STAR TREK Had Nothin' on THUNDERBIRDS

Thunderbirds, created/produced by Sylvia and Gerry Anderson. Okay. Mind blowing. [Now] classic television. That few today mention or discuss. A show with an extent of the bizarre that as an adult I wonder if the eight-year-old me only imagined. The voices of these supermarionated characters sounding as if they were in a pocketed section of space simulating echo chambers. The faces of these marionettes giving off both an officious mien and an angry, haunted, almost possessed glare. More dynamic than the best of Punch and Judy skits, less animated than Gumby, more riveting than the creepiest of Star Trek episodes.

Why is this blurb inserted into/onto a blog called MindFeelds? Because as one who does not smoke pot or drop acid or do psychotropics of any sort (anymore, I think), when I awaken to find something hitting my consciousness that [my conscious mind believes] is out of the ordinary, I just have to "share" it, lest I go mad thinking I am the only one experiencing/hearing/viewing what I am experiencing/hearing/viewing. And this morning I woke to retroactive images of Commander Norman,

Lady Penelope Creighton Ward,

and Jeff Tracy,

among others.

And the still shots in my head alone, never mind the actual show, were enough to set my day into a trend of perpetual dizziness, giddy as I was with private memories of what I then thought were unique and secret responses to a brilliant show way ahead of its time on many levels..., or spheres.

The next time I have to spare, I must share with you about waking up one morning as a thirty-something adult to a show I was sure I had to have been slipped something in my sleep--stoned as the experience was to see what I was seeing on the television left on from the late night before: Teletubbies!

Spamming someone's blog? I mean really, people

A cornered amoeba cannot escape by flying.
Line from an old science text

How low to the ass-sucking ground can you get? And do you really think the intelligent surfer/reader is going to say to him- or herself, Oh, indeed, a block of scumbag licking text that is written in broken English, has no contextual relationship to the writer's blog, theme, or writing in general (You bloggers know the block of nonsense/nontext of which we speak: see below for an example of the absolutely ridiculous, if not.), so I do believe I will "click here"...? Oh, yes, I have been in stupid mode and also just happen to need to be/want to be/feel like being suckered.

Riiight.

LOL and fukk off, parasites
And, oh, btw, scumbag spammers, if you are not included in the links box to the right here, then get a clue: we must not want your materialist greedy mindless poorly written-about etc. crap, do we?



Bullshit spam example:

All Camaraderie Cup 2010 [=http://www.BE FOOLED INTO VISITING THIS-XYZ SITE.com/]SHOP MATERIAL ITEM 1 Jerseys[/url] are apt in our heap, but the common sense with these posts is that we strength (unlettered) the be cast critic and shape judgments on colours, patterns and forms. If those are cool the chide terms. Disclose on in compensation my best pirate a flaw at at a reconsider, and I’d nuts to perceive your reactions in the comments.I’ve without exception been a large fiend of COUNTRY NAME’s NONSENSE WORD stripes. It’s a unambiguous of the iconic football [=http://www. NONSENSE WORD.com/]cheap MATERIALIST GREED ITEM HERE images, to more so since so accessory teams humour a wellnigh identical style.

The Sight of Sunlight through Tinted Window Blinds

One Writer's Attempt to Disprove to Herself that People Suck and that Maybe, Just Maybe Sometimes It's a Wonderful World



When every subject and object of your love is gone; and everything you hate, can't stand, are driven crazy by takes on greater space in your consciousness is when it may just be time to rethink. I have of late been seeking ways to do just that--to tone down the intolerable, to find something lovable.

Here are a few items I'm considering, those things which will take on the onus of keeping me willing to rise again every day and break into that juice-popping life worth living..., or at least worth peeling in preparation for a bite:

Preppies addressing one another by last name.

