Category Archives: Love

His Ribs! OMG!

Little Mister’s Skeleton!

So this is what Little Mister looks like in an X-ray. The vet wanted to make sure he didn’t have pneumonia, so they checked him out. Lungs are clear! His rib bones are my favourite, so delicate! Look at him! OMG! He’s such a good boy they didn’t have to sedate him, so he was cheaper to xray than some other dogs that need sedation. There’s still no verdict as to what exactly is causing his coughs. Of course today I haven’t heard him cough at all. Maybe he will be fine? The vet said “He’s not going to die tomorrow!” So that’s good. He’s getting bloodwork done which will let us know more what is going on with him.

I need to make more money to pay for him. I mean, some more money is coming my way but I also owe other people. My friend suggested this employment placement place. I am looking into it. You can tell them what sort of work you want, like I would rather work part time because of other things going on with me. So we’ll see.

Plus this surgery was holding me back in looking for work, because I didn’t want to beg for time off to heal so I didn’t really look for work the last couple of months. But my healing is done, so I feel more equipped to work. BUT ALSO I have applied for disability, and I don’t want a full time job because I don’t know if I could handle it. You can work part time and be on disability, which is part of the appeal.

Speaking of appeals, I put in another appeal to disability. I have heard it often takes until you appeal to the tribunal to get accepted into the program. It’s so ridiculous because I was on disability in Saskatchewan and I don’t see why different provinces can’t listen to each other.

Mom’s coming on Christmas Day! I’ve got to get us a humane chicken for dinner. Or organic or whatever. There’s a good butcher shop in Kensington Market I might go to, but also I think there’s a butchershop up the street by Timmies. She keeps saying she wants us to go to a hotel or something for dinner, but I kind of want to cook at home.

OH and now Little Mister is coughing. Just the once tho.

Maybe I am just being super anxious about him and he is fine though.

He was so cute when I picked him up from the vet. She brought him out on his leash and he was just walking around wagging his tail. He tried to go into the last room he saw me in but I was down the hall so I called him and he came and jumped up on my legs. Awww that lil guy! It’s weird cause he’s 11 now. Besides my sister’s 18 year old cat, he’s the only pet I’ve had this long. It’s kind of amazing, he has been with me through the last 1.5 years of my 20s and most of my 30’s. Like, I’ve had him for half of my adult life. I don’t want this Little Mister Era to end. So when he gets sick I get so worried. But he still seems to have some years in him.

Tomorrow my friend Riki and I are going to try and get PJ Harvey tickets for next April. I was super into her in 2007 when I had my last major manic episode, I was listening to Stories From the City Stories from the Sea all the time. And now she’s playing in Toronto on the 10th anniversary of that manic episode. So it seems like I should go. I mean, it might mean the end of a cycle or something. Like a completion of something. Plus I’ve stayed up to date on her work and I liked most of Hope Six Demolition Project. That Medicinals song is pretty fun in a witchy way. Oh except the end is a downer.

Sex, Romance, and Disability

Once I was asking my friend Ariel if I was being foolish by including my psychiatric diagnosis in some online personals. She said the best thing, “It’s an asshole filter!” It’s true. As much as I feel my romantic possibilities have been severely limited by having a diagnosed psychiatric disability, I also feel like I don’t want to be involved with someone who thinks I’m an idiot or will chase them down the hall with a knife. I could go on and on about the lack of compassion many people feel towards all of us with disabilities or chronic health problems, but it won’t change the fact that they are assholes missing out on hotties. And it won’t change the fact that at some point in their lives, without exception, they will be in the exact same situation as me.

It was pretty hard to be in my mid twenties dealing with psychiatric issues on my own and being treated weirdly, and definitely not being viewed as a sexual person at all. I think most mid twenties folks run away from someone they think is going to be too “high maintenence.” I think older people do too. I’m kind of glad I didn’t have a girlfriend when I went nuts, just because it would have crushed me to get dumped when I got released from the hospital.

So I haven’t had a really nice girlfriend since I went crazy, I haven’t had any at all in fact. But I also haven’t been involved with anyone abusive, which happened to me before. In fact, yucky girls have pretty much left me alone. So maybe the asshole filter does work.

The issue of being crazy and being into BDSM is also fraught with it’s own conundrums. The motto “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” takes on a whole new meaning. Can someone who is certifiably insane still engage in the sexual practice they’re used to? I say yes. Being bipolar involves long stretches of sanity, in fact, I’m sane far more often than I am insane. I’m sure some players would disagree with my continued desire to engage in BDSM activities, but those are probably the same people who if they were vanilla would be scared of me chasing them around with a knife. In fact, having a psychiatric disability has lead me to be extremely sensitive and cautious with my emotional limits and my levels of trust. I probably have more insight into my own emotional safety in certain scenes, particularily humiliation/degradation scenes. I also have a really clear picture of my possible triggers, and have already come up with ways to get around and past it. For instance, I know I’m going to have a really really hard time with bondage. On the other hand I know if I have a long detailed conversation about what I need to get through my first post hospital bondage scenes, I’ll probably be able to have fun with it again.

Yeah, I guess having a disability of any kind means some (or a lot) of people don’t want to date us, but on the other hand the people who do are more likely to be people who are able to have serious long term relationships. And that’s really the only kind of person I want to be involved with.