I apologize for how my last post was all squished together with no paragraph breaks, I was trying the new Blogger interface and IT SUCKS! I don’t like it, I switched back.

I am home alone, I have been home alone for a few days now, Mom’s coming back into town today after supper. I have to do the dishes still. My cousin ate almost all our bread. And we are poor! 🙁 Bread is getting pricey, it’s four or five bucks for a loaf now. Makes me think we should make our own.

I kind of fell off the no smoking wagon by accident last night. What I mean is I smoked a joint that turned out to have some tobacco in it. Sneaky sneaky!!! :O I feel awkward about this, it makes me wonder if I should only stick to joints I personally roll. I don’t want to get triggered into smoking again. Tobacco is pretty gross, people shouldn’t mix it with something as nice as marijuana.

Last night I saw Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS in glorious 35mm print. It was just as gross and sexy as I remember it. My friend Stef and I used to rent it from some alternative video store in Vancouver back in the mid nineties and laugh and laugh. Ilsa makes some pretty funny noises when she is having an orgasm.

I also saw a show at AKA and PAVED Arts last night called PsycheDADA which was pretty awesome. My favorite was my friend Keith Murray’s installation.

Wow, what a review! Ha ha, I am not the best at writing reviews of shows.

I’m feeling frustrated by my lack of income. I’ve gotten in touch with people who say they have editing work for me, but then they just don’t get in touch with me again. It’s depressing me a bit because I know if I got just one decently sized job I could pay my rent and buy a macbook and the software required.

I also have to write a grant to make a video about being butch. I don’t know if I will get a provincial grant to make such a queer video, but there is so little queer video being made in Saskatchewan that I think they should support it. I’m not even going to ask for very much, maybe five or six thousand dollars. I really want to make my Mars video, and I have been frustrated by the lack of financial support I have received to make it. People say I should make it anyway.

OMG! I have a ticket for Lotto Max, I should check it today! That would get me out of the house for twenty minutes. Well, fifteen probably, the corner store isn’t very far. OH! But no one won the 20 million, it’s up to 30 now. Lottery tickets feel like my only hope of getting out of poverty, it’s depressing.
LATER: I just walked to the store all the way thinking “Please let me win 100 dollars!” I didn’t win 100 dollars, but when I did check my ticket I won a free play for next week’s draw for 30 million. So the hope stays alive for another week!

I really only buy lottery tickets just so I can day dream about what I will do with all that money. It would be so amazing. I could make any video I wanted to!

There are a few jobs coming up that I am going to apply for. I’m feeling a little silly applying for work right now, when I am six days away from surgery and will probably be out of commission for a little while. I don’t want to get a job right away and then have to be home or at the hospital for a week healing. It would be kinda weird. Then again, I sort of HAVE to keep applying for work, just because my income is so terribly limited and once the snow falls I won’t have a job at all! You can’t pick up needles when they are under ice and snow.

I think there is something wrong with my resumes and cover letters, and I don’t know what it is. I’ve tried everything it seems. I did a new resume listing off skills I have, but it still hasn’t gotten me an interview.

Ahhhhhhhhhh! Money sucks, I wish we could just barter. Or something. No, money is important, but it’s also a terrible trap I think. And people kill themselves and other people over it. Sad.

Sometimes I wonder if it would really be such a good thing winning the lottery. I know I would have friends come out of the woodwork wanting my money, and that would be really awkward. And family. People have lost their entire winnings from others taking their money. That sucks. If I won I would want it to set me up for financial security for life. I don’t imagine I would even spend that much, 30 million is a lot of dollars. Then again, the cost of living keeps going up and up and up! A million is not what it used to be.

