Oooooh what a week it’s been.

First of all, I’m menstruating, which is always fun and because I’m menstruating I’m taking insane amounts of codeine which has made me extremely constipated and I know that’s probably TMI but I don’t fucking care. The stool softeners? They are ineffective and I’m cranky because I literally have something up my ass. Aren’t you glad I shared?

Also making me cranky is the fact that my site has been down for a lot of this week and while that’s not really a huge deal since I x-post everything to Live Journal anyway and haven’t had a whole lot to say, it really sucks because my e-mail is on the same server as my site, so when my site’s down, it probably means I have no e-mail either. So my apologies if you’ve left comments on LJ or have sent me e-mail this week and I haven’t replied, I haven’t been getting my LJ notifications (obviously) and while I’ve been trying my best, it’s hard to remember who I’ve replied to and where so again, I’m sorry. Some people have asked about my host as they’ve seen me bitching about this all week on Twitter and I’m hosted by my friend Kevin, who is the co-owner of Camwhores.com, and he hosts me for free so I try not to complain. It’s not his fault the server took a shit this week and I know he’s been working extra hard trying to fix it, so when I complain, I’m not complaining about my hosting provider, Kevin is great and I love him, I’m just bitching because I’m bitching.

And speaking of my site, in the last 30 days I’ve had almost 3,000 unique visitors , which is actually a record since I began keeping stats just over a year ago. So hello new people! My name is Sunny and I’m not nearly as whiny or insane as I probably sound in this post. If you’d like to know more about me, there’s a page for that and while I update my site usually once a week or so, I update my Live Journal just about every day so if you’re bored, you might want to check that out too. Anonymous comments are turned off on my Live Journal because some people are pricks and while comments are moderated on my site, I’ll approve and reply to just about all of them as long as you’re not being an asshole. I’m done with giving assholes a forum, there are an infinite number of sites on the internet to be an asshole on, take The Forum [NSFW] for example, and I just don’t need to put up with them here.

Anyway…

This week Blake and I watched the movie Precious, but Blake reviewed it for Buttercup and his article will be going up tonight at around 1am so I won’t say anything about it other than I liked it and I agree with Blake’s assessment of the film.

Also this week I worked on my ATCs a bit and just about had a coronary because I spent hours and hours and hours meticulously drawing and shading miniature versions of my girls and then I used a Micron Pigma pen (02) to outline their mouths and noses so I’d be able to see them after I painted their faces with a flesh colour. I do this on my regular sized girls every time and didn’t figure it would be a problem. BUT IT WAS. A HUGE problem. I went to paint their faces with the flesh colour and the ink fucking RAN! That has never happened to me before and these pens are supposed to be waterproof and archival so WTF? So I stopped painting faces with the second girl and decided to let the ink “cure” over night and when I tried painting their faces the next day, everything was totally fine. I ruined 2 of 8, which sucks because I worked really hard on them, but at least I didn’t ruin the whole batch. Currently they’re still sitting on my desk with freshly painted eyes and faces awaiting hair colour and dresses. Truthfully, I haven’t kept working on them because I got distracted by another project…

This other project…well, I don’t really want to talk about it too much because I always do that (I suck at keeping things secret) and because I always do that and give too much away, I self-sabotage and never finish anything. Here’s the gist: I had a dream on Monday that was so vivid and so surreal that as soon as my eyes opened I flew out of bed and just began writing down every detail I could remember. Then that afternoon I fleshed it out a bit more and when Blake got home I showed him my scrawls to see what he thought and he thought it was brilliant, which was reassuring because I never know if my ideas are brilliant or stupid.  I thought about the story over the next couple of days, slightly intimidated by it but Blake threatened that if I didn’t write it, he would, and he wouldn’t do as good of a job as I would because I saw it all unfold in front of my eyes in the dream and for some reason, I think this is a story that needs to be told. I think it’s a story that’s never been told before, but then again, I’m not exactly well read so I could be talking out my ass there. Anyway, yesterday I actually started writing the thing and somehow, in the span of a couple of hours, I had 10 pages typed out, today I added 4 more and this story, that was only supposed to be a “short story” is turning into a novella. Honestly, I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s a refreshing feeling and I’m enjoying the writing process more than I’ve enjoyed writing in a long time. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it when it’s done, but I’m trying not to worry about that and just fucking write the thing.

So often I sabotage myself by, like I said, explaining a project so much on here that I feel like I’ve completed the project or that just having the idea “out there” is enough for me. And I often get caught up in my fear of success. As much as people accuse me of being an attention whore, the opposite is actually true. I fear the spotlight like nobody’s business and when it comes to creative work, writing in particular, I fear criticism and thus I don’t often put very much out for critics. Even as I write this story, there’s this little negative voice in the back of my head telling me how much it sucks or how implausible the story is or how flimsy my characters are and all kinds of wonderful things like that. And it’s one thing for my own inner critic to say these things, but it’s a whole other thing for other people to say them. Since I’ve never really put anything out there for that kind of scrutiny (and yes, I realize that I put myself “out there” constantly with my site and my cam and all that, this is different) I don’t know how I’d deal with it and a fear of the unknown suddenly surfaces.

But right now all the story is, is 14 pages on my MacBook that no one’s seen but Blake and until it’s finished, that’s all it will be.

This week I also taught Wayne & Judy how to use Facebook, to the best of my ability. Right now they can’t afford internet but they have a wireless card in their computer so Blake built a booster on our wireless router and set them up with the password for the network so they have internet…some of the time. Most of the time they don’t get a signal, but this week they’ve actually had a strong signal for some reason and thus, they’ve been calling me every day to show them how to do things on the Facebook accounts I set up for them last week. Today Judy was asking me how to play FarmVille because a few of her friends sent her FarmVille gifts and since I have that application blocked on my own Facebook, I didn’t really know what to tell her. She also called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that she figured out how to comment on people’s status messages, which I thought was cute because she was so proud of herself for figuring it out.

This weekend I plan on going over there and if they have a strong enough signal, I’m going to set them up with FireFox, add all of the bookmark tabs that they’ll ever need and delete their shortcuts for Internet Explorer altogether. Yes, I realize Chrome is the new big thing but I haven’t used it myself yet and I want them to quit clicking on stupid pop up ads that tell them they have a virus, causing them to freak out and call me. Oh and I changed all of their homepages (they have 3 profiles on Windows, one for Wayne, one for Judy and one for Courtney) to Google so now how they get to Facebook is by typing “www.Facebook.com” INTO Google and going to the first search result. *headdesk* I don’t really blame them though, their Internet Explorer has/had so many toolbars on it for some reason that it had 3 possible inputs for a url and no doubt they chose the wrong one many many times. I got rid of the Ask Jeeves one, but since I don’t use IE and haven’t in many many years, I wasn’t sure how to get rid of the others and it’s difficult to tweak anything when they’re over your shoulder asking what you’re doing every 30 seconds. So, setting them up with FireFox and breaking their IE habit seems like the best thing to do. I also set them up with Gmail accounts and I’m going to try and get them in the habit of checking their e-mail as often as they check their Facebook so they understand how Facebook’s e-mail notifications work. Instead of Google, I’ll probably make Gmail their homepages for that reason.

I’m not a very patient person and my patience in teaching them how to use the internet is surprising even myself.

This week I got a call from the mental health clinic saying that they wanted to set me up with an appointment for another doctor who I think is a nutritionist or something. Are nutritionists doctors? This woman has “Dr.” in front of her last name and she runs a metabolic sumpin-er-other clinic where I see my shrink and I requested to get in on that when a spot opened up because the meds they had me on has slowed down my metabolism and while I’m still eating my eggs every day to help boost my metabolism, progress has been slow and this clinic is all about how to switch your metabolism around and lose weight. Apparently it’s 6 or 8 weeks and it’s in a group setting (oh yay) once a week in the afternoons. I’m assuming the new group starts in the new year and my appointment with this new doctor is on the 29th.

Before I called them back, I checked with Blake to make sure he was okay with using his days off to take me to this thing and he was, so I called and made the appointment with the new doctor. I guess she’ll like, assess me or something, I have no idea. Maybe there’s even a chance I can’t get into the clinic because I’m not fat enough. I don’t know how these things work.

And speaking of mental health…since some folks have been asking…no I have not been driving anywhere. I have not been doing my immersion therapy. I have not been checking the mail. I have also been neglecting my light therapy and had a really bad day earlier this week, so starting Monday the lightbox is going back on my desk and I’m going to start using it again. As for immersion therapy…I’m just done with it. I don’t even care anymore. I can go places, like with Blake or even with Judy, and be okay. I haven’t had a panic attack in public since the spring and I think I’ve made all the progress I’m going to make right now. I have zero desire to drive the car, in fact I hate the car and the mere thought of driving, so fuck it, I’m done. Maybe I’ll pick it up again in the spring, maybe I won’t. I’ve decided that in the end it simply doesn’t matter and that I’m fine where I am. So that’s that.

