Blunt Hobbies

When I get pregnant (some day in the distant future), I need to take up some non-sharp hobbies. Reading is good. Belly dancing could be okay. What else?

When my classmates had their "behavioral" clinical as an EMT, they came back reporting how weird the crazies were, but I felt a certain kinship with the patients. I need to keep my shit together, I thought, because this place is BORING. I mean, seriously, sand-painting? Yuck.

I've been reading It Sucked and then I Cried because it made me laugh out loud and because I identified so much with the formerly devout Mormon, anxiety-ridden author. We're different in some ways--for instance, she apparently throws things at people when she's angry, while I see that as unimaginably barbaric. Well...when I was 18, I winged a calculator at a project group member as he boasted of committing statutory rape with a drunk high schooler. It was a very expensive calculator, belonging to someone else, and I broke it, but she had a back-up and said it was totally worth it. But that's the only time I can remember throwing anything at anyone.

But, anyway, I identify with the author, so when she checked herself into a mental hospital for 4 days to sort out her post-partum depression (which expressed itself as crippling anxiety), it sort of hit close to home.

When I get pregnant, I need to find some non-sharp hobbies. I 'm pretty sure you can't sew in the mental hospital.

Irrationality

When it’s darker behind me than in front of me, I am often seized by the fear that something monstrous is following me (or lurking behind me) and find myself fleeing toward the light (or nervously checking over my shoulder). This thing does not move as we move. Perhaps it crawls on all fours, or slithers along the ground, or pours itself up the stairs (shudder). Perhaps it expands into a malevolent cloud or explodes into a horde of small monsters, or looms in the night air, wafting in the breeze. Maybe it moves instantaneously, or occupies more than one place at a time, or only appears or manifests at will. Maybe it is just really, really fast or really, really quiet. Intellectually, I know that monsters and ghosts do not exist, and that the monstrous things that do exist (tigers or serial killers, for instance) are fantastically unlikely to be in my house. Primally, though, the THING IS GOING TO GET ME! It’s entirely irrational, I know.

How Do I Hate Thee, Nora Roberts? Let Me Count the Ways.

Secret Star by Nora Roberts was awful, awful, awful. What else can I say about this? Oh, yeah, it was awful. I'll warn you, I only made it 40 pages in, but that was plenty.

First off, the first 13 pages consist of a single character musing over a crime scene. The very first words in the story are a gushing half-page description of the portrait of Grace Fontaine, murder victim. Lieutenant Seth Buchanan, street-hardened detective, then gushes over Grace's house, her life (he is apparently familiar with the society pages of the Washington Post), and her men.

Then there’s a two-and-a-half page info-dump on the events of the previous novels in the series. Apparently, even an “as you know, Sam” (when one character explains something to another character that the listener should already know) is too subtle for Nora Roberts.

Okay, now for a full page of characterization for Sam. He’s cool. He’s calm. He’s “serve and protect” with a double helping of strong and silent. Is this really necessary? Do we have to sit down for a minute so Nora can tell us about Sam? Is it really that impossible to show him being all this stuff? Maybe even have him, oh, I don’t know, interact with some other characters?

He keeps wandering through the house gushing on about the woman’s silk nightgown and her haunting scent. There’s a little more tell-not-show characterization of Seth.

Grace has friends. We don’t get to meet them yet. Grace has clothes. We do get to meet them. We also get to meet her speakers, her books, and her fireplace. We get to speculate, gushingly, on how sexy her voice would have been. Seth can “almost taste” her “husky purr of a laugh.” For a man who, only seven pages earlier, was described as believing that “emotion…had no place in the job”, he sure is getting worked up over that sexy, sexy dead lady.

At least, Roberts does let us know that these imaginings are “uncharacteristic.” It’s good to know he doesn’t go around mentally whacking off to all murder scenes. And I suppose that that’s one of the conventions of romance novels—two people, never before touched in this way, throw aside their characteristic behavior to acknowledge the deep, destiny-laden pull between them. Ick.

