I just drove our new car for the first time. I went to the grocery store, put things in my basket (very fast as I was FREAKING THE FUCK OUT INSIDE MY BRAIN), made small talk with the cashier guy who reminds me a lot of my friend Scooter, paid with my DEBIT CARD (which is a great source of anxiety), packed up my own bag and DROVE HOME.

I’m shaking. It took 2 Ativan and a lot of Twitter encouragement but dammit, I wanted pie and I went to the goddamn store and got me some motherfucking PIE.

And y’know what? I was so proud of myself that I got CAKE too. And crumpets, pretzels, watermelon for the kids and baby cans of gingerale.

I’ve been to the grocery store with Blake 100 times and it’s only about 3 minutes from our house, but I went down the wrong street and got lost-ish which made me sorta panic, but then I got on Yonge St. and knew the grocery store was up the road (I’d missed the grocery store’s street by about 2 or 3 streets – oops) so I didn’t freak out. I mean, the town’s only so big and it’s pretty much impossible to REALLY get lost.

It also took me like, 10 minutes to figure out how to work the car. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to move the seat up or how to turn the lights on but I finally got it. Also our car has like, D3, D2 and DL and I have no idea what that means so I just picked D3, which was the closest one to N and went with it. I probably did it wrong but it worked so, whatever.

Blake’s gonna be pissed that I bought fairly useless stuff with his money, but again, whatever, I FUCKING DID IT and that’s what matters.

Now I’m going to allow myself to freak out and cry and y’know what else? I got pie AND cake and I’m going to fucking eat BOTH of them and then I’m gonna go to bed. Yeah, you heard me, BOTH OF THEM.

The end.

Edit: Okay, so I was too full after the pie to actually eat the cake, but dammit, pretend I did! And for those who may be curious, it was lemon meringue pie & chocolate cake.

I just woke up from having the best dream about going to Burning Man with Blake for the first time and meeting Halcyon (who was actually kind of a dick in my dream, although I doubt he’s like that in person).

I’ve been wanting to go to Burning Man for, oh, the past 4 or 5 years, but there are so many logistics involved in making it happen that I doubt it ever will. I mean, first of all, I live almost as far away from the playa as you can get, sooooooooo how do we get there? You need to bring LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of stuff and I think it’d be a nightmare to try & bring that much stuff on a plane and then if we did, what would we do when we landed, rent a truck? And how would you bring rebar (I probably spelled that wrong) on a plane? You need that to anchor your tent so it doesn’t blow away if there’s a dust storm!

Another option is that Phil & Lisa have Freddie’s old RV sitting in their driveway that they use for the Judo tournament for us to sleep in but I A) Don’t know if they’d let us borrow in to drive to NEVADA or B) If it’s in good enough shape to actually make it.

And another option we’ve considered, because Blake & I really really want to go, preferably before we’re 40, so that gives us like, 4 years (for him) and 9 years for me, is flying to Lake Tahoe where his sister lives and who has all kinds of camping equipment because she & her husband are really really into that. But again, we don’t know if it’s an option and with that, there’s even more logistics to consider, such as extra time off and money to visit with them.

If we chose that option, we could maybe bring the kids with us and they could stay at Shannan’s (his sister) while we’re at Burning Man. If she & her husband Erik (or is it with a “c”? I always forget) aren’t down with that, then I’m sure Phil & Lisa or my mom would look after them while we go.

And then when I think about going, I wonder what we’d bring for gifting. There’s a promotional item for my Etsy shop that I’m saving up for that I really want to give to people, but is gifting a promotional item, even if it’s cool, bad gifting etiquette? With enough planning I could make things to gift, but I don’t have any ideas about that at the moment and really, I really am busy with painting so I can actually make some money so I don’t know if I’d even have the time to make hundreds of handmade items, no matter how much time I was given.

Another obstacle is that we’d have to buy a lot of stuff to survive the playa and we don’t have a whole lot of extra money for stuff like that, so how would we get all that stuff? Plus I think tickets, unless you get the early bird ones, which sell out fast, is about $1000 each, which I think is totally fair, but $2000 for both of us is a LOT of money, especially considering that we’d probably have to buy – and I’m just guesstimating here – about $500-$800 worth of stuff, if not more, to be able to survive the playa. And of course, no matter how we get there or what the plan is, it’s going to cost major bucks to even get there, whether by plan or by vehicle.

I would also love to create a giant art piece like other people do who bring them to the playa but I have no fucking idea how I could even do that when it’s hard enough to get myself there.

Every year about this time I get like, Burning Man fever because Halcyon starts talking about it and I think “okay maybe next year” but it never happens. I wanted to go really bad last year because the kids would still be young enough to get in for free and I’d really like to bring them, but now for Madison, I think it’s 5 or 6 hundred bucks. Wes is still free.

I think we’ll get there at some point, but for now, I’m okay with just dreams.

Goodbye old, rusty Cavalier that needed more work done than the car was worth, hello 2010 Hyundai Elantra!

After 16 years of semi-dutiful service, my mom’s van has finally given up the ghost and was disassembled today. Since a lot of people who come to my site or who read my Live Journal really liked my mom’s van, I thought I’d post pics of what my mom & John did with it today. My mom says she’s not sure what she’ll do with the pieces, the edges will have to be made less sharp to do anything with them, but there was so much blood, sweat, tears and money put into that van that she thought they were worth saving.

Today’s Oprah was a rerun that I’d never seen before, about moms who drive while under the influence of alcohol with kids in the car, more specifically, the 2009 Taconic State Parkway crash where Diane Schuler (36), under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, drove the wrong way on the parkway for 1.7 miles before crashing and killing herself and 7 other people, including her own daughter and three of her nieces. Her husband disputes the toxicology report, believing the accident was caused by a medical issue of some sort and has hired a private investigation firm to clear his wife’s name, but it doesn’t appear as though he’ll be successful.

The show also told the story of another woman from New York who drove drunk with seven 11-year-old girls in the car. She lost control of the car, rolling it several times, critically injuring two of the girls and killing another (the other girls came out of it with minor injuries).

Oprah’s point was that apparently in the US, women driving drunk has risen 30% since 1998, although she offered no real reason as to why.

One of the guests was a woman who was celebrating her two year sobriety after hiding her alcoholism from her husband for well over a year.

The whole episode had my mind spinning as alcoholism is something I’m very sensitive to having grown up with alcoholics and then somehow befriending a few in my adult life. I’ve known and do know the kind that hides it, the kind that tries to hide it and fails and the kind that just doesn’t give a fuck.

My grampa Wes was an alcoholic. He wasn’t technically my grampa, but in my life, he took the place of one. He lived on a farm next door to my grama, where I lived when I was a little kid and where I visited almost every weekend , every PA day, the Xmas holidays and every March Break for the bulk of my childhood. Since she was busy running her store most of the time I either spent my days with my great grama who lived upstairs or at Wes’ house playing with the animals.