Anyway, this is a really long fucking post about basically nothing so I’m going to end it here and get back to work on my story.

Ooooooh my god I’m all over the place right now. See, Blake and I have these marathon conversations about life and creativity and expression that are both brain numbing and inspiring at the same time. I love when we talk like this, but unfortunately it’s almost always late at night and by the time we’re done, we’re both exhausted. He’s gone to bed but my brain’s going a mile a minute.

Here’s the thing: I feel like I’ve kind of been in a rut for maybe the past year. Being on proper meds and getting my bipolar disorder under control (more or less) has caused me to change some of my habits. For example, I’m not longer hypergraphic. Prior to getting my meds in order, I would go through a paper notebook usually once a month and I would literally spend like, 4 hours a day just writing writing writing. But now I don’t do that anymore. I still keep a paper journal but I only write in it maybe twice a month and each entry only ends up being a 2 page, bare bones account of what’s happening in my life at the moment rather than a sweeping saga like they were before. Likewise, my blog entries have become a lot more sanitized than they’ve ever been before and Blake & I agreed tonight that that’s somewhat of a problem because I write to process things and if I’m not writing, I’m not processing things, I’m keeping it all inside and that’s A) Not good for me, and B) Not me. At all.

The problem is that for some reason I began self-censoring myself, and rather harshly, and I don’t really know why I started doing that and now it’s gotten to the point where I’m completely frustrated by it. Blogging is like, the fucking wild wild West and there aren’t really any established rules on what you can and cannot write about or more importantly WHO you can and cannot write about. All of that is really left up to the writer and over the past year or so I’ve had trouble reconciling what’s right and what’s wrong as far as what I can write about that’s happening in my life.

Certain people – well, really only one – have asked me specifically not to write about them, not to even mention them, and I’ve honoured that…but there’s a “but” coming. The person who specifically asked me not to write about them no longer deserves that kind of respect and as it turns out, never really did in the first place. With the exception of that one person, my policy has always been that if you are a part of my life, I’m going to write about you at some point, plain & simple, because to do otherwise is self-censorship and that makes me a sad panda, it really does. The other policy I’ve always had with this whole blogging thing is that if you don’t want to be portrayed as a douche, don’t do douchey things. I mean, I think that too is also a pretty simple concept, don’t you agree?

So self-censorship…obviously there has to be some but I think I drew my line in such a way that it left me very little wiggle room and I just don’t write the way I used to and I hate that. I like being an open book, I like being a ridiculously honest person, I like that part of me and this week I realized that I’ve lost a lot of that and dammit, I want it back. My moods are stable, my meds are working, my light therapy is working, I’m making progress in so many areas as far as immersion therapy, it’s time to reclaim certain aspects of myself I put on hold for so long.

For example, a large part of the reason I left Camwhores 2 years ago was because I wasn’t stable and I didn’t really trust myself to have an outlet to instantly broadcast anything I wanted to. Near the end there, I was sad one day and I posted a picture of myself crying – for the first time in my (at the time) 7 year camming history. That was when I realized that I needed to reign myself in and get better before I could go on. I hope that makes sense.

During that time, as most of you know if you’ve been reading along, I stopped writing about certain things. For a few months there my entire Live Journal was just Loud Twitter updates because that’s all I could handle at the time. I stopped seeing the world in the unique way I normally would.

But I’m okay now, or close to it. I’m stronger. I trust myself and my own judgment and it’s time to jump on the floor and bang on the ceiling  with a broom (as my shrink puts it) and maybe shake some things up. Wake up my little readership and get them writing again themselves as so many seem to have abandoned their blogs and Live Journal for Facebook and Twitter. Have opinions. Talk to me.

I want to write about the things that are actually happening in my life again. Y’know the expression “dance like no one’s watching”? Well I’m going to write like no one’s reading. Until tonight I had so much fear and I don’t even know where it came from. I had fear about writing about Wayne & Judy in case Judy’s daughter Ashley was reading and her interpretation in telling them about it would be negative. I had fear about writing about my mother for fear of her getting pissed off at me. I had fear about writing about Blake’s mother because I know she reads and she’s the one who asked me (through Blake) specifically never to even mention her online. But in talking to Blake tonight, we sort of found the problem. When I first started writing publicly about my life, the internet was still relatively small and no one I really knew, except for Blake and some of the Scratching Post kids, was reading the things I wrote. And then my mom got online. And then Blake’s mom started reading. And now Blake’s co-workers are reading. And with all of these people reading, I kind of froze, almost like stage fright, and now I’m in this stupid rut of mine.

But Blake and I talked about it and he said to me that who is he to tell me what I can and can’t write about? And who is anyone else to tell me the same? People have to trust my judgment and if they don’t like what’s being written about them they either have to, as I said, stop doing douchey things, or start doing things to portray themselves in a better light. All I do is write what I see and feel, I simply write the truth. If I want to tell you that last night Wayne & Judy drank 28 beer and Wayne was so drunk he pissed all over the floor and toilet seat, well dammit, I’m going to because that’s what happened. If Wayne doesn’t want me writing about something like that, then don’t fucking do it. (Although honestly, I doubt Wayne would care and the incident was actually really funny. Plus they don’t even have internet and wouldn’t read a post even this long so I don’t think they’d see it or care if they did.)

So, starting today, right now, I’m going to once again be more open and honest about the happenings of my life and that includes everyone in it. People who are truly my friends and really know me will totally understand and be totally on board with this, others…well they may not be but that’s just too damn bad. I’m done censoring myself out of respect for people who don’t deserve that respect. What am I talking about? Well, keep reading, here’s where things start getting  juicy.

But where to even start? I guess the biggest thing happening in our lives right now, or at least the biggest conflict is Blake’s mother, Brooke. Right now Blake and Brooke are battling via e-mail over comments she made about me when Blake was in Michigan last month. See, when I first met Brooke – 8 years ago now – I thought she was pretty cool but that facade quickly dissipated and I found myself in a monster-in-law type of situation. I don’t even know where it all began, really, this has been an issue that long, but maybe I should start with after Blake & I got married because I don’t feel like telling the tale of our actual wedding which neither of our mothers were invited to.

After Blake and I got married and I was pregnant with Wes, Brooke would call the house constantly and if I picked up the phone it would either be something inane like what size of clothes Madison wore because she was out shopping at the time and saw something Madison might look cute in – despite the fact that we’d told her Madison’s size at least 5 times prior to that and strangely these cute things for Madison never seemed to appear. In other words, these calls were just calls to call. To this day I don’t even know what their purpose was. Other times when I’d pick up the phone, she’d give me all kinds of bad and unwanted advice and would basically tell me that I wasn’t doing enough as a wife and mother, so I stopped answering the phone.

But here’s the thing: I’ve never really been a phone person, that’s just not how I communicate, so it was a special effort to answer the phone for her in the first place so to be put down just about every time I did, didn’t really encourage me to keep taking the calls. See what I’m saying?

So once I stopped taking the calls – and again, keep in mind that I don’t take calls from pretty much anyone – that’s when she’d start calling Blake on his cell and complain that I never answered the phone. Well gee lady, I wonder why. Blake explained to her that I’m not just a phone person – for YEARS – but the complaints didn’t stop until about two years ago. Without going into huge detail (maybe I will one day, just not tonight), about two years ago Blake and Brooke had basically an e-mail war that lasted almost a year. I can’t even remember how it got resolved off the top of my head, but it did and ever since, I’ve done my best to continue being nothing but nice to this woman. I answer her e-mails, we send each other Growing Gifts and things like that on Facebook with little notes attached and while it all seems like minor communication on the surface, it’s actually huge for me and here I thought after 6 years of her flat out disliking me and flat out saying that I wasn’t good enough for her son and that Blake wasn’t living up to his full potential because of me etc. that she was finally starting to get to know me and maybe even liking me. In fact, I think it was her last visit last fall where she gave me a gift of these neat tin ladies with great quotes on them that I have hanging in my office. I thought that after all these years, we were finally starting to make progress and maybe even bond a little bit.

But then Blake’s cousin’s wife died and he had to go to Michigan for the funeral last month and on one of the nights he was there, his mom got two drinks into her and just let loose saying all kinds of negative things about me. Want a list? Here it is:

• *Everyone* has mental illness, the people she knows who are mentally ill are worse off than me and they can do things I can’t, like work. (“my whole family was mentally ill and half were institutionalized and we could all work. . .”)

