The Kitten is Here and Xmas is OVAH!

I guess I should talk about the new kitty. She has been here for one week and two days. She is a tortoiseshell Manx kitten and about 6 or 7 months old. She’s extremely friendly and purring almost ALL the time! She’s super special, my friend Shavonne hooked me up with her, one of her friends was giving her up because of various reasons, and even Shavonne fell in love with her which is funny because she isn’t a pet person.

Poor kitty had to be alone all during Christmas and last night when I got back she was attached to me all night. She kept stealing my pillow and purring right near my face.

She was growly, hissy, and spitty to little Mister for the first week, but now she has gotten used to him and goes right up to him and sniffs him. She hasn’t figured out that he is a potential play partner yet. He’s great at playing with cats. I suspect they will figure that out soon.

She has a little stub of a tail and doesn’t know how to clean her bum properly yet.

Her name is Lynxa, and I am trying to figure out if I want to change it.
It’s time to go to bed and I’m not done writing! 🙁 I will try to write more tomorrow!

Creativity!!! Fun!

Tonight is party night. But my party companion passed out, and I am awake, as some partying can make one. So I have been editing for hours. And it’s been really great!!! I have a whole fresh perspective on my project and have finally begun to come to terms with the fact that it’s just a long video. 46 minutes without closing credits. I think it is interesting. At least to the family. I mean, I aspire for it to be interesting to everybody. It raises interesting questions about race and being mixed race either as a couple or a self.
And it makes me feel in awe of my ancestors. All the stories, and the journeys. And the love. And my Grandparents really are my model for a lifelong couple. It’s rare, it seems.
I love partying so hard I end up making art.
I am uploading a rough cut of a small part of my video onto my facebook account. I’m kind of curious what people will say. I’m feeling a lot better about my video anyway. For a while it seemed all unwieldy and I didn’t know what to do with it and felt lost in a maze of footage in a story with no clear directions. But now I am seeing some structure to it. The history is so interesting, especially when it is so personal. And I have the perfect ending, and the perfect beginning, and now I just need to put in some more of my beautiful footage and record some voice over and figure out how to make the effen titles import properly. Oh yeah, and build more of a soundscape. I wish I had better sound effects, somehow “Indian Attack” and “Indian War Whoops” don’t fit in with my general concept.
46 minutes. Something makes me wonder if I have the ovaries to make people pay attention for that long. But I want to do a 20 minute comedy after this, and get someone to produce my Bunnyhug feature which is currently 120 minutes long. I’m still going to make the odd 5 minute video though.
I wonder who’s going to show such a long video. It seems intense. I have no idea who my audience is. I’m going to try and raise some cash to rent a theatre for a screening of it. Just to show some Saskatoon folks, including my family. But it will also be going to my distributors. Where the hell they will send them off to, I have no idea.
I also have to choose and scan in some photos of me doing family things with my grandparents, because I was really close to them my whole life and that’s part of the video. I have some cute ones. There, I picked them, now I just have to scan them. Ugh, I don’t feel like doing THAT right now.
Well, that’s my story about my WILD party night! I need to have some more of these. Or just stay excited about my project. My point is that I finally see an end in sight of al of this editing. I know where my project is going!! I might have it done so I can get money in the fall!! And then tackle my next huge ambition, a dirt cheap science fiction film!

Juniper, a fuzzy glimmer in ma eye!

This blog won’t be all about Juniper, but since he will be the big new change in my life I should mention him, and he does deserve the title. I am having trouble getting to sleep, so here I am, wanting to blog because I read some good ones today.

Juniper is a dilute orange and white tabby kitten. No, not a MAN, I’m not moving a human male into my apartment. Just this sweet very cute kitten from the country, someone who’s been around a little dog and hopefully will fall in love with my little dog and I’m hoping will make me being gone less stressful for my pup. My pup has been barking while I’ve been gone, more than he used to when we had Schrodinger. Sooo, well we’ll just see what happens when he has a friend. Either way he used to get more exercise when he played with a cat all day, and I think he needs someone to play chase games with.

But also, I love cats. I’m not a cat person, more of a dog person, but I admire the different traits of a cat that you can’t get with dogs. Like head nuzzling and purring and the insistent meow of a cat when you’re not quick enough to sling out some grub. And they way they always look out the windows for hours, staring at the birdies and daydreaming of kitty carnage! Beneath the cute kitty fur beats the heart of a killer!

