Think Weird Thoughts

2012: Already kicking 2011's ASS

2012-01-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Within hours of 2012 beginning, I was getting laid. I highly recommend it. It was pretty awesome.

I spent January 1st mostly hungover and got nothing done. On the 2nd, I packed up, drove Loki to my aunt and uncle's house, and then went to the airport. I spent the week in Ft. Collins with one of my best friends, and it was a shitload of fun. Now that I'm home, I've been pretty busy, too. I was in the lab on Tuesday and today (and will be in the lab tomorrow as well); I unpacked and cleaned and did laundry and picked up Loki on the night I got home; I taught a science lesson to my mom's students; and I've seen my boy and made most of my weekend plans. Phew!

But now it's time to think about what's going to go down this year. Because shit, I'm bleeding money and my legs are all, "WAIT RUNNING ARE YOU SERIOUS."

So, here's what I need to get done.

1) Get my shit together to start the semester

This seems pretty basic, considering how quickly I got my shit together last semester. But I need to figure out my schedule, which is tough when I might be switching classes (and I picked my teaching sections based on my current schedule). I need to keep plenty of time to get to my rotation labs this semester, and I need to have time for PT. I also need to get my calendar and inbox ready to fucking go, and organize my note-copying binder.

2) Running

I still need to go to PT, but I have the okay to start running on my own. So why haven't I? I could say it's because I was in Colorado, or because I'm busy, but I know it's not hard to find time for running. Tonight was a bit of a question mark for most of the day, but judging from my brain deadness right now, and the shit I have to get done for lab meeting tomorrow, I think I'm going to have to wait till the weekend.

3) Insurance -- NO

I have to yell at Aetna for refusing to cover some of my physical therapy for stupid reasons. I've been putting it off. It's not good.

4) Fix my finances

I am not in financial trouble, but I have to reduce my spending and be smarter about my saving, or I am boned. I now have something fun I want to save up for, plus I love buying clothing and shoes, but in order to do this, I need to make sure that I do the following things:

- Budget like a boss: If I don't plan out my budget, I can't stick to it. Sounds obvious, but really.
- Eat out less, cook more: Another obvious one, but one that's more difficult to put into practice when you have trouble predicting last-minute meal invitations. And it's difficult when you don't have room in your bag for a lunch bag.
- Stop letting food go to waste: I should think about methods to break this habit. Maybe I can't go grocery shopping until everything I bought last time is gone? This would require me to eat easily spoiled foods ASAP, and would also require me to keep a list of what foods I have (the neurotic side of me finds this incredibly appealing, while the lazy side of me is like, "WHY"). I'd have to point out the difference between something like sugar or flour or popcorn, things that last a long time and are not used that frequently.
- Change Comcast subscription to internet without digital cable. I understand we need NESN (well, I don't need it anymore), but we do not need digital cable, and it's costing us $130 a month. What.

And now, things I did last year (or last semester) that I want to continue to to:

1) Pick out clothes in the evening, shower/hair/make-up in the morning:

I finally started getting compliments in 2011 for how I dressed and how I did my hair and make-up. At first, the compliments came in when I would go out clubbing, when I was TRYING to dress fashionably and have my hair and make-up look badass awesome. Then, when I started grad school, it was a regular thing. It made me feel much less stressed, knowing what I would wear when I woke up in the morning, and I feel great about myself.

2) Getting shit done before it's due and studying for tests:

This didn't really occur to me to do in college for some strange reason. I would wait till the last minute to do any work, even though I was doing nothing except watching TV, dicking around online, and chatting with friends. I didn't actually have something better to do than my work, but I acted like I did. And when I studied, after spending the lectures half-asleep (or not going) and taking awful notes, I was under the impression that if I "went to class" (again, half-asleep or absent) and "took notes" (which were horrible), and I didn't ace the test after flipping through the textbook the night before, I must be bad at the material. Yeah. I'm glad I've broken this habit.

3) Taking care of my body:

It's not just that I had surgery in 2011. It was that I had a problem, and I made damn well sure it got fixed. I'm excited to be running again, which will help me make my body stronger. I've been taking better care of my nails, hair, teeth, and skin as well.

4) Make new friends, but keep the old:

At least, to an extent. I like keeping in touch with people, and I like making new friends as well. I suppose this happens almost yearly, but I want to keep it up.

5) Keep my room clean(ish):

As many of my friends know, when my room gets messy, it's not just because I have some clothes on the floor, or I didn't make my bed, although both of those things are often true. It means that I haven't cleaned Loki's cage in a while and there are seed hulls everywhere, and that empty food bowls/containers are on my bed, and empty bottles of soda and empty bags of chips are in my trash. Yes. But I've been better about it. Maybe it was all the times I thought I might get laid (or all the times I did). WELL THEN.

So, we'll see how 2012 goes. I hope it's great.

Yearly New Year's Survey

2011-12-19T14:36:00.000-08:00

So, I fell off the blogging wagon. WHOOPS. Anyway, here's the yearly survey. There is no #22, so no, I didn't skip it.

2011 was ... full of highs and lows, and not many in-betweens. I'm glad to see it go.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Got an A in a university-level science course. No, really. And I actually worked for it, too.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Same as every year, I don't really make solid resolutions, and then I don't keep 'em.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Auntie Dora, my great aunt, died at the age of 105.

5. What countries did you visit?
None.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Laundry in my apartment.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1st, February 25th, May 14th. June 12th. July 11th. July 27th and July 28th.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Got into graduate school.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Let's not talk about this.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Compartment syndrome! Got my legs cut open.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A new mattress. OMG.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Amber's. You know why.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
All republicans. And that other person.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, food.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Starting graduate school. My upcoming trip to Colorado.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Reconstructing Science.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder.
ii. thinner or fatter? 20 lbs lighter.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer. Whoops.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Studying, cleaning.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Staying up late (still). Eating, spending money.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Aunt and uncle's house for dinner, as usual.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Yes.

23. How many one-night stands?
365, baby.

24. What was your favourite TV program?
Bones, Castle. STILL. I'm clearly a sucker for the sexual tension.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Emperor of Maladies.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Adele.

28. What did you want and get?
Got into graduate school.

29. What did you want and not get?
Let's not.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I think the only movie I saw this year was Harry Potter. Whoops. Did I not see anything else?

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25. I taught in the morning, went to class afterwards. After office hours, I did some shots with my friends before going to our second class. After I got home, I went to dinner with my mom, and then I met up with my friends for drinks. It was a great birthday.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?
RUNNING.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I had one! Um, clean, comfortable, and chic.

34. What kept you sane?
Netflix, Loki, Amber, Michelle, Scott.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Dan Radcliffe, just so you know, I'm ALWAYS available if you're interested.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Is there one that doesn't? I'm a socialist feminist shrieking harpy.

37. Who did you miss?
Lady. That other person.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
CM/MCBB/EBE first years!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
When you know something is a bad idea, you SHOULDN'T DO IT. And you really should NOT do it multiple times either.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
Cause I like to keep my issues strong
It's always darkest before the dawn

Quarter life

2011-09-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've posted about how my birthday today is not going to be quite the celebration I'd hoped due to the horrific execution of Troy Davis in Georgia. Now, I want to post about how, well ... I'm twenty-five.

It's weird to think about how much my life has changed over these twenty-five years. I remember when I was a kid, I had ... no friends. I was teased a lot, and I don't know why. I've never been super cool by any standards, but as a six- or seven-year-old, I'm really not sure I was terribly uncool. I mean, yes, I was hugely bossy, but I don't think I was being teased for that.

And then we moved, and I made friends for the first time. Many of these people I'm still friends with today. All of us have changed a lot, and yet we're still together.

I went through weird phases with clothing. When I was young, I loved wearing pink, and I loved wearing skirts and dresses. Then I switched gears; I cut my hair to my chin and refused to wear skirts, insisting that my favorite color was orange. I didn't want to be a boy; I just didn't want to be a girl either.

In late elementary school and early middle school, I dressed extremely unfashionably, even for the late nineties. I mean, really, really, really unfashionably. Even throughout high school, I struggled to find a way to dress that I loved. I went through my punk phase (giant Hot Topic pants and everything), and then settled on boring. Experiments in fashion failed frequently. It wasn't until this past year that I've really put myself together, to the point of receiving actual compliments on my outfits. Huh.

My love life has had its ups and downs. First was the epic crush I had on a friend who had a crush on me. The crushes faded, returned, faded, returned, etc., never turning into anything, until we grew apart (or fell apart, more accurately). My first kiss was at camp, as was my second. My first boyfriend was a fellow musician, a member of the same Boston groups as I was. Looking back, I see how UNserious we were, but when I was sixteen, I felt like he was totally perfect for me. Our break-up threw me into a tailspin, and was the catalyst that brought me to therapy.

My first huge relationship was in college; it was with this boyfriend that I had sex for the first time, and learned how difficult it can be to balance principles with practice. The relationship ended in a huge emotional mess, and it took me almost a year to pull myself out and move on. It was then that I finally started dating for the first time, and even when dates sucked, I enjoyed it.

About a year later, I started dating my most recent boyfriend. It started out with boring dating, became a moderately interesting relationship, and then fizzled. I still had a tough time when it ended, but moving on was much faster and easier, especially when I realized that there was so much I was ready to give, and that I deserved someone equally giving.

Finally, I learned not to hook up with friends.

My heath has also done some weird-ass shit over the years. From PCOS to idiopathic hives and angioedema to ulcerative colitis to compartment syndrome ... it's been pretty ridiculous. Right now, it looks as if I might be emerging from this mess with my health intact. PCOS seems to have ... well, no impact anymore. I do have my LOVELY acne back, now that I'm off the pill, but so much of my weight gain was from the pill that I don't think it was fair to think that my PCOS was somehow in full force because of my weight all these years. Meanwhile, my periods are coming somewhat regularly, or at least every 35 days or so. Compared to before the pill, this is unprecedented. I used to go months without a period. So I guess ... it's gone?

Hives and swelling haven't reared their ugly heads, although I know that going off my antihistamines will change that. I was having some mild hives along my waistline, from the pressure of my belt, but I realized that my Zyrtec had expired several months before. New Zyrtec and POOF, hives were gone. But they're so well under control, I feel as if I'm finally free. I just have to take an over the counter pill. That's easy.

Colitis came back last summer and lasted about six months, but hopefully that's the end of it. I've been fine since January. And compartment syndrome? Well, that'll either be cured or not. We'll find out in a few weeks, when I can run again.

My professional life is so much different than I ever could have expected. Wasn't I going to be an artist? An animator? A flutist? A veterinarian? A farmer's wife? Even in college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I still don't know what I want to do, but the difference now is that I'm getting my PhD. I never thought I would do that until maybe a year and a half ago. And here I am, in a program at BU, still in Boston.

My family circumstances have also changed. I went from being super close to my siblings, in a home with two parents, to living with just my mom and sister while my brother was at school, to living on my own and not speaking with my dad or his new family. My relationships with my siblings are ... complicated. It's a bit sad, realizing how far from ideal my family is. But at the same time, I still have a family that cares about me, that supports me.

I lost Lady, our dog since I was seven years old, back when I was twenty-one. I didn't think she would necessarily be around when I was twenty-five, but losing her was still one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Our bird, Kiwi, died when I was sixteen, and I didn't know how to mourn. Now, I have a beautiful parakeet, Loki, who is endlessly adorable and entertaining, and while sometimes I just want to bite his head off, he's very sweet and loving.

Didn't I used to want to own a lion? Yes.

Speaking of which, my obsession with the Lion King faded with time and was replaced by a similar, albeit more intelligent obsession with the Legend of Zelda video game series. My favorite TV show went from the Simpsons to That '70s Show to House to Friends to Scrubs to Bones. Somehow, I'll still watch any episode of Forensic Files that's on. My musical taste started with the Goo Goo Dolls ... and is still Goo Goo Dolls-centric.

I didn't know how INTO politics I'd be at my age now. I'm open about being a feminist and an atheist, two things which were absolutely not always true. I'm working every day to check my cis, white, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical privileges. I'm so liberal, it hurts being an American right now. My first time voting, I voted for Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election. We all know how that went.

When September 11th happened, it was maybe the third day of high school, and I was in class.

My best Halloween costume was when I had swine flu and stayed home as a "sick person." Okay, no, it was probably last year, when I was Hit Girl, but no one got to see :(

I will celebrate my birthday by teaching lab, going to my classes, and holding office hours. Then I'll have dinner with my mom and go out with classmates. Friday, I'll go to my classes and then go out with some friends. Saturday, I will do work and laundry, and go to a friend's party. And Sunday, I will have lunch with my grandparents and then be surprised by my childhood friends.

And hopefully, in another 25 years, I'll look back and think, "Wow, look at what's changed and what hasn't!" It's sort of inevitable, isn't it?

Birthdays and deathdays

2011-09-21T21:08:00.001-07:00

On the evening before my 25th birthday, at 11:08pm, Troy Davis was executed.

There's a lot I'm feeling about this. I'd rather not go into tons of details about the case, which are widely available through online news and Wikipedia. The gist of it is that Troy Davis was tried and convicted in the murder of a policeman in 1989 based on witness testimony, and he was sentenced to death. One of the witnesses was a suspect in the same case, and seven more out of the nine total have recanted their testimony, citing police pressure as the reason for their testimony.

I have never felt good about capital punishment. I don't quite see how it actually makes any sense. Perhaps if we were absolutely sure of someone's guilt, with no evidence suggesting otherwise, overwhelming evidence suggesting truth, and no sign of remorse on the part of the person convicted, then maybe, maybe, I'd say ... "Maybe." Because even then, what good does it do?

The person murdered is still dead. Capital punishment is purely for revenge. "You did this, and now I'll make you pay."

So what happens when we're not absolutely convinced of guilt? In the case of Troy Davis, the people with the power to stop his execution acknowledged the lack of evidence for his guilt. They acknowledged it and didn't do anything about it.

His execution was scheduled for 7:00pm, but he sat on the gurney, with the needle in his arm, for hours, waiting for the US Supreme Court to save him. They did not. And no justice dissented. Before tonight, I considered Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be something of an idol for me. Now, I'm just too shocked to even process the complete lack of dissent.

And that was the night I went from disliking the death penalty to actively working to abolish it. I don't know what's so different this time; I've already known I've disliked capital punishment, but really didn't DO anything about it. But something's changed. Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I have friends and acquaintances who have been sharing and retweeting the heck out of this case. Maybe it's because I'm no longer ignorant about so many issues.

Or maybe it's because those people in power, people who had the ability to grant clemency, knew there was doubt as to Davis' guilt. They acknowledged there was a good chance he was innocent. And they murdered him anyway. They did it anyway.

Meanwhile, I've turned twenty-five. I've had an extremely difficult week so far; major family illness, news of a friend's imminent deployment overseas, and now the government-sanctioned murder of a man who was likely innocent. I've been missing someone whose friendship I lost this summer, and I've been struggling to take care of my legs. All in all, I feel much, much older than twenty-five.

And this morning, I have to teach biology to some first-year students, many of whom might not even be aware of what happened last night. It's so strange.

It's difficult that I've just started my PhD, and now I want to run off and get my law degree so I can fix our broken justice system.

Two towers, ten years

2011-09-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

It is really weird to be in my apartment this weekend, reading textbooks and papers, and realizing how much time has past. Not only that, but it's unnerving to think how the course of my life and the lives of all Americans have been irreversibly affected by one major event ten years ago.

I have actually been dreading this day for about eight years, which is the day I realized that September 11th, 2011 was going to be a day full of politics, where my identity American, ten years later, would still be questioned. All throughout this August, my heart sank as I saw all the retrospectives. It's not that I'm against remembering, against mourning those lost, against uniting as a country. It's that I'm angry at the way that this event has been used, much like a weapon, to tear apart the country I live in and give political leverage to men and women who would see the lives of so many Americans destroyed. And I'm not talking about terrorists.

Ten years ago, I was fourteen years old, and it was one of the first days of high school. When the World Trade Center in New York City was struck by planes and collapsed, I was in early morning classes. I left band class to find that there were TVs set up all around the school. We saw the smoke and flames, but like so many people, we had no idea what was going on. No one knew how this had happened. No one knew why. Even worse, no one was quite sure exactly what had even happened. And, to make matters even worse, I remember the very, very real possibility that other cities would be targeted, including Boston.

I remember watching the news a lot for the next several weeks. I remember that the radio that night played zero music; there were just people talking about what had happened. One young man called in to say that his father had died in his office at the Pentagon, and that he would avenge his father's death by joining the army and destroying the people who had done this. I remember flipping through channels one evening to find that nearly every single channel was showing a memorial concert.

In this one horrible, terrifying day, I feel like our country was destroyed. We have not been able to unify in the wake of tragedy. We were not able to effectively punish the people who did this. Instead, we're in ruins.

We have politicians who do not help us, who instead have petty arguments, abuse their power, and ignore their constituents. These are the kinds of people who would deny healthcare to the first responders, who are dying because they were heroes. Poorly executed and illegal wars have bled us dry financially. These politicians, through their decisions, have killed innocents, illegally imprisoned suspects, and tortured people. Instead of unifying our country, and standing up and defying those who hurt us, we're vilifying entire groups of the population for not being appropriately "American." Our consumerism still permeates every facet of life. Instead of being able to say to al-Qaeda, "You were wrong about us, and we will, as a whole, avenge the deaths of those you took from us," we have fought amongst ourselves, we have done a disservice to those who died, and we have validated the justifications in the eyes of extremists.

It's been ten years. Ten years ago, I was a freshman in high school. I believed I would one day be a professional flutist. I had no sexual experience, I lived at home with my parents, and even "college" was only a distant milestone. I had no politics, only strange feelings as I watched the coverage and mourned the loss of life and our collective sense of safety.

Ten years later, I'm a first-year again, this time in graduate school. I haven't thought of being a professional mucisian in years, and am fulfilling my subsequent goal of becoming a scientist. I have sexual experience, as well as a desire to be involved in sex education; I am living in my third apartment, with three roommates, far from my hometown; my parents have been divorced for several years; and college feels like a distant memory. I am passionately political, and dismayed to see my feelings from ten years ago have been identified ... and validated.

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today, the Boston area is in the middle of some nasty weather from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, which started to hit yesterday afternoon. I actually slept through what I think was the worst of the Boston-area weather, at least according to the radar at Weather Underground. Right now, it looks a little rainy and pretty windy out. I haven't lost power, although I had some flickers about an hour ago.*

Right now, I think the most annoying thing about this storm is the "OMG SO OVERHYPED" reaction. I don't just find it annoying because of the political implications; I find it obnoxious because I'm really not entirely sure how the storm was overhyped.

Let's think about the Boston area, how much hype there was, and what's actually going on right now.

The MBTA decided to shut down today, after 8am. People were advised to stay indoors and not drive, unless leaving/driving was necessary. Coastal and low-lying areas were warned about flooding and advised to prepare for it. Folks planned in advance in case they lost power, or if they lost power and clean running water.

And what's going on? Trees are falling, lots of people have lost power, and there has been flooding in various areas. It is extremely wet, dark, and windy outside.

So, how was this overhyped? Yes, the storm weakened before it reached us (from a cat 1 hurricane to a tropical storm). But it's still here. And this isn't just a bad thunderstorm. And naturally, most of the people complaining online about the hype still have power. You're not hearing a lot from the people who've lost power; even if you have mobile internet, you're probably not going to want to waste the batteries when you're not sure when your power will be back on.

In NYC, the "omg overhyped!" reaction is even more unacceptable. Entire blocks in the city flooded. People died. That's not overhype.

And then onwards to the political implications. Because this isn't just that people crying "overhyped!" are fucking wrong. This is about the responsibility that government has to protect citizens.

No one knows exactly what will happen when bad weather hits. We don't know which houses will flood, or exactly which trees will fall. But it was obvious that the east coast was going to be hit with a major storm, and people needed to be protected. Governments made the right call and took steps to protect people.** If they hadn't, it would have been worse.

This is an example of government working, not an example of how government is useless or shouldn't bother itself with things like hurricanes. An example of when government does not work to protect people? Katrina. When Katrina hit six years ago, people were unprepared. Government was unprepared. And the death and destruction was absolutely devastating, not just because it happened, but because it could have been prevented or minimized.

So, the bottom line? If you got through H/TS Irene without losing power or having your life interrupted in any way, that doesn't mean in any way that the storm was overhyped. The storm wasn't overhyped, and because governments and people took the storm as seriously as they did, the storm isn't causing as much death and destruction as it could be.

* Had three more flickers just as I finished writing this post, around 1:45pm. GAH.

** An exception needs to be noted: there is no evacuation plan for prisoners in Rikers in NYC. Not just "there was no plan for this hurricane." There is no plan, period. While I believe that many people in that prison are in there for good reasons, that does not mean that it would be totes okay if a hurricane flooded the facilities.

Two miles omg

2011-08-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

I went out to dinner tonight with a friend of mine; we went to Burtons Grill and got the Restaurant Week menu. It. Was. AWESOME.

To get there, I walked about a half mile to the bus, and took the most almost all the way to the restaurant. On the way home, I still wanted to chat with my friend, who had decided to walk home. She agreed to walk with me if I chose to walk home, too, even though it was a bit out of the way for her. So I walked home, no bus. I didn't realize it, but it was a mile and a half walk home, not just a mile.

So I walked two miles today. And now I am absolutely exhausted! I've gone months without running and been able to get back on the horse fairly easily, but I've never gone this long without walking on a regular basis. Normally, I walk at least a mile every weekday, to get too and from work. So I guess I shouldn't be so surprised at how tired I am now. I could totally fall asleep right now. Yikes.

I won't, though; Loki is having too much fun running up and down my legs right now, having conversations with my big toenails. Not joking. It's very weird because he keeps walking over the part of my leg that's still numb. He takes great care to avoid the incisions; he's afraid of the left interior one, with the blister.

Oh, bird. But whatever. 'Cause I walked two miles today, suckahs!

Embodiment

2011-08-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about embodiment lately. Growing up in a culture that teaches women, from a young age, that they must work on their bodies endlessly, I came of age believing that I consisted of two separate entities. I was me, Stephanie, and I had this body that Stephanie was in. It's definitely a weird disconnect. It's not that my body was somehow unfamiliar to me. It was always that my body was a thing that belonged to me. It wasn't actually me.

I think a lot of messages women receive about beauty and appearance reinforce this disconnect. We're encouraged (in a heteronormative society) to want a man to love us for our brains, not our bodies. Some of us feel like "a thin girl trapped in a fat girl's body." Many of us look in the mirror and feel depressed that our external appearance isn't "correct," that it is not an accurate representation of who we truly are.

I struggled for years with these issues, and they linger in some ways. For example, as a diehard contact lens wearer, I'm sometimes surprised when I look in the mirror while wearing glasses, or if there are pictures of me in frames. Then again, as a diehard contact lens wearer, I'm quite unused to seeing myself in glasses. But spending years looking in the mirror and feeling surprised that I looked so much bigger than I felt--that was a problem.

I don't have a recipe for fixing embodiment issues, just a smattering of things that helped me. An avid doodler, I stopped drawing "myself" as slim. I started to check out online shopping sites that used plus sized models, even if I wasn't buying anything. I mentally checked myself any time I worried about looking "too fat." I would go sleeveless and remind myself mentally, several times throughout the day, that no one cared but me. I would wear clothing that made me feel awesome, instead of clothing that I thought would hide all of my horrible, terrible, unacceptable flaws. I started working on hair and make-up for fun, which switched my focus from "hiding and changing" to "decorating and enhancing."

I don't know if I'll ever completely destroy the disconnect, but it's a relief to lessen it significantly. I'm so much happier with myself and my life without the disconnect looming over me. And the funny thing is, as the disconnect lessens, as I take care of ME instead of MY BODY, I get more compliments on my fashion sense. Go figure.

So far, though, I've found two ways to erase the disconnect, at least temporarily. The first isn't that shocking--it's sexual activity. No matter how much my body weighs, or how large or small it is, no matter how insecure or not I've been feeling, sexual activity lets me be me, not just a mind and a body. The effect lasts for about as long as the encounter, usually going over slightly until I get distracted from thinking about it. I never feel "one" during sexual activity with a partner, and that's never my goal. I just love that I feel one with myself.

The second way to erase the disconnect is running. I guess running is similar to sexual activity in a lot of ways, and it's not surprising to me that both methods of erasing the disconnect are physical activities that make people feel good. But somehow, when I'm running, it's just me. Compartment syndrome didn't even bring the disconnect back; even though I knew the problem was with my calves specifically, it was still me, not my body.

I've been very ambivalent about my post-pill weight loss, and I've written as much on multiple occasions. I spent years trying not to obsess over my weight; obsessing over it only increased the disconnect. But now, like it or not, I'm losing weight, and I have no idea how much I'm going to lose before it stops, and what life will be like from now on. I like knowing how I function; I know that if I eat ice cream and don't take a lactase pill, I will feel like crap. So, what are the new rules for my weight? The old rules were easy: weight will go up about 5lbs a year forever, no matter what you eat, HAVE FUN.

As I've written about before, losing weight has benefits, even if I was happy and healthy before. This is a culture that treats fat people, especially fat women, like shit. So yes, I will be happy to not have as many people treat me like shit. But I don't like that my mom keeps obsessing over how "skinny" I look now. Yeah, I'm totally healthy, but she was excited when I lost weight from ulcerative colitis, and upset when I didn't lose weight while I had mono. It's not her fault; again, this is a culture that doesn't care about health as much as it does about fat vs skinny.

But the biggest downside is that the disconnect is returning. I look in the mirror and the person looking back isn't really me anymore. I look at my stomach, and it's not my stomach. My thighs aren't my thighs. My face isn't my face. My arms are still mine, only because they haven't changed. My calves have changed, but not from weight loss; I'll have to get used to my calves being floppy. But that's different; that's change I made intentionally, for reasons other than a disconnect.

The disconnect appears even when I'm not looking in a mirror. A lot of my clothing, especially jeans, fit differently now. Going to the grocery store today was so strange; the fabric of my clothes moved across my body so much differently than usual. My body, not me. There's the disconnect. Because after finally minimizing it, looking in the mirror and seeing me, moving around and feeling me, things changed, and right now, this isn't my body.

Embodiment is a tricky subject, but hopefully this resonates with some people. My goal is to see how far this weight loss is going to go, hit that plateau and maintain it, and get back to work erasing the disconnect as best I can. I don't want to be going through life trapped in my body. I just want to go through life as me.

Slowly but surely recovering ...

2011-08-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

I had my stitches out on the 12th. The appointment ended up kind of sucking. The fellow who did the follow up had zero sense of humor, and she also had no real advice for what to do with the huge blister that was intersecting with my interior left incision. She did feel some swelling that felt strange, so she sent me to have an ultrasound done to make sure it wasn't a clot. (It wasn't.)

The next evening, I had a great time at a friend's housewarming party. First time I was really out and about (and drinking) since surgery; we hung out and played Rock Band all night. Badass :D By the time I got home, though, three of my incisions were leaking, my calves, feet, and ankles had swollen pretty seriously, and I was in some pain. One evening of elevation fixed the swelling, though.

Since then, there's been a general pattern with my legs and incisions. My right leg looks pretty damn great; one incision looks amazing, and the other is 50% amazing, 50% a little sad looking, nothing serious. My right leg stopped discharging first, and I can shower and put antibiotic cream on it without either one getting pissed the fuck off.

My left leg hasn't been as happy. The left exterior incision was the leakiest when I had my stitches out, although it got its act together after three days or so. It looks a bit angrier than my right incisions, but it'll be okay. The interior left incision is a mess, though.

The blister intersected with the bottom of the incision, which has left that spot looking horrible. The skin doesn't look evenly sewn together near the top. A week after my stitches are out, the incision has discharge every time I shower or put antibiotic cream on it. The discharge isn't pus, at least it doesn't look like it. It's more like serum-y with a tinge of blood.

The most disconcerting thing, though, is the blister. Most of it did dry out; most of the top skin has already dried and broken off. The splotch where it was is light pink (not from infection, but just an exposed underlayer of skin), and it'll probably scar, but it's fine. It's just the center that's the problem. There's a little knot of scab material in the center, and then a weird yellow squiggle shape. The squiggle is not liquid or abscess; it's solid. My friend believes it's devitalized tissue, which is essentially dead cells and ECM. If that's what it is, I'll have to have it removed. The squiggle is not getting bigger or uglier, and so I'm going to wait till my next follow up to have it examined. My immune system is famously overreactive, so I'm hoping very much that it gets its ass into gear to heal my legs faster.

I also can walk easily now, without getting tired, and without any pain. I still take stairs carefully, but I put less and less thought into it each time. Unfortunately, my legs, ankles, and feet swell when I leave my legs unelevated for long periods of time, but it's easily fixed. My first PT appointment is in two days, yay!

Meanwhile, the unintentional weight loss saga continues. I've lost a total of 21 lbs, and I've lost about 5 or 6 lbs since I had surgery (Well, more like I was down 19 lbs two weeks after surgery, and it took my body another week to get down the last lb to -20). I've had a couple of people express some concern that I'm losing weight while lying in bed all day, but I'm actually not confused about it.

1) Now that I'm off the pill, I seem to be losing weight no matter how unhealthy I am anyway. I think the general gist of it was that while I was on the pill, lifestyle changes that should have led to weight loss did not. But the thing is, I STILL maintain those lifestyle changes; they're only kicking into effect now.

2) Healing takes energy. That sounds new-agey, so many I should add that when I say that, I'm imagining my ATP synthases spinning wildly.* My body is more active right now than it was pre-surgery while I sit around and do nothing (except fuck around online all day).

3) I am not sitting around eating candy and chips all day, although I admit that I HAVE had some candy and chips this month.** For two weeks, my mom bought my groceries, so they were almost completely healthy foods, and then last week, I was trying to make the most of what I had so I didn't have to go to the grocery store--canned fruit, cream of wheat, frozen vegetables, etc. As much as I'd love to eat nothing except homemade mac and cheese all day, every day, I haven't been doing that.

4) I am such a lazy person. That's why people are surprised that I love running (and that I'd actually have surgery just so I can run again). I am so lazy that I'll often not eat because the kitchen is too far away. With my legs the way they are, this laziness has been seriously augmented. I also only went to the grocery store for the first time today. It's hard to eat like crap when you're too lazy to go out and actually BUY crap.

5) Now that my stitches are out, I have been a bit more active. I've already been doing arm exercises since my surgery, but now I'm walking around the apartment more, making short trips to Walgreens (not just for candy--mostly for more gauze and bandages), cleaning, and going out with friends.

In summary, I am definitely not starving myself in an attempt to say, "HA! Losers! I lost weight while lying in bed all day! It's easy!" Because, to be frank, it bothers me that I'm still losing weight while lying in bed all day. I hate not knowing exactly how this weight loss is going to work. How long should I wait to buy jeans that fit? Can my dresses be altered no matter how much weight I lose, or will it be impossible to take them in enough if I lose too much weight? Will I gain everything back if I start carb loading for running? ARG?!!

* COOLEST THING EVER

** I am in my mid-twenties. You bet your ass I will sometimes have candy for breakfast. Two days ago, I made brownie batter from scratch as a snack. What's the fun of being an adult if you can't do any of the things you dreamt about as a kid?

Slightly improving

2011-08-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

Life's been much of the same, leg-wise, all weekend. I had a friend in town, and I let her crash with me, which was pretty fun. It definitely broke up a lot of the monotony I've been dealing with for the past week! But alas, she's gone home. My mom visited me again today, bringing lots of groceries with her, but she won't be back till Wednesday (we're going to try to get me over to her apartment--sans Loki--then).

The good news is that I seem to finally be improving. I still have the world's saddest limp, but ankle pumps are getting easier, my limp is less pronounced, and I have much less pain. I'm starting to hurt myself from walking, though. My left knee is constantly getting hyper-extended from the position it's in when I limp, and I have definitely twisted my right leg twice. The latter wouldn't be so bad, but since my leg is far from healed, it's pretty painful and I'm sure it just adds more inflammation.

I also haven't had a fever since Friday evening, for the first time since the weekend right after surgery. It's definitely nice, only because fevers make me feel really shitty (not because a fever after surgery is necessarily a bad thing).

But I'm definitely ready to stop being stuck in my bed. My back (both my shoulders and my lower back) are stressed from being in bed all day, every day, I'm sick of my apartment, I'm tired of not seeing my friends who haven't offered to visit (this is not a hint; there really isn't anything to DO here, trust me). I want to take a real shower VERY badly, and I would wear something other than a tank top and sweat shorts, but that's really the best thing to wear when I'm stuck in bed all day with bandaged calves. I have the immense pleasure of having my period right now, which is a lot more obnoxious when I'm stuck in bed and can't take a real shower.

As much as I love Loki, and I know he's thrilled to have me (and other people) around a lot, I really need some time away from him. It's good that he can fly around, since I can't really get up a lot to deal with him, but that means he refuses to spend a lot of time in his cage. Right now, it's almost midnight, and he's sitting on top of his cage, SCREAMING for no reason (and by "no reason," I mean, "because I won't let him sit on the plastic tumbler full of water that's on my nightstand, since he has totally knocked it over in the past, and I can't deal with that right now, Loki, OKAY?").

I am so, so ready to move on and start physical therapy, because I am so bored and tired of being stuck in bed with these legs.

And they're finally off!

