#ThingsOnMyMind: Toxic Memories Behind the Smile

It's been two years since I last posted on this blog.  Two long years.

But lately, I've felt compelled to do so.

But I'm hesitant.

Not because I have little to say... but because what I DO have to say isn't something very pretty.

It's something only two people close to me know anything about.

*deep breath*

I've been sexually assaulted three times in my Life.

The first time was when I was 16.  Mom had passed away from cervix cancer three years prior, and I was still dealing with the grief of it.  My brother and sister had moved out of the house by then.  Dad was trying to deal with the loss of Mom in his own way.  Mostly by working.

At the time, he worked in the Supply Section at Canadian Forces Station Kamloops- Mount Lolo to us locals.  There was a young Air Force Corporal that needed a place to crash for the night, so Dad had offered him the guest room.

Dad had gone to bed when it happened.  I mentioned to the Corporal that I wrote poetry, and did artwork, and was showing him some of my work.  That's when he started to slide a finger up and down the front of my jeans.  As he did so, he slide across the arm of the easy chair closer to me.

I felt trapped, and confused, and uncertain what to do.  I remember him looming over me as his finger moved up and down.  I did the only thing I could think of: I said I had to get to bed because of school the next day, and fled to my bedroom.  I locked my bedroom door, and just curled up under the covers wondering what I'd done to have him do that.

I just wanted to share my artwork...

The second time was when I was in my mid 20's, while doing a summer tasking at the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery School in Shilo, Manitoba.  This was while they still had the German Army Training Establishment Shilo.  On the Base is a golf course, and a bar called "The Country Club".  It was all ranks, and both Canadian and German soldiers could drink there.

I was standing in line waiting to get a beer, when someone grabbed my rear and squeezed.  I jerked around and saw one of the German soldiers eyeing me up.  My mind flashed back to when I was 16, and I wanted to just get out of there.  The guys in my group just teased me about it, and I felt I had to laugh it off along with them.

My fight or flight instinct was pushing me towards flight, but I couldn't let it show that I was bothered by the incident... it wouldn't be "manly" to express discomfort about it.  So, I faked a smile, tamped down on my anxiety, and stayed in an environment I no longer felt safe in.

I was already twitchy when I was again standing in line for a beer.  I felt my rear being grabbed again.  I spun around with a snarl on my lips to see a different German soldier smirking at me.  He must've seen that I was on edge, and ready to start something even if it meant my winding up in the Stockade for the night.  He threw his hands up, and apologized.  I remember huffing and puffing like I was the Big Bad Wolf ready to blow a house down.  I felt such an uncontrollable rage in that moment.  It scared me, so I left and returned to my quarters.  I lay there all night shaking.

I just wanted to have a beer...

The final time was in my late 20's.  I was doing a tasking at Western Area Training Centre Wainwright in Alberta.  I was on leave in Edmonton.  I was staying at a real dive of a hotel.  The sort where the water comes out of the tap looking like iced tea.  There was a night club called the Thunder Dome that I wanted to check out.

It was two levels.  The main bar on the main level, and the pool tables up on the upper one.  It was Ladies Night, so while the male dancers were doing their thing, us male customers had to go upstairs.  The noise coming from the women watching the dancers was insane- thunderous and almost Earth shattering.

After the male dancers had finished, the bouncer came up and told us guys that we could come down to the main level.  I'm wishing I'd stayed up there.

It was like stepping into a lake of hungry piranha... and I was the cow they were going to strip to the bone in 30 seconds.  I don't do well with close proximity to people to begin with, and I was thrust into a crowd that pressed against me from all sides.  I remember there were so many hands pulling at me from all directions.

Hands squeezed my rear, my crotch, my chest.  Fingers clenched and pulled at my shirt.  Some were tugging at my pants.  I was disoriented from the lights, the noise, the hands jostling me.  Women were screaming for me to "take it off!", or calling me "fresh meat".  I remember starting to hyperventilate, and my vision going black.

