Remember in my last post when I said I’d been having pains in my stomach for the past few days? Well it persisted all throughout yesterday evening and since the doctor told me I should go to the hospital if it did and Blake would be in Toronto all day today, we decided it would be a good idea to have me checked out. It would be a very bad thing if I had pancreatitis again and I was at home all alone.

So at about 8:30pm or so, I packed up the iPad, my chargers, my toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, my journal and a couple of pens just in case they admitted me and off we went to Midland, which is about 20 minutes North of us and is the same hospital I went to in June and again when I had pneumonia this fall.

We got there and did intake and everything was okay. We waited about half an hour in the waiting room and then they called us into the back of the ER where I saw a doctor who asked me how I was feeling, why I was there; we told him the whole pancreatitis story and that we were there to make sure it was NOT that again because the pain was in the same place and was the same kind of pain that started the whole thing last time. He asked me if I wanted anything for the pain and I said no because I’d already taken hydromorph before I came and I didn’t want a needle (I’ve seen this doctor before and he likes to give out the morphine like it was candy). He asked if I was nauseous and I was, so they gave me Zofran which knocked me on my ass and I fought off falling asleep (they had me laying on a table on my back and the room was dim).

They wanted to check my pancreatic levels (because I guess if you have pancreatitis your pancreas juice levels go up, so you don’t have to do an ultrasound right away)  so this really bitchy nurse used the biggest needle at her disposal to take my blood as roughly as possible. Then they said it would take about an hour to get the results so I fell asleep and Blake e-mailed my mom.

I woke up at about 1am because a new doctor came in and he told us that my pancreatic levels were fine and so was everything else. He said he didn’t know what the pain could be, that it was possible it was gall stones, but there’s not a whole lot they can do about those so take some drugs and bear it the best you can and if it’s too much, come back for stronger drugs. And truthfully, the pain is manageable with the hydromorph contin, Tylenol 1 and ibuprofen, but we were concerned it was pancreatitis again, so that’s why we went. I’m not fucking around with that shit ever again, if I’m in pain, I’m seeing a doctor.

So we were out of there by about 1:30am, we went to Tim Hortons so Blake could get a coffee and a muffin because he was tired and neither of us had had dinner. I got a ginger molasses cookie and a Pepsi. I hadn’t had a Pepsi in YEARS and the first sip transported me back to riding in the carpet van with my grampa, on our way to Alliston because I was skipping school to spend the day with him at the store. He had a mini fridge in his van that plugged into the cigarette lighter and it was full of Pepsi.

Anyway, that’s what happened at the hospital. As is the way of things, I’m not in any pain today and I feel totally fine. I think the Zofran they gave me settled whatever was going on in my stomach and now I’m totally okay. Or maybe it was a gall stone and it’s passed now. I have no idea, I just know I feel as normal as normal can be. *shrug*

This morning I ate waffles while reading some of Daisy Yellow’s older posts and I found this one on art journaling very helpful so I thought I’d share. Art journaling, as I’ve mentioned before, is something I’m really really bad at. I just can ‘ot do it.

For most of my life, I’ve written hypergraphically. That means that you write compulsively. Ever since I’ve been taking psychiatric medications, I don’t really write hypergraphically any more, not like I did anyway. I still blather on on the internet of course, but I don’t compulsively write in my journal for 6 hours straight like I used to. BUT, I read these art journaling blogs, like Daisy Yellow’s (I don’t know her name) and Jazmin’s, and I get jealous because when they die, they’re going to leave behind all these gorgeously decorated journals for their family members to read and keep for generations and here mine are, all text in my crappy printing. I mean, there are a lot of them, and I think most of them are pretty interesting (and so do other people, I once sold a journal for $200 which I think was a bargain on his part) but they’re not really aesthetically pleasing. The journals themselves are nice, I don’t cheap out on those unless I have to and most of them were gifts (my favourites are by PAPERBLANKS, in case anyone ever wanted to get me one and mail it, they’re simply the best and you can get them at Chapters or any big box book store *cough*), but inside is just text text text, usually in black pen, although the one I’m using right now has pink flowers on it so I only write in it with pink pen. I have a matching blue one that I haven’t used yet and I’ll only use blue pen in that one. In fact I bought coloured pens specifically to write in these journals because that’s how obsessive I am about them.

That said, I’d really like to have beautifully crafted journals like my online art friends’ but I just don’t really know how and when I’ve tried, it’s just looked stupid. Like, it could take me all day to paint/collage/whatever a spread, which is two facing pages, but what I want to write may be TEN pages, so that just doesn’t work for me. Or by the time I’m finished the spread, I don’t feel the way I did when I started it. For example, one day I tried making an art journal spread because I’d sold a painting and in that moment, I felt successful. So I started making this spread about that but I didn’t get finished until a day later and by then, I didn’t feel that way any more and because I didn’t feel that way any more, I didn’t know what to write that would be authentic. I probably should have written what I wanted to and art journaled around it or something, but that’s not the way most people do it so that thought never occurred to me until just this moment.

It frustrates me greatly. :o/

Less Herger of Comfortable Shoes Studio, retweeted today a tweet from Derwent, which is the company who makes the watercolour pencils and the Inktense pencils I use and this is what it said:

@derwentpencils Don’t let your work become precious. Be bold, experiment, make lots of mistakes. It’s the only way to learn, and it’s fun!

(Actually, the way the tweet was worded, I think it was said to Derwent by a woman named Kathe Parker in response to them asking “what would be your best advice to someone starting out in drawing & painting?”.)

This advice is something I have a lot of trouble with and this is part of the reason why I need to go to Squam so desperately.

I’m poor. I’ve been poor my whole life. When I was little, I was NEVER EVER allowed in my mom’s art room and I was NEVER EVER allowed to touch her materials because we were poor and art supplies are expensive. Too expensive for a kid to use and fuck up with. I was given Crayolas and a pad of paper. I wanted paint but it was too messy and too expensive. I wanted to paint on wood, but it was too expensive and selling her creations was how my mom paid for Christmas and anything “extra”. I wanted to sew, but my mom didn’t have the time to teach me how. Etc etc etc. (I am not *blaming* my mother for anything here, just stating facts.)