When a supremely funny-in-his-own-right comic finds something in his set so funny himself that he breaks into laughs [Jerry Seinfeld in outtakes, laughing at Michael Richards' bit on smoking too much/leathery face/brown teeth; Ricky Gervais on The Graham Norton Show, in a squealy laughing refutation of something absurd Norton says]

A book so good you intentionally never finish it, so like a moment of mutual love at first sight walking away you keep it from ever ending

The fast-forward button on the DVR
The mute button, too

"Getting" a very craftily, subtly plied literary allusion on an otherwise mainstream show [as when Foreman (Omar Epps), discussing House's (Hugh Laurie's) motives, comments on the life being "nasty, brutish, and short" attitude (which is originally from Hobbes' Leviathan: aint I smart?)]

Knowing sub space

That which gives one license to cry
That which is so black in humor that you want to share it with the first person who will listen [such as when Reese Witherspoon's Freeway character, Vanessa, shooting the serial killer Bob (Kiefer Sutherland) "a bunch of times;" falling to her knees, putting palms together in serious prayer, and looking up and saying, "Oh, God..., that was so fukking bad."]

Escaping martyrdom
Avoiding pronoun shifts (and knowing how to...)

The very moment when, after hours of uninterrupted 11-on-a-scale-of-10 pain, the ER doc's administration takes effect

Genius documentary
Brilliant cinéma vérité
The sexiness of slow motion [for example, in The Craft; Reservoir Dogs; Chariots of Fire; "King of Queens," "Strikeout" episode; Ferris Bueller's Day Off]

Language
Accents
All things French
British satire
Jewish men

Enjoying so-called "guilty pleasures": video games; cross stitching; "Nip/Tuck"; classic 70s hot rods; big, square-bodied trucks [the first F150s]; re-runs; good [all things being, of course, subjective] reality TV

Hegel, Kierkegaard, Sartre

Quotable comments not yet caught on [such as performance artist Nao, a contestant on "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist," telling a fussy critic/judge, "I am not responsible for your experience of my art."]

Working, having worked, and getting paid [a living] for doing work you love

New sex with an old love, a literal re-union that refreshes the legendary, that compensates with experience and years apart for all that wasn't in those adolescent years of initiation and awkwardness

Doing something for the sake of that something alone [obviously the most difficult, but, for example, doing a kindness without telling a single other soul about it--hence, no specific example can follow here, now can it?]

Being so broke you are smoking tobacco from butts in the vacuum cleaner in a pipe used for pot (so now you're broke, stoned, and hungry again)..., but being so broke that at the same time, you get that rare opportunity to catch a scumbag frauding your checking account--because it only has 19.00 in it and the checks he wrote for 1,000s bounce!

Synchronicity
Irony

Being correctly diagnosed as having a particular disorder [ADD], after forty years of that disorder being misunderstood/misinterpreted as behavioral, as recalcitrance, rebellion, as conscious, willful, intended malevolence, etc.

Writing, not to teach (and thus escaping the straight jacket of supervision censorship as it weeds out the "unacceptable" or not dumbed-down enough in its underestimation of students and its self-imposed interpretation by a common denominator of one); writing not even necessarily for being understood, for communicating, or for expressing--but for the very moon-pull of that which is called upon to, is compelled to, write.

Mental Disability Writing: Understanding and Dealing with a Mental Challenge by Writing about It

Writing with a mental disability—like writing with learning disabilities—is a
challenge. Hell, just having a mental disorder is challenge enough.

Mental disability writing is a challenge we fight, face, confront, deal with, and learn to compensate for in school, at home, and everywhere else we need writing tasks done.

An even greater task is getting others to understand. So I dedicate this post to all of us with challenges (now also called psychiatric disabilities): we will now add the challenge of coming up with a metaphor or two that will help in the furthering of our/their understanding.

And what I trust we will find is that we may be mental, but we are also terribly gifted.

How Do You Describe Your Mental Disability?
What Do You Compare it to?

