Category Archives: News

Ongoing Health Issues

I am REALLY tired today. I hardly slept last night because I had this insistent low grade stomach pain from about 10pm until 5am. I was also sharing the bed with my dog and cat, and they collectively took up most of the space and squished me against the wall, my head resting on a pillow resting on a dildo. Not very comfy. I did move the dildo, I’m not that crazy, but it made me realize I need a shelf or something by my bed. Or another box.

But the tummy pain has me worried. I think most of it will stop when I get my gallbladder removed, but that might be a while still. And I am nervous about getting surgery. Eeep!

I have gone two days without a cigarette! And today I didn’t use my inhaler or my lozenge or any NRT at all. Just willpower! It seems to be working. I had very little to smoke for the last week, maybe one a day, except friday I totally smoked. But the rest of the weekend, nothing! I really hope this is it.

I really want to go to bed early, I am so tired from last night’s rolling about in pain. And I forgot my night meds last night, and today I am hearing this shush shush noise, I am not quite sure what that’s from. It could be from getting off my celexa too. But it’s just this weird noise, I’ve gotten it before when I forget a dose of meds.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I am going to spend it as a single, just like I have for 31 years! I can’t believe I only had a girlfriend once on Valentines day! Or was it twice? Hmm, one I call my ex but we never sat down and defined what making out whenever we saw each other meant. But she didn’t spend Valentine’s Day with me either, so I stand by my 31 years of singleness on Valentines Day. I just really liked spring summer fall relationships I guess.

It’s not even 9 o’clock yet! But I want to crawl into bed and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Oh it would feel so nice, and my tummy doesn’t hurt today!

Special Lady, and me complaining about my body

I’ve been having terrible stomach pains in the late afternoon/evening/until about 3:00am time ranges. I am not quite sure what is going on. I used to think it was the gallbladder attacks but they are much more sustained and start earlier. I have to go back to a low fat diet, I’ve been eating not very healthy things recently like PIZZA and Fish and Chips and stuff. I’m worried it will be cancer or something terrible. I was reading about parasites and freaked out too, what if it is round worms eating away at my innards?? EEeeeep!

Either way, pain=bad, unless it is specifically administered pain done in a loving bdsm relationship. Or even not loving, hell, I am not picky.

OH but I am picky. I really want a loving long term relationship and I am stuck on this one specific person! I even made a 6 hour playlist on my iPod so I could think about her and mope about all lovelorn and forlorn! I feel bad, even if she is interested in me she might be scared off by how intense I am emotionally about her. And then what if I do have parasites or cancer and I’m just going to die from being eaten by a worm the size of a tumor?

I’ve also been getting short of breathe, and like, pains in my chest. It’s not very good. I’ve been quitting smoking, but having maybe one to three cigarettes everyday so far. I had the tiniest cigarette today, but I think I am just going to tough it out the rest of the day, my nicotine inhaler and I. I know something is wrong with me, I just don’t know what.

It’s so weird to be at a state in my life where I actually WANT to keep living and doing and being. I had such terrible depressions for most of my life that it just seemed too miserable to keep going. I’m glad I did, but I do wish I hadn’t started smoking and generally being self destructive to myself.

This year I think I am aiming for having a more consistent bedtime. I am always hearing from the doctor type people who work with people with bipolar disorder that a consistent bedtime is really important for maintaining stability. But I have been partying really late too many times this past year. A few times is okay, but not as much as I have been.

Jeez, stupid health problems. I wish I could just wake up every morning feeling fabulous, and go to sleep with no problems and no pain while holding Special Lady.

That is a good nickname for her actually, and it is even cooler because it sounds like a gun, which I think she would approve of.

She quietly rounded the corner, pulling her Special Lady out of it’s holster and aiming square into the back of the perpetrator’s head. . .

