I learned the other day that flossing adds 6.4 years to your life! So ha! My first resolution is brilliant! AND today I had breakfast too! Which is good for all kinds of reasons. BUT NOT A RESOLUTION.

Anyway, and this is proof to my readers that I am going to try damned hard to be a more consistent writer. One page a day. Well this isn’t so hard. What am I writing about again?

One long rambly story about life with a mental illness and a career and race and class??? That is a lot to put into one post. I think I will have to break that down.

Life With A Mental Illness:
I have been seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I am not sure what to make of them, they are either white or black and blobby and just kind of flash on and then vanish. And they are NEVER there when I look at them straight on. I could attribute this to ghosts, and be scared and not want to shower naked anymore. Or I could mention it to my psychiatrist and optomologist. I mean, maybe there is a perfectly logical medical explanation. I am not sure. I hate hallucinations, I only ever used to get tactile and auditory hallucinations, which is why visual ones worry me. I don’t really want to see fucked up shit because I have a weird brain. I can deal with disembodied voices that try to give me advice, but seeing gremlins or some whacked shit would freak me out.

And A Career:
My career has been trundling along, not too much new to report, besides me writing my business plan for an editing company. I’m starting to really groove on writing it, and now I just have to go back through it and throw in a few things and adjust some other things so that it is consistent and appealing all at the same time. I also have to get working SERIOUSLY on my Mars script, and I’ve avoided it for a few months. I need to have it done by either March 1st or April 1st depending on if I feel like I want to try in the regular category or the Aboriginal category. Hmm. It’s an Aboriginal video. I might have more fans in that jury.

And Race:
Is the Thirza Half-Red or Half-White?? Today I feel Half-Red!

And Class:
Well I try not to fart in the presence of certain others, but I tend to burp all the time. I just drink a lot of pop! I am embarrassed by some of my body functions. And I hate when toilet paper gets stuck to my lady parts. Especially if I like someone and they take off my undies. But Class? Hmm, I feel like it is tied in with dignity, and sometimes that gets lost in medical situations like a manic episode. It’s hard to be classy when you are unstable. Also it is hard to be classy if you are being treated badly because of your identity.

Your Fit of Pique Bonus Paragraph!!!!!!

Because I like you. I would roll around on the floor exposing my belly if you were here, and I would pounce on you and kiss you and . . . uh, wait, I am writing this to everyone. Something else. I am getting ready to do a progress presentation for my editing business to a panel of 4 people on the 21st! By then I have to have my Business Plan and Financials COMPLETE and have four copies printed! I also have to have a DVD of my editing work to show them, at least three impressive minutes! I haven’t selected which portions of my videos I will edit together, or figured out how I will edit them together. But I should really do that.

Boy, writing this blog entry wasn’t as hard as some other blogs I have written!

I’ve been sooo freakin frackin freeked out with holidaying that I have been neglecting some of my other work. It has been a weird last couple of weekends.

Don’t just think about it, do it do it do it!

So I am writing this in between working on school work. I am hoping one day this stupid blog will start making me some money, but I haven’t figured out who would be willing to advertise. I am kinda crude, and I did put that adult warning on this blog so I wouldn’t have to be a prude.

I am trying to motivate myself this year to have a greater output of writings and other creative work. Including the writing that is not so much whimsical as informational that I am doing for my business plan. All writing is creative, in that word smithy way.

Writing ironically enough makes me want to exercise, because I get some of my awesomest ideas while I am walking around. But it is so freekin cold here! Minus 20! Ugh! But this week we are going to Aqua Boxercise for the first time EVAH! Aqua Boxercise could be my new favorite workout! Punchy yet watery all at once.

I am trying to log into Citrix yet again, and it’s being so freakin’ pokey. Now I am working on some overdue homework doing my competitive strategy. It’s not as complicated as I am making it out to be, but logging in and then getting logged off and crashing and bleh bleh blah. Bloo? Blah. Anyway. My Citrix desktop is all blue and nothing is coming onto it!

I decided to change my resolutions to these three simple tasks:

1. Floss everyday.
2. Write one page everyday.
3. Make two videos this year, or have made one and be editing the other one this time next year.

