Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, karl marx, sci fi, short story, time travel
i think i might like to write a much longer story from this one. but for now, here’s the sketch of the idea, so i don’t lose it.
i stood between the futureman and karl, trying to make myself big.
“go away.” i said. “go back to where you came from. leave the poor guy alone. whatever you’re blaming him for, it’s not his fault, ok? he’s just a thinker, a writer. he didn’t cause stalin to opress the russian people and it isn’t his fault none of the communist experiments succeeded, either. killing him won’t change anything!”
“no, you’re wrong- it changes everything. i know. i’ve been there.” the futureman looked into my eyes, begging me to understand. “without him it all happens. the rise of the working class. the fall of capitalism. the people owning the factories. it didn’t happen exactly the way he wrote it out, or anything. there’s still some inequality, some injustice. but without this idiot writing it all down it actually had the space to happen. the revolution!”
i looked at karl. was it selfish of me to try to preserve my own history over all the others? karl might even agree with futureman, if he could follow what was happening. he might prefer the actuality of his ideas to the misuse and perversion that became of them in my own universe. my job was to protect the timeline, but who was i to say my timeline was any better than this guy’s. all i really had on my side was the principle of non-interference.
save karl marx and save walmart, save starbucks, save microsoft. i looked at him and knew the world would be better off without him. then i turned again to face the futureman, ready at last to lose my life in defense of a man who didn’t know any better and a future which had done the best we could with what we had inherited.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, politics, short story, writing
Home at last. With that final bit of energy you have before exhaustion overtakes you I flung myself through the door, ready to collapse on the couch and sedate myself with an hour, or 3 or 4, of CNN. If the television colonised my mind and made of me a zombie slave to some conventional wisdom, well, so much the better. At least I’d get a rest. The senator didn’t really need independent minded aides on his staff anyway. He’d probably do just as well or better with an organ grinder’s monkey. Perhaps one trained to caper in a humorous way at the slightest hint of controversy. The press would point and laugh and the senator would slink off through a side door to his next engagement.
“What’s the point of keeping your idealism if there’s no place you’re allowed to use it?”
For a moment I was sure it was my cat who’d spoken. He was looking at me now, waiting for a response. I’d neglected to feed him upon coming through the door, so impatient was I to gain the couch and refuge from reality. Does hunger normally produce language in house cats? Possible, I supposed. But doubtful. It seemed far more likely that the words had escaped from my own throat, making the dangerous traverse between my mind and my vocal chords without alerting my internal censors.
I fed the cat. I tried not to resent him much for judging me.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, pro-ana, proana
anorexia is the queen of eating disorders. compulsive overeaters, in my experience, are relatively well adjusted lovely people who seek help with a high degree of motivation. bulimics tend to be pretty high functioning slightly screwed up people who want to get better but aren’t sure they want to give up losing weight and getting to eat anything they want without consequences. anorexics, on the other hand, are closed off, terrified, barely or non-functioning, angry, crazy, and out of control. and for some reason they think they’re better than everyone else.
don’t ask me why, but in treatment whenever i would meet new people they always seemed to think i was an anorexic. which, despite the fact that i’d been purging everything in sight for months, was in some ways accurate. my weight isn’t particularly low but my orientation is somewhat anorexic and with the ability to purge taken away i guess all my symptoms are anorexic ones.
whatever, point being, anorexic pride is one thing i have in spades.
nothing made me happier than being mistaken for an anorexic. ha HA! oh yes, that’s me. i am one of the few, the proud. the select few that are not only willing to give up everything in life just to be thin but are actually eager to KEEP giving up everything in life long after they actually acheive thinness. genius, right? no wonder everyone in the world wants to be just like us.
it’s crazy isn’t it? both the fact that our anorexic pride tells us that everyone in the world wishes they were just like us and the fact that our society is so fucked up it’s almost even true. but anyone who thinks you want to be anorexic, beware. be ready to sign away everything and gain nothing. you want control? after your first hysterical crying fit at the sight of a piece of birthday cake or a slice of pizza tell me you have control.
but isn’t it all worth it for that number on the scale, that trip to the mall where you find the smallest sizes fitting, then find they’re even hanging off you. c’mon. isn’t it worth it? isn’t that the best feeling in the world, ever? well isn’t it?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, short story, writing
she was just across and to the left from where i sat. she spoke with an edge, bravado if you like. she dared us with her voice to find anything sad or strange about her history. with her story now finished the group began to dribble out into the hall.