At 8:25 or so this morning, it was 3 weeks since I have had a cigarette! 😀 I am so excited about this. I have to remember I can’t have one puff ever again of a cigarette, or I will be right back where I started. And I don’t want to go through these last three weeks all over again. Not when I have come so far! Life has been uneventful otherwise. I have done my part time job and looked for other work and tried to get some editing contracts, unsuccessfully thus far. It’s really too bad! I really need money. I tried to call in to the local radio station to win some money, but no such luck, the on air line was just busy. So oh well. I can try again. It would be nice to suddenly end up with 300 or 600 or 1000 dollars. Just to get some debt paid up. Like my rent. UGH! I feel bad for not having my rent this month. I did buy groceries though, but not a lot. I hate being poor. Nicotine Replacement Therapy is pretty pricey, about as much as the smoking habit costs, so I had to stop my nicorette lozenges today. I quit the patch last week, with no real problems. But I still had those lozenges to fall back on. And now I don’t! I have tic tacs, but they aren’t really as strong of a mint flavour as the lozenges were. I am looking for Altoids, but they don’t seem to be sold everywhere like they used to be. Do you remember when Altoids were everywhere? Who knew I would look back fondly on those days? I’m always so damned wishy washy about pot. Well, I am not buying it right now. I am out. I have no intention of buying more anytime soon, but I can’t make promises about the future. All I can say is right now I am going to take a break and then re evaluate. What I really need to do is take a six week break, the exact length of time it takes for the THC to get out of your system. Or, to stop showing up in drug tests anyway. I need to get my life together. Why is art labour so cheap? I wish I could get paid a decent amount of money for being creative. I don’t even know why I am an artist. When I worry about getting food for my dog, I really question why I am a first nations lesbian video artist. It doesn’t rake in the dough! If I hadn’t failed a whole semester of university when I was going crazy in 2001, I could have gotten into at least one of the Masters programs I applied for, but I failed so I didn’t get in. It fucked my GPA and I don’t know how to ever fix it, even though I was descending into madness and it was just a doomed semester. I dropped out right after, if that gives you any indication as to my state of mind, and promptly moved to Montreal the following summer. Where all hell broke loose! But then I went back to school and finished my BFA and did all those credits again. But still, a whole semester of Fs! :O And I had never ever gotten a single F in my whole academic career before! I think a C is the worst I get usually. Mostly it’s Bs. I am tired of feeling slowed down because of my pot use. I just think I really REALLY need to see what life is like without it. For a while anyway. I haven’t even been getting very high lately, so it’s kind of useless for me to smoke it. It just makes me feel relaxed, and I have been reading this quit smoking book called Think Quit and it has all these exercises in it for relaxation. And they work. So I am starting to realize that I have some options. I think it’s really been just so I can relax that I smoke weed. I know there is a high feeling, but it’s not always strong. Mostly it’s just the relaxation I like. I don’t want to go to treatment though. BLAH! I would feel silly talking about my weed use. In front of people getting off dilaudid or morphine or hard liquor or whatever. So I am going to keep going to my dual diagnosis group. Concurrent disorders, they call it. There are various names for addicted mentally ill folks. But anyway, I like this group because I feel like I fit in better, even though most of the people who come are men. I bought a Lotto Max ticket today for the 20 Million, I hope I win because then I can say to those people who call lotteries Stupidity Tax “I won 20 Million! Now who’s stupid!” 😀 My neck hurts. I have been at the computer all evening looking at jobs. I applied for one. I think I wrote a better cover letter than my other ones. Maybe I will finally get an interview. I used to get interviews a lot easier. I wonder what has changed. I won’t smell like a cigarette when I go to the interview, when I finally get one. That will be a point in my favour. I’m going to miss smoking stuff if I give up weed too. I still have some tea shisha, but I dunno, I am not super into it and I am also worried it is too close to tobacco for me to smoke, even though it is tea leaves instead of tobacco. So I wonder what I should do with my mouth instead of smoking. I should go outside and sing a song for five minutes and then come back in. That might be socially awkward, but if I held my hat out I might make some pocket change. Unless I am singing at home. In which case my Mom will make fun of me. I keep being in these dire situations with no money. I think I need to get a job that I commit to for longer than a year. Enough waiting on grants that never come! Also that reminds me, I still have to find out when APTN is accepting development proposals! Keep on trucking!

I just got back from three nights and four days (or three and a half?) at Anglin Lake, staying in one of the Land of The Loon Resort cabins soaking in Northern Saskatchewan life. I got one of those funguses that grow on tree trunks that looks like a shelf. The Dene burn it for a smudge, so I am drying it out on the car dashboard for future use! 😀

While I was up there I didn’t smoke ANY tobacco OR marijuana. It was really nice to get a break from pot, I was surprised how little I even thought about it. Sometimes when I can’t have any for a while I get really antsy and anxious. But I was okay. And the no smoking has been going on for quite a while actually. I started patches and lozenges again nearly three weeks ago and did have a couple puffs off of pipe tobacco cigarettes (grody!) every morning for the first week just to get me going, but now the first thing I have in the morning is a nicotine lozenge and the itchy sensation of transdermal nicotine sinking into my shoulder. In three weeks I am going off the patches completely, and then a week after that I am going to switch from nicotine lozenges to altoids.

The other exciting thing that happened was I actually got in the drivers seat and drove twice while I was up north. I drove my mom and I from our cabin to the store at Christopher Lake. And then when we came back from PA from a shopping trip I drove into the site from the highway, dodging the worst holes in the worst 10 km of roadway I have ever seen! For those who don’t know, I have never passed my drivers test. I only ever took it three times, back when I was 16 and 17. And then I just kind of gave up. No one liked driving with me so I hardly ever got practice, except for my six hours with the driver’s ed instructor. But since then I have matured and mom got on anti-anxiety medication, so it’s actually worked out pretty good. Anyway, I am 33 now and still don’t have a driver’s license, just a learners. But after driving up there, I have decided I am seriously going to practice a lot and take my test before November 11. Because there won’t be snow on the ground and also just because remembrance day was the first date in november that popped into my head. I should have picked Guy Fawkes day instead or something though, Novembrance Day as a deadline for my road test is kind of silly.