• She’s scared I’m taking advantage of Blake. That I “make” him do everything. (When in reality I don’t “make” him do anything and while he does do more than I do, I don’t exactly sit at home and eat bon bons either. I mean, who did she think was looking after the kids, the house and the dogs while Blake was in Michigan?)

• She claims she doesn’t read my site or anything but she’s pissed because I apparently made a blog post where I said that because I stay home and I’m an artist I’m better than people who work. (“she said that you were basically saying how much better you are than people who get up with their kids every day and how much better you are than people who have jobs. She basically said you were saying you’re an artist and anyone who works or takes care of kids all day is a sell out and not as good as you”. This one baffles me BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS SOOOO MUCH LIKE SOMETHING I’D SAY, so I asked Blake to get more info but there was none to be had.)

• Blake said she said, “I may have neglected to tell Joyce the part about you not wanting the present because you wanted the kids treated as equals” or something like that. This is a long dead issue but Joyce is Blake’s mom’s best friend and she wanted to buy a savings bond for Blake’s “first born child” and we freaked because we want our kids treated as equals and Wes was NOT Blake’s first child. Blake’s mom hounded us forEVER about getting Wes an American SSN so they could buy bonds for him, but Joyce supposedly had no intentions of getting any for Madison, so we cut her out of our lives and said thanks but no thanks. According to Blake: “Joyce never knew we had an issue with anything, so we were just ungrateful fucks.”

• She wants to get our kids AMERICAN FUCKING PASSPORTS for Xmas. When I asked why, Blake said “she thinks that being Canadian will hold them back in life, but if they have official US docs they will magically be better off”.

For the last two years I have been nothing but nice to this woman. I’ve met her half way as much as I’m capable of. I reply to every non-fwd e-mail she sends me. I write on her Facebook wall. I send her Growing Gifts. I used to play Scrabble with her on Facebook until Blake told me she uses a program to cheat. I do way more for her than she does for me as far as meeting someone halfway and this is the shit we get? It’s obvious that she still has a deep dislike for me, the same dislike she’s had since day one, meaning that all of the stuff we’ve been doing together that I thought was progress was all meaningless and phony on her end. Here I was being genuine and trying my best to be what I thought she wanted me to be but the whole time she was reading my site and feeling negative about all the things I do. She was a troll, by my definition, she just doesn’t leave comments (to my knowledge).

Worse, she seems to think she has to “enlighten” Blake on what a horrible person I am because he’s apparently too stupid or naive to see it and that’s completely insulting to him.

Again – and I cannot stress this enough – until this very moment I have been nothing but kind and humble towards Blake’s mother. When she cornered me in her kitchen a few years ago (the last time we went to Michigan) to literally tell me that Blake is such & such a way and that I’m holding him back from his true potential, I took it in stride and never fought back or stood up for myself or anything. I just took it. (I’m not good with confrontation.) She pulled a similar move in my own kitchen a few years ago as well and it was the same thing, I just said something neutral and walked out of the room. I have never been hostile or negative or anything like that towards this woman EVER and as I said, within the past two years here I was being honest and thoughtful and trying to build a relationship and the second she gets Blake alone, she tears me down.

I think Blake was more upset about the things she said than I was. I was hurt by them, yes, because I honestly thought we were building a relationship here and her actions were genuine and when I found out they were just an act, it stung because I was making an honest effort…and it apparently got me nowhere. When Blake got home, he said that he’d let the dust settle from the funeral and when things had calmed down, he’d e-mail his mom and settle this shit once and for all. I don’t know how many e-mails have flown back and forth at this point, but the first e-mail went out last weekend and they’re still battling it out so who knows when this is going to be over or if it’s ever going to be over. I mean godammit, Blake and I have been together for 8 fucking years, we have a solid relationship and a happy marriage that works, I’m here to stay. At some point she’s going to have to accept that and accept me or we’re going to have no choice but to live our life without her – and that’s pretty much what Blake’s been saying in the e-mails from what I understand.

What he’s leaving out though, is that she also needs to accept Blake for who he is. Blake has a job he loves in a field he loves and he even acknowledges the fact that he wouldn’t be where he is right now – and be happy – without me. Blake’s mom, according to Blake, expects him to have made his first million by now and have a trophy wife who will host Superbowl parties, attend dinner meetings and have a power career of her own. While we’re happy and accept each other for who we are, we have Blake’s mom who sees both of us as nothing but a disappointment.

And did you know that when I was in the hospital in 2006 because I was having a psychotic episode Brooke’s advice to Blake was to pack up the kids, drive down to her house in Michigan and fucking LEAVE ME? I mean what reality does this woman even live in?

She says she doesn’t even know me because she’s only met me about a dozen times, but at the same time, she’s been reading my site since Blake and I got together and I’ve most definitely met her more than a dozen times and while she claims she hasn’t gotten to know me well enough to love me, she’s certainly displayed that she’s gotten to know me well enough to dislike me and feel negatively towards me.

Blake’s been saying this the whole time we’ve been married: that there is nothing I can do to please his mother because I’m simply not the woman he was supposed to marry. Right now he’s told me to stop even trying to make an effort with her because the two years I  did try obviously got me nowhere so what’s the point? He says his mother needs to examine her feelings toward me and resolve them on her own before we can move forward and until she does that, I’ll never get anywhere with her.

I don’t know how long this is going to take. I don’t know how long this e-mail war is going to last. All I know is that I’m staying the fuck out of it and leaving it between them because there’s no place for me in this discussion even though it’s pretty much about me. I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore – I thought I was doing it! I’d rather do nothing than misstep and at this point in time I simply give up.

The other aspect of this is that Brooke and her husband Charlie want to come up and visit but until this situation is resolved somehow that simply can’t happen. How can I have someone in my home who feels so hostile toward me? Why should I have to put up with being put down in my own comfort zone? The fact is, I don’t have to and I’m not going to and Blake completely agrees.

To expand upon that topic, according to Blake, Brooke and Charlie don’t like coming up here because they get bored. Well if you’re so bored and your grandchildren aren’t entertaining enough, then don’t fucking come up! In a recent phone conversation with his mom, which sort of turned into a fight – while he was at WORK – she said that Charlie would like to do home improvement projects with us and got all offended when Blake said that if we needed to work on the house at all, we’d probably enlist the help of Phil (my dad) because he’s only an hour & a half away and he does this shit for a living, every single day and has a truck if we need lumber or drywall and a million other reasons. Well Brooke took great offense to this for some reason and started a fight about it, saying how Charlie (her husband, if that wasn’t clear) put in someone’s window in something like, an hour or whatever and Blake was just like “where the fuck is this even coming from?” I mean the fact of the matter is, we don’t really DO home improvement projects and we’re certainly not going to call on Charlie to drive 5 hours up here to like, paint our living room ceiling or tile our shower. We’re not going to start a home improvement project when we have company coming (them) and we don’t have the money to just start a home improvement project when they want to come up just so Charlie will be entertained. It just doesn’t make any sense.

But where did this all come from? Well I talked to Blake shortly after his mom had called and he told me about it and I told him exactly where it was coming from: that day or the day before I’d made a post about us moving on Live Journal and how we’d need to fix up our house a bit to sell it and that Wayne had offered to help. THAT is where it all came from, I’m fairly certain. But the thing Blake and I both wonder is: does Charlie even know she’s saying all of this stuff on his behalf? We kind of doubt it. Charlie, as far as I’ve ever been able to tell and Blake agrees, is a pretty laid back, go with the flow, sit & chat kinda guy. It was certainly news to both of us that he suddenly wanted to help us drywall our bathroom because he’s bored out of his skull when he comes up otherwise.

The other issue with them coming up, according to these phone calls Blake gets from his mother while he’s at work, is that it’s too expensive. See, they can’t stay at our house because 1) Our house is very small and our futon isn’t very comfortable, 2) Charlie’s apparently allergic to our dogs and 3) I don’t really want to be alone in the house with them when Blake & the kids go to school and work because his mom corners me, talks down to me and puts me down, so that means they have to stay at a hotel or do what they did last time they came up (for a week) and get a time share somewhere. And this is apparently where the boredom sets in. While the kids are at school and Blake’s at work, they’re left to their own devices and they get bored. I don’t really know what I can do about that. If it were me, I’d do some Googling to see what was around and find something to do, but by the sounds of it, that thought’s never crossed Brooke’s mind. She’d rather complain that they’re bored.

