Day 5 of the Five Day Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Forgiveness

 

 

“Finally Seth is beaten and Horus wins,

But will that turn an enemy into a friend?”

• Kotipelto, “Battle of the Gods”

In the aftermath of the battles between Set and Horus, Set was given the desert, and two more consorts, the foreign Goddesses Anat and Astarte, as consolation for His loss. Not a bad deal overall. I like to think Nebet-Het returned to Set after it was all over too, but that’s just my preferred version I guess, in which Set has this big polyamorous relationship with all His consorts. Set and Horus would patch things up later in most versions of the story from before Set’s demonization in later times; enough to become the two-headed synchronized God Antewy. A God that to me symbolizes reconciliation and forgiveness. But I don’t think Set’s sister Aset ever forgave Him, even though they will work together against bigger foes like the Chaos Serpent, and I don’t think They don’t want their followers at odds with one another either. Nor is She really under any obligation to forgive Him, truth be told. This teaches us a lesson on forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t an obligation. You don’t have to forgive anyone, even if they’re sorry. It’s your choice.

The Buddha said that that to hold a grudge is like holding onto a hot coal with the intent to throw it at someone. You’re not hurting anyone but yourself. Maybe that’s why I’m not a Buddhist. There’s definitely something to that quote, of course. Sitting there and stewing over someone’s wrongdoing isn’t going to do you any good. But can you let go of the hot coal without forgiveness? Maybe put it in a heat-proof container and store it away in the back of your closet? I think you can reach the acceptance stage of grief without forgiveness. 

I took an ethics class back in college, where I read the book “The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness” by Simon Wiesenthal. In it, Wiesenthal, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, recounts the time when he was working at a hospital and a German soldier on his death bed asked him for forgiveness for the atrocities that he committed during the Second World War. Wiesenthal concludes, if I recall correctly, that he was in no place to forgive this soldier just because he happened to share an ethnicity with the soldier’s victims. Some things are indeed unforgivable. The book invites you to think about what you would do in that situation, and the teacher had us write an essay with our answer. Some people actually said they would have forgiven the soldier. Not me though. This soldier’s victims weren’t alive to offer forgiveness, no one else should offer it on their behalf. I also think people like that deserve to spend their final moments of consciousness thinking about all the people they harmed. I don’t care if they were just following orders. Let Ammit the Devourer feast on heavy hearts like his. I guess I can be a bit vindictive. But it was an interesting book, and it was after reading it that I started to build my own ethics of forgiveness. 

I can think of a couple times in my life where my ethics of forgiveness were put to the test. For instance, my first girlfriend. I was in my early 20s and part of a Wiccan coven, where I met her. It only lasted four months. She had a crush on me for about five minutes and then didn’t know how to break up with me. A lot of her problems with me I later found were symptoms of undiagnosed autism and ADHD. Things about myself that I couldn’t change. But she was always demanding I change, wanting to mold me into whatever her image of a perfect boyfriend was in her mind. I wasn’t picking up on her hints, and on my birthday she was very cold toward me and said some cruel things. My best friend ended up confiding in me that she wanted to break up with me, I didn’t even hear it from her because she couldn’t do it herself, she just hoped if she was mean enough to me I would break up with her. I took it hard. Worst birthday ever, suffice it to say. Months later she attempted to make amends with me, trying to buy my forgiveness with gifts. She wanted to remain friends, and she said she was sorry. I couldn’t forgive her, and I never did. I said it would take some time. Perhaps that time could be measured in centuries. We did remain “friends” for a time, because I still had other friends in the coven and didn’t want to make things awkward, but eventually I cut her out of my life, because even as just friends all she wanted was for me to change, she couldn’t accept me for who I was. I don’t really feel guilty about not forgiving her. We were both young and dumb, I guess. Perhaps she’s matured by now, but I wouldn’t know.

Another person who tested my ethics of forgiveness is a certain toxic family member. In fact, he’s the one who brought me closer to Set, when I asked for Him to repell this toxic person in exchange for an offering of beer. Not that I haven’t had to see this guy’s face at all since then, but I saw less of him after that, and he’s supposed to be going to jail soon, so that’s a plus. He’s an addict, into the hardest kinds of drugs and alcohol. Any time he does something wrong, like steal our stuff or blow up at us or even get physically violent, he just expects everyone to forget about it five minutes later. We’re supposed to just forget it because “he’s family”. Never once heard him sincerely apologize, ever. Even when he is forced to apologize, he doesn’t change his behavior. His mother defends him and insists he come over for all the holidays, even though she takes the most abuse from him. 

