I am trying to do my resolutions but my mom is wandering around this office going “Oh crap” and “these are all yours!” and otherwise cleaning and being annoying. OMG! She left! Hurrah! She keeps making piles of my things and giving them to me. Thanks?

I have not seen any weirdness in the basement recently. I feel a bit relieved. No flashing lights, or black blobs, or little men with big cheeks waving like I saw that one day. Whew! But I am still going to make an eye appointment. I might have some genetic eye disease my mom has, which needs to be checked on.

Do you remember Gattaca where they have their life course laid out for them based on their genetics? Sometimes I worry that is where we are heading. They are starting to do more and more dna tests screening for things and I’m wondering when the insurance companies are going to require a screening test.

Personally, I don’t think insurance companies should be allowed to deny someone insurance because of a “pre-existing” medical issue. That’s just fucked, who DOESN’T have a pre-existing condition??? And in the states being a woman is considered a pre-existing medical condition because they don’t want to pay for women’s health issues. Which is ridiculous considering women live longer than men.

Anyway, they are worried about paying for a baby to be born. The insurance companies creep me out!

But back to my eternal quest to be loved.

I got this fortune cookie last night that said “To be loved, be lovable.” I sometimes worry I am not lovable enough. I was really worried when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder that I would never have a happy relationship with someone, that I would always be seen as broken and not worth forging a meaningful long term relationship. I used to think it was specifically because I have bipolar disorder that I worried about this, but now I am thinking anyone who is suddenly diagnosed with a life altering medical condition ends up feeling this way.

We are raised to treat partner’s like commodities. There’s this whole idea that there is a “perfect” partner out there who doesn’t fart or have medical issues, who is always healthy and the right amount of sexual and doesn’t need fixing and will be able to read your mind! They don’t exist, in case you are still looking. That being said, I absolutely ABHOR when someone gets together with another person with an eye for fixing them to be this perfect partner that never cries when it makes you uncomfortable and never gets sick. Someone who will suddenly abandon all their family of origin issues and quit drinking for the rest of their lives. It’s kind of creepy to want to change people, especially if one professes to love them for who they are.

Anyway, none of my girlfriends have tried to change me, or if they did I think they failed. But for not trying to change me, I salute them!

Once I was talking about an ex and someone told me they were fucked up. And I was like, well, no, they just had a shitty life, that doesn’t mean someone’s fucked up and should be chucked out with the trash. I hate how as soon as someone has issues they are seen as disposable people. This is especially true when people talk about persons with addiction issues. It’s considered in Canada to be a mental health issue, mental health and addictions are always squished together as services. It makes sense for a few reasons. But it is also interesting to see how the stigma of addiction works in much the same way as the stigma of mental illness. Disposable people.

It’s not a coincidence that many homeless persons suffer from both addiction issues and a mental health issue. Because of all the stigma very few people want to house us. Most of the facilities existing in Saskatoon to get people off the streets are strictly sober living facilities. Even the group homes for persons with mental health issues are all sober living. It SUCKS if you don’t want to live sober. You have no choice but the streets.

But I’m straying from my original intent of this blog, which was to write about my eternal quest for love as one of societies rejects.

Some people don’t realize that persons with mental disability (cwazy folks) are protected from discrimination under Canadian law. They say shit and discriminate to their heart’s content and sometimes (mostly) get away with it because the target doesn’t have the ability to follow through on human rights charges. I’ve had one “friend” I am trying to ditch because he keeps saying fucked up shit to me about my disability. I hope he tries it at work and gets his ass fired for being a bully douchebag!

Anyway, I don’t really want to be with someone who considers me broken for having a mental health issue that has been stable for years. I couldn’t handle being with someone who was that hateful. There’s this thing where bipolar folks often pick another partner who has bipolar. I’m almost drawn to that because then my partner could see where I was coming from. It would make things a lot easier in that respect.

But then there’s also the idea of double trouble if two bipolar people fell in love. But that’s a negative view of it, I think. I’m rambling now.

Arg here comes mum again!

Now she’s telling me I have work to do and she is rubbing her tummy. Go away! Good.