So I have to get ready for him to come home this weekend, if all goes as planned. Scrub out the litterbox so it doesn’t have Schrods smell on it, clean the bowls and clean the apartment. Get a couple brand new toys for him, something on a string. I still have catnip from Schrodinger, but kittens aren’t interested in catnip. Only grown up cats like catnip. At least, that has been my experience. I don’t know why that is.

I’m a little bit daunted by the idea of breaking in a brand new baby! Kittens are tremendously difficult characters. Schrodinger was always trying to kill me when he was small. Either way I am not going into this assuming he will be all sweetness and light. I know I’m going to end up with scabby arms, it’s just a given.

Anyway, that’s the poop on the new kitten!

In OTHER news, I saw this terrible news story today, with an accompanying video! Zikerria Bellamy, a 17 year old African American Transwoman, was applying at a McDonalds in Orlando Florida this summer to be a shift manager. The manager taking her application made her fill in the male/female gender box and got upset when she marked down “male.” This is the voicemail she got from one of the managers later, saying “We do not hire faggots.” Have a listen:

UGH! How am I going to indulge my sick cravings for fries and “100% beef” with this injustice tainting my already dodgy meal choice?

It really makes me think about how many times I have seen a visible trans person working in customer service. Once! My mom and I met a transman at a PetLand/Cetra/Smart/Idontrecall who was well into transition but still just those whisps of the past were in his voice. It’s similar to how rarely I see a butch dyke working in customer service. No, not quite, I must admit I have seen more than one butch dyke doing customer service work. But I do remember what it felt like to have someone be all up on my qualifications until they meet me and see the short short hair and the boy clothes. Butchphobia kinda straddles the line between transphobia and homophobia. On one hand, it is because you are obviously a lesbian, and on another, it’s because you don’t fit in with the gender binary.

Apparently Morgan Freeman was born to play Nelson Mandela. At least, that is what the television is telling me today. When you go crazy, as in a full blown psychosis of either the manic or depressed variety (I’ve never had depressive psychosis but it must suck!) the nurses always ask if you are getting messages off of the television. Yes. Yes I do, and have, and will. Right now it is telling me that hoarding can be solved by the aid of a clean up crew and 1 800 Got Junk.

Actually, my mother has been learning a whole arsenal of new lingo from A&E to apply to my life. Her favorite right now is Hoarders, as she believes I am one. I think I am messy, but not a hoarder. All the same she has started making jibes at me. A case in point: When helping tidy she asked me “Are you saving these menstrual pads or will you let me throw them away?” Before you get grossed out, they were not lovingly arranged on my bookcase, or even strewn across the floor, they were IN the garbage BY the toilet! They were clearly on their way out! And I’m not one of those artists that uses menstruation as part of their practice. My response was a plaintive “Muuum!”

HOWEVER, she does have a point. I know this has been an ongoing complaint in my blog, that I must clean, but I really do have to clean!! I let it build up until even the fire department takes issue. OKAY, not always, but in Vancouver the fire marshal came into my apartment while I was gone (the landlord gave us no warning) and said it was a hazard. And it was because it was two rooms and too much stuff. But it’s more reasonable now. No boxes everywhere. But there is paper around my hallway, and things to trip over in the night, and if there’s going to be a baby here something has to change!

I’m just hoping she doesn’t take her cues from Intervention. I really don’t want to be sent to Palm Springs to recover from marijuana use/abuse. Or DO I? Nah, I’m not fancy enough to get to Palm Springs, I’d be in Calder here in Saskatoon. I don’t wanna go to treatment! I just want to be a responsible party-er.

My psych nurse got the lady who runs dual diagnosis groups to call me, but they are all during work hours except for one I could go to on the 31st. But LADY! That is NeW YEaRS! I’m for sure not going to quit drinking/toking then!

Owieya!

I got my H1N1 shot today, it took me 23 minutes for the entire process, I went with my Grandparents and because I was with them I got to go into the old folks lane and get a needle in my arm within three minutes of walking in the door. Then we had to sit around and wait while watching this giant projection of a middle aged white lady telling us all about the immunization process. And some guy in a head set pacing back and forth in front of all the people waiting for fifteen minutes each. The woman explained that we were waiting because the really bad reactions seem to happen in the first fifteen minutes of getting the shot.