Try to go to church with Tourette's.
Try to build a website with ADD.
Try to fly a plane with OCD.

To do simple, common tasks with a psychiatric disorder is to be head colorist on a cartoon team at Disney Studios when you're color blind. The simple becomes complex. The intriguing becomes appalling. Creativity turns into a demand. Play turns into work.

Slamming rain on a shield with crappy wipers. This is representative of one of the metaphors for ADD. The brilliant E. M. Hallowell, M.D., writes in “What’s It Like to Have ADD?” that having this mental disorder is like
“driving in the rain with bad windshield wipers.” He and others have used such metaphors, analogies, and similes to define ADD in concrete terms:

It's “like listening to a radio station with a lot of static…” (Hallowell, 1992, p.1).

It's “like trying to build a house of cards in a dust storm” (p.1).

“For…adults with ADD, life is directed by a hapless stagehand who alters the set so often that it’s hard to know where anything is or where it should be” (Talan, 2002, p.18).
Being an ADDer is being a "dynamic and exciting” Porsche that races about in a world of Toyotas (Kelly and Mundo, 1993, pp.124-46).

My descriptions of ADD are in an essay titled "in this skin...," which I may post here in its entirety if I don’t expand it into a book. In the meantime, think about your own definitions and descriptions. What would you compare your mental “disorder” to? What characteristics of the concrete can you apply to the abstract?

If you have bipolar disorder, do you feel like a MIG fighter plane tethered to the earth by a giant rubber band? If you have OCD, do you see yourself as a sailor bailing with a teaspoon?

Try a list of details that match your symptoms.
Try conveying with sights, sounds, acts, smells.
Try for funny...by exaggerating.

If you get stuck, try reading a book or other piece of disability writing about and/or by a person with your particular disorder or mental disability; or contact me if you wish. We can check out the work(s) together.

Coming soon: sarcastic, sardonic scoffing and self-indulgent sulking .... Bet you can't wait!

Works Cited

Hallowell, Edward M., M.D.. “What’s it Like to Have ADD?” National ADDA. 1992. add.org. 1 March 2000. hallowell/htm.

Kelly, Kate, and Peggy Mundo. You Mean I’m Not Lazy Stupid or Crazy? New York: Fireside Books, 1993.

Talan, Jamie. “ADD and Your Brain: Why We Forget to do Stuff.” ADDitude Magazine. Jul/Aug 2002: 17-18+.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

The posts of MindFeelds do not promote, sell, or have any professional connections with any psychiatric institution or services. I am not a trained therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist, and I do not purport to diagnose, advise or prescribe. I am trained and experienced in writing and in teaching college writers, I promote writing with disabilities and disability writing, and encourage creativity and art as it relates to our thinking, emotive, social, and creative writing challenges and writing about those challenges. The only psychiatric experience I have is my own.

Writing with Disabilities? Harumph

As a writer with adult ADD, I do not easily subscribe to the term "disabilities." You and I are not disabled, even if we are a bit disheveled, even if we often feel broken, out of sorts, or unable. Rather, we may be what I call hyper-able.

I want this post on mental disability writing—or about writing with intellectual disabilities—to honor these hyper-abilities, to revere these stirrings of restlessness, as much as I want it to provide good, honorable sources and resources for writers with disabilities.

And I hope to come up with a better name or label for those of us who identify with the differences that have us feeling like a vases with no flowers, race cars with no drivers, idiots savant with no savant.

This means an effort which will take a while, as I do my traditional work in between bouts of research and exploration, in between the writing and the living. In other words, this is only part of a lifetime of in-progress work.

Please feel absolutely free to contribute, adding any concerns, comments, or complaints. Well, er, I could do without the latter, but do what you will: these pages or posts are for you. For us. The gifted ones.

And I could use the break from the intensity of hyper-abilities I apply seventeen hours a day, wrapped up in investigating madness and manias or in writing (for a living) with a mad and manic mindfulness that goes on and on and on....

