I woke up with Clair de la Lune stuck in my head the other day. For those of you who don't know this piece, here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nvLSWyVqsI
This is just one of the many pieces of (sometimes utterly random) music that I call my sad music. Along with some Beatles. And other golden oldies that my Dad sometimes listens to.
There is something about certain sounds, or themes, in these pieces that makes me incredibly sad. It's really stupid, but they just do. Not a want-to-cry kind of sad, but an empty, hollow kind of hopeless sad, and suddenly I really know that one day everything will be gone and all the people I love will be dead. I can't explain it, but it's happened all my life. Music boxes are bad. I had several as a child, and I told my mother that if she let my sister continue playing them I'd run away. She probably just thought I was being mean, but I wasn't. I just didn't want to hear the music. Certain adverts on the radio had this kind of music when I was small, and if I happened to hear it, no matter how happy I had been before, it had a devastating effect on my mood until I could "wash it out" with other music, and hope that it wouldn't come back to haunt me in my dreams.
It's not when the piece is in a certain key- I like tons of music in both major and minor keys. The only distinguishing feature of my sad music is that the pieces are often almost lullabye-like, or have an air of "innocence" about them. I hear strains of music in my sleep, often not even a piece I know, and I wake up with a shock. I wonder if anybody else feels this way about some music, or if it's just a quirk of my brain...
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Thank God I'm Pretty
Now that I've got your attention with that vain title, (unless you're an Emilie Autumn fan, in which case you'll get the irony)...
I was reading an article on my new favourite time-wasting website, Mookychick, about the essential uselessness of beauty in society. The author compared it to canoeing; it's great to have if you're doing it professionally, but it doesn't serve any purpose other than self-gratification and if you're lucky, a bit of amusement for others. I agree with this, to an extent. I feel that beauty is becoming more and more unobtainable (or at least the degree of it which is expected is becoming higher), and people are frankly taking it way too seriously and wasting too much time agonising over it to be entirely healthy. HOWEVER... Aesthetics is an evolutionary trait, developed so that we could tell the difference between healthy and sick animals, rotten and ripe fruit, which caveman/woman had the best genes. It's so intrinsic to our value-judging system that we've created art, which is exclusively about aesthetics. So having a sense of aesthetics is not the same as being shallow and vapid.
Personally I probably spend more time worrying about my personal aesthetics than a lot of people, but that is in part because of ballet's very heavy emphasis on one's look, so in a way, I am one of those people who are fortunate enough to be able to tell critics that I'm "professionally aesthetic" and therefore have an excuse to look after myself and spend time and money on it. But I do feel that the reaction towards a concern for one's looks can be as judgemental and extreme as the obsession with looking good. Firstly, being healthy should really be everyone's end goal. That's what attractiveness was based on, once upon a time. It wasn't how many colourful twigs and leaves our ancestors put in their hair, or the cut of their loincloth, it was the physical sign of strength and good genes that got you laid. Now aesthetics have changed (drastically), but some of those instincts remain to this day. So while it's lovely and wonderful that people are being encouraged to love each other for their beautiful brains and not their faces or figures, this is no excuse for not eating right and exercising to stay fit. I've seen things on social media sites saying stuff to the effect of "instead of going to the gym (ie being vain), read a book (ie be intellectual)", and while I totally, unequivocally feel that intelligence should be nurtured like crazy, it doesn't mean that you should stop looking after yourself.
Another issue that annoys me, is some feminists getting all up in arms about women doing things such as pole dancing, burlesque, belly dancing etc. Apparently they do not feel that this is the proper way to "empower" yourself as a woman. Excuse me, but how the fuck would you know what makes me feel empowered? And what is wrong with wanting to feel feminine and beautiful and, yes, sexually attractive? As long as you honestly do it for yourself, you are doing nothing wrong, and you most certainly do not have anything to be ashamed of. It is a very different matter when the intention behind it is to be sexually attractive for the sake of someone else, or to gain love or more attention. But you can be a feminist and still be okay with the fact that you are female, which I think a lot of feminists lose sight of.
