The Josie Pages

Weekly Report of the tenth variety, short, sweet and a few weeks late. filming to the beat as much as cutting to the beat. Stars Missy the Kitty, and a couple of local crows who like to taunt her.

My brief, glib review of Wonder woman, which i found hokey and disappointing for the most part. So many missed opportunities to really show how different the world is/was from Paradise Island (now only called the more comic book-y Themiscryia) ... but the whole doe eyed innocent warrior thing got old fast. just say no to romance as a crutch. even unrequited. maybe especially unrequited.

Welcome to The Indolent Spinster Weekly Report, Episode #2! This week things have shifted seismically in Spinster-land, at least in my cozy cat hair matted corner of Spinster World. I’m trying to keep these videos reasonably short, so let’s dive right in. I did not get into that self employment course. My debt load has overcome my current income. My credit payments were deemed to much for my budget whilst going to school despite my pretty good budget i gave them. giving me $1200 a month on ei actually would have rounded me up to being able to survive, with say the same average amount of freelance work/sales of art that I have been making.  But well, that’s not happening, and I am tired of fussing and talking about it so instead, I’m gonna give you the promised preview of my new Zine, so similarly named as this video blog: The Indolent Spinster Quarterly.  As you can see scanning the cover scrolling up the screen right now, I will have some Strawgi...

So I have started what is hopefully going to be a new weekly blog of the video variety, I will always post the transcript here, and eventually also caption them all too, but I've not done that before and need to figure it out. I don't want to  just have subtitles, but captions. i like having the whole transcript available, for those who don't want to or can't watch the videos. here is the transcript and video! Welcome to the very first edition of Indolent Spinster Weekly Report Which as per usual i have spent three weeks procrastinating and trying to figure out what kind of narration to put over top of my fun backyard selfie video that you see as you hear these words. I have been trying to narrow down things to say in my new idea for weekly video blogs... I almost want to just have wordless images of me with fun effects and transitions between b-roll and stock footage, that i cobbled together one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, thinking i would just recor...

Field Notes In/On Transition My 4th Transiversary, and first video blog (script/Transcript) ooh Transcript, I am co-opting that, is below with pictures. But pretty much also word for word in the video link above. So My Transiversary is coming up soon. I mark the ‘official start date’ of my transition as March 21st 2012, as that’s when I both began both HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) and started the expensive and labor intensive process of changing my name and gender where possible on my ID. So this is my 4th anniversary of starting Transition. Why does it feel so much longer than that? I guess because I spent my life since I was 25 coming out, almost starting transition, starting, stopping, until finally at 45 I started for keepsies. I turn 50 in September.  Really though, I feel like my Transition started when I first realized what the heck it was that made me feel so differently than I was told I was supposed to, as a kid. My awareness that I could...

Field Notes In/On Transition. So, I got a job. Let me tell you the story. I had been really stressing out coming up to the time of getting my end of January welfare cheque, as I had to show the workers my employment search record, which I wasn’t sure was adequate, turned out to be just fine, but I have to call on Feb 4th or something, maybe go in to the office with a finished work search, ie; I did 125 job search things over 5 weeks. I was on track for doing that, and had sent out a few resumes. Then the next day, Thursday afternoon, I was doing some depressing looking at job ads online when I got a facebook message from a choir friend, Jess. The cafe she was studying in was looking to hire a new person, and they were specifically looking for underemployed diversity, aka maybe the old trans lady who can’t get an interview anymore. I happened to be going right past the cafe, a few hours later, on my way to a board meeting for the community health clinic (REACH) that I am o...

Field Notes In/On Transition Too Many Ideas I post a lot of ‘my plans’ on my blog here, or on facebook. My dreams to craft, write, paint and do low key ‘jobs’ on my way to financial stability. Sure I’d love to make a lot of money. But I would rather work less, earn less than be stressed all the time or work 60 hour weeks at something that is just a job. Occasionally I do a bit of ‘background performer’ work: an extra on a TV show or a movie, though it being Vancouver, I have only so far done TV. The other day was the first time, though that I got to keep my makeup on, and I think I have a shot of actually being seen in the final product. Cross your fingers. I seem to get cut from things. Anyway, one of the problems with me making plans is that I don’t do well with plans, I am not organized. I am scared to death of every job I apply for stating in bold letters: “must be highly organized, detail oriented,” etc and so on. This is not me. I could lie about it, and have, but...

Field Notes In/On Transition 2015 The Year That Josie Broke I have very mixed feelings about the year 2015. It is the year that I went from being someone with a small nest egg for the future, and a year already in 2014 of employment disappointment; to someone with zero savings, no employment, or very little. But for all the long stretches of very real stress, and depression, in the end, at the end of the year, things are starting to brighten up again. Early in the year my EI, or employment insurance ran out, but I had some savings, so I went to the bank, and took out a chunk of those savings in my RRSP, paying huge fees, and taxes to come likely, on that money, which I used to pay down my line of credit, and credit card, mostly, which I had overused while during 2014’s loss of hours at my old job, and eventual lay off, with sucky EI, based on the last several months I worked there, when I made less than I ever did the previous busier 7+ years at the video store.  I al...

Field Notes In/On Transition Crafting My Future? So, I have printed out some calendars for my Strawgirl digital paintings, that were part of the perks for my Indiegogo, and sent those off with my old poetry books in some case to fulfill the perks, minus of course the actual memoir, which I have now, a decent draft of, and am waiting to get some feedback from a couple of writer/editor friends. I am hoping for some good input on readability, sometimes my sentences, kind of drag on, indefinitely, if you know what I mean. And more importantly any really glaring grammar issues, or that kind of thing. When I get my feedback, I am going to re-edit those first few ‘chapters’ which really are just the first section of my story of early transition, from this blog, along with my childhood memories of my gender dysphoria, and other aspects as well of growing up in small town New Brunswick in the 70’s. It’s not like it was all gender dysphoria all the time.  I tried to be the pers...

Field Notes in/On Transition Presumed Guilty Everyone presumes things about other people, events, places, times. We all think we know what these things are. We presume that because some people act a certain way, everyone like them also acts that way. No really almost everyone does this. But thoughtful people are able to see past cultural biases, propaganda and hatred , sometimes even love, and gain the insight that we don’t ‘know’ everything we presume to. Look at the news, how large groups are demonized for the acts of a few, constantly, it’s exhausting. One of the biggest arguments used to erase or silence Trans folks, especially Trans Women, is this presumption that you hear from TERFy types like Germaine Greer and the even more angry terf-y slash religious people...that Trans Women presume to know what it means to be a woman. That because we don’t have the shared history (or herstory) that cis gendered women do, we are somehow being presumptuous to think we can just s...

Field Notes In/On Transition I Don’t Know So I can almost see the finish line, at least for the 1st ‘readable’ draft of my memoir. I feel mostly good about it so far. But I also know that in certain areas of my life I have had a hard time going deep enough into things that have caused me grief, pain, even some of the more joyful things, I have a hard time accessing and putting them into cogent prose. My room mate said something to me a few weeks ago, meant with good intent, I think, but sometimes, ruminating on it, I have a hard time not agreeing on a darker meaning. She said, “You know you are both brave and stupid to be writing this memoir all by yourself, with no therapy, or mental health back up.” I am paraphrasing as this was a conversation, not one sentence. But that negative gist of it is true. It may be ‘brave,’ but I really am operating without a net, so to speak. I am dealing with some issues that I haven’t really dealt with, and doing so all by myself. I ...