I’m not a deer!

More childhood memories. My gramma always tried to call me a dear when I was a little kid, and for some reason I took this really literally. “I’m not a deer!” I would wail, and she would say “Oh dear!” as she knew she offended me, and then I would get even more fussy, and cry out “I’m NOT a deer!” I don’t know what kind of an insult that would be anyway, to call someone a deer.

The ungulate family features in yet another misinterpretation story from my past. On long road trips through the prairies (aren’t all prairie road trips long?) when I could see nothing for miles except field after field of wheat, on occasion my my mother would say “hey, Thirza look, antelopes!” And I would peer out the window, searching searching the vastnessness, only to see tiny deer-like things. “Cantalopes!! I don’t see any cantalopes!!” I was really hoping to see a field of round melons, and all my mother had to offer were small deer-like things.

Hmm, other ungulate stories. Well, when I lived in Montana for a year on Saturdays my mother used to pack me and my sister into the car with some food and we would drive out to the bison range. Modern urban Indians re-visiting our roots by driving through herds of bison. Buffalo I used to call them, until someone informed me it was actually Bison. We never hunted them or anything, although we did buy frozen bison burgers. When we had to leave Montana I was told I had to part with my extensive rock collection. My mother said it wasn’t fair to take rock spirits so far away when they would just sit under my bed. So one day we drove out to the bison range, and I unrolled the window and one by one threw the rocks out so they could play with the bison. I still like the idea of my little rocks being nosed by a big hairy bison.

We also had a cookie mold that made cookies in the shape of bison.

Once I fed a deer by hand in Banff. Terrible I know, you shouldn’t let wildlife get used to humans.

Which brings me to the wildlife around here. A couple of months ago I took a cab home from Stef’s place and a big coyote ran right in front of it. I hadn’t seen a coyote in this neighborhood before, but apparently they are here. Hopefully it is not hooked on crack, like everyone else in my neighborhood in those wee hours.

And last night I got off the bus and was almost chased home by a skunk!! EEEEE!! As I saw it’s little black and white body scuttling around I had nightmare visions of having to call in sick to work because of being skunk-sprayed and needing to sit in a tub of tomato juice. Oh yuck!!!

Off topic now, I had this weird dream last night. In it I was walking with a friend and we came to this really old almost Aztec looking circular architectural complex, and I said “I’ve been here before. This is where they perform human sacrifices.” And then some men showed up who were going to sacrifice us, and we had to run out of there as fast as we could, only I had to pee. But suddenly there were cages of chickens everywhere, and I couldn’t pee because if I did I would pee on a chicken. And some of the chickens were half pig, and had pig snouts. Now WHAT THE HELL was that all about?

They say all dreams mean something, but sometimes all they mean is that you have to go run and pee, which is what I did when I woke up. No chickens were in my bathroom though.

Hilarity

Bush joking at the Radio and Television Correspondent’s Dinner about his intelligence faliures

Lesbian Ostracism

I am secretly suspecting someone long ago lost my lesbian registration card and I will forever be shunned from the queer community. I’m not sure what it is about me, but through either my own social awkwardness or lesbian snottiness, I am always finding it a struggle to connect with other dykes when I go to queer events. Maybe I am not cool enough, they immediately think “Nerd!” and turn their backs. Or perhaps I am just very very very shy, and general dykely gruffness comes off as them being snobby to me. Or maybe they think I am the snobby one. It’s hard to figure out.

Besides the Brownskirts mentioned two posts down, I find it a lot easier to be welcomed into aboriginal events. Usually there’s the opening questions “who are your parents” and “what tribe are you from” and that sort of thing, and then it’s sorted, and some belly laughs later you have a new friend. But with dykes you have to fuck your way into a social group, like little bonobos, or else I dunno, share blood? Slash up with each other? There’s some secret handshake I don’t have!! Even at leather parties, I could be friendly with everybody, but still the dykes gave me that damned snotty sneer.

Usually the girlfriends I’ve ended up with have had some of that fucked up lesbian ostracism too, often for being femme and not being identified as queer. And these were hot sexy women who kicked major ass and did a lot of work for the queer community. What is our problem as a lesbian community?

