Yesterday (Monday) I got up at around 10:30am and as per usual, I picked the crust out of my eyes and went next door to see what Wayne was up to. He was yelling at people on the phone, creditors, because that’s more or less what Wayne does on his day off besides drinking beer and doing odd jobs around the house.

I had a smoke with him and then I went back home to make a large travel mug of coffee. Wayne & Judy drink instant coffee which I think is pretty gross, especially because I don’t like coffee to begin with, but I started drinking it on the first day of school last week to give me a much-needed energy boost. We have this neat little “coffee toy” as Blake calls it, where you put the plastic thing over the top of a mug, put in a little filter and two scoops of coffee and then you pour boiling water in it until your cup is full. With the travel mug being so big, I used 3 scoops of coffee and by 11:30am, I was back over at Wayne’s bouncing off the wall.

I don’t know how it happened. For some reason I came back over to my house to do something and when I got back to Wayne’s he asked me to come to The Beer Store with him, which is down the street. He had enough empty bottles to take back for their deposits that he could get himself a 6-pack. And as I may have mentioned before, Wayne likes beer, especially on his day off.

For about half an hour he nagged me to come with him to The Beer Store and I kept saying “no” because as we all know, I’m not a fan of going anywhere, especially on foot. Finally I relented and I said “Wayne, DEAL OR NO DEAL [because he loves that show and I watch it with him all the time]. I go to The Beer Store with you and you come with me to the post office,” which is just a few blocks away and I had a small package I needed to mail. So he said “DEAL” and I went back over to my house to get the package ready while he got his empties ready.

I popped an Ativan because I was feeling pretty anxious about this excursion, put my cell phone in my bag, got my package all taped up and addressed (ruby slippers for a very special little girl in Oregon, if you must know) and I went back over to Wayne’s.

He was on the phone when I got there so I waited on the deck and popped another Ativan while he talked to someone in the middle of his backyard. When he was finished, he said “SUNNY. DEAL OR NO DEAL. We go to The Beer Store, okay? Then we go to the post office and then we go to TIM HORTONS [where Judy works] and get smokes out of the car and MY mail key, then we come back to the post office, back to The Beer Store so I can buy my 6 and then we come home.”

People. We live on one end of town and Tim Hortons is on the other end of town. Yes I live in a small town, but Tim Hortons is about 2 & a half miles away and I’m not used to walking anywhere, but what was I going to say? I was all ready to go and I needed to mail this package, so I said “what the hell” and off we went.

First we went to The Beer Store and he got money for his bottles. Then we went to the post office and I mailed my package. Then we walked all the friggin’ way to Tim Hortons where he got his mail key from the car and half a pack of smokes from Judy and then, as planned, we went back to the post office so he could check his mail and then back to The Beer Store to get his 6 before we went home.

By the time we got home I wanted to kill Wayne for making me do what we did and could barely walk and when I took off my shoes, I realized that I had a giant blister on the bottom of my left foot, another one on my little toe, one on my big toe and one on the little toe of my right foot – all because I’m an idiot and was too lazy to put on socks.

When we got home, I was starving so I came back to my house to let the dogs out and heat up some pizza while Wayne did Wayne things and when I was finished, I went over there to help him set up his computer and that was pretty much the end of our adventure.

It probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone else to go to these places and walk a total of almost 5 miles, but I seriously do not leave my house except at like, 3am to check the mail, and I’m seriously out of shape thanks to all these goddamn meds and I’m actually really proud of myself for being able to do what we did. Not only did I walk that far and back, I interacted with the lady at the post office and paid with my debit card, which is something that gives me crazy anxiety, but I did it and it was totally fine, which means theoretically, I could do it again. Like, say I had to mail a painting to someone. I could probably package it up and take it to the post office either with Wayne or maybe even by myself and mail it. That’s something I couldn’t do a year ago, so I must be making progress. Right?

