Modern Family, violins, and Patrick Bateman

"He blew his lid... when she tried to contain him..."
-Phil talking about Claire's missing Tupperware lids

Now that I'm lacking my daily dose of "Mad Men," and I realize that I really don't like movies, I've started watching "Modern Family." It had a slightly slow start, but this is another one of those character-driven stories and I have definitely gotten to love the characters at this point (Season 2).

I LOVE Phil Dunphy... I want to marry someone like him. Even though he is such a dork. Though, it certainly doesn't hurt that he has very good hands...

I feel like I know what it is to be a teenager, and I know what I want when I am a little bit older and married. But I don't know what I want right now. So I try to watch shows or movies catered toward the 20-something crowd to see what is "normal," but I can never relate, and I always feel either extremely immature or overly cynical.

And at this point, I don't want to say that I am "over" S&M or spanking, but I am so far away from all that right now. It's not relevant in my life right now.

There's no rhyme or reason to this post.

I miss the days when I played violin and was part of an orchestra. That is probably the nerdiest slice of my past. I hated it way back when but now I miss it... but now I can't play very well. I miss obsessing over notes and watching the same Bruch video over and over. I miss the competition, the leadership, the intensity. Wow, that sounds so nerdy.

Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly stressed out or upset, I like to go online to look up murder videos. Just like what Patrick Bateman said: "What do you do?" "I'm into, well, murders an executions mostly." I like looking at pictures of accidents and murders and suicides and autopsies... well, maybe not like it so much as find them intriguing. I remember only a few years ago, back in high school, I wasn't able to stomach those types of photos. Now I watch them with a coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other.

It's like I am so far removed from the actual tragedy of it that I am almost close to laughing at them... it's so wrong and yet I can't stop. Maybe seeing these things kind of give me a sort of twisted wake-up call... like my life isn't too bad. My family hasn't been chopped up by the Mexican cartel. No one has raped me and put up the video online. I haven't been crushed between two racing cars. Life isn't as bad as that. I never watch videos like this when I'm happy and content.

I remember watching the Luka Magnotta video when it came out and feeling slightly sick about the way he handled the body, and thinking, that is the ugliest side of humanity, the darkest end of the spectrum, the most fucked up that people can become. My depression, my anxiety, my spoiled sense of being, that is nothing compared to how dark life can be. But after watching that, I didn't think to myself, I need to brush my shoulders off. I just thought about how disgusting and untrustworthy people are... so why even try?

Sometimes I am able to see the pure beauty in the world and feel hope for it... and then there is the ugliness that I've witnessed on film and photos, no back story necessary, and I want to give up entirely.

Black and white. Story of my life.

But I want to end on happy note.

Hey, Phil... I feel like I'm crazy and weird. Am I weird?

Thanks, Phil.

Reevaluation

I'm not really a movie person, but after finishing all 5 seasons of Mad Men, my brain has needed a constant fix of entertainment so I've watched about a million movies to keep myself occupied. Most recently, I've seen "American History X," "10 Things I Hate About You," and "The Italian Job." It kind of bothers me that I need to immerse myself in fantasy like this, like I don't have a "real" life or something.

I've been stressed out by a couple of major things these days, but mostly I'm annoyed with myself. I wish I was more of a go-getter and I could just plunge into whatever I felt like. Worry about the consequences later. But I'm cautious to a fault, and I know someday I'm going to regret being this way.

On the other hand, I know that the moment I move out of my house, I'm going to completely let loose. Like those extremely sheltered girls who go off to an out-of-state college and black out every other night... except I don't have college as an excuse. I feel like I've stifled so many emotions these past couple months during the summer that as soon as I am truly free, I won't be able to stop myself.

I've literally been Googling things like: "am I spoiled?" "am I narcissistic?" "do I have anger problems?"

I feel like who I am right now is not who I really am. Everything annoys and frustrates me. I feel angry and short-tempered all the time. If a few years ago I was deeply depressed... it's like I have displaced all of that into rage and constant annoyance. But that still trickles down into the final emotion of guilt, which in turn, lends itself into depression and anxiety again. This is not who I am.

This is probably why I am currently so turned off by spanking and BDSM in general these days. I don't feel like submitting to anyone. If anyone wanted to dominate over me, it would take pure physical aggression, not words. Right now, I hear everything as people talking at me, scolding me, nagging me. I don't want to hear it, I really don't. All I want to do is rebel, but I don't have the energy to deal with my parents. All I want to do is do some criminal things, but I resist because someday I'll probably have to get security clearance for my job. All I want to do is get away from myself.