I found myself suddenly outside shaking and trembling.  I was afraid that I was going to have a seizure on the pavement outside the main doors.  I'd left my jacket inside, but I wasn't going back in there.  I grabbed the closest taxi, and just fled to my dark hovel of a hotel room.

Stripping for bed, I discovered that my shirt had been torn, my belt stolen, and that someone had actually bit me on the shoulder.  I felt dirty, and ashamed.  I showered and scrubbed until I was red and the water ran cold.

I just wanted to go out and relax...

To this day, I can't stand the thought of going to a night club... even parties with my friends are difficult.  I can't tolerate crowds at all.  I've avoided in person relationship in favor of online ones because I was afraid that a woman wouldn't want a man damaged in this way.

Fuck, I'm shaking just reading what I've written, and remembering it.

I'm 48 years old, and I've carried these toxic memories with me for over 20 years.

I hope that by putting this out there, I can start to exorcise some of the toxicity of these experiences, and move forward from them.  I hope that by putting this out there, other men who've had similar things happen to them can draw some Hope, and Comfort that they aren't alone in bearing weight like this.

#Society: Equality & Snow Shoveling

It snowed yesterday.

Really snowed.

ALOT, really.

Which meant that snow had to be shoveled.

I never thought I'd experience hypocrisy when it comes to shoveling snow, but I did last night when I came on Shift at work.

The woman that was on Shift before me looked a little miffed.  I asked her what was wrong, and she told me.

It seems that the woman on Shift before her told her to leave the snow shoveling to me.

Since I'm a man- and snow shoveling is "a man's job."

That thought by itself is simply sexist, since it's stereotyping and assigning a job based solely on gender.

That's bad enough to irritate me.

But what made it into full blown hypocrisy is the fact that this same woman eagerly jumps onto a man's case at the slightest whiff of potential sexism.  She has no problem with screaming about getting equal pay and benefits, while at the same time using "traditional gender roles" to escape equal responsibilities.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe in equality- though I don't consider myself a "feminist".  Now, before I get hate mail asking how I can believe in equality, but not be a "feminist", I'll explain what I mean.

It has to do with the fact that I don't separate equal rights into categories such as "Women's Rights", "Black Rights", "Gay Rights", "Asian Rights", "Hispanic Rights", "First Nations Rights", "Left Handed Rights", "Colour Blind Rights", etc.

I'm what I would call an "Equalist".

I'm fond of breaking things down into "simple equations"- and if I were to describe Equality in those terms, it would look something like this:

Equality = (Equal Pay + Equal Benefits + Equal Opportunities + Equal Duties + Equal Responsibilities) X Everyone

Saying you believe in equality while using traditional social roles so you have the advantage doesn't make you a supporter of equality.  It makes you a hypocrite.

And it pisses off the guy who's likely to bury your car while shoveling all the snow you were too damn lazy to do yourself...

#Life: New Year's Resolutions

I'm already awesome-
but it can't hurt to be MORE awesome, right?

I haven't posted here since 2013, but with 2015 having arrived, I figured it'd be a great time to start again.

So, without further ado, here are my 10 resolutions for 2015:

1. Update "The Corner of Terror" and "#LifeInTheCorner" on a more regular basis;
2. Take time during a day off each month to take some photos around town;
3. Get my office set up so I can efficiently being seeking a new job;
4. Take time to write in my journal each day;
5. Meditate at least once a week;
6. Enjoy Life;
7. Do more artwork and design stuff to post on "The Coffee Cup Studios";
8. Take time to read a bit each day;
9. Take time to write a bit each day;
10. Make lots of Star Trek cookies to fill up my Mr. Spock cookie jar.

Gonna fill him full of cookies- ALL THE COOKIES!

#Pleasures: Rainy Days

While I was walking home today from the Work Search centre, it started to rain.  Nothing heavy, just a light fall of rain.  It was enough to get me to stop, close my eyes as I spread my arms, and smile upwards to the skies as the drops landed on my face.

Of course, I had to start walking again, since I was blocking traffic on the sidewalk standing like that.

