Tag Archives: Lord of the Flies

Pool of Tears

By Alice on April 27, 2012 | 7 Comments

Well, I guess NOW you have something to cry about . . .

`I wish I hadn’t cried so much!’ said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.’

– Alice in Wonderland

Is it possible, like Alice, to drown in your own tears? I am a champion crier, having started practicing in infancy, and further perfecting the art during sessions of “The Lord of the Flies” on the playground in public school. Why cry so much? Is it because I was orphaned at a young age with no money, food, or decent clothes and had to sell matches on the street until Hans Christian Anderson mercifully killed me? No, I’m not the poor little match girl, or the little mermaid, or any of his other pathetic characters (What DID people do to Anderson anyway? I want to go back in time and give him Zoloft.) Wait . . . where was I?

Thank you so bloody much, Hans

Oh, yes, on top of an apparent case of ADHD, I have depression. It’s not something I go around advertising, because shockingly this is not a very popular condition. If you have heart disease, people go aw, and tell you to take your little nitroglycerin pills, which confuses me, because I had always thought nitroglycerin blew you up. I guess in that case you wouldn’t have to worry about heart disease at least.

But with depression, people get all uncomfortable. It’s like saying you’re gay. Suddenly people of the same sex think you’re going to be filled with uncontrollable lust for them. I’m straight, not gay, yet somehow able to stop myself from jumping every man I see (oh, sometimes it’s an effort, being the slutty librarian I am). But I can control my impulses. And I’m not contagious (although I do think some really irritating people are carriers of depression).

Proof that humanity is lost

So I take medication, and I pay someone to listen to me whine. And most of the time, I’m okay. And I walk among you, indistinguishable from the normal population – like pod people. Or Republicans. But sometimes I’m overwhelmed, and I have to go off by myself and cry. And cry. Until I get this massive headache, which is no fun at all, because I didn’t even get to be happy drunk first.

Depression isn’t just a mental disease; it’s physical too. You have no energy, so you lay there like a slug, and you revel in lying there like a slug, because the entire world is awful what with all the crime, pollution, poverty, and Twilight movies. You see the world through dark-colored glasses, so all the bad is magnified. You might not have a terminal illness, but you did have a funny cough earlier and a pain in your hip. Whatever you do, don’t research your symptoms on WebMd.

You have every one of these diseases. Happy?

You did, didn’t you? So now you are worried that you have an incurable disease, on top of your sadness about the general state of the world, and the fact that people will actually wear dresses like this in public.

And then you get off the couch, and you go out to work, or the store, or something, and invariably there are people there. And these people will annoy you by breathing. You have to do something about this, and unfortunately, murder is generally frowned upon. You must either find some sort of way to get through it, or you go back to being the couch slug.

Get off the couch! No, you can’t be a slug. There is no money in being a slug, unless you’re either independently wealthy or a Congressman. So you take your medicine, if the doctor says you need it (he has a medical degree, dufus99 on the Internet most likely does not). And you get counseling, if that helps you. And you find something, anything, that makes you happy. I’m sure there’s something. For me, it’s laughing at stupid people, but whatever works for you.

Depression is the great lie. It is the Jabberwock that hides in the closet of your mind. But depression doesn’t define who I am, anymore than heart disease defines Ronald McDonald (just say no to Big Macs, clown!) So sometimes I, as my aunt used to say as a child, have me a little cryin’ spell. But then I have to pick yourself up and go after that white rabbit, because he’s not going to chase himself, and if I stick around I might just drown in my own tears. And there’s too much of Wonderland to see yet, to do that.

Posted in: Down in Wonderland | Tagged: Alice in Wonderland, crying, depression, Jabberwocky, Lord of the Flies, the great lie

More Books They Made You Read in School

By Alice on November 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

After I finished the last blog, I realized that I had left some “What were they smoking when they wrote that” award winners out. That simply wasn’t right. So here is part 2.

The Lord of The Flies
by William Golding

A good advertisement
for birth control

A bunch of British brats are stranded on an island and within weeks start trying to kill each other. So basically a longer version of what happens on the playground every day in America. A kid who supposedly represented Christ got killed with a rock – I think. And there was another kid called “Piggy” – guess why. And people wonder why there are school shootings.

Final Analysis: Little boys are evil. Don’t ever leave them alone. Especially with rocks.

The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway

The title basically says it all – it’s an old man and the sea. For about 100 pages. Except they should have added “the pointless story of” to the front, since he catches the big fish only to have it – here’s the fun part – get completely eaten before he makes it back home. Lots of references to Joe DiMaggio. Unlike many other fictional stories, we also get to hear about every time he goes potty in the sea.

Final Analysis: It’s short, so at least it doesn’t take you too long to read it – though it seems longer.

The Crucible
by Arthur Miller

A group of young Puritan girls decide it’d be fun to torture their elders by pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft. Many people get hanged as a result of their wacky hijinks. Shows that junior high girls haven’t changed that much. Neither has organized religion, come to think of it.

Final Analysis: Girl children are evil too. Best to lock them up until the teen years are safely behind them.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
by Victor Hugo

Clearly a kid-friendly movie!

Now with hunchback in the title, how can this fail to be a fun romp of a book? Sadly, it does. The hideously deformed hunchback – named Quasimodo as an added insult – has a horrible life, but falls in love, gets rejected, sees his love hanged, and ends up buried in the grave with her. Happy, happy story! Which is why Disney of course made a movie out of it.

Final Analysis: No, seriously, Disney made it a cartoon movie. Quasi doesn’t die, but love interest Esmerelda, the pole dancing gyspy, dumps him for a handsome hottie. Also, there’s an evil lustful priest and – hey, what more could you want in a family show?

War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy

Okay, I’ll admit that I never had to read this one (thank God) but I’m going to take a stab at it. It’s about war. And peace. And it’s REALLY long – I mean really, really long. I’m thinking even my English teachers didn’t want to read this thing, which is how I got out of it.

Final Analysis: Even if you don’t read it, this book would be an excellent murder weapon, since it’s nearly as heavy as your average Brides magazine.

Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck

This is NOT going to end well

If you recognized old John from our last list, then you know you’re in for a treat! This one’s about a guy and his mentally retarded brother, Lenny, who likes to pet the rabbits. And kill them. Then he pets a girl. I think you can see where this is going.

Final Analysis: It should be called “Of Rabbits and Humans.” Get a clue – if you can’t trust your brother around rabbits, better watch him around humans.

Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes

Speaking of inspiring books about the disabled, Algernon gets some sort of smart operation and quits being retarded for a while. And realizes that life really kind of sucks when you are smart enough to know what’s going on. But it’s okay, because by the end he starts going back to being retarded.

Final Analysis: If only I had one of those Harry Potter wands so that I could unread this book. I would be sooo much happier.