Return to the Forgotten Valley of the Dolls

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 15:15

Dolls: A metaphoric verbal substitute for referring to pharmaceutical recreations/re-creations of your personal reality.

ie) When a middle aged failure has a panic attack while frantically searching through his belongings screams
"Where are my DOLLS, I can't find my doll-babies" (and it feels like the end of the world even though traffic outside the bedroom window shows no sign of stopping)...

Nothing to do with Mattel's Barbie or anything plastic.

The original Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - reality masked under fiction in book and film form.
See your local public Library or just check on your favorite search engine.

Todd Haynes (filmmaker extraordinaire) lists as one of his cinematic inspirations.

The depressive low following the use of pharmaceutical recreations/re-creations - The Valley - though similar in structure to the sprawling suburban mass some people call L.A. - which could be anywhere or nowhere in particular really between New York City and a place some call Hell-Aye.

A state of mind trapped within a physical world of man-made soul stealing endless concrete and capitalism as seen from the point of view of automotive based unreality.

Here is just one example from my personal life or what I like to call:

....Return to the Forgotten Valley of the Dolls....

When your mind is a solitary isolation tank like mine is the result is a kind of paralysis though every one of my limbs functions. The typical daily tasks of getting dressed or undressed become a battle within my mind. Wanting to take a shower feels like the heaviest imaginable burden. To do the things that normally I like the sensation is that gravity is really much stronger than normal beneath my feet no matter where I step. Maybe it is because a year ago my mother died that all of this feels remarkably worse. It is not that being a depressive is anything new in my life it's just that now more than normal I am driving everyone I know away with my persistent grouchy negativity. When just getting up in the morning is a tedious chore made of layers of difficult determination to break through whether it is finding clothes to put on or just getting downstairs to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Each little step that normally I would never think about becomes a battle of self determination against my brains way of perceiving my daily life routines. By lunch time I have exhausted myself with my battle with myself and the result is I am a mass of grumpiness and negativity. The funny thing is I have lived with this burden for as long as I can remember but maybe underneath it all I am an optimist because I always forget all about this burden of thought I must perpetually wade through just to do something. My mind can think and feel without acknowledging this condition and I can dream and plan as if I were liberated from this illness. Then when it comes time to act on something I have thought about I must confront the wall of depressive paralysis that I must first break through each time I want to accomplish something. What I want to accomplish might be as simple as reading one chapter in a book or making a meal of something I like to eat. The result is my life is one huge failure and that I am lonely and isolated in most situations. Then when someone like my partner or friends or dogs or what's left of my family back home want me to be there as it were I am battling my battle within my mind or recovering from the last one. This explains why I am a deplorable person to be around and why not surprising friends don't often come calling. It is times like these when being trapped within myself feels like a life sentence in prison and that suicide is just breaking out of the walls of this mental limitation. The Oblivion of Nowhere sets in and I feel lost within the global myriad of telephone poles alongside tarmac strewn with traffic lights and automotive exhaust. A world that is not safe for children to play in the street or for dogs and cats to run free - a world made up of imprisoned human lives in retail chains. The only dream that keeps me hanging on to life on planet earth is the hope that one day within my life time cars will cease to run and that commerce will subside like a bad plague.

 

Before That

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 12:08

We just got done watching 6' Under...
Before that I made pizzas.
Before that I took a nap.
Before that I had a cup of tea.
Before that I was on the bus.
Before that I was at my language school getting more kafka-esque linguistic based bullshit.
Before that I was on a bus.
Before that I was at home having a cup of tea.
Before that I was in bed,
which is where I am headed now.