Pink Hair, Parties and Photographs...

So I've been up to quite alot the last few weeks. I've been photographing up a storm for school and for my own personal amusement, I've dyed my hair pink (again lol) and fought with my own will to grow it long again.

I'm also in the process of planning a huge 21st birthday party for this saturday. We've spent alot of time cleaning up the yard and house, quite alot of things that needed to be done anyways but we'd gotten behind on after my stepfather died. It's going to be super pretty - I'm having a masquerade party in our backyard, we're going to set up lights and have a barbeque. I've ordered two differant sized cakes from Save-On and we're going to tier them when we pick them up on Saturday, then line the edges and add the mask to the top.

I bought my own mask for the party today, it's a spiraled metal mask from Dressew with big spirals coming up the sides. I'm stoked!

And now... photos!

Expression: Shorty doing Colby's make-up for their show at Surrey Pride 2009


Bound by Duty: Connor at a Black Parade meeting prior to the Surrey Pride show

Perfect Simplicity: Dayel, little sister of a friend of mine for a Children and Family assignment.

"Hey... I can hear the ocean!": Photoshoot with Nemo and Euvie, just for fun.

Beauty Redefined: Euvie during the same photoshoot.


Love and Kisses,

Andro Angel

Updates...

So I finally got my second tattoo. Curved script now runs across my collar, reading "There are those who give with pain, and that pain is their Baptism. It's flaking pretty bad on the left side ("with pain" and "Baptism" are looking like they'll need to be touched up alot) which sucks since I've been damn careful to take really good care of it. But I'm totally in love with it AND my tattoo artist. Will probably get all my font work done by him - I want to get my little sister's name on my left wrist above my "water" kanji, and "No Regrets" above the "fire" kanji on my right wrist, as well as the curling patterns around this tattoo and the matching wrist bands for my kanji.

In other news, I've started belly dancing again and holy pain and death! I thought I'd fall over, I'd forgotten how hard it was! And I have an amazing lady coming to visit in August - she's coming to Vancouver for pride the first of the month and I get to steal her for a whole day and night of her ten day visit, although I'm going to try very hard to steal her extra *evil grin*

I'm working on something that I'm not going to talk too much about until the end of this semester at school and then I'll explain in full.

I cleaned my room tonight. Spent five hours just working my ass off and getting it done. I want it to look awsome for my lovely lady's visit, and for my birthday the week before she gets here. It's been such a nasty stressful thing for me to have this gross dirty room so it was nice to get it done. I'm doing my office tomorrow as well as tidying the bathroom. I just want my spaces to be livable. The house is finally looking livable again and Mum and I have just been working so hard to make it that way.

Anyways, I should head to bed.

Love and Kisses,

Andro Angel

43 Things

I must admit I've recently gotten quite into all these different networking sites - especially sites like Twitter that require very little participation on my part, and allow me to make instant updates to what I'm doing, link to practically every device on the planet (see my sidebar? You love my sidebar, admit it), and most recently through a site called 43 Things, make goals and track my progress.

I think of all the networking sites currently in existence, 43 Things is my favorite. I have always struggled with goals, mostly because keeping them in perfect list form was exhausting. Then you have to track down the list and you don't get to keep it as neatly organized as 43 things enables you to do. It also limits you (as you might have guessed, to 43 goals) so that you're not making a ridiculous list that you could never in a million years complete. It gives you the option of adding a specific "challenge" - a single goal that you're going to focus on for a set period of time. That goal stays as your challenge until you either complete it or give up, and if you give up, you have a consequence that you set that you have to follow through on. Right now I'm challenging myself to lose 30 lbs before October 30th (my baby sister's due date).

Currently my 43 goals are:

	1.	Lose 30 pounds
	2.	Start belly dancing again
	3.	Learn yoga
	4.	Live in Germany for a year
	5.	Beat my depression
	6.	Become more earth friendly
	7.	Stretch everyday (on top of Yoga)
	8.	Complete my photography course with high marks
	9.	Get my second tattoo
	10.	Drink more water
	11.	Stop hurting myself when I'm unhappy
	12.	Get over what happened to me as a child
	13.	Learn to sew
	14.	Get a Nikon D700
	15.	Get more involved in gender issues
	16.	Stop eating/drinking junk
	17.	Be an amazing aunt to my niece or nephew
	18.	Spend more time with my Dad
	19.	Learn to play the guitar
	20.	Cook more, eat out less
	21.	Make the most of the time left with my elderly dog
	22.	Get my writing published
	23.	Try to re-discover the joy of little things
	24.	Learn a second language
	25.	Exercise three days a week
	26.	Grow my hair long
	27.	Do something once a month that terrifies me
	28.	Take a spiritual retreat
	29.	Perform in a Shakespeare play
	30.	Meditate everyday
	31.	Work on being less co-dependant on my mother
	32.	Work in the garden every weekend
	33.	Learn ballroom dancing
	34.	Give blood
	35.	Start sleeping normal hours every night
	36.	Organize my room and office
	37.	Go to Thailand for the summer
	38.	Purge myself of unnecessary possessions
	39.	Get my website online
	40.	Teach a gender workshop
	41.	Finish all my half-completed paintings
	42.	Become a better listener
	43.	Get myself in good enough shape to do ballet again

