The Holiday

Apr 1, 2014 //
0

Sane.

The word had a funny sound to it, which seemed ironic because so far it seemed pretty dull in comparison to the alternative. I wanted to speak it out loud to see if it sounded as funny as it did in my head, but the two orderlies escorting me out might begin to start disagreeing with my new diagnosis if I started talking to myself.

I didn’t exactly come in to this asylum under the most orthodox of circumstances, so when I got to the front desk, they gave me clothes provided by the city for me to change into. My new too-big jeans and Knights t-shirt felt awkward and uncomfortable compared to the gown I had grown accustomed to, but this was my life now, and it was just something I would have to get used to.

The receptionist told me that I would have to contact a Ms. Thompkins as soon as I reached my new residence, and then gave me a card with a phone number on it. I put the card in the back pocket of my new jeans, and thanked her.

I walked out the front door for the first time in a long time completely on my own. No orderlies, no doctors, no day passes. Home free. I giggled at the absurdity of it, and curtsied to the guard at the door. Suddenly I felt embarrassed. Do sane people curtsy? Had I just blown years of struggle and hard work just by partaking in a silly, theatrical gesture? Luckily the guard smiled, and gave his own garish bow. I decided that I liked this man, but there was still something just a tiny bit off about him. Was it the way he smiled at me? Was there condescension? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I hurried out through the gate, and sat down onto the bench to wait for the bus.

Riding the bus, I saw my city in a whole new light. Not just because I hadn’t seen it in years, but because I was literally seeing it from a whole new perspective. It was quieter, which was nice. There was still the traffic, the yelling, the music, the laughing, and the regular city noise, but there was no pounding in my head. No screaming in my ear drums. Unfortunately it also seemed less vibrant. The colours weren’t bouncing off the walls; the lights weren’t dancing across the sky… Everything seemed a bit greyer. I looked down at my clothes and tugged at them, trying to adjust them into a more comfortable position, before giving up to suffer in silence.

I wasn’t sure if I liked this new reality, and I wondered if that meant that my new-found sanity was under any kind of threat. I concluded that since I didn’t actually feel like hurting anybody, then I must be fine. Maybe the way to tell if you’re sane is if you’re unhappy with the way the world looks to you. It would certainly explain how miserable normal people always seem to be.

Normal people. I had to remind myself that I fit into that category now too. I giggled again. It wasn’t so bad. At least there was still laughter.

I got to my new apartment, generously provided again by my great city. They worked so hard for me, trying to make me better. I made a mental note to do something to give back. Maybe I’d bake a cake for the mayor. People still like cakes, right? I perused the kitchen to see what I had to deal with. I wasn’t sure if I had everything I needed for any baking right off the bat, and I looked through my pots and pans to see if I would need to do any shopping. As I staked out my kitchen, I saw something that stopped me cold. There was small collection of knives hanging innocuously off a magnetic strip on the side of a cupboard. I hadn’t seen anything sharp for so long, and here were half a dozen knives, glinting in the fading afternoon sun. The hospital didn’t even allow plastic knives while we ate, and preferred to give us food in bite-sized pieces. But now…

I wanted to test one. To see if it really was sharp. To see if it could… cut something. I scoured the fridge for an apple, or… or, anything. Just to see. There was a small supply of oranges in the crisper down at the bottom, and I pulled one out. My palms were sweaty as I placed the blade of one of the knives on top of the glistening orange. I made the smallest incision into its orange flesh, before dropping the knife and running out of the kitchen, my hands shaking.

It wasn’t the sharpest blade I had ever used, but it would do. It would… I could… I could make the cake. I could definitely make a cake.

That night I dreamed of oranges wearing ill-fitting clothing. Not really a nightmare, but still a dream I felt good waking up from.

The next morning I decided I needed to give a boost to the ol’ self-esteem. And what better way for a girl to feel better about herself than to spend her allocated welfare on clothing! Retail therapy. They don’t teach you that in an asylum!