Well, I may as well post this now. I hope I don’t have worms eating through my organs, that would really suck! :S

The pain of trying to be subversive

I think I was about 19 when I made the conscious decision to become what I called “eccentric” which somehow changed at around 21 to being something like subversive. Or was it self destructive?? Either way, I committed to spending my twenties doing drugs and having sex and going to sexy/bdsm-y events and making controversial art. I don’t know if I really succeeded at the sex part. I was pretty active in the first little bit of my twenties, but then there was this extended slump through the last majority of that decade. But I was going to be so damned subversive, and I don’t know if I actually managed it. So many of my non-mainstream interests and likes have become mainstream.

It’s particularly weird now to be standing at the Co-Op trying to decide on a type of honey with The Cure or Tori Amos or Joy Division playing over the p.a. system. I suppose I am the generation that grocery stores are catering to because I should have a kid by now according to the state of my fertile uterus. But it is scary to hear beloved music as MUZAK!

Time’s running out for the eggs! I lose at least one once a month, and eventually the rest will be dust, or scooped out when I end up having a hysterectomy like all the other women in my family. Sometimes I wonder if I should freeze a few, just in case you know. I don’t know what’s so special about MY dna over other people’s though. And I figure I will live on past my shelf life when my brain gets donated to science. Some nerdly scientist will discover the keys to bipolar disorder and make a gigantic breakthrough for all future people with this disease. On the other hand I could have a kid with a huge predisposition to bipolar disorder and have to nurse them through the inevitable early major depressions and suicidal ideation. See, now that just seems kind of cruel.

Is donating my brain subversive enough? Maybe I should donate the whole she-bang. Actually I’d really like my body to rot away on it’s own in a facility like the Body Farm. But I don’t know if Canada has a Body Farm. Either way, I’d like some kind of green way of disposing of my body.

But I’m getting away from the main topic of this post. I was actually going to talk about new ways I should consider being subversive. Having a mental illness and actually talking about it is pretty damned subversive. I hate when mental illnesses are considered taboo subjects that one shouldn’t discuss. OMG! I have to take my meds!

Taken!!!!

Actually it’s not that hard to be subversive when you belong to intersecting groups which are all oppressed for various reasons.

You know, being both First Nations and Queer makes my relationship to organized religions (specifically Christian) really adversarial. Not by my design, it just is. My tribe was colonized by the churches and my queer community is always being targeted by the churches as evil and sinful. I’m not sure anymore what Christianity has to offer me. I was really into it when I was 24 just because it’s symbolism is so ingrained in mainstream North American culture. But it’s not really something I can connect with as well anymore. I think it’s mostly because Christ’s followers have a lengthy history of committing pretty evil acts against people all over the world.

I don’t think I really want to have a religion or specific type of spirituality. I think there is something far grander going on than can be described in English.

It’s still early, on a Sunday, I can’t be expected to make sense on a SUNDAY!

Looking for fun and Feelin’ Groovy!

It’s cinnamon heart season and that always makes me happy. If someone really wanted to win my heart they could just do away with the flowers and get me a big huge bag of cinnamon hearts! Mmm cinnamon hearts taste like love!
Valentines is coming up. That means some people desperately looking for a mate, some couples trying to be romantic, and some people being bitter and angry. I don’t think I fall into any of those categories though. I will be content to sit on the sidelines, watching my friends try to find someone to hump or being romantic with their S.O.’s while I eat my cinnamon heart out!
Valentines day is just an excuse for couples to lord it over their single friends though as if they have made it and are complete human beings while the rest of us limp along with our solitary selves. It’s a dumb holiday! I’ve never had much luck with Valentines day, I think I only had a girlfriend on Valentines day once and I think all we did was have phone sex or something like that (she lived four provinces over).

There’s an Anti-Valentines Day party at 302 called Shred Your Ex and while I like the idea of an anti-valentines day party, I don’t like the idea of threatening violence against previous intimate partners. So I will probably not go, just based on the name. Oh, and you’re supposed to bring a picture of your ex and shred it in the shredder. I dunno, that seems kind of extreme to me just for free cover. I didn’t mind taking my pants off for free cover, but shredding any of my ex’s photos, no! I like them all, most of them are still good friends of mine.

