ladymirth

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.


But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.


Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.”

- Philip Larkin.

Now compare that with this post.

We're fucked up people, Philip and I.  

This may be the most hilarious wikipedia article ever.  

Which inspired me to search out the Cracked article on the subject.  Which is not half as funny as you'd expect, considering the source material. Whatevs. 

I've been reading Questionable Content obsessively for the last two days. I blame viciousberries. I also kind of have a crush on Marten Reed. He is almost my ideal man, and posesses a lot of Boy's more endearing personality traits - being more sexually inhibited than his girlfriend, charming self-deprecation etc. D'aww! 

I'm turning twenty-two in less than two hours. It figures that I've been spending the majority of today curled up in a fetal position, having anxiety attacks.

What have I done in the past year that's worth mentioning? 

1. Built a successful relationship. (Although I'm not sure whether I deserve much credit for that since I spent the greater part of the year in a depressed funk trying my best to chase Boy off)
2. Wrote two enlightening research papers: "Is pornography harmful to women?" and "Should FGC be criminalized?". 
3.Finished my transfer credits at ANC.
4. Held down a job for two months working for a creepy psychopath.
5. Interviewed an international sports celebrity in the process. 
6. Starred in a semi-professional play. 
7. Donated over a hundred of my old books and helped build a library for underaged kids. 
8. Almost got my driver's license (final test is in August). 
9. Wrote a fuckton of poetry. 
10. Discovered Batman, Christian Bale and DC Comics.

Hmm. That's more than I thought. And yet, I have yet to feel a sense of acheivement from any of them. I suppose this is because of my complex and deep-seated psychological issues. 

And on the flip side of that coin, I: 
1) Failed to maintain some promising friendships. 
2) Got one "incomplete" and and one (completely unfair) D, thereby tanking my GPA. 
3) Only made the Dean's list one more time after my first year. 
4) Failed to apply for and transfer to Canada and am now grappling with the fact that I don't even want to study or read or do much of anything anymore. 
5) Failed to hold down the job for more than two months; failed to find another job after leaving the place or even kick-start my freelancing career. 
6) Tanked the closing night performance of the play (Holy hell, I forgot I never followed up my post on that) and came out of the experience thoroughly disillusioned with acting. 
7)Failed to keep a long-term involvement with the library-building charity because of depression-related issues. 
8)Failed to get over my depression. 
9)Failed to re-take and this time complete ballroom dancing classes.
10) Failed to maintain the needful exercise-and-diet regimen. 
11) Failed to write any fanfic or anything much save the aforesaid fuckton of poetry.

Failed, failed, failed, failed. 
 
And to cap it off, Christian Bale flipped out, Batman turned out to be a manipulative asshole and then DC Comics killed him and proceeded to completely fuck my favourite characters to shit. 

No wonder I'm depressed. 

I think I need a stiff drink so I don't start thinking about what my next birthday might be like. Maybe I'll be depressed, alone and single. 

So, about the play.

You know, the really fucking depressing adstract hyper-complicated experiemental one that looked so much like the inside of Tennessee Williams own head that it freaked his audiences out the door. The one that he spent ten years writing and couldn't make work even after revising the script three times. The one that no director in the Western hemipshere had been able to produce successfully even after Williams' death. The one that has only two (batshit insane and drugged) characters in the entire play. The one that I was cast in without having had any prior acting experience whatsoever, and where my co-star was a 52-year-old ex-college law instructor who hadn't appeared on stage since high school.  The one with that fucking tiara in it. 

( Tiaras, Cancellations and Openings  )

(continued in Part 2, because I have to rush off right now) 

So...I'm in a play. A professional one.

I realize it's odd that I've never talked about it after that first mention of it back in January, especially considering it's virtually takn over my life for the last couple of months. The more something stresses me out, the less I talk about it.

Here's what it's about, in a nutshell:


Here are a couple more articles, if you want pictures.

We had a preview performance yesterday for the university and school kids. Some of them didn't quite get it, but they weren't bored or anything, and most people were positive about it. Tonight is opening night. I don't suppose I'll be very nervous tonight, since I was only a little nervous last night and I think I got it out of my system. But the critics are coming today, so I hope I don't gum up just the same.

It's going to be very strange on Monday, when I won't have any rehearsals to go to. I'll have to get myself partially lobotomized to stop myself reciting random bits of dialogue at intervals for the rest of my life.