The whole gym, quitting smoking drinking eating healthy no sugary pop stuff was all too hard. I need to start with small changes I can actually accomplish so I will feel more confident about future tasks.

But I do still want to go to the gym more, especially since I have a leisure card until October!

At the beginning of EVERY year I contemplate ways to better my life. I know what I’m supposed to do, and this is the damn near complete list:

1. Quit smoking . . . anything! No tobacco, no pot, no fun! 🙁
2. Go to the gym three times a week. They say you only need 150 minutes of exercise a week if you are an adult. Children need an hour everyday!
3. Be better at my career as in actually making stuff AND doing the paperwork!
4. Write in Fit of Pique again, on a consistent basis, like the olden times!
5. Write long emails to women I like about things I am thinking about that I think might amuse them. Mostly with the intent of having a meaningful relationship blossom out of it. I don’t really do this anymore? Do I? I do feel gooney writing to some people.
6. Go on a date with someone new. I am not doing myself any favors waiting for women who have no intention of ever leaving their current spouses. Tragic but true!
7. Stop drinking sugary pops. Okay, NO! I love my sweet pop! ALthough I am painfully aware I am courting diabetes, especially with some of the medications I am on.
8. Go to my dual diagnosis group more often. Even if I have only been clean for 12 hours! So they say. They say if you go enough eventually you will stop your self destructive addictive behaviours AND take your meds perfectly too! This leads me to:
9. Take my meds more perfectly. One slip is one too many! I am starting to be more sensitive to missing even one dose of brain chemical adjustments.
and 10. Do more better grooming of my body. Because it’s just more attractive and stuff. Also I will be less likely to get jumped as a mentally ill person trying to move through the world.

On the other hand, I feel like Davis in this Corner Gas version of the above Participaction commercial:

Dear loyal Fit of Pique reader!

I have been happy to feel your ever so silent support as I have dealt with the last year. It all opened with a bang in January when my cousin went off his meds and had a massive medical emergency involving police and blood and blindness and most of the year spent in the provincial hospital up in North Battleford. Where we visited him all that time, taking him for McDonalds and bringing him smokes and clothes. Do not underestimate the need for cigarettes while in an institution like that. It’s a small joy. But they all add up. I know they are unhealthy, as I have been quitting on and off for seven years! Anyway, moving on from that incident, things for my mental health front have been pretty darned good this year, a few momentary slips with sleepless nights and so on, but overall pretty good. I lowered one anti-depressant and went onto another and DIDN’T get depressed!

I did struggle with my own dual diagnosis this past year, like last year. I was either not smoking up at all for weeks or else smoking everyday when I wasn’t working. I really wanted to come to some kind of resolution on the matter, either a medical report detailing how medical marijuana is useful for bipolar disorder, or to say FUCK IT and give up completely and start painting happy little trees in my spare time instead. Or even better, ACTUALLY work on my career as a famous video artist. So what happened in the end was this report came out that said marijuana wasn’t as bad for people with bipolar as it was for people with schizophrenia. Which I have noticed when smoking up with schizophrenic friends. They don’t respond well to it. Even my cousin who had the emergency this year says he doesn’t like it. I think it makes the paranoia worse. So anyway, as you can smell, I didn’t quit for good, but I have opened up to the idea of taking detox vacations from it from time to time. I noticed every time I quit smoking up my dreams would come FLOODING back and blow me away with symbolic imagery that heightened my experience of my life. And so, as you can see, I find that important. Which is why the solution of detox vacations has come up. It’s a start anyway.

I was on EI for half the year and went to Berlin and met amazing people and got stuck in Heathrow for 24 hours and I went to Vancouver and premiered my newest video and saw old timey friends!

I was on welfare for one miserable month but was saved by a CanSask program for Self Employment where I am currently being taught how to write a business plan and run a business. I am starting a video and film editing company and I am also going to try writing a Canada Council grant AGAIN. I didn’t get my Research/Creation grant this year for Mars: The Maiden Voyage, so I have to put together more support material and writey stuff.