The only person it was a secret to that Wes was an alcoholic was me. For the most part I grew up thinking he was just really really fun. I mean, he let me take new kittens and puppies by the box full to my grama’s with me to play with for the day, or let me spend the day in the barn playing with the bunnies or the baby chicks. Or sometimes we’d go to town or go to the corner store, buy junk food and watch “wrasslin’” for the afternoon. It wouldn’t be until I was about 10 or 11 that I understood what an alcoholic was or that he was one.

Oh I knew he drank, but I never thought drinking was a problem. I just thought it was something that adults did, although to be perfectly honest I wasn’t really sure why.

I can’t remember for sure if I was 11 or 12, but Saturday in the summer, Wes and I went to the Stouffville Sales Barns where he purchased a few flats of chicks. (On Saturdays you could go there and farmers would buy and sell animals. You still can.) He put them in the back of his pick-up truck and on our way out of town, he stopped in at what my grama called “the In & Out Store”, which was her name for the liquor store and bought…y’know, to this day I’m not even sure what he drank. Probably whiskey or rye, because I recall it being amber-coloured. Anyway, in Ontario there’s the LCBO, which is the liquor store and The Beer Store, both government run and the only place you can buy alcohol. Wes was a regular at the liquor store and I’d even been with him when he was refused service, so that means I was definitely with him on more than one occasion where he was already drunk when he walked through their doors because that’s why they refuse service (although I didn’t know that at the time). And yes, we had to drive to get there.

Anyway, on this Saturday he bought 3 or 4 flats of chicks and as I said, he put them in the back of his pickup truck, he stopped off at the liquor store and then we went back to his house. When we got there, Wes’ friend George, who was an enabler to the highest degree and who often got Wes drunk and would take advantage of him monetarily, was waiting for us. I went to the barn to play with the bunnies, the chicks were left in the back of the truck, which was parked in the shade of the house, and the men went inside to start drinking.

By the time I came back from the barn, George had left (I didn’t like him, he was smarmy) and Wes was at the kitchen table drinking. When I came inside, I sat on one of the kitchen chairs and we talked about stuff while he got progressively drunker. After he was well plastered, he decided that he’d better get the chicks into the barn, so he stood up and promptly fell damn near flat on his face. I laughed, I was a kid and thought it was funny. I helped him up and helped him get outside where he fell AGAIN, this time right into the lilac bush. And that’s where he stayed because after I tried to help him back up several times and we laughed at his behaviour, he passed out cold and I couldn’t wake him up. I even kicked him as hard as I could right in the ass and he just gave me shit for it, rolled over and stayed passed out.

By now it was the afternoon and the truck was no longer in the shade. I was scared. I was scared that Wes was sick or something and I was scared that the chicks were going to die in the back of the truck and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lift a flat of chicks by myself and get them in the barn. It would take me forever to take a few at a time and carry them to the coop. (We’re talking like, easily 1000 chicks here.)

In a panic, I called my grama at her store and explained the situation. It was almost closing time for her anyway, so she locked up early and headed over to Wes’ house, which was maybe a 4 minute walk. Together we each took an end of one of the flats of chicks and one by one we took them into the barn where I released them where they were supposed to go and got them water. I remember not knowing what kind of food they should eat so I didn’t feed them, but so many of them were so overheated that I would have to pick them up, splash water on them and put their beaks into the water dish where they’d finally drink. I remember having to go find more water dishes because there were so many chicks and they were all so dehydrated that they were trampling all over each other and making everyone’s water dirty.

Once the chicks were looked after, my grama told me to show her where Wes was, so I brought her over to the lilac bush and she kicked him. I told her I’d tried that. Wes kinda stirred a bit and looked up and my grama said something to him about the chicks being put away, called him a “stupid ass” and then said she was leaving him there. Then we went home where alcoholism was finally explained to me. I’d known what drunk adults were like, but I never knew it could be a problem.

Looking back at my childhood with Wes, I can’t help but think of how truly fucked up it was. My grama would routinely let me get in the truck with him to go up to the store even though he had clearly been drinking. He used to drive up to the store (about a 3 minute drive) not on the road, but on the shoulder and I learned later that the reason he did this was because it was only illegal to drive on the road if you were drunk. I don’t know if that was true at the time or not, but it’s certainly not true now, as my alcoholic neighbour has explained to me several times (more on that in a bit). Everyone knew Wes was drunk a good portion of the time, but they let me hang out with him anyway. I don’t know why that is. (And really, I guess that part doesn’t matter, it never did me any harm except that one scary day with the chicks. The driving part I really question though.)

Wes’ wife, Maggie, was an alcoholic too, but I don’t ever recall her driving and she died when I was about 10 or 11. I don’t know if it was related to her drinking or not, but I’m fairly certain Wes’ death was. Wes died when I was in grade 8, right before my birthday, of a stroke. From what I recall being told, they don’t know if he had a stroke and fell down the stairs or if he fell down the stairs and had a stroke, but his son Mikey found him there, assumed he was drunk and started giving him shit while trying to get him up. Wes being Wes, I’m pretty certain that whatever the case may be, he probably wasn’t sober when the stroke occurred. He was alive when the ambulance came and they took him to a hospital in Toronto. I wasn’t allowed to go see him because my mom didn’t want me remembering him “like that” (I guess he was pretty messed up) but he died a few days later.

My great grama on my grampa’s side was an alcoholic as well, which probably sounds remote to most of you reading this, but keep in mind that my mother had me when she was 15 and as such, I grew up with two of my great gramas. I didn’t learn that my Grama Crittenden was an alcoholic until I was a teenager though because we didn’t really go see her very often but usually when we did, she was drunk. I never really thought anything of it though, because we only really ever saw her at family reunions and at a Crittenden family reunion usually the only people who are actually sober are the kids and sometimes even that’s not the case. I don’t know if my great grama’s partner, Frank, was an alcoholic too, but it seems pretty likely and for sure her late husband was. They don’t know if he drank because he was depressed or if he was depressed because he drank, but either way, he committed suicide by taking a shotgun to his head. My Grama Crittenden lived to be 86, I believe, and died of old age. (Although I think that’s relative; who’s to say how long she might have lived if she wasn’t an alcoholic?)

My step-dad IS an alcoholic. He wasn’t one when I was growing up, it was a gradual thing that happened over time because he was depressed, hated his life and couldn’t find any other way to cope. It started out innocently enough, just a beer here or there, then it became one small drink after work to “unwind”, until finally it became, “no, I can’t drive you to your friends house, I’ve been drinking” (by 7pm) or “no, I can’t pick you up from the party, I’ve had too much to drink”. My step-dad started by only buying a mickey once a week, then a 26er and now from what I understand, he buys the big bottle. I guess the plus side to this is that at least he doesn’t drive? Or at least he didn’t drive after a few drinks as of 6 years ago when I stopped speaking to him, I can’t say for certain if that’s still the case now.