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel

Trust Me This is Love - for my mother

Trust Me This Is Love
I look at this mountain
So many heart aches wide
And I can't help but wonder
Where's the other side
I've got to be honest

I've got my doubts
These tears are asking me
What's this got to do with love?
Baby, I'll tell you something
To help us through this long, dark night

[Chorus]
When this trouble passes over
You and I will walk away
Knowing that our love survived
Another test of faith
You and I can walk on water
The river rises, we rise above
It may not look that way right now
But trust me, baby....this is love.

Love isn't easy
I'm torn, I confess
when a heart is uncertain
It's bound to second guess
This love won't forsake us
So dry your tears I promise you

Chorus

I'm here for you baby
There's nothing I want more
Our day is coming
And we'll reach that peaceful shore

Chorus
When this trouble passes over
You and I will walk away
Knowing that our love survived
Another test of faith
Cause you and I can walk on water
The river rises, we rise above
It may not look that was right now
But trust me, baby...this is love
One more mountain
Hey...so what
Trust me baby...this is love

I make my mother cry...

A piece from my written journal...

Something about this world
Seems a little bit... off
Like it doesn't quite fit me
Like I don't quite belong

And I can't help but wonder
If some higher power
Made a mistake placing me
In this dark unhappy place

Because it seems wrong
That in order to cope
With a life not right
I must be medicated

Dose me up on pretty pills
To battle what genetics left
Rattling around in this
Far too busy brain.

Missing them...

Almost two years ago now I dated a couple in Chilliwack that opened my eyes to a whole other world, to everything I'd been missing out on in the BDSM community (it's hard to believe I've been in and out of it for that long) though I'd been into it for years before that.

Lately I've been missing them something fierce. Katt helped me see that there was no shame in depression, in feeling like something was wrong and asking for help. Though it's only been recently that I have, in fact, reached out for help, if I had never met her I may never have bothered. Seeing the support she had from Wolfe was inspiring and I thought if I could find someone like that, I'd be able to make it through the damaging lifestyle that my depression was causing.

Today I'm having a bad day. Just emotionally and for no particular reason. I've made the decision to return to school next week - I was considoring quitting and it was a scary decision to make. I just feel... bad. I want to sleep all day but I know that if I'm returning to school on Monday I need to get into a normal sleep schedule. Or at least semi-normal. And I have no appetite today, though I know I SHOULD eat. I want to curl up and hide from the world today and it's taking a great amount of will not to do just that. I barely slept last night as usual and am wishing that one of the sleeping pills at the hospital had caused SOME sort of effect other than sleeplessness.

Won't someone save me from this pit?

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel

Psych Ward

I spent my first stint in a psych ward last week. And after ten years of fighting against it, I was put on medication for what the Doctor diagnosed as clinical depression and anxiety. I have Ativan to be taken as needed for my anxiety and I'm on a daily dose of Celexa (citalopram). The Doctor and most of my nurses were surprised I'd stayed out of the system as long as I have, I've been struggling so long and I was in such bad shape by the time I made it into emergancy.

The psych ward was... interesting. I was emergancy for two and a half days before they moved me over to the ward and they kept forgetting about me - I didn't get any of my meals on time at all the first day I was in (Sunday the 17th). They moved me from 10mg to 20mg of Celexa on the third day, the same day they moved me over to the ward and I slept most of the day and woke up with tremors and no appetite - two rather rare side-effects of Celexa. The tremors have mellowed since, but I still have little to no appetite - I get hungry, but can't bring myself to eat. It's very weird. I'm used to overeating ALL the time; that and a lack of sleep were some of the side-effects of my depression.

Vegetarian food in the hospital is pretty nasty, which didn't help the loss of appetite that the Celexa has caused. Although the butterscotch pudding was really good - I'm pretty sure they were using the standard Jello brand, going to buy some when Mum and I have money again.

Unfortunately the day I came home, we found out our house had been broken into either the night before or that morning and all my camera equipment, my laptop, tablet, everything, had been stolen. I feel like the theif stripped away all my purpose and I'm left feeling rather raw and destroyed.

Right now I'm just trying to settle back in and figure out where things go from here.

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel