Is This My Quarter-Life Crisis?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by scarsarestories | 2 Comments

So, I think I’ve come to a bit of a “crossroads”.

But I hate the genre of “self-help” as you now know if you did not already, and there does not seem to be any “road” (nor a cross, <giggle> ). Rather the landscape before me looks like someone photoshopped my days using the “dissolve” function, full blast.

I think that for many, many years – a decade, to be precise – I was a willing participant in a series of “serious”/”long-term” relationships that were incredibly toxic. My co-participants were men – and I’m not even attracted to men that way (which I now, at 27, finally get, though I have no idea how to ask a woman on a date ) – who, to varying degrees and in various ways, had some “serious” issues, such as, though certainly not limited to, drug addiction, misogyny, untreated severe mental illness, and rage – indeed, strip away all bias regarding things these men did or did not do to me and/or my family and friends during the course of our respective relationships and these men had something in common other than dating me: they were deeply disturbed. No way around it.

I do not think I at all on purpose chose disturbed men, unless on some unconscious level. This allowed me to do something though, something that was my life support, to analogize, something that cannot be said in one word. It allowed me to be almost entirely consumed with reacting to and surviving a series of crises, whether I was “taking care of him”, “trying to change him”, or “helping him”, my mind was constantly concerned with making it through the day or week or month amidst a little earthquake, a “situation”, and one that you do not want your employer or professor to know about, though at times revealing my messy “personal life” to the people in other spheres of my life was necessary (often marking the beginning of the end of a job or registration in a class or a friendship). However you choose to frame it, my life was one pretty predictable phone call away from a “family emergency”. There was always something on my mind, and this allowed another something, less unpleasant but more complicated (to understate quite dramatically), to never be on my mind.

Me.

Myself.

I was able to completely ignore his girlfriend.

Now, a decade older than seventeen, a degree later, a cross-country move after, here I sit.

And I don’t know what to do with a very nice life. Since my hysterectomy, pain is no longer hanging around to distract me from me, either.

I think the reason I became depressed so severely that I stopped functioning last summer had something to do with this – a different kind of pain replaced the screaming in my abdomen, not because I missed my uterus or the potential ability to conceive, I just became incredibly disillusioned with the world as I looked at it undistracted, and it took a near-death experience (" >the car accident) to shock me “sane” (at least functional …and basically content with my immediate circumstance, though there are of course things that I hate about society, I will not allow them to own me! ).

I had even stopped writing for the first time since I was able to use a damn pen. Look at the gap at the number of posts I made, here on this blog, last summer compared with other months – use the “ARCHIVES BY MONTH” widget on the right hand side near the top of the page – one last July. And I bet it was a guilty “filler” post. Let me check. Oh, wrong! But depressing and jade[d] as the earrings I could not drag my butt a block down to sit in the sun on a blanket with to pay for my existence. And so wrong in its simple conclusion. No, I was not able to shake it off by signing up for “Les Be Friends” on meetup.com, though the few times I did drag my ass[ets] out the door I met some lovely people. They were not depressed, though, so what could I talk about with them and what could I really bring to the group, a walking corpse? That’s no fun for anyone. I remember when my old TV was stolen at the beginning of August. My position did not change. I lay on the couch staring at the wall while my magick garden was turning to dust. The thought of listening to music made me want to die like everything else, but this time I knew I couldn’t kill myself (which of course made me want to die, made me wish I had terminal, stage four cancer or end-stage anything) and that made it hurt in a whole new way.

Then, after two months of being treated like I did have end-stage something by my Aunt, who even doled out my pills for me, while I slept sixteen hours a day, cried for two, smoked pot, hated myself for gaining forty pounds, hated myself for caring, hated mirrors and clothing nonetheless, and hoped I would not be asked to go on a walk, I found myself mid-air, staring in the non-existent eye, and I did not want to go. And my life did not flash before my eyes for the next seconds that were each a minute long, during which I braced myself to be impaled with some feature of the environment coming through the windshield and said, “Oh my God.” My last words damn well were not going to be “Oh my God”. Not that I had time to think that, but really. I did not want my story to be over and it was not because of or for any other person. We rolled over a cliff but stopped rolling just before the treeline so something never came through the windshield, and when I realized that I could shimmy my slightly pudgy self out of the wreck, I felt something strong for the first time that whole crappy year: relief. Relief to be alive.

It certainly was not for my Aunt; I made the conscious choice to run away from the smoking remains of the rented van that contained her, actually thinking of my young age and the years that I had yet in front of me in comparison to those that lay behind her, Goddess forbid. It was the future that flashed before me, the great empty expanse of my future. Staying alive was more important than finding something sharp for her to cut herself out of the blows-up-in-movie-wreck of. My kitty, my baby, meowing at the top of the cliff, became my focus. But for a good 60 seconds or so it was just me.

And I don’t know what to do with her.

I guess I do a little bit. I decorated my apartment when I came home from my very unsuccessful trip “home” for Christmas – one I never would have made had I not been in that crash, and one I will never make again as that “home” resembles the remains of that rental van. I really, really like my apartment. There is no one else to say what should go where or what colour the towels should be. I really am fond of my little life with my kitty, so naturally I’m terrified of losing it – the shelter and my cat. Sometimes I unlock my door, open it, and look for an eviction notice. And I rushed my kitty to the emergency pet hospital after she ate a crumb of garbage that contained bleach and pills (I know, I know, I will never put pills in the garbage again). But so far, so good.

So what is it that I’m complaining about? I guess I’m not complaining, but I am observing a woman that has not had a device with only music that she likes (do they all make you put it on your iPod, too? What’s up with that, just for good measure? Or were all three men that controlling? ) – no death metal or gangsta rap or slit-my-wrists-for-me-please in between artists I like – since she was a sixteen year-old girl and blasted it louder than I would ever play it now unless I was really drunk, while I put on my uniform and got ready to drive to high school with my dad and sister, after asking my grandma not to make my bed for me, but she never listened. Yes, my bed is unmade as I type. No, I did not make it for the photograph. I just forget sometimes. And I keep absolutely absurd hours.

The sixteen year-old girl doesn’t quite know what to do with the twenty-seven year-old woman all of the time.

5761→ 2 CommentsIs+This+My+Quarter-Life+Crisis%3F2012-01-24+11%3A50%3A33scarsarestories

Posted in Poetry, Prose, Personal

Tagged beginning of the end, bias, crises, crossroads, decade, drug addiction, family and friends, full blast, landscape, little earthquake, long term relationships, lt, mental illness, participants, personal life, phone call, quarter life crisis, rage, spheres, unconscious level, willing participant

What is Folie à Deux? (feat. “Madness in the Fast Lane” Documentary)

Posted on January 17, 2012 by scarsarestories | 2 Comments

Folie à Deux (English pronunciation /foˈli ə ˈduː /, From the French “a madness shared by two” ) or Shared Psychosis is a psychiatric syndrome characterized by symptoms of a delusional belief being transmitted from one individual to another.The Same syndrome in more than two people may be called “Folie À Trois” (3), “Folie à Quatre” (4), “Folie à Famille” (“Family”, to translate directly), or “Folie à Pleusieurs” (Madness of Many). Recent Classifications Include the dsm-iV listing – shared psychotic disorder – and its icd-10 Counterpart – Induced delusional disorder. However, Research tends to use the original name (“Folie à Deux” et al. ) which was first conceptualized in 19th century french psychiatry.

Though I have been affected by this condition many times, personally, I was unaware that it was conceived of and classified as such until a friend sent me a link to this fascinating documentary. Click to watch the full-length (approx. 45 mins) BBC feature, though it is not required ~~reading~~ watching to understand this little article, as I am going to discuss criticisms of “folie à deux” and my own experiences that I thought were mere instances of being embarrassingly suggestible. I very much recommend watching it at some point, and it is now up on the “featured documentary” page. The film has a little something for everyone, as it begins (in true Foucauldian fashion) with two sisters throwing themselves into traffic, one suffering some lovely compound fractures , before revealing who these women are, the “true crime” genre tale entwined in their episodic madness, and leaving the viewer with some tough questions to answer regarding crime, punishment, and psychiatry.

One might imagine the primary question that individuals appeal to when a violent crime is committed during the course of an instance of folie à deux:

Does this condition actually exist, or is it simply the stuff of mythology and fiction?

The answer to this question is easy and laughable for anyone who has been subject to a folie, that is, one who has taken on the delusions of someone else, and recovered, feeling rather silly upon looking back, unhindered by myopia. However, for those who have not experienced this – in the same way that the majority of people who have never gone through any form of psychosis first-hand have deep problems with the insanity defense – it is difficult to grasp how anyone, especially someone “in their right mind“, could be that affected by someone else. And I am not yet sure how to make people who have never strayed from sanity understand. I wish I had an analogy that made some metaphorical light bulb glow, and perhaps one day I will, but so far I am stumped. All I can do, therefore, is speak of some of my own experiences, hoping that some bit of my storytelling will strike a chord that folks can relate to.