But it started my mind thinking about how much I enjoy walking in the rain- almost as much as I enjoy walking in the fog, actually.  Being who I am, I have a tendency sometimes of analysing my feelings in order to understand them and myself better.  That's what I did while walking home with pieces of the clouds dripping around me into puddles.

There's something cleansing about rain, I find.  I can stand in the rain, and let it wash over me- all the while imagining my concerns and worries, and negative thoughts mixing with the water and flowing away into the gutters... leaving me emotionally fresh and clean again.  I feel so much lighter after a walk in the rain.

I also really like sitting on the porch listening to the rain pitter patter against the metal roof, as I sipped a mug of coffee, and taking a puff on my pipe.  I can watch the smoke from my pipe drift up and away to join the clouds and possibly become drops of rain as well.  The air around me feels scrubbed clean of impurities as I sit there letting my thoughts ripple outwards like the drops of rain landing on the surface of the pool and puddles.  With each breath, I can smell the grass and the flowers that catch the drops and sip from them the way I sip my coffee.

The only problem (other than getting strange looks when I stand in the middle of the sidewalk with my arms spread and grinning up into the clouds) is the cold.  I don't handle cold too well, unfortunately, and when you miss cold and damp, my joints ache.  But for this simple pleasure in Life, I'll simply bundle up a bit, make sure my coffee is steaming hot, and ignore the twinges in my knuckles and hip.  For me, the comfort, peace, and simplicity of rain falling is worth enjoying and being a part of... worth forgetting the aches and pains of Life.  Worth being alive.

#Changes: My Signature

I was helping my Dad today by pulling out all the plants from his flower bed.  When I was done, he needed my signature on some documents for accounting purposes with Veterans Affairs.  When he saw my signature, he told me to put my full signature- not my initals.  I told him that WAS my signature.

He just gave me an exasperated look and shook his head... something older people do to me a lot, actually.  Not sure why though, since it's quite understandable how my signature became what it is.

I spent sixteen years in the Canadian Forces Reserves as a Administration/Finance Clerk.  When I first joined at the age of eighteen, my signature resembled this:

It was a perfectly normal, legible signature at that time.  It was clean, precise, and would've caused serious damage to my fingers, wrist, and arm if I had continued to use it in my duties.

Why?  Forms.  Lots and lots of forms.  Course reports, assessments, charge reports, stationary requests, computer asset requests, signing out and signing in of equiptment, signing paysheets, signing audit documents, signing destruction certification forms, signing memorandums, signing medical documents, signing Military Police documents, signing this, signing that.

So, over the course of my career, my signature evolved... or devolved depending on your point of view.  After about two years of signing forms, my signature resembled:

But that wasn't enough to sign the multitude of forms quickly, AND keep my from injuring my vital digits.  It was good for my personal, non-military correspondance... but I needed to find something that would allow me to get through all the forms I had to sign in a flurry, while keeping myself out of the Medical Inspection Room with a possible career ending cramp.  Because of this need, my signature changed again to resemble:

But as you can imagine, this STILL wasn't good enough.  No, it wasn't.  My career was hanging in the balance!  The forms that needed signing just kept coming and the stacks kept growing.  I needed something succinct and quick.  I realized that it didn't NEED to be something obvious- just something that could be legally considered a signature.  By the end of my career- partly from having fine tuned my signature to it's essence... and because arthritis in my fingers was making it hard to write with a pen, my signature reached it's most pure, bare essential nature:

That's right, "M *scribble*" is my signature.  Oh, I can hear you laughing out there.  If you think my signature is funny, let me tell you about a former employer of mine.  His signature is a squiggle with two dots.  That's it.  Just that.  Oh... and he has a rubber stamp of it for signing forms...

#Pleasures: The Fog Walk

Life is full of things that frustrate and annoy us humans- which is why it's important for us to also find things that give us pleasure.

Some people go the adrenaline route in their search for pleasure: sky diving, BMX biking, telling Hell's Angles that they would really look much better in mauve.

