Ugh. Yesterday was a day of HELL and I felt like shit and I was sad all day and part of it was because I had a bad dream about my sister dying, BUT ALSO I discovered my laptop started having problems, most likely with the graphics card (which unfortunately is soldered to the logic board, which means major repairs) and so I did all kinds of things trying to resolve my problem, BUT I KNEW it was the same thing that happened to me two years ago and I had to get it replaced then too. This is just a really bad model of Macbook Pro, a 2011 which has a known issue with that. Anyway, anytime I tried to open a graphics heavy application the whole thing would crash and restart over and over for a while. iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, even freakin’ Photos! I just had to do ONE thing yesterday, which I managed at the end of the day, and that was to get a working demo video of my game and test it on VLC. I downloaded the new version of VLC and it let me test, amazing. So it works and today I mailed it off and called Apple Care and they agreed I needed to bring my laptop in so I have an appointment on Sunday.

But god, I felt so sad yesterday I wanted to cry myself to sleep. I felt better today, because my grant is in, and I have an appointment to resolve this computer issue, and because my friends and I went to Bingo and I finally got to bring out my troll doll I got through Bunz!

Tomorrow I go to Guelph, for a talk at Ed Video. It should be okay, they are installing Unity on a computer for me to show my game. I hope I have time to test it. It’s not done yet. My friend Riki offered to let me use her laptop to finish my game, I just need to make three images and cobble together my game. Like, it is SO close to being done. If I get my grant it will continue on more levels.

So after 3pm tomorrow I should be free and clear of my duties! But my train doesn’t leave until 10pm so I’m gonna hang out and check out more of the symposium. I hope they have food! 😀

So yeah. I felt shitty this morning when I woke up. But I dunno, it shifted, and went away, and turned into an actually nice fun day.

I am actually writing this from my laptop, it works with only Chrome, iTunes, and the Calendar app. I don’t know why those are okay. I tested Unity today on it, and OF COURSE it went bananas and crashed. Because that’s one of the apps I NEED to finish my game, so OF COURSE it wouldn’t work. Ugh.

But on Sunday I will have a better picture of what will happen to my poor computer. I am hoping because there were a lot of appointments available that the apple repair place will be able to get to my laptop sooner than say, the Eaton Centre apple store. I don’t know how long it takes to replace a logic board/graphics card. Supposedly it should be a free repair because they extended free repairs on that issue until the end of this year. I think if money comes into my life, like a sizeable amount, I am going to buy a new laptop. It sucks, I wish this wasn’t such a shitty model.

Ugh I have decided to have a moratorium on crushes. Ha! Probably just until my next crush. No but really I think I need to focus on myself for a while. I have a shitload of career stuff I have to work on. Like a webseries and a video, besides this video game due in two weeks. Actually that doesn’t sound like so much stuff now that I think about it. I think finishing that script has reduced my workload substantially.

Oh no, I also have to write another script (short tho!) and do a Bravo Fact grant application for it. Okay, so I am still with a whole bunch on my plate. And if this secret thing goes through then there is a MAJOR project I am going to be working hard on for a while.

But I do feel like the end is in sight! Which won’t ever really come, because there will be more to do. There is always more to do. Even when I die there will probably still be unfinished projects on my laptop. Hopefully it’s a better laptop than this one.

Last night I had a super detailed dream about being entrusted with a friend’s snake, a small slim pure white snake. I don’t know what kind it was, it was cute though. My Mom was with me. We were handling it a lot because we didn’t have a tank or terrarium for it. It got really pissed off and started being bitey, so I was stopping it from biting my Mom and we were trying to find a cage it couldn’t slither out of. Finally I thought I could get it in a yogurt container if there was water in it and it slithered in. But the bottom of the container broke and it went down the drain. I got so upset because I didn’t want to be the person who failed my friend at caring for her pet. Then Mom noticed it in the cupboard. So I picked it up and then somehow found a big terrarium for it to live in for a while. Then for no reason, there was a rabbit, and opossom, and two rats in it’s terrarium with it. It was such a small snake I wasn’t worried about those animals getting eaten or killed, but I did worry about the snake. I woke up just as I was thinking I should get all those fuzzy animals out of there for it’s safety.