Essentially, girls need to play nicer, and be more fair toward themselves and each other. Stop judging the girl with no fashion sense or desire to be beautiful. But also, stop judging the one who likes making herself pretty, for her own enjoyment. She's not hurting anyone.
I was reading an article on my new favourite time-wasting website, Mookychick, about the essential uselessness of beauty in society. The author compared it to canoeing; it's great to have if you're doing it professionally, but it doesn't serve any purpose other than self-gratification and if you're lucky, a bit of amusement for others. I agree with this, to an extent. I feel that beauty is becoming more and more unobtainable (or at least the degree of it which is expected is becoming higher), and people are frankly taking it way too seriously and wasting too much time agonising over it to be entirely healthy. HOWEVER... Aesthetics is an evolutionary trait, developed so that we could tell the difference between healthy and sick animals, rotten and ripe fruit, which caveman/woman had the best genes. It's so intrinsic to our value-judging system that we've created art, which is exclusively about aesthetics. So having a sense of aesthetics is not the same as being shallow and vapid.
Personally I probably spend more time worrying about my personal aesthetics than a lot of people, but that is in part because of ballet's very heavy emphasis on one's look, so in a way, I am one of those people who are fortunate enough to be able to tell critics that I'm "professionally aesthetic" and therefore have an excuse to look after myself and spend time and money on it. But I do feel that the reaction towards a concern for one's looks can be as judgemental and extreme as the obsession with looking good. Firstly, being healthy should really be everyone's end goal. That's what attractiveness was based on, once upon a time. It wasn't how many colourful twigs and leaves our ancestors put in their hair, or the cut of their loincloth, it was the physical sign of strength and good genes that got you laid. Now aesthetics have changed (drastically), but some of those instincts remain to this day. So while it's lovely and wonderful that people are being encouraged to love each other for their beautiful brains and not their faces or figures, this is no excuse for not eating right and exercising to stay fit. I've seen things on social media sites saying stuff to the effect of "instead of going to the gym (ie being vain), read a book (ie be intellectual)", and while I totally, unequivocally feel that intelligence should be nurtured like crazy, it doesn't mean that you should stop looking after yourself.
Another issue that annoys me, is some feminists getting all up in arms about women doing things such as pole dancing, burlesque, belly dancing etc. Apparently they do not feel that this is the proper way to "empower" yourself as a woman. Excuse me, but how the fuck would you know what makes me feel empowered? And what is wrong with wanting to feel feminine and beautiful and, yes, sexually attractive? As long as you honestly do it for yourself, you are doing nothing wrong, and you most certainly do not have anything to be ashamed of. It is a very different matter when the intention behind it is to be sexually attractive for the sake of someone else, or to gain love or more attention. But you can be a feminist and still be okay with the fact that you are female, which I think a lot of feminists lose sight of.
Essentially, girls need to play nicer, and be more fair toward themselves and each other. Stop judging the girl with no fashion sense or desire to be beautiful. But also, stop judging the one who likes making herself pretty, for her own enjoyment. She's not hurting anyone.
Atheism
So I'm finally getting around to this (stupidly) delicate subject. I have put a lot of thought into the whole issue, having previously been of the opinion that religion is relatively harmless and that it's the people who kill people, not religion. I have since changed my mind, and am now approaching Greta-Christina-levels of pissed-off-ness. One thing that I feel is very unfair in arguments about atheism vs religion, is that atheists are expected to know the bible inside out and upside down before making any kind of argument against it, whereas religious people are not expected to know jack about science, but they don't seem to see that as a problem. Atheists are the ones reaching out, researching and discussing why things within religion are nonsensical, whereas the faithful just sit back on their haunches and don't even try to argue up to the level of science.
Now I'll admit freely that I have never read the bible, nor do I plan to. So I am incapable of being able to pinpoint all the logical fallacies within religion, but you know what? That shouldn't matter! Because the point is that all of religion is a logical fallacy. I'm really not interested in their book, because it does not change the fact that they believe wholeheartedly in something THAT HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN TO EXIST! The fact of the matter is that we have provable, verifiable facts in science, and they do not have the same for religion. All they have is books, written by people thousands of years ago, which as you can imagine was not a time of great enlightenment and thorough research. I mean, you look at medicine, and how that has changed so vastly in just the last 100 years, because our thinking and understanding of everything is evolving. But here are people still thinking in terms of 2000-plus years ago and refusing to let go of tradition.