My ex’s father who I used to live with was also an alcoholic and the last I heard, he still was, although he did remain sober for a few years a few years ago when he was driving truck for a living. He was, like my step-dad, a high-functioning alcoholic in that he held down a job, the same job he’d had for 20 years, and didn’t drive drunk, but their family was overburdened by financial trouble, the root of which seemed to be a lot of get rich quick schemes and a lot of beer. Darrell also tended to be a very violent, mean drunk whose behaviour heavily contributed to his wife’s mental breakdown and subsequent diagnosis of schizophrenia (not that he CAUSED the schizophrenia, that’s not possible, but his actions served as the catalyst for it surfacing). When she moved out and was in and out of the hospital because of her illness, Darrell took on boarders to help pay the bills who he would get drunk and harass, both physically and mentally. Then his wife moved back in and he started harassing her more and more until she ended up in the hospital again and her family wouldn’t allow her to go back to him. Then his mentally unstable (yet brilliant) sister, Donna, moved in with her boyfriend and he physically and emotionally harassed both of them too, all while drunk.

It is because of these people (and a few more I won’t tell you about because this is already getting really long) that I rarely drink. I went through a phase in my teens where I drank all the time, mostly because I could (I was unsupervised and had all these adults willing to buy it for me, plus there was one restaurant in town that would serve me if I was with my Aunt) and right after Madison was born, because I’d just turned 19 (legal drinking age here) I went to the bar a whole lot (but didn’t often get drunk, mostly because I couldn’t afford to). And of course when I was working for Scratching Post there was a lot of drinking as well, but I’ve never kept alcohol in my home. At least not on purpose. Sometimes people come over and bring alcohol with them and then leave whatever’s left here, so that’s sometimes in the very highest cupboard above the stove, but more often than not, I’ve dumped it out after people have left unless there’s a lot left in the bottle. There’s one Mike’s Hard Lemonade in my fridge right now that’s been there since at least September, if not before that and it’ll probably stay there until the summer. I get drunk maybe twice a year and I only drink to get drunk because I see no other reason to.

I realize this isn’t necessarily the definition of an alcoholic, but I believe that if you drink every single day and you’re unhappy the days you don’t have alcohol, then you are one. My “alcoholic scale” doesn’t count people who have a glass of wine with dinner or even a beer or maybe even two after work and really, my “scale” isn’t so much a scale at all, but the fact that, having grown up around so many different types of alcohol abusers, I know one when I see one and I’ve seen plenty. And y’know what else? In my experience, the people who get the most offended if you use the word “alcoholic” in reference to them almost always are one. If they aren’t one, they want to know why you think so and are concerned that you feel that way. If they get angry, it’s because they know it’s true and now they know you know it’s true too.

I don’t drink or keep alcohol in my home not because I’m holier than thou and don’t think people should drink, I do it because I know I’m predisposed to having a problem with it due to both nature and nurture and man, I have enough problems.

I said up there somewhere that my neighbour told me that driving on the side of the road wouldn’t save you from a DUI now as it may have when Wes was doing it and the reason he knows this is because of how he got his first DUI. Apparently he was walking home from either a bar or a party, I believe in the winter, and because it was cold and he was so drunk he just wanted to sleep, he got in his car and put the key in the ignition and turned the car on to turn on the heat. Then once the car was warm, he turned it off and fell asleep. He woke up to “tap tap tap” on the driver’s side window and it was a cop. The cop told him to get out of the car and made him do a sobriety test which he obviously failed and because he had the key in the ignition, he was charged with…not DUI, but something in the same vein where the car’s not actually moving but you were close enough that it was a chargeable offense. So if he could be charged with that, without the car even being on or being driven, then my grampa Wes couldn’t get away with driving drunk on the shoulder like he did when I was a kid.

Wayne, my neighbour, told Blake and I repeatedly that if we were ever in a situation like that and a cop tapped on your window, to get out of the car and throw your keys as far as you can because then, according to him, you can’t be charged with anything.

I doubt very much that either Blake or I would ever be in that situation, but every time Wayne’s told us the story, I’ve always thought about Wes driving down the shoulder of the road to avoid a DUI. And then while watching Oprah today, I thought about every alcoholic I’ve ever known and just how lucky I really was that Wes didn’t accidentally kill me and that I didn’t grow up to be one too.

Like I said, I’ve got enough problems.

It’s 5am and I’m awake. I went to bed at about 12:30am but woke up about half an hour ago because Lucky was whining to be let out and when I tried to go back to sleep, it was a no go because there’s too much on my mind, namely agoraphobia.

Yesterday or the day before, Blake had a troll on his Cubeless blog and the troll said, “Grab yourself a job instead of claiming agoraphobia of convenience which seems to kick in every time you have to go shopping, but lifts when there’s an art show or a concert you absolutely have to attend because you’re ‘creative’.” And that wasn’t the first time in the last couple of weeks where people questioned my agoraphobia. At a forum I frequent, there’s a thread in a secret forum called “Reasons to feel good” and when our Gogol Bordello tickets came, I posted the picture of me holding them up to the cam in that thread and a couple of people said “wait, don’t you have agoraphobia?”

And that’s the thing. Agoraphobia isn’t a cut & dry thing. It’s different for each person. In my case, I can’t go anywhere by myself and there are certain places, like grocery stores, that I avoid because they give me anxiety to the point of panic attacks whether Blake’s with me or not. And in the case of the grocery store, yes, Blake does the groceries and it’s not so much because I can’t (well, since I haven’t done it so long and have next to zero concept of money anymore it would cause a problem anyway) but it’s simply a case of, “why make it a family outing when Blake can just go in, get what we need and come home”? Since I can’t go by myself, and I don’t have a car even if I could, that’s the way things have to be and the way things are. In case I wasn’t clear, when it comes to groceries, why take 4 people to the store, which over-complicates things, when Blake can just go in, get what we need, not go over budget, not impulse buy, and be home in half the time it would take us if all 4 of us went. Plus, if all 4 of us went, there’s a very good chance that I would have a panic attack and would require medication (Ativan) to first get there and some more to actually stay there.

As for art shows, well, that’s actually a laughable thing. I’ve only ever been to one art show in my life and it was Touched By Fire, which is put on by the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario. If anyone’s going to understand my idiosyncrasies at such an event, it’s going to be those people, or at least that was my logic behind going. Being in the city (Toronto) makes me very very nervous and the night of that art show, I must have taken at least 4 Ativans. But the thing was, I was totally fine at the show and I actually questioned this after the fact the next time I saw my shrink. I wanted to know how come I was totally fine at that show, yet I can’t go to Wal*Mart or even the art supply stores by myself and she said that it’s because at an art show, I have a defined role, I’m an artist, and therefore there’s guidelines as to how to act which are comfortable to me because I can easily play that role for that is what I am. I mean, I wasn’t totally fine at the show, when Gayle Cutler wanted me to do a commission, Blake had to navigate the business end of things because that’s not a role I’m comfortable with. While he did that, I hid in the bathroom. Literally.