Today was a good day. I talked in a class at Ryerson, which involved thinking about my practice as I answered questions. I noticed two new things today. One stemmed from a question someone asked me about Alice skipping rope in Through The Looking Glass and I talked about how a lot of my early work touched on Girlhood until I made Helpless Maiden Makes an “I” Statement and got grumpy about being curated in Queer youth programs. But I do want to revisit that, the making work around the idea of Girlhood. I’m not even sure what that would look like, or how it would be different now that I am very much old (ha! late 30’s old). I mean, it’s not coming from current lived experience. BUT I do have lived experience as a tomboy kind of girl. Which is sort of interesting.

The other thing that came up today was talking about a line in Boi Oh Boi where I mention making bow and arrows as a kid and being into survival tactics and how that connects to being Butch/Two Spirit. There was a story I read a while back about how a tribe used to give children a choice between a bow and arrows or some objects commonly associated with women (a basket or sewing supplies or something) and depending on that choice is how that child would be gendered. I find that really interesting, that masculine of centre children are drawn to bow and arrows and that I was too when I was a little girl.

I remember one time (I wouldn’t do this now but it’s kind of funny and illustrative) my cousin Luke and I were kids and out in the country and we decided we were going to hunt this grouse that lived in the bush. So we got a knife from my Auntie and started following it. I honestly don’t know how we thought we could jump on and kill a grouse with our little bare hands and this kitchen knife. But that grouse was really crafty (I think it may have had babies actually just based on this) and lead us around and around in a circle until the sun was setting and we had to go back to the house. It just walked around beating it’s wings so we knew where it was, and went round and round. Round and round. We lost that knife by the way. Poor Auntie.

I also remember when Luke got the SAS Survival Manual. I bought a copy a while back actually, for a performance. I think it’s written for military people or something, but it’s like, how to build a shelter, identify venomous insects and animals, track animals, trap animals, tan hides, how to live in different climates, etc. We used to pour over that book, I remember the venomous spiders section was very popular, especially when he moved to Arizona with my other Auntie. There was a jumping spider in his living room once and we had to read up and see what it could be (it got squashed by the way, because poison!).

When I was a little girl I hung out with a lot of boys, until maybe Grade 2 or something when gender dynamics shifted and boys and girls had to play separately again. Although my boy cousins and I hung out for a long time. They took me to a lot of boy movies. I have probably mentioned this before, but one time my Auntie invited me to go with my cousins to Santa Bear Saves Christmas but when we got there we ended up at Indiana Jones or Star Trek or something. No Santa Bear for me! I wasn’t THAT put out by missing Santa Bear though I guess, because I do love Indiana Jones. Even though the colonial issues of his archaeological practice are problematic.

But when you are a kid in the 80’s hanging out with boys and the odd other tomboy, problematic isn’t a word that means anything.

Liking dudes romantically was something I half heartedly tried to fake when I got into my early teens. I think I bought a teeny bopper cute boys magazine just because my friends were into those at the time. But it didn’t take long for my boring boys taped to the wall to be replaced by a resplendent full poster of Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman! I didn’t even call myself a lesbian yet, BUT SHE WAS AWESOME! Such a baby kinkster. I couldn’t figure out why Catwoman was so exciting.

And then I hugged someone cute and not much older than me and OMFG breasts! And that was that. I had an identity.

But the tomboy thing was interesting to grow up with I guess. It’s basically how I still am. Still wear a lot of t shirts and jeans. Don’t hunt though, or even fake hunt. Ended up in a very male dominated profession. My boy cousins and I aren’t as close, because one has personal issues and the other one drives me crazy (but we get along, but he gets on my nerves). Still haven’t seen Santa Bear Saves Christmas.

I remember when I was just coming out I was really drawn to femmes, but it was confusing! Did I want to be them or fuck them? I didn’t know! I had a gender crisis, wore a lot of baby doll dresses cause it was the 90’s and then one day realized I could be involved with femmes AND be butch AND be desired! And then my first girlfriend was butch anyways so what do I know?

