A screw fell out of my humbucker today while practicing and I realized putting it back in required more skills than I have right now. So I took it to Long & McQuade and I hadn’t gotten a set up yet and it’s been less than a year since I bought it, so it qualified for a free set up. So hopefully the screw is easy to put back in. I have a feeling it is but I’m not ready to take it apart to fix it. I was having a lot of fun with it too. I’m finally able to do some of the power chords better in Call Me by Blondie, and was just starting to learn I Love Rock & Roll by Joan Jett when the screw came out. My screw!!! It’s also got some other things wrong with it. It’s funny because compared to my Martin dreadnought it’s been so finicky having a telecaster. So many things that go wrong! But the only issue I’ve ever had with my Martin was the action being high and someone showed me how to fix it. A little trooper ha ha. So I guess it’s back to the Martin until my Fender is back from the shop.

I had an alright weekend. I got the music back from the composer for my film, so I have been trying it in different spots. I’m close but not quite there yet, I am assuming on Thursday I can finalize it. Friday I am going out of town to do colour correction with my friend and then the last thing to do is send files to the sound designer to put more in and also mix it. So it’s getting there! I’m pretty happy with it even though it’s a sad film. It’s still really real about poverty. Like not a dirty face begging on the street level of poverty, but a kind of poverty people can find themselves in when they are stuck getting on welfare. Which I have done in the past.

Anyway blah! I also am working on this sort of secret project that I am envisioning as a novel. Or novella. But it’s been told to me as a book but a spirit told me the story to begin with and I am wondering if they only knew books as storytelling mediums. And now we have tv and limited series and movies and video games and blah blah blah. So many options to tell a story and I have used a lot of them. But there’s still something about this story that makes me want to write it as a book. I like writing and I’ve done a lot of blogging and essays and screenwriting. And not a lot of prose, so this would be fun for me I think. I’ve never studied creative writing, I mean I have done it a lot but I never went into a program specifically for writers who write books. No BFA or MFA in Creative Writing.

I’m starting to let go of needing to get a degree in something to be allowed to do it though. Like I didn’t do any classes formally in video game development, but I did a workshop and since then I have done it a few times. I am taking guitar and singing classes, but I’ve never gone to a music undergrad, so I don’t have a paper for that either. Anyway I guess I just like doing multiple things and I should accept that and not feel guilty for not having the time or money or funding to take multiple undergraduate degrees.

It was shot day and I didn’t remember until 9pm when I saw some video about chasers asking trans men not to take T and I was like fuck I gotta take my T. I used to do it Mondays, and I used to see my therapist on Mondays too, so it was my favourite day of the week. But then I started teaching so I had to shift everything around and now my shot is on Sundays.

There are only three weeks left of one class and four weeks left of the other class. So it’s coming down to the end!

OH right, but the story I am telling in this book I am trying to write was blocking me because it’s kind of an epic story and needs a long timeline with multiple events in it. So I spent a few hours on Friday writing down key events into this long chronological list. I think it needs more events though, so I’m going to work on it a bit more before I commit to writing down the actual outline. Because I did write 27 pages of the story but it moved way too fast, and I think it needs a slower pace so you can really think about what is unfolding. I think it was a tiktok version of a novel ha ha only written down not a video. But too short and snappy. Still it was working for me overall, the idea is really solid. I think as soon as I get the main points down I will write it really quickly. Or rather, write a first draft quickly. I tend to write a lot anyway every day. I’m also rewriting a script right now so that is taking priority. It is changing, I am finishing it. I’m hoping to be done it next weekend (the script).

I’m coming up to the time where I need to worry about money again. I am okay right now, but money goes fast. And I did have to get some stuff done like the dogs had their annual shots and check up and that was a bunch of money. And groceries are crazy expensive in Canada because we have a billionaire robbing us. Anyway.

I’ve been quite literally starving over last year, because of a few things I think. One, the pro-Palestine posts blacklisted me I think. Two, the bullying and slander in the 2S community lead by Jas Morgan convinced some people not to support my work anymore. And three, the rising fascism in America lead to people not working with me anymore either out of fear or a feeling that what I have to say right now is unimportant. So it’s been really frustrating to see my art career I’ve built up for 31 years just fail, for multiple reasons. I am still making work but I’m not really funded except for this artist in residence position at U of T. I’ve been rejected twice, potentially three times for funding for Unsettled Climate, the documentary about trans people and climate disasters, so it’s just this residency getting me through and these teaching jobs. But they all end after April and I have no grant to tide me over after that. So I’m not sure what I am going to do for money, I will probably be unable to afford groceries again. Maybe Zionists can take bets on how low my weight will go this year without funding. I’m sure at some point I’ll be posting one of these graphs again.

