Spendthrift

I got paid on Friday so I enjoyed a bout of shopping, which actually wasn’t as far out as one would imagine. I got Absinth, Thomas Waugh’s new book The Romance of Transgression in Canada, and a ticket to see Scott Thompson perform last night.

Scott’s best lines of the night:
“Blood on my face is death, semen on my face is love, and life. And when a man puts his semen in another man’s rectum, it makes a baby.”
On going to ground zero days after the attacks:
“It smelled like barbecue, with the barbecue cooked. And since then I’ve never eaten human flesh. Not even a scab.”
He also informed us that he had a menage a trois with a woman and a man in Edmonton. “Every 25 years I have sex with a woman.”

Anyway, now I am ONLINE SHOPPING!!!

Oh wait, before that I wanted to update you on my cold. I have now made my mother and grandmother sick, and countless others are falling sick around me. Nearly everyone I know here is sick. But not to worry, we haven’t had blood pouring out of orifices or anything really scary, except for when I puked a cup of plegm. Yeah, that was a bit of a Linda Blair moment. But I have progessed to a stuffed up nose, and it was so congested yesterday that everytime I blew it AIR CAME OUT OF MY EYES!!!! MY EYES!!! I knew a girl who could blow bubbles out of her eyeballs, but I had never experienced it myself. It dried my eyes out. Luckily there’s a Visine for that.

Okay, back to online shopping.

The main reason is that I no longer live in a big city where I could traverse around the downtown core hitting every shop for alternative/queer/esoteric items. But there is no Virgin Megastore in Saskatoon, or Little Sisters, or even Urban Empire for small wind up sushi’s. And the malls are full of unrepentant heterosexual teenagers lured by Bootlegger, Claires, and Roots stores. Le sigh. So I am forced to make do with things on the internet.

The first two things I intend to purchase are Hk 119’s self titled album and the DVD for Metrosexuality, a hilarious queer brit mini series. Other things on my list include a subscription to Coast to Coast AM (since I can only get limited reception from a station in Omaha and then only if there’s an expanse of snow between here and Omaha) and the Trannyfags video by Morty Diamond. I would also like to become a primetime member of Datalounge, because everytime I go there I can’t get onto the forum since they have to cut down on visitors to keep their server from crashing. OH yah, and I intend to get a dildo with VixSkin from Vixen creations, but I haven’t figured out which one. There’s one with balls I’m kind of curious about, but I worry my harness would hide them anyway and then what’s the point of having balls? Mostly I’m curious about this new silicone they are using that feels like skin. But the only colours they come in are “Cream soda” and “Root Beer.” I’m having some anxiety about choosing a color. Obviously I am a cream soda, but I feel brown inside. So should I go with Root Beer? “If I can’t be brown, I’m going to at least have a brown penis!” I dunno. It’s a quandary to be sure.

And I am finally getting the battery on my iPod replaced. 65 bucks, but it is so worth it, oh little iPod, you mean the world to me!!! I love you, never leave me again. Plus I’ll be able to listen to Coast to Coast on it while I’m toodling around.

The sad thing is that Metrosexuality and Hk 119 are to be found no where in Canada. Which means they go through customs. Which means I pay 15 bucks more. Which means I’ll be paying the same people who rifle through my mail from queer fests and deny me high quality hardcore lesbian porn. It’s most unfair.

I was also going to get my Industrial done, but I’m sick and bleh, so I think I’ll wait until my next paycheque.

I think I might get Coast to Coast actually, first, because I can listen to it right away, and because every halloween they do Ghost To Ghost, my favorite annual episode because they have open lines all night and listeners call in with their real life ghost stories. And you know I love ghost stories.