And as far as concerts, well gee, the last concert I went to was either System of a Down or Metallica, I can’t remember and both of those shows were at least 7 or 8 years ago. With Metallica, I almost didn’t go because I had a meltdown half an hour before we had to leave. I ended up going to the show in my pajamas after Blake spent 45 minutes talking me into going. With Gogol Bordello, they are my favourite band right now and there are certain experiences where I know I’d have regrets if I didn’t go and this show is one of them because Gogol Bordello doesn’t come to Toronto very often. As I said when I posted the picture of the tickets, I have roughly 2 months to psych myself into going. A normal person wouldn’t have to do that. And even when I do go, I’m going to have to be chowing down clonazepam (klonopin) and Ativan like there’s no tomorrow. I won’t be in the pit. I’ll probably be way at the back, away from people. I’ll also be with Blake and our two best friends so I’ll have like, a circle of protection, which helps. Going to this show is not going to be an easy thing for me at all and actually another aspect of this endeavor is that when I posted the pictures of the concert tickets on that forum that I frequent, one of the members there, whom I’ve known for many years and who lives in Toronto, asked me if I wanted to get a drink and meet up before the show, to which I replied “hellz no” because that is completely outside of my comfort zone, especially when going to the show is going to be hard enough as it is. I am already losing sleep over this show because I don’t know what to wear – and it’s 2 months away.

I don’t know what to wear because where I’m at right now as far as weight loss is that I don’t fit into my “normal” clothes just yet and my “fat clothes” are now too big. Chances are, I’m going to have to buy something to wear to the show and since we’re not particularly made of money that stresses me out.

And as far as meeting this person I know from the forum I frequent well, the thing is, I decided a while back that I wasn’t going to meet people from the internet anymore with very few exceptions and the reason for that is because…I’ve met roughly 200 people from the internet in the last 12 years and during the last several encounters, I’ve realized that people sometimes don’t want to meet me to actually meet me, they want to judge me to see whether I’m the same in person as I am online (which I am) but more than that, they want to be able to tell people that they met me because it gives them cool points or something in our respective circles. I’m a notch on a belt and I’m not cool with that.

The fact of the matter is, I have agoraphobia. It’s not a phobia of convenience as Blake’s troll implied, it just presents itself in a certain way where I can go certain places and do certain things, but quite often those things take a lot of planning, a trip to my shrink, psychiatric medications and a lot of preparation.

I left the house the first week of January to see Avatar. I was supposed to go to a baby shower in Toronto at the end of January but I couldn’t deal with going to a place with a bunch of people I didn’t know so I didn’t go. Seeing Avatar in January was the only time I left my house that month. In the first week of February I went to my doctor to get a new prescription and in the second week of February, I went to my shrink appointment. In the middle of February, I went with Blake to the grocery store for about 5 minutes. And that’s it. I left the house 3 times in February. Now it’s March. I went to the doctor’s tonight to get a pap smear and chances are, that’ll be my only outing for the month of March. A normal person wouldn’t be able to tell you the exact places and the amount of times they left the house in any given month, but I can because it’s such a rare occurrence and since they are such rare occurrences, I mark these outings down on my calendar. Again, a normal person wouldn’t do that.

Last spring, when I took a walk down the Trans-Canada Trail by my house to take pictures, that was the first time in about 6 & a half years that I went anywhere by myself. Last spring I tested my agoraphobic limits with mixed success. When I went to one of the local restaurants to have breakfast all by myself, I was so freaked out by the situation that I didn’t leave the house for a month. Last spring & summer, Lucky and I checked the mail and mailed things in the middle of the night and that was a huge deal. All of these things can easily be searched on this blog under “agoraphobia” for those who are interested.

My agoraphobia is compounded during the fall and winter by Seasonal Affective Disorder. I simply do not leave the house unless I absolutely have to during this time. In the spring & summer, that’s when I go back at it with the immersion therapy, although truth be told, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve mostly given up on that because at this point I have zero motivation for trying to get better. I live in a shitty little town with nothing in it and nowhere to go and I have no car. I don’t think I can get better here. I’m not sure where I could get better exactly, but here ain’t it.

And that’s the thing, which I don’t know if it’s part of the phobia or what, but 95% of the time I’m okay with not leaving the house. I stopped fantasizing about a different life a long time ago.

Also, part of agoraphobia is that quite often, as is the case with me, the person has a hard time letting people in to their homes. It’s not just about leaving one’s home. Having people in my house is a very hard thing for me to do. At Xmas time the neighbours offered to watch my dogs for me so we didn’t have to bring them up North with us, but i couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have people in my home when I wasn’t there. And even when I am here, if people are going to come over, we all make a mad dash for the cleaning supplies because I don’t want people judging me by our home, which isn’t exactly the nicest home to begin with. A babysitter being here so Blake and I can go out? Unheard of. My kids have only been babysat in our home by our friends Alex & Ronny and my mother. When the neighbours watch the kids, the kids go over there. Hiring a babysitter, like a teenager or whatever, simply wouldn’t happen.

I think my agoraphobia started in two ways: 1) I’m pretty sure that whenever I left the house when we lived above my grandma’s furniture store, she came into the apartment and snooped. That made me so mental that I stopped leaving the house so she couldn’t do that and that’s why I can’t have people in my house when I’m not there now. 2) When Blake moved in and had to give back his car, he took over mine and it was just easier for him to get groceries on the way home from work than for me to go do it after he came home and I have access to a car. Since we lived in the middle of nowhere, there was nowhere for me to go, especially without a car. And this lasted years until it became habit and then became phobia.

But long long long before that there were signs that this was just part of my natural state. When I was 15 and living with my boyfriend at the time’s parents, I rarely left the house then too. I would go to check the mail which meant walking about 20 feet from the house and I would do so in my pajamas at 2:30am. Sometimes I’d go to my Aunt’s house in town, which was about a 15 minute walk, but again, I’d only do it at night and most of the time in my pajamas.

I know when I absolutely have to, I can leave the house, kick ass and take names. When Zulu got hit by the car, I didn’t even think about it, I got in the car with the cop who stopped to help, with Zulu in the back seat and I dealt with the vet by myself and went back home with the cop while Blake was on his way to the vet’s to take care of the rest. When it was just Madison and I in our apartment in Uxbridge, I only had a bar fridge and I’d load Madison up in her stroller and we’d do groceries every day. When I was in college, I dealt with Madison going to daycare and drove myself to Toronto every single day because in all of the above scenarios, what choice did I have?

If Blake died tomorrow, I’m fairly confident that we’d all be okay and that I could get shit done. (Don’t get me wrong, Blake dying would suck, but life does go on, bills still have to be paid, kids still have to be driven to school.)