Speaking of paintings, you should all go check out what I’ve got for sale in The Shop in case you missed my post about it last week. ;o)

Now here’s where I ramble about inane shit. last night I finished the book The Secret Life of Bees and I LOVED IT. Yes, it was a little “Oprah’s Book Club”, as someone put it to me, but I couldn’t help it, I am in love with this book. It’s been a long time since a book affected me enough to make me cry, but that fucking thing had me SOBBING last night and I couldn’t stop reading until I was finished, which was about 5am. After I was done, I put a post-it on it for Madison saying that she should read it too, but before I went to bed I changed my mind because there’s too much in the book she wouldn’t understand. She has no idea about the American civil rights act of 1964 – they don’t teach that in Canadian schools – or segregation or racism or Catholicism or even what grits are. Hell, I’m not even totally sure what grits are. But I want her to read it nonetheless and after talking it over with Blake tonight, he said he’ll read it (it’s not a very long book) and then when she reads it, there should be someone around to explain to her the things she won’t understand.

I added the movie adaptation of the book to my wishlist last night and I really want to see it. I don’t have very high hopes that it’ll be anywhere near as good as the book and Dakota Fanning bugs the shit out of me, but I think I’ll like it and I’m pretty sure Madison will like it too. Plus, I love Queen Latifa.

Anyway, as I said, I’m in love with this book and I think Madison will be too once she reads it, so a HUGE thank you goes out to my friend Belinda for buying it for me for my birthday this year. <3

After I finished the book, I took my clonazepam like I always do before bed, waited about 20 minutes and then tried to go to sleep but no matter how hard I tried to clear my mind I couldn’t. Wanna know why? That fucking song “Goodbye Earl” by the Dixie Chicks was stuck in my head on a loop and it WOULD NOT STOP. After about 45 minutes of laying there with this goddamn song in my head, I got up and took another clonazepam (3 total) and make another attempt at sleep. That didn’t work either so after another hour or so, I got up and took an over-the-counter sleeping pill and sat at my desk screwing around on Buttercup while I waited for it to take effect. After I thought I gave it enough time, I crawled back into bed, annoyed that by this time the sky was starting to lighten and I laid there and laid there and laid there and watched the room grow lighter every time I opened my eyes to look at the clock.

Finally I got up around 7am and thought maybe eating something would help, as I often feel sleepy after I eat, so I made myself some eggs and toast and a cup of tea and ate them while I watched a bit of Breakfast Television. When I was done, the kids were just starting to wake up, so I hugged them both and got back into bed…and then Blake’s alarm went off. And he snoozed it. So I laid there not even trying to sleep because I knew the damn thing would go off again in like, 5 minutes. Of course it did and he SNOOZED IT AGAIN, so I laid there and waited for it to go off and when it did, he got up, we discussed my sleep issue and when he left the bedroom to get ready for the day I finally fell asleep.

And then I woke up around noon and couldn’t get back to sleep. My eyes felt sandy and I just didn’t feel good. I’d be cold and then hot and then cold again. I made myself some coffee to see if that would help me but it didn’t seem to.

Around 3:30pm I went over to Wayne & Judy’s to see what Judy was up to, we had a smoke and then when the kids got home from school I went back home. I did the homework check and signed Madison’s agenda and by that time it was 4pm and being Tuesday, it meant that it was time for Hug Nation, which I try to attend every week. I love Halcyon, but I was so tired that everything he was saying just kinda blurred together so all I heard was “blah blah Burning Man blah blah” as he and Andicat had just come back from Burning Man and Hal’s always juiced after that, so since I was half falling asleep, I just decided “fuck it” and went to bed. The next thing I remember is Blake coming into the bedroom to check on me and I told him to wake me up when dinner was ready, which would be about 7pm.

So I got up and ate my steak & potatoes while we talked about our day (or my lack thereof) and after that I was pretty much fine. he and I both did Buttercup stuff until the kids went to bed and then I worked on my new painting while we watched recorded episodes of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!

I didn’t think to take a picture of the canvas, which is more or less finished, until now and right now the light sucks so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. This painting is either going to be called “The Two Sunnies” or :Sunny Light and Dark”, I haven’t decided, and it’s going to be about being bipolar. It’s, um, a very obvious painting and was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “The Two Fridas”. (Although hers was about divorce.)