I'm waiting for proof. Actual, empirical evidence of the existence of a god. Until then, you don't got nothin'.
Now I'll admit freely that I have never read the bible, nor do I plan to. So I am incapable of being able to pinpoint all the logical fallacies within religion, but you know what? That shouldn't matter! Because the point is that all of religion is a logical fallacy. I'm really not interested in their book, because it does not change the fact that they believe wholeheartedly in something THAT HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN TO EXIST! The fact of the matter is that we have provable, verifiable facts in science, and they do not have the same for religion. All they have is books, written by people thousands of years ago, which as you can imagine was not a time of great enlightenment and thorough research. I mean, you look at medicine, and how that has changed so vastly in just the last 100 years, because our thinking and understanding of everything is evolving. But here are people still thinking in terms of 2000-plus years ago and refusing to let go of tradition.
I'm waiting for proof. Actual, empirical evidence of the existence of a god. Until then, you don't got nothin'.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Ode to Tea
Tea has always had a very special place in my life. It's like liquid comfort. It reminds me of the long afternoons of playing Monopoly with my Gran as a child; she called me her little teapot for good reason, I could drink gallons of the stuff. It brings back memories of coming home from hard days at work or school, and my Mom making tea while I vented my frustrations, or discussed things with her. Most recently, it reminds me of saying goodbye to my family when we left France, and my mother insisting that we all sit and have tea together, one last time before I go. This goodbye was hard. We'd had more fun as a family together than I remember ever having, with minimum bickering and lots of laughs and stories. This time, I truly miss them, especially spending time with my sister and getting to know her; I have some catching up to do.
The Nameless Wonder and I are practically permanently drinking tea, and I love our cosy evenings, just sitting watching Doctor Who or some other series, drinking tea with him. Lately, tea has gotten me through long days of depression about my inability to get a job; it makes me feel at home in all the strange places I've been, as well as the now more familiar ones. Tea is safety and security in a cup; tea is home.
The Nameless Wonder and I are practically permanently drinking tea, and I love our cosy evenings, just sitting watching Doctor Who or some other series, drinking tea with him. Lately, tea has gotten me through long days of depression about my inability to get a job; it makes me feel at home in all the strange places I've been, as well as the now more familiar ones. Tea is safety and security in a cup; tea is home.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
?
So... long time no posting, huh? Not that I'm that much of a regular poster, but the last couple of weeks have been weird.
Mostly, they've been weird because I've been slowly realising that things aren't going to just "work themselves out". The pressure is mounting, something's going to break, and then will be Big Decision Time. I've been see-saawing from one extreme to the other for months, thinking "you know what, FUCK ballet, I'm gonna get a real job, which pays real money, and doesn't hurt all the time", only to wake up the next morning all misty-eyed because I was dreaming about being on stage again, and I remember how much fun it can be. There's no telling where I'm going, I'll have to wait it out for now, and I'm just about tearing my hair out from the frustration of it all. What also is not helping is the fact that, to be honest, I'm lonely. Despite the Nameless Wonder being the awesomest thing ever and picking me up when I'm down, and dealing with my now-regular mini meltdowns, I haven't had much of a social life this year. I could count on one hand the number of parties I've been to, and the number of friends I see with ANY sort of regularity is two. So, my ENITRE world is made up of 3 people and a cat (who is madder than I, even at this stage). The stress is wearing me down, and I am not functioning well emotionally. I guess this is the test. If I get through this with lessons learned, or give up or give in (and at this point I'm not sure which choice is which anymore). Do I go back to certainty, but risk living with the regret of being a failure, or do I stay, and risk giving up the only thing I've ever done with any degree of success or confidence? It's either a catch 22, or it's a no-brainer, but I can't tell which one. I just don't know.
