So evidently, this evening, I’ll get back home, tired out of my wits, plop on the sofa with a pint of ice cream and watch Blue Murder or some other lameass TV crime drama, thus resuming my lack of creative endeavor.

On a positive note, today I found a 20 NIS bill. And yesterday I got the new typewriter ink ribbon I ordered on ebay. Also, if the weather’s nice, we might hit the beach on Saturday.

So I think the inspiration is there. I don’t have much left to do to complete the zine, so if I manage to keep my eyes open during the day, and keep them shut at night, I should be done by early next week.

Peace, love and falling asleep on the half-finished zine and waking up with pieces of construction paper glued on face.

For a moment I thought it’s all Stephen King’s fault, but then I thought that is usually the excuse I find for everything that goes wrong. Only this time, I wasn’t reading any of his books.

But then it occurred to me that since I started homeopathic treatment for my elbow fracture, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid further surgical procedures, things have been pretty weird all around. At first, I was having trouble sleeping, and any sleep I got was riddled with nightmares (again, that could have been Stephen King’s fault as well). Then, I got my period a mere week after finishing the previous one. And that could have been a result of the morning-after pill, but whatever, anything is possible…

But this lack of inspiration could only come from one place and that’s the bottom of my homeopathic medication bottle. I was struggling with my zine production. Struggling! That’s a word I never use with “zine production” in the same sentence. And yet, there it is. My writing wasn’t flowing. My articles were too preachy or too bitchy or too boring or too short. My drawings came with great and painful effort, so much that it gave me a headache. I was drained by the end of the day.

My homeopath told me to take a break from the meds and that’s what I’m currently doing. Once my creativity resumes, I should resume creative projects, i.e. some goddamn zines! I hope this weekend will help me get some freshly squeezed creative juices.

Peace, love and a break from my monthlies would be nice, too; I could use a hearty tumble in the sheets.

I finished work at 17:30 as usual and knew I would have to walk a few good blocks before getting to a place where the busses do work. I started walking on King George, then detoured the crowd by walking around the block to a parallel street. After about 20 minutes, I made it to Keren Hayesod, then to King David, and still saw no busses. All the busses that passed by were going the other way.

I kept on walking to David Remez, then to Derech Hevron and climbed it all the way up to Rosemarine. That’s right. I walked all the way from the center of town to Gilo, no less than a two-hour walk, before I found a bus. I hopped on for no more than three stations because that’s all I had left to go until I got home.

And if that wasn’t enough, I found out my boyfriend had not yet made it home, which meant my dog was dying to go for a walk. So that’s another 20 minutes I spent on foot.

That’s nice. I had my own little quest.

My boyfriend then gave me the best foot massage ever!

On an unrelated note, this weekend I’ll be making a zine. Much overdue activity. Af Magazine, the Jerusalem urban ragmag, released an issue they called the “freedom” issue. That is, all the pages of this issue are empty, and it’s up to the readers to make one of their own. I’m totally excited about it, and grabbed two copies of it. So that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.

Hurray!

Peace, love and no guidelines

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I love Stephen King to the point of delirium. I’ve read about two dozen of his books before actually deciding to read The Dark Tower. The main reason was because I didn’t have enough money for the seven-volume long series. I got the first volume, The Gunslinger, back in November, and ordered the rest of the volumes which I received in an annoying order – volumes 3 and 4 in December, and the rest around February.

So for the past few months, I did nothing but reading, eating chips while reading, sitting with my family while reading, celebrating holidays while reading, and spending more time with Stephen King than I do with my boyfriend and wondering if the latter is starting to get jealous.

It didn’t take me long to realize that the Dark Tower series is a work of monumental proportions. All Stephen King fans must read it. From one fan to all others, that’s not a suggestion. It’s an order. YOU MUST READ IT! You don’t know Stephen King until you’ve read The Dark Tower.