As things stand though, as I said, there’s little motivation for me to get better. There’s nothing in the outside world for me except these rare situations like an art show, a movie or a concert and I do all of the above extremely seldom.

As I said in the beginning, agoraphobia is not a cut & dry thing. It affects everyone differently. Yes, there are similarities in every agoraphobic patient, but they all have to be treated on a case-by-case basis. I’ve just explained how my case presents itself and it is my hope that I won’t have to do it again.

Last night Judy watched the kids and we spent 2 grueling hours in a packed Wal*Mart doing the bulk of our Xmas shopping. This year I/we decided fuck it, if you’re a grown up who can buy your own crap, I’m not even gonna bother hazarding a guess as to what you DON’T already have, so (and hopefully none of them are reading this, but I guess it doesn’t matter much if they are) all grown ups in our lives are getting pictures of the kids and gift certificates. Blake got almost all of the gift certificates yesterday on his lunch and only has one more to get today and then we are DONE.

Today Madison and I are going to clean the bathroom, then tomorrow after work Blake is going to vacuum and then my house will be presentable enough for when my mom, her boyfriend John and his son Chris come over to have Xmas with us on Boxing Day. I didn’t get John or Chris anything for Xmas because my mom basically told me not to, which was a great relief because we’re in the poorhouse as it is and my poor Visa is dangerously close to its limit. We decided not to defer our mortgage payment this month, but instead do all of our Xmas shopping on Visa and pay it off when Blake gets his bonus in March. If anything comes up between now & then, like say the car blows up, then we can defer a mortgage payment if need be and have it taken care of.  Now that we’re done our Xmas shopping, the only “big ticket item” we have to worry about is getting all of the animals their shots in January and then getting their township tags.

After we got home from Wal*Mart, Blake made a great steak dinner that I couldn’t eat because right now I’m pretty fucking sick and the only thing keeping me sane is Advil Cold & Sinus. I thought it was just a cold when it hit me on Friday but I’ve had a fever off & on all weekend and yesterday, my whole body aches etc. so I’m putting it more in the flu category. I am SO SCARED to get any of these friggin’ kids sick (ours + Courtney) that I reek of hand sanitizer and there have been no bedtime hugs. I just do not want to deal with 3 sick kids during the 2 & a half week holiday break, especially not if I’m sick myself.  I feel really bad that I felt too bad to eat the dinner Blake made us last night. :o/

We (well he) ate while we watched the Leafs vs Sabres game I started recording while we were at Wal*Mart and when food was done, I got started on wrapping presents. We got Madison this cute makeup bag that’s turquoise patent leather and her first set of makeup. I went way way way overboard in hooking her up with a good variety of stuff (like 6 bottles of nail polish, 3 compacts of eyeshadow…) and I wrapped each thing individually and put it in the bag, with cotton balls on top, zipped it up, then put the bag in a box and then we wrapped the box up. Annoyingly, Blake left a bag on my chair this morning with my hoodie over it which contained makeup removing facewash and mascara that should have gone in the bag with everything else, but I thought all of the cosmetic type stuff was in the bag I was wrapping from…soooooo I wrapped up the mascara & taped it to the box and the facewash I’ll just put in her stocking or something.

And that’s all I got wrapped last night because rapping all of those teeny tiny things took me the entire hockey game and when it was done I was exhausted so I just went to bed. What kills me about wrapping presents is how bad I suck at it. I make all these cute little girls with cute little paper dresses and I’m a whiz with scissors etc. but when I wrap presents, it looks like it was done by Wes. In fact Wes probably does a better job than I do. That’s why every year I usually get Blake to do all the wrapping but this year there won’t be enough time for that so I have to pitch in. While we were at Wal*Mart I bought gift boxes so at least some stuff I won’t have to wrap.

The next thing on my blogging agenda is that my cat is fucking retarded. Every single year for Xmas I buy her a treat or a toy and every single year she wants no part of it. Last year it was a laser pointer, she wanted nothing to do with it. The year before that a mouse or something, I can’t remember but she didn’t want anything to do with it. The year before that I bought her like, 5 different kinds of cat treats but she wouldn’t eat any of them. She just likes her cat food and that’s it. A few weeks ago someone on Facebook linked a YouTube video of all these cats getting stoned on catnip in a garden and I thought HEY WE SHOULD TRY THAT because I’ve never seen a cat actually high on catnip before. So last night, I bought some and it came with a little heart-shaped toy to put the dry catnip in. So I filled it up and got the cat and got her to sniff it and…she wanted no part of it. The toy then split apart and I spilled dry catnip all over my office floor so I picked a bit up and got her to sniff it and no dice. I thought maybe, just maybe, after we went to sleep she’d start getting all stoned on the pile which I left on my office floor for her but when I woke up this morning, it was undisturbed. So I give up. The cat no longer gets anything for Xmas and I guess Alex’s cats have a new toy and a big bag of catnip. Someone remind me next year that my cat sucks and not to get her anything because I know I’ll forget (or maybe it’s denial).

Blake & I weren’t going to get each other anything for Xmas this year due to money, but when we were at Wal*Mart I picked myself up some makeup because I’m running low on the essentials and this was an excuse to replenish my stock. We also happened to be going down the aisle with all the sports stuff and Blake pointed out Leafs jerseys….that were PINK & WHITE. Obviously not regulation, being pink & white, but NHL sanctioned and so Blake got me one for Xmas and I got him a Leafs home jersey (not regulation either). One day I will have a regulation Leafs home jersey to go along with my Leafs 3rd jersey but since they’re over $100, we’ll make due with Wal*Mart jerseys for now.

The rest of the stuff we got was mostly odds & ends, like I was out of incense so I picked up a bunch of that and I wanted to get a plastic “boot mat” for under the dogs’ bowls because they make such a mess and there’s constantly dog food all over my kitchen. (Lucky eats laying down and if Hoover’s eating too, Lucky will pick up his bowl and eat in the living room.) I also wanted to get Madison some yarn because I know she’s getting crochet hooks for Xmas and books about how to crochet, so we picked up a bunch of that too. She also needed pajamas and bras so those went in the cart as well.

We didn’t really get anything for Wes at Wal*Mart because Blake had gotten him stuff at Toys ‘R’ Us yesterday afternoon (Lego, some plastic dragons, I forget what else), but we did pick him up Lego Batman for his DS and Blake had already gotten him a few pairs of pajamas and some clothes so he’s good.

We got my 4 year old sister Raili some Barbies and my 10 month old sister Rachael a set of Little People. We got Courtney next door a DS game of Deal or No Deal. What else? I don’t even remember and you probably don’t care anyway. Long story short, after Blake picks up a couple of things on his lunch today, we are done our Xmas shopping completely. I plan on spending all afternoon today and tomorrow wrapping things and getting the house clean and after that we should be good to go.