My love life had a recurring character this past year but it mellowed back down into a more friendly friend thing and so really there is nothing to report on that front. Oh, but I had at least three major crusholas this year, one old longstanding crushola that I still feel gooney with, a far away crushola, and a friend crushola. Tapwe!

My Grandfather turned 93 this year several days ago and while we were eating cake downstairs at his residence these ladies were talking Cree to him. And he told me, “When they’re speaking and you can’t understand them, just say ‘Ah, tapwe!'” Which means “Ah, it is true!” Naturally you can imagine the kinds of things old Cree women say (I dunno, can you? It’s pretty crude sometimes!) and so me saying “Ah, tapwe!” when they are discussing intimate details of their husbands might not be the best idea. Trust Grandpa to get me into trouble!

Overall 2010 was a good year, I think. For myself, not for my cousin, who is now in a care home here and learning how to live without sight. I never intentionally went off my medication and when I slipped it was never for very long.

I got an alarm clock/music system for my iPod from Mum for Christmas, so I spent an hour scouring through my mp3s making a playlist called “Sex Attack!” so that I can put on appropriate sexy music should I need to set the mood. I have to say, bad music during sex is just awful. It’s like being tortured. Although now that I have mentioned that I bet there are people who get off on being heavily involved in sex and unable to change the music. That’s just not one of my fetishes.

OH I KNOW what happened to me this year!!!! I moved in with my mother! And it was going to be temporary, but now, what with this economic climate and rental prices being so high, I am going to stay until I have enough for a down payment on a house. Sooo, judge away! Actually only in North America is there shame about multigenerational living arrangements. Yes, I live in my mother’s basement. BUT I don’t play World of Warcraft and I pay rent!

So I don’t quite know what is happening in 2011 for me. In a perfect world I will be going back to Berlin, and running my business, and getting my Canada Council grant, and making a video, and being allowed to fall in love with someone. I say “being allowed” but really I mean falling in love and the other person falling in love back. Mutual love!

Tomorrow morning at 7am EST I will be on Bravo! My half hour Storytellers In Motion episode is airing and I am recording it on the DVR and finding out what I said in the first half! I’ve only ever seen the last fifteen minutes!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I will be spending the evening having quiet drinks and conversation with some laid back people, and then off to bed! Nothing crazy, just good times and hopefully the cab won’t take ten million hours!

I’ve got this TERRIBLE shyness and nervousness around women I really like! I swear to god, I will sit there when I know I am supposed to ask for a kiss and I just won’t ask, my stomach will start doing somersaults and I’ll get sweaty palms and I am sure there should be some kind of medication for it but I haven’t been on one that works yet. I will get back to you when I find out what it is.

I have recently discovered because of a long standing “crush” (though I suspect there is much more to it than that) that I do exactly the same thing writing an email as I do talking to a girl I like. I hyperventilate in type form, too many exclamation marks and too little substance. I end up feeling like an airhead, a bicep butch instead of a brainy butch. I feel like I want to say all these deep and meaningful things and instead I talk about some other trivia about my life which I am sure she doesn’t care about. But then the deep and meaningful things seem too intense to be discussing over email, it seems like I should be talking about them face to face. And until such a time as we do come face to face, I should just hint at meaning. I think. I mean, what do I know? You can’t think very clearly when you are type-hyperventilating!

It can take me four hours to write her a three paragraph email! No lies!

It’s nearly Christmas time, and every Christmas that rolls around when I am single I have all these morose mooney thoughts about what it would be like if I had a partner I could bring home. It gets so damned maudlin torturing myself with imaginary relationships with various women over the years. And the reality of what that Christmas would look like is so different. For one thing all the women wake up and start working in my family all freakin’ day! It’s definitely not a laid back experience, and by the time dinner rolls around everyone (the women, specifically) is stressed out. So who knows, maybe I am imagining going sledding with someone Christmas afternoon but really we’d end up in the closet under the stairs arguing about whose family is more dysfunctional.