What amazes me most about his writing is its versatility. Whenever I found a free moment in the office, I would take out my book and read. The clients who saw me with a different Stephen King book every two or three weeks said “You really love horror, eh?” The truth is Stephen King is not just horror. It’s not just vampires and ghosts and zombies and gore. In fact, he’s got elements of fantasy, drama, romance, comedy, socio-political commentary and other elements which make his works into literary rollercoaster rides. The Dark Tower is no different. One of the clients was surprised when I said that The Dark Tower is actually somewhat of a Western novel. Sure, it’s got its share of vampires, oversized bugs, and gore, but it incorporates a wide range of other  genres which is Stephen King’s unmistakable style and unique talent.

The first volume, The Gunslinger, introduces the hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger in a world that “moved on.” It disappointed me that the book was no longer than 300 pages, especially since it would be another four months before I scored the second volume. It was 300 pages worth of half stories and unrelated anecdotes that did nothing but raise a ton of questions. What is the world that moved on? What is the Dark Tower and why is Roland after it? Why is Roland the last gunslinger? What happened to all the others? Who is the Man in Black? Why did King introduced the boy Jake into the story if only to kill him in the end of the first volume? I was basically confused the whole way through, and made no sense of anything and ended up being even more confused by the end of the first book. I needed the rest of the books and fast. That’s another talent of Stephen King. He’ll keep frustrated in order to keep you reading.

The second volume, The Drawing of the Three, starts with Roland waking up on the shore of the sea where horrible sea creatures (he calls lobstrosities) have eaten two of his fingers. This injury would later result in an infection. The volume introduces two other characters who will join Roland on his quest to the Dark Tower. Eddie Dean is a heroin addict from New York in 1987. And Odetta Holmes is a schizophrenic disabled African-American woman from New York of 1964. Through “magic doors” Roland manages to draw these two into his world. He also manages to make Odetta and her other personality, the vicious, foul-mouthed Detta Walker, face each other and merge into a single person, and finally become Suzannah.

This volume raises even more questions but makes Roland’s world a bit easier to understand. When he looks through these magic doors, he sees a parallel world, different from his own, with objects he doesn’t recognize such as planes and cars (air carriages and horse-less carts). He is amazed at how people in New York discard paper like it was garbage, since in Roland’s world, paper has become a rarity. When he uses the magic door to go into a pharmacy to get antibiotics for the infection he suffered following his injury on the beach, he makes a genius observation, which we as a society fail to realize:

“There were thousands of bottles, there were potions, there were philters, but…identified most as quack remedies. Here was a salve that was supposed to restore fallen hair but would not; there was a cream which promised to erase unsightly spots on the hands and arms but lied. Here were cures for things that needed no curing: things to make your bowels run or stop them, to make your teeth white and your hair black… The potions that really worked were kept safely out of sight. One could only obtain these if you had a sorcerer’s fiat. In this world, such sorcerers were called DOCKTORS.”

In the third volume, The Waste Lands, Eddie and Suzannah are married and are trained to be gunslingers. They find the beam of Shardik which they must follow in order to find the Dark Tower. King also answers the question of the boy Jake who died in the first volume. Jake was originally from New York of 1977. He died in this world after being pushed into the streets and being hit by a car. He found himself in Roland’s world after his death, then dies again in Roland’s world. But in the second volume, Roland manages to save Jake of 1977 when the gunslinger goes through a magic door and prevents the pusher from pushing Jake into the street. This creates a duality within Roland (Jake is dead, no he’s not) as well as Jake (I’m dead, no I’m not) which drives both to the point of insanity, until the three gunslingers draw Jake back into Roland’s world.

The fourth volume, Wizard and Glass, is the one that answers most of the questions that have been bugging me ever since the first book. Roland tells his tale from the beginning, including his life in Mejis, the story of Suzan, his first love, the Coffin Hunters, John Farson (who turns out to be the Man in Black as well as a bunch of other characters even from King’s other novels), the witch of the Coos and the wizard’s pink glass ball. I was completely blown away by how easily Stephen King manages to tie the story of his novel The Stand into this tale. The fact that Roland’s world seems to be so deserted was another thing that confused me, but if this world was somehow affected by the plague that spread through the world in The Stand, and the Man in Black was also the Walking Man, Randall Flagg from The Stand, it’s definitely starting to make sense.