Informal (a.k.a. Aesthetic) Reading List*

AUTISM

Gradin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from My Life with Autism.
(recommended by the NDCWU**)

CHRONIC DEPRESSION/SUICIDAL NATURE

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar.
(written about and by a young woman--and stunningly adept creative writer--whom we lost when she successfully committed suicide after numerous attempts)

Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America.
(the title says it all, but the writer covers even more--in great, even severe, depth)

CUTTING and SELF-MUTILATION

Greenberg, Joanne. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.
(again the desperate need to feel and/to escape the mind)

Jameson, Kay Redfield. An Unquiet Mind: a Memoir of Moods and Madness.
(an exploration of the insidious highs and trenchant lows that resist treatment and at the same time cry for it, written by a Ph.D. with Manic Depression)

Kettlewell, Caroline. Skin Game: a Memoir.
(revealing discussions and descriptions of what is to be a cutter, one who is compelled to cut herself to gain imperative relief)

GENERAL MENTAL ILLNESS

Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted.
(memoir of a young woman institutionalized for mental imbalance, written with a dark humor that is subtle, penetrating, and brilliant)

Milford, Nancy. Zelda. (compelling biography chronicling the life and descent of multi-talented, multi-afflicted Zelda Fitzgerald)

MPD, MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER

Chase, Truddi. When Rabbit Howls.
(powerful rendering of the evolution of a child growing up with MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder)

Schreiber, Flora Rheita. Sybil.
(the definitive MPD story)

OCD, OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER

Sedaris, David. "A Plague of Tics." In Naked.
(utterly hysterical short story told from the point of view of a boy with OCD—who licks light switches to keep his disorder content and counting)

Wilensky, Amy. Passing For Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion.

Handler, Lowell. Twitch and Shout: A Touretter's Tale.**

Morgan, Emma. A Stillness Built of Motion: Living with Tourette's**

Formal (a.k.a. Efferent) Reading Resources

Brown, Dale S.. A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding a Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Dyslexia.**

Emery, Dr. Kevin Ross. Managing the Gift: Alternative Approaches for Attention Deficit Disorder.

Jameson, Kay Redfield. Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.

Kelly, Kate, and Peggy Mundo. You Mean I'm Not Stupid, Lazy, or Crazy?!: A Self-help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Nettle, Daniel. Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity, and Human Nature.

Phillips, Deborah, et.al.. Writing Well: Creative Writing and Mental Health.

Traustadottir, Ranveig, and Kelley Johnson. Women with Intellectual Disabilities: Finding a Place in the World.

Weiss, Lynn, Ph.D. ADD and Creativity.

Professional (and Profoundly Helpful) Links

ADD Consults

ADDitude Magazine

Breath and Shadow: A Journal of Disability Culture and Literature

CHADD--Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

DBSA--Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

DPI--Disabled Peoples' International

International Dyslexia Organization

Life with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)

The Multiple Journals

Multiple Personality and Dissociation Book List

NADC (National Arts and Disability Center)

NCLD--National Center for Learning Disabilities

TD+ --Tourette's Disorder: Information, Support, Hope

Writing Works: for Memory, Healing, and Art's Sake

**NDCWU, National Diversity Committee of the Writers' Union, is a collaborative effort made possible by many who compiled a list of writers' works about disabilities. In my list, where I use a recommendation (that I have not read yet), I mark the entry with **.

*nota bene: The above recommendations are by no means issued by one who is credentialed in psychology, psychotherapy, or in anything related to the profession. These are merely recommended by one who is fascinated by and immersed in the details of mental disability writing...and by one who is, in short, fascinated enough with her owned damned ADD self that she reads anything to do
with mental disorder.

Hope this is enough of a disclaimer that I don't stay awake obsessing on my own self-involved hamster wheel of insanity.

No more than I do already, anyway.

