…is apparently very prevalent in Simon Fraser University’s department of criminology, just to give another example.
Posted in Academia is Nuts!
As I mentioned yesterday in passing, I had not checked out the blog that replaced this one on wordpress’s free site when I bought my own domain and went my own way, for months. Of course, I speak of “Mad Praxis”, a compilation of the writings by the two fellows with whom I had my past two serious relationships, who managed to find each other over the Internet, 2000 miles, and four provinces, to unite for the common purpose of posting various pieces of prose with much allusion to our time together – that is, the separate periods of time I shared with each individual – focusing exclusively on the negative. The police took down the site when the two had not yet creeped one another out with the help of a Goddess or two, as their names in cyberspace are not the same as their names in “real life”, as it was pure slander and fear-mongering, even displaying my photo. Now that I have given the site another glimpse, I am happy to see that at least one of the authors has stepped away from wasting his time on using drawn out metaphors that epitomized the cliché-ridden genre of “teenage angst” to relate the downfall of our relationship, and instead has obviously spent time improving his writing style as it is much more interesting, especially considering the short period that has passed since he penned “Erin, Reimagined”. Unchanged is the fact that drug use and puppy-love are still his themes of choice, perhaps proving that art imitates life and does not go much beyond one’s own experience of this life.
The writing of the blog’s founder, however, now touting himself as a skilled craftsman/artisan (daedalus) rather than a ruthless, barbarian Roman conqueror and murderer of the members of countless villages (a misspelling of “Alaric“, the cyber-name-change perhaps recommended by a lawyer) – a slightly less grandiose fantasy being, though he still restricts himself to that realm, unless he kept secret some kind of talent at art throughout the course of our relationship, which is highly doubtful, as he took any opportunity he could to show off how well-read he was, or to state his GPA in front of a crowd of fellow students. The Bob Dylan song “Ballad of a Thin Man” will always remind me of him on his better days, just as Leonard Cohen’s “Master Song” will always remind me of him on his worst, which revealed themselves to be much stronger, conquering a potentially good man. In this sense, Alaric is alive and well.
It seems all members and students of academe at times fall into the trap of egoism, which is one survival tactic in a highly competitive environment with rather low-stakes, however, when one starts labelling diaries that include information on the misplacement of hand lotion, and do not go any farther than paranoid ramblings about which woman in his life (mother? lover? friend? ) decided his own fate – when really, we can only place responsibility for this upon our selves – as “field notes” to base a graduate thesis upon, suspicion must be raised that a tactic has become a trapdoor. Then, one may only hope that it is not one of the variety Thom Yorke describes in “Push/Pulk Revolving Doors” from Amnesiac – one that you “cannot come back from”.
An example of the blog’s original malicious, misguided, one-sided, and just plain mean, intent is demonstrated in a piece written on October 29th. I wonder if this was supposed to be a birthday message for me, as my ex-fiancé never could remember the date of my birth, instead confusing it with his favourite number, or the number that has shown up again and again in my own life. Those two numbers happen to fall on days two before and two after my actual birthdate. If so, it is closer to Christmas than my birthday now, but still, “Cheers!” I appreciate your thoughts, though cannot say they were reciprocated. It is entitled, “Maureen’s folly”:
“Dave and Maureen were partners except where it counted. They could not communicate through the fog of 
drugs and alcohol. Though they both madly professed their love often, it got to be more perfunctory as the weight of unresolved conflicts boiled beneath their words. In a daze Maureen lit some candles and fell over. Dave tried to help her up. Stop it! I am not useless, I don’t need any help. Fuck off! Dave went back to his videoscreen and surfed the latest conspiracies.
Maureen had some issues. Dave had some issues. They had issues with each others’ issues. It got so 420 was 24/7. At least through a thick THC laden haze the world looked less complicated.
Maureen was having trouble at work and often came home in tears. Dave could not find work which almost drove him to tears. They limped on for awhile but could tell the end was drawing near. Babe I’m gonna leave ya someday soon. I can’t take it.
Shut the fuck up! You are not you lying sack of shit. I won’t let ya. You proposed and will not get rid of me that easy!
It won’t be easy I promise.
They couldn’t tell if they were joking or not half the time and would wake up as if these conversations never happened. Dave’s mind felt like mush. He could only imagine what hers must have felt like since she took additional ‘add-ons’ to ‘enhance’ her high. Both of them needed to cut the drugs out and start talking heart to heart. This sadly would not happen. They were at a crossroads: a lifetime of misery carrying on the way they were or a clean break. Neither wanted to face up to this reality.
Maureen fearing abandonment by Dave solved the issue by slitting his throat in his sleep. She carried on as usual not quite believing what she had done. The next morning and three more afterwards found Maureen in heavy denial and avoiding the responsibility of dealing with the mess. Finally it sunk in and Maureen had a fit. The neighbours phoned the police who found Maureen with the razor in hand still slashing away at the cold corpse of her departed lover. She was tazed and restrained.
Maureen now lives in a long term psychiatric ward and spends her time writing her memoirs inbetween (sic) almost constant interviews from curious grad students.” (Click for original printing)
If wit or skill made up for the glaringly obvious purpose of this piece to serve as an insult, and a rather ridiculous one coming from a self-purported “radical mad activist”, unless hypocrisy is also one of his traits, suggesting he may have some kind of histrionic complex, it may at least serve as a worthy piece of prose. 