So when I grew up and had my own house and my own “art room” and my own art supplies,  everything because “precious” because if I fucked up, I couldn’t afford to replace the materials I fucked up with. I couldn’t just throw supplies in the garbage like that. I still can’t. We have no money. When I sell a painting, at LEAST 75% goes back into buying more supplies because that’s the only way I can afford to have these things and art supplies (and Lush) are really the only things I buy myself. (Of course I bought more stuff when I had a job, I’m talking about when I don’t.) My supplies ARE “precious”. I really really wish they weren’t but they are. I don’t know how these people can pay $20+ for a 4oz bottle of Golden Fluid Acrylic paint because it’s “the best” and then just trash what they’ve made if it’s not what they were trying to do. I just cannot wrap my head around that. I buy Americana paint for $2.99 or, if I’m splurging, $4.99 for Martha Stewart, and I *still* can’t wrap my head around just trashing something if I screw up. Imperfect things really really bother me and so does waste. When I put too much paint on my palette, I use a paintbrush and scoop it all back into the bottle when I’m done, even if it’s black or white, which I buy in big bottles because I use them the most and they’re inexpensive. I just can’t waste the paint. If I were using Golden, I’m not sure I could bring myself to even squeeze any onto my palette at all, I think I’d have to like, squirt tiny amounts onto my brush or something.

Another blog I was reading that was linked on the Squam website talked about things not being “precious” too so I think this may be a concept that someone has written about in a book or something (considering most of the teachers at Squam are published authors) because it seems to be a theme within the mixed media community. I see it popping up all over the place now and I think it’s something I really need to learn. I *do* use inexpensive paint. It really *isn’t* a big deal if I mess up and have to throw away a piece of artwork. As much as it would pain me, a canvas is really only about $6 and if I fuck it up too badly, I can always paint over it, all I need to do is invest in some good gesso.

I need to start making art that isn’t so “safe”. I need to also start making art that’s just for me, like in an art journal. Don’t get me wrong, I *LOVE* my girls. I love making them, I love how beautiful they are, I almost always love the finished product and I don’t intend to stop making them, but I think I need to make other art that’s more accessible too. Or something. I’m not really sure what I need to do, honestly, which is why I’m hoping Squam will crack me wide open. I need to not be so obsessive with everything being perfect on the first try so I don’t waste anything. Like time. I need to not be so obsessive about wasting time as well. Oh god, I have so much to learn! Anyone who thinks art isn’t work can shove their opinion straight up their own ass.  Sideways.

I’m probably channeling my inner Madison by saying this, but god dammit, art is agony! I love it, I hate it, I’m frustrated by it, it makes me cry, it makes me happy, it makes me a motherfucking MESS. Maybe it’s because I’m mentally ill that it makes me so emotional but I don’t understand these artists who are just happy and make happy art and nice little YouTube videos to entertain each other and to learn from each other and here I am, sitting in a dark corner clutching my sketchbook for dear life, unable to move. I want to be like them, I just don’t know how. I’m afraid it’s just not even in my DNA.

I have no idea what my mother’s creative process is. I’ve never really actually watched her paint (except when she was teaching classes) and I’m not there on a day-to-day basis to see like, how she is mentally but in general I think she’s a happy creator in that, I’ve seen her come up with an idea and get really excited about it and have to do it immediately. I’m like that too, when I have what I think is a good idea, I have to get it down on paper right away, even if I only have enough time to do a rough sketch. Then the next day I’ll begin working on the actual piece and obsess until it’s finished. And I do it perfectly the first time almost always. I can honestly say that I’ve only wasted a half sheet of watercolour paper twice in my life (I draw/paint my girls on watercolour paper and adhere them to the canvas with gel medium) because I just do everything in my power not to fuck up because watercolour paper is expensive. I mean, in my first grant proposal, I told them that my dream was to be able to afford 5 different watercolour pads so I could work on 5 paintings at a time. That’s pretty pathetic (no wonder I didn’t get the grant), don’t you think? I currently have 2 watercolour pads and since I draw my girls on half sheets now, I can work on 4 of them at a time, theoretically (I’m not that productive).

My friend Shoshanna Bauer does these really amazing watercolours, you should check her out, I think she’s extremely good at what she does. I would really like to play with watercolours, I like how they look, but I have no idea what I would paint or how you do it. No one’s ever taught me. I’ve looked at a lot of watercolours over the last couple of years trying to dissect them, and I’ve come to the conclusion that watercolours are REALLY fucking hard! Without even trying them, I just know that they’re really fucking hard and to make anything even remotely nice, I’m going to have to waste like, a whole pad of watercolour paper trying to figure them out and that’s expensive! Or at least that’s expensive to ME! And I don’t even HAVE watercolours. I have watercolour pencils, a very small selection of them that someone gave me a long time ago, and I have Inktense pencils, a large case of them, which work very similarly to watercolours (although I don’t think you can do the “salt trick” with Inktense pencils) but I have absolutely no idea how to use them.

I’ve always avoided watercolours because of their impermanence. If you’ve been reading my blog for any great amount of time, you’ll know that I’m obsessed with my art’s longevity. I want my shit to survive WWIII, plain & simple. I varnish the hell out of everything. I use materials that won’t fade, won’t run, won’t smear, are acid-free, archival and will do as they’re told. If you spill a Coke on a watercolour painting, it’s ruined. If you somehow spilled a Coke on one of my paintings, it would roll right off and you could gently wipe it down with a damp cloth. The idea of my hard work being able to basically be erased in a matter of seconds irrationally freaks me out! I’ve varnished watercolour before, but you have to be really really careful with it and you can only use a spray. Anyway, that’s why I plan on taking my watercolours to Squam. Maybe someone there can show me how to use them.