Blake called my dad on Sunday and asked him to clean up the garage for the dogs, which he said he’d do and that takes a lot off my mind. What do the dogs get for Xmas? Well my dad hunts and I’m not sure what he hunted for this year, but usually it’s deer and moose and occasionally bear but whatever he hunted for in the fall, he gets the butcher to save him some of the bigger bones for his dogs and mine to have at Xmas.

I also have children’s Gravol to give the dogs before we leave so they don’t puke in the car on the way up. (And yes we called the vet and yes you can give dogs half of a children’s Gravol if they’re the size of mine.)

So I guess that’s it, we’re on track for Xmas. I had more to say but I think I’ll just end things here and start wrapping presents.

I love Blake being on vacation this week. Honest to god my favourite thing in the whole world is sitting around talking to him about anything and everything and that’s what we’ve been doing this week, mostly. It’s a long story, but right now he’s in Madison’s room having a talk with her about her little boyfriend Ashton, who’s been beating up grade 3 & 4 kids, including girls (he’s in grade 6) and how that’s not cool and that Madison either has to influence him to stop doing this or she has to break up with him. DRAMA! I have no idea how the talk’s going, but they’ve been in there for over an hour so far.

Report cards came home today. Wes got straight A’s, Madison had A’s, B’s and a C in math and somehow both kids are getting awards from the principal next week at a ceremony we’re supposed to attend. In fact because 250 kids are getting these awards, there are TWO ceremonies and each of our kids is in a different one so we’re literally going to be at the school all day. It’s nice that they’re getting awards and we want to be there to support them, but that’s a lot of sitting around watching a lot of other kids get awards too. Urg.

Blake & I were busy today. First, I was supposed to get a blood test this morning but Blake forgot about it and didn’t wake me up so it didn’t happen and we’re going to have to do it Thursday morning instead. (The lab’s only open Tuesday & Thursday mornings.) Then I got up and Blake was gone and the fucker didn’t leave me a note so I didn’t know where he was until he tweeted a TwitPic of a cutting board and a rolling pin, which was a clue that he was at Wal*Mart.

When he got home, we had breakfast and I took my pills and after a bit of digestion it was time to go to Barrie for art supplies and other errands. Since Marylin was curious about what I got and some other folks might be too, here’s the list:

Curry’s
- Two cheapo angled brushes, one smaller than the other
- One script liner because mine’s starting to lose its shape
- Two Micron Pigma archival markers, size 02
- 9 x 12 block of watercolour paper
- These neat little pre-cut blank ATC cards that were only $1.25 (I got the acrylic linen canvas one)

Michael’s
- Glorious Gold metallic paint
- Emperor’s Gold metallic paint
- Champagne Gold metallic paint
- Festive Red metallic paint x 2
- Gold glitter paint x 2
- Silver glitter paint x 2
- Red glitter paint x 2
- Weathered Wood crackle medium, 8 oz
- Triple Thick Gloss Glaze varnish, 8 oz
- Interior Gloss varnish
- Interior Satin varnish
- A metric fuck tonne of scrapbook paper & cardstock
- Green balloons and purple ribbon for Judy’s surprise party
- An archival Martha Stewart fine point pen

Exciting, no? Yeah, not really. Mostly I was replacing boring stuff I’ve either run out of or I’m about to run out of. I was on a pretty tight budget so there wasn’t any wiggle room for fibres or embellishments or fun stuff like that. Just the basics.

Since Starbucks is in the same plaza as Michael’s, we went there were I got a chocolate coffee (I dunno what they call their crap, I’ve never actually been IN a Starbucks) and Blake got some sort of caramel coffee with whipped cream and crunchy caramel things on top. While we drank our Starbucks, we went to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed in the car, something I’ve never experienced before and it was BORING AS SHIT and after that we had to stop off at Blake’s work so he could check on something that ended up not being there but will be there tomorrow so despite being on vacation, he’s probably going to have to go in tomorrow to do whatever it is he has to do.

Then tomorrow night Blake has to go to the hospital for a sleep study because he has sleep apnea and our doctor wanted to send him in for another sleep study before recommending/prescribing a CPAC (??) machine or a mouth appliance.

And now we’re home with nothing planned for this evening other than watching V and perhaps me playing with ATCs. I also heard a rumour that I might be getting a massage later. Hmmm.

Anyway, that was my busy day. I know, it was riveting. Aren’t you glad I write this shit down for you?

Hello internets. How are you today? Good I hope.

I realize I haven’t been much of a textibitionist lately and that it seems like I haven’t been online a whole lot and I thought I’d write a bit about why that is and then share with you all some interesting things about this website.

My neighbours are having a tough time of things right now and to help them save money on childcare costs, I’ve been watching their 9-year-old daughter in the afternoons from the time her mom goes to work and her dad comes home from work. That means that from about 2pm until about 6:30pm there are three very loud, very bored, very ready to go back to school children in my house and I’ve found that this makes it next to impossible to stick to my usual routine of making art and internetting.

Along with five other girls, plus Blake, I’ve been busy working on that TOP SEKRIT PROJEKT I’ve not been talking about since the spring and very very soon it’s going to launch and not be so TOP SEKRIT anymore. Because of that, it’s sort of crunch time and I’ve been pretty stressed out about it.

On top of that there’s getting the kids ready for school, which starts in a week, a shrink appointment on September 4th that I need to prepare for (she’s going to ask me about immersion therapy which is totally something I don’t even want to talk about right now) and my post-op appointment with the endo specialist on September 10th in Toronto. Plus I think my in-laws are going to be visiting during the last two weeks of September as well.

Along with all of the above, I’ve been working really hard to get my last series of paintings done (“Sparkle”, “Shimmer” & “Shine) and ready to submit to the Touched By Fire people for entry into the show this year, as well as writing what basically ended up being like, an artist bio/press release to be used in media for the show, which I know I mentioned previously.

In between all of that, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my neighbours, who I’ve now dubbed “my second family” because I’ve been hanging out with them so much and we also spent a day at my mother’s boyfriend’s cottage where we swam, jumped on a water trampoline thing, watched his son do wakeboard tricks and even got to see Blake on a pair of water skis. In the last two weeks I’ve had two REALLY bad sunburns back to back, which wasn’t fun. In fact, I’m still really itchy from the burn I got the day we went to the cottage.

The scratches are where I made Blake scratch the shit out of me because I was so itchy.

Blake water skiing.

So that’s what I/we’ve been up to in a nutshell. Also, I recently discovered this extremely stupid, extremely addictive video game called Plants vs. Zombies that everyone in this house is currently obsessed with. (Thanks a lot KATIE. :oP) I’m hoping that once the kids start school and my days are free again, that I’ll be able to get the paintings that I have on the go finished and ready for sale (including “Devil Girl”) and to be able to pay more attention to expanding my horizons. This is the first year both kids are going to be at school every day (jr. & sr. kindergarten was Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Friday) and I’m not quite sure yet how I’m going to spend most of my time. Making art, definitely, but in between making art I’m not entirely sure.

