sure how long she is planning on staying but I’d better make it nice in here! Right now it looks terrible.

I got my criminal record check today for the needle job, I had one last year but they needed a newer one within the last six months. No crimes for me! 😀 I have a nice clean record.

I am importing my 4th to last tape right now! Exciting! I have done so many hours of importing! 19.5! Including some setting up and stuff. Rewinding. Blah de blah. I’m stoked to get started on really editing, there is some more material coming soon. Finally I get to do my job!

I have been writing this for days. I keep saving it and then writing some more. Today is the first day I have worked in my office, before I was using the kitchen table. I really like it! It’s nice to be away from everybody. In my own quiet space. As messy as it is. It will be clean soon!

I need to gather my receipts for my business. I spent practically 600 bucks on that damn accounting software, but it was and will be worth it. And I will be able to pay myself back with the money I am making now. I am also considering buying a nice external monitor later on. I also have to send off a cheque for an ad I placed in the Pride Guide. It’s kind of a silly ad, I have a couple regrets about how I placed the words, but whatever. It’s all spelled correctly!

So running a business is a lot of work!

Also I have to pay myself back for the 2400 I spent on this computer. I need the money to pay for Life In Germany this summer. I am thinking of extending my ticket and flying out of Berlin so I can spend five days there after my residency is done. Also because my friend will be in Finland for most of the time I am there and I want to see her and her dogs! I have other friends to visit there too though. Either way, another five days wouldn’t hurt. It might test my sense of homesickness though. I get homesick so easy. I’m such a Canadian. I feel sad when I am physically away from the land. I would make a terrible astronaut.

So life is exciting right now, and giving me a sense of purpose. I also have to start writing my script for my butch video. I’m going to be really busy these next couple of months. My birthday is in ten days! 😀 I will be 34. Mid thirties! :O Shit, that reminds me, I have to call the government and pay them back an EI overpayment from when I went to Germany and therefore wasn’t supposed to get EI while I was gone. I should look for that letter! I’m glad I’m not on EI now. EI sucks, I hate doing the reports, and they only let you be sick for so long, 15 weeks. And recovering from a manic episode takes more than 15 weeks.

SO yeah! I gotta dash, the important part of this video that I need to watch is coming up in 2 minutes! And then I am down to my last three tapes which I will do tomorrow. YAYS! 😀

For my prudey readers, you might want to skip this post! For the rest of you, I had the first intensely gratifying sexual experience Sunday night in a really LONG time! I did have sex with someone else last summer and that was hot, but I am talking in this instance of my solitary sex life. Which has been lacking.

I don’t know why masturbation is such a taboo topic, when we are encouraged to talk about uplifting sexual experiences with other people. Maybe because solitary sex is supposed to be guilty and super quiet because there’s the assumption you are pitiful if you can’t have sex with other people. But I have been inspired as of late with my friend Shavonne who is always posting about masturbating and how her bed smells like vag! I’m impressed even, because she always has a sense of joie de vivre about her solitary sex life and no shame!

I used to have a really good solitary sex life, in my early twenties. I was away from home in my own apartment and had marathon masturbating sessions with various techniques, experimenting with my body and various implements, from ginger figs to my first (and second, and third) dildos to clothespins to . . . well once I eyed my telephone up quite lovingly, not for phone sex as you would understand it but more because the handset was curved in a pleasing way. But I didn’t go that far. I kind of regret it now. I used vibrators and candle wax and all kinds of things. And then what happened?

In the last few years my masturbation has been utilitarian and rote. Just a buzz of my vibrator before I fall asleep, trying to think of just the right fantasy to get me off and usually being frustrated because my fantasies are all boring now. I need to expand on them, or so I thought.

BUT THEN Sunday night I was kinda horny and got out the lube and my new glass dildo which I got at Taboo but hadn’t used yet. And I used it and my vibrator and had an EXPLOSIVE orgasm that made me all glowy the next day. I hadn’t penetrated myself in a REALLY LONG TIME and it was amazing! That night I had dreams about using my glass dildo AND my vibrating clit pump I got from Berlin last year, which I was all excited about doing last night except I ended up sleeping over at a friend’s house. I admit, I almost wanted my friend to drive me home JUST so I could masturbate all over again, but I didn’t ask her to. Tonight I expect to have a special moment all to myself.

The funny thing was my fantasies weren’t so all important when I was fucking myself with a glass dildo and using a vibrator on my clit, they all got lost in just the pure sensation of SEX! SEX! I had forgotten that having sex by myself could be hot like that, it had just become this thing I did in the dark with a vibrator set to high while I fumbled around in my brain trying to think of the thing that would tip me over the edge.

And what really impressed me was how much it boosted my libido to have such a fulfilling experience by myself. I wanted more MORE MORE! And not even necessarily with other people, I’m perfectly content to be sexual on my own.