You see, before I learned of “folie à deux” today, I carried much unresolved anger at myself for being “highly suggestible”, and for taking on certain beliefs belonging to those who I was, at certain times in my life for various lengths of time, in the near-constant company of. Now, when I say “beliefs”, I do not refer to core ethics/values, like my views on abortion, racialization, and prison abolition – these remain constant even when they differ from my partner or parent’s views drastically, and are often points of conflict. See, these topics are not the stuff of psychoses.

Paranoia is. When my ex went a little mad after going off Epival “cold turkey”, he started to have delusions about my landlord. Not only was he a scary bastard (which he was, doing things like ripping a closet door off with his bare hands after I had angered him by “creating black mold growth” in the suite I lived in at the time, on the lower level of a house built in 1910, but he was also a dad and had been friendly without exception until my ex started doing things like writing on the walls with sharpie pen ) but he was trying to initiate an affair with me, and had perhaps been successful! I was accused of this a few times, but after I was able to convince my ex that I had no interest in my pot-bellied, going-on-50 landlord, the main concern became the fact that he was dangerous. Some threat had been made, had it not?

And so, one morning, when I should have been teaching for four hours, I had security at Simon Fraser University find me a safe room, after giving them my landlord’s description. My ex had driven me to school on the back of his motorbike – public transit was not safe. I had to cancel my classes and stay in that room all day, the door locked and the ex returning periodically with “updates”. He even got his dad, who he saw a few times a year, it seemed, involved. When dad came to visit my self-made quiet room, he remarked, speaking of his son, “He sounds exactly like he did before he had to go to the hospital last time.”

I do not recall how the day ended or how it was determined that we were “safe” to return home, but for the course of the day, I honestly believed that my landlord was so angry at me for creating mold, never mind my ex’s teenage rantings in sharpie pen all over the walls, that he was coming for me, coming to beat me up. I was truly terrified, even though I knew otherwise that the graffiti, eh, artist, was on his way to the psych ward and made little sense. How embarrassing.

Or, maybe not! Get this – the “syndrome” is primarily diagnosed when two (or three, four, or many, like the residents of Jonestown back in the 1970s – cult members who ended up committing mass suicide) people are living in isolation, and have very little contact with any others. This quite accurately described my living circumstances when I took on that paranoid delusion fed to me – I was living in a new city and knew no one, and as usual, did not make friends with my classmates. Thus, I spent almost every waking hour not teaching or in class myself with my then partner. The specific “type” of folie I experienced would be called “folie imposée”, and when a pair in such a situation is admitted to a hospital, one of the two – the one that has been influenced as I was – almost never requires medication to regain an accurate perception of reality. More recently, I was furious with myself – it happened again, and I must be the easiest person to influence this side of the Rockies, I scolded myself and thought about how my “book smarts” failed to translate into “real life”, and how foolish I had been for ever thinking otherwise. :capedes

Silly me. This case was much more textbook, and as time and self-loathing passed, I knew that the situation had been a strange one, though I couldn’t quite explain it. Now I can! When I went to stay with my Auntie R. in the Kootenays (a mountain range in the interior of B.C. and less than an hour plane ride away) at the end of August, deeply depressed and in need of help with daily tasks, I thought I was incredibly blessed to have literally just been contacted by my reclusive aunt for the first time in fifteen years and asked to visit her for a length of my choosing (the “my choosing” part was quickly upended after my arrival), a former psychiatric nurse and fellow “bipolar” diagnosée.

We lived, for nearly two months, in absolute isolation. She had but one friend who we saw a total of two times, once for twenty minutes and another time for five, and lived in the basement of a dying man – whom she acted as a caregiver for – who I was kind of afraid to talk to. We slept in the same bed. Aside from evenings sitting outside when it was warm outside for the first month, we literally spent all waking hours together in that room, unless we, together again, went “downtown” to the pharmacy or to buy groceries. Every day was exactly the same, Trent Reznor! My only alone time was the hour, if that, during which she cooked dinner and ate with the old man.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time you know that I did not even write during those months – writing being my lifeblood for many, many years. My Aunt even took over the job of doling out my meds, which still has me a little mixed up, as I forget to take them on time if they are not right in front of my face. Enough about the setting – on to… the madness.

My Aunt has been involved in a legal battle over the estate she (should have) inherited when her partner, a rather wealthy man, died of cancer five years ago. The executors, involved in other unsavoury activities in the “wild west” of BC’s interior (the populace is comprised half of retired hippies, and the other half rednecks. The rednecks are, uh, businesspeople, while the hippies smoke the products of their labour, and are easily pushed around, sometimes even recruited to do the bitch work of the other fellows, who throw around a lot of talk about people disappearing as they polish their hunting rifles. Need I say which camp my Aunt and her rather naïve partner belonged to?

My Aunt’s life has revolved around trying to find a lawyer in the area who is cheap enough and unafraid enough to take on the estate-thieves for many years. I guess this would drive anyone a little batty. And intensely paranoid.

No, not paranoid! She was apt to be killed in the night at any time, and when I arrived, the level of danger – yes, just like this:

Indeed, the arrival of a young woman who was, at the time, sleeping for most of the day, made the spies – someone had moved into the house above ours on the mountainside for the sole purpose of spying on us, which included setting up a phone tap, while another one stalked my Aunt when she visited the Sally Ann – very angry. Two are stronger than one. And almost all of these signs that one’s phone is tapped were met. Well, at least the important half. Then, after a proper lawyer was hired, a mutual friend of the old man and my Aunt’s widowed partner called asking about buying a rifle.

Clearly he was saying, GET OUT YOUR GUNS!

I lived in a near constant state of terror that someone was going to break through the basement door and kill us for almost the entire time I stayed with Ruth. I found a large, heavy object (that turned out to be the battery pack for an old cordless drill) – actually, I grabbed it one time that we thought we heard someone enter upstairs – and kept it on the shelf beside my side of the bed. The word “paranoid” was an insult. Others just could not understand, but if they were with us, they too would be aware that our lives hung in the balance day and night. I jumped at the slightest sound.

At least I knew my depression was lifting, I suppose, as I seemed to care quite deeply about survival.

I called my father a few times, trying to impress upon him how serious “these people” were. He always asked, “what people?” He JUST DID NOT GET IT.

So it turns out I am not of less intelligent or weak constitution, but I am prone to folie à deux. How do I know this was the reason that I was afraid for my and my Aunt’s life? I suppose I will never know that my beliefs were all just part of a delusion that I came to share with my Auntie R., though in the article that comes up first when you “Google” the phrase “folie à deux” a case of cohabiting adult family members, living in a rural and somewhat isolated community, and sharing delusions about their neighbours, is one of the three instances listed.

And no, I still do not like labels, but I do like understanding my own tendencies, because only then may I change those that are maladaptive. If anyone knows of a therapy group for those predisposed to “folie à deux” in the Greater Vancouver Area…

5742→ 2 Comments2012-01-17+09%3A31%3A34scarsarestories

Posted in Bipolar, Documentaries, Mad Society, Other Survivors, The Psych Ward, Transcend

Tagged bbc, belief, counterpart, crime punishment, Documentary, dsm iv, experiences, folie a deux, folie a pleusieurs, full-length, instances, madness, madness in the fast lane, madness in the fast lane documentary, mythology, psychiatry, psychotic disorder, self, tough questions, true crime, two sisters, violent crime

Paved Paradise, Put Up A Park? The Newly Renovated Grandview “Park”

Posted on January 15, 2012 by scarsarestories | 1 Comment

The first time I passed it by bus, I did not even notice it. The second time, I got out of my seat and I think my jaw actually dropped. The multi-million dollar renovations that closed Grandview Park – a, if not “the” landmark of my neighbourhood in East Van(couver), Grandview-Woodlands, historically rich and, until July 2010, the heart of Commercial Drive – for over a year, after a political group of homeowners in the area (the average house in this area costs about two million dollars, and therefore many – perhaps half? more? – have been turned into rental properties, each floor an apartment and consequently one house is home to three or four families, whether comprised of a group of students or a young couple with a small child, while the others are home to members of the “1%”, i.e. the wealthy – these rich folks are the ones that founded the group I speak of) who called themselves, in true Orwellian fashion, “Friends of Grandview Park”, put enough pressure on the city to spend millions on park “upgrades”, they were finally complete, and the park, open.

I was terrified when I read the petition, put out by the “Friends”, that was apparently getting them where they wanted with city council. Why terrified instead of just angry? Because of two words next to one another – illegal protest. If the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the document that separates Canada from a totalitarian dictatorship, holds true, there is no such thing as an illegal protest. One of our key freedoms on the list of nine items that I was required to memorize in high school (is this still a requirement in Canadian High Schools? :amazed: ) in more than one grade, is The Right to Peaceful Protest/Assembly. Of anything. This is why old men, and the odd old woman,

One of the usual suspects

are allowed to wear sandwich boards with statements like “Abortion Causes Breast Cancer” on them, carting around a stroller containing plastic molds of pieces of a mangled, assumedly “aborted” fetus, are able to harass every woman that walks home from Broadway/Commercial Station on Friday afternoon, as well as those who happen to be on their way to the abortion clinic across the street. It is also why the “Occupy” movement is allowed to march down the streets surrounding the business districts of Canadian cities holding signs expressing thoughts about the unfair nature of an economic structure where 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth, and 99% of our citizenry struggles to afford food and shelter.