Having a driver’s license would be a HUGE change for me, and would give me a lot more freedom and independence, especially in Saskatoon, a sprawling north american prairie city where you pretty much have to have a car to do anything beyond the bus routes. Our public transportation system is pretty sad. Buses only go until 12:15am, and 9:15pm on Sundays, even worse!

I am not ready to say goodbye to pot, it’s been a long time friend and I still like it. I think the only reason I want to quit it is for other people, and I think that’s the wrong reason. I should quit because I want to quit, and not because other people think I should quit. I think I need to be more responsible with it, but cutting it out of my life entirely seems harsh.

But the lack of tobacco in my life has been really sweet. Food tastes better, my fingers aren’t yellow, I don’t smell, my cough has mostly gone away, I have less phlegm in my throat, I’m not spending beaucoup de money on something I burn away, well, except for pot. It’s good. And for some reason using the patch and the lozenge has really been working well for me this time around. I can only think of one difference.

The lozenges now also come in mini lozenges. This might not sound like a big difference, but now I get 4mg of nicotine in ten minutes, instead of the 35-45 minutes it took the big 4mg lozenges to dissolve. And because they dissolve so fast, I can use a more reasonable amount of them throughout the day because my mouth can’t eat or drink caffinated drinks while I am sucking on a lozenge and it just takes too much of my time.

I don’t have cravings for cigarettes anymore, I know it will be weird when I am around my smoking friends, so far I have stayed inside when they go outside to smoke and that helps. I know it will be a trigger to be around someone who could potentially give me a cigarette, but I am really REALLY resolved not to ask for one. And being clean of cigarettes for so long is something I really want to maintain, just because the first three days are so hard.

I don’t miss smoking. When I want to breathe smoke I can just have a joint, and besides, breathing smoke is kind of creepy. I remember when I went to the Body Worlds exhibit, the fact that I could tell which people were smokers in their lives really freaked me out. BLACK LUNGS! No trace of pink, just black black black.

And I was tired of being anxious every time I heard a breakthrough cancer treatment was YEARS down the road still, just in case my smoking would finally trigger all that bad stuff it does and I would need that breakthrough cancer treatment and it wouldn’t be available for me.

So anyway. Things are finally shifting in my life. I feel relieved that this quit has been smoother and easier, I am excited about practicing and becoming a better, competent driver and getting a piece of paper that says I am legally allowed to drive without anyone else in the car, just me and Mister or me alone or me and a friend or three. And I wrote down some other goals too while I was up north. I am going to write my whole Mars webseries, get my business off the ground, try to get a grant to go to Germany and make a video (but I have to think of a project still! Eeek!), and something else. I wrote it down anyway, so I haven’t totally forgotten, or if I have I will soon be reminded. I also wrote down deadlines for each goal, and steps to take to make each one happen.

I lost four sizes in the last year. FOUR SIZES!!!! That’s what having a rotten gallbladder will do for you! I hardly eat fat anymore, and I have way less soda, and I have also got a job where I walk for at least six hours a week. So I am way more physically fit, although I am still technically plus sized. I’d be happy to stay at a size fourteen for a while, I like that I still have a roundness to my tummy and cushy boobs and a bigger bum. I don’t think I want to be a size twelve.

My pants were all way too big for me. Only one of them fit, so I went to the Old Navy 17 dollar jeans sale and got three pairs of jeans. Which is pretty much the only kind of pants I wear. I’m glad this time I have not lost weight due to mania, because A: that kind of weight loss is way too fast and comes back pretty quick, and losing and gaining in a short space of time isn’t very healthy, and B: Mania sucks and psychosis has ruined my life twice and I’d rather it didn’t happen again.

I am giving up looking for a girlfriend right now. I don’t think there is anyone suitable in Saskatoon, or if there is I don’t know it yet. I’d really like to be with someone, but it’s not happening and I don’t feel like going hunting in the two gay bars here. That was something I was more into in my early 20’s. And my mom is right anyway, you shouldn’t marry anyone you meet in a bar. Besides, I am weird, I need someone who wants a weirdo. And I dunno, I don’t get the feeling the lesbians are clamouring after me here, there are a whole bunch of strikes against me. Or it feels that way. I need a certain something that isn’t here. And I don’t even have a good dating history in Saskatoon for people to get references from as to my abilities of a girlfriend. I only have one ex who lives here. And she doesn’t know any of my friends or social circle, so no one can ask her what I am like. And I don’t think she would give a good answer either. If I had to get a girlfriend reference from any of my exes, I think I would pick Amber Dawn, I was with her the longest, except for Ivana, but she lived in Toronto, so it was different. But Amber Dawn lives in Vancouver.

