Happy Birthday

 Today's entry is brought to you by the number thirty.

Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday.  I was woken up by Brian and Drew singing 'happy birthday,' bringing me the breakfast in bed they made me.  I've never had anyone give me breakfast in bed before - I felt very special and very loved.

He even made the eggs inside slices of bell pepper from something we found on Pinterest (thanks, Sunny, for getting us (me) addicted to that site :-p ).

Of course it takes me some time to get out of dreamland and become coherent so they were disappointed when I requested we do presents after I was done drinking my tea... you'd think I committed a crime or something lol.

They got me a pretty smelling candle with chocolates and candies, and an adjustable stand thingy to make it easier for me to read in bed since even holding up a book can be too hard sometimes.

I luff them so much.

That night, Jodie and Mike came over and we all went to a party where I got birthday beats.  They got me presents too!  A massage bar that made Jodie squirmy cause it was for "erotic" purposes; a bath bomb intended to unleash my desires, which also made her squirmy; a cool book mark, and special incense.  I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but Jodie gets squirmy when it comes to anything of the erotic nature - it's quite funny and cute.

I got tons of birthday wishes too, on my facebook, which made me very happy cause I loves my attention.

I've always loved my own birthday and have always reminded people of its coming well in advance.  I count down, I talk about it, and when it comes, I get giddy like a child and eat up all the attention.   But this year felt a little different: for one thing, my health has been crappy lately so I wasn't announcing my birthday from the rooftops like usual.  I was planning on planning something special for this year's birthday because I think thirty is a significant milestone of life - especially for me for many reasons, but again, the health took priority.  And I didn't seem to have the same excitement that I usually have on my birthday.  In fact most of the day/night didn't feel like my birthday, I kept reminding myself it was.

I don't know if this is because I wasn't well leading up to it so didn't do my usual stuff or make plans or because I'm *gulp* just getting old, or both, or neither.  I hope it's not the 'old' thing, we shall see I guess.

Anyway, I've been living in survival mode for a long, long time.  My thirties are going to be when I 'start' my life, and I'm excited about that.  I have goals for myself, and goals with Brian, and I'm looking forward to all of it :-)

I spent another long period not writing in my blog, which I hate, but it happens.  I wish I could be as regular as Sunny is with blogging.  I don't really know why I can't - I have a bit of a consistency problem perhaps.

Brian and Drew should be back anytime now from the children's museum so I'm gonna go get dressed.

Lots and lots of love,

M

Fridge Shame

Here is a photo of the inside of my fridge taken moments ago without touching anything.  You can tell I'm not lying by how filthy it is in there.  Sunny's last blog post is what prompted this little sharing experience and I'm thinking it would be nice if someone else out there who is reading this might like to do the same on their blog... and so on.

I don't think anyone could possibly have a dirtier fridge than I do, seriously o_O


<3 M

End Of An Era

Back in the spring of 2009, a project called 'Vulva' was started by a couple of ladies who met on Suzi Blu's Mixed Media Art ning community: 'Vulva' was to be an online magazine run equally by all of us but right before it went public things went awry and 'Vulva' was never born.

Some of us still had an itch to continue with the project and after a lot of deliberation, Ms. Sunny Crittenden recruited the best of the best to get started with what became the online magazine 'Buttercup.'  I don't know how it happened, but it was as if this new group of people were a perfect fit to work together and I think that is the main reason why being part of 'Buttercup' was more fun than anything else.

After Sunny worked her ass off, the zine was launched in September of 2009 on Ning and was like no other publication out there: articles were published by all of us throughout each month and conversation was encouraged.  We had a forum and a ton of groups on almost any topic you could think of.  We even held chats a couple times for our humble, awesome little community.  Our focus was on diversity, creativity, and female topics, but ultimately I think it was about people getting together making each other think and having a hell of a lot of fun while doing it.

Buttercup published 8 issues, its last was April 2010 when we had to make the very hard decision to put the magazine to bed, mainly due to a bunch of new shit Ning pulled, including the fact that communities were no longer to be free.  We had a good run of it, did a lot of sharing and making friends, and I know I speak for all of us when I say I'm proud of what we accomplished and am glad I got to work with eight very awesome, very crazy individuals.