The really disappointing thing about starving is that I can tell my brain works better when I am fed. I also have more energy and can get a lot of things done in a day when I’m eating properly. So seeing that improvement in my health go away again is going to be depressing.

I have to stress that I am not currently starving, and it’s not the end of the semester yet. But it’s coming and I’m just dreading it. I’ve got to write another grant, I did take a break from applying for grants after I got all those rejections last year. But I guess I am supposed to write these fucking grants begging for money so I don’t starve to death. It’s just not a dignified system. There’s nothing worse than groveling for a jury of my peers trying to explain why my project is important to humanity. Especially when I know people don’t want to support trans folks.

Anyway argh. Yeah that’s what I’m thinking about. I gotta go to bed tho, I am teaching in the morning. I have a ton of stuff to say about the American/Israeli war against Iran but I am too tired to write about it tonight.

It’s been a while, I was usually writing every week and it’s been something like two weeks since my last post.

Well, I’m doing ok just really busy. My mom was visiting this past weekend so we did a lot of eating. I took her to the fanciest steakhouse I’ve been to and we had these amazing steaks. It’s my one super expensive dinner I’m letting myself have this semester. I enjoyed spending time with her, although my apartment is small and I like being alone with the dogs the most (but if I had a big house maybe I would feel differently). She also got us snack-y groceries, we demolished a big bag of Twizzlers together. Lol fuck probably I’m going to find out the Twizzler CEO gave money to transphobia ha ha. Everything in our world is tainted!

I got a keyboard! I’ve been wanting a keyboard for a long time and I figured out where I can fit it (I have to find new places for what used to be there though) so I did SO MUCH RESEARCH. Because a keyboard turns out to refer to a variety of instruments who vary wildly in terms of what they can do. I had it narrowed down to a Roland Juno D6 because I wanted a synthesizer which could play multiple tracks and record and etc etc. BUT I bought it from Marketplace and it wasn’t exactly a D6, it was a DS61 which is a bit older than what is out now. It had no speakers so then I also had to get speakers and speaker cables. I had a USB mixer already so now I’ve got my computer and keyboard running through these inexpensive studio monitor speakers. Which even though they are inexpensive, sound amazing. It’s nice to be able to hear a really nice sound through them. Maybe one day when I have obscene amounts of money I will get some fancier set up, but honestly this is nice enough.

PLUS now that I have these studio monitor speakers, I can use my vocal mic and actually monitor my voice better. I can hear myself singing! Before I was wasting batteries by using the mic running through my Zoom recorder and then into headphones. But when I am learning a new song I like singing with the original singer and it’s hard to hear a track while listening to headphones because my mic is so precise that I can only hear my voice and not the song. So it’s upgraded my life.

I have a lot to learn about my keyboard, I was playing around with the different sounds it can do and how to play something that sounds nice. There’s this beat I keep going back to in the drum kit and I think I want to make a loop of it so I can play guitar along with it. So I’m looking forward to being able to know how to use this synthesizer. It’s still a relatively recent model so there are a bunch of Youtube tutorials on how to use it. And it does do all the things I wanted.

I’ve been watching this Game Theory professor on Youtube talk about the US war with Iran. He says the US is going to lose and destroy their empire. And then he explains how that will all happen and it makes sense. His Youtube channel is Predictive History. One point he made is that Iran is using drones that cost 50,000 dollars and they can make 500 a day. While the US uses million dollar interceptors, sometimes two or three to take down one 50,000 dollar drone, and can only make six a day or month (I forget!). He also explained all the ramifications of all these decisions being made and how fragile some of these areas are in regards to access to water, etc. It’s a mess.

In therapy today I was talking about the war (and a lot of other things) and I was talking about those schoolgirls who were killed and how war destroys potential. Like we don’t know what impact those girls were supposed to make on the world. I think it just cuts off so many future possibilities when people die senselessly, or are murdered. Not to say those girls didn’t already make an impact in their short lives, but like what could have been if this international crime of war hadn’t been committed?