Maybe I am expecting too much. Maybe the fact that we’re an oppressed minority who all have sex with each other isn’t enough to form the basis for strong community bonds. Maybe we’re too fucked up from fighting homophobic stares on the streets everyday, we do it to each other. Or maybe dykes are just snotty and that is that.

On the other hand, I do have some queer friends who are really nice and friendly and supportive. They are pure gold. I don’t know what I would do without them. But please, somebody tell the rest of the dykes to get the sticks out of their asses and be a little more welcoming to their fellow homos. Who knows, the dyke you shunned today might turn out to be the lover of your dreams.

My room’s a mess and I want beans

This is gonna be one of them silly blogs. A blog that has no defined purpose. My room is a mess and I am procrastinating on cleaning it. I have been procrastinating for about a month now. It is getting difficult to walk to the door from my bed or my computer. The rat says something has to be done, or he’s going to set fire to it. I don’t blame him. It is awful in here.

I’m hungry. I want weiners and beans. It’s my comfort food from growing up. What a great lunch. Mmm, weiners and beans!!! A friend of mine used to make fried baloney. Baloney is basically a flat uncooked hotdog.

Tonight is a show at Lick, Dance Magic Dance, brought to you by my lovely ex Tralala’s Gaylord productions. So if you are a queer in Vancouver with nothing to do tonight and no where to go, come down to Lick, door opens at 9 and show starts at 10. It’s 5 bucks to get in if you wear fantasy stuff, 8 bucks if you’re like me and got nothing good to put on.

Okay, this was a silly post, except for my totally non-obligatory promo for the Gaylord event. Oh yeah, which brings me to my other point that my friend Stef made the other day. She was all “How come nobody ever leaves you comments? Is it that they can’t leave a comment because it fucks up, or does nobody read your blog?” I have heard from at least four different people that they do read it. But it’s true, there are no comments here really. Who does read this blog? I wonder. Ooooh, it’s a mystery!!

Would the mystery readers please stand up, if only to prove Stef wrong?

Of course if you are shy don’t feel obliged. And BTW, you don’t need to be a fellow blogger to be able to leave a comment.

Brownskirts: Aboriginal Fascism

I’ve had a touch of the blahs these days. Things have gotten me down. Do you really want a list? Well, it’s just the general state of the world. I recently read a vitriolic hate letter written by some american Native Youth Movement member to Redwire about their sex issue. It was so racist and homophobic, I am so tired of aboriginal people dumping shit on other aboriginal people about what is “traditional” and “honourable.” Okay, so I don’t think about my ancestors when I’m fucking (which I haven’t much as of late anyway), on the other hand, why WOULD I think about my ancestors when I fuck? Ew!! My great grandfather was a war chief and a notorious horse thief, along with being a great medicine person. But I honestly don’t believe that has anything to do with my sex life.

Besides that I don’t think there is any one right way to be aboriginal. There seems to be this contingent of very vocal fascist Aboriginals who slam anyone who’s mixed race, doesn’t speak their language, is queer, etc etc. It seems to me to be very much rooted in a residential-skool-christian framework rather than an honest aboriginal culture. I remember growing up sitting with my Aunties (some of which were more like adopted Aunties) listening to them talk about sex. Oh my god, aboriginal women could put Peaches to shame! I find it tragic that one of the things we have lost is the celebratory approach to sexuality that many aboriginal cultures had. There is (in Canada anyway) a movement to bring back that kind of sexual discourse among aboriginals. The group show in which I was a part of, Exposed: Aesthetics of Aboriginal Erotic Art comes to mind.

Another example of the celebratory nature of sex that aboriginals had is the whole concept around two-spirited people, transgendered/gender-queer people who had a role as spiritual leaders in their communities. Besides being spiritual leaders, in the book The Spirit and the Flesh some anthropologists noticed that these people were also considered highly desireable. Nowadays you hear many brownskirts saying that queer and transgendered folk never existed in aboriginal society!! Besides being homophobic, this also smacks of colonialist brainwashing. Colonialists needed to destroy the positions of honour that two-spirited people inhabited in order to attack aboriginal culture’s very foundations. To keep affirming these homophobic ideas is to keep affirming the colonialist mindset we have been duped into.

In fact my sister, who is severely mentally handicapped, was even the target of a brownskirt once who said that people like her never existed before the “white man” came.