Oh man, Christmas time! And I have an intangible present of a thing that this person loves to do (nothing weirdo) and I don’t know how to wrap it. I mean, I would like to put it under the tree, but I didn’t bother with a giftcard solution to this dilemma. I could be total Grade 1 Mother’s Day Gift and draw out a little certificate, hmm. Since the present IS to my mother, and since I am a reasonably decent drawer, maybe I should do that.

I was called my mother’s “Spinster Daughter” today and maybe that is freaking me out a little. I am 32 years old and I have yet to live with a lover or even bring one home for ANY of the 3 main Anglican Holidays. I’ve never even introduced a girlfriend to my Grandma, or Grandpa. My Mum has met some though. She secretly wanted to rabbit punch a couple of them, I know that for a fact! But she has never punched anyone.

I think it’s all the damn Christmas shows that are doing it to me, any reasonable attractive (read straight white folks, according to tv) person my age in all these shows has a partner and 2.5 children, the .5 often being a baby. And they are all learning some deeper grander Christmas message through this hilarious adventure that could spell the end of ALL CHRISTMASES FOREVER if they don’t right this through family love. It’s pretty barfy, and I don’t think I can expect to learn a grander Christmas message this year through having a wacky adventure with my poor osteoporosis suffering Grandmother where we end up in either a VW Bug in the hinterlands or somehow have to go on a rollercoaster. Oh yeah, and Santa helps us along the way.

“Why yes Chris, I have new spinal bones for you in my bag! Ho ho ho!”

My sister on the other hand loves Christmas. She keeps laughing when ever I say “Ho ho hold the payments!” or “Ho ho ho, Green Giant!” Oh, she loves ho ho hoing but she HATES Santa Claus, with a passion! She goes into a terror if she sees him. Today my Mum and I saw Mum’s friend’s baby getting a picture with Santa and she just suddenly squinched up and cried like, well like a baby! Poor baby!

Santa doesn’t scare me, but I do find him highly suspicious.

I have a new mission now to follow the principles of Harm Reduction over completely quitting my various vices. My friend Mikiki has a good paragraph explaining Harm Reduction on his facebook, it goes:

*Basic Principles of Harm Reduction:

Harm reduction philosophy considers risk taking behavior as a natural part of our world and suggests that our work should be focused on minimizing the harmful effects of these behaviors rather than focusing on the cessation of the behavior.
Harm reduction philosophy supports the involvement of individuals in the creation and/or delivery of programs and services that are designed to serve them. These programs and services must be offered in a non-judgmental and non-coercive manner.
Harm reduction philosophy recognizes the impact of issues such as poverty, classism, racism, homophobia, social isolation, past trauma, and other social inequities on both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with risk taking behavior.

I think one of the main problems I have noticed being a mental health consumer is this constant PUSH for us to quit using drugs and alcohol completely. I understand the reasoning behind this: it means your meds don’t work as well. BUT at the same time, why single us out? Alcohol will work as a depressant for anybody, not just persons suffering a mood disorder.

I’m thinking about it a lot ever since Luke came back from the Saskatchewan Hospital. He’s in the group home system and he’s not allowed to drink at all. And even his nurse wants to ask his doctor for permission to let Luke go have a few drinks once a month at someone else’s house. When I was in the group home system, I just hid my stash at someone else’s house and still smoked everyday.

And now my nurse says I am doing well and see how good life can be when you stop using? Only I haven’t, I still toke and drink and abuse tobacco. I’ve realized something about myself: I just really like getting crunk!

And a LOT of people like it. I mean, my god, that’s what happens at art events all the freakin’ time. Most of my socializing is with supposedly sane types who love nothing more than boozing it up and having a big fat joint. I just talk honestly about it. Mostly because my desire to party has been pathologized by psychiatric nurses. Ironically, not by my actual psychiatrist. She has always said it would be good if I cut back or quit, but she’s never pressured me, never denied me proper care because I am a drug/alcohol user, basically has just accepted that I will take risks and still be pretty much compliant with the treatment she has set out for me.

Ugh, COMPLIANT. Friggin psychworld speak.