I think I like online shopping so much because I have to get my mom to agree to let me use her credit card, and I have to really find a place to get something, and so it cuts down on impulse buying. Which for manic depressives is a big thing. I have bought so much CRAP over my life. I nearly bought an 80 dollar sock monkey. Once I bought a techno version of the Singing Nun. I got a lunch kit with monster women on it even though I never used it at all. I’ve bought dresses that I never wear because I never wear dresses. The only big purchases I’ve gotten and have been happy about have been leather items costing 200 or more including a flogger and a jacket. I can’t imagine what would happen if I was hypomanic, had just recieved a grant, and wandered into Mr S. Holy shit, tons of sm gear and no one to use it on. “Date me! I have a cock shaped gag at home!” Yeh, anyway. So sensible things. I must buy sensible things and be sensible with my money and also be able to afford marijuana. It’s all so difficult.

Closeted Celebrity Hilarity

I’ve been sick and lurking on Datalounge, which is probably the best queer gossip board I’ve ever read. Sometimes there’s insider knowledge of various queer celebs doing very queer things (like an actress declaring “Well, I’m off to eat pussy!” as she left a set). And sometimes you even get closet celebs posting like little meek mice asking the general queer public to do all the coming out because we’re better role models. Bizarre. I was queer in high school but I think Scott Thompson being openly gay on Kids In The Hall made more of an impact on teens in my school who tuned in every week. I heard them struggling with their own homophobia and the fact that they were fans of his brilliant comedy. And maybe it made me seem a little more palatable to teen culture in Aden Bowman Collegiate, I don’t know, but I did have an easier time of it than some, I’d like to believe Scott had something to do with it.

And sometimes studio execs post saying queer actors would impact box office sales. It’s really interesting and appeals to my own gossip mongering personality. And then straight girls come along and get upset and say that their favorite stars are not gay.

Anyway, I found some hilarious stuff on DataLounge. This one’s a photoshop, but it’s still hilarious.

Rad photoshop skills dude!!

And this link is not photoshopped at all. It’s Nicomi! The Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts relationship as revealed in an EXTREME number of paparazzi photos. I mean, you can not look at these and tell me they are just best friends. I have best friends and I’m not clinging all over them or checking out their boobs or holding their hands all the time (unless I really do want to mack on them). It brings a whole new level of meaning to Naomi Watts in Mullholland Drive. Maybe she was working through some catharsis about the closet during that role.

Oh man, and sometimes you hear from people who work on set or other insiders. So cool. I’m a nerd, a fangirl, and a wannabe star fucker. I admit it. But mostly I just like knowing if someone I watch is in the family, on our team, in the life, and all those other euphemisms.

Paranoia’s Origin: The Half Used Pencil

Some people don’t know when their paranoia started, it just sneaks up over time. I remember when it first began.

It was grade three. I was one of two Natives in an all white school, and therefore we had no friends. I was sitting in class working on Phonetics (which by the way is a stupid system). I overheard a boy talking to a girl about some girl he didn’t like, he just kept listing off all these attributes he despised.

“She only uses her pencils halfway!”

I glanced in my desk at my three discarded pencils. All halfway used. Why would I use them down to the eraser? It cramped my hand. It was uncomfortable and stupid. Besides, while we were working class, pencil’s weren’t in short supply. Beans and weiners was, and I ate all of those.

“And she never uses her erasers all the way!”

Again, true. Three Pink Pearls, all carefully drawn with pen to look like dogs or kitty cats. I often redrew the markings after a few erasures. And I rotating their usage so that their oblong shape wasn’t destroyed beyond the point of anthropomorphism, the only thing getting me through White Power Elementary.

Why was White Boy picking on me? I had done nothing wrong to him besides my improper use of my writing utensils. Perhaps he asertained that I was a useless Indian squandering my stationary which was no doubt paid for by his taxpaying father. (It was paid for by my mother, who incidentally also pays taxes).

Either way, ever since then whispering or talking in another room freaks me the fuck out cause it triggers my paranoia. Being crazy or Indian or Queer or Fat doesn’t impede my ability to hear.

However being mostly deaf in one ear does, so when I say “WHAT!?” it’s usually because I really can’t hear you.

Also having a name like Thirza, it starts off the same as Thursday, an oft used word. Oh the panic that would strike when someone said Thursday. Seriously. Don’t fucking start a sentence with Thursday around me.

