Well, I am back in Canada, so I will probably blog a lot more again. My flight back was good, the only scary part was the flight into Saskatoon when we hit mega turbulence. My screening in Hamburg went really well! People liked it. My time in Berlin was good too, I lost my iPhone though, which totally bummed me out! I lost it the Saturday before I left. I suspect on the UBahn.

I did see the friend I had wanted to confess my feelings too, but it all went to shit! 🙁 I was really awkward and told her I loved her, and then she said I love you too but she meant as a friend. And then I told her I wanted to kiss her still and she said we are just friends, sorry. And then I felt really awkward but I was letting it go. And then I thought it was okay, but when I got back home to Canada I got a message from her on facebook that she felt weird and that I was too much and she thought we should get some distance from each other and I felt really shitty for having feelings. And then she put me on her restricted list on facebook so I can’t see much of her profile anymore. I was trying to put her on restricted too, but I couldn’t figure it out and then I felt stupid and like, why would I do that anyway? So I am bummed out. And I do feel shitty for having feelings, which isn’t very nice. Oddly enough it is helping me get over her because I don’t want to love someone who makes me feel badly for having feelings. So I feel pretty crappy. I hadn’t wanted to fuck up our friendship and now I have and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t do anything about it because she wants us to not talk until she gets in touch with me at some point in the future. When she stops feeling weird.

So I feel like my feelings are icky. UGH! What a shitty feeling. I hope I never made my friends who were in unrequited love with me feel this badly about it. I’ve fallen in unrequited love before, so it’s not a new thing, but this messing up a friendship is totally new, I’ve never managed to do that before!

I AM glad though that I can move on now and find someone else. My cousin Deanna told me not to feel bad for being true to myself and that I don’t have to apologize for telling someone how I feel. She is wise that Deanna! Anyway, I wouldn’t ordinarily write about it on here, but I figure since I did write about WANTING to confess my feelings, I should let my readers know what happened in the end. So that’s what happened. True story!

I’ve been in a foul mood ever since. Not Kicking Puppies foul, but just being crabby and ornery. I’m trying not to take it out on the people around me. But I can’t help feeling gross, like I grossed her out! So that is sad. And she was a really good friend too. So it’s distressing.

My psychic says I am supposed to get into my next serious relationship in September or October. I am looking forward to that. I have no idea who it will be. My future date in Regina ended up dating a dude again, so that’s not gonna happen. Maybe I will meet someone entirely new. It’s coming up pretty quick. She says it should have already happened though. Who is it??? So curious! I hope they live in Saskatoon and aren’t prejudiced against intergenerational households!

And now for something boring: I went to the dentist today! I got my teeth cleaned and it HURT SO MUCH and she went under the gums to get out calculus or whatever the hell it is called. I don’t think it’s called calculus is it? That’s a type of arithmetic. And this thing she used gave off a high pitched squealing noise and freaked me out! It went right down my neck and made me squirm! So I have to go back on the 2nd for more cleaning, and a filling! Sigh!

I’ve been having the best sleeps since I got home, I fall asleep right away! Well, except for last night after I got the message from my friend and found out I was restricted. I kind of lay awake for a while fretting and feeling bad. But I saw tiny lights in the room sort of flying around. Spirits I guess. One was small and green, and swooped up from the pillow into the air. They seemed friendly. I hadn’t seen or heard any spirits in Germany, so I guess they like to hang around on Canadian soil. There are a lot of them here. I felt like they were checking in on me to make sure I was okay. Which was really nice. I do know a lot of dead people. Apparently they don’t like being called dead people though.

It’s cold out here. I am sitting in the sun porch. My hair is greezy! I should wash it. I have no clue what the future will bring anymore. Maybe I should listen to my psychic reading again. I hope my friend and I make up. I don’t know how long she’s going to avoid me. :/ I hope this doesn’t end up making me avoid telling people I love them when I do. It seems to be a harsh penalty to pay.