In the fifth volume, Wolves of the Calla, the ka-tet arrives to a village that gets attacked by creatures called Wolves every two decades or so. King introduces another character from another book of his, Father Callahan from Salem’s Lot. Again, I was blown away by this overlap, and was even more amazed when the characters come across the actual book Salem’s Lot by some dude called STEPHEN KING!

“No way!” I exclaimed. “He did NOT just made himself a character in his own book!” But indeed he did. Stephen King becomes a key player in protecting the Dark Tower, and Roland and Eddie actually come face to face with him and urge him to finish writing The Dark Tower series and save the world.

But before that, we find out about the wizard’s 12 glass balls corresponding to the 12 points of the six beams holding the Tower (the pink one being one of them) and the 13th glass ball, the most dangerous one, corresponding to the Tower – Black Thirteen. When Father Callahan tells Roland he has one of these glasses hidden in his church, I was sure he was talking about the blue one, or the green one, or any of the other 12. When Roland asks him which one it is, and Callahan answers “It’s Black Thirteen,” I screamed. I actually screamed. Out of fear. I was in the office when I read that part and I was so startled, I thought the clients might think I saw a roach or something.

In any case, by the sixth volume, Song of Suzannah, I was well out of it. Reality became a blur, and the fact that Stephen King was a character in his own book and incorporated his actual real life experiences into it (wife, kids, books, not to mentioned the accident that nearly killed him and does kill him by the end of the sixth volume), made my sense of reality even more surreal. Or unreal for that matter. Even my mom picked up on it.

“Get back to real time,” she snapped.

“What IS real time?” I said. The sense of time in the series itself was also distorted. All the characters felt it. And I did as well. It was freaky.

The sixth volume was also the first book I ever read which made me cry. Back in high school, I read countless books about the Holocaust, including Elie Wiesel’s, and no matter how sad and horrible they were, they never made me shed a tear. So for the first time ever in life that I cry while reading a book, it was Stephen King’s doing. It was the part where Jake has to pass through the unfound door to New York of 1999 and has to leave his pet billy bumbler, Oy, behind with the people of the Calla. When Jake says goodbye to Oy, and Oy starts barking “No! Ake!” that was when the waterworks broke. I put the book down, wiped my tears and hugged my dog Diamond. Then I shook my head and thought, Only King.

The book ends with excerpts from Stephen King’s journals – real or made up, I don’t know. The final “entry” being a fictional article about Stephen King’s death.

“He KILLS himself?” I shrieked. “What?!” I finished the book right as my boyfriend came home from basketball practice. “Stephen King is crazy,” I told him. “PSYCHOTIC!”

In fact, I was the one going crazy because if reading a fictional book by Stephen King, and then encountering the actual author as one of the characters wasn’t enough to fuck me up, the actual author killing his character self did it. I felt my brain splitting, and moved on to the seventh volume.

In the seventh and final volume, The Dark Tower, the ka-tet breaks when Eddie is killed in the battle of Algul Siento. And for the second time, King made me cry. It was a very moving moment when Eddie calls Roland “father” on his dying breath.

I knew one of them would die. It was hinted earlier on. At first I thought it might be Oy, but then I thought that would be slightly trivial. Then I thought it might be Suzannah, but then I thought that she and Eddie should stay together so neither of them would die (wrong). I thought maybe Roland, but only for a second because the Dark Tower is Roland’s quest. Without him, the story would never end (as it turns out, the story never did end). I thought maybe he would die at the very end, but not now. Not until he made it to the Tower. Then I thought Jake might die, but I thought King could not possibly kill him again… and I was wrong again…

Roland and Jake set back to America of 1999 to save Stephen King’s life (apparently, the fictitious article announcing Stephen King’s death at the end of the sixth volume hadn’t yet happened). That night, I found myself thrashing around with anticipation. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt about being with Roland and Jake, looking for Stephen King and trying to save his life, and failing.

But in the book, King was saved, and lived to finish his tale. Jake died while saving him though. I didn’t cry this time, but felt utterly depressed for the rest of the day. King’s character development is one of his most refined talents, and you get to know the characters as if you’ve known them all your life. The death of a major character like Eddie or Jake, as fictitious as it might be, is one you mourn. Like it or not.

