FEELING LIKE WRITING

Sorry for the all caps. My computer does that. Not my keyboard, I’ve tried other new keyboards. It’s some kind of computer issue. And if I was younger and felt a little more manic maybe I would actually spend a couple of days getting to the bottom of it. But it’s an old computer, and I want a new one, and I just got used to it’s weird all caps issue. But when people try to work on my computer they get really frustrated. It’s like that Ruth Rendell story where the house is a killer because it keeps making a window bang open and the couple have arguements about how to close it properly until one of them nearly kills the other. And a murder had already happened in that house over the issue!!!
I’m sorry for giving away that plot by the way. I guess I should write “SPOILER” or something.
That’s a great term by the way “Spoiler.” Drat you, you’ve spoiled me pop culture!
My mum’s really bad at spoiling movies to me. She told me how “the boy in the striped pyjamas” ended. Bad mommy. I Said she could spoil it, but maybe she could have ignored me and said nothing. I was going to see it anyway.
But were you REALLY going to read that particular Ruth Rendell story>>

Or was it Agatha Christie>>>

Agatha Christie’s collected novels sold just less that the Bible.

It’s LATE AT NIGHT and I am up

I am doing well still on handling my addiction. Still doing it in small doses on weekends, but not at all in the weekdays or on Sundays. And I haven’t bought ANY in a month!!! I still want to attend an NA meeting, I just feel sheepish that it’s something as “soft” as marijuana that brought me down. I have a LOT more energy now and am getting things done. I finished my video, wrote a grant for the Canada Council, and am spending more quality time with people who are important to me, without getting stoned. Okay, well on the weekends yes. But I spent time with one of my little cousins (who is also in recovery) this weekend while we were both sober from our drugs of choice and it was really nice and made me feel closer to her. My mind has expanded because I’m no longer always thinking about where I can go next to get a hit, I’m not always waiting for the dealer or feeling cravings and having no money. AND I am saving money! Well, I spend it, BUT not on drugs! 😀
Plus I am having some REALLY amazing dreams, some of them are a little disturbing. I kept dreaming about broken glass in my mouth and needles in my tits. THAT was weird. But now they have calmed down to just being these bizarre adventures. I wasn’t able to remember my dreams while I was a chronic pothead. And dreams are how your subconscious processes things. So how could I process>> I couldn’t!
In other news, work is ending soon because my contract is up at the end of the week. I will miss it, but I feel positive about it because if things go my way I will be on EI for a few months and then HOPEFULLY find out my grant was approved. And I will still volunteer at my old workplace sometimes. It was a really nice place to work and I hope Cansask still supports the employment program I was in there. I liked all of the people I worked with and it was amazing to be in a queer environment working for my community.
There’s some other sparkly happiness in my life but I don’t think I will talk about it here. I will just say that I am having a really fun time these days and am learning more about a side of myself I didn’t get to explore for about three years or so.
My puppy is doing well and my new kitty is still being a suckling pain in the neck because she HAS to be on me almost all the time. Although right now she is sleeping next to me on the floor. Whenever I go to bed she curls up next to my head and PURRS and PURRS and it’s really cute. I love her, little weirdo! She and Mister play chase sometimes, he hasn’t taught her how to wrestle yet, but I think it’s coming. There’s nothing a cat likes better after playing chase with a dog than to RABBIT KICK HIM! So hopefully she figures that out.
It’s spring time! They are making baby bunnies! I saw a baby bunny last time I was in the psych ward, it was in our courtyard and this woman brought me out to show me it eating our pansies. SOooo CUTE! My last girlfriend was terrified of bunnies. I don’t know why. She never visited me in the ward, which was maybe good because we were surrounded by brown bunnies.
And I would yell at them “Hausenfeffer!”
Elmer Fudd was always going to make Hausenfeffer.
I’m SLEEPY and I have to get up early and catch the bus. But I was just feeling happy and wanted to stay up late goofing around. I’ve been thinking about a lot of political issues affecting me these days, and I would like to write a sensible thought out blog about them, but not tonight. This blog changes it’s themes depending on my circumstances, and for the past year or so a lot of that was about admitting I had a problem and figuring out how to deal with it. It’s a little dodgy when you want to talk openly about addiction and your addiction is to something illegal. It doesn’t help to be quiet about it, because it is a struggle, but that illegal part makes it weird to speak about. Considering I no longer keep marijuana in the home, it’s a lot safer, but when I did I always felt like a fugitive.
I think maryjane isn’t the worst evil, BUT irregardless of what people say, it IS addictive, especially now that there are way stronger strains. AND it does sap one of motivation, energy, intellect (temporarily at least) and just that lovely clear headed-ness that is important for creative workers to have. I KNOW I KNOW that people say it makes you more creative, but I was never able to toy with a thought for long enough to really make something creative out of it while I was stoned.
Oh man, beddy-bye! A fruit fly addendum: THERE ARE still a FEW fruitflies, and I am being vigilent about it, BUT the hordes are gone!!! The traps are working and I just have to redo them and wipe out the remaining flies!