I have been having the craziest dreams. I’m not sure why. I think it might be because I have stopped using everything. Last night I dreamt my sister Sky and I were dressed like cakes with yellow icing because “Yellow is the colour of sisters!” The night before that I dreamt I was desperately searching amongst my friends for a girlfriend, and I couldn’t find anyone because they were all with other people, meanwhile I was in this lavish building during a party of some kind and I knew I was going to have a good life, and there was this magical lighthouse you could see through the window that was giant and spewed bursts of fire and black birds were flying out of the fire without being burned. And the night before that I dreamt I was going to Emily Carr again but to get there I had to climb a tall grassy cliff, and I managed to do it! Then I was driving my mom home and all these police and people in hazardous materials outfits were milling around our house and I asked mum what they were doing there and she said it was because someone asked her what she was living on and she said she was running a meth lab! And then the LAST part of that dream I was friends with Nicole Kidman and we kept acting out scenes with each other (no, not BDSM scenes, just film scenes) and then one day I got really mad at her for some reason and choked her and then she wouldn’t trust me ever again and THEN I gave her baby dog cookies and she got really pissed off.

I don’t know why I am having such intense dreams. I guess my subconscious is processing a lot of things. It’s a nice trade off, to quit mind altering substances and still have the chance to experience mind altering dreams! I really like the visuals I am getting too. Sometimes my dreams are a bit disturbing, but then I am just glad to wake up and say “Whew! It was only a dream!”

Sometimes dreams mean something, but I think sometimes it’s just weird shit! No meaning at all, just bizarre stories. The dreams that frustrate me the most are the ones for which there is no language to describe them, at least not in English. I’ll want to articulate them but I can’t, and because I can’t describe them, I forget them! Those ones always seem the most magical too, which is a shame that they are indescribable.

I think I can tell when a dream has meaning. Sometimes it takes me a while to find out the meaning. For a while I was having dreams about pulling broken glass out of my mouth, not eating glass, just suddenly FINDING it there! And it was a recurring dream so I knew it has something profound behind it. Then I found out my late Grandfather used to chew glass when he was in the military to seem really tough! It was just him saying hello to me. What was really remarkable about that was it was a piece of information I didn’t have before the dreams started.

That dream about the black horse seemed pretty profound too.

The meth lab one seems pretty silly though. Which is why I say some of my dreams are just weird shit!

Well I will be running out of money soon, so I have to start working quick when I get home. I am hoping to stretch out my dollarz until the end of my Berlin holiday, I guess we will see what happens! I am almost done my video! 😀 So awesome! I’m pretty pleased about that. Mum doesn’t have an income at the moment, which is worrying. So basically I am going to have to take over a lot of bills and stuff, if I can. I dunno! Yikes!

I’m feeling more capable in FCP X in terms of effects and making adjustments and so on, so that’s good.

I’m thinking a lot about someone. But I’m hesitant to talk about it! Anyway, there’s that. It could turn out really awesomely, or it could make me kind of sad, but I know I would get over it. It won’t kill me to at least SAY something that I truly feel. It would be good for me, even if nothing comes of it. And to be honest when I HAVE told friends I feel these things for them, it usually brings us closer together even when a romantic relationship doesn’t develop.

I’m going to be finding out about my BIG GRANT when I get home. I had a dream all these traditional aboriginal people didn’t like You Are A Lesbian Vampire and were writing nasty things about it. And I was like “That’s why I didn’t get my grant!!!” I’m really worried about homophobia impacting my arts funding. Anyway, I should find out in the middle of August, which is usually when I find out. This is my third year in a row applying for funding. I am hoping my script is written well enough that they will see it as I intend it. It’s ambitious but I am sure I can do it! And then: Fame and Fortune! 😀 Ha ha ha, it would be kind of amazing if a film about a mentally ill first nations lesbian became famous! Maybe it will find a niche market!

My cousin is moving back home today, he has been to treatment. FINALLY! So I am hoping he stays sober and doesn’t become an asshole again. It’s pretty exciting!

And less than two weeks until I come home. Monday the 23rd at 8 or something I arrive back in Saskatoon. And then I can get back to my life: going to the gym, working on people’s video projects, playing with the dogs, getting together books about lesbian spectatorship, writing an academic paper on lesbian spectatorship in pop culture, looking for people to write reference letters for me for grad school, going to the beach with Shavonne and Friends, drinking alcohol free Becks, picking up needles twice a week.