i hesitated. my path out took me past her chair. i opened my mouth to speak. i wanted to tell her something before i went. you know, something along the lines of “hey, like, that really sucks but well, that’s life i guess.” anything would be better than just leaving.
instead of words my heart rolled off my tongue and out it fell onto the floor. that’s odd, i thought. it rarely does that. i bent down to pick it up.
bend, kick. i must have caught it with my toe as i was bending down to pick it up and place it safely back inside my throat. it rolled a little ways away leaving a very slight trail of blood as it did. bend, kick. whoops. how silly i must look, chasing my heart across the floor.
bend, kick. then it was out the door, and so was i.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, fiction, flash fiction, humor, short story
Avant-Guarde! ZIITE! Piddle-poot-temble, kapow!
oh-ho, there. Now I have you. Gaze upon me and know the face of art, the soul of humanity, yea the very depths of the human condition reflected back at you. Do you flinch? Do not avert your gaze, oh waiting room patron of the arts. My blootches and blotches are mysterious, impenetrable, surely to one as yourself all but incomprehensibly strange but do not turn away in fear from my streaks and my blobs of paint. Nay, gaze upon me instead and learn the truth of color and composition and form. I am your Waterloo but you need not be a Napoleon, small and absurd upon your horse.
Be the other guy instead. You know. The english one who won the battle. Or whatever. I never studied history. No fear! For what is history to one such as I? I have no need for such trivial pursuits. ZOOOOOT! Bloooble-blomp-tpoink! art-i-am. Will you eat me with a fox? Would you, could you, in a box? The absurb in me mingles with the divine and leaves you forever changed for on this day you have know truth! You have stepped in to the ring of abstract wall art in your dentists waiting room, in your hotel lobby, and come out forever changed.
So, go, gentle art appreciater. Out back to the world I send you. Take with you your wallet. Let from your wallet appear a trickle, a small stream, and let it flow from you into a gallery and then (minus comission) to a great yet unappreciated artist so that he may buy the alcohol to dull the pain to paint the next round for you and your ilk to hang upon your walls. This is your mission. Go!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, short story, writing
Every time she flew she’d have this moment of wishing. If only. If only something happpened and this, this could just be it. If only the plane would fall from the sky and POOM. No more her.
She never re-visited that thought from the ground. Troubling though it was it came and went without protest. Simply taking notice of it might have been enough to tear the tissue paper thin wrappings of content she’d packed her life in.
Can’t have that. Oh, no. There are children to pick up from school, dishwashers to empty, husbands…
One day she’d run away, she thought. She’d take a lover. An englishman who had been raised in Punjab. They’d fly together to India where she’d wear long dresses and exotic jewelry. The englishman would be hiding some dark secret, which she would only learn on being kidnapped by one of this past business partners, bandit who would take her to his jungle home and torture her until one day her lover arrived to rescue her.
He’d die trying to save her life, but she would never forget him and she’d dedicate her book to him. It would tell the true story of a suburban houswife surviving the Indian jungle.
Yes. She smiled to herself as the plane touched down. Nothing in her life that couldn’t be fixed by the plot of a cheap romance novel. How silly she was for worrying. She took her purse, grasped the handle of her carry-on, and marched off the ramp and back into the battle.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders | Tags: anorexia, body acceptance, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, fat acceptance
Why do I insist on connecting myself intellectually and emotionally to the FA movement? Isn’t body acceptance enough without bringing FA into the mix? A few of my commenters inspired me to really think about this, and this post is what I have come up with.
First off, what are Fat Acceptance and body acceptance, really? Well, Fat Acceptance is an activist movement that is working to bring about changes in our attitudes about body size, fatness, health, and dieting. What I love about FA are the debunkings of diet myths and the willingness to question the assumption that thin=healthy=good. On the other hand, to me, body acceptance is a more vaugue idea coming out of popular culture and/or eating disorder treatment that a person ought to accept themselves and their body in order to be happy, and in order to acheive that things like therapeutic excersizes, affirmations, and yoga are suggested.
Right off the bat I want to say I think that most of body acceptance ought to be called “THIN body acceptance”. The people who talk about loving their body who aren’t associated with FA are all thin or what I call normal/thin (which means they look thin to a fat person). 10 pounds overweight, max. In the healthy range almost exclusively.