Unfortunately it fails on both accounts, and “Master Song” prevails in describing its author – a former mechanic who paced back and forth while I changed a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, and current academic who uses the oldest hat trick in the book to annoyingly at poke and confuse his peers, even if they are also his lovers – senseless criticism of the work of Michel Foucault coming not from the heart but the head, as his own “work” relies heavily on the canonical theorist’s contributions to sociology and philosophy. He once called himself, “a jack of all trades, and master of none”. Well, daeldus is a poor choice of names then, not to mention his trouble with a jack 
. He claimed to be a “hardcore feminist” when we met, and then near the end of our relationship, stated that “his ideal life partner would be a woman who would please his every sexual demand or fancy that arose immediately, “on command”, whenever, wherever.” He is a phony, a fraud, a fake – even the photograph proudly displayed on Mad Praxis is one that I took as photography grew to be a hobby last spring. Indeed, I was running around taking photos of cherry blossoms and trying my best to attend classes while his behaviour was more like this “Maureen” character’s. He cried, “me, me!”, and “played dress up”, putting on one of the suits that he bought during a shopping spree that took place when he came into a stack of cash which quickly disappeared into thin air. I would at least like a credit for my intellectual property!
Luckily, beautiful prose and poetry like that of Cohen override the noise of such time-waisting tomfoolry. Let it always remain this way, and the bastards will never get you down:
{website soundtrack can be stopped/paused by pressing the appropriate button on the player in the top right-hand corner of this page}
Leonard Cohen, “Master Song” (from the album The Songs of Leonard Cohen – lyrics below)
I believe that you heard your master sing
when I was sick in bed.
I suppose that he told you everything
that I keep locked away in my head.
Your master took you travelling,
well at least that’s what you said.
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread?
You met him at some temple, where
they take your clothes at the door.
He was just a numberless man in a chair
who’d just come back from the war.
And you wrap up his tired face in your hair
and he hands you the apple core.
Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare
of all the kisses we put on some time before.
And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk
with a collar of leather and nails,
and he never once made you explain or talk
about all of the little details,
such as who had a word and who had a rock,
and who had you through the mails.
Now your love is a secret all over the block,
and it never stops not even when your master fails.
And he took you up in his aeroplane,
which he flew without any hands,
and you cruised above the ribbons of rain
that drove the crowd from the stands.
Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane
and, an ape with angel glands,
erased the final wisps of pain
with the music of rubber bands.
And now I hear your master sing,
you kneel for him to come.
His body is a golden string
that your body is hanging from.
His body is a golden string,
my body has grown numb.
Oh now you hear your master sing,
your shirt is all undone.
And will you kneel beside this bed
that we polished so long ago,
before your master chose instead
to make my bed of snow?
Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red
and you’re speaking far too low.
No I can’t make out what your master said
before he made you go.
Then I think you’re playing far too rough
for a lady who’s been to the moon;
I’ve lain by this window long enough
to get used to an empty room.
And your love is some dust in an old man’s cough
who is tapping his foot to a tune,
and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much,
let’s say you came back some time too soon.
I loved your master perfectly
I taught him all that he knew.
He was starving in some deep mystery
like a man who is sure what is true.
And I sent you to him with my guarantee
I could teach him something new,
and I taught him how you would long for me
no matter what he said no matter what you’d do.
I believe that you heard your master sing
while I was sick in bed,
I’m sure that he told you everything
I must keep locked away in my head.
Your master took you travelling,
well at least that’s what you said,
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread?
Tori Amos warned me as I sat at the bus stop before work – age sixteen and actually somewhat excited to work for six hours after school. Even though the rest of my schoolmates were rich and getting, what was that you have now again, Scars, a job? Whowhatwhenwhere why? I grinned at their raised eyebrows and did not bother to explain money that actually meant something, but more importantly, that your parents did not have to know where was going! I suppose this wouldn’t have meant much to most of them in their during school uniforms that matched mine and after school uniforms that certainly did not match mine (the latest seasonal items from the “GAP”, sweaters tied over shoulders and all – theirs, that is). Going to a movie and holding a boy’s hand – boy oh boy! Although, maybe they were on to something.
Totally unrelated bit of pop culture trivia. Why is the GAP called the “GAP”?
It is owned by the same company as “Old Navy” and “Banana Republic” (and I’m sure many others but that is irrelevant here). “Old Navy” is cheap and “Banana Republic” is expensive. Then, there’s the “GAP” (why in CAPS I do not know – to imply yelling would be the usual usage. “BUY ME, AND YOU’LL BE BETER THAN PEOPLE WHO SHOP AT “OLD NAVY”!)
Interesting how “Old Navy” took over the “GAP”‘s popularity overnight in the “post 9/11″ (read: the revelation that the monetary system has always been a sham) world.
