Don’t support the Red Cross

Unless you don’t mind having most of your donation go towards ambigious “war funds.”

In the hands of God

It’s been a couple of years since I went crazy. I think I always believed in God, as I understood It to be. Not the God of bible thumping hellfire and damnation, but a loving God, a Just God. After going crazy, I am convinced there is such a being.

That’s the part of going crazy that no one understood, or even acknowledged. For myself, going crazy wasn’t some major self destructive thing (although yes, it did damage relationships and so forth), but rather it was like a very intense Spiritual boot camp. Going crazy lets you touch God, and that scares people. Suddenly the mysteries in the universe click into place and everything makes sense. I finally understood that I was God.

See, and that is exactly where people get pissed off at me, because it’s an audacious thing to say and then they assume that it means you think you are the One and Only God. Which isn’t true at all. What I really mean when I say I am God is that we all are. That’s the whole point of us being on this earth. We all split off into seperate souls so that we could learn, grow, and eventually go back to being God. We are all the same person.

It’s a startling revelation, and one that is bound to look “crazy.”

Going crazy was the most spiritually enlightening event of my life. It gave me wisdom in a way I never would have gotten from sitting in church every Sunday. And it was also undervalued and unappreciated. No one expects you to walk out of the fires of psychosis with deep understanding of spiritual tenets, when the reality is that many of us do. We just don’t talk about what we’ve seen because people get nervous.

Once we were seers, we were valued for our visions. Now, we are just subhumans, scary and dangerous and objects of scorn. And yet, the so called Mentally Ill have for eons been bringing religious and spiritual insights to the world. What do we do now when anything we say is subject to “time to up your meds” or “you’re happy, I think you’re manic” or “have you told your doctor about this?”

I believe Crazy people have a lot to offer society, more than some understand. It would be wise for more spiritual councelling to go on in psych wards, where someone can talk about what they went through. It’s not always the prettiest experience, sometimes it’s downright terrifying, but there is some truth within the maelstrom of insanity, and those truths should be honoured.

“Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!”

A scary, yet funny story about a katrina survivor, the man, and some goons. Note the Mr. T t-shirt.

Underprivilleged

I’m sure by now you have heard Barbara Bush’s incredibly disgusting comment by now. Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge said “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.
We couldn’t do it, but God did.”

I know people are really turned off by the idea of thinking of race and class being an issue in the atrociously delayed response to the disaster. No one wants to think that racism and classism are alive and well. Or if it is, don’t talk about it. But IT SO OBVIOUSLY IS!

And even though we’re up here in Canada, probably being smug about not having the same problems, imagine if a large disaster affected a Canadian community that was largely Aboriginal. Would people be glad to see a large portion of us wiped off the map, conveniently dislocated in time for the development of a new resort? Or would Canadians actually rise to the occasion and give help to fellow humans in need?

Would people downplay our suffering by saying we were underprivelleged anyway?

By the way, stop trying to colonize my blog with bullshit spam comments. I know you don’t give a damn about what I write, you probably don’t even read it, and if you want to advertise here you have to pay me. I’m not cheap either. I may be underprivelleged, but I do have class.

Handball

Disclaimer: This is not an entry about fisting.

I’m sure by now most of you are aware I was a massive nerd during my formative years. Now I’m an artist, which is quasi cool, but I’m still pretty much a big nerd. Anyway, as a nerd, I never did very well in P.E. That’s PhysEd. I suppose I got used to the constant horrors of competive education. I was weaker, therefore I was the loser.

In high school we had all become friends with each other. The nerds, the outcasts, anyone who didn’t fit in. We were pals and had grand adventures and dramas. And we all sucked at P.E.

Anyway, one strange day we were all on a team against some of the most popular girls in the school when we learned of a wonderous new sport.

Handball.

We were light on our feet and nimble, making passes effortlessly and getting goal after goal after goal.

We kicked serious handball ass.

Why handball, I don’t know. But I was disappointed when we didn’t get to play handball the next class. It felt good to finally win. We were all really quiet about the whole thing, and at one point I even wondered if we had kicked ass. Then my friend Heather said “Remember that day we played handball and kicked ass!”

Yes Heather, I still remember it.

In Search Of

Do you remember that show? It was one of those paranormal shows. As in “In Search Of Ufo’s,” “In Search Of Bigfoot,” and so on.

Well, my quest is not nearly so supernatural. I am In Search Of A Weiner Dog. I got a part time job today, and it boosted my spirits (and my income, having been unemployed all summer). So I am in a better spot for the next month or so from other sources (none of which are paranormal either) and I want to get my dog. I’m working part time, I’d have time to be around him. I want a boy dog, because bitches are hell to live with.

Soo, want a pup. But they are rather pricey, to say the least. There’s some cheaper dogs being sold in the States, but I haven’t run any numbers through a currency counter so it might still be really expensive. PLUS then I would have to get them shipped, which would probably make them just as expensive as the ones around here. However, there are more moderately priced dogs in Saskatchewan.

Next task: Convince Mother to drive to Lloydminster and pick up my weiner dog.