2011-08-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Last night was a bit rough. My fever came back and went up to 100.8, which still isn't an emergency, but was extremely uncomfortable. I took some Tylenol and monitored my temperature as it slowly went down. It was a bit gross being awake for my fever breaking, since I got all gross and sweaty. But I felt better afterwards. Walking had been just as difficult.

Today has been one week since surgery, which meant it was time to take off the original dressings. Eeee! My mom came over, and we slowly peeled away the ace bandages. I knew that there had been a lot of layers, but I still wasn't prepared for how small my calves would look when I got them all off. There were so many layers of bandage and gauze, I couldn't believe I could feel the ice packs through all of that. I also understood why they had no problem sending me home with fresh incisions. There was no way anything was getting through all of those layers.

First, we did my right leg. The first incision we uncovered looked fine, and we didn't even notice that much additional bruising. The second one was similar, but there was some old blood on the gauze that was directly over the incision.

My left leg was worse, as expected. Both incisions had some dried blood on the gauze, but what was worse was that directly below one of the incisions (below as in closer to the ankle, not deeper in the skin underneath the incision) was a HUGE dark red blotch, with an even darker center. We immediately panicked and called. In the meantime, we wrapped the leg up anyway. We didn't notice anything else weird, just the scary blotch.

Without the old bandages, my legs look so much smaller. The discoloration isn't that bad, not as bad as we were expecting. The compression from the bandages must have been ridiculous because even right now, a couple hours later, my (swollen) ankles look huge against my strangely regular-sized calves. The compression also has left my legs very, very numb. When I called and left a message for my surgeon with his assistant, the assistant asked me if the blood-colored patch hurt. I admitted to her that my whole leg was kind of numb, and she replied, "Oh, yeah," indicating that numbness is completely normal. Besides, I would be shocked if it weren't; I did everything right this week, so if it's because the wraps were too tight, that's they're fault. But compression is good; it improves circulation. So I think the tightness was intentional, and the feeling is slowly returning to my calves.

Walking isn't easier. While the light bandages are much easier to walk with, the numbness is fading enough that the pain is worse. Arg. Most of the pain is in the deeper part of my calves, which is unsurprising, but unpleasant. I can't wait for it to fade; I miss being able to walk!

I am one (figurative) step closer to being able to run! Next week (on Friday), my stitches come out, and I can start physical therapy. One week down, 5-11 weeks to go!

More of the same

2011-08-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Today isn't much different from yesterday, minus the AWESOME THUNDER STORMS. Say what you will about New England weather, but it really never gets old.

I woke up around 6am with lots of stiffness and pain. And by lots, I really don't mean lots, I just mean that it's not as great as my first couple of days. I left Loki uncovered, so he woke up when I did. I got up to pee and start my ice pack usage for the day, and Loki moved to follow me. He was a complete brat about it, shrieking and flying and being annoying. While I was getting my ice packs ready, he decided to fly back to my room, but I had closed the door to keep the cool air inside. So he sat on the floor in the hallway, crying, waiting for me to get him.

I share that little hallway with one roommate, and let's remember that it's 6:15 in the morning on a weekday. Loki wouldn't shut up, so I leaned down a bit to get him to jump on my finger, and my right calf didn't appreciate it. It felt as if my stitches were being pulled out of the exterior-side incision. Fuck. After discussing things with a medically-inclined friend, I figure that my incision oozed a bit and got stuck to the gauze, which isn't an emergency. It just hurts like a motherfucker. My left leg is much the same, still worse than the right leg. My left ankle is in rough shape, too, very swollen. No fever yet today.

I covered Loki up, but couldn't fall back asleep for the rest of the morning. I finally uncovered Loki and changed my ice packs around 10, which is around when I did finally fall asleep, until about 2. since then, I've been mostly awake, taking very quick naps here and there. I had dinner about an hour ago, but I'll probably nap again as soon as I bring my dish back to the kitchen and switch ice packs again.

Two more days till the dressings come off! It's going to be gross.

Slogging along

2011-08-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today continued in the same vein as yesterday did. Definitely feeling drained, partially because I'm just lying in bed all day, and partially because my body is still a bit shocked from surgery. My legs are starting to get very uncomfortable. I keep readjusting my pillows so my knees aren't locked, but I keep getting the sensation that they're locking anyway.

The pain and swelling in my right leg is significantly decreasing. The only pain I get right now feels like it's from stitches catching onto my bandages, although it's hard to tell. It's an unpleasant pain, but I try to avoid it. The swelling is down considerably, or at least that's what it looks like to me. It's hard to tell with all the bandaging!

My left leg is not doing as well. It feels worse in general, and the pain makes it hard to walk somewhat normally. Because my right leg is so much better, I walk with a limp, and because of how bad my left leg is, I just sort of slowly shuffle towards my destination. The swelling isn't any better, and even though (again) it's hard to tell what's going on, it looks bigger than my right calf does.

Last night, I felt some twinging pain in my left calf and called the on-call doctor. He reassured me and explained that if I had a blood clot, I wouldn't really know about it or be able to do much about the clot on its own. Instead, he told me to look out for a racing pulse and shortness of breath. I asked about the trouble urinating, and he said that was normal on oxy. I didn't mention bruising or fever, like my mom wanted, because I know both things are normal. My fever was a bit high (for me) last night, around 100.6, but it broke overnight again.

I slept most of the day, waking up to pee at 6:30 and 10am. I noticed some numbness in my left pinky and ring finger, but after talking with a few people, I know it's nothing serious, probably just from lying down since Thursday. My fever hasn't come back yet, but I also took more Tylenol this morning. We'll see if it comes back tonight or not.

I slept more, from 10ish to almost 1, and then I napped again before my mom came over around 2:30. I fell asleep again around 6 and woke up about 20 minutes ago. I mean, I know part of it is because I'm bored, but wow, I'm tired.

I hate my dreams on oxycodone. They're worrisome, even when they shouldn't be, and I end up waking up a lot and being confused. I actually woke up from this nap thinking that my lip was swelling up, and that one of my roommates had come into my room multiple times to lecture me on my Netflix usage in very condescending and inappropriate ways. Best part? The guy in my dream was just some made-up guy, not even one of my roommates.

I will NOT miss these dreams!

Better in some ways, worse in others

2011-07-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, my fever kept climbing, and I kept feeling worse and worse until I went to bed. I was otherwise in a good mood, and I'd spent a lot of time with my mom, talking about break-ups and school and life. I know that a low grade fever is fine, so I wasn't terribly worried, but even so, fevers do suck.

I prefer not to take fever reducers when I've got a fever. It's not that I don't want to feel better. I just like knowing just how sick I am; it's hard to monitor an illness when you're masking a symptom. So I went to bed with a fever hovering between 99.7 and 100.0.

I woke up at 5:45 in the morning feeling wretched, and as much as I love any chance to use that vocabulary word, it sucked. My fever was hovering around 100.4, my head was throbbing, and I just felt like crap. I caved and took one more oxycodone and two Tylenol. I also texted my mom to let her know, and went and got my ice packs for my legs.

About an hour later, I woke up feeling no better, but no worse. My fever was still going strong, so I just switched my ice packs.

I woke up around 8:30 covered in sweat, which was gross, but it meant that my fever had finally broken (confirmed by the thermometer). Yay!

I'm still dealing with a bad headache and fatigue; I suspect my fever will be back tonight. But my legs feel all right. A bit twingy and uncomfortable, but nothing unmanageable. My knees didn't end up locked over night, my feet aren't any more swollen. All in all, a good night for my legs.

Not much on tap for today. I need to rest some more because I didn't get a lot of restful sleep. My mom is going to come over again to watch a movie with me. Loki will do hilarious and annoying things. Predictable day!

Good mood fading a bit

2011-07-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Thursday and Friday both went so well. Saturday is definitely a let-down.

Last night, I decided that my pain wasn't bad enough for oxycodone while I slept, especially since I don't like sleeping while I'm taking it. So I just took some Tylenol, and some hydroxyzine. I should have adjusted my pillows better as well. I'd been making do with three pillows (one throw pillow, one standard IKEA pillow, and one giant king-sized pillow), but I had set them up badly before calling it a night.

I woke up in a lot of pain around 4:45 in the morning. My pillow arrangement had left my knees extremely hyperextended, and my feet and calves weren't elevated enough, leaving my ankles and feet very swollen and in a lot of pain. I took one oxycodone (difficult, since I was out of it and my vision was crap), readjusted my pillows, and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 8:20, not feeling much better. I added another large pillow to the pile to fix that problem, and then went to get ice for my legs. I should have iced my legs more on Friday, so I'm making up for it by icing them as constantly as possible today. I then took two more oxycodone.

I've been sleeping on and off the rest of the day so far. I got up to change my ice packs, and when I did that, I washed up (hair, face, body), put in my contacts, and changed into clean sweats. Walking around was exhausting, but it's good for my legs. There's a sizeable blue bruise growing on my foot, which I find amusing. My mom is a bit grossed out, but it's expected--just lots of fluid. It's definitely uncomfortable, but I guess it's turning the bandages into compression stockings. They're staying on very tightly! It's irritating, skin-wise and pain-wise, but I'm glad the dressings are staying on so easily. One less thing to panic about.

My mom is here with noodle kugel and some of her work for school. I will probably nap for a bit and then watch a movie with her. I'm trying not to eat too much (stuck in bed + no appetite), but I'm also trying not to eat too little (body needs fuel to heal + oxycodone).

The biggest downside to today, besides all the painful swelling, is Loki. He was a huge pain in the ass all morning, waking me up by slamming toys against the side of his cage and screeching at the top of his lungs. He knows when I'm sleeping or trying to sleep, and has known for a long time (since college), so this isn't a case of, "Oh, he doesn't know any better." I can tell he's a bit freaked out by the strange circumstances: mommy is home all week, her legs look funny, her mommy is around a lot, there are those scary crutches, etc. I wish he would be better at remembering, though, that when mommy is lying down with her eyes closed, SHHHHH.

UPDATE:

I was feeling a little warm, unrelated to the weather, so I checked my temp. Unsurprisingly, I have a low-grade fever (99.1). This doesn't mean that I have an infection, of course. My immune system is very aggravated right now from surgery, and fever is part of that system. Unless it goes up to 101.something, I should be fine. I'll just keep an eye on it, but it does explain the loss of the good mood a bit.

Hey, I had surgery!

2011-07-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a long post because I want to remember as much as possible about my surgery yesterday. Apologies in advance, all you tens of readers! Warning: I'm writing about surgery; while most of it isn't that squicky, some of it might be a bit TMI.

Wednesday night, I had some trouble sleeping. I had to sort of re-dump my friend earlier that evening, and although I hadn't pigged out before midnight, I was feeling extremely nauseous. I thought about throwing up so I could maybe sleep more easily, and ensure that there wouldn't be anything in my stomach come morning, but I decided I'd rather feel sick now than get dehydrated later.

I woke up around 5:30 and slept on and off until 6:15. I got up and went to the bathroom, and while I knew I could brush my teeth if I wanted to, I opted for quick mouthwash instead. I wore a comfortable cotton tank top, which was not too tight, but clingy enough that it wouldn't be baggy and revealing any boobage. I also wore sweat shorts, as recommended by the clinic, and my new BU zip-up hoodie. I had to wear sneakers, which sucked. I knew why I had to wear sneakers, but even so, I knew my feet would be a bit swollen after surgery, and that it would be tough to get the sneakers back on.

My mom picked me up at 6:30 and we arrived at the center around 6:50 for a 7:00 check-in. Check-in was smooth and easy. The nurse at the front desk was very informative and very friendly. We sat around for a bit longer, maybe until 7:45 or so, and then I was called in for pre-op (before I went in, I gave my mom my sweatshirt because it was cold in the waiting room, and I was just going to be putting it in a locker until after surgery anyway). I changed into socks and a gown, got weighed for anesthesia purposes, and got on the gurney with some awesome warmed blankets. My vitals were taken, and I got my IV set up. I was really amazed at how great the staff was; they were obviously busy and working, but always smiling and conversing with me. I felt really safe and comfortable.

They brought my mom in for pre-op for two reasons. First, she would be given my prescriptions (to fill while I was in the OR), and very often patients don't even remember pre-op instructions. Second, I was just going to be sitting around and waiting for surgery, so she was there to keep me company. She was still cold, though, even with my sweatshirt, so the staff brought HER warmed blankets! First one, and then two more later on when she was still cold. At one point, my mom (wrapped in three blankets with the hood of the sweatshirt up) rested her head on the gurney and took a nap. We were both pretty warm and comfortable!

The anesthesiologist and some nurses came by to talk to me about what to expect, asking me for my name, DOB, and surgery each time (gotta make sure they have the right patient). The staff was surprised and a bit concerned that I was having both of my legs done at the same time, which made me a bit worried, too. Finally, around 9:20ish, my surgeon came out to talk to me. He had been in one surgery already that morning, hence the lateness, but hey, at least I wasn't the last procedure of the day, waiting even longer :) We went over the procedure one last time, and he checked with me one last time to see if I really wanted to have both legs done.

His concern wasn't rude or even misguided. My risk of blood clots is relatively high. Not only do the chances increase because I'm having two legs done, but the pill I used to take had twice the risk of blood clots as most other birth control. I know I've been off the pill for two months (I've got massive weight-loss and extensive acne to prove it!), so I hope that means that whatever risk I had from the pill is now gone, but I'm still worried. Finally, my doctor (and most doctors) usually give patients aspirin post-op to help prevent blood clots. Aspirin is really great for that, but I'm allergic to it. There really aren't any drugs in between aspirin and the super powerful blood thinners, which would be extremely dangerous, so I'm not on anything at all to prevent clots.

I'm just being vigiliant, and hopeful that if I get a clot, the pain will be obvious and I'll call the doctor right away. Hopefully, there won't be any clots at all!!

So he marked both legs with a marker, and the anesthesiologist came by and gave me a cocktail of sedatives. I handed my glasses to my mom for safe-keeping, put on the hair net, and got wheeled into the OR. I moved from the gurney to the operating table, and they gave me a mask. That's all I remember before waking up in recovery two and a half hours later.

I was not happy when I woke up, which sucked. I'd been in a good mood all morning, so it was a downer. My legs were uncomfortable and in a lot more pain than I thought they'd be in, or at least that I'd hoped. They had given me pain meds during surgery, and so I guess I expected them to not have worn off by the time I woke up. I was happy that my throat didn't hurt from the breathing tube, though. I don't think it was the pain, just the stress of surgery in general, but I couldn't help but cry a bit as I woke up. It was distressing because I didn't emotionally feel like crying!

After another half hour or so, I was definitely awake, and the staff helped me change back into my shorts and tank top (my mom still had my sweatshirt, but I felt okay, temp-wise). They also got me crutches and helped me move into a nice, soft arm-chair that had leg support. That was really painful, and it made me worry that I was really screwed. I mean, it hurt that much and was that difficult to move from the gurney to the chair, and I needed two people to help me. They got me settled in and brought me some crackers, ginger ale, and oxycodone.

My mom came out to sit with me and listen to post-op instructions from my doctor and the staff. My doctor said that the surgery went well, and that while he didn't notice any signs of compartment syndrome, he didn't expect to. My CS is exercise-induced, and I hadn't induced the symptoms, so there shouldn't have been any. He did say that there was some increased pressure in the right calf, which wasn't surprising; when I arrived that morning, my right calf was aching, and I had mentioned it to my mom and to the staff. My mom questioned him a lot about how to prevent blood clots, and the only advice he had was to make sure I was getting up and moving around every hour or so. Because I just had my fascia worked on, and not my muscle or bone, my legs are fully weight-bearing. It's a bit uncomfortable and painful, since I do have incisions and I literally had pieces of fascia taken out of me (some of it was deep inside each calf), but I can walk without even using crutches. I use them sometimes, though, because my balance isn't great.

The staff gave us more instructions after that. I got information about who to call if I had any questions or problems. I also was told that I would need to keep the current dressings on for a week, and they gave us materials and instructions to put new (lighter) dressings on when the time comes. I won't be able to take real showers for another week, after I get my stitches out. Bummer! I also got a cool ice-pack holder and some ice packs, so I'm switching legs every so often.

They gave me three different medications. I got oxycodone, which has been working very well. I also got a stool softener because oxycodone can cause constipation. I find that highly annoying, but I'm glad they at least warned me. I also got hydroxyzine, which I find hilarious. I first took hydroxyzine back in high school for my hives and edema. I hated it; it wasn't that effective, and it knocked me out. My allergist at the time was a total tool, and he kept insisting that I stay on this medication even though it was ineffective and the side effects were interfering with my life. I was falling asleep in class every day, and whenever I woke up in the morning, I'd be extremely groggy. After falling asleep while sitting in traffic on the way to Boston, I stopped taking it completely and demanded a new med.

Hydroxyzine isn't just an antihistamine or a sedative. It's also an anti-anxiety med. But that's not even why they prescribed it for me. It's an anti-nausea med, just in case I have post-surgery nausea! Cool.

A nurse helped me into a wheelchair and brought me downstairs, where my mom was waiting with the car. I got home around 3pm, and my mom and I got me all set up in bed. We spent the next few hours hanging out, resting, watching some TV, and talking. She made sure I ate some food, even though I had no appetite, and that I took my meds on time. I got up every hour or so to walk around, which went pretty well. Loki is unsure of what to make of the whole situation, but he seems okay!

Even though I know I'd be in a worse mood if my pain were worse, I don't feel loopy from the meds. I'm just in a really good mood. I wasn't even sleepy when I got home yesterday. I did get hit pretty hard with sleepiness later in the evening, but generally, I'm awake and alert. Pain is not completely gone, but it's nowhere near how it was when I first woke up, and even that wasn't excruciating.

Right now, my biggest complaint is that I keep needing to pee, but when I go to pee, it's like I don't really HAVE to pee that much, and I don't pee completely. I'll sit for several long minutes, and when I'm finally done, I'll stand up ... and feel like I have to pee again. Arg! If this persists through Monday, I'll call my doctor.

This morning, I woke up at 8:40 in some pain, so I took my meds. The staff called me at 9:30 to see how I was, and the nurse I spoke with said that if I was doing this well after surgery, it bodes well for my recovery. I'm very happy about that! I forgot to ask about the peeing thing, but I did ask about clots, and she told me what to look out for. I was feeling pretty icky at that point, not leg-wise, so I got up, put in my contacts, washed my face, washed my hair in the sink, and did a quick sponge-over before changing into clean clothes. I feel a lot better now! Just a little sleepy; my mom broke up with her boyfriend last night, and called me afterwards, so I stayed up to talk to her about it and didn't get as much sleep as I thought I would (I got about 9 hours instead of, like, 12).

We'll see how today goes, but I'm so relieved that surgery is over, and I hope my recovery goes smoothly!

Let's have surgery!

2011-07-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

In 7 hours, I will be on my way to the surgical center in the 'burbs! It's finally time to have my bilateral fasciotomy.

I was supposed to get a call from a nurse three days before my surgery, and a call from the administrative assistant two days before to give me the exact time of my surgery. On Monday, I was feeling a bit panicky, so I called to see why I hadn't heard anything. You know, because surgery was supposed to be Tuesday.

The administrative assistant was confused. Apparently, my surgery was Thursday, not Tuesday. And they would never have scheduled it Tuesday; the surgeon is in the office on Tuesdays, so clearly, I just put down the wrong date.

I wouldn't have put down the wrong date. I don't do that, not with stuff like this. Do you think I put down the wrong date for my colonoscopies? I don't think so.

Fine. So I was cleaning my room on Tuesday night, and lo and behold, as I am cleaning up my desk, I find all the paperwork from my consult. Including a form where the administrative assistant, the same one who told me that I must have been mistaken about the date, had written that my surgery was scheduled for Tuesday. So, I wonder why I thought surgery was on Tuesday!

Yeah.

Whatever. The downside to the mix-up? I backed out of the flute ensemble I do every summer. I hadn't been feeling well last week, and knew I needed to take some time off to recovery before surgery. With flute ensemble, I wouldn't have a day off at all; rehearsals were Thursday through Saturday, the concert was Sunday, and Monday I'd be running around doing errands, and cleaning up my room. So I cancelled. It turns out, I didn't have to; I would have been able to rest all day on Monday and most of Tuesday.

The upside? I was able to meet up with a bunch of friends for ice cream in my hometown. Two of my friends are leaving Boston on Friday and Saturday, and I'm not going to be able to get to their going-away party tomorrow night, so this way, I actually got to see them before they left. D'awwww!

I'm all ready for tomorrow. I'm going to sleep in my loose clothing (got a sweatshirt ready to go as well), I'll be wearing glasses, and I've got my phone all charged. My mom will hold my phone and wallet while I'm in prep and surgery. I know I'll be bored during the two hours between arrival and actual surgery, but I'll either nap or daydream. Or a combo. My apartment is clean and my fridge and pantry are stocked. I have a key for my mom so I don't have to get up to let her in for the next week.

As for entertaining myself, I've got a computer with internet and Netflix, some Netflix discs on the way, a coloring book and crayons, a book of brain teasers, a ridiculous parakeet, lots of books, and lots of friends to entertain me.

I bet I'll still be bored, though. When can I go running again?

Going away ... starting to hit me

2011-07-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, my coworkers surprised me (sort of) with a goodbye party at the Boston Finale. It wasn't a huge surprise; I knew that my going-away party would be today, and by the time my friend mentioned that the errand I was accompanying her on was to get a cake for her friend's birthday, and it would require us to take the T, I figured it out. But it was still awesome and heart-warming, and I kind of like that they wanted to surprise me.

The good news for them was that I had NO idea what gifts they had gotten me. We just had a going-away party for another coworker last week, and she had requested a bunch of gifts. She had excitedly and correctly guessed a whole bunch of them, and we felt a bit deflated. So I told my coworkers not to worry: I really had no idea what I was getting, and wouldn't guess. I mostly stuck to that promise.

We had appetizers and a "main course," all of them delicious desserts! The drinks were yummy, too; we mostly got fruity cocktails, and everyone loved what they got. I got blueberry lemonade (two of them), and it was very, very delicious. We all dug into the awesome desserts, too. Badass.

My gifts were all very thoughtful, funny, and personal. It was really amazing to see how well my coworkers knew me, and how much they care about me. They know I'm having surgery in a week, and so to get me through my boring recovery, they got me a coloring book, 96 Crayola crayons, brain teasers, and pencils and erasers to do the teasers with. That'll give me a break from reading and Netflix, and the brain teasers will keep me sharp for September!

Since I sold my car, I got a gift certificate for Zipcar, which will definitely take the edge off, so I can feel better about making a trip or two. I got a cute BU hoodie, so I can apparently not get shot on campus (I didn't realize that you couldn't be on campus without swag, but it's good, I don't want to get shot). I don't have any BU swag, so this is my first piece! It's awesome.

From our academic coordinator, I got the required milky white thigh book. It's about vampires, apparently! But it took six of us twenty minutes to find ONE sex scene! How disappointing. But I found one, and read it, and we had a good laugh before the uncomfortable waiter came back!

To improve my wardrobe for grad school, I also received an awesome Portal T-shirt, with Still Alive lyrics on it. Booyah! It's like they KNOW I forget to do science because I'm chatting ... how strange that they figured it out.

My two friends presented me with their favorite gifts. One friend presented me with a chemistry cocktail set! Now I can serve drinks in test tubes, and have it actually be okay--I mean I never did that, what? It's a set I've been interested in for a while, which no one at work knew. Again, they definitely know me very well. My other friend presented me with his favorite gift. It was a Red Sox lunch bag (I tease him a bit because he has an old school lunch bag he uses; now I have one, too!). But there was more inside. He explained it was necessary for grad school, and I jokingly said, "Oh, so, alcohol!" AND IT WAS. It was full of nips of all kinds, mostly flavored vodka and rum. YES. So that's the only gift I managed to guess, and it was by accident.

The lab we started in has a tradition, where the PI gives the departing employee a beautiful wooden box. It's such a tradition that usually, that's when people start crying; it's always the last gift. I'm the first person from my boss' (new) lab to leave, and she wanted to start her own tradition. I could not BELIEVE what it was ...

It was a 2-volume copy of the sixth edition of The Origin of Species. From 1896.

Wow.

No, really. Wow.

I'm still in shock a bit!

Finally, I got my scrapbook. It was AWESOME. My coworkers are fantastic.

They loved the gift I got them (a new digital camera to replace the horribly shitty one that the lab has been dealing with for a very long time, it seems). I was glad; I was worried they might refuse it because it wasn't cheap. I did get it on sale, and I saved up for it, so hopefully they won't be worried that I dug myself into a financial hole. It's a decent camera; not the best money could buy (because I don't have $300), but it's good!

All in all, I had a wonderful afternoon with my coworkers, and I'm sad to be leaving the lab. It's really hard to accept that I'm going to leave on Friday evening and that'll be it. How can that be it?

Breaking up with friends

2011-07-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

When we think about break-ups, it's usually in the context of committed romantic relationships. It's when the relationship isn't working anymore, so it breaks up, and the two of you spend time recovering by hanging out with friends, possibly eating ice cream, maybe watching bad TV. And then you get up and think about starting another romantic relationship with someone else. Or something like that.

Breaking up with friends is different, and rarer. It's not uncommon, at least in my experience, for friendships to become more or less intense. The people I talk to on a nearly daily basis, or the people I talk to about deeply personal issues, are not necessarily the same people I was super close to four or five years ago. We don't just change as people; our circumstances change. I'm certainly not as close to most of my high school friends as I was several years ago, but many of those people live in different states now, and I see them infrequently. Some of my closest friends right now, I didn't even know a couple years ago. And yet for the most part, these fluctuations occur with little or no ill will. Sometimes, we lose touch. Sometimes, we get back in touch.

I have been dumped by a friend. The two of us were on and off close for years, and by high school, we were very close. And being close friends who were both heterosexual and of the opposite sex, we had our fair share of confusing, "Is this just friend love or what?" drama. And then by senior year, we were fighting a lot, and somehow, we just imploded. After graduation, my friend told me that our friendship was over, and I was devastated. Not only was I on the upswing of the "I think we should be more than friends" arc, but I couldn't comprehend that this person who had been so important to me for the majority of my life suddenly didn't want me in it.

I spent my summer before college crushed over this loss. And if you know me, you also know that I don't take stuff like this without a fight. I tried to win him back. Made promises. Spent a lot of time crying in therapy appointments. Worst of all, I knew that it wasn't as if I hadn't done anything wrong. I had just assumed that he and I would always be friends. I had also assumed that he was, for lack of a better reference, my lobster.

It's been a long time since I graduated from high school. This friend is back in my life, and on the rare occasion we've been in the same state, we've tried to spend time together, over dinner or coffee. And when we do, things are great. But our friendship isn't ever going to be as strong or close as before. I'm sad about that; it would be awesome if we could be close again. But I'm okay with it. I'm several years older and wiser (although in several more years, older me is gonna be like, "Wise? At twenty-four? I call bullshit!"), and I can't know for sure whether this person would still be my very, very close friend if we hadn't broken up back then.

I can't say that this friend break-up was worse than my first big relationship break-up. But then again, that relationship break-up was a hot mess. And I was sick at the time, which made everything much worse. But years later, I'm glad to be out of that romantic relationship. I'm not glad that I lost my friend.

Six years later, I find myself in the midst of another friend break-up. This time, I'm initiating the break-up. I sort of wish that would mean that I could be cool and calm about it, and unwavering in my stance that this break-up needs to happen. But this is me, people. My ability to be cool, calm, and unwavering is questionable at best.*

I don't feel comfortable putting in too many details about the reasons behind this break-up. I'm reasonably sure that the only folks who read this blog either don't know me in real life, or know me well enough to already have all the details about this mess. But at the same time, I don't want to assume that there aren't exceptions.

The bare bones behind this friendship break-up? Hurt, betrayal, loss of trust. Not feeling valued as a friend. It's gotten to the point where thinking about this person makes me queasy, being around him ruins my appetite, and talking to him causes me to vomit. I know I deserve better from someone who is supposed to be one of my best friends. And I know I shouldn't have to stick with a friendship that makes me physically ill.

But this break-up isn't going very well. Not that my last friend break-up went well either, of course. But in this case, there are two major problems. The first? Man, my friend isn't sorry. He's pissed. He doesn't understand why I'm dumping him, even though I've explained it extremely clearly. His response is along the lines of, "I didn't mean to hurt you, therefore everything should be fine, and also you are being unreasonable and here's how this is completely not my fault." Understandably, this does not make me feel like he values our friendship.

The second problem is me. As I said earlier, I am not really the cool, calm, collected, unwavering person I need to be in order to keep this friendship over. I'm devastated that it's ending, but it was my decision to come out and say, "It's over." I know that barring the right response and reaction from this person, I need to stick with my conviction. But this is hard.

I know that I am losing someone I care very deeply about. I have a small list of people I would probably die for, although I would appreciate it if no one would actually put that to the test. And he was one of those people. The thought of not talking to him every day, of not spending my upcoming birthday with him, of not seeing him every weekend-ish, it hurts. It makes me not want to break up with him. But I can't sacrifice my emotional and physical health for someone when the pay-off is ... nothing.

While he completely misunderstood what I meant when I said it, I stand by my assertion that this break-up is worse than my romantic break-ups. No matter what happened with my boyfriends, I wasn't losing my best friend. I could tell myself, "There will be someone else, someone better, who will love me for who I am," and let that person go. There was no gaping hole in my life where the boyfriend used to be. But there is one where my friend was.

I hate it that it's just as hard dumping my friend as it was to be dumped all those years ago. Maybe it's because when I was dumped, I was remorseful beyond belief, and the friend I'm dumping is not. Maybe it's because it wasn't my decision last time. Maybe it's because I'm just ME, and this is how I handle things (e.g. not well!). Maybe it's because my old friend was just as conflicted and miserable and heart-broken, and I painted him as a villain for so long.

Friend break-ups suck.

Happy Father's Day to you, TOO, Google

2011-06-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed; I yawned and stretched and then grabbed my laptop to check my email.

Like a lot of folks, especially folks my age, I use Gmail, Google's email service. I'm sure many of my tens of readers do, too, since Blogger is a Google site. I love Gmail; it's the first email service I've used that I've loved enough to stop using other email providers. That is, back when I had AOL mail, I also had a Hotmail account and a Yahoo account. I checked all three on a regular basis. Now, my AOL mail is long dead (RIP Steflutie), my Hotmail is officially my spam account, and I think I check my Yahoo mail once a month to make sure no one's emailing me there by accident.

Meanwhile, my work and grad school accounts are both hooked up to my Gmail, even though my grad school email is Gmail-based. I just can't be bothered to check BOTH accounts. Plus, my regular Gmail is already set up just the way I like it.

Last year, when Gmail put free voice calls in Gchat, it was a lifesaver for me. My cell phone microphone had just broken, and I was waiting two weeks for my new smartphone to arrive (it was out of stock at the store). I could make some phone calls at work, but my boss was discouraging us from using the work phone for personal calls. So I quickly set up a Google Voice account and was able to make calls using my home and work computers. It wasn't as convenient or easy as making a regular phone call, but I was able to make necessary phone calls during those two weeks.

These days, I don't use the phone call function, mostly since I've got a working cell phone again, and it's just much easier to use that. But that didn't stop me from noticing something odd yesterday when I pulled up Gmail.

The "Call Phone" button had a line of text underneath it. It said, "Reminder: call dad."

At first, I wondered if one of my siblings had somehow hacked into my computer, thinking they were doing the right thing. Then I realized that neither of my siblings would know how to do that, and that both of them have been pretty great with respecting my decision to stay estranged from our father. Then I wondered if maybe I had somehow signed into the wrong email account. But no, those were my regular contacts underneath the offending message, and here were all of my emails.

And then I got what it was. Granted, this all happened in the span of a few seconds, so if you're imagining me scratching my head, pacing around, shouting, "I must find the culprit!" you are both very imaginative, but also a bit wrong. It wasn't my siblings or the wrong email. Google put it there.

I mean, I understand why. It's a good way to remind folks about the call phone function. Great. But seriously? Not a good idea.

Like plenty of other people, I'm estranged from one of my parents, in this case my father. A reminder to call him is like a bad joke. But what about people who don't have fathers anymore, whose fathers have died? What about people whose fathers have abused them, neglected them, deserted them? What about people who have grown up with a single mother, or with two mothers, or who were raised by a sibling?

So, Google, if you're listening, please don't ever do that again. It's enough that Father's Day is all over the place commercially. But invading my email, putting up a reminder that stayed up ALL day? It made me seriously angry and uncomfortable.

Also, you need to have a way for people to complain about shit like this. Your "Help" section doesn't let us do that. Bulllll.

A Letter to Medical Professionals

2011-06-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

Dear medical community,

Hello! How are you? I hope you're well. Because I'm a bit pissed off at you. Don't worry, I'll explain in detail.

When I was fourteen years old, I woke up on Rosh Hashanah with an impressively horrible stabbing pain in my abdomen. My brother thought my appendix was bursting, but I had no other symptoms besides the worst pain in my life. By the time I could get to the doctor's office, the pain had subsided. A couple of weeks later, on my fifteenth birthday, I sat in the waiting room again, needing to pee, waiting to have an ultrasound. There was a medium sized cyst on my ovary, on the other side, making it highly probable that the pain I had was from another cyst on the other ovary rupturing.