What’s a good end to this long post? I got into wearing men’s underwear a few years ago. Best decision of my life! They are so well made and comfortable. I don’t even own one dress anymore. Being Butch is what drew me towards having dachshunds because I wanted a masculine yet small dog. What’s more masculine than a wiener dog?

Okay, so I wrote the smallest snip of a blog post while I was at mom’s but now it is irrelevant since I am back home with my pups. We had a good time in Saskatoon I guess. Didn’t see as many people as I had hoped to see though, and Mom is coming here for Christmas so I’m not going back there until the spring or something! That’s like, six months away or something! I hung out with my friend Amy Jo and we went to Peaches with her partner Rob and ran into some other friends there on my last night.

I got to sleep in my own bed last night, which made me SO Happy because I was sleeping in my old childhood twin bed for my two weeks in Saskatoon, and it was hard! So small, PLUS two dogs.

And even better is that the terrible heat is gone, it’s way cooler and so I got to use a duvet and not just be naked like I was all of August. Naked and sweaty and sticky.

I worked really hard today! I filled out a grant application, wrote a project description, got someone to agree to be my consultant/specialist for my project, fixed up my art cv for the grant and my executive producer, filled out another form, and now I am just chilling. Worked for about six hours straight! Tomorrow I am going to work on my video game, because I need to be done by Saturday. Or closer to done anyway. I want to be done by then so I can get paid.

I was editing my resume and trying to remember dates for things. There’s kind of been a lot of stuff that has happened! I’m happy about that I guess.

Wellbutrin’s been doing well I guess. I think it will be 3 or 4 weeks on Thursday. I can’t remember now. I could look at this blog and check but blah. The seasons are changing which is making me sleepier than usual. No wonder my spirit animal is a bear, I want to hibernate for winter too. And get really fat on berries first. And hide in a cave/den.

The pups are doing well, they were happy to come home. I haven’t got their wet food yet because I’m temporarily broke, but they don’t really care anyway, which is good, and are eating their dry food.

God I really am glad the heatwaves here are done and over. That was a brutal couple of months. You know, I really REALLY resisted getting an air conditioner, but I hate to say it, I may have to next year. 🙁

I slept for 11 hours last night. Now it’s 1:32am and I am still awake. I need to get this sorted out!

OMG I’m gonna come across as such a jerk when I write this blog. But I have this thing against people commenting and liking every single thing I write on Facebook. Some people I’m okay with doing this, if we have some kind of friendship like that, or my cousins obviously, but sometimes people aren’t very close to me but they think they are. AND IT GETS WEIRD!

I’m pretty much okay with it if they don’t have a lot invested in it, like if they aren’t demanding a lot of attention. But recently someone got SO INVOLVED with my FB page and was saying some things that made me uncomfortable and I had wanted to unfriend and block for a while, especially because they said some inappropriate things about my health. And on this particular night they were making up easily 50% of my notifications (and I have a number of friends so this is really overwhelming) and I guess I finally had enough because I unfriended and blocked them. I read a Wikihow about Facebook Stalkers (I think harassers is maybe the more specific term) and I think it was written by a teenager because the solutions they were presenting were kind of ridiculous.

It’s funny though, because I felt SO weird about actually chopping them out of my Facebook life. Like, this is someone I have no interactions with outside of Facebook. And they aren’t in a position of power over me. But I still felt SO WEIRD about being the ass who just blocks someone for being annoying and harassing me even if they do think it’s positive attention.

The really funny thing though is I am sure I have been that annoying person in the past, at least when I was manic. Although when I was manic the last time was the first time Facebook became a public thing. BUT I can see why people do it. It’s just a terrible warning to me to avoid being That Person.

God forbid I be annoying! OH MAN! And also, I can totally see being into crushes way too much and being an ass. It’s terrible! I do not want to annoy people. And then that makes me feel reluctant to approach cuties because I don’t want to be ruining their social media feed by asking all kinds of questions all the time and bothering them.

Although I am generally not that kind of person anyway.