OMG! I keep having using dreams! I had this one dream I was totally smoking up at my six month anniversary! And then I told my mom, “Don’t worry, I’m only gonna get high for two days” but I knew it was really going to be for a long time! YIPES! My willpower is completely non-existent in my dreams. I even had a dream I choked my friend Nicole Kidman! :O

BUT WAIT! I think I did get my grant in my dream! Oooh la la!

Nicole Kidman is not my friend in Real Life. Real Life kinda sucks!

No it doesn’t! I am in Germany and having space to make a video! And starting Sunday I will have time off to be having my holiday in Berlin! 😀 Summer Holidays! 😀 Grooving out with friends! 😀 Fun fun fun!

I am still trying to find a place to stay in Berlin. It’s a little scary! If I can’t find a place, I do have a private room in a hostel booked (can’t do dorm rooms anymore!), but it will cost me nearly 400 dollars Canadian and I really can’t just spend that much money on housing. That’s practically my rent for a month! So I am checking with SO MANY people. Hoping someone can come up with housing for me. If I had another thousand dollars I wouldn’t care about having to shell out that much money, but my funds are limited. So, eeeeeeeeee! Cross fingers! 😮

My artist in residency is wrapping up. I am starting to be more happy with my video, but I still have some questions around it. I think the voice over is decent enough. Mom was trying to put doubts into my head about it today, which is jerky, but she does that a lot around my career.

I did a whole bunch of editing today, I am feeling really good about it! This iPhone blogger kinda sucks, so I’m going to unit now. I mean quit!

I started cutting together my video last week, but yesterday I finally recorded my monologue and so I have really begun in earnest to edit. I went through the monologue and chopped out all the papers rustling and bad takes and weird mouth noises. I have a nine minute fifteen second eighteen frame video now. And now the real fun begins because I can start marrying imagery to the voice over. And also cut back and forth between me reading and the images. I need more images though, I think. We’ll see. I feel like I don’t have enough! And I really need to reshoot some bits, the crotch shots would look better as close ups, for one thing, because the full body shots do not work with the HDV format. The size of the screen is kind of awkward, I am used to working with a more squareish sized screen.

I’ve been looking more at the footage I do have, and it looks like I have enough, although I still want to do the crotch shots. I just think they could be nice.

It’s been over two weeks that I have been in Hamburg. It’s been pretty relaxed, not hectic at all. I like having the space to do my art. I spent about a week and a half writing and shooting, and now I am shooting and editing. I’ve been going to Bildwechsel Hamburg to see videos, it’s been pretty good, I’ve watched some really old depictions of butches, which was nice to see. One of my friends was even in one of the videos, which was cool. I also watched this documentary from England about these older lesbians, like lesbians in their fifties to their eighties. That was pretty cool too.

I haven’t been drinking or smoking or smoking up or doing any drugs! I’ve been totally clean and sober! It’s been really good, I don’t really miss drinking. Although I admit it looks kind of cool when I see people sitting on patios having a brewski. But whatever, I can stay on the wagon.

I’ve missed out on all the NA meetings. I was going to go this Saturday, but I thought it started at 7 and it turns out it starts at 6. So early! I am gonna try next weekend, that will be my last chance to go to one in Hamburg because the next weekend is my video screening and then the day after that I go to Berlin! Tomorrow will be three weeks exactly until I go back to Canada! I’ll be happy to go home I think, I miss Canada. I don’t miss the government or evil Stephen Harper, but I miss my friends and family and the wide sunny skies of Saskatoon!

I am going to have to watch some Youtube tutorials of how to get neato effects in FCP X. I feel like some split screen stuff would be really nice. I wish I had photoshop, that was the best for making graphics for videos. Oh well. Maybe I can download something similar.

I went to Bremen on Friday. I didn’t stay very long. It is made to encourage bicycling, so the roadways are all convoluted and unhelpful. In a way it’s made to waste gas actually. Anyway, I have never been in a city that prioritizes bicycles, so it was kinda cool. I took the train back, it was pretty decent. I got back in an hour and a half. I was nervous because I didn’t get a seat number or car number, but it turned out those were irrelevant. It’s always a bit wild figuring out transport in different countries. Especially when most of the ticket is in another language.

