Swing low, sweet chariot

On the plane home from Hawaii, Kevin and I had for a row-mate a hacking, sneezing, writhing mess of a man.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Kevin, just before take off. “I’m not contagious.”

Bull. Shit.

Kevin was sick all last week, and as usually happens, I developed the symptoms a week later. I am now a hacking, sneezing, writhing mess of a woman.

And I can’t stay home from work tomorrow because they are moving me to a new desk on Wednesday and I need to pack.

I think there should be a special section on the plane for sick people and crying babies. Or they should have to pay a fine. Why should those bastards get to torture the innocent with impunity?

Sorry, it’s the cough syrup talking.

i can haz cleen undees now?

A friend of mine sent me the link to Jezebel’s latest LOLVogue with a note saying, “May you pee your pants laughing before you are overcome with disgust at the Vogue fashion editors.”

LOL jezbel ur so funni ok bai

Technorati Tags: fashion, modeling, Vogue, anorexia, gynophobia

Because thirty-six years ago, “choice” was just another word for nothing left to lose.

I couldn’t find the place at first. I drove around and around, checked my directions a dozen times, but it wasn’t there.

At the spot where the clinic was supposed to be was a building that looked exactly like the 1970s-era apartments I lived in when I was a kid - the kind of building that looks like a motel, with stairways on the outside leading to each floor.

Not knowing what else to do, I parked and walked over to the building. The doors all had numbers on them, but no signs. Windows were closed.

I checked the suite number I had been given, then followed the doors until I found the one marked 213. It was tucked far back from the street. I tried the door handle. Locked.

I must have the wrong directions, I thought. I was just about to leave when I saw a sign in the lower corner of the window, so small you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it: Women’s Health Clinic.

I pushed the door buzzer and a woman’s voice answered, “Yes?”

“I’m here for an eleven o’clock appointment,” I said, and gave her my name.

The door knob clicked and I pushed it open. The waiting room was tiny, empty, and eerily silent. No patients wandered in and out. No sounds of sick kids crying in exam rooms or medical personnel talking in the halls. Not even any musak playing.

The rather grim-looking woman behind the reception desk looked up as I entered. She handed me paperwork to fill out and return. Soon a nurse called my name and we went through a door into the bowels of the clinic.

In another tiny white room with two chairs and a rack of literature, the nurse and I discussed the purpose of my visit. She asked me a few questions, but it was clear early on that I was well-informed and had made up my mind, and she didn’t try to dissuade me. She actually seemed a little relieved and I could tell she was skipping entire sections of a well-rehearsed speech.

Finally she explained the procedure to me briefly, then told me the doctor would see me now.

We went to a tiny exam room, where she handed me a paper gown and left. As I undressed, I looked around. The room seemed over-stuffed with furniture and equipment, but that was probably because it was so small. There was nothing unusual about the room’s contents, I thought, until I noticed the contraption in the corner.

It looked like an alien, with a dull green reservoir and a long tube snaking out the side, and I admit I did not relish the thought of playing Ripley.

The doctor entered a few minutes later. He was short and stocky, with dark hair and mustache. He spoke very little to me and made no eye contact. His movements were brisk and he performed his exam at lightening speed (compared to others I’ve had, anyway). He confirmed the diagnosis, turned on his heel and left.

I got dressed and after a few minutes, the nurse came for me and we went back to the reception desk so I could make my next appointment. I told Grim Lady I wanted to have the medical procedure.

“You are just in time,” she said. “One more day and you’d have to have the surgical.”

I nodded, remembering the alien.

She clicked her pen and scribbled on her calendar. “August ninth.”

I smiled at the irony. My birthday.

Grim Lady gathered up some paperwork and handed it to me. I took it and turned to leave.

“Wait, one more thing,” she said, handing me a bulky manila envelope. I looked at her quizzically, but she dropped her gaze and busied herself with her work.

As soon as the door shut behind me, I opened the envelope. Inside was a VHS tape labeled “From Conception To Birth, A Fetus’s Journey.”

On the way to my car, I dropped the tape into a street corner trash can.

—

Two days later, on my birthday, I came back to the clinic and got a shot in my hip. I returned a week after that for the final step: two tablets placed as close to my cervix as the doctor could get them.

As I sat up on the exam table, the doctor took me by the shoulders and for the first time, he looked into my eyes. I saw compassion in his.

“OK?” he said.

I smiled and nodded. He let go of me and walked out.

—

Not so long ago, the health care clinic I went to and the procedure I paid for were illegal. In a town like Salt Lake City, with its uber-conservative origins, they are still at risk of annihilation in some way or another.

A sobering thought for me, a thirty-something Seattlite who took for granted her shiny liberal bubble until she left it.

What would it be like to be an unhappily pregnant kid living in a community so filled with misogyny that its “women’s” clinics must be hidden to keep from being bombed?

What would it be like to go to work each day knowing that you could be shot at with jihad-like zeal by people who pledge to love thy neighbor?

What would it be like to be a doctor whose patients often have such guilt and fear that you must distance yourself from them, allowing only a brief moment at the end to show you care?

