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.

If I could do any job I would want to go colonize Mars, really, be stuck in a tin can for 6 months and then shiver in the freezing cold of a 0 degree Centigrade summer. Then get stuck in the tin can again and come home.

However so far that job only exists in my script. So I have to find something else.

Five years of film school has made me suitable for what exactly? I can’t work on set because the 15 hour days and super extremes of doing that kind of work would make me literally insane, and nobody likes an insane Thirza. Oh sure, it SOUNDS kind of cute, but only in hindsight. I can be really annoying when I am crazy. My ex-girlfriend can attest to that. I’ve tried to get editing jobs, but I never get called back or anything. I did some freelance editing for my friend Ariel once, but it was out of the goodness of my withered heart and I don’t think I got paid, although a lovely video was born.

I’ve considered getting a small business grant that would pay for capital costs so I could start a Final Cut Pro editing business. But I need to work on my reel more before the money will come in.

I am also accepted into an administrative assistant diploma program, but I’ve been having trouble getting the cash to actually go to it.

I have also been toying with the idea of writing copy. Actually I have already applied for a position as a copywriter. It would be fun and creative and I would write all the time. But I would also have to be selling at the same time. As an anarchist punk that is a bit of a strange concept for me to grok. I’m sure as I develop marketing skills I could apply it to my filmy-video career and get better at selling my own creative ideas so I can get money and make art! But I know all my friends would say I sold my soul to advertising. Still, the idea of doing that kind of work intrigues me. I once had this great ad slogan for KOA Campgrounds when I was in grade two and we stayed at one. KOA is A-OK. I still think it’s a great slogan!

Nevermind all that, the real reason I am looking about for a career that pays more than what I am doing now is because of my furry family. Getting evicted was the best thing that ever happened to Mister. Now we’re living in a house with a backyard. It’s temporary though, I don’t plan on living with mom forever.

Little Mister LOVES the backyard!!! He always wants to go out there and sniff about and pee and poo and he is always a straggler when it comes to going back inside. He has made it VERY clear that even though I got a small dog so I could live in apartments, he wants a house with a backyard!!! I can’t afford a backyard on my own.

This means I have to get a roommate, for the first time in YEARS! I’m a little hesitant. For one thing, I have had good and bad roommate experiences. Some have felt like strangers even a year later. And some I still talk to and am friends with, but living together was just not working. For another thing, well, I would like to be the one in charge of the house. You know, the first one there, the one who gets to say “You have to move out” if it isn’t working, not the one who has to move. It’s just a matter of personal security, to know that I will have a solid living situation I can maintain until I buy my own house.

Oh man, GROWN UP TALK! Careers and houses! Next I’ll be talking about getting a wife.
Oh hell, why not? I want a wife still. I don’t know who. I used to think I knew who, but we haven’t talked in a couple years at least and I’m pretty sure after our break up that she doesn’t intend to ever be my wife. I haven’t planned anything about the wedding except that our singer will be my ex-girlfriend Velveeta performing as Velvis, a femme Elvis impersonator. I don’t imagine it will be a huge costly wedding. I’m going to wear a tux, but my Mom explicitly says I cannot wear the one I have and I will have to buy a brand new one. The rings will not be super expensive, I’d rather make a nice video than have a 10,000 dollar ring. The diamonds will be Canadian, with those teeny polar bears etched into them microscopically to prove it.

I have wanted a wife since I was like, 17, but 32 seems to be a nice age to get one. Better than 17 that’s for sure. When I was 17 I mostly wanted a girlfriend to prove I was lovable, not necessarily because I was in love (although I was). My last visit with a psychic she said I would have one more break up and then end up with the woman I would be with for the rest of my life. Forever seems like a nice amount of time to be with someone. Most of my relationships I have felt like I just got to know my girlfriend and suddenly we were broken up. None of them have lasted very long. My longest relationship to date was a year and a month.

And I am HORRIBLY SHY when it comes to ladies. Which is my major stumbling block. I feel all flustered and get really DUMB because I am thinking naughty things and how cute they are and forget to be a good conversationalist. And then even after doing intimate things with women, I don’t know how to take it to the next level very well. I could be totally HOT for someone but end up playing all cool because I don’t want to seem like a nerd who really REALLY likes someone. Although I do and am probably telling everyone else how great this person is and how I want to marry them maybe.