Actually, the next task is really for me to make some sense out of a huge amount of financial issues, including two big bill payments. But I really do miss having a little friend. I’ve had pets almost my whole life, and it’s weird not to have one. And I’m ready to have a new little friend, time’s passed since Clive moved on. And I’m lonely. And it would be a good reason for me to maintain a schedule. Plus I am such a dog person.

Anyway, I’m off to virtually window shop mini dachshund pups.

I have been absent

For a few reasons. One, and quite possibly the most likely reason, is that I ran out of anti-depressants and I’ve slid into a little depressed hole. Crap. I’ve been borrowing anti-depressants from my neighbor down the hall, but she’s not there tonight, or last night. And I am all alone. Howl!

Anyway, I have actually been doing a lot of reading on the whole New Orleans disaster. It’s really criminal. And now the mayor is worried that all the floating chemicals and oils and gas and so forth on the water could ignite. That would make this disaster even worse.

Some people are even calling it genocide, which you know, it really does look like that. It’s really creepy how they’re blocking all kinds of aid from getting in. Who knows. I am sure everyone has some motive going on behind the whole thing, there’s so much politics involved. But why make out your government to be weak in times of crisis? Especially a country that is so into war and being top dog of all the world? Doesn’t this make them look highly ineffectual and therefore a prime target?

See, that’s what confuses me, I can get the racism/classism stuff, but making the country seem unable to respond to crisis during a war on terror? I don’t quite get what they (they, the thems, the suited folk that make decisions) are aiming to get out of the situation.

As for life, eh, I might have work tomorrow, which would be nice. Part time call centre job. Yep. I also applied for the Customer service rep position at the Bay, which appeals to my colonized body in some way. I think I would make a great halfbreed CSR, Aboriginals working for the Bay in the New Millenium! Training starts in October.

I guess, aside from falling into a puddle of despair (it is not a deep black bleak pit of despair), I am doing alright. Waiting for cash to pour in, reading affirmations on abundance.

I am a tender flower, worth all the gold bullion in the world, someone will give me a job.

The eye of the storm

I was listening to radio reports the night the hurricane headed for New Orleans. New Orleans, I had always wanted to visit it. Such a romantic, haunted city. Of course it appeals to me.

I’ve been watching and reading all of the news coming out of there right now. The media are really downplaying the sheer horror of the entire catastrophe.

I could tell you some of the stories coming out of there, but it would also be filtered information, so instead I will try and find some blogs that will give you some idea of what’s really going on.

Interdictor is guarding a web hosting server in New Orleans armed with provisions, a gun, and a live feed from their building. This blog really gives a view into life in the city as it is right now.

Katrina Refugee is from the viewpoint of someone who made it out of New Orleans.

Gulfsails posts hourly via cell and noticed a shark swimming in the murky streets.

I don’t know if Sciguy is there, but he’s a great source of information on the aftermath of Katrina.

Something creepy tells me this is only the beginning of worse times. I’m sure you all know I live on a massive fault line that is just aching to release. I feel woefully unprepared for a natural disaster, even though I’m more or less healthy and have a copy of the Survival Guide. If worse came to worse, I would pack all I could on my back, hop on my rickety bike, and cycle to a scene or city of less devastation, occasionally turning on my cell to post here via audio blogs. That being said, I feel like something is coming soon, and I don’t really want to be here when it hits.

Ode to Olanzapine

Night after night in the bleak grip of darkness
I reach for the Olanzapine
Round white pills of things mysterious to me
It is the drug companies biggest seller
You can’t say there are no after effects
The first year was a fog
Emotional flatline
They said I was making progress
Olanzapine zombie rarely speaks
Is compliant
60 pounds in six months
New wardrobe, new stretchmarks, new body
I take this drug so that I can keep up with capitalist demand
To be a productive person
To not think magic still exists
To live
I don’t mind the olanzapine
I just hate the idea of forever.

Life is strange

Yes it is. I’m having a sort of spiritual crisis at the moment, a result of deciding to walk away from a very long and intense friendship which was stagnant. I know it was a positive decision, but the negative fallout from walking away (including having my dead pet put on my apartment doorknob and which was stolen before I could reach him) has left me feeling shaken. I want to be able to have the ability to love and forgive, but hurtful actions are difficult to heal from.

Maybe I used to think that in order to truly forgive someone, you had to allow them in your life, even if they were severely limiting your ability to live in peace and love. Now I realize this isn’t the case, you can care deeply about someone and still put up big boundaries that mean they can never hurt you again. Sometimes people are just too negative to allow them to influence your life anymore. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to tell them goodbye.

Aside from that, I have been reading a lot of stuff on Near Death Experiences. Quite fascinating. I must admit, it makes me quite homesick for a spiritual land far far away. But dammit, I’m supposed to be here, doing my thing.

I’m also considering moving. To either Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Ontario. Of course, I probably won’t, yet. Still, there is a creepy feeling pervading me that this isn’t where I should be calling home. I’m really unsure. Too many questions.