I think we need to make a better world but we are being overwhelmed by all this global trauma so we don’t seriously change the system. It’s really disappointing to see how the concept of money has twisted this world, to the point that people seriously want to make more money for a short term future instead of fighting climate change for a long term future. I also am starting to wonder about information from the Epstein files desensitizing people to truly heinous abuse and murder. Like descriptions of abuse, I think there’s a line between “we should probably be aware of what has happened” and losing empathy or becoming abusers because people are getting bad ideas from all of this. I don’t know how you can protect your heart like that, not really sure. I’m not reading much about it now but it’s not because I don’t believe it, it’s just a lot to hold and I am only one person. If I feel like I need to understand something about it maybe I’ll read those stories again, I just need a break. And really tl;dr, obscenely wealthy capitalists do evil things with power.

Anyway.

I’m doing well with my music stuff. It will be two years of playing guitar in August. And 1 year of singing in August. And a week of having a keyboard tomorrow. I still feel like a baby bird in terms of being a musician. I can’t tell you much music theory at all because I get bored of it ha ha. Although I know knowing it would help me. I’m learning two guitar parts in Call Me by Blondie. It’s going ok! My guitar teacher is also having me warm up by doing these blues licks and then improvising with them. So that’s been fun. I learned how to do vibrato but I feel real silly wiggling my finger so I don’t think it’s right yet. I’m learning Friday I’m In Love by the Cure for singing which is really fun and upbeat. Except the end when they are going woah woo do do do, I mean it gets really complicated ha ha all these utterances. I was able to do the verse and chorus really fast, but the bridge that gets really fast and is a different rhythm is harder to do. But it makes me happy to sing and make music.

I think the keyboard will be fun. When I first started playing the keyboard it was 2007 and I was spending six weeks in a psych ward. And they had all these birdhouses you could paint, so I painted the hell out of those birdhouses (I was manic) and then I wanted to express myself so they had a keyboard I liked playing. Except it was in a common area so one day this woman flipped out at me for playing. Omg ha ha she was an intense lady! She told me one other day “You pissed off a tree” BUT SHE WAS RIGHT! I nailed something to a tree but no one knew! After I got out of the psych ward I went to the tree and gave it a cigarette to apologize ha ha. Which sounds silly but honestly it’s just putting down tobacco, I could have taken the filter off though lol.

So yeah now I can play my synthesizer at home and explore sounds alone without another psych ward patient getting pissed off at me.

I think I feel like I’m in a chrysalis musically, like I’m just transforming into a musician in private and I guess I’m still mostly not ready to be out there. I do share videos on Instagram. But the guitar has been mostly learning other people’s music while the synthesizer is more intuitive and I think will mostly be for my own song writing. I find the layout of a keyboard makes choosing complimentary sounds easier because they’re literally laid out in a sensible order, while for me I still don’t know all the notes on the fretboard of a guitar and I haven’t completely absorbed what makes one note sound good with another. However my teacher has been showing me the pentatonic scale and how you can use it up and down the fretboard.

I’ve mostly been concentrating on learning to play these instruments or sing properly, but I think songwriting is sort of the eventual goal of all of this. I like doing covers but also I wanted to learn to play so that I could make my own music someday. And having a synthesizer that can play eight looped patterns feels a lot closer to being able to actually make a song I could record and release. So it should be fun. I should record it more often though because I don’t remember how to play something I improvised. Ah I should probably take keyboard lessons. Synthesizer lessons. But also I kind of like just bumbling through it.

It’s reading week so I took some time to work on my dramatic short and my documentary feature. I am trying to get POOR to a picture lock so I can access some finishing funds. I had a fun time learning to make text message overlays, and notifications etc. I have three scenes left to edit and three voice overs left to record. I am still casting for two of them (Indigenous teen girl and an adult of any gender or race who sounds authoritative). But yeah I’m close to being done. SO FUCKING CLOSE. I just have to edit the last bits and then I can make a copy of it to submit to this place. I have I think three weeks until the deadline.

I also needed to edit a fifteen minute teaser of my feature doc, so I tried to edit something together. It’s at about 21 minutes though so it’s six minutes over. There’s this really interesting clip I wanted to include that kind of makes me cry when I listen to it, so I don’t want to cut that. I also was able to get some stock footage to round it out a bit. Pyrocumulus clouds!

I’m hoping to interview someone about hurricane disaster relief for trans people, but she was unavailable this last week so it’s going to be pushed on to the future sometime. But yeah I’m pretty happy with what I have. I know it could get edited down more. And I know I need more interviewees.