My Mom and I have Skyped almost every day! She holds Little Mister up and I take screen shots of his fuzziness. Sometimes he looks at the screen and tilts his head all quizzically and it’s so adorable!

Well, that’s about all I can talk about today. This residency has been so nice and relaxed! I’ve been basically lounging about thinking and stuff. And now it’s getting really exciting because I am starting to see the fruits of my labor. So I am happy about that!

Well I am here in Hamburg, tomorrow will be one week that I have been here! It’s been very laid back. I went to Bildwechsel Hamburg yesterday and watched a bunch of old lesbian videos with butch representations in them. That was pretty awesome, I am going again next week (they are only open one day a week!). I wrote some of my monologue and thought of a few different shots I can shoot in my room. So I would say my video is going well. Today I am going to do some shooting! 😀

I missed the NA meeting, because it took me like, three days to recover from jetlag. I was so wiped out! I’m glad that’s over with. I want to go to the NA meeting this Saturday, but my friend Rae Spoon is playing a concert and I kinda want to go, and that starts at 8, which is right after the NA meeting. I might just find an online meeting that would fit my schedule better. I mostly just want to listen to others. So that might be what I do.

The house I am doing my residency in is awesome, I have a nice big room and good roommates and Karin, one of the women who lives here and is also involved in Bildwechsel, has been really friendly and nice. I have 24 days left before I head off to Berlin! This is going by really fast! Yikes! Probably a good thing though, because I am gonna start missing home really badly! I get all lonely for Canada when I’m about to go back.

When I get to Berlin I am meeting up with my old gym buddy Carrie, who will be finishing a two week tour of France, Poland, and Germany! She leaves the day after I get there, so I have to think of somewhere awesome to take her!

I don’t know what else to tell you? My mom said I should post some of my statuses on my blog, since I’ve been doing a lot of microblogging. Maybe. I will think about it. I should go make my coffee and get back to work on this video! Talk to yall laters!

I don’t know how I am going to sleep tonight! It’s already 12:37 and I am still up. I guess taking my meds would be a start! I’m all packed, I’m just charging my phone and my laptop and tomorrow morning I have to have a shower and brush my teeth, but then stuff goes in it’s respective places. I’m not sure where to put my camera when I am on the plane. My Mom said to put my carry on in the overhead bins, which makes sense, but it will have my laptop in it and I kinda want to have that. Maybe I should be content with a book! I guess I could always go in later and grab it! Sigh! So much to think about! I’m dubious that the carry on will really fit under the seat. I guess it doesn’t matter if I put it up. Hmm. I am using my camera bag as a purse, which I have done before and gotten away with. I still have room in my carry on though, I could probably fit it all in there and then have it under my seat. I’m being such a pain in the ass!

I’ve gotten a text from one of the people I am staying with in Hamburg, so that’s good. I will meet her Friday. I might be getting a ride from the airport if they have time, which would be cool. I hope so! That would be the best. But if not that’s ok too. I think it’s raining right now! It sounds so loud!

Last night a poltergeisty thing happened to me, which hasn’t happened in a long time. My suitcase started rustling as if a curious animal was bothering it, and then it fell over. I was all “Stop it!” thinking it was Beatrix Kitty, but then I realized Beatrix Kitty was on my bed, as was Little Mister, and Tiny Hermione was sleeping with Mum! Later on when the lights were out there was a little more rustling, this time from on top of my dresser, which kind of creeped me out and then I just went to sleep. Nothing poltergeisty has happened to me in a long time, so it was kind of surprising. I thought now that I wasn’t drinking or doing drugs it would be gone! But no! Mum said it was because I was so excited about going away. Maybe? It could be my own energy.

I never noticed poltergeist stuff until I lived with a roommate who had that kind of thing happen to her all the time. Since then off and on stuff has happened around me. But I thought it had to do with me being drunk or high. I guess not!