Grandview Park, historically, has been, previous to and including the civil rights movements for black people and women and gay people of the 1960s, a meeting place for such protestors (not the anti-choice folks, the “Occupy” kin – “liberals”, “socialists”, “commie pinkos”, or whatever you want to call us) and a starting point for marches promoting the rights of people like workers, the poor, survivors of domestic abuse, and psychiatric patients. It has been the place in Vancouver for us folks to meet and organize.

When I arrived in Vancouver in 2009, I saw a sign for a march I was supportive of and interested in attending, or at least observing, at least once a week. The place listed on these posters was always the same: “Grandview Park“.

When my family came to visit in June of that same year, I proudly took them to the park one day as an outing. The park was full of life of any type you could imagine: young and old men and women selling handmade goods or garage sale-type items, families with children using a play structure, teenage boys skateboarding (trying to pull off extra scary-looking moves as my sister and I passed, sometimes looking suave and sometimes falling down with red faces), homeless people sleeping or talking, their shopping carts filled with their worldly possessions nearby – carts were also left there for the day indicating an impressive level of trust that theft would not take place, hipster-types in their twenties or thirties smoking pot away from the hub-bub at the far end of the park – often passing a hacky sack around as well as a J, and people like my family and me, my dad wearing ripped jeans and I wearing a long skirt with running shoes, taking it all in with smiles on our faces, sitting in the shade of huge hundred year-old trees and conversing.

I did not realize that I was taking the park for granted by assuming that its presence, and purpose(s), would not change more than society itself changed. I did not think I was being ignorant by sitting in the grass and enjoying the shade, believing that it, too, would always be around, and without paying homage to the soon-to-be cut down trees. I did not think that my own friends would look at me like I was the crazy one when I started talking about how scary it was to see the phrase “illegal protest” on a mainstream pamphlet produced by a political action group when, in 2010, these first started circulating. This literature and similar signage gave six reasons why Grandview Park was in dire need of a massive facelift. “Friends of Grandview Park,” I laughed at the first posters I saw, assuming that they would elicit nothing but creating a larger divide between neighbours. The closure and renovations began a month later.

The six points, which included the aforementioned juxtaposition of words that bothered me so, so much, were as follows (directly quoting the literature produced by the “friends”:

Chronically overrun by illegal inhabitants.
[Used for] drug dealing and hard drugs, like heroin, crack, and crystal meth
The chosen location of illegal protestors
The design of the playground encourages loitering of non-families
The unsanctioned use of tennis courts by the bicycle polo club … tennis courts are no longer available for parents to teach their kids how to ride bikes.
Poor drainage

If you’re asking yourself, “can you get any more offensive?”, you’re asking the same question I asked when I read the list for the first time, and the question that still comes to mind when I reread it, almost two years later. In case you’re not at all familiar with Vancouver, this park and my neighbourhood, though in “East Vancouver”, are quite far from the “Downtown Eastside”, or “Canada’s Poorest Postal Code”, known for its shock value as people use hard drugs in plain sight there, shooting up or smoking crack in doorways of abandoned buildings. You can walk there, but most would take the train and bus transfer, or the downtown bus, as most do not like walking for hours at a time (I do, but I know I’m rather alone in this). No, Grandview Park is not Pigeon Park, though our “friends” would have us believe they are from the “same pile”. Really, the two could not be more different. You see, the “friends” either do not go to Grandview Park but make wild generalizations and speculations about the place from the “safety” of their Lexus Crossover Vehicles on the drive home, or they are shamelessly lying in order to get city council to meet their demands. I’m guessing that both methods are at play here.

First of all, “hard drugs” were never sold at Grandview Park. Marijuana was. It was a place where teenagers could buy some pot if they were interested in experimenting without having to go downtown where hard drugs are sold. Neither heroin, nor crack, nor crystal meth were sold or consumed at Grandview Park. I would know – I’ve either been intimately involved with users or the substances, themselves, listed – all three – and they certainly were not present at Grandview Park. I am just as sure of this as I am sure that there is no such thing as an “illegal protest”, nor “illegal protesters” in Canada, unless they are throwing Molatov Cocktails at the police. These types, anarchists and hockey fans, were not the type that met at the park to protest either. Almost all of the protests I saw at the park were organized and attended by new immigrants to Canada.

Imagine, you manage to escape a place where you would be killed for protesting the government, only to find that you arrived in Canada a little too late, as your dream of a new home is on its way to making it impossible to protest the government as well. Perhaps in less violent ways, but at least violence is honest.

Then there was the phrase that pissed me off almost as much as “illegal protesters”. Non-families. Excuse me, but what the eff is a “non-family”? How are couples that choose not to have children, or gay couples (with or without children – many gay couples with children seemed to frequent the playground, undeterred by us non-families, but, of course, gay people and other marginalized groups are usually just a little more enlightened than the people staring at them from their luxury vehicle windows), or longtime roommates, any less of a “family” than a woman married to a man and their 2.4 biological children? What do the rest do that the latter “nuclear family” does not? Okay, fine – the sociology of the family may be a bit of a stretch for the average doctor or business executive or loud-talking, face-on-a-bench, real estate guru – the types that live in the multi-million dollar homes with their offspring and vote for Stephen Harper and form groups like the “Friends”. But here’s a question that all of the above should be able to answer – what the <bleep> is threatening enough about loitering non-parents to deter families from sharing the playground? Are the teenagers that your little angels are soon going to be really that scary? Hipsters and gay people, too? Yes? Hm. You must spend a whole lot of time being scared. Can I ask one more question? Please?

Why do you live in this neighbourhood if you do not like to share space with street-vendors, lesbians, skaters, immigrants, and the odd punk? There are plenty of other neighbourhoods – actually, this is the only neighbourhood where us “non-family” and “illegal” types are able to be ourselves outdoors without being shooed away – there are Kitslano, the West End, and Point Grey, never mind North and West Vancouver, where everyone is just like you, very safe. Why on Earth did you decide to live in East Van?!?!

The last two points on the list are so silly they needn’t be discussed. There are parks on every other block around here, as well as streets with very little traffic, so why would you need a tennis court to “teach [your] children how to ride bikes”? Aren’t tennis courts supposed to be for… playing tennis? Again, correct me if I’m way off. As for “drainage”, I never noticed any problem with flooding in the park. And if it were to flood, wouldn’t that be good for you, “friends”, as it would get rid of all the homeless, er, “illegal” folks, sleeping in the park?

That was a year and a half ago. Documents like this one [fgpflyer_march] and posters protesting the “Friends” were defaced. Apparently this new breed of yuppie and “friend” bears sharpie markers, as speech bubbles with the words “crack” and phrases like “heroin rules” were placed over the heads of human figures on posters created by those who wished to debate the them. Evidently they are also clever and brave. However, I doubt this kind of nonsense had any effect on the City’s decision to spend over a million “renovating” Grandview Park. I think that one thing swayed the decision of local politicians.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Here is the product of all that money, time, and political action! Finally, here it is, “friends” and friends alike, a Grandview Park for the 21st century:

Well, there sure is a lot of pavement on which to teach a kid how to ride a bike. No more tennis courts. Nor large trees. The oldest, biggest, trees in the park were all chopped down, for the sake of visibility, I suppose. See the playground? Me too. This way, the police can see any “non-families” abusing the structure with their presence, and vice-versa – those who dare loiter can see the cops or rich mothers giving them dirty looks. And all that comfy grass that might as well have been a bed, inviting ~~homeless~~ illegal residents to set up shop? Gone, gone, and gone!

Wait, if homeless people are now being called “illegal”, wouldn’t it logically follow that homelessness is illegal? Finally? Homes for everyone?!?

No? Oh. Sounded too good to be true, no worries.

One last thought: I have no idea how the new concrete park is going to prevent “illegal protesters” from using it as a gathering place, but I guess that has yet to be seen. I took these photos from the bus, so I did not see the list – I’m assuming there is a list posted – of updated “park rules”. I will go look tomorrow. If it uses the phrase “illegal protest(ers)” I am writing letters to every politician in the country. I hope you are, too.

How I wish that I had pictures of the old, pre-reno Grandview Park. But I didn’t think there was any rush to take some. It was tree-filled, humanity-filled, conversation-filled.

Now the park seems to be nothing more than a place to “keep moving along” through on one’s way home. I cannot help but wonder if it will become a place where those hard drugs the “friends” named actually are sold, the same way that the former marijuana buy spot in Winnipeg became a place, after it was “renovated” and fenced-off, where I have been asked, only after the “improvements” were finished, if I want to buy meth.

No, I don’t. Nor do I want to go to a concrete park. No matter how well it drains. Looks like one large gravestone to me, though it’s blank, the history buried beneath simply erased.

Are you happy with the results, “friends”?