I can’t forgive someone who not only isn’t actually sorry but has no plans on stopping what they’re apologizing for. For me to actually forgive someone, they need to be sincere in their apology, and they need to stop the behavior they’re apologizing for. And like I said before, you can’t accept an apology on behalf of someone else. I don’t believe in “forgive and forget” either. I might forgive, but I never forget. I’ll just put that hot coal away for later, maybe it will cool eventually. 

Hope you all enjoyed these writing prompts. I think “Defeat” was my favorite one. Tomorrow I will have another Feast of Sutekh; not an official holiday on the Kemetic calendar, of course. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day 4 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Comprises

 Day 4 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Compromise

Art by Yoshi Yoshitani

Compromise, it’s the ideal outcome of a disagreement, but at the same time it’s not always possible, or even wise. I try to compromise as a first resort to a disagreement. It is the Ma’at thing to do. 

There are as many versions of Egyptian mythology as there were cities and towns in ancient Egypt for over 3,000 years, so I’m not about to claim the one I ascribe to is the one true canon version. There are many truths, you can think of it like multiverse theory. But in one version, during the 80 year battle between Set and Horus, there was a point where they reached a compromise. Set was to rule Upper Egypt (that is, southern Egypt), while Horus would rule Lower Egypt. This corresponds to where most of their followers lived. But one fiesty Netjeret wasn’t at all pleased with this compromise; Isis. Now I get it, it sucks having your husband killed and having to go hide out in the marshes while raising your kid, while searching for your husband’s missing body parts. I argued on the first day of the feast that the story was a lot more nuanced than “Set bad, evil, jealous”, but I recognize that this must have devastated Her. But She didn’t have make everybody else suffer because of it, first and foremost Her own son. Anyway, She thought that Horus deserved all of Egypt, and Set needed to be punished. So, the battle raged on for a few more decades. Had She been willing to compromise, the whole thing could have ended a lot sooner, a lot of suffering could have been avoided. She did get what She wanted in the end, Horus got the whole of Egypt. So what is the moral we’re supposed to get from this part of the story? Don’t ever compromise until you completely defeat your opponent? Violence is the answer, might makes right?

I can think of a lot of instances where compromise was a bad idea. I hate talking about it, but have one look at the state of US politics. It got to where it is, at the brink of fascism, because of Democrats trying to pull that “reach across the aisle” crap with people who want anyone different from them dead, or enslaved (that’s assuming the two main parties weren’t in cahoots all along, since they all answer to the same billionaires). You can’t and you shouldn’t compromise with far-right bigots. It’s like the paradox of tolerance. Tolerate people different from yourself, but don’t tolerate intolerant people. “So much for the tolerant left” they’ll whine. They all deserve a punch in the face. I can look at the history of Armenia too. Uninformed outsiders might say “Why doesn’t Armenia just compromise with Turkey and Azerbaijan, the genocide was over a century ago, why don’t they get over it.” Firstly they refuse to admit the genocide happened, and I’ve realized after watching Azerbaijan commit genocide in Artsakh that the number one reason for someone to deny a genocide is because they’re not done yet. Their leaders often say the quiet part out loud, they want Armenia wiped off the map, and erased from existence. You can’t compromise with people like that. 

I can think of at least one historical example where compromise would have been a good idea but wasn’t done; the punishment of Germany after the First World War. Yes, I can see why the allies wanted to punish them, millions died, I don’t think Germany was the good guy in that war (it was a war of light grey vs dark grey morality; other than the Ottoman Empire which of course was purely evil in my opinion). But punishing them so severely and making their money worthless just created the conditions for the Nazis to rise to power. I don’t know what the solution should have been honestly, I’m no expert on that part of history. It made sense to punish them but it seems to me they went too far.

I’ve heard it said that a good compromise leaves neither side completely satisfied. Perhaps that’s how it should be if you want to keep the peace. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day 3 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Defeat

 Day 3 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus: Defeat

I said yesterday that defeat can be reversed just as victory can. This is true, at least from a certain perspective. Using my chess metaphor, as long as you still have pieces on the board there’s always a chance you can pull a victory. But there comes a point where you will face a checkmate. No one stays undefeated forever, unless they quit while they’re ahead. In sports like boxing or wrestling, no one gets to hold onto their world championship title belt forever. Someone who is a 10-time world champion has faced nine defeats. 

Lord Sutekh can teach us much about how to accept a crippling defeat, and still stand tall and keep fighting. He was robbed of His crown, demonized, His statues and temples destroyed, even had entire month-long festivals dedicated to His dismemberment; and then, like the rest of the Gods, He faded into obscurity for the better part of 2,000 years. But He is still here. He still fights that Chaos Serpent every night, and wins. He doesn’t need anybody’s validation. He doesn’t care if people call Him Satan or anything. Saving the world from a chaotic cosmic entity every night is a thankless job, but He’s not out to impress anybody. He doesn’t need to be universally loved. As long as His consorts and followers love Him, that’s enough. Because He knows whose opinions matter to Him.