Well, suppose I should roll over and go to sleep! I am nervous! D: I hope everything goes well on this trip. I’m going to use my Saskatoon cell number while I am in transit and then get a micro sim card over there and have a Hamburg number for the rest of my trip! And then switch again when I am coming back. I figure I can’t rack up too too much terrible roaming charges in one day. Two days, if you count coming back. I have heard of people using their Canadian cells for a week in Germany and ending up with 1500 dollar bills on their return! Yikes! If I have to pay 300, that’s not so bad. But hopefully it won’t be that expensive! I guess I can’t use Netflix over there, which kinda sucks, but whatevs, Mom will use it here. I will be too busy to watch movies on le internet!

Excited about my project, I am going to work on it while I am in the air! Gonna write and read and imagine the possibilities!

UGH! I have this super immature aggressive dramatic cousin who embodies all the stereotypes people have about people with bipolar disorder and I had unfriended and blocked him on facebook once before, and then I thought I would give him another chance, but he’s got all the compassion of a rabid pitbull so I unfriended and blocked him yet again. Sigh! He’s such a pain in the ass. Anyway, he was sending me abusive inbox messages, so I was like Fuck That! Ugh! What the fuck is with some people? I am always surprised when people treat me like shit, because I used to have low self esteem until I did a lot of work on myself and now I have pretty high self esteem and don’t take shit from people. And so I am surprised that people think they can get away with it. He’s fucked in the head, just fucked! And he’s abusive to lots of people, including his boyfriend who he’s beat up in the past. He’s just a mean little motherfucker and I’m tired of being around that shit.

So I decide who is allowed around me. I don’t put up with crap. And it felt good being able to block him. Whew! That’s the only way he and I are in contact. He’s actually only my cousin by marriage, his auntie is also my auntie, who married my uncle who I am related to by blood. So I’m glad I’m not directly related to him.

Blah blah blah! Anyway, the whole interaction kind of spoiled my day. I was so crabby after.

In less than two days I leave! A day and 12 hours or so! So exciting! 😀 Yeeeeeeee! Get away from Canada and all it’s inherent problems for a few weeks. Make art and hang out with five roommates who are queer feminists in Hamburg! Show some work, visit some friends, have some fun! 😀 So stoked! I’m on track with all the things I have to do to get ready to leave! I filled out three different paperwork things. I am in the midst of doing all my laundry. I have been packing. I got my lavalier today, but the stupid thing is missing a tiny connector which changes the useless end into a mini plug which I can then plug into another connector which converts it to an XLR connector which is what my camera takes. So, what a drag! It’s not even like the connector was supposed to be in the package and wasn’t there, it’s more like the connector is just another thing you have to buy separately! Luckily they sell that brand in Hamburg at something like three different stores, so there is a good chance I can get it! I’m also going to see if the store I got it from today has it. They might? I dunno, but hopefully I get a sales person who knows what they are talking about, because the one I talked to today didn’t know what a lavalier was!

I’ve only got a little bit of time left with my pup! I am gonna miss him so much! Mom complains about him barking, but her dog Arthur is annoying in his own way, so I don’t think she can talk! Arthur eats everything that is within reach of him putting his feet on the counter. He ate my long john! He’s an asshole! :O

What else? Hmm. Tomorrow is going to be my super busy day. Then the next day is 21 hours of airports and planes. I have to take a Westjet flight to Calgary first, then a KLM flight to Amsterdam, then a KLM commuter flight to Hamburg. From there I haven’t decided if I am taking a taxi or the U and S Bahn’s into where I’m staying. I will probably take a cab, just because I have so much stuff. I always take a cab at first. I’m on a strict budget, I hope I can stick to it! Yiy! My lodging won’t be much and so I just have to get a data plan for my cell, a transit pass, and food, really. Should be awesome! OH and I have to pay for a bus ticket to Berlin. But that’s all. Pretty decent.

Tomorrow I have to:
-Charge all my batteries for my camera
-Finish all my laundry
-Clean my room
-Buy a MiCon-2 for my Lav.
-Finish Packing, including finding the USB adapter.
-Print out where I am staying
-Pick up my Medications
-Pick up my Cheque
-Go to the Bank to deposit it
-Get some money to exchange over there
-Put Laptop in easily accessible area in my carry on so that I don’t have a hard time pulling it out and turning it on at security!

I have to charge up everything before I go, I wonder how much my roaming fees are going to be for data before I get a German micro sim card. Hmm. I hope it’s not that much money.