Being half Scots has also put me in the bad books of the Brownskirts. Having been born a second generation halfbreed (people always ask me which one of my parents was white, I have to break it to them that they are both aboriginal) I’m automatically considered to have lost my culture. Nevermind that I’ve been going to sweats since I was a little kid, or that I was raised participating in aboriginal culture more than white culture. In fact all I know about being white is that I’m light, people don’t hassle me in stores thinking I’m ripping something off, and I engage in a lot of pop culture. But who doesn’t?

This drive for racial purity reminds me of the same party lines you hear from white power groups. Although some aboriginals think it’s more noble for them to call for a purifying of the race than the KKK, I personally don’t see a difference between the two groups. It’s time for race discourse to accept the fact that race these days is becoming more convoluted. It is no longer a black/white/red/yellow kind of thing. Some people are halfbreeds, like Cher! Other people are even more mixed, think Tiger Woods. We’d like these people to pick a side out of some racist desire to keep the tribes from mixing, even after the fact we’re so desperate to have someone deny a part of themselves just so we’re not confused by them anymore.

Confusion is good. People can inhabit more than one race and still be fully engaged in the struggle for rights of aboriginal people. In fact, I encourage that. Someday I want to have babies. Being a dyke, I could choose more halfbreed sperm. Or maybe I will fall in love with someone from a different culture, and have a more mixed kid. Who knows? I’m fully embracing the possibilities, and whatever my child is, they will grow up with knowledge of all their different ancestors, whoever those ancestors may turn out to be.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Peaches lately. We need an aboriginal Peaches man! Anyway, for a bit of fun after this heavy article, go to her swearing typewriter at www.fatherfucker.net. And fuck up a storm for sexual freedom, esp. if you are of colour!

Brownskirts is a term coined by my mother which I have used w/out permission, I am calling her to thank her tonight. Thank you mommy!

Life with it’s many moods

Nobody’s ever asked me “So Thirza, what’s it like living with a mood disorder?” I think it’s one of those things only other people with mood disorders are interested in. People get very frusterated with those of us who have it. Growing up I was often told I was too sensitive and that I needed to overcome it. Nobody stopped to consider that perhaps my sensitivity was something I couldn’t overcome, and that treating me with a bit of gentleness would be the best solution.

Today on the Skytrain coming home from work I was being the quiet observer of human behaviour that I am. Normally I wear a walkman to drown out people, but tonight I wasn’t. Some guy was sitting with his female friend as she was putting on zit concealer. “You’re really zitty.” “That’s a mean thing to say,” she said, “I’m really self concious about it.” “That’s why I’m telling you,” he said, “I’m helping you become less self concious. The more I say things to you the less it will bother you.”

I sometimes wonder if this was the intention of many people around me when I was growing up. I was too sensitive, therefore I was subjected to some fairly harsh “teasing” and a lot of bullying at school. The end result was that I’m a super socially awkward adult, often running away from acquaintances when I run into them in public, hiding out at home on the internet, and being closer to animals than I am to people. I have no clue how to interact with people because people’s interactions with me have so often crossed a line and I never learned how to draw boundaries and safety zones around myself in a more sophisticated way than staying home reading online journals.

For instance, I forgot to take my mood stabilizers this morning. A whole day at my call centre job being told off by people on the phone and my nerves were raw. Too late to take my pills, I nearly burst into tears twice over nothing.

And the mania?

Sometimes people don’t even recognize hypomania, they just know someone’s giddy and happy and it can really pass in society as just a happy-go-lucky person. But manic psychosis . . .

To be in a state of manic psychosis is like the most powerful, longest lasting ecstacy trip, filled with love and religious fervour and art, and fear. The paranoia wraps you up into a desperate world where your quicksilver brain is always reaching for a place to pull you out of samsara, the world of illusion that you realize reality is. And yet in realizing reality is an illusion, you trip into another illusion. I’m still trying to put together some language for myself to understand where I went when I flipped out. Reading what I wrote then makes no sense to me now, I think I’m too judgemental of it to be compassionate.

I think a lot of people are judgemental of psychosis. There is a lot of anger at the fact that a person has “lost their mind,” as if they could control it.