I saw a pediatric endocrinologist after that. She was one of the more respected doctors in the field, and is still one of the more prominent endocrinologists at Children's Hospital in Boston. I hate her, eight years later. She diagnosed me with Poly-Cystic Ovaian Syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal imbalance that would explain the cysts, as well as the fact that in 3 years, I had only had my period about 10 times. She decided that she wanted to check and see if she could feel any additional cysts. Without telling me what she was going to do, she performed a pelvic exam. When I was in pain, she told me that "it shouldn't hurt," when clearly it did. I was so upset afterwards that I cried and couldn't concentrate when I got back to school later that day. When I told my mom what happened, she was furious. I was only fifteen; I had not been asked for my consent to have this exam, I was not even told it would be happening until it had already started, and it was incredibly painful. I regret that my mom and I didn't file a complaint with Children's.

She and my pediatrician scared me into going onto the pill when I was sixteen, since that was the "treatment" for PCOS. When I asked the simple question, "If I don't go on the pill, will that affect my fertility in 15 years?" they answered non-committally, and told me that, "If we don't take care of this problem, then you might have a lot of trouble conceiving." I explained that I didn't want to go on it, that I felt like it would make me MORE likely to have sex before I was really ready, but they both ignored me. I finally caved to the pressure about six months later, and was incredibly ashamed to be on the pill. Even now, when I mention that I've been on the pill since I was sixteen, the reaction is very negative; a lot of people assume that I was already having sex very early, or at least expecting to have sex so early.

It took me a while to find a pill that worked for me. The first two gave me severe morning sickness, which I hadn't been warned about when my doctors put me on it. I would miss class in the morning every month, like clockwork. I finally switched to Yasmin after a few months and had no problems.

Being on the pill did have benefits. While I didn't love having my period every single month, it was nice to know when it was coming. My cramps became less severe, my flow was much lighter, and each period only lasted four days, instead of six or seven. It cleared up my acne a bit, and when it didn't clear up all of it, it let me go right back onto Accutane; I didn't have to start birth control and wait a month before I could start the acne medication.

But one thing became very obvious. My breasts, which had been a slightly large B since I finished puberty, ballooned up to a large C. And I started gaining weight.

Since I'd hit puberty, my mom had fretted hardcore over my weight, since I weighed more than she did. But I was super healthy; 130lbs, 5'5". Not skinny, but certainly not overweight. Very, very normal. When I started the pill, I was about 140.

By the end of high school, I was at 180. Now, I'm struggling to stay below 195.

I've done Weight Watchers three times. I've dieted and counted calories endlessly. I've tried working out more. And even regular lifestyle changes made no difference. I would eat only as much as my slim friends, often less, and I'd gain. I would walk and take the stairs significantly more. No change. Last year, I would walk about 3 miles a day just to get to and from work. I gained weight.

My mom was in the camp of, "You must be doing something wrong." If I was dieting, I was either cheating, or I needed to exercise. If I was exercising, it was because I must be overeating afterwards as a reward. But it was obvious that something was keeping me from actually losing weight.

My doctors insisted that it was PCOS that was keeping me heavy, and I just needed to try harder, since I was at risk for type 2 diabetes. But I have a life. I have other things I want to be doing other than obsessing over my weight. And that was really the only problem; my blood tests were always fabulous, and I wasn't even close to being really at risk for diabetes.

All of them denied that the pill was causing the weight to come on and stay on. Every last one of them. For eight years. Never mind that I gained 50 lbs. Never mind that my breasts grew. And, more importantly, never mind that almost every woman I know who has gone on the pill has gained weight. I know so many women on the pill, or other hormonal birth control, that I've lost count. It's the majority of my female friends, and plenty of acquaintances. Only two of them haven't noticed any weight gain or breast growth. Clearly, something's happening, and it's not just "water retention."

I went off the pill on May 31st in preparation for surgery. I haven't been exercising lately (beyond walking to and from the T, and clubbing with friends), and while I haven't been eating ridiculously unhealthily, I haven't been making an effort to eat well. When I went to Planned Parenthood on the 27th, I weighed 196 lbs, 5 lbs more than I did at the beginning of the month.

Today, I weigh 188 lbs. I have been off the pill for almost two weeks.

So, medical community, here's my advice for you. Stop lying. Really, that's it. Be honest with your patients. That means:

Don't tell them that the pill is necessary for treating PCOS. It's not. When I got older, I did my research.

When your patient is deciding to forgo treatment, that is their right. Don't pressure them.

The pill causes breast growth and weight gain. Stop saying it doesn't. I didn't gain 50lbs of water weight.

Do not perform a pelvic exam on a patient without informed consent. It doesn't matter how necessary it is. Otherwise, you will violate them.

I hope we've learned something here today. Because if I keep losing weight now that I'm off the pill, you can be sure that I will never go back on hormonal birth control. I've worked very, very hard to love my body as it is, and I've dealt with discrimination, nasty remarks from people who love me, stressful shopping trips, and the overwhelming number of negative feelings that fat people deal with in a thin-privileged society. I have spent eight years fighting and wishing and trying very hard to love myself while knowing that other people hate my body. If I find out that this all could have been avoided by having better doctors, you can be sure I'll never go back on the pill. And I will be making a stink about this.

Love,

Me

Man Down

2011-06-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Trigger warning: Rape, murder, non-consensual crap

After reading a bunch of tumblr posts and short quotes about Rihanna's new video for her song "Man Down," I finally decided to take a time out for 5 minutes to watch it. The video can be found here, although if you are easily triggered by sexual assault, this might be difficult to watch.

I'm not going to go into how I felt about the song. As many of my friends know, I prefer to listen to alternative pop-rock (think Goo Goo Dolls). I like to go out to clubs, so I have some favorite club songs I like (Ke$ha sets my teeth on edge ... except when I'm at a club), but otherwise I'm not so much interested in hip-hop. I don't think I would ever have heard "Man Down" if I hadn't sought out the video, and while the song wasn't awful by any means, it's not my style of music. Point is, I don't care very much about the song, or even the lyrics so much, with one exception.

The video

As for the video, it speaks for itself without the song, and even if you watch it, unaware of the controversy. The video opens with a semi-crowded market, with plenty of people walking around; out of the shadows in a building window, Rihanna appears, looking immensely tense and unhappy, and she very slowly brandishes a gun. She then shoots and kills a particular man, and disappears as the crowd runs from the gunshot. We then cut to "Yesterday."

"Yesterday," Rihanna is walking/biking around, looking pretty normal and quite happy. It's obvious, even if you don't know what's coming, that that dude she shot did something to change her from bright and happy to miserable and in the shadows, driven to kill. We see her interacting with people happily, including children, smiling, enjoying life.

Then we see her go to a club. She does dance with a guy a bit, pretty sexily, but then she stops dancing with him and leaves the club. It doesn't look like she's upset (she still seems to be in a good mood); it seems as if she danced with him for a while and enjoyed it, and then decided it was time to go home. But then the man follows her, even asking bystanders outside which way Rihanna went. He catches up to her, grabs her forcefully, and rapes her. When he leaves her, his shirt is torn. Rihanna runs home, and frantically searches her drawers until she finds a gun, the one she uses at the beginning of the video.

The song

Like I said, I don't really care so much about the song, since it's not my type of music. But one important thing I noticed about the song is that it never references the rape. It's about how she shot a man, she feels guilty about it, that he meant something to other people (specifically, that he was someone's son), and that now she has to run. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, since again, it doesn't reference the actual rape, but it seems to capture the guilt that many survivors feel for trying to seek punishment for their perpetrators. We're encouraged not to "ruin the lives" of these perpetrators, and we're reminded of their humanity (that they're sons, boyfriends, brothers, friends ... normal people like you and me*). Rihanna's motives are absent from the song, making the video very necessary to understand it, but when both are together, the lyrics become much more powerful. You don't just know the motive anymore. You GET the motive. She's not saying, "He raped me, so I killed him." She's singing about the guilt that she feels, the knowledge that she did something she shouldn't have, but we don't just know why she did it. We understand why.

As a survivor

As many of you know, I was sexually assaulted as a teenager. My assault wasn't violent, fortunately, but it still happened. Part of my experience, along with the work I've done in sexual violence prevention, is that I cannot seem to separate myself from the feelings of a victim/survivor when hearing about sexual violence. For example, I was having a conversation with a coworker, and we somehow got on the topic of Emma Watson, the actress who portrays Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films. He told a story he thought was amusing, that someone asked for an autograph from Watson, but the photo they wanted signed was a paparazzi photo taken up Watson's skirt when she wasn't wearing underwear.

I didn't find it funny. I couldn't really. If someone had taken a photo of my vulva without my consent, and distributed it, that would be incredibly, horrifyingly violating. My coworker brushed it off, saying that Watson should have just worn underwear. But this is bullshit. Sometimes, people don't wear underwear; there's no law that says that they can't. And no one should be punished for it either. Upskirting is illegal in the United States; going commando is not. Second of all, how would the photographer have known that Watson wasn't wearing underwear? And if she had worn underwear, THEN would it not be okay that it happened? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Point is, I go right to the victim/survivor's point of view. And that's what happened while I watched the "Man Down" video.

As soon as the man began following Rihanna out of the club, I started getting very upset. When the video cut to a shot of him covering her mouth, I started crying.

Folks, it was kind of terrifying. Especially because I often go to clubs, wearing "sexy" clothing, and there are times when I dance with male strangers, and then decide I'm done dancing at one point or another. Not that I'm now too scared to do either now, but it's chilling to know that for some men, that's all it takes. A sexy outfit indicates that the woman's a slut. Stopping dancing with you indicates that she's a tease. Go punish her.** This could happen to me.

Like I said, I'm not going to stop dressing up, getting tipsy, going to clubs, and dancing with male strangers. I have a good time. And I already have known for a while that I'm taking a risk when I do that, a risk that there will be a rapist around, and he'll choose me as a target. But I know that ANYTHING I do besides barricading myself in my room and never going anywhere without gay male bodyguards, will increase my risk of being raped, because then I'll possibly expose myself to rapists, and not have a way to deter the rapists from raping me.

Would I ever shoot a perpetrator? Well, I haven't shot the friend who assaulted me. I've passed up opportunities to track him down, too. But I understand the anger and helplessness. I understand the fantasy. It's pretty fucking horrible.

Bottom line

Rihanna's "Man Down" video is a shocking, but good way to get people talking about sexual assault. It puts us in the place of the victim/survivor, and demonstrates (maybe too simply, but well nonetheless) the way that such an experience can change a person, and make them do things that would have seemed out of character before. I appreciate this video a lot, and I'm thankful to Rihanna for making it.

Learning to live a philosophy

2011-06-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Over the past week and a half, I've had a few experiences that have struck me as rather odd, at least in terms of my own personal comfort and my reactions to situations. Allow me to explain.

Growing up, after I hit puberty, I began to worry constantly about how fat I was. My mother, whom I love very much, didn't help. And by "didn't help," I mean, "actively and knowingly contributed to my insecurities surrounding my body." When I weighed 130 lbs, she was worried that I needed to lose weight, since I now weighed more than she did, and was about 5 inches shorter. As the years passed and my weight continued to increase, she worried more. I'm currently at the point where I'm about ready to issue an ultimatum when it comes to her commenting on my appearance at all.

The end result was that I was miserable about my body. Contributing to my insecurities was the fact that I had been sexually assaulted when I was 14. While I didn't experience PTSD, the take-away from the experience, and from plenty of other experiences that weren't non-consensual, was that I was unattractive and should be damn grateful for whatever attention the opposite sex wished to bestow upon me. My physical appearance and my sexuality had become entwined in a very obnoxious way. I was fat, and therefore my sexuality consisted purely of being lonely most of the time, and grateful for whatever attention I got. Consensual or not. I was supposed to consider street harassment a compliment. I was supposed to go out on a date with any dude who thought I might be worth his time.

It was totally uncool.

Over the past few years, I have worked extremely hard to live out the feminist philosophies that I find so amazing. I knew that I needed to learn how to love my body, not necessarily regardless of what it looks like, but in a general, holistic way. Don't love IN SPITE of flaws. Love, including the stuff other people think are flaws.

I also understood that I needed to be more gung-ho about being true to my sexuality. I needed to stop going on dates with guys I didn't want to date (or even more specifically, I also needed to stop wasting my time in IM conversations on OKCupid with guys I wasn't remotely interested in). I needed to stop issuing cop-out excuses, like, "I can't go out on Saturday, but you know what? I'll get back to you when I know my availability," when I really mean, "Sorry, I'm not interested, best of luck."

The issue here, of course, is that there are some actions I can take to combat these issues, but often, there are mental obstacles to get over. It's one thing to declare war on fat hatred by going sleeveless. It's another to be able to look in the mirror while wearing a sleeveless dress and think, "Wow, I look fab." Likewise, with sexuality, it's easy to turn down guys at the club. But it's hard to control feelings of inadequacy when all of your other female friends, who all happen to be slimmer, are getting male attention. You almost feel like a failure because you can't break the hold that the patriarchy has over your brain.

Within the span of one week, I managed to have some significant break-throughs with these mental aspects.

Last weekend, I got a gorgeous new dress from Modcloth.com.* It's relatively short, bright purple, and sleeveless. I loved it instantly. I tried it on, praying to the baseball gods** that it would fit, since not everything from Modcloth fits me, even if it's the "right" size. It didn't just fit, it looked amazing. I was so excited, I decided to wear it to my sister-in-law's bridal shower on Memorial Day.

I just somehow forgot that my mother was going to be there. Like I said, she's my biggest critic when it comes to my appearance, even making unwarranted comments about my hair after I had just walked home in the sweltering heat from Longwood. I instantly got nervous when she came to pick me up. But she LOVED the dress. And more importantly, I loved the dress. And I wore it the entire afternoon at the shower, without a cardigan or shrug, showing off my arms in all their glory. It felt fantastic.

Like I said, it's one thing to go ahead and go sleeveless. But to get over the mental block, at least temporarily, and feel great about myself was completely unexpected, and completely awesome.

Cut to this past weekend. Saturday night, a girlfriend and I got all dressed up and went out to a club in the Fenway area. It was a mistake; the music was bad, the floor was sticky, and the majority of the dudes appeared to be in their 40s or fresh from the Jersey Shore. Very weird. My friend and I spent a while dancing together, just having fun, grabbing a couple drinks. There were a few cute guys, but they all seemed to be hanging out amongst themselves, trying to look super cool.

Halfway through the night, a guy started dancing behind my friend. Almost instantaneously, another guy, his friend, started dancing behind me. My reaction? I immediately moved, turned around, and said, "No thanks." Twice.

This was new. Usually, my first reaction when this kind of thing happens is fear and discomfort, but just to keep going with it for a few minutes. Now, I was just ending it right away. Weird/cool. But I was finally living my philosophy, which is that if a guy is going to just start rubbing up against me without giving me an opportunity to consent or not, I'm not interested.

My friend seemed to be enjoying the attention she was getting from the first guy, so I went and grabbed a drink and spent some time texting a couple of out-of-town friends until she was done with the guy. I had to reassure her, when the guy left for the bathroom, that I was okay with her dancing with him; I just didn't want to dance with his friend. Later on, her guy came back, and I guess his friend decided to try his luck with me again. He actually asked, so I said fine. Within the first minute, I told him that I just wanted to dance tonight, thanks;*** that got him to stop playing that annoying game where the guy keeps trying to make out with you. After a couple songs, I was bored and my feet hurt, so I said thanks and went to sit down till my friend was ready to go.

What was so weird about this? I wasn't grateful for the guy's attention. I didn't find him particularly attractive, I wasn't interested in doing anything with him, and I felt a serious combination of uncomfortable and bored while dancing with him. You're probably nodding along, thinking, "Of course you were uncomfortable!" but I'm more interested in the fact that I was overwhelmingly BORED. I was not interested in dancing with him, and I didn't enjoy it. I was finally out of the mindset that would leave me feeling bad about myself for not getting "enough" male attention. I know it might sound obvious that I shouldn't do something if I don't want to, but what's more important to me right now is the nuance of the situation. I didn't dance with the guy because I felt obligated. I danced with him because I was feeling bored while my friend danced with someone else. And to my surprise, I didn't enjoy it. Not because the guy was any more creepy than any other guy I've danced with at a club. Not because I was too sober. Not because he was a bad dancer.

Because I just wasn't interested. And that was enough for me to realize that I didn't even feel any sort of thrill at having attention. Didn't want it from him. Didn't feel flattered. It was a combination, where I finally feel great about my body, and where I finally don't feel obligated to give a guy anything just because he paid attention to me. That combination did mean that I was bored more often than I'd hoped on Saturday night. But otherwise, it rocked.

Finally, I seem to be getting more attention on OKCupid lately; fine. Not thrilled or disappointed; just been noticing. I got an IM from a guy over the long weekend, and he seemed okay. I wasn't excited about our conversation, but he hadn't made any obviously stupid/sexist comments, and I figured I'd give him a chance. During the second conversation with him, during which we made plans for a date, I got seriously uncomfortable. Looking back over the chat logs, I could find several small red flags. He didn't seem like a jerk, and (importantly) did not seem like a rapist. But he did seem like ... a Nice Guy. He seemed too familiar with me already. Too presumptuous. Too desperate. Too excited.

I know what some of you might be thinking. "Too excited? Haven't you ever been excited for a date?" Hell yes. But there are ways to express excitement about a date TO the date without going overboard. In this case, the guy was badgering me about taking the T to the restaurant together. To me, a first date starts and ends at the restaurant; I don't want a ride, I don't want to travel with you, and for the love of all that is good in this world, I don't want you to know where I live.

I canceled the date and didn't feel that guilty about it. I know the guy was disappointed, but I don't feel guilty. I was dreading the date so much by Thursday afternoon that I was feeling panicked, and who the hell wants to feel that for a first date?

Last night, another guy IMed me. Right off the bat, I wasn't that interested; he made a sexist comment about how I seemed to be smarter about tech than the average girl,**** and he also badgered me for my personal contact info. He got blocked the moment the conversation ended. And it makes me feel really good that I can make these calls.

By loving my body, I don't feel like I'm unlovable by default. By sticking up for my sexuality, I can enjoy it instead of being obligated to dudes. I'm aware of the fact that by refusing to diet myself tiny, and by refusing to give a guy whatever he wants, I'm decreasing my getting-laid-ness. But there's good getting-laid-ness, and there's bad getting-laid-ness, and I only want the good kind.

* Modcloth.com is a clothing website for women that sells a lot of retro/vintage apparel, as well as apartment items. They tend to be pricey, and their items tend to run small and run out of stock quickly. However, I've had excellent experiences with their customer service, and the items I've purchased and kept are fabulous. If you have the extra money, and see anything you like that's in stock, it's worth a go.

** Yeah, I'm a skeptic/atheist. But I'm also a baseball fan. So I have a deal with myself that if I have to pray, it's ONLY to the baseball gods, as they are the only real gods. They don't like me right now, I think I have a five game losing streak.

*** As I was typing this, I first typed, "I asked if we could just dance." Then I realized, with glee, that I had not asked him if we could just dance. I had TOLD him I just wanted to dance. I began typing it wrong because usually the story goes more along the lines of, "I wish I had said something dfferent." Finally, not this time.

**** First off, sexist. Second off, whoever things I'm tech savvier than the average person is an idiot. I'm tech savvier than your grandparents. That's it.

Surgery is a go

2011-06-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday morning, I met with my surgeon, and I scheduled a date for my surgery. The appointment was pretty interesting, and I'm looking forward to having this surgery over and done with.

The doctor mentioned that one of the risks of having both of my legs done at the same time is that I'll increase my chances of blot clots. I have to have both done at the same time, though, so I asked, "Should I stop taking my pill then?" The doctor was surprised, checked my records, and recommended that if I was having surgery in late July, I should stop taking my pill in June. Which was the next day. Whoops.

In other news, my sister's car crapped out, and so instead of selling mine, I gave it to her. All in one week, I've gone from owning a car and taking birth control to neither. And what's weird is that I started the pill February of sophomore year of high school, which is also when my dad gave me my first car.

Weird.

The Pink Hats

2011-05-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have a pink Red Sox hat. It was a gift to me from my mom's boyfriend when I graduated from high school. He and I are both big Sox fans (unsurprising; this IS Boston). It's medium pink with a navy B. I like it. I have two other Sox hats (one traditional one, and one that's light blue; the light blue one is my oldest one, and I stuck a lobster pin in it and got it signed by a minor leaguer way back when), as well as a Celtics hat. I've also got a bunch of Sox number shirts, one with a giant American flag-colored B, and a pair of plaid boxer pants. I used to have a pink beanie (that and the PJ pants were another gift from my mom's boyfriend), but it died in the Great Basement Mold of 2010.*

I'm too broke to buy a lot of Sox tickets, and too lazy to try to get tickets last minute on game day. But I follow or watch as many games as I can, I know the players on the team, and I am absolutely an annoying Sox fan. Just missing the accent.

And yet, my sex (female) and my ownership of a pink Sox hat both make me somehow not a real fan. In the media, "pink hats" refer to female fans who are either bandwagon fans, just interested because of their boyfriends/husbands/crushes,** or mostly disinterested except everyone else seems to care and OOOOH, Jacoby Ellsbury is cute!! A pink hat is not a real fan, doesn't know anything about the team or the sport, and is to be ridiculed. Ownership of a pink hat is enough to indicate that the stereotype is true.

I'm not always reminded of this awful stereotype that so many female fans have to contend with. Boston has always struck me as a sports-obsessed city in general, and I see PLENTY of hardcore women at Sox games, at least as many as the hardcore menfolk. Additionally, I tend to wear my traditionally colored hat to games, mostly because it's the one that fits the best, and the color (navy) usually works better with whatever else I'm wearing (especially if the shirt I'm wearing is a Sox shirt). But then I get reminders about how "real fans" don't wear pink hats:

The regular (not a pink hat in the bunch) sweater-clad 17,565 filed into the air-conditioned barn with considerable trepidation.

This line is from an article in the Boston Globe about how the Boston Bruins, our hockey team, is going to the finals for the first time in 21 years. The comment about the pink hats here is to demonstrate, just in case the reader was worried, that REALLY, the folks at the Garden last night? They're REAL fans. None of those ladies who are taking up seats that should have gone to real, deserving fans.

Well, fuck you, Boston Globe. I'm a female sports fan in Boston, I own and wear a pink hat, and I'm a deserving fan, too. Granted, I live and die for the Sox, not the Bruins, but this isn't a sport-specific sexism. Whether or not I lose interest when my team is sucking (which plenty of my male friends do as well), whether or not I wear pink, whether or not I find any athlete on any team attractive, I'm still a real fan.

So fuck you. And for the record, while I DO find Jacoby Ellsbury attractive (because, as you may have noticed, he's attractive), I also was thoroughly annoyed and frustrated last year with his ribs. Like plenty of dude fans. GET OVER YOURSELVES, please.

* I was told I could use the basement of my new (old) apartment for storage. And then it flooded over the summer and everything in it was destroyed. It sucked.

** The whole "pink hat" bullshit also relies on a lot of heteronormative stereotypes. It assumes that only the womenfolk like pink, or that ladies would maybe only be interested in sports because they are hetero and want to impress a dude. Ack.

Define "happier"

2011-05-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

On my way to work this morning, I was daydreaming about late fall/early winter, when I'll be able to run again. I'm aware that when I run, my body becomes a running body; while I never managed to keep running long enough to see any dramatic changes, I did become more compact, more defined. The difference between me in August 2008 and October 2008 is pretty obvious; I managed to lose all that awesome running-ness in about a month and a half, once my calves gave out.

I know a lot of folks have this suspicion that I only want to run to lose weight, that losing weight is one of my goals, and that I'm somehow lying when I say this isn't true, and that I'm happy in my body right now. I've got some news for you folks. I'm actually not lying. Let's talk about this.

You like how your body changes when you run, therefore you dislike your body now.

My body now is pretty great. Yeah, I'm fat. I've noticed. But I also understand that my fat is from a combination of three things. First, my metabolism: it's not "slow" so much as it's more efficient. I can eat the same amount of calories as a person with a so-called "fast" metabolism, but still be fat. It's because my body can make do with far fewer calories, and so it stores the rest of them. There are advantages to having this kind of metabolism, and there's nothing actually WRONG with it.

Second, the pill: I've been on hormonal birth control for almost 10 years now. From what I know from my own experience, and from speaking with other women who are or who have been on the pill, weight gain is the rule, not the exception. I'm tired of doctors pooh-poohing that experience. "It's just water retention," "It's not real, it's perception," or, "That's just an anecdote." Yeah, just an anecdote from every single woman on the pill I've talked to.

It's really not that strange to attribute weight to the pill. More importantly, it's fair to attribute difficulty losing weight to the pill; I have to do more than just limit calories and walk a couple miles a day to lose weight. Medication plays a role.

Finally, I can't run. I know there are other ways to lose weight, blah blah blah, but we're talking about reasons why I'm fat, not why people (generalization) are fat. I can't run. So I stay fat. I have an invisible disability. The end.

So do I dislike my body now? I dislike my CALVES, that's for sure. And not how they look, but how they function. Because obsessing over how my body looks is pointless and exhausting. I care much more about how my body functions. Right now, it mostly functions well. I'll be happier once my calves function properly, and once my body becomes a running body again. If it's a fat running body, so be it. As long as it's a running body!

How can you be happy when your body is so repulsive?

Well, my body isn't repulsive, at least not to me. So I guess I can be happy because I don't hate myself? Does that work? It's not really debatable that beauty standards are dynamic, so I'm not going to worry about whether or not I can have different perception and opinions.

How could you claim that you wouldn't be happier if you lost weight?

This is generally the biggest question that people have that leads them to believe that I'm a lying liar who lies. If I'm happy with my body now, they believe, it's only because I don't realize how much happier I would be if I had a "normal" body. But that logic would only work in a world without thin privilege.

I am reminded every single day that my body is unacceptable in our society. I'm fat. I'm a burden because I'm fat. I'm destroying America. I'm repulsive. I will never be loved (by a man). There's something wrong with me. I can't be happy in my body. Etc.

I went shopping Tuesday night with a friend of mine, who has gained weight during her first year of graduate school. I think she looks totally fine, but both of us were frustrated as we searched for flattering, appropriate* party dresses. Sizing was a mess; I am by no means tiny, but I should be able to fit into a large or extra large; we found an "extra-large" dress that was almost too small on my friend, who typically wears a medium. We found that the current most popular dress type, bandage, made both of us look ridiculous.

We ended up finding some clothes we liked, including a dress for her (I was thrilled to find a dress the next day on Modcloth, which is hit or miss with sizing, but it's the right cut and style, and the fabric is flexible enough that I should be fine). But the whole trip was frustrating. Neither of us hates her body, neither of us is worried about our health or our attractiveness (although I'm sure plenty of people think I should worry about both because I AM SIZE FOURTEEN OMGGGGG DEATH SENTENCE). But I left the mall feeling like SOMEONE hated my body. It's a strange feeling.

So I know that I will be happier if I lose weight. Not because I hate my body, but because OTHER people hate it. I live in a world where being thin is privileged, so of COURSE I would be happier with that privilege. I would also be happier if that privilege ceased to exist.

Body weight and shape is one of the few things that I could change in order to gain or lose privilege. I cannot become cis-male, for example. My friends who are not white cannot become white. My queer friends can usually pass if they choose, but cannot change their sexuality. Etc.

I can lose weight and join the ranks of the privileged men and women (mostly women) whose bodies are deemed acceptable (not perfect, just acceptable). But I could also fight back against thin privilege. Part of that fight is loving my body. Part of it is dropping the services of doctors who insist that I need to lose weight, without any actual reason besides, "Well, your BMI is high." I can continue to speak out against the use of BMI as a measure of health. I can wear sleeveless shirts and skinny jeans.

I would be happier if I were skinnier, not because there's something wrong with my body now, but because there's something wrong with the culture I live in.

I don't judge people for wanting to lose weight in order to gain thin privilege. I don't think that losing weight, for whatever reason (life circumstances, actual effort, illness) is some sign of "giving in" to kyriarchy, or that it constitutes a loss. While I believe that many people could do more to fight kyriarchy, often we can be more successful when we gain privilege. We can still be allies.

When my calves have healed, and I can run again, I'm going to run like hell. Not for my health, which is excellent, or to lose weight, since I like my body, but because I LOVE running. Yes, I would be happy if running led to weight loss, only because my life would be happier if I didn't have to deal with other people hating my body for no reason. But I would still insist that weight isn't an indicator of health. I would still vehemently disagree with anyone who claimed that no one has an excuse not to exercise. I would still pressure clothing stores, such as Modcloth, to include more sizes, or to standardize sizing for women.

I just wouldn't have to deal with my mom fretting over my weight. I wouldn't have to scour the mall for party dresses and leave empty handed. I wouldn't have to forgo impromptu sleepovers because I know I won't fit into my friends' pajamas. Life would be happier, not because I hate my body now, but because our culture is designed to Other me, to deem my body abnormal, and to make it inconvenient for me to exist.

* By "appropriate" here, we mean "appropriately short and cleavage-y to wear to a club."

Personal style

2011-05-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a bit about personal style recently, for several reasons. While "exploring" Google Reader, I discovered a blog called Already Pretty, run by Sally McGraw, which is about style and body image. I also have been going out to clubs and bars more often, which necessitates a different wardrobe (not because someone TOLD me that, just because going out changes what I want to wear). I'm starting to make very different fashion decisions these days, to the point where I think I need to clear out a significant portion of my wardrobe.

What do I typically wear? Like most people, I love being comfortable. I'm usually wearing boot-cut jeans (moved on from flares about two years ago), a tank top or T-shirt, and some kind of cardigan or zip-up sweatshirt. My go-to cardigans are pretty boring, black and navy, and look a little schlubby, especially because I'm a large person and I stretch them out after the first wear post-wash. My favorite zip-up is great, but I usually accidentally zip it up all the way, hiding whatever shirt I have underneath. All of these cardis/zip-ups are neutrals/blacks, thus requiring very little coordination.

A great deal of my tank-tops are blindingly bright and quite boring (Old Navy). While the style is fine, very basic and flexible, the colors are not. They're not not neutral (lime green?!), and are difficult to use with layering. Meanwhile, the neutral colors, which I love, are so often used with layering, I often don't get a chance to wear them on their own.

Another problem? My current body image insecurity revolves around my arms. It's been difficult for me to practice self-love on everything, so I allow myself this insecurity for now. It's not going to stop me from going sleeveless all the time. After all, it's about to get warm out (we hope? It's the end of May and I had to wear a winter coat this weekend), and if it's hot, I'm going sleeveless, damnit. I'm going sleeveless at my brother's wedding, I went sleeveless at the club this weekend, and I'm going sleeveless whenever I damn well feel like it.

But again, it's my current insecurity, so I avoid it when it's not necessary. I got a super cute cardigan from the Gap that's been perfect for, well, everything. It's a ridiculously light shade of seagreen/blue, with cute beading details on the tops of the shoulders. The sleeves aren't too long, and the cut is slim enough that it doesn't add bulk (nor it is tight). I've been wearing it with blacks and neutrals, and it's great for going out because it covers my arms without causing me to combust.

So I want to keep a black basic or two, but need more of these seasonal, stylish cardis. I also need to extend my wardrobe to have some light, summery shirts with sleeves (short or otherwise). I have some T-shirts that are cute (more Old Navy basics), but they're boring, they're a bit tight (in general, and in the sleeves), and they don't flatter my figure. I've got a great bust, and while I'm not always looking to draw attention to my boobs, I don't like necklines that hover halfway between boobs-a-poppin' and super modest. I also hate suffocating crew-necks; one of my favorite long-sleeved shirts is from H&M, and while it's technically a crew-neck, the neck is wide enough to give me some breathing room.

Either way, I need to keep investing in neutral basics, while also getting some adorable stand-alones. I've got a great shirt from Anne Taylor Loft (with a similar neckline as the H&M shirt), as well as a couple from Old Navy. I don't consider them basics, in that I can and do often wear them on their own, sans cardi, and never layer them.

I've got a seriously long torso, unrelated to the size of my stomach, and need to invest in more shirts (basic or otherwise) that are long enough for me to feel comfortable wearing them with jeans. I have some shirts that I can't wear comfortably with jeans; they ride up too easily (WHYYY, I hate that!) or just aren't long enough in the first place. I'm not big on skirts, so that's really a no-no for me at the moment. While I don't think that it's always flattering on me, I can usually work empire waist/billowy stomach type shirts; why don't I have more?

As I said, I'm not big on skirts. I can't wear pencil skirts, since they make my ass look fetish-y huge, and I can't move my legs in them. I don't always want to wear something A-line either, though, so if I'm not in the mood for something A-line/billowy, I can't wear a skirt. Length can also be a pain for me; I've got relatively short legs (again, see long torso), so even when I err on the side of short, I'm often stuck with a skirt with a cut meant to be worn shorter. I dislike capris because somehow, they all seem to hate my ass, which also goes for shorts. I stick with jeans pretty often, even in summer, especially since I work in a lab and often go to the animal facility (no shorts/skirts).

Shoes are a source of shame for me. I have a terrible time in heels, to the point where I'm regretting buying these BEAUTIFUL shoes for my brother's wedding because I'm sure I won't last 30 minutes in them. I wear the flattest shoes I can find on a regular basis, running them into the ground before buying new ones and braving blisters. I tried practicing this weekend by wearing a pair of 3 inch stilettos to a club, and I actually managed to stay standing/dancing from about 8:30 until 11:30. But then it was breaks every 15-20 minutes. More practice needed.