It was a teeny tiny but long needle, and the vaccine was kind of milky white fluid. Apparently it is made with egg whites. They recommend you move your arm around to prevent soreness, which I thought I did well enough but already it’s a killer if I raise my arm up. Owieya!

I hope it doesn’t hurt a lot more tomorrow because I have to do some more mail out stuff at work tomorrow. A cranky left arm wouldn’t be a great idea. Still, not getting the shot at all would really suck.

I have a sneaking suspicion I did have H1N1. I was really sick this summer. And it came back after being gone for a week. And it came back worse than before! I thought I was going to die, I kept coughing so hard I would pee, and I would just lay there coughing and peeing and feeling miserable. Is that H1N1? I don’t know. Whatever it was, there should be a vaccine against it!

My cousin said she couldn’t believe that I got the shot and that it was death! I was a little shocked.

I know there’s a lot of people saying they are not getting the shot. For all kinds of reasons. I know some people can’t for a few reasons, but some people seem to be buying into this anti-science propaganda about the vaccine being used as some form of population control. But if it was going to kill a bunch of people, wouldn’t all these other people who have already gotten it be dying off about now? I know two pregnant ladies who got theirs a long time ago and they’re still kicking around.

Oh well. So far the worst that has happened to me with this shot is this sore freakin’ arm! It feels like I’ve been punched! By a shetland pony! It’s SO out of proportion with the actual pain of the injection.

Still, at least she didn’t draw a bunny on my arm and say “And now we’re going to feed the bunny” and put the needle in it’s mouth. That would really piss me off. If that was the case I would tell everyone to stay away from the immunization clinics! Ha!

Now I just have to dodge the H1N1 bullet for the next two weeks and I will be A OK! No sickness for me!

Fruit Flies

An update on the Fruit Fly Crisis of Oh Nine.

Well, they are now located in two areas of the house, my kitchen, in particular the sink/garbage area, and the bathroom, specifically my wastebasket. I still haven’t made traps, because I’m a goon. I should make a teeny tiny snare line.

My grandpa once told me how he snared a little rabbit when he was in the seminary and got the cafeteria lady to cook it for him because he missed home. I always thought that was such a cute story.

There are hordes of fruit flies, and they don’t just stay in those two places, they go on expeditions to find new sources of food for their larvae. Ugh! Of course fruit fly larvae are so tiny. Still, gross.

Once my roommate Anne tried to make a fruit fly trap by leaving out a glass of rum, but our other roommate Christie noted that the fruit flies had turned it into their own counter top cabana. That was during the Vancouver garbage strike of 97, when EVERYWHERE was filled with fruit flies. I mean, one trap wasn’t going to do too much.

I’m sleepy. I’ve been working 10 – 5:30 except for wednesday. And I think my schedule will change a bit from week to week. It’s more hours than I was doing before, but I’m not doing too badly I don’t think.

Anyway, I will write more about how I am doing tomorrow or something, because there are other things going on in my life that deserve some writing about.

And I will get supplies for those traps tomorrow!