So if it’s boring and too expensive, then I say don’t fucking come up! Plain & simple. If it’s such a chore, such a bother for you to come up to spend money only to not have a good time, then why bother? I mean I don’t have a solution to either problem and neither does Blake. I’m sorry my house isn’t bigger? I’m sorry Charlie’s allergic to my dogs? I’m sorry our kids aren’t entertaining enough for you? I mean what are we supposed to say to that?

What comes to mind is what my mother used to say to me when I was a kid and complained of boredom. She said, rather nastily I might add, “I’m not your entertainer!” and dammit I’m not. If you can’t keep yourself occupied, that isn’t my problem. Complaining about it to us isn’t going to solve your issue, you have to be proactive and go see what’s out there or I dunno, stay home!

I don’t know how to move forward from here. Everything is so convoluted at this point that I worry there’s no turning back. The harder Blake pushes the subject, I think the more his mother is going to resent me, but at the same time, I think he has no other choice than to bring this all up to the surface and address it rather than smile while staring daggers, know what I mean?

And of course Brooke is going to read this post and probably flip out but at this point I don’t even care. Blake doesn’t either. He told me tonight to write whatever I felt I needed to write and I think that’s what I’ve done here, as far as his mother is concerned. Until this whole thing blows over or runs its course or does whatever it’s going to do, I’m just gonna lay low, observe and, for the most part, keep my damn mouth shut on the subject. I wish I had a crystal ball so I knew how this was going to play out, but I don’t and I hate not knowing what to expect, I hate not knowing what to do. Is this post going to make anything better? Definitely not, but I’m sick and tired of pretending this aspect of my life doesn’t exist when it’s been a problem for the entire 8 years Blake and I have been together. It’s a constant drain on both of us and a huge source of anxiety for me. Every time I even think of Blake getting another e-mail from his mom, I have to pop an Ativan because my stomach knots up.

But enough about THAT drama I’ve said what I need to say right now and that’s just what is going on and yeah, Brooke will be making an appearance in my writings again at some point, but that’s enough for now. In the meantime, wanna know what else is going on in my life? Well my friend Jesse has pretty much abandoned me. I’ve sent him e-mails, I’ve written on his Facebook wall several times, I’ve sent him messages on Yahoo, I’ve tried to add him to Last.fm but he won’t add me back….I haven’t seen him since like, the winter and I don’t even know why this is happening. Blake’s talked to him and Jesse claims he’s not mad at Blake or myself, he’s just been “busy” and “doesn’t get online very often anymore”.

Blake went over to Jesse’s house on Saturday to retrieve the CDs he’d borrowed from us because I’m so convinced he’s distancing himself from us on purpose I wanted to get them back before he moved or something and he was apparently all sunshine and lollipops. He said he’d get online and e-mail me, but so far that hasn’t happened and I don’t expect it will.

I don’t like thinking bad things about my friends, but the only reason I can think of for Jesse blowing us off like this is the fact that I don’t smoke pot anymore, so I can’t be his stoner buddy and there’s no smoking in our house anymore so we can’t sit around smoking and talking like we used to. He used to come over at least twice a week, I’d talk to him usually every day on Yahoo, what happened?

The last time I talked to him was on Yahoo at the end of June because I asked him to come to the Hypercube event with us and he said he’d ask for that day off and we haven’t spoken since despite my attempts. Something’s going on there and I don’t know what and while it used to bother me, I’m at the point where I guess Jesse’s been moved into the “acquaintance” category and out of the “friend” category for the time being and that’s why I wanted all my CDs back. It was a “closure” kinda deal for me. Now Jesse can fuck off and do his own thing and I’m not even going to worry about it anymore. If I see him in the grocery store, I’ll talk to him, but I’m not gonna chase him down anymore or make myself crazy wondering what I did wrong. I’m just going to take him at his word that I didn’t do anything wrong and leave it at that.

In other news, Alex and I had our first fight last week. Here’s what happened: Blip.fm posted on Twitter excessively drives me nuts and Ronny is the worst offender on my list. But I love him so I just put up with it and grumble to myself when he’s on a Blip marathon and scroll past them or ignore Twitter until he’s gone to bed. But one day last week, I checked my Facebook live feed and there, from Ronny were a bunch of Blips. Now here’s the other thing about Ronny and I, for some reason Ronny tends to bring out the snark in me, so I commented on one of the Blips on Facebook and said something like “Are you seriously going to make me put up with these here too?” thinking he was posting tweets to Facebook and not realizing it was a Blip application that I could block. I thought in order to not see them, I would have to block Ronny altogether and I didn’t want to have to do that.

So anyway, I got busy talking to Blake or doing something, I can’t remember, and when I opened up TweetDeck, here were these bitchy, passive-aggressive Blips from Alex that were most definitely directed at me. So me, always one to make matters better because I’m talented like that, I posted a Blip of my own…of the Bloodhound Gang’s “I Hope You Die” and mimicked one of Alex’s passive-aggressive Blips in my message to which Alex replied “……..” and then “You’re a real bitch sometimes,” or something to that effect. I replied with “At least I’m honest,” and then a few second later I said something about how I’d rather be a bitch upfront than a passive-aggressive one and that’s when Alex announced that she was too “tired and cranky for this bull” and that was the last I heard from her on Twitter.

So after that I checked my e-mail and there were Facebook notifications where Ronny and Alex had commented on my original Facebook Blip comment saying that it was an app and I could block it and that no one was “forcing” me to do anything. I commented back, even though both of them had gone to bed, that I hadn’t realized it was an app, that I thought I’d have to block Ronny altogether and I apologized for the misunderstanding. Then, later that night I got thinking about it and while yes, Alex was a bitch too, I started it, so I decided to be the first to apologize so we could forget this ever happened. So, I texted Alex with “I’m sorry. I love you.” at like, 1am so she’d get it in the morning and when I woke up the next day, there was a text on my phone from Alex saying the same thing. Everything’s cool now and I think we just caught each other on bad days, but it was just a weird situation because Alex and I had never fought before and I’m glad we have the kind of relationship where we can just apologize to each other and let bygones be bygones. I was proud of us that day. So many women love to let drama like that play out for as long as possible and make it snowball and I really dig that neither she nor I are that type of woman. Or maybe we are a little bit, but at least we both value our friendship enough to just step back and be cool about things. I love Alex.

Saturday night, which those who follow me on Twitter already know, Blake & I went over to Wayne & Judy’s to play euchre and drink a little bit…or in their case, drink a lot. Apparently they started drinking at around 6pm, we showed up at 9pm. Blake & I don’t really drink that much or that often, so he had a 6-pack of beer and I had two 4-packs of Mike’s Hard lemonade. Wayne’s one of these guys who thinks men are superior to women so he always wants it to be men against women and…Judy & I beat them 5 games-0. Wayne knows the game now and at least 3 times renegged and once he decided to go alone on a hand that had NO trump whatsoever. He said “Blake, ya gotta trust me, this hand is ours,” and Blake was like “Wayne, if you don’t have the best hand ever and win this, I’m gonna punch you,”…and then it turned out he had NO trump while Blake had a hand that was almost entirely trump. Since Blake couldn’t really punch Wayne, I did. Later that night, as Wayne got more and more drunk, he wobbled upstairs and when he came down he started bitching at Judy that they need to change the plate cover on the light switch in the bathroom because when he’s drunk he can never find the switch to turn it on. (Their light switch cover is bumpy and has frogs on it and it makes the switch a bit recessed.) And then he tells us that as he was peeing in the dark, all of a sudden he started peeing on the seat. So we were all like, “why didn’t you have the seat up?” and he slurred “oh I never do that, I don’t have to” and I was like, “well if you’re pissing on the seat then apparently you do!” None of us were sure if he was serious or not about peeing on the seat, so all 4 of us went up there to investigate and lo & behold there was piss all over the seat and a huge puddle all over the floor. I don’t think he actually got ANY in the bowl. From that point on, especially because they have a cracked, squishy toilet seat, I went over to my house to pee. But it didn’t really matter because by that point Wayne was so drunk he was practically passing out at the kitchen table, so shortly after the bathroom incident, Blake and I left to go back to our house and while I tried to drink the rest of my Mike’s Hard and actually get drunk like everyone else, I just wasn’t into it so I dumped mine. We tried to play a game of Monopoly but I was just too tired and not really feeling well so we packed it up and I went to bed instead.

Sunday I was hung over which I think is totally unfair since I didn’t even get drunk the night before. Because I felt like crap, I basically just slept most of the day and rested up for the Mad Men finale (which was excellent).

And then of course, after Mad Men was over, Blake and I started our marathon conversation on blogging, creativity and life in general which brings us back full circle. The fact of the matter is, I’m not painting right now because I’m discouraged but that doesn’t mean I can’t be creative in other ways. I’ve got a short story bordering on a novella sitting here that I could be working on. I don’t know if anything will ever come of it, but it’s here waiting for me to write it. I have a million stories from my past left to tell and a new audience to tell some of the ones I’ve told before to. There’s no reason for me to remain in this rut and to become stagnant, waiting around for something to happen.

