Kanye is tweeting again, and it has me thinking a lot about Man’s dominion over Woman, something I admit I already ponder frequently. I love Kanye. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a work of genius. His Avril 14th sample in Blame Game, Runaway’s intro, the song with Bon Iver that he wrote for Kim. Even the Life of Pablo is incredible - his verses on No More Parties in LA are some of the best ever. I disavow the Nazi stuff but I can separate the art from the artist here.
My old boyfriend got Yeezy boots and then never wore them. They sat in our living room until he told me that he would give me fifty percent if I posted and sold them. It was the most annoying experience of my life; so many hypebeast ass loser 25 year old white guys messaged me trying to get me to reduce an already low price, asking for a million pictures, telling me they didn’t believe authenticity. It was a constant barrage of messages, none of them were pleasant. I eventually sold them to a guy in England, but when I told him what shipping cost he asked me to instead send them to an Aunt’s in Texas, which I did, and then he petitioned Paypal for a refund because I hadn’t sent them to his address. It was an irritating experience that made me never want to use depop again.
Did my boyfriend deserve to have dominion over me? He didn’t ask for it. He did sometimes tell me what to do; he told me to stop putting selfies on my instagram story, which I eventually did. He told me the clothes that he thought looked good on me, and would buy me things that the thought were flattering. Sometimes he told me I looked good in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, I wonder if this was his version of asking me to wear a burka or if it was an insane read.
When I think about someone having Dominion over me I feel relief. A benevolent figure telling me what to do, it sounds relaxing. There is an implicit lack of responsibility for Woman in this context, a clear guideline and expectation to be met. My life becomes no longer mine. This is why girlbosses feel the pull of the tradwife - submit, and be relieved of the responsibility of keeping yourself alive. But being a tradwife is hard, it is more than a full time job. Watching Ballerina Farm film herself making everything from scratch to feed her 15 children and large husband should make that clear. She films, she edits, a baby never leaves her arms. It seems that only someone with the discipline of a ballerina could do what she does, without the added aspect of filming it.
I wonder if the Mormons have increased their numbers thanks to Ballerina farm and Nara Smith and the rightward turn of young people. Mormons are very strange. They wear special underwear and get a planet after they die; they are friendly and don’t drink coffee but seem to have a lot of workarounds for their own rules, similar to the Jewish faith with its shabbos hacks.
There are too many What I eat in a day videos on TikTok. Everyone is trying to hit their macros, to show off their balanced meal with 75g of protein. “Here’s my protein lasagna. Let’s go. (throw onion in air, cut to it landing on the cutting board).” “One cabbage, sliced (snap, cut). 3 carrots, sliced (snap, cut).” Everyone fancies themself an expert, wanting to elucidate their own special way of intuitive eating, or how they don’t restrict but still lose weight, etc etc etc etc. It seems that we have lost the connection between our body and our mind; we need to “listen to our body” to eat well. But your body is YOU, your mind and your body are not saying different things, it is simply that you know one thing is good for you and one thing is bad for you.
The mind and body separation seems to be symptomatic of larger societal ills. If our mind and body are separate, where does our soul live? Modern culture has killed the soul. Jung spoke of this danger, and analysts trained in Jungian thought seek to rebuild one’s connection to the soul. Marion Woodman said “kill the imagination and you kill the soul. Kill the soul and you're left with a listless, apathetic creature who can become hopeless or brutal or both.” Our What I Eat in a Day videos may save us if we use them as creative devices, but the problem there is that creativity is destroyed for the desire (or need) to make money, to get engagement, to have our daily mastications provide for us. Can something truly be a creative project if we need it to live?
Submission, surrender … it offers its own freedom. To live knowing your place, to not be constantly striving for different or better, to accept all as it is all the time. It’s philosophically different from letting things happen to you. Submission takes effort, it is active in a way, a choice you can make. Only in resistance does it become imprisonment. Dominion and Submission are also just beautiful words. “God’s Dominion” conjures imagines of beautiful fields in the Cotswolds.
“How was she to tie herself to a man without permitting him to imprison her? And was there some means of acquiring things without those things possessing her?”
“Imagine: always having someone beside you, never knowing solitude. - Good God! - not being with myself ever, ever. And being a married woman, that is, a person with her destiny all mapped out. From then on all you do is wait to die. I thought: not even the freedom to be unhappy is preserved because you are dragging another person around with you. There is someone who is always observing you, who sees your every move. And even the weariness of living has a certain beauty when it is born alone and desperate - I thought. But as a couple, eating the same bland bread every day, watching your own defeat in the other person’s defeat… All this without considering the weight of your habits reflected in the other person’s habits, the weight of the common bed, the common table, the common life, preparing and threatening the common death.”
Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector
I have been thinking about the ocean a lot, I want to put my feet in the cold sand and swim far out. I miss the country, gardens, and fresh air. I look forward to the crocuses and snowdrops. I want to plant tulip bulbs and herbs, iron linen tablecloths, finish my novel, and have tea ceremonies with flowery oolong and deep grassy green tea poured over a frog tea pet. I want to study, to be devoted and deeply content.
My favorite thing that I have made recently is Chili Colorado. I use this recipe as a guide but reduce the amount of meat. I use a variety of dried red chiles, soak them in salt and hot water, drain them, then add more salt, hot water, and distilled white vinegar and blend. I add a 12oz can of crushed tomatoes to increase the nutritional value, and serve with rice, cheese, green onions, and greek yogurt. Stewed meat is so comforting, and this spicy stew is very easy and doesn’t require beer or wine. I wonder if Bianca cooks for Kanye, if she ever did. I find her very beautiful but don’t want to see her pussy out.