I am trying to think of places my straight friend could go to meet quality native men, because she’s just been looking for a baby daddy in the bars and at casinos and I think that’s not such a good idea. Not if you want a quality partner anyway. If you don’t care that your lover will always be at the casino or bar then I guess it is okay to meet someone there.

I don’t even meet potential partners at bars, I meet them through work or my art career, at festivals, in school, at protests, etc etc. And that one cashier at Safeway I picked up. I forget her name but she was disappointed in our date because I took her to a dessert place and she wanted fries. Oh well.

Oh man, these Cinnamon hearts are bugging my tummy! And I hafta go for a ride! Eeep!

I will report more later!

Harm Reduction Part Deux!

In the name of Harm Reduction my mother has convinced me to get a portable vaporizer and use that for my primary smoking. She says it doesn’t stink as much and it’s also healthier, which is all true. So I went on a little shopping excursion and picked up some lube at Positive Passions and then hopped the bus down Broadway to B.O.B. Headquarters and got a run down on all their portable vaporizers. I ended up getting this small vaporizer that looks like a red aluminum pipe but has a little ceramic stone in it that you heat with your lighter and it vaporizes your herb. It has cut the stink down considerably, and I can feel that it is easier on my throat. Although I still cough sometimes when I suck in too much!

It surprised me that it even worked, the vapor tastes exactly the same as what you get from a Volcano Vaporizer, kind of nutty and popcorny. And it doesn’t stink, not like a pipe being smoked, that is for sure. I am still learning how to properly use it and when the ground up bud is all used up. I’m pretty excited about having it though, and I can’t wait to show it off to my pot aficionado friends. It also saves money in that I am not burning through my stash nearly as fast as I used to!

Well, I should go to bed. Enough talking about my stash! Which is all theoretical anyway . . . yes.

Dependable, Friendable.

This writing everyday is hard work! Especially for a blog I don’t get paid for. I do a lot of unpaid work for my career sometimes. No one has ever paid me for writing this blog. But that’s okay, I don’t need money. Well, yes I do. But I like writing anyway. Okay, whatever, what I am just doing is trying to jump start a blog topic by blathering.

I’m doing pretty good. I have started getting people asking me to come present work at different places in Canada and elsewhere and it’s pretty exciting. I like traveling for work related reasons.

Okay so the love of my life did end up writing back about Matthew, and it was a nice email and so I am not so weirded out. Although I still don’t know what to think of that girl. She stirs up such intense emotions, it’s hard to just move on. But I am getting there, I think. Nothing has happened for so long and she doesn’t even want to see me so I am just going to HAVE to get over her if I ever want a meaningful long term relationship with someone. And I know I could fall in love with someone else. Besides all that, I have a feeling she prefers men over women for long term committed type relationships. Depressing!

OMG! I have to run and take my morning meds!

Taken! I have to throw out my little celexa halves now. I’ve had such a low sex drive for months and months because of that stupid pill, and the first time I got off of it I got all depressed and fucked up again. BUT this time I am on 300mg of Wellbutrin and doing fine! 😀 Which is funny because I had a bad reaction to Wellbutrin the first time I went on it when I was 20 and had never been on any pharms before. Ugh!

I guess my tolerance to brain tinkering medication is better. More better, even!

Oh I don’t know. I really do love that girl. But I mean, whatever, she’s not into it, what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I wouldn’t even know where to find her in this damn city, and I am pretty sure she has a new phone number. All I have is email contact, it’s ridiculous! I can’t woo anybody over email, no matter how charming I try to be! And she doesn’t want to be my friend on facebook, which is like, well I mean OBVIOUSLY she doesn’t want me to be that close to her. Which means even if I did know where she was, it would be creepy of me to show up there with flowers and a violin. Assuming I could play said violin, which I can’t. She’d probably break my violin that I can’t play over my head, and throw flowers in my face, and maybe call the police as well! WTF????

So, well, see! I have to get over this girl! She’s going to call the cops on me if I don’t and cops aren’t nice to Natives in this city!

Okay, I take it all back. I’m sorry. Probably if there was a woman who wasn’t quite as strange as I she would consider them for a long term committed relationship if she were even single, which she usually isn’t, for as long as I have known her.