Body acceptance feels to me like it comes with a lot of baggage. It’s like, if I eat right, excersize, and have a weight that is in the normal range for my height and age, then I can start accepting my imperfections. It doesn’t say much about accepting yourself while being 100 lbs overweight and how much harder that is than accepting your normal-sized self. It doesn’t say ANYTHING about accepting other people’s bodies, accepting that some people may be fat and there’s no reason you ought to butt in to their fatness and tell them to eat right and excersize.
These reservations about body acceptance are why I think that with all its flaws, FA has something on body acceptance. FA get’s things wrong, but what it gets wrong is all out there ready to be debated. Body acceptance gets things wrong in the nuance, in the subtleties and unspoken rules. FA addresses problems in society right and brings body acceptance through activism- If you’re working to change attitudes about fat people it’s hard to hang on to those attitudes yourself. FA inspires a feeling of empowerment. It’s fiesty. It’s not just about personally and quietly accepting your body, it’s about getting out there and demanding the same acceptance and respect from everyone else, too!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: carrots, fiction, flash fiction, humor, short story
this is just the little piece i wrote during the creative writing group i led friday. thought i’d stick it up since i haven’t had time to do anything new for a while.
I lived in the warm soil with my family of carrots all around me. In neat rows we came of age together, stretching our toes down deep and peeking our fluffy heads out into the summer skies above us. We whispered to one another of clouds and birds, of earthworms, rains, and beetles.
One day I heard a rumour of disappearances happening amongst us. Someone’s friend’s cousin’s stepdaughter had vanished upwards in a cloud of dust and not been heard from since. For the first time I knew fear, for my friends, my family, and myself.
The rumours became fact soon after. A wave of sharp upward jerks was bearing down on each of us. Carrots all around me were torn from their beds, never to be seen again. Then it was my turn.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorders, fat acceptance, overeaters anonymous
In my eating disorder I have two places where I draw hope and inspiration. One of those is Overeaters Anonymous, the only program that ever worked for me, even for a little while. A place where I can go to find help for myself and see wonderful people who have found recovery and gone from being as messed up and confused as i am to being better-than-normal human beings.
The other place where I find inspiration is the Fat Acceptance movement. I don’t believe every aspect of FA- I think they downplay health effects of obesity, ignore evidence that doesn’t support their theories, and don’t seem to embrace the fact that many overweight people are compulsive overeaters and experience a lot of emotional and physical pain that cannot be healed by stopping dieting and accepting themselves as they are.
For me, OA and Fat Acceptance are so easy to reconcile. Accepting yourself as you are and moving beyond your focus on physical recovery to a focus on spiritual recovery is an absolute key to working the OA program. Excessive focus on weight loss is symptom of early recovery, but those that stick around in the program usually begin talking much more about their emotional and spiritual growth and how they have begun to accept their bodies, imperfections and all. Meanwhile, Fat Acceptance as I understand it has everything to do with healthy active living and eating nourishing, nutritous food and nothing to do with making excuses for your eating disorder or sedentary lifestyle.
Where I feel OA needs to move is towards truly embracing the idea that not all people with eating disorders need the same food plan, rather than giving lip service to this while secretly pushing no sugar, no flour diets. Also, I would love to see OA bring anorexia into the fold in some way- right now, anorexics are underserved by the program and I feel that anorexics are perhaps the MOST addict-y of all eating disorders.
Where I feel FA needs to move is towards having a more balanced, less hysterical and reactive attitufe towards everything, particularly eating disorders. I don’t hold the FA movement to the same high standards as OA because as an activist movement FA has a completely different purpose than OA, but still, FA can be so dogmatic! I’d like to see the FA movement talking about eating disorders and welcoming more shades of grey into its perspective.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, fiction | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, creative writing, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, fiction
today i ran a creative writing group for all the other clients here at milestones treatment centre. i was really nervous and self-conscious- but it went AWESOME! i got so much positive feedback from people, it felt really really good.
i wrote “could be worse” on the board and two samples: “things could be worse if a cocomut fell on my head” and “things could be worse if my mother turned into a giant lizard”. i read a couple of my stories (to the souls of all humans and if i was turning people to stone). then i had everyone write for about 20 minutes, saying they could write anything at all, or use the “could be worse” idea, or use one of the two suggestions as a jumping off point. everyone came up with something amazing- there was a wonderful range of stories, a couple poems, some prose. i had everyone read, and then we talked a little about two follow up questions: how does what you wrote relate to your recovery? and how can you incorporate creativity into your life?
i’m so glad it went well. i’ve never even taken a creative writing class, much less taught one. for once, i’m proud of me 
