Ch ch ch changes!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been in a bit of a quandry as to what to do with my life. When Christopher died it really hit home the fact that we all have such a limited time here on earth, and our lives could end at any moment.

So . . . I had some debauched times, involving drinking, loads of pot, gambling, and my first trip to the horse track (I didn’t win anything). After that was done, I still didn’t feel any better about where my life was headed, especially after some splitting hangovers and watching money fly out of my wallet to the great capitalist unknown.

And some other things were bothering me too, besides not having a job and living with Mum again. Mum’s not bad, but it’s not exactly appealling to let cutie pies know you’re still in your parent’s house. Since being treated for bipolar disorder I’ve gained an excess of fifty pounds, most of it on my belly and rump. The first year the weight gain was so bad that I got massive stretch marks, which made me feel even worse. Lately I’ve discovered I can’t bend over to attend to things on the ground or I start having trouble breathing. I’m getting really fucking sick of being fat.

I went to the doctor today and said I wanted off Zyprexa. Zyprexa, my antipsychotic friend for the past three and a half years. Besides being one of THE major drugs that causes immense weight gain, it is also linked to causing diabetes, which I’m already predisposed to. So I got a prescription for Lamictal, and over the next few weeks will be doing the taper off/taper on dance. Lamictal has it’s own drawbacks, including a sometimes fatal skin rash. I never knew skin rashes could be fatal, but there ya go.

Not only that, but I’m going to try to stick to a sensible diet and exercise regime. Tonight I have to mow the lawn, but I’m also going to start going for half hour walks everyday.

My next health task is going to be quitting smoking. I really want to do it this time, especially since I haven’t had a sweetheart the entire time I’ve been a smoker. It’s blocking my womanly odors! But first thing is first.

I’m also in the process of getting together a demo reel to apply for jobs as an editor. I am a kick ass editor, in case you didn’t know. There was a rumour for a while that all of my early work was in camera, but only Bisexual Wannabe was in camera, the rest was edited together on various machines, some of them very archaic. Also my cousin and I have an idea for a television show that we’re going to try and get some development money for. I never thought I’d work in television, but I need a job, and it’s a fun project.

Aside from that, life is strange. I thought I would be moving back to Vancouver, but after visiting there for a week I decided not to. I don’t know where I would fit in, right now I’m seriously considering either Toronto or Winnipeg, although something tells me I should stay in Saskatoon for a while yet.

In other news, the general consensus among people I know here is that something BIG is about to happen, and not something nice either. I’m talking either a major terrorist attack or a natural disaster, and probably within a few months. I know, that’s the most vague prediction I’ve ever heard too, but something isn’t right in the world, there’s a weird energy and I can’t for the life of me put my finger on it. I googled End of the World predictions and nothing came up that looked remotely like what would happen. I don’t think it will be the end or anything though, just some very rough, very difficult times. And probably a lot of death.

But maybe we’re all wrong. Ya never know.

Either way, I want to get this spare tire of mine to roll away before the Big thing hits.

SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT!

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My cuz Deanna and I were up to no good over at her friend’s place out in the country. We had just said goodbye to her sister when out of nowhere an unearthly noise pierced the darkness of midnight. I was so shocked to hear it that I started smoking my cigarette even harder to try and finish it and get back inside. It came again, an eerie cry that sounded not unlike a woman screaming in extreme pain, like she was being brutally murdered. It came again, and this time it was getting closer.

“What the hell was that?”

I have to admit, my first thought was that it was an animal, but as it got closer and closer and inspired more and more fear, I began to have all kinds of wild thoughts. It sounded so much like it was a woman, what if at any second a bloody woman with a knife in her eye staggered up the walk and shrieked, with her demented murderer coming close behind, ready to destroy all the regrettably stoned witnesses? Not only that, but it was coming so close to the house, and I finally gave up my cigarette and ran inside, where we told everyone what was happening and two men went out to investigate.

They had seen a cougar, or rather, heard it, the other night out near the barn. They imitated the shriek, and the shrieking came back, but when they yelled Hey! nobody came or answered. Meanwhile we were huddled in the instrument room with quivering knees. Convinced it was really “just” a cougar, things calmed down again. Until somebody started hearing things coming from the basement . . . where there wasn’t anybody.

It’s true, cougars have returned to Saskatchewan, even around that bustling metropolis, Saskatoon. And jesus, they really do sound like murdered women.