Having said that, I think it’s time for me to talk some more about Squam, as if you haven’t heard enough…I’ve finally sat down and made a list of expenses relating to the trip and if you could spare anything between now and September, it would be GREATLY appreciated. Like maybe for my birthday, which is March 1st? Or if buying a gift is more your style, I would really like this book by one of the teachers I’ll be in class with at Squam, called Painted Pages: Fueling Creativity with Sketchbooks and Mixed Media (by Sarah Ahearn Bellemare), which is on my wishlist. That would be appreciated also.

Here’s what I’ll need (okay maybe one or two is more of a want…):

• Tuition: $1200
• Gas: $200
• An apron: $12
• Fairy wings: $20…
• A Rubbermaid container for all my crap: $10
• Gesso: $10
• Gel medium: $10
• Umbrella: $12
• Flashlight with extra batteries: $15?
• Bug spray: $10
• Paint: $25
• Kit fees: $12
• Eating out on the Saturday night they make us fend for ourselves: $20
• Two cases of Diet Coke & snacks: $25
• Art fair: $75 (tops)
  = $1656

“And you don’t know how it feels,
You don’t know how it feels,
No you don’t know how it feels,
To be meeeeeeeeeee.”

- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

 So I’ve heard from Jen. Actually, let me back up a bit…On the suggestion of a couple of friends on Live Journal, I sent Jen the link to the post on Live Journal that was a duplicate of the one you’re reading now. I did this on Facebook. You can read the comments on the LJ post here, if interested. I chose to link her to that version of the post because that’s where most of the people were commenting, including my IRL best friend, Alex, whose life would also be affected by any decision I made in regards to this.

In the comments, my friend Charlie (woodoo24) and I exchanged these words with regards to simply sending her the link to the post:

Charlie:  Meh…do you want a bunch of internet people jumping in her shit?

Sunny: Well, yes and no. Does she deserve that? Yes. Does she also deserve to tell her side of the story? Yes. Are we going to be friends at the end of this? I doubt it. But I think she deserves to know, especially considering that the last communication said something like “I know you hate me for some reason…”, indicating that she doesn’t know why we haven’t spoken in 2 years.

I dunno. I just dunno. People will only jump her shit if she lets them. She can read the post and talk to me privately afterward.

So I gave her the option to message me privately, which she did this evening. Because she took the option to message me privately, I’m going to extend that courtesy by not posting what she said on my site because if she wanted it on here, she would have commented.

Without going into too much detail, she confessed wholeheartedly to the guinea pig and really made no effort to pass the buck onto anyone else. She did say that her life had spiraled down pretty far by that point (which is true), with Carolyn being in the driver’s side and Jen in the back. When Carolyn said she knew what to do, Jen believed her because Jen was very much Carolyn’s follower. Knowing Jen’s personality, I believe this. At the same time, she was in the midst of breaking up with Jesse who may or may not have been already beginning his relationship with Patricia at the time (their roommate at the time, who Jesse is now engaged to), she was in massive debt and amassing more and more every time she turned around and as I said, things were tailspinning out of control.

That is NOT an excuse. That is an explanation. There is no excuse for what she did, which she recognizes, but what’s done is done and as long as she knows that what she and Carolyn did was majorly fucked up, I can accept the heartfelt apology she gave, not punish her for the rest of her life and be friends again.

YOU may not understand this, that’s okay, you don’t have to, but the message I got from Jen tonight was from a changed person and I believe her when she says it was never her intent to hurt the guinea pig. As she pointed out: “I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 12, I am now volunteering for Greenpeace, I climbed the CN tower earlier this year to raise money for The World Wildlife Fund.” This is not the profile of an animal abuser and I never thought she was one, I just thought this one incident was fucked up and until now, something I couldn’t forgive. But enough time has passed and as I said, she’s grown as a person since then (the old Jen would have blamed everything under the sun but herself), so I think slowly but surely we’re going to get back on track to being friends again. Like I said in my original post, I think that’s going to have to happen slowly though, because I have to be sure she’s not just putting on an act or lying to me or whatever. I have a pretty good bullshit detector and in the past I’ve let a lot of things slide with her, so that’s something *I’m* going to have to work on for this friendship to work.

I haven’t messaged her back yet, so she may see this post before I do, but she was “sick to [her] stomach” by all of your comments on both of the other posts so I think we’ve been successful in teaching her a lesson. Maybe it wasn’t our job to teach a lesson though, but maybe more like…we sent a message. And I think we have to be happy with that because I don’t think she’ll be irresponsible with a pet ever again – at least not while she’s friends with me. Oh and I’m happy to report that, “that puppy that Jesse and I got together is my entire world, she never goes without anything, she has a great home, she’s well trained, well groomed and the happiest little creature ever.“

I think everyone is deserving of a 2nd chance, but it’s conditional. They have to have learned something or grown from it and it appears as though Jen’s done both. Granted, what she did was monumentally stupid and yes, unforgivable for some people, but time can heal most wounds eventually and I think that’s where I am right now.

I understand that not everyone is going to “get” this and some people may even look down on me from now on because I’ve forgiven her and if that’s the case, so be it. We just have differing philosophies, I guess, different experiences. Like I said in my original post, who here among us hasn’t done something monumentally stupid whether they got caught or not, whether they admit to it or not? Hell, that’s Post Secret’s bread & butter. You can’t tell me you haven’t done something really dumb or mean or cruel and wished for forgiveness, if you haven’t already gotten it. And if you haven’t, well congratulations, you’re better than the rest of us, continue looking down your nose at us from your pedestal in the clouds.

She’s sorry.
She’s learned and grown from what she did.
That’s enough for me.
By tomorrow we will be friends again.

So now that that’s off my chest, guess what? I must have misread the scale when they weighed me in kg at the hospital. I weigh 113lbs according to the Wii Fit. Guess what else? Tonight I had spaghatta nadle for dinner, with domperidone 15 minutes before eating and not only did I keep it down (this being one of my triggery foods) but I didn’t even feel sick afterward. Also I looked domperidone up on Wikipedia a couple of days ago and read about how it can cause lactation, which made me realize where I’d heard the name before: Ana Voog bought some from the internet when she was having trouble breastfeeding her first child.