Trapping

I have laid three traps in the most fruit fly infested areas of the house. This time I am DETERMINED to exterminate the whole LOT of them! I’ve had ENOUGH of fruit fly shenanigans! I don’t care anymore about their welfare, even though part of their foreplay involves cunnilingus!
The traps are made out of beer and pop bottles, with sugar, yeast, water, and dish soap inside. They are attracted by the sugar and yeast, and unable to escape because of the bubbles of the dish soap!
I successfully defeated the fruit fly hordes twice in Vancouver, once during the Garbage strike of 97 and another time soon after the 2 weeks of Okanagan peaches left out while I was in Saskatoon! They are nasty little buggers, but not as disgusting as food moths, which I also successfully exterminated!!
I am also successfully on the path to becoming a social pot smoker, meaning only on select Saturday or Friday nights, and then only with people. I’ve gone a week and a half without smoking ANYTHING! Well, except for the cigarettes. And I am even thinking about being a total non-smoker. No pot, AND no cigarettes. Just cut it right out.
It’s been a month of only Saturday use, and then no HUGE sessions either, just enough. And nothing this past weekend at all but booze. But my boozing days might be over too, because I’ve just been prescribed zopiclone for sleep and have to avoid alcohol. And I’d rather NOT be dead. I am a bit nervous, I haven’t taken a hypnotic since my Emily Carr days, when I was getting depressed and had to take something to get some sleep. I remember after I took my first pill it was about half an hour later and I said to the rat “This isn’t doing Anyt . . . h . . . i. . ..n zzzzzzzzz” OUT! But the next day I was all dopey and my ex-lover Velveeta said I looked drugged. My doctor said this one doesn’t leave you all groggy the next day, EXCEPT you have to be able to sleep for a solid 8 hours so it can wear off. Oh, but this is supposedly the same drug! When I got it, it was called Imovane. My other ex, Amber Dawn, used to sing “I’m leaving on Imovane, don’t know when I’ll be back again!” Either way, I have a bunch of them and can stick it somewhere for nights when I need a hypnotic\sedative to get me to sleep.
Yet ANOTHER drug. I have so many meds. I’m tired now, I don’t even know if I need it tonight, but I want to see how it helps me. It’s been hard sleeping since I quit pot. And the doctor says it will be a few months before I feel the full effect of not smoking up. Which is kind of why I’m tempted to quit for longer than just in between the Saturdays.
One notable thing is that my dreams have been REALLY engaging these days. Intense stories and really vivid. Not nightmares, but some are slightly disturbing.
Anyway, now my pill is kicking in, and I have to take my other meds before I am unconscious. Tomorrow I finally go back to work!! I have been sick ALL WEEK! BLeh!

No Pot STILL! But . . .