I have owned (long ago, before my moratorium on malls and all but locally, handmade clothing – I still love shopping but malls make me panic and why not get a one of a kind item for cheaper that wasn’t made by girls half your age in China for two dollars a day? I suppose that’s like asking why peoplec consume margarine. They just been that brainwashed – or perhaps stupified is a more appropriate word. It is those who remain willfully ignorant that I can’t help but dislike – individuals that have money, access to information, and time
Let’s go back to that bus stop. It comes across that like the woman Tori describes in the song (herself, it seems with this one, although in her compositions she takes on the role of various woman-archetypes and taps into the energy of female historical figures – those of both mythology and reality) which would prohahly be named my favourite if I had that is, if I was forced to pick one, my favourite – it must mean an awful lot to her as well, as she ends almost every concert with it although the rest of her playlists are decided on the day of the concert, as she gets a feel for the new environment, that is not just the theatre but the social and cultural climate of the city she is aboug go play in. And mahbe even the weather! – I have been a little masochist. Sitting with my discman, a moment all my own, listening to this song. Did I somhow romanticize a tragedy of a relationship? Is it my fault that I got into three relationships that dissipated into various forms of abuse to varying degrees, sexual in cases one and three, and emotional/psychological in all three cases, the first and last again being the most extreme. The archetype of the super-dominant, sexually demanding male – Apollo incarnate – has caused these two different men to take on the same name in my mind. The fact that both of them raped me and called me names has caused some to question whether or not I am projecting the first fellow’s actions on to the third’s. To those people I say:
Most of the women I speak of are highly educated, and call themselves feminists. How dare you? These women also work with statistivs, but I suppose haven’t bothered to research that one about the much higher chances a woman has of being sexually abused after one instanve has taken place. What did I say about willful ignorance? Maybe my silly little tidbit about the GAP has more in common with this topic than one would like to think.
Maybe I’m having a really hard time calling the “most highly educated” women I’ve met in Vancouver “sisters”, now. Does a certain practical stupidity come with such very “high” education? Or did I just encounter a bad group – some “phonies”, as J.D. would have put it.
One thing is for certain: Ibelieved far too much in love, that I would somehow be saved and fixed by a boy and the things he did to my body. I thought it would feel better than when I was alone. I have yet to experience this. I wonder how many I’ve given. Statistics are always depressing, but that’s downright mad.
My point is…I believe my heart has been unusually trampled upon by the three consecutive long-term relationships. I know it takes two to tango, but I gave these men my all. I am often accused of “vilifying” one, two, or all of them. Most often by other women, while male friends have almost always never thought twice about my description of how the relationships played out. One thing people know about me is that I am just about as honest as one can possibly get. Now, I don’t mean to paint them in purely shades of black and white – nothingness. The following two relationships had their moments, in retrospect. They even had their months three-week periods of some kind of bliss, making the shift back to negativity all that much more painful. Does it ever last? I know there will always be bickering, and the occasional significant disagreement, but, aside from any abuse-related issues, do relationships always dissolve into things said to another person that will leave a permanent footprint on their heart? I have a few now, namely, and respectively speaking of each of three relationships:
…ha ha kinky! WHORE!“ <repeat “whore”, said loudly in public many a time as I look at the bus stop across the street and wish I had a home I was welcome to run to, my stepmother being the lock to which I had no key.>Sidenote 2: Cats are amazingly sensitive to the energy of the people they are with. It’s been joyous to watch a 13 year-old cat turn in to a kitten. Not even cats think these words are “okay”!
I’ve now known two separate “sufferers” of this phobia, one that I’ve known for a long while but never knew this fact about him (he had probably only “talked to his doctor about it” 
)! Should I alert these folks at answers.com?* As stated in the last paragraph of their “answer”, the claim that a handful of celebrities have been known to have the disorder. Could this earn me money? Guinness Book of Records Style?
In addition, read this as you would an official definition of depression, and realize the ridiculousness. My new roommate happens to have the “rare mental condition” that my first boss also did – I once had to open a bottle of Tylenol pills for him. I didn’t do well enough the first time, I had to remove more of the cotton that lingered around the edges. I now understand how, indeed, this is not something to laugh at, but the causation of much suffering:
)…dare I say a little hyperbolic for, “What? I just don’t like cotton balls. We don’t need all this razzle-dazzle language, but I guess this is the ‘new way’. F*** whatever”. I shudder, as he is very right, and that statement was dripping with so much Gen-X apathy, but I will live and keep my mouth shut as I’m sure we could talk about this for hours but there is a show to be watched. And what’d you know, another Shoemaker! Will this one get me in trouble, too?
Posted in Academia is Nuts!, Laughter = Survival, Mad Society
Tagged cotton balls, phobia, sidlongophobia
Sent to: Professor of qualitative methods class (Criminology Department, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Road, Burnaby, BC, V6N IS6 ), SA grad studies chair, Former supervisor, Former co-supervisor (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Road, Burnaby, BC, V6N IS6 [if I recall the p.c. correctly - I don't feel like looking it up but it's bang on if not an unimportant part of the code messed up]). No names to be mentioned, although as the furthermost extensively acknowledged scholar professor directed me to some information on well, information on the academic institution’s specific Reference Ethics Board – arguing that the recently revamped document ‘made Simon Fraser University the educational institution with some of the most conducive to academic freedom in North America, and perhaps the world!’ What an unbiased statement to make in a class of young, some still obviously impressionable, 
– what a “grad studies” program – students. And one that I think all other universities in “North America and, most indeed, perhaps the world”, would have some qualms about.