Today I’m Blogging For Choice in the fervent hope that these questions will someday soon be made unthinkable, just as 35 years ago, “Pregnancy or jail and possibly death?” was for me.

Never forget how precarious Roe v. Wade really is. Use your vote to make sure a woman’s right to sovereignty over her own body remains the law.

Technorati Tags: abortion rights, Blog For Choice

Little cancers everywhere

One of the reasons I haven’t been blogging as much lately bout “feminist” issues is because they depress me more than usual right now. ¹

The news is chock-full every day of misogynist happenings the world over. But sometimes, it’s the small things — the little cancers that fester in the wrinkles of a culture - that catch you off guard and have you reaching for a woobie and your fucket bucket.

For me, it started last autumn with this gem…

…which was followed up a few days later with this even more telling item:

At least this one has a head, and it even talks:

Her “bad mood” sayings include “Ow,” “Help, Help!” You know, because rape is hilarious. ²

These misogyny-in-humor’s clothing items must be all the rage, because a scant week later, this one crawled out of the same slime pit:

So forgive me if, in my weakened state, this commercial bothers me more than usual.

Subway, every time I pass you on the street, I’ll remember your message: that women’s sense of self-worth should be in direct proportion to her proportions. And I will laugh.

You know, because self-loathing is hilarious.

Technorati Tags: feminism, self-esteem, misogyny, gynophobia

1. Me ‘n Hillary, we’re just a couple of females dominated by our emotions. [↩]
2. posted by Jessica on Feministing.com, November 28, 2007 [↩]

Femme d’un certain âge

It’s noon on a Wednesday and I am standing in a cafe, ordering an espresso. It has not been the easiest of days so far.

I am tired, sick from my sinus infection, fresh from the doctor’s office where I’d received a prescription for antibiotics and was told I have low thyroid, iron and vitamin D deficiencies, an overworked immune system, and various symptoms of perimenopause.

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re just depressed,” my doctor warned.

As I wait for my dose of energy in a cup, I look around the cafe. I notice a dark haired older woman standing a few feet to my right. She is smartly dressed, smooth straight brown hair, refined in carriage yet relaxed. “A woman ‘of a certain age’,” I say to myself, remembering the delicate French euphemism. I wonder what she is doing today; how she fills her afternoons now that she is free of the nine-to-five hamster wheel; if she is happy.

The barista hands me my change and my receipt at the same time, and the receipt flutters to the floor. All at once, the woman beside me, a man behind me, and I bend down to pick it up.

The elegant woman gets to it first. As she hands it to me, she looks up into my eyes and smiles. No, truth be told, she grins. Her smile is so radiant and merry it startles me, draws me out of my cloudy gray world like a warm sun. It succeeds in provoking my own first genuine smile of the day.

La femme d’un certain âge, c’est moi… I hope.

I’m sick.

Sick as a dog, I tell you. Head hurts, fatigue, body aches, and today I’m losing my voice.

It may only be a matter of time before my fucket bucket gets used for something infinitely less sweet than candy.

Yet still I go to work because, well, there’s too much to do and I’m indispensable.¹

Thus the lack of quality posting this week and last. But never fear - I should be soon back to my uppity self because I’m going to the doctor tomorrow.

Yessir, I’m gonna put my foot down and say, “As a tax-paying American, I demand better living through pharmaceuticals.”

On the off-chance my doc won’t give me antibiotics, I know where I can score some of these:

They may not have been intended to treat physical so much as existential ailments, but I hear they still give you one hell of a good buzz. Triple that when washed down with a margarita.

Thanks to my dealer for the tip.

1. OK, I really just don’t want to use my vacation time on a sinus infection. [↩]

Yes, and not just About exercise.

Several months ago, I mentioned in a Buff Blog post how annoyed I get by magazines with articles like “Get a body like this in 4 weeks!” along side Photoshopped images of 10%-body-fat, surgically-enhanced professional fitness competitors.

“Do they think we’re stupid or what?” I ranted asked.

I stopped buying the mags and subscribed instead to a few About.com topics that promised to deliver by email the latest info and news on stuff like women’s health, nutrition, allergies, and gardening.

It’s deja vu all over again.

Consider the cutting-edge content of articles such as this one in today’s email from About.com Nutrition:

Why You Need To Eat
Your body and your brain tells you when you are hungry, but do you know why you need to eat? The foods you eat provide energy for daily activities, structural building blocks and the vitamins and minerals help keep all of your biochemical processes working. Here is an introduction to why your body needs good nutrition.

I’m going out on limb, but I’ll bet everyone out of infancy, let alone people who are seeking out news about nutrition, knows that eating food is rather important. And being the weight-obsessed culture that we are, the 80-bazillion TV shows and articles about health have made even the most uninterested of us aware of the value of “good” nutrition.

Yet somebody at About.com felt the world needed an article based on the nutrition chapter of their 6th grade biology book (”Calcium is best known as the mineral that is stored in your bones” and vitamins are the body’s “little helpers.”).