Moments of weakness

I require a lot of time for mental and emotional recuperation. I'm the type of person that if I have to hang out with a large crowd or multiple people, it's great, yes, but afterwards, I need beaucoup amounts of time alone to normalize my brain again. And if I get pissed off or angry, I need even more time to myself.

This is one of the reasons that I question whether or not I can actually handle a DD relationship. I handle stress and anger very badly... I know this. I honestly don't know what "healthy" anger is. In stressful, trying times, or in moments of true rage or anger, I shut down completely, become glassy eyed, detached, and numb. Or, in spirit of my teenage habits, I will cuss a person out, throw and break things, and talk shit until I tire myself out. This happens rarely because I rarely have the time/space to do it. More often, I will contain it all until I can't handle it, and I will do something destructive against myself.

Anger, frustration, annoyance was never allowed in my household, at least not from me. If I ever got into an argument with my mom, it was never allowed to be an argument because anything I said would be considered "talking back" or being disrespectful. If I deigned to actually talk back, she would hit me. If I went to my room to throw something or scream into a pillow, she would come up the stairs and hit me again. As a preteen, I learned early on that it was better for me to keep my mouth shut and swallow my anger, rage, frustration whole and completely. Many times, starving myself, cutting, bruising, throwing up were ways to punish my mother without actually saying anything to her. I would think to myself, "you made me do this, this is your fault, you make me hurt myself, you're the one who did this."

I handle these negative emotions a lot better now obviously, but I still keep things bottled up. I never learned how to be angry in healthy ways. I get annoyed and hurt easily, and don't know how to express my feelings.

And now, as an adult living back at home, I not only feel suffocated by my family, but also immense resentment and guilt. I know I don't have a miserable life. I'm not abused. But I just can't breathe. I can tell they are getting tired of me, and I'm getting tired of them, and I don't want to be destructive towards myself again because of all this pent up anger. I need to go somewhere.

I can't be in a DD relationship because if my boyfriend or husband were to cut me off in a fight and tell me to bend over his lap, I wouldn't do it. It would absolutely enrage me. I would not do it. I know myself too well in the context of anger, and although I wish I wasn't the way I am, I can't unlearn this. I don't want to be controlled, I don't want to have to answer to anyone, I don't want to do anything that anyone tells me to do.

If I sound spoiled, I probably am... but I don't care right now, I don't care.

Si j'habite dans cette maison pour un plus d'ans, je mourrai. 
Je suis gâtée? Le seule remède est arrêter et quitter. 

Sociopaths, Batman, and Dexter

I saw "The Dark Knight Rises" tonight. Needless to say, I am a huge fan and I won't even say how many times I've watched "The Dark Knight" because it's one of those things that's not "impressive," it's just plain embarrassing.

I prefer "The Dark Knight" because when I see a movie trying to depict true evil, I expect to be scared, and Heath Ledger's Joker definitely gave me chills. All I could focus on in this one was Bane's Sean Connery accent and his body... which were both distracting, to say the least.

I am fascinated by the concept of sociopathy in humans. Earlier today, before going to see the movie, I read part of a book called The Psychology of Dexter about the character Dexter Morgan, and his role as an organized serial killer, highly intelligent and methodical. The first essay asks how you think you would feel if you had to masquerade as a "human," when in fact, you don't recognize any emotion as true or real. Sociopaths experience shallow emotions, such as rage or jealousy, and that's why they can get pleasure out of criminal and destructive behaviors. The short-lived highs are exhilarating, but never last enough to create happiness or love.

What does it feel like to not experience guilt? What does it feel like to be truly cold?

Most sociopaths don't end up taking the serial killer path, but they function as "normal" people in the real world. He is "a social predator who charms, manipulates and ruthlessly plows their way through life...completely lacking in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret (Hare, 2003)."

I know people like this, and they disgust me. They aren't "cool" or interesting in the least... they are infuriatingly depthless and remorseless. The killers and criminals are the ones that interest me, and probably most other people as well because murder is such a human act, so up-close and personal, and yet the people who do it feel nothing.

I remember watching Ledger's Joker in awe like, how can a person act this way, how can they just not care? (I know this is a fictional character, but still.) He didn't care about innocence and guilt, like Dexter did. The Joker was a harbinger of chaos. Bane was carnal and allowed everyone play, even if it just means he'll kill them eventually, but he still knew what caring felt like.

