I have a secret. . . .

I have a dirty fantasy in my head set to “School’s Out for Summer” by Alice Cooper. It’s the sexiest idea I’ve had in ages. It’s as dirty as my dishes, and believe me, that’s as dirty as it gets.

Burning Down the House

Maybe I’m playing psychiatrist, but I’ve recently noted a bizarre fixation/fear with the idea of all my possessions going up in smoke, burning our lovely building. I’ve often wondered if this obsession is some OCD symptoms coming up that hasn’t been previously diagnosed.

So you can imagine it was a shock for me to come home to four fire trucks pulling into the front of my building, along with a stray City TV news van, two ambulances, and one police car. I was so sure it had happened, my apartment was a flaming wreck, goodbye computer, goodbye clothes, goodbye mice, goodbye Clive. Roasted alive so sad. And then I see my friend from down the hall. Turns out it was some guy burning things on his stove, and firemen kept going in and out of the building because he wouldn’t let them in.

Crisis averted.

But what a mean trick for the universe to play on anxiety-ridden me.

Dissed-ability

Having a psychiatric disability is a little confusing at times. I got accommodations at school for my sudden decent into craziness brought on by some stress, but it has made me feel all weird. I’m really glad I got it, I don’t think I would be able to graduate if I hadn’t. But I was so scared to ask for it, so humiliated by the fact that my illness has once again inturrupted my life.

But as I think about it, what am I so ashamed of? Is it being bipolar? Not being able to be grand master student? I think sometimes people with disabilities (and not necessarily psychiatric ones) are made to feel guilty about the things we need to get through the world.

I will not feel guilty for being crazy. Whew.

Graduation is coming up fast, May 7 I will be walking up onto a stage in front of thousands of eciad students and family/friends that I don’t know. And mum will be there. And I’ll get to grab my degree and hang out with mom and I want to drag her off to see The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman. Mmmm, Nicole Kidman, I wish she still had red hair. Her Moulin Rouge hair was the best.

I still can’t quite believe that I’m finishing my bachelor’s degree finally! Maybe I’ll get to stop being a bachelor soon. Although I’ve grown tragically accustomed to the bachelor lifestyle.

Scary Models

Ever since watching America’s Next Top Model’s, models have scared me. Especially that one with the dark hair, eeee, she’s like a villian out of a Jacqueline Susann novel. And when Tyra Banks flipped out the other night, I mean holy shit. So dramatic!

And then living your life as a model, ugh, I always think of the movie Gia. Poor queer model.

It’s kind of sad that all my knowledge of the modeling industry is mediated, I don’t have any first hand knowledge. And anyway, there’s not a huge demand for fat butch models. Unless there’s a niche market. I guess there probably is, but I doubt I could make any kind of a living at it.

America’s Next Fat Butch: Thirteen chubby butches compete for the chance to star as a mechanic in a lesbian porn calendar.

It would be so lovely. I should enlist my other fat butch friends and make a porn calendar.

Ahhh, bipolar!

Some days I really hate being crazy. Today is a perfect case in point. I felt too hugely fucked up to go to school, even though I had a presentation due. Too much of a mess. My paper is still not done and I’m still tired. Last night I got so wired up, my hands were shaking, it was a terrible sight. I don’t really have that much work to do on my paper. But my anxiety went through the roof. I’ve never been so freaked out.

That’s a lie, I’ve been freaked out way worse than that. I love conspiracy theories, but when you think you’re living in one, it totally sucks.

Anyway, this leads me to the debate around how to explain to my professor that my bipolar disorder is acting up and could she please give me an extension and another day to present? I mean, bipolar is such a weird illness to have. In the first place, it’s all in your brain, and no one looks at your brain on a daily basis unless you are in some kind of medical testing facility. In the second place, it makes really simple daily things seem insurmountable at times. And it’s really hard to communicate to people why those things get so difficult.

Plus living with it is like being super sensitive, emotions get cranked up, depressions are like being buried alive, mania’s like riding shooting stars. And somewhere in between is this place called normal. How do we ever attain the goal of normality?

Reasons to be paranoid

This is just getting really sad.

Cramps

I have cramps. I don’t know why they are here. It’s not even the first day of my period anymore and I am crampy, and it makes me crabby.

It seems the aliens were interested in the Pope’s funeral, they did a little fly by. One of my friends thinks it’s a good thing, a little inter-galactic gesture of goodwill.

So I finally heard back about my grad application. I didn’t get in. Which is good and bad. On one hand it gives me the chance to work on some more projects and not be in school trying to do them, including the big feature I am still plugging away on. On the other hand now my future financial situation is a little bleak, much like my puberty. However trying to live on the meager funds my reserve gives me for going to school has been totally taxing on me, I can’t remember being so poor. So maybe being out of school will make things a little easier.

I still have to write a paper and then I’m pretty much done.

Now I just have to find a job. Sigh, I really hope someplace decent is hiring, like Chapters. I could work in a bookstore. That would be nice.

Just please, no more call centres!

