It's amazing how much time there is in a day when I don't spend two hours watching What Not to Wear

I have successfully completed my fourth staff 'O and I feel really good. I had a brief panic attack this afternoon, which kind of caught me off guard, but it passed quickly and I'm hoping that won't happen too often. I haven't had one since, maybe, April so it was odd. Other than that I'm feeling relatively in control. I'm taking a million vitamins and singing a lot of songs and breathing a lot of fresh air and I think it's all helping me to feel a little more sane. Also the time away from Shane is helping, as he seems to feel the need to go out of his way to make me feel like shit, even when I'm not any where near him. Not fair.

So I'm feeling good and I'm really excited to be medic. I have a grand decorating plan for the infirmary, or the med-shed, if you will. And the tinies will love it. This staff 'O has probably been the best one I've ever been to. I did a lot of writing and a lot of letter writing and a lot of hanging around. Last night I resisted my urge to be the observer and I participated in an indoor soccer game. It was so much fun! I got right the hell in there and I scored a goal! I played soccer until I was thirteen and I don't think I ever scored a goal! It was very exciting. I'm trying to push my boundaries and get to know some different groups and just embrace my senior staff status and just be a resource. I'm actually really enjoying it.

So yes, I'm well and I'm hoping that the trend continues once the kids get here.

Me and the Mennos

I'm heading to Menno camp this afternoon for my final summer. Matt and Tama have offered to present me with a paddle since I won't be getting my five year paddle from the mennos. It has yet to be determined (by them) whether it will be a canoe paddle, or a sexy SM paddle. I'm hoping for the latter. Anyway, I'm going to be the (se)medic for the first two weeks, and a counsellor for the last two weeks where I will shape and mould the minds of young folk. Excellent. I'm actually excited about being the medic (camp nurse). I think it will be quite good. My blogging will be sparse in the next few weeks... which is funny because I haven't really been on the ball lately anyway. I'll do my best to keep everyone posted. I will be posting my birthday wish list at some point as I will be coming home the day before my birthday (July 27th). Enjoy the sun! Send me letters and e-mails and comments!

I'm not dead. More to follow.

I am emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually broken. I am unnable, unprepared, unequipped and to debilitatingly scared to do anything about it.

Oh my god your skin is soft. I love your face.

I saw Hair for the third time last night. It was just so damn good. It's really sad to know that in less than a week it will all be dismantled and I'll never see those people again. Oh theatre, so cruel. It was the perfect last "pay what you can". I got there half an hour before the box office opened and there was a line around the block. I then made friends with a woman behind me and she helped me out by paying for tickets for my brother and his friend (because I had already reached my four ticket quota). The show was sold out and a huge number of the cast cried at the end when the whole house was standing and applauding. Oh I want that. I gotta get me back on stage and I gotta do it soon. Even if it's in the capacity of a crappy one-act. I just need to do something. At the moment, that something would seem to be stalking the cast of Hair. I don't know what it was about last night, but the energy in the theatre between the audience and the cast made the show ten times better than the last time I saw it. There were definitely flaws, but I am so glad that I was able to go back to that world one last time. Oh how I would love to be at their final show!

Ain't Got No Vagina.

It's a good thing I have friends like Matt Brown who will hand me a book like "Cunt" that has a whole section about pharmaceuticals being totally unnecessary and societies' insane move away from actual healing, while at the same time telling me that I should just get on the damn drugs already and sort this out. Otherwise I'll just be sitting there eating grass like the vegan and having nothing come of it.

It's good that he knows I have that little bit of idealist in me. As logical as I am, I read "Cunt" and get all wrapped up and excited and into it and all of a sudden I'm arguing with my dad about the medicalization of women's health being more for profit and power than men's health, wanting to go back off of the birth control pill, and wanting to demand that every elementary school include curriculum about alternative menstrual products. Perhaps I have a 'zine in me after all.

Anyway, I'm glad there are men like Matt in the world who will read a book like "Cunt" and joyously pass it on to people, instead of shutting down and feeling attacked. Woman I appreciate that guy.

"Are you bitch talking our elephant?"

(The title is a quote from Friendly Rich when a sass cat 11 year old boy walked up to our dragon and said "It's not even scary" and he replied "Are you bitch talking our elephant?")

Yesterday I headed to Brampton with my dad, David, Kate, and a giant dragon named Steven (They named him, not me) for the Festival of Noises which had a medieval theme this year. The dragon turned out amazingly well and we ended up leading the parade. It's funny, with all of my body image and self-esteem things happening I all of a sudden look up and there I am in a mask and faery wings with hundreds of people watching me, and about 700 people following me. Yowza.

So yes, Kate and I were both dressed as faeries, David as a Jester, my dad as a King and we marched to a park in Brampton where an orchestra of musicians and 700 kids made noises. It was amazing. I did a little screaming and singing too which was nice, though I didn't do enough. Eric Nagler was there too, so I met him and chatted, which was kind of exciting. The event is an annual one organized by
Friendly Rich who is an amazing and eccentric composer. Every year he makes cds of the festival of noises for every kid who was involved. It's pretty incredible. If I get fancy I might be able to find a sound clip somewhere. Not right now though.

And David Hannan who was nice enough to hire me to be his artist assistant was the designer of the dragon. As soon as I get my pictures back I'll get someone to scan it so you can all see how cool it was. It was really nice to be back in a space where I could have creative input on the creation of something. I like those spaces.

So today I'm off to Kitchener to see what the Mennos have to say. I'm going to try to be extremely calm and not cry. We'll see.