The other thing is most of the partners I have had have been VERY into polyamory, and wifey talk turns them off. AT THE TIME. I have totally seen them get married later, to OTHER people. I just attract the polypeople. I don’t know why. I don’t mind it, I’ve done it, I don’t get jealous easily (we all get jealous sometimes). I don’t even envision my marriage being monogamous, although I could be monogamous pretty easy too. But getting married turns off a lot of my current and past lover type people. They say it’s about ownership. I’m a bottom, I kinda get turned on by the idea of ownership. I have kinky thoughts about marriage.

BUT what is the point of getting married if I don’t have a paying career or a house, even a rental property? No one’s going to marry me and move into my Mom’s basement with me. I am aiming to move out for January or Febuary, and I am aiming to date someone for two years before getting married. So I’m not SO CRAZY yet that I am plotting to be an instant grown up next year. But at 32 going on 33 in April I would like to be MOSTLY grown up. I have a degree! It gets me a bit more respect in the art world, but not that much more money. I have a career! But it doesn’t pay more than 4000 a year on a good year. Maybe 20 000 when I have a grant, but that’s still just eeking out a living now.

Maybe when I become a decently paid copywriter I will know how to sell myself through words to potential wives and be able to buy a house to put them in. THEM. Ha ha, I’m not a mormon, I would have one wife. And maybe or maybe not we could have other girlfriends or lovers, but I’m not picky either way.

My EI is due to run out in October sometime and I have been getting frustrated with my job search. I’ve been trying to find work that is: Within a 30-40 minute commute on transit, has regular shifts in the day time so I don’t fuck with my circadian rhythm, is full time or 35 hrs per week, and HOPEFULLY is in an office. Oh yeah, and pays at least twelve bucks an hour. But hopefully more. Although I have also applied for two jobs at the Casino, both cashier jobs. Cage cashier would be amazing just because I’d get to meet all the winners. Of course then I would only ever be able to gamble at Casino Regina or Moose Jaw. But I’m not a casino goer really.

Beatrix kitty got spayed and has been having a rough time. She cries whenever I pick her up. Right now she is cuddled up in my lap, with her purple cone on. It was Hermione’s cone when she got spayed. We have many different sizes of cones in our house for animals. Once my rat had surgery and came home with a teeny cone on. Poor Nikolas.

I was told about this one job, being a Special Constable, where you answer calls for the police department. But then I did this investigating into the hiring process and application and it was like 25 freakin’ pages long, all about EVERY possible crime you could ever be involved in. Like giving away drugs, or using illegal software, or smoking pot or doing drugs or being in possession of stolen property or being part of protest action groups! Some of it I had done and most of it I hadn’t, but to be sure, later on in the recruitment process they do a polygraph test! And they enter it all in your record that future employers could access, and could prosecute you!

So yeah, I don’t want to go through that for a job!!!!!

I’m actually wishing I could just make art. And in fact I should get my act together and write 20 more pages of script for my Mars video and grant, which is due at Canada Council by the 1st of October!!!! And I have to write a very detailed budget for it because I am applying in Production this time. And it would be good if I also made a new short to submit as supporting material. It’s just something I keep forgetting about working on in addition to my job hunting. Usually I work on my creative stuff late at night, when people are asleep. But instead I scour all the good places for want ads these days.

BORING! Looking for work is so boring. And reading the application for Special Constable was depressing. And I just want to be a famous artist and make a living off my work. No more eeking out a living in call centres. Just be a big shot and travel and be brilliant all the time and get away with outrageous behaviour because I’m an artist after all. I suppose freelancing as a jack of all media trades wouldn’t be bad either. A melange of creative/technical work. It would make me happy.

I SHOULD be earning more than I do, I feel, anyway, having gotten a bachelor’s degree. But it seems like bachelor’s degrees are the new high school and master’s degrees are the new standard. And BFA still means bachelor of fuck all. Sure I went to Emily Carr, but do people outside of the art world have any concept of what that means???

Still, career planning and plotting and doing is kind of sexy to me. I may not have always had a girlfriend, in fact mostly not, but I have had a career for half my life. Too bad being a marginalized filmmaker/video artist doesn’t pay well. I think I should save up for an appointment with my favorite psychic again and get some direction.