There was a time when I tried to conform, tried to play by society’s rules, only to find out that it’s a rigged game. Built to keep regular people in their place and the ruling class on top. Imagine, being forced to play a game of Monopoly right after graduating High School, but no one explained the rules to you beforehand, and maybe you just aren’t that good with numbers, or you’re just not that competitive. Then society tries to convince you that you’re a total failure for not being good at this one game, for not being able to rack up enough imaginary numbers called “money”. But why beat yourself up over not being good at a game you never even asked to play? It’s like shaming a fish for not being able to climb a tree as well as a monkey. Poverty is never a personal failure, it’s a systemic failure, and laziness is a myth. For there to be winners in this game, there has to be losers. 

In those dark moments, when the world tells you you’re nothing, you’re worthless, when your dreams and aspirations evaporate before you and you hit rock bottom, that’s when you find out who you really are. You either crack and give up, or you collect all those shattered pieces of your ego and forge something new. Something stronger. You can only get to that point by experiencing defeat. As Nebet-Het teaches us, it’s okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve. There is no shame in it. But, if you don’t pick up the broken pieces of yourself and reach some kind of acceptance, you’ll be forever defined by your defeat.

However, that said, don’t keep trying to prove yourself to others either. That’s a dead-end path; you’re never going to please everybody, and no matter how great your achievements, people only really care about what you’ve done lately, or how you’re going to top your previous achievements. You need to redefine what success means to you, not what society considers success. Fame, money, sports cards, fancy houses, none of that matters by the time you’re on your death bed, or getting your heart weighed on the Scales of Truth in Duat. As Mark Twain once said, “Fame is a vapor; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.” Don’t throw away finite hours of your life slaving away at a dead-end job to afford expensive status symbols that don’t really make you happy. Give yourself attainable dreams and aspirations. Live within your means. Make sure those victories in your future are ones you actually want to have, not something you’ve been told you’re supposed to want. This is something I had to learn, and I had to taste defeat to learn it. Above all, defeat is a lesson. Pick yourself up after a defeat, but do it for yourself. You’re stronger than you think. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Opinions on AI, and Social Media These Days

So starting January 1st, Facebook will be amping up mining data for their AI, and creating fake AI accounts for whatever evil scheme the Zuck has planned, probably to fuel the culture wars and redirect people’s anger at rich people to minorities. Over the past year I’ve enjoyed being on Facebook less and less, as it is already polluted with stolen AI “art” (aka slop), not to mention 2024 being an election year which always sucks to be on the internet for, and Tangerine Hitler won, so things are probably going to be even worse this year. I hate politics. We live in a dystopian oligarchy, in a country where the majority of people are brainwashed morons. Voting doesn’t change a damn thing, at least not on a fundamental level. What can one do but either seethe over issues beyond your control, and let it take a toll on your mental health without having the power to do anything about it, or stick your head in the sand and embrace escapism. I try to stay somewhere in the middle, but it really requires deciding what and what not to care about. Selective apathy is the only way I hold myself together. 

During and after the disastrous Artsakh War in 2020 I had to decide to either follow Armenian news and be an emotional wreck and never sleep, or, unsubscribe from all Armenian news Facebook pages and YouTube channels, and leave the r/Armenia subreddit. I’m not proud of it, but I chose the latter, for my own mental wellbeing. I know the refugees don’t have that luxury. Before the war I was glued to Armenian news. The loss of Artsakh emotionally destroyed me at the time. I was hurt that nobody seemed to know about it or care. Then the Palestine genocide began, and I came to the sad realization that no matter how many people care about something like that, it’s not going to do anything to stop it. No one talks about that US soldier who set himself on fire for Palestine last year anymore, and the genocide resumes. It’s a cold comfort, that the results of the Artsakh war probably would have been the same regardless if non-Armenians cared about it or not. Social media doesn’t have an influence on that. Doomscrolling all just amounts to pointless self-torment.