Ha ha, I totally kissed my dog and he made a groany noise, like he was saying “Let me sleep Mummy!” Poor little sod! He’s gonna miss me, but he has Hermione and Arthur and Mum and Beatrix Kitty to keep him company. I’ve never been gone this long from him! I did do a six week residency once in Winnipeg, it was awesome, I made a good video, felt like I lived there, made some good friends. I hope something similar happens this time. The good thing is all the costs of making my video have pretty much been taken care of with my grant, so now I just need to live for a while.

I should go to bed. I need to sleep! So much is happening tomorrow and I have to get up early for it! I promised myself I wouldn’t sleep in the day before I left, because I have to be at the airport at 9am on Thursday so it’s just a good idea to get on schedule. I totally thought I was flying through Toronto. It’s hilarious that I’m going to friggen Calgary! Oh well. I have three hours there and then two hours in Amsterdam. I hope I can sleep on the plane, often I have a hard time with that!

I have three dates with three different women lined up for when I get back to town. One is that date I have been meaning to go on for ages but she lives three and a half hours away. When I make some money again I am going to go down there and hang out with her! Yay! Another one is someone I met from OK Cupid. I don’t know if that’s going to go anywhere, but I figure I should keep an open mind, and she is cute. And another is a date with someone I had a date with a while ago.

I am also going to keep my heart open for Germany, in case I meet someone there. I am willing to fall in love these days.

I did some pre-packing for my trip, and laundry, and some paperwork that I needed to do. I was going to shoot some more stuff, but as it turns out I can’t use the horse because it is currently lame, so that’s that. Maybe someone in Germany will have a motorcycle I can sit on and look all butch. Or maybe I will get very creative with my packer, y fronts, and fake mustaches! Maybe I can walk around with a giant bratwurst in a suggestive way. Who knows!? I am open to my project evolving while I am there. I wish I had enough money to throw around to buy a lavalier, there’s a really good one at Don’s Photo that I was looking at. Hmm. Maybe I should buy it anyway. It would be good to have, and I will always have it. I’ve decided after all that fussing to take my tripod. I found the foot for it, so that’s good. Oh, sorry, the Camera Quick Release Plate. That’s a very long name for such a small (yet crucial) piece of the tripod! I am also bringing my hand held mic, it is really good quality but made for vocalists and not really used in videotaping, unless you want to look awesome while you rap! Anyway, I usually use it for voice overs because like I said the sound is awesome. Who knows, maybe I will sell it when I get my lav. When I get money to make my feature film I am going to shell out for a boom mic. A nice Sennheiser. With a puppy and everything! (For those of you who don’t make film or video, a puppy is the fuzzy thing they put on mics to cut down the wind noise!)

Dreams! 😀

I’m so excited about going to Germany that I have hardly thought about my butch project. Whenever I try to articulate what being butch means to me, I have a really hard time with it. So it will be interesting to make this video. I will have to explain exactly where I am coming from as a Butch woman and also explain how I don’t fit the stereotype and yet SOMEHOW there is still some essence of me that reads as Butch. I’m a fairly faggy butch. I suppose I should wear my fedora over there. It would make a good prop. It would also be a bitch to wear on the plane, I don’t know where I will put it. Maybe I can stick it over my face like all those debonair sleepy detectives. I’m taking two of my other nice hats too, and a couple ties. I don’t know how to tie a tie. I am gonna have to learn. Thank Sappho for Youtube Tutorials. Maybe when I am done I will give one to my cousin to tie her dreads with. Dreads tied back with a tie look awesome!

Or maybe I will become A Butch Who Wears Ties. One never really knows what the future will bring. Which reminds me, I have to take a dressy shirt with a collar if I am gonna wear a tie.

I’ve pared my sex toys that I am bringing down to a glass dildo, a vibrator, and possibly a strap on. And then the necessary accessories like condoms, lube, and dental dams. To be honest, I never use dental dams. They are a good idea, but until they make a dental dam that tastes like cunt, I am not into it! I don’t want to go down on someone and get a mouthful of rubbery mint or grape or even banana! Good thing oral sex is so low risk.

That being said, I really don’t know if I will get lucky this time around. I might not. But I must be prepared!