My other career – http://www.practiceofmadness.com/?p=3504 – and my final wrap-up on the “Alan Shoemaker” situation/dare to charge me with “academic dishonesty”, for the people, your/a Chair’s decision on the matter not yet known, nor very much concerned about. I care much more about the women that were being exploited in Iquitos by the men you “believe” the words of – their eyes haunt me, not yours.
Best Wishes,
Jen Reimer
-F.A. -(from Apocalypse Effexor: Redux Diary page…therefore unedited! 
)…not usually. But Effexor-wise, this is kind of how I feel about my week without Effexor, and its end in a plant-derived, dopamine raising substance that wasn’t paid for by the government, as the Effexor tablets, that would cost about $400 a month are. I made a “mistake”, more an accident, by destroying my supply of Effexor for the week. Then I tried something I basically knew would be impossible – of course with some hope in mind that this would magically be the end of popping three very large red gelcaps every morning to keep my head together, just as I have that spark of hope each time I walk into the office of a new psychopharmacologist (let’s call them what they are) that usually leads me on for a few hour-long appointment, about helping me get off this drug, but soon grows annoyed at talking about life and tries to convince me that I can achieve this goal by taking a new handful of gelcaps or packed pills or the ones you can peel a layer off of…just like Anne says – blue, yellow, green; “I’ve become quite the addict” – to to learn how much of an addict they made me, to learn how deep Effexor is in control of my brain. I sure got my answer. I was expecting it would be sickening, and expected the second after second after half-second brainzaps and light-sensitivity and walking into doorways I got this morning, when I finally got off the couch, the brown couch 
, wanting desperately to get something done – Indian Summer, the smell of sweet decay in the air and smoke lingering from bonfires from the night before, all the while feeling heat on your October-skin. Zap zap zapzapzap zap zapzap zap, as I sat on the toilet, light on like nails on a chalkboard in my brain. MUST. DO. SOMETHING. I cannot lie on that couch, nor can I vacuum and hide pills for some night-terror induced reason involving relatives I haven’t seen since I was a small child (indeed, red alert, in the Ashcroft-model sense), for a sixth day. Well, the first two were not so bad, although I do have a very difficult time remembering them, interacting with people? It doesn’t seem reasonable after the past days of constant nausea and terror/sleep. The horror of Apocalypse Effexor is making it difficult to enjoy any kind of “relief”, whether it be from zaps (other symptoms still present – read the pamphlet, I’m in Effexorlessness) or lack of energy. Well, that’s not really true – I remembered and discovered some really interesting things about brains on music and my own – playing all evening would have been wonderful but I have to keep in mind the possibility that figuring out how to access that skill I was starting to master might not always be pretty and enjoyed by my roommates, who have put up with my couch-ridden delirium for the past three days. I didn’t want to have to inflict myself upon others 24/7 again in my short life, but that was, financially-speaking, a complete pipe-dream, at age almost-26, living in Vancouver, where rent in the “ghetto” is now almost as high as rent in the West End. The odd much bigger pipe loft thrown in there, millions upon millions, the rest of us. Who do not perform “perfectly”, who show emotion, who have vices, who feel really damn lazy sometimes, who feel the pleasure and the deep pain of being strapped to this body. So, an experiment, and the results yielded were interesting. They bring tears of terror to think about, but they were very interesting and revealing of what I am facing here. There has to be a doctor out there willing to help people get off this poison without the pain that we, uneducated consumers socializaed from birth, very literally – is it not a doctor we look in the eyes before those of our mothers’, no? – to take his (for those of us that were searching for “father figures”, men and women/and her orders and prescriptions strictly – finish all of these antibiotics, take two pills every six hours, one in the morning and one and a half at night. Are these to be our fathers? Washed down at the demanded time. Mornings are long. Hours are longer. Tears without water, cutting scenes out of paper for dear life, running around the building and collecting power cords from the old apartment now – I am thankful to be freed of our – it was mine the whole time, my little mess, intentions good, nature uncontrollable, the pain of now not being sure if he thought I was malingering around his only intellectual equal on the planet!’s survey contemporary theory class. No, life has been painful, I would not seek (the tears have turned towards a belly full of silent laughter) to pretend to make it more so, so much that doctors had to dig through my guts. Heads need shaking. Some stream of consiousness, good girl, mention Ophelia, gossamer in water, I picture green with pink embroidery, personally. Mistakes paid forward. All meant in ‘good faith’. This is my body and my mind and I shall do with it what I wish and I’m sorry if you have a problem with that but your status does not trump my right to stop taking my Flinstone’s Vitamins for a short while to see if I can live without hoping I’ll get a red one. Red mistake. I will dust myself off good and proper on Monday, I will be over homesickness for a place I hoped would exist before I got here but never did, after an hour or so the tears will never be wet and I can not sleep through an appointment – why is there always an appointment – some obligatory time sacfricied for “the man” – more tears turn to belly laughs, no sounds of sobbing from my eyes or my guts – literally – reading over your credit card bill twice and figuring a way to pay it and the psychological aftermath of economic instability – the fallout. I don’t think I’ll open my Simon Fraser University inbox ever again, and I should have done so a month ago. I do not care. I do not care if a professor is going to take the words of a white, blue-eyed, Texan businessman who employs underage women and exploits the sacred tradition of Shamanism and sells it as drug-induced psychotherapy to wealthy westerners, charging them a fortune that seems like a good deal to North Americans and Australians, white haired, blue-eyed, to look into the beautiful dark eyes filled with anxiety at fetching you the right drink even though she has no clue what you are saying, whose pubescent buttocks are seen for a few seconds as she hurriedly goes inside to the bar to decipher these foreign requests for ice and liquor and coca leaves – something with coca leaves because they’re not legal in the ex-pat’s home and native land – over the word of a young, feminist scholar who is known for radically exposing the truth, no matter how sick it is, and in addition, never done a qualitative project where such raw research, if it must be ethnographic, gets the “publishable” stamp without a chart of outdated subculture theory and consists mainly on argot and hierarchies – so it’s okay to talk about “tramp stamps” in L.A. – if one of the participants in that project contacted the professor of the same class she was subject to participating in a qualitative study – M.A., maybe Ph.D., lumped together, same thing, different stage of cash grab – a young woman and gang member who called out the researcher for calling her a “hood rat” because her stamp was not on her lower back but across her neck – falsified data, the need for another member of this category later to be charted, made public, created…social change?? 