Wish me luck.

Sis: *white-faced* *trembles from head to foot*
Me: What?
Sis: My Mechanics A/Level exam was at 11 AM not 4 PM like I thought.
Time: *is 3 pm*
Me: D: How'd that happen?  
Sis: I must have copied it down wrong!
Me: Like you copied down the date of the exam payment deadline, the date of your SATs and how many other vital dates and times wrong? 
Sis: *has woobie face* 
Me: Aaargh! *headdesk* 

(Ten minutes later)
Sis: *skips in* It's alright!
Me: *not looking up* If you're going to tell me that it's at 4 o'clock after all, so help me God...
Sis: No, no...It's just that I realized I've already taken the M2 exam paper. 
Me: *incredulous* WHAT?
Sis: Yeah, last June. 
Me: Then why the fuck did we pay for it again? 
Sis: Because I didn't get enough marks for it the first time. But the mark's still valid so it's all alright! *skips off merrily* 
Me: *attempts not to hyperventilate* 

My sister is nineteen. She is also a walking exampe of why people need to take a qualification test before being declared legal adults. 

It sucks to be such a pathological perfectionist that the fear of falling short of perfection prevents you from attempting anything. And nothing you ever do is good enough for you because you think you could still have done it better. 

Have headcase, need shrink. 

People come back from the dead, two hours after they die, completely deranged.

Seriously?!

I thought this stuff only happened in DC Comics.

Does this mean the Lazarus Pits have a strain of swine flu in it?

DC characters who were secretly infected with swine flu:
1. Jason Todd
2. Jericho
3. Ra's Al Ghul
3. Black Canary (she married Ollie after he made her believe her daughter was dead)
4. Superboy (oh, just you wait and see!) 

Sometimes truth is as strange as fiction. They're even calling it "novel flu". 

AWESOME!

Ann Bauer writes about the Darker side of Autism. 

My brother is autistic. Not high-functioning austistic, just severely autistic. He's eleven years old and can't understand more than direct commands and can't read or write. He loves attention and people, and he's sweet and quiet and affectionate most of the time. He loves dancing and music and swimming pools and long drives along the beach. 

He also goes through periods of intense rage, where he screams for hours and stims and slams doors hard enough to break them. He will pull our hair and claw at our faces and bite and hit anyone who tries to touch him. My father, who is 6 ft and 210 pounds, is the only one who can subdue him or withstand his assaults. My brother is developing in the same build as my father - tall and with significant strength even at the age of 11. The more he loves a person, the more he takes the brunt of his anger out on that person, or harm himself if he isn't allowed to hurt someone else. He loves Dad more than anyone else; as a result, my father's body resembles that of an SF veteran's. 

We early on decided not to dope our bright and beautiful baby up with pills, like he's some kind of a wild animal. He doesn't throw tantrums because he's bad. They can be triggered by anything from a nightmare to a bird chirping outside (some sounds are painful and disorientating to him) to being sad about being scolded. His response to sadness and guilt his also anger;  even after the inital reason for the tantrum has passed, his sadness and guilt at having hurt us or being scolded for it will make him continue to be angry. 

I know my brother's world is a painful and uncomprehending one and that he isn't in control of his reponses. Just as I know that his world is also a beautiful and simple one - being surrounded by family, praise and attention, bright colors on TV all elicit huge grins and overwhelming happiness that he can only express by stimming, dancing and full-body hugs. I know he doesn't mean to hurt us. 

But we're still human. We can't help but yell at him and hurt him back sometimes, when his tempers go on for hours and neighbours become curious and his fingernail marks burn all over our arms. I don't know what's worse to watch - my mother's unreasoning anger that has her crying and hitting her own baby when he won't stop hurting her and screaming that he's a demon sent to by God to punsh her for her sins or my father's resigned stocism as he impassively lets my brother beat him and scratch his face bloody until he burns himself out. 

He rarely beats on me, though. I can't decide whether its because I don't spend much time with him and therefore he is least affectionate toward me of all the family, or because I have never hesitated to return his blows with interest whenever he does beat me. The rest of the family says that he's scared of me. I'm not proud of this, I don't want to hurt my baby brother whom I love, but I really do believe that there should be at least one person in the household who can put the fear of God in him. Usually, he both adores and is cowed by my father, but Dad refuses to check him when baby is in one of his pain-induced rages. So I do it for him. 