Ted Bundy once said: "Guilt? It's this mechanism we use to control people. It's an illusion. It's a kind of social control mechanism- and it's very unhealthy. It does terrible things to our bodies. And there are much better ways to control our behavior than that rather extraordinary use of guilt."

I can imagine how a person might get to thinking that way. Extraordinary circumstances. Trauma. Bad childhoods. Most people use apathy as a shield though, as a defense mechanism. (Miranda Tate in "TDKR" says to Bruce Wayne: "You have a practiced apathy, Mr. Wayne. But a man doesn't spend half his fortune on a plan to save the world and isn't so wounded when it fails.") Even myself, I know that I have trained myself to become colder and more detached for emotional situations and horrific incidents. It's easy to laugh in the face of terror. It's easy to dismiss feelings and emotions. I do it all the time. But it's practiced, and definitely not how I really feel.

I remember reading an article about how people who act this way, the way that I do, are making the world worse, making society more hardened and aggressive, because they can never admit their true feelings, out of fear that they will succumb to them. And as a result, everyone else becomes wary of natural reactions, such as crying or feeling fear, disgust, or pain, because people (like us, like me) make a false mockery of it.

But too many bad things happen every day, all the time. If I invested my emotions in all of these murders, kidnappings, affairs, divorces, wars, plagues, suicides, everything, I'd have maybe 3 minutes out of a day to feel any happiness. I've always been a black-and-white person, all or nothing. I'd rather pretend to be a cold-hearted bitch than to be vulnerable to attack, ridicule, or pity.

Which is why it took so long for me to allow myself to cry. Because it's such a powerful gesture of weakness, of pain and sorrow, and vulnerability. I'm attracted to sociopathic people because they are what I wish I could be sometimes. If only I didn't feel guilt or empathy, I could do so many things, and I could be fearless.

Mob mentality, Hwayoung, and Competition

I try not to follow Korean celebrity news because it makes me feel like a 13 year old girl, but this news about T-ara and Hwayoung is just too juicy and delicious to resist.

I have first-hand experience dealing with catty Korean females, and it almost irks me to see all the international fans rallying around this controversy because it's so convoluted and difficult to explain, especially if you don't fully understand Korean culture. Why didn't she fight back? Because you just don't. What does age have to do with it? Everything. Who cares about seniority? Everyone.

Mob mentality is addictive, and it makes you feel completely alone, even when you are surrounded.
My therapist last year told me that it's common for girls to fall into it and never escape, even into adulthood. It's alienating and cruel, and yet highly protective within the ranks. Ever since middle school, I've thought that I had rid myself of these behaviors, and yet it happened again in college.

I'm not a competitive person at all. I used to be a perfectionist, but only for myself. It was never about other people. But when I was in a clique in college, I could feel myself always guarding against others, cutting them down, and trying to be "better." My breaking point only came when I got tired of the sexual competition... because that was one aspect I couldn't be a part of.

In any case, when bullying is involved, the clique will disband. I don't know how Hwayoung lasted as long as she did if all the allegations are true... she certainly had it worse than I did.

The pressure to please, to look good, to drink, to flirt, to suck up, to be sexy but not slutty, cute but not annoying, to be smart but not arrogant, to be innocent but not inexperienced, to be pretty but not fake... I thought about going on rampages every day.

"존댓말 안 써?"

"듣기 싫으니까 입닥쳐."

"아잉~ 언니가 최고죠!"

"오빠가 흑기사 해주세요!"

"저 씨발년 뭐래?"

"언니들! 잘 주무셨죠!"

"그렇게 싫다면 네가 나가."

"싸게 굴지마."

"걸레는 걸레들 끼리..."

I hated them so much. But I didn't immediately remove myself from them because I knew I still had power inside the group. And when I did leave, it was a breath of fresh air... with a tinge of "Why couldn't I tough it out?" Why are those girls able to withstand the pressure, but I wasn't?

In sticking with the spanking theme of this blog, I'd say that each and every one of these egotistical little girls deserve to take a group caning until they break, but honestly, they'd make that a competition within themselves as well. Physical violence is becoming the norm.

As for me, I don't want to be end up being a gossiping housewife, or cutting my coworkers down just to get to the top. I don't want to be a bully or a ringleader. But I feel those impulses inside me because it's all I've known of females and female relationships. In particular, I want to get along with Korean girls better... but all of these experiences have made terrible impressions on me. Bad bruises.