I on the other hand have had a handful of short short short relationships, lasting months not years! And long expanses of singleness in between. I’ve liked being single actually, some people hate it, I used to hate it, but it’s actually really comfortable and nice and makes you develop different support networks than if you are in a relationship. Still I feel like I’ve learned all I can from being single.

But I mean, who knows what the future has in store for me??? Maybe I am supposed to be single for the rest of my life?? Maybe I’m supposed to become some kind of video making hermit in some old house in like, Dalmeny!

Oh man, I am not doing the work I am supposed to be doing this afternoon, which is answering emails and making proposals and I should probably print off some loan applications too. Okay, no more dilly dallying talking about how I am in love with someone who doesn’t want to be my facebook friend even. I should just limit romantic interests to people who are friendable.

Sundays are Recovery days, I don’t know how anyone can make it to Church!

I haven’t been partying really hard very recently, but last night I went out armed with a bag of cinnomin hearts and a wallet with cash, and by the end of the night I had done several queer things, like sitting in the new gay bar watching my friends dance, and some beer and red bull and vodka, and then it was five in the morning at another friend’s house! And we talked about oppression in the parking lot. Not as in “oppression which happens in parking lots” but just a conversation about general oppression and privilege while we sat in the parking lot.

I reminded me of my politicized youth getting drunk on gin and tonics looking for a cutie and somehow always spending money at fundraising events for political causes because if you want a serious girlfriend she had better have the same politics as you!
Gosh that was a long sentence! I’m sorry, I should be a better writer by now.

Actually I do have something serious I want to talk about. This blog. It’s so much a part of me now, and I feel safe here because Blogger has never censored me. BUT this blog as a long term committed art practice has had various unintended consequences on me. Some relating to employability. It’s actually an unintended consequence of my entire art practice. I talk about identity issues and health issues and that sends up red flags for those employers who are googling potential hires. They can easily discriminate against me based on those issues without ever being caught. And people are usually pretty quiet here when they read, so only my site meter gives me any indication of my traffic. I know when I was crazy there was one hit from the White House, which really fueled my paranoia for a while there, like OMG! It’s all true we’re being watched and George W. Bush is gonna kill me for writing Fit of Pique! When the reality is probably some lesbian intern was reading queer blogs on her coffee break or something equally innocuous. I get creeped out seeing military hits on my blog too, from various countries. Or the Unknown Country. There really is such a place! Swear to mofo gawd! I don’t know who the Unknown Country is, I talked about it in one of my blogs. It is anyone who doesn’t want to be seen or known. I’m actually really curious about the Unknown Country folk myself.

Anyway, the Unknown Country was visiting me A LOT in 2007 when I had my manic episode. I don’t see it as often now, but it still pops up.

Sometimes I like to see visitors come back over and over. There was one from Weyburn I think who visited me for a year.

Weyburn!

When I was blogging from Vancouver I think my only reader there was Stephanie, and I would remember her isp and whenever I got a reader from Vancouver I would check and it was almost always Stephanie. Nobody cared for my hard luck Bad Manors blog! One potato and an infestation of mice, who cares? They ate all my popcorn!!!! How can you eat a meal when all you have is one potato?

Which brings me to my next point. When people say “Well why didn’t you cut off your internet so you could buy a bag of groceries?” (actually no one has ever said this to me but if any CBC or Globe and Mail commentors find me one will ask) I say “Sometimes when you have to get someone to call the police and the walls are too thin and the incident is happening next to the pay phone, it’s nice to be able to find an online friend in a different building in town to call for you!”

Anyway, this blog has both kept me sane and documented my insanity. I am not quitting. I think I am in far too deep to walk away now. I go through slow periods, but I always end up coming back. I am doing a self employment program right now, which will hopefully get me earning a decent living without having to worry about a big boss googling me.

But I do have to start reframing for myself my commitment to this blog and my intent of this blog.