So I need to clean out my closet. I've got some clothing I'm holding onto for sentimental reasons, or because I don't have another opportunity to wear it. I've got other pieces of clothing I wear every so often, like some old layering tanks I hold onto for when I need clothes to wear to the laundromat, or when I need a red shirt for some reason (stop-light party maybe?). I've got shoes I SWEAR I'll wear again.

I need to get rid of the stuff I'm not wearing regularly. I need to get rid of some shoes. I need to replace these items with a variety of comfortable flats and low heels, as well as some new basics, and new stand alones. And then I need to start planning my outfits. Yes, I have some low heels I could wear to work! Why didn't I wear them today? No idea. Gotta change that.

I'm going shopping this week for some clothes I can wear out, that are more stylish than my workday duds. Hopefully I'll pick up some cheapish pieces for everyday wear!

Discouraging signs

2011-05-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

I think I'm starting to have compartment syndrome symptoms even though I've only used the elliptical once since my compartment test, just one time last week. My right calf has been slightly achy since Thursday. Of course, I've done my share of walking, I've done a lot of T surfing that's involved leaning on my right leg, and I went dancing last night. But even so, it's strange to have the pain still linger. I'm so anxious about working out on the elliptical now that I might quit the gym this week.

Quitting the gym would make some sense. It would help financially, since I'm not going as frequently as I was in the winter, and that's wasting $60/month. Additionally, my hatred of the elliptical knows no bounds. I understand that it's a great machine and gives you a great workout with low impact on joints, and less impact on calves. Great, fantastic. Don't care. It took me years to discover how much I loved running, and that's the only thing I want to do. The elliptical is not a replacement for that.

I mean, I was going to stick with the elliptical, or try to, in order to maintain some of my fitness throughout the summer. First, it was until I found out what was wrong with me. Then it was going to be until I had surgery. Then until my brother's wedding. Now, I'm loathing going to the gym, and even when I bring my gym bag with me to work, I'll go home instead. This never happened when I was running, even with compartment syndrome.

Meanwhile, as I said, I think my symptoms are popping up from T surfing and powerwalking (and yeah, clubbing). Point is, my calves are unhappy now when I'm not running. That makes me want to use the elliptical even less.

My cardiovascular health is excellent enough that I feel okay about not going to the gym until my calves are healed. But it's still distressing to be dealing with low levels of pain when I'm not doing anything "wrong." A lot of folks asked me if surgery was really necessary if my symptoms were only activated by running. I stand by my decision to have surgery, even if I wasn't experiencing symptoms regularly now. Because "not running" doesn't solve any problems, it just postpones them. Telling me to just use the elliptical ignores the reason I became a runner, and creates a new reason that, quite frankly, is bullshit (if running causes me to lose weight, I'm sure my mother will be very happy. If not, who the hell cares? I'm running!).

Again, I'm frustrated about my symptoms right now. I'm anxious for my appointment with the surgeon in two weeks, specifically because I'm worried he won't be able to (or just won't) do the surgery in the beginning of August. The time crunch here is very frustrating; July is too early, and anything after the very beginning of August is too late. Arg!!

Portal 2: Great ending? Or GREATEST ending?

2011-05-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

I finished Portal 2 recently, and ever since, I've been doing two Portal 2 related things: Obsessing over the ending, and trying to find time for my friend and me to play co-op. This post is about the former.

There will obviously be spoilers all over the place, since I'm, you know, talking about the ending of Portal 2. If you don't want to know about the ending of Portal 2, or about the middle either, you should probably go read something else. Or go play Portal 2. That's probably the right thing to do.

Like I said, I've been obsessing over the ending. Here's a recap.

After trying to dispose of GLaDOS, we have put Wheatley in charge of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. However, this ended up being a pretty bad mistake. Not only has Wheatley become drunk, high, and horny with power, but GLaDOS recognizes him as the moron personality core that the Aperture scientists had developed to try to dumb her down and prevent her from flooding the Enrichment Center with deadly neurotoxin (because she had flooded the Enrichment Center with deadly neurotoxin).

(She could bathe in this stuff.)

By the end of the game, Wheatley has decided that he's tired of you and GLaDOS, and he's going to kill you (this is that part). However, there's a little bit of a hitch, besides the fact that you're trying to NOT die: Wheatley is such an incapable personality that the Enrichment Center is about to self-destruct. The goal isn't just to keep from dying; you need to put GLaDOS back in charge. Otherwise, you'll die anyway; it's been established already that escaping the facility is extremely difficult and complicated. GLaDOS has agreed to let you go if you put her back in charge, and we have no choice but to trust her.

When you finally arrive in Wheatley's lair (his term, not mine), he's ready for you. But he needs to kill you quickly because the facility is going to blow in about six minutes. Great. Except he's watched the tapes of you killing GLaDOS, and has become genre savvy. He's even got a 4-part plan: 1) no portal surfaces, 2) neurotoxin immediately*, 3) bomb-proof shields for him, because 4) bombs for you. He probably hasn't thought things through, though, since there's a pipe carrying white portal gel right in front of him. The first thing to do, of course, is hide behind it and wait for him to try to bomb you. SPLAT; there are portal surfaces everywhere. Naturally, Wheatley says he meant to let that happen.

The plan you and GLaDOS have concocted to stop Wheatley is to have you stun him, have her grab a corrupted personality core from a trash pile, and than have her hand it off to you so you can place it on Wheatley. After a few cores are added, the system will consider Wheatley too corrupt, and require a manual core replacement, just like the beginning of the game. At that point, GLaDOS was corrupt enough that the system asked for a manual core replacement as soon as Wheatley was plugged in; when GLaDOS refused to be replaced, you had to get over to the Stalemate Resolution Button and override GLaDOS' refusal.

Sure enough, after three cores (one obsessed with space, one interested in adventure, and one spouting off nonsensically wrong "facts"), Wheatley is deemed corrupt enough for the replacement.** But, naturally, there's another stalemate. A fire in the area where the button is actually alerts you to the location, but also serves another purpose; the fire activates sprinklers, which wash off almost all of the portal gel. There's only a small patch, directly underneath Wheatley, and we must portal to the ceiling above the button in order to reach it. By forcing the player to put a portal under Wheatley, Valve is forcing you to set up your portals in a way that is essential to the ending. Meanwhile, Wheatley is loudly demanding that you not press the button, while GLaDOS is desperately pleading with you to press it.

Once you reach the stalemate button, you learn that Wheatley's 4-part plan included a 5th part: the button was booby-trapped. This is where the game seques into cinema instead of regular gameplay, and it does so using visuals and music that actually gave me chills. After the explosion, your viewpoint is exactly the same as it would be if you had died normally within the game (which I did on my first two tries against Wheatley--both times, he bombed the hell out of me before I could even look around to formulate my strategy). However, as the music starts to crescendo, the camera of your viewpoint moves, and you can see your own hand and arm as you look for your portal gun. Wheatley is simultaneously scolding you for ruining everything, and panicking because the center is about to explode and he doesn't know how to fix it.

Meanwhile, we're injured. We've managed to grab our gun and flip over, and as we do so, part of the ceiling breaks. The full moon is above us, looking particularly large and detailed. And, strangely, our portal gun sights reappear on the screen, a signal to the player that we are now out of the cinema mode and that you can shoot the gun. And it's right over the moon.

I knew that I had placed my orange portal under Wheatley, since I play on a Macbook Pro and it's easier for me to place blue portals. It's much more common for me to accidentally set a blue portal when I want orange than it is for me to set an orange one when I want blue, so orange tends to be my "close/entry" portal, and blue my "far/exit" one. I'm not sure it matters if you click the correct portal at this point, or if the game just assumes you set a blue one, but either way, your portal gun sights are directly over the giant, tempting moon, and there is nothing else in sight.

I remember thinking, "This is crazy. But there's nothing else to do," before shooting my blue portal at the fucking MOON. Sure enough, the music and dialogue stopped abruptly, and I could hear my character's heart thump before a little twinkle pinging noise signalled that the portal had indeed landed.

But, you know, you just shot a portal on the moon. And, thanks to Valve's smart thinking, the orange portal is currently directly below Wheatley. And space is a vacuum. WHOOSH.

Oh, but you're dragged out, too. The strange handles on Wheatley that, according to the developers, were supposed to function as cheek muscles or eyebrows, depending on the desired expression, are actual handles, keeping you from being sucked into space forever (something that the space-obsessed personality core is VERY excited about!). Wheatley, of course, is incredulous and panicking, but as he rambles aloud about how he can fix it, GLaDOS' voice announces that she's already fixed it. And then she manages to grab you while detaching Wheatley, who speeds off into space, shouting repeatedly for you to grab him.

After falling unconscious, you awaken in the presence of GLaDOS, as well as Atlas and P-body, the two co-op robots (they're just there as an intro, they are not important to the ending otherwise). GLaDOS explains that she's relieved that you're all right, and that she's realized that you're actually her best friend and not her enemy. However, she's also managed to locate the source of all those warm, fuzzy feelings, the location of Caroline (pronounced Carolyn), her original personality from when she was Cave Johnson's secretary. And, of course, she deletes Caroline.

At this point, I figured she would go back on her promise to let me go. I actually thought, "Oh, okay, so now she's going to kill me." But no. She tells you that you've basically been ruining her life, and she wants you to get the hell out of there and never come back. Great. We go up the elevator, and Reconstructing Science (the best song ever) plays. But then the elevator opens, and we're not out of the center. There are turrets waiting for us. But as they stare at you, their lights go off. They then begin to SING, as if their moving arms are controlling the amount of sound or (more likely) airflow to create the different notes.

As they sing,*** the elevator moves up, and soon, you're in a massive, expansive room, filled with turrets. One continues the original song before a short round one begins singing soprano (I couldn't make out the words, but who cares? There's a turret singing opera), while the rest sing the orchestral parts. There's even the gigantic, animal print turret in the back, singing bass. They all sing in the same GLaDOS turret voice. The song is sweet and romantic sounding, and it continues as the elevator glides up faster and faster, abruptly ending as you reach the top. The door opens, and you go outside for the first time in the entire series. There's an endless field of yellow, high grass before you, before you hear the door slam behind you. The door is actually on a tiny little metal shed, completely unassuming. But before everything goes black, the door opens one more time, and the weighted companion cube, the same one you had to incinerate from the first game, is thrown out the door for you to keep, and the door slams shut once more.

The game then cuts to the credits, run during the song "Want You Gone," where GLaDOS angrily sings about how much trouble you've caused her, and how glad she is to be rid of you. Finally, we get a glimpse of a miserable and remorseful Wheatley, floating in space, as the space personality core happily orbits around him.

So, that's a LOT of ending there. But why is it such a great ending? Lots of reasons.

The Wheatley battle is extremely clever. By announcing the ways that he's going to conduct the battle, specifically by telling you he's going to avoid GLaDOS' mistakes, the player panics. Don't lie; you panicked. Even just a little. I panicked so hard, I almost quit for the night. To be fair, I had just died twice, each time before I could even look around the room and figure out a strategy.

Adding the cores to Wheatley was pretty fun, mostly because it was simple, it used the other two gels, and it felt less like a repetitive boss battle and more like part of the plot. Like, it took three cores because each one added 25%. Meanwhile, Wheatley is taunting you and admonishing you, even admitting that you weren't the first person he had tried to help escape. And working with GLaDOS was extremely unnerving, but it didn't feel forced. The deal between the two of us felt completely real. She WAS my only chance to escape, and I was absolutely her only chance to be put back in charge of the facility. The only risk was that she might betray me, but without trying, I was going to be stuck there forever, or die soon anyway.

And working with her in the boss battle didn't feel risky. It was as if neither of us really had time to either betray the other, or think about the other one possibly betraying us. We just wanted to stop Wheatley.

And more than that, weirdly enough, I felt like Wheatley had messed up the natural order. I felt weird in the beginning of the game, going through the test chambers and hearing the peppy male voice give instructions and advice. It wasn't that I liked GLaDOS; it was that there was something WRONG with the Enrichment Center without her there. Having Wheatley in charge was, for the same reason, wrong. It almost felt as if GLaDOS and I needed to get rid of him so we could continue our own fued.

I've already discussed how the fire/sprinklers bit served two purposes: it directed the player's attention to the stalemate button,**** and it prevented the player from putting their entry portal anywhere except below Wheatley. Booby-trapping the stalemate button was, actually, pretty brilliant, both in terms of Wheatley's foresight, but also in terms of Valve's planning and writing. I couldn't believe the button had been booby-trapped, not because I thought it was a stupid idea, or even because I thought I should have seen it coming, but because booby-trapping the button really made me feel as if we (GLaDOS and I) were going to lose. I did think I had died at first, but then, when I saw myself moving, I was just as surprised as Wheatley that I was still alive. It still felt as if there was nothing more to be done, and I felt just as desperate as Wheatley sounded, and as GLaDOS had sounded.

In fact, in that moment, it really felt like the three of us stopped fighting against each other because we all realized that shit, we were about to die.

I did think that shooting a portal on the moon was ridiculous. But then, after watching the ending several times, and playing through single player again, I realized that it wasn't. The game carefully establishes in the third section of the old Aperture Science facilities, that moon rocks, crushed up into powder and made into a gel, were great portal conductors. That's what the white gel is supposed to be. And, in the very first part of the game, in the motel room, there's a picture on the wall depicting a mountain lake. After waking up for the second time, if you look at the same picture before it falls off the wall, the moon is suddenly present in the painting, and it's GIGANTIC. Clue? One that you probably didn't pick up the first time around.

Valve did do the moon thing pretty thoughtfully; the portal doesn't hit instantaneously. In fact, I think people have done the calculations, and since portals travel at the speed of light, it took just the right amount of time for the portal to hit the moon as if would have needed. A friend of mine (Scott!) also suggested that perhaps one of the reasons why Wheatley could still be heard in space, and why you didn't die as you hung on for dear life, is because the vacuum was also pulling out regular air with it, and that you and Wheatley could be in that tube of air. I'll buy that. I'm not exactly dissatisfied with the moon thing. It just seemed absurd at first. Maybe there's a reason the achievement at that point is called Lunacy?

GLaDOS deleting Caroline was probably one of the greatest moments ever. She's just had this amazing character development, carrying over from the first game, where she slowly changes from just a scientist trying to test the portals, to a desperate and frustrated researcher (trying to trick you into returning to the incinerator), to a vengeful and vindictive demigod (she controls the entire environment), to a powerless potato, to your ally and companion. And once she's back in power, she's sure to delete that part of her that gives her the compassion and caring to be your friend (GOODBYE, CAROLINE). She's back to the beginning, and to ensure you don't cause her to go through the same development again, she gets rid of you.

At first, I thought she'd gone back on her word, and that the turrets would kill me (or that she wasn't going to kill you, but she wouldn't save you if the turrets wanted you dead--I think that still might be true). Instead, they sang. Again, I found this absurd. I had missed an easter egg in the game where you could find singing turrets, but even after finding them, it still didn't explain anything. But after several runthroughs of the ending, I finally decided that the turrets were thanking me.

Wheatley had tortured them by creating hybrids made of turrets and weighted storage cubes. The turrets seemed to be in pain and extremely deformed, not just physically, but even a little bit mentally. It was pretty terrifying to find them that way, and even more disturbing to have to play the game using them as storage blocks to progress through the test chambers. Wheatley not only almost destroyed them all when he let the Enrichment Center come so close to a self-destruct, he had tortured them in "genetic" experiments.

Putting GLaDOS back in charge and keeping the facility from blowing up has saved the turrets. I figured maybe they'd be vengeful, since I, you know, disabled and killed some of them in the past. But I guess they were serious when they sometimes said, "I don't hate you" when they shut down. Whatever works.

So I concluded that either they were grateful to me, or possibly that GLaDOS was using them to express her gratitude without having to actually express it. Another clue for that possibility is the ending song, "Want You Gone." While GLaDOS is essentially telling you that you've ruined her life and she wants you to leave her alone, she does allude to possibly still considering you her friend (well, did you think she meant you?), and very strongly implies she still hasn't deleted Caroline for real. Either way, giving you the companion cube at the end did seem like a sign of gratitude, or at least an implication that GLaDOS doesn't want you to be alone. Or maybe that she's sorry, by giving you back something she took from you.

All in all, there are some absurdities to the ending (space, the turrets), but when you get to the surface, you feel as if it's finally all over, that you've earned that freedom, and that anything you did wrong (euthanizing the companion cube, disabling and killing turrets, and even killing GLaDOS) has been forgiven somehow.

The only flaw in this ending? While I appreciate the minimal cake jokes, I think "space" is going to be the new cake.

* He says that he's starting it immediately, implying that GLaDOS did not, but if you've played the first game, you'll notice that she turns it on as soon as you dispose of the first personality core. After that, the boss battle starts, and the neurotoxin will reach capacity (i.e. kill you) in 6 minutes. In Wheatley's battle, the same thing happens: the neurotoxin starts when the battle starts, and it will kill you in about 5 minutes. So I'm not sure why he's stating his neurotoxin plan is different from GLaDOS', but maybe we can just chalk it up to him being an idiot.

** I find it strange that Wheatley wasn't already corrupt enough. Granted, I completely understood that GLaDOS would be, but Wheatley should have been at least 75-90% corrupt by the end of the game. He was single-handedly destroying the facility, out of idiocy. But then again, otherwise what would the boss battle have consisted of, plot-wise? Fair enough, Valve.

*** Not the one on the far right! That one sits there, looking confused while the others sing.

**** When the announcer told me to go to the stalemate button, I didn't know where it was because the "fire detected in the vicinity of the stalemate button" part hadn't happened yet. Once that happened, it was obvious where the button was, but beforehand, the button was still behind a panel of wall

First conference--PWNED

2011-05-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I left last week to go to my first conference, the annual meeting for an international vision research association. I had an amazing time, and I'm glad that my boss decided that I was going.

I woke up nice and early on April 30th after not very much sleep. That's what happens when you're nervous about a trip! Or what happens when you finish packing and getting ready at 11:30 and after telling your friend that you need to go to bed now, you end up playing co-op Portal 2 with him for almost an hour.

Worth it.

My coworker and I both got to the airport pretty early, checked our bags, and got breakfast. The first flight was fine, but the second flight was a pain. I finished the one book I brought with me on the plane, with almost a full two hours left to go in the flight. Additionally, I sat next to a crying baby. Yep. Crying baby, for real, on a flight. Not just on the same flight, but in the seat next to me. Somehow, I managed to nap, but I stayed pretty bored for the rest of the flight.

Upon arriving in Florida, we got our luggage and took a cab to the nearby hotel. To our dismay, the hotel (where we had booked a room with TWO beds) would only give us a room with ONE bed. My coworker is not single, and we didn't feel comfortable sharing the one bed, so after the manager insisted he couldn't switch our rooms, we got a cot. The room was tiny and got no sunlight, and the only room for the cot was in the entryway to the room itself. That meant that we could only set up the cot when we were using it, since otherwise we couldn't leave the room.

To top it all off, of course, the TV remote didn't work, the WiFi in the room was too weak to use, and I didn't get any cell phone reception. It was shaping up to be a lousy week.

We headed out to find food for a late lunch, which we had at a dive bar. We picked up some snacks and booze for the hotel room on the way back. We also had some nice pool time, which cheered me up. That evening, we headed out to another restaurant for dinner, which was pretty fun. I felt much better, and ready to start the conference the next day.

I was super nervous on Sunday, which my coworker found amusing (he especially thought it was hilarious that I was nervous about getting my poster up by 8:30am exactly. "What, did you think they wouldn't let you put it up if you were even a minute late?" YES). We got our badges and he helped me put my poster up. I didn't have to be at the poster until 10:15, so we went in search of (overpriced) food. I only ate half of my plain bagel, so I put the other half in my bag and totally forgot about it. I was pretty surprised that night to find a stale bagel half underneath my notebook.

We went to a couple of talks, and I tried to take notes. I took bad notes. I don't know, it's just that there's so much going on, and there's only so much information you can cram into 10 minute talks. And unless you're very talented, you're probably going to be so focused on cramming in that information that the only people who get your talk are people doing very similar work. Then, I headed downstairs to the main exhibit hall to stand in front of my poster.

I didn't really know what to expect from the poster sessions. I've never presented a poster before, so I assumed (based on the number of posters, the presence of a chair in front of each poster, and my own lack of interest in other people's work) that I would probably be sitting most of the hour, waiting for people to come by and read the poster, and then maybe answer questions if they had any. I was totally wrong.

At 10:15, I arrived at my poster to find a bunch of people already in front of it, reading it. From then on, I did nothing except walk various folks through my project, answer their questions, explain the intricacies of the project. I didn't need a chair. I only had trouble once, when a young woman kept insisting that she be allowed to take pictures of my poster. Photography and recording is actually prohibited at the meeting, and my boss had additionally forbidden me to allow photography, so I constantly told her no. She finally relented to just asking for a photo of my email address. I told her no, but wrote it down for her. She STILL insisted on taking a photo. I was a bit miffed.

At the end of the hour-long session, one more person was still at my poster. I talked her through the project, and she actually gave me some tips on isolating some primary cells we were having trouble with. Awesome! So, I finished at 11:45, just when my coworker came to look for me.

We went and got lunch at a steakhouse with another coworker (who accidentally stole my steak--I ended up with his medium-rare one, and was bummed out) before walking back to the convention center for some more talks. At 3:15, I headed back to my poster for the afternoon poster session. I again made some assumptions. I assumed that since this poster session was taking place during the afternoon session, when lots of people would be at other talks or have gone to their hotels for the afternoon, I would have fewer people asking questions (the first session was the all-poster session, during which there are no talks or meetings). I also assumed that since there was a longer amount of time for this second session, people would be more spread out in terms of how many folks would come along at once.

My coworkers all came by at the beginning, but before we could even chat, I started having visitors. My boss had told me that she was sending a woman to see my poster, but I was so busy talking with other people, my boss had to explain the project to the woman instead. I ended up staying another 15 minutes after time was called at 5pm, since there were some other folks who had questions. I was beginning to lose my voice, too (I lost it completely by that evening, but it slowly came back over the course of the week and was normal by Thursday).

We then hit up the keynote, but just because they had made a video using clips that organization members had filmed. A ton of clips were of the folks in our labs, so we were psyched. Then we skipped out because we don't care about genomics, and there was a pool beckoning us. Pooooool. Plus, I was exhausted!!

My coworker and I were too tired to go find food that night, so we ordered a pizza. It was pretty chill. Thanks to the lack of internet, I was switching back and forth from reading a book about cancer (The Emperor of Maladies, just won the Pulitzer! READ IT) and frantically waving my cell phone in the air to try to keep my IM client connected to the 3G (mixed results). Before calling it a night around 10:30, I checked my social networking app and found a slew of tweets regarding Osama bin Laden, so then I turned on the news until Obama had finished his speech over an hour later. I wish I had gotten more sleep, but glad I watched the speech. By the way, pundits? Shut up, you are SO annoying!

The next few days of the conference consisted of a lot of talks and poster sessions. I didn't have as much fun, since I prefer to present my own work and really don't care that much about everyone else's. Some posters were pretty interesting, though, although unsurprisingly, the better posters were the ones with first authors who were 1) actually at their posters, and 2) eager to explain their research. Some folks just sat in chairs, bored, watching others go by, and other folks would just stand by their posters, not even asking viewers if they had any questions. I'm not going to judge everyone's behavior and claim that they're lazy or rotten or anything. Some people have bad days, some people are shy, and some people don't speak English and might be nervous about being at a meeting in the US. But it definitely influenced which posters I liked and made sense to me, and which ones didn't.

I also noticed a lot of people weren't standing at their posters. I noticed it on the first day only because some of the people who were at my poster asked me to come see theirs, and then pointed over to it because they were on the same day as me (this happened a lot during the all-posters session). Not that I had a chance to leave my poster, but I had no idea the number of people who just didn't go to their posters when they were supposed to. Even my boss was frequently not at her poster!

In the afternoons, my coworker and I would relax and tan by the pool and read, which was nice. I started bringing my computer with me to the convention center on the last few days of the meeting, enabling me to take better notes, and to get my internet fix during the day so I wasn't killing my phone battery or going batty in the evening without a connection. Our whole lab went out for dinner one evening, which was fun, and then I went out with two of my good friends, who were local, another night (for expensive, DELICIOUS steak, and even better quality time and conversation).

Thursday, my coworker finally got to give his talk, which went very well. The strange thing, though, was that he was in a weird section. He was talking about induced pluripotent stem cells and regenerating Bruch's membrane. But the rest of the session was about anti-angiogenic treatments for AMD, clinically. Clinical stuff and wet lab stuff are VERY different. Plus, his was the only talk without reference to VEGF. Weird. Then we had beer to celebrate. And internet.

Heading home was uneventful but stressful. Continental proved that they could be almost as annoying as United, which is funny because they're merging. We were unable to check in using our United confirmation number, our Continental confirmation number, our e-ticket numbers, or even our credit cards. Finally, the representatives helped us, but then informed us that because our first flight was delayed, they were putting us on a later flight to Boston in case we missed our connection. I expressed surprise, since I thought we were already on the latest flight to Boston. It turns out, the "later" flight they were referring to was the flight we had actually booked! The flight he claimed we were on, which United TOLD me we were NOT on, was scheduled to leave before we had even landed in Newark. That's something that United told me they cleared up for me, and it was reflected in the final confirmation email and the reservation on the website. Grrr!

But fine, he said he booked us on both flights. Then he had to run and get my luggage because he had accidentally tagged it to just go to Newark, not Boston. I noticed that he had only given me one boarding pass and had to point this out to him (this is what happened to me when I tried to go to Iowa--they gave me one boarding pass, and my luggage was only tagged for Chicago, not Cedar Rapids). Fine. Then we waited for 40 minutes to get through security, only to find out flight was delayed 45 minutes.

That flight was actually all right because we had free movies, TV, and music. Plus, I had a window seat and the person in front of me didn't recline their seat. Yay! We arrived in Newark similarly delayed, so we just went to the gate for our original flight so we could get boarding passes. But then we were told that we weren't on the flight.

So, let's get something straight here. When we booked the trip, we booked this flight. Then United called me because they changed the flight. Then I called and they changed it back, and sent me confirmation that they changed it back. We were on that flight, no other flight. Then we get to check in and they tell us we're NOT booked on the flight, that we're on an earlier one we couldn't possibly catch. Don't worry, they tell us, you're booked on BOTH flights. But then, as it turns out, we were not booked on the later flight.

Yeah.

Fortunately, the flight was only half-booked, and they got us on it easily. It was a short flight, delayed about 30 minutes, so we got into Boston around 11:15. There was enough space that we had a row to ourselves and didn't have to sit with strangers. Finally, we took a cab back to our neck of the woods, I drove my coworker home, and then I went home and passed out.

All in all, it was a great trip. I learned a lot, made my boss SUPER proud with how well I handled the poster sessions with the millions of adoring fans, got a tan, and had a lot of fun. I hope that my next conference is at least half as great.

But I also hope that the flight situation is at least twice as good.

200th post

2011-04-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Cool.

Well, not that cool. 200 rambling posts, which vary between extraordinarily long rants about sexism and tiny little posts that consist of me just complaining about stuff. Not that impressive, I'll tell ya.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm leaving for my very first conference, a vision research annual meeting. I'll be presenting my first poster, too, which I'm only excited about because I'm proud of myself. I'm not that thrilled to stand beside it for 3-4 hours, repeating myself endlessly/judging myself if fewer people stop by my poster than at other posters. I'm anxious that I'll be bored during people's talks, or get in trouble with my boss for not going to enough talks/poster sessions, or whatever.

But hey, I'm signing up to be a scientist. It's time to get used to talks and posters and symposia, after all.

Compartment Syndrome--Officially Diagnosed

2011-04-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

As the title would suggest, I got the official diagnosis this afternoon. Here's how that shit when down, y'all.

I left work early, and when I got home, I put on my running clothes and discovered I didn't have any Tylenol. AWESOME. I arrived at the office, a quick drive away, and filled out lots of fun information. Eventually, I went into the exam room and had a conversation with the doctor about my symptoms. He agreed that it really sounded like I had compartment syndrome, and explained to me what it was. He didn't know that I'd pretty much done all of the research already and didn't need to be told that information, but I did like that he explained it, and in very clear terms. A lot of doctors DON'T explain things very well, which is frustrating, so I appreciated the explanation, even if I didn't need it.

He had me lie down on the exam table (it had a pillow, so that plus my affinity for extremely firm mattresses made that table super comfortable, no joke), and he explained what he was going to do. He then injected novocaine into each compartment in each leg. There are four compartments in the calf, so that meant 8 injections. He first applied betadyne, and then marked each injection site by pressing a plastic rod into my skin. He then told me I would feel a pinch and then a burn as he injected the novocaine. I barely felt the pinch, which is normal, but wow, he wasn't joking about the burn. If you've gotten the HPV vaccine, you'll know what it feels like. Unpleasant, but temporary. I'd never had novocaine before, so I didn't know it burned.

Next, he took the initial measurements. These weren't that painful, thanks to the novocaine, but they did feel very weird, and not in a completely innocuous way. For female readers with gyno experiences, it's sort of the same weird kind of sensation when you get a pap smear, in terms of feeling discomfort in an area you usually don't have things stuck in (for male readers or readers with less gyno experience, having your cervix touched, either because of a pap smear or through sex, is a different sensation than, say, simple penetration. Often, if "pap smear" is mentioned, women who've had them might make a face or squirm a little. Unpleasant).

After the initial measurements, he had me help him apply pressure to the injection sites to keep them from bleeding. Then I went outside for a 10 minute run. I was concerned because my symptoms weren't kicking in, not until the end of the run, and even then, it was borderline. However, even though I didn't feel the pain of my usual symptoms, my calves did feel as if something was still wrong. That is, when I don't have any symptoms, I can very comfortably run at least 2 miles. With symptoms, my calves feel stiff, as if they've seized up. That feeling was present, while the pain was not. I ended my run at 10 minutes, disappointed that my symptoms weren't popping up on the one day they really needed to, and decided to run up the stairs to the second floor office to make sure I stressed my calves more. I ran in place in the exam room until the doctor returned, and I made sure to land on my toes to keep my calves stressed.

The second round of measurements was less pleasant. I've had a cold for the past week that went from nuisance to nasty over the weekend, and I've been coughing a lot, quite painfully, for the past couple of days. The run in chilly weather didn't help much, so I was gasping a bit (thus supporting the illusion that I'm out of shape, ugh). Plus, the novocaine was wearing off, so the measurements were slightly painful in addition to seriously uncomfortable.

Afterwards, we applied pressure again, and he confirmed that I definitely have compartment syndrome, in three out of four compartments in both legs (and, as I expected based on my symptoms, worse in the right leg). I don't have it in my lateral compartments, which he explained is actually a normal finding for folks with compartment syndrome. He's sending the info and diagnosis back to the podiatrist, and she and I will talk and she'll refer me to a surgeon. In the meantime, he recommended Tylenol (picked up some on the way home, yay), and he ace bandaged some ice packs to my legs.

Walking to and from my car, and within my apartment, has been unpleasant. It's a strange feeling. It's not serious pain. It's a constant moderate discomfort and ache. I can't take a lot of Tylenol right now, since I took DayQuil earlier and I don't want to risk frying my liver, but if my cold is better tomorrow, I'll take it in the morning.

I totally understand why my podatrist explained how rarely she sends people to get this test. At first, I thought, "Well, if you think it might be compartment syndrome, why wouldn't you?" Now, I'm like, "Wow, she must have been REALLY sure!!"

We'll see what happens next. I don't think I want surgery right away, not because I want to try something else, but because I've got two weddings this summer, a vacation I'm planning on taking, and flute ensemble. I'd only be able to do surgery in early May or the beginning of August, and I'd rather do August so I don't miss work! But as a friend pointed out, my insurance is about to change, and it might be too difficult to get the right surgeon and find a good physical therapist with my school insurance in the fall. I'm calling the podiatrist tomorrow and I'll hopefully be able to meet with her as early as next week. Probably not, though, increasing the chances that I'll wait till August for surgery.

Possible explanations

2011-04-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up feeling much worse than I did yesterday, cold-wise. Everything felt magnified: cough, fatigue, congestion. I ran scenarios through my head about what would happen if I stayed home. After all, I was only going to work till noon, so did I really need to go?

And then I stopped asking myself if I needed to go to work, answering yes, and asked myself why I felt so much worse.

I mean, maybe my cold was worse and I should have stayed home. Or maybe I shouldn't have stayed up till 2 am reading articles on Cracked.com and complaining to my friend about whether or not he was spoiling the rest of Portal 2 for me.

Whoops.

Portal 2 (SPOILERS--THAT MEANS YOU, SCOTT)

2011-04-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS, SCOTT STOP READING THIS.

Spoilers for Portal and Portal 2

So I've played about 45 minutes of Portal 2. Why only 45 minutes? Because I got freaked out and had to stop.

Portal is one of my favorite games of all time. Not that I've played a lot of games. But those of you who know me are aware of my undeniably strange affinity for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and how I unintentionally and probably magically seem to know everything about it, and am quite excellent at it. And yet if I had to pick the better game, it would be Portal, and I kind of suck at Portal.