Near Death Experiences

I have never had a near death experience, although I have had the wind knocked out of me. I’m doing some homework and listening to my favorite radio program, Coast to Coast AM. It’s not on the air in Montreal, one of the reasons I didn’t like living there. It’s a super crazy program, sometimes they talk about earthquakes, sometimes ghosts, sometimes aliens, remote viewing, all kinds of things that I like.

Tonight the topic is near death experiences.

I hope there’s something after we all die. It seems like such a shame for someone to gather so much life experience and then just die and have all that disappear with them. Plus I don’t like the idea of never getting to see someone again.

I hope there is an after life for rats. If there is, I know Nikolas is there, waiting for me.

Nikolas was the best rat in the entire world. He was my best friend for the majority of my art school experience. I got him when he was just a little baby, a fussy triangle face and climbing all over me danging off my glasses. He liked to steal my food, once he got away with an entire pie. He would also dance on my feet until I picked him up and carried him around. He hated granny smith apples, once I gave him a whole bunch and he just flung them out of his bowl, all stubborn. He was also the victim of two unfortunate meetings with candle flames, totally singeing his whiskers.

One he tried to eat my thai food, but it was too spicy and he started licking the carpet trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

He also gave dirty looks to my lover any time we had sex in front of him.

I hope to see him again, I know he’ll be dancing at my feet, asking if I brought him a pie. His death devastated me. He was pretty special, no other rat has charmed me so completely. I used to sing Hey Nicky you’re so fine to him.

Feelin’ Wibbly

Some of you may be curious to know about today’s long awaited psych evaluation. I went to the neighborhood mental health team with my list of relatively minor complaints, but in the interests of staving off a manic episode and effectively destroying my chances at graduating this year, I thought it best to be as honest as possible. Yeah, I can’t go to sleep until three or four am, and then I can’t wake up until two pm. I’m bummed out, stressed out, and then once in a while I feel myself start to soar like a paper kite in the wind. Just feeling wibbly moods.

While I was there two people were carted away to the nuthouse by cops and paramedics. I didn’t see it happen, I left before the shit went down, but the ambulances were patiently waiting outside, two more mental casualties of downtown eastside living. I was kind of glad not to see it, because I knew it would totally bring on flashbacks of my own pitiful cop escort to the bin.

I didn’t get a psychiatrist, because they say their services are primarily for people who can’t look after themselves. However I did get a new medication regime, now I’m on 1500mg Epival, 5mg Zyprexa, and 20mg Celexa. The Celexa is new, although I’ve been on it in the past. It’s worked relatively well, except for making me as disinterested in my own genitals as I am in non-politically relevant art. But who knows, maybe that side effect won’t happen.

I have to say I have a remarkably zen approach to my drug cocktail these days, I even had a good chuckle at the side effect profile of Celexa. “Coffee-ground” vomit, erections lasting more than four hours, lactation, black stools. I had a friend who started lactating on one of her meds, she called it her geysers of plenty. Once one of my girlfriends accused me of lactating in her mouth spontaneously. I still don’t know if I really did.

I’ve been assaulted with breast milk!

The doc was impressed with my recall of the many and varied psych drugs I’ve been on in the past five years or so. I remembered which made me manic, which made me anxious, what stopped working.

Paxil is an evil mofo to get off of, by the way. Withdrawals from Paxil have been compared to the illness experienced by heroin addicts trying to get clean. It really does a number on your body. I remember shaking and quivering and getting auditory hallucinations that sounded like a big truck wooshing by going clunk clunk clunk. I would run to my friends house to get emergency paxil to tide me over until I could go to the doctor again. And by that time it had stopped working!

But I remember when it first worked for me, and I looked at the little flowering plants and admired their tiny lives.

I think there is a two tiered system for crazy folk. One for the people who lead reasonably sucessful lives, and another for people who can’t take care of themselves. But what about folks stuck in the middle? I guess I am still trying to find my place in this crazy world.

School Screams!

Primal end of semester/end of bachelor’s degree screams: “Aaaaah! Ahhhhrhrhhghgrr! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Eeeeeeeeeghhlhbla! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!”

In other words, I have a shitload of work to do. But I’m happy, because today I wrote a seven page summary of my research for my Professional Practices class, which I am supposed to present tomorrow morning bright and early. I even have a few good websites to show the class along with my presentation, which is nice. It’s not powerpoint, but dammit it’s something.

One thing that troubles me, however, is that I need to write 5000 words. That is a lot of words. I hate it when profs say “write such and such many words.” Why not simply say “Write fifteen pages, double spaced, twelve point font.” Who knows.

I’ve had three requests for my videos in the last two days. It’s kind of nice. And so far I’ve been getting positive feedback for my zine, Fit of Pique, at least from the three friends I gave it out to. It’s a nice thing to read when you’re sitting on the toilet, pooping out your eyes. (read the last post if you don’t get it)

Aside from that, I am feeling like my career is chugging along again, I think it went into remission when I flipped out.

I recently re-read an article about Clint Star and his untimely suicide. It made me feel sad. The art community sure does lose a lot of our colleagues to suicide. I wonder what we could be doing in our community to prevent things like this from happening.

Go check out this funny dubbed GI Joe. “You ain’t no pimp, dude!”