But maybe I am also just relieved I was able to get so much work done this week. Soon I have to go back to doing lesson prep, but if I can get these two videos advanced enough I will be able to meet my deadlines.

I also got some notes on my feature script on Monday and made some initial changes to the script and then I am going to go through the rest of the notes and address them. The notes were really good! He found some logical inconsistencies and got me to think about how the fire powers work. So it’s been helpful. There was a lot more to it than that. But yeah I appreciate people helping my artistic visions come to life.

I also got another financial supporter for Unsettled Climate so that’s really nice. If you are interested in this documentary and want to donate towards making it please let me know! tjcuthand@gmail.com I am waiting for you, generous patron of the arts.

In my personal life, aw geez really I just do a lot of work and stay home. I was going to go to the trans night at Steamworks tonight, but it’s freezing rain outside and was winter storming all day so I don’t want to go out there. I had a couple of hookups on the weekend. But nothing this week, I’ve just wanted to stay in and nerd out editing. I got my Apretude shot yesterday too, it didn’t make me violently ill like it did the first time, I didn’t even really feel sick at all today. I do have a sore hip muscle though. Whatever this muscle is called, it’s not a glute it’s a thing beside the glute. Anyway I’m glad it’s only a sore muscle because I was thinking if I had a bad reaction to it again I would go back on Truvada. But this is like, a fraction of a percent better at keeping me HIV negative so I’m going to suck it up. Plus Indian Affairs pays this outrageous 1800+ cost every two months, so I’m going to take advantage of being covered for it.

So aside from letting work interrupt my slut activities, I’ve been good. I think I am finding my life purpose again. Teaching has been good for my soul (although I feel like the week before reading week was my worst teaching week ha ha). But! Also doing the film work I CAN do has been helping me. I know I semi-retired as a full time filmmaker (which is true because I’ve been teaching too) but I do like it and I am good at it even if I don’t get funded all the time. And the projects do have to get finished. Right now I am just concentrating on cleaning my plate, like Unsettled Climate and POOR and Evil Fire. And then I guess I will let what happens to my career happen. I do have another script I have to finish too. So it’s not all over. I feel like Unsettled Climate might get finished sooner depending on some funding I applied for and am dubious about. But you never know right?

I am still dismayed by seeing how ugly the ruling class is. We knew this! We knew these people were taking humanity and the future of the planet in the wrong direction. But now we’re seeing the evidence of what and why they were doing this and it’s crazy!

I guess knowing it’s all a rigged game is making a lot of things make more sense. It’s insane that these are the people keeping us from ending climate change! This pedophile Epstein class. It makes me so angry, they’re so evil. And there’s more of us than there are of them. I think the system needs to collapse, we can’t carry this kind of blood drinking evil.

I saw this video of Roseanne Barr saying they were full on vampires, and yeah they are holy shit! And then I wondered about my own lifelong interest in vampires. And I was interested in romantic literature vampires, not wealthy capitalist vampires who eat babies too. Like it does not sound alluring at all, it just sounds fucked up. We’re taking orders from cannibalistic vampires. When will we revolt?

Bailey Sarian made a video recently where she was like “What are we going to do?” I think that’s honestly the question most of us are having to all these revelations. What are we going to do? Because this shit is not working for anyone but a handful of evil humans.

Hey! Sean McNeely did an interview with me earlier this month for the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto and now the article about my work is posted. If you want to go read it it is here:

https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/through-film-and-video-games-theo-cuthand-explores-indigenous-identity-resistance-and-lived

I guess my last post wasn’t that long ago, but I’m in my office eating strawberries and I am done most of my class prep. I have 20 slides! Which should be enough but you never know.

I’m really struggling with how depraved the ruling class is. I mean we knew they were disgusting people for doing all they have done to this world. But they’re even worse than that. I saw someone make a point that the way they force themselves on other countries and people is parallel to the rapes they have been perpetrating for decades. A rapist ruling class. It really came out in the way they discussed Greenland, listening to American politicians talk about “acquiring” (invading/occupying/colonizing) Greenland was the exact language rapists use. Anyway it’s been a lot seeing stuff come out around it. Also how the current trans panic was designed and perpetrated by enormously wealthy pedophiles. I always thought their obsession with children’s genitals and chests was fucking creepy. Let trans kids do what they need to to feel comfortable, you should not be thinking about a minor’s chest and what they are doing with it that’s just fucking pedo behaviour.