Anyway, yes, I know what it’s like to be harassed so much on social media and still feel like it would be rude to set a boundary and unfriend. But at the same time, Facebook is really my private space. It’s not really my public space, this rotten blog is my public space and you all hear private shit anyway. Twitter is public. Instagram is public although I am thinking of changing that. I have an artist page on FB, that’s public. But my personal Facebook is really just like hanging out in my living room listening to me talk shit to my friends. My tumblr is public too but has barely any original content. And I have to keep remembering that, and know that it’s okay to get people out of my FB sphere if they are making me feel unhappy and unsafe.

So I hope I am a good fb friend to my friends. I hope I don’t bother them, or if I do I bother them in the way they like. I am definitely going to try and be mindful of not being a pest.

Ha ha I’ve been looking at stats for my site and the most popular blog post BY FAR is one I wrote a long time ago called Super Labia and the title just refers to a story I wrote about how my friend who is a nurse was learning to put in a catheter and the dummy had really stiff labia.

So I thought, MAYBE I can make another blog post be popular, so I put the word clit in this title.

BUT you’ll be happy to know there actually is a story behind the title. I was reading that there is a new sex enhancing treatment for women where they inject your own plasma into your own clit to have more orgasms.

OKAY, I don’t know how they came up with that, or how long it lasts. But as someone who has had my clit hood pierced THREE times in my life, well Jesus I mean that is bad enough, I can’t imagine getting a needle in my ACTUAL clit. YIKES! No. No thanks. I am not that crazy!

Which brings me back to my check in and why I was writing this blog post in the first place.

It has been a week or so on my increased Wellbutrin dosage. It’s been a weird week, even though I’ve tried to keep it a bit quiet. I’ve been a bit weepy, and that’s starting to ease up. But before it did I got kind of crabby and irritable. Like I was really fed up with people and I’m usually pretty easy going and I was just SO CRABBY so that was weird. And I hate being crabby but also sometimes I just AM crabby and it’s usually tied to my mood disorder and especially med changes, but sometimes really it’s just because there’s a reason. BUT sometimes if I am having a med change AND someone’s pissing me off, I am so not diplomatic about it.

Also sometimes I just felt REALLY goofy. So goofy. I mean in a silly way. And I think that’s the antidepressant too, I felt pretty happy and silly about it and I’m not sure what that means. I hope it doesn’t mean hypomania and it just means being less depressed. I think the fact that it wasn’t constant is helpful.

Being bipolar is a little bit like being on a teeter totter. I’m sure you can see the metaphor without me explaining it. Or maybe a rollercoaster. It’s a weird place to be sometimes.

So I’m just tired of feeling a bit crazy often. I’ve really noticed my anxiety this past year. I recently had a form filled out which listed my diagnoses of Bipolar disorder I and Anxiety, and for both of them it said they would stay the same and not improve. AND I was just bummed out seeing that. I mean, it’s true. And it’s totally something I can live with and work with, and the meds are really good and I do have a pretty normal life, sort of. It’s just disappointing to be like, yeah, that’s a forever thing. Especially when meeting new people and trying to come across as like, a decent possible partner or work associate, and knowing because of my art practice (AND this blog with the super labias and so on) they will probably google me and find out I have this weird illness. Stigma is real. And I am an awesome worker as a filmmaker and writer, and I can be an amazing sexy sweet girlfriend. It’s just odd.

BUT I am not injecting plasma into my clit. I’m not hiding the terrible posts of my manic writings in 2007. I’m keeping myself clean and groomed and not slipping into dirty depressions with really messy stuff. I’m doing my work as an artist.

It’s kind of funny everyone loves the Super Labia post tho. I wonder why? Who knew labia could be so popular?