I don’t know, maybe I will inspire someone else to make a video from conception to completion between now and Monday night, the end of the long weekend. I was with an old friend from film school today and we were in a camera store and I picked up a MiniDV tape and decided to make my first High Definition Video. I’m soon going to be in possession of one of the newer FCP’s that can handle the HDV format. I suspect my mom’s computer can burn Blu-Ray discs. Either way, I need to try That format out because it’s going to be the usual thing. Even though I personally have neither a High Def TV or a Blu-Ray player. Grandma says everyone speaks a different language now. She can’t keep track of all the technology terms and doesn’t really care to either. I kind of admire that, that willingness to totally not even have an email account!
So HDV eh?

Well first of all, I have NO IDEA what to make it about. I know I would like to get some footage of the clouds and the grass and the river. I think I would like to wear some kind of outfit. A good hat at the very least. I’m not sure what the content could be though, like what issue or theme or conflict is going on. Recently I have been thinking about butch identity as a subject, but then I’m really conflicted on what to say about it. I find it more interesting to just insert butch characters without having to explain. I know some people have been slamming Saskatoon to me without ever having been here, so I want it to be kinda about why I like Saskatoon, but not in a Move to Saskatchewan promotional video thing. That would just be weird, I would want major money to do something like that.

I think I want it to be very Lesbian, with a Native nuance and some sprinklings of genderfuck and maybe sex somewhere in there. I suppose this means I should do some writing. I am envisioning a monologue, although a voice over dialogue would be a different twist on the whole thing. I kind of like giving myself all these parametres on a project and then creating something specifically to work within that. It makes me problem solve things and consider things more creatively than if I could do it all perfectly with millions of dollars.

The reason I am using voice over is because the best mic I have is a hand held mic and after a new computer, my next purchase will be a boom shotgun mic with a puppy and everything!
I am constrained by what I have, and the fact that beyond borrowing, I can get no more! I have no lights, ONE good mic, a few friends who can move around and say mouth words, the Fireworks festival is on this weekend, I have a fedora and a sailor hat and some suitjackets and a tux. I have three dogs and one cat. It’s been sunny and mostly green so far, I have a friend with land outside of Saskatoon that has natural prairie on it, all hilly and everything. I have a scanner and Photoshop and can import stills into FCP. I have access to creative commons sound effects.

I’ve been interested in telling native ghost stories and the paranormal and also some creepy slasher story has been going through my head for the past couple years. But I don’t have enough fake blood or the time to make a fake head.

So that’s where I am at with my project. As part of my project I will try to check in once a day and report on how I am doing making my first High Def short! Labour Day Weekend Video Challenge!!!!

So join me, it doesn’t even have to be a video, make a piece of art. We’ll all upload it onto the internet on Monday night, or more likely Tuesday night, and then go oooh at each other’s work.

By the way, yes I see the irony of doing work on a holiday. But I like making art, seems a good way to spend some time.

I am eating jellybellies and trying to think of something intelligent to say. I’m REALLY working hard on getting to be a better blogger. I am going to try and write one thing a day. Even if it is really really short. Just to get back into my writing habits. It seems I do facebooking all the time now, instead of casting these rants off into internet land where just ANYONE can come across them.
Although facebook keeps changing it’s privacy settings and then there’s your junk waving in the wind for all to see. So who knows.

I’m setting into my basement house. I’ve been trying really hard not to set the dogs off in the middle of the night. But I’ve done it a few times, and I even set some popcorn on fire at 11 one night and the smoke alarm went off. I felt pretty silly, banging on the alarm with the end of a broom while holding a pot of melting butter.

Anyway, I’m back from Vancouver, and that was great, I got to see so many old friends! It made me remember what I liked about it. But I still missed Saskatoon and was happy to come home and see everyone I know.

I need to get back into writing dialogue again. That’s so much fun. It’s like just being able to talk to myself and not be crazy! No no, I pooh pooh on your treatment, can’t you see I am busy creating!

Actually that’s an interesting discussion, if medication restricts creativity. Some people say it does and some people say it doesn’t. Then again some people can get shakes and tremors from certain meds that other people do just fine on. I think the worst medication for my creativity was Zyprexa, crap that sucked! Risperdal and I are on okay terms though.

It’s hard to really figure out though, because if you’ve been through a hypomanic episode then you know the ultimate in creative highs, and everything kind of pales in comparison after that.

Mum got an iPad. It’s really nice, but you can’t do facebook chat on it, doesn’t seem like you can anyway.
Oh I should go to bed. Well there, I wrote SOMETHING today. Now I’m going to go away and try to plot further content. I could write a story or essay with some specific elements. Leave a comment about what I should write about!