Swelter

It’s HOT here in Vancouver, as in beads of sweat are running down my face, as in I want to pass out. It’s been an interesting trip, full of, strangeness. I got to see a room of sweaty lesbians last night, which was really nice. I’ve been to the ocean, to various little happenings. I saw the totem pole which had been repatriated by the Haisla. David Sukuzi was there for the ceremony, he got the biggest applause. It’s perfect beach weather, and it would probably be cooler at the beach, but I’m now running out of money and can’t even go. Life’s rough that way.

I REALLY miss Mister and Schrodinger, I get some reports on how they are doing. Mister is in Clicker Training for little dogs, and we still have to work on him ignoring bathroom rules, little doof. Everytime I see a little dog here (and there are a lot of them!) I miss my tiny pals. So far I haven’t seen a weiner dog as handsome and adorable as Mister. And I’m sure Schrodinger is getting bigger too, little goof. He’s got this really angular little face and such beautiful fur.

Either way, tomorrow night I will have my little friends with me again, and I’m looking forward to it.

I should really venture forth into the hot hot hot and find something else to kill the time. Arg, what can I do with a teeny amount of money in a big expensive city?

Christopher Ian Cuthand February 18 1986 – June 2 2006

We buried my little cousin on Thursday, out at Little Pine reserve. His death was tragic and sudden, and we are all forever changed.

When we talk about him, we can’t help but laugh because he was such a hilarious guy. He was sort of shy, but had this cheeky sense of humour, everyone loved him instantly. When I lived in Vancouver I would regularily hear Christopher stories, funny things he said or did. I heard about one time when he finally got his lava lamp and freaked out late one night because he thought the blobs made the face of the devil at him. He had a hamster named Mr. T, and he loved making wontons with my mom. He was just this bright happy sunbeam in all of our lives.

It’s been a really hard past week, more so because now we’re just expected to go with the flow again, when we’ve had such intense time together.

He was so young, it really makes you aware of your mortality.

I think what’s really pulling me through is this intense faith I have, something I wouldn’t have gotten, ironically, if I hadn’t gone crazy.

You never really can tell what’s going to come around the corner.

Message from a Scraling

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

This is a message being conveyed at Yucca Mountain, one of the biggest sites of nuclear waste. This message has to be created in a form which humans or other life forms 10 000 years into the future will understand, irregardless of how advanced or primitive (hate that word). (wrap your brain around that one!) If that’s not scary enough, listen to this. The Shoshone, who have been contesting the nuclear waste site, have a legend that “tell[s] of Yucca Mountain (known as Snake Mountain) and how the snake would rise up as a horrific serpent if it were ever harmed.” It’s also the site of Shoshone and Paite prayer rings, burial grounds, and sacred waterways. Of course. I mean, talk about the set up for a gory horror movie starring a zombie Graham Greene on a horse.

“This land was sacred to my people since time immemorial, and now I want to EAT YOUR BRAINS!!!!”

Currently the plan is to architecturally construct the site in a very forboding manner, involving large thorny concrete spikes, large black looming rocks, and a sort of unmanned interpretive centre in all UN languages and Navajo (apparently the Shoshone and Paite will be gone by then).

If you think that’s awful, consider this fact. Mount Rushmore, with those looming white man faces, is considered a sacred site by the Lakota. And it was good for their ar-thur-itis too. Actually, I just made that last part up.

But if you want to know something really trippy, Vikings called us scralings. Scralings, isn’t that hilarious? It’s like something out of Lord of the Rings or a really bad text video game.

Hands up all the queer girls who are ogling the Pepsi commercial

Last year around this time I wrote about Parker Posey’s sexiest moment as the bitchy senior who sprays the freshmen girls down with condiments. Now I add her latest achievement, the Pepsi commercial. I would never call Pepsi commercials an achievement normally, but she is so freakin’ cute in it. Someone said she looked dorky, I guess she makes dorky kinda hot though.

I’ve gotten hooked to the freakin’ ad, and everytime I hear the jingle I drop whatever I’m doing and stand slack jawed in front of the television set drooling. And apparently I’m not the only one.

In honour of Parker Posey day (which I have just made up), here is a series of links. If you’re a Parker Posey fan, you might find some of the links probative.

The commercial in it’s entirety Although it sucks that Parker Posey doesn’t come in until later, it does show some new Parker Posey Pepsi footage, oo la la. Including someone shoving her! That makes two terrible things to befall our heroine in one ad, the second being when that idiot man throws her up into the air and she doesn’t come back. It would have been cooler if it ended with her booting him in the groin and taking his wallet. Any other suggested alternative endings, please post them in the comments section.