I feel like I am moving into a new phase of my life. I’m really not sure what is going to happen to me, but except for my money troubles, things are going really positively for me. I wish I had more financial security, like a guaranteed income, but I am starting a business and that does poke along the first year in stops and starts. My big flaw is that I am still learning how to do sales calls, and I feel really awkward about trying to chase down some clients. This next week I am going to work on my website and get it more ship shape. I am also going to create my reel to upload, which I really think I need if I want to prove to people that I can edit.

I am going to Saskatoon Tribal Council on Tuesday to see if they can pay for me to have some driving lessons with a professional instructor before my exam. And I have resolved to practice way way more often. I’m nervous about being in traffic, so far I have driven with not much traffic around, but I will work up to it.

I don’t know what else to say today. My trip was great. Caring for my grandparents the whole time was intense though. And worrying about my grandma’s back.

We went canoeing, which was also fun and something I hadn’t done in years and years. I accidentally dumped my mum out though when we hit land. Her shoes are still wet!

If I could give myself advice 10 years ago, it would be this:

Get Airmiles and get your prescriptions at the Safeway Pharmacy. You will see so many movies for free this way!

Don’t feel so embarrassed by what you are going to do in the next few years, because mania is part of an illness and it is what it is and does what it does to most of the people who have it in a very similar way. Lots of people end up thinking they are some kind of messiah and it’s just a different kind of symptom than most physical illnesses.

Maintain good boundaries and don’t get caught up in drama other people stir up. It makes you look better.

Don’t accept being bullied because that is not acceptable.

Don’t be afraid to fall in love, and don’t be afraid to be alone, because you mostly will be alone anyway.

Don’t forget to go out and do things on your own because independence is a good thing no matter what people say about women on their own.

Don’t feel like you have to ride a motorcycle and eat beef ribs and never get fucked back to be a proper butch. That’s just silly, no one gets to make any rules about what butch is.

Do love your friends and spend at least some time daydreaming about crushes, because that is fun and will make the rest of your mid twenties to mid thirties bearable!

Keep trying Velveeta’s number because sometimes she is not paranoid of collectors and will pick up the phone and then you can hear her great laugh that makes rooms of people laugh it is so funny!

Don’t hold grudges unless someone was consistently an asshole to you and doesn’t deserve another chance.

Be prepared to cry lots and lots and then not cry for four years and then being able only to cry once in a very long while when fictitious elves die.

Start entering any contest you find and looking online for printable coupons. You will not regret it, it’s even better than the lottery.

Buy lottery tickets for the moment of hope, but don’t expect to be able to quit your job anytime soon. And make sure to sign your ticket ALWAYS!

Nurture your friendships.

Visit your grandparents as much as you can.

Don’t be so depressed when you move back to Saskatoon. It is not actually that bad of a place to live.

Get counseling about your experience in the psych ward in Montreal.

That time you quit smoking for six months because you were kissing someone cute, keep not smoking!!!!

********************************************

Well that is what I would say. I have started taking these tiny nicorette mint lozenges that only take about 12 to 15 minutes to melt away and it’s a LOT better. I have them every couple of hours when I am really having a nic fit. And it’s redirected my focus. They are kind of like altoids. I did have a couple puffs of pipe tobacco in a blue zig zag this morning, but I got grossed out and put it out. I haven’t had any since. I have mostly not smoked, except for in the mornings right when I wake up. Mornings are tricky for me. I wake up and the first thing I naturally think is “YAY! I get to go have a cigarette!” Seriously, exactly that wording too! And so while I am sleeping I am not conciously thinking about my quit and so I forget about it and wake up and am still all “YAY! I get to go have a cigarette!” And it’s kind of a downer to think “NO YOU DON’T!” right after so early in the morning.

Oh, I have to tell you about my big score! My Christian Lacroix airplane bracelet came in the mail today from OutTV, and so did my 2 admissions 2 drinks 1 popcorn voucher from Airmiles, and then I googled Nicorette Patch Printable Coupon and got a coupon for 5 dollars off! That’s so much betterer! More better! From now on it’s all Airmiles, Contests, and Coupons! To hell with grant writing, this is more instant gratification!

Although to be serious, I am applying for funds soon again, like within the next six months, and it could be in a few weeks and it could be later. But I am going to actually try my luck with APTN. The Industry! OMG! I hope I don’t get chewed up by the Industry and spit out on a black list when Harper tries to take over the arts to crush our spirits!

Jack Layton died this morning. It was the first thing I heard and made me feel sort of alone. Like, what! Noooo! But I knew it was going to happen, his last public appearance he looked like a skeleton. Poor guy. Cancer sucks! What will happen to us now?