No Privacy since I was Twenty-One

It’s been ten years of blogging, secret blogs to start, then sometimes I let people I know read them. Then I started my first blog when I was nuts. BUT, I went back to blogging with my real name after that. The Vancouver Years, Part Two.
It was all an experiment. I don’t know if it actually gives me support, I am only sometimes actively involved in commenting and interacting with other blogs. It is a great way of feeling plugged into the disability community online. Which is a pretty wicked blogging community.
I guess I am thinking about privacy ever since I read about that woman who lost her disability insurance claim (for severe depression) just because she smiled and did some fun things in some photos on Facebook. But what the hell? Did they want her to be slashing herself on Facebook or something? How can you evaluate someone’s mental health based on some photos? Can my mom do that next time she gets worried about me, email the jpegs to my pdoc that prove commitment is the only solution? I mean honestly.
I do sometimes worry about the privacy I have given up by writing honestly about my life on here. Anyone could come along and judge me based on any number of things, my drug use, my bipolar disorder, hypergraphia, even just that I’m an unrepentant butch dyke. But fuck em. I do get a kick out of keeping a blog, even if I haven’t been the best writer these days. And in a lot of ways I do feel like these personal details are part of my politics. How can I talk about mad rights if I am too afraid to explore the vagaries of my grey matter?
So I have a new job, and I am pretty happy about this. I had my first day on Friday and I go back tomorrow! It’s 35 hours a week, which is perfect because 40 is too much for me for some reason. It’s an office type job in a Queer environment, so I really feel comfortable. I didn’t exactly feel comfy saying I was a dyke at my last job.
Which is a bad sign, I think.
I’m staying clean for the weekdays I think, or as clean as possible. I don’t have cash because I spent all of my last cheque already and I haven’t gotten paid from this job yet. And when I do get paid it won’t be very much because I won’t have worked a full two weeks. Money is a strange invention of human kind. Stupid little pieces of paper and coins pretending to represent gold. ANYWAY, I don’t have anything to spare on smokeable fun, so it looks like I’m going to be jonesing and feeling frustrated this week. Who knows though, maybe if I get through a few days of being sober, I will want to stay so for a while.
In fact I am thinking about being straight edge for a month, just to get everything bad out of my body and you know, kinda cleanse myself. See what it’s like to not do any drinking or drugs for a LONG period of time. And a Month is pretty long for me. It might inspire me to stay sober. Or to use far more sparingly than before.
It’s a thought.
In totally other news, me, my mum, our two dachshunds and mum’s golden retriever went out to the country for a walk. And Arthur disappeared. He had found a porcupine and was going after it repeatedly and barking and getting pissed because he was hurt and he wanted to hurt what was hurting him back. So anyway we drove back into town straight to the small animal clinic at the University. He had 300 to 400 quills in his mouth (lips and gums), face, chest, front legs and paws!! Poor Arthur.

It’s SATURDAY!

And I have no phone. But for now I still have internet. I am doing alright, I keep misplacing my meds though which means I miss doses because I either have to get out of the house fast or are crashing and not awake enough to go looking for them. Either way this must be remedied! Right now they are by the phone, which is a silly place for them because with no phone I never go over there.
Okay, NOW they are beside the computer.
I am going to get myself all prettied up soon and go on the prowl. Looking for some hottie to take home and do naughty things with. I haven’t done that in a while though, and my shyness prevents me from pouncing. I’ve missed all kinds of girl on girl opportunities through shyness. It’s a terrible thing to deprive the world of more lesbian sex just because you don’t know how to ask someone if you can kiss them.
The OTHER thing that gets in the way of my girl on girl action is I like super femmey girls, and it’s hard to ID them as queer sometimes, which puts them out to no end.
On a totally different note, Pumpy, my halloween pumpkin, was left to rot just a wee bit too long in my house and has now caused an infestation of fruit flies. They have yet to just die off, because their food source is gone, but they are just hanging around, trying to think of something else to eat. It’s a bit disturbing, I don’t trust them in the least and I think they have designs on my coca-cola. It’s my coke dammit!
I didn’t win the 50 Million Lotto Max draw, but someone in Manitoba did, which is almost like someone in Saskatchewan winning, which is almost like me winning. Ha ha!
It’s a beautiful day outside. I am waiting for my mother to get online and talk to me. I think we were going to move some stuff over to my house.

Love Spell is Finished!!! Now what? Where is she?

I finished burning my Love Spell candle. It has gotten to a point where I can no longer safely burn it. In fact, the last time I burned it I ended up catching a whole bunch of hot wax in my hands to keep it from hitting my clothes or the carpet.
This might seem like a bad omen, but hot wax is what turned me onto S/M in the first place.
It’s one of those spells to attract an as yet unknown mate. Not on anyone specific. Although I did intend to bring someone into my life with specific qualities.
But it was funny, when I was working on the qualities in a partner I wanted, I was thinking a lot about my bipolar disorder and what kind of person would be able to handle my illness.
It’s a depressing thought that my bipolar disorder impacts my relationships, but it does.
And the stigma keeps people away, even though the majority of the time I’m sane. Sane and sexy! LOL.
I hear some people like their partner’s hypomania because of all the wild sex.
It’s a perk I guess, but I don’t go into hypomanias very often.
Oh man, I just found out there is a guy in the neighborhood Schrody went missing who has been abducting cats and torturing and killing them. It’s really sickening, and the police know about him but aren’t doing anything. Saskatoon police are so worthless, when have they ever done anything for our community???? They piss me off. ANYWAY, I’m disturbed because I don’t want to have intrusive thoughts about my cat’s demise. I am pretty sad.
OH YES! AND I lost my job. That makes me depressed too, but I am applying for other jobs and with some luck I will be working at least over Christmas. All the jobs I’m applying for so far are temporary.
I am thinking about going back to school to become a paralegal. I still want to make art, but I need to make money too. I dunno, I have to get it together by January if I want to take the 10 month legal admin assistant course which is a prerequisite for the paralegal program, which is only six months! BUT I need a job that will be easy to get, as in there would be lots of opportunities out there when I have to come back to the workforce from a video project. SOOOOO, I kinda think I’m going to go for a nine month Admin Assistant diploma instead. We’ll see, either way I would need to secure funding from my band before I could proceed with getting educated in office shit. And the Saskatoon Health Region has a lot of jobs for people with that diploma.
Anyway, I may as well hit post before I bore you to tears with some other thing I’m thinking about!