I walked to the mall. The traffic seemed louder today. The honks and engine coughs echoed inside of my skull, bouncing off my brain pan. I covered my ears and focused on the grey sidewalk.

I got to the mall and wandered blindly for almost three hours. Finally, on my second time passed this one dress shop, I saw a cute little number hanging on the back wall. It was bright, crimson red, with a subtle black pattern running down the sides. It seemed to glow on the rack, and I asked if I could try it on.

It fit me perfectly. I couldn’t believe how amazing I felt in this dress, this colour. I twirled around in the fitting room, and laughed at the way that it flared at the bottom. I needed this dress.

I walked out of the store, only to be followed by a voice calling out, “Excuse me, Miss?” It turned out I hadn’t actually paid for the dress. I stumbled through an apology; I felt so natural in the dress that I had forgotten it wasn’t mine. The clerk laughed awkwardly as she rang me through. Her fake politeness irked me. Her fake laugh. I stared at her in disgust as she took my money. Her smile was all wrong.

I walked back home. When I arrived, there was a flashing red light on my answering machine. There were three messages from a Dr. Thompson or something telling me I was late or that I was supposed to be somewhere. It didn’t seem important, and if it was, I’m sure she would call back again.

I sat down at my kitchen table. The orange was still on my counter, its wound gaping. Its juices pooled underneath it. Fruit flies had begun buzzing around it like vultures, picking away at a fresh corpse.

I needed to get out of here.

I decided I wanted to go dancing. Loud music always drowned out my thoughts. I needed to… I needed to drown them out.

I got to the club, and immediately threw back two shots of tequila. Government-funded mind numbing therapy. I had burned through all of my monthly welfare cheque in a single day, but somehow that seemed unimportant. I headed to the dance floor. The press of bodies made me feel claustrophobic, but I didn’t mind. It reminded me of the asylum. The feel of the walls closing in on me. The stink of sweaty flesh mixed with barely-controlled madness.

I felt something grinding into my thigh and turned around. It was a fairly attractive young man, all his arrogance showing in his wolfish grin. He said to me, “Hey doll, you look hot. What say you and I find some place quiet to sit and chat?”

He had a malicious glint in his eye. I could see trouble in the teeth of his smile. I followed him. I wanted to see what he was capable of.

We sat down in the lounge area of the club, and he just started talking. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, so I had no way of replying. I don’t think I needed to. I was entranced by his smile. The smile of a predator. A wild dog gaining on his prey. I guess he caught me staring at his mouth, because he stopped talking and looked at me quizzically. I just said to him, “How about we go back to my place?” This brought back the smile, and we left together.

We got back to my apartment and started making out. His hands groped my body and I tried to ignore how incompetently he did so. All of a sudden he stopped. “What is that?” I looked over to see the orange, penetrated with every single knife I owned.

Funny, I didn’t remember doing that.

He asked me again, “What the hell is that??” His smile was gone, and suddenly I felt cold.

“Smile,” I said.

“What?”

“Smile!”

“What is wrong with you?? Are you crazy or something!?”

He seemed angry, but not the fun kind of angry. I kicked him hard in between his legs, and screamed at him as he collapsed onto the ground. “I SAID FUCKING *SMILE*!” He groaned, as tears started welling up in the corner of his eyes.

I lightly jumped over his writhing body, and took the paring knife out of the orange pulp. This was detail work, not requiring any heavy lifting. It would do just nicely.

I sat down on his chest and gently tried to calm him down. His eyes were wide and frantic, staring at the knife I had in my hand. I looked at it, then back at him, and told him not to worry. I would fix everything and make it all better.

I gingerly placed the blade inside his mouth, and slit both of his cheeks wide open.

“There, see? All better! Look at those pearly whites!!”