5733→ 1 Comment2012-01-16+06%3A31%3A15scarsarestories

Posted in East Van, Mad Society

Tagged 1%, 99%, canadian charter of rights, canadian charter of rights and freedoms, charter of rights, charter of rights and freedoms, friends of grandview park, grandview park, grandview park renovations, grandview park reopens, illegal protest, neighbourhood, peaceful protest, political group, renovations, rental properties, sandwich boards, totalitarian dictatorship, usual suspects, wealthy

What buses run at night in Vancouver, BC?

Posted on January 14, 2012 by scarsarestories | Leave a comment

This question has come up many times in the recent past among friends (fellow “public-transitters” memmmmries! Wow am I happier without Simon Fraser University playing any role in my life… ). Just like “last call” at bars out here in British Columbia, land of the free :eye roll: , er, “The Best Place On Earth!”, is announced between midnight and 12:30 am, followed by being shooed out of one’s seat at 1:00 am :angry: , the skytrain’s final departure from Waterfront Station is at an inconveniently early 1:16 am (The Expo Line, that is, the Millennium line takes off about ten minutes earlier).

However, there are other public transit options that technically run “all night long”, though their scarcity and strict timetable requirements make the term “Night Bus” very, very confusing. No, it’s not just you! I shall attempt to simplify transit for us insomniacs, protestors of mechanical time, and sometime-residents of Montreal, the prairies, or both (I fall into this last cursed category. The only time I will ever use pity-provocation to receive “special treatment” is after last call has been announced at midnight, usually around when I arrive at a pub on the rare occaision I feel like overpaying for watered down drinks and crappy service).

There are twelve “night buses”. They follow routes that are numbered kind of likewise during the day, specifically…

For example, the SFU night bus is called the 35 rather than the 135, the Downtown à Commercial Drive (well, Victoria – here in Vancouver we have a fetish for giving the same street several different names that come into effect after a certain cross-street is met, another perk of navigating the city whether by bus, car, bike, foot, or magic carpet) night bus is called the 20 just like it is during the daytime, and the Downtown à UBC bus is absolutely unrecognizable, as the 99 becomes the 17. Awesome. If you are new to Vancouver, you will soon, if you haven’t already experienced this, be blown away by Translink’s impenetrable “logic”.

So, though it’s annoying as all hell that the Skytrain does not run at night (would it really cost that much more to operate an unmanned monorail system for a few extra hours out of each twenty-four? I, for one, would be happy to pay, say $10.00 more for my student or disability assistance discounted bus pass (both are around $50/year – one of the few positive things I have to say about Translink. Back in Winnipeg it cost over $50.00 per month for a student bus pass, and public transit there is so horrid that only 10% of the notoriously obsessed with saving a buck populace take it) to be able to take the train from 1:30 am – 4:30 am. I could go on a rant about preventing “impaired” drivers from jumping behind the wheel, or lay out my plan for mandatory transit passes for all residents of Vancouver based on income, but I will not. …annoying that the train does not run, but you can hop on a bus. If you happen to catch it when it comes, every 1 – 2 hours.

I was very shocked the first time I stood at a “night bus” stop, all pleased with myself, before I realized how foolish I must have appeared to the other cars on the road – almost exclusively cops and taxi cabs – before I pulled out my cell phone (schedules posted at stops – like as a print out! Imagine! – were taken down before the 2010 Olympics. I guess they were unattractive to wealthy foreigners …all from countries where public transit is much more highly evolved than it is in North America, as well as where cell phone plans cost $10.00 per month instead of $50.00) to see when my Night Bust (Freudian type-o!) was scheduled to arrive. In over two hours, at 4:48 am (the N20 headed downtown). I don’t know about you, but I call that a very early ride to work, not a friggin’ night bus!!! I spent $10 of my last $30 on cab fare that night. I needed to be in the company of other human beings that badly for some emergency of a reason or another. Unfortunately, whereas Commercial Drive used to serve this purpose, it no longer does. (But it’s still the only “hipster certified” neighbourhood in Canada, so my rent money is definitely well thrown away! )

I successfully took a night bus once. It must have been the “17” as the route was somewhat similar to the 99 B-Line. Here’s the good news: It was the most memorable, most bizarre, most conversation-laden, bus-ride I have ever taken. And I’ve taken a lot of buses in my time! Thus, if you do have the chance to meet up with a night bus, which requires perfect timing – something I usually lack after 2 am, I don’t know about you – take it!!! Not only is it cheap, but it’s free entertainment of the highest order. Anyone out there have some Vancouver Night Bus stories to share? If so, please, please do in the “comments” field!

Here is the link to the schedules for those N20s, N35s, N17s, and the nine others. Pitiful nighttime transit that has often cut important visits short or resulted in visits carrying on into the wee hours of the morning, and consequent “late for work” fiascos.

Oh Nofuncouver, we have a train that goes to the airport. This seemed like a grand idea for about five seconds – before realizing that it you are able to afford a plane ticket, you are almost surely traveling to the airport by Taxi. And on that note, let me end with a tip that beats the confusing night bus schedules: if you live in East Vancouver, near or nearish to the Drive, insist that your cabbie take Knight St. when driving you home from the airport, not Victoria. Now that is a guaranteed $10 in your pocket. The night bus is far more enigmatic.

5728→ Leave a comment2012-01-15+02%3A18%3A05scarsarestories

Posted in East Van, Mad Society

Tagged best place on earth, columbia land, final departure, insomniacs, mechanical time, millennium line, n15, n16, n22, night bus, night buses, occaision, public transit options, Simon Fraser University, SkyTrain, strict timetable, surrey central, translink bc, vancouver night buses, waterfront station

Rogers Wireless (is Evil), Wicca (is Not), and Invincibility

Posted on January 12, 2012 by scarsarestories | 2 Comments

Hi Aunt R.,

"Girl, Disappearing" (Self-Portrait by scarsarestories, Trail, BC, September 2011)

Rogers Wireless is direct debiting money from my account after sending me letters stating that I owe them in excess of $1000 for walking away from my contract. I have, of course, called them and launched a formal complaint, however, I was not able to get anywhere with them re: more immediate refund. Since the last conversations I had with Rogers from Trail were largely mediated, if not entirely taken over by you, my dad would very much like if you would call them and try to get somewhere with them more quickly. I told him that I doubted that you would do this at my request, considering the negative space that the two of us are in right now in terms of our relationship (I am in a very positive place, in regard to my life as an individual, and have found that the turn of the new year has spurred many positive changes already! I would love to hear if you have felt any of 2012′s effects, yourself! This last statement comes from a completely pure and sincere place of intention. When I reread it, I saw how it could be misconstrued as some kind of demand that you’ve reconsidered your stance on taking responsibility for the car accident. The accident was the farthest thing from my mind when I posited that question…I hope you know, in your heart, that this is who I am. I know nothing of the games women play with one another, aside from not participating in them myself. I am very weary of trusting that you know this, though, as hindsight is 20/20, and one of the most memorable nights in Trail [conforming to the tenet that negative memories are usually stronger than positive ones] was the one when, upon me mentioning what had always been my plan – to return to Vancouver, to live, in October – you accused me of “lying“.

I may be many things, but I am not a liar.

). Anyhow, he would appreciate if you would call Rogers, as you are authorized, if you recall, to speak about my account, to remind them of the supposedly “recorded” phone conversation we had with a customer service agent who stated that I was free to walk away from my contract with Rogers, on the basis that they did not hold up their end of the contract I signed with them by failing to provide me with a proper SIM card to make my device work, this last call taking place about a week before I received the third and final SIM card (standard size, not “micro”, and thus not compatible with the iPhone) from Rogers, which led us through the doors of the shop where I took out a new contract with Bell (and one that I have been infinitely more happy with!…no hidden fees, and all around a much, much better deal; fewer dropped calls just being icing on the cake).

I have two other things that I would like to mention.

1. I managed to increase my ICBC settlement by 25% without a lawyer, or, if one (I choose to see it this way, for one! *giggles* ) sees it from another perspective, “representing myself“. This has been a big accomplishment, especially considering my future career goals. I still do not understand how you see a government insurance settlement that does not impact you negatively, and which did not involve any negative description of your driving on the evening of October 20th, as a way in which I am “profiting off my blame”, blame, that I have repeatedly told you, was resolved a few days after the near-fatal crash. R., when I speak of your need to take responsibility for the accident, I am only hoping you will do this for yourself. I think it is the only way that you will find closure about what happened that day. Blaming a horoscope (re: your letter, “bumpy ride” forecasted in one of your horoscopes for one of the weeks surrounding the accident) is as silly as blaming me and my cat. You should not have gotten behind the wheel of a car that day – my dad has taken responsibility for this, as have I. Neither of us should have let you drive that day. It was glaringly obvious that you were in no condition to be on the highway, especially in a rental vehicle. I don’t think cats have the ability to take responsibility for their actions, but Penelope is paying for her recklessness, in throwing up while you were driving, causing the unacceptable distraction you describe, in spades – not only is she missing half a leg, but she does not trust like she used to. She, just like a person does, exhibits signs of PTSD, for example cringing when a new person tries to pet her. It breaks my heart all over again every time I see her do something like this.