I did have some on Saturday night, when I was doing E with some folks. It was not too bad, I didn’t get uber stoned on it. But it was a relapse technically. So I feel like I should mention it.
I drank beer this weekend, but didn’t get pukey drunk. Just buzzed. I’m limiting substances to the weekend I think. But I do still want to not smoke pot. I haven’t bought any and I COULD have, I got paid. But I didn’t. It’s a very difficult thing, to stop an addiction. I’m relieved I have a couple days since my last foray into pot smoking. It’s been rough quitting before. I really want to be clean for a week, then I think it would get easier. Every day away from it is feeling better. I didn’t even think about it today.
I’ve been working on getting a wider selection of friends, mostly from people I already know and have good conversations with but for whatever reason don’t hang out with them aside from when we’re in groups of folks. I have a really good community here and I need to be closer with some individuals who I have connected with. Sometimes I forget I have a lot of friends and neglect them. I feel bad about that. PLUS when I was smoking up all the time I just wanted to stay home and get stoned and not deal with anyone. It’s good to like to be alone, but if you’re being alone just to do drugs, it kinda sucks!!! So antisocial and messed up.
That all being said, artists need to spend time alone in order to be creative. And a lot of artists smoke pot. BUT my question is, would I be more productive if I didn’t get stoned>> It’s a curious question. So many people say it helps with creativity, but I find it doesn’t help me at all, it just makes me kinda STUPID!
I did party pretty hard this weekend, but it didn’t feel bad, I was with all kinds of friends and wasn’t doing it home alone. Still I would like to not even smoke pot at parties. I guess. See, still that semi-waffling. I need to get over it and just accept that I have a longstanding (12 years!) issue with marijuana and shouldn’t bother with it. People say one day at a time. I wish I could just say never, but recovery is a slow process. And it’s one that requires a lot of inner reflection.
Here’s a song for today, and if you are reading this on facebook, it’s a Youtube video of Depeche Mode’s Clean.

Day 7 of No Alcohol, day 1 of No Pot

Cigarettes are still okay, for now. Some people suggest you quit cigs AND pot at the same time, but I am not. I want to still have one little flimsy vice to cling to. In a month I might quit the cigs too. Okay well, so far so good, I haven’t had a toke all day. Of course I was at my Psych Nurse appointment this morning and then work, so of course I didn’t do any substances. But now is the tricky part cause it is usually when I get home that I have a joint. Eeee! But, no joint. And there is no way for me to get any anyway.
It’s kind of an experiment, at least that is what I am telling myself. I want to know if I can have a better life if I don’t use. YOU KNOW> It’s not rational to chase mood disruptions. And alcohol, well, when I got screened back in the summer for addictions, it said that I didn’t have issues with alcohol. But it is a depressant and does fuck up meds, so for now I am avoiding it too.
I’m terrified I am going to lose all my friends because they will prefer doing substances than hanging out with me. I know that’s not true, but it feels scary all the same. I tried several times to hang out with another friend without doing drugs or alcohol and we got into a big fight and now we’re not friends. I hate that. BUT it’s better to not be friends than to be friends with someone who wants to drag you down into the bowels, that really sucks.
I’m going to work on my video tonight. I am excited about this. I can stay up late because I don’t have to be at work until 1:30 tomorrow!!! 😀
The video is needing a couple fixes and some photos put in. I’ve already digitized all but ONE photo, now I need to find the proper places to put them on the timeline. And then once I have them placed and at the right length, I am going to try and work with wireframes to animate them a bit, make it really slick. The soundtrack has some sweetness, but it’s pretty minimal, I might try and add some more juicy sounds and see if I can make it just a bit tastier. I’m kind of staggered by the amount of material I have amassed to make this video from. I’m especially stoked by the photos I have digitized care of Grandma and Grandpa.
I should really hop to it if I want to have a good editing session.

The phone is still not here.

I still don’t have a phone! Meh! I hate not having a phone! Mom explicitly said “Cigarettes or a phone” and I picked cigarettes because I have a long standing issue with nicotine. I also have an issue of needing to use the phone though.
I know I could get a wall phone, you know, with a cord, for cheap. BUT i have no dough. So I have to think of something else.
If anyone has a phone in the Saskatoon area I am looking for one!
I was hoping the woman in distress-phone thief would have put it in the mailbox. What the hell was going on>>>
Those little angled brackets are really question marks. I need a new keyboard and I know where I could get one. I hope it resolves the computer issues.
I am listening to some Metric I hadn’t heard before. It’s making me happy in a melancholy way.
I haven’t had a beer since my one on Tuesday when we were eating before visiting Luke. It feels good to not drink. I’ve been observing someone I’m worried about and it’s made me want to not drink. I don’t know if I have a problem with drinking as much as my other weekend and evening substance abuse issues. But it seems like the easiest thing for me to give up for a while, so why not>>
I’m really taking my mental health more seriously now. I want to try to find my peak level of health, living a lot closer to the model for having stability. Like avoiding substances and getting to bed on time and having a routine.
Speaking of which, it is now very late and I should go to bed!