The domperidone hasn’t been perfect though. On Saturday afternoon I took some and had mini donuts from the fair, followed by fries and gravy and about 2 hours later, I hurled it all back up. I don’t know if I took the drug too late for it to have an effect (Blake brought home the donuts, I took a pill and ate the donuts – well, SOME of the donuts), then I had fries and gravy like, half an hour later or if it was the greasy food itself, which is technically on the bad list. At the same time, tomatoes are on the bad list too and my dinner tonight stayed down just fine. That was the 2nd time I threw up this week. Earlier in the week I barfed up a can of ginger ale, which made absolutely NO sense considering I was drinking half a case of that a day when I was in the hospital and never had any trouble with carbonation before. In fact carbonation, whether it’s ginger ale or a Coke, seems to settle my stomach so wtf? I guess it’s just a mystery.

Okay I think I’m going to go see if Blake wants to watch Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock? in my office while I work on my sketchbook, which is coming along nicely. I think I may actually have it done by deadline! Imagine that!

Goodnight internets. I hope you still like me tomorrow.

PS. Jen is no longer friends with Carolyn. They haven’t been friends for about a year.

I absolutely have to see this movie.
If not own it.

WTF? Why is it $150-$250???

Edit: Here’s a blog post about it and they say it’s for sale in other countries and by the sounds of it they mean for the consumption of the “every woman” so why the fuck am I only seeing it for that crazy price?

Edit #2:

Dear Sarah Crittenden,

Thank you for your order from Media Education Foundation.

Your invoice number for this order is XXXXX.

Please retain this invoice number for reference information.

You have ordered the following:

Qty Description Unit Amount

——————————————————————————–

1 (240-I-D) Red Moon $75.00 $75.00

——————————————————————————–

Subtotal: $75.00

Shipping & Handling: $19.31

Total: $94.31

So I just finished watching Food Inc., which for some reason aired on CBC Newsworld last night so I recorded it (I just find this sort of weird since I think the documentary only came out on DVD like, last week? also, if you’re in Canada, you can watch it on the CBC website here but I don’t know for how long) and while most of the contents of the movie I already knew, it really helped to give the whole thing a bigger picture and at the end of the movie it’s not “welp, we’re fucked!”, they actually give you tips on what you can do to help change things.

Two of the tips were to eat locally grown foods and to buy produce when it’s in season. So the first thing I wondered was, how in the hell am I supposed to know what’s locally grown and what’s in season? I mean, I live in Ontario, Canada, what could possibly be “in season” in the dead of February when there’s 4 feet of snow on the ground? And another thing is that, just as an example, the only grocery store in our town, the entire time I’ve lived here, has never once had locally grown strawberries in July, when they’re in season, despite the fact that we live within 3 km of several strawberry farms. Every strawberry I’ve ever seen in that store has come from California, same with blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.

Anyway, we have these really annoying commercials on TV in the summer about Ontario farming with this really horrible jingle that goes, “Good things gro-o-ow, in Ontariooo!” and as soon as the thoughts above entered my head, I thought “durrrr” and Googled “Foodland Ontario”, which is like, the government “brand” for produce in this province and lo & behold, on their website is a chart as to which produce is in season during which months. So I bookmarked that, right next to my bookmark for the grocery store flyer and this family is going to make a concerted effort to only buy produce when it’s in season. If I want a BLT in February? Well that’s just too damn bad, I have to wait until March. Since it’s all grown in-province, that’s killing two birds with one stone.

Another tip from the movie is to grow your own vegetables, which as I’ve mentioned, we’ll be doing for the first time this summer. I bought enough beans, for example, that my intention is to have 4 rows total, 1 for us to eat during the summer and 3 for freezing. That won’t do us for the whole winter, but that’s just how much land I have to work with and considering that we’re doing the garden this year for financial reasons every little bit helps.

As for meat…well, we’re still going to have to rely on the grocery store for that because the organic food store in town is just too cost prohibitive. I already don’t eat chicken, though the rest of the family does and the only time I eat ground beef is in spaghetti sauce, which I’m going to stop doing, even though the rest of the family uses it to make hamburgers out of. Our dinners are still mostly meat-based, but gradually our meat portions have been decreasing and our veggie portions have been increasing, so that’s good, and we also have at least one meatless dinner per week.

We’re not gonna save the world and we’re not exactly models of nutrition, but I know we’re doing better than most of the people we know in that we’re actually doing something. Compared to say, 5 years ago, we’ve gotten a lot better as we’ve learned to do better and we’ll continue to do better.

And that’s really all I have to say about food today.

Sometime this week I’ll start taking pics of my grow-op and make my first official Keep Off The Lawn post. Right now on the living room windowsill I have cherry tomatoes, bobcat tomatoes, green peppers and purple peppers starting in beer cups. Some of them are getting too big for their Saran Wrap hats already while others haven’t even sprouted, so tonight when I replace their hats with clear plastic cups, I’m going to reseed the ones that haven’t sprouted yet because I have a feeling they’re not going to. Also, I noticed today that my daffodils are up and there are tons of little crocuses and tulips out front that I have to take pictures of before they get decimated in 2 weeks by the sod cutter. Somehow grass has overtaken about half of the front garden so next paycheque we’ll be renting the sod cutter to get rid of it so I can plant my wildflower seeds in May.