So this post is basically a goodbye to 'Buttercup' - it was awesome.  Thanks to everyone who read our articles, participated in our community, and supported us along the way.

Thanks to Sunny, Blake, Lexi, Jade, Jax, Katie, Anastacia, and Annie - I'll miss our Wednesday night meetings, no where else will I ever find conversation so full of shit (literally), boobs, menstrual blood, and penises.  I wish you all the best of luck in your future projects - I know they will be great.

*cue the sad music*

Love M.

The Summer Is Tricksy

I don't like the way my body/mind plays tricks on me during the light half of the year: what I mean is, every spring I start to 'come back to life' - I wake up from depression and low energy, I start to feel good and I start to really live the way I try so hard to live throughout the entire year but never seem to be able to during the dark half of the year.  This is, of course, wonderful.  The bad part about it this particular year is that never before have I worked so hard on improving myself than I have this past year and things are starting to really come together for me, slowly but surely.  My worry is whether or not it is only because it's spring and not because my hard work is paying off.  If it's only because it's spring, then I'm bound to fall once again when November comes around and that would really really suck because I'm so sick of the struggle.  But if it's not just a coincidence, well then that's a huge deal for me.

After severe anxiety, worry, and fear I finally FINALLY started going to the YWCA to exercise.  I almost passed out from panic just going there to sign up.  But something strange happened when I actually went to the gym to work out - as I was working my poor neglected muscles/body, I came to the realization that I was actually enjoying myself... I've told myself my whole life that I hate exercise, that exercise and I never got along, that I was born that way.  This is true in a way: I was, since birth, a very sedentary person, preferring to live in my head rather than do much moving.  But now I realize why I thought I hated exercise so much that it was making it next to impossible to start and keep to any kind of regiment: I have osteoarthritis and fibromylagia - both of those diseases are about pain, pain, and pain.  I'm in constant pain.  So whenever I've tried to exercise, it hurt like a bitch!  No wonder I didn't want to do it.  Turns out though, that if I stay away from the high impact stuff (cause that damages my joints and makes my disease worse) and make sure I'm not hurting myself in the "bad way," then it's actually enjoyable!  It still hurts, but it hurts in the way that it's supposed to hurt, the way exercise hurts any normal healthy person, that wonderful burn that tells you you're making your body stronger.  I actually like exercise, who knew?

I'm very eager now, I want to do so much, so I'm having to force myself to take my time so I don't overdo it and hurt myself or set myself up for failure.  I wish I had discovered this years ago, but you can't change the past.  So far I'm spending an hour at the gym three days a week.  Next week I'm going to start adding swimming (like aqua therapy, water jogging, etc) to my routine.  Eventually I want to be working out at least five days a week and I'd like to do some of the yoga and pilates classes they offer as well.  What a huge breakthrough for me!

I've been terrified for quite a few years now of starting any kind of routine in my life because in the past I have always failed and after so many times failing, you start to feel defeated and hopeless.  I haven't had structure in my life since I was in high school, and even then it wasn't very structured so I'm having to relearn how to do it in almost every aspect of my life.  I have severe "all or nothing" thinking, so that poses a challenge all on its own - it's like learning to live from scratch in a way.  But I have a kick-ass therapist and she suggested having a plan for failure: a simple concept yet I never thought of it.  I always thought I should just be able to pick up and start again if I failed, but it's not always that simple, and having an actual plan to follow is such a great concept and makes me feel more secure in being able to succeed.

So there's that.

In other news, I love plants.  Every single spring for years and years I attempt a garden on my balcony and every single year I kill my plants.  In the past I always thought it was because I end up neglecting them when I get depressed (which is true too), but this year I've realized, sadly, that I kind of don't really like gardening, and I'm kind of not very good at it lol.  I wouldn't say I have a brown thumb, but I'm having to accept that I should stop trying to have a damn garden and just buy the organic produce from those who know what they're doing.  I have a few plants out there now so we'll so how those do, but after this, I'm gonna go steal Sunny's tomatoes ;o)

What else is going on... my best friend is moving to another city :o(  This is really hard for  me, really really hard.  A  year ago I would be in bed crying all day and night planning my own demise over this, but I've grown a fuck-tonne and I will be okay.  It's going to be hard though, he's more than just a best friend, if that makes any sense.  And I guess after a year and half I should meet the girlfriend...  I'm kind of proud of us though - we managed to stay close friends after all the turmoil and heartache and through such difficult circumstances when it really would have been easier ultimately to go our separate ways, we knew the value of our friendship and chose the path less traveled in order to keep each other in our lives.  Who knew it could be done?  The hard stuff is still not over yet, but I think the majority of it is definitely behind us.  Here's hoping the future rewards us!