2. When I held the burning ceremony required to cleanse myself and my home and garden of the negative energy you brought here with the words contained in your letter, something happened that I was not going to share with you, but it has been scratching me, and I feel that, for altruistic reasons that you might not be able to understand right now, I must tell you now. Once the words were turned to ash, two flames emerged. The flames separated. One was distinctly my flame, and one distinctly yours. I do not know how much you, yourself, have dabbled in the Wiccan arts, but this was clear. The flames danced about for some time, and then yours went out rather quickly and unceremoniously, while mine flickered for a while, threatening to go out, but then, instead, grew bigger and stronger. Ruth, I see this only as a sign that you need to take better care of yourself. My dad told me tonight that in order to fix your foot, they may have to rebreak one of your toes in order to properly reset it.

Immediately, I knew why your foot is not healing as it should. I am not psychic, and I do not know how closely you are following doctors’ orders about how to care for your foot at this point. But take it from a young woman who cut her arms down to the bone six years ago – had I not, painstakingly applied antibiotic ointment to the wounds three times a day for two months, changing the bandages each time, and then worn silicone strips bound to my arms with itchy “sleeves” provided by the hospital for an entire summer, I would have suffered infection, and, as my psychiatrist in Winnipeg is always quick to remind me, I probably would have lost at least one of my arms, to prevent infection from going to my brain.

We may hate Western medicine, but we have to follow doctor’s orders to a T when taking care of broken parts. The night of the accident, you signed yourself out of the hospital without seeing the doctor. You only went back to the ER after my father insisted on it. Such behaviour reminds me of mine as a teenager, who thought I was invincible, and could take handfuls of pills of any sort if I wanted to “explore deeper parts of my psyche”. I am not trying to compare the intention, but the place it came from – a belief that I was fucking Kryptonite. Well, we are human, all too human, and very susceptible to decay. Please, please follow every annoying point on the list your doctors and nurses have surely given you on how to care for your foot. DO NOT EVER STRAY FROM THESE INSTRUCTIONS, NOT FOR ONE DAY, NOT FOR ONE MOMENT! Although we are not getting along right now, I know that we will find some common ground, hopefully sooner than later, and I EXPECT MY AUNT RUTH TO BE AROUND FOR MANY, MANY YEARS – SEVERAL DECADES, IN FACT – BEFORE ANY DECAY SETS IN.

You must not act carelessly as you did that night at the Castlegar ER. I am positive that if you had seen the doctor that night (it is quite a serious move, to sign yourself out against medical advice) you would not be going through the struggle with your foot that you are now. IT IS A LESSON, NOT A REASON/EXCUSE TO WHINE. SO STOP IT. BUCK UP AND LEARN. What a wonderful thing – an opportunity to learn. Do not let that flame disappear from sight while you’re looking elsewhere. Keep your goddamn eyes on the road!

Love,

scars XO

5724→ 2 Comments2012-01-13+06%3A46%3A50scarsarestories

Posted in Scars' Letters of Complaint, Transcend

Tagged 2012, aunt, caption, car accident, conversations, dad, family relationships, formal complaint, hindsight is 20 20, intention, liar, memorable nights, memories, negative space, new year, niece, positive changes, rogers wireless, rogers wireless complaints, self portrait, taking responsibility, tenet, trail bc, Vancouver

Why Do We Dream? Wrong Question…

Posted on January 10, 2012 by scarsarestories | Leave a comment

This post is dedicated to a young man from Vietnam, a stranger who struck up a conversation about my writing for this webpage. He thought it was a really great “job”. I did not answer, “most under- or unpaid ones are!” – I am trying to be less cynical and it’s actually working so why spread cynicism? (a younger version of me is laughing at me) Anyhow, I only know his “Anglocized” name, thus I have forgotten it. This always happens to me – it was a rule when I taught multiple classes and struggled to remember names. I would remember names of those who did not pick an “English” name to go along with their new Canadian existence even better than those of the most avid discussion participants. And I certainly do not speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, or Thai, which couldn’t be more different from Japanese (which I do speak, at an “intermediate level”, anyhow) – sure, an alphabet is shared with regard to Chinese languages, but English shares its alphabet with some other languages, no?

Anyhow, this young man had a dream recently that made his heart pound, about getting in a car accident on the job, as he works as a driver for the wealthy. He hates his job, and will finally be able to afford to begin school with his savings next year. I tried to reassure him, telling him about my endless dreams as an unprepared student entering an exam room, that occur even when I am not a current student in my waking life. My father, too, still dreams about failing to perform in a certain English class as an undergraduate, over forty years later. I told him I thought that these dreams were not omens, but just reminders to be careful, in his case, or not to take past success for granted and to prepare for all exams, in my case. Yes, that the purpose of dreams is learning. I had no idea I even believed this, but I think it is my theory on the topic, rather simple, hey Freud?

In my father’s case, the dream is a little more ambiguous, and thus, it’s meaning is a little deeper (I correlate the two characteristics for one reason or another… :amazed: ) – he has told me about his feelings of regret that do not predominate his thoughts when looking back upon his career, but sometimes do arise, as he began a few paths to slightly more interesting careers than the one he ended up in, as a computer systems analyst, before he enrolled in the college program that carried him towards a screen that he would spend 33 years staring at, other options including architect and English professor. Some part of him, however small (I hope it is very small, because I think that working as the person that oversaw the payment of all farmers in Western Canada, as a systems analyst for the Canadian Wheat Board, a dying socialist institution, is both impressive and interesting and historically significant) feels like he did actually fail. Why does he “need” to have this dream? Well, I think it has played a role in his decision to take the time to read more books, and to continue learning no matter what his age may be. So my theory holds true in this case. One does not have to attend classes to learn about anthropology or astronomy, a couple of topics that have piqued his interest and led him to the check-out counter at a bookstore in recent years. I am impressed by my dad in new ways more and more often as we both grow older, and this, in and of itself, is impressive. Old dogs can learn lots of new tricks. In fact, many doctors believe that exercising the brain into one’s later years by doing things like reading regularly and continuing to learn, always, plays a large role in preventing Alzheimer’s Disease. I learned this from my dad, too. :tabrakan: First, I had to learn how to get along with him.

I do not recall any particular dreams I’ve had about my dad, scanning my memory without great depth, though when I was living in the “haunted” apartment (whether I, or the building, was haunted, remains to be determined) on Sherbrook Street in Winnipeg, almost seven years ago now (damn! ) I heard little girls screaming “daddy!” as I laid beside my sleeping ex-partner for sleepless night upon sleepless night. I never thought about this third possibility, when questioning why it was that in this apartment, and only in that one place, did I experience significant, regular, aural hallucinations (the two reasons I came up with being that the apartment was haunted or that I was experiencing psychotic mania, a symptom of untreated – actually, really badly treated, as I was taking my prescribed 600 mg of Effexor and 1200 mg of Lithium whenever I remembered to, plus a handful of benzos once or twice a week – “bipolar disorder”. Perhaps – as everyone, not just people that a doctor has called “bipolar”, experiences – the psychosis resulting from severe insomnia is a kind of alternative to dreaming: an infringement of the dream world upon the “real world” that can be very frightening, especially to those who have been taught since early childhood that such experiences are not only “abnormal”, but are associated with “madpeople” like John Wayne Gacy and Brian Jones (of Jonestown).

I think of this as I write because of the whole point of this post – what my Vietnamese friend really found fascinating When it slipped out of my mouth. Though the question about why we dream has captured the public imagination as much as it has the interest of Some scientists for a very long time, Another even more mind-boggling question belies it, one that is rarely mentioned. I’m guessing it is rarely mentioned because the scientific community is a little embarrassed that while we have sent people to sleep in space, we still have not answered this question:

“Why do humans (need to) sleep?”

That’s right – aside from “resting one’s muscles for a while”, the scientific community, specifically behavioural neuroscientists, who are concerned with these kinds of questions and the possibility of finding answers, or rather theories about answers, does not have an answer as to why human beings need to sleep, and to do so for a long time – one third of one’s life, if the “8 hours per night” doctrine is to be followed (I laugh with you, fellow insomniacs). That’s a lot of resting one’s muscles. Think about long-distance running – sixty seconds of walking is considered a decent length of a break to take from running in a marathon. The ratio does not add up, and neuroscientists agree, there must be a better answer.

Some have theorized that the reason humans need to sleep, is that We Need To Dream

I wish neuroscientists would drop the “expert complex” and whatever else is preventing this question from entering the public consciousness (tell a friend if you happen to read my little blog out here in cyberspace! ), as the musings of laypeople are just as likely to contribute to science as people with doctoral degrees in physics, chemistry, or biology. I say this with confidence because after spending eight years in the academic community, it was often first-year students who made statements that led to the most innovative possibilities for new research, or new answers to old questions.