Next week is Gogol Bordello which means that also next week I’m going to be quitting smoking…again. It’s like my dad says, you just gotta keep quitting. When you start up again, if you start up again, you just have to quit again because every time you quit, that’s at least a few months worth of smokes that you won’t be smoking. I’m hoping that this time it’ll be permanent and Blake & I have decided on some things to make it permanent, namely, we’re not going to become friends with anyone who smokes until we’re both several years in the clear as far as being nonsmokers. Since we’re not friends with Wayne & Judy anymore and since they’re moving May 1st (*happydance*) and since none of our current friends smoke, there will be no temptation for me to smoke and no opportunity. As I know I mentioned when I quit last time, Wayne & Judy would practically put cigarettes in my mouth and light them for me (Blake too) and it was impossible to say no because they just won’t take “no” for an answer and they don’t respect the fact that you’ve either quit or are trying to quit. Instead, they would sit there and every 5 minutes say, “are you suuuuuure you don’t want a smoke? The pack’s right there, just help yourself,” or Wayne would toss you a smoke and say, “here just smoke it, I know you want to” and things like that. Then if you still found the willpower to say no, Wayne would sit there and basically tell you why you’re an idiot for quitting, how it won’t make a difference and how if you die of cancer, that’s just what God has in store for you, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it so you might as well enjoy your smokes while you wait.

So with Wayne & Judy out of the picture (our other neighbour doesn’t smoke), there will be no pressure and no opportunity to smoke unless I suddenly develop the courage to walk to the store myself and go get a pack, which would never happen. The fact is, unlike other attempts to quit, I actually want to quit, it’s my decision, not a decision being made for me. And I’d love to say that it’s for health reasons and while that’s partly it (I’ve developed asthma and it would be idiotic to ask the doctor for Ventolin rather than just quitting), it’s mostly financial. As a condition of me starting to smoke again last summer, I had to start paying for them myself and in the beginning that was fine because I was only smoking 2 packs a week. Since then it’s escalated to almost a pack a day and I just don’t make that much money and more to the point, the bit of money that I do make, I don’t want to waste all of it on basically nothing, not when I’m desperately in need of canvases and I’m quickly depleting my supply of the more expensive art supplies like gel medium, Weathered Wood and acrylic glazing liquid which are each about $12-15 a bottle and therefore (to me) expensive to replace. A pack of 3 canvases is about $25, also, again to me, expensive to replenish and I just started working on my last one yesterday.

So, it’s time to quit. Hopefully for good. I’ve decided to do it the day after Gogol Bordello because Gogol Bordello has me stressed out of my mind and I’m going to be around smokers that night, plus my mom that afternoon. Before I go to bed Tuesday night, I’ll be breaking and flushing all of the cigarettes I have left and that’ll be it. I’m not worried about it being hard, it’s not like I haven’t done this before, I know the first 3 days are going to be monstrous, but after that it just gets easier and I’m going to stock up on Skittles and Starbursts beforehand so I have something to occupy my mouth throughout the first week. (Insert lame and obvious oral sex joke here.)

So that’s that.

This weekend I was ridiculously productive. On Friday I finished “Ooh La La“, as I posted about, and Saturday & Sunday I worked on what I’m calling my “silly painting” for right now…because it’s a silly idea and I don’t even know why I’m doing it…and started a 3rd which is going to use the pink tinsel glitter I posted about the other day and which is going to have a fairy on it, although that’s as far as I’ve worked it through.

Something I have to say though, is that I am absolutely in love with these little storage cups I bought from Stockade when I bought paint last month. They’re the same kind of plastic cups you get coleslaw in when you get takeout, look:

I custom mix a lot of my paint colours and all of my glitter mixes and when I do so, I often have excess paint leftover that I’ve never really found anywhere to put. I tried plastic pill bottles because god knows I have a million of them, but they’re not air tight so the paint would just eventually dry out. Prior to that, I was just letting the paint go to waste, but with these little containers, I can store the it and use it for other things. In the picture, the top container is full of black glitter mixed with water and acrylic glazing liquid, the pink ones are metallic pink that I mixed this weekend, the blue is pearlized turquoise that I used for “Ooh La La”‘s eyeshadow and the purple is purple glitter mixed with acrylic glazing liquid to make sort of a paste that I used as eyeshadow on the “silly painting” I’m working on now. It doesn’t look like it in the picture, but the two pinks are actually two different colours, one’s a lot lighter than the other. One will be used for splatters while the other one will be used for hair. I should have put a coin in the picture so you could see how big the containers are. Each one holds about 3/4 of an ounce of liquid.

Anyway, they’re awesome, although a bit expensive for what they are, and you can get them here. If anyone knows where to get these cheaper and in bigger quantities, please let me know. I’m assuming you can find them on restaurant wholesale sites but they probably have minimum orders and really all I want is these cups.

Well, Blake’s going to be home soon, my paint is now dry, so I’m going to get back to working on these paintings before dinner. I hope everyone has had a good Monday and I’m sure I’ll blabber at you some more tomorrow.

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!

Ana just posted this on Facebook. I’d like to see it.

Official website

I am so fricken tired yet so excited for tomorrow/today because at 8pm the HBO movie Grey Gardens is going to be on and following it will be the documentary, which I actually own and watch often but we’ll be watching it with Steve, a Grey Gardens virgin and (former?) film student, making it that much more exciting.

I’ve watched the trailer for the HBO movie about a hundred million times since it came out because while I love Drew Barrymore to death, I never really thought she was a very good actress or picked very good parts, but holy crap does she ever nail Little Edie. The first time I saw it my jaw hit the floor, I was SHOCKED. I expected to hate the hell out of this movie because I love the documentary and the Edies so much but the trailer looks amazing and I’m so excited I’m probably going to cry during the opening credits.

Here’s the trailer:

If you have HBO, seriously consider watching this. It’s at 8pm EST and again, following the movie is the documentary which, if you haven’t seen it, you have to see it and if you have no idea who Big & Little Edie Bouvier are then I suggest you get a’Googlin’. SUNNY SAYS SO.

Also? Little fun fact for ya: A lot of the movie was shot down the 9th Line in Stouffville where I used to live, which is sorta cool. They used an old house there for the interior of Grey Gardens and put a fake facade on it. If I’d have known about that as it was happening, you couldn’t keep me away. I was actually really disappointed when I read about it after the fact because I would have killed to have my picture taken in front of the facade.