Weird day

Some woman came to my house to use my phone but took it with her and never came back. And then the cops showed up, and this cop asked me what was going on so I told him about this woman going off with my phone. And anyway, he went to where she said she lived and it doesn’t exist. So now I have to get a new phone. I unplugged it after she was gone for too long. So it’s inactive. Still, I liked that phone. It was all a little creepy.
The phone thief!
It’s kind of a boring story Mum says. Which is true, but it’s still unsettling. My phone!
The cop asked me if she looked like she could be a drug addict. Well, ANYBODY could be a drug addict, so I said yes. Could be. I didn’t ask her though. She looked like a regular person.
All that trouble just from answering the friggin doorbell!
I went over to Mum’s house and fell asleep, listening to her and my Auntie discuss visits with Luke. Right now I am alternating between tasks, I just took a break from writing to load a gig of music onto my cousin’s ipod. And then I also did facebooking and THAT was about it. And writing.
I feel like I’ve wasted my Saturday, I got thrown off by my phone theft. And then I was going to go ut but I ave no phone. So now I’m just going to watch South Park and then go to bed.

Jackson

She tried to change her name to Jackson once, but everyone liked calling her Velveeta so much it didn’t work. Boy do I miss her, I call her all the time because I never know when I will actually get to talk to her. She’s single boys and girls, so someone should really scoop her up now. Ha ha, we dated ages ago and it ended badly. BUT somehow we became friends after all that.
She hates facebook and says she will never join it. It’s kinda too bad, except then it gives me an excuse to call her because she doesn’t see all my news online. And there is always something NEW to report.
Jackson is also the name of this really old cat I remember who was scrawny and always got a claw stuck in the rug.
And Jackson is also a notorious family in show business.
I never ate Velveeta, I mean, not the cheese anyway.
She sends hilarious emails that are only three lines long, they are so minimalist.
I have her balls in an envelope waiting to be mailed. I always forget to do it when I have money and only remember when I don’t have money. It’s been three years at least of hanging onto these balls of hers.
I like all my exes, now that we’re not dating anymore. I notice there is always the one month of no sex that foretells the end. That’s always weird. Total blue clit!
I’m still hung up on one ex who rarely ever speaks to me, and then it’s only by email. Not even facebook. Email. It’s pretty sad, I miss her. But then you know I was thinking, all of my exes are pretty amazing, am I just hung up on this Particular x because she is local>>>
Things that make me hmm.
It’s important to think locally when making romantic choices.
But considering my choice babe is not interested and hasn’t seen me for three years despite living in the same city, I should really expand my horizons. I could always import a girlfriend. I’d just have to be REALLY cute! And as low maintenance as short hair!
Yay! I”M HAVING LUNCH WITH MUM! Running off after hitting post to get dressed and go out!

Tawdry Editing

I worked on art all day today because the buses weren’t running, and then later I heard they were but on special routes, and in the end I didn’t go to work for the second day because there is snow all over the friggin place. But I think the buses are running mostly normally tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don’t remember what time I am supposed to be at work. I shall have to inquire via email.
Anyway, I drank four cups of coffee and edited ALL DAY! I put one thing in that I kind of want to take out now, because it doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t feel right. It’s NASA footage and I think I should use it, if ever, in another project. I don’t want to use the same clip over and over again. People will think I am super in love with it, when I merely find it useful.
That’s just tawdry editing.
I finally saw the end of a documentary I was in, in an APTN series called Storytellers in Motion III. One episode is ALL about me! I laughed so much, ha ha ha, both as a viewer and as a participant. Everything I said I would giggle about. I never realized I did so much giggling. Also I said the C word, ON TELEVISION! Ho-la!
Well that was just too funny, my Mum and Auntie were watching at the same time, along with my friend Laurel and her Auntie. And quite possibly Laurel’s mom as well. But you know, it’s on television, I’m sure lots of people saw it.
And if you want to see it too, you should start watching APTN.
I’m trapped with all this snow, or I was. We got 35cm in two days, a huge fluffy white DUMP on the province, and quite possibly Winnipeg as well! Mum says it came from California. I hope it didn’t bring any H8 with it.
But I just saw what looked like the number 4 go by. I’m almost positive. Not something out of Sesame Street, no, a BUS!!
I’m liking this being productive, now if I can just work it into my rest of the week, I think I will actually be done my video!!! I’m using a lot of creative commons\public domain shit. It makes me a little nervous! I want to be able to show it on t.v. if anyone cares to, because then I would make some money!! It would be nice to earn some kind of living from my practice.
There, I just watched the whole thing through and wrote down the exact things I need to do to finish it! I am going to get someone to come and look at it and tell me what they think, hmm, who should I get> Mum will only come if it’s clean!
I did clean a bit today, it’s a bit nicer. Not nice. Nicer.