Those half used pencils came back to haunt me in the psych ward because the only pencils allowed were half sized, like library pencils.

Because you can’t shank someone with a half used pencil.

Oh SURE, I could have hidden a half used pencil and asked for another one and gotten the elastic band that the old man was always trying to use as a cockring and then I might have had a serviceable shank. But I didn’t want to shank anyone. I just wanted to watch English Television, the impossible dream. One day when I was really upset a nurse said “Okay, we’ll put on Air Force One.” WTF? I did finally get to watch a made for tv movie about the underground railroad. Nobody watched it with me, they fled to the safe harbour of Radio Canada.

Another funny thing about paranoia, WHITE paranoia, is this. White people have never confronted me the numerous times I’ve smoked marijuana in semi public, but on NUMEROUS occasions outraged white people have stormed aboriginal ceremonies burning sweetgrass/sage/cedar claiming to have smelled reefer.

Now, do they really think it’s pot? Have they never smoked or smelled pot? Or are they just harrassing us because those strange Injun ways are a menace to youth?

Look Out Everyone for Sweetgrass Madness! They speak in languages that should be dead. They use parts of endangered animals! They’re BROWN! They’re a fire hazard, and they’re in your COMMUNITIES!!!

Hi Mum, before you meet my girlfriend could you sign this non-disclosure agreement?

I did a VERY silly thing during this cold. I didn’t take my meds for two days. Why? Anna Nicole Smith’s dead son. Killed by anti-deps and methadone in a tragic accident. And I thought it would be just my luck to croak. I can see the headline. “Obscure Lesbian Video Artist Killed by Psych Meds and Cough Suppressants.” It’s even more ignoble than my fear of being run over by the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

Yes, now I understand that methadone is very different than a cough suppressant.

So what happened? Well, I woke myself up several times one night by constantly talking in my sleep, but my voice was fucked by plegm so I was talking in mainly vowel sounds that loosely mimicked english speech patterns. The next day I trolled the internet for hours looking for lesbian celebrity gossip (fueled by my need for the perfect coming out blog, and, er, that I haven’t had a girlfriend for years). Then last night NO SLEEP!!! These are senseless voyages into the dark world of nothingness and infocommercials. I gave up on the infocommercials ages ago (when you think a spatula thrown into the 19.95 price is a steal, it’s time to turn it off). Luckily I had hypomania to keep me company.

I recently read that one out of 24 people has a voice in their head on a regular basis and it improves their lives, they’re healthy, normal people. My voices used to be mean, but now they’re quite intellectual, philosophical, comical and little cheerleaders. Anyway, they entertained me last night as I mused on the notion of dating a closeted or semi closeted celebrity. What would a non-disclosure agreement entail? And what would my conversations with my friends be like? I’d have to refer to her as Miss X. I don’t think a closeted celeb would date me, I have Big Dyke written all over me. Of course, so do some of them. And then my long wintery wasteland of celebacy would make me run around all over going “I have a girlfriend!” and then people would ask me about her and stuff and I wouldn’t be able to say her name or anything. “Uh, she’s tall, white, has brunette hair, starts giggling when you whip her.” She’d become the Snuffalopagos girlfriend that no one would see, except for the sad fact they would see her, all the time, macking on a closeted gay man for the tabloids.

And what about introducing her to your family? Would my mom have to sign a non-disclosure agreement?

But even better, what about the possibilities of being a kept woman to a glamourous forty something sugar momma!? Quiet evenings alone in a penthouse, occasional jaunts to third world countries to go window shopping for babies to adopt. Hearing gossip about other closeted lesbians. Getting rip roaring drunk on her $600 bottle of Cognac and barfing sushi all over her $20 000 carpet. And the hopeful outcome of being passed on to another glamourous closeted forty something celebrity after the romance has faded and her carpet cleaning bill comes in.