There’s also the matter of moving, which has been on mine & Blake’s minds a lot over the summer. he doesn’t feel as though his current position within the company is as secure as it was before the economy went to shit and the number of departments closing is kind of scary, so he’s started positioning himself for a better job within the company. Right now he’s a…I dunno, a technology analyst (??) and the new job he’s hoping to get is something to do with databases. The issue though, is that the database stuff is all based out of Toronto, which is about an h our & a half away from us. This makes for a brutal commute, especially in the winter which hits our area pretty hard causing roads to often close and snow days galore. That means it would make more sense to move further south both so we’re not spending crazy amounts of money on gas and car maintenance and also so we aren’t forced to spend less time together as a family. The problem is, we don’t know where to move, what kind of house to move into, whether we want to live in a rural area or into a town or even what kind of life we want for ourselves and the kids when we do move. There are so many pros and cons to all of the above, that we don’t even know where to begin sorting it all out. But I’ll save that for another post because right now, in the immediate present, he doesn’t have the job, hasn’t even applied for the job (because the job doesn’t technically exist yet), so we’re staying put.

Anyway, onto analytics.

Like most people with websites, I run stats on mine using Google Analytics. Truthfully, I rarely log in anymore to check them out because my traffic hasn’t changed in years (2500-3000 unique visitors per month…why like, 0.01% of these people actually make contact or post comments is beyond me) and I don’t really care what people are reading or paying attention to because I’m going to post whatever I want anyway. I do find the referrals interesting, but again, they don’t really change much from month to month and I’ve found myself caring less and less as the years go by.

That said, tonight I logged into my analytics just out of boredom and found myself on the “Keywords” page, the page that tells me what people are putting into search engines to land on my site, and some of this stuff cracked me up so as I do every now & then, I thought I’d share and give a little commentary.

The #1 search criteria to find me is of course, my name. That’s a given. But I had 9 visits in the last 30 days from someone (or maybe a few someones) searching for “sunny crittenden + marketing magazine“. Hmmm. Yes, this month I was in Marketing magazine due to the Hypercube debacle, but I’ve also written articles for Marketing magazine in the past and I wonder what exactly this person or persons were looking for – the Hypercube article or the articles I’d written for them in the past. Curious.

Next on the list was “sucking cock“, “blowjobs” and “elf porn“. The former two likely due to my guide on doing just that, and the latter is because I referenced it ONCE in a blog post I made probably two years ago now when I was playing World of Warcraft. Also in the same vein there was “girl guides suck cock“, “what to expect after anal sex“, “are blowjobs good for the tongue muscles“, “cock loving nurses teach cock sucking galleries” (wut?), “does sucking dick actually turns your lips pink?“, “elderly man’s cock in my pussy“, “girls sucking own clit” (very flexible girls?), “how to put lube in asshole“, “suck head penis until blow up sperms“, “sucking cock whilst giving birth” (WTF?) and “why do some ladies don’t enjoy giving a man a blowjob“.

Below that was “sarah sunny crittenden“, which I also found curious. “Sarah”, as most of you know, is the name my mother gave me. So who would be searching for that? Three people, apparently. o_O

Oddly enough, further down the list were “suzi blu“, “suzi blu drama“, “suzi blu is a fake“, “suziblu.ning.com“, “+ suzi blu“, “disenchanted with suzi blu“, “suzi blu and willowing drama“,  “suzi blu doesn’t refund“, “suzi blu ning“, “suziblu insanity bitch” and “encyclopedia dramatica suzi blu“. (Sidenote: If you weren’t aware, Encyclopedia Dramatica lampooned Suzi pretty good a few months back.) It appears as though there are at least 8 people this month who are unhappy with Suzi Blu for whatever reason and their searches are landing on the few posts I made about my experiences with her this spring. To those who are here due to Suzi Blu, I’d like to redirect you to Marylin, the internet’s resident Suzi Blu expert.

Also interesting, yet not all that surprising, were Nissan Cube, Hypercube and Capital C searches, such as these: “cubecommunity.ca” (which launched last week I think and as suspected it’s a fucking joke), “tony chapman fake“, “can a dog fit in the back of a nissan cube“, “length of bed in nissan cube“, “capital c nissan“, “hypercube aftermath“, “hypercube contest fix“, “nissan cube bra“, “sunny nissan key code reader“, “sunny crittenden hypercube“, “tony chapman + cube” and “tony chapman + douchebag“.

Others I found entertaining were the following: “sunny camwhore styleproject“, “stileproject cam portal” (someone oldschool must be looking for me- here I am! *waves*), “thank you universe” (I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s thankful), “i am so over humanity“, “president’s choice decadent cookies” (the only store-bought cookies worth putting in your mouth, imo), “shaved my head” (neat! so did I! *high five*), “born without arms boy” (???), “cam girl documentary” (don’t even ask me when it’s coming out…it’s been in post for like, 4 years), “camwhore chali” (hey Chali, someone oldschool must be looking for you too!), “camwhores password“, “camwhores.com password“, “how do i save videos from camwhores.com” (good luck finding a password, my CW password is actually more secure than my online banking password and as far as saving videos…there are programs that record anything you see on your screen but I don’t remember what any of them are called. I think the Mac one might be Snapz?), “camwhores the documentary” (non-existent), “can risperidone slow down your metabolism” (YES and to add to its evil nature, it also increases your appetite), “memoirs of a web cam girl” (one day, one day…), “prevent hacking taking risperidone” (I have no idea what this means), “sunny crittenden selfish” (hahaha! well whatever, one person out there on the world wide web thinks I’m selfish, I think I can live with that), “well aren’t we just a ray of fucking sunshine canada“, “which pills will kill me” (:o(), and last but not least (and definitely my favourite), “sunny crittenden bitch“.

Long story short, since it’s damn near 6am, people search for weird crap and end up finding me. I’m honoured and I hope all of you new people stick around to see that there’s much more to me than blowjobs, webcams and that goddamn Nissan Cube.

Goodnight!

I made a Live Journal post today I’d like everyone to take a look at if it isn’t  too much trouble.

I was interviewed by Marketing magazine this afternoon and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the Hypercube contest, really, it has more to do with the Canadian ad industry as a whole and Marketing magazine in particular.

As most of you are aware, I went to college to be a copywriter and have been flirting with a career in advertising for damn near the past decade, even writing two articles ABOUT advertising and the internet for Marketing magazine. I was even offered my own column, as I’ve relayed before, but that fell apart amongst a regime change and budget cuts. I also subscribed to said publication for about 4 years and as such, I have very mixed feelings about it and how this article on the Hypercube contest is probably going to go.

Marketing magazine, for those who don’t know, is Canada’s largest (only?) trade publication for our ad industry and it’s kind of known for being one big circle jerk when it comes to things ad agencies have actually done. When they talk about hypotheticals and what agencies should do and things like that, they’re actually pretty brazen and often open-minded, but when it comes to agencies, everyone seems to be touching everyone else’s dick.

