There are three weeks left of class! OMFG! It’s crunchy time!

My new toaster is very nice. But I have run out of bread for it. I made bannock instead! That’s helping me out.
Yesterday was the day for the veggie food bank here in Toronto so I went and got a whole bunch of produce and staples and tofu and soy milk. I’m gonna make a stir fry tomorrow. I went later in the day and said yes to everything (except the plantains!) and dragged three bags home that wore on my fingers and almost gave me a blister! Yikes! But it’s super nice to have a lot of food for the last ten days of the month when I have no money!

I made vegetarian chili with some of my last dollars, it turned out excellent except I didn’t have room to add the corn. Oh well.

Little Mister was coughing and coughing, I think he got a cheerio down the wrong tube. Poor lil’ guy! He’s fine now, snoozing by my pillow.

Oh I just took my pants off and got into bed and I am wondering why I waited so long!!??

My cousin Deanna has been poor for a long time (worse than me!) but she is really good at finding resources. She just moved to Victoria and every time I talk to her she has just gone to the food bank or she is going somewhere for soup and sandwiches. I’ve forgotten how to do a lot of that stuff. I used to go get sandwiches in Vancouver. But in Saskatoon mom and I split groceries and we managed to live ok, most of the time we had food.

Poverty is a funny thing.

I’m not sure if my grant application was recieved. I lost my receipt and when I sent an email to the officer he never replied. So I don’t know if I should wait for a result or what. I never got a thing in the mail saying they recieved my grant either, and the deadline was on the 1st of March. It’s pretty irritating, because that really makes an impact on my life and the last time I submitted the grant they refused it because my final report wasn’t in on time, but they didn’t tell me that until official results came out for everyone which really pissed me off. Canada Council what the fuck?

What.
The.
Fuck?

Oh! Actually I just checked and I sent them the email on the 20th and it’s the 22nd so maybe he needs a couple more days to see what happened to my grant. Sigh.

I recently put all my deadlines in my calendar! It doesn’t look too bad! 🙂

I was a bit behind on my school work.  I asked for an extension, I don’t know if I got it, but I did manage to finish and submit a midterm paper tonight that was due on Thursday.  So it’s only two days late.  Which isn’t horrible.

I’m now also late on submitting my new outline to my writing peeps, so that is happening tomorrow.

And in all this my toaster blew yesterday.  It was a ten dollar toaster from Loblaws, but really it should have lasted longer than four months.  BUT then my friend Alex came to town and took me to dinner and offered to pay for a new, better, toaster for me!  Whew! Because I make a lot of toast.  It’s the best for poor people living!

Sometimes finishing grad school makes me feel overwhelmed.  Like, that is a lot of work!  And it is a very short program!  But somehow I have managed.  And I’m pretty sure I will finish on time.

Posey pup is cute today.  So was Little Mister!  Little Mister was actually being super cuddly lately.  I’m not sure what that’s about, I think he just likes all the attention.  And he is happier now that his back is normal again.  Lucky Mister!

Did I mention that a while back my medical stuff came back and I am totally fine and even my blood sugar is normal??  Because that happened.  It was pretty awesome.

OH!  I saw Sleater-Kinney, and that was fun.

I have a crush on someone.  But I am also feeling super shy about it.  It’s kind of funny.  It’s nice liking someone again tho.  But kissing would be pretty awesome.

I hope I get that grant I applied for.

I’m really into Lizzo lately since seeing her open for Sleater-Kinney.  Here’s a song she does that I downloaded!

It’s Saturday night! I’m already in bed.  I had a really lazy day.  BUT I did pick which clip I want to do some sound design for, for my final project for Audio Post class.  I’m gonna do the last five minutes of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  So that’s awesome.  I always almost cry at that scene.

I won fifty bucks today! 😀 I impulse purchased a Bejeweled scratch and win at Loblaws and I got three lightnings which was fifty! 😀 Yay!  I spent 4.50 on a drink and another scratch and win, but I didn’t win anything.  BUT I still have about 45.50 so that’s good!  It will let me have some more cash to play with before life gets desperate again.