Love M

Gross Negligence

I'm very sore and tired but happy because I got a lot done today. Things seem to be settling down a bit so I'm just getting back into the groove of it all - blogging included. I feel icky when I go too long without blogging.

This summer has been interesting, weather-wise, and it's almost at an end. I've done a whole lotta work on my self in the past few months and it's been rigorous stuff coming out of my comfort zone. But I'm doing good and I'm only getting better from here.

I've been working on a top sekret project with Sunny and six others since before the summer and it's finally come to fruition: The Buttercup E-zine's premiere issue came out on September 1st and has been going very well so far.

What it is is an online community (forums, groups, chats, photo sharing, etc. etc.) that publishes articles throughout the month and allows a platform for discussion about those articles. That's part of what makes it unique.

We offer a female-focused (male friendly) atmosphere, 100% bullshit free, diverse, creative, and growing by the day.

Anyway, I'm loving it. You should join too ;o)

(Man, it's hard to blog and eat corn on the cob at the same time. Hard, but not impossible!)

I'm not really sure what to say right now, so I think I'll just apologize for the neglecting of the blog and mosey on over to Buttercup and see what people are talking about.

Be good!

-Love M.

Emotional Hemophilia

I'm using notepad to write this due to LiveJournal having erased my damn blog the other day, right when I was done typing it, but before, of course, I had a chance to post.

I currently have zero drama going on in my life (thank gods) and nothing immediately worrisome or depressing going on.

That feels nice. Freeing.

Now I'm left with me to deal with! I'm doing a good job, considering, but I have a nagging feeling of... I don't even know... it's just unsettling.

Like, what's going to happen now?

Anxiety about the next thing that will trigger me because I know too well it kills me everytime: it's very black and white - right now I feel happy and hopeful... tomorrow, depending on what happens, I could want to kill myself (knock on wood).

A feeling of being lost, having no footing, being unsure of my self/life, feeling scattered and unfocused.

Oh the joys of mental illness.

The only explanation that comes to mind is that I'm undergoing such drastic change in my ways of thinking, behaving, and believing that I'm not sure who or what I'm becoming... unfamiliar territory.

That's an awesome thing. If I'm wrong, then I really don't know what's up. Do anxiety disorders have to be triggered by situations or can anxiety arise on its own accord?

That could be it. Who knows.

In other, not so unrelated news, I'm finally starting the DBT group next Tuesday. I've been on the waiting list for a couple of years for this! DBT is apparently the make or break therapy for people with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I used to be very bitter about not having had this therapy before... before any damage to my relationship(s) was done. But now I realize that whatever happened, happened because I needed to go through certain things and to learn certain lessons.

A bitter-sweet realization, but better late than never.

Anyhew, it's a thirteen month long intensive group therapy - two hours a week with a group and one hour a week with my therapist one on one. Lots of homework in between.

I'm really excited but a little nervous, to be honest, about walking into a room full of women who have the same illness I have... I wouldn't even be able to handle one of me, let alone a group of me! But I know I'm just being silly ;o)

Along with the DBT stuff, I'm also working with an Al-Anon sponsor and have been going to meetings.

Since I've started doing this, I've learned so much about myself, others, and a lot of things that apply to my life as both a person affected by alcohol and a person with BPD.

All I can say is I'm growing daily and my life is already so much better after only a few weeks.

I can only guess how much growing I'll do for the next thirteen months as I do the DBT and Al-Anon... they're very similar actually.

Okay, enough mental stuff! I'll re-touch on some of the stuff I wrote the other day that LJ erased...

In March, I asked my subscribers to vote for my friends sunnybananas and 4bit4 (aka Sunny and Blake Crittenden) in the Hypercube contest.

The contest was a seemingly cool attempt to market their 2009 Nissan Cube using nothing but social media (twitter).