– In this scenario, which could have happened – who would be believed? The woman with “publishable” data that is already out there but used different terminology, and comes to class, every class, on time and wearing much perfectly applied make-up – no dark circles – asks questions that threw us off, and my temperature rose as I left the “hot seat” and realized she had mixed me up with big words but I had a perfect defense…but I was not fast enough and she looked so utterly “professional” in a suit at times, something I will never adorn…, or the straggler who unearthed an illegal business that is likely common to certain cities/towns in the Amazon where “culture” can be experienced by the slightly off the traveled off-road, maybe adorning dreads or a dirty pair of runners and muddy socks – corruption of the highest degree in the name of tourism – government grants, I bet, for Americans to bring a taste of cannibalism to a new place, wow, true Freudian slip, I meant to write capitalism and am actually quite shaken. Whoa. Tourism in Peru, G.D.P, money, hands. Academic dishonesty! Holy crap what has it come to…
SSHRC out of undergrad drop-out. Statistical anomaly as usual. Graduate student taking electives and classes in different departments and making the bureaucracy difficult to navigate – I guess this was easier for students when you were in my shoes? Do you not know that you have to do your job without picking a young woman to act as a scapegoat, drawing attention away from the internal discord, the external review, students like me who paid attention and agreed and spoke out about it. Made it loudly known that even when quiet, our peer-group is completely in agreement and feels like they were ripped off. Well, if it weren’t for one’s fabulous scholar of a supervisor, providing that they do not retire and move four hours away from campus halfway through your degree, which you have been progressing on more than most students, collecting material for over a year while they have yet to start – not because you want a good grade or a publication but because you care and want to help people, want to practice sociology in its context of revealing social insanity and exposing it – and in addition, choosing to attend Simon Fraser because this would-have-been supervisor, who will always remain a soft of mystery, her softspoken voice supposedly that of a former “hell-cat”, though I noticed no difference between her expression when I arrived, all decorated in gold and promise, bells coming later to make noise, and her expression when I left in tears that were obviously attached to suppressed sobs, after reading the e-mail where I explained the incredibly difficult reasons why Simon Fraser University had violated my rights as a student five times over, added stress to my life that had a great impact on my health, and I had to leave this place she had promised me to be right, just for me!, it is pretty in the summer, because I would be ashamed to give them any more money in tuition and fees, never mind hold a degree from the place, not caring whether or not it would be “tarnished” by the good ol’ boys team – stir up some media attention on their sparkling “ethics” abilities to spot a young woman criminally revealing possibly “made-up” information about the exploitation of Peruvian women for an expendable methods class – what, the fourth advanced methods class I’ve taken? I think I understand now, sir!
Time to rise from the ashes, once again
Moving day tomorrow. The nomad has used up one more residence, in that the memories that coat these walls like cigarette smoke have reached the unbearable point. Interesting, that a break-up with a lover did not push me away – I wanted to stay here very much, although the money-factor was always unrealistic, in an apartment that finally looked less like an “affordable” space where appliances that did not work or radiators with a mind of their own were a mainstay. I had sunlight in the morning, an art room, space for my brown sectional sofa circa 1980 in addition to a day-bed, which I’ve always romanticized since I was a child, a dishwasher that worked really well, and skylights over my desk. However, none of these luxuries really got used. I was planning on making use of them once I was finally alone, but that aloneness never came.
Instead, in the vulnerable state I was in after being at the survivor end of multiple counts of domestic abuse, I quickly let two new friends that were in similarly vulnerable states “crash”, and things were truly awesome (in the “awe-inspiring” sense of the word, as they were truly interested in my words and who I was – not the slang that really pisses a lot of seniors off, I’ve noticed – for awesome to be thrown around like that! – fascinating, it is blasphemy to them, but I will continue, as a member of a younger generation, to use it as slang, as I like it) for a while. I loved my new friends equally, each of them having different qualities that told me we were tuned into the same station, shared some of those childhood bits and pieces that were eerily similar – one was a scholar, and ate books like a famine was coming, the other was not, but was perhaps a genius, and a sponge that eagerly soaked up information about history and neurology and physics and astronomy. Maybe more of a “Sham-Wow!”, but one that actually worked.