In my defence, I at least make sure I never hit him in anger. Nor do I hit him unless he's hurting someone else and will not respond to any other method to get him to stop. When I hit him, it's a calculated message: "this is what it feels like for the person you are hurting. You stop inflicting pain, and I will stop inflicting pain on you. You can scratch and hit all you want, but I'm going to keep returning every single one at you until you stop. I don't care how angry you are, it is NEVER EVER okay to hurt someone else because of it. If you do, YOU WILL GE HURT." 

Now, if he is as incapable of self-control they say he is, how come he reigns himself in when I give him a warning or refrains from hitting me even when he's in a tantrum? He's enough in control to be afriad of the policemen, for Christ's sake! We've told him that policemen take naughty children to jail, and he stops all stimming and screaming when we point one out. I know that fact that he suppresses his tantrums doesn't dissapate his anger, but at least it stops him hurting other people.

I don't know whether all autistic kids are capable of that kind of self-restraint, but I do know that for my brother, fear tactics are usually a temporary but effective counter-measure against uncontrolled aggression. True, these don't work on the rare occasions that he really loses it, but we can still subdue him when he needs to be. 

But I'm afraid of the future. Will we still be able to control him when he's 6 ft tall like my Dad, and he weighs 100 pounds more than I do? Will my Dad be able to be his son's punching bag when he's old and frail and brittle? Will he one day hurt my parents when my sister and I are no longer at home to intervene? I've always promised myself that my brother would live with me if and when my parents got too old to handle him - I've already told Boy that I won't marry him if he has a problem with that. (Group homes and social support are not viable options for us in the third world). But what if I can't take care of him? My husband, whoever he may be, may be a very good man, but will he be able to bear all the inconveniences and hazards of co-habitation with my brother for years and years, without the bond of blood that ties me to him? Will my children, if I have any, be safe around him? Will I one day be made to choose between caring for his life and having a life of my own? 

Ann Bauer's resolution to kill herself if her son ever took a life is deeply resonant with me, because both my parents have expressed similar resolve. My mother, in her lowest moments, have declared that if Baba ever proves to be uncontrollable and dangerous to others, she will kill him herself and then commit suicide. My father repeatedly says that his only desire is for Baba to die before he does, so that no one else will be burdened with the task of caring for him. My sister and I have railed time and again at my parents' conception that our brother would ever be a "burden" on us, but in our secret hearts, we all know he will be in the long run. We all love him beyond everything, but it doesn't change the reality that my parents are never going to have the peaceful sunset years they deserve.

I hate watching my brother grow up. It is a travesty to watch him grow big and strong and beautiful, when his mind will always remained trapped, stunted and under-developed and he will never be able to gain more than a child's comprehension of the world around him. I wish I could freeze time and make him stay a small boy, who is regarded with pitying forgiveness by society, whose tempers can't yet accidentally kill his parents and whose only impulse when he meets a pretty lady is to kiss her on the cheek. 

I HAS GOT JOB!

I got a job at Asia Digest. Newly launched YA and family-oriented magazine (no relation to Reader's Digest) flat structured company, informal environment, few other co-workers (one of whom is a good friend), good pay, boss open to suggestions. So much potential that my inner editor gene, dormant since I left the school newspaper, is going utterly haywire. I have to keep telling it to pipe down and keep my head down and get to know the people first, before gradually suggesting changes. I WILL NOT BLOW THIS, DAMN IT. 

My own enthusiasm is scaring me. It might be my undoing.  Must keep reminding self that I am simply a newly-hired  wet behind the ears newbie and must act accordingly, flat structure be damned. 

Of course, I'm still going to contribute to  The Sunday Times, because hello, it's the Sunday Times and having a few published pieces in there to show off  in my portfolio is nothing to sneeze at. 

In conclusion: Hee! *hugs self* 

*hugs flist for good measure* 

*prepares for horrible things to happen, now that the 'good' portion of the day is over* 

The day so far: Dragged Dad out of bed to drive me to a 7  a.m rehearsal. Encountered locked theater and sleepy director/ theater owner who infromed me kindly that he meant the rehearsal was at 7 in the evening because 7 a.m is too early for normal human beings to function *hint hint*. Drove back with disgruntled Dad who informed me that my little stunt had made him late for office and my brother late for school. Got stuck in school traffic on the way. 

And it isn't even 8 o' clock yet. 

Yeah, this is going to be a good day.