A few of my favourite Grey Gardens quotes:

“I think I’ll be an old maid until I die. I’ll probably sit around with cats for the rest of my life. Whatever happens, I certainly won’t start to drink. But I do have what you call entrenched habits, and I’m not going to change them.”
- Little Edie

“But you see in dealing with me, the relatives didn’t know that they were dealing with a staunch character and I tell you if there’s anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman… S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There’s nothing worse, I’m telling you. They don’t weaken, no matter what.”
- Little Edie

“This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don’t like women in skirts and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think. Then you have the pants under the skirt and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants underneath the skirt. And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.”
- Little Edie

“Will you shut up? It’s a goddamn beautiful day, shut up!”
- Big Edie

AHHHHH I love them. Someone in a Live Journal community (I forget which one now, I’m sorry!) made these a while back and I snagged them, so if they’re yours, lemme know so I can give credit:

So yep, it’s Grey Gardens Day and I couldn’t be more excited. We’re serving hamburgers and hot dogs, with pasta with pesto and baby vegetables on the side. Really we should have served liver pate and corn, in honour of the movie, but I don’t think any of us would eat liver pate (ew) and my pesto pasta  concoction is much better than corn.

Well, I was going to write more, I feel like I’m totally neglecting my blogging duties, but it’s after 5am and I’m beat. To be perfectly honest I’m feeling pretty beaten down these days between trying to get these paintings done, writing/blogging, Twittering, maintaining things for the Hypercube contest, IRC, trying to finish the books I’m reading and immersion therapy (which I don’t even want to talk about right now). I feel like all I’ve done this week is promote the Hypercube contest and that if all I do is promote the Hypercube contest, eventually people are going to stop reading anything I have to say.

With that said, I’m going to write about the Hypercube contest quickly and go to bed…

Right now I’m ranked #6 and Blake’s ranked #8, which is fine by us, we’re happy to be where we are, but in order to maintain our positions, we need you guys to vote EVERY SINGLE DAY. So, once again, here’s the info:

Register at www.hypercube.ca to vote and once you’ve done that, you need to find Blake & I. You *could* just search by location “elmvale” under the Hypercube tab or you could just click these nifty links for our audition canvases:

Sunny’s Audition Canvas | Blake’s Audition Canvas

Voting is DAILY so what we’re suggesting is to add those two links to your browser’s bookmark toolbar for easy access and so you see it every day. Another thing you can do to remind yourself to vote every day is to “attend” our Facebook event and if you were feeling extra giddy about the prospect of me getting a life, you could even invite friends to the event and get them to vote too! Blake & I would really really appreciate that!

We would also really really appreciate you spreading the word any way you can! If you have a website, please pimp us! If you have a Live Journal or a blog or even on Twitter, spread those links far & wide so we can stay on top! And don’t forget to tell people that voting is daily please!

My friend Alex also “dugg” our audition pages, so if you’re a Digg user, feel free to digg our pages here:

Sunny’s Digg | Blake’s Digg

Okay, almost done! The last thing I’m asking for, as I’ve been asking for this whole time, is Cube themed fansigns. Again, if you need inspiration, feel free to browse the fansign gallery and send your creations to Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com!

*whew* Okay I think that’s it. Got all that? The main thing though is voting. Every day. And we thank you in advance for coming together and helping us in this endeavor!

Onto today’s fansign and then I’m going to bed! In honour of Grey Gardens, may I present to you Little Edie of Barrie, Ontario who wants to see me in a Nissan Cube!

OMG I’m actually losing sleep over this, which is totally fucking stupid.

Someone I like a whole lot, and I won’t name names to protect the innocent, argued with me recently regarding the film “What the Bleep Do We Know”, basically stating that all of the “science” in the movie was true. It was fairly obvious by the conversation, which ended up being me against like, 12 other women, that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my arsenal of links refuting the film, so I dropped it and just agreed to disagree.

But I can’t get it out of my head, so for my own sanity, and so I can get some sleep, I’m posting all of this.

First of all, read What the Bleep’s own Wikipedia page. Go on, I’ll wait.

….

Too lazy? Here are some quotes:

The film was also discussed in a letter published in Physics Today that challenges how physics is taught, saying teaching fails to “expose the mysteries physics has encountered [and] reveal the limits of our understanding.” In the letter, the authors write “the movie illustrates the uncertainty principle with a bouncing basketball being in several places at once. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s recognized as pedagogical exaggeration. But the movie gradually moves to quantum ‘insights’ that lead a woman to toss away her antidepressant medication, to the quantum channeling of Ramtha, the 35,000-year-old Atlantis god, and on to even greater nonsense.” It went on to say that “Most laypeople cannot tell where the quantum physics ends and the quantum nonsense begins, and many are susceptible to being misguided,” and that “a physics student may be unable to convincingly confront unjustified extrapolations of quantum mechanics,” a shortcoming which the authors attribute to the current teaching of quantum mechanics, in which “we tacitly deny the mysteries physics has encountered.”

According to João Magueijo, reader in theoretical physics at Imperial College, the film deliberately misquotes science.

The American Chemical Society‘s review criticizes the film as a “pseudoscientific docudrama”, saying “Among the more outlandish assertions are that people can travel backward in time, and that matter is actually thought.”

And my personal favourite:

David Albert, a physicist who appears in the film, has accused the filmmakers of selectively editing his interview to make it appear that he endorses the film’s thesis that quantum mechanics are linked with consciousness. He says he is “profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness.”

More on David Albert, and remember, this is all just from Wikipedia alone:

David Albert, a philosopher of physics and professor at Columbia University, who according to a Popular Science article, is “outraged at the final product,” because the filmmakers interviewed him about quantum mechanics unrelated to consciousness or spirituality, and then edited the material in such a way that he feels misrepresented his views.

