Thought That Came Unbidden

Shakespeare’s plays were written for the masses. They’re filled with dastardly deeds, violence, sex, bawdy jokes, and people getting drunk and making complete fools of themselves. Pit audiences in Shakespeare’s day were known to throw rotten vegetables if they didn’t like the performances. Not exactly your decorous, Broadway theater crowd. Yet, some 400 years after the first publication of one of his plays (Titus Andronicus), his work is considered to be great art.

So, does that mean in 2416 people will consider Fear Factor to be great art?

Things I think about when I’m watching Jeopardy

If you don’t have one, do it now.

Really.

A few hours of being creeped out over thinking about your own death or incapcitation is worth it to avoid the possibility of nearly a decade of artificially sustained life, court battles, and revolting, last-minute, Congressional intervention.

Do it now.

Can’t pay? Download a form from your state for free.

Just do it now. Please.
[Read more…] about Living will

I admit it: I like cleaning house.

OK, that’s not strictly true. I get a certain amount of satisfaction from being able to stand back and look at my clean house. I certainly don’t relish dragging the toe-crushing cat killer around. But every time I clean I’m reminded of a probably-apocryphal story from a book about Ellis Island.

Immigrants who passed through the Island had to pass a series of exams — medical, mental, and legal — before being allowed to continue their journeys to the mainland of America. One anecdote tells of a woman who was being interviewed for mental competency. The interviewer reportedly asked her how she would go about scrubbing a set of stairs to get them clean; would she start at the bottom or the top?^* This woman is said to have looked her interviewer levelly in the eye, straightened up in her chair, and replied “I don’t come to America to scrub steps.”

After I left the treehuggers The Girlfriend was kind enough to support me for a few months while I found another job. During that time I became, in essence, June Cleaver. I cleaned the house. I tidied up. I cooked. I planned meals. I made sure everything was just-so. And deep down, behind my post-feminist squeamishness about being financially dependent upon someone else, I enjoyed it.

I liked the taking care. I liked the being able to plan things, to make a warm, welcoming home.

Having grown up in an environment where I was told I could be anything I wanted to be and that my sex shouldn’t be an impediment to achievement, something in me rebels at the idea that what I really want to do is make a nest.

And maybe that’s where feminism truly failed. Not in getting distracted by abortion rights (yes, control over your body is a basic freedom but it doesn’t matter how much control you have over your body if you’re still making 76 cents for every $1^** a comparably educated, comparably experienced man makes at the same job; money is power folks). Maybe where feminism really failed was in giving women the idea that in order to be complete they had to compete with men not merely that they should have the opportunity to compete with men on an equal footing.

^* The logical way to clean the steps is from the top to the bottom. Since you can’t stop water from running downhill, if you clean the bottom steps first you end up having to clean them again because the dirty water from the upper steps will run down onto them. If you start at the top the dirty water runs on to dirty steps below.

^** This is the current national average for the wage gap between white men and white women in the United States. It’s even worse for African American women (65 cents/$1) and Hispanic women (54 cents/$1). Source: “The Wage Gap.” Infoplease.

I try not to let the little things bother me. Despite all the “chicken soup for the soul” and “don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff” platitudes out there, letting small things eat away at you is the first step toward madness.

So, I’ve let go of getting irritated when people don’t exhibit manners or “common” courtesy. I’ve let go of getting emotionally involved in most causes; I’ll do what I can but I’m not going to hector my friends, or even random strangers, when they don’t toe the same line of principles.

I’m not going to let go of it when someone tells me I’m mentally ill.

Published in today’s Washington Post, Dear Abby’s column responded mostly well to a parent with concerns about a 14 year-old girl admitting being attracted to other girls. Abby encouraged this parent to examine his or her own attitudes toward homosexuality, and to seek out advice from other parents of gay or lesbian children (PFLAG, god bless ’em!). It was going great until this fabulous gem:

In addition to the booklet, the Children’s National Medical Center’s outreach program provides clinical mental health services and referrals to other knowledgeable professionals, a free monthly support group for parents and children, an online discussion group for parents, and a Web page with information for both parents and professionals.

Now just what in being a lesbian requires the assistance of a clinical mental health professional?

The Girlfriend insists that the advice was motivated by the fact that the rest of the world has a problem coping with gay men and lesbians. I’m more paranoid than that.

In a political climate where the conservative right chips away on a daily basis at individual freedoms, where the state of Virginia is considering not only an amendment to the state constitution to prohibit marriage between same-sex partners but has also taken the step of banning any sort of contractual agreements that mimic marriage regardless of the sexes of the contract signers, why should I attribute this sort of advice to anything but malicious motives?

I love my body.

I don’t say that very often, but I really do. Like most American women, my relationship with my physical person can be contentious at times, mostly due to the unreasonable expectation that my individual body live up to some mass-produced body image standards. Yes, I admit it, I’ve looked in the mirror and had those thoughts (my thighs are too big! where did all this body hair come from and how can I get rid of it? toofattoofattoofat) but right now I love my body.

I’m sick.

If I’m unlucky I get sick twice a year, usually around the change of season when DC’s weather does what DC’s weather does best: change. (if you dress for the afternoon, 50degF or 60degF, you freeze your proverbials off in the morning; if you dress for the morning you’re sweating through your clothes by lunch time). And it’s always the same, I feel crappy for four days, maybe a week, and then one morning I wake up with this toxic goo oozing out of my left sinus and down the back of my throat.

Some people hate to cough; some people can’t stand to be congested. If you ask when I’m in the throws of an untreated sinus infection I’ll tell you that self-dentistry is preferable to a sore throat.

It used to be that I had to wait for treatment and to deal with doctors who preferred to make someone suffer rather than do a simple lab culture; I got really good at lying (“Yes, it’s been about 10 days since I started feeling bad.”). Why is it so hard to believe that I don’t get viral infections? I mean, do I live in this body or do you?

Once I get my body what it needs to treat said bacterial infection, it proceeds to get well on a consistent, predictable course: first I feel immensely better simply because my throat has stopped hurting; next, the appetite comes back; third, I hit bottom again as the bacteria fight back and I compare simply having gotten treatment to not feeling perfectly healthy. Usually some where around day 4 is when I start to feel human again. I spend days 5-7 being eternally grateful for my health and vowing to do everything I can not to get sick again…ever.

Today is day 2 and I love my body.