Mostly, they've been weird because I've been slowly realising that things aren't going to just "work themselves out". The pressure is mounting, something's going to break, and then will be Big Decision Time. I've been see-saawing from one extreme to the other for months, thinking "you know what, FUCK ballet, I'm gonna get a real job, which pays real money, and doesn't hurt all the time", only to wake up the next morning all misty-eyed because I was dreaming about being on stage again, and I remember how much fun it can be. There's no telling where I'm going, I'll have to wait it out for now, and I'm just about tearing my hair out from the frustration of it all. What also is not helping is the fact that, to be honest, I'm lonely. Despite the Nameless Wonder being the awesomest thing ever and picking me up when I'm down, and dealing with my now-regular mini meltdowns, I haven't had much of a social life this year. I could count on one hand the number of parties I've been to, and the number of friends I see with ANY sort of regularity is two. So, my ENITRE world is made up of 3 people and a cat (who is madder than I, even at this stage). The stress is wearing me down, and I am not functioning well emotionally. I guess this is the test. If I get through this with lessons learned, or give up or give in (and at this point I'm not sure which choice is which anymore). Do I go back to certainty, but risk living with the regret of being a failure, or do I stay, and risk giving up the only thing I've ever done with any degree of success or confidence? It's either a catch 22, or it's a no-brainer, but I can't tell which one. I just don't know.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Deadly Dentistry
So for anybody who would care to look into my mouth when I throw my head back and laugh maniacally, you would see that I have a bit of hardware behind my front teeth. I got these Incognito braces while I was in Cape Town, hoping that I could finish treatment before we left for Germany, but that didn't happen. Since getting here, they have held up remarkably well; that is, until the unfortunate Pear Incident...
We were in Sweden recently, at a magnificent feast at one of our cult events, when I was eating a pear. They have very hard pears in Sweden, and my braces took instant and painful offence to this particular morsel, shifting uncomfortably down my tooth and pulling on all the teeth in the right side of my jaw. Nevermind that I've been chucking back hard raw almonds every day since arriving; no, this pear was just too much. So the feast was pretty much ruined after that (it didn't help that I was sick as well, which made the whole experience all the more delightful), and I realised that the time had come to find an orthodontist in Germany. This, frankly, terrified me, after hearing of the exorbitant amounts of money that they supposedly charged for treatment in Frankfurt. But I girded my loins and phoned a Dr Lemmerich who was situated in a small town close to us, called Obertshausen.
Now I should mention how atrocious my German still is, even after living here for nearly 6 months. It doesn't help that as soon as you try your pidgin German out on the natives, they take pity on you and switch to near perfect English, which is a little embarrassing. So you can imagine my surprise when I phoned Dr Lemmerich's offices, only to have my usual "sprechen sie Englisch" answered with "nein". Ah, shit. So more horrendous butchery of German ensued, until she told me in desperation to hang on, she'll go fetch the Doctor. Dr Lemmerich answered, and turned out to be a woman, which I was rather hoping for (ok her first name is Anette, but you can never tell with these foreigners). She spoke damn near perfect English, and kindly told me I could come and see her at 6h30 that evening.
I, of course, turned to Google maps for help, and as usual they gave me what seemed to be the most complicated route that they could find (it's a well-known fact that Google hates me). But I faithfully wrote it all down, and set off in good time to make it to Ostendstrasse.
Yes, you see the problem there, don't you? Despite having the same starting letter, Obertshausen is in fact not the same as Ostendstrasse, which is rather a lot further into town. I sat there gormlessly on the train for about 15 minutes more than I had to, got out and started trying to find the damn starting street that I was supposed to go down. Of course it wasn't there, but it still took me a good 20 minutes to figure out my immense stupidity, and by that time it was already 6pm and I still had to wait for my train to arrive. So I phoned the offices again in a bit of a panic, and sadly the only person I could talk to was the sweet but non-English-enabled secretary. First it took quite a time to get across to her who I was (how many other slightly inept English-speaking patients could they possibly have?). Then, it was crunch time, as I tried and failed to remember what the word for "late" is. Eventually: "Ich bin, uhm, tödlich?" Short pause, while it dawns on me suddenly that I have just told this poor woman that I am deadly. But, to her eternal credit, she doesn't laugh, but just says "Ahh! Du kommst später!" "Yes! That one!" And so arrangements are made for me to come at 7. I can't help but think that they may have been less inclined to wait for me, had I not warned them of my "deadliness"...