Coming Out Day

It’s coming out day. I blew my wad describing my teenage coming out experience, so enough about me. And I’m not soliciting other people’s coming out stories eiether, because they’re only so interesting and then everything sounds the same. There’s a formula, ya know. It goes like this:

I always suspected ever since I was __ and got a crush on/really liked _____________.
When I was __ I fell in love with a girl/boy.
I told ________ and they _________
I realized _________ hated queers.
I rented Desert of The Heart/Auntie Mame over and over.
I told my mum and she _________.

Anyway, none of that. I’m falling asleep remembering.

I’d rather this be a visionary type blog about coming out. I want to talk about all the sexy babes I want to come out of the closet, not because I think they’ll be good role models for the LGBT community or because they’ll improve the lot of the LGBT community. I want them to come out so I can sleep with them. Come on, hot lesbian starfucker sex where you don’t have to sign a legal document declaring you will never out them, or being the anonymous gal pal, or sleeping in the same house as the *husband*. That is hot. Relationships and sex without fear and oppression is sexy as hell, especially if you get to escort some hottie down a red carpet, even if your name is misspelled in all the captions (which mine definitely would be). I know some people would say secrecy and mystery is sexy, and in a way it is, but think of the practicalities, it is a pain in the ass.

Okay, so here is who I want to come out already.

#1 Jorja Fox

This image alone should seal the deal. But an even funnier quote from a message board says it all:
“Fox’s cunt-lapping proclivities has been on this forum many times. She plays in an all-lesbian band, her best friends are all lesbians, and she has never denied being a lesbian, and has appeared in various gay and lesbian magazines. “
I also read that she and her long time girlfriend broke up. ooh la la.

#2 Marcia Cross

Okay, so consider this. In real life she meets a guy and in six months they’re engaged, soon after they’re married, and now she’s pregnant. In the show she meets a guy, six months later they are engaged, and soon after they are married. That’s kind of bizarre. And it was such a coverup type marriage. I mean, I could go find a scared little gay boy to marry from a Craigslist posting. Whatev. Anyway, everyone heard about all the coming out frou fra, it’s kind of old news now. She allegedly has a girlfriend (do you think I could break them up?). Some anonymous folks in the life have mentioned seeing her at LA Dyke Bars (why have I never been to these bars? 🙁 ), and she kissed Felicity Huffman and pinched Eva Longoria’s butt during the infamous Vanity Fair Shoot. Which brings me to # 3, who rumour has it is also a regular at LA Dyke Bars.

#3 Nicole Kidman

God, OBVIOUSLY I need to get a Canada Council grant to research the celebrity demographics of LA dyke bars, with lots of field research and hands on experimentation. I forget my good gossip on her, except that she seemed awfully snuggly with Naomi Watts and went to stay with her after the Cruise breakup (which was supposedly orchestrated in their prenumptials to take place after a certain period of time. OMG, but listen to this: “Jane Campion came to my school and wanted to cast me in her student film, but she wanted me to wear a shower cap on my head and kiss another girl” I don’t find shower caps sexy either.

#4 Jodie Foster

Like the famous Leonard Cohen song, Everybody Knows. I mean, COME ON! Why can she not come out? Why won’t she? It’s not like people would be surprised.

Okay, so to end this Coming Out Day blog, here is a classic scene from Ellen’s coming out episode. Take CAREFUL note of the celebrity cameo in here.

Crumbs

So now North Korea is itching for war. Crumbs. I don’t know what to say about all of this, except that it reminds me of a sad conversation I’ve been having with various people I know. This summer a friend told me she thought the Americans would get nuked. I’m not sure, I’ve just been thinking something really bad will happen down there to a lot of Americans who don’t believe in their government either. So strange, what a strange world. And if they do nuke the US, I wonder if Vancouver will get hit. Or any other countries.

Oh, and a tiny plane flew into a building in New York.

News is weird.

The Doomsday Clock is still at 7 minutes to midnight.

Okay this is funny. The following is a direct paragraph from Wikipedia. Bear in mind that people can edit at any time.