Another thing my mom used to say about boredom was that only boring people get bored, and the thing is, I’m not boring, I have this wicked imagination to keep me entertained so I might as well use it.

And I think that’s all I have to say.

PS. This entry is 6300 words long.

PPS. This entry was supposed to be posted at about 3:30am but our ISP had an internet outage so that’s why it’s being posted this morning.

A new month of Buttercup begins today! Check it out! (Especially our hot ass cover. ;o))

Buttercup is an independent e-zine for persons seeking a female-focused atmosphere that celebrates diversity, individuality and creativity.
We launched September 1st!
Come join the party!

I can no longer find copies of the two articles I did for Marketing Magazine in 2003 online anymore and I wanted to post them on my site for posterity and to have on here for the Hypercube contest. But they’re gone! (I have a hard copy of one of them, but I’m not sure where it is and it’d be too big to scan anyway.)

So if anyone’s interested and your Google-fu is better than mine (or you have access to back issues of Marketing Magazine), here’s the info:

He Wuz a Sk8er Boi…
[Note: The editor picked the title proving my article's point that advertisers are out of touch with the internet generation.]

Article Abstract: Advertising agencies must pay attention to blogs to ensure better marketing to the teenage consumer.
Author: Crittenden, Sunny
Publisher: Rogers Publishing Ltd.
Publication Name: Marketing Magazine
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 1196-4650
Year: 2003

Adventures in e-Tailing: Why Can’t Canadian Websites Get Their e-Tailing Acts Together?

Article Abstract: Many Canadian retail companies lack user-friendly websites for online shopping of their products. Canadian retailers need to make shopping through the Internet easier for their customers.
Author: Crittenden, Sunny
Publisher: Rogers Publishing Ltd.
Publication Name: Marketing Magazine
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 1196-4650
Year: 2003

So there is the information for my only two publishing claims to fame, unless you count being published in the Literary Guild book put out by the Durham Region Board of Education when I was in grade 4. As a result of those two articles and their popularity, Marketing Magazine offered me my own column, which I accepted ($350 for 800 words I would have otherwise written for free on my blog anyway? Fuck yeah!) but due to restructuring and budget cuts, it never happened. I haven’t tried to publish anything since, on any topic.

A warning: you may be a little shocked at some of the language in this book, and that’s another weaknes of mine. I tell people who come to my cooking class that sometimes I can be a little bawdy and I sure hope that don’t upset them. But I’m my father’s daughter, and I’m banking on one things, and I’m not budging on this: my God has a sense of humor even if what I say has a four-letter word in it. I think He’d want me to laugh. What’s in my heart is not irreverence but a full knowledge that God’s laughing too.

- Paula Deen, It Ain’t All About the Cookin’

Oooooh my god I’m so tired. For some reason, which I have to discuss with my shrink, I can’t seem to sleep for more than 4 hours at a time anymore and it’s bugging the crap out of me. I don’t know if it’s because medication A has stopped working or because medication B was increased or what, but as I said, it’s bugging the crap out of me. I’m kinda lucky in that my non-schedule is very flexible and I can pretty much sleep whenever I want/need to but this is getting ridiculous.

All last week this woman named Tracey kept calling the house for me and leaving messages to call her back, but as I tend to do when that happens, I ignored the messages, especially since I was fairly certain this was my new caseworker who I’m loathe to deal with. Especially since she sounded annoying on the messages. Well, I finally called her back yesterday and now I have to go see her on Monday. To be perfectly honest here, and I told her this, I have no idea what her job is or what she’s supposed to be doing for me. I think she’s supposed to do stuff with the immersion therapy and helping me set goals and work on time management, but I’m not sure and I guess I’ll find out on Monday. At 10:30 in the morning. IN THE MORNING, PEOPLE. Ugh.

And as much as I’m bitching, when it was suggested by my shrink that I get a caseworker, I agreed and I do need one…probably…so there’s really nothing to bitch about. Except for the whole getting up before noon thing. (Poor baby, I know, I’ll live. I’ll just be very very cranky.)

Last night I fell asleep within the first few minutes of 90210 (the horror!), so I’ll have to catch it on Ninja Video later this week, but that means I fell asleep at 9pm, Blake marched me to bed at 10pm and lo & behold, I was awake at 2am, laying in bed, wishing I could shut my brain off and sleep through the night. But, that didn’t happen, so by 2:45am I was crawling out of bed and into my studio to find something to do.

Due to the fact that this Hypercube contest has pretty much consumed my life for the past 2 weeks I’ve been seriously neglecting my artwork and I decided last night that I needed to rectify that, so I threw on a movie, lit some lavender incense and got to work on the girls who are going to adorn two of the canvases I posted pictures of about two weeks ago. The 4 canvases are a series that I have yet to name, but the two girls I’m working on now are a ballerina and a flower girl, while the two I have still to work on are going to be a princess and a cheerleader. For the latter two though, I’m still waiting for one element for one of them and still trying to find a quote I need for he other. The ballerina and flower girl ideas are complete though, so all I have to do is actually get them on canvas and they’re done.

It took me all night to draw them, then it took me all morning to shade and paint their faces. Later tonight if I’m still up (I’ve only had a 3 hour nap since 2am), I’ll work on their hair, dresses and finally, their arms (which is the tricky part I hate doing).

Here’s a picture of the ballerina with just the shading done (with watercolour pencil – oh how I wish Inktense pencils had a proper pink/yellow ochre, it would make my life a whole lot easier), the flower girl is on the right, not shaded:

Then I go over the shading with a Caucasian flesh colour mixed with glazing liquid and lightened up, in the case of the flower girl, with white. (So the ballerina has straight up flesh colour + glazing liquid, then I added white to do the flower girl because I wanted her to be more pale, not sure if the picture conveys that well, though.):

I still have to go over the flower girl’s eyes with black, she kinda looks a bit cracked out in person at the moment, but other than that, their faces are finished and I’m ready to go onto the next steps.

After procrastinating on this project for the past two weeks due to being consumed with Hypercube stuff it felt good to actually do something productive. I’m not sure what a lit a fire under my ass today, but progress was definitely on the agenda.

Due to the glittered backgrounds with these 4 paintings I don’t think I’m going to be able to make prints from them and because I think the ideas are so solid, especially…and y’know, I’m not gonna jinx my productive streak with money talk.

Onto other things…like Hypercube stuff…

Currently I’m ranked #8 and Blake is #9, which is okay. That’s not to say to stop voting, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF KITTENS DO NOT STOP VOTING, it just means that A) several of the people in the top 10 with us are french and thus, are sort of in a totally different category than we are and B) we found out yesterday that votes only account for 20% of your overall score. I think by being in the top 10 or maybe even the top 20, you’re gonna earn 100% of that 20% so as far as I’m concerned, unless something really bad happens in the next 2 weeks or people stop voting, we’re probably golden in getting that 20%. That leaves 80%, which is comprised of (as far as the e-mail @thehypercube sent out yesterday) “uniqueness, creativity, personality, enthusiasm and a wide variety of talents or approaches“.

Well, I’m unique, there’s no denying that. Got the creativity part pretty much down. Personality? Admittedly, I may be an acquired taste. Enthusiasm? On a scale of 1 to Telma Costa, I’d give myself an 8. I’ve shown up for every Tweetup, I’ve participated in all things Twitter and Facebook, I’ve answered 95% of the Questions of the Day, I’ve given people pep talks along the way, I’ve helped people out where I can, I’ve spammed the entire friggin’ internet DAILY with all things Cube…yeah, I’m a pretty solid 8, I think.  As far as the “wide variety of talents or approaches” part, that’s tough. Painting’s not that unique of a talent, neither is writing or blogging, social creativity however, is. I think, as my votes reflect, I’m kinda good at that and according to the contest’s own press release “social creativity” is what they’re looking to reward. My approach from the very beginning, as it says on my canvas that hasn’t changed since day 1, is to just be myself  – warts & all – and at the end of this thing it’s going to come down to whether or not I’m what they’re looking for. If I am, awesome, I get a car! If I’m not, then I’m not and there’s nothing I can really do about it. I’m no worse for wear. Truthfully though, I feel pretty good about my chances. Or at least I did until yesterday. Yesterday I may have sunk myself. :o/

Yesterday @thehypercube asked us 5 questions in regards to what to do after the contest ends and my answers were of the “zag” variety to others’ “zigs”. At first I didn’t really think much of it, I mean, I’m an honest person, lip service isn’t in my repertoire so I just answered the questions with whatever came out of my head at the time. Not all of my feelings on the things asked were rainbows and sunshine. Here’s what was asked:

1. Would you like to keep the community going?
2. What would you like to do with the community? Cube spotting, friending each other on the site, monthly give-aways?
3. What would you use the site for? Creative forum? Keep using the canvases? Open canvases up to everyone?
4. Would you want to keep me, or the twitter account, or would you guys like to take turns ‘owning’ the moderation/twitter account?
5. What would make the site more useful to you?

