Elderly woman sexually assaulted – doesn’t go to police for fear of being committed

This (link) kind of thing makes me so upset. This elderly woman (76) was terrorized by juvenile boys and sexually assaulted, but was so afraid of being committed to a mental health facility again (after a previous sexual assault) that she didn’t contact police.

Only someone who has never been in a mental health facility could possibly think it’s a healthy space for someone to be in, esp. someone who’s just gone through severe trauma. Mental health facilities by their very nature were created as penitentiaries for the “insane.” They are not a form of health care so much as a form of segregation. And what does it say about hospitals that this woman was more in fear of them than the boys assaulting her? What kind of treatment did she recieve the last time she was committed?

I don’t know what else to say about it, read the article.

Dating and Mad Pride

So school has been taking up a lot of my time, along with keeping up with all my friends, and I haven’t had a chance to update as often. Anyway, I am sitting in a big mess, which I simply MUST clean up today. I did some of the readings I have to do for tomorrow’s class, and later on tonight I have to do a script analysis. So much work!

And in the middle of all of this, I have decided it’s time to leap headfirst into the dating pool again. I’ve been quasi available for a while, but I think part of me was too busy with me to be able to actually give anything to another person. And probably another part of my whole reluctance to date has to do with my weight gain from my medication, and wondering about when would be a good time to disclose my odd illness. People act wacky when they find out you are crazy.

Recently I ran into yet another old acquaintance who’s been relatively recently diagnosed with bipolar. It’s a growing trend. It made me kind of sad, because I think she’s really worried about the stigma.

Stigma is a sucky thing. And yet so many people who are really talented and lovely are bipolar, or another mental illness.

But then even I carry around some internalized stigma. This whole dating thing, for one thing. When do I say “Oh by the way, I am bipolar.” Is that going to keep women away from me? Will they make assumptions about how that impacts my life and therefore themselves? And finally, do I even want to date someone who has a narrow view of life, who demands impossible perfection?

Ugh, I still have this room to clean!! I should go do that now.

On the Rumoured Death of Identity Politics

Recently an old friend told me she was sick of identity politics. I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, especially considering the vast majority of my work concerns identity and the power others attempt to wield over me concerning my identity. I wasn’t sure what to say because my identity is so fluid, ever changing and shapeshifting to suit my mood. Being on the borders of male-female, white and red, identity is something I wake up to every morning when I have my coffee and read the news. It’s something I struggle with every day, trying to navigate my way through polarized territories which other people rarely consider.

“Identity politics is dead.”

Recently during a conversation with some fellow mixed bloods we discussed peoples aversion to identity politics. Someone suggested it’s something people say when they are tired of being allies to those of us who carry around some intense identity issues. It’s something people say when they’re tired of hearing us out, tired of being a part of the struggles of marginalized populations, tired of us “taking space”.

And then there are other questions I have about identity, like, is my bipolar disorder an identity? Some people with bipolar disagree, they do not want to be defined by their disorder. However in my case I identify as bipolar because it has made as much of an impact on my life and how I view the world as being queer and a halfbreed and inhabiting a female body. It’s something I want to be proud of for forming and influencing who I am today.

So when someone says “I’m sick of identity politics, identity politics is dead,” what are they really saying? Are they saying that artists should cease making works about race/class/gender/disability/sexuality? If that’s what it means, I am seriously fucked, because I could talk about those things forever and still barely scratch the surface on what it means to live life as an Other.

And who decided identity politics was dead anyway? Probably someone who’s in a relative position of power in society, who doesn’t have to fight all the fucked up isms every day of their life.

As long as humans and post humans are struggling with hatred, fear, and oppression based on their identities, identity politics is relevant and crucial to artistic practice. As long as people ask me “What are you?” in regards to my race, gender, sexuality, whatever, identity politics is relevant. As long as certain people with certain backgrounds have certain privileges that others are denied, identity politics is relevant.

Spiders on Drugs

Spiders on drugs are always good for a laugh.

(Sorry for such a short post, my brain is currently attempting to percolate some coherant thought. I will be back later.)

At a Coffee shop with Branta canadensis

I’m standing at the counter when who should walk up to me but a Canada Goose. It sort of plodded along, looking around thoughtfully.

“Did you know there’s a goose in here?” I asked.

“Yeah, we can’t get him to leave.”

Indeed, why did this Canada goose want to hang around in a coffee shop? Maybe he wanted some croissant.

Later in the day I saw an orange cat with six fingers. SIX fingers! It was so cute because it made his paw look so huge.

Animals are weird.

I had a disturbing dream recently about a little pig getting slaughtered and feeling so badly for it that I vowed never to eat pork again.

Then I woke up and had bacon.

Terrible.

Detroit Television warps the mind.

Isn’t “smoking a cigar with friends under the stars” such an elegant phrase? I found it in this article about the rising death toll in Iraq. It sounds so picturesque.

I hate American word processing software, because it is all the wrong spelling for Canadians and it’s slowly but surely colonizing us to American spelling through the spell check. Like colour vs color, cheque vs check.

American imperialism in our own homes. Sigh.

I remember when we didn’t have canned pop in Canada, and it was really exciting to get it in the States.

And maybe part of me, a kid growing up in Saskatchewan, watching Detroit television, thought that the Americans were cooler. They had such flash and glamour, and weird processed foods. And they were dangerous, always pulling out guns on a whim. And at Halloween they all ran around setting things on fire. Hell Night, I think they called it.

One halloween in Saskatoon I think some kid decided to try Hell Night in our back alley. I answered the door one halloween, expecting treat or treaters. Two skeletons, or maybe a skeleton and a ghoul(?) asked me for water. So I thought they wanted a glass. Then they yelled No, no, where’s your water hose? The back alley garbage can was on fire.