Throughout the series, we find out that the world moved on after it was destroyed by the Old People who created a bunch of machines and robots and gadgets, and who believed that these mechanical creations were more powerful and more sophisticated than any magic the world had to offer. It makes a blunt statement on the state of the world today. I don’t know if that was Stephen King’s intention, but at least that’s how I interpret it. People are so entranced by technology and engage in a frantic and quite pointless race for the better, the faster, the smaller, that they forget there are things way more fascinating out there. They’re all constantly swiping and tapping their fingers on their iPod or their smartphones to notice there is a world around them. They use their Kindles to read everything from novels to prayer books. Technology is getting out of control and people are going crazy trying to keep up with it. Things are becoming too concrete, too mechanical, too tactile, and the magic is lost. Depth, emotional value, divine interaction, spiritual contact between people, all of that is lost, and the universe that depends on this magic for stability and balance is falling apart.

One thing I didn’t like about the series is how sometimes he throws in spoilers for his other books. I’ve yet to read Cujo and Insomnia, but thanks to the seventh volume, I now have some spoilers under my belt. Not cool.

Later on in the seventh and final volume, Oy dies too. Suzannah goes back to America-side and meets Jake and Eddie there too, which leaves Roland alone on the rest of his quest, except for a boy called Patrick who was never part of the gunslinger’s ka-tet.

Just before Roland makes it to the Tower, I suddenly stopped. Suddenly, I didn’t want the book to end. As King says, “Endings are heartless. Ending is just another word for goodbye.” It took Stephen King 34 years to complete the series and took me about six months to read it (would have been less if I had gotten the books in a normal order). And King’s brilliant storytelling was (and is) so compelling that while I was reading, I was also living and breathing the tale. I was part of Roland’s ka-tet. I chased the Man in Black with him through the scorching sun of the desert. I was with Roland when he drew Eddie, Suzannah and Jake. I joined all his battles and mourned all his losses. I also climbed the Tower with Roland only to discover what should have been so obvious, despite the conclusion’s ultimate shock – “Ka is a wheel”, “There will be renewal”, “Death, but not for you, Gunslinger.” As it appears, not ever. If ka is a wheel, Roland will be forever searching for the Dark Tower, will reach it, climb to the top, and start all over again. Rolling along on ka’s wheel. There will be no ending. Say thankya.

And now that I have finished the series, I must struggle to snap back to reality, whatever it may be, and readjust to this world. As much as I (or rather Stephen King) have managed to convince myself that this is but one world of many. Endless worlds with the Dark Tower on the axis, spinning on ka’s eternal wheel.

Once I manage to fix my head again, I may actually go on to read Wind Through the Keyhole, which is another Dark Tower novel, but not part of the series. But not now.

Now, I am still marveling at how amazing Stephen King is. Each one of his books is brilliant in its own way. But the Dark Tower series outshines them all. Almost makes them seem like todash darkness by comparison. A master’s masterpiece, so it is.

Peace, love and long days and pleasant nights.

No, that’s not right. I’ve been neglecting EVERYTHING. And it’s all Stephen King’s fault. I can’t bring myself to think about anything else but the Dark Tower. Hell, I’ve been dreaming about it too.

You’d be amazed how many times I would think “Hmmm, why don’t I make a zine today?” And then go back home and fall into King’s torturous web of irresistible literature once more. Every time I read another chapter I think he just can’t get any better, and then he does.

I’m thinking the pull I’m feeling whenever I have an unread Stephen King book in my possession, it’s like Black Thirteen. You know it’s dangerous, but you just have to open it, sink your eyes into it and never come out.

Once I’m done reading Dark Tower, I’ll write another blog detailing just how awesome I think it is, although it’s way WAYYY beyond awesome. It passed awesome at least a thousand wheels back.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Black Thirteen is calling me again.

Peace, love and Stephen is my Crimson King

At first, I tried to check if this person, being a guy for one reason, and being a dimwit for another, posted this picture and made this comment as a lameass joke. So I came across the comments, which were even more offensive, some of them reading “with her tits hanging out, that bitch had it coming.”

This isn’t the first time my newsfeed was contaminated by this guy’s sexist posts, so I finally defriended him.

