Is it all just a fashion statement?

(This is commentary via the recently posted amputation interview).

Something that I find quite fascinating — and rather sad — is that the more “mainstream” body modification gets, the more the fringes of body modification (amputation is an obvious example) are attacked, and quite often from people who self-identify as being interested in body modification. I hear a lot of people talking about how they don't want their “acceptable” interests lumped in with that, or how the people slightly farther out have crossed a line that's unacceptable, or whatever statement of derision is chosen by that particular person.

Let me make something clear about my feelings on this subject: Body modification and body ritual isn't about being cool or dressing up or putting on a show so you have a postcard souvenir. It's a state of being and a way of life, and it transcends culture and exists as the foundation that adherents use to communicate with both themselves and the universe around them. It's not safe. It doesn't have rules. It doesn't have limits.

Maybe there's some watered down version that can be sold at a store and have advertising attached to it on television, but that's only a commercialization of the affectations of what body modification is. I'm certainly not saying that's a bad thing, but people should not fool themselves into thinking that what can be captured by consumerism is the heart of body modification.

In any case, I think it's an unfortunate reflection on the fact that most people these days involve themselves in body modification as a “fashion statement” rather than because it's some low-level instinct that they have to act on… and because they're now the mainstream, they're co-opting the terms (claiming that they're about “modification” whereas those that are in fact the core of the original body modification movement are just “mutilators”) and attacking the people who in theory seeded the movement in the first place.

Amputation is so obviously legitimate — more so than almost any other form of modification — as body modification, that I really feel that anyone who attacks it is making it blatantly obvious that they've completely missed the point start-to-finish. That doesn't mean you have to like it — that is, saying “I don't enjoy listening to classical music” is fine, but “Bach's concertos are not music” or “only a fool would enjoy Bach” makes you out as a bit of an dunce.

Part of me really does hope that all of this falls out of fashion again so those people who are completely cluessless about body modification can just go on to whatever TV picks up as the next big thing… Definitely a good time to start investing in companies that sell tattoo removals and piercing reversals.

And I cooked a nice salmon in fresh orange sauce with fried rice for supper…

Recent food… A long boring entry

Pardon the typos! I'm tired and don't feel like proof-reading this!

Tomorrow Nefarious starts at school again — this will be her first year riding the school bus! Quite exciting! I'll be using that time tomorrow to get a nice voluntary amputation article posted and start the move of the experience system to a new server (it's still hosted on my first IIS server, so it's being insanely over-charged for). But until then, some meals I've cooked recently:

That's a coconut korma chicken, although I guess it's not a real korma because I didn't include any yogurt in it. And admittedly noodles, let alone thai-style noodles, are not particularly common in Indian cooking!

The korma was a few days ago, but speaking of those thai noodles (and almost exactly matching the previous dish visually!), I used the remainder of the package today in a shrimp phad thai, although it was also admittedly rather un-authentic given the lack of many key ingredients such as peanuts and eggs, and the fairly heavy sauce. Sort of a phad thai made at a greasy spoon or something…

Lest you think everything looks exactly the same (I admit that I'm not particularly creative as a cook… I need to expand my horizons pretty badly because I'm starting to get bored), last night I had a light dish of veggies, chicken, and basmati rice dish with a sweet dijon sauce…

The last three (I think) days have been — by request — crepe breakfasts, which have been eaten quickly, en masse, and with no complaints whatsoever! And it's a dish that I have a little helper for as well. Nefarious has been helping me cook them since she was about two and a half.

Other than that, Nefarious got a plant for her room… I believe it's been named “Julie”.

Oh, and I finally got around to ordering a bunch of unpainted Russian nesting doll blanks today — ever since I saw the great ones posted at the Wurst Gallery I've been meaning to get a few sets for Nefarious and I to paint… We'll have them later this month so they'll be my birthday present to myself.

Pain Solves Everything!

Since the IAM server appears to be in a world of (overheating) pain today, let me write a pain entry I've been thinking about for a few days.

As you may remember, I stopped taking the Lyrica which was prescribed to stop the rather extremely unpleasant neuropathic pain that I've had in my leg since the nerve damage was done during the biopsy, because I didn't like the side effects and it wasn't particularly effective anyway. That said, I still do have to deal with the pain somehow!

It's my thought that pain disorders of this type are both a human disorder (as in not existent in animals) and a modern disorder… I don't think they manifested themselves in the past with the frequency they do today. I thought as well about how CBT enthusiasts retrain their nervous systems to experience pain as pleasure, as well as other cases where one learns to reinterpret sensations (even the magnetic implants I suppose)… And my theory is that these disorders are a modern phenomena because in the past (and in animals) one was more likely to just “keep going” and even though there would be a period of elevated pain, the nervous system would eventually retrain itself as the body realized that no harm was coming to it. I also think that because we live in a “victim society” where everyone is taught to avoid pain, and to wallow in their medical issues and center ones life around them, we are not only not healing properly, but we're actually causing neuropathic disorders to amplify.

So I've been playing out that theory by just trying to use my leg completely as normal, putting it in situations that are extremely painful (but not at all harmful), and just going on as if everything is fine — which when it comes down to it, it is. It's definitely not fun, but I do believe that it's working. If it's rough I take some narcotic pain killers which have minimal effect on the neuropathic pain, but help keep me in a good mood because they're also euphoric opiates, and I'd say that my pain level in terms of skin sensations and so on have definitely improved a bit so far… I think it'll continue in that direction over the next few months, but we'll see…

Strawberry Lovers

It's not terribly exciting but I am doing a little series of miniature paintings (well, miniature for my big clumsy hands; and either way 12″x16″ is quite small when you're using large brushes and thick paint) of dragons of various sorts posing with strawberries. This is one from that series…

Posting it I just realized that I forgot to sign it. I guess I'll do that shortly. The main advantage to painting stuff that's small is that it's really easy to frame it!

Ontario Science Centre

…was definitely much more fun to go to than the ROM was… The ROM is kind of stuffy in comparison I think, even though a lot of the stuff at the Science Centre is just as dated these days in terms of not having been updated since I was a kid! To say nothing of the fact that the hyper-ugly “crystal” addition to the ROM has meant that half the exhibits have been closed for the past year…

But anyway, the OSS was fun:

They did have a display up though that I think sends out a bit of a mixed message… Now, I know what they were trying to say, but to me this says, “hey kids, if you want to be like a grown up, try smoking and wearing less clothes!”

I take transit everywhere these days. It's cheaper and often faster than driving, and less hassle… Plus you get to occasionally see goofy things like this monster truck that was driving around to promote Popeye's Chicken or something like that.

Other than that, the quality of children's “educational” books sure does suck (note: I didn't buy this one). Not only are they dumbed down like crazy — so much so that I think kids may get stupider reading them — but they don't even make any sense. Could you do the puzzle below?

The correct answer for every one is purple by the way (and you're not allowed to circle more than one, and all of your answers have to be the same on every page). Real great idea, hiring a color blind designer to do a book on colors for kids…