It’s a lot harder to shut out the news in a country you live in, however. And in the US, your choices are to be either misinformed or uninformed. The other news channels besides Fox are centrist at best. No matter how “left” they might seem they’re all owned by corporations and they will never bite the hand that feeds them. And they profit off fear and rage. I’m not giving them that. I haven’t trusted the US media since they lied about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq. But the people in this country have goldfish memory, or assume that was just a one-time goof up or something. “Oopsie daisy, there weren’t any weapons after all and millions of people died for nothing, but you can continue to trust us!” And it’s been nonstop Trump for almost ten years, and I am really sick of seeing “honorary president” Elon Musk’s punchable face on every other post, he seems even more ubiquitous than Trump these days. I don’t even care if it’s a post making fun of the guy, they’re still giving him the attention he so craves. I am just so sick of seeing his ugly mug. Something about him just makes me want to beat his ass. I’m not even on Twitter and I still have to see the fucking human Scrooge McDuck everywhere. So whenever I see him at all I leave the Facebook group or the subreddit. This is my litmus test, because I want to see less political crap on my feed. I won’t go as far as to unfriend people over it, unless of course they’re in support of the guy. 

Now these were just my problems with social media before all this AI nonsense began. As an artist, I have to decide how I am going to coexist with AI going forward. I have been uploading my artwork to Facebook since beginning my webcomic Alcatraz High School. When I heard about AI stealing people’s art, my only hope was that my art really isn’t “good” enough to steal, I know that sounds self-deprecating. I wasn’t expecting to make money off my art anyway, but now that AI is around it’s even less likely. Do I want to continue posting my art on this website so that the Zuck can steal it? I need to answer that question for myself. This all seems like a big scheme to force anyone actually making a living off their art to get a “real” job and go be slaves to the system, along with being some kind of overly-complex psy op to keep the working class at each other’s throats. And I don’t know why it takes a nuclear reactor to generate a stupid picture where the people have 12 fingers. In the beginning, when people were just using it to generate silly images, have funny conversations with the chat bots and make new Nirvana songs with Kurt Cobain’s voice, I admit I liked the novelty. This was before I understood the ramifictions of AI. The novelty was short-lived, because of course, the technology quickly was used for evil. The oligarchs at the top of the hierarchy have always hated artists for not being bootlicking slaves. They’ve been trying to figure out how to get rid of them for a while now. But I’m going to keep drawing, writing, and living life on my own terms regardless. I know I am privileged to be able to do that. Even some professional artists are having to work at fast food joints because of this. 

I have to ask myself, why do I even bother with Facebook and social media at all? Well, it’s to stay connected to family, meet like-minded people and make friends, follow some educational pages and show off my creativity. So my plan is to use it only for those things. No more doomscrolling. I need to get back to how I was before Facebook. I used to read books, play video games, write and draw more. I waste too much time on social media. Not posting my art anywhere isn’t going to stop AI. So I suppose I will keep doing it, if only due to the fact that I wasn’t trying to make a living off it anyway. I was thinking about making the leap to BlueSky too, maybe for the audience. Like I said I was never on Twitter anyway so I don’t need a replacement for it, I may just use it to post my art and blogs and such. That’s my plan for now, subject to change if things get even worse.

Top 5 Songs of the Month ~ October 2023 ~

I’ve spent the last month or so grieving over the latest stage of the Armenian genocide, which was the complete destruction of Artsakh by Azerbaijan. I wrote a separate rant blog about that rather than vent here. 

And what music has been helping me cope with these dark days? Spoiler, a lot of it is dark. Listening to happy music just doesn’t work. Although I guess listening to nostalgic 90s alternative rock music helps a little. I’ve done a bit of that, working on my 90s YouTube playlist, a potent mix of alternative rock, grunge, nu-metal, black metal, a few guilty pleasures, and of course underground goth music, interspersed with Beavis and Butthead segments and a few MTV bumpers (most of which are on my 80s playlist). But I don’t want to do that constantly, and even that music isn’t necessarily “happy”. It works until “Disarm” by Smashing Pumpkins comes on and I start bawling. (Not actually, but it tugs  on the heartstrings. “I used to beee a little boy”. Yeah.)  Also just keeping my nose in books about ancient Egypt, studying their religion and teaching myself hieroglyphs, helps too. It’s a coping mechanism, escapism. 

I’ll be looking at songs of Octobers past as well. There are sure to be a few spooky selections from my top 3 picks in 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018.

Cashiari ~ Oscura Noche

Not only is this a great Halloween song, it fits my mood perfectly. I first mentioned Cashiari last month, a Peruvian experimental dark-electro band. 

Blurpz ~ Escape

A Dutch coldwave track from 1983.