I don’t exactly go around looking for public nudity, but being a sexually liberated feminist, I sure don’t have anything against it. But that’s besides the point. Even if the picture wasn’t there, I would still find this post utterly offensive. A woman wearing something provocative is a good enough reason for kicking her? Violence against women is necessary for society’s welfare? Are you serious or are you simply so intimidated by women’s sexuality that you need to wave your dick around and make such offensive statements to demean us? And if you are serious (then you must be more stupid than I thought) please explain how violence against women can benefit society?

This guy uses the word bitch as a synonym for woman on all his posts, so in this case, all women are bitches and all women deserve to be kicked. That includes me, all my girlfriends, all my female family members, 52% of the world’s population, and this guy’s mother.

Right.

And despite all the violence, abuse and humiliation that women suffer on a regular basis, and all the men who deliver these blows, women are still the ones who deserve to be kicked.

Even if it was this guy’s idea of a joke, it’s gotta be the worst joke on the planet. You do not joke about rape, you do not joke about abuse, and you do not joke about violence against women.

So forewarning to all my current Facebook friends, if you’re gonna post anything that condones and encourages violence against women, especially while using women’s choice of clothing as a reasonable excuse for this violence, kindly fuck off from my list of friends. You are stupid and pathetic and in desperate need of feminism in your life. You say a feminist has no sense of humor? Is it any wonder that when sexist jokes are all I have to laugh at, I kind of lose faith in your so-called sense of humor?

Fuck you. I’ll be at Slutwalk if you need me.

Peace, love and kicking sexist assholes is always necessary for social order.

Interesting.

It was as if I planned to be out of commission for a good amount of time and therefore took advantage of the time I have left with a non-injured ulna.

This time however, I know for a fact that come next fall, I will have another surgery (whether to remove the plate once and for all or replace it with a couple of screws… hoping for the former).

Therefore, I am now considering some plans for summer. I decided that if it turns out that I will have to spend some time in the hospital, having surgery, and spend some more time at home, stoned out of my skin due to more painkillers, and unable to do anything that requires the use of my right hand, I might as well make the most of the time I have before such an ordeal.

My right hand is not completely healed as is obvious by the curve of my elbow whenever I try to straighten my arm, and the slight shaking of the muscles when I strain to fold it. But I am still able to do shit. In fact, I manage quite well for now. So yes, plans for summer…

First, I’m invited to a friend’s wedding on May 30, and I RSVP’ed. There may also be another wedding that summer, but no date has been set yet so it might actually be later… It’s yet to be seen.

Slutwalk Jerusalem is set to take place on May 31. So totally there.

My friend from Sweden is coming to Israel on June 16. We ought to hang out and do some awesome riot stuff, maybe art night, maybe play some tunes, maybe go to the only queer bar Jerusalem has to offer. Either way, it’ll be rad for sure.

Also, Jerusalem Pride is set to take place this summer for the 11th year in a row. No final date has been set yet, but I’ll be there for sure anyway.

July is International Zine Month and I wanna take the full-month challenge and do a zine-related activity every single day of that month, including the 24-Hour Zine Thing. I’ll probably be all zined-out by the end, but will definitely be worth it. Right the fuck on!

My aunt from LA and her family are coming to Israel sometime in late summer (I think) for their twins sons’ Bar Mitzvah. That should rule. I haven’t seen the family in a long time.

Since I didn’t have a decent vacation from work in a while because a broken arm sure takes the fun out of any vacation whatsoever, I have accumulated quite a bit of vacation days. I will make good use of them this summer.

Peace, love and now if I can just be done reading the Dark Tower before all that, I’d be set.

I went for another checkup at Hadassah Hospital this morning. The doctor said that the current x-rays show an improvement in the round part of the elbow at the edge of the ulna, which originally went to kibinimat as is clearly visible in the x-ray below. But there is also a split of the bone a little further down which doesn’t show any signs of mending.

The doctor also said that I should come back in three months for another checkup, and if at that time, the bone hasn’t mended, I would have to have another surgery to remove the plate that is there now, clean up some soft tissue, and implant a couple of screws on that particular bone to help it along the mending process. Which ultimately means that the total number of surgeries I will have at the end of this ordeal would be three, because I assume I will need one more to remove the screws once the motherfucker decides to mend.