So what did I want to prove by writing a blog for 7 years??? Longer if you count my previous secret online diaries, which were basically blogs for closed audiences. I wanted to document my life and emotions about my life. And I also talked about issues I cared about or maybe didn’t care about. But mostly it was an experiment to write really honestly about my life like I would in a diary to my friends. Although my readers can’t all be my friends, I’m sure. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t planning to get rich by blogging. I wasn’t planning on becoming a celebrity or anything. I just wanted a place to write really. I like that I can be published as soon as I finish writing and get feedback. Although this audience sometimes feels like one hand clapping, I haven’t gotten comments very often for much of this blog. Maybe everyone is scared??? Maybe the Unknown Country is a silent country.

Actually I don’t think the Unknown Country folks are silent at all. I secretly think they are all the anarchists and freaks and dissidents and warriors of some great change that is going to spread across the world. That’s why I love the Unknown Country.

But also they could just be celebrities in Hollywood.

So yes I am going to write here, I just wanted to explain what is going on with my writing a pretty revealing blog for seven years. It’s been an interesting experience. I am deciding that I can continue this experiment. I don’t know if it will leave me destitute or if it will actually make me money one day, or fame, or that big movie contract or whatever. I have a feeling it will go one way or the other right now. It really has to do with what’s going to happen in the next few years around the globe. Either being a fat disabled butch lesbian halfbreed will be acceptable or it will not be. Right now I have to say, people don’t accept me for those reasons. Not YOU personally, well maybe you, but various mainstream deciding people. Those fucking THEMS!

I sure hope revolution is contagious.

WTF??? நாட் வ்ரிடிங் தேரே டுடே இ குஎச்ஸ்!

I bought 24 cans of coke today! Well, Mum bought it, BUT OMG! I love coke! In fact I prefer it to drinking alcohol. It is just so yummy! I know it is doing evil things to my body, but Whatever.

I am still trying really hard to write everyday. It is difficult. And I just learned that it is wrong to put two spaces after a period. It’s really hard to break the habit of a lifetime!

Aw hell, why am I writing here??? YOu know what I SHOULD be doing? While I wait for this mp4 file to compress I should be writing my new bio! It’s due all over the place! And people are still using ones I wrote when I was a teen!!! :O

In a matter of weeks . . .

I will be a CEO of a corporation.

Trippy! The sad part is I will still be scrounging for beer money. At least until my business gets off the ground. This afternoon I made a playlist about starting my business, but I think I forgot to put my favorite Tegan and Sarah track on it. I can fix that later.

Today we learned bookkeeping at school, and because I forgot my books at home (Tra la la off to school with no books or pens or pencils!) I wrote my notes in the back of my dayplanner for the year. Sooo, I have notes on debit and credit and little forms neatly filled out to refer to later when I also want to know when a bill is due.

I’m still in the long slow process of adjusting a medication. Now that Phase 1 of my program is finished I feel prepared to come off the Celexa entirely. But I haven’t got the official go ahead from my psychiatrist, so I am waiting for the 2nd of February when I see her again to get my prescription changed. That will leave me just with Wellbutrin as my antidepressant, which makes me a little nervous. The good thing is for the last year I have been on Wellbutrin and know how it is affecting me and that I don’t have side effects with it. So if I have to we can raise the dosage of that and crush my recurring depressions. Psychiatrists really like Wellbutrin for people with bipolar disorder because it’s not supposed to kick one into mania.

Ugh, these petty 20-somethings I know keep trying to pull me into ridiculously immature drama, and I for one am tired of it! I hate drama, I have always hated drama, and when faced with someone who wants to inject my life with drama I usually just cut the cords and let that relationship/friendship float off into deep space to orbit around some other unfortunate. I have enough personal chaos in my life without dealing with someone else’s shit. And suddenly and completely disengaging from someone is usually the best thing to do in those situations. I’m never going to be able to change the drama-shit-stirrers, so getting them out of my life is just easier. I don’t care if I have enemies, as long as they aren’t posting shit on my wall or things. Then there will be a fight.

But really, this 20-something drama maker likes to beat up his loved ones and relatives while drunk, and I am pretty tired of making excuses to leave his house when he gets to a certain point of rude black out-ness. Black out drunks give me a headache.

