Is Barversation a word yet? or: Every time I use the phrase Wu Tang Clan take a drink

A barversation between me and my fiance:

"I love that you're going to marry me. And the Wu Tang Clan."
"I'm going to marry you AND the Wu Tang Clan?"
"You're marrying the Wu Tang Clan?? That's AWESOME!"
"What if the Wu Tang Clan was like, you can join our group but you have to let us marry Lindsey."
"What, all of them? Even ODB?"
"Yes, even zombie ODB."
"Definitely!"
"Even if it's against my will?"
"So, what you're saying is, in exchange for giving them you, the Wu Tang Clan becomes The RZA, The JZA, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, ODB, Raekwon, U-God, Masta Killa, and Sean? Yeah honey, sorry."
"I am not a commodity to be sold the the Wu Tang Clan!"
"I don't know about that...."

Oh white boys and their love for the Wu.  Which is I suppose is only fitting as the group seems to think they're Asian. The group that brings people together through rap music and racial confusion. And also the fear of bees.

I was probably meant to be a housecat. But they put me in the wrong body.

I feel as though I've spent the last 27 years of my life trying to be a basketball player. For someone who was recently told that there is no way she could be as tall as 5 foot 3, who occasionally lacks even basic motor skills, this is an absurd goal. Except all I'm trying to do is accomplish the daily tasks of a normal life. Trying to dunk when you can't even reach all of the shelves in your kitchen is my equivalent to holding a steady job, keeping my room clean, and showering regularly.

I see the people around me accomplishing so much more, working so much harder. I had 5 different jobs last year, and not one I feel completely confident putting on a resume. It's difficult to hold the same job if, invariably you don't show up for a few days because you're afraid to go outside. And you don't call and say anything because of both your anxiety over phones and the crippling fear of disappointing someone. Or getting yelled at. Which makes leaving your bed a terrifying prospect.

Yes, I have clear anxiety and social phobia issues, sometimes. Not all the time, but frequently enough. There are lots of people who have similar problems though, or issues with depression, who somehow manage to- one way or another- complete all of the things that mean being an Adult. Are my issues just "worse" than those people, am I weaker? Am I just lacking discipline, structure, order, as I've heard all through my life? I try to have these things. I get bursts of determination, of "this time I'm going to turn myself into a successful person." Invariably it falls apart and I end up back at this spot.

This is the spot where I feel as though I cannot function in society normally. I used to take that as a sign that I was a failure at being a person, would get very depressed and even suicidal once or twice. This isn't how I feel anymore. I go back to the basketball metaphor. It's as though I've spent the past 27 years trying to be successful by being tall, co-ordinated, and athletic. Well, I'm short, clumsy, and fairly sedentary. I want to try to find out how I fit in the world. How I can be successful (read: happy, fulfilled, and enriched) in this world by working with my personality; playing to my strengths and acknowledging my weaknesses.

While they both affect how well I can function, social anxiety and untreated thyroid condition aside, I still ultimately feel as though I'm trying to function in a way that I just wasn't designed for. Looking back, I see the fruits of those labors: failed attempt after failed attempt, with ill-fitting clothes strewn along the way. Trying something new is the only option, but it's also terrifying. The prospect of failing at what I've felt down in my bones as my only saving grace to being a fully functional adult causes me to shudder. Yet ultimately not trying has the same result as failing, so I suppose it's time to defrost my assets, and appraise them for their value.

Provided my talents aren't judged on that last metaphor, that is. Haven't you ever really wanted to write something, even if you knew it wasn't very good?

And I shall call the series, (Re)Learning to Draw: An Exercise in Cthulhus

Cthulhu was in the Bagiva Gita, I'll have you know. Not bad for my 2nd attempt with a tablet: I might be able to draw coloring book pages soon.

The Jeffrey Dahmer Tour: come see a bunch of abandoned buildings for 30 bucks

This past Saturday held the first official Jeffrey Dahmer walking tour in Milwaukee's Walker's Point, and after  much soul- and internet- searching, I ultimately think this to be in poor taste. This wasn't an easy conclusion for me to reach, being a person with focused intent on visiting places like the Museum of Death in Los Angeles and a genuine curiosity for abnormal psychology. Jeffrey Dahmer in particular I am fascinated by, for multiple reasons. Along with being a generally a good specimen of abnormal psych, I have a very personal interest in the man. As a native Milwaukean who was a child of 6 years old at the time of his arrest, I first heard the name Jeffrey Dahmer in the whispered voices of adults attempting not to traumatize small children. This man, his crimes, and their aftermath shaped this city; and this city shaped me. 

My first thought was to look for precedence. Surely this isn't the only example of a tour centralized around the murder sites or hunting grounds of a serial killer/mass murderer. I wanted to learn what Boston's reaction was when tours began featuring the exploits of the Boston Strangler and such, to find that Milwaukee's residents were giving in to sentimentalism. While it's true there are tours all over that feature their city's famous killers, usually they are part of a generalized ghost tour. On my brief search, I was able to find information on 2 killers with their own tours: Charles Manson, and the Night Stalker. These tours are also both in Los Angeles, which, as a person who has more than once defended LA against a reputation of vanity and superficiality which I think in most cases it doesn't deserve, the culture surrounding death is very different there than a small midwestern city. After all they show outdoor movies in the Hollywood Forever cemetery. 

