Psychiatric Service Dogs

I know I’m DissAbled, but I didn’t know I too am eligible to have a service dog. I spent the last couple of hours looking up any information I could find about them. They are trained to do a bunch of tasks, including getting your meds and warning you of an oncoming manic episode. My interest was piqued, and I began to wonder if a mini dachshund could be trained to do all those things. But no, I think he’ll just be a pet. Still, maybe in the future I will get a service dog, when I have more room. I do like Goldens.

And I could train him to dance too!

EDIT * * * Okay, I saw a Chihuahua doing service work. If a Chihuahua can do it, surely a dachshund can. ***** END.

My Weiner Dog

He is due to be born on the 22nd. After Christmas my mom and I are driving out to the breeder’s and picking him up. He will either be a red or a black and tan smooth mini dachshund. I’m a little worried my mom’s boisterous Golden will grab my pup and run victory laps round and round her backyard. Then we fly back to Vancouver (he’s coming in the cabin) and TA DA! Weiner dog! If anyone wants to do some puppysitting, let me know. I will try and post pictures of him when I get some.

spindly soup

I hate it when people pay artists way late, excruciatingly late. I’m facing an eviction notice this thursday if I don’t scramble up some rent money. I’m for sure getting one small pay cheque, possibly getting another, and hopefully that will be enough to pay off my outrageously late rent. My cupboards are bare, even the mice aren’t bothering with hanging out in my apartment. I didn’t eat anything today but two cups of coffee (all I really have left), an apple fritter that my co-worker didn’t want, and a spindly flavourless black bean soup made with the few things left in the fridge. It lacked jalapenos and tomatoes, looked like something an old lady with tummy troubles would make.

This too will pass.

I rolled four butt smokes, and I haven’t smoked for half the day. I should just not smoke again. Actually, I should try those herbal cigarettes. Not pot. Herbal. Smart alex.

I thought I was going to pass out at work. It felt like my stomach was eating itself, and everyone I called was in the middle of supper. Of course.

I would like a steak, or some crab. Maybe some king crab legs. I would like cheese. Fried Salmon. Toast with honey. A nice shiraz.

In a couple of weeks this will all be different. Heck, tomorrow my family is helping me out.

Friday I plan to go for sushi with my friend Lynn. I hope. If the rent doesn’t completely wipe out my cash.

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.