Day After ~ Ticking Away

Fearing ~ Scars

Das Kelzer ~ Light Grey

Antaios Nocturne ~ Don’t Forget to Smile

Top 3 Songs of October Over the Years

October 2003

1. Dimmu Borgir ~ Hybrid Stigmata

2. Kraftwerk ~ Vitamin

3. Dimmu Borgir ~ Alt Lys er Svonnet Hen

October 2008

1. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy ~ Save my Soul

2. Das Ich - Zuckerbrot und Peitsche

3. Aurelio Voltaire ~ Land of the Dead

October 2013

1. Ministry ~ I Wanted to Tell Her

2. Ayria ~ Big City Lullaby 

3. The Birthday Massacre ~ Blue

October 2018

1. Twin Tribes ~ Still in Still

2. Asylum Party ~ La Nuit

3. Lebanon Hanover ~ Sadness is Rebellion 

Some Last Words on Artsakh

 I’m going to go into diary-mode for a moment, and it’s going to get very dark, bare with me. I was originally going to write this on my Top Songs of the Month blog, but it got too long and dark. I’ve spent the last month or so grieving over the latest stage of the Armenian genocide, which was the complete destruction of Artsakh by Azerbaijan. Very sad to say, it kind of helps that I didn’t hold much hope for it after the 2020 war. I expected it to be wiped off the map eventually. Pessimism softens the blow. Like the Slow Danse with the Dead song “So Obnoxious” says, to be overly optimistic is the worst. Will the rest of Armenia follow? Since nobody seems to give a single shit about Armenia enough to help, or even just stop buying Azeri oil and gas and selling them weapons, it doesn’t look good. A lot of international fist shaking might happen, but nothing else of consequence. Imagine if one day Israel decided to just bulldoze all of Palestine, wipe it off the map and kill a bunch of people. It would be all over the news, people would be outraged. Israel might even face some kind of international consequences if it did that. Same thing happens to the Armenians, it’s chirping crickets. We suffer alone. If you read my blogs from around Fall 2020 you’ll see I’ve been through all this grief before, back then. That’s the only reason my depression isn’t as bad as it would be if this happened all at once. It feels like you’ve had a loved one on life support for three years, and they finally pulled the plug. You knew it was coming, you had three years to reach some sort of acceptance over it, but when it happens it’s still pretty devastating, no matter how much you prepared yourself. Plus I have other stuff going on in my personal life compounding the depression. Every time I start to feel a little better something else happens.

Only thing I can do, sadly, is look away, distract myself. Some might criticize me for that, but I don’t have the power to change anything by myself, so doom-scrolling about it just becomes self-punishing. I do care. I care too much. I’ve mostly stayed off Facebook, because I’m far too entrenched in the Armenian community to avoid seeing news about all the gruesome details. I can avoid it more easily on Reddit and YouTube (going to the Armenia subreddit right now would probably ruin my mood for weeks and be very self-destructive, so I unfollowed it). I plan on donating to help out the refugees whenever I have spare money to do so. It’s all I can do. That and wait for climate change to cause wet bulb in Baku and suffocate everyone. I looked it up, Azerbaijan is going down once climate change really kicks in, not to mention when their oil reserves dry up. Fuck them, they’ll get what’s coming to them. I hope a bunch of those goat-fuckers step on land mines in Artsakh. May the “Land of Fire” burn. That koombaya, “coexist” bullshit doesn’t work in the real world. You can’t coexist with people who literally want to kill you. Yeah I know not every Azeri is a bad person, but the very few who disagree with what their genocidal fascist government is doing sure aren’t doing anything to stop them. You could try to use that logic against the US and blame every American citizen for the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but at least there were people protesting those wars, unlike in Azerbaijan. Their silence is complicity. Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about that subject. I must avoid thinking about it to even function, but at least I got it off my chest. 

Travelogue ~ Disneyworld, and A Brief History of my trips to Disney parks

I’m quite over Disney. Their best movies are usually  the ones that bombed at the box office. Probably the last one I liked at all was Lilo and Stitch, from over 20 years ago. But their movies for the last 10+ years are just regurgitations of older, better movies. So why would I go to Disneyworld? Well, my in-laws went on a vacation to England in April, and came back with my wife’s cousin Thomas who really wanted to see Disneyworld because it’s his first time in America. My mother-in-law also wanted my four year old son Jareth to go, and I needed to be there to help supervise him, as caring for him is a two person job (he’s autistic and has ADHD, and is nonverbal, also prone to running off suddenly). Tickets have ballooned to astronomical prices (for all four of us it cost $500, yikes), I would otherwise be way too poor to afford it, but my mother-in-law paid for us, so I don’t want to seem ungrateful, of course. But I plan on being honest about my thoughts during the trip. If nothing else at least it gave me something to write about, for which I’m grateful. 

A Brief History of my trips to Disney parks

1991

This was to Disneyland, in Anaheim, California. I was five years old so I barely remember anything. But this was the only time I ever went during my childhood, which I somewhat resented later. But now I don’t care. All I remember is that a big part of the park was closed because they were building Toontown, and the castle being way smaller than I expected it to be. Even back then my brain focused on the negatives! Of note though is that we stayed with my paternal grandparents during this trip, and this is the only memory I have of meeting my grandfather Suren. Specifically I remember my grandmother Olga telling me to play chess with my grandfather, but I didn’t know how to play. He was a tall, mountain of a man in my eyes, a bit intimidating. A lot of people thought so too, so I’ve heard. Anyway, these memories are a lot more valuable to me than Disneyland. 