Threes can be strange. I’ve had a few close threes that have ended in fires of rage; I’ll add this to my list of grievances. Like I learned in many a sociology seminar, the dyad – a group of two – is a very pure connection, an uncomplicated bond, but a triad – a group of three – is much more difficult, as alliances can be built, secrets can be kept, profit can be made at the expense of one member. I’m certainly not generalizing that “three’s a crowd”, as I am entering a living arrangement where I’ll also be part of three! – but things can go sour, literally and figuratively, as I realized that my space was no longer a home and food was non-existent or had reached a “science project” level of mold growth. I guess this space was home for some – a variety of spores that formed different shapes that both fascinated and terrified me.
I have never read the book Things Fall Apart, but I love the title. It was the final item on our Grade 12 reading list, so as usual on grade school reading lists, we never “got to it”. It is about apartheid in South Africa – but what about all the smaller sorts of this social arrangement of seperation that exist, down to the level of small groups?
I will pick it up next time I can afford an amazon.ca binge, as I have thought of it so many times, but never had time…
And in having time, during which I plan to immerse myself in art of all kinds – the essential creativity Karl Marx believed we all have, but are never able to realize because of our need to work as wage-labourers in order to survive; he termed it species-being, one of the four/five (depending on one’s reading of his work…I’m sure much time has been spent debating this…oh, academia, I will not miss you) – my story of another summer has a happy ending even though it is a tragic one of loss. Loss of the unexpected sort, three times over, not counting material items that were taken as betrayal was the theme of the summer. Not during the good times, but during the bad – always betrayal, this time around.
A lesson that I need to remember, always: who my real friends are – or whom I’ve known the longest, and have proven that they stand by me through thick, thin, absenteeism, verbal assault-by proxy – the ones that never spend a day in front of the television, the ones that cook nourishing food, and the ones that I always leave feeling better about this little life of mine – nourished to the bone 
. And so we shall convene, an urban family, three humans, three cats, not at the end of the world, but right in the middle of it – as we should have long ago, but in this life there can be no “woulda, coulda, shoulda”, but only how to survive this day, this moment. My current mission? Paying the final rent payment on this apartment. I must pull it off. I will.
Did it have to be that painful, Universe? Did I have to lose so much? Did I have to be disillusioned by love, friendship, and my planned career?
Yes, it did. Lessons hurt bad.
As for finances during this reunion with my species-being, that I don’t think I’ve been in touch with since fabric art class in Grade 10, although there have been moments, moments like those hours after the Tori Amos concert in Montreal where I made beauty out of trashed magazines with scissors and tape and folding – I will submit, finally, to being a “person with disability”, as us folks that need financial assistance because of illness of the mind or body in British Columbia are able to receive it from “the government”. I have been disabled for a long time since moving here – first mentally, then physically, then mentally, again – but I tried to keep up, and I inevitably ran out of breath. I am quite amazed at how generous social assistance is in this province for us temporarily disabled, or permanently, heaven forbid – double what it was in Manitoba last time I had to take advantage of the “safety net” for some months five years ago. I am lucky and I must give back, and I will.
And so I depart where I almost managed to spend an entire year! I will sell my keyboard, but there is a real piano waiting for me downstairs. I will battle RBC travel insurance until they treat a woman as they would a man and “authorize” to give back the $1500 I spent to run home from South America when times were not so tight. I will battle Rogers Wireless for screwing up my plan and giving me an inadequate phone that they made sound like a deal. I better one is on its way. So lucky, and so indebted to the man.
Today, walking in rain, untypically hard rain for Vancouver, I felt showered and refreshed by the Great Mother that looks after us all, as best as she can despite our disrespect. I am ready for the grey, the mist, putting my shirpa tights back on. I am ready to move on. There will be tears and new truly frightening prospects – a hysterectomy somewhere in there, begging with bureaucrats, the thoughts I cannot rid myself of – the success my peers managed beyond my own, feelings of failing, though in my heart I know I did not fail. I learned, I taught, I learned that it was not my path.
It wasn’t the success I was built for. And in finding my species-being looking at me in the mirror for the first time in eleven years, I will know success that takes a certain kind of bravery – a willingness to take the crooked path, a willingness to throw up one’s arms and wait for the hug that has been waiting for me at the end of a very long tunnel – that waits for all of us when we are ready to give into the chaos, to let it give back.
And my hair is at last the stop-sign red that I’ve wanted it to be for at least eleven years. It only cost twelve dollars. It was absolutely necessary.
A few hours of sleep, then the final few bags that will take me to another temporary home, but more than that, a space that will house the triumphs and tragedies of a new time, new time together. I hope it lasts longer than a year.