I first played Portal last year when it was free on Steam for about 2 weeks, and newly released for the Mac. I had heard of Portal thanks to the ubiquity of the phrase "The cake is a lie," as well as the popularity of its theme song "Still Alive." I assumed I would never play it, and so when I looked up the cake line, I also read the synopsis of the game. A mistake, sure, but in the end, it was only a small one. Not that I think the game is better spoiled, but the game is so great that you don't need to be ignorant of everything to be able to enjoy it.

So I knew things, like the fact that (duh) the cake would be a lie, that I would have to euthanize my companion cube, and that GLaDOS was trying to kill me. But the game was still amazing. So amazing, in fact, that even though I knew what was coming at the end of test chamber 19, I still found myself terrified, angry, confused, and betrayed. Sneaking through the rest of the facilities, outside of the test chambers, was thrilling, and even though there was a specific way to escape and reach GLaDOS, just like there were specific ways to get through the test chambers, it didn't feel the same. It really felt like everything I was doing was something unplanned and spur of the moment in order to escape.

And while Scott (the same one who can't read this yet because he hasn't started Portal 2--COME ON SCOTT) pointed out that all of the messages and arrows were supposed to be scribbled by one survivor from GLaDOS's attack prior to the game, which I guess makes more sense, I never got that feeling. I always felt like everything was written by a variety of previous test subjects, who weren't necessarily smarter than I was, but who wanted to warn me. I figured some of them had stayed hidden for a long time in secret parts of testing chambers, while others had been searching for GLaDOS only to fail where I succeeded, and had left information along the way. It gave me an amazing sense of community, combating the ridiculously suffocating isolation that GLaDOS and the testing chambers created.

Portal has been hailed as a feminist game, not because it was making a lot of points about sex and gender, but because it took so many problems with many video games, relating to sex and gender, and destroyed them. The main character is a woman, although you wouldn't know just from playing the game unless you looked at yourself through a portal. She's not sexualized or objectified, partially because there's no one to do so to her. She appears to be either white or possibly Latina (I hope Latina, so much less boring). She's a silent protagonist in order to make the player feel immersed in the game, much like Link in the Zelda series (that's why his name is Link--he's your link to the game). The method is very effective in Portal; you feel like YOU'RE the one who's in the chambers, and it feels personal when GLaDOS tries to kill you and when she lies to you. It's a giant middle finger to all of those folks, from gamers in chat rooms to higher-ups in companies, who keep claiming that they're just catering to male gamers who won't be able to identify with a female protagnist. Seriously, fuck you. Chell is awesome, and you pretty much become her when you play Portal. It's amazing.

Additionally, Chell is one of only two characters in Portal, and the other is also gendered female. She's a supercomputer, GLaDOS, and she is by far one of the best villains ever created. She's hilarious and terrifying at the same time, and while she strikes you as slightly mentally ill (for a computer), that's not what makes her evil. She's just EVIL. And she enjoys bathing in deadly neurotoxin. She's not one of those evil-and-sexy female villains. She's not nameless or story-less. She's a fully fledged character who plans on murdering you. And she's all you've got for company.

Finally, Portal turns the first-person shooter on its head. This is not my original idea, but I did find it fascinating. Not to go TOO into analysis (for example, I don't think that portals are supposed to be like vaginas--you can't go in one side and out the other!), but it's a FPS that focuses not on shooting bullets at things to kill them, but on shooting portals to problem-solve. It removes a great deal of violence and blood from the FPS without making a boring game.

Anyway, Portal is awesome and science-y, too.

Portal 2, though. That was a question mark. We knew it was coming; when Portal was free last year, the ad for it included a reference to the co-op mode that would be in the sequel. But could it live up to the hype? Could it be as good as Portal?

One thing about Portal that was so amazing was how new the concept was (unless you had even heard of its inspiration, Narbuncular Drop). GLaDOS was also part of the game's brilliance, but we killed her at the end (of course, she was still alive, and eating delicious and moist cake, while you probably were trying to get Black Mesa to help you). Could Portal 2 bring her back without being gimmicky? I mean, really, we're talking about a sequel to one of the greatest games of all time. How could it be as awesome?

The verdict is in, less than 48 hours after its release: Yeah, it's that good.

I've only played 45 minutes, like I said. I was too freaked out. How was I freaked out?

Well, from the beginning, it's freaky. Your little hibernation room (a hotel room--awesome) basically crashes into a wall (yup, really) for an extended period of time. I was so freaked that I actually backed myself into a corner of the hotel room. I don't know why. It's not like I could have died in the game at that point. It was nice to know that almost a year later, I still felt like I was immersed in the game. I wasn't backing in the corner for Chell's sake; it was for my own.

Wandering through the damaged center was trippy. Especially since there was a room with drawings all over the walls. Drawings of GLaDOS going on a murder spree and then ME (yes, ME!) defeating her. There was an image of me drawn in an angelic pose, and a shadow of a cross lay over it. I wasn't too psyched about the cross symbolism, but it was effective. I was someone's savior. Weird.

Meanwhile, I did find it unpleasant to go through the chambers with a cheerful, not-robotic male voice giving instructions. Not that I wanted GLaDOS back, but it felt weird without her.

I don't know the robot's name, but there's a round, one-blue-eyed robot who was assisting me at the beginning. He told me to find the portal gun, and then he helped me as we tried to find an escape pod. To get there, though, we had to pass through where GLaDOS used to live. He was terrified to go through, saying she would kill us if she woke up. As we went through, and she didn't wake up, he began telling me that some human had defeated her. He was impressed that a human managed to do something like that, but that's not what struck me. The handful of pronouns he dropped referring to the human were male.

Now, I don't know if the writers did that intentionally, although I really hope they did. After all, the writers knew, like we did, that Chell, a woman, defeated GLaDOS and that the robot was using the wrong pronouns. Perhaps they used male pronouns because "he or she" was too wordy, or because they didn't feel comfortable getting away with "they" as a non-gendered singular pronoun. But either way, the use of male pronouns was actually something I really liked.

Because, again, we know that it wasn't a he. So we come to one of two conclusions, in game, about the robot. Either he thinks that the person was actually a man, or he isn't sure and goes with the male pronoun (either because he thinks it's more likely that a man defeated GLaDOS, or because a lot of writing uses the male pronouns instead of "male or female" ones). And so the gamers playing are forced, however subtly, to resent the robot, at least a little, for getting our sex wrong. It's a microaggression in one of the most anticipated video games in recent years.

AWESOME.

Anyway, I stopped playing soon after that because, you see, we woke up GLaDOS a short while later. When it happened, I had the biggest "Oh shit" face you have ever seen. She was piecing herself together, and suddenly she was back, and she knew it was me (the little robot was all, "Wait, what?!!" and then she KILLED HIM). And then she knocked away my portal gun and threw me in the incinerator, and now she's going to basically make me run tests until she kills me.

OH SHIT.

Now do you see why I stopped playing soon after? At least in the first game, she wasn't so outright about planning on killing me. And it wasn't personal. Now it's personal. And it's TERRIFYING.

Compartment test tomorrow

2011-04-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I'll work for a few hours and then head home to get my running clothes on, take some Tylenol, and head out to get my calves tested for compartment syndrome. I'm not sure how long the test will last, but I have to arrive 15 minutes early to the appointment, run for 15 minutes, and have measurements taken 1 and 5 minutes post exercise.

I found a great blog: http://compartment-syndrome-explained.blogspot.com/, detailing another young person's experience with compartment syndrome, the test, alternate treatments, and eventually surgery. And by "I found," I mean, "My mom is also panicking and she found."

So that's fun.

Because I was sick all weekend (FUN TIMES, folks--missed one of my friends running the marathon because I couldn't get out of bed), I didn't try to go running until last night. I was worried that waiting until yesterday would decrease the chances that my symptoms would be induced on Thursday, but even then, I was considering postponing the test so I wouldn't have to run with such a bad cold. Typically, if I don't run for a couple weeks, my first run after that break is fantastic. One time, I ran 3 miles, something I'd never accomplished before.* My symptoms don't usually kick in until the second or third run after a break, giving me a false sense of security followed by a huge let-down.

In fact, that was the only pattern that stuck. Being an obsessively self-diagnosing scientist, I tested plenty of other variables, such as how fast I was running, how much I had eaten that day, what I had eaten that day, if I was running any differently than I had before, or if I was running any differently than other people (the last one probably made other people uncomfortable, sorry! Didn't mean to stare at you so creepily!). The only thing that was consistent was that two or three runs after a break, the pain returned, worse every time I ran until I took another break for a week or two.

That's one of the reasons why the podiatrist I saw is convinced I have compartment syndrome. When I don't run, my calves don't expand (and they atrophy a bit), and the symptoms subside. After each run, I increase the space that my calves take up, eventually hitting the limit.

I haven't run since my appointment with my doctor a month ago, when she thought I was straining my muscles (which didn't explain why I almost blacked out a couple of times). I have been using the elliptical on a regular basis since that appointment, since I don't want to waste my gym membership. So, unlike most of the instances where I've stopped running because of the pain, I didn't stop exercising.

And I think that's why my symptoms kicked in after only 4 minutes of running last night. Like I said, I don't usually have symptoms on a first run after a break. Ever. It takes another run at least, if not more. If I had symptoms every time, I wouldn't need to go running this week to prepare for the appointment. So that's a first.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that the elliptical is still maintaining my symptoms, if not inducing them outright. To me, that's an indication that "Just use the elliptical, don't bother with surgery" would be a stupid pseudo-solution to this problem. Not that the elliptical is a terrible thing. I just hate using it. It's a great piece of equipment, you get a great work-out, and clearly it's great for folks like me who need low-impact stuff. But I hate it! I want to run, damnit.

So, at least I don't have to run tonight and make this cold any worse. Tomorrow's the big day!

* I basically suffer from this incredible problem where I absolutely do not look like I'm in shape. Not only do I look like I'm not in shape in terms of what my body looks like, but because of my calf pain, I often look like I'm not capable of running a mile. But when I have no calf pain, I can rather easily run a 5K! Of course, one of the results of this discrepancy is that folks seem to think I'm running for weight loss, and therefore don't understand why I would put myself through surgery instead of just sticking with the elliptical. I'm supposed to be a runner; it's in my blood and, if I believed in souls, it would be there, too. I'm mostly disappointed I didn't discover this passion until so late in life. If I'm always going to be a fat runner, that's fine! Means I don't have to throw out my wardrobe. But I'm not giving up something I love just because there are other ways to be skinny. Skinny is irrelevant. Running isn't.

A WHAT Passover feast?

2011-04-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

In checking my all-but-obsolete Yahoo! email, I saw an article on the front page that caught my eye. It's entitled "A Family-Friendly Passover Feast." It's a basic article that provides folks with a menu and recipes for Pesach, prefacing the info with some spiel about how it's challenging to provide a delicious and kosher meal that's kid-friendly.

The caterer who provided recipes is Jewish, but even so, the article irks me. First of all, while I'm familiar with the pickiness of kids, and know that such pickiness doesn't mysteriously disappear at the seder, Pesach food has never really occurred to me as NOT kid-friendly. As a kid, my siblings and I were always giving the opportunity to pass on foods we didn't like (and as picky adults, we sometimes still do), but we weren't allowed to dictate the menu. Don't want gefilte fish? Don't eat it, but we're still serving it.

Secondly, I resent the insistence that it's difficult to create a delicious meal with the Pesach kashrut. One of the reasons it seems difficult is because of the complexity of so much modern food. When I shop for Pesach, I prefer to go to Whole Foods or (more likely) Trader Joe's, since the lack of preservatives and additives makes it so much easier to shop. If I head to Stop & Shop or Shaws, foods that could be kosher often have additives that negate that possibility (e.g. corn syrup, soy).

General Pesach rules say no leavened bread. This includes a lot more than just bread. It means no crackers, cookies, pasta, cereal, etc. But as an Ashkenazi Jew, I'm supposed to follow even more rules, which are really strange and don't make much sense. Under these rules, rice and rice products, corn and corn products, peanuts, and soy are also forbidden. I know, that's weird and arguably unnecessary. Watch me agree and follow the rules anyway.

So that's where things get tricky. You buy salad dressing, and realize that for some reason there's soy in it. Annoying. But you can EASILY make delicious meals even with the rules. Cook some delicious potatoes for your starch (if all the matzah isn't enough), make lots of veggies, make a meat dish. I've been to an all vegetarian Pesach seder, and it was delicious.

And every year at my grandmother's seder, we have egg salad, gefilte fish, matzah ball soup, and then the main course, which is usually veggies, salad, potato kugel, and either chicken or deliiiicious brisket. Dessert is obscenely easy: flourless cake, meringues, macaroons, and those awesome fruit slices. My grandmother has to hide those carefully to make sure they're not gone before dessert.

My point is that for so many Jewish folks, cooking for the seder isn't a challenge. Kids will eat the food, and everyone will enjoy it. It's really not as big a deal as the Yahoo! article would imply.

Finally, the inclusion of veal on the menu is a bit stupid. Veal is, in the strictest sense, kosher, but many Jews will not eat it because cruelty towards animals is unacceptable in Judaism. That's following the rules without actually thinking about the rules, and thinking about the rules is what Jews do. It's why we've got the Torah, and then a zillion more volumes of text TALKING about the Torah and what the Torah must mean. Ugh.

Of course I'm not easily panicked!

2011-04-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

So I've calmed down a bit from yesterday. While the idea of having surgery isn't making me feel all warm and fuzzy, I'm not as freaked anymore. If I have compartment syndrome, it's not serious enough to warrant immediate surgery. I'd probably have it at the very beginning of August, so I can keep working out (on the stupid elliptical) before my brother's wedding, and I won't have to miss more work for it.

At this point, the two things I'm worried most about are whether or not I'll be able to induce my symptoms next week for the test, and whether or not I'll be okay enough walking to get into my apartment after surgery. Because my apartment is stair-accessible only.

It's a good sign when I'm now panicking about two things that won't be problems.

Compartment syndrome

2011-04-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

More on the adventures of the Stupid Calves that Hurt When I Run--

Trigger warning: If you are easily squicked out by medical stuff, you have been warned. Nothing too squicky, in my opinion, but I don't want to assume everyone has similar squick levels.

I had my appointment this morning with a podiatrist. The great news is that she didn't believe that my ridiculously flat feet were contributing to my calf pain. Because I got new shoes with high arch inserts, and the combination didn't solve the problem, it's not my feet.

Great, right? Aren't I SO glad I don't have to do really easy exercises to bring my arches back up? Or buy shoes with arch support? I mean, because that's so very difficult for me to do.

The doctor believes, based on my symptoms, that I have exercise-induced chronic compartment syndrome. Please do not put yourself through the squicky horror that is looking it up on the internets. After doing just that, and feeling very freaked and squicked out, I can tell you some information about compartment syndrome, and I can tell you that my symptoms fit it really well.

Your muscles are all surrounded by a layer of fascia. In the case of my calves, the fascia surrounding my calf muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood vessels, etc., is a certain size. Specifically, a size too small for my calves (which, if you've seem them, are HUGE). So as I run, the calves are too big for the surrounding fascia, and so I get a huge build-up of pressure in that "compartment" made by the fascia. The pressure can result in nerve damage, ischemia, and tissue death if untreated, although since this would be chronic exercise-induced compartment syndrome, it would only result in those very serious things if I kept running through the pain for a significant amount of time on a regular basis.

However, the reason why I think that this is the right diagnosis, as opposed to a gastrocnemius strain, is that a muscle strain wouldn't explain my weird vascular symptoms. Compartment syndrome easily does. That is, when I experience the symptoms when I run, one of the major things I've noticed is that my calves almost always feel better after I rub them a lot and help increase blood flow. Additionally, on a handful of occasions where I've made a significant effort to push through the pain, I end up feeling extremely light-headed, and twice I almost passed out because of it. If I were just straining my muscles, I wouldn't have such terrifyingly odd circulation symptoms.

Like I said, compartment syndrome explains it.

So, what's next? I should get a phone call either today or tomorrow from a sports medicine MD out west (not far out west, just not in Boston). I'll go to see him, and he'll run the test for compartment syndrome. In order to conduct the test, I'll have to get the symptoms started. So in preparation, I'll probably go running a few times (yay!) in advance, and then go running at the appointment during the test. That'll induce the symptoms, and then they will stick some needles into both of my calves. Using these needles, they'll measure the pressure inside the compartment. If it's high enough, then that confirms the diagnosis. Voila.

I don't find the test very squicky, and to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to being able to run, or more specifically, being required to run. I miss running very much. I also like having tests done because they provide answers. I like answers!

The treatment squicks me out, though. First of all, because this isn't acute compartment syndrome, my doctors might decide the treatment is elective (because I'm not risking the loss of limb or death of tissue). It's not as if I HAVE to run. I've demonstrated that if I don't run, I don't experience symptoms, or at least not often enough to warrant treatment. But this view makes me extremely uncomfortable. Not only does it not fix the actual problem (I'll still have the problem, just sitting there, waiting to spring out at me), but I'm not confident that I'll be able to live the rest of my life without participating in physical activities that will induce symptoms. I'm not just making silly jokes about running away from zombies. At this point in my life, sure, I can go to the gym to work out, and this gym has ellipticals. And I can afford the gym. But I'm not always going to be in this place in my life. And I think that the emotional effects of never running again are going to be pretty serious. I've been viewing my calves as a problem that can be fixed, not as a reason not to run.

So what is the treatment? It's called a fasciotomy. It's a surgery where the doctor will open up my calves. No, really. Once the pressure is released (not sure how long that would take; for acute compartment syndrome, it's apparently long enough that there are some excruciatingly squicky images of people with open incisions or missing skin, and they're clearly not still in surgery), the doctor would sew everything back up except the fascia. The fascia would remain open.

The way it works is that nothing's going to be ruined. My calves will still be inside my legs and skin, just able to expand. With the fascia closed, that's not possible right now, and instead of expanding outward, they just crush everything. I would eventually be able to run again, with the only possible side-effect being that MAYBE there would be some ugly-looking bulging that doesn't actually signify a health problem. The bulging, if it occurred, would only happen while exercising, and would just be a result of the fascia being open.

I find the treatment a bit worrisome because there's always the chance that the compartment syndrome could come back (although it's not too high), and because I'm not sure it'll feel worth it to go through so much and spend so much time in physical therapy if I fail to be a runner for the rest of my life.

Weirdly enough, it almost feels as though I'm going to have to choose between committing to running for the rest of my life, or never ever run again.

I think I'd go for the surgery, as long as it wouldn't interfere too much life-wise (that is, maybe if I got it right at the beginning of August, when I leave work, and then be able to walk easily by the time I have to start graduate school). And of course, it's something to discuss with all of my doctors and with my family.

"But wait!" you say. "You haven't gotten the test yet! You always think you have something and you're always wrong!"

That's a fair protest. I do tend to self-diagnose, and I'm not usually right. When I had colitis, I thought it was a parasitic infection. And with my calves, I thought I had some kind of vascular disease (although as you can now see, I wasn't wrong about the vascular symptoms!). But let's be clear about a few things:

Compartment syndrome fits all of my symptoms. In fact, it fits them better than any other possible health problem I've looked up. It explains why my symptoms didn't occur right away when I first started running. It explains why the pain has gotten more frequent than before. It explains why stretching doesn't help, why taking it slow doesn't help, or why new shoes with excellent insoles haven't helped. It's the right "type" of pain, and the right location. And it does the one thing that wasn't explained by any other kind of diagnosis are the vascular symptoms. How does calf pain translate to lightheadedness (that isn't caused by a low pain tolerance)?

Additionally, the podiatrist I saw today is very much convinced that I have compartment syndrome. She examined my feet and calves and found that there was some unusual tightness in my calves that wouldn't be there otherwise. She's ruled out my feet as the problem as well.

She also explained that in her entire career, she has only sent two patients to be tested for this very rare problem. One of them had a negative test, and one of them had a positive test. Basically, if she wasn't convinced I have it, she wouldn't be sending me to get the test right away. So I think it's pretty clear.

We'll see what happens. It's pretty nervous-making on my end. I just figured I'd either have to do PT for my calves, or some exercises to fix my arches. Looks like I was wrongitty-wrong wrong!

(For those of you who are confused by the use of the word "squick" and its derivative forms, it's essentially the sort of grossed out cringe-y feeling you sometimes get. It's less visceral than "EWW, GROSS!" followed by vomit, but definitely not the same as "creepy." It's like when you see something that makes you feel uncomfortable, in a weird cringe-y way.)

Going to the CAR WASH

2011-04-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Like many folks, I tend to get anxious about doing things I haven't done before. It's not fear so much as just general stress, because I don't know what to expect, and I don't want to do things wrong. I'm taking my car to a car wash tomorrow, and since I haven't been to one in about twenty years (I'm twenty-four years old), I have absolutely no idea what to do, where to drive up to, how to pick the right option, etc. etc. I know I'll be completely fine, I just dislike the unknown.

But unlike most folks, there's a second component to my anxiety about tomorrow. ACTUAL FEAR.

As a kid, I always lived in single family homes with garages and driveways and yard work capabilities. So when it was time to wash the car, we would park the car in the driveway, grab the garden hose and some buckets of soapy water, and have a blast. And then when we were older, we just didn't wash our cars because we were busy, and they were just going to get dirty again anyway. I need to wash my car, though, because it's still not clean from that time I drove up to Vermont and Maine and got stuck on a muddy highway during a small snowstorm (seriously, entire car was splattered in mud and I had to stop and wash each window because I couldn't see out of them). And I need to sell the damn thing; dirty cars don't sell as well or for as much as clean ones.

But I have been to car washes before, back when I was little. But I just vividly remember the last time.

I was very little and had recently seen some black and white movie where a woman went through a car wash and the soap got in and it was HORRIBLE!!! So while we were going through, I became frightened and convinced that the soap was leaking through the (very, very closed) windows, and that it was getting in my eyes and stinging them. So I had to have a towel over my eyes for the duration of the car wash, and I was so panicked afterwards that I think that might have contributed to the fact that I don't remember going through another one since.

Now obviously, the soap didn't get into the car, and I was perfectly safe (as was my ENTIRE family, who were all in the car with me and didn't seem to have their eyes stung by the imaginary soap). But I was still convinced at the time that it was awful, and so today, faced with the prospect of going through the car wash, I'm nervous. I also looked up information on what exactly happens inside, and it was pretty scary-looking shit. I mean, I'll still do it, but please indulge this last childhood fear of mine. I got over my fear of the Joker, after all. What more do you people want?*

I was on the phone with my mom last night, who empathized with my anxiety about going to a car wash when I didn't know what to expect (we're back to the normal anxiety and not the irrational fear). She had the same problem when she went last year to have her car washed and detailed. I mentioned my childhood fear to her, which she remembered, and she laughed. Apparently, I had recently watched an old Doris Day movie, where a character had gone through the car wash in a car with the top down. I couldn't believe any movie would have something so stupid, but I wanted to check. You see, I wanted to discover the plot of this movie, which could only have been a horror movie, and figure out what evil villain would have rigged it so that a person would be forced to go through a car wash with the top down.

Well, I found it. It's called "Move Over, Darling," from 1963, and although I don't know why the car wash scene exists, I do know something new: the damn movie is a screwball comedy. OF COURSE.

If soap gets in my eyes tomorrow, it is completely Doris Day's fault.

* As a kid, I was terrified of the Joker. I sometimes had nightmares that he was coming to kill me, I once thought he climbed up to my window to kidnap me (oh, you betcha I screamed and woke the whole house up!), and I had to sleep with my closet light on and the closet door open for several years. When The Dark Knight came out, I went with my manliest dude friend because I was really terrified, and I ended up loving the movie and finding the Joker terrifying but in a fascinating way. I think it's very strange that the very movie that really instilled the fear of the Joker into so many people actually relieved me of my fear.

Calf update

2011-03-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

I went to see my PCP today to discuss my calf problems. At first, I was a bit upset because her immediate reaction was that if it hurt my calves this much while running, I needed to stop running. Since the rest of my body responds very well to running (e.g. breathing, weight loss, HAPPINESS), though, we're going to try to figure out what's going on.

She immediately ruled out vascular issues, since my internal numbers are ridiculously good. We're going to see if it's a foot problem first, since I definitely have no arches and I'm sure I walk and run incorrectly or something. So I'm seeing a podiatrist next month (or sooner, if there's a cancellation), and if things don't work there, I'll then see an orthopedist and do physical therapy.

Cool. I always figured that PT was for that abstract group of athletes/people who are athletic, so even though I wish I could run without pain already, I kind of like that I might belong to this abstract group. I mean, really, I've always been extremely geeky! So it's fun to think maybe I could also be jocky.

Meanwhile, I'm not supposed to run on the treadmill, but eh, I probably will. Because that's who I am: CONTRARY.

(By the way, I love my doctor. She considers me extremely healthy without questioning my weight. We need more doctors like her, who don't just assume that fat folks need to lose weight to solve any health problem.)

Calves

2011-03-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't been slim since I was in maybe 8th or 9th grade. I'm sort of okay with it at this point; my internal numbers (e.g. blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol) have always been excellent, none of my stupid illnesses have been caused by my weight, and I've got some awesome clothes that wouldn't fit anymore if I lost a lot of poundage. I struggle on a regular basis to keep myself from internalizing the shame that a lot of people project on me for being, well, FAT.

It's really all over the place, if you're aware of it. There are articles all over the place about how to lose weight (many of them aimed at women, specifically), "regular" sized clothing often only fits and flatters slimmer folks, and the alarmist talk about the obesity epidemic is getting to the point where it could be considered an epidemic on its own. Lots of folks can't seem to stop thinking in black and white; they can't seem to think beyond, "Fat is bad." And naturally, this morphs into, "Fat people are bad," and then evolves into, "Fat people aren't normal; fat people are unnatural; fat people are disgusting." Often, this sort of thinking isn't explicit, even to the people who think or believe in it. It might just manifest itself in an inability to find a person attractive if they're larger than a certain standard, without a conscious understanding that the lack of attraction is built on prejudice.*

But the point of this post isn't to discuss fat acceptance or fat hatred, although I do operate under the general assumption that if you're not about fat acceptance, you can leave now (because to engage in fat hatred is to hate me, and I don't really like people who hate me, ya know?). The point of this post is that my daily struggle to deal with a fat hating society has brought to light something about my body that I don't understand.

The summer before my senior year at college, a friend of mine approached me about going running together. It was a bit quiet and lonely, since it was summer time, and a lot of our friends were home for the summer, not sticking around campus. I had a lot of free time and was feeling ashamed of my body shape at the time; she had gotten news from the doctor that if she didn't improve her internal numbers, her health was in serious trouble. It seemed like a good set-up. She was already in better shape than I was, so she planned to run the half mile or so to my apartment, and then together we'd run a mile loop around part of campus, and then she'd run home.

The first day, I couldn't make it a half-mile without having to stop. It was demoralizing. By the time we stopped to (power)walk, she had to do all the talking,** because I couldn't even breathe. There were stitches in both my sides. I felt as if I was going to die.***

She kept me on schedule, though; it was hard to cancel at the last minute, so I would just go. Eventually, we stopped going together because I wasn't ready to start working on pace yet, just distance, and I couldn't keep up with her without pushing myself too hard and crapping out early. But by then, I was going running because I wanted to, because it was habit, because I loved it. I began expanding my loop, often going a mile and a half. I didn't lose much weight, but my body began to change, began to become a running body. It was fantastic.

One afternoon, about two months after I first started running, I went running without eating anything all afternoon, and during my period. I'd done both those things before, and I wasn't feeling particularly hungry or anemic. I made it through the first mile of the run without any problems.

As I began the last half-mile stretch, my calves began to burn. Not as if I was pushing myself too hard. It actually felt as if they were on fire. They felt completely hard and tight, too. Something was definitely wrong. I tried to run through it for a couple of minutes, but it was just excruciating, even for my high pain threshold. I finally decided to just stop and walk the rest of the way home, assuming that it was just some unfortunate incident that only occurred because I was trying to get a better mile and a half than I had done previously.

To quote Dr. Cox: "Wrong wrong wrong wrong; wrong wrong wrong wrong; you're wrong." The calf pain was at least twice as bad when I stopped to walk. Even worse, I felt extremely lightheaded, and my vision was beginning to fade. The last time I'd experienced anything like this was when I watched my first surgery as an intern at an animal hospital (well, you would have, too, if you had seen the doctor pretty much digging into that dog's elbow, looking for a bone fragment!). And that hadn't come with obscene calf pain.

I had to sit down on someone's front steps. I was planning on trying to rub my calves, to get them to stop hurting, but first I had to lie down and try not to lose consciousness. I succeeded, and after a few minutes, I began rubbing my calves and popping my feet in and out of my sneakers. Eventually, I felt well enough to walk the rest of the way home. I was scared out of my mind, though, and was too scared to run after that. I called my doctor, whose response was, "Well, you almost passed out, but you didn't, so call back if you pass out."

Then, running became something I did infrequently, and with great fear. I ran only a few more times after that and before I graduated, and only once with a friend. I felt too guilty to run with people after that, because I kept having to stop because of my calves. I moved and started my first job, and when I was feeling up to exercising, I still didn't do it, because the few times I did felt too risky (plus, running in a cul-de-sac is SO BORING). I joined a gym that did almost all circuits with a personal trainer, quitting only when work got in the way; I only ran a few times on the treadmills, and it only went well once. The trainer assumed that my calves just needed strengthening, something I knew was false. This wasn't out-of-shape pain, or pushing-myself-too-hard pain. The first time it happened, I had been running without any problems for two months, after all.

After moving again, I only ran twice before giving up completely. I live in one of the hilliest areas of Boston, and it just wasn't the best way to get into running again (hills + strange calf problem = no thanks). But during my first winter, anticipating that I might face fat-related prejudice at graduate school interviews, I joined a nearby gym (and the only reason why it didn't help me before interviews is because interviews messed with my schedule!).

Meanwhile, I've been trying to determine why the fuck this has been happening. I can't predict when it'll be a problem, which is extra-frustrating as a scientist. It's not that my blood sugar is too low (I've made sure to eat enough during the day, but it often happens anyway). It's not my shoes (because it sometimes doesn't happen). It's not that my calves are burnt out or that I'm pushing myself too hard (I went yesterday after a couple days off, and ran at a slower speed). It's not hydration or menstrual cycle or low potassium (the first thing I suspected, and the reason I started drinking orange juice for the first time in 15 years). I have no fucking clue.

So I'm going to the doctor, finally (different PCP this time, one who doesn't need me to pass out before she'll help me), but I'm concerned that if we determine it's not a heart problem, she'll just tell me to use the elliptical, since that doesn't make my calves hurt at all.

But wait! you say. Why not just use the elliptical? Then you would be able to exercise without this silly problem affecting you!

Why, what a great point that I've obviously never considered! I respond.

Well, okay, I mean, it's fair. But there are two reasons why it's, well, not fair.

First off, we're steeped in a culture of fat hatred, one where, "Losing weight is easy, you dumb cows" is a common sentiment. And that involves, "Exercise is easy, idiot" as well. But obviously, if losing weight were super easy, I would have done it already to get people to stop treating me like I'm disgusting because of the size of my body. DUH.

While some folks who have succeeded in either changing their diets or incorporating exercise into their lives will just brag that it's super easy, many other people comiserate that it's difficult and offer suggestions to make it easier for other folks. And one of those suggestions works for me so well that I'm even surprised at how stupid my brain is. That suggestion? Pick an activity you will enjoy, because if you don't enjoy it, you won't do it.

The reason why I'm surprised at how well this works for me is that I don't love running that much, mostly because I hate exercising and I don't like being sore or having sports injuries. I'd rather just go home and curl up in bed with Loki and Netflix and candy. But if I go to the gym, I just hop on the treadmill and get going, no questions asked. And it's because it's so damn useful. Not because I actual believe that the zombie apocalypse is going to happen, but because if it did, I could run away from zombies (or towards delicious brains) much more easily. It's stupid, but it works. It makes me want to run. The elliptical would be great if I wanted cardio and weightloss. But I want to be better at running. So put me on an elliptical and after a few minutes, I'm so bored out of my mind that I need to stop as quickly as possible. I'll leave work late intentionally so that there are available treadmills by the time I get to the gym; otherwise, I'll have to wait or use an elliptical. Nope.

The second reason why I'm not accepting, "Well, use the elliptical" as a solution is because it's not a solution. It's avoidance. What if this weird calf thing is actually a symptom of something more serious, like a vascular disease or malformation? What if I could DIE because this thing went undiagnosed?*** I want answers, even if it doesn't change the fact that I might have to use the elliptical or stop having cardio workouts all together (noooooooo).

My appointment this Monday will the the first step in solving this strange problem. Meanwhile, I forgot to stretch after the gym last night (and no, stretching isn't related to the problem, I tried that!), so with my calves sore and tight, I'm dreading tonight's workout even more than I was before. Oh well!

* To me, this sort of goes with people saying, "Oh, I'm just not attracted to people who are [insert race here]." Considering the variation of folks we're attracted to (I don't know a lot of people who have a specific type, and many who I do know who have a type are currently with someone who is not that type), I'd say it's pretty suspicious if you're just not attracted to an entire group made up of one ethnic background. Not that you're lying, but it's definitely internalized prejudice, in this case racism, and I recommend that you do some thinking.

** And people who know me know I LOVE talking (and people who don't know me should know I love talking just by the length of this post).

*** I may or may not be dramatic sometimes.

Update to United Airlines Loses a Customer

2011-03-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

I guess they're not going to lose a customer. I just got an email from them yesterday with apologies and a $150 voucher. Since I need to fly to Tahoe, and then Colorado, and then back to Boston this July, I'm looking at a $700 ticket ... so I think I'll fly United and use that voucher. But I'll probably avoid them afterwards.