Cheater Cheater

Even if it is with your man in the scenario, it is fascinating to watch:

She is the sweet and sulky one behind the counter (ticket, video-rental, haircut place...). Her hair shines with overcombing, her teeth are straight and white. She has tight but yielding hips, and her braless, pert breasts advertise Hershey's kisses puffs of areola even a hetero woman might agree are tempting.

As he approaches the desk, he catches all of these physical details and more. His love is renewed. The blood leaves his brain (of course) taking with it a message of "UNG. MUST. HAVE. MUST PLANT SEED IN THIS."

The imperative to reproduce, to spread his seed across the nations, is the typical translation, even if his seed is so far gone and dried up it has a hard sunflower hull around it.

And if the brain fails to recall the departed blood, if the synapses fail to retrieve the protocol of contemporary conditioning (thou shalt not spread one’s seed [cheat], as thou is not a simian), the results are as interesting as the initial crossing over into primal pull.

A ONE-MAN EXAMPLE

Sixty-two and four ex-wives in, he frequents a country he has special affinity for, one with a history of penury and a requirement of passports and the like. There--in a local watering hole with a modest fare of tacos and cerveza-- he is waited on by a twenty-year-old (who fits the above description, plus almond eyes and a rebellious bent that adds to her allure).

He courts as hard as one auditioning for a dream gig, showering, shaving, bestowing upon the poor one gifts she never even bothered dream of--five-pound boxes of chocolate, cell phones and calling cards, computers, TVs, electricity, a refrigerator, cash.

He takes a full year to work her into believing he is in love with her, tells his friends that he has only had one true love before, and must have happiness again before he goes.

The need-and-supply exchange works well, and he marries her and brings her home. After much shopping in the land of golden dreams come true, they settle in to have babies, clean the house, bring in party friends who have accepted the marriage and their love and celebrate it with bar-b-cues and booze.

At one particular party, she is shooting shots and serving guests...and shushing pals in the kitchen, so she can listen in on a phone conversation he is having in the bathroom down the hall. In the excitement and energy of open-curtained sunny salons and heart-racing mariachi musica, the guests hear a door getting kicked in and some Spanish rants.

He has been speaking to another woman, telling her how much he misses her and how, yes, he loves her, too.

O, infidel. Too bad your evolutionary makeup has not come with an instruction manual on timing, on ethics, on change. Too bad you have left the forests primeval without word from those who grunted before you. So sorry you have not made the Darwinian crossover as smoothly as nature, community, and humanity might have intended.

Now, what's the woman's excuse?

---

The stats are conflicting, but telling:

According to Bob Lanier, of askbob.com, up to 37% of all men and 22% of all women admit to having affairs.

According to AP [during the Clinton scandal], 22 percent of men and 14 percent of women admitted to having sexual relations outside their marriage sometime in their past; and 17 percent of divorces in the United States are caused by infidelity.

And according to Ruth Houston, author of Is He Cheating on You?-829 Telltale Signs, "...the most widely accepted figures indicate that between 50 and 70 percent of married men (between 38 and 53 million men) have cheated or will cheat on their wives."

What is it about THE PERKS of BEING a WALLFLOWER?

For our late Christmas (February), the little genius kids of my childhood buddy Gary gave me a copy of the book, with the inscription reading how I would appreciate it because I am always "seeking different perspectives."

I am only twenty-five pages in to this contemporaneized epistolary novel, but I have a niggling need to sum up Charlie/the tone of the book/etc. already. What I have thus far: it is not that the events are dull, or that the life of this kid is so facile and thus trite; it is not that the work is so simplistically written. It is that this ordinariness is eating him up from the outside in. The "perks" may be that Charlie can and does receive that world of the banal, the mundane, the meaninglessness as une voyeur, as, as he would tell his reader, a wallflower. Is it that being a wallflower is what saves his ass?

We shall see. (And I shall likely change my entire prematurely blathered assessment.)