This question brings “to sleep, perchance to dream” to a whole new level, doesn’t it? This is very possibly the reason why we need to sleep for such a long time, and it is scientifically sound, as a key element of sleep science is the importance of REM sleep, the phase during which dreaming takes place, and the phase that, without, we do not wake feeling rested. Even though we do not remember many (the vast majority, if you’re anything like me) of our dreams, we have them every night, unless our sleep is disturbed or “disordered” – the best example I can think of is if we are under the influence of alcohol. I’ve had some weird dreams after drinking, but the cycles, including REM, get messed up as a drunk ‘n dial. A chart here, near the end of the article, demonstrates this.

I think that the question “why do we sleep” is much, much more important and interesting than that of “why do we dream”. If we sleep to dream, imagine the possible future applications of neuroscience. Watch the movie Paprika. I still cannot figure it out. I’m assuming you’ve seen Waking Life. If not, no worries, but watch it, too. I don’t have to say the word “inception”. But I did. (Ellen Page, not Leonardo DiCaprio or his typically “beautiful” wife in the film. )

(photo by scarsarestories, image by anonymous)”]

Sleeping Goddess in the Electric Light [on my wall

Then there’s the issue of the pineal gland. It is related to sleep, but only recently was it discovered that it contains “rods” and “cones” (excuse the poor reference, but I cannot recall the mainstream magazine or newspaper in which I first read about this revelation) – the same tiny structures that were previously believed only to exist in eyes, as without them, we could not see. Turns out we also have them in a so-called “vestigial” (leftover bit of organ from a “less evolved” age of humankind) structure deep in the brain that also produces and secretes melatonin, the sleep neurotransmitter. No, taking “melatonin pills” does not cure insomnia, never mind who knows what they actually contain… for some reason I just do not think scientists can do the same thing that the pineal gland does, especially considering the fact that the rods and cones were only discovered last year. Or maybe the year before that. Years are passing awful quickly these days and I better not say “~~pinecones~~” either, as not to be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist!

I better wrap this up. I hope I provoked a little thought with this post. How about this – next time you have trouble falling asleep, instead of worrying about the next day, about your ability to perform at work or school without much sleep, ask yourself, “Why might we need sleep?”

Perchance to dream…

5708→ Leave a commentWhy+Do+We+Dream%3F++Wrong+Question...2012-01-11+06%3A43%3A23scarsarestories

Posted in Academia is Nuts!, Bipolar, Mad Society, Transcend

Tagged alphabet, cantonese, car accident, chinese languages, cynicism, endless dreams, existence, forty years, freud, heart pound, intermediate level, mandarin, meaning of dreams, omens, paprika movie, reminders, stranger, vietnamese, waking life, wink

Lady Lazarus Revived

Posted on January 9, 2012 by scarsarestories | Leave a comment

So, there’s this amazing woman, with whom I share much in common, that so far, I’ve met every ten years. We are not bad for one another, but actually very, very good for each other, at least so far, and my mom was a smart woman and she felt our friendship was important (I learned from Lady H. last week). Thus, I feel that we may, by staying in close touch this third time around, not only make my mom happy (wherever her energy carries on) but also pull Sylvia Plath from the water, the coma, the oven – demonstrating that us women who, at times do “terrify” (as we seemed to scare the parents of some classmates ) have actually made progress, and can strut down the street, alone or together, and be beautiful. In case I lost you at “Sylvia Plath”, I am referring to this fairly famous poem, “Lady Lazarus”, by she who shares my birthday:

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it—–

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——-

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot ——
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart—
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—-

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air

(Oct 23, 1962)

Oh, Lady H., isn’t it us from first line to last? Now, I will release our story, as best as I can tell it after learning what I did from you last Thursday :heart: . No, I do not have any delusions about being anywhere near Sylvia Plath in talent regarding usage of the English language. So, it might not be The Bell Jar, but it’s something I have been blown away by during the past three days, in between necessity and frustration and speed, I think we are quite special, and that the story must be told:

Last Thursday, about two minutes after I updated my facebook status to: “Where is everyone? I’m lonely… “, I received a text from Lady H., who accompanied me to the Tori Amos concert a month ago. She had not seen my embarrassingly pitiful statement on facebook, it was to be a night filled with such synchronicities. I do not recall what she said, but I replied with a comment about Lindsay Primmer’s Eighth Birthday Party, which was quite the event back in Grade Two, primarily because she had a swimming pool in her backyard, and secondarily because she was mean and knew exactly how to use the fact that her parents were wealthier than the rest of ours to manipulate and crush little souls. If she happens to read this, perhaps, Lindsay Primmer, you have outgrown your nastiness. I hope so, as the world needs another mean woman like it needs another hole in the ozone layer. In Grade Two, and Grade Three, when our catfights often ended in bleeding arms, the product of scratches with little fingernails that looked eerily similar to my scars. I didn’t start biting my fingernails until Grade Five, when I decided to copy the boy sitting next to me in homeroom that bit his. I didn’t stop until I moved to Vancouver.

I digress. So, Lindsay Primmer began making a list of people she was going to invite to her pool party (I don’t even know if her birthday was around that date, or if it was just an excuse to make a big fuss about the damn in-ground, kidney-shaped pool, where I once thought I was going to drown after hitting my head on the diving board on my way in, and where many dreams about drowning have taken place, mine, and I’m sure those of other classmates) weeks before the Saturday afternoon on which it was held. It was rather redundant, as she was inviting all girls in the class, but, of course, it was a fabulous tool of manipulation. She was Santa Claus for those weeks – better be nice (read: kiss ass) or else you’ll get crossed off the list! I don’t know what my Lady, nor what I did to get crossed off, but we were the only two girls righteous enough (at the time I didn’t know what righteousness was though, even though I may have done many righteous things, I was seven and usually they ended in tears) to get crossed off that list – permanently!! Others earned their way back on. Neither of us were willing to stoop that low. However, when Saturday came around, we were not happy.

I remember sitting with my mom and dad in my backyard and being able to hear the gleeful shrieks and splashes five houses down, at the Primmer residence, surrounded by a white picket fence (of course! ) that I would later deface with permanent marker (who knew those smelly markers that teach kids to sniff permanent pens and glue are actually permanent? ) – first single words, and then, after being pushed far enough by Lindsay, writing on the gate in bright, cherry red ,”Lindsay Primmer is a BITCH.” I was too young and was too young in an innocent enough time to really know what my words meant, but I knew how angry I was, and what I can still remember is how fast my heart was beating as I struggled to finish the entire sentence. This was after being chased off the Primmer yard by her dad with a shovel when I and a couple of boys attempted to steal some garden gnomes, and no one dared join me. I pulled it off without getting caught, but when my dad would tell me about seeing Lindsay’s father outside very early in the morning, as he walked to the bus that went downtown to his workplace at the Canadian Wheat Board (ah, the false but blissful liberty of the Clinton/Chretien early-nineties… ) , painting over my words with bright white on that stupid tacky fence, any feelings of accomplishment were replaced with guilt. Alas, the cruelty of being kind, even as a child. Eventually I think I fessed up to my responsibility, which I’m sure was already known as I have rather distinctive handwriting. My parents were not that angry, though, and only now do I know why.

Tori Amos does, though. The other girls were those demi-gods, not tortured little Goddesses in waiting like Lady H. and me. I started to cry, sitting in a lawn chair in between my parents, and they decided I should invite Lady over. I was excited for her to come – strange, the way I can remember my feelings so much better than words or events. I guess they were my strongest sense, even then! I didn’t remember anything else though, but luckily I am 27 now, so Lady H. and I have reunited – once and for all, if we know what is good for us – and after I mentioned that two-decades-ago party last Thursday, she dropped everything and called me to tell me about the life-lesson my mom taught her that day. Then she came over – well, after we went out for mojitos, doubles (of course).

Evidently it went like this: Little Lady H. came to join me in wallowing about our non-invitee status, and that was just what we did. My family couldn’t afford a pool, so it wasn’t like we could try to outdo the noise coming from down the street or anything. We watched a tape of The Babysitter’s Club – the show, based on the books we were both obsessed with – with my mom, but we were so angry and upset we could not enjoy ourselves. Then, Lady told me, my mom announced: “You know what girls?? We don’t need Lindsay Primmer!!“ Apparently, though, I did not dissolve into laughter as I would today at such an announcement. Instead, I ended up fighting with Lady, who decided to go home and ran out onto our front porch in tears. Seven year-old projection. Ouch.

My mom went after her. And she taught my dear friend a lesson that she still holds onto tightly today. I wish I could remember the sound of her voice as well as Lady H. does. See, the thing is, Lady moved away sometime before Grade Five, so she never knew my mom when she was ill. I finally understand why my dad cannot, when begged as I often have, to tell me something, anything, about the woman who gave birth to me. She was so lovely, but her illness was so devastating, and its length, including a summer of false-hope “remission”, so long, that we who witnessed her then have much trouble recalling the her that was before the her consumed by cancer cells. My dad is not guilty of anything more than I am – I remember the day, driving home from piano lessons with my mom, that I realized how difficult it was becoming for me to remember what she was like before she was sick. I kept these thoughts to my self, just like the tears I learned how to pick out of my eyes before they fell down my cheeks so as not to scare my little sister, or my mom, or, perhaps worst of all, my dad.