Powerful Temptress Leader of the Harem

I'm really sick of the Price is Right. That's about it. I just don't care and I'm just not entertained.

Last night I had vivid dreams that Steve and I went to BC to meet up with one of his friends and he ended up selling me into this covert drug operation where he and his friend had this whole scheme involving drug trafficking. His friend was a little bit off and had a large gun collection and liked to impose severe punishments on the women that were working for him and living with him. All of the women had been broken except me, because I was the newest. Steve changed and I could tell that he was trying to ease me into the broken state. When I woke up I had been sent on a liquor run to the LCBO. One had to happen every day and someone different had to do it so that the neighbourhood wouldn't get suspicious. But the neighbourhood knew.

I had another dream last night that a fire started in the wall of my livingroom. I had to open the wall up just to find the flames. I could hear the crackling. I went to the hallway to get the fire extinguisher and my dad wouldn't let me use it. He started trying to explain to me how to use the extinguisher and I was trying to explain that I've had training on it for the last three years (which is true) but he wouldn't listen. And then the fire just wouldn't go out.

Some part of another dream involved sleeping on the street in front to a BMO bank. Strange.

I'm always so damn tired when I wake up. It doesn't matter if I've slept for four hours, or 10 hours, I'm just exhausted. But this afternoon I've been hired to build a giant dragon puppet, so that's okay. I don't know how much this extravaganza pays, or how long it's going to take, but I don't have any other options, so here I go.

Oh The Bed! Uhn!

I just have to stop and brag for a moment that I've got a sweet piece of Macelod sleeping in my bed right now. (Actually all of Macelod is there, that sounded more creepy then hot when I actually wrote it down). And really world, it's time to stop kidding myself. My true calling is to be a sex educator and a sex therapists. People come to me and I know my shit. So what the hell am I doing? I think I may have an article in me on a certain topic at the moment, maybe even a book. I gots me a deadline of July 14 and two potential articles that I'm pretty excited about. No job to speak of... but if I got paid for nightmares boy howdy I'd be rich.

Flesh Failures

After my 7am to 2am day on Friday (with 13 hours of pure work in between sleepings) my body failed me yesterday morning and I slept through yoga time. Which is really frustrating because I really felt like I needed some yoga and I really wanted to see the Matt Brown because I haven't seen him since before BC and that just ain't right.

I'm going out with some local high school friends for breakfast this morning and often when I see these people I remember why I spent most of my highschool social life hanging out with Matt and Mark and other various older non-leaside folk. On Friday night my mom told me that just because someone is my friend doesn't mean they're necessarily capable of having a deep conversation with me. Which is true. I suppose I just prefer the friends who can. And so it makes me extra sad when I don't get to see those and instead end up in far to superficial situations.

I contemplated showing up on Matt's doorstep at 9am this morning, but decided that might not be okay. Perhaps next time I'll get some takeout breakfast and just follow my instincts. The worse thing that could happen is I end up eating copious amounts of eggs benny on his front porch alone. And that's just hilarious.

Box Brigade

Long time no blog. I tried to blasphemously blog from a church yesterday through the beauty of stealing wireless, but alas I didn't have enough time. I spent this week battling depression and preparing to be a projectionist at a DARE Arts performance yesterday. DARE Arts is a non-profit organization that provides at risk youth from elementary schools across Toronto with an opportunity to have 10 classes in 10 different areas of the arts and then at the end they do a huge performance. It's a great program and the show they put together was amazing. On Wednesday I had a four hour tech meeting, and then I spent all of Wednesday night (until 5am) putting together slideshows for the performance. Oh yeah, I'm an iMovie genius now. Then I spent yesterday from 11am to 11pm at the church setting up, having a dress rehearsal and a performance.

It was so nice to be working on a show. I've never really done tech before so I was a little nervous. I am an onstage kind of gal. But it went really well. My dad was the technical producer and also the sound guy, so I ended up sitting beside him and giving him his cues as well as staying on top of mine. It was very necessary to have me there. Not to seem full of myself or anything, but he needed help. It just felt good to be there and it boosted my confidence in the whole world of theatre a little bit because for the first time last night I felt like I could do tech, be a stage manager, or act if I had the chance. I think next year I'm going to make it my goal to go to every audition possible. If I get anything, maybe the WRC takes a backseat for a while. Who knows.

So I still have no job and I'm taking the mennos on next week. Depending on how the conversation goes, I may not be returning to Menno camp. Many people have advised me not to return to Menno camp, and they're probably right. I just don't do well with dropping things that I've been doing for the last 15 years. It's really hard for me. Change is bad. And scary. I'm sending out a few resumes this week just to see if I can formulate a back up plan. That's probably a bad idea too since I can't make a decision to save my life. Ah well.

In other news, Tama did not get CSIed in Vegas, but the decision has been made that when she dies (whether it's an elaborate murder scheme or not) Jess and I will dramatically sing the CSI theme song at her funeral. Also, we will be forming a posse called the Box Brigade. We plan to take on assholes who sexually abuse or assault or harass women (or just generally treat them like shit) and beat the hell out of them with double headed dildos. Our first two victims will be Tama's ex Chris, and Steve's roommate Shane. We plan to tie them up and beat them and yell at them while wearing matching outfits. Then we'll go over to the next room, where our partners and men who treat women well will be waiting so we can tie them up and do sexy things to them... while wearing matching outfits. We figure it's the best way to bring balance back to the universe.

So yes, now it's a rainy rainy day, and I'm trying to stay happy. If anyone needs any beadwork or oddjobs, or English tutoring done I'm here and I'm willing! (For a small fee of course).