I cleaned my bedroom.  That was about it.  I should have worked on my presentation for Monday, but I didn’t.  I’m really not sure what to present.  I know I have to pitch my project.  I was thinking doing ten minutes of talking and leaving ten minutes for questions.  I have a lot to say.  I have a good feeling about it, but at the same time I know there’s lots of competition and they might not think it’s developed enough yet.  So we’ll see

I think I’m gonna go sleepies now.  I had such a lazy last two days.  I know it’s ok because people need to have breaks in life, but as always there is this anxiety about being a bad student.  And the fact that I am gonna be paying for my education for the next ten years makes me feel like I should be on top of everything working my ass off.  But that’s not sustainable honestly.  I need a couple lazy days.

Actually what am I talking about?  Friday I was busy as hell running around the city doing stuff like going to the doctors and getting my happy lamp and iron and getting food and stuff.  I was so busy!

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon I’m gonna work hard, but in the evening I will relax!  Life work balance, blah blah blah!

Today had a surprising sequence of events!

First of all I woke up to an email inviting me to present my feature film project to the Ryerson Telefilm people who are going to decide who to recommend for the microbudget features program.  Which would get me a bunch of money!  Not lots, BUT still more than I have ever had before.

So I was all excited, and I have been pretty much excited ever since.  I had a really hard time concentrating on my afternoon of writing, which was supposed to get me notes for a presentation tomorrow morning.  I did get about 841 words written, so hopefully I can expand on that tomorrow for ten minutes.  I will speak slow!

And then on the way to class today I was walking along the subway platform when I saw this guy kind of stumble towards the platform on the tracks.  He was on the tracks!  And he and I both look and a train is coming.  So he did this weird thing where he kind of ducked out of the way and curled up under the ledge.  And the train stopped, it didn’t come into the station.  And there was this tense moment where we were wondering if he was gonna come out or not.  And then this TTC lady came along and a witness and I both told her there was a guy tucked under the ledge, so she went down to the tracks and found him and convinced him to get off and come with her.  She asked his name and he asked if it mattered and she said of course it does.  Anyway, he seemed pretty down, so I hope he is getting help now.  The service stopped on that whole line both ways for 20-25 minutes.  And it was just after 5 so it was right during rush hour.

But he lived!  yay!  I was kind of horrified when it first started happening, I didn’t want to see someone die in front of me.  But he didn’t get hit!

So it was a funny day, from feeling super euphoric to watching someone have a really bad day.  And then class after that was good.

I’m tired!  I should curl up in bed!

Little Mister did a play bow today to Posey and we watched her run around all happy, so that was nice.  I think his back is getting way way better.  He’s nearly back to normal.  He just needs to get sexually inappropriate with Posey again and I’ll know he’s fine!

My Auntie was driving my mom’s car a week and a bit ago and it was really icy and long story short this truck slid right into Mom’s car and crunched it. Truck was fine. Car, not so much. Today Mom found out it is totalled. She’s worried she won’t have the cash to replace it after SGI cuts the cheque. And she is living in a city that is super car oriented, so it would be such a pain in the ass to not have one.

My nose feels sticky.

Posey has become hyper vigilant between the hours of 11pm and 1am. It’s super annoying. Gotta nip it in the bud.

I was holding her under the covers last night and her bum was in the crook of my arm and then I got a whiff of the most foul smell imaginable.  Oh pew it was gross! Dog farts!

I got a 3 dollar scratch and win and won 15 bucks! Pretty amazing! Especially since I had 30 dollars until next week’s payday!  45! 🙂

I have really bad sleep hygiene right now, I have been sleeping until 2pm. It’s so bad! 🙁 There are things I could be doing in the mornings and early afternoons. My Mom and Cousin suggested a SAD lamp. I thought I couldn’t use one because you have to use them early in the day, but now I am thinking maybe it doesn’t matter because I live in a basement and any time of day it would be good.