Hmm. Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about anyway. I found a cool link that explains manic psychosis, and is very true to what my own psychotic episode was like, at Catching A Darkness: Glimpses of My Sister’s Mania which is a really engrossing photo essay by Boris Dolin about his sister Jessica, who ended up committing suicide a few years after this essay was put online. I highly recommend you check it out.

I’m at a point now in my recovery from bipolar where although I know I’ve ended up with a tough lot in life, I’ll be okay essentially. Once when I was a teenager at a queer youth group, I said “I guess the point is just to survive life.” A friend told me “Nobody survives life.” And it’s true. We all have our own crosses to bear, no one burden is nobler than anothers. This just happens to be mine.

Move America Forward is a Republican Front

(or: the sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 is happening NOW)

I will try to blog properly while a small rodenty critter runs around on me. Okay, so I have been thinking and reading more about Fahrenheit 9/11 since seeing the film on Friday night. Normally I don’t ponder a film this heavily for this long, but Fahrenheit 9/11 has turned into something of a phenomenon. If you’ve been following the controversy you probably know by now that there have been all kinds of accusations about it being propaganda and that it shouldn’t be screened in theatres. Most of this slander has come from a group calling itself Move America Forward, which purports to be a citizens group but is in fact funded by Republican money and put out by a Republican PR Firm (PR Darling, PR!) by the name of Russo Marsh and Rogers, although they would just DIE if you knew that. Oops, I guess you do know that now. The site is registered to these freaked out dudes, and if you want to send complaints, the administrative contact for it is Douglas Lorenz, dlorenz@rmrwest.com. Tell him how you feel about censorship in America.

So in my casual little review I mentioned that the film didn’t really explore the censorship and suppression of dissent which happened post Sept 11. I would like to amend that now. I believe the film operates on a much more sneaky and intelligent level, bringing these issues right in your face by the virtue of it’s existence. There is no way the current administration can allow a film like this to be shown, going so far as to invent a citizen’s group like Move America Forward to hide behind while trying in vain to enforce national censorship. And yet everytime they try to tell people to boycott it, the demand to see it increases. Now another Republican group called Citizens United are trying to go to court to get it’s blockbuster status curtailed by banning Fahrenheit 9/11 commercials from playing on television under election campaign laws. As someone who has seen election campaign ads, I don’t believe Fahrenheit 9/11’s ads are ANYWHERE as negative as any campaign ad.

This movie has stuck a major chord in America, one can only hope that from now on Americans won’t be afraid to speak out against their fucked up neo-colonialist government. And let’s hope Bush is outta there!

I wonder if the film had any effect in the suddent shift here in Canada away from Stephen Harper. Hmmm.

Fahrenheit 9/11

What follows is a casual review of the by now infamous film Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore’s latest venture. Winner of the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, much to this dismay of Godard (although I think most of that was sour grapes), there are some good points and some not so good points about this film.

To begin with, I have to say that although this has so far been one of the most informative and groundbreaking “mainstream” (getting a big release to me qualifies as mainstream) films to be made about September 11th, it is by no means the definitive September 11th film, nor does it purport to be. There are many important issues which are either skimmed over or skipped altogether. The treatment of Arab people after the attacks, for one thing. We don’t hear about the people who were killed on American streets in retaliation for the suicide hijackings. Another unusual thing is that nowhere is the modern day concentration camp Guantanamo Bay mentioned. And while Michael Moore does an excellent job at explaining how both subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were done for profit, for the oil, not for American security, he doesn’t delve into the fact that so much of the spin of these wars is from a colonialist perspective of bringing civilization to the “savages.” Nevermind the fact that Iraq is the cradle of civilization.

The other unfortunate thing is that although the film is called Fahrenheit 9/11, it really doesn’t fully explore the censorship of dissenting and critical thought after the World Trade Center was hit. There was a certain intellectual terrorism perpetuated by North Americans against North Americans when someone dared question where all this patriotism could lead us.

That all out of the way, essentially I liked the film. I talked about it with the two friends I went to see it with tonight (got a nearly sold out screening and people were lining up an hour before it started just to get seats) and while we picked at holes and brought up points that weren’t touched upon on the film, it was still a very illuminating documentary which touched both intellectual and emotional nerves in it’s audience. I think it’s important to remember that Michael’s really an All American Boy, and this film is primarily made with love for his fellow Americans. I think we also have to remember that this film is really about the Bush Administration and how it handled the crisis, how it used the crisis, and how the Americans have been flim-flammed by their government. It’s also one of the first times I’ve seen the really brutal war footage of Iraq that has the same intensity as images from Vietnam.