Fifty creative Canadians had a seemingly fair chance at winning and Sunny and Blake were among those fifty chosen.

I'm a lazy gal, so if I didn't believe the Crittendens to be exceptionally worthy or winning a car, I would never have posted about it on my blog, or spammed multiple online venues seeking votes for them.

They worked their asses off for months during the contest, I know how much time, effort, and energy was spent on their part: putting their lives on hold in the belief that this was a fair contest.

So by the time the judges were ready to announce the winners, most of us assumed either Sunny or Blake, or both of them, would be coming home from the event in a brand new car.

When that didn't happen, we were left scratching our heads.

These two entries in Encyclopedia Dramatica explain quite well why shit went down the way it did: A simple case of the worst execution of a marketing competition I've ever heard of, to put it lightly.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube_Aftermath

Read it, it's a good one.

Speaking of Sunny: You're one tough lady! I'm glad you're doing okay (considering) and I hope they gave you a strong enough cocktail to not be in too much discomfort, and to hopefully get a decent high ;o) You are very loved <3

Completely random thought: I wish there was a healthy diet that didn't require counting, weighing, portioning, etc. of the food.

And shame on you, Winking Judge, for having the worst service I've possibly ever had the other night:

• I arrived around 6:45pm, ordered a drink, and sat down.
• The waitress eventually came over and asked if I wanted to order food, to which I responded that I would wait a bit, since my friend had yet to arrive.
• At 7pm, friend arrived.
• At 7:45pm, we were both wondering when in the world the waitress was going to come and take his order (yes he'd been there 45 minutes and no one had served him!).
• So he decided to go to the bar and get his drink.
• At about 9:30pm after we'd both long finished our one drink of the night and felt quite invisible and disgruntled (and hungry!), we concluded that we were not welcome.
• I went to pay for my drink (no tip of course) and the waitress actually forgot that my friend had already paid for his drink.
• We left, puzzled and not buzzed.

So folks, from 6:45pm to 9:30pm (two and a half hours I believe), we were approached by the waitress once and once only. She never came to our table. The place was empty. She was sitting and reading a newspaper!!! Horrid.

Anyway, to top off the lovely service, I went to the washroom and there was no fucking toilet paper in the stall.

We are going somewhere else next time.


Love M

Geeks Are Sexy

Showing VS Telling... is actually pretty hard when you're trying to do it on purpose. But let's keep that between you and I and pretend all my writing comes out flawlessly and effortlessly - shhhhhh.

Myself and a few members of my writing group are collaborating on a collection of short fantasy stories, making this - let me see - my first attempt at writing fantasy. Yeah, so I'm a bit out of my element, which is good, don't get me wrong, it's always good to step out of ones comfort zone, but it is also a bit nerve racking.

I haven't even thought of a story to write: I just sat down and started writing and I have no idea where it came from or where it's going but there it is.

Last night was the Think Haus meeting - fun stuff. Men are silly creatures! But they are fun creatures nonetheless so it's all good. We're planning on having at Maker Faire at the end of the summer, but keep that on the down-low cause we JUST started planning.

Lots of projects going on. Tonight is a super top sekret meeting for a super top sekret project so mind your fucking business! ;)

This Saturday Jodie and I are gonna hit the Maker's Market downtown. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but I'm almost positive it involves many booths with many artisans selling their wares. Homemade stuff rocks!

Next weekend I'm getting picked up by a strange man (love you Ronny!) and being driven up to Barrie where I will get shit-faced with my awesome friends Sunny, Blake, Lexi, the aforementioned strange man, and some other hobos. I have not been drunk in a while so don't judge! lol It's all for Canada Day... that's right... Canada Day.

The Black Dahlia.



I chose the movie because Mia Kirshner is in it and she is hot. So maybe that was a bad thing to base a choice on? I think so, because the movie kinda sucked. Plus, she was barely in it! I don't want to look at Scarlett Johansson thank you very much!

Oooh! Onto yet another subject, I'm going to Ikea tomorrow morning for the first time, and though I hate the idea of Ikea, I have heard that it is indeed a weird place to be so I wanna see for myself :P

Today is fun with Don day.

Uninteresting blog post written - check.

Be good.


-Love Marylin.

Blog Withdrawal

Hello!