I asked the asshole why they didn’t screw in that split when I was knocked out on the operation table with my elbow wide open. He didn’t have a definitive answer.

I left the hospital depressed as hell. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be fully healed anyway, but I expected it to show signs. At least signs. An intention for healing.

During the holiday, I asked my dad about one of my cousins who had a bicycle accident some time ago. He suffered severe injuries to his hip and had to have his butchered leg amputated. He is now in a wheelchair waiting for a definitive answer regarding the condition of his hip to see if he can have a prosthetic leg. There’s a possibility that his hip may be in no condition for it.

My dad said that my cousin is in a deep state of depression and refuses to speak to him on the phone.

I thought to myself that if my elbow injury is enough to make me depressed, I don’t want to imagine what it would have been like if I would have been riding my bike just as the truck comes barreling down the street, and I would end up in a heap on the side of the road, unconscious, with a shattered hip and a decapitated leg.

So yeah, it could always be a hell of a lot worse. But remembering what it felt like after I woke up from my previous surgery, I’m scared shitless at the prospect of having to go through it again. And I’m still stuck with this metal plate that will not be going anywhere for at least the next few months.

Peace, love and fuck this, I don’t wanna be Terminator anymore.

Seeing as I don’t work on chol hamoed (except for today, but it’s alright) because I have a normal boss (thank the Benevolent Goddess), I had a chance to catch the Salvador Dali exhibit in Haifa yesterday. I ordered the tickets a few days ago and picked the middle of the day so that Elad and I would not have to stress to get there. From Jerusalem, it’s pretty much at the other end of the world.

But then, we decided to leave early and take a detour to Tel Aviv. We walked around Dizingoff rather aimlessly, looking for a good quality clothing store, and found none, so we settled for a coffee shop and ordered a (fucking awesome) milkshake.

We started heading to Haifa at 14:00. The exhibit was set to start at 16:00. I was worried we won’t make it on time and my boyfriend said that Tel Aviv is closer to Haifa than Jerusalem and that it should take us no more than an hour. But what we didn’t know is that Tel Aviv has more cars than people and that on Passover, the entire world and its sister goes for a road trip. So we were stuck in traffic the entire fucking way. I got super upset and pissed off because I stayed up late the previous night to make food for the road, and I tried getting up early and leave early and I was so excited and looking forward to it, and still I would miss it because of awful traffic.

We finally made it at 16:00 sharp just as they started letting people in. I think that if we would have made it a little earlier and I wouldn’t have been such a wreck by the time we did, I would have enjoyed the exhibit a hell of a lot more. I would have also probably noticed more features of the exhibit that I would have taken advantage of, like audio material with information about every artwork, extra rooms with more art, take more pictures… But I had to settle with what I had.

All in all, I enjoyed the exhibit, because Dali is really a genius. I love his art and the recurring themes in his images. Even without a signature, you could recognize Dali’s unmistakable lines, curves, energy, movement and life pulsing through any piece of his artwork.

I especially loved the series of paintings he made in homage to Israel and in memory of the Holocaust. I was so proud to see how much he supported the Land of Israel and how obvious he made it in his art. The exhibit featured a series of paintings of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 10 Commandments. It also included paintings with Israel flags, Israeli soldiers, victims of the Holocaust, an homage to the Israeli national anthem, the Western Wall, and more.

In the hall leading towards the main exhibition, there were quotes by Dali (translated to Hebrew and English) highlighting his sense of humor, as well as his extreme sense of hubris. As my boss said, “Dali’s so full of himself.” Yes he is, but if I could draw half as good as he did when he was 4 years old, I would be full of myself too.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the statues, ranging from enormous to minuscule. Dali’s obvious hand is present in all of them, and the recurring themes abound. Every time I see Dali’s statues, the first time was at the Ralli Museum in Cesarea, I am amazed over and over again at how something so hard, heavy and static as a statue can exude so much life, grace and movement.