Here were my answers, in 140 character format because we had to reply to them on Twitter:

1. Yes, but “the community” for me really only encompasses Twitter and I have no brand loyalty to Nissan to blog on their site…

…without good reason, or waste words on a Nissan forum or even keep a canvas up. I’ll only have a Nissan connection if I have…

…a Cube and unless I win one, that’s simply not going to happen. So “yes” with a lot of reservations.

2. I dunno what “cube spotting” is, I can already “friend” people on LJ where I’ve been for 10 years, might stick around for…

…monthly giveaways but other than a Cube, I can’t see myself being all that interested in anything Nissan could give me.

3. I hate the canvases. I think they’re buggy and awful and I’m only using one to win a Cube. I wouldn’t use one otherwise.

I already belong to 3 other “creative forums” that I’ll go back to once the contest is closed…

…unless I’m a winner and then I’ll be the biggest Nissan creativity cheerleader there ever was. Opening canvases up to…

…everyone means too many canvases. I mean really, if the contest isn’t happening, are people really going to get “exposure”…

…that amounts to anything from a Nissan canvas? I know I won’t and I know that even with the contest I’m not.

4. I think @thehypercube should always be you or an agency/Nissan representative.

As long as the Twitter account didn’t get spammy, I’d still probably follow.

5. I don’t honestly know. I am in love with the idea of blogging for Nissan’s newest brand should I be a winner, but I wouldn’t…

…blog on the site otherwise, so blog wouldn’t be useful to me. A forum wouldn’t be useful to me, nor more canvases.

I just don’t see the site as being possibly useful to me unless I’m there for a purpose and the only purpose I foresee is…

…if I’m a winner and I’m obligated to blog on the site at least twice a month for a year. There’s nothing else to keep me there.

See what I mean? But the thing is, I was being honest and not just from a personal perspective, but from an ad school dropout perspective. Sure a LOT of people were like “yeah! let’s keep the community going and add this & that and do this and that and blah blah blah!” but the fact of the matter is, this is Angie’s (the creative director behind @thehypercube) job so if this is all lip service because people are afraid to hurt their chances in the contest by saying anything negative or anti-community and it DOESN’T work out? She could be in trouble.

And the thing is, MOST of the community aspect happening in this contest is on Twitter alone, it has nothing to do with the site. The community was there before the site even had anything on it, before we even got our profile e-mails, before a single canvas went up. And I’m sorry to say, but of the 500 people we have competing in this thing, how many do you really think are going to stick around when they’re not one of the 50 chosen? How many people, in the grand scheme of 500, are REALLY into the community aspect? We have our little core group of folks on Twitter who help each other, talk every day and fuck around at Tweetups, but that’s a tiny fragment of the overall 500. Also a tiny fragment of this 500 (?) are Cube enthusiasts. The majority of the people – and believe me, I go look at every single canvas every 2 days – just want a free car. They don’t want a Cube specifically, they want a free pair of wheels. Hell, the amount of people who still think they’re trying to win a “hypercube” is STAGGERING. The majority are in it for themselves and that’s a fact. They’re not gonna stick around after the contest is over without incentive…

…and there’s been talk of the possibility of giving away more cars a year from now, which is all fine & good, but I won’t be sticking around for that contest. If what I did this time around wasn’t good enough, what I do a year from now isn’t going to be good enough either, keeping in mind that my entire strategy – which they themselves are pushing – is to be myself. The other give-away stuff that was mentioned was like, car packages, like…if you didn’t get shag carpeting on your car this time around, you can win some. Or a new stereo. Or a spoiler. Well, if I don’t win a Cube, what am I going to do with that stuff? That’s not incentive for me to stick around. I can’t afford a Cube, so the only way I’m going to have one is if I win one and if I win one, I’m contractually obligated to blog on the site twice a month for a year, so as I said, I’ll be the biggest brand cheerleader the world has ever seen.

As I said in my response yesterday, I already belong to 3 different creativity forums, 4 if you want to count I Have an Idea, and all of those forums are going to serve my art business better than the Nissan site ever could. And unless there’s a damn good reason, I don’t really want my stuff under the banner of a corporate brand, especially when the only “benefit” to me doing so is what…extra traffic to my site? Well here’s the thing about that: I’ve sent Nissan 7930+ visits to their site, but they’ve only sent me 189. Who’s benefiting whom? And how is that going to change when there aren’t a billion people being spammed with the url every day because there’s a contest going on and people want votes? The fact of the matter is, a potential client isn’t going to seek out my services (or anyone else’s, in my opinion) on the Hypercube website. There are a million other websites that already serve that purpose that people already use.

I wouldn’t blog on the Nissan site without compensation. Why should I? I’ve been doing this a long time ago and I learned the hard way that you don’t just give your content away, especially not to a multinational company that can afford to pay you. Plus, bloggers outside of the 50 winners would take away from those chosen, in part, for their ability to blog about the product.

A forum for Cube enthusiasts open to everyone? Sure, I can see that working, although I’m only going to be a Cube enthusiast, as I said, if I win one and I think the majority of the people in this contest are with me on that, so is it worth it? I dunno.

I hate that I’m so negative on the site changing and staying open to everyone/the general public once the contest is done, but I think it should run its course with this contest, have the contest end on a high note, have the 50 winners blog on it for a year and serve as advertising for the brand and then maybe in a year, repeat the contest again. I think anything beyond that and you run the risk of the naysayers (and  there are many) being right about this whole “never been done” “social media experiment”. You wanna pop, not fizzle. Go out on a high note. Or even AFTER the contest is over, a few months later. THEN play with adding things to the site, but distance it from the Hypercube contest. I like the idea someone threw out of giving new Cube owners a code or something to access the site and maybe post on a forum or something like that. But that’s an idea completely separate, in my mind, from the Hypercube contest.

I’d just really hate to see a really interesting, never been done before “social media experiment” be ruined by pushing it further than it can feasibly go.

ANNNNNND there would have been pictures of Cubes all throughout this verbose recap of yesterday’s thoughts, but I asked twice on Twitter more than 3 & a half hours ago for the link to the gallery of pictures Nissan provided us to use because I couldn’t find it myself on the Cube Club Canada forum and our “amazing, groundbreaking Hypercube community”, including @thehypercube, failed to help me out. So, uh…there are no pictures. [Pretend there's snark here. Originally there was but I thought better of it.]

Anyway, Blake told me that perhaps being honest with my answers yesterday was a bad move and if that’s the case then I guess elaborating on those thoughts in THIS post was a REALLY bad move, but whatever, I’m just trying to be realistic and avert disaster. Whether anyone believes it or not, I care a great deal as to the outcome of this “experiment” and win or lose, as a student of advertising I don’t want to see it fail. I hope I’ve done a good enough job of conveying that and it is my hope that I won’t be penalized for having an opinion that may differ from others.

So since my dinner’s here and Lost is on, I guess that’s all I really have to say. Please please please keep voting, there are only 17 days left, and before I finish this entry, lemme throw up a couple of fansigns:

Sara from Vancouver thinks I need a Cube!

Lexi from Barrie, Ontario not only thinks that I’d look good in a Cube, but she also thinks that you should vote every single day and send me more fansigns!

Here’s the info:

Register to vote at Hypercube.ca, log in and then click on each of these links to vote for our audition canvases:

Sunny’s Audition Canvas | Blake’s Audition Canvas

See? Easy! That took a whopping what, 30 seconds at most from start to finish? And guess what? You can do this EVERY DAY to greatly improve our rank which greatly improves our chances of winning the cars!

On Facebook? Join our event and invite friends! We need all the help we can get!

Another way to help is by sending me fansigns to put in blog posts on my site. If you need inspiration on what to do for your fansign, please visit the gallery of those before you and take a look. :o)

Thanks in advance and a huge thanks to those who have been voting every day and supporting us all along. <3

See, a blogger is a kind of writer and lately I’ve been relying on pictures rather than my words to convey the goings on in my life and to be perfectly honest, even I find that bad form, especially when my blog here is so freaking b0rked that I can’t even format pictures properly. (I wish I knew why…I can format pictures within and around text, like a magazine, on my end, but when I go to publish, it loses all formatting. It’s been this way since the beginning, it’s extremely frustrating and I don’t know how to fix it.)