Anyway. I guess it’s also enraging because the American ruling class is still ticking along like nothing is wrong. And the mass media is generally supporting them still and oops Trump pooped himself what a silly guy. Gross.

This world is disappointing. Especially considering I’m not getting programmed as much because I’m trans (or blacklisted or whatever) because they’re afraid of getting pushback from the pedophiles who slandered our community to cover their own pedophilia.

This world needs a reset. What a dumb timeline. And I’m sure there’s people who still support the pedophiles in charge because there are people living in this world with a major moral rot of the soul and they try to act like the rest of us are the problem.

I’m just glad the culture war is still marginally less acceptable in Canada. I mean there are people still trying it (and funded by Americans to do it). But also I think there’s a conservatism that has captured Canadians who don’t want to rock the boat, either in terms of getting their funding cut because of supporting the marginalized, or getting their funding cut for speaking out against a genocide. They’re afraid and it is not helping.

I don’t think I have any other option but to try to be brave. My Great Great Grandfather was a war chief, so it’s in my blood. I’ve been going to protests since I was a little kid. I’ve often made really political art to try and bring issues into focus. It’s not popular though when people just want us to shut up and be unobtrusive while fascism is rising. Although it’s not great financially to be speaking out, and I guess that’s what the quiet people are doing, trying to save their careers.

I decided a long time ago that I would speak out against genocide and other injustices because to do otherwise would be a betrayal of my personal morals and values. As a survivor of an ongoing genocide, I can’t just act like what is happening in Gaza is acceptable or reasonable, it is not it is evil. It’s been evil for a long time. And now international law is in tatters because no one has stopped it, none of the courts stopped it, nothing. Everyone knows it’s everyone for themselves now. Which is not a community minded way to live.

I want to live in a world where crimes against children see consequences, serious consequences. I want to live in a world where we don’t bomb each other to gain resources and land. I want to live in a world where communities work together and support the marginalized among us, so people aren’t starving because people won’t hire or fund them. I’ve lost a lot of weight over the last year because I wasn’t able to pay for groceries most of the time. I’ve had some work but it’s never enough or long enough and it’s just so fucking tiresome. And I want my projects to get funded so I don’t have to stay a semi-retired filmmaker.

I did another interview for my trans climate migrant/disaster survivor doc Unsettled Climate. It was good but also intense and also fits a lot of pieces together with the other interviews. I still need to get some more diverse representation so I’m continuing to look for people to talk to, ideally BIPOC. But anyway, I am learning a lot of things about how trans people are responding to climate change and also to political climate issues with fascism and the American government. They told me how hard it is to leave the country, the US can delete their passport information for being trans and then they get deported back to the United States. And because of the Safe Third Country Agreement, if they come to Canada they just get turned back over to the Americans. It sounds very troubling and terrifying. We all can see what happens to people in the United States who don’t have citizenship, and basically that is being stripped from trans people. I don’t like seeing where the future is going and I hope it can be changed.

I’m seeing the common threads in the stories I’ve heard while I have been interviewing people, I’m starting to get a sense of how the project might fit together. I’m giving myself another year, like there will be a version done for presenting this summer as part of my residency. But I think I need stock footage to fill in some gaps which makes me think I”m going to try doing crowdfunding. I don’t really have a lot of faith in grants right now and it’s already been a project that Canada Council juries turned down twice. I did apply somewhere else for funding but I don’t know that they will be interested. I think I asked for a lot of money too which could be really helpful or else, I dunno, maybe too much money? I would be able to do some really good stuff if I got it tho. I feel like I have managed to get a lot recorded from doing this Queer/Trans Artist in Residence gig at the Mark S. Bonham Centre of Sexual Diversity at U of T. I was able to give people honorariums for doing interviews with me which was my main concern. But now I have all this amazing footage and it’s going to be hard to choose what to keep and what to lose.

I’m kind of letting the research tell me what this video is going to be. And it has been altering the direction sometimes. But it’s also really fascinating to let the project grow into what it’s going to be. I like doing documentaries because of that, there’s so much potential and surprise.

But it does need a lot of B-roll which just doesn’t exist, there’s some footage one of them sent me about their experience when their home burned down in a wildfire. But not a lot else. I know there’s tons of stock footage of climate disasters though.