I’ve heard rumour that Bush is really upset about some of the war footage getting out, as well he should be. Aside from that he comes off as a buffoon, a clown, and also one of the most money hungry presidents to date. Will this hurt him in the election? Probably, as it should.

Which brings me to the end of my casual little review and to a more immediate political act all my Canadian readers should keep in mind. The election is this Monday, June 28. Go to Elections Canada website if you don’t know where your polling station is. I moved and didn’t update my registration, but I found out by calling their lovely toll free help line that I could go to the polling station in my riding with a piece of mail and my id and I would be able to vote. So go vote everybody! If you don’t vote you can’t complain! Michael Moore is pushing for the Liberals or the NDP, we don’t want Harper being buddy buddy with G. W. Bush!!!

I forgot my mood stabilizers

(and my anti-psychotics are running out)

Bleh, what a day. First I stepped on the g-damn fly strip that had fallen down a couple weeks ago and I never picked up. So I had fly strip stickiness all over my foot and leg. Then I had slept for twelve hours straight and was gonna be late for the bus, so I put on some old t-shirt and ran out the door to get to work. I get to work and realize number 1) My t-shirt is all linty, and number 2) I didn’t bring anything interesting to read in the moments between making phone calls. As it happened number 2 turned out to be a good thing, because the supervisors were cracking down on people reading. Working in call centres sucks ass, but hey, it sometimes pays the bills and that’s what counts.

Operation Emily Carr Registration is going horribly. If it’s not one thing it’s another. I called my family today to ask if they could help me out $$$-wise because I owe big money to ECIAD for tuition. They were sweet enough to help and called ECIAD and the cash was transferred in some magic telephone-credit card way. But then tonight when I got off work and went home to register, some NEW problem has cropped up. Anyway, apparently I am not allowed to register for classes still. I am wondering if they are secretly making up reasons for me to be unable to register. Maybe they don’t want crazy biracial bigendered freaks overrunning the institution. Or maybe I have fallen into the giant ass-crack of ECIAD.

So to cap off, I am a mess. I am quitting smoking AGAIN, for probably the 12 billionth time. I need to see my doc about getting more anti-psychotics. And some weird guy I once cybered just signed into MSN. Oh go away! Meh, I want it to be the weekend again!!

I think tomorrow I may go to ECIAD to get help registering. On the other hand maybe not. Maybe I should just phone. Urg, but I am on the telephone all day!!

Remember those Sesame Street aliens that came down and say “Yip yip yip yip yip, uh huh, uh huh, telephone, brrrrrring! brrrrrrrring!” That’s what working in a call centre is like.

But not nearly so cute.

This entry is pointless so there, it’s not going to change just to please you! 😛

I blog therefore I am

There is a word for people who compulsively write. It is called hypergraphia. Anything can be pathologized if done to an excessive degree. And here I thought it was called “being creative.”

You can brush your teeth too much. It is true, once upon a time I brushed far too much. My gums started being brushed right off my teeth, slowly being eroded by my intense urges to cleanse myself of plaque.

When I was a kid the dentist used to give me these pink pills that I could chew on (tasted good so I ate them as much as I could) that stained all the plaque so I could see all the places I missed. Being a weird and morbid child I loved those little pink pills. I loved anything bizarre like that.

The dentist doesn’t give me pink pills anymore.

You can write too much. I blog therefore I am. Sometimes I feel like I have to keep producing so that people won’t forget I exist. I am terrified of the void, of falling into the void, of a big social blackhole opening up and swallowing me. I fear my own wallflower tendencies. So I write. And I write and I write and I write, because when I’m talking with people in a group social situation people have a dreadful tendency to talk over me whenever I’m about to make some interesting point.

Perhaps writing too much is like brushing your teeth too much, slowly I will have written so much that my own existence will become redundant. No one will need to hang out with me because they can have the Thirza experience all on their own in front of their computer screen.

On the other hand it is ridiculous to fret about such a thing as hypergraphia when so many things are going on in the world. I’m just glad to have my own little spots here and there on the internet.