Mettre à jour

In two days, I am seeing a counsellor. I am not inclined to therapy, but I and others have noticed that there is anger in my voice and that concerned me so on Monday morning I was happy to be able to secure my Thursday appointment with a man I chose from a long list of professionals on the Counselling BC website. Then the shit hit the fan.

Nice shit, but shit is shit. With the new year came a perfect storm of issues to trigger an anxiety attack: First the probate documents for my ward, Rita, arrived and lawyers and bankers with conflicting advice were at me, as are the beneficiaries. And next week I have contracting meetings with the theatre with whom I have a complex relationship (writer, performer, designer) and with Out TV for a development contract for the screenplay I wrote for my partner, Warren (Uncle Gus' Monkey).

Those of you who have written screenplays about yourself will understand the complexities of copyrights, moral rights and life rights that come with the dramatization of a real life.

When I was fifteen my father got me a summer job in a logging camp. I had to share a cabin with Goldie who picked his hair out and chewed it every night and in the morning he always wanted to show me the chewed wad of hair. He had mental health issues I was too young to understand.

He was a kitchen helper and one day when he emerged with a large pan of ice cream in each hand for the room full of loggers, each of the eight tables started screaming at him to choose their table first and poor Goldie froze with fear and confusion. It seemed so cruel to me; you could see his upset in his eyes and on his face. He was a gentle fragile soul. So I got up, took the pans from him and gave them to two tables, thereby securing my outcast status for the rest of the summer.

I feel like Goldie right now with so many people wanting me to do this and that and so much of what is wanted involves understanding totally foreign experiences. Its very intense for a single person to experience so much alone. It produces a lot of tension so I am grateful that I made my appointment to see James, the counsellor, mere hours before the fan-bound material arrived.