I have about 10 resolutions now, but I am only concentrating on three, flossing, writing, and making two videos. I’ve been terrible at the flossing. And I missed two days of writing. The videos, well, I need some inspiration.

I have a select few women I am secretly considering as possible long term partners. No girlfriend at the moment, I’m not even sexually active right now, but I’m assessing certain women. They are all horribly out of reach right now though, one’s in the hospital and we haven’t even had a date, one’s far far away, and one has had the same boyfriend for years. So even though I think these women are interesting, my chances are actually really slim for settling down with any of them. Which is too bad because all three of them are super cute and smart and seem nice.

Nice is a terrible word for some people. It’s like a diminutive kind of a word that makes them feel less edgy. I like edgy and nice women.

Grapefruit has too much acid for some medications and will make you get too much at once. Interesting, I think. More acidic than stomach acid???

Stomach acid is kind of a weird concept. There is acid, and it is INSIDE US! My mom once babysat a kid who didn’t produce stomach acid and had to drink a cup of acid before he could eat.

Oh man, what kind of life is that?

It gets worse, he was also highly allergic and could only eat beef, barley, and bananas.

Little Mister is doing well, especially since he has no allergies and eats all the blueberries he wants! He’s laying behind my back like a wiener dog lumbar support cushion. He’s actually quite comfy for me to have.

He and Hermione, the other wiener dog, and I, all slept in this morning. Mum did too, and Arthur. Why did we all sleep in? I was listening to the top 20 on the radio since 7:30am and still it took me an hour to wake up. I was 7 minutes late for school and felt badly. I have terrible guilt about lateness. Sometimes I am really bad at it and people notice and get mad. But I’ve been pretty good recently.

I have been working this writing everyday plan for a while and I think it is going well. It definitely jogs my brain and gets me thinking about things. I’d like to add some other new habits to my life. I am thinking of making a mandatory hour once a day of reading a paper book. No ebooks for me, an actual physical book. It would be better on my eyes and open me up for new ideas. And I wouldn’t be sitting at the computer, which is a major plus. I’d like to go get some new library books and start. Except I borrowed a learn German cd from the library and it is stuck in my mom’s computer. And so I keep renewing it, but really I need to get it out of the computer. I’ve tried all kinds of methods of getting the iMac to eject it, but it isn’t even recognizing that there is a disc in it.

The quandry of technology malfunctions. I hate malfunctions. I hate when I malfunction and I hate when computers do it.

But there are other habits I could get.

I have nearly 3 packages of cigarettes left. I would like these to be my last cigarettes for all time. I’m enjoying them during the january thaw, but by the time it plunges to minus 30 for two weeks I don’t want to be freezing outside sucking on cancer sticks! Still! With chapped hands from being exposed to the biting cold. BITING I TELLS YOU! And since my mom’s house is non-smoking there is no more opportunity to smoke at the computer in the warmth leaving ashes all over the desk. 🙁

So I am going to try and mentally prepare this time instead of just one day quitting because I don’t have smokes. I feel like my biggest crush ever would want to kiss me more if I didn’t smoke, and I don’t want to smoke anyway, and she’s never kissed me while I have been a smoker. I dunno, she will probably never kiss me again ANYWAY. But yeah, kissing smokers isn’t as much fun, and as a smoker I am aware. BUT I am not making it a resolution. Because it has been a resolution for three years, and I am not giving it the honour this year. It’s like, 2008’s resolution. So pbbbt!
😛

I am not altering my eating habits this year except to continue eating less fat because of my gallbladder. Last time I weighed myself I was 210, which was 7 pounds more than my last weigh in! BUT I was wearing my purse and threw it off me just before it told me my weight, so I don’t really know, is my purse 7 pounds? It just might be!

Oh, but I did want to start eating breakfast. I always sleep in and miss breakfast.

And my flossing resolution hasn’t been going well. I flossed once. So far this year. I need to do it everyday. It’s right beside my bed, I have just been ignoring it.

I am still wearing the wristband from Aqua Boxercise. We had to do this one thing with a noodle where we floated in the water with our bums pointed down and our legs up with our shins and feet at the top of the water and knees and ankles together and then do like, stomach crunches. It was really difficult, but not as difficult as standing on a pool noodle without our feet on the tile. UGH! I felt like a bad surfer.