So it’s a tricky thing. My profile got disabled on facebook, and I am not sure if it was because of drugs or because I was telling this crazy story about a neighbor in Bad Manors who didn’t pay his sex worker and she screamed for an hour outside his door about his dirty scaly dick. Facebook is pretty prudey really, case in point the transman whose profile was disabled when he posted post chest surgery shots. It sucks that we have to follow the rules of Palo Alto. At least they let us say when we are married to someone of the same sex.

Anyway, to friends who thought I unfriended them on unfriend day, no I didn’t, facebook hates me. Or someone on facebook hates me. The day my profile was disabled someone sent me this vicious private message saying I shouldn’t talk about psychiatric meds if I am using drugs and alcohol. WTF?????? Pretty pissy, and I was wondering if SHE reported me, but I really don’t know.

Anyway, I like being bad sometimes. I still want to quit smoking, and that would probably be the best thing I could do for myself. But the rest of it, ah heck, as long as I don’t hurt people I think it’s okay. I try to be good about it. I’m not a mean drunk or anything, and I don’t drink or smoke and drive, and I don’t get stoned or drink before I go to school or work. So I think I am going to accept myself as I am. Not every former psych patient has to be a friend of Bill W.

I’ve been working on my living space in the basement. So far I have unpacked about 7 boxes, pretty much ALL books. Since putting them on the bookshelf in my bedroom, the energy has changed. I wonder if there is something emanating from books based on the energy invested in them as a reader. I kind of think so. If I was a ghost I would haunt my favorite book probably.

School has been going well! I guess I haven’t updated on that front, I was accepted into a Self Employment Program paid for by CanSask and put on by Praxis School of Entrepreneurship. So I am learning all kinds of stuff about business. I’m keenly interested in the subject matter, and I have some really good ideas about the business I am going to start up. I’ve thought about it for five years now, and I think I have enough leads on loans and even ONE non-repayable financial assistance from INAC which SHOULD help me get an editing business off the ground. And I already have a foreseeable future client who needs a ton of footage edited. So I think I should be able to live (although very austerely) and pay off the first year of my loan and be able to cover my expenses. And then HOPEFULLY I will start making a decent profit and actually do things like put money in my RRSP and save for a down payment on a suitable house with a backyard for Mister.

I’ve been in a good mood. My Mum has been coming up with ways for us to have more privacy from each other via renovations in the basement to make more of a suite down here, and a workspace for my business. I’m also feeling surprisingly good because of a change in medications. One of my antidepressants that was giving me bad side effects has been lowered, and the side effects have gone away, and I am feeling much happier!

I got some new clothes, since I have lost weight and don’t fit most of my pants. I just need a haircut and I will look decent!

Anyway, after a while of floundering around trying to figure out what I can do for my life to get better, I think I have a plan! And I think it might work!

I’ve been thinking seriously again about the possibility of settling down with one woman in the near future. I really feel like I’m in the headspace to have a serious long term relationship. I just don’t know with who! I mean, I have these sweet daydreamy ideas about who, but I don’t have anything concrete or hammered out. I’m open to falling in love with someone new. But I am also open to revisiting an old lover. Anyway, I keep thinking of different possibilities. I know based on what a trusted psychic told me once that I am REALLY really close to being with the person I will be with for the rest of my life. Plus I just have a feeling about it.

While all THAT is going on, I’m actually quite content being single at the moment. When I was younger I really felt like my worth was tied up with my relationship status. But as I’ve aged I’ve realized that I’m just as valuable as a single person, just doing what I do and devoting myself to growing as a human.

One of my friends recently told me “You gotta find someone to settle down with.” And I was like, “I don’t GOTTA, it would be nice but I’m okay now!” I mean, I want to settle down, but I don’t want to settle. I still want to be super in love. I know it happens for me, I know what it feels like. I don’t want to end up in a lacklustre marriage with someone who either I don’t love to the max or vice versa.

I went sledding last night. Only made it down the hill one and a half times! The first time I was on this foam Mongoose sled and as I went down my sled headed for the slide covered in ramps. I didn’t want to hit all those ramps, so I tried to steer away. The sled turned right around, I was going backwards, suddenly I flew off, hit the back of my head, rolled a bit, and stood up to watch my empty sled go ALL THE WAY down the freaking huge hill.