Not to say 30-somethings are any better about not talking shit about each other and stirring up drama, it’s just usually by then there are codes of civility protecting people from passing it on for jollies. Oh man. Saskatoon is one small fucked up town! But I do love living here. Mostly just because then I can see my very aged grandparents and my sister with the short lifespan. They and my mother make up the essence of my family and I am terrified that in the next five years I could lose all three of them.

I’m excited about starting my own business!!! I really want to get everything in order so I can go to the bank and ask for a loan.

That’s a knick knack Patty Black, give the frog a loan!

Communications Stuff

I am itching to get a cell phone. Specifically an iPhone. Partly because I am envious of all the apps you can get, and partly because it is compatible with my computer (a Macintosh), and partly because it shoots HD video. I really want to be able to record video at a moment’s notice, especially for when cops are being brutal to people. I haven’t personally witnessed police brutality . . . okay I lie. When the cops came to get me to take me to the hospital in Montreal they were totally over the top and brutal. I don’t know what my friends told them that made them think they could behave that way, or if they just always throw nude crazy women on the floor and put them in handcuffs.

But that was before there was video capability on cell phones.

In the hospital they don’t like you to have cell phones, which I think is kind of stupid. Because then you have to use the free phone that all the other patients use and sometimes it isn’t good to have people calling the hospital phone, especially when people taking messages are not sane.

MOSTLY though I need a cell phone for my business line. I need a number to start giving out to people because they are asking for it, and I need something to put on my business cards. Plus it would just be nice to be able to make and receive calls wherever I go. Telus is most likely the company I am going to be going with, I checked out Virgin but the price is way more for less.

I don’t know why I’m being so ridiculous that I want the damn phone today. It’s not like anyone is going to call, except for maybe my longtime best friend Laurel. But she usually finds me on facebook first.

And on to my issues with Facebook. I am really seriously considering deactivating my account. I am just waiting for Diaspora to really start working. Ever since my profile got disabled in October, with no explanation despite emailing them, I have felt VERY done with Facebook. It used to be a handy tool, but losing three years of information has disenchanted me with the whole stupid site. I am going to miss being on pages and groups and having friends that invite me to events and so on, and seeing my friend’s pictures. But I really want to have more control over my own information. I don’t like having to be family friendly or whatever the hell they call it. I’d rather be able to openly express myself whereas on Facebook I now feel like I could get censored at any time, not to mention having others trying to censor me.

You know, I don’t have issues with the fact that people and groups like Fred Phelps and Stormfront have online presences, because I remember when the tenet of the internet was free speech. But ever since the yahoos realized the internet was an interesting thing, there are all these politicians trying to crack down on it, especially in regards to free speech. I doubt this blog is accessible in certain countries, although I don’t know which ones. And what really pisses me off about Facebook is how other people feel the need to report every single thing that offends them. And I have reported things, never sex things, but racist/homophobic stuff. And it makes me wonder if I should, I mean, like I said, I actually don’t have issues with the God Hates Fags church having a page and Stormfront having a message board. Sooo, I would just like to leave facebook.

But not yet. I am preparing myself for it. When Diaspora comes online I can amalgamate my Flickr, Twitter, and Blogger accounts into an accessible profile/presence and have basically the same features that facebook gives me, that I like anyway.

Communications ISSUES!

OH! I never did say how my business plan presentation went. Well, the panel loved it, and someone asked for my business card, which I don’t have because I don’t have a cell number yet! Boo-urns! But the next presenter was told I would be a hard act to follow. It made me feel happy. I received really good feedback and I am excited to move into the start up phase! The next step is securing a loan. Well, and also: Become incorporated, buy a business license, get a cellphone, get a business bank account, um, lots more, thank god it is written down. I have to get some business professional support like a banker and lawyer and accountant and insurance agent etc. etc.

I have some work coming my way! I’m happy about that. In my presentation they told me I might have to train and hire another editor if I get too busy. Sooooo, I will probably hire another aboriginal person, because I think there are some specific programs that pay for their training and wages.

Well, time to go fry some steaks! I’m eating far too many cinnomin hearts!