"Deep in the darkness, my heart still sees,everything that I'll never be...
Behind these eyes, I'll go anywhere, there's no need for sympathy...
Everything breathes and I know each breath, in my world there's no compromise.."

Real Name:  Joanne

Nicknames:  Jazz, Jazzie, Jedi-Jazz, Jo, JoJo, Josie, Joey, JJ, JC, Jo-Bear, Jokie, X-Files, Jo Funk, Slayer Chick, Lickologist and Xena

Born in:  Nova Scotia - Canada

Reside in:  Ontario - Canada

Age:  Take a good guess. :)

Favourite Colours:  Ocean blue and emerald green

Favourite TV Shows:  Friends, General Hospital (been watching this since I was born!), Smallville, Buffy, Will & Grace, JAG and shows that are not longer on the air -- X-Files (was a fan since the pilot till the bitter end!), Due South, Early Edition and Another World.

Favourite Movies:  The Star Wars Trilogy, Indiana Jones series, Three To Tango, The Mighty, Anne of Green Gables series, The Sixth Sense, The X-Files Movie, The Black Stallion, Bring It On, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, A Beautiful Mind, Spirit:  Stallion of the Cimarron and the Godfather.

Favourite Disney Movies:  The Lion King, Pete's Dragon, Lilo and Stitch and Robin Hood

Favourite Movie Actors:  Harrison Ford, Eliza Dushku, Sandra Bullock, John Cusack

Favourite TV Actors:  David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Paul Gross, Kyle Chandler, Matthew Ashford, John Bolger, Nick Wechsler, Emilie de Ravin, Maurice Benard, Sarah Brown, Matthew Perry, Tamara Braun

Hobbies:  Reading, writing, travelling, meeting new friends, doing outdoors stuff like hiking and canoeing, surfing the Internet, looking after animals, being with my dog Tuck, riding horses, playing sports, watching sports, collecting junk (like stuffed animals) and helping others.

How people describe me:  A smartass, funny, sarcastic, nice, sweet, cute dimples, crazy, fiercely loyal to my friends, lucky with stars and very stubborn.

Other stuff about me:
So many things people don't know about me.  Most people don't know I'm hearing impaired.  I have lost about 80% of my hearing right now, it was 60% when I was a child.  It's likely in the future I'll be completely deaf.  Most people can't imagine what it's like to lose any one of your senses and wondered how I coped.  I just take it as it comes.  It's going to happen, whether I like it or not, why waste my time worrying about it?  I spent eight years of speech therapy to learn how to talk and spent half my life underneath a magnifying glass in case I failed in something and it would be off to deaf boarding school for me.  I spent alot of my life fighting for things I wanted and nothing was handed to me, I have been kicked more times than you can count.  I'm just surprised that I've managed to still be among the living.  Most of my friends when I was growing up and even now as an adult don't quite understand alot of things about me.  One very dear friend (Diane, who is not only my friend, I consider her to be my mother hen) told me quite simply that she thought I was amazing old soul.  I tend to get along with people who are sometimes three times my age better than those my age.  I grew up to be 40 at heart because of what I went through.

I'm also bipolar (manic depressive).  I was diagnosed when I was 12 years old.  Because of this, it makes it hard for me to trust anyone or even let people in.  There are very few people I have shared the darkness of being bipolar with and even then, I don't think I have even revealed fully how much pain and struggle it is to keep up faith in anything.  Some people just take it as me being depressed, if only they knew how seriously wrong they are.  It's a disease that has caused alot of people to take their own lives.  Those are still around, have chose to fight for their lives.  So next time you run into someone who is bipolar, realize you are running into a very unique person, unlike anyone you have ever known before. :)

I always said that it is hard being my friend because not only do I have the trouble of trusting you completely but my mood swings from one end to the other.  Surprisingly, I'm really shocked at those people who stick with me -- Steff and Tina have been my friends for almost a decade now.  Zaida listens to me moan and groan every night and still says she suffers from "Jazz withdrawals" when she doesn't talk to me!  There are so many more people which you can find in the Kindred Spirits section.  Some are friends who helped me through a rough patch here and there, others are those who have helped me everyday of my life.

How I feel, like millions of other bipolar people can be described in this quote I got from the book, "Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel -

"But it seemed to me if I could get hooked on some drug, anything was possible.  I'd make new friends.  I'd have a real problem.  I'd be able to walk into a church basement full of fellow sufferers, and have them all say, Welcome to our nightmare!  We understand!  Here are our phone numbers, call anytime you feel like you're slipping because we're here for you.

Here for you:  I could not imagine anyone  ever being here for me.

Depression is the loneliest f**king thing on earth.  There is no halfway house for depressives, no Depression Anonymous that I knew of."

I totally love this poem -- I think it describes me when I get really old! :)