Madness is my friend

I have never gone surfing. Not once in my life. I was a prairie girl, where the hell would I surf? And the first time I swam naked in the ocean with a bunch of lesbians, I was so terrified of sinking into the deep depths that I didn’t even realize how sexy that whole escapade was until I wrote it here.

So I’m not really cut out for surfing. But I watch it and I imagine that surfing would feel a lot like riding madness. It’s scary, yet exciting, it’s sometimes dangerous, and there’s always the undertow.

I have been on a nearly lifelong journey to try and accept my madness. It’s difficult. It’s such a pervasive disability, and yet there can be long stretches of stability. And the creativity is addictive. Hypomania is just a hard thing to stop, because it feels so good. And let’s not forget the wanting to snuff it moments. I hate those.

I like that I can think in a different way than other people. It gives one an advantage sometimes. Sometimes it’s really a barrier.

Being manic feels like having every electrical appliance on in the house. Watching every channel at once. Fast urgent thoughts coming out like bumper cars, all crashing into each other. I think people are usually more scared of mania than depression, even very serious depression. People notice when I’m manic. People don’t notice when I’m depressed. Sometimes they even say I’m cheerful.

In some ways it feels bad ass, because you’re the pariahs of society. In some ways it sucks, because you’re the pariahs of society.

By the way, whenever comments are turned off from now on, it’s just because some jerk left a blogspam that I can’t erase.

“This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put!”

I think sometimes my manic mind frusterates others. I sometimes talk slooow, sometimes fast, sometimes so ridiculously fast it all comes out as gibberish (although I know all the words), but that’s only on . . . extreme occasions. And I leap topics like nobody’s business. I operate on several channels all at once, and I love to toy with ideas and link them to other things.

The opening of this blog complete, I feel very sleepy. And overworked. I found a few things in my manic depressive websurfing that were somewhat interesting, although completely unrelated to each other.

For instance: A water balloon exploding in zero gravity.(with Videos!)

My mother hates it when I end a sentence with a preposition. She has a fit, a cow, kittens. It’s really the best way to get her mad without doing something you’ll feel guilty about later. But according to Wikipedia, sentences ending with prepositions may not be that bad.

This is my current favorite flash, Ptikobj. I like his other work as well, but I warn you, the rest of it is quite morbid and grotesque. “There is a dog trapped in my guitar!” Ha ha, classic.

Oooh, speaking of morbid, and considering Halloween is fast approaching, here is my all time favorite site for ghost stories, The Shadowlands, followed by Obiwan’s UFO Free Paranormal Page. Be sure to read the Black Eyed Kids and the one about the jello globs.

Someone was killed in my neighborhood, which troubles me, and they’re gay, which troubles me. I really don’t want to end my life in some alley getting my brains bashed in by some homophobic jock getting his jollies. And I imagine he didn’t either. It really makes you wonder about human nature, that one small difference in your identity makes you prey. Bleh.

And really, those were all the things I was thinking about today.

They’re back!

The mice ate my popcorn, nibbling away the nights. I am appalled. Popcorn is so important to my life. And now I am betrayed by rodents.

The Aboriginal Glass Ceiling

Or: The Myth of Aboriginal CandyLand

White people love to tell me how much money I have access to being one of those Aboriginals. They also seem to assume that I have a better chance of being hired than an equally qualified white person, because of equal opportunity employment. According to a surprising majority of people, I should be making 40 grand a year, when the reality is this year I MAY clear 8000. MAYBE.

It’s true, my education was largely paid for by my reservation, I am not crippled by a huge student loan, and there were two funding sources I’ve recieved money from solely for Natives.

But now that schools over, I’ve applied at a wide variety of jobs in my field, all of which I’m qualified for, I am still struggling and working in a phone room. And when I look at other close friends of mine who are brilliant Native women, many of us are not employed in our field of expertise. Or where we are employed, it’s really underpaid. Now I don’t have access to production equipment, except for grants, and since it’s still quite new for me to be dependent on grants, I understandably have the fear that being a minority in multiple ways, I won’t get the funding to keep making work.

But back to the job thing. I’m qualified to do so many jobs, and yet I never get called back, even from people advertising as equal opportunity employers. I am beginning to suspect that there is a glass ceiling at work, one no one talks about, one which wants to keep the Aboriginal population as minimum wage slaves. Doing the menial work. It really makes me wonder.

I don’t think Canada is ready for middle class Aboriginals.

I promise this will be as painless as possible

I’m doing my favorite kind of calling right now. I cannot tell you the specifics, but it’s a very fast call basically getting an opinion and giving information. It literally takes about a minute to do, there’s no money involved, and for the most part people don’t actually mind it as much.

HOWEVER, there’s always the few people who get infuriated the second you start. It’s getting tipped off by the not-quite right pronunciation of their names, no matter how well you studied phonetics. Or the way you introduce yourself. Then they don’t even listen to a word you say. You could be telling them they won a million dollars for all they know, and they just rip into you.

And here’s the really weird thing, usually it’s the women yelling at me that bothers me the most. The men are usually gruff and grumpy, but they usually make you laugh while they’re telling you off. But women, eeee! Sometimes I think they would hunt me down and kill me given the chance.

I day dream about all the witty retorts never said, for the most part I just politely get them off the line. I say sorry so many times a day.

I must have done something REALLY awful in a past life to end up at a job where saying sorry is so automatic. I am a machine, a sorry saying machine.

But here is what I have to say to the mean ladies who rip into callers:

This morning I was eating something (I think it was chips) and drinking coffee and smoking and having my alone time with my huge pile of email (I’m on a listserv, it’s not fans or anything), and this horrendous whirring saw noise starts, in the hallway outside my apartment. Ugh, I was so mad, and it continued on and off for the last hour I had before going to work, and totally wrecked my concentration. I wanted to yell at him, but I couldn’t, and didn’t. He was doing his job. So it was annoying, whatever, poor guy has to go be annoying everywhere all day. I was nice to him. I just imagined throttling him so he’d shut up. I didn’t do it. And in the end we have nice new tiles in the bathroom. And a pit where the toilet used to be.

I miss the toilet, but I digress.

So just be nice with callers, we are usually pretty amiable to a polite no, and it doesn’t take that long to talk to someone.

AND here’s another thing about callers, YOU might know the person calling you. But they could be using a fake name, like Cha Cha DiGregorio, or Jessica Drake, or Mrs. Goulet. So you could be making your best friend or your cousin cry. Have you ever seen a caller cry? It is a sad sight.

Nylabone Propaganda

When I got my first dog, I remember reading some book that in retrospect, was probably put out by Nylabone. They were filled with lots of other information, but then all of a sudden, the benefits of Nylabones would be scientifically explained for a full forty pages. With full color pictures of the range of Nylabone products on the market.

So I dutifully bought a Nylabone, only to realize two dogs later that Nylabones were pretty much ignored, while cow hooves and pig ears were much more acceptable.

Suzie’s prize cow hoof gave off a rank smell that put off everyone. She was an austrailian cattle dog, so maybe that’s why she loved them so.

Now I’m looking at dog books again, and I find the same Nylabone propaganda is out there. I’ve yet to hear of a dog who actually likes their Nylabone. Maybe Mrs. Goulet’s dog likes Nylabones.

Die Blogspammers!

Hey dude, I think your blog is cool, keep up the good work. By the way, check out the great rates on Home Loans.com!

Grrrrrr, nothing makes me madder than deleting someone’s garbagy spam from off my blog, much like hosing away dog turds and horcked spit from the sidewalk. I am on the hunt tonight to learn how to get rid of these horrible things.

And everytime I delete the spam comments, there is left a little imprint “This comment has been removed.” It makes me look like a censor when really I’m just erasing advertising.

Fellow bloggers would like to read this manifesto I found.

Do you know Mrs. Goulet?

After Unemployed Summer 2005, I now find myself in the bizarre position of juggling jobs. Today I will be quitting my current job and going back to a full time contract job, while at the same time waiting to see if I will be called in to work a completely different job. It’s all very strange. Good thing my artist fee came in, which means I pay the rent somewhat on time and pay off two other outstanding bills.

At the same time, I am still being hounded by some bill collectors in Quebec. Actually, since my last known address was my mothers, she hounds her. Mrs. Goulet, she is called. Mrs. Goulet is very persistent. She is also francophone, and insists on leaving messages completely in french on my mother’s answering machine. I think she represents Quebec Hydro, but my deeper fear is that she is collecting on behalf of the Quebec Health Care system, bloody hell I don’t even remember what they’re called.

The only word my mom knows in french is Chocolat, and that’s because it was the name of a movie she fancied.

My own knowledge of french is most basic, elementary type stuff “Je suis tres froid” kind of thing, and I don’t even know if that’s right.

Tonight my mother is going for dinner with someone who’s last name is Goulet, I wonder if she is related to the infamous Mrs. Goulet.

I wonder who Mrs. Goulet really is? I bet she has swear words written all over my leads about how impossible I am to find.

Mrs. Goulet is now a legendary figure in my family. She never tires out.

Oppression is Rude

I’m not out at work, for the two MAJOR aspects of my identity that make people weird, namely being a homosexshual and being a crazy lady. This means I’ve heard some unpleasant things about “dykes” and manic depressives in the last couple of days. Yes, we are the outcasts. We are the people who make others uncomfortable and scared, either that we’ll “dyke out” on them (ugh, straight girls totally turn me off), or that we’ll flip out and run around with hunting rifles.

Honestly, homophobia and crazy-phobia pisses me off. For one thing, I’m the most pacifist person you could ever find, the one time I got assaulted I didn’t even raise a fist to my attacker. I took my glasses off, mostly because they were getting damaged and in my hazy getting beat up mindset I figured I should save them. So as far as being a violent maniac, it’s never happened.

My main concern is that oppression is rude. What gives anyone the right to harrass someone based solely on their identity? And I especially hate it when oppressed groups slam other oppressed groups, and do you know why? Because A) it adds to global oppression, and B) the privilleged ruling class wants us to be fragmented groups. I mean, can you imagine if all the oppressed minorities rose up together in unison? We wouldn’t be MINORITIES anymore, we would be an overwhelming majority, with huge power.

I’m glad my new job starts soon, hopefully it will be a little easier to be a complex little Thirza there.