OH YEAH! This weird thing happened to me at my performance and screening the other night. Some woman with a baby came up after and told me I taught my kid his first swear and all about sex. And I was like, WHAT THE FUCK? (I was more diplomatic about it but in my head I was like WHAT THE FUCK?) Like I should censor my entire art practice because someone will bring a baby to my shit? WHAT THE FUCK? Get outta here with your baby if you’re offended, I used the term cum towels in the first part of my performance, surely that should clue you in. ALSO I didn’t even show the super explicit stuff. Cause I never show that stuff in Saskatchewan everyone has a cow. ANYWAY, for those who wonder, yes it’s pretty much adult themes in my work, even when there isn’t explicit sex (which there sometimes is) so think about it next time you’re going to try and guilt me because you didn’t think about your damn baby!

It’s weird, cause I don’t have an obvious non-white racial identity when viewed from 20 paces away. If you were right up in my face you would notice I have eye folds like Asians and some First Nations, and if you looked further you might notice I have a nose in the shape of most of my people (I honestly can’t describe it better than that). If you missed those you would at least notice the Native dolly on my left arm and the word CREE on my right knuckles. If you were accustomed to Native Canadian names you would recognize my last name is notoriously Cree.

And if you became my friend on Facebook it would become apparent that I post a lot about First Nations rights to land and water and life. And about Two Spirited people (which, sorry white folks, is only a term that applies to First Nations people). Anyway, no one tells me weird stuff like “Hey my cinnamon sister lez get it on” or some kind of shit like that. Or calls me a Buckskin Beauty. Or anything odd.

BUT I DO GET SOME WEIRD ATTENTION.

And I’m not sure how to talk about it, like “Ummmmm, I think you are fetishizing me and it’s really squicking me out can you not?” But it’s like white women who want to be part of the solution and I just don’t want to go to every demonstration they think I should care about because I don’t have enough spoons for demos these days. (See spoon theory for more explanation). Or like posting on my wall “Look at this horrible thing that is happening to your people omg that’s really sad you must be really sad about it.” Ok that last part has never literally happened. BUT SOMETIMES I feel like it does because it at least happens on my feed. Like sometimes people just get way too into posting about Native stuff and they are NOT Native and I’m kind of like “Really? WHY? WHAT IS YOUR MOTIVATION?” Is this seduction through “I-understand-your-oppression-hi-how-are-ya?” There’s something kind of weird about it.

Which brings me to the question “BUT THIRZA how can I be an ally without weirding you out?”

Which is a very good question.

One is that if you are interested in dating someone and their race is how you are trying to get close to them. Stop. Just stop. Go do something else. My race, while a big part of my identity, is not all I am. I am also a struggling filmmaker. I am also a single owner of multiple dogs. I am a mental health consumer. I like going to movies, and not all of them are Native movies. I like BDSM. I like things that are nerdy too. I like sitting on my ass writing and drinking lattes and going for work dates where we write grants for things that might have nothing to do with me being Native.

But also if you AREN’T interested in dating someone and want to be an ally, here is my number one all time tip:

Don’t get into a thread war and tag your long suffering Native Facebook friend. Don’t post something on your page about something shitty happening to Natives and tag your Native friends and expect them to do battle with your ignorant friends.

Because I KNOW You have ignorant friends.

Don’t expect us to do all the work for you. Don’t expect us to educate you. And don’t expect us to enjoy having a feed filled with your good intentioned tragic Native stories commented on by your ignorant friends and family.

So I had this great idea a while back that I would actually start enjoying weekends. As in, not doing any creative work during them. Which IN THEORY is a great idea.

And it probably sounds weird as I am someone who does not have a JOB job, as in a traditional 9-5 Monday to Friday Christmas off if you are lucky JOB, but not working on my practice for THREE consecutive days was really weird. Because this past weekend was a long weekend.

So the first couple of days were so so. But the third day, Monday, was HORRIBLE! I got SO SAD and felt so unproductive and like I had no purpose and I wanted to cry for a while. But I didn’t register those feelings until late in the day when it was too late to just get back to writing or coding or drawing or whatever could have pulled me out of the depths.

I’ve actually had this low grade depression for a while. I realize I need to do something about it. My doctors and I have talked about it and never actually get around to changing my meds because I always end up saying “Oh it’s probably situational” because you know I lost both my Grandparents in the last two years, and did a really stressful year of school, and dealt with daily poverty and shit like that. SO I mean it kind of made sense, BUT ALSO this has been going on for two years and enough is enough, I want to feel better. I don’t want to have these breakthrough moments of feeling like garbage.