I didn’t go down with my friends the next time, and while I stood there a car pulled up and a bright light shone on me. It was THE COPS! I was stoned and when he asked what was going on I just said “They’re sledding” pointing to my friends at the bottom of the hill. IN the dark? he asked. “Okay, just checking.” And then he went away! I was so worried I would get busted for the roach in my cigarette pack.

The LAST time I went down the hill I went on a Krazy Karpet. It was going so freakin fast and wild that I put my feet in the snow to brake. BAD IDEA! My face was sprayed with snow for the next minute going down that Stupid Hill! It was embedded in my hat, my mittens, my glasses, I think I even breathed it in! I gave up on sledding after that.

GREY CUP tomorrow! Er, later today. I hope the Riders win, because then we get to hear Saskie folks screaming with joy!

It’s been a while since I have written. Again. I am so bad at keeping up with my blog!

I’ve been thinking a lot about privacy and why I started writing minutae of my life online since I was 20. It’s been twelve years! And with my real name for six years! Or whatever. In this very blog!

I guess one of the reasons I am thinking about privacy is because of how many people google each other and this blog comes up right under my facebook profile in Google when you type in my name. I mean, in a way it is great, because I feel like this whole thing is an art project, and people can contact me. And then I think about this art project’s impact on my life and how many people would have major prejudices or assumptions based on information contained herein and pass me up for jobs, housing, or end up treating me as less than human or weird in other ways. But I still feel like it’s important to do things I find meaning in, like talk about the politics of having to share private space because you have a mental illness, or look at the progress of Bunnyhug or other projects I’ve done or am working on, or personal struggles that take up considerable time and energy and limit my creative output or productivity or just life quality.

One of my professors way back when told me I was in danger of just being a persona, and in a way it’s true because I seem to mine my own life struggles to create some kind of image of what it’s like to be so marginalized. But still, it’s an image. And sometimes the public/performance me is so different from the private me, and there really has always been a private me. I mean, everyone has SOME secrets they have never told anyone.

That takes me off on a tangent. I was listening to tv the other day while toodling around on the iPad and I heard this announcer for a Jerry Springer/Dr. Phil type show saying scandalously “These people have fantasies they have NEVER told their partner!” Like it was a bad thing to withhold private, possibly embarrassing information from your partner. I don’t know about you but fantasies can be about really extreme things, some of which could be illegal or horribly dangerous or just gross in practice rather than as a concept. So if you want to just keep it a private personal fantasy then why should you tell your partner?? It’s kind of stupid. Some things your partner doesn’t need to know about! My god, this whole brutal honesty thing is pretty rank, sometimes it’s better to just keep something in your own head. And sometimes you just want to keep a few secrets.

Anyway, I could always “prune” my blog, or something like that, although it feels so self censoring, and I was trying to get away from internalized censorship (although I realize it sounds different after reading my thoughts on certain secret personal fantasies). I will just have to suck it up and stand proudly by my bad reputation as a notorious underground crazy halfbreed lesbian video artist. Who drinks and smokes pot and cigarettes and always tries to quit.

NEVER QUIT QUITTING YOU QUITTER!

Well, I was unceremonially turfed from Employment Insurance on the 9th of October and am not getting ANY money for the rest of the month. I’ve been applying to JOB after JOB and not getting called or emailed for a SINGLE interview! I’ve an appointment to get on Social Assistance (aka The Dole, Welfare, Sucking off the tit of the Taxpayer, which would be myself). I’m starting to worry that my marginalized identities and issues are what is keeping me from employment, since I have never had such bad luck getting a job before. Mind you, I was willing to do Market Research Interviewing before, and now I have put a stop to it because I hate it so much. There are plenty of other jobs that I would love to have and would be really good at, but they don’t even call!