The articles I’ve seen for other About.com topics are rarely any better (did you know that there are medications, called antihistamines, to treat the symptoms of allergies?! Somebody call CNN!).

Granted, About.com is not exactly The New York Times… but it is an NYT Company, and it brags about being a top distributor of expert information.

Is this non-news really the kind of content the general public wants? Is the bar really that low, or does the media just really not want to work that hard?

And while we’re on the subject of work, are these writers paid for this stuff? I sure hope so. Because I can think of TONS of great topics upon which I can effortlessly expound:

The Primary Function of Deoderant. Why Your Houseplant Needs Water. What To Put In Your Car’s Gas Tank…

Where do I send my resume? On second thought, I’d rather work here.

Technorati Tags: fitness, health, nutrition, non-news

I want one of these so bad.

One of the reasons I don’t blog and email more is because I sit in front of a computer all day at work. As much as I love to write, my ass can only handle so much sitting.

This brilliant invention would solve all my problems!

I’m sure I can convince my employer to buy it for me; it’s ergonomically correct. It’s just like the chair and footstool they provided, only bigger, uglier and louder.

Or maybe I’ll get a doctor’s note. The health of Uppity’s ass requires special consideration. In fact, with just a little creative interpretation, I’ll bet the special needs of my ass are covered under the ADA.

Of course, this work station would also take up my entire cube plus about half of the one next to me (sorry, Lachlan), but it would be worth it for all the extra emails and blogging that would get done.

Technorati Tags: treadmill work station, Mayo Clinic, fitness, Americans with Disabilities Act, obesity

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

It seems lately I’m either having anxiety dreams (How did I manage to make it all the way to work without noticing I’m naked?) or surreal ones (Why are the ancient witchcraft spells written in spiral notebooks and kept in a Trapper Keeper?).

Last night’s dream, unfortunately, was one of the former. In it, I missed the Race for the Cure. But allow me to back up a bit.

Since I signed up early online, the Komen Foundation sent me my t-shirt and race bib in the mail which I received this weekend. The different race and walk groups have different colored bibs (paper numbers you pin to your shirt): blue for the women’s-only runners, green for the co-ed runners; and white for the walkers. Though I signed up for the co-ed run, the Foundation sent me a white bib.

Perhaps the volunteer processing the registrations remembered me shuffling across last year’s finish line. “Poor dear,” she said, reading my registration. “She’s all confused. I’m sure she meant the Walk.”

Yes, yes, I know. But human insecurity is not subject to pesky logic.

Anyway, if you’re sent the wrong bib, the only way to exchange it for the correct one is at a specific table of volunteers on race day. A wee bit of a challenge, given that there are approximately 8 million participants milling around pre-race, and almost as many tables.

So last night I dreamed that I got to the race and was unable to find the swap table. By the time I gave up and went to join the runners, the race had already begun - too late!

Oh the shame of it! What will I tell all those wonderful friends and family who donated money to Run Uppity Run? That it was actually Lie Uppity Lie?

Out, damned spot!

And speaking of family and friends, mine continue to amaze me. My donation tally has surpassed my expecations!

Love and gratitude to the latest donors:

• Lachlan
• J$ and Justin
• The Medical Ninja

Never fear, I won’t let you down. I’ll do the 5K whether I have to run, walk or crawl. Or lie. After all, these days you can Sleep in for the Cure®. Maybe that was what my dream was trying to tell me?

Technorati Tags: Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, dreams

Opus…c’est moi.

Remember a million years ago (the ’80s) when the Big Thing in American cultural fucked-uppedness was the shocking discovery that the majority of us were unhealthy and it was primarily because of our fatty diet? All of a sudden, everything was bad for us. Cheese was molten death. Salt was a heart attack in a shaker. Red meat was the devil’s instrument. Chocolate - well, might as well pack it directly on those hips.

And this was years before Fast Food Nation ruined the feces-riddled burgers at Mickey D’s for us forever.

Well, the 21st century equivalent of the destruction of our bodies appears to be the destruction of our home.

Seems like everything is bad for the planet. No longer can we blame the poor cows farting on far-removed farms for raising the earth’s temperature. Nope - the cow has come home to roost, so to speak. Our own mindless consumerism wastes our natural resources and contributes to ginormous landfills that choke the earth. Even basic things - like the car, grocery bags, light bulbs, overuse of hot water and heat - contribute to global warming.

I try to be as planet-friendly as I can.

I try not to buy a lot of stuff, but I know that toaster I dropped and broke is headed for the landfill.

I drive guiltily to work each day, as the last bus to Seattle leaves at O-dark thirty in the morning and a 12-mile bike ride twice a day would kill me.

Despite my best intentions, I forget to bring my enviro-friendly bag to the store and come home with another plastic sea mammal killer that will never biodegrade.

I think the invasion of American culture by giant resource-sucking corporations is terrible and I would campaign whole-heartedly against it…if I weren’t so addicted to my daily double-tall soy latte at the ‘Bucks.

At least it’s not a Barfuccino. I have my soulful boundaries, you know.

Technorati Tags: Opus, global warming, environmentalism, nutiritional health