The Josie Pages

Field Notes In/On Transition Maybe these posts are getting repetitive? The rains of October are upon us in late September. After a pretty awesome summer weather wise in Vancouver; I am nervously gearing up to do some Box Office work, for the Vancouver International Film Festival, or VIFF. It’s 14 days of I have no idea how long the shifts are, as the schedule only has your start time. But basically every afternoon except two, from the 25th of September, to October 10th. I am pretty certain that it will screw up my ei, having them dock me before I get paid from the fest. No matter how hard you try, someone always has their foot on your neck. But I am doing it anyway, I need to network. Back in the fire of customer service kind of hard core, but at least it’s only a couple of weeks, and like the video store: in my knowledge wheelhouse. I had a day of Training early last week on the software, used to sell tickets. I think a lot of folks will already have tickets though as most folk...

Field Notes In/On  Transition Autumn Is A Time Of Renewal, I Hope You know, my best posts on this blog I think are the ones where I detail the events of my days, good or bad in terms of how events affect, or don’t affect my transition. My post about my trip to Victoria, last spring I think is a good example of my better work. As well as a lot of my early posts about weird encounters, or small triumphs in getting correctly gendered. This isn’t really one of those posts. These days I have less weird encounters, though, I still get a lot of micro-aggression here and there, mostly consisting of ‘dirty looks,’ or like the guy the other day; while crossing Grandview Highway, says to his buddy, nudging him my direction: “Is that for real?” Meaning, of course, me. Thanks dude. Made my day. Not. These little things usually happen in my case exactly when I am feeling pretty good about my presentation, and ability to “pass” though I hate that term and the duplicitous nature of i...

Field Notes In/On Transition. Phoenix Rising (yet again) Obviously, I have been forging a new life for a couple of years now. And for all my hewing and crying, and real depression, real malaise, it is a better life I am making. It’s been awhile since my last post on this blog. My daily life has been so packed with things, that my creative outlets have again fallen to the wayside a bit. So now for the billionth time or so, I am reaffirming my creative outlets and trying to get my mojo back. If you recall my posts from the spring, I was pretty depressed about my dwindling hours at the video store, and my lack of ability to find some sort of reasonable replacement gig to pay the rent while I pretended to work on my novel, but most of my creativity at that time was going into my daily ‘painting ritual’ with my Ipad. I did something like 68 days in a row of taking out anywhere from 45 minutes, to a few hours to create my primitive little ‘paintings’ I think a lot of them are...

Field Notes In/On Transition The Roller-Coaster Of Life So. I’ve been trying to write this blog post for a week or more. I know my last entry, and many of my subsequent facebook posts have not been of the most hopeful variety; try as I might, I am having a very hard time staying positive in the face of unending changes that seem to be happening in my life. Obviously I am participating in these things, they are not just happening to me. That is exactly what it feels like much of the time, though. I have taken steps, am doing things but I have no sense of control or agency.  What I have been working towards in the last week or so is making actual moves to make my situation less stressful and to have an “endings are new beginnings” kind of attitude. This does not come natural to me, this kind of positive thinking. It is real work for me to keep smiling and to actually do things to make something out of where I am and what I have to offer. This maybe is the kind of thin...

Field Notes In/On Transition Change is the only Constant If you have been reading my blog, or know me in the real world, you know that I have lately really been struggling with depression. Not that I wasn’t depressed before, but I had crutches back then in the Joe Daze (sic), booze, drugs, food. The only one of those that still soothes me is food. I still have a few drinks, etc, here and there, but have turned into a lightweight, and my heart (nor my head) is not into getting wasted anymore. It’s probably horrible to say, but I miss being able to get really drunk, really wasted. These days after a few drinks, I don’t want it anymore. I wish I could say that about food. But as far as being a worker, or an artist, I feel like a loser, I don’t feel respected, or treated like the middle aged person with 30 years of work experience under their belt, that I really am. Also, I’m aware this is likely my own fault for constantly doing what others think I should do, and being to ch...

Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media: Big Bad Wolves : Glib Reviews of Vaguely New Release DVDs Big Bad Wolves - Directed by Aharon Keshales , Navot Papushado This film was heavily hy...

Field Notes In/On Transition Everything Old Is New Again The classic show tune “Everything Old Is New Again,” written by Peter Allen, has been running through my head as I have been cogitating what to post next here on my transition blog. I am making what I feel is a very sincere effort not to dwell too long in the dark places my hormone levels, and real, so very real moments of depression take me. I have been trying hard to only post positive and or funny, clever things on my facebook page, to not get too outraged at our ever more frightening world.  Mostly it is working, and I have been finding creative outlets that I thought I had closed off long ago. Like I have been saying here on my blog, I really believe that is my writing that will eventually be the thing I do to generate some income to live on. But I do have a long ways to go still to get to that place. My editing of my sci-fi novel has dropped to minimal levels, and I am doing less review writing than...