So I guess I should recap, which is that I didn’t get my grant. I am applying for a job everyday and just waiting to be called back for an interview. I am also exploring a different idea of what to do with my Mars video. I am going to make a web series out of it, which means I am applying for totally different funds. More Industry funds, which is scary because me and the Industry have a rocky relationship. I think I shocked a few people back in the day, when to be a Thirza was shocking. I don’t think I shock anyone now. Is that good or bad? Maybe I have lost my edge.

It’s a bummer. Oh well, so the Canada Council doesn’t want to fund me. And because it’s the second time I’ve applied with that project, I can’t apply again. Which is a major bummer! UGH!

I don’t get it. I don’t understand funding decisions. Sometimes I think total crap decisions get made.

It’s like playing the lottery really. Which I also do.

I won a free play on my Lotto Max ticket and the next jackpot is 40 million dollars! Maybe I will win! Then I never have to network with the right people to get a Canada Council grant!

Oh god I sound bitter. Well, looking for work sucks. I don’t like it. It’s really demoralizing. And writing grants and not getting them is demoralizing too.

So I am applying for some development money to pay a little bit of living so I can buy a computer that isn’t from 2003. Why it’s almost as old as I have been a diagnosed manic depressive!!! I should also really apply for a loan for my business. Try try try!

But I do need something to live on. It would be nice to get a contract and do some editing work for somebody. Then I would feel like it was worth the trouble to incorporate. Yeah, that’s a real good ad for my services.

(But seriously, if you want me to edit for you get in touch, I do good work!)

I did apply for one job that was 20 dollars an hour and had a P.O. Box instead of an email or street address. It was all a bit mysterious. I actually put paper inside of an envelope and put a stamp on it and walked to the mailbox near the four way stop and put it in. It was almost quaint. I thought how exciting it was, because of course now everything is instant. I guess they don’t want to be pestered by follow up phone calls and emails. Which I am told, according to all the job hunting websites, I am supposed to do. But I feel like a pest, I mean, what do you say really?? I don’t want to be a bug.

I dropped by the school to drop of copies of receipts and get a cheque and one of the people who works there gave me a bit of a pep talk about getting my business off the ground. She said “My tax dollars didn’t pay for you to be employed!” Meaning not self employed. It’s true, I really need to put more work into it. I know there must be someone who needs editing done or can make a deal with me for some cash in exchange for video services.

Some of the jobs I applied for sound exciting, in weird ways. I am avoiding call centre jobs, although I don’t mind answering the phone for people in an office. I just know I am a shitty employee but a marvelous worker when it comes to call centre jobs. I do it really well but I don’t want to do it. So my absenteeism goes up when I am working those jobs. It’s because people are mean to call centre employees. People are assholes actually!

And I am tired of assholes, I already have one.

See, if I was nineteen again maybe I would insert a paragraph here about anal sex or anal fisting more likely, but I am not nineteen anymore so you will have to suck it up buttercup!

I’ve had a weird few days. Week or so really. I am super emotional these days but it’s okay. I am fine, just having emotions and not really being used to them because I didn’t have them for so long. It’s kind of crazy, because I have a mood disorder, and so I don’t trust my moods. I’m really suspicious of them and I am happier but not necessarily healthier when I don’t have emotions for a really long time. Maybe happy is the wrong word. I don’t know. I am more carefree when I am not suffering from emotional responses to external situations. But it’s a little bit cold and makes people feel weird. Someone wanted me to cry with them once and I couldn’t cry, it was awkward.

I am a robot!

A meaty robot.

So life is all about adapting to weird situations. I actually did increase my job search to all of Canada, but then my Mom told me I couldn’t just leave her so I went back to just looking in Saskatoon.

No, I still haven’t heard about my grant. What horrible news I am talking about is the massacre of the uncontacted tribe in the Amazon by drug traffickers from Peru. Such a sickening thing to hear about. And even if the tribe did manage to hide or flee, they have had contact with those people and have therefore suddenly been exposed to viruses they don’t have immunity for.

It pisses me off. I fucking hate genocide, and all because of drugs. So fucked up! Why? Ugh! I have done coke in the past, but I am never touching it again because for all I know these genocidal murderers have been implicated in it. BAH!

I never much liked cocaine anyway. It always seemed like a stupid drug, all it did was keep me from being able to sleep. Who needs that? I like sleep!

On to other things:

I have decided to start shooting for my video, even though I don’t have my grant yet. I kind of have to, this annual carnival called the Exhibition is in town and it features heavily in the beginning of Mars: The Maiden Voyage. And I am finishing shooting in January, should I get funding, and I want to have the video done by July, and the Ex won’t come back again until next August. So here I go! I’m excited, it should be fun, and we will have a car to go put the equipment in while we take a shooting break to go on some rides. I am doing green screen to put the actors in later, and it will be the first time I’ve done that in a video I’ve intended to distribute.