After Blake went to bed, I took a break from drawing and started writing this post. As I was writing, I was waiting for the kettle to boil because tonight was Jell-O night where I make Jell-O for Blake & the kids to take in their lunches in little singe-serve containers. One pack of Jell-O is 33 cents and makes 4 containers. You can’t buy pre-made lunch snacks for that kinda money and they all really like Jell-O so it all works out. I just use the Glad or Ziplock containers you buy at the grocery store, the little ones:

And now, here I sit. It’s 2:30am and I think I’m going to retreat to my Sims Bunker for the rest of the night. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to sleep and have a better tomorrow.

So…it’s been a few days since I made a post and I figured it was time that I made another one.

As I’ve been doing since release, I’ve been playing a lot of Sims 3 except I’ve put Zennish Moody and Johnny Awesome on the back burner because their story started to bore me (they’re my pseudo-legacy family so they’re basically just going to max out skills, have great careers, have babies, paint each family member to hang in the legacy house and die), so I decided to make a new family, one with less than desirable traits, in another town, as I was inspired by Alice & Kev. Thus, The Moody Cousins – Luna, Sunshine and Star – were born.

Luna is evil, dislikes children, she’s insane, flirty and a great kisser. Her cousin Sunshine is childish, good, excitable, easily impressed and also flirty. Sunshine’s daughter, Star, is over-emotional, flirty, a genius and a computer whiz and she’s who you’re going to meet today because she’s in looooooove.

Star brought Dallas Shallow home from school one day and they hit it off instantly. All she knows about him is that he’s flirty and a good kisser, but at 17, that’s all she needs to know.

Star and Dallas hitting it off.

In other news, there are only 6 days until the big Hypercube event in Toronto where we’ll find out the people who have won the 50 Nissan Cubes up for grabs. I sincerely doubt I’m going to be among them, as I’m just not that lucky and the more I think about it, the more reasons I can think of for them to not award me one, but I’ve bought a dress and I’m going anyway, if only to put the entire thing to rest by drinking my face off in a club I’ve never been to downtown.

Normally this whole event would be triggering massive anxiety and while I’m not exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of going, particularly since it’s looking like Blake & I will be going alone, I’m pretty level as far as my agoraphobic tendencies. Who knows how I’ll be on the 23rd though, there’s still a very good chance that I’ll completely chicken out and not go at all.

At this point in the process, to be totally honest, I don’t even care if I win or not, I just want it to be over and done with so I can stop thinking about it and move on with my life.

Of course, on the very slim chance that I am a winner, it’ll mean that it’s just the beginning of things and I guess I’ll have no choice but to take that as it comes. There’s a very large part of me that’s absolutely terrified of winning because of all it means and the things I’m going to have to do if that ends up being the case. Not the blogging for Nissan part, that’s cake, it the whole driving thing and the fact that having a Cube of my own is going to change life as I know it in a really drastic kind of way. I don’t even know how to express what having a gassed up car in my driveway at 2pm on a Thursday in August means in my world, let alone the opportunities it’s going to afford me creatively. Going to Curry’s by myself? That just not even something I could have imagined before this contest.

She’s mesmerized.

Speaking of creativity…I haven’t really been painting and the reason for that is because I simply don’t tend to paint as much in the warmer months. As I’ve explained before, the spring and summer is when I catch up on things I couldn’t absorb throughout the rest of the year (because I’m painting!). It’s when I do most of my reading and of course, gardening, partying, going to the park across the road and swinging in my bra & underwear on particularly hot nights…spring and summer is when I live and experience, fall and winter is when I hibernate and produce.

There are also two other reasons why I haven’t been painting:

1. I’m busy. The end of the school year, getting myself together for this Hypercube party and having a house full of drunk people (one of whom I’ve never met!) on the 26th means that there is a lot on my plate right now and a lot going on. I may not be physically busy, but my mind sure is and every brainless moment of Sims 3 is welcome.
2. I’m working on a side-project that’s going to turn into a full-time writing project come September. It’s (of course) internet-based and that’s pretty much all I can tell you about it, except that only about half of you are going to have any interest in it.

I just feel like I’m in this Hypercube contest that’s like, all about creativity and here I am doing nothing creative at all. Except that I am, I promise, it’s just behind the scenes and I can’t talk about it!