The other thing I noticed is the time difference. The Night Stalker is the only one who's time frame came close to Jeffrey Dahmer's, who's last killings were in 1985 (Dahmer's were in 1991). As to why the Nightstalker's tour is not offensive, I think this quote from SCPR sums it up nicely:

“This is not a celebration of someone who has committed horrible acts,” [Guerrero] said. “It is a celebration of his capture, and the sense of community that came together to enable his capture and put him in jail.”

 Perhaps if another decade had gone by before this concept was attempted the public's response might have been different. As time passes, atrocity becomes history and the traumatic becomes interesting. Perhaps there's a math equation that can express when a joke passes the threshold from "too soon" to "funny." Maybe Randal Munroe will write it for us, if we ask him nicely enough.

In the midst of searching for information, I also kept trying to find more information on the tour. A phone number, a website, something that was not skewed perception. So, not an Op Ed piece (let's leave the objective journalism debate for another post). I wanted to see how the tour branded itself. And also possibly buy tickets as I was still on the fence. Well, if there's one thing all the news coverage succeeded in doing is give the the tour an abundance of negative press as well as make it impossible to find any detailed or contact information on the tour. Their official website was completely buried by headlines from as far away as the Daily Mail (a British Tabloid). I was about to give up when I noticed the story released by Fox 6's website was unsurprisingly the only news source willing to link to the official site.

If you care to take a look, the website is here (why not, I've linked to everything else in this post), and viewing it firsthand is one of two things that firmly set me against this venture. The language used on their site is clearly angled toward sensationalism. The writer also quotes himself on the same page of the original text. I sincerely hope whoever wrote the info page on their website isn't the same guy who wrote the cue cards the tour guide uses, as I can only imagine how "sensitive" the language is during the tour. Based on their own words as well as detailed accounts of the first tour (which seem to measure up to each other fairly well), without having actually seen it myself, it seems as though those running this tour are under the impression that stating things using Inflammatory Language is being Hard Hitting, but saying it with a Solemn Face is being Respectful.

My last criticism of this tour, again based on accounts and not my own personal experience, is that it doesn't really seem like they're saying anything new. It sounds as though I could print off the wikipedia page as well as a chronological list of the bars he frequented and save myself the 30 bucks. What I would be interested in is a tour that maybe delved a little, psychologically. How did Jeffrey Dahmer's presence affect what it was like to be a gay male in this city in the 80's and 90's? Was there a reaction of sympathy, or hate/fear/disgust? What were his personal relationships like? They call him a monster on their website, but he was a person. To call someone a monster because their behavior is extremely out of the societal norm is to oversimplify things to the point where you lose understanding. Ultimately why people have a fascination with figures like Dahmer is to try to find understanding in the horrifyingly inexplicable. This is a good thing. A tour that takes a psychological/sociological perspective; a tour that delves into his past as well into how that past has affected the culture of our city's present: that is a tour I'd be very interested in seeing.

Owning a drawing tablet means never having to say your sorry

Well, by owning I mean borrowing from the upstairs neighbor.

And by borrowing I mean grabbing it off the couch while their house was on fire.

So I suppose she should thank me for saving it.

But actually the fire had already been extinguished by the fire dept, so the tablet wasn't in any danger.

So I suppose I should apologize for taking it without asking.

I guess, ultimately what secretly borrowing your neighbor's drawing tablet means is having to say your sorry. It also means you have to relearn how to draw from Square One. Case in point:

Real Women have Two X Chromosomes.

There's been a trend online that has picked up even more momentum in the past few months that I've found to be a source of frustration. The posting of images like this:

And this:

We've all seen these images: the skinny-isn't-sexy backlash against the barrage of Unrealistic Beauty Expectations from the media, rail thin models in high fashion, and the growing percentage of women with eating disorders. Those who post images like those above, as well as the commenters, usually tout these images as being revolutionary and forward-thinking when it comes to body image.

This is absurd.

The racial equivalent of this would be if, when our society realized that "hey, maybe we should treat black people like they're, oh I don't know, People" the dominant race (in this case white people) were demoted to subhuman. You cannot just switch the labels and treatment of two groups and call it revolutionary.

By saying X is what is sexy, regardless of the value of X, you are asking a diversely shaped group of people to become one shape. Those who don't fit the mold of that shape are devalued. If "curvy" is what is considered sexy (and remember that's a body shape not a body fat %), then if someone who is naturally slender eats more unhealthily to gain weight the shape of their body wouldn't change.

And ultimately, wasn't health the point of backlashing against the Unrealistic Beauty Expectations in the first place? To nurture/protect/place value in women's health? The real revolutionary idea would be if we promoted being in tune with your own body, giving it nourishing food, and placing value on all the things having a strong and healthy body lets you do.

The phrase "Real Women Have Curves" also resonates very negatively with me. Well, yes I do have curves, but if I was born with a different body type would I not be considered a real woman? Are women with smaller breasts and narrower hips "Not Real?" Things like the images above do nothing to end the commoditization of women or refocus the value of a woman on something other than her body parts.

To put it into excruciatingly simple terms: some people are big and some people are small. And that's cool. Some people think big people are prettier and some people think small people are prettier. And that's cool too. Do what makes you happy, do what keeps you healthy.