I tried to go to CanSask to get funded to get a diploma as an Admin Assistant, but they refuse to fund me because I have a degree already and should be working in my field. However film and video just tanked in Saskatchewan when the Sask Party killed SCN. Plus that industry wants 15 hour days and that would drive me insane after a couple weeks. Seriously, I would have a six week stay at the Dube Centre if I tried to work in my field. And I don’t know about YOUR world, but six weeks in a psych ward and then four months in a group home not being able to masturbate is my idea of HELL!
Plus it is depressing. And I would probably get open sores on my feet again (maniacs really REALLY like to go for LONG WALKS).

Anyway, I couldn’t afford to live in a group home and be employed, because it cost 1500 a month last time and I had to get on welfare to cover it. At best I make 1200 bucks a month, it’s really pitiful.

ARG! I think I should just start my own business. I’ve got an idea for running my own video editing company, all I really need to start up is the equipment and a place in my living area to do it. But the equipment is pricey! I’ve got all the training, it would be a good fit. Hmm. We will see.

In other news, well, not much really. SaskEnergy are being dicks about returning my deposit to me, they only owe 46 bucks, but they have been taking their sweet diddly time about returning it, I ended my service with them at the beginning of August, and now it is late October! And I changed my address with them and everything! Fuckers!

My Auntie starts calling everyone fuckers when she is really really drunk!

I’m not drunk.

My reduction of soft substances has gone upward and onward in the last couple weeks. I am making some good improvements and my dreams have also become epic adventures of epic awesomeness!!! Retelling my dreams has become my hobby again. And I am noticing how most of them are really about me assimilating the issues I faced during the day, or just themes. Ie. I was looking at this flash developer job (which I’m unsuited for, but was curious) and then also read a Japanese webpage about a cat named Maru and then had a dream I flew to Osaka to learn military website design! Of course I missed my flight there (remnants of my horrific time trying to get home from Berlin) and had to fly to 14 different cities around the world to get there on time for my training. And we kept setting off atomic explosions and had to fix the Internet with Liquid Helium.

I visited the Synchotron for the first time the week before and learned all about this amazing particle accelerator here in Canada, the ONLY one in Canada. Supposedly a city with a Synchotron grows really fast, and I’ve noticed Saskatoon getting bigger and bigger. We are now the most spread out city in Canada, which is kind of problematic. I hate to say it but we need more apartments rather than more houses, we keep sucking up farmland. Which used to be MY LAND (now I’m just being an aboriginal show off!).

My medication regime has been working out well, I fucked up a week of meds though, but I’ve been back on track for a week now and my moods are pretty good. I go see my psychiatrist next wednesday, and my psychiatric nurse, Joan. Yay! They are one of the reasons I’m reluctant to leave Saskatoon, they have helped me out A LOT! I’ve not needed to be in the hospital for well over three years! This upcoming April will be my 4 year anniversary of being in a ward, and I’m a little nervous. I am hoping that I will manage to keep up with my treatment and not need to go back again. Since then I have had some depressions, but if I was horribly suicidal since then I don’t remember it. What I do remember is that I went through a break up last time I went crazy and for months and months her name would just go through my head over and over. I’d wake up and think “Rheanne” and someone would ask me a question and I’d think “Rheanne” and I’d be sitting on the couch at the group home watching Turner Classic Movies thinking “Rheanne, Rheanne, Rheanne.” I’d go to Banff and be trying to work on something or listen to speakers and all that went through my head was “Rheanne!” Aw fuck it was AWFUL! Thank god that is over! Did I mention I listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon over and over too?

Those were the most awful days of my life! The grim desperation coupled with the inability to masturbate next to an 86 year old schizophrenic with dementia who was my roommate (as in, the bed next to me roommate) and the towels were always pooey in the morning. Sigh! I know I said living in the Downtown Eastside was kinda hellish, but this was REAL hell. I totally don’t mind talking on a payphone at Main and Hastings next to someone smoking crack, that I can tolerate. Group home life, on the other hand, without access to Internet, that sucked!

You might be surprised (unless you have read all of this blog already) that poop outside of the toilet was a hallmark feature of my mornings as a child. My sister has a profound intellectual disability and fingerpainted with the brown stuff before we all woke up. Almost. Every. Day.