The first time I ever saw my dad cry was in the same van, driving home from school, when he told me that she had breast cancer. Cancer.

Cancer.

That was the first time around, when hope was a full glass and nothing – so said the experts, ignoring my mom’s complaints of numbness in one arm, the arm on the same side as the lump, oh, no, just a coincidence, or maybe a fear so vile it had manifested itself in a physical symptom, yes, all in a woman’s head, like so many things, all in her head – and we would arrive home to a strong woman who reassured us that because she was not ready to die die, to die, not ready, she wouldn’t! A lump, like so many lumps in so many breasts, removable. Scary, but scary like a bogeyman, not a serial killer, a noise in the dark, thunder, not footsteps. Not ready, cancer, to die, I’ll be okay, because, cancer, not, die. And she fought until the very last week, as did I, gripping the glass that still had a sip left in it, there would be something the doctors could do for her. She was still my mom, and my mom had outlived each other time she was told, by the same doctors, to prepare for death, almost ten years to the day, when the a doctor called my dad and I overheard their conversation and realized that she would die, that the glass was really empty, breaking glass in the dark, silent sobbing, feeling so stupid. Exactly one week later, she was gone, and with her, our memories of the amazing woman that we assumed would always be there, beside dad in bed, in photographs, in the garden. Photographs fill boxes in the new house, much bigger, photographs that we have yet to look at, that are sometimes spoken of by dad, of scanning them and making albums for each of us. We cannot remember her hair.

“Picky-picky is precocious.” Mom said to Lady H. one other day.

“What’s precocious?”

“Picky-picky is precocious.”

She never looked it up and neither will I. The definition of precocious is a calico cat named Picky-picky, after the name of Ramona’s cat in those books, ironic as she was anything but picky – Picky-picky would eat pancakes, and Picky-picky was precocious.

Back on the front step mom told the crying girl with dark brown hair – the dark brown that is pretty, not mousy like my real colour, or how I remember it before I dyed it for the first time, right after she died – “You can call your parents and you can go home if you want. But I want you to stay. People fight, people say things they shouldn’t and people hurt each other. But then life carries on. It’s not worth it, staying angry. So you can call your parents if you want, but I wish you would stay.”

And she stayed. I soon joined them on those steps and we stopped being angry at each other or the rest of our class, five houses down. But I missed those words, and when we met ten years later when she got a job at the bookstore where I had already worked for two years – the last two years of high school – I heard from another girl that she was trying to get me fired, telling my manager that I was always fifteen minutes late (the latter part was true, but the former was bullshit, but I was only eighteen and did not hear her say that it was a waste, to hold grudges against people who we love, people who are the same as us, people who read about Ramona and baby-sitters even though they may not have backyard pools. Another girl told me she had called me “materialistic”, and that was the end! I was living with Josh and my entire income was spent on his wants, though I did not even realize it, this was why a comment about some pants I bought in Montreal (I did not ask how the topic arose) compared to my life with Josh, not much of a life, when the store had to buy me three shirts, just me, to meet new dress requirements when instituted after Heather Reisman bought the Chapter’s chain and we started selling more “giftware” than fiction, “we are doing this for everyone who cannot afford to buy new clothes”, one of the managers told me one afternoon as I ate my ramen noodles for the eightieth day in a row, everyone, I was, that time.

Plus we both fooled around with that guy who worked in the magazines section upstairs. Though I wouldn’t know for ten years. Ten years that went by so much faster than the ten before them.

So, Lady, I think we better stick together for the next ten, and ten more, and if I do not die like the woman we sang “You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings” to and appreciated our ode like it was that of Bette herself, for she died when she was twenty years my senior, I think we should stop counting and just remember that there are countless women and even more men that we do not need, but we need each other. Because we just do. A Cancer and a Scorpio, raised by a Pisces. Living by the ocean, now.

Because I do not want to be lonely next Thursday, but I am very picky, picky about who I allow to come over, about who may share my time.

Because we only have so much, so we must spend it well.

And with you – and you, you, and you – I am well.

5696→ Leave a commentLady+Lazarus+Revived2012-01-10+07%3A45%3A36scarsarestories

Posted in Feminism and Madness, Other Survivors, Poetry, Prose, Personal, Transcend

Tagged classmates, daughter, filaments, friendship, gentleman, grave cave, jew linen, lady lazarus, life lesson, mother, motherless daughters, nine times, paperweight, pearls, right foot, seashell, second time, skin and bone, smart woman, smiling woman, sour breath, strip tease, Sylvia Plath, third time, walking miracle

More Tori Amos “Night of Hunters” Tour Bootlegs (Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver BC, Dec 13 2011)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by scarsarestories | Leave a comment

As said when I posted the first set of recordings I managed to take with my iPhone (ah, memories! ) at the Tori Amos show that feels like it was last night though it was nearly a month ago, now – indeed, that is the impact it had on me, the best of the three times I’ve seen her live by far – Tori + a string quartet = :heart: – these “bootlegs” are not meant to steal from the living Goddess, Ms. Amos, but to demonstrate the amazingness of her music, her presence (yes, I think it can be heard on these tracks), and her voice. And to encourage those that have never been to one of her shows to go. I described her concerts to my father this morning as akin to a church service for me. My lack of any intention to steal is why most are just pieces of songs – I recorded bits that mean a lot to me, or that I feel I might use sometime in the future when I get around to buying another keyboard and mixing up some music of my own. To stop the website soundtrack, press the stop or pause button on the miniplayer located at the top of the right sidebar. Without another word of ado, here they are, in no particular order:

Tori Star Whisperer Live 2011

Tori Purple People 2011

Tori Father Lucifer Live 2011

Tori Baker Live 2011

Tori Baker Running Live 2011

Tori Leather Live 2011

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

5678→ Leave a comment2012-01-07+01%3A03%3A06scarsarestories

Posted in Mad Music, Other Survivors

Tagged bootlegs, concerts, father lucifer, goddess, iPhone, keyboard, memories, night of hunters tour, orpheum theatre vancouver bc, piano, presence, sidebar, string quartet, tori, Tori Amos, tori amos night of hunters tour bootlegs

Kumbaya Blogging and Online Communities

Posted on January 6, 2012 by scarsarestories | 4 Comments

“Kumbaya is the future, because it’s how we’re wired. We’re social monkeys, and we’ll form a community given the least excuse to do so.

Combine mass communication technology with that hard wiring and you’ve got a potent combination.”

Amen! I do not share links all that often, do I? However, I was sent an e-mail with a link to this article – “Kumbaya Blogging” – that has brightened my day, and helped to erase from my mind my Aunt R’s recent comment – she has decided she wants to be my enemy because I am getting a small settlement from public motor vehicle insurance here in British Columbia (ICBC), pennies compared to the loan she borrowed from my father to pay for the lawyer that is going to retrieve the $10 million estate she inherited a few years back before it was stolen from her by the executors (how she allowed this to happen I do not entirely understand :amazed: ) as she believes this connotes “profiting off my (false, as " target="_blank">my cat and I made the marijuana-fiend speeder swerving all over the highway from the instant we drove onto the exit ramp – ) blame for her driving us off a cliff at 120 km/h – that this website makes me sound like a “teenage meth thug”. It is not often that I bring numbers up, as I am rather the opposite of a braggart, but is that why over 1500 people now subscribe to this blog via e-mail? Really?

“Kumbaya Blogging” is a great read both for other bloggers, and for anyone who is at all confused about my intentions for continuing to publish my writing on this website. Although, I would read my own explanation, “What is Practice of Madness“, first. That means you, too, VancityVamp: you may be exempt from work and poverty and consequences for making fun of people who are on welfare, but not from willful ignorance. For that there is no excuse. Not even pain.

However, despite a wee bit of a hangover and last year’s traumatic events still fresh in my mind, and a very scary phone call about the status of my student line of credit being forwarded to a “loss prevention department” because the insurance company that was to provide disability assurance on interest payments has conveniently forgotten about my existence, none of which are jiving with Combavir, the anti-HIV pills I must take for a month after being attacked, I insist on remaining positive today. I met my best friend for the third time last night. We seem to do so every ten years – first at 7, then around 18, now at 27 – and she is adamant as I am about the values that this little community I call Practice of Madness were founded on. I’m going to write about us now. :Yb

5676→ 4 CommentsKumbaya+Blogging+and+Online+Communities2012-01-07+00%3A17%3A10scarsarestories

Posted in Mad Society, Transcend

Tagged bloggers, British Columbia, excuse, family, icbc, inheritance, kumbaya blogging, line of credit, madness, marijuana, motor vehicle insurance, online communities, pills, starving student, willful ignorance, `

Phobia Mania – Amaxophobia = Fear of Riding in a Car…

Posted on January 5, 2012 by scarsarestories | Leave a comment

Comments have increased… I have one more request – please read an entire post before replying to it.

I also have a question: do you think that as we get older, we become more afraid, due to the life experiences we have cumulatively endured, or less fearful, because we become more rational thinkers?