Big Emergency 2010

Luke had a BIG EMERGENCY this January. He had been off of his medications since November and shortly after his mother left town after the holidays he ended up stabbing himself and being rushed to the hospital after police wrestled the knife away from him. He stabbed his body and his eyes. BOTH of them.

So it’s been a few weeks of him being at RUH in the observation unit and THEN he has recently moved to another hospital which has a psych ward. He looked pretty sad when I first saw him, he was pretty out of it with being not-sane AND being on heavy duty pain meds and tranks, not to mention the damage to his body. But today I saw him and he’s doing way better, he gets better everyday. He’s making more sense now, although he doesn’t like to leave his room much. I think he is mostly frustrated that he can’t see.

Luke can’t see. He is blind. It’s pretty friggin intense and I feel for him. His eyes are looking better than they were, the scarring isn’t that bad, but it looks pretty rough still. He’s going to need some cosmetic surgery on some of his scars and some rehabilitation to deal with whatever sight he has left and his ability to get around. I am hoping he at least can see some light and shadows, because that’s what my friend Preston can see and he is fairly independent, him and his cane.

One time Preston, Deanna, and I were having a conversation about caning and SM and he suddenly said “I have a cane” “Really> Let’s see it!” He of course pulled out his cane he uses to walk with. We had a good laugh.

Soon Luke will be moved, along with all the other psych inpatients in Saskatoon, to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health. Which is right where my old psych ward, Hantelman, was. I am going to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health on Wednesday during their open house to see the new facilities. When I was an inpatient back in 2007 I only saw blueprints for the new ward. I remember it was shaped kind of like a big gun. My main concern is that there be individual rooms, not the gawdawful double occupancy rooms of yesteryear, that keep you from being able to jack off. Yeah yeah there’s a curtain but I still make noises, and it is embarrassing when you are someone like me who takes an average of 20 minute to come!

And masturbation is important to people’s mental health. Everyone except for people trapped in sex rehab, where it is banned! Poor Tiger. I think masturbation is important for daily release of stress, I am appalled by all situations where people can’t masturbate because of their living quarters. It’s really sex negative.

Okay, back to the main topic, no more digressions on transgressions and their emissions!

Anyway, they say the new building is beautiful, and it also has a lovely view of the river. NONE OF WHICH LUKE WILL BE APPRECIATIVE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE!!! But hopefully they have some good activities he can engage in, I was told they had a hot tub but no one took me down there when I was an inpatient.

I remember the ward for really dangerous\super crazy people was downstairs, and when I went down there to get weighed this white girl hissed at me “You don’t know what traditional is!!!” Which I found kind of intimidating, for various reasons. Mostly that it’s a charge often leveled at indigenous people by other indigenous people who feel indigenousier than thou. Also that it was a white girl telling me this.

Later I met her on the grounds having a smoke, and she told me she got messages off of her vision box. I didn’t know if she meant television, but I didn’t want to inquire.

Ah, the messages, and herein lies the rub. Many messages get relayed to one during a period of “craziness,” and some, believe it or not, are actually very positive and irrevocably change humanity for the better. Other messages are not so good, case in point, poor Luke. I don’t think he even knows why he did it, and I sure as hell don’t know. I can surmise that it had something to do with what he was seeing and didn’t want to see. But I really don’t know. And we really don’t know how much of his vision he will get back.

He says today he was yelled at by some guy in the movie room for complaining that he couldn’t see what was going on. He told us when he gets his sight back he is going to find that guy and challenge him to a fight. Oh Luke.