Also I have to admit at some point I just have to stop and work with what I have. Because there’s a lot of footage. 298 minutes! I don’t even know what the shooting ratio is, my film might just be sixty minutes but also it could be 90 I’m not sure. I’ve never done a 90 minute documentary though that’s a lot.

On the other hand the subject matter deserves a lot of time. Even though it’s been hard to get off the ground, I’m glad I’ve had this time in this residency to do a lot of research and film a lot of people. I’m never really going to know why it was getting turned down for grants before. It was disappointing though, because it was going to have some more components to it that I can’t afford at all. And I guess also because I thought for sure people cared about trans rights and climate change and I guess I’m wrong. Or not the right people or whatever. The art world is also conservative.

I’ve been dealing with what I think is some blacklisting in the art world based on speaking up about Palestine and the genocide in Gaza. I was never super vocal but I do repost stuff a lot on my social media. And hearing about how Nan Goldin was censored by the AGO because of a donor was so crazy (but also not at all unexpected from the AGO considering what happened with Wanda Nanibush). Anyway I think there’s probably people not curating me for political/donor reasons. I wish people with money didn’t rule the world, because they’ve done a really fucking piss poor job of it. People are being mass murdered every day, people get arrested by ICE every day, no one can buy a house except the rich people’s corporations, and yet people make sure I can’t afford groceries most of the time because they disagree with my speaking up against genocide? Man grow the fuck up and get a heart. I wish there would be a reckoning, but I have lost faith in the goodness of humanity. I think people look the other way when shit like that goes down and permit it, rather than say “This is wrong.” 11 people in that acquisitions meeting voted against Nan Goldin because she spoke up about genocide. 11 people. That’s not just a few people. Personally I think if the AGO follows what the donors want, they should be completely funded by donors and not take public funding. If you are censoring curators and artists, you don’t deserve public funding.

I had my singing recital today! I sang Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys. I was supposed to be up second but instead I was up first which was kind of funny because that’s what it was like at my guitar recital too. I think I did ok! My timing was alright, I remembered all the words, I think my pitch was more or less ok. I don’t have a video of it though so I can’t tell you for sure. It was a tiny audience but I was still nervous and had a bit of a wobbly leg ha ha. But I did ok! And I want to do it again.

The next song I’m learning is Today by the Smashing Pumpkins, which was a popular song when I was in high school. Real classic! I remember watching the music video on Muchmusic back when they actually showed music videos all the time. No youtube then! I had the cd and listened to it all the time. So it will be fun to learn plus it’s got some high notes that are in my range. A lot easier to hit than the high notes in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

I’m still not sure what I am doing with these music skills. I’m enjoying myself right now I guess while I am in a learning process. I am also learning Do I Wanna Know on my telecaster. It is kind of long compared to other riffs I’ve learned, so it’s taking me a while and I kept missing two notes when I started practicing. But I think I have it now. I found it sounds better when I turn my amp up. But I also don’t want to be an annoying neighbour. I remember one of my guitar teachers said he played six hours a day at one point and I’m like, probably not going to have that much time. Especially considering I am teaching right now. But also it would prob annoy my neighbours, although I do have a headphone amp.

It’s interesting doing this because I remember when I started my video art career it basically began immediately while I was still in a learning process. I spent at least 6 years formally studying film and video plus a ton of workshops and all that. It took years to feel competent and yet I was releasing videos immediately. So it’s funny having this sort of cocoon of wanting to learn enough before I go out and record with the intention of releasing music professionally.

I think it’s also that I am collecting skills right now though, because I think I want to sing my original songs and that means I am going to have to learn songwriting too. So I don’t know. Also maybe I would just be a session musician and not perform in public.

Although I like performing publicly. I do feel like I want to sing again for sure. I think the music school I go to has concerts twice a year, so I hope I can do it again. I am also very ready to go back to learning an assortment of songs and not just working on this one.

Teaching has been going ok! I’m not really going to talk about it on my blog for student’s privacy. But I feel pretty good about it.

The Minneapolis murders by ICE are so fucked up, it’s starting to be overwhelming when I see it on social media. I feel for the people trying to protect their community from those murderous ICE officers. But what also scares me is that this is just the tip of the iceberg and we don’t see the murders that are happening in custody away from the cameras. And also people are disappearing. When I was in Argentina I went to one of the places of memory where people were tortured and then disappeared. And they had the plane there that was used to drop bound drugged people in the ocean or river. It’s just so concerning what is happening in the States right now and I hope the people there can turn it around. Someone told me fascism doesn’t have a very long lifespan if you look at fascist governments historically. But that doesn’t meant they don’t do a lot of damage.