Posted in Academia is Nuts!, Other Survivors, Poetry, Prose, Personal, Transcend
Tagged betrayal, British Columbia, friendship, lovers, moving, PWD, tenancy
I became concerned – well, more so – after reading my former co-author’s disclaimer at his new site. (also provided below – if ethics are to be thrown to the wind, I’ll risk a copy and paste out of pure caring, whether he believes it or not…he doesn’t believe me very often, so… The failure to check spelling and grammar is very out of character. And whenever the “…then you’re crazier than me”-type statement is spoken by this individual, at least for as long as I’ve known the fellow, it’s part of the pattern exhibited when he is losing touch with reality, and getting closer to a brawl that ends in hospitalization or trouble with the police. As we are forbidden mutual contact, if any others that care about him happen to see this, a check-up might be in order. No nastiness intended here, just a little worry expressed in the only way I am allowed to – anonymously! Points of particular concern indicated below…
Dont make assumptions. All situations are “representations of the real” and in this sense are rhetorical. Any similarities to persons either alive or dead that characters in my writings take or don’t take is purely coincidental. It may mean that you as a reader are reading too much into these snippets of fictional writings ( 
I’ll stick with Occam’s Razor, thanks). The quasi-academic (academ-huh? 
) writings contained herein are also “representations of the real” and as such do not represent actual social facts. Characters may always be inspired by actual people I have met or known but as any writer would tell you: “Write what you know”.
And take all content with maximum “grains of salt” since I do not claim to be an expert on any matter (“Take it with the love its given, take it with a grain of salt, take it to the taxman” – is this what one should ascertain from this grammatical mess?). As the Buddha says “don’t know”( 
). Any information presented here must be treated as opinion or editorial comment. At no point do (or would) I advocate following online impersonal advice without some critical thought, reflection, possible consults from trusted ‘experts’ etc (this writer generally does not play around with the word “expert”…no, this does not sound like Alarryyk, but the dopplegänger….). In the words of Siddartha Gautama the ancient skeptic: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense”. Finally, if you do not heed this warning and believe me without checking the context and doing the work, then you are crazier than i am. ( 
)
Posted in Academia is Nuts!, Bipolar, Other Survivors
…the “yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else could we do, get jobs at offices and wake up for the morning news?” bit, not the sleeping with models and snorting drugs bit. I could not survive a 9-5, preparing for it with coffee and news on in the background. Every time I watch news I dream of war. Now that I am alone, news is never on the television, I rely on the Internet, and sometimes, a print newspaper or magazine! They still exist, at the back of gas stations and lottery/cigarette/flower shops. 
But, for you, time to be honest about my present.
Update, 9:34 pm, same day: MadPraxis’s unwanted editing/criticism machine already got this post through its jowls…I was unaware of its incredible speed. See it here! …and please let me know if you concure that this post was “nonsensical”. I didn’t think so, a few others didn’t think so, but that’s not exactly “statistically generalizable”, so please, if I’m spewing nonsense, tell me! If not, maybe this machine can be stopped, somehow?? It’s starting to get annoying. I wouldn’t look at it if I weren’t required to for reasons beyond my control (police orders to watch for breaches….
I admit, I’ve been struggling since my temporary roommates have left. The house is still immaculate according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The clean fridge has yet to be filled with proper groceries. I took a Trazodone out of desperation to sleep Monday night, and woke up at 11 am, too late for my liking, and that show where the crazy Ranger follows 2 people around some kind of terrible landscape was on – it was making me exceptionally anxious. I searched for the remote. Then I picked up my cell phone, the screen still waiting to be fixed.
Wednesday, September 1st.
I slept through August 31st. Trazodone: never again!
I lost a day, never to be retrieved.
The reality of living alone for the next few months hit hard. Living alone can be amazing. Right now, it is “time to pretend” until I rediscover this. No other option. I have to face the reality of daily life – i.e. dealing with endless strings of bureaucracy, getting groceries even though take-out food is the same price – I must cook for the ritual of it, I must vacuum again, I must play more piano, I must salvage the garden – next year it will be a multi-person project, a good thing, as the watering responsibilities can be shared! – however I want to appreciate what I created all by myself for these last weeks (2 months worth of them potentially, I am still caught off guard by the climate in Vancouver compared with that of the midwest at times – today I wore a long-sleeve shirt and jeans as I would have on past firsts of September in Winnipeg – after stepping outside I immediately had to change into an airy dress) of summer, I must work on art and writing more, I must be more rational in my bill-slashing. I need my landline back. I need to get rid of cable. I need to learn how to use this Roger’s red “closed connection anywhere” stick that I acquired for free (+ $30/mth charge) over a month ago, and determine whether or not I can cancel my other Internet wireless set-up or not. I must get used to the noises of living in a large apartment building while I am silent and others are living with friends, some of whom are never silent. I never noticed before. And I must “schedule”, no matter how much I detest the idea 
, it’s time to get the pencil and calendar back out.
School has always kept a schedule of sorts for me, and “kept me on track” – a phrase I’ve uttered many times when asked why I haven’t taken a break, not even a summer break, in 23 years. I’m on a break now. I need to decide exactly what I want to use it for. I need to decide whether I can handle an entire year off. I need to wash memories of Simon Fraser University right out of my hair along with its men, and prepare to attend a better school, but one where I’m a number, like I was at McGill and the University of Manitoba. I need to realize I’m no longer sitting in an office sandwiched between close professor friends, and that I may not experience this again. Life changes, and I need to adapt, on my own.
Unfortunately, it is not like riding a bike.
Every time is at least as hard as the last. This is what I wanted – no roommates for a while. I need to remember why I wanted it so much, wanted what I had and loved last summer, and I need fall back in love with it as it will not last for long, money considered.