I wasn’t masturbating much these days, maybe a couple times a week. Because it was so BORING! But this getting into my toys again has reignited my solitary passions. I am already going over my inventory in my head thinking of what toys to mix and match tonight. And I also know that by doing that I will increase my own imagination for things to do with a lover, whenever that happens.

We need to talk about masturbation more, I think. We need to share tips for masturbating creatively. We need to get rid of this antiquated idea that masturbating is solely for pathetic people who can’t get girlfriends (or boyfriends), as if being single and sexual is a pathetic thing. I refuse to wait for a lover to pull on my nipple clamps while gliding a strap on in and out of me! Like most things in my life, I’m just gonna do it myself!

And why oh why when I wanted to tell everyone what great sex I had Sunday night, I felt sheepish, until I blurted it all out on Shavonne’s wall on Monday! It really did make me want to go tell it on the mountain “GLASS DILDOS ARE AMAZING EVERYBODY!”

Masturbation IS sex, sex doesn’t always require another person. And dammit, I am going to have a good sex life from now on! I have seen the light, and it is a six inch ridged blue and clear glass dildo! Plus the rest of my army of toys! 😀

So anyway, Happy Easter all my readers! It has been a while since I wrote. Let’s see, what is new? Well, I have another job, not a JOB job but some work for my company. It’s pretty exciting, I am looking forward to getting started. Work work work! Gonna be about 20 to 25 days of work, and will help me pay off some debts and go to Germany and get through the summer without resorting to Welfare. Hooray! 😀

I drove all the way deep into the westside today to pick up my older sister Sky and bring her home. She thought it was pretty funny that I was driving. At first she was annoyed Mum wasn’t there to pick her up, but she got over it. Then Steven drank all the wine last night meant for Sunday dinner, so I drove to two liquor stores, which were both closed, then went to the offsale, then went out to the reserve for cheap smokes. I am trying to come up with a good quit date soon. Before my birthday.

I forgot a few morning meds last week, which made me moody. But this week I have been pretty good at taking them, except for one day. Saturday morning I forgot.

Thursday night I got spectacularly drunk with my cousins as it was Deanna’s last night in town. I was so exhausted the next day. Then I was a designated driver on Friday night and took my friend Laurel to four bars! I drank pepsi and coke and one red bull. Actually I was exhausted the day after that too!

Baby got attacked by his dog a week and a half ago. He looks much better now, but when it first happened he was so red and oozing blood out of his nose and his lip was drooping so much because it was so swollen. Never leave your child alone with a dog, no matter how well you think you know that dog! The vet wants to get the dog fixed and give it to a different home. I dunno. I still think it would be better to put it down. He’s 11 years old! And the injuries he inflicted on Baby were pretty bad! 18 stitches! Did you know they give children morphine and ketamine for injuries on little children like that? I did not know they used ketamine.

Anyway, Baby is still a happy go lucky kinda kid. Today Mister was kissing me and Baby said “Dog bites lip!”

I got my grant sent away. Three grant applications in three years. I dunno! We will see what happens. I hope no traditionalist tries to stomp on my dreams! Traditionalists are to Indian Country as Fundamentalists are to Christians. They seem to be exceedingly conservative and homophobic. And they are always trying to tell other Indians how to be a real Indian.

I hate when people try to define what is a real whatever. Real lesbians, Real Women, Real Indians, Real this real that. Really just shut the front door! Humph!

I still haven’t had my date yet, BUT there are murmurings that next weekend she’s gonna come up here and we are going to sit in my hot tub and drink lovely drinks and maybe make out? I hope! So I guess we’ll see what happens.

I’m doing good. I was weakening on my resolve not to have any pot on Thursday night, but oddly enough my cousin who’s a major chronic and says anti-marijuana facts are a government conspiracy talked me out of smoking up with them when I was drunk and wanted to. THEN the next day I found a roach in my raincoat pocket from last year and I threw it in the garbage! Woot!

So that’s still good. It was eleven weeks last Wednesday at noon since I smoked up last! ELEVEN WEEKS! I should have got my 60 day chip already, but I haven’t been going to NA. I haven’t been going to concurrent disorders either. They weren’t running it this last friday anyway, but I really should go. It helps. I don’t go to the bipolar group, I am thinking maybe I should again. It was pretty nice. Except they say eating nuts makes you fat. A lot of people with bipolar worry about their weight because the meds pack on pounds. I don’t mind being fat, although I have shrunk a bit. Being fat is kinda sexy!

Actually being fat is really sexy, I really like bigger girls. They are more curvy and delicious!

But any size can be sexy, it all depends on the personality.

Velveeta was skinny and she’s pretty sexy. I should give her a call! I should also call Stef. And Robin. And Lynn. I wonder if any of them would be into skyping sometime? OOh, and Margaret. I have to make my rounds with my long distance friends.

I think my business might just work out. I guess I will find out soon! According to my psychic it will improve. I just have to FOCUS! She even said I could have it in two locations later on if I wanted. I am considering getting a partner to run it here in Saskatoon while I open another location in Toronto. But that’s still a ways off!