“Prognosis

Acute bronchitis usually lasts approximately 10 or 11 days. It may accompany or closely follow a cold or the flu, or it may arrive unaccompanied by any other condition. It is contagious, and it starts out with a dry cough, frequently waking the sufferer up at night. After a few days, it progresses to a wetter, productive cough, which may be accompanied by a low grade fever, fatigue, and headache. The fever, fatigue, and malaise may last only a few days, but the wet cough may last up to several weeks. For some people, the cough may last as long as a few months as the bronchial tubes heal slowly.
Should the cough last longer than a month, some doctors may issue a referral to an ENT Doctor to see if a cause other than bronchitis is causing the irritation. It is possible that having irritated bronchial tubes for as long as a few months may inspire asthmatic conditions in some patients.
In addition, if one starts coughing up mucus tinged with blood, one should see a doctor. In rare cases, doctors may conduct tests to see if the cause is a serious condition such as tuberculosis or lung cancer.
The prognosis for patients with severe chronic bronchitis varies, but recovery is harder for those patients with additional severe illnesses (lung diseases or heart conditions). Pulmonary hypertension, cor pulmonale, and chronic respiratory failure are possible complications from chronic bronchitis.
oh my god!”

The irony is after I read all this I too thought Oh my god because it sounds suspiciously like what I have.

CREEPY!

Someone rang the doorbell so I went to go look. The big dog was in the backyard, and I couldn’t see who this guy was. Then I went and let in my mom’s rather ferocious sounding huge ass dog, opened the door, and some skeezy looking guy walked away as the dog barked his huge bark. Ewwww. Creepy!! WTF?

Cough Cough Blorgg!

I’m REALLY REALLY sick right now, I think I have to see the doctor actually. I’d had this low frade cough for over two weeks and then last night after Thanksgiving dinner I was smoking with two cousins when I started coughing so hard I BARFED out a huge glob of plegm. And I mean HUGE! I did that a few more times that evening before going to bed, where I have stayed until half an hour ago.

Sooo, yeah, had to call in sick to work. Had some REALLY weird dreams. My little dog kept coming around to see what was wrong with me.

Anyway, I wanted to write a more uplifting goofy post. I also found it it is Aboriginal Women’s History Month and since Halloween is ALSO coming up, I have to start on my scary posts. And I have ten days to get an application in. Eeee! Deadlines are scary enough in and of themselves.

So since I’m sick I can’t post much funny stuff. We looked at possessions on Sunday to freak us out, but this was the best one (btw it’s quite short).

It’s Tickle Me Elmo with audio from the Exorcism of Emily Rose over top.

The Myth of Violence Among the Mentally Ill

Sooo, I guess I should start this with a recap of me.

Diagnosis:
Bipolar Disorder (aka Manic Depression) with possible Schizoaffective Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Anxiety Disorder (generalized and social)
Attention Deficit Disorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (after hospitalization)

Onset of illness:
First suicide attempt age 7
First Manic Psychosis age 24

Psychiatric Medicines:
Paxil, Imovane, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Zyprexa, Effexor, Lithium, Epival, Serzone, Lamictal. Currently on Epival, Celexa, and Lamictal.

It’s strange to start with such a basic reduced profile of who I am. It’s really not the whole picture in anyway what so ever. I was an honour roll student, I have a bachelors degree, I’m a filmmaker/video artist, I took care of my mentally handicapped sister while growing up, I read all kinds of stuff, from fiction to comics to academic theory. I watched foreign and independent films since my teen years. I’ve been a feminist ever since I could use the word. I try to keep abreast of current politics and connect it to history. I’ve spent my whole life being involved in my culture as a Cree woman. I was out in high school. I’ve had hamsters, turtles, rats, dogs and cats. I consider my art practice to be political in nature. I’m involved in my communities.

But the fact is, once I tell people my diagnosis, none of the rest of it matters. Suddenly I am Bipolar, a mental patient. I am distilled down to the tiniest essence. Certainly my disorders have shaped my view of the world, my experiences, my beliefs. I’ve tried since my hospitalization to be outspoken on the rights of the mentally ill. It’s hard. The saddest for me is when I’m speaking out about abuse in the psychiatric system and someone else is too, but they distance themselves from me by stating emphatically that they are not crazy. Therefore, they do not deserve the treatment that they got because they’re one of the normals. Another peeve I have is when friends insist I am not mentally ill, when I know I am. I finally accept it. But they can’t accept that about me, because I don’t fit in with what they believe about the mentally ill.