I need to flush any Trazodone that remains, and remind myself of the words of a nurse who long ago that made me realize I was going to be fine – “Your body will sleep eventually! Don’t worry, honey. Pills aren’t going to help – your body needs to remember how to sleep.”
How to sleep in an empty bed. How to get up in time to arrive at a meeting prepared…
I have an important one tomorrow, so I will do that now, the day before just in case, and write more later. I don’t need cable in the background to write. I don’t need to associate my favourite music, my favourite albums, with negative times and people. I need to listen to it, rather than having the – comfort?? – of another screen to keep the one I am staring at company.
Turn it off, tune in, and don’t you dare drop out. SFU didn’t kill you, pain is weakness leaving the body, each day will get better until each day is fabulous – you got knocked around, but strength will come with time.
Pretending is my enemy, but sometimes it must be done. Sometimes CBT must be used. Actions are the easiest to change – then thoughts – feelings are the hardest. Time to act, until it’s no longer a performance, my thoughts and feelings falling in line with not only the wonder I see in nature and my kitties and my mentors, but the wonder I see in myself. I am on vacation, but that is not, so wake up…
(amazing art from DeviantART…for the next post (later tonight, Pacific Time, so perhaps tomorrow for you, I’ll show you some of my own art in progress!)
Wow. What more could any blogger ask for?
Someone on the web, who appears to read my blog quite regularly, and maybe a little more carefully than is deserved! :shy: – has offered me a free service – actually, there was no offer, this person just started this up for free. I picture what this service would look like (I’m a so-called “visual person” if it were mechanical and like most machines today, “auto”, based on a program with certain algorithmic properties – kind of like a fax machine or even a body-scanning device. In this scenario, I feed a post – usually one that was rather abstract, not the best of my writing, but still, something I shot out into the blogosphere as who knows, it might strike a chord with someone out there – into the document tray. After some time, out pops an incredibly similar post – it could be a described as a parody, but not a very funny one, so maybe, it could better be described as not only a parody, but one meant to hurt me, and in so doing, say, “scars, your writing is garbage right now, it might as well be this! Even I, machine, could churn this stuff out on demand!“, or it could be taken so far as to be described as a kind of fear-inducing-parody by plagiarism machine, saying, “Mwah ha ha ha ha ha! Your thoughts and creations of terms like ‘fray-dumb’ can be so easily worked into the work of any other aspiring writer that doesn’t like “the way things are” that you’re a fool to be using this medium to express your thoughts, throwing care to the wind. Someone that doesn’t like you could pick apart one of your former academic works and look for holes in it, compose a couple of e-mails that appear to come from a real ‘expert’ on the crap you blab about and get you charged with making stuff up! 
Or lookey-here, here’s a post that uses a clever little double entendre you came up with as a title - you never even bothered to take credit for it, crazy woman! 99% of our genes are patented, and you don’t bother to copyright a sort-of-clever ‘term’ that describes the Orwellian quality of the use of the word ‘freedom’ by current politicians, and much of the populace in our times? Who’s gonna profit off your writing in the end, huh? You need to start thinking a little more about the fact that things just are the way they are, and if you don’t get with the times, you’re never going to be famous like me!”
It’s a strange machine. I wish its creator the best in his/her aspiration to attain a degree of fame, as I happen to know this is a goal s/he holds close. It is a strict, like that one that Goldfrapp sings about, and claims to “be in love with” – but I don’t like it very much, never mind love it. I wish I would have been asked permission before it was made and presented in the public domain.
For one, I still don’t really get what it is attempting to do, so I can’t respond, nor can I find any use for it – like a TV set. If it is meant to make me laugh, that would also require some explanation. Is it supposed to irk me in the way the “postmodern generator” is supposed to rile up staunch postmodern scholars? Is it a heads up, but demonstrated by a metaphor so abstract, few can understand it? If so, I am not one of those few.
I appreciate the compliment, as whomever made this obviously took some time to come up with some kind of design and… stuff.
I would rather my writing be criticized or complimented in a more coherent way, such that I can make use of the criticism, or properly appreciate the compliment and know what I’m doing right.
Oh well, this is the risk we subject ourselves to in “keeping some kind of record book ” and publishing it for all to read, if they so choose. Journals kept private present less “risk”, but I already know what I have to say about something – I want to hear what others have to say in reaction – to create a dialogue – reaching them using the medium of the Internet. It is a less policed space than others – both an advantage and a downfall, but I think the former drastically outweighs the latter. I’m going to say what I want to in this temporary arena where censorship is rare and money doesn’t control what information people have access to.
As for that machine, if it is merely a kind of parody, cheers, I suppose, although I must be honest and say I think it could have been done even better. Why don’t you give it another try? If it is pointing out the poor quality of some of my late-night, “I have nothing to say but need to say something if I’m going to make it through the night so bleh…..” posts, point taken, but right now this is the only place I have to get them out of my head – maybe I should build a second site for poorer posts, but I kind of like the mix, it seems more honest. Finally, if it’s supposed to scare me, I’m not really worried about how perfect my academic resumé looks, or if I get proper credit/stipends for little phrases I come up with. I just put them out there hoping to stir mainstream discourse. If they have the tiniest effect, my job for the day is done.
 | Sun in Taurus 10 degrees |
| Moon in Taurus 0 degrees |
 | Waning Crescent Moon 27 days old |