I didn’t hear about my grant today. I already mentioned that. Well I called the Canada Council to inquire about when the results are coming out and they told me they were just finishing admin stuff and the results would be out “shortly.” What does that mean? A week? Three days? I don’t know. So after I got off the phone I was kind of like “Gee, that is highly vague!” And then I was frustrated again. But there is nothing to do but wait!

I’m excited about going out shooting video! YAY! VIDEO! I love video. It is my favorite thing in the world, I am going to marry it. I haven’t done any serious shooting with a purpose for my own career since You Are A Lesbian Vampire. I used to be so prolific. Now I am just, I dunno. I did do some work that is currently invisible to the public, like writing Bunnyhug and half my Mars script. Writing scripts seems so invisible. Like, who is going to see them really? I always used to give copies of Bunnyhug on PDF to close friends and none of them ever said anything to me about it again. I have absolutely no feedback on it, it is kind of weird! It makes me miss being in school where everyone had an opinion on my art in progress. Crits are actually pretty great.

It’s been a strange life. Such a strange life! Oh well. It is my life.

bell hooks had this thing about the X class, an intellectual/artistic group of highly educated people who are also extremely poor. It really resonated with me. Van Gogh would have been X class. He was always asking his brother Theodore for money to keep making his art. We read some of those letters in art school. He was so broke while he was alive. I think every artist has a fear of being Van Gogh. Brilliant but totally disregarded until after death. Other people making a profit out of the passion that just cost you money your whole life. And totally mad of course. You have to flirt at least once with madness if you are a creative genius.

Actually some artists get really pissed off if you point out that there is a higher incidence of mental health issues (especially bipolar disorder) among artists than the general population. People don’t like artistic and crazy mixing up.

When I am manic my art is really weird, I don’t really like it after. And when I am depressed I make kind of serious hopeless videos. I like when I make comedy the best. It just makes me feel happy to make people laugh. Touched By Fire by Kay Redfield Jamieson is a really good book about creativity and manic depression. My Dad gave me a copy when I first got diagnosed bipolar. It helped me feel more comfortable with my diagnosis, even though it was so grim, all those creative family trees dotted with suicides.

Anyway, it is late here, and I have to get up and go to work in the morning. I guess I won’t get my grant results tomorrow either. God, the suspense is killing me! Ahhhhhhh!

It’s Sunday, and tomorrow is the day I made a bet with my mother that my grant results would come. I really hope they do. I am ready to make a big video. I want to work on art. I want to make something so beautiful people will fall in love with me and not be able to help themselves. Like the end of the book Perfume where he finally uses his magic beautiful girl perfume and everyone thinks he is the most beautiful person in the world and eat him. Although I don’t want to be eaten.

Maybe eaten out!

It’s been an alright weekend, I went to bed at 9 on Friday night because I was still pretty exhausted from this flu I have had for over a week. My nose has been runny, I started out with a sore throat, and coughing set in a couple of days into it and hasn’t abated. For all of my long weekend I was in bed or on the couch just feverish and sleeping and sleeping and waking up to cough and blow my nose. UGH! I actually don’t get sick very often, but when I do it gets pretty serious! And then there was the week and then this weekend this stupid flu was still hanging on! I’m glad it’s more or less over now, just a little coughing and blowing my nose once in a while, not every five seconds. Last night I worked on my company’s website with my web designer, and that was fun! I haven’t had such a productive Saturday night in a really long time!

But yeah, it is nearing the end of summer and I haven’t gone camping at all, which really makes me sad because I want to go to a lake, and I am so desperately poor. I get paid from my needle job on Wednesday, but it won’t be even 200 bucks because I am so part time. Soo, I will probably be able to pay for some smokes, but that’s about it, I need to give mum some of it for the rent, because I am so late paying that. It’s really been waiting to see if I get my grant. I feel foolish being so dependent on what a jury has decided my future will be. I have already been turned down from the regular media arts grant for this project, and I hope there won’t be a repeat of that in the aboriginal media arts category. But I don’t really know. And then I am worried maybe people will think the project is too commercial, that I should apply for telefilm money, which I can’t apply for anyway because I haven’t made a feature. But you can’t make a feature until you get telefilm money. UGH! I am thinking of making Bunnyhug with a cast of unknowns on a 60,000 grant from Canada Council, just so I can say I have made a feature. It wouldn’t be that hard, there are no special effects, the only tough part would be the invertebrate zoo scene and getting a bunch of invertebrates for the set. Where would I find a live octopus? These are the questions I must answer.