2007

I remember this trip a lot better. It was Disneyland again, and I went in December so everything was Christmas themed. I was 21, and went with my then-girlfriend and some other friends. I paid my way with some money I won at a casino, actually. Another trip I had gone on with my parents months prior. Overall I enjoyed myself, at least at the time. The memory is tainted by how badly that relationship with said girlfriend ended, however. Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones and Haunted Mansion were my favorite rides. 

2015

I had just moved to Florida, and it was a couple months before my big trip to Armenia. I went to Disneyworld with my future wife. Annnd it wasn’t that great (don’t tell my mother-in-law). Half the time was spent waiting in lines. We waited almost an hour to get on this one roller coaster, and when we got to the end of the line, the ride was shut down. I was so pissed. We went to the Magic Kingdom area, which I didn’t realize was very kid-oriented. I didn’t have a kid yet. So a lot of the rides were not that fun for adults. Rides that had equivalents in Disneyland such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion seemed shorter and less fun than their original counterparts. I guess I had high expectations for Disneyworld, having sat through enough ads for it in my lifetime. I felt lied to. Another adulthood disillusionment.

The 2023 Trip

So, with the 2015 trip still fresh in my mind, we left for Orlando. The trip would be different this time now that we had a kid. Another difference is that since 2015 I’ve developed chronic back and tailbone pain, and walking or standing for too long is excruciating. I was also worried about getting hurt on a ride. This along with my anti-capitalist ideology, distaste for modern Disney, and poor experience in 2015 were why I didn’t really want to go, but alas, I had to be a responsible parent. A few days prior we got disability passes so that our spot in line would be saved and I could go sit down somewhere. It works essentially like a “Lightning Pass” that you usually pay extra for, except you do have to abide by the wait time. So if the wait time is 45 minutes, you can walk around or sit and rest elsewhere until the time comes. We needed it even more for my son’s sake, as he gets very impatient while waiting and likely would not tolerate standing in line for more than 15 minutes. The rules were only one person in a group could get the disability pass, which I guess makes sense, we weren’t planning on splitting up. But it did get us into trouble at Haunted Mansion, as I’ll explain. 

I took a bunch of painkillers in preparation for the trip, and we left. We got stuck in traffic on the way there, which is common on any given day on Highway 4, the most dangerous highway in the US. There was more than one crash on the side of the road. I got to expose our guest from England to Slow Danse with the Dead, which I’m not sure he was into, before putting on the more crowd-pleasing Alice in Chains Unplugged album. So few people share my unique musical tastes, alas. 

So we get there, and the entrance is like going through an airport. And don’t think going on a weekday will make things not crowded. There were thousands of people. I still had that old “what if we get Covid” fear left over from 2020. I suppose it wasn’t impossible. But what could I do? I saw maybe one person with a mask. The security guards frisked us and put us through a metal detector, and then we were sardined into a line for the ferry boat to get there. We just missed the ferry boat and had to wait in the hot, punishing sun for the next one. Maybe we should have taken the monorail. But we only had to wait like 15 minutes, making me feel like a whiner even though I didn’t vocally express my discomfort. Easy now, we only just got here, plenty of time for crotchety old complaining later. 

After we got off the ferry, there was a stupid sky-writing plane spelling out “Jesus loves you” in the sky, lowering my respect for Disney even further. They must have at least given permission for this. By the time they reached the end of the phrase the first part was illegible. Hey, if your deity is real, why did that happen? Reminds me of a quote which I will paraphrase; “If you leave the bible outside, it will be destroyed by the wind and the rain. My religion is the wind and the rain.” Anyway, it was kind of a nightmare getting in. We waited through three lines, the ferry line, the line to get into the park (Thomas wasn’t a member of our “group” apparently and that had to be rectified), and the line for the disability pass. So Disney thinks I’m disabled, maybe I’m not faking my pain and depression after all, you think? If only the government were as easy to convince.

So the day went as follows:

Entrance and Castle

We got my disability pass at the “City Hall”, in the main entrance area made up to look like a town from the 1890s. It meant I had to be on every ride for us all to get to benefit from it. We didn’t spend a lot of time in this area, which was mostly stores. But this was where I decided I couldn’t stand hearing Disney music all day and turned on my MP3 player.