If you have not heard of Parker Posey you have obviously been living under a rock. But there’s the Wikipedia entry for her.

At my graduation screening I was in the middle of a mixed episode, and screamed out to the audience “Hey! This isn’t Josie and the Pussycats!”

An old friend who lived in the same crack neighborhood as I saw Parker Posey in our neighborhood park where the crack dealers hung out. And maybe you’re thinking “Oh no, she was probably doing something more innocuous and movie star-ish like cocaine or marijuana,” but believe me, all they sell there is crack. The only other thing people go to that neighborhood for is to visit the art centres. Drug trade, art, due to economic circumstances the two seem to go together. Who knows, maybe Parker Posey was just hanging out in a scary neighborhood. She didn’t dance down the street or anything wild.

On a googling expedition I discovered this lovely stanza under the promising title “Parker Posey cum”:
Parker Posey cum
Parker Posey lesbian
u several in they’re etc.
ours eg nor j.
with has where’s
latter masturbation had becoming
except end otherwise k co her
Parker Posey ..

Happy Parker Posey Day!

Survival Tactics

In the wild, animals hide their pains, injuries, and illnesses so that they won’t be dinner for various carnivourous megafauna. As humans, we’d like to think we are different, but this is so not the case. Especially for those of us with invisible disabilities. Although we’re entitled to accommodations, we still try REALLY hard to act normal. Crazy people especially (such as moi) have to behave impeccably well to not be percieved as lacking in the skills and wherewithall to get through life. If our disability is getting obvious, or we’re starting to have a breakthrough episode, it gets really hard. It’s not so much that people care what you’re thinking or feeling, it’s that people want your behavior to not interfer with their lives. Also, if you’re in deep emotional pain, you could get passed over for that promotion, that job, that apartment, etc etc. People don’t like to be around crazy people because either a) they don’t know how to deal with a crazy person, or b) they think you’ll kill them.

Not only that, but to be publically identifiable as someone dealing with mental health issues means you’re also prey for any of the millions of human predators out there, be they sexual predators, violent predators, or even a certain dude I know who twice tried to steal my apartment and possessions and toss me into the street. You get stuck in slum housing in a rough neighborhood working a low paying job, or worse, living on the meager amounts disability pays. I think stigma plays a huge role in the fact that a large number of people with mental health issues are living on the streets or in rundown buildings.

And then you might want to survive by not telling anyone that you have an invisible disability. But what about the sick days you’ll have to take at some point when meds need to be changed? Or if you have to go to the hospital? What about that uncomfortable abusive feeling you get when someone starts talking shit about crazy people?

I’m still coming out of a depressive episode, a rather mild one really, but still totally fucked and horrid. But I only thought about suicide for one hour, and that was a new record for me. Unfortunately I did think about cutting, which is something I’ve only ever done once five years ago. I still feel pretty crummy, and I know it will be another week before I’m operating at full capacity. So I wear the happy face. Not because I am happy, or that I feel I should be happy, but just because if it looks like my episode is as bad as it really is people will get pissed off and I’ll probably get hassled a lot by people who want me to snap out of it.

It’s just a survival strategy, don’t show weakness.

Fuckin’ Epson

I’ve wasted a goodly amount of new ink trying to get the printer to work. Now I find out after googling that Epson Stylus CX5400 is NOTORIOUS for fucking up with clogged ink after three cartridge changes. This means: 1. They make more money off ink by wasting it. 2. They make more money by charging ridiculous prices to “repair” the printer. Luckily this can all be solved by a very involved cleaning (NOT “head cleaning,” I mean actually taking the thing apart and using citrus clean and a wire in the hose). Head cleaning has so far done ABSOLUTELY nothing to get the printer to print, in fact it is making it worse. All this and I have a deadline coming up to submit my screenplay to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Which means I probably will end up going over to my mom’s to print after all. So the point is, don’t buy Epson. Do research before you purchase a printer so you don’t end up with a pathetic lemon like mine.

Heavy sigh.

I got Schrodinger a huge cat “tree” today. Basically it’s a two level carpeted cat gym with a small box with round doors on the bottom. a sisal scratching post and ramp to the second floor, where a round cat bed is perched. The legs are also covered with sisal and there are SIX (kinda ridiculous) rattley balls dangling from more sisal rope. I thought he would need it so he can hide from Jago, cause I know he’ll be kinda pissed at me and especially at the dog. The surprising thing is that it only cost about 55 bucks. The funny thing is he’s nearly the same color as it.

Anyway, cripes, I gotta get to bed.