Art shows have been on my mind in the last few days though. I’ve decided I’m definitely going to submit to Touched By Fire again this year because unlike last year, I can actually be prepared and have some pieces to sell and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time last year. I’ve been wondering what other art shows I can submit to, I’m not really a part of that world so I don’t know what’s what and I don’t even know how to find out. One of my goals for 2009 was to do two art shows though, so TBF is one of them…but what about the other? If anyone out there can teach me how to navigate the Toronto art world, that’d be lovely because I have no fucking clue.

Because Dallas is a good kisser, Star gets a 3 hour mood boost every time their lips touch.

Immersion therapy…well, I haven’t been doing it. On May 25th I walked downtown to a restaurant all by myself, ordered and ate breakfast and it really did a number on me because it proved to be too big of a step. As a result, I think anyway, I found myself in a low that lasted more or less until yesterday, so 2 & a half weeks. I’m not totally sure how bipolar disorder works and if life events can trigger highs and lows (I know lack of sleep can trigger a high), but the whole restaurant thing definitely put me in a funk that I’m only coming out of now so I have to be a little more careful about what I do from now on and be careful of getting ahead of myself. Immersion therapy is a process and you can’t run before you walk. As much as I’m loathe to admit it, I’m still in the walking phase and can’t afford to rush things when they result in 2 week long setbacks. I’m on a schedule here!

So, I’m back to driving to the post office in the middle of the night with Lucky and little else. (Chali godammit, I need your current mailing address.)

I did think of two other things I’d like to do today, though.

Remember when I went for a walk down the Trans-Canada Trail by my house that one time? Well, when I did that there were barely buds on the trees and the ground was just starting to thaw out, but now the trail is covered by a canopy of leaves and right now the whole thing is covered in these white and purple flowers I don’t know the name of. One day soon, before those flowers stop blooming, I want to take Wes down the trail and take pictures of him. It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week, so this week’s out, so next week it’ll probably have to be. I don’t think the flowers are going to last much longer than that, they bloom for only a very short period of time.

Going places by myself is difficult for me, but actually going places by myself but with my kids, like being the only responsible adult around, is even more difficult so this one’s going to be a fairly large step, but not too big that it’ll send me into a depression because I get freaked out.

The other thing I wanted to do is this: Two doors down from me, there’s a condemned house that the bank owns and according to my neighbour, Wayne, the bank is going to demolish it soon. Before they do, I want to go in there and take pictures. I’ve never been in there, so I’m not sure what to expect, but Wayne does tell me that there’s a TREE growing through the middle of the house and if it’s as cool in person as it is in my head, it’s going to make for some pretty amazing pictures, pending I get the light right.

I walked over there today to take some pictures of the buttercups growing in the house’s front yard but I was too chickenshit to go in. I don’t think this is something I can do on my own. For one, you never know who’s going to be in that house. Runaways, homeless people and people wanted by the police have been known to hide out in there – or at least the cops have been in and out of there enough times looking for all of those kinds of people that it’s possible someone could be in there. Number two is that the house is condemned and thus unsafe. I wouldn’t want to go in there by myself and have something happen and no one know that I’m there or be stuck in there with a broken leg or whatever until someone finds me. I dunno, I have to talk this one over with Blake and see what he thinks. I think afternoon light would probably be best, so that means it’ll probably have to happen on a weekend.

Anyway, those were my thoughts this morning.

Ahhhhhh, hormones.

As I mentioned above, on Saturday the 26th, we’re having a party at our house in honour of our “internet friend” Marylin coming up and becoming a real life friend. Ronny, who lives in Michigan and is engaged to Alex, will be picking Marylin up from Hamilton on his way up here to Barrie. Then he’ll either drop Marylin off here or we’ll come get her. This will happen either late on the 25th or earlier on the 26th. So, it’s going to me, me, Blake, the kids, Ronny & Alex, Marylin, Jesse and Jesse’s friend Patricia all getting wasted (well, not the kids…) in honour of Marylin and our fine country’s birthday.

Because of this event, I spent all of last night on Wikipedia going through music of the 90′s, trying to find stuff to download in order to replenish my iTunes. None of you probably recall, but about a year ago my iBook’s hard drive died completely and I lost EVERYTHING, including a LOT of writing and all of my music. As such, my music collection is less than 4GB right now and if we’re going to have a party, I’m going to have to rectify that. So last night i went through the 90′s and at some point this week I’ll do the 80′s and 2001-present.