And I think it’s all that Detroit television Saskatoonians watched. It has warped us.

I mean, I was seriously scared of Americans, not only for that whole nuke thing, but because they just shot people everyday for any reason. And I thought Americans were all taking drugs, always snorting cocaine.

Canadian television was much gentler. And there was always something sexy late at night on french CBC.

Clive is Not Impressed

Clive is my very old rat, yet still he acts quite baby-ish for such an old guy. Anyway, he had a smelly cardboard box in his cage he was sleeping in, and today I bought him a new, special, “igloo.” It’s made of purple plastic. He seems to be able to fit it, but he doesn’t want to go inside. Keeps kicking it around, probably swearing under his squeaks.

Maybe it is too small. Either way, he’s not impressed with it. Fussy.

I finally finished all the tasks I had to do this week. Oh, except go see my doctor. Crumbs.

I bought this really high alcohol level Quebec beer today. I haven’t bought beer in a long time. Oh heck, that’s a lie, I had beer last Saturday at some opening. But this one is called Fin Du Monde. Isn’t that such an apocalyptic name? Oddly though, as soon as I got it home I wanted one of those C2’s. Damn. So now I am thirsty for pop. The four horsemen of the apocalypse in alcohol form will have to wait.

Oh, and the other TRAGIC thing that happened to me today was my c.d. player went A.W.O.L. I don’t know what terrible kinds of music I was forcing it to play, but it decided to desert me. It did this to me before. And it likes to make me look like a buffoon. For instance, once I was on the bus with a friend and I had just finished this five minute speech about the loss of my c.d. walkman and then I opened the front of my backpack AND THERE IT WAS. That asshole. Just smirking, like “Oh ha ha ha, Thirza can’t find anything of hers, she’s such a dork!”

Being An Artist is Boring

At least today it is. I spent the whole day filling in forms, updating my c.v., burning cd’s, sticking things in envelopes, photocopying (at my own home! I love my printer), going to the post office. Waiting in line. Realizing that I could have brought something else with me that needed urgent mailing. Came home and realized the form was more complicated than I thought. Poop.

My fingernails are disgusting. I mean, look at them! Ugh, bits of grimey-grimeness. Blah. And all uneven. I am ashamed of these fingernails. But the nail trimmer is lost in a sea of Thirza flotsam and jetsam. I am not an artist who can’t clean, I’m a performance of a forgotten seawreck.

No really, where is the nail clipper? I’m freaking out!

Okay, whew! Found one.

I think the shipwreck happened somewhere in the Georgia Straight, involving a butch with far too many things and no organizational thought.

In the hospital they called me “disorganized.” I just thought, dear God, I’ve been disorganized my whole life! Go look in my room if you don’t believe me. Once I bought a book called How To Get Organized and I lost it.

True story.

I want chips. I wish I could get chips teleported to me. No, I mustn’t. They are bad for me, but how can little potatoes with seasoning on it be bad? I guess they aren’t potatoes anymore are they? They’re genetically modified jellyfish-orangutan chips. Just my luck, to be born into a world where these things happen and yet there’s still no teleportation device.

Oh, but I have the new Coke. It’s called C2. Can you believe that? I’m drinking C2. Twice the damage to the indigenous peoples, but with reduced carbs and calories. I’m going to try it now.

A little less bite. Hmm, not bad. An aftertaste of guilt and shame at being complicit in the oppression of others.

Plus I got a little squat gnome-like can. If a tin can could be a gnome, this one definately is.

2 Reasons Why I love that Bears are my spirit guides

“A bold amphibious escape bid by a bear at Berlin zoo has been foiled in a dramatic shoot-out. Juan the Andean spectacled bear first paddled across a moat using a log for a raft, then scaled a wall. Finally he appeared to commandeer a bicycle, before zookeepers with brooms cornered him, and a colleague picked him off with a tranquiliser gun… After being stopped with darts from a tranquiliser gun, 294 lb. Juan was carried back to his enclosure. Mr Kloes told the Berliner Kurier newspaper zoo staff would make sure there were no further logs in the moat to prevent Juan’s future bids for freedom.”

-from BBC (Complete with photo of bear getting on the bike)

“A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

“We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around,” said Lisa Broxson, a worker at the Baker Lake Resort, 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Seattle.

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers’ coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds. It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge. They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and two cans of Rainier Beer. It worked, and the bear was captured for relocation.”

-from CNN

Cops suck

Or at least my experience with cops has been pretty sucky.

Oh but what was I going to tell you? My scriptwriting is coming along okay. Right now I’m averaging five pages a day. Then today I spent a few hours doing corrections and rewrites and moving events around in my script so they make a bit more sense. I keep trying to get my friend to read it, but she’s never home when I call. And I so need to get out of the house, my brain is melting!! But my other friend is doing up a grant proposal, so she’s indisposed.

I guess I will go back to what I was saying about cops.

Well cops came to get me when I went to the hospital. And all I can say is that even though I was buck naked they still treated me like I had a gun or some other weapon. In fact the whole experience was like being arrested for being crazy. Being crazy is treated as a crime in our society. And police are woefully uninformed about mental health issues.

Even when I wasn’t a “crazy” person, cops still sucked. I remember in Saskatoon we had Oscar the talking police car. He wasn’t a car, so much as a Van, with eyes and mouth painted on it, and he could speak. I always wanted to be one of the kids who got to see inside Oscar, but I never was picked. Oscar, what a sucky talking police car!

And then another time as a community initiative the police gave out collectible hockey cards if you flagged them down. But everytime me and my friends would wave, the police officers just waved back and drove on. No hockey cards for us.