I was at the doctors a while ago and she was reading my file and I looked at some notes that Dr. Saffy had taken during my last physical and I noticed a diagram of my breasts, with the notation “bilaterally retracted nipples.” WTF? I looked it up and it turns out I have inverted nipples! I was unaware of this. Oddly enough though, I remember being upset when I was twelve because my nipples were inverted, but my mom told me that I was normal. SHE WAS WRONG! I was never bothered by my nipples before, but the last time I played with them they totally disappeared into my breast and I spent five minutes trying to coax my left nipple back out and it was just so damned impossible! It was like playing with one of those plastic tubes filled with fluid that collapse in on themselves so they slip out of your hands. Apparently I could fix this with either a four thousand dollar cosmetic surgery (which ironically is the same cost as getting my tits cut off) or by getting my nipples pierced. I say no! No no no! I will have to learn to deal with the Magic Disappearing Nipple. Which really, when I think about it, hasn’t bothered me much in my past sexual dalliances. And none of my lovers have ever said “Hey, you have weird nipples!” BUT I remember their nipples always seemed much more jaunty and erect than mine. They were perfectly roundy at the tips, while mine have little slits in the ends. This is all probably TMI, but it’s my blog so nyah nyah nyah. Besides, maybe I can reduce the stigma of the rest of the 20% of women who have inverted nipples and feel nipple shame. Do not be ashamed my sisters!

I spent three hours tonight making a playlist of 381 songs for my travels. If I listened to all of them it would take me 24 hours! Which is good, because my plane flight is going to take 21 hours in total including all the stop overs in Toronto and Amsterdam. So I won’t have to listen to a repeated song. I’m listening to my playlist right now, so far I haven’t wanted to skip a song! That’s always a good sign.

I have two power adapters now, and a USB power adapter. I need to find that! It’s somewhere around. It’s the only one I know for sure works because I have taken it there before. I got two different power adapters for plug ins because the first one I got said it wouldn’t work with computers, and the other one says nothing about not working with computers. Once I got an adapter and took it to Paris, and when I plugged it in it started smoking. I guess I hadn’t got one with a voltage converter. So I couldn’t recharge my hi-8 camera. Sad! No more videoing for me!

I’ve got about four hours worth of batteries for my camera, so I am going to charge them all up for when I am there. Just in case! I’m really worried about my computer though, because I don’t want to fry it. I went to Neural Net, which is our Mac store, but they couldn’t sell me a travel adapter because they were sold out, and by the time I went down there it was too late for them to order me one. BUT there is a real Apple Store in Hamburg, so I might go there if my adapters don’t work.

What else? I’m going to do some writing on the plane, write out some of my monologue. I am also taking Butch Is A Noun by S. Bear Bergman and Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. And a Gail Vaz Oxlade book called It’s Your Money. But I am hoping by reading the first two books, it will spark off conversations I want to start with my video about being Butch. I’m starting to really bite into my topic, which is always a nice feeling. Until really recently it was pretty much like “What do you want to talk about?” “I dunno, what do you want to talk about?” “I don’t know, what do you want to talk about?” ad nauseam. With MYSELF! IN MY HEAD! Ugh. But after shooting a little bit and pondering more, it’s starting to become a little more clear.

I know one thing I want to talk about is the discrimination faced by Butch women, particularly in the area of employment. So many times I went to interviews and as soon as I walked in they would thank me for coming and shoo me away by saying they would call me and I could just tell my resume went into recycling. Or the garbage. Either one. It made for a lot of poverty. That has always really bothered me. Maybe I could do a scene where I get ready for a job interview and do a monologue about how I never get hired or properly interviewed even. Hmmm, must think more on this.

I guess I should go to bed. I am just having fun writing to you. Which is a really good sign because it means I am getting creative. Some of my best ideas get formed through my blog.

I’m trying not to write as much about sobriety because it gets boring, being fixated on what one does not do anymore. But it’s still true, I am still not drinking, or smoking cigarettes, or smoking pot. Or doing chemicals that aren’t approved by my doctors. I’m a goody goody girl. It’s awesome. But what’s even more awesome is that I am excited about so many other things and have talked about them in this post. I think this is the first project I will have made as a straight edge girl, well, since I was a baby dyke making baby dyke videos. I think my first three videos I made I was straight edge. So maybe I will inject some of that enthusiasm into this one.