He screamed and screamed as crimson rivers of his blood flowed freely down his face. The noise was agony. I couldn’t stand it. The pounding in my head was like the pacing drum of a war ship. I grabbed a chair from next to the table, and smashed it on the ground. With one of the splintered legs, I bashed the boy’s head into the white floor tiles. The red was a nice addition to the drab apartment.

I called the police, and told them to come take me home. I hoped they arrived first, before he did.

I hummed a tune to myself, and started painting the walls: a nice scenic landscape, with a house, some flowers, and a smiling sun. Too bad I only had the one colour.

The familiar sounds of nearing sirens let me know that it was almost time. I would be back in the asylum, but I would be out of this grey, lifeless world. I choose my own reality, and I choose the one with colour.

The door crashes in, and armed police officers roughly tackle me to the ground. I don’t put up a struggle. Comments are made to the “horror” I have inflicted, and one officer refers to me as a “monster.” I don’t mind. They content themselves with their fake, meaningless existences, and I content myself with my vibrant and luminescent one. They brusquely force me into the cruiser outside. It wasn’t awful, this brief foray into sanity, but I wouldn’t miss it. It’s time to return home.

I wonder if my Puddin’ is waiting for me.

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Categories Fun

Sexy Sexiness and Sex

Mar 5, 2014 //
2

There was a video I watched a few months ago (that I can’t find, otherwise I’d link to it) of a woman giving a lecture about women and objectification. She spoke at length about the perils of sexual body imagery, and how the cultural trend of the sexualization of women is destroying the psyche of women and girls everywhere. At the end of the lecture, she removed the make-up she was wearing as a final statement against contemporary beauty standards.

But if dressing “sexily” turns someone into a sex object, then how come dressing stylishly doesn’t make someone a “stylish” object? Or someone who dresses in skinny jeans and plaid a “hipster” object? Or someone who removes their make-up at the end of a lecture a “feminist” object? There is a discrepancy in there somewhere that concludes that only when someone exudes sexuality does it make them an object.

Jean-Paul Sartre suggests that we can only ever relate to people as objects, so to consider one aspect objectifying over another is moot. I tend to agree with him. Have you ever ran into a professor while you were in a grocery store? Did it seem a little… weird? Or your doctor, or maybe an employee from the butcher shop that you routinely frequent? When you see someone outside of the context that you’re used to them in, it tends to make people uncomfortable. The reason is because you’ve objectified them in relation to their profession: the teacher object, the doctor object, the butcher object; when they don’t coincide with the object into which you’ve made them, it weirds you out a little bit.

Maybe you think this only relates to the simple relationships in our lives, but think of your dad. Imagine running into him at a strip club. Or your sister being at a strip club in a slightly different context. This obviously doesn’t work if your family is very open about their relationship with the peelers, but say they aren’t. You would feel uneasy, and part of the reason would be because you can’t grasp your relationship with those people outside of the context that you’re used to them in. Being at a strip club does not coincide with how you have defined the Dad object. You can say your dad would never do such a thing, but how can you actually know that?

It’s impossible to grasp the consciousness of another human being, so all we really do is just guess based on the evidence of that person’s actions, come up with a little box that we assume that person fits into, and presto chango, that person is now an object that we can comprehend. That’s how it works.

So the problem isn’t objectification, and the problem isn’t objectifying a person down to the simplest of terms because we do that with our teachers and doctors and butchers. So all that seems to remain is the sex. Awful, dirty sex.

The biggest targets of controversy when it comes to the objectification of women are pornography and prostitution. These are women (and some men) that get paid to have that awful, dirty sex, and that’s apparently terrible. When one adult purchases a service from another consenting adult, money exchanges hands, and then both of them leave happy, that is the greatest sin of all. I’m talking of course about capitalism, which is a horrible economic system and should be abolished to make way for glorious communism. Selling sex is peanuts in comparison.