The castle is like the Mecca of the Cult of Disney. It’s also classist symbolism. The worship of power, hierarchy and wealth. I will say it’s taller than the one at Disneyland, which I think even when I was 5 years old I was underwhelmed with.

Haunted Mansion

We brought my son Jareth on this ride. Poor kid was traumatized. I felt a bit guilty. I enjoyed it myself but he screamed the whole time. Thing is if we didn’t bring him then Deborah would have to not go on the ride, and not benefit from my disability pass, having to wait in line an hour or something. And we weren’t going to make Thomas watch Jareth and miss out on the ride. I mean I never found the ride scary myself, but then again I never went on it until I was 21 years old. And I kinda forgot about how scary it actually would be to a kid.

I also kept thinking about how there’s apparently a big problem with people bringing their loved ones ashes and spilling them on the ride somewhere. Anyway, I didn’t really get to enjoy it as much as I could have.

Merry Go Round

We went here basically as an apology to Jareth. He finally started to enjoy himself on this. I had to sit in such a way that I was putting my weight on my thigh and not my tailbone. It wasn’t comfortable. Those horses are rock hard.

PhilharMagic

This is more of a show that you watch in a theater with 3D glasses than a ride, full of computerized versions of famous Disney Acid Sequences. You could feel air jets blow at you and pick up smells that went with whatever scene was on. I wished I were high for this. Would have been quite amazing. Anyway, it was a bit cringey honestly, but I liked that I could sit down and it was air conditioned. I didn’t really like air being sprayed in my face though, reminded me of that machine you put your face against at the eye doctors that shoots air into your open eye.

Lunch

Seating areas are hard to come by. But we found a slightly shady spot along the path and sat on the curb to eat the sandwiches we bought at Publix that morning. I’m not spending $50 to buy a meal at Disneyworld. 

Tea Cups

It’s not truly a day at Disneyworld until the ride you’re standing in line for breaks down. Fortunately it wasn’t for long. But waiting in line for it twice did suck a bit.

Winnie The Pooh

I don’t care at all for Winnie the Pooh, other than Eyeore being relatable. But it was for Jareth. And at least I got to sit down and the air was cool. It’s almost like the Haunted Mansion for toddlers, that’s how I would describe the ride. 

Tea Cups

They were operational again after we got off the Winnie the Pooh ride. I got very dizzy. Jareth was happy though. 

Walking around in the Severe Heat While Waiting For Our Turn on The Mine Cart Ride

At least we weren’t standing in line, that would have been much worse. We used my pass to book the ride ahead of time, but it was a pretty long wait time. This was when my back pain really started to catch up with me. And it was very, very hot. By this time Jareth had fallen asleep, which was just as well because now we could go on the more adult rides. As adult as Magic Kingdom gets anyway. We probably should have waited until this point to do the Haunted Mansion, but it’s not like we knew he was going to fall asleep.  We took a walk through Tomorrowland (to be more accurate it should have either been underwater or a smoldering radioactive crater, rather than the empty promises capitalism made about the future in the 1950s), back around and through the castle, and eventually back to the ride itself. This killed enough time. But yeah, I was hurting.

The Snow White Mine Cart Ride

My favorite part of this was the part of the line that went into a mine tunnel, because it was dark and the air was cool. The ride itself was fine. Short, not anything spectacular, but the only proper roller coaster I would be on during this trip. This was the ride that I had waited in line for an hour only to have it break down during my 2015 trip, as I recall. At least I got on it this time. I was kind of afraid I would hurt my back on the ride, but luckily I didn’t. 

Walking Around Waiting for Pirates of the Caribbean 

I was still hurting, but we did find a table to sit at eventually. It was starting to get later and we were thinking of leaving soon. But it would have been a pity to leave without going on Pirates of the Caribbean. So we booked it ahead of time. The wait was 45 minutes or so. We traveled through Frontier Land. I got to see the former Splash Mountain being remodeled. The tears of racist conservatives were delicious when it was announced they were getting rid of the Song of the South references on the ride.

Pirates of the Caribbean 

The only Disney ride that ever had a decent spinoff movie. I won’t say that about the sequels, but I liked the first film. As I said before, it’s shorter than the Disneyland version, with only one dropping point. But it’s still fun. My MP3 player started playing some Cradle of Filth, and it paired with the ride quite nicely. And of course, it had cool air and somewhere to sit. The minimum requirement for a ride to be enjoyable to me. 

Leaving

Jareth woke up while I was on the ride; Deborah had stayed with him outside. We decided it had been a full day and we had been on pretty much the best rides. It was about 6pm at this point. We weren’t bothered about staying until the park closed and seeing the fireworks and electric parade really, I’ve been there done that. 