It’s the end of my work week. I still have a meeting with my research assistants tomorrow though, so it’s not totally the end of my work week. But it is the end of my teaching for the week. I taught two classes, but one was in two parts and the other had a main class and then three labs that all had to be taught also. So it’s really like, five events over three days. But what is cool about this is it’s closer to a full time schedule than just one class at a time. So I am going to see what it’s like to have that kind of workload. So far so good! I’m tired, but relatively gruntled. So that’s good.

It’s been really awful seeing what is happening in the US right now. I feel for everyone who is being terrorized by ICE right now. And I also feel bad that they don’t have a true opposition party. We have similar issues up here with our political system, but at least we have more than two parties. It’s really heartbreaking to see all the violence there. I watched the video from the ICE Agent’s point of view of the murder of Renee Good and I can tell he made the decision to shoot her based on his anger at her wife for making fun of him. He wanted to punish Becca by shooting her wife and its so chilling. And the fact that he moved his phone to his other hand so he could reach for his gun shows it was premeditated murder, not self defense at all. It’s just all gross. And lesbophobic. It’s disturbing.

Fascists need to go to hell. I think the problem was after WW2 when the nazi’s largely got away with their crimes. I know there were trials of high level nazis, but a lot of lower level party faithful still moved on with their lives and continued even being judges and things. I don’t know what should have happened. But this shit goes down and people tend to get away with it. Like those rapist priests and nuns got away with it here in Canada. They even put a clause in that we couldn’t charge them criminally to get the common experience payment.

Anyway, what do I have to say about my life? My health has improved a lot since I got on these antibiotics. Someone send me some money so I was able to get real groceries. I taught all my classes for the week and got the dogs some food. I have two weeks until I get paid. I’m looking into more teaching work for next year so we’ll see how that goes.

I get to go to Helsinki in May so I’m looking forward to that. I know nothing about Finland. I guess I am going to learn!

I have some editing to do myself on my film so I can meet a deadline to get maybe more money to finish it. So I will probably work on that this weekend also. I am also going to take some time off to do beading. I am practicing singing still and have a recital coming in a couple weeks. I will be singing Do I Wanna Know. So that’s going to be fun! I have not sung alone in public, except I guess I sang and played guitar last year at that guitar recital. And I am not playing guitar for Do I Wanna Know. I’ve looked at some of the tabs for that song but he actually plays it on a twelve string guitar so I don’t know how accurate I could get with a six string guitar. I know logically they all have the same notes though.

I found a chocolate edible from Christmas in my fridge, so I’m going to wrap up this blog now and go chill out. I definitely need to put my feet up.

So I have a long story to tell about how I almost probably could have died but luckily didn’t and should be getting better. On Saturday after a busy Friday night I started getting pain in my crotch that I assumed was an STI. And then it got worse! By Sunday I felt like I had the flu, but only parts of the flu. Like the parts that didn’t involve the respiratory system at all. I had chills and aches and so much fatigue. And I was like wait do I have an STI AND the flu? Or can an STI feel like the flu? Which apparently some can. Peeing felt like peeing razor blades, it was so fucking painful.

Monday I made an appointment to get tested for STI’s and my doctor was able to see me Tuesday morning. She gave me a bunch of tests and also took pity on me because I was so clearly miserable and gave me what the regular treatment would be for gonorrhea/chlamydia, a shot in the butt and four big white pills. And it did improve things, but only so much. So I was still feeling really sick. At the same time this week I started teaching so I did two classes and office hours and an interview and just felt so awful. Also the weather was shitty early in the week and one day I was just so cold and feeling so miserable.

Wednesday I did a tour with my department chair for the other teaching job I start next week and he was really nice but damn I was still sick, came home and slept from 6:45pm to 9:30am Thursday morning. My doctor said she would have my results Thursday but she didn’t call back until Friday.

By Friday I had two nights in a row of waking up completely drenched in sweat. And then I had obviously also been googling all the STI’s and seeing which caused what symptoms and night sweats was one of the symptoms of HIV and I was like no, the PrEP didn’t help! I was convinced this morning that I was going to get a call from my doctor that I have HIV.