I don’t know for certain what kind of article is going to be written about the Hypercube contest, but I do know the author contacted Capital C, Nissan and the Competition Bureau before talking to me and a lady I know from the contest named Lori (at my suggestion). Of course, it was also my understanding that the now infamous Encyclopedia Dramatica article about the contest (which is still ongoing, it appears) was the catalyst for writing an article at all, so I guess that’s something, but by the questions that were asked and what was focused on, I’m not very optimistic at reading a truthful, in-depth piece on what really went down and I’m afraid that Lori and I are just going to come across as butthurt sore losers as we’ve both been accused of being for not sitting here like nice little ladies and allowing ourselves to be spoon-fed bullshit.

For me, this whole thing, this whole “Hypercube Aftermath” as ED calls it on their second page on the topic, is muddled and confusing. There are so many issues to address and questions left unanswered and where to go from here – and just so many directions this could go, I literally have a hard time trying to keep up. And I’m usually pretty good at keeping up.

Some people want to focus on the fact that Blake and I didn’t win. Well, Blake and I are long over that, that’s not even an issue anymore. What is an issue, however, is the fact that from the very beginning there was no way Blake or I could have won, yet they made us believe we could and they used us. In order to win,  at least according to the game we were presented with, we had to use every bit of social persuasion we had and we had to maintain a momentum that had me glued to Twitter from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. It had me spamming forums, placing fake car ads, getting people to make fansigns – creatively using social media to spread their message. And Tony Chapman himself said that they were looking to reward social creativity. Yet most of the people who won (I won’t say all) didn’t participate in any meaningful way, if at all, or signed up for Twitter just to be a part of the contest, or signed up for Twitter to just be part of the contest but only tweeted a few times here and there and only to the “voice” of the contest, @thehypercube. And they certainly weren’t being socially creative.

And as I said to Matt Semansky, the guy writing the article, Capital C, namely Tony “Douchebag” Chapman, was talking about the “net generation” a whole lot, yet they didn’t seem to know who or what the “net generation” is and in the process of choosing people who are not the “net generation”, they alienated and even angered the actual “net generation” (which doesn’t actually exist, it’s a stupid marketing term, but those who are in it, know they’re in it). The people I hang with, the power users of the internet who were lulled to sleep at night by the sound of a dial-up modem connecting and who are literally online or connected to the internet in some way every breathing moment and have been since they were children, they are not buying this car. But that’s who Nissan wanted to buy this car, I think anyway. At least that’s what the tech package and branding it a “mobile device” seems to imply. But they threw out the latest marketing buzz term “creative class” too, so I’m not sure if they knew WHO the hell they wanted to buy this car. Obviously there’s going to be some overlap between groups and maybe those who fall into the overlap are what they desired, but that’s not what they got, so to me, this entire contest just ended up being one giant clusterfuck of epic proportions. Some are already calling it “the most botched contest Canada’s ever seen”. On the internet. Where this whole contest took place. Where they were hoping to reach their target and build brand awareness and loyalty through community…except in their choices, they decimated the community that had formed during the contest and created full-on brand hatred that has only grown as the dirty truth about what went on behind the scenes has begun to surface. Um. I don’t think that’s a win, people.

When folks are clogging up (basically) your brand’s hashtag on Twitter by saying things like, they want to key every Cube they see or they’d like to vacation on the inside of a Cube with a blowtorch, or even that your product is ugly (check out the #nissan hashtag some time and watch it for a day) there was a problem along the way. But Nissan and Cap C? They refuse to acknowledge there was or is any problem and that in and of itself is the problem.

Matt Semansky asked me today what I thought Nissan could do to turn this around and while I forget my exact wording, I basically said that the best they could do is trash this whole campaign, kill CubeCommunity.ca, cut their losses and start over with a traditional media campaign aimed at the very people they didn’t want driving this car, because those are the only people who are going to buy it now. The fact of the matter is, their attempt at a social media campaign, their social media “experiment”, well, it failed. There’s no denying it, it failed in every way imaginable.

And in CubeCommunity.ca? With what little is on that domain right now? Even that is a complete fail and all they’re asking for is for you to join their mailing list. If the site is gone by the time you’re reading this, which is a possibility, there’s a photo of a Nissan Cube on the page with a speech bubble that says “oh hai!” They are ever so slightly co-opting the speech and memes of the same “net generation” they managed to alienate during the course of this campaign. That little “oh hai!” may seem like nothing on the surface, but it’s a rub for a lot of us. It reminds me of a Gap ad I saw in the 90′s with a guy wearing Gap jeans and a flannel shirt falling through the air and the tagline was “Plunge into grunge”. It was vile and completely offensive. I mean dammit, people, didn’t you watch Reality Bites? There was a reason why working at the Gap was considered the worst possible job there was and that poster pretty much summed it up.

For the record, I have never been in a Gap store in my life. And it’s all because of that ad.

But I digress…

I know it’s been pretty negative in the virtual world of Sunnyland the last couple of months because of this contest and that you’re all probably sick of hearing about it, but the thing is, I am of a breed, we’ll say,  that doesn’t deal well with injustice and some say that’s a trait of my generation, whatever generation I may be. Whatever it is, it eats at me. Unfortunately, I’m also a person prone to extreme anxiety and it took 4, count ‘em 4, Ativans to even function today because of Hypercube crap being brought up again and for my own sanity I hope that this article in Marketing magazine either ends this insanity or blows it wide open. I’m sick of all this whispering to each other behind the scenes and keeping secrets and flat out gossiping and people blocking people on Twitter and sock puppet accounts and all the rest of it. I’m sick of it, I want it to be done.

But as I said to Matt this afternoon, it probably won’t be the end. CubeCommunity.ca is going to launch (eventually) and it’s going to be a whole new thing. I’m no psychic or anything, but the future I see with this is not a positive one and it’s only going to be the final nails in the Hypercube campaign’s coffin. At one end of the spectrum, you’ll have people tweeting or blogging about what mouth-breathers the “winners” are and at the other end of the spectrum you’ve got the wrath of Anonymous and DDoS attacks. The reaction to CubeCommunity.ca is going to fall somewhere  within that spectrum and for that reason, if I were Nissan, I wouldn’t even launch it. As I said earlier, I’d cut my losses and start over with a different demographic. They failed with this one. But that’s just me. And they’re not prone to listening to me, so I guess I’ll sit back and *facepalm* with the rest of my “generation” as they flounder some more.

So that’s, more or less, what I conveyed to Matt Semansky of Marketing magazine. Or at least tried to. As I said in my Live Journal post, I’m just not any good on the phone, especially with this muddled topic, so god only knows how I came across.

Anyway, it’s almost 5am, I’m starving and I’ve gotten absolutey no work done tonight so I have to go eat and accomplish something.