The shitty thing, though? Soulseek doesn’t seem to want to participate with my plan. It seems fine if I want to download an entire album, but song by song? No way. I don’t know why this is. Hopefully whatever the issue is, it’ll fix itself in time for me to download the 3 pages worth of songs I’ve written down already and the other 10 I’ll probably write down before I’m done.

WTF? Get off my computer!
Can Dallas handle a girl who’s more 1337 than he is?

And that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say. Today I made potato salad for the first time this year and it’s calling my name, so I’m going to go have dinner and get ready for my super secret meeting tonight! I hope you all have a wonderful evening and stay tuned for the next installment of The Moody Cousins!

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been doing anything but sleeping and playing Sims during the past week or so, but I really haven’t done anything else so this post could be incredibly boring. I am working on a side project that I think some of you will find very interesting once it’s finished, but that won’t be until September at the earliest, so for now I’m not even going to talk about it.

Officer Awesome

I have some ideas for paintings in my head and I’ve really been thinking about getting my paints out and actually creating something, but last week’s visit to Toronto and my excursion out for breakfast by myself the week before has put me in a pretty serious funk. I went from having the problem of only being able to sleep for 3 hours at a time (then being up for 4 hours, then sleeping for another 3) to sleeping constantly. Sleeping constantly is a sign of depression. I don’t even really feel that depressed, I just kinda feel “blah”, grey, neutral, not giving of a shit. Blake and I had a 4 hour inspired conversation on Saturday morning but that’s the closest I’ve been to “myself” in the last couple of weeks.

Officer Awesome looking around to make sure no one’s watching…

So he can creepily go through Zennish’s garbage to write a report on her for work.

I haven’t been doing any of my immersion therapy during the past couple of weeks. I have some stuff I need to mail and I have some other stuff I have to get ready to mail, but sitting at home in my comfy sweats and not showering for 4 days seems preferable to going to the post office at 4am. The one thing I was expecting to get in the mail, a small shipment of Pocky (which I’d never had before!) from our new friend Anne, who lives in Quebec and who we met through the Hypercube contest, Blake picked up, so there didn’t seem to be much point in me even bothering.

Mayor Zennish
(who’s actually the governor now but I don’t have a screencap of that)

I don’t foresee this week being much different than last, except for the fact that I might be persuaded to get out a canvas or a piece of wood out and mess around. Blake’s been downloading Xena:Warrior Princess episodes over the last little while and Weeds premieres tonight so at least I have something to watch on TV. I have a hard time painting unless the TV’s on, which I don’t even watch, I just listen to it, but if it’s something stupid I can’t stand it. It can’t just be something brainless like Ellen or something. That’s why I watch so many movies over & over & over again. Since I’ve already seen them, I can just listen to them and “see” what’s happening in the movie in my head. Lately I’ve been watching The Tudors online, at the suggestion of my cousin Haylie, but I can’t paint while I watch stuff online because I don’t have the desk space to do so. SO, I figure once I get The Tudors out of the way (I’m on the finale of season 2 and have season 3 downloaded) that’s one less thing to be done on the computer which frees up more time for doing other things on the other side of my desk. (I have a U-shaped desk, one side computer & junk, one side notebooks, sketchbooks, journals & other junk, the other side for painting.)

Zennish & Johnny cuddling on the bed.

The neighbour’s kid is coming over tomorrow after school and again on Wednesday…and then probably every day until the end of the school year. I’m not exactly thrilled by this, but they’re in a tight spot and A) I’m trying to be a good neighbour,  B) having another kid in the house that I have to be responsible for means no napping in the afternoons and C) it’ll force me to actually talk to my neighbours which is probably good for me even though I don’t wanna do it.

Zennish & Johnny making out.

There are 16 days until the big Hypercube party in Toronto where we find out the winners of the 50 Nissan Cubes they’ll be giving away. Yesterday an article came out that really soured me on the whole contest because of some of the comments Tony Chapman, the CEO of Capital C – the agency running the whole thing – had to say.