Here is an example of the misunderstandings that can result from not doing so, and a little discussion of phobias to follow, as the comment was on this post, “Fear of Cotton Balls = Sidonglobophopia“.

Comment:

I do not appreciate your smart ass comments! I actually do suffer from this and have for years! I can assure you it is a real fear! As real as someone being afraid of clowns, the dark, or even the fear of death!

My Reply:

Excuse me? I was laughing at myself for being afraid, as my boss was of cotton balls, of the texture of corrugated cardboard. Please read the WHOLE article before reacting. I was so afraid of fire that I did not light a match until age 16 when I started smoking cigarettes. The other reason for posting this was because there is no other webpage that defines this phobia, and I wanted to increase my SEO. Indeed, I am straight up – one might say I am afraid of dishonesty…now I wonder if there is a name for that…or one for being afraid of reading an article in its 500 word totality before reacting…

I have found the official names of some of my other fears, so, whether for interest’s sake or empathy’s sake or rage’s sake, here they are!

Androphobia – Fear of men (not after I speak to them for a good 30 seconds or so and discover they are not rapists or creeps of another breed, but before entering conversation with a fella? Terrified. )
Agliophobia – Fear of pain (if you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you know all about this one, probably more than you would like to. I am now on methadone because once the source of my excruciating pain – compared by many to childbirth – my uterus, plagued by endometriosis was removed in May of 2011, I could not bear the pain of withdrawing from my pain medication)
Agraphobia – fear of sexual abuse (after being raped by 4 or 5 – I do not know if I was date raped by one or two men when given a date rape drug – men, I’m scared to be out after dark because a rapist may be lurking in the shadows… )
Ankylophobia – Fear of immobility of a joint (After my seizure, and as a chronic sleep paralysis sufferer – I can still recall the first time I woke up but could not move or scream at age 10 – oh yes! )
Apiphobia – fear of bees (I love bees, but I’m terrified of being stung, as I never have been, and I’m sure, in my rational mind, that it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as many other painful things I’ve been through, but until I do get stung, I shall remain terrified, as fears belong to the irrational realm. So, I really should find a term for “fear of stingers”, as I’m much, much more scared of wasps and those big black flying ants that have stingers sticking out their butts the size of big-toenail clippings!!! )
Atychipphobia – fear of failure (The cause of many depressions, and much running)
Carcinophobia – fear of cancer (I bet this is one of the most common phobias. When my mom was dying of cancer and I started getting migraine headaches in grade 8, I was convinced I had a brain tumour, mainly because of the “blind spot” that is part of the “aura” preceding a migraine attack. I didn’t dare complain because of my mom’s condition, so it was not until I was a young adult that my family even knew I suffered from migraines. I blame much of this fear on those medical disease dictionaries for laypeople that used to be in the home of each nuclear family before the emergence of the Internet. Almost any symptom (ex/ swollen lymph glands) was first and foremost listed as one of cancer)
Chronophobia – fear of time (I will leave this one be as it would become an M.A. thesis if I delved into its causation)
Chronomentrophobia – fear of clocks (Because time just passes much too quickly. I used to cover up all the clocks in my room as a teenager when studying. Now that I live alone, my only clocks are those on appliances. Yes, I am chronically late. )
Clinophobia – fear of going to bed (see number 9)
Cnidophobia – fear of stings (ooh, here we go. Bees, I take it back, but do not want to renumber this list so you’ll have to trust me )
Decidophobia – fear of making decisions (anyone who has ever seen me look at a menu or try to pick a movie knows all about it)
Dentophobia – fear of dentists (I have an abnormally small jaw – I had to have four teeth pulled on top and on bottom so that they would not grow in on top of one another – so that dental dam raincoat thing used to make me gag, and then panic, unable to breathe, when I had significant dental work done as a child – bad teeth run in my family. Plus the sound of a drill. Dear God. Last time I had a dentist appointment, all I recall of it was my dentist angrily shouting “If you keep closing your mouth, we’re gonna have to turn down the gas!!!” Now, also a product of my small jaw, but more so a product of hegemonic masculinity played out in sexual relations, anyone have a term for fear of blowjobs? They don’t call it a “job” for no reason, ladies and gents! )
Gamophobia – fear of marriage (I know I will not marry myself, it’s the heterosexual institution of marriage, and the definition thereof, that I fear)
Homilophobia – fear of sermons (Oh yes, both sermons given by random members of the general public, and those given by priests. Last time I was dragged to a church by one of my father’s überreligious sisters the dude on the pulpit screamed about the church being “A ROCK!!!!” for about three torturous hours. She lives in Alberta, Canada’s Texas )
Kopophobia – fear of fatigue (I bet most bipolar folk are, and, in addition, I have an aunt who was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome just as she got her law practice off the ground. Oh Minerva, please don’t let this happen to me… )
Macrophobia – fear of long waits – (patience is NOT one of my, uh, many virtues )
Metrophobia – fear of poetry or hate (what a bizarre coupling! I fear the latter. I think it began when blogs dedicated to hating on me began popping up. Then my sister began to hate me. Indeed, I hate hate)
Myctophobia – fear of the dark (I share this fear, dear commenter. My new rainbow LEDs are nightlights for adults. $39.99 at IKEA)
Neopharmaphobia -

fear of new drugs
( Suprised?
Ever since
I was given Loxapine upon my most recent
psych-related hospitalization,
almost exactly a year ago…
I couldn’t even
remember my name for five days, during which I was kept in seclusion, and during my few waking moments, could hear individuals being admitted for violent psychoses taking their time to “go down” after being injected with antipsychotics… )

21. Nucleomitophobia – (since visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial at age 13, and seeing the bricks where a woman sat, waiting for the bank to open, and her shadow that remained, as she was vaporized when the “little boy” exploded)

22. Plutophobia – fear of wealth (fascinating etymology! Every time some money comes my way, I start having panic attacks)

23. Pyrophobia – fear of fire (not so much anymore, but as a child I was terrified of fire. During a mushroom trip – the one during which I decided to take on the persona of Diana, the huntress, for the day, dressing in a blue linen dress from folk fest that had about 10 pleats all jagged like that little pill Alanis sings of beginning at the mid-thigh – I realized it arose from seeing far too many of those signs on the backs of hotel room doors instructing guests what to do in case of fire. I was cursed with the ability to read at a very young age. Number one on the instruction list was always, in CAPS, “DO NOT PANIC!!!”, yes, replete with exclamation marks)

24. Seplophobia – fear of decaying matter (I will throw dishes away if they have been forgotten at the back of the fridge and turned into science experiements. Usually I will shriek first)

25. Spheksophobia – fear of wasps (Again, sorry bees! After living “north of Portage” in Winnipeg in August one year, when the garbage bins in back lanes start to steam in 40 degree weather, and wasps swarm as you wait for the bus, my fear increased dramatically NB: If anyone has a copy of that Effexor ad where the woman is pictured with wasps swarming around her head, I will pay you for it. $50-$100 range. I make $888/month on disability at the moment, just to give you an idea of how much I want it)

26. Syngenesophobia – fear of relatives (read the last few posts and you will begin to understand why. " >Especially this one and this one)

27.Textophobia – fear of certain textures (this is as close as I can get on a word to describe my fear of the texture of corrugated cardboard. And wooden spoons…my first year roomies used to chase me around our apartment with them after learning of my fear! Not nice! )

28. Theophobia – fear of gods or religion (the latter, as it seems to be the cause of most wars and the horrible acts that lie therein, as well as the reason for inaction when such horrible things happen)

29.Traumatophobia – fear of injury (a fairly new one, due to " >near fatal car crash)

30. Vaccinophobia – fear of vaccination (as not to receive a barrage of hate mail, I will just direct you here. Also see “Top 5 most commented posts” on the left sidebar)

Nice round number! That was fascinating research, finding these, as well as others, like “fear of the figure 8″ (octophobia) and “fear of large things” (megalophobia) came up. Now, be assured, I am scared if not terrified a great deal of the time, so please, do not think I am making fun of anyone else’s fears. Ever.

scars :kisss

5648→ Leave a comment2012-01-06+05%3A22%3A42scarsarestories

Posted in Laughter = Survival, Mad Society, Poetry, Prose, Personal, Transcend

Tagged clowns, corrugated cardboard, cotton balls, dishonesty, endometriosis, excruciating pain, fear of death, fear of pain, fella, life experiences, light a match, longtime reader, methadone, misunderstandings, names for phobias, names of fears, phobia, phobia list, phobias, rapists, smart ass, smoking cigarettes, totality

Does this condition actually exist, or is it simply the stuff of mythology and fiction?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I may be many things, but I am not a liar.

“Why do humans (need to) sleep?”

Some have theorized that the reason humans need to sleep, is that We Need To Dream

Cancer.

“Kumbaya is the future, because it’s how we’re wired. We’re social monkeys, and we’ll form a community given the least excuse to do so.

Combine mass communication technology with that hard wiring and you’ve got a potent combination.”

I also have a question: do you think that as we get older, we become more afraid, due to the life experiences we have cumulatively endured, or less fearful, because we become more rational thinkers?

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