I am really happy these days. And I don’t know why. Since getting turned down for future shenanigans by Cutie I thought I would be sadder, but I am actually doing pretty good. I haven’t had a supply of marijuana fueling me these last few days. I wonder if that is it? It’s kind of weird, because I smoke pot to feel happy since often I feel sad, but I haven’t smoked any except for, uh, well two bowls in the last 28 hours. But none today. And none for three days before then. I just have no money to buy more. And I don’t feel that desperate need where I go all around the house looking through all my pockets repeatedly looking for a roach. It’s really nice!

I hope I don’t get rejected by Canada Council tomorrow and get all depressed and despondent. That would suck, and I would be scrambling to try and solve my financial crisis. Which means getting a job, and I have had shitty luck getting interviews. I haven’t been called back by Saskatchewan Research Council for their Interactive Communications Specialist position, which troubles me, because I thought I would be AWESOME for that position, even if I did get my grant. And they were looking for someone disabled to fill their quota, and of course I acknowledged I was disabled on the application. I also checked the aboriginal box, but I am not sure if that is wise or not. I don’t know, people won’t give me a chance it seems, which is why opening my own business seemed to be the most sensible thing to do. But not being able to get a loan really screwed me up.

I am tired of being so poor. Even my friends are tired of me being poor. The three people I spend time with most all make well over 30,000 a year and this year I will be lucky if I made even 12,000. It sucks! And I want to do the fun things they want to do but often I have a budget of 20 bucks for an evening of fun and they have at least 60 bucks to spend and I feel really shitty and unhappy about it. And they will want to go out and I won’t be able to afford anything besides cover and one drink. Depressing! I want to be able to pay my way, and it is really frustrating that I often have to stay at home.

That was one thing I really liked about Berlin, it didn’t cost that much to go out and have a bunch of drinks. Here drinks out are so expensive, about 6 or 7 bucks for a drink now. BLAHHHH!

Total rip off. It makes more sense to drink at home but friends who make over 30,000 a year tend to want to go out where the nightlife is happening.

Well whatever. My Mom is leaving for Wisconsin for 12 days soon and I am going to have a few hot tub parties and then I can drink at home and be fine! Ha! If I have money. Sigh.

Money is terrible.

I really do wish I was so beautiful people fell all over themselves when I walked into the room. Oh well. I guess I am cute. To certain people. People who appreciate butch women. And that is the other thing about trying to get work, people don’t like hiring butch women. Maybe I will dress super femme next time I get an interview, a dress and make up and everything! Where would I get a dress?

I’m getting really skinny. I mean, I still have a round tummy, but none of my pants fit anymore. They all keep falling down my ass, and my butt doesn’t look so nice because it isn’t as big either and now my pants are all baggy back there. And my bra is getting baggy. I am losing my boobs and butt! OH NOES!

School is officially OVER! Now I have been flung into the cold cruel world of next to no income and trying to figure out a way to get my business running. I still have no equipment, but if I got a big enough contract I am sure I could get some. So it is pretty frustrating. I am picking up used needles in the core neighborhood until the snow flies, so that is giving me a very modest income, not even enough for my rent which went up over 50% this month, from 400 to 612 or something like that. Obviously I haven’t been able to pay it yet, which makes me feel depressed. It includes utilities, so at least I don’t have to pay that. But whew, pricey! The good news is I am moving out of the basement and into where the computer room currently is, with south facing big windows and plenty of space.

I am still waiting to hear about my grant, it seems to take SO LONG to find out! I know, I know, there is a whole process to it and it can’t be rushed. But the Exhibition is happening SOON and I need to do some shooting there for my project. I have decided to get shots and then green screen my actors in, since I can’t possibly cast and make costumes in just a few days. Hopefully it works, I can only hope! I haven’t done green screen since I was in film school, and even then it was only for an assignment and not for something I actually cared about. I understand how to do it, I just need a really good screen and even lighting. A light meter will help, even though it is just for video.

I got turned down in the nicest way possible by someone I recently had a fling with, so now I have a friend, which is just as good. I really liked her, but it was never going to work out anyway for various reasons, mostly to do with extreme distance. It’s too bad, but she was really nice about it so I appreciate it, and it is better than being lead on, which has also happened to me somewhat recently with someone else. My Susan Miller horoscope promises that some planet or something will be in my house of true love for eight months this next year, so I still might meet someone new. I don’t know. We’ll see. I don’t have much hope though, pickings in Saskatoon are pretty slim.

I have decided to move in a couple of years to Winnipeg. I am getting tired of how few quality jobs there are here for me, and how few people. And the art scene here is pretty bitchy, and at least back in 1999 Winnipeg had a very supportive arts community, with plenty of video art being made, and film. And the cost of living is equivalent to here. At least, that is the impression I have. I don’t really know if Winnipeg will be a good home, I have a feeling it will be, but it could be just as difficult to crack the job market as Vancouver or Saskatoon. I am going to try and get a job there before I move though.