I’m so hesitant to do ANYTHING that will affect my mental health though.  Which is funny because I am in school and doing full time grad coursework.  Which adds a lot of stress to life.  But I am talking not wanting to up my antidepressants, worrying about adding a SAD lamp in case it makes me manic (which is not unheard of!). Basically I have this weird idea I can deal with a mild depression better than an out of control mania. But right now I do not have a psychiatrist. I am getting one April 1st. But I so hesitate doing anything about my mental health until then.  I can get counseling at school, but I don’t really have the time.

And it’s not THAT bad, is it? I can’t tell anymore. But fuck, I hate it when outside people try to have opinions on my mental health because I feel like they are pathologizing me and that sucks. Like fuck you!

(Insert pic of middle finger here)

I just wanna figure it out myself. And there is no magical thinking going on, which is when things get really dicey. And I don’t want to die. And I am not madly in love with anyone although I have a few crushes. I am not sending out lots of emails either. So there.

Ha ha, my last psychiatrist always asked me every session “Have you been sending lots of emails?” because the last time I ended up in the hospital I had hypergraphia like you would not believe and sent out hundreds of emails to annoyed friends. I barely use my email in a social way now.  I just send business emails. SO BORING! BUT also not crazy, so that is good.

I like using the word crazy to describe actually being mentally ill. I know some people hate it and think it is always pejorative, but crazy is such a perfect word for me.

Anyway. It is almost springtime. Hypomanias tend to happen in spring. That’s something to look forward to.

Sometimes people think I am crazy and honestly I am fine I am just being a little dozey or daydreamy or something. People who do not know about mental illness should not be diagnosing people.  I knew a cousin who got mad at her sister and was telling everyone she should be sent to the psychward and I had spent a lot of time around the cousin in question and honestly nothing was wrong with her at that time.  She was so lucid and even! Another time a friend told me I was manic and nothing was wrong with me then either! I was fine.

Blah blah blah. Anyway, I’ve been taking my meds and I did see my psychiatrist in December, which isn’t too long ago. I just need to wake up earlier. And get a cheap SAD lamp.

I wrote my outline today, got to 3 pages!  That’s way better!  Gonna work on it a bit more tonight and then upload to my shared folder for class tomorrow.  I also have to fill out a form about the work I did this past week.  It’s going to be about 10 or 12 pages and I am trying to get the first draft done for next week’s class.  Two weeks then it’s reading week!  YAY! Catch up time! My Grad Advisor wants my first draft of the outline done the week before reading week so he can send me home with some notes.  This has so far been a way better process than when I first wrote a feature.  Last time I wrote a feature I just wrote blindly into the unknown!  Now I can see how everything is structured before writing scenes.

What else can I tell you? Hmmmmm.

It’s very very snowy here today.  I mean, there was a lot on the ground when I went to leave the house.  ALSO there have been four cases of measles in Toronto, and they don’t know who infected these people. So that’s all terrible.

Little Mister keeps yelping today.  I think I need to be gentler with him. He IS an old man dog now. BUT also maybe something is wrong.  I’ll just have to keep an eye out.

I am going to be applying to have my feature film project recommended by Ryerson to the Telefilm micro-budget program.  I don’t know if I will get chosen, but who knows! It’s worth a shot!  Also during reading week I have to do a little work on my grant for Scriptwriting from Canada Council.  It would give me a project to work on for a year, and it’s a story I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

I’m hoping to get an award, but I have no idea when they decide who gets it and the webpage about it is all 404’ed.  It would super help me out a lot!

1. Wearing my nightguard more frequently (less tension!  Less pain!)

2. Telling women when I want to kiss them.

3. Kissing.

4. Socializing Posey, because she has terrible social skills.

5. Crying more. (which sounds counterproductive but might be more cathartic!)

6. Keeping a journal for private thoughts. (because I always want to write everything here but then people get mad or find out things I am not yet ready to reveal)

7. Make more local friends.

8.  Eat more fruits and vegetables.  (I dunno I just thought this might be healthy and some people say healthy is good)

9. Keeping better boundaries with people. (enough said!)

10. Revive the Long Telephone call with more friends! (So far it’s just Robin, Mom, and sometimes Lynn who I have long conversations with!)

I have some work stuff I need to do, school stuff.  Blah!  Right now I am just chilling because it’s bedtime.  I went to see a movie alone tonight, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night.  I really liked it.  It lived up to the hype!