United Airlines loses a customer

2011-03-08T08:08:00.000-08:00

Not that I was a frequent flier anyway, but I definitely won't be after the weekend I had.

On Thursday, I was set to leave Boston for Cedar Rapids, Iowa (final destination: Iowa City). I arrived at Logan on time and ready to get my trip on. I'm not a fan of flying, mostly because I'm just not a fan of complicated traveling, but I've being flying a lot recently and wasn't in a bad mood about it. Additionally, I love hotels, and so I knew there was a room at the Sheraton in my future, which cheered me considerably.

I had booked a flight to and from Iowa on United Airlines. I had waited until the last second to book the flight, and flying to Iowa is extremely expensive, so my options were incredibly limited. The United flights would cost $500, but they would get me in and out of Iowa at reasonably times. I figured hey, I'll be reimbursed, and the times of these flights are perfect. The Thursday evening flight gets me to Iowa City a little before 10pm, and I can relax and get lots of sleep. And the Saturday flight doesn't require me to wake up at some ridiculous hour, and I'll be home by 5:30pm in time to get rest before Sunday and Monday, when I would be at BU. Tadah.

I checked in on Thursday afternoon and found that my 5:25 flight had been delayed until 6:13. Crap--I only had a 58-minute scheduled layover, and according to my phone, the flight from Chicago to Cedar Rapids would be on time. After getting through the terminal, I asked a couple of reps what the hell I should do. They printed out my boarding pass for the Cedar Rapids flight, although I'm not sure why it didn't print out when I selected the option to check into the flight while I was checking into my Chicago flight, and then they reserved me a seat on the very next flight to Cedar Rapids, all the while reassuring me that we would make it with about 15 minutes for me to make the connection. They also gave me the information about which gates I needed to run between. I explained to them that I needed to make the connection, because the next flight didn't leave Chicago until 7:30am in the morning, and I wouldn't get to Iowa City until 9:15. I needed to be in a breakfast meeting at 8:30. Obviously, they couldn't schedule another flight, but they didn't offer to do anything for me. No hotel, nothing.

The flight, however, did not leave at 6:13. We weren't even boarding at 6:13. The plane arrived from Chicago around 6:20, and we were only able to leave around 6:40, almost an hour and a half late. Even with the flight attendants asking non-connecting-flight-chasers to remain seated, it was a struggle to get off the plane when we landed. I missed the connection by approximately 15 minutes.

Fortunately, I have a great friend in Chicago, who insisted on picking me up and letting me spend the night (and I am currently working up a thank-you card for her and her family). In the morning, I took a cab back to the airport. The driver, who was totally awesome, told me that United was at Terminal 1, but I was confused because my ticket very distinctly said that the flight would leave from Terminal 2. The driver brought me to Terminal 1, where I asked one of the United employees who was running the curb-side check-in. He looked up my ticket, told me that yes, I needed to go to Terminal 2, and then checked my bag for me. He did not print me a boarding pass, and even said that I would have to print it inside.*

In Terminal 2, the shit really hit the fan. Up until this point, United hadn't been going out of their way to show me that they value their customers, but the problems I experienced were really problems caused by O'Hare (there's so much traffic at that airport, it's common for people to miss their connections; my flight from Boston was on a plane that had presumably been coming from O'Hare). But when I went to Terminal 2, that's where United absolutely failed me, and lost a customer.

To my dismay, there really weren't any United service desks in the terminal, since, as the cabbie pointed out, United is in Terminal 1. But there was a United Star Alliance desk, so I figured I would go there any ask what I should do. The employee behind the desk was obnoxiously rude and inappropriate. He told me at first that he wasn't on duty/didn't work for United. He then tried to check me in using the self-check-in system, after some grumbling. It wouldn't let me check in, and he got angry because apparently the guy at curb-side was supposed to print my boarding pass. He kept commenting how "fucking stupid" either the curb-side guy was, or maybe how "fucking stupid" I was; it was hard to tell who he was referring to. He then told me that it was stupid that I paid $25 to check my luggage. First of all, I know it costs $25 to check my luggage, since that's pretty standard for a lot of airlines, and I'd done it before. It's not as if I could have checked it for free. Second of all, I had to check my luggage; my suitcase is very large.

After going on about how I had done everything all wrong, the employee ended his profanity-laced tirade by directing me to go back to Terminal 1 to check in, which I did. Awesome.

My flight home wasn't much better. My flight to Chicago from Cedar Rapids was delayed because the plane was delayed coming out of Chicago. It was further delayed because of de-icing. We landed in Chicago with about 15-20 minutes to go before my connection to Boston, but we had to sit on the tarmac because there was no gate for us (and then the plane leaving our gate had to de-ice at the gate). Even though I used my phone to determine that the flight to Boston was still scheduled to leave on time, the flight attendant reassured the passengers that several connecting flights were also delayed (she referred to specific flight numbers, including the Boston flight). After waiting for approximately 35 minutes, we finally got a gate, but all of us found that we had missed our connections. We then went to the nearest United customer service desk. Although I was one of the first people in line, and there were always between 3 and 5 United employees behind the service desk, I had to wait 20 minutes to be helped. Not that it took them 20 minutes to help the people ahead of me. There was one man being helped when we all arrived, and after a rep finished helping him, she didn't help anyone else. No one in line was helped for 20 minutes. And there were 20 of us in line.

Fortunately, I was put on the next flight to Boston, even though it was overbooked. That flight was delayed because of weather and de-icing, but the flight was otherwise uneventful. However, when I got home, I realized something very interesting. When I flew to Iowa and got stuck in Chicago, they put my luggage in the O'Hare baggage claim. The tag on my luggage only had the call letters for O'Hare and not Cedar Rapids. As I mentioned before, I had to get my boarding pass to Iowa after I complained to the service reps; even though I did say I wanted to check in for the Cedar Rapids flight, the system did not do so. That is, if I had arrived in Iowa that evening, my luggage would not have. On my flight home, I received both boarding passes right away, and my luggage had a tag with both ORD and BOS on it.

So, to summarize:

Flight to Iowa:
- delayed, no reason given
- delayed twice as long as originally announced
- did not receive a boarding pass for my connecting flight when I originally checked in
- luggage would not have made it to Iowa City
- missed my connecting flight
- next flight to Cedar Rapids would not get me to Iowa City in time
- no offer of compensation, no offer of a rental car, no offer of a hotel for the night
- confusion about terminals
- curb-side employee did not print my boarding pass or give me accurate information
- Star Alliance employee rudely and inappropriately made a minimal attempt to help me

Flight to Boston:
- delayed, weather
- delayed longer than originally announeced
- sat on the tarmac for 35 minutes after landing
- crew incorrectly informed several passengers that their connecting flights were delayed
- missed connecting flight
- had to wait 20 minutes before customer service employees would assist us

So, I will never fly United again. If I attend the University of Iowa, I will fly Delta (not only will this mean I don't give United my money, it also means that I'll be able to connect at another airport, avoiding the problems that O'Hare inevitably creates). If I attend UChicago, I will fly JetBlue or Southwest. Not flying United ever ever ever again, the assholes.

* For those of you who are much more familiar with O'Hare, but maybe not Logan, there's some confusion about the terminals. While it seems self-explanatory that I should have just gone to Terminal 1, where United is, because my flight was leaving from Terminal 2, it was confusing. At Logan, you can't move from terminal to terminal without having to go through security again, whereas at O'Hare, you can go to any of the three terminals without having to exit and re-enter. I didn't know that I could check in and go through security in Terminal 1 and then fly out of Terminal 2 because you can't do that at Logan. The reason why my flight was leaving from Terminal 2 and not Terminal 1, I think, is because Terminal 2 has ground-level gates; the plane we were taking was very small and we entered it from the tarmac.

The Pay Gap ... again

2011-03-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

Every year, I see articles on news sites about the pay gap. It's an annual sort of thing, where the statistics are released, news sites think, "Oh, that's interesting!" and they post an article on them. And then the next year, the same thing happens, with the statistics barely budging.

That is, it's 2011, and women still still only earn, on average, 80% of what men earn.

80%! you might think. That's pretty good! That's like a B-, which for me wasn't a bad grade! It's still a lot of money! Men and women are just about equal!

Except not so much. Getting $80 for every $100 of what a man earns in the same job sucks. You're losing $20 each time, and over the course of months and years, that adds up pretty quickly. Additionally, that's the average, which means that many women earn much, much less than 80 cents on the dollar.

Well then, you say, there must be a reason for this. You know, women are less assertive on the job than men are, and we all know that a lot of men have to support their wives who are home with kids! It only makes sense that men earn more!

And that means that YOU are part of the problem. YOU are part of the reason that year after year, the gender gap refuses to disappear, and then everyone acts all surprised when the statistics are released. I think this is the fifth year in a row that I've seen the annual statistics, and then the annual surprised at the statistics, and thought, "Well, why would you think it improved, dummy? Nothing changed!"

And part of the reason why nothing changes is that we've created several just-so stories about the wage gap.

A just-so story is basically what it sounds like. People see a phenomenon, and the come up with a story to explain why the phenomenon is happening. Greek myths are just-so stories. My favorite example is that of Persephone, who was kidnapped by Hades, and eventually required to live in the underworld for 6 months out of the year. It's a just-so story to explain why the seasons change; Persephone's mother, goddess Demeter of the harvest (and the seasons) is so sad when her daughter leaves that nothing will grow. And then civilization's investigative tools and reasoning improved, and we no longer believe that the story actually explains the seasons.

A lot of bullshitting about the wage gap is a just-so story. Many people who help perpetuate the gap aren't bad people, but people who see the gap and mistakenly assume that the gap is there for a good, reasonable reason. If women are paid less than men, it can't be because of institutional sexism, they think. It has to be because there's something about women that makes it completely appropriate to pay them less.

The first favorite excuse is something along the lines of, "Women aren't assertive enough in the workplace, and if they were, they would all be rolling in dough and the gap would disappear; it's their own fault that they make less." The reason this is my favorite excuse is that it very, very quietly implies that all women who make less than their male counterparts are aware of the fact that they make less. I have no clue how much money male research techs and lab managers are making at my work. It's impolite to ask. Our salaries aren't public information. I'm surviving on my wage all right, and so unless I found out I was making less than a dude, I have no reason (and no real grounds) to ask for a raise.

The second reason this excuse is so effective is that it very explicitly blames women for socialization. While we all would like to believe that we're in no way forever molded by our upbringing, or by all of the people and advertising that come our way, we're all products of socialization. I know that being fat really has nothing to do with my intellect, my ability to keep myself clean, or my actual internal health (and if you think I must be unhealthy because I'm fat, allow me to punch you in the face with my spectacular cardiovascular health--my cholesterol stats make you look like you're about to drop dead any minute). But I also know that in today's American culture, people BELIEVE that I'm a lazy, unhealthy slob who's probably incompetent. That's where the shame and pressure to lose weight come from for so many people. That's why so many men feel as if they have to go out of their way to prove their masculinity. That's why you see so many of your female friends act completely normal until their on a date with a man or with a boyfriend, and they begin to act in a much more exaggerated feminine manner. We've all been trained.

So yes, many women have been trained to just shut up and take whatever salary they're given. But many people are trained to expect that, and therefore have negative opinions of women who don't shut up and just take the salary. Blaming women for their own socialization, or for institutional sexism, is just unacceptable. Do you really think that I'm happy living in a world where I'm considered Other and lesser on a regular basis because I'm female? If sexism didn't exist, or women were in control of it, this wouldn't be a problem.

My second favorite reason to explain the wage gap is actually a significant part of why there is one in the first place. It's the assumption that 1) men are either currently supporting a family, or will be in the future, and that 2) women are probably going to give up their careers someday and stay home with babies, or otherwise be supported by a dude. This sounds pretty obnoxiously 1950s.

This is part of why the wage gap exists. It's the unconscious assumption that, not only will men be better employees because women are too meek/too insecure/too (insert negative attribute typically associated with women here), but that women don't need to make as much as men do. But the world is changing. Many women do support their families. Many women have no intention of getting married, or getting married to a man. Many women don't have plans to have kids, or don't plan to stay home with them.

But what happens is that there's a wage gap, and so in families with one man and one woman, the wage gap increases the likelihood that the man will make more than the woman. If the couple have children, and cannot afford childcare, which parent will probably stop working full-time (or completely)? If the parent who makes less is almost always the mother, we're going to see more stay-at-home mothers than fathers, and then just-so believers will declare that women want to stay home with their kids, mistakenly mixing up the sequence of events. That is, they'll believe that there's a wage gap because more women than men choose to stay at home with kids, whereas in reality, many women have to stay home with their kids because their family cannot afford to give up the father's salary.

The wage gap isn't going to disappear just because people are reminded once a year that it exists. Employers have to actually stop paying women less for doing the same job as men do. They have to stop promoting women less because women might leave and have babies. They have to stop assuming that it's solely women's responsibility to ask for raises and bonuses and promotions. And when the wage gap disappears, who's going to be upset besides people who think women shouldn't work in the first place? Equal pay for equal work is a pretty popular standpoint. Now we just need it to be true.

Falsettos and MassResistance

2011-03-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

A little background here.

I went to a high school in Massachusetts known as CCHS. While not everyone who walks the halls, student or teacher, is a commie-liberal, a lot of us are (or were, if we graduated or otherwise left). We've had a gay-straight alliance for a long time; we have several out teachers and students, we're allowed to dress however we want, we cast men and women into whatever roles make sense in the schools plays, and we can take whomever we want to the prom. And honestly, even if we have people on different ends of the political spectrum, generally, everyone felt like things were all right.

Several months ago, the gay-straight alliance held a panel of out teachers, who spoke about their experiences growing up. I didn't know about the event, and read about it later, and it was a really emotional experience for me because I knew a lot of the teachers, and one of them had been a friend and mentor to me while I was a student.

I was extremely angry, later on, to see that a hate group called MassResistance, which is based in my home state and was involved in opposing same-sex marriage back in 2003, had heard about the event and written horrible things about it, claiming that parents were upset that their children had been exposed to something so horrible. Never mind that no one was required to attend this event, and never mind that if such parents do exist in our liberal towns, they're in the tiny minority and not representative of the parents of the student body as sa whole. I was pissed off, but since there was nothing that MR could do besides whine, I brushed it off.

Recently, though, MR has come back into my life to piss me off again.

CCHS put on a play called Falsettos, which I have never even heard of. They already did the play, so it's not like I can go watch it and see what it's like. But there's an all right synopsis on Wikipedia. In general, I think it's safe to say that the play is about a non-traditional Jewish family, where some characters are in gay or lesbian relationships. Sounds ... well, as a LGBT-ally and a Jew, I don't really have so much of a problem just from reading the synopsis. And even if I didn't feel as if the play could capture my experiences of being Jewish, that doesn't mean it's wrong. My Jewish experience is not the universal one, after all.

MassResistance is unhappy about this play. Very unhappy. They took some video of the play. This is prohibited. CCHS does its own filming of theater productions and then offers copies of the video at a small price. The video taken by MR was taken illegally. Additionally, the majority of the students in the play, just based on probability, are minors. The video by MR was taken without their consent, and posted on Youtube without their consent. MR used the footage to create a little video about how depraved and deviant the production is. Students are currently trying to get Youtube to permanently remove the video.

Meanwhile, MassResistance is interfering in other ways. One of the members happens to be a resident of the town that our (regional) school is in. She is basically petitioning the town to punish the school for putting on the play. Here's what we're looking forward to at the town meeting:

To determine whether the Town will vote to condemn the production of the play “Falsettos” with public funds by Concord-Carlisle High School in 2009, and urge the regional school committee to discipline the employees of the school district responsible for this play, urge the regional school committee to issue a letter of apology to the Rabbinical Alliance of America, and urge the regional school committee to promote positive role models and students which encourage responsible citizenship rather than controversial sexual behavior, or take any other action relative thereto.

Petitioners Explanation: This article allows Town Meeting to take a vote on whether or not to condemn the high school production of a lewd play called “Falsettos,” which defamed the Jewish religion and people in a public building with public funding, using underage students as actors in December 2009. This article also allows Town Meeting to submit the following requests of the regional school committee: 1) reprimand school employees who were responsible for this play; 2) issue a letter of apology to the Rabbinical Alliance of America; and 3) take action to promote positive role models to students consistent with the high school’s mission and Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 71, Section 30.

Let's take a look, yes?

Like I said, our school is very well-known for being progressive, and our theater department doesn't shy away from that. When my younger sister starred in Dracula, there were only a handful of male castmembers. Because there were so many excellent female actors who auditioned, many of them were cast in lead roles intended for men (including the lead role of Dracula). Additionally, during my tenure at CCHS, we put on The Laramie Project, and extraordinarily moving play about the death of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man brutally murdered in Laramie several years ago. The administration actually decided that every student needed to see the play, and so in addition to the usual shows, additional shows were put on during school hours, so we could all see it.

Our school is committed to community and to acceptance (not just tolerance). By insisting that our school encourage "responsible citizenship" as opposed to "controversial sexual behavior," MassResistance is setting up our school's mission in opposition to another part of our school's commitment to excellent. That is, part of responsible citizenship in our school is accepting our classmates and members of our community; our school is opposed to creating a hostile environment for any student, including LGBT students.

Essentially, MassResistance wants our school to start promoting heterosexism and homophobia. That's not going to happen.

Secondly, demanding that the school discipline members of the faculty who were involved in the production is really quite stupid. First of all, the play was put on in 2009. That's at least one, if not two years ago (depending on the semester when the play was done). If there was going to be disciplinary action taken against any of the teachers, it should have already happened. Second of all, this petition is assuming that the faculty did anything that might violate any school rules. And considering that our school already has a history of LGBT-accepting behavior and events, I doubt that this play has actually violated anything.

Finally, the insistence that the school apologize to the Rabbinical Alliance of America is part of an incredibly insulting plan by MassResistance to set up their opposition to the play as simply opposition to anti-Semitism, not because they hate gay people or anything like that. Let's talk about why this makes me angrier than any other part of this completely stupid petition.

As I've gotten older, I've seen more and more bullshit from the right when it comes to Judaism. Plenty of right-wing folks talk about Israel in a very positive light, about how we need to support Israel, yadda-yadda. To me, that's not really demonstrating a lack of bigotry towards the Jewish people. Not only are there plenty of non-Jews in Israel, and not only do plenty of Jews feel no real connection to Israel, but there are plenty of us who aren't happy with the Israeli government. I happen to be in those last two groups of Jews. So talking about how great Israel is will not make me think, "Oh, great, someone who loves Jews and wants good things for us!"

And considering the anti-Semitic crap that spews from the mouths of right-wing pundits, or actors like Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen (hey, Charlie Sheen, if Mel Gibson thinks you need help, YOU NEED HELP), and all this bullshit about the war on Christmas, I don't really feel all that welcome in the right wing. And I mean that just in terms of my Jewish identity. I'm well aware of the fact that being a pro-choice female socialist who isn't married, doesn't want kids, and loves teh gayz might make me even more unwelcome, even without the Jewish thing.

The point is: the right wing as a group does not give a shit about Jewish people. Not only that, but they have no problem USING Jewish people to further their own agenda. I say "as a group" because there are ultra-conservative Jews and Jewish groups, as I'm going to talk about. But the right wing, as a general whole, really, really doesn't care about Jewish people. And they have no problem using us for their own ends.

And so we come to the last part of the MassResistance bullshit, the part that really, really sets me on edge. They want us to apologize to a group called the Rabbinical Alliance of America because, according to MR, the play Falsettos is anti-Semitic.

First, I say "us," when I talk about the town, the school, and the students, because I consider myself still a part of the community, and of CCHS. Going to that high school shaped and defined who I am now, personally and academically. I might not visit much anymore, thanks to work, and I might not know many faculty or any students, but damnit, that's my high school, and I'm still a part of it. MassResistance attacks me when they attack my school.

Second, this group, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, did not contact our school to complain about the play. That doesn't mean they wouldn't object to it. But MassResistance is the group complaining about the play. So by insisting that we apologize to a rabbinical group, they are trying to prove that they're really just concerned about the play being anti-Semitic. Which makes you wonder--why did you complain in the first place, why does your (illegal) video on YouTube discuss just the same-sex relationships (note: they're discussing same-sex sexual behavior they find objectionable, but I don't think the play actually depicts any behavior, just the relationships themselves), and why does your complaint still address same-sex sexuality, not anti-Semitism only?

By claiming that the play is anti-Semitic, MassResistance is attempting to convince the people of the town that the play is bigoted material, while hiding the fact that MR is really objecting to the LGBT content. Complaining just about the LGBT themes would be considered bigoted, and so MR is trying to pretend that they're somehow trying to end intolerance, whereas they're really just trying to enforce it.

Next, I tried to dig a bit deeper to find some info on the Rabbinical Alliance of America. At first, I wondered why MassResistance chose that group as opposed to the Anti-Defamation League, which is an extremely well-known group that speaks out against anti-Semitism (among other things). While I don't always agree with the ADL (most recently, when they spoke out against the interfaith center being built near Ground Zero; I thought it was pretty stupid of the ADL to speak out against it), they're really the people who jump on this kind of thing. So I wondered, did the ADL just not know about this? We're a pretty small town. Or did they know and just not care because the play isn't anti-Semitic?

I'm guessing a combination: that they didn't know we were doing the play, and that they wouldn't have cared. But I wasn't sure, so I emailed them. I'm waiting to hear back from them (I will call otherwise). Meanwhile, what could I find about the Rabbinical Alliance of America?

Not a whole lot. Their website is extremely sparse. But there was an article on Right Wing Watch, and a bunch of other ones about the Kagan nomination to the Supreme Court. Here's the gist of what I learned:

The Rabbinical Alliance of America appears to be a large group of Orthodox and highly traditional rabbis and Jews. The RAA tends to speak out against LGBT-positive events, such as repealing DADT. They are openly and unapologetically anti-LGBT, using offensive rhetoric I usually see coming from the nastiest people on the right.

Judaism is an interesting religion. Like many religions, we've got variation everywhere; some people are just more religious than others, and that's how it is. But we're also extremely decentralized, which means that unlike, say, Catholic folk, we don't have one person or one group telling us what we're supposed to do as a whole religion. We can't get excommunicated or otherwise kicked out of the Jewish community. If you don't fit in with your congregation, you find another one. In fact, it's one reason why I'm not a huge fan of Israel; I'm a Conservative Jewish atheist, and would not be considered Jewish by a lot of Orthodox Jews in Israel, including lawmakers.

So if the Rabbinical Alliance of America finds Falsettos objectionable, it's not very meaningful in terms of whether or not the play is anti-Semitic. MassResistance found one of the highly Orthodox groups of Jews, who are extremely likely to find the play offensive because of its positive LGBT content. Saying that the RAA finds the play offensive is meaningless because it's obvious that they would, but not because the play is somehow anti-Semitic--unless you believe that depicting some Jews as LGBT is anti-Semitic.

And considering the number of LGBT Jewish people I know and care about, I find that pretty fucking stupid.

Not only am I waiting to talk to the ADL about their take on the play (if they even care about it), but I also want to speak with them about the RAA, as well as the ADL's position on LGBT issues (the site is pretty clear that it's a very progressive group and supports civil rights, but nothing LGBT-specific).

Why am I investing all of this time and energy on this topic? Because in April, there will be a town hall meeting to discuss this mess. I know that I'm going to be there, as well as approximately 200-300 other students and alumni. And because our town does not have the largest Jewish population (I was one of maybe 5-6 Jewish students in a class of 300 when I graduated), I want to speak up and call MassResistance out. No one uses my religion to hurt other people. No way.

I think it's important for me to point out that I'm shying away from, "Well, I don't find the play anti-Semitic, and I'm Jewish, so therefore I'm right." The fact is that this argument is used all the time for stupid reasons. For example, "Well, I'm a woman, and I don't think sexism is real, so therefore it isn't." And, to be totally fair, I haven't seen the play itself. I'm trusting my high school community right now; I trust that the administration and the theater department would never have picked an actual anti-Semitic play. And I don't trust MassResistance, and I know I dislike the Rabbinical Alliance of America from what I've read. I'm inclined to believe that this play isn't anti-Semitic because of these things.

Additionally, for something to be anti-Semitic, it has to be hateful towards the Jewish people. It doesn't just have to have Jewish characters, or LGBT Jewish characters, or some Jewish characters portrayed negatively.* It has to actually be hateful. But, as a hate group, maybe MassResistance doesn't quite get this ...

* This is sort of hard to explain. If you have a play with all Jewish characters, or mostly Jewish characters, the odds are low that everyone's good and perfect. And that's okay. Jewish folk aren't perfect, I promise. It's when you portray people as bad because they're Jewish, or there's one Jewish character and he or she happens to be demonstrably evil, that's where things really stop working. But having flawed characters who happen to be Jewish ... I mean, have you been to a Jewish holiday dinner? We're not all nice, good people!

Today is a crapshoot

2011-02-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

Dear today,

Let me count the ways in which you are screwing me over.

1) Frederick's of Hollywood has informed me that I need to call the local USPS office and instruct them to stop ruining my corsets when they deliver them. I'm not sure why Frederick's of Hollywood doesn't include a sticker that says something like, "DO NOT BEND," or why they don't send corsets in boxes. Or why I have to fix the problem I'm not causing. Or why I'm still not being offered some kind of compensation for this RIDICULOUSNESS.

2) Johns Hopkins can't reimburse me for a $230 plane ticket until I send them a receipt. I thought I did, but the receipt I sent doesn't show that my credit card was charged.

3) Expedia's printable receipts for business purposes do not show that my card was charged, just that I supposedly paid $230.

4) I checked my credit card account, and it shows that I was charged $89 for the original flight, and then an additional $190 when I had to change my return flight at the last minute. That's more than the $230 Expedia says I paid.

5) Expedia's automated phone service does not have a general representative option.

6) Someone stole the postage stamps from my desk.

Love,
Me

Days in Boston may be numbered

2011-02-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Dear University of Chicago,

If you want me, you've got me. For serious.

Love,
Me

Dear Omni Hotel, Chicago,

You are a ridiculously expensive hotel. You have in room snacks, sitting there and taunting me, that are ridiculously overpriced ($6 for Snickers? NOPE).

Charging me $10/day for internet is just overkill.

Love,
Me

Dear classy heeled boots,

I still love you, but after today, I think we need to go on a break. No hard feelings. I just miss the time before the only sensation my feet were capable of experiencing was pain.

Love,
Me

No regrets

2011-01-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

The word "feminist" is commonly perceived as an almost offensive word in mainstream social interactions. If I call myself a feminist* when I'm talking to my close friends, especially my feminist, progressive friends, it's not a dirty word. But if I use it in less-safe contexts, it certainly feels like I've made some sort of mistake.

At work, my feminism is no secret, but I often feel as if many of my coworkers consider it some weird quirk about me, like, "Oh, there Steph goes again. She turned a normal conversation into a feminist-thing." Not that my coworkers aren't great people, people I like and get along with, just that I have to be extra-conscious of the way I talk about a lot of issues.

There are two specific areas of my life where bringing up feminism feels like a moderate risk. The first is when I'm trying to date. The second is right now, as I try to get into graduate programs. In both cases, I made the decision to make my feminism public. And in both cases, I don't have regrets.

Dating:

I don't like or hate dating. It's fun, but there's a lot of stress and over-analyzing, and "What do I say or not say to get another date?" And when it comes to online dating, there's a lot of stress over the fact that an online dating profile is often a terrible indication of whether or not you would get along with someone in person. It's a great way to avoid wasting time with deal-breakers; I tend to avoid messaging guys** who smoke, who use misogynistic language or talk about chivalry, who don't have similar intellectual backgrounds,*** or who seem to be really keen on finding a partner who will join them in lots and lots of travel or physical activity. But it's not really a good way to tell if the conversation will be interesting, or even if you're going to be attracted to the other person physically.

So the goal of the profile is to deter obviously incompatible people from messaging you (and yet I still get messages from 40-year-olds sometimes), and to get possibly compatible people TO message you.

So do I put in my profile that I'm a feminist? Originally, I didn't. I got more dates when I didn't, but I only had a handful of second and third dates, and they weren't fun. So I decided to put it in. It was in my profile when I started dating my last boyfriend, and while that relationship obviously didn't last, putting it in worked. My boyfriend had been interested in my profile because I was socially progressive, and not afraid to say it.

I keep it in my profile now that I'm dating again. I'm okay with the fact that it cuts down on the number of messages and dates I get. Any guy I go out with is going to find out at some point that I'm a feminist. I might as well make sure I avoid wasting time going out with guys that would find that unattractive or a problem.

Grad school:

I'm a pretty decent applicant for biology PhD programs. I say "pretty decent" because I do not work in admissions, so I'm just guessing. My GRE scores are fabulous, I have excellent recommendations, I've got great research experience, and I do think that my personal statement is interesting and well-written. But I also have a super-mediocre GPA.

What's worse is that my GPA is pretty evenly divided between "biology classes" and "not biology classes." Any class I took for my biology major, I got a mediocre grade in. At best. Most classes I took for other requirements, for fun, or for Women's Studies,**** I did very well in. And I'm reasonably sure that, if you're dealing with a shitload of applicants, you're going to assume I'm not cut out for science and throw my application into the rejection pile.

I figured that with the rest of my application being really great, I would have a chance at some interviews, where I could explain that wild discrepancy. It's not that biology classes are just too hard for little ol' me. It's that biology classes at the school I went to SUCKED. I'm not saying that I couldn't have aced them if that's all I had time for. I'm saying they SUCKED. You are not going to learn how to do excellent science by sitting in a lecture hall at 9:30am with 300 other students. You are not going to learn how to do excellent science by struggling to do a basic lab experiment with a lab partner who's not interested in working. You are not going to learn how to do excellent science in a lab class where your grade depends on technicalities, or whether or not a really difficult experimental set-up works (especially if only two groups get it to work and the professor admits that it usually doesn't work).

You learn how to do excellent science by joining a lab and working on a project. I did some of that, mostly introductory labwork, and even though I was lost most of the time, it was the most helpful class I took to prepare me for working in science.

A lecture class with 3 tests, all of which require you to essentially read the textbook and memorize the details? Not useful professionally, and not a good way to measure ability or even learning.

So that's pretty much why my biology grades are solidly MEH. Because I don't learn by going to boring lectures interrupted by pre-meds, where the only way to ace the test is to read the book and remember everything. I learn by understanding something, and relaying my understanding back to a professor. Kind of like how Women's Studies works. We sat and talked about everything, from hardcore theory to examples of socialization and bias. We read engaging books. We were "tested" by writing papers, giving us a chance to demonstrate our understanding by making new arguments.

That's how I learn. Memorizing a biology textbook isn't useful. Being able to understand, say, privilege and explain it in a paper is useful.

But that's something to leave for interviews. I don't want to sound whiny in my personal statement. But I did need to use that personal statement as an opportunity to distinguish myself from other candidates. Like so many other applicants, I want to go into research because of a personal experience (in my case, my own illness), and I want to cure diseases. Not original! Not interesting!

Unlike a lot of applicants, though, my most important goal is to plug up the leaky pipeline***** and to increase women and people of color in the sciences in general. And so I said so in my statement. I said I was a feminist. And I made it clear that you're not going to just get another person who can do good research; you're going to get a very unique PhD student who's not hyper-competitive, who's thinking about social responsibility.

I have gotten four interviews so far (waiting to hear back from six more programs). I firmly believe that making my feminism clear in my personal statement not only helped to sort of diminish my weird GPA (and to make the Women's Studies classes look much less like filler, which they weren't! I loved those classes!), but also helped to distinguish me enough that admissions committees are taking interest.

I hope that by making it clear that being open about my feminism hasn't destroyed my personal life and career, more men and women will feel good about applying that "f-word" to themselves. No more, "I'm not a feminist, but!" How about, "I'm a feminist, and!"

* I've tried and failed to use "feminist" as an adjective and not a noun. I'll practice more, I promise.

** As far as I know, I am heterosexual, and therefore look for guys to date. I have no idea what it's like to be a guy trying to date women, or a man OR a woman trying to date someone of the same sex. Or to be a transperson trying to date. This is just a hetero-cis-woman trying to date men who like women.

*** I've been called out before for this preference, but at this point, I've stopped trying to force myself to date guys I'm not attracted to from the start. I like to date guys who graduated from a decent college, especially with STEM degrees (not necessarily exclusively, but all of my boyfriends were scientist guys, and I really like that ...). I don't refuse to go on dates with guys who don't fit that bill, but really, I can't help it :(

**** This is what the program was called at my school. I don't like that it's called that. I think it should be called "Sex and Gender Studies," or, "Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Studies." But it wasn't my decision.

***** The leaky pipeline specifically refers to the loss of women in the sciences higher up in the career ladder. That is, the higher you go (from PhD student to post-doc to assistant scientist, etc. etc.), the fewer women there are. And the fewer women you start with (i.e. a higher percent of biology PhDs go to women than do computer science PhDs), the fewer you end up with. The reasons for the leakiness include, but are not limited to, sexism in the workplace in general, the stereotype of STEM as a "male" field, and the lack of childcare options in the US.

I like asterisks.

AGAIN. Words MEAN things

2011-01-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

Words really mean things. Just like "blood libel" does not generically mean "false accusation," the word "pogrom" does not mean "attack."