I liked how they included a legend of the recurring themes listing what each one of the objects stands for, as symbols and metaphors. I took a picture of that legend to keep it in mind whenever I look at Dali’s paintings. My favorite themes are eggs (form of hidden life, like seeds), crutches (an object to lean on at a certain point in life. To hold something that falls), and burning giraffes. Unfortunately, the latter one wasn’t mentioned in the legend.

The only thing I regretted was that I didn’t see any of the photography work by Dali, such as the skull formed by naked women or the photo of Dali, a cat and a jet of water in mid air. I also regretted not seeing a projection of any of Dali’s films such as Un Chien Andalou. Although I’ve seen it on YouTube a million times, I would have loved to see it again projected in a dark room on a bigger screen.

Also, if there were any of his famous paintings, Persistence of the Memory, A Dream Caused by a Bee Flying Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking, Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of a New Man, or any of the paintings I’ve seen in the enormous Dali book I have at home, I didn’t find them at the exhibit. That was the most upsetting part. When they said that over 500 original works would be showcased at the exhibit, I expected to see those as well.

Dali is in fact a true artist and a true genius. But his most genius work remains in his house in Figueres and at the Dali Museum in Barcelona. I was truly blessed to have been there. No exhibit can come close.

And now, the pictures.

Peace, love and Vision of a Genius

Like is mentioned in the above linked post, I sometimes get responses such as “Until you go live in the Middle East, you have no right to speak about rape culture.”

Number one, rape culture exists in every corner, in every cave of this godforsaken world because patriarchy perpetuates it and makes it ok to demonize a rape victim.

Number two, dipshits should know I LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. So there. We’ve just cleared me of any silencing statements and from any declaration that says I have no right to speak my mind.

In terms of my opinions regarding ownership of my body, I feel like I constantly need to prove myself and stand up for myself in that respect. I’ve mentioned it in countless earlier posts, but my family clearly feel like they have the right to tell me what to do or not do with my body, my style of clothing, my hair, and body art. This for me is a blunt expression of “I own your body and can therefore tell you what to do with it.” If I were to confront my family about it, they would dismiss my claim as an exaggeration and make me feel stupid and guilty by saying something offensive like “Gosh! We can’t even talk to you anymore!”

Just this past month, I’ve been made to suffer endless pleads from my mom to show up at the Passover table wearing something “festive.” She was simply following her usual banter whenever holiday season comes around and dreads the moment I would show up at my grandmother’s house wearing plaid pants and an Arch Enemy t-shirt. Now I won’t have any problem wearing a skirt (except that I do prefer plaid pants and a metal t-shirt), but why do I still need to justify my style and claim my right to individuality and self-expression at 30 years of age?

Under the law, I’ve been considered an adult for the past 12 years. Twelve motherfucking years! Why can’t my mom just accept that I’m an adult, an individual, a mature woman with a unique style and who, despite all of society’s claims to the contrary, owns her body?

I’ve had this conversation (read: fight) with my mom on countless occasions. And on all counts, she made some dismissive statement that ultimately made me feel guilty.

I am in the process of writing a book about my years of psychological therapy and how I learned to free myself from the chains of guilt imposed on me by my parents. And although this therapy took place over four years ago, I feel like I’m back to square one. I know for a fact that my mom would make me feel guilty if I showed up with an outfit she doesn’t consider festive, or with a new piercing or a new tattoo… And she could do it without saying anything. The disappointment on her face would be inflicting all the guilt in the world and reiterating the same “I gave birth to you. I own you,” statement she says without even speaking.

I am so upset right now, I could cry. There is absolutely nothing I can do to make my family understand that I don’t want to be treated as a doll. If I said anything, it would be dismissed as quickly and painfully as a slap to the face.

OK, now I really am crying. My inner child is in pain. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.

It’s not fair that none of my male cousins get this treatment. They own their body from day one, no questions asked, while I’m 30 years old and still have to keep insisting and fighting and kicking and screaming for my body, and still have no claims to it.

I don’t wanna go to my family’s house for the holiday. I don’t want to cave in to my mother’s pleas and take my inner child’s needs for granted once again. And I also don’t want to respond to my inner child’s needs and suffer the guilt inflicted on me by my mother’s expression, yet again.

Enough.