I decided on two years because I want to stay here until my Grandparents have passed on, but if they are still alive in two years I am still going to move. I just don’t think I can really flourish in Saskatoon. I did so well in Vancouver in terms of my video career, and here I am just not even thought of for art things at all! Nobody cares about queer or first nations video art here. It’s depressing, because that’s what I do! It’s like doing drawings for the blind. There are a couple of queer visual arts things which happen once in a long while, but I am never invited to participate. This town sucks ass in terms of advancing my career.

I have been thinking about moving for ages, but I always thought of Toronto. Now I am thinking Toronto is too far and too big and too expensive. People who move there have a really hard time finding work. And I know I would always be scrabbling and broke and hungry. And I don’t want to be hungry again!

So that is what is up with me. I am hoping my video got into ImagineNATIVE and that I can go to Toronto in the fall and see some friends and network and that sort of thing. I haven’t been out east in ages. Unless you count me being at the airport on the way to and from Berlin, but I don’t count airport stops as actual visits to a city.

I really want to get into making my new video, I should really start making myself sit down and put in at least two hours of writing a day into finishing the script. And I have to do some research. I really need to start reading more about Mars colonization and terraforming and learn the lingo of astronauts. I suppose watching some 2001 A Space Odyssey would help too. Maybe. I have a lot to learn! And I need to start sketching what I want the ship to look like, and what the ufo will look like, and that sort of thing. There are lots of decisions to be made! But anyway, maybe if I sit down and write it will send out good energy for my grant to come through, even though I know the decision on whether or not my project merits funding has already been made.

Mum is also really depending on me getting this grant. We are on tenterhooks just freaking out and getting nervous! She is going on EI and trying to get a two year grant, but she won’t know about that until January. So it is SUPER important that I get the grant this year. I really hope I do. I want to sink my teeth into some substantial videomaking!

My Dad is in town and I got a message many hours ago that he was in a cafe and since then I haven’t heard anything from him! WTH? It’s not like he could get lost, it is Saskatoon. You just follow the river and you will find somewhere again.

Well anyway. I have to write two pages about the progress of my business. Which hasn’t progressed much at all. I did learn some things about my craft, and how to run a business, and how to not run a business. And I do still want it to take off, and I am pretty sure it will, eventually. So I don’t know how to make that sound good. I have been keeping my eyeballs peeled on job ads and I just tonight found one that involves my writing and film/videomaking skills. Sooo, I am going to apply for it, and they are particularly looking for people with disabilities, which is a plus. I should find out about my grant around the time they are calling people back for interviews. It would be nice to actually apply my film school training to a job. I think that could make me happy. It would keep my brain active. So that is the immediate future.

I think it would pay decently too, which would be nice. I could use a decent pay cheque. It would be nice to make enough to put a down payment on a house. I really want to own my own place. I will eventually. I just need 300,000 dollars! Canadian! Not even American!

Something is going to happen, something positive. Who knows what it will be. I have to write more. But it ain’t gonna happen!

So I guess I will see Dad after 1:30 tomorrow? That’s silly. Oh well. Good thing I have all morning to write. I will be extra attentive!

I am so horribly broke right now. I need to find some receipts and turn them in for some money back. But where did I put them? They are in the house for sure SOMEWHERE! I will find them, I WILL!

Anyway. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to get an artist fee. Where’s that? I bet I made 35 bucks!

Which is still more than I have right now.

And I am waiting, totally nervous, for the results of my grant. I am trying to remember how the packaging looks different, or does it? I don’t remember! I should take notes on it this time, like if they use a fancy envelope and if they mail my support material back. But it’s kind of silly, because by the time you see the Canada Council package, you open it so you know right away.

My Mum calls my art career money Magic Beans. She says to me “Are you counting on Magic Beans again?” The sad part is it’s true, they are magic beans! But sometimes I get money to make a big piece of art. And it’s really nice. Or I get decent artist fees. But I will never be able to sell a video for a million dollars. At least, no one has offered to pay that much. Matthew Barney sells his videos for megabucks. How does he do it?

Whatever. I really want to make some more art soon. It’s good for the soul. I start feeling all clogged up if I don’t make art on a regular basis, it’s worse than not crying. Ugh, artists block sucks.

I need to make some small videos. About what, I don’t know. I have some really nice footage I have been collecting. But I don’t know what to do with it. I made something that looked nice, but then I had issues with the software. And anyway, Final Cut Pro is releasing a new version that old files won’t work on. Which is kinda cruddy if you ask me.

Alien technology I bet! And it surely won’t work on my old computer. I need a new computer. A Macbook.

I just ate the best saskatoon pielette!