I did some apartment cleaning today.  Dishes, laundry, bedroom cleaning.  Picked up garbage all over.  It felt good.  I’ve been a lot better about keeping my place clean since I got sober.  And my Mom can’t help me out here, so it’s just me on my own.

The dogs were happy today.  They were playing all over the place.  Cried with happiness when I came home from the laundromat and then later when I came home from the movie.  Actually Little Mister is the crybaby and then Posey growls at him because she thinks he is being dramatic.  It’s kind of funny.  The first thing I always say when I come home is “Be nice to him!”  He’s an old man dog, he can cry when I come home.  He always has anyway.  Posey dances.  She’s pretty sweet.

I didn’t wash my sheets last weekend, and I regretted it.  Posey chewed up some things in my bed and two weeks of orts accumulating is terrible.  It’s like sleeping on sandpaper.  But I just put on the new sheets and it feels really nice and the dogs are sleeping on the bed all happy.

Sometimes when I get stressed out, and feeling alone, I am really glad I have my dogs.  It’s a lot of responsibility being a dog owner.  Like I can’t leave them alone all day, the longest day I am away from them is Thursdays when I have class at 9am and then class again until 6pm.  And it takes 40 minutes to get home.  So I come back and spend Thursday nights at home with them.  And I can’t be out very late either, because they need someone home so they can go to bed.  I don’t think it’s the same now, but when I did night shifts and Little Mister was alone (before Posey!) he used to whine and howl at night.  He does not do well alone all night.  So I come home and spend all my nights with them.

Someday I am gonna have a girlfriend.  And if sleep overs happen, they are going to have to happen at my place, so that the dogs aren’t alone.  And Posey is gonna have to get used to this whoever person sleeping in our bed.  And just being around.  Posey has issues with strangers, she is very suspicious of them.  But if people keep coming around she gets used to them.  There were some cousins and my Auntie Beth who would come to the house that she loved.  She really loves Auntie Beth for some reason.  Like she will climb her and wriggle around her head crying with happiness when she sees her.  It’s kind of funny!  Auntie Beth! 😀

I’m sleepy now.  I’ve chatted about dogs and cleaning enough.  There are other things I wish I could chat about but I can’t.  Nothing particularly exciting tho.

The first week has wrapped up!  12 weeks to go!  Oi!

For the most part I like my classes.  I think the Narrative Writing class is gonna be awesome, same with the Gender and Race in Media class.  I did an introductory workshop for Protools with the TA for the audio-post class.  So I am gonna go again this weekend and do some tutorials to get up to speed.

I’m not yet intimidated by all the work I have to do, but it is coming!  I think one of these days I am going to the disability office to get some advice.  Even just seeing a counselor for an hour every week would be mega helpful.

Posey and Little Mister are being super cute.  The vet has said Little Mister is a little bit dehydrated, so now he gets a bit of wet food with his breakfast and supper.  Same with Pose.  They’ve been over the moon about eating ever since then, it is their favorite thing ever.

I need to bring back snacktime for them, but I haven’t found the ultimate dog cookie store yet.

This is my last semester of classes for this program!  It is such a short Masters degree!  BUT It is a lot of work!  I am writing a pilot for a tv show for my writing class, which has nothing to do with my script for my thesis project.  It’s gonna be called Bad Manors.  And it’s about a real apartment I lived in when I lived in the DTES.

Mom is enroute to Saskatoon from Winnipeg. She had a good talk out there and really liked it.  I’m glad. She’s being a full time artist right now so I am hoping things turn out well for her.  She’s been so poor for so long.

My writing prof said writers usually make only 11,000 to 12,000 a year from writing.  BUT he said there was still a chance to make a living off of it.  Also Netflix in Canada is going to be making content in the future here, so that’s promising.  In my Pro-Seminar a producer came in who depressed us all by saying that news was dead and that film was crap and tv was where it was at but also there wasn’t much money for it in Canada and we had to move to another country.

So it’s all a lot of conflicting information.  Really I just want to win the lottery and have an unending supply of money to fund my work with.  But the chances of that happening are rare.