Myself, I enjoy simple (and less physically painful) things.  One of those things I that really brings me pleasure is the act of walking in the fog.

There's just something about fog that captivates me.  When I lived Downtown, if the fog rolled in, I would walk from my house on 7th and Battle St towards and across the Red Bridge, then through the industrial park to the Halston Bridge, across that bridge, then work my way down towards and across the Overlander Bridge, before walking back to my house.  If you live in Kamloops, you'll know it's a decent walk.

In the fog, it's a magical walk.

I would usually clip my walk-man to my belt (yes, I am that old) so I could have some music to listen to while walking.  The soft click of the cassette tape switch sides back and forth was the only way of telling time in the fog, as without that reminder that time was passing, a second would stretch out into an eternity... and sometimes, an eternity would be over in a second.  With the MP3 player I have now, time will have absolutely no sway over me the next time I enter the soft embrace of the fog banks.

The glow from the street lights would just be that- a dim glow of some orb floating in the distance... something not quite real.  The world would cease to be a concrete thing outside the reach of my arms.  Sometimes, I would wonder if I was even real.  I would no longer be Mike S- man plagued with doubts, and fears, and frustrated dreams.  No, I would be just like the fog and the reality that it created. I would be just pure thought, shedding the negativity like dew on a leaf.  I would leave pieces of my thought-self behind in that unreality.  Entering my "fog walk" meant losing myself for a bit, letting loose the bindings of my thoughts, and letting their vaporous forms drift off and away, before I once again found myself again...

There is something quite therpeutic and soothing about my "fog walks".  When I enter the fog bank, I'm burdened and weighed down, but when I emerge, my back is straighter, and I feel as if my load isn't so heavy.  Even though I would go on these walks by myself- I never felt alone or afraid.  Rather, I felt as if the Universe was welcoming me into those mysterious mists like an honoured friend, weaving time and reality around me like the soft blanket I take comfort under when I'm not feeling well.  The parallel is certainly there.  My blanket wraps around me and comforts me when I'm sick in body, while the fog curls and envelopes me, while brining comfort when I'm sick in heart and soul.

Oh... To get lost in that magical world again soon...

Childhood: The Thing Under the Bed

Let's be honest with each other, folks: as kids we all either feared The Monster in the Closet, or The Thing Under the Bed.  They were horrible creatures that changed shape to match our worst nightmares, and whispered dark menacing deeds to us from the depths of the shadows they inhabited.

They caused us to keep the light in the closet on, a night light burning by the bed, and brave stuffies on your pillows.  They forced us to cower with the blanets pulled over our heads and to try to jump the ten feet or so from the light switch to the bed.

Even though I review horror movies and books, I wasn't immune to this fear as a child.  I would close and block the closet door with stuff so The Monster couldn't open it; I would get Teddy (dressed as Superbear) to check under the bed to keep The Thing at bay; I would build a fort of pillows around me in case the blanets got pulled off.

But then, I discovered a point of logic that allowed me to confront and defeat The Thing Under the Bed.

Once in a while, we would stay at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Mom and Dad would sleep in the Guest Room upstairs, while my brother, and I would sleep downstairs... In the large unfinished basement... The large, shadowy unfinished basement.  The beds we slept on were old fashioned beds with lots of room under the bed.  Perfect for The Thing.

Night time in the basement was a scary time for a kid of seven or so.  Shadows flittering across the walls, creaks and groans and popping sounds... and rustling... from under the bed.  It was like that one night when I was sleeping in the basement by myself.  While laying there with the blankets wrapped tight around me and shivering with dread as I imagined The Thing's tentacled hand slowly dragging me under the bed into his gaping, toothy maw like I was a kiddie burito, I realized something.

Even at that young age, I knew just enough about Physics to understand that two physical objects could not occupy the same space at the same time.  My child's mind reasoned that The Thing was limited to inhabiting confined spaces under beds- it couldn't exist outside the boundries of that space.  Therefore, if I occupied that space, The Thing could NOT occupy that space.  Thus, as my developing chain of logic dictated, if The Thing could not occupy that space- and could not exist outside of that space, it could not torment me.