I’m also excited because I am going there to work on a project totally self sufficiently in terms of equipment. I have an editing suite on my laptop, a camera, mics, cables, it’s awesome! So I can totally immerse myself in making this video while living with these queer feminists and I won’t have to rent or borrow equipment. HOWEVER I may need to borrow a cameraperson for a few shots. Hopefully that won’t be too hard! Hopefully gracious Germans will come to my aid! 😀

I’m going to get mum a metal detector when she is old, so when she asks me for money for the VLT’s I can tell her “Go get your metal detector and go to the park Mum!” I just told her that and she said she would call me a bitch! :O

Today was rainy and yucky. We drove to two different Walmarts looking for 4 packs of 4mg nicotine lozenges and didn’t find any! Finally we gave up and went to a Shoppers Drug Mart where I picked up two 4 packs for Germany. Hopefully I have enough for a long slow taper off from my NRT. I didn’t put on my patch this last week by accident, and then when I finally remembered it was late in the day, like supper time, and so I decided lozenges alone were good enough. Yay for getting off the patch! 😀 I sometimes get whiffs of cravings, but then I take a lozenge and it goes away. I’m still doing good not smoking weed. And I am still not drinking.

I had my first driving dream finally. BUT it was a terrible dream! I dreamt all this snow got on the speedometer so I wiped it off, but it took the indicator bar with it so I had no idea what speed I was going! I was going too fast and took a wrong turn and ended up on Victoria Bridge (which in real life is condemned and thus closed to traffic) and it is a really skinny bridge because it was made for horse and cart traffic, and so I ended up in the wrong lane and hit someone head on! I felt really bad because it was my second accident and I was sure I was going to lose my license! I woke up and was so relieved it was all just a bad dream. But jeez, I had been looking forward to my first driving dream, I had imagined it would be about freedom and involve a lovely Sunday drive in a red convertible with a cute girl sitting next to me in a headscarf and sunglasses blowing kisses at me and giggling and feeling up my thigh! Now THAT would have been an awesome driving dream! But no, I get the anxiety dream. Sigh!

It’s my second night in this weekend. Last weekend I stayed in too. I’m hardly hanging out with anyone anymore. It kinda sucks. I’m looking forward to when one of my friends comes back to town, but we partied pretty hard, and now we won’t. Hmm. The good thing is instead I am spending a lot of time with my Mom and Grandma. And Grandpa, who’s in the hospital right now healing from surgery for cancer. It’s nice hanging around with my Grandparents because I have a strong feeling they don’t have much longer left. They are 91 and 93. That’s old for a human! Grandma is ready to die. I know she is. She’s getting tired of living because she has all kinds of memory problems and osteoarthritis and a broken rib and disintegrated discs in her back. She has the early stages of dementia, and it’s getting worse and worse really fast actually. She keeps forgetting where I am going and all kinds of things. I feel for her. Mum told me she wants me to push her over a cliff when she reaches 88. She doesn’t want to go downhill like her Mum.

And yet I still want to go to Toronto next year.

I’m glad I came home in 2006 though, just to spend time with my family again. It’s been nice seeing my sister a whole lot, and taking care of my Grandparents and being with Mum. It’s been especially good with my Mum since we worked through our issues. We get along a lot better.

And I got Little Mister when I moved back! My sweet little baby! Aw I love him, I hope he and I find a good home in Toronto. I am gonna miss him while I am in Germany. He makes me feel so happy! I wish I could get traditional Cree women’s tattoos, but they are facial tattoos and people are so judgey about that. That’s an aside!

It’s Pride week in Saskatoon, but I am gonna miss the Parade! Oh well. I am thinking of going down to Berlin for Christopher Street Day June 23rd. I’ve been having a hard time finding a bus ticket down there though, it seems to be all sold out. I shall keep investigating! 🙂 I’m so excited about my trip! 😀 My first sober trip! And a residency, it’s gonna be awesome! I’m gonna work so hard at making a good video AND seeing the city and meeting the people! I hope my money lasts! I am going to be very frugal and cook as much as possible!