More nudity

Ironing ideas for the comic

Funny thing happened the other day. Hannah and I were at Elk Lake, killing a six-pack and throwing sticks to Orca, her German Shepard.
"GET DA BABY!" (yelling) DAST IST BABY! GIT! (pretending to speak German)
Came time to jump in the lake so we each tossed a can and swam in after it.

"We have to finish these beers in the water."
Talking a little, drinking, time going by. Dog barking.

Done with beer

Getting out. Laughing (kind of far away looking) distance

This girl came up from behind us while we were drying off on a log, marveling at the day.

Excuse me (meek looking)
I just need you to know... (she was shaking, angry or nervous)
There are children around here...
pause
You should put your top back on.
Yes.
I mean, there are children around here.
Yes.
Pause.

I sometimes forget nudity makes people uncomfortable. Culture is funny. Boobs are funny too.
Thinking about middle eastern women being chastised by women and men for not wearing headscarves. About breast feeding moms being flagged on facebook. I think about the stigma of our private parts.

You could tell that was difficult for her to come over here and say. 

Damn, that would've been the time to pretend I was German. 

I put my top back on. 

I didn't buy the children argument. She was implying that (my) boobs were a moral degradation of children. Moral degrading like watching a person physically assault another person. Morally degrading like chronic neglect. Like non-consesual touching.

These are not the same.

Boobs don't lead to moral degradation. The viewing of boobs does not take away from their innocence.

What takes away from innocence is labeling parts of ourselves as degrading.

The hugest perversion is sexualizing these parts of ourselves. It's sexualizing each others bodies.

Perverting our bodies robs us of having a safe relationship with ourselves. Because of the labels inflicted upon us we can't see what we really are.

Boobs. Penis. Vagina. Head. Lips. Heart. Ears. Hair. 

It's just my body. It makes up who I am. 

Disconnecting from what my body is and only seeing it as something seen by others is straining. It hurts the relationship between myself and my body.

And we set our young to see bodies are stigmatized sexualized objects rather than what they really are.

Chest. Arm. Hand. Neck.

"I thought she was going to tell us to stop yelling & cussing." Hannah says.

I wish she should've said
"I don't like to see your boobs"

Joel's Voicemail

He-ey, Rachel. *ahem* It's Joel. I'm just sweeping and talkin' on the phone. I just had an idea ... of a ... I needed to tell somebody about it. And it was mixing the word hello and howdy. Um. and then it would just be. Hell-Owdy. *snicker* I just thought that was kind of funny. Anyways, um... Hey-Lowdy! Um... so, yeah, anyways, if you're working, I'll give you a call later, bye bye.

Flesh Ether, we'll just call it done.

My secret boyfriend Jack's playing behind the white sheet which serves as a backdrop and Heather is pleased I'm letting her take pictures of my bush.
I remember a being a child, a preteen, at the public swimming pool. Women all around, they were so huge, boobs flopping. I changed in the bathroom wondering how those women could be SO NAKED. I get it now.
I became unselfconscious about nudity the same time I started loving fresh tomatoes.
Incense is burning and I'm smoking on a stool and can't seem to get enough smoke to obscure my face. We want a smoke shot. The cigarettes are slim. It's not my fault.
Heather is taking photographs of me nude and I ask myself, what is she taking pictures of?
Without my clothes, my self is still buried.
Where is my self?
Under the flesh, muscle, is it in the bones? In my brain? My heart? She is not taking pictures of me, she is taking pictures of my epidermal.
"Why does one ask, 'where does the flesh meet the ether?" Cazo said at his art opening at Velvet months ago. Things are so obvious to him.
Before, before, I am trying to get everyone to rapture with me. I even sent out a facebook invite. This idea spawned by reading a few Douglas Coupland books back to back with a similar sentiment. It is page (3) in Player One, the chapter  CUE THE FLAMING ZEPPLIN. Karen is in an airplane musing about the book/movie the Langoliers by Stephen King where a bunch of people suddenly vanish, their clothes and earrings and walkmans and headphones left abandoned where their bodies once took shape. There are some people who wake up to this (something about the pressure). Karen muses, "What does it mean for someone to vanish?" Namely, what is US and what is NOT US.

Ok, wait. So. The Rapture. Let me explain. In it's most simplistic sense the Rapture is the end of the world. In theory the good will rise to heaven, leaving their earthy possessions behind. The bad will stay on earth. A blaze of glory. Floating to heaven. Eyes skyward. Trumpets. A sweet photography project.