More quotes:

Skeptics such as James Randi described the film as “a fantasy docudrama” and “[a] rampant example of abuse by charlatans and cults.”^[20] The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry dismisses it as “a hodgepodge of all kinds of crackpot nonsense,” where “science [is] distorted and sensationalized.”^[21] A BBC reviewer described it as “a documentary aimed at the totally gullible.”

Journalist John Gorenfeld, writing in Salon, notes that the film’s three directors are students of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, which he describes as having been called a “cult.”

So back to David Albert, the philosopher of physics who was in the movie and who knows more about quantum physics than you or I, here’s what he had to say about his involvement in the film to Salon.com:

David Albert, a professor at the Columbia University physics department, has accused the filmmakers of warping his ideas to fit a spiritual agenda. “I don’t think it’s quite right to say I was ‘tricked’ into appearing,” he said in a statement reposted by a critic on “What the Bleep’s” Internet forum, “but it is certainly the case that I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film … Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.”

That Salon.com article, entitled “Bleep” of Faith, is actually a good starting point in understanding who made the film – Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment – pretty much proving that it’s propaganda for the cult – I mean, “school”‘s – agenda.

Remember Dr. Masaru Emoto from the film? The guy who claimed to be able to change water molecules by taping words to the outside of the vessel holding the water? Total bullshit. Need proof? Here ya go:

Try this on for credibility: A Dr. Masaru Emoto, who boasts certification from the Open International University of Alternative Medicine (???), has made remarkable discoveries about “the concept of micro cluster water.” Floating along in his muddy stream of awareness, Dr. Emoto began to study the effect of altering water by various factors of “vibration” and “consciousness.” These words are immensely popular with quacks, though they’ve no notion what they mean. Are you ready? He studied water that had been altered by music — healing music, classical music, heavy metal music, and so forth.

And he has “crystalline pictures” that reveal how water responds to these influences! As he says, this begins to reveal that water is alive, that it is conscious, and that it responds to applied force by a rearrangement of its inner crystalline properties. Wow! Ah, but that only got him started. It gets better….

Inspired by these revelations, he decided to study the impact of human consciousness on water and its crystalline order. Dr. Emoto believes he has demonstrated that human thoughts and emotions can alter the molecular structure of water. Now, for the first time, he says, there is physical evidence that the power of our thoughts can change the world within and around us.

We can see the distinct difference, for example, between crystals formed under the influence of the word, “prayer,” and nasty hard rock music. How can we doubt?

Dr. Emoto found that water that had been consciously altered by the simple imprinting of a “word of intent,” would change. Water that was imprinted by “love,” “gratitude,” and “appreciation,” responded by the development of complex crystals — essentially “snowflake” crystals obtained by evaporation and cooling — and an excellent effect was produced by combining the words “love” and “gratitude,” as any fool can plainly see in the illustration. But water that was mistreated by negative intentions became disordered and lost its magnificent patterning. In fact, it often took on grotesque forms of resonance, he says.

Then he really got into the swing of pseudoscience, simplifying matters by just writing words — in any language, of course — on pieces of paper and taping them to a clear glass container to see if anything happened. Positive words like “love” and “thank you” produced beautiful and delicate crystalline patterns, we’re told. He tried “You Make Me Sick. I Will Kill You” and he observed distorted, frightening, muddied patterns. We show here the pattern produced by this last phrase. He even experimented with names like “Gandhi,” “Mother Teresa,” and “Hitler,” and the same kind of results occurred. Wow, again!

And, not to our surprise, Dr. Emoto discovered that the water crystals dutifully form up in response to different ethnic versions of the languages impressed upon them. Here’s the expression “thank you” in both Japanese and English. You can see the distinct variations, can’t you?

Well, if that didn’t convince you that Dr. Emoto might not have both oars in the water, try this, a quotation from him in answer to his thoughts on what the crystals are: “I came to the realization that these crystals are spirits.” Okay. Where’s the door….?

Let’s spend a moment to wonder about how such a view can be brought about. Dr. Emoto might very well believe that he’s doing science. But he’s not. He does no double-blind procedures, for one thing, which dooms these amateur efforts, right from the beginning. If he were to be blind to which words were being used to influence the water crystals, his search through the results looking for confirmation, would be inconclusive. I’ll risk the JREF million-dollar prize on that statement. If Dr. Emoto wants to win the prize, let him agree to perform his tests in a double-blind fashion, and I predict he’ll get fuzzy results that prove nothing.

- James Randi

Oh but that big meanie James Randi may be easy to brush off, but how about Masaru Emoto’s own Wikipedia page? Want some more quotes? Here ya go!

In the day-to-day work of his group, the creativity of the photographers rather than the rigor of the experiment is an explicit policy of Emoto.^[6] Emoto freely acknowledges that he is not a scientist,^[7] and that photographers are instructed to select the most pleasing photographs.

Please sir, may I have some more?

After the lengthy review of Emoto’s research methods and results, I have come to believe that Dr. Emoto is offering pseudoscience to the masses in the guise of defensible research. Only time and review by others will tell if there is any truth at the heart of Mr. Emoto’s claims, as Emoto himself thoroughly believes in his findings but does not value the scientific method or community. What is truly fearsome is the great numbers of people that accept his words as proven facts without looking deeper to find out if his claims are truly justified. While I respect Dr. Emoto’s desire to save the Earth’s water from contamination and pollution, unless he can produce a scientific paper and get it published in a scientific journal, I believe that he will continue to be ignored by the scientific community, and his claims will never be soundly proved or disproved

—Kristopher Setchfield, (BA, Health Science) from Castleton State College (Natural Science Department)

So, Masaru Emoto’s a quack, the main physicist in the film wishes he was never part of it…hmmmm could the film maybe be bullshit?

Try these links on for size:

“I decided to see “What The (Bleep) Do We Know!?” (sic!). I had avoided this film, as it looked like what Murray Gell-Mann calls quantum flapdoodle – distortions of quantum physics to support a mystical viewpoint. But the “what the bleep” meme is growing, so I decided I should see it for myself. Now I’ve seen it I can confirm that it does distort quantum physics to support a mystical viewpoint. But it is much more than that. Much worse. Hilariously so, in fact.

