I got paid the other day and after paying debts it was gone. Almost. I’m so tired of my money being spent before it’s even here.

The other day I got a suicidal thought, like watching a bird go over head. Just this thought that I wouldn’t be constantly asking people for money and to pay me if I wasn’t here. It’s just not sustainable. Someone the other day told me after a screening that I was so generous, but really the unspoken agreement for engaging with my work is you’re supposed to tip, it’s just most people don’t. I can’t afford to be generous at all, I’m constantly trying to get paid or get funding or whatever.

I’m not sure if I should be doing art anymore, to be frank. The work getting attention now is the stuff I made 20 years ago, which means the stuff I’m making now won’t be relevant to Canadians until 2044. It’s frustrating. I used to do a lot of work in the US, but that’s drying up and also legally I might not even be able to show work in the US soon because I’m trans and it will get automatically categorized as pornography under Project 2025. So that leaves the rest of the world and sometimes Canada when they feel like it.

This one place is supposed to pay me but they refuse to do direct deposit and will only write a cheque and mail it to me, but there’s been a postal strike on for like, QUITE a while, so nothing is coming to me from anyone right now through the mail. It’s really frustrating and I am trying to be patient for the posties but it is interfering with my life. So I’m not sure why a festival can’t direct deposit and is insisting on making my life difficult because ohh we can only write cheques. I know they have options, they just don’t feel like it.

And that’s the problem with a lot of people who owe me money, they just don’t feel like processing payments on time. They need a ton of paperwork, or all kinds of things. And there’s never a rush to pay artists, even if said artist is wondering if it would be easier if they were dead because life just costs too much right now. And Artists have bills too.

Anyway I AM caught up on my bills and my rent is paid and I have groceries. I’m not as fucked as I used to be. But after this residency is done next year I’m going to be back to scrambling for funding and grants and so on. Which is hard. I really just wish I could get grants for costs of living because I know I could make a lot of work with my own resources. But you’re supposed to spend project grants mostly on the project, which doesn’t leave a lot to live on.

My options as I see them for continuing with life is to either become a professor, or go into game development professionally. Which takes me away from filmmaking which is my main love. But I can’t do this anymore, it’s too hard struggling as an artist. My career is turning 30 years old next year and I am thinking I might finish up some projects in the works and then reassess what to do with my life.