Anyway, I was going to do yet another post full of pictures from the Elmvale Maple Syrup Festival that happened on Saturday and which I attended, but fuck it, go look at the pictures yourself, I put them in a gallery for that express purpose. That’s not to say this post won’t contain some of those pictures, it’s just that it won’t contain all of them.

For some ungodly reason, I woke up at around 6am on Saturday and sat at the computer “doing stuff” (aka Twittering about being up at such an ungodly hour) until around 7 when I decided that I would go down to the Maple Syrup festival by myself and help my mom set up her booth. My family was still sleeping so going by myself was really my only option and by the look of the sky at the time, it appeared as though Mother Nature was going to unleash her hellacious fury all over our fine town so I figured my mom would appreciate the help in getting set up before that happened.

Now, let me be clear on some things here before we go any further. I have been working on my immersion therapy and re-learning how to do things that I forgot how to do in my agoraphobic state since the end of February. It may not seem like a big deal to anyone else that I was A) up at 6am, B) got showered and dressed by myself, C) made the decision to walk downtown by myself and D) actually follow through. This is progress that even my shrink would probably be surprised by. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it feels as though I’m finally waking up from a nightmare.

Well, my shower started waking people in the house up, primarily my 10-year-old daughter who was eager to get on the midway and suddenly, even though I was dressed and ready to go, I had to wait for her to get her shit together because she wanted to come with me. And she took FOREVER.

As she got ready, Mother Nature began to unleash her fury, completely negating my entire reason for wanting to go to the Maple Syrup Festival early, let alone at all. Usually this is an event I skip, but this was the first year my mom, who’s an artist by the way, had a booth in it and I knew her “new” boyfriend (of 3 years) who I haven’t met before was going to be there and it really was high time that I met this man.

So I waited and waited and waited for Madison to get her shit together and finally we both set out towards town under an umbrella as the world crashed down all around us. Now again, this is a major milestone. I went outside the house, more or less by myself, twice in the same week. I have no idea what’s gotten into me, maybe it’s just the weather, but it appears as though, once again, that I’m making progress.

But at the same time it all seems so meaningless. I’m the kind of person where if it’s not productive, it’s not worth doing, so while I see that walking down to the Maple Syrup Festival is a major milestone, I kind of don’t give a shit because so what? Did I enjoy the walk? No. Did I do anything productive on the walk like take pictures? No. Did I do anything productive once I got there? No. Did this benefit me in any way? No. Did it inconvenience me? Absolutely. The fact of the matter is, I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to go. I made myself go and I did so for the sake of other people. It’s difficult for me to see that as a success. (As an aside, holy fuck do I hate this keyboard.)

So anyway, we get to the Maple Syrup Festival, I find my mom’s booth and then…I stood around feeling like I was in the way while she and her boyfriend, John, wiped things off (the storm had passed by this point) and set things up. Then I sat around some more and made idle chit-chat with the two of them, took a few pictures, and absent-mindedly talked to my mom a bit about her website, which I created and should theoretically be maintaining because she can’t do it herself, except I don’t so it remains unmaintained. As this was all going on, people started to fill the streets and come by my mom’s booth and more than that, my mom’s booth was situated right in front of the community centre where the pancake breakfast was happening all day and there was a LONG LONG LONG line forming and everyone in that LONG LONG LONG line was looking into my mother’s booth and inadvertently at me.

People looking at me is something I’m not entirely comfortable with and is one of the reasons I stopped leaving the house in the first place. Now let me be clear about something here before I start sounding like a delicate flower here, I am currently undergoing immersion therapy, which means I’m supposed to be immersing myself in situations that make me uncomfortable like the situation above. At the same time, it’s not all crowds that make me uncomfortable or anxious and it’s not all people looking at me that makes my skin crawl, it’s only in places or situations where I don’t have a defined role. Sitting in my mom’s booth, I was just sitting there taking up space, whereas, at my art show in October I was “an artist”, I had a defined role, and thus the crowd and attention was more bearable.

So after sitting around for what seemed like forever, Blake and our son, Wes, showed up and we decided to go to Steelers, which was just down the street, for breakfast. This is yet another milestone: eating in public. Especially in an extremely crowded restaurant. It wasn’t so bad though, they seated us in the back which was mostly away from the rest of the patrons. So we ate, which was pretty uneventful and then we went back to my mom’s booth where I hung out again while Blake took the kids to the midway. (While I was feeling particularly brave on Saturday, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was dealing with screaming kids and the midway.)

My mom needed a pee break so we walked around some of the booths near the porta-potties while she smoked a cigarette which was such a strange experience. I turned 30 on March 1st and had made a pact with myself when I started smoking at 16 that I couldn’t smoke again after I was 30 and thus, I’ve successfully quit and unless something extremely disasterous happens, I shall remain smoke-free for the rest of my life. Part of quitting smoking though, was secluding myself from it completely and my mom having a cigarette on Saturday was the first smoke I’d come into contact with in almost 2 months. It’s funny how your senses work, I mean I didn’t expect it to bother me at all, but it was the worst smelling thing ever and the smoke kept blowing towards me and I could feel myself breathing it and it REALLY bothered me. In that moment I couldn’t believe that I’d done this idiotic thing myself for almost half my life. How did I not notice how vile it really was? How is that possible? And this was outside! I think if I was in a confined space with a smoker at this point, I probably wouldn’t be able to handle the stench or the tightening in my lungs I felt as I was inhaling the smoke second-hand. And to think, people PAY CRAZY AMOUNTS OF MONEY for this priviledge that’s disgusting, makes their teeth look gross AND is killing them. Wtf, are we all retarded?

Anyway, during our little walk, my mom bought me cotton candy and I waited for her to pee and then we went back to her booth where I sat around some more and made awkward small talk with John until Blake and Wes came back and informed me that the midway did, indeed, have Tiny Tom donuts which I absolutely live for.

For the uninitiated, Tiny Tom donuts are these itty bitty donuts that they make fresh right in the booth, which they then put in a paper bag and cover in flavoured sugar. I always go for the cinnamon, personally.

Soooooooooooo Blake and I went to the midway, leaving the kids at my mom’s booth, on a mission for Tiny Tom’s donuts for both myself, the kids and my mom and surprisingly I did okay even though the midway was a zoo. Then we brought the donuts back, cutting through several people’s yards as to avoid the crowd down the street to the arena where the midway was located, we ate, then I bought some maple syrup ($23 for a litre!) and then I decided to go home while Blake & the kids went to the midway again.

Yes, I walked home. All by myself. And when I got home, I slept.

When I woke up it was about 4pm and Blake & the kids were back. I screwed around on the internet for a bit and then asked Blake what he thought about a trip to Barrie for Starbucks since, y’know, we hadn’t spent enough money that day. So we all hopped in the car and off to Barrie we went.

Along the way I saw all kinds of things I’d love to photograph and show the world and I thought about winning the Cube and all the things I could do if I actually did win. Everything I saw reminded me of the Cube and the freedom that funny looking little car embodies to me.

Finally we got to Starbucks, I got my “vanilla milkshake thing with whipped cream” and Blake got…some kind of coffee concoction and off we went in search of the Nissan dealership just to see where it was, and if they were open, get a couple of Cube booklets. If you’re on Blake’s Twitter, you will have seen the picture of him humping the door, while I – uncharacteristically – took the classier route and took the picture I posted last night.

On our way out of Barrie, we (well…I) decided to stop by Shopper’s Drug Mart (which is a lot like the CVS chain y’all have in the US) where I bought myself some new makeup, new sunglasses (blue! w00t!) and a bunch of other crap. I figured if I was going to do this whole “leaving the house” thing more often, then I should probably make an effort in the makeup department every now and then and most of what I had  at home is really old and the newer stuff I bought a couple of years ago was STOLEN by an ex-friend.

After Shopper’s it was getting pretty late, so we got Blake & the kids pizza and headed home. Then the kids went to bed and I don’t really remember what we did for the rest of the night. We probably dicked around on the internet and begged for votes for the Hypercube contest.

When it was time to go to bed though, I got pretty sad. Overall I had a good day, even though it was a busy, chaotic day completely outside of my routine, but the thing is, along with all of the other things I’m having to re-learn after being secluded and on a non-schedule for so long, I have to learn how to be happy. I’ve said it a million times before but when I was the happiest I’d ever been in my whole entire life, it turned out I was manic, psychotic and had to be hospitalized. So I get suspicious of happy feelings, happy feelings scare me.

