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!”
Filling the blank computer snow
Why am I writing so much? Could it be hypergraphia, the need to write constantly? No, I’m just in the middle of doing research and creative writing gives me a bit of a rest. Actually, it’s late, I should quit while I’m ahead. I got a lot of work done today, considering I got stoned and watched Robocop while dyeing my friend’s hair. I hadn’t seen that movie in years. That big robot that shoots up that guy scares me, I mean the giant robot, not Robocop. What a freakin intense boy film. We should have watched something funnier.
I’m tired, but wired, the worst kind of feeling to have this late at night. I think sitting at a computer screen does something to your body. Kinda poops out your eyes.
That’s a really weird image, now that I think of it, someone pooping out eyes. Sounds like something Bataille would write.
Eye poops, is there no dignity?
You, you’re Uninvited
My short film Anhedonia is screening at this year’s Uninvited Film Festival in Paris. Ah, Paris. I would kind of like to go. I haven’t been to Paris in ages, and I wonder if I would like it more going there without a broken heart. It’s such a great city to walk around in, not to mention the sheer plethora of art that is exhibited there. Last time I went the Pompidou was in mass renovations, so I didn’t get to see it. I did, however, get to see the Louvre. I remember seeing this great sculpture of an intersexed person, I think it was Roman. I was looking at it and this guy pointed at it and started gesturing wildly and hissing bad french words I was glad to not understand.
I also saw a painting by David of the Sabine Women. The story is “We are in the early days of Roman history. The Romans have abducted the daughters of their neighbors, the Sabines. To avenge this abduction, the Sabines attacked Rome, although not immediately–since Hersilia, the daughter of Tatius, the leader of the Sabines, had been married to Romulus, the Roman leader, and then had two children by him in the interim. Here we see Hersilia between her father and husband as she adjures the warriors on both sides not to take wives away from their husbands or mothers away from their children. The other Sabine Women join in her exhortations.”
I remember the painting was huge, bigger than it seemed in art history class. I looked into the haunted eyes of the children stuck in the middle of the battle and it reminded me of how I felt as a biracial person. I nearly cried. It never made me feel so emotional when I saw the slides of it.
I wonder if I could get a travel grant to go.
My 12 Inch Stapler
Yo dude, check out my twelve inch stapler! It’s long, hard, and heavy, and it has purple staples.
Okay, so maybe it’s not that exciting, but it sure was pricey, as far as staplers go. I’m awake late and tomorrow I get to see one of my best friends/ex lover after years of being on the other side of the continent from her. She’s here for a few weeks, just as all this school stuff is finishing. But of course I’m gonna make time to see her, I don’t know when I’ll get the chance again. She didn’t bring her man with her, which sort of disappointed me because I wanted to scope him out and make sure he was the right dude for this lady.
Some lesbians get really upset when their ex lovers go on to have partners that are male. Like they’ve been betrayed, like it’s the equivalent of their ex saying pussy’s really stanky compared to dick. Or that they’ve sold out for hetero privillege. Or easy access to sperm. Some lesbians operate on a strict no-bisexual policy, and then wouldn’t you know it, their ex lover falls in love with a man anyway.
Personally, I like dating bisexuals. I like playing with my gender in the bedroom, being a dual gendered person. Two of my ex’s have gone on to settle down with male partners, and the other two ex’s settled down with female partners, and they’re all happy with their choices. I didn’t get picked, but whatever. I’m more or less content with my ex’s remaining ex’s. That sounds like a support group!
Ex’s Remaining Ex’s, 6pm, Community Centre, bring your baggage, snacks of bitterness provided.
Really though, I think my longstanding (since grade eleven! Woot!) preference for bisexual women stems from this desire to be recognized as both male and female, and to be desired for it. Besides that, bisexuals are freaking hot, boys and girls. Period.
Now I’m going to go play with my 12 long inches.
Getting away with art
I have two major projects due in the next couple of weeks, and I’m quite swamped with it all. Luckily I found out tonight that I can make an art project for my science class, instead of a regular paper. I am studying hallucinations, the lovely/scary friend to mental illness, along with many other illnesses as it turns out. In particular I’ll be looking at visual hallucinations, and since I’ve already learned a bunch of stuff on making a zine, I’ll be making a book, with some clear pages that have images that will overlay on top of other images.
My experience with visual hallucinations is really limited, when I went crazy I had auditory and sensory hallucinations. Nobody ever told me you could feel things moving on your body when you go crazy. It’s true, you can! They are quite startling, one happened while I was manically talking to my best friend and I told her about it. It felt like a cloth was moving under me, wriggling and bumping me trying to get me to stop sitting on it. Thank god those days are in the past. However, when I’ve had migraines I get really AWFUL visual disturbances. My vision goes all yellow, blurred, and opaque, except for a tiny spot in the centre of my field of vision. It makes walking in the world really scary, and then I need to rush home and hide in a dark room for a few hours until it goes away. Luckily it’s been a long time since I’ve had a migraine, I used to get them all the time when I was a kid.
The first time I got a migraine I was walking with my school group through the University campus, and as I was looking at the snow I realized I couldn’t see. It scared the hell out of me and I didn’t know what to do. I was scared I would never see again.
Another time I went deaf, but it turned out I just had too much ear wax.
(eeeew, the crowd says)
Anyway, the world of hallucinations is fascinating to me, especially as a video/film artist. And I think it will make an interesting one off book project, although time is running out and I will have to devote many hours this coming weekend to getting the whole thing due in time for Monday’s class. But after making my zine, I think I know how I can do it.
Mostly, I am just relieved I don’t have to write another paper. One is quite enough for this semester. I still can’t believe I managed to write three papers at the end of last semester. Wow. That is insane.
School makes ya crazy!
I’m glad I’m almost done. Soon I’ll be at the grad ceremony, with my mommy, finally getting my degree. And after that I have to find a job.
I still haven’t heard back from grad school. I have some tentative plans in the event I will have to find something else to do, it would just be nice to hear a yay or nay and move forward on something. I hate ambiguity, except in gender, in which case it is sexy.
Launch of the Fit of Pique Zine: Coming soon!
The first issue of the paper Fit of Pique zine has finally arrived! There’s things about it I would change, given the chance and the time, but overall I am pretty happy with it. Finally after about four years the Bottom’s Manifesto has been set into print, and even though it’s been published in another zine, the short true story I Could Kill Myself With My Panties has a really nice section, complete with illustrations. I even dug up an old short lesbian vampire story.
So if you are looking to trade or buy the zine, it’s 3 bucks plus the cost of mailing it (I don’t have an estimate for that yet). Email me and I’ll give you the address to send cheques to, or wait around a while longer while I find a distributor. fanggrrl @ excite . com (without spaces, I’m just trying to fool the roving spambots)
That was pretty much my day, copying and folding and looking for an appropriate stapler.
The class in which this zine was created will be having a launch/opening of all the students work. I will keep you updated on the wheres and whens. It’s a great chance to broaden or begin your zine collection.
Close friends: You’ll be getting your copies soon!