I may have been in pain, but I felt accomplished for having made it through the day. At least I got to see my son happy. I wonder how much he will remember about it, if anything. Anyway, I think I enjoyed myself a bit more than I did in 2015, maybe because my expectations were lower and more realistic, maybe because I didn’t have to stand in line for an hour each time (and have the ride break down), and maybe because I had Jareth with me. 

A Facebook Copypasta about High School

Yep, another of these dumb things. I like to get very long-winded, so I might as well do it in my blog.

Your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be: 

(sure, okay; is half a lifetime ago long enough?)

1. The year: 

2003-2004

2. What kind of car did you drive?

I uh, still don’t drive anything. When I get behind the wheel of a car my anxiety goes through the roof and I just freeze up, forget left from right, even forget which pedal is the brake and which is the gas. I think it has to do with my autism, and inability to multitask, especially if mine and somebody else’s life is at stake. I can’t watch the road in front of me and watch the rear view mirrors at the same time, and there are so many little buttons and levers to keep track of. My brain can’t do it. I am actually mentally disabled. Most people can’t tell when they meet me (and I didn’t even realize it myself until somewhat recently), it doesn’t mean I’m not intelligent. But there are things I can’t do, driving is one of them. Working the only gods-awful jobs I can qualify for is another. And this is one of the many reasons I don’t live up to society’s standards for masculinity, or adulthood in general. Gods, I hate US society.

3. It's a Friday night football game where were you? 

At home, sitting in my darkened bedroom, rocking back and forth while listening to my mixtapes or metal albums.

4. What job did you have?

None, and I think forcing minors to work is wrong. As if school didn’t rob me of enough of my youth.

5 Did you party?

No

6. Did you play sports? 

Not at all, except when forced to in P.E.

7. Were you in the band?

“The band”? You mean like the school band class, or a cool garage band? Well, I was in band class during Freshman year. I played clarinet, but was never any good at it. My teacher was a lot nicer than the evil tyrant I had in Middle School. And during that year we went on a cruise to Ensenada, Mexico, where I bought my infamous leather hat. The next year my Freshman English teacher was starting a Creative Writing class, so I took that instead of band.

8. Were you a nerd?

Yes, but probably not the typical nerd. I didn’t play Magic The Gathering, when it came to anime I had only seen what was shown on Toonami on Cartoon Network. Those were the two main things nerds at my school were into. I didn’t even really fit in with the nerds in High School, not that I didn’t have friends.

9. Did you get suspended?

Not senior year. I got suspended Sophomore year when my math teacher wouldn’t let me use the bathroom and my rage built up to such a point that I drew him being cut in half with a chainsaw and fed into a wood chipper. The teacher saw it, and not only got me suspended but called the cops on me. They luckily thought the whole thing was stupid.

10. Were you sociable?

Not especially.

11. What was your school mascot? 

A stupid falcon, that was ripped off from some NFL football team. I’m not bothered to look up which team. The school should have been sued.

12. If you could go back and do it again? 

Okay, I really hated High School. But, I don’t think I could turn down a legitimate offer to travel back in time. I would take a lot less crap from people the second time around. Actually what I should have done is drop out and get my GED instead. That’s what I would do, maybe after I meet my current friends. I could also avoid some of the mistakes I made after High School, like going out with that girl who dumped me after four months (probably thanks to my undiagnosed autism), and getting that damned Creative Writing Masters degree that kinda ruined my chances at any kind of career outside of retail and call centers, and put me in tons of debt I’ll never pay off. You get punished for pursuing your passions in this country. And I could become a goth early, since I didn’t get into goth until my 20s. I could also try to meet my wife early, but then again with our four year age difference things might get risky once I turn 18. I only want to go back once though, no need to get stuck in a four year Groundhog’s Day time loop.

13. Are you still in contact with people from high school?

Yes, a few friends, particularly my friend Kris.

14. Do you know where your high school sweetheart is?

Didn’t have one. I was too afraid to talk to girls in school, especially after things really didn’t go well in Middle School; a certain bullying incident with a girl left me with severe trust issues. I don’t remember having a crush on anyone in particular during Senior year either. I just wanted to do my time and get the hell out of that prison. After I got out I started to wish I had a girlfriend, and that got me into more bad situations when I jumped at whoever showed the slightest interest in me and it always ended badly until I met my future wife.

15. What was your favorite class?

Creative Writing. Followed by German.

16. Do you still have your high school class ring?

What a waste of money! Luckily I knew that back then too. School “spirit” is just another way to instill obedience. Just like nationalism.

17. Do you still have your yearbook?

I threw them away. But now that I’m drawing a webcomic about High School I wish I had kept them. I do still have a yearbook from Middle School that somehow survived the purge.

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