I eventually got to Dr Lemmerich, after still not finding that damn starting street, gave up on Google maps entirely and clomped around Obertshausen frantically for 20 minutes so that by the time I got to the good Doctor, I was sweaty and dishevelled as all hell and probably did look a bit dangerous. She fixed me up within 10 minutes, was nothing but sweet, and didn't even accept any payment for her troubles. I think it was the first time I've ever left an orthodontist feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
We were in Sweden recently, at a magnificent feast at one of our cult events, when I was eating a pear. They have very hard pears in Sweden, and my braces took instant and painful offence to this particular morsel, shifting uncomfortably down my tooth and pulling on all the teeth in the right side of my jaw. Nevermind that I've been chucking back hard raw almonds every day since arriving; no, this pear was just too much. So the feast was pretty much ruined after that (it didn't help that I was sick as well, which made the whole experience all the more delightful), and I realised that the time had come to find an orthodontist in Germany. This, frankly, terrified me, after hearing of the exorbitant amounts of money that they supposedly charged for treatment in Frankfurt. But I girded my loins and phoned a Dr Lemmerich who was situated in a small town close to us, called Obertshausen.
Now I should mention how atrocious my German still is, even after living here for nearly 6 months. It doesn't help that as soon as you try your pidgin German out on the natives, they take pity on you and switch to near perfect English, which is a little embarrassing. So you can imagine my surprise when I phoned Dr Lemmerich's offices, only to have my usual "sprechen sie Englisch" answered with "nein". Ah, shit. So more horrendous butchery of German ensued, until she told me in desperation to hang on, she'll go fetch the Doctor. Dr Lemmerich answered, and turned out to be a woman, which I was rather hoping for (ok her first name is Anette, but you can never tell with these foreigners). She spoke damn near perfect English, and kindly told me I could come and see her at 6h30 that evening.
I, of course, turned to Google maps for help, and as usual they gave me what seemed to be the most complicated route that they could find (it's a well-known fact that Google hates me). But I faithfully wrote it all down, and set off in good time to make it to Ostendstrasse.
Yes, you see the problem there, don't you? Despite having the same starting letter, Obertshausen is in fact not the same as Ostendstrasse, which is rather a lot further into town. I sat there gormlessly on the train for about 15 minutes more than I had to, got out and started trying to find the damn starting street that I was supposed to go down. Of course it wasn't there, but it still took me a good 20 minutes to figure out my immense stupidity, and by that time it was already 6pm and I still had to wait for my train to arrive. So I phoned the offices again in a bit of a panic, and sadly the only person I could talk to was the sweet but non-English-enabled secretary. First it took quite a time to get across to her who I was (how many other slightly inept English-speaking patients could they possibly have?). Then, it was crunch time, as I tried and failed to remember what the word for "late" is. Eventually: "Ich bin, uhm, tödlich?" Short pause, while it dawns on me suddenly that I have just told this poor woman that I am deadly. But, to her eternal credit, she doesn't laugh, but just says "Ahh! Du kommst später!" "Yes! That one!" And so arrangements are made for me to come at 7. I can't help but think that they may have been less inclined to wait for me, had I not warned them of my "deadliness"...
I eventually got to Dr Lemmerich, after still not finding that damn starting street, gave up on Google maps entirely and clomped around Obertshausen frantically for 20 minutes so that by the time I got to the good Doctor, I was sweaty and dishevelled as all hell and probably did look a bit dangerous. She fixed me up within 10 minutes, was nothing but sweet, and didn't even accept any payment for her troubles. I think it was the first time I've ever left an orthodontist feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wave Gotik Treffen part the third
The next day (Saturday), we got up lateish, had brekkies at Starbucks (nom nom nom) and went off to meet another friend at the train station. She, having studied fine arts at school/varsity/both, was keen to see an art museum, so we went to the Museum der bildenden Kunste nearby. Now personally I find the fine arts just a LEEETLE bit pretentious, particularly modern art, but it turned out to have more of the good stuff than I was anticipating, and we had a nice time pretending to be cultured and refined, all the while clomping through in our dusty Doc Martens.