Anyway, I am seeing the doctors on Thursday and getting my Wellbutrin upped. I am hoping it kicks in soon. In the meantime I am using being creatively productive to try and stave off feeling shitty. I have some friends I can see this week too, so that’s fun.

I have to get a performance ready for next week. That’s a little nerve wracking. I’m hoping my least favourite person doesn’t show up for it!

What else? Ahhhh, tired of being bummed out. But overall okay. I mean, I manage to eat every day. I had a box of popsicles for a while, that was nice. So tired of this heat. Summer can fuck off already. I have no air conditioning, or a fan, and I think the heat is also starting to depress me.

HOWEVER I did get a new couch, and it’s not pleather! 😀 SO when I sit on it and I’m sweaty, I don’t get stuck to it.

I need to get back into Snapchatting. It’s a nice past time.

So today I finished working on a script I got a Canada Council grant to write for the past year, Skunk Cousins Christmas. It’s a comedy about a First Nations family struggling with addictions at Christmas.

So it’s done enough that I did my final report and it’s all sitting in an envelope waiting to go to the post office. But realistically to get it produced I’m going to have to do some more work on it. BUT it’s done for now and I can put it aside and come back to it later.

I’m really glad it’s done because now I can apply for another Canada Council grant. So I’m gonna try and make a short film that’s kind of dark and sad and dramatic, because I had an idea for a comedy but someone told me it would be better for me to get directors cred to do the feature I am working on now if I do a short drama, because the feature is a drama and pretty dark also. SO I have to write a script and a grant this next month, but a short one. I hope it works out!

Also Ontario Arts Council is due this fall. Ahhhh jeez I haven’t even checked the grant deadlines for that yet.

BUT this weekend I am NOT working on any of that, I am trying to finish up some older stuff, which is my video game. I’m going to be talking about it at Ed Video in Guelph on the 1st of October, and showing it at ImagineNATIVE in October also. So I really just want to wrap this thing up and give it to Dames Making Games so I can get paid. I still kind of think there will be more I will do on it, like, more scenes. But I have to concede temporary defeat because there’s really only SO MUCH I can do and this year I overloaded myself with work. Plus life happened. Like my Grandpa dying and stuff.

I’m looking forward to working on it though, because it’s something more tangible than a script. People can look at it and play with it and experience it, whereas a script just sits there until you produce it. Or rewrite it.

I also have a performance coming up in a couple of weeks in Prince Albert that I have to work on. Which I am going to use for my next 2 Spirit videos. Which I ALSO have to shoot this year and edit. I originally wanted to do them on the RED like my first 2 Spirit video, but I didn’t get a grant for it so I had to scale back, because I DID get one grant that was way less. Bummer.

I also have a ten part webseries I have to finish for a Sask Arts Board grant I got a long time ago. I applied for an award that might cover the costs of my actors next year. So I eventually have to do that because it is so overdue. Plus it would be fun.

So those are my arty obligations. They are fun though, really. I’ve been basically a full time artist for the past year and it has taught me a lot about myself and building discipline and making space to make work. This next year things get serious, because we are going for some development money to keep working on the screenplay I wrote as my thesis project at Ryerson. I got some script notes from someone at CFC who read it at the Female Eye Film Festival so I’m going to work with those and get it further along. If we do get the development money then there’s someone awesome who has agreed to work with me as a script editor. We should know before Christmas.

It’s different because it’s moving into more Industry stuff, which I have wanted to do for a long time, but it’s a whole other world and I’ve been like, a scrappy teenage punk dyke video artist at heart for my whole career. I hope it works for the best. My project can’t be done in a DIY crowdfunded way, it’s too big. And anyway, I’m tired of people telling me I should do things anyway even if I only have a budget of 100 dollars. Like, for shorts that is okay. But not this one. NOT THIS ONE! I don’t want to half ass it and also I feel like it’s kind of insulting to expect a woman who has been making films for 21 years to be content with 100 dollar budgets forever.