28 years old

Today is my birthday, and the first thing I did was a prat fall off my bed, reaching for the snooze button. My new kitten Schrodinger was very alarmed, especially since one side of the futon was on the floor with me, while the side he was on had catapulted him up in the air. Poor little guy.

Schrodinger just came home on Sunday, and he’s still getting used to life here. He missed his sisters and mom for the first day, but now he’s just being a regular kitten, goofing around and playing with his huge collection of toys. I can spend hours just watching his hilarious antics. He sure does cheer me up. Life already seems very different. And when the dog comes, it’s going to be even more different. He’s a really funny cat, he gets pissed off if his litter box is too dirty, he just mews and mews until I clean it.

Anyway, hmm. Every birthday I try to write what I’ve learned about life in the past year.

What have I learned?

I’ve learned that sometimes fulfilling your dreams means you have to go into a different direction than you imagined. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about writing a screenplay. I’ve learned that it’s best to be who you really are, instead of pretending to be someone other people might prefer. I’ve learned about psychiatric service dogs and what they can be trained to do to help mitigate my illness. I’ve realized that I’m a deeply spiritual person, and also that even though I firmly believe in something (ie, and afterlife, the being some call God), other people are also entitled to their own beliefs. I’ve learned a lot about living with bipolar disorder.

I hope this next year will be good. A lot of things happened when I was 27. I got my BFA. I finished the first draft of my first feature. I had a dissolute unemployed summer. I worked briefly in a homophobic office. I moved back to Saskatoon, and got my first nice apartment and decent job. I started hanging out with an old old old friend again. In all, it has been a good year.

And life will be irrevocably changed . . .

I’ve talked in the distant past about my desire for a service dog. I’ve spent hours researching and planning and scheming and thinking and more research, and it is starting to come to fruition. I’ve got the toys. I’ve got the time. I’ve got the money. And I’ve met the dog.

He’s very smart and beautiful, with a really adorable face that can change like quicksliver from mild inquisitiveness to full on friendly face with a great big smile. He’s quiet and gentle and smart as a whip. He’s housebroken and knows some commands. He’s got a sweet little pointy face and a dedicated nature. He’s a year old, which is good because little babies are a lot of work.

This is the year long plan for the young man:
1. Take him to obedience school (clicker training)
2. Start getting him acclimated to public places, people, and new situations
3. Start doing task oriented training (hopefully with the help of a qualified trainer who’s trained psychiatric service dogs)
4. Take the Canine Good Citizen Test
5. Continue on to advanced task training, alerting, more obedience, and more public spaces
6. Take him to a service dog organization to get him tested and given service dog i.d.

I’ve also considered, just for fun, to take him to agility.

You may be wondering why I want a service dog. Yeah, I take meds, yeah, I’m going to start counselling, AGAIN, but there are certain things a dog can help me with that all the rest can’t:
To alert me to oncoming episodes and get me to a safe place to deal with it.
To remind me of medication time.
To ground me when my mind starts racing by inturrupting and focusing on me.
To calm me when I get anxiety.
To alert to panic attacks.
To wake me up in the morning.
To give emotional support when I’m depressed.
To remove me from social situations when I’m overwhelmed.

And I’m sure my list of things he can do for me will grow with time. It’s going to be very different. And I know I’ll probably feel exhausted at times. But in the long run, he’s going to do so much for my quality of life. And I’m going to have to adjust to caring for a very small and important being. I know I’ll also run into obstacles, especially since Canadian law doesn’t fully protect Psychiatric Service Dogs in the same way American law does. It will be hard, getting access rights, having training difficulties, finding the PSD handler’s community, getting crapped on for having such a small service dog (Canadians still consider service dogs to be big guys, even though in the States toy breeds are also used), getting crapped on by other people with mental health issues for even having a service dog. It’s all going to be full of it’s own ups and downs.

People think service dogs always are on the job, but that’s not totally true. He’s going to be able to come home and be a regular dog, with lots of toys in all varieties and walks and playing fetch and romps in the dog park. He’s even going to be able to have occasional sleepover/vacations with certain people so he has some down time. He’ll play with other dogs and be best friends with a kittycat and get to make goofy faces and have controlled treats. He’s even going to travel with me for a month in August to Utah, Ontario, and Quebec. I’m not bringing him with me on business related trips until I’m sure he and I have a good relationship and he’s well behaved. After that, where ever I go, he’ll usually come too, helping me along across time and space!

So if you see someone in a movie theatre with a long haired black and tan mini dachshund in a “service dog in training” vest, it’s probably me.