The rapture project didn't work out. It was supposed to be a series of photograph shoots. I would take a series of THREE photographs for every person. Locations were random. Wherever you happened to be when the rapture would take place.
FIRST PHOTO: Person, full body, looking skyward. SECOND PHOTO: Same frame, person gone, pile of what is "not of the self" left on a pile on the ground. THIRD PHOTO: Detailed perspective of "not of the self" stuff.
I wanted to make a prototype so I took set up a stool with my camera on it, put it on timer mode and took a picture of me looking at the sky.
Second photo: I took all of my clothes, shoes and hair things and put them together in a way where it looked like my body had just disappeared. Then I realized, wait, wait. I had are that morning and hadn't fully digested my food, so it wasn't part of my body yet. So I placed a cup of maté, some chewed up tortilla chips and my nutritional supplements and set them by my clothes. These things were not me. Then, wait, wait, my fillings, they are not me either. I took slivers of tin foil to replicate fillings and placed them besides my clothes. What about my dead skin? That is no longer apart me.
And staring at all these things and then thinking about what else I needed to include, I realized that my whole body was not me.
 I was made up of the food I had eaten and the water I drank and the air I breathe. It wasn't just these things that supported my life, they literally were a part of me. My bones and blood and everything was just things I had consumed my entire life and the combination of those things, constructed by some divine intelligence made who I was. And I then I realized, I'm not separate from these things. I am, all these things.
If the rapture were to come, I would not rise. I am this earth. I am heavy. I am the universe.
I am one with the universe.
It's not nirvana. It's reality.
I couldn't go any further with my rapture project. It just got to complicated. It was too absurd to try and make an art bit out of a silly myth. It wasn't worth it.
So, what the hell is Heather taking a picture of?
Me? Or the Universe?



Heather said she owed me one for coming over on short notice and I told her this wasn't true. But I asked her to take a picture of me like the one Nelson Algren took of Simone de Beauvoir, doing her hair in the bathroom in heels. Wasn't the same. I'll try again in my forties.


Heather's so cool.

When the questions were asked
a deep breath was taken
creating space
for the answers
& slowly in clues & omens they came
The Universe answers

Depression

I want you to know, I want to live. I want to fight. But there is a part of me that wants to die. And this part of me gets in the way from the wanting to live part. 
Mom asked me the other day if I still think about suicide. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. She told me she read an article that kids who stayed up late were statistically more likely to be suicidal when they grow older. I used to stay up late to work on projects. Write stories. Draw little pictures. Nighttime was when I fely most creative. Still is. 
When my therapist asked me, several months in, if we should start about medication she mentioned there are cultures where depression is normal. I thought of this picture in a sociology textbook which discussed the Amish. In Amish communties depression in males is documented because they do not mask the disorder as alcoholism. Common in my culture. I was told in the French culture no one admits to being depressed but only says, "je fatigue."


I've been depressed for a very long time. I started taking pills more than a year ago. The pills I take are called Citopram. It stimulates my neurotransmitter to release more serotonin. I take 20 mg in the morning with my iron, B12 and Omega something something. 


When you are waiting in the waiting room for your doctor they have you fill out the 


Goldberg's Depression Test. 
It says things like:
I find it hard to concentrate when I read. 
I think I am uglier than most people. 
I feel like a failure. 
I find it hard to do trivial things. 
I find it hard to make decisions. 
I feel I am being punished.


You grade the answers based on your level of agreement. 


I had my dose doubled to 40mg a few months after the initial assessment. The doctor told me I might feel less empathy. 
I'm continuing to take the original dosage. I break them in half. It means I only have to go every 6 months. 


When I told my mom I was on medication she was disappointed. In High School, when I would say i was depressed, she would tell me to say I was sad. 
I was sad when I should have felt happy. Like accomplishing something. Finishing a project. Standing on the mountain top.


I told my brother and sister first. My sister seemed annoyed.  My sister gets upset when I tell her I'm sad. She tells all I need to do things that make me happy. Go on vacation. My Dad tells me my friends or job isn't good and I should get new friends and a new job. 


My brother said the only thing anyone has ever said about the issue which had made any sense, "I have no idea what you're going through, I have no opinion." For Christmas he bought me an inexpensive laser tag game and Memory game. 


My doctor says my hypothalamus is like a raisin, shriveled up because of a lack of serotonin. The medication would help make my hypothalamus become fat and juicy. One day I wouldn't need to be on medication.  


Camus says suicide is the one truly philosophical problem. 


Every once in awhile I will stop taking the pills. Sometimes I forget for periods of time. Sometimes I want to see what happens. The same things happens every time. It takes a couple weeks. My life becomes overwhelming. I feel guilty. I don't feel ok around people, I don't feel ok alone. I don't feel ok at all. I don't want to go to yoga. I feel guilty for not going to yoga. No one likes me. I want to eat all the time. 