The only time I was upset by it was the time she put a poop in every compartment of my Matchbox Racecar Suitcase!!! :O

My EI is set to run out and I have to figure out some way of getting an income. I’m going all over the place trying to think of a job I really want to do, there are a few I am interested in. I should really think seriously about CREATING a job for myself rather than looking for one. I mean, I’m a FREAK! I have tattoos and I am part of various minority groups that have trouble finding work because of discrimination. Not only that but I am open about my disability and people feel like it’s a disability they can stigmatize and be prejudiced about. Like there’s this concept ALL bipolar people have fits of rage, and I haven’t had one of those since I was twelve. I get angry, but I’m pretty good about controlling it. It’s not an issue in the workplace, that’s for sure.

Besides all that, I am going out a lot more these days, which is nice. I went bowling the other day, which I haven’t done since 1996. I was terrible. And then just going to events and so forth. It’s been fun. I go out a lot more now than I did before. When I was mainly hanging out with one friend a lot. And then we had a fight and now I have more friends.

I almost moved to Winnipeg abruptly. But then it didn’t work out and I stayed here, in Saskatoon. I really like Winnipeg, but I am also content living here. So it was a confusing situation to be in.

I’m trying to line up some freelance gigs to get me some money to live on for the next month or two. Money, ugh! I hate that we all need it.

I applied twice at the Casino, it would be so easy not being able to gamble there because I’ve only ever gambled 15 bucks there altogether. And I’d get money TAX FREE! But anyway, so far they haven’t called back.

But I like the idea of working for myself. It appeals to my desire for independence. The only big problem is I don’t have the right equipment to actually start up an editing business. My computer is obsolete and I don’t have enough hard drive space. And my screen and speakers could be better too. I really need to do something about it. I’m looking around for some grant situation that would let me have like, three or four months of living allowance and capital cost money. That would be sweet.

It’s about that time again, to start thinking of intelligent things to say in my blog. I feel like listening to me figure out my life must be boring. I just want to stay relevant.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to help out Rebecca Belmore. She’s being sued for more than 750 000 dollars from her old dealer Pari Nadimi Gallery for breech of contract when she chose to leave the gallery and stop a sale. It’s pretty appalling and incredibly mean and spiteful of the Gallery.

You know what it reminds me of actually? PIMPS! When a woman wants to leave a pimp she has to pay him a certain amount of money.

I can’t imagine being in that predicament, either as a sex worker working with a pimp or an artist being represented by a Gallery that won’t let you leave without going completely bankrupt. It’s just scary, and the case would set a precedence for future dealings between artists and dealers. Plus I know Rebecca, and I highly value the internationally acclaimed work she’s been doing for years. There’s no way she has 750 000 kicking around.

Ugh.

I seem to recall drinking and sitting on Rebecca’s lap once while announcing to everyone in the kitchen at the Grunt that I had just taken a shot of testosterone. I remember everyone’s head whipped around, it was so funny. Like OMG!

The last time I saw Rebecca was in the spring when she was in town while her partner Osvaldo worked on something artsy.

If I had a job I’d be inclined to send some money, but I only have EI and it’s pretty skimpy. If YOU, my fine blog readers, want to donate some money to the cause, check out Rebecca Belmore Legal Fund on Facebook, they have links there to all the news and blog articles about it. I’m still plotting what I can do, I might auction off a small collection of my videos on DVD or something. I’d make a nice hand drawn cover for it too, it would be a collector’s item! I suppose I could make a few of them to auction off. Yes, that makes sense. I have worked with Rebecca on a video for her performance, she was great to work with. So clear about her vision.

On to other news. Well, I have been doing more investigating into possible careers. I’m in particular intrigued about being a copywriter. I love writing, and people say I’m a strong writer, and I like thinking up ad slogans, believe it or not. I sometimes read copy if there is nothing else handy in the bathroom, like flyers and backs of shampoo bottles. Ah yes, made with crushed pearls, that was some good shampoo.

Oh, I just got word we are heading to the track at 7, gotta start getting cute. I heard a lesbian is meeting us there. And you know how much I like lesbians.