The Washington Times doesn't seem to get that. In fact, while defending Sarah Palin's speech, where she used the term "blood libel" incorrectly and offensively, the Times uses the word "pogrom" exact same incorrect, offensive way.

What the hell is a pogrom? A pogrom is a government sanctioned or condoned raid or attack on a minority, typically on their village or homes. While it can be used to describe raids against many religious and ethnic minorities, it is most commonly used to describe those raids that occurred in Russia in the early 20th century on Jewish villages and shtetls. Have you seen Fiddler on the Roof? Where Anatevka is trying to celebrate a fucking wedding and the Russian soldiers tear the place apart? That's a pogrom.

It's not a plain old attack. It's a very specific kind of attack, meant to drive out or eliminate a minority. It's not fair play in any sense--a pogrom does not occur as retaliation towards the pogrom-victim's earlier actions. A pogrom is NOT when people criticize a public figure for knowingly and offensively misusing a loaded term.

DUH.

Having two terms, both related to Judaism, misused within days of each other is really, really obnoxious, and it gets me fucking pissed off. Words mean things, people. And for the last time, if this isn't evidence that Jewish people are still disrespected in US politics in 2011, I'm not sure what would be.

Eeehehehehe--Grad School

2011-01-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

Graduate schools are obnoxious. Like I've said before, there's really nothing centralized, unlike undergraduate admissions and medical school admissions, which (while still a huge pain in the ass in many ways) make some effort to centralize the process. You've got guidance counselors and medical school advisors, who organize the mailing of recommendations. Test scores are easy to send out (although this is true for the GRE as well). There's a common application.

Graduate programs are a wreck, and not just in terms of the disorganization of applications. Most of my deadlines have passed (two programs have deadlines tomorrow), but now we're in the waiting period. Many programs are already getting back to people; I have three interviews already (including one that I got back in December--absurdly early), and one of the interviews was issued before the application deadline. Additionally, there are only so many weekends in January, February, and March, and so many people, myself included, are anxious about how quickly we're going to have to throw together schedules for these months. I know I'm extremely concerned about how much work I'm going to have to miss (1 day per local program, possibly 2 days for others). So I sought out information--when the hell should I begin to suspect I've been rejected?

I found a couple of websites, and the results? FUCKING HILARIOUS.

Getting into a PhD program is really important to me, and to other people. I've been extremely obsessive and organized about my applications, and now my interviews. But I'm also confident that I'll get in somewhere great, have a great/stressful/wtf 5-6 years, and end up with a great career. Cool.

People are freaking out, though. They're posting their "stats:" GPA, what kind of college they attended, GRE scores, years of undergraduate/other experience, publications, etc. etc. etc., in addition to all of the programs they applied to and have heard back from. People are freeeeeaking. And while I don't find anything particularly hilarious about, "I found out I was rejected from [school]. I'm disappointed," I do think it's hilarious to see people panicking about the massive Nor'easter that just hit New England, because, and I'm not kidding, they're worried that it'll impact the decision timeline from Harvard's BBS program. Now, I'm not that panicky because I didn't apply to BBS. And because my PI told me that BBS isn't even close to making any decisions. So it's hilarious to see that people are actually paying attention to Boston weather because they think that they're supposed to hear back any day now.

Anyway, am I anxious about graduate school? Yes. Do I feel panicked because I'm still waiting to hear back from 7 programs? Yes, but it's because I always get anxious during the waiting game. Also, I'm bored because I'm done with applications, and panicking is something to do. But it just tickles me a little bit to see people getting this upset and worried so early in the game. Look, everyone, almost all of us will be getting a PhD in 4-7 years. Don't worry.

Part 150,443 in "Words Mean Things."

2011-01-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

As you may already be aware of, words actually mean things.

I'm not going to really go into just HOW bad it is that Sarah Palin is accusing the media of "blood libel." Because it's really bad. It's appallingly and inarguably anti-Semitic.

Words mean things. If you want to say, "The media is falsely accusing me of instigating violence," then you should say that. But "blood libel" doesn't mean "false accusation." "False accusation" means "false accusation."

For those of you who are unfamiliar with "blood libel," it's the specific false accusation that the Jewish people sacrifice Christian children in order to use their blood to make bread that we then eat. Blood libel has been used for hundreds of years as an excuse to persecute, dehumanize, discriminate against, and murder Jewish people.

So unless the media is accusing Sarah Palin and the Tea Party of murdering good liberal children in order to use their blood to make bread, and then using that lie in order to persecute and murder Sarah Palin and the Tea Party over hundreds of years, it's NOT blood libel. Like, actually, factually not even close.

Words mean things. And these words? Anti-Semitic. DUH.

Jared Loughner is crazy! Or something!

2011-01-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday was going so well for me. Loki woke me up early, which was okay because I always feel more productive when I'm awake earlier in the day (translation: more time to sit in bed and do nothing). I went on a date that was really fun. I picked up some items from Walgreens that I needed. And I even straightened up my room, which has been clean for all of 2011 (usually my room stays clean for 2-3 days before returning to its usual disguise as the fourth circle of hell). I even vacuumed. And then I crawled into bed with a little green bird and looked online.

So here's what I guess I know. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who has faced numerous threats and actual acts of violence (her office was vandalized--rocks thrown, etc.), was at a Congress on your Corner event. This guy named Jared Loughner, who has had lots of issues (drug use, dropped out of college), went up to the congresswoman and shot her in the head. He then opened fire on the crowd, killing several elderly people, a Federal judge, one of the congresswoman's aides, and a 9-year-old girl. Fourteen people were injured, including Giffords, who managed to survive the gunshot to the head and has been in critical condition since Saturday. Loughner was tackled and apprehended before he could do further harm to others or himself, and now faces two counts of attempted murder, two counts of murder, and one count of the attempted murder of a congressperson.

Here are some more things I know. For a long time now, several individuals and groups on the right have been espousing violence--specifically gun violence--as the way to "take back" America. That is not to say that these people have actually taken their guns, gone to perceived enemies, and threatened to kill them. I'm talking about the rhetoric that's being used, the imagery that we're seeing. It's not a secret that these individuals and groups have been using this rhetoric and imagery, and I'm actually just mostly offended that now, they're acting like WHOOPS WE DIDN'T MEAN IT.

Head's up, people: words mean things. If what you mean to say is, "I know that right now, we feel hopeless because there are changes happening in our country we don't agree with. We need to stand up and speak out against these changes, vote for the people who will stop these changes, and introduce legislation to make the changes that we want to see," then don't say, "Don't retreat, RELOAD." Don't talk about "second amendment remedies." Don't threaten gun violence if you don't think gun violence is the answer!

Now yeah, sometimes you want to use analogies and metaphors in your rhetoric to mobilize your base. Cool. But if you're not creative enough to do that without actually threatening people at the same time, maybe you should find a different job?

Here's something I don't know: Jared Loughner's brain. I haven't met the guy or his brain. I don't have his medical history. I don't have an extremely accurate narrative describing his drug use. I really don't know.

And I don't fucking care.

Yeah, it's true, there's got to be something wrong if you think that it's acceptable for you to try to assassinate a congressperson and then open fire on a crowd. But we, as a nation, need to stop making the erroneous assumption that if you are capable of doing something almost universally accepted as wrong and evil, you must be mentally ill. There's really no reason to make this assumption, beyond, "I don't understand how someone could make this decision, unless their brains didn't work properly." Well, aren't YOU a talented psychologist?

I know people who are, as we say, mentally ill. Mental illness is a term that bothers me, since it implies that these people always have sick brains that don't work properly. But the people I know who are mentally ill are just like me, for the most part. I've never had to stop being friends with someone who's mentally ill because they've threatened me or done something horrible. And in many cases, I haven't even known about a friend's mental illness for a long time because it's not obvious.

So is Loughner "crazy?" I guess the better question is, "Well, does it even matter?"

Ask the victims--does it matter whether or not the guy is crazy? Or does your gunshot wound suck just as much?

Ask congress--does it matter whether or not the guy is crazy? Or are you still concerned that voting the "wrong" way will put your life in danger?

Ask the people and groups spouting crap about reloading and the second amendment--does it matter whether or not the guy is crazy? Or are you still thinking now about whether or not your rhetoric might have an impact you didn't want?

People are also freaking out about who's allowed to buy guns. Look, we can't have everything both ways. Either guns are hard for everyone to get or easy for everyone to get. Generally, if you're working hard to increase access to guns, people you'd rather not get a gun are going to get a gun. Make guns harder to get for everyone, including you, and then you can solve that. But clearly, this is like increasing spending without increasing taxes; what the hell are you trying to do here?

Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown makes an excellent point in her Arizona shooting FAQ. We don't know if Loughner is crazy, but it's pretty clear that he's stupid. She has a great takedown of his favorite books list, correctly pointing out what I noticed as well: no one who ACTUALLY understood these books would have liked all of them. Come on! We are not dealing with a genius.

So, to sum up:

1) This ruined my Saturday.
2) Being mentally ill does not make you kill people.
3) Do not use violent rhetoric if you do not mean to incite violence (also known as "words mean things").
4) It doesn't really matter very much if Loughner is mentally ill.
5) Jared Loughner is stupid.
6) Sady Doyle rules.

Word of advice from me to me

2011-01-04T07:44:00.000-08:00

As a Kaplan SAT teacher, one of the pieces of information I passed onto my class at the end of the course was related to test day. Lots of teens don't get enough sleep, and being extremely tired on test day can be a disaster. Kaplan has us tell our students to get a good night's sleep two nights before the test. That is, get plenty of sleep on Thursday night for the Saturday morning test.

And then I stopped thinking about this advice.

Never mind the assertion from a good friend of mine that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays. I always felt that was true, but couldn't pinpoint why (I kept thinking, "But Tuesday is closer to the weekend!"). I never questioned why Tuesdays were my least productive days. Until today.

It's 2011, and my sleep schedule got slightly messy over the weekend, during New Year's. I ended up sleeping till noon on Sunday, and I was disappointed, knowing I'd have trouble sleeping that night. I did struggle to get sleep, and while I didn't wake up on Monday feeling well-rested, I didn't feel terrible. Monday night, I didn't go to bed early, but neither did I go to bed unreasonably late.

This morning, I am ridiculously, obscenely over-tired. I just want to sleep. I slept through my alarm, and I'm almost asleep at my desk. The thought of getting up and getting work done would be terrifying if I currently could feel anything through this haze of sleepiness.

Get sleep on Sunday night, people, or you will find yourself barely even half-awake on Tuesday ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

Resolutions 2011

2011-01-03T21:33:00.001-08:00

I'm one of those people who loves to make to-do lists and plan, to the point where I don't actually follow through on half of what I say I will. That means I'm exactly the kind of person to make all these awesome resolutions for the new year, and then have to make the same exact ones the next year because of how spectacularly I've failed.

Awesome.

This year, I'm trying something only slightly different, hoping that it'll change things. Like many people, my first resolution has to do with my body. Everyone's miserable about how they look in some way or another, either anguishing over how they'll never look normal, or pouring their efforts into making themselves look normal. I decided to start before the new year because the new year is an arbitrary date, you know?

I got a gym membership in mid-December, and I've so far met my goal of going once a week for the rest of the month of December. I also have met my goal of making sure I'm on the treadmill for at least 30 minutes and 2 miles, even if I have to walk. For January, my goal is to keep the 30 minutes and 2 miles, but up the nights a week to 2. February will hopefully be 3 days a week, and March will be 3 miles. I'm hoping that by joining a gym that I pass on my way home, starting with smaller goals and increasing them, and allowing myself to walk if my calves seize up are excellent ways to get this to work.

My second resolution is another one that a lot of young people try to make. I am famously a slob. Really. Part of it's not my fault. I moved out during my senior year of college, and my mother sold our house. The majority of my worldly possessions are currently in my room. The rest are in my apartment, with very little in my mother's apartment. I think that somewhere, there's a plastic trunk with childhood things in it, but that's it. I have so much crap, and very little space to put it all.
Part of it IS my fault. I'll leave clothes on the floor. I'll forget to bring empty cups and bowls back to the kitchen. My bird will get seeds all over the floor. I'll pull out books or DVDs and forget to put them back. I won't make my bed. And then I'll be so overwhelmed and/or tired from work that I won't clean, and then it'll just get worse. It's pretty horrendous!

I also get passive-agressive about the bathroom. I share it with two roommates who've never cleaned it. But no one cleans the other common spaces either, so I resent having to clean the bathroom. I hate cleaning the kitchen or doing the dishes when the majority of the mess and dishes are not mine. In the end, the apartment is icky.

I like to start off the new year in a clean space, though, for good luck (also good luck: wearing new clothing. Bad luck: things I did while drunk). So now my apartment and room are nice and clean. I'm going to see how long I can keep it that way, or at least my bedroom. Hopefully my roommates will pitch in with the common areas.

My third resolution is the least likely to happen. I tend to hit snooze on my alarm until it's an hour after I planned to get up. I tend to take too long to get ready. And I tend to get to work a bit later than I wish I did. I'm going to try to improve my wake-up time, but I'm not going to kill myself over it. It's not as if I leave work early or don't get anything done. We'll see how it goes.
Meanwhile:

Gym:
December: 1x/wk, 2mi -- TADAH
January: 2x/wk, 2mi
February: 3x/wk, 2mi
March: 3x/wk, 3mi

Clean:
Clean through January 3rd

Boo, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!!

2011-01-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

Trigger warning: non-consensual crap ahead

Hey, you know what figures? That right after I posted about how psyched I was about SMBC's recent comic featuring a gay couple incidentally (rather than as part of a joke), SMBC would piss me the fuck off!

So this comic is pretty horrible. I mean, seriously. HAHA isn't it funny that this woman made a claim about women being better at something than men are, and instead of either a) pointing out that she's made an unfair generalization, or b) just swallowing his pride and getting over it, the dude she's with decides that it's completely okay for him to prove her wrong by taking photos of her, with his testicles on her forehead, every night while she's asleep. If that weren't bad enough, on his death bed, he found it hilarious and appropriate to post a flipbook of those photos on the internet for everyone to view.

It goes without saying that this is just so, so wrong. Putting your testicles on someone's face without consent is assault. Taking photos of it is also a form of assault, and a huge violation of the other person. Putting the photos online is even more horrendous a violation. And all of this done to someone you supposedly love, and who obviously loves you? WTFFFFFF.

It's just not very funny. The punchline made it worse. Not that I could think of a justification for this dude's behavior, but the punchline, which was the motive behind the violation, seemed so petty, and so passive-aggressive, I found it mortifying.
What makes everything even worse, if the rest of it weren't bad enough, is that this woman is basically now being shamed for her partner's behavior. Those messages are for her. He's dying and no longer has to deal with the consequences. The woman has been left to cope with what he did to her. It's heartbreaking.

Plenty of people can be hilariously funny without resorting to anything as cruel and crude as this particular comic. SMBC is often one of those comics where they're usually hilarious without making me, as a progressive feminist, run away screaming. This is the biggest disappointment yet.

Bathrooms: Two Thoughts

2011-01-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

First thought:

A lot of conservatives will panic at the idea of a transwoman using a women's bathroom. They have this really weird conviction that male sexual predators will pretend to be transwomen, go into women's bathrooms, and sexually assault "real" women and, of course, children.

If you're unsure of why this fear is absurd and rooted in transhate, you're probably reading the wrong blog.

But another thing that I find so incredibly upsetting is this equally absurd idea that women and children will be safe if we keep bathrooms gendered and keep transpeople in the wrong sex and prevent them from using the bathrooms they feel comfortable with. I'm one of many women who was not assaulted in a bathroom, or by a male sexual predator disguising himself as a transwoman. Additionally, I know of a woman who was murdered in a reststop bathroom ... by a man who was obviously not pretending to be a transwoman.

The problem here is not that some women using the women's bathroom will have penises. The problem here is not that some men in the men's bathroom will not have penises. The problem is that there are people in this world, mostly but not exclusively men, who think that it's okay for them to assault and hurt other people. There are these people who will decide to hurt people, and if they can't go into the women's bathroom to do it, they'll do it elsewhere. But allowing men and women to use the bathrooms they feel the most comfortable in? That's not going to make people assault each other.

Second thought:

As a woman who grew up with an older brother, and who has only NOT lived with men during four years of college, and who currently has three male roommates, I'm not the kind of person who would find Ally McBeal type unisex bathrooms upsetting. But I've accepted that fine, that's not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, I'm mostly annoyed with some of the ways that men's and women's bathrooms are designated. Even the classic block figures bother me, since like many women, I don't wear skirts frequently.

But I noticed something about the bathrooms at work that first bothered me, and should still bother me, but no longer do.

In the women's bathrooms at my work, the stalls are pink. Not bright pink, more like a dusty pink, but pink nonetheless. And in the men's bathroom, the stalls are dark blue.

Why are the stalls so gendered? I'm not sure, but there's now a reason I'm grateful that the stalls are different colors.

I work at a research institute with an animal facility, and it's essential that we have showers for employees. The animal facility bathrooms are different, but on the main three floors, the bathrooms are all in the same area, because they all share the same plumbing. Additionally, on the first floor, the women's bathroom is the one with the shower; the men's bathroom with a shower is on the second floor. So to make the most of the plumbing, the bathrooms are reversed on the first floor, with the women's room on the left and men's on the right. On the second floor and third floor, the two floors I usually use the bathroom on, the women's room is on the right.

I rarely use the first floor bathroom. In fact, I've only used it a couple of times. One morning, I had to go to the bathroom extremely urgently, as early as halfway to work on the T, and as soon as I got into the building, I was rushing to the bathroom. Obviously, I wasn't going to wait for the elevator or climb two flights of stairs, so I went to the first floor bathrooms. I walked in and realized, "Wait ... this doesn't look like the bathroom." It was very obvious I was in the wrong bathroom because the stalls were the wrong color.

I'm not suggesting that using gendered colors is a good idea, and I'd be one of the first people in line to support non-gendered multi-stalled bathrooms. But as long as we have separate bathrooms, different color schemes (not necessarily gendered ones) aren't such a bad idea, especially in our institute, where the bathrooms look the same on all three floors, but are reversed on one floor ...

Yay, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!

2011-01-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not a huge follower of webcomics, not because I hate lots of them, but just because of general disinterest. Right now, I'm down to a few: xkcd, PhD Comics, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and Brawl in the Family (the last one updates much less frequently, but I love me some Nintendo). I'm not always thrilled with every single comic, and many of them are highly obnoxious and sexist. Sometimes, the authors get things right, and sometimes not so much.

Recently, SMBC had an excellent comic regarding nerds and football. Sure, I know nerds who like football, and non-nerds that aren't so much into it. But still, this is pretty hilarious:

One thing, though, that the author commented on is pretty great. This comic utilizes a dating situation with two guys, BUT the punchline has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this is a date between two guys. It's just two guys on a date. And not like a "man date" between friends, but a legitimate romantic date. And the fact that they're two dudes is not the punchline.

Comics like this one are first steps, but necessary first steps. We're moving towards a culture where we don't have to focus on things like, "OMG GAY."

Because you know what? The joke was so funny, I didn't even really notice that it was a date with two men. Not because I assumed it was a woman on the other side of the table, but because seriously, king of football = awesome.

TV Twist: OMG she's pregnant!

2011-01-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

On TV, you rarely see all of the options for women who've become pregnant by accident. You also don't often see women who become pregnant on purpose. Thinking over the shows I watch, I've thought of some examples:

Completely unplanned:
Ross and Carol (Friends: ex-spouses)
Ross and Rachel (Friends: just friends)
JD and Kim (Scrubs: just started dating)
Jordan and Dr. Cox (Scrubs: first while they weren't together, then while together) twice
Angela and Hodgins (Bones: while married, not planned)
Jack and Avery (30 Rock: in a non-exclusive relationship, then together)

Planned:
Phoebe (Friends: surrogate for her brother and sister-in-law)
Carla and Turk (Scrubs: tried to conceive for months)

Other:
Angela and Wendell (Bones: Angela's test was a false positive)

So I don't watch a ton of shows, but that's okay!

So we see a ton of unplanned pregnancies, only a couple planned, and a situation where initially, a character believed herself to be pregnant.

Let's look at the results for the unplanned pregnancies:

Ross and Carol (Friends): Carol has the baby, and little Ben shows up from time to time until season 8
Ross and Rachel (Friends): Rachel decides to have the baby no matter what, and she and Ross end up as a family with their daughter
JD and Kim (Scrubs): The two decide to have the baby even though they only just started dating. They end up long distance, and Kim lies about having a miscarriage because she wants to stay at her new job. They get back together, but JD never forgives her, and they end up breaking up when their son is born.
Jordan and Dr. Cox (Scrubs): The first pregnancy gets them back together as a couple, even though Dr. Cox doesn't know he's the baby's father until after it's born. Their second child is born after Dr. Cox has had a vasectomy.
Angela and Hodgins (Bones): They're already married, and while the pregnancy was unplanned, it wasn't something they assumed they'd avoid.
Jack and Avery (30 Rock): Avery's pregnancy results in Jack finally dating her exclusively, and they plan to get married.

First off, Avery from 30 Rock and Kim from Scrubs are both played by Elizabeth Banks, who I guess is now the go-to actress if you want a male TV character to get his girlfriend pregnant by accident.

Why such weird unplanned pregnancy situations? It's especially when couples like Turk and Carla struggle so much to have their first child (and couples like Chandler and Monica end up having to adopt instead). I guess on TV, the moral of the story is that if you're a married couple trying to have kids, you will usually have trouble. If you're not trying, or you're not married, or you're carrying your brother's babies,* then it's super easy.

The thing is, these are ways to make TV "more interesting." How did the Friends writers revitalize the series after season 7? Rachel gets pregnant. How do we add drama to Turk and Carla's relationship? Make it hard for them to get pregnant. And how do we make Jack pick between two women? Get one of them pregnant.

What this means, though, is that we lose a lot of perspective. We see unplanned pregnancies resulting in babies extremely frequently. We see the few couples who want to have kids struggle to do so. We tend to lose the stories of the men and women who decide to start a family and then ... start a family. And, most importantly, we rarely, rarely see unplanned pregnancies ending in abortion.

Of COURSE these women are going to choose to have their babies--otherwise, the storyline gets cut short. Pregnancy can last for a whole season; an abortion needs to happen quickly. Pregnancy and parenthood present writers with tons of options for storylines, but also often can be pushed to the sidelines if necessary. There can be pregnancies, but not every episode has to focus on it. And very often, even once characters have children, those children mysteriously "disappear" when it's inconvenient to have them around. Everyone seems to be able to afford a nanny, or the grandparents will babysit, or something else that gets the babies out of the picture. Convenient.

Abortion ends quickly. It's over. And because PTSD-from-abortion is bogus, there's not a lot of, "OMG so sad about my decision!" that comes afterwards. The only reason to include abortion, it seems, is for controversy. Because if you can't get a long, fun storyline from pregnancy, then why have one at all? In TV, characters only get pregnant to further the plot. Abortion clearly is not an option there.

Yearly New Year's Survey

2010-12-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

I used to do this every year (since mid-high school) on my online diary. I don't use it anymore, so ... it'll be here. There is no #22, so no, I didn't skip it.

2010 was a really great year, and I'm sad to see it go. If 2011 is at least as good, I'll be pretty happy.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Among other things, booked a hotel room. Got a pedicure.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Do I ever keep them? For this coming year: as usual, try to keep my room clean.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Also no.
5. What countries did you visit?
None.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
Discipline!
7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Probably February 13th. Third date with Bill; we made out.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Got a grad school interview, and first author on a poster for a conference in May.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Letting my room turn into the fourth circle of hell.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Colitis came back with a vengeance.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
FCUK dress.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Can I say me? How about Sady Doyle et al for #Mooreandme!
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Obama's. Come on, dude, why did we elect you?
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, dating.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Grad schools + the gym.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Bad Romance (RA RA AH AH AAAH)
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Way happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Fitter.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer?
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Running and cleaning.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Staying up late. (I doubt this will ever change.)
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas already happened. Spent it at my aunt and uncle's.
21. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Yes.
23. How many one-night stands?
365, baby.
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Bones, Castle.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
26. What was the best book you read?
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
B.o.B.
28. What did you want and get?
A winter jacket :) Published. A grad interview. Job satisfaction.
29. What did you want and not get?
Laser eye surgery! Geez!
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Didn't hit up the theaters much. True Grit was great.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 24. Went to work, went out in my gorgeous dress with Bill. Had dinner at Teatro, saw Wicked. That weekend, went to the Cape with friends.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?
RUNNING, how I MISSED YOU (and more interviews).
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Comfortable but less frumpy than usual.
34. What kept you sane?
Loks. Kyle. Michelle and Scott. (Loki also has the honor of also driving me insane.)
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Finally, not Jensen Ackles (as much). Dan Radcliffe, just so you know, I'm ALWAYS available if you're interested.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Is there one that doesn't? Tax cuts, immigration law, DADT, DOMA, Prop 8 decision, healthcare. Stupak, I still hate you.
37. Who did you miss?
Lady.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Getting to meet the BoShakers in person was fantastic.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
Not having laundry in your building is a terrible, terrible idea.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
A whole new lab
That’s where we’ll be
Across the hall
If you want, just call
We have cookies

And a merry fucking Christmas to you, too!

2010-12-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

My good friends all know that come November and December, I am an unhappy camper. I have an intense dislike for Christmas, one that surpasses the normal level of annoyance. And it's not for the actual holiday itself. It's for people, and how society has taken a religious holiday and turned it into one of the most alienating times of the year for me.

I was raised in a Jewish household. It wasn't the most religious household; my siblings and I went to Hebrew school until we became Bar and Bat Mitzvot. We celebrated the four major holidays (went to services in the mornings of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, went to both seder nights for Pesach, celebrated the eight nights of Chanukah). At one point, we would also have Shabbat dinner on Friday nights, sometime before we moved. My siblings and I could all read what I consider Jewish Hebrew (block with vowels, as opposed to the actual Hebrew language used in Israel, which is often in script and almost always without vowels; I can't read it).

Both of my parents are Jewish and come from 100% Jewish families and backgrounds. I used to get that question a lot: "Are you half-Jewish or full-Jewish?"* As if it really matters.

I'm also an atheist. While I'm not going to deploy the full, complete argument for why Jewish atheism is not a contradiction, and why it's not just a bunch of people fooling themselves, I'll give a brief explanation. Being Jewish is often a cultural, ethnic, and ritual thing (come from a Jewish family, have traditionally Jewish physical features, eat Jewish food, practice some Jewish rituals, such as kashrut or lighting candles on holidays). Additionally, believing in god is not a central tenet in Judaism. There were two pillars that I came to identify: Mitzvot/tzedakah and torah. The first involves doing good deeds and giving to charity. Being a good person, doing the right thing, and helping those less fortunate, that is an essential aspect of Judaism. The second involves learning. We must always study, ask questions, strive to learn as much as we can. This can manifest itself in academic learning, but it also involves questioning what we're told, including the existence of god, or whether or not we want to remain in the Jewish faith. There's a reason why so many Jewish people are involved in charity work, dedicated to progressive ideals, and extremely studious.**

Believing in god is not a requirement of the Jewish faith. Often, and traditionally, it's expected, but those of us who do not believe in god are not imposters, and have nothing to hide in the community.

As a Jewish atheist, Christmas really, really sucks. I mean, seriously. Let's think about it.

In October, often before Halloween swings around, Christmas begins to pop up. Red and green begin to appear, reminding us all of what's coming up soon. More and more of the calendar year is being taken up by a holiday that lasts for one day. Next, we get the shopping and the decorations. People begin to spend a significant amount of time and even more money getting ready for this one day holiday. Lights go up. Trees are picked out. Little trinkets are purchased and strewn about the house. People have cards made with pictures of their kids to send to everyone they know (will someone please explain that tradition to me!). Sales abound: come get the presents for your family and friends so they know that you love them! We're opening at 10pm on Thanksgiving! Have you seen the people getting trampled, all for a sale?

In November, we get the holiday versions of TV shows, often with nice happy endings that result in everyone knowing that we love each other, and we get to spend time with our families on this, most important of holidays. No one has to work, everyone is together. Radio stations that have been playing Christmas songs up the wazoo for a month then decide to go all out and do non-stop Christmas songs until December 26th.

Meanwhile, we have the people who are livid about the supposed war on this holiday. You wished me happy holidays? Terrorist! You don't mention Christmas in your advertising? Unpatriotic!

And what we're left with is this:

Americans celebrate Christmas. And they celebrate it by going all out with decorations, getting a tree, paying whatever it costs to get the right and best presents and to get a flight to see their families. They celebrate by playing and singing Christmas songs, and wearing red and green, and wishing all their friends and neighbors a merry Christmas, through phone calls or cards, or just passing people on the street.

It's bullshit and it's bogus. Here's what Christmas is like for me.

In November, I begin to avoid certain radio stations, which are already playing Christmas songs. I've already gotten my gifts for people, sometimes before Halloween, but usually in the first week of November. I buy non-holiday wrapping paper. I send a complaint to an internet radio website because their "Top Hits" station plays about 40% Christmas songs, and not only are these songs NOT actually top hits, but I also use up all my skips really quickly.

I deal with watching non-stop Christmas commercials, telling me about all this shit I have to buy. Many of them are extremely gendered. I can't go shopping for new jeans, or to get my gym back replaced because I know that Old Navy is going to be an absolute hot mess until maybe the 28th. People wish me a merry Christmas, defaulting to assuming that everyone celebrates the holiday, instead of risking offending all of the people who actually do.

People insist that I *could* celebrate the holiday if I wanted to, that it's really for everyone.*** On facebook, people continue wishing "Merry Christmas and happy holidays," or "Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!" or "Merry Christmas to those celebrating and happy holidays otherwise!" Meanwhile, Chanukah ended weeks ago. They're still selling Chanukah crap alongside the Christmas stuff. People assume that the colors of the Israeli flag are "Chanukah colors." After so many years, people still think of it as the Jewish version of Christmas, when in reality it's an extremely unimportant holiday that was only made popular because of all the Jewish kids feeling left out in December.

People wish for a white Christmas, even though the snow makes it really hard to drive places. Places close even though I need to buy things or use facilities. Meanwhile, like many other Americans, I'm working on Christmas; cells don't wait for the weekend to be over. I have to ignore the protests from Christians that if Christmas weren't a federal holiday, most Americans would have to miss work. Not only does this ignore the fact that like many other non-Christians who practice another religion, I often miss work for extremely important holidays. I've had a presentation scheduled by non-Jewish professors on Rosh Hashanah, when I should have been in services. People constantly whine about how they can't possibly be held responsible for such scheduling mishaps, because of the lunar nature of the Jewish calendar. But we all have to stop for Christmas.

Never mind that kids could open their presents in the morning before school, like many Jewish kids do, or like many kids do on their birthdays. Never mind that kids could open their presents in the evening, again, like many Jewish kids or birthday kids. Never mind that many people who celebrate Christmas DON'T go to church on Christmas, or go on Christmas Eve. Never mind that by making Christmas a federal holiday, the United States is privileging one religion over others.

This holiday is a blatant insistence that I am not really an American. That I am unpatriotic or trying to spoil everyone's fun. They don't see it from the perspective of a person who is uninvolved in this hugely commercial holiday, one that barely has any meaning for most people anymore.

If this viewpoint ruins your Christmas, I'm not really sorry. Consider it a way for you to begin questioning your own traditions. Jews do it all the time.

* I resent the idea that a person can be "half-Jewish," although enthically, it does make some sense. But either you're Jewish or you're not, for the most part. One parent is Jewish, but you barely celebrate the holidays, don't engage in the culture, and really don't care? You're not Jewish. That's okay, I won't tell your Jewish grandparents.

** Or, for those paying attention, studentious.

*** I do have Christmas Eve and Day plans, but only in recent years. I used to be bored to death on Christmas Eve (it's school vacation and you're ALL busy?!). My uncle married a non-Jew, and they have the Jewish family over for dinner on Christmas Day. I am currently late for the Christmas Eve festivities: Chinese food and a movie. I have nothing better to do, it's free food, and I like seeing my family.

Mmmm, grad school

2010-12-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

People who know me personally know that I've spent the last two and a half months working on grad school applications. Some of the application process has been rocky. I learned that one of the programs I was applying to wasn't the "right" program (it makes sense in context; I should have applied through the medical school, not the liberal arts school), and several programs have been all, "Interesting, we don't HAVE your GRE scores!" But some of it's gone pretty smoothly. Many programs have been helpful, replying to me personally to let me know that yes, they've received my transcript, and some of them have made it easy to see if recommendations have been submitted and by whom.

Monday evening, I got my first interview invitation, from a program I was not expecting to hear back from in a positive way. It's one of the most rigorous programs, at a university that's one of the best and most prestigious in the nation. It's one of my two "Wouldn't it be funny?" programs, programs so elite that I figured, with my credentials, I would never hear back from. I don't sell myself short; I'm an excellent candidate with some of the best post-undergrad experience I could have gotten. In fact, the only problem with my applications is my GPA, which is decent, but less decent when you look at my transcript and realize, "Oh, she had a solid B- in biology classes. It's her women's studies classes that bolstered her GPA." I know from experience that both kinds of classes were difficult in different ways, and it just so happens that the way to test learning and knowledge in women's studies is better suited to my learning style than the way to test biology is. I don't like to read from a textbook and memorize things. I'm bad at that. Plus, in the sciences, with the exception of medicine, you don't NEED to memorize things. You don't need to know what steps to take on the fly. You plan and read and double-check and use Wikipedia--I MEAN PubMed.