There is a deep well of sadness - like an underground lake. Dark blue and cold and beautiful. When I am depressed I am in that place. It is difficult to explain. I feel buried under a thousand feet of scar tissue. When I am here, on the shoreline of this lake, I want to die the most. I hate being here. With all my heart I hate this place. I am all alone here.


Taking pills doesn't mean I'm happy. Taking pills means I don't have to be in that place. When I cry, I cry until I forget, like a baby. I get distracted. I stop crying. I make tea. I cry when I jog alone. I get a few miles from my house and punch a tree and say, "FUCK YOU WORLD!" and cry and cry and keep running. 
To be crying all the time with no tears coming down your face is hell. To be crying and wishing to not be alive anymore is hell. To hate life is hell. To hate the vessel you are in for no reason besides you are breathing is hell. There is no why. It just is. Maybe a bad habit. I don't blame it. I just want to get away. 


The frustration that comes from explaining depression is defending it as not a choice. To pin something that is a feeling or emotion outside of the realm of choice makes people uneasy. From a philosophical basis, it skirts free will and our ability to create ourselves. It makes claim that we are a confluence of circumstances. It skirts responsibility from the individual to make themselves who they are. 
Is taking pills taking a way of taking the responsibility of creating my life? Am I cheating myself? Am I cheating nature?


I find talking about depression is easier when I describe it as a tumor. When I describe the depression as not being a part of me but something that grew and became attached and I can live without. Something that grew and became rather than always was. 


Talking to my therapist a couple months on the pills, she tells me I am still myself. The pills did not change who I am. Being who I am is still my responsibility. 


But I'm afraid. I'm afraid I am cheating. I am afraid I am really supposed to die. That the universe has called me to take my own life and I am cheating. I am being selfish. Killing myself weighs heavier in my thoughts than going on vacation. It is on par with my life options as is getting into a new relationship. Buying a car. Moving to a new city. What right do I have to use modern pharmaceutical technology to extract my responsibility from answering the fundamental philosophical questions, to live or to die? 
It's easier this way. It's easier to help people. It's easier to work on projects. It's easier to feel good about myself when I accomplish something. It's easier to talk about sadness when it's not so deep it hurts to touch. There is still a heaviness in my understanding, having been to a place of sorrow. 


I haven't lost my empathy. I am still me. I want to live. 

Nowhere

Reason #458 why I make a terrible friend
I forget to use code words when talking about drugs in text messages.

This zine was supposed to be about what a dick ex bf James Ryan is but I got lazy and now I just don't have what it takes to tear him up. And now we're friends who don't fuck and get along pretty well. He is such a dick though. Don't ever date him. He'll treat you like a whore and fuck all your friends. Other than that he's awesome.

This sinus infection is the root of all my powers. The sinus infection has disabled the "give-a-fuck" node in my brain making my immune to the pierced arrow of truth. I've debated for sometime to make a doctors appointment so my energy levels can return to normal. If I don't have the sinus infection I will start caring about really dumb things like I used to. I just can't go back to that.

It makes me so sad sometimes to not have anyone to share these hilarious moments with. Watching youtube some documentary about these siamese twin girls in High School who share a body but have two separate heads and hearts. Gaaah I want that SOOOO bad! Have another person who is super similar to me and we could watch funny shit all day and laugh and laugh and laugh. It would be so great.

My spelling has become dogshit lately.

Friends

Hard to explain. There are five of us here. We are accessories. We make their lives miserable because we work together.
Hobart

Microwave 1
Microwave 2
Refrigerator
Coffee Pot

This is a story about Coffee Pot

Flowers in the Winter cry in trashcans

Who was it that said that incredibly sweet thing about the lilies in my house?
Staring up at them in the late morning maybe, maybe in the evening - feeling sad for them with their provocative shape, protruding genitals, petals, palms stretched back all the way enticing a bee that will never come. It is winter, not just that, they are indoors.
I stare at them, probably drunk and romantic, feeling sorry for them and he tells me they have fulfilled their destinies when I smell them. Tickle their stigma and pistil.
And I smell them. All the time.
I sleep with the dead ones cupped in my hand near my face. Find them crumpled in sheets in the morning.

Michelle asked if I want honey with my tea. What will it be like when the bees are gone? Of course, I want honey with my tea.

Used to spend my money on roses. Before they died all the way I would take them into the backyard and lay them so they could, in their last days, feel the dew on their petals and would be spared the humiliation of crumpling before our eyes.