But Blake reassured me that it was just a good day, that I wasn’t manic or even close to it and that it was okay to just be happy. So that’s what I did. And then I fell asleep.

I’d totally forgotten about this until I was just looking through my galleries for something else. This was an idea for a story I had a couple of years ago about the colonization of Mars and how I think it would go  down because you see I’m CYNICAL.

Anyway, if interested here’s the first two pages:

To read the rest, start here and keep clicking “next”.

I’m not a science fiction writer. In fact, aside from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I can’t say I’ve ever even read any science fiction, but I don’t make it a habit to limit my mind and my creativity, so I’m cool with letting my brain roam wherever it wants. That day, it happened to be to Mars.

I doubt I’ll ever do anything with this story, it would require a whole lot of geek research I’m not all that interested in, but if anyone wants to option the movie rights, gimme a call. ;o)

LA LA LA LA LA! *twirls*

This week has been uncharacteristically busy and high stress for me with this Hypercube contest and as a result, I’ve suffered a bit of the writer’s block which is also uncharacteristic. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights, especially since the judges have been revealed and I don’t know if they’re watching or not. Normally I have zero problem with an audience, I write for one every day, but these guys can actually affect the course of my life and for that reason they make me very very nervous. o_O

I’m scared to change my Hypercube canvas because I don’t know if the judges have seen it in its current form and I really want them to. (Well, minus the two typos that I’m committed to fixing later on tonight.) I’m scared to make less than stellar blog/LJ posts because there are only 3 judges to 500 people, so who knows when they’re going to drop by my site and what they’re going to read when they get here. Grey Gardens posts aren’t exactly representative of the kind of writing I’m capable of.

I hate that I feel like there needs to be a strategy in the things I do. I hate that even though I said my strategy was just to be myself, that as I feared, it’s probably not enough to win. Have I ever mentioned that I loathe competition? I’m probably the least competitive person on the face of the Earth, it stresses me the fugg out. And I have to do a month of this? And then maybe even lose? Thinking about it makes me feel sick.

So I’m just gonna try to do my thang, okay? Okay.

This week I’ve been going out of the house a bit more with Blake because I’ve been trying to spot one or both of the two Hummers that are in this town. As I’ve mentioned about a million times, we live in a small town outside of Barrie, Ontario called Elmvale that only has a population of 1700. This town is very interesting to me in that it’s in this weird metamorphosis phase where people who work in Barrie are moving here, while senior residents die off, the Gen Y all flee and the farmers don’t seem to know what to make of things. The downtown is dying due to the economy and the giant Wal*Mart they built just 10 minutes away in Wasaga Beach, but at the same time, right across the road from my house, they’re building a subdivision of 300 brand new houses estimated to cost $300,000+ a piece. It’s very interesting for me to watch, having seen this happen before when I lived in Stouffville and Unionville was only a tiny town you visited on Sundays to have ice cream on their historic Main St. Unionville, with its proximity to Markham, exploded and became an upper middle class mini-city with like, CONDOS, while keeping its small town core and I think we’re going to see similar growth in Elmvale as more and more people flee Toronto and find jobs in Barrie.

I find it hilarious that our tiny town of 1700 has a thriving organic food shop in the center of a dying downtown core. Our dollar store went belly up a few months ago, but nope, the organic food store is doing just fine. It’s so strange.

Anyway, there is this couple in town who have his & hers identical Hummers and I see them around town all the time, often filling up at the gas station at the same time.

I’ve been trying to get a picture of them to post here to kind of explain why Blake and I are both vying for our own Cubes, which if you think about it, are kind of like mini Hummers and the juxtaposition of us filling up with gas at the same time as the Hummer people makes my brain laugh so hard I see stars.

But that’s not the only reason, obviously, the real reason is that our 2001 Cavalier is dying and we flat out cannot afford a replacement and I also think I deserve to have my own car and my own life.

The Cavalier is starting to rust quite a bit around the edges and while it’s never really given us any major trouble beyond basic maintenance, the odometer is creeping up towards 300,000 km and we know what’s ahead of us once it clicks over that magic number. Not to mention the fact that the poor Cavalier HAS THE FRIGGIN’ ALPHABET ETCHED ONTO THE SIDE COURTESY OF OUR SON WHEN HE WAS 3.

The fact of the matter is, Blake needs a new car and I really really want one because my life would greatly improve if I had one. Plus to me, it’s not just a car, it’s a Cube. The Cube could not only give me the life I so desperately deserve after being homebound for 7 years, but it’s a car I would be proud to be seen in. Like, I imagine parking it in the parking lot of Curry’s (art supply store) in Barrie and smiling to myself as people watch to see who gets out.

I dunno, maybe that’s stupid.

And it’s kind of funny reading that back to myself because as an agoraphobe attention is the last thing I want. People staring at me typically freaks me out. But at the same time, in the life I had before agoraphobia, before bipolar disorder, I could run around at Scratching Post shows in my underwear in front of hundreds of people and be totally fine. I could do a 30 minute presentation in college in front of 40 people and love every minute of it. I know there’s confidence inside me, I know there’s an attention whore lurking beneath the surface, and maybe the Cube will be the thing that brings her out.

Plus, winning this contest in general will mean I’m good enough, which is something I question every single day. And I don’t necessarily mean good enough as a person, but as a creative person, as a writer. If I win this contest it means Nissan (or I guess the judges) think I’m worthy of basically blogging for them. And that would feel really really good after blogging about my life for no reason and for no recognition or pay for the last 10 years.

I want to have adventures to write about and I want to write about adventures. The Cube is central to this becoming reality.

And that’s all I have to say about the Cube or the contest tonight. Except that…the votes reset at midnight and you can now vote for Blake & I again. If you would be so kind to do so, here’s my audition page link and here’s Blake’s. For other ways you can help us win, please see this post!

Also, here’s today’s fansign from Maggie & Seamus in the US!

In other news I’m way behind on seemingly everything. The canvases I was working on last week (or the week before?) are sitting unfinished in a cupboard in my laundry room and I don’t expect them to be finished any time soon as I feel extremely unmotivated in the ways of art. I’m just not feeling it these days. My most creative time, as far as painting, is in the winter and winter’s pretty much over.

Most years, during the spring and summer I typically take more photographs and write, which seems to hold true this year as well. The unfortunate thing is that writing and taking pictures doesn’t bring me any income and I feel like I have to force these paintings out of me if I want to continue having my own money. Except at the same time, I feel totally against doing that. I feel stuck.

Over the winter I came up with all kinds of grand plans for the life I want to live but as it warms up the less realistic those plans seem. In immersion therapy right now I’m supposed to be walking to the end of the block and back, but I haven’t done it yet. I don’t know why I haven;t done it yet, I just haven’t. It’s not that I’m particularly scared to do it, it’s just that I see no reason to walk to the end of the block, it seems like a pointless exercise. Walking to the end of the driveway seemed like a pointless exercise too, until we got a newspaper subscription because there was a newspaper to go pick up. At the end of the block there’s nothing, I just turn around and come home. Why? That’s so stupid! I’d much rather do big steps, like walk to the post office or the grocery store or wherever but I can’t do that with Lucky because of his separation anxiety and I don’t want to leave him at home. We got him a harness so I could leave him tied up outside of places without him slipping his collar and running back home, but with his incisions from the lumpectomy I can’t use it.

Annnnnnnnnnd I’ve written about this all before.

I just feel off track and I don’t like it but at the same time, I don’t seem to be willing to do anything about it, which I fully acknowledge. It’s me doing this and only I can be the one to change it. And that’s what’s so frustrating. I don’t know why I’m so unmotivated. It’s not that I’m particularly scared, just apathetic. These little baby steps seem so pointless to me I don’t even want to deal with them, but the big steps are out of my reach, so I’m screwed either way.

Another thing that’s pissing me off about all of this is that a MONTH AGO my shrink said she was going to put in a request for me to have a caseworker to help me with all of this but she didn’t do it and instead, she went on vacation until next month. Nice.

Watching Grey Gardens last night really made me think about my life and how dangerously close I am to a lifetime of agoraphobia and seclusion like the Edies. In the documentary, Little Edie talks a lot about all of the things she missed out on doing because she was stuck in Grey Gardens with her mother and I just thought, “man, I don’t want that to be me”. I don’t want to be in my 50’s and lamenting on all of the stuff I didn’t do, I want to think about the things I did do. And unless I get up off my ass and out of this house, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I already lost most of my 20’s to this thing, I don’t want to miss my 30’s too.

And with that, I’m off to read The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden, which my friend Poe recommended to me, and eat a nice salad, the ingredients of which were purchased this afternoon during an adventure to the grocery store on the off-chance I’d see the Hummer people at the gas station.