So I wasn't expecting to hear back from this school, and I did. I'm shocked and excited. When I got the email, I assumed it was just them telling me that they FINALLY were going to acknowledge that they had received my transcript. I like the actual reason a little better.

Annoying things people do

2010-12-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

MBTA version!

We all hate taking the T to work. Even if you're not vocal about it, or you like to be a calming force For Good! and say things like, "I appreciate having decent public transit, and I don't mind not having a seat," you hate it, too. It's just a fact of life.

There are ways that we can try to make life easier for our fellow people on the T. But there are more ways that we don't. And today, I got a good reminder of one of those things.

I have never in my life seen a single person get stuck on the T and miss their stop because there were too many people in the car and the person couldn't get out of the train in time. I've really never seen it. The only things I've seen to come close are when T drivers and bus drivers forget to open the back doors. And I'm sure that plenty of people have just forgotten to get off at their stop. But I just haven't seen anyone trapped on the T, unable to escape because there's a whole crowd of people ignoring their PLEAS of ANGUISH.

And yet, almost every day, there are people who seem convinced that they're going to be trapped if they don't get to the door a solid minute before their stop. This isn't a problem on trains that aren't very full, but on a crowded train, it's obnoxious. You're making other people get up, move around, or both while the train is moving. You expect people to risk falling over (and it's not a made-up risk) so you can push your way to the door right now. It's rude, and it's annoying. Like I said, no one gets trapped on the T and misses their stop. There's no reason for this.

This rant brought to you by the MBTA: They have no money, so they're trying to expand the commuter rail.

Veronica Mars

2010-12-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Spoiler alert: I've watched all three seasons and know everything. Scott, you can't read this yet! :-p

Trigger warning: Murder and rape

So, after a few people recommended the TV show Veronica Mars, which ran from 2004-2007, I figured I'd give it a shot. I was all caught up in my other shows and had just finished watching season 5 of Bones.* I was bored. But this show came highly recommended, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

The show stars Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars, daughter of PI Keith Mars. She's a high school student who is using her PI smarts to try to solve the murder of her best friend. The first season involves a new mystery in every episode, along with a clue related to the larger season-long mystery, which is solved in the final episode. The second season has a similar format, but it's much messier, not as engaging. And the third season, taking place at college, dispenses with this format completely, instead relying on two shorter arcs, both ending before the end of the season. It's not surprising that the show was canceled after that season, although it's disappointing that the show didn't get another chance to prove it could rebound from that last, less awesome season.

There are some things about this show that really stick out for me. In the first episode, which gives viewers a background on Veronica's life and the mystery she's trying to solve, we get some pretty shocking information. When the show begins, it's been almost a year since the murder of Veronica's best friend, Lilly. Flashbacks show us that before Lilly's death, her younger brother Duncan was dating Veronica, but very suddenly dumped her with no explanation. After Lilly's murder, Veronica's father loses his job as sheriff for accusing Lilly and Duncan's father of the murder. For refusing to side against her father, Veronica is ostracized by her wealthy, popular friends. To prove she's not going to be cowed, she shows up at a huge end of the year party, where she is drugged with GHB and raped.

The way her rape is treated throughout the series is sometimes good, sometimes not.

The good:

Veronica recognizes that what happened to her was rape. She tries to report it, and when the new sheriff, Don Lamb, just laughs her off, viewers are made to understand that this is a Bad Thing. Viewers believe that the rape is real even though, as Lamb points out, there's no evidence. The show essentially forces viewers to accept and acknowledge Veronica's rape as a FACT, not to be questioned, and to acknowledge that the way Veronica was treated when she reported is not really unusual.

Veronica doesn't suffer from an extreme amount of PTSD, which is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just simply who she is and how she's processed her rape. She keeps it a secret from most characters during the course of the show, telling Duncan, Logan (Lilly's boyfriend and Duncan's friend), her best friend Wallace, and a handful of other people. We end up with a main character who's a bona fide rape survivor, who copes with what happened to her, but doesn't forget about it or rationalize it into something else.

Veronica is an excellent representation of the sexual assault survivor seen from the outside. She's labeled a slut for being assaulted, something that many other survivors, myself included, can comiserate with (since many people don't understand the difference between consensual and non-consensual activity). But other than that, her assault stays under wraps until important events and conversations draw it out. She's an excellent reminder that many people we know are survivors; they just don't tell us.

She also ends up with an STD, which doesn't get diagnosed for about two years (which ain't good!). While it did feel as if the STD was thrown in as a clue in the second season (which it was) and not really something entirely realistic (plus shouldn't she try to get in touch with Duncan and let him know?), part of me thought it was awesome. Veronica Mars is another show where unintentional pregnancy ends in a baby (secondary character Meg), but it's one of the only shows I can think of that shows another consequence of sexual activity: STDs. Not that it was Veronica behaving irresponsibly (mega-spoiler--she got it from her rapist), but simply that it's something we all know can happen, and yet television rarely goes there.

In the third season, the major first story is a serial rapist on campus. While much of this story is crappy and will be dealt with later, it gets a few things right. When Parker, Mac's new roommate, is raped, and it turns out that Veronica unknowingly walked in on the rape, Parker tears Veronica a new one. After Parker insists that Veronica doesn't know how she feels, Veronica insists that she does and even gives the date of her rape. Parker apologizes, saying she had no idea, and Veronica says that it's okay, since it's not something she goes around broadcasting. It's a very, very serious reminder that many people we know are survivors; we just don't know because it's not something they broadcast.

Finally, the serial rapist is caught as he's trying to assault another victim. While there are things about the serial rapist that are highly unusual, and will be discussed later, what's accurate is that the rapist, Mercer, is a very popular, clean-cut, well-liked guy. It's clear that he could easily go out and get laid, and he even admits that to Veronica, who he thinks is his latest drugged victim. He has the trust and friendship of Logan, and he's handsome and charming. But when the facade comes down, he snickers about how he could go out and date, and that it would be really effective, but that then he'd have to listen to all these women talk. He's a sociopath. He's not some creepy dude with no friends who can't seem to get laid.

And now--the bad:

Near the end of season one, Veronica discovers that there's another classmate who was drugged on the same night, at the same party. She begins to track down classmates one by one to piece together what happened to her that night. What she learns is as follows:

- Logan brought GHB and gave it to people to use.
- Dick received some GHB and put it in a drink for his girlfriend Madison, "to loosen her up."
- Madison spat in the drink and gave it to Veronica as a cruel joke, not knowing it was drugged.
- As people were doing body shots on Veronica, Duncan tried to take her away. Logan was annoyed with that, and he put GHB into Duncan's drink to loosen him up.
- Sean, Dick, and Cassidy found Veronica in the guest room, passed out. Sean and Dick encouraged Cassidy to rape Veronica, and left him with her.
- Carrie Bishop saw Cassidy leave, but then Duncan went into the room.
- Duncan admits to having what he believed was consensual sex with Veronica, and he didn't say anything because he thought they weren't talking about it. He believed her to be his sister, which is why he had dumped her and was avoiding her, but he was still in love with her and the GHB essentially led him to give in and have sex with her.

So basically Logan supplied drugs to people at the party and drugged his best friend. EXTREMELY uncool and illegal. Dick tried to drug his girlfriend to "loosen her up," but it's obvious that had she kept her drink, Dick would have raped her. Madison unknowingly passed along a drugged drink. Sean and Dick encouraged Cassidy to rape Veronica. We learn at the end of season 2 that Cassidy DID rape her, and left her with an STD. Then Duncan came in and also raped Veronica.

The end result?

Logan: is immediately forgiven by Veronica, who begins an on-again-off-again relationship with him. The relationship only ends for the rest of the series because Veronica finds out that Logan slept with Madison while he and Veronica were broken up. He didn't cheat, but Veronica can't forgive him because he slept with Madison, whom Veronica blames for drugging her.

Dick: Veronica never much likes him, but she tolerates him, even though his actions, at least as much as Madison's, resulted in Veronica being drugged and raped.

Madison: Veronica hates her so much that she dumps Logan for good because he slept with Madison.

Cassidy: He's revealed at the end of season 2 to be the murderer of everyone on the bus, as well as an accomplice and a plane-ful of people. He admits to raping Veronica and then tries to kill her. Obviously, she doesn't like him much.

Duncan: Veronica is heartbroken after he tells her what happened, but by season 2, once they're aware that they're not related, they begin dating again, and they stay together until Duncan flees to Australia with his daughter (whose mother was another classmate). Veronica doesn't seem to consider what happened between them to be rape; Wikipedia explains that Cassidy raped her, but that Duncan had consensual sex with her, which is erroneous based on, well, what actually happened.

So it looks like the only person appropriately hated for his involvement is Cassidy, while everyone except Madison gets off the hook.

Then, we get to the serial rapist storyline. First off, it is highly, highly unusual to get such a strange MO: the rapist drugs women (thought to be with GHB, not clear), shaves their hair off, and rapes them. I'm not going to imply that this is an impossible MO, but it is a weird one. A number of serial rapists get away without drugs and a weird calling card (shaved head), but on charm and isolation and a well-placed chokehold. All of the rapes in this show happen with GHB, which is extremely skewed.

Mercer, the rapist, also doesn't even act alone. The show explains subtly that his accomplice, the RA named Moe, was involved in a prisoner-guard experiment with Mercer, and that somehow the power dynamic that was created in that experiment still persists. Moe is eager to help Mercer, to the point of driving home drugged girls and giving Mercer access to their rooms. He calls Mercer "Sir" and panics ridiculously when the shit hits the fan. If rapists have help, it's not really ever LIKE this! Eesh.

And then we get the show's treatment of Lilith House, a house full o' feminists, who are painted as humorless feminazis who actually fake a rape. Yes, that's right. Feminists who think faking a rape is a good idea. Do you know how many feminists I know who think that's a good idea? Zero. The feminists I know are chill, cool folks, men and women and boths and neithers, who care enough about rape to know better than to blame it all on the Greek system or to fake a rape. Seriously.

All in all, I liked this show a lot, and I'm looking forward to rewatching the first season. It's fascinating to see how back and forth the writers go when it comes to treatment of sexual assault, that's for sure!

* And by that, I mean that I finished Bones, and I am thoroughly bored of Murder, She Wrote.

Me and my colon

2010-12-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Warning: Large intestine!!

I've got ulcerative colitis, and it's pretty horrible. Not just because people get super uncomfortable talking about illnesses that involve pooping, because they really do(do). But also because it's a PRETTY HORRIBLE illness, in a bunch of ways.

First off, I can't really eat salad anymore and be happy. My body can't break up raw foods very well, which tears up my colon pretty badly. My nutrition has been off the wall for the past six months. It's incredibly destructive, health-wise. You know something's wrong when you're craving salad.

Second, you don't know how much going to the bathroom interferes with your day until you spend 2.5 hours at work just going back and forth between your desk and the bathroom. It's embarrassing; you wonder if coworkers are going to notice how often you get up, or how often you go into the restroom. It's hard to get work done, too.

Tuesday, I'm having my second ever colonoscopy. I'm twenty-four years old and had my first colonoscopy three years and two months ago. Tomorrow, I have to cut raw foods, nuts, seeds, etc. out of my diet. Monday, I hope no one wants to get lunch with me because, well, I can't have any solid food all day. And then Tuesday, I get to go to the doctor and have a camera up my pooper.

I'm getting used to having such a long flare-up (the only other one I had lasted from the end of August until mid-November; this one began at the beginning of July, and it's currently mid-December). But I'd like to be able to cut back my meds. I'd like to not worry about whether or not there's a bathroom around. And I'd like to stop being late for work because I have to spend an extra 10 minutes in the bathroom.

What's the best thing you can do if you don't have colitis, but want to support someone who has it? Just be cool. Don't get all, "EW, gross, blood? Diarrhea? Gas?" It's not helpful!

Besides, everybody poops! Just some of us more than others :-p

People can be more than one thing

2010-12-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Trigger warning: Rape is BAD

Thanks to people like Roman Polanski and now Julian Assange, we're getting a really fascinating glimpse of how many people are unable to wrap their heads multifaceted identity and behavior. Or that's my fancy way of saying, "Some people don't get that you can make really good movies AND be a rapist at the SAME TIME."

It's convenient to be able to put quick little labels on people, especially celebrities and well-known politicians, etc. For example, many people, especially in the acting community, insisted that we shouldn't ruin Roman Polanski's life. What makes him different from some other rapist who was ridiculously and obviously guilty of drugging and brutally raping a child who vehemently denied him consent? He survived the Holocaust AND he makes movies we like!

And that's where the disconnect comes in for so many people. They do not understand that a person can survive the Holocaust AND make good movies AND rape someone.

Now we're dealing with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks dude, shedding light on government secrets for the sake of transparency. I do not have much of an opinion on WikiLeaks, mostly because it's really hard to gauge the effect of it on diplomacy and government. And by that, I mean can you tell that I'm really not all that interested? But I guess it's nice to be able to not really see Assange as a bad guy (destroying American diplomacy! Compromising national security or something!) or as a good guy (We deserve to know everything! Information is power! You wouldn't be upset about it if you weren't doing anything illegal!).

And that's where the rape accusations come in.

As far as I can tell, two women have come forward. One woman has accused Assange of engaging in non-consensual sex with her while she slept, and the other has accused him of agreeing to use a condom while having sex, and then not doing so.

If you don't believe either thing is rape, this isn't an agree/disagree situation. A sleeping person cannot give consent (because being asleep removes their ability to say yes or no). And when a person says, "Yes, but we have to use a condom," that means, "Yes, ONLY if you use a condom, and NO if you do not." Rapity rape rape RAPE.

Rape doesn't have to be brutally violent. A victim/survivor might not realize what happened right away, and it doesn't magically make things consensual. As someone who's HAD regretted sex, I can assure you, rape isn't regretted sex.

And then liberal people, who love WikiLeaks, are having a Polanski moment. They cannot label him a rapist WITHOUT removing the "SAVIOR!!" label. You can have both. People are more than one thing. You can be charming AND valedictorian AND married AND a rapist.

I do not know whether or not these women are telling the truth, but I see no reason to ASSUME, like so many people are, that they are lying. I engage in the radical activity of BELIEVING rape victims first. I'm an assault survivor; I know how it feels to not be believed.

Assange was arrested quite quickly for these rapes, and that's where shit gets even more interesting. So many liberal people are crying foul, insisting that Assange wouldn't have been arrested for rape had he NOT been the WikiLeaks founder.

I agree. I do not think he would have been arrested had he not being stirring shit politically.

So many conservative people think he SHOULD have been arrested, that political shit stirrer.

I half-agree. I believe he should have been arrested, but just for the rape parts, not the shit stirring.

If Assange weren't famous, he probably wouldn't even have been arrested. It's true. But that's another problem. People are not complaining by saying, "He was only arrested because of his fame. It's pathetic that more possible rapists are never even charged with anything." They are saying, "Plenty of other dudes don't get arrested because of allegations, SO Assange shouldn't have been either."

NOPE, people.

Clean ALL the things?

2010-12-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are not familiar with the excellence that is Hyperbole and a Half, at the very least, check out this comic. Basically, it's a comic that speaks to a lot of people of all ages. Being an adult is HARD WORK, people.

A lot of my problems are well described in this comic. I go to the grocery store and shop like I'm going to learn how to cook (I can't) and like I'm going to eat super healthy (I don't). A week later and I have some rotting vegetables in the kitchen, in contrast to the empty candy wrappers and chip bags in my room. MMHMM. Cleaning all the things? Nuh-uh. My room is never clean. Bank? I'm down about $500 in my account because I haven't found an envelope to MAIL my checks to my bank.

Problems.

Some problems will always be problems. I will just have to get off my ass and clean my room, like it or not. But one problem that's always given me issues: budgeting.

I automatically have money taken out of my paycheck every month that goes into a high(er)-interest savings account.* That's how I've saved up enough to not have grad app fees affect me too much. But when it comes down to the question, "Am I saving as much as I could?" the answer is the longest, loudest, "NO" that you've ever heard. Old Navy, ThinkGeek, etsy, Whole Foods, Walgreens/CVS. Really, it's not good. Little purchases add up, too.

I've tried strategies before. I've attempted to use Mint.com to budget, but the end result is that I get emails from them telling me I've exceeded my budget for "Stuff."** I've tried telling myself, "Only $25 at Trader Joe's!" I've tried to ban myself from online shopping (something more effective when it's not the holiday season).

So I have a new strategy today!

Starting on Wednesday (I'm starting with a half-month so I can start saving NOW instead of waiting two weeks), I'm going to change how I pay for things, now what things I pay for.

Checks: Rent, some utilities (i.e. paying back my roommates)
Credit card: Grad school fees, Comcast, general necessities such as medication and doctor's appointments

And everything else will be in cash.

Cash is a very easy way to know how much money you can spend on something. Before I had a credit card (before I was 22), I couldn't buy something if I didn't have the cash for it.*** Now, I'm going back to that method. Not because I was a big saver before I turned 22, but because that's the only way I can really see myself achieving my goal of cutting back spending. It'll be much easier to avoid online shopping if I know that I have to deduct $30-40 from next month's cash. It'll be easier to decide if I'm going to buy those chips if I only have $20 left and I want to go out tomorrow night.

So that's my goal! We'll see how well it works, of course. I have hope.

* ING Direct used to have great interest, somewhere near 3%. It's down to about 1%, but it's much better than letting your money rot in a checking account.

** I used to try to budget everything. $X for groceries, $X for gas, $X for gifts, $X for work lunch, $X for dates with exbf, etc. It did NOT work. Now, I just budget $250-300 for "Stuff," but like I said, that doesn't work either.

*** Not that I started bleeding money once I got a credit card. I actually was fine until recently!

Ridiculous outfit

2010-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's still cold in my room, although I've turned on the heat and covered the AC window with a towel (I am not sure if the heat is working). But to keep warm:

Tank top, leggings, sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, slippers, bathrobe. Brrrrrr!

My room is cold!

2010-12-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's late fall in New England, although if you're going by New England standards and not actual equinox/solstice dates, it's winter for sure. It's been consistently freezing (30°F highs) for the past week. And I have issues.

Many people who know me well know that I have problems with being organized and clean. I'm working very hard right now to keep my work life organized in every way possible, and I'm making some headway (been helping organize common areas that have been messy since I got here a year and a half ago, cataloging protocols, making master lists of freezers, etc.). Now it feels like all of that energy directed at work is sapping my energy to be responsible at home. My room got pathetically disgusting for an entire month. Horrendously, embarrassingly gross. Coming home was upsetting for me because of how terrible my room was.

Gathering up the energy to clean my room became more and more difficult. Halfway through the month, I was thinking about starting to clean when I was struck down with illness. As I've detailed earlier, I got sick with a weird mild virus on Saturday after Thanksgiving, which turned into a sinus infection, which turned into a pretty decently bad chest cold. I'm still recovering; I've got congestion still and my voice is still what I call my man-voice. It's going to be difficult to sing karaoke on Monday!

While sick, getting to the grocery store for essential food items was my only priority besides sleeping. I ended up with plates, bowls, and mugs (formerly containing either soup or tea) in my room, along with clothes strewn about, trash, Loki's mess (he took a bath in his seeds, and now that he has wings, he likes to fly everywhere, pooping and molting), and everything else. I had done some major laundry back in November, including my comforter cover. I still hadn't made my bed (like, sheets, not making things look nice). Oh, it was bad. Very bad.

So I was sick, and then it got freezing. Because of the mess, I hadn't yet put shrink wrap on my windows (it's effective, by the way). I also hadn't taken out my AC unit from the window right next to my bed. There were reasons, all related to the mess. With the mess, it was difficult to get to the AC. And there was nowhere to put the AC once it was out. And I couldn't invite even a roommate in the room to help me remove the unit because of how embarrassing the mess was!

The other night, I was so cold that I allowed Loki to nap on my warm computer. I also made the mistake of warming my hands by sticking them under my laptop.

Do not warm your hands by sticking them under a hot laptop. At the time, it felt nice and it helped. Now, I've discovered first degree burns on the backs of my fingers and hands. Not joking. WHOOPS.

Last night, I had a field day cleaning my room. It's not finished. In terms of general presentation, I need to put away my clean clothes, put my dirty clothes in my hamper, throw out 3 bags of trash, get rid of a bunch of boxes and other trash, donate a bag of clothes, put some items away, clean Loki's cage, and vacuum.* Tonight, I got home too late, but when I have time this weekend, I'll finish up, and weatherize those stupid windows! And then maybe my room won't be so darn cold.**

* In terms of real cleaning? I need to throw out a ton of shit that's in my closet and storage unit.

** Yes, I've thought about the heat. But it'll drive up our utilities, it's stupid to turn on the heat when I literally have a WINDOW OPEN, and I'm also reasonably sure the heat in my room doesn't work. I don't know for sure, and it would be stupid to call the landlord to complain if I have a WINDOW OPEN.

Sickness roadmap

2010-12-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

A week after I first got sick, I'm still sick! Chronology:

Friday night: Fine, just a slight headache
Saturday: Congestion, fatigue, low fever (99.2)
Sunday: Slight congestion, fine by the end of the day
Monday: Feeling fine, congestion is fading
Tuesday: Congestion is a little worse, but generally, feeling okay
Wednesday: Wake up feeling horrible, heavy face, congestion, serious fatigue, fever (99.6-100.2)
Thursday: Feeling a bit congestion, mild fever later in the day (99.1)
Friday: More congestion, no fever, scratchy throat
Saturday: More congestion, no fever, scratchy throat, cough

So here's what I think happened:

I stayed out late on Thanksgiving and the following night, leaving me with a mild virus on Saturday. Since I thought I was better by Sunday, I stopped taking steps to treat the cold, and it turned into a sinus infection, sidelining me on Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, the sinus infection was gone, but I was pretty much draining all of the fluids, which landed in my lungs and throat. I also stayed out late again and didn't dress very well for the cold.

So: Mild viral infection turns into sinus infection turns into cold.

HOORAY.

New meaning

2010-12-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

I'm watching some Castle right now (decent show, quite goofy), and in one particular episode, the suspects are animal rights activists. It's said that the worst thing they've done is break into a lab and free a bunch of mice. It's said as if it's really not a terrible thing.

Weirdly enough, I haven't heard any references to breaking into labs and freeing animals in a while, maybe since I started working in the lab last year. And now, all I can think of is that if some asshole were to free the mice in our animal facility, it would be an institute-wide crisis. We'd lose months of work, in addition to a loooot of money. I mean, you'd have to pay for new mice, and for the facility to be cleaned (we've got rules to keep the rooms very clean, rules that activists would probably break). And then there's the fact that some of the mice are very, very special knock-outs or isoform mice that are rare and pricey.

So next time you hear about activists freeing animals from labs, whether the references are fictional or real, FEEL BAD for the researchers! Seriously.

Tales of sick in bed

2010-12-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

Usually, when I take a sick day, I wake up feeling crappy and call in sick. By the afternoon, I'm feeling better, especially if I take a nap. Sometimes, I'm ridiculously sick, like when my UC flares up, or the time I had the Hamthrax.*

A couple of times, though, I've come to work even when I don't feel well. Recently, especially, I've started loving my job, and so I actually want to come in to work, get things done, and see people. So when I woke up this morning with my cold returning full-force, and with stuffy, painful sinuses, I got up, and brought in the food for lab meeting.

And I got sent home as soon as I got in. The only annoying thing was that there aren't a lot of outbound trains from Boston around 10am. And by the time I finished walking back to my apartment, I felt SO lousy.

Now I have a fever, and my symptoms aren't very much better post-nap. Awesome.

So what happens when I'm home during the day? I check OKCupid to see if I've got a message from this guy I'm seeing, since he's going to pick a restaurant for us to go to tomorrow night. And then I get an IM. Crap.

I check and see that this dude has visited my profile. Okay, that's good, because he'll know that I'm picky and generally don't date guys who can't make an effort to type properly. Except not.

Dude types badly in his IMs and on his profile (or what little of it I could see when I searched; I'm not interested in checking it out). He then asks me what I do, something that's at the top of my profile. Now he's asked me if I swing, and if I want to fuck (I answered no, and he asked me why not).

I don't want to be with my ex, and I'm okay with being single. But man, I'd forgotten how obnoxious online dating is.

EDIT: Oh, even better. He messaged me because he saw that I was Jewish and thinks that it means I put out easily.

* H1N1--swine flu. I usually call it Hamthrax or The Swine.

Random updates

2010-11-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

HEALTH:

Thursday, felt great. Friday, felt great till about midnight, when I had a headache. Saturday, woke up feeling OMG HORRIBLE. I could barely get out of bed all day, took three naps, kept having to reheat my tea. I only had one can of soup, which I ate. Ended up with a fever, in addition to headache and congestion and OMGKILLME feeling. I figured I'd be out of commission for a few days.

Sunday, woke up feeling a bit gross. I was able to hack up a huge glob of gross, and then felt better. Managed to go to work and then the grocery store for more soup and juice. By about 5/6pm, I felt all right. By the time I went to bed, I felt almost fine. Woke up this morning on very little sleep feeling great!

Importance: I NEVER recover from illnesses, especially colds, so quickly. It seems that at age 24, my body has finally started to take advantage of all of the lessons it's learned from the colds of winters past! Yay!

APPS:

On Wednesday, I arrived home and discovered that my transcript had FINALLY arrived. But that I had forgotten the cover page and my CV I had printed at work. I dug my printer out of the pile of books I'd left on it, and I easily downloaded the software, but then I realized that after not printing anything for a year and a half, I had mysteriously lost all my printer paper. Ran to Walgreens, bought some paper, ran home.* Printed everything, called the post office to confirm that they were on normal hours. Dashed up to Beacon Street, struggled mightily to fill out a mailing label (three carbon copies! I wrote as hard as I could, and you could barely read anything!). Then I went up to the counter and, kid you not, asked, "How much do I have to pay to make sure this gets to Chicago by Friday?" Delivery guaranteed.

Today is Monday. My UChicago app tells me that they're still waiting on my CV and transcript, and they're due Wednesday. WTF. Am calling in an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, BU says it doesn't have any recommendations, but they replied to my email confirming that they have my transcript and GRE scores. Johns Hopkins and I had some emails over the weekend because I DID send GRE scores, so I'm supposed to check again tomorrow, and call if my app still claims they're missing.

The lesson learned here is ... nothing. I did everything right. So the lesson learned is just not to apply to graduate school.

* I guess it's misleading to imply that Walgreens is even a little bit of a trip. I live directly next to Walgreens. I almost live IN Walgreens. We are surrounded on two sides by the building, and on a third by the parking lot. A trip to Walgreens is the easiest thing on the planet. I have to stagger my trips so the employees don't notice how much junk food I buy.

Grad apps

2010-11-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

Applying to graduate school should involve receiving a degree all on its own.

I vaguely remember applying to college several years ago. I know that many of my applications were online, and most of them took the common app. It was helpful; I applied to seven schools and five of them took the common app. So I had to fill out my information about 3 times total, and the supplemental applications for individual schools involved a few extra essay questions. I did have to mail in some things, specifically my flute CD,* but I know my mom took care of that, as well as my SAT scores. My guidance counselor took care of sending off my high school transcript.

It wasn't easy or pleasant, by any means, but the college admissions process is at least somewhat streamlined.

The easiest part of graduate applications has been sending my GRE scores. ETS lets you select all your schools and departments, and then you just enter your billing info, hit send, and weep openly as you look at the bill afterwards ($345!).

Transcripts? No guidance counselor this time. I have to send them, one at a time, using the Tufts system. I have to enter my billing info for each one and pay one at a time. There's a character limit in the address boxes, so I've been sending lots of applications to "The Office of Grad. Aff." Awkwards. I just had to call Tufts because the system didn't register my billing info for a couple transcripts. I would have just canceled and re-entered my info, but one of the transcripts needs to be sent TODAY, so I was panicking a little.

My CV? It's sort of important, especially for schools that either don't give me space to write much about my jobs, or for ones that assume that I'm applying right out of undergrad. In some cases, I have to mail my CV because the online app won't let me upload it, just copy/paste. But what about my gorgeous formatting?!

So I've got transcripts I have to send, and not only is it hard, but some of the schools haven't told me where to sent the damn things. Half of the schools don't seem to want my CV. What else?

Oh, there's no common app. I've got some apps on Embark, and some on ApplyYourself, but neither system saves your information for auto-fill. And the rest use school-specific application sites. So I end up having to write out my address six hundred times, and my recommendation letter writers are probably so confused, I'll have to send them emails letting them know when to send letters to which schools.

Finally, certain schools want information mailed, in addition to completion of an online application. The biggest culprit is the University of Iowa, which has just been killing me in terms of all of these problems. I had to fill out an application on the biology department's site, THEN the general application. I now have to mail them my personal statement (yes, they require it mailed), my CV, a waiver request, and an application for graduate funds. I also had to mail two transcripts, and they have a form for letter writers to fill out instead of writing a letter. They're also the school that assumes I'm just graduating from college; everything they ask either implicitly or explicitly assumes I'm in college. The recommendation form refers to my letter writers as if they've had me in a class, etc.

So, where's my special degree for sorting through this mess? Yikes.

First application is going out very soon (University of Chicago). I'm waiting on one last once-through from my mom on the personal statement so I can send the electronic application, and as soon as I get my transcript in the mail, I'm sending it with my CV straight to the biology department. I'm cutting through the chaos, and I'm finally embarking on the next stage of my life: PhD.

* I spent years playing flute and piccolo, and at one point, I was considering going to conservatory and going professional. Not because I was that good; I would have been if I had practiced more often. That was actually a factor in my decision not to become a musician. Not only would my profession not be immediately helpful to anyone, but I'd have to actually practice. Not gonna happen!

Oh, FDA ...

2010-11-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

The FDA. I don't know quite what to think of them sometimes. I mean, I'm sure they do some good work. But at the same time, it's hard to look away from the fact that a lot of their decisions come down to politics, not science.

For a Community Health class I took a few years ago, I read a book by Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. She discussed the controversy surrounding silicone breast implants, and the FDA ban on. While Dr. Angell is not the most feminist woman on the planet (her book suggests that she buys into some stereotypes about feminism), her book does raise a lot of questions about whether or not the FDA ban is actually based on anything real.

The FDA banned silicone gel breast implants in 1992. The reasons why are suspect. No scientific study supported the claim that silicone gel breast implants caused a variety of unnamed connective tissue diseases. After years of more studies debunking the myth, silicone is finally back on the market. But there were countless women (cis and trans) who were unable to get silicone implants during those years, and had to get saline instead.

Why is this even important? As a feminist, I don't see a need for breast implants beyond helping transwomen and women who have lost breasts to disease or injury (and specifically, only those women in those catagories who want implants). But as long as we live in a patriarchy, I can't judge women for feeling pressured to have larger breasts, and since that's the case, I support a woman's right to decide what kind of implant to get. Saline implants have downsides, especially in terms of the look and feel of an augmented breast, so there are reasons to prefer silicone gel. And again, there was no scientific evidence to suggest that silicone gel was more dangerous than saline ...

Another example of the FDA going by politics and not science are the current age restrictions on emergency contraception. In 2006, emergency contraception known as "Plan B" was made available over the counter for women ages 18 and older. That was a great improvement; previously, it was prescription only. And when you really think about it for a moment, that's really stupid. If I have sex on Friday night and the condom tears, I would have to wait until Monday morning to call my doctor and get a prescription. Plan B is effective when you take it up to 72 hours after failed contraception, and the earlier it's taken, the more effective it is. Having to wait because you need your doctor to give you the go ahead can mean the difference between Plan B and Planned Parenthood.

However, 18 or older doesn't cut it. Women under the age of 18 who are sexually active have the same issues facing them as the older women, but they also have to deal with parental disapproval; they may be less informed about sex, and they may have even more trouble getting in touch with a doctor to get a prescription. So the FDA said, "Fine, we'll make it 17." But the issue here is that any age restriction means that there's a population of young women who need Plan B and can't get it.

A judge has determined that the age restrictions are unnecessary, and based solely on politics and not science. The FDA has been ordered to drop the age restrictions.

They haven't.

And now, for something slightly different: Four Loko.

Four Loko is an alcoholic beverage that apparently doesn't taste very good, but has a ton of caffeine in it. It's been dubbed "blackout in a can" by college students, and it's landed several of them in the hospital. Drinking it seems like a pretty bad idea. Thanks to a ton of outcry from concerned parents and citizens, the FDA has delcared caffeine an unsafe additive to alcohol, and Four Loko will be banned.

I think the ban is politically motivated. I don't think it's a terrible idea, but that's in the vein of me not thinking it's a terrible idea to ban cigarettes or Christianity. That is, sure, it wouldn't affect me and I don't think it's good for people anyway, but I can't control other people's decisions, even if I think they're making the wrong one.

What's more, banning Four Loko is not going to stop people from mixing caffeine and alcohol. From something as basic as a rum and Coke to something like Red Bull and vodka, people mix caffeine and alcohol. Banning Four Loko will not change that.

What would have been a smarter decision? Maybe regulating how much caffeine and alcohol can be mixed without people blacking out ridiculously quickly. But just declaring caffeine an unsafe additive and using that to ban one class of drinks is sort of ... stupid.

Besides, have you met college students? Do you know how many of them can black out and land in the hospital without the help of this particular drink? They'll find a way!