I am the Narwal, Coo coo ka choo!

I have always wanted to go narwal watching, the unicorns of the sea. So cute! I am thinking of saving up money for a trip to go see them. I don’t know when, maybe 2010? I know 2012 my Dad and I want to go to the Mayan ruins and see what happens. I hope we still do that, I’ve never traveled with my father. I mean, we’ve both been in certain cities at the same time for art related reasons, but we’ve never taken a trip together. At least, not since I was very small.
And my memory isn’t so good from when I was that small.
But back to traveling. When my Mum and I were in Wick we saw some Puffins flying and making the cutest noises, and also standing on a rock. It was amazing, Puffins! They are also cute!
Whenever my family and I would go up north to the cabin my Grandma would get out her Field Guide to North American Birds and she and my Mom would identify which birds they saw and talk about them. They also do this with plants.
I do this with the paranormal. What type of hauntings, types of UFOs, wondering if Chupacabra is real and if so if it is an alien or some military experiment gone awry.
I also like to talk with people about various psychiatric medications, what they look like, what they do, what was your favorite and what really sucked.
Back to the Narwals. I remember once in Elementary school we got pieces of yarn and taped them to the wall to show how long types of whales were. I remember being suitably impressed by them all. And I always giggled at the Sperm Whale. The poor Sperm Whale.

My cousin Luke once wrote a paper for school whose first line was “The common vole is not a mouse it is a vole.”
Voles are pretty cute. I have a soft spot for rodents.
The cutest thing I have ever seen was when I was reunited with my lost hamster William. He was in my backpack when I was outside and when I got home he wasn’t there anymore. And I cried and made a poster the next morning to find my hamster when I found a sign that said “Found: 1 White Hampster.” I called the number and walked across the apartment complex where I found my sweet William with GINOURMOUS cheeks! He came home and spent the next half hour pulling bread crusts out of his cheeks. They can pack away a lot of shit man! That’s intense. I wish I could hide food in my cheeks, that’s a handy trick. I was in grade two, in case you were wondering why I made such a bad error in regards to thinking a hamster would stay in a backpack.
My interest in identifying wildlife reminds me to tell you about this book you should buy called Lesbian National Parks & Services: Field Guide to North America by Ranger Shawna Dempsey and Ranger Lorri Millan. I’m the lesbian bottom in the lower vertebrates section! It’s a pretty funny book and has practical lesbian information for life in the bush!

Morning Internetland

I was being interviewed by CBC (and I still don’t know if my story will get on the radio) but at one point the interviewer asked me what i thought my stories said about myself.
And I realized I write my blog mostly to talk to myself. I mean, I always wanted my blog to reach other people, but in the early days with no visitors I wrote mostly for myself. Just to see how I progressed in life I guess.
It’s been an intense five years with this blog. And I still mostly write for myself. I used to keep diaries all the time, since I was nine. And then ten years later I started a blog long gone on Open Diary. I was working on the concept of private thoughts going out into the ether. And I’ve continued it since.
I do keep some things private. Surprisingly. Not a lot, but some.
I am taking the day off today. I need a mental health day. Just one day this week I can be irresponsible. Be hungover from my journey to Specklebelly’s offsale. Want to hear something totally rude that happened to us? We got home and were drinking our beers and then my cuz found a beer that had a puncture in it and was half full. What the hell Specklebelly’s??? We was ripped off. She wanted to share it, but who knows what is in that beer? Even if it is just some saliva germs, that is still gross when it is not someone you know.
I want to make a paranormal investigation video. I need to find at least two more people who want to stake out Cranberry Flats on October 22, the third anniversary of when Laurel and I saw those ufos. I hope it can be done!