BUT NO. She did finally call while I was in my QTRL meeting this morning and told me I tested negative for STIs including HIV. But she sent my urine culture to get tested and hadn’t heard back yet. OH YES this was the most disturbing part is when I gave my urine sample there was VERY CLEARLY blood in it. OH NO. So she thought it probably was a UTI not an STI and wanted to give me an antibiotic before the weekend. So she prescribed one, but then later today she got the urine test results back and prescribed the right antibiotic for the bacteria I have. So I have finally started taking the right antibiotic and hopefully things improve from here.

But really honestly at one point I swore there were a bunch of spirits around me and I was like oh no are they taking me to the other side already? They were just a lot of wisps about. My entire body was sick, I have never felt so sick, I never want to feel so sick again. I’m lucky I didn’t go septic I guess or I probably would be dead. Oh man. So no, not an STI, a UTI. That I got from having sex. My friend who gets UTIs a lot told me some things to prevent them that I will remember for next time. I’m taking a sex break for now anyway because I just feel so miserable.

This weekend I have to beef up a powerpoint, make a new powerpoint, and that’s about it. I got my Macbook back from the Apple store. They did delete the whole thing so it’s good I backed it up. I am not putting all my info back on it though because the hard drive is not big enough. I’m actually curious if they fixed it or just gave me a new computer. I wouldn’t be surprised, like why do they have to delete it at all? It was just the screen being broken.

ANYWAY. I am doing poorly BUT surviving and still doing what I promised I would do. And I am working again so although I am still poor this month, by the end of the month I will be getting paid for my jobs and should have a decent income again. For a while anyway.

I really did want to call in sick, but I didn’t feel right about missing the first class. I was so sick this week though omg if you saw me and I looked like I was on deaths door it’s because I was but still committed.

The break is nearly over and my jobs are starting. So that’s cool. I’ve still got to do some things to make sure it’s sorted out. I think my rubrics need more detailed marks so I’m going to work on that tomorrow. I am starting one class next week and then the second class starts the week after. So that is going to be fun.

I spent today working on music stuff. I am learning the riff for All Apologies and I’ve been using my telecaster again which was in it’s case all fall. But I am remembering why I loved that telecaster. It has a really cool tone. I also am rusty at it and I kept muting strings that weren’t supposed to be muted. I just need to practice a lot more because it’s so different. It was super slow early this afternoon but now I’ve got it kind of memorized so it sounds better and I can do it a bit faster. I still need to learn some easy songs though just so I can finally get to doing open mics. Which is a goal this year, to finally get my playing to be able to play in the back of a coffee shop or something.

I don’t know what kind of musician I want to be. I mean like I still don’t have an ambition attached to it. If I wanted to be a rock god at least I would know where I’m headed. But really I just want to make noises that make me happy. I read a while back that Tori Amos sees light creatures when she hears music because she has some kind of specific auditory synaesthesia. Which sounds so cool and I wonder how that influences the music she writes. Also it makes me wonder things like are those light creatures real and in some other dimension only Tori Amos can see? I’m so curious.

I’m trying to get used to playing in public and singing in public so I want to go to more karaoke nights and also maybe learn more full songs so I can be the obnoxious man in the corner playing Wonderwall ha ha. Maybe that’s way too dated now. What is the usual song the youth play at their parties? I never really went to parties where people took out a guitar and played a song. It’s so generous ha ha but yeah I think the closest I’ve gotten to a party like that was when I was little and me and the neighbourhood kids watched some guy play guitar on his porch. So wholesome ha ha. I don’t think he really wanted to play for the neighbourhood kids I have a feeling he was just playing on the porch.

I’m doing beading too and having a lot of sex which I actually had to take a time out because it was a bit crazy there during the break. I mean the sex, not the beading, the beading could get crazier, it still has room to flourish. I wish I was in love, I feel like sex would be like Tori Amos making those light creatures while she plays the piano. Instead of the cheap thrills it is now ha ha. I am ok on my own though I’m not complaining. I mostly have my needs met. I do need to go out more often though.

I promised myself this would be the year I go out more, but so far it’s just been going to the Apple Store which is not a social event. I feel like I have so much fun being creative by myself that sometimes I forget there is a wider world out there. Like why go deal with possibly difficult people when I can stay home writing or beading or singing or playing guitar? Or having sex? See the rewards of staying home are too high and I need to counter it by finding something equally rewarding with other people. I guess this is why people start bands and stuff. I don’t even know a concert coming up that excites me but maybe something will happen.