This post is rather long, but please read it to the end – there is a surprise there that will astonish you, I promise. But I should start with the science. Or, I should say:

The “science”"

- What the (Bleep) Were They Thinking?

“The fact that the science is being distorted and sensationalized here is not at all surprising. What puzzles me the most is that by making quantum mechanics the heart of the movie, the filmmakers have fallen prey to a crude form of reductionism which is usually regarded as the enemy of New Age ways of thinking. By focusing so much on basic physics, the filmmakers do not seem to realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot. One moment they talk about all kinds of emergent phenomena, such as global consciousness, that go far beyond the reductionist worldview. The next moment they seem to suggest that the physics of fundamental particles explains human behavior! Even if we grant that quantum mechanics tells us that particles can be at two places at once-which, of course, it does not-how can one then assume that such bizarre effects work their way right up to macroscopic dimensions with no attenuation in order to determine human behavior? As many scientists and philosophers now realize, even if matter is fundamentally governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, this does not entitle us to suppose that chemical and biological phenomena will follow those same forms of behavior. This is to say nothing of even larger leaps such as the question of whether human behavior is dictated by the laws of physics.”

- Review: What the #$*! Do They Know?

“The purpose of this post is to educate the reader about what this movie is and is not. It is not a cool cutting-edge movie about quantum physics, as its marketing leads the innocent to believe (actually only the first half is “about” quantum physics — the rest is “about” how people are enslaved by their own unhappy thoughts and beliefs). While in many ways this is a feel-good movie offering common-sense advice (think good thoughts about yourself and your life), the “science” presented as backing up these ideas is mostly fallacy — fallacy taught as fact by the “Ramtha School of Enlightenment.””

- What the Bleep Does Ramtha Know?

“If you see this movie and like it, it says some scary things about the rigour of your mental processes.

You really only need to know four things:

1) The movie purports to be truth, not fiction.

2) You have to believe in mediums, Atlantis, and spirit channeling to buy into the premise, since the core of the movie is a 35,000-year-old Atlantean Cro-Magnon channeled through a new-age spiritualist.

3) The experts are either are new-age loonies (not scientists), misquoted, or quoted in a misleading fashion. It is impossible to be a reputable scientist and to support the film’s assertions.

4) They have the physics wrong. Quantum indeterminism does not manifest itself on a macro-scale, only at the quantum level. That’s why it’s called QUANTUM indeterminism.

This movie could be fun if it was fiction (after all, some of the elements sound a lot like StarGate plots), but they are dead serious: they want you to believe what they say, and Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment wants your money.

You wanna see some real miracles? Go buy the boxed DVD set of Nova”

- IMDB’s comments page for What The Bleep

And there are a million more links out there by people who actually KNOW quantum physics, who all call bullshit on this movie. I mean, don’t you find it interesting that all of these people who KNOW quantum physics argues the film’s credibility, yet it’s all of the people who DON’T know quantum physics who are all “oh this film is wonderful, it explains complex science in terms even laymen can understand!” Uh, I’m gonna take the opinions of those who actually know what they’re talking about over…the other  group.

Also, do you really want to even get me started on Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment and that whole deal? Because that’s just wacky. Just read their Wikpedia entry, that’s all a thinking person needs to know….but here’s a fun quote anyway. :o)

In 2004, three members of the RSE produced a controversial film that combined documentary interviews and a fictional narrative to posit a connection between science and spirituality, called What the Bleep Do We Know!?. The film has been criticized heavily by the scientific community due to its presentation of quantum physics.

(My bold.) Darn that pesky “scientific community” and their cotton-pickin’ “facts”! What the fuck do they know?

And if What the Bleep wasn’t bad enough, they came out with What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, which was like a “director’s cut” with a whole lot more Ramtha. Here’s one hilarious review of it, I’m sure you could find more with a little Google-fu.

Here’s the thing, though: I believe in a lot of woo woo concepts, myself. Here are a few:

• I wholeheartedly believe that some people have psychic ability (although the idiots you see on TV, like Sylvia Browne – whom I’ve seen in person – are not among them).
• I believe with every fiber of my being that karma is real, or at least my own interpretation of it is. I live my life by the “3x rule” because of this. Without a doubt I believe in the human soul, as far as we’re powered by energy and that energy is released when we die, and transferred to other things. I even go so far as to believe that if you live a “karmically neutral existence”, that you DON’T reincarnate and that is my goal here on Earth because dammit, I don’t wanna come back, especially as a cockroach or something or worse, another human being. Eff that.
• I believe in the law of attraction.
• I believe in ghosts.
• I believe in aliens. (Although I’m not sold on the idea that they fly around anally probing rednecks.)
• I believe in the collective human unconscious and that through this, we are all connected and that we all have the ability to “tap in” to this giant pool of global thought.

But the thing is, with the possible exception of aliens, I ACCEPT the fact that science isn’t on my side with any of those beliefs in either fact or theory. (And aliens only get a partial pass because it’s mathematically unlikely – some say impossible – that life only happened once and that we’re alone in the universe.) Maybe one day that’ll change, but today is not that day and this “documentary” twists and perverts actual science to fit its agenda and mislead the viewer, who, presumably, knows very little about the concepts bastardized in the film. I’ll admit that I’m one of them, but I know who to listen to and who not to and I’m sorry, but I’m going to take some crazy bitch who supposedly channels a 35,000 year old Atlantian with an industrial sized grain of salt.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say on the matter. Maybe now that this is out of my system, I can sleep.

This looks good, check it out! http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/

Unfortunately I doubt it’ll be coming to theatres here any time soon, so I’ll have to wait to see it on DVD. But if you’re in a bigger city, look for it and if you see it, tell me what you thought! (There’s a list of screenings right on the site, most of which seem to be in art galleries and art centres in the US.)

Trailer for a documentary on the D.I.Y/handmade scene, coming out next year:

More Info