But what I really want to talk about is the myth that we are more violent than the rest of society, what we call the normals. I recently had a squabble with a commenter on another blog about the way the killer of those Amish girls was termed mentally ill by everybody writing on him. She said that schizophrenics were inherantly more violent than regular people. I told her she was prejudiced and should go meet people with mental illnesses. Anyway, it got me thinking. Sometimes when people find out about my illness, they do really weird things, like edge away from me in case I flip and try to kill them. They cut off friendships, I’ve been discriminated against on the job, lovers ditch me because they think I’m high maintanence.

Because people think we’re violent, we start to believe it. A lot of people can’t handle accepting their diagnosis because they’ve been brainwashed with stigma. I know that was a big issue for me. We don’t want to take our meds, we try to handle things on our own, we end up denied housing and living on the street.

Why do people think such bad things about us? A few reasons. People are scared of difference, and what they don’t understand. People generally are not educated about mental illnesses. Take schizophrenia for an example. People CONSISTENTLY think schizophrenia means having a split personality. It is totally different. That’s more like Dissociative Identity Disorder (AKA Multiple Personality Disorder). Also certain symptoms of our illnesses scare the beezus out of people, such as delusions and hallucinations (visual, auditory, and tactile, which is a lesser known hallucination). Some of our symptoms are actually side effects of our meds (shuffling, tics, and shakes).

But probably the worst contributor to stigma towards the mentally ill is the media. Television shows, movies, and news. We’re killers, stalkers, etc etc. And a lot of times a violent criminal who’s a normal will get slapped with the psycho label just to ease people’s comfort levels. As long as it’s THOSE people doing this shit, they don’t have to worry. The fact is since normal people make up the majority, and since violence is the same among sane/insane populations, the majority of violent crime is committed by normals. Also consider that the crimes committed by people with mental health issues get more sensationalized press time. People eat up stories about the looney tune who flipped compared to the methodical killer who amassed an aresenal of guns over a few years.

Since my diagnosis of Manic Depression I’ve spent more time among others of my ilk, people with schizophrenia, DID, OCD, Anxiety, etc etc. Even in the hospital, I have never seen one of us become violent. In fact, the few times in my life I’ve actually been scared for my life has been around normals. I’d much rather have tea with a group of schizophrenics than have beers with a group of normals.

Incidentally, I haven’t assaulted anyone. I have been assaulted five times.

Interesting side note: My shakes. Since getting on psychiatric drugs (particularily anti-psychotic/anti-manic drugs) I’ve had the shakes at certain times, when I’m scared, nervous, upset, doing public speaking, etc. Spilling hot coffee on my hand is the worst. I was trying to figure out where it came from, since I’d never had them B.D. (before drugs). I have a theory now. All of those situations involve rushes of adrenaline, which obviously goes through your brain. It’s probable that medication and adrenaline interacts and produces the shakes. It would be nice if they could get rid of that side effect, because it’s really hard to cover up fear/nervousness when everyone can see you shaking. Whatever. They should just get over it anyway.

Back to Queer Month (or whatever they called it)

So anyway, back to Queer History month.

Hollywood is crawling with queers. I mean, you would not believe how many. The best one i heard was Julie Andrews and her partner Carol Burnett.

Anyway, here is a sweet video I found on Youtube about successful queers (a lot in Hollywood)

Um, hmm, I have some other non related things to talk about.

Last night I broke my bed. I’d started my period in the middle of the night and was getting out to put on a pad, when I had all my weight on one knee and the slat beneath me snapped and I plunged! Half a foot. Luckily the other part of the slat rested on a board in the middle of the bed, so I could inch over that way.

I’ve got some stuff on my mind right now. Actually, maybe I will post this and then come back and post my other one on it’s own.