I posted it on my facebook but not on here, but Dick Van Dyke was saved by porpoises when he fell asleep on his surfboard and floated out to sea. WTF? And thus it is clear, God loves Dick Van Dyke films. I can’t wait to see that scene recreated in the movie of his life! I hope he has a drug addiction or something he overcame, because otherwise I don’t know if there is enough contemporary interest in his personal life.

Oh hurrah, a google search and I already know Dick Van Dyke had addiction issues!

Man, my hair is crazy today. I should clean after aquafit better!

Anyway, I think that is all I have to write in my blog for today. Now onto other work!

😀

I am trying to think seriously about goals ever since I turned 30. One of my goals is to work out according to the new time guidelines. So tonight, after weeks of planning, I am going to my first ever AQUA BOXERCISE CLASS!!!! With my mother. We used to do Aquacise together and I like being in the water. And Boxercise sounds so Angelina Jolie for some reason. And Angelina Jolie equals Sexy! So therefore Boxercise will make me rippling and taut and have the biceps of a bulldagger and the swagger of a prairie girl!

On a different note, today my mom gave me a VHS copy of Sarah, Plain and Tall. I would have been more excited if it had Colleen Dewhurst in it.

VHS. Wow, there are people who don’t have vhs players anymore. I still do. It’s easier than having to digitize everything. Which I should do.

I watched the episode of Storytellers In Motion I was in. There was one error, they said I was an only child! :O Poor Sky. And poor Elijah whoever he is who is my brother. I don’t think he ever knows I exist. Weird. Really weird.

I have a terrible fear one day my long lost brother will invade my house with neediness and sleep on the couch eating all the Ritz crackers and drinking all the beer and smoking everything and watching Spike TV all the time. I mean, I don’t know what kind of man he is!

I don’t mind people not knowing I have a brother, because he is really hardly on my mind, but people should know I have a Sky sister. She’s in one of my videos!

Anyway, aside from that I thought it was a good episode, I was kind of giggly watching myself. It’s just bizarre to be externalized in that form. I had a good chuckle at some of the earnest faces I was making in the stills during the credits. My mom said I looked like I was tired and needed a nap. Oh noes! Was I tired?

Ha ha, anyway. I am also saying other things in another episode they do where it is a bunch of filmmakers talking about indigenous voice in media. So I saw some of that once.

I have been noticing that I am seeing weird things in only two places, by the front of the house and in the basement. I also notice it often happens on the left hand side of my vision. Sooooo, I am slowly taking note of everything going on with these things to see if it is something outside of myself (ie. meaning I am not crazy or have a detached retina). Although that reminds me, I have to make an eye exam appointment just to be sure.

BUT tonight I am going to Aqua Boxercise, and I am going to start sculpting my blubby body AND have excellent punching abilities!

You know, once I was lifting small hand weights for a while. I wanted that one little muscle at the top of the shoulder that dips down to your bicep. That was all I wanted. I did it for six months before I went manic and then I ended up with this little muscle.

But I did dick all for any other muscles. I could have had a BUNCH of nice muscle definition if I had followed a more comprehensive workout routine.

I think that little muscle is totally flaccid and deflated now. Poor muscle. I can get it back! I will!

I was going to write about setting goals for myself. I am thinking too much in the grand scheme. I have to think about mini goals again. Goals for this week! Some school goals would be good. I have to whip some more writing into shape. Anyway, I keep writing the same thing for goals, buy a house in Saskatoon, get a partner, start a business, make a movie, stop smoking, decide if I am a no good addict, etc etc. I should make it more simple, stuff I can work on today and make progress with. And I have too much stuff to do to print out the MA Workbook and start filling in blanks with personal incriminating information!

I have been thinking about how I haven’t really read business plans. I am thinking maybe it would help if I did. The Business Development Corporation has such a small business plan template compared to the one we are doing. So I don’t know if they are all different.

We have Bailey’s! *evil grin!*

I like being upstairs when I am on the computer, I don’t see weird shit!

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!