So outside of the inherently flawed nature of capitalism, these two acts are unhealthy because some guy is getting his rocks off. Which is… actually considered very healthy. And so long as he can separate fantasy from reality, his perception of women shouldn’t change. Most people don’t actually freak the fuck out when they discover their teacher doesn’t sleep in the school, neither would somebody be so surprised that the acts going on in pornography or in an escort’s bedroom don’t exactly line up with reality.

Or is the problem that prostitutes and porn stars degrade the very nature of sex by keeping it out of the realm of harmonious love? They’re not melding two souls to become one in the most physically intimate act that love and passion can create. And if that’s your idea of how sex should be, that’s fantastic. Honestly. But when you impose your own beliefs of how sexuality should be practiced on an entire culture, doesn’t that seem a little… phobic? Their sex doesn’t affect you in the slightest, and you should get over it.

So objectification is normal, selling things I will grudgingly admit to being fine, sexual release is healthy, and non-intimate sexy times is a-okay. So what’s the problem?

The problem is when sexual objectification occurs outside the realm of sexuality. When it’s used to sell cars, or beer, or things that have absolutely nothing to do with getting a hard-on and doing something with it. When it is literally everywhere you look. When the world is swamped with the image of the sexualized woman, when you have to go out of your way to find a woman in the media that isn’t sexualized to some degree, *THAT* is the problem. The world needs a variety of imagery so that people can see that there is more to being a woman than just a vagina on display, but we don’t need to devolve to puritanical dogma to achieve it. You certainly don’t need to throw out the heels and nylons. Even birds flaunt their plumage from time to time, but they’ve got amazing singing voices too.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality

Where are the new religions?

Feb 18, 2014 //
0

This is just a brief thought that randomly occurred to me, but I think it’s thought-provoking enough to merit a quick blogging.

Religions evolve to suit the needs of the people who worship in them. They change over time and location to offer something to the people that the regular, material realm cannot.

When religion started out, it was pretty barbaric. It boiled down to my god can beat up your god, and I’ll kill you if you say otherwise. It was a time of sacrifice and tribal warfare, and it wasn’t really all that pretty. This is the case for early Judaism and Hinduism, where there was a whole lot of focus on killing.

Later, during the axial age. (which is a few hundred year period when all religions pretty much had an overhaul, independent of one another) things began to change. The Hindu Upanishads were published, calling for a ban on animal sacrifices, Buddhism was founded, Judaism went through its own revolution, and although it was a couple hundred years after the official Axial age, Jesus was born. This period of religion was basically, hey, maybe instead of all this killing, we should be nice to one another?

Even later than that, Islam came along. Islam is a religion of social justice that was founded on the belief that maybe there was more to religion than being nice to one another, and maybe society as a whole should actually take care of its people. And though it happened a thousand years later, I would call the Protestant Reformation similar to this, as though it focused more on the individual, it did call into question the power dynamics of authoritarian regimes. These would be the revolutionary religions (that have since stopped being so revolutionary, but isn’t that always the case?)

These days, the new religions offer nothing so revolutionary. The newest being the super scam-y Scientology which is obviously just a disaster, but Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and all the recent, weird Christianity sects don’t offer anything new to the world either. They’re just slightly different stories, with slightly different rules and regulations, but there is nothing actually new being offered.

However, we do have an abundance of grass-roots organizations today fighting for social justice and equality. Not just the belief that we need to take care of those less fortunate, but that the less fortunate also have a voice and need to be seen as equals. Could we be in the middle of a new religious reformation, but with society’s general disenfranchisement towards religious institutions making it a secular one? All of the previous religious revolutions happened during times when religion was simply a part of the worldly paradigm. However, that paradigm has drastically shifted towards a much more secular version, and perhaps that means that our methods of revolutionizing the way people think has taken that turn as well?

I have no evidence for this and it would be impossible to prove anyway, but it’s certainly something interesting to think about.

This is obviously a very bare-bones retelling of the history of religion, and if you’re interested I’d recommend reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

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Categories Religion
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