“[People] think of Nissan as kind of a mom-and-dad car, but we are much more interested in the Cube benefiting from the creative class going, ‘This is a cool car,’ ” says Mr. Chapman, chief executive of Capital C. “I want non-conformists. I don’t want dad pulling the groceries out of the car in Markham.” The Cube, he explained, “is a quirky, function-follows-form kind of car. It is not for everybody; it is not meant to be. The person getting out of there will have dreadlocks and a courier bag, or they will have their modelling [sic] portfolio under their arm — they are not giving in. They are pursuing their creative dreams.

And 20 years from now, as this creative class grows up, they will be as attached to the Cube as they were at the time when their next cheque was [spent on] new jeans or going to a concert.”

He doesn’t want non-conformists, he wants cliches and because I’m not a beautiful, childfree cliche, I probably won’t be winning a new Cube. After reading that, I decided yesterday that Blake may be going to the Hypercube event solo because if I’m not going to win, I don’t see the point in putting myself through a stressful situation and if I am a winner, they’re going to give me the car whether I’m there or not. Yeah, it might be kind of cool to meet some of the people I’ve been talking with online the last 3 months, but I’ve met over 200 people from the Internet during the last 10 years and I’m kind of over it, so that’s not really a plus for me.

Oh yeah and Tony Chapman? I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a total douchebag.

A few weeks ago I made a post here on my site with 3 of his videos from YouTube where he talks about new ways to brand things and using social networking and what he was saying was totally cool, I’d never heard anyone put it quite like that and be so passionate about new media. So I started following him on Twitter. Well, not even a week later he did this interview thing, via Twitter which I later found out was with Ad Lounge, except at the time he was giving one-sided answers and not using Twitter’s reply function so I had no idea who the fuck he was talking to. So I replied to one of his tweets and asked who he was talking to and explained the reply function of Twitter. No response. He kept giving these one-sided answers.

I immediately stopped following him. He’s not innovative, he’s not all about new media and social networking. He’s just another advertising phony throwing out buzzwords with enough inflection that people believe what he’s saying, but he can’t put his money where his mouth is. Fuck that guy. (Now I’m really not gonna win a car. LOL Luckily he hires intelligent people , like Angie Kramer and Bennett Klein, who aren’t douchebags and who actually know how to use the media he’s trying to sell.)

Anyway, after I saw his lame, botched Twitter interview where he regurgitated the same shit he spewed forth on the YouTube videos I saw (and then they posted it on the Cap C site like he did something totally innovative LOL), I realized he was nothing more than a talking head and I deleted the post I’d made praising him. There are no more ad heroes, my hatred for the ad industry has only grown and as someone who went to college for “creative advertising”, I am once again thanking Christ I saw the light and never pursued that career path.

You want non-conformist, Tony Chapman? Come & fucking get it.

Anyway…

They’re so cute. Shortly after this screencap, they made sweet, sweet woo hoo…

And then they got engaged!

Not having anything to do with the Sims 3, I’ve been heavily considering dying my hair bright pink again because it’s at this weird length with the layers the hairdresser put in last winter when it was only a few inches long after it started growing out from when I shaved my head and I don’t want to cut it because if I did and got rid of the layers completely, I wouldn’t be able to put it in a ponytail but also because hairdressers scare the hell out of me, especially when I’ve been dying my hair blonde on my own for the last year and hairdressers hate it when you do that and often say so. Sooooo I was thinking though, at this length and with all the crazy layers and with this neato “surf hair” texturizing goo I got, I could actually get a pretty decent look going that would probably be best suited for someone with pink hair than blonde. The blonde’s just annoying me because it’s monotone. I’ve just been dying it straight and as a result I’ve lost all the highlights I had put in a year ago and while monotone pink is okay, monotone blonde? Not so much. I feel like I have mannequin hair.

I dunno, we’ll see how it goes.

The only other bit of news I have is that sometime soon I plan on putting “Five O’Clock Abortion” up for sale and there won’t be any prints made of it, so if you were interested in that piece, keep an eye out for the post I’ll make when I put it on the “For Sale” page.

And with that, I’m gonna go spend some more quality time in my Sims bunker. Happy Monday!

Edit: Btw, this was x-posted to LJ, where my friend Bobby is telling me how Tony Chapman is basically  an ad god. Yeah Bobby, god of ad douches.

The Courtship of Johnny Awesome and Zennish Moody