So it came to be that the next morning, my Mom came down to wake me up... and found me sleeping quite happily under the bed.  Although she couldn't help but laugh, she admitted that my logic did have some merit.

To this day, I still make sure that the space under my bed if filled with stuff in order to deny The Thing a place to hang out.  And I sleep with the blankets over my head... just in case...

Thoughts on Reality- Part I: Reality in Our Minds

Thoughts on Reality- Light and Vibration

Note- The following is a repost of a "note" I wrote on Facebook April 12 2012.

I've been reading a book called, "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl" by Daniel Pinchbeck. In it, he details his journey through the world of vision quests, psychic phenomena, psychology, quantum physics, and the Mayan calendar and how it relates to the supposed apocolypse that's to occur this year (2012)... and a possible evolution in humanity's perception of Time and Reality.

It's an interesting book- one that's actually been losing me sleep.

I'm not losing sleep because I believe that the world is actually going to end in a firey rain of death, destruction, and reality TV shows. Rather, I keep having dreams about the nature of Time and Reality.

I'll have a random thought during the day- usually a quick visual thought, that'll come back and get developed and expanded upon in my dreams.

One example is an exploration of how we percieve Reality. When you think about it- what we see is actually just light reflected off an object, captured by our eyes, and processed by our brain. That means that we're not actually percieving the "real" object. Rather we're percieving only an energy form of it after it's been processed by our brain.

Secondly, Matter is held together by gravity, and vibrates slightly at the atomic level. Stopping to think about it, it's hard not to imagine that what we're actually "feeling" when we touch a table is actually just the gravitational and vibrational energies given off by the atoms- once again being processed by our brains. Simple concept until you throw in the fact that quantum physics research has shown that atoms, particles and waves can be in two places at once, or even disappear to appear elsewhere in an instant before returning to it's original location. Given that, it's very possible that parts of that table (at the atomic level at least) are elsewhere at any one moment. What does that say about the "reality" of the table?

Given that so much of what we call "Reality" is based on the perception of various forms of energy, I have to wonder whether Reality is merely a construct in our minds to present us with concepts that we can understand (and handle) at our current level of evolution. IF that is the case, and we're only being fed part of the whole by our brains, what DOES "Reality" really look like?

These are the sorts of things that have been running through my dreams. I'm seeing close-ups of furniture and people in off centered double exposures- as if they're vibrating. I'm seeing colour negatives of cities and forests as if I'm seeing from the other side of the "vision viel". I can feel myself vibrating as pieces of myself vanish and reappear randomly. In one dream I had split vision as my eye appeared on the other side of the room and stared at myself staring at the eye. I can feel myself standing on "solid ground" even though I'm actually above a chasm while a voice says that it's only the concentration of gravity I'm feeling.

Even though these dreams are a little un-nerving, I also find them fascinating- and feel as if I'm about to gain some significant insight into myself and the Reality surrounding me. It's like I'm on a bit of a spirit journey myself... and I'm curious to see where it takes me...



An Invitation...

I have heard that the best thing a person can do is to share their life with others- to let the highs and lows of their own existance serve as guide posts to help others find their own paths through the jungle of Life.

Also, I have been asked once or twice by family, "WHY do you review horror movies and books?  WHY do you blog?"

So, here I sit pondering these questions, and whether I should share my thoughts with the rest of the internet.

The answer turns out to be, "Yes."

Hopefully, people reading this blog will gain insight into the life of a blogger; the life of a reviewer; the life of another human being; and their own lives.

I intend this blog to cover a wide variety of topics, from the personal to the random.  I'll discuss topics of interest that are outside the realm of Horror, and sometimes rather deeply emotional.

Basically, I intend to write about the things that circulate within my mind.  Maybe readers will gain a new perspective on things, or find a new interest, or even just laugh at the odd things that will undoubtedly perculate to the surface.

So, please accept this invitation to partake in a journey through the mind of a blogger...