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever! I guess I got away with it for having written a novelette last week. That was interesting... an experience I've never had that's for sure. I wrote this entry expecting a few angry comments, a few ugly words flung at me for outing their previously untouchable queen of mixed media. Not so. Here I am, two weeks later and there is currently about 1090 comments posted.

Turns out my story wasn't so different then the experience of quite a few others and my entry was the "event" or gateway they needed to speak about it.

During these two weeks, I experienced a lot of ignorant folks (or, to be fair, ignorant comments) that leave me still scratching my head in bewilderment. I now realize that people will only see what they want to see. They will only believe what they want to believe, or what keeps things safe for them. People will skip the important parts, and when that happens, there's just no use in discussing it. A lot like conversations I've had with Christians (no offense, I speak about certain ones, not all of them).

But if you start with the truth, continue with the truth, and come out at the end with the truth, you've done the best you can.

There is now a place for people to talk about their experiences with this woman without fear. That is a wonderful thing and it will stay right where it is.

Anyway, onwards and upwards!

Now that I've got that ton of bricks off my shoulders, I'm sticking my nose in a bunch of other awesome endeavors.

I'm moving my workspace (hopefully by next week) into the other room where it is bigger and has a balcony! I'll get to enjoy the natural lighting and that yummy fresh air I never get enough of. Just need to figure out how to set up all the crazy internet wires again (I'm not used to the cable set up) and I'm good to go. I'm excited!!!!

There is a good possibility that I will be joining the Arts Hamilton Literary Advisory Committee - apparently Hamilton has Literary Awards, how did I not know this?

I've started a collaborative writing project with some of the members of my writing group: it's an idea that was raised probably a year ago but nothing ever happened with it.

It should be fun, help get people writing, and hopefully come out in the end with a publishable piece.

Project hackspace has come quite a ways in the past few weeks: a location has been found and the lease is to be signed any day now I believe. So June 1st is probably when we 'get' the place. Though I'm still waiting to see how involved I'm going to be in this whole thing. It's funny though, a bunch of nerds who all think they're the best at stuff (myself and Don included) so it makes for an interesting time - everyone of us as arrogant as the next lol.

I've been enjoying talking with Poe, Camille, and Kelly again more often now that all cats are outta the bag - I love my internet friends :P Sunny is my internet friend as well but she lives so close that she's practically a rl friend too - especially when I go visit her, which I'm sure will happen sometime in the near future. Then I get to meet Lexi toooooooo!!!! woot!

Other than all that, I have a few other projects that I'm not gonna tell you about because they're none of your fucking business.

Just kidding, no, they're not ready to reveal yet so you'll just have to wait ;)

And no I haven't forgotten about the Hamilton 24 Hour Film Festival that I have yet to talk about - sheesh I'm behind on things... it's coming!

It feels good to blog again, that was a loooong two weeks and I missed you guys.

You shall hear from me again soon,


-Love Marylin.

Cubism

Don't look at me like that! I made a post but it's private so if you care enough to read it, ya gotta go become my friend on LiveJournal

I would also like to encourage you to go register at www.hypercube.ca to vote for my friend Sunny so that she can win a Nissan Cube because she deserves it very much :) Voting is daily, not sure how long it goes for at the moment.

This is her page - Sunny’s Audition Canvas and this is her husband's page - Blake’s Audition Canvas

Bookmark those pages and go vote for them daily.

If you are like me and think they should have a Cube, please spread the word, repost this, bug people you know, etc.

Thanks!

-Love Marylin.

I [<3] Sunny !

So my friend Sunny is trying to win a Nissan Cube via a contest they are having in which fifty of the most creative and unique folks are chosen as the lucky winners.

I really hope she wins, she could really use it as part of her plan for immersion therapy. Plus, I'm hoping she'll drive her sweet-ass ride to Hamilton to hang out with me eventually ;)

Well, it doesn't hurt that she's one of the most hyper-creative people I've ever met - she's pretty awesome and is dedicating a lot of her time and energy toward this competition.

George and I want to show her our full support...





If you're interested in seeing a deserving gal win something that will vastly improve her life and mental health, go check her out and show her your support too!

And here's some snapshots of George's photo-shoot... you just... had to be there...


click photo to enlarge


-Love Marylin.