After that we parted ways, and went back to our hotel to collect picnic stuff (read: vodka, lemonade and red bull), having organised to meet everyone later at the Agra hall and catwalk area. We got there, only to find that we didn't have the right kind of wristbands to get our drinks into the area, so we waited for our other friends to come to the rescue and sneak our booze in for us, which they kindly did. After milling about a little and eating some sort of meal, which was possibly lunch but was actually brunch for me at 6pm, we went back into the market. Whilst there, we met another person that we know from our cult, who proceeded to win me over by promising to make me (for a price of course), a custom made chain maille bikini. The general consensus was that they would allow me to have material lining in the underwear, but not the top because it'd just not be "metal". I should mention that the garment is made up of steel AND rubber links, so it won't give me armour bite. Much.
...which was so awesomely awful we had to take a picture of it. There were zebra striped ones too but I didn't want my camera to actually die on me, so we refrained from taking any more photos of these abominations.
After that, waaay pumped on music and red bull, we went to a club called the Moritzbastei, which is located in the only remaining part of the city's ancient fortifications, therefore it was dungeon-like and just a perfect venue for a goth club, naturally. They played a lot of EBM and industrial, which are genres that I'm slowly getting into at the moment so it was a nice way to discover new bands and also, the joy of dancing to them. I don't think I've ever danced as much at a club, mostly because I've never gone in with that amount of caffeine in my bloodstream, and it was so much fun. Once we'd bounced all energy out of our systems (and killed off our ear drums; damn the music was loud!), it was about 3am and a good time to go back to the hotel, take a much-needed shower, and pass out.
Sunday was sadly our last day there. We went to our friends' hotel to have our hair plaited and prettified; we're still not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The Nameless Wonder ended up looking vaguely Hasidic jew-ish:
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| A really not very good photo to illustrate my outfit. A hint of pixie influence there... |
Ah, the things we saw the second time round! I was mostly cognitively present this time, and so could do actual looking and buying of things, which I did quite restrainedly; it's amazing what being jobless and watching your bank account get slowly anorexic does for your self control. There was the shop that sold corsets made to look like skin, complete with nipples and occasional stab wounds (vaguely disturbing). There was the spike shop, with I-shit-you-not 6 inch and longer spikes on cuffs, vambraces and chokers. Straight spikes, nasty curved spikes that'd hook your face off with one misplaced arm-flail, regular rounded studs, full steel plates, you name it. Then there was this coat...
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| Who says men can't wear minis? |
After this, we went into the hall to see some bands: Grendel, Funker Vogt, Combichrist and my favourite for the entire weekend: Aesthetic Perfection. These guys were amazing on stage, and not at all what I was expecting. The main dude (I don't know the bands' names and I'm too lazy to check) had real energy and pizazz, and his performance was kind of Mask-ish, probably helped by the actual mask he wore and his vague similarity to Jim Carrey.
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| Gorram tall people! |
Sunday was sadly our last day there. We went to our friends' hotel to have our hair plaited and prettified; we're still not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The Nameless Wonder ended up looking vaguely Hasidic jew-ish:
By the time we'd finished with that (plus some random and occasionally disturbing youtube videos), we were hungry and it was nearly time to go to the train station anyway, so we went there for lunch and more chitter-chatter until it was time for us to leave :(
The train journey was somewhat eventful; the driver pulled away while a door was still open, causing me to have near heart-failure when I heard an ominous thump that COULD have been someone being run over or something equally horrible, but thankfully was not. Then there was the ear-splitting screech every time it pulled into a station (really great for concert-ears, thanks!), and the delay on the tracks due to some other train having problems. But we got home safely in the end. I wish we'd been able to stay longer, but there is always next time...
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