Of course, someone that sexy can't actually be dead. Here she is, in the flesh, with all the things we just gushed over intact. Even the voice, which is just as Seth imagined it. Of course it is. And this not-dead innocent managed to pull up to her house, open the door, and draw a gun on the hardened cop without his noticing. Good for her.

At least now there are characters interacting. Good, right? No, not so good, because, for Nora Roberts, apparently, two characters equals head-hopping (that is, when the point of view changes more than once within a scene, a BIG no-no in writing).

It turns out that the dead lady is actually a cousin who tries her best to look like Grace because she wants to be her. Wait, the book opens with an identical non-twin, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Nora? Charles Dickens wants his staggering coincidence back.

Nora finally settles on Seth as the point of view character for the next scene and we get to meet Grace’s two friends. They quickly recap their stories from the previous books, complete with amnesia and mistaken identities. Oh, boy.

Seth decides it’s time to take Grace down to the station for questioning. Considering that there is a murder investigation in progress, this seems perfectly reasonable. Jack the bounty hunter threatens to beat him up for his lack of tact. This does not.

Do bounty hunters generally know anything about cops or investigations? Do they understand that murder investigations are important things? Who knows, but at that point I threw up my hands and gave up. Again. Forty pages in and I can’t take any more.

I looked this book up on Amazon, and it has four stars. I don’t get it.

xkcd

I love xkcd. Love, love, love. A couple of years ago, I saw a “funny stuff” folder on my sister W’s computer. I thought, “well isn’t that a good idea,” so I made a “funny stuff” folder on my computer, but I never remembered to put anything in there. Then I found xkcd. Ah, the joys of nerds with low social skills and high levels of compulsion.

And if you’re wondering what XKCD means, well…

Scared Witless of Premature Birth...and I'm not Even Pregnant

So, at work, I've been doing some research for a system we're planning for premature babies. Actually, I've probably been doing more research than they want me to because premature babies are fascinating and software testing is NOT (mostly).

I found a lot of good information by lurking in preemie parent websites, especially:
http://thepreemieexperiment.blogspot.com/

Helen Harrison, especially, frequently gives great information on new studies.

However, all this research also has my heart thumping along in a great "Run! There's a BEAR!" sort of way. See, there are these two laws: the Baby Doe law and the Born Alive law. Basically, the two laws say that you can't let infants die. Now, on the surface of things, that may seem like a good thing, but with really preemie infants, it seems a lot like they're TRYING to die. Sure, you can stave off the death of a preemie for days...or years...but when they're blind and deaf and severely retarded, with muscle contractures and constant pain, is that living? Is that "saving" them? Or is that just a very, very long death. And given that families with premature children frequently suffer bankruptcy and divorce, and siblings of preemies often suffer emotional neglect because the parents are just so focused on keeping it together and keeping the preemie alive that everything else gets put on the back burner...well, that's a lot of suffering.

I'm not even thinking about being pregnant in the next 5 years, and about 98% of babies aren't premature, but I'm still terrified of the prospect.

At 21 weeks or less (full term is 40 weeks), most hospitals will only give comfort care because no child that young has ever survived, so it would just be torturing them needlessly. At 22-24 weeks, hospitals often give the parents a choice, although this depends on the neonatologist (a type of doctor who treats sick newborns) present.

If you deliver a child at 25 weeks gestation, you have no choice about two things:
1. The child will be treated aggressively at birth.
2. The child will have problems.

http://thepreemieexperiment.blogspot.com/2007/09/resuscitation-in-gray-zone-of-viability.html
At age 19 years of age, only about 5% of infants born at 25 to 26 weekers had no problems. Death or moderate to severe handicap were the outcomes in about 85% of cases.

At 27 weeks gestational age about 15% had no problems. Slightly over 60% either died or had moderate to severe problems.

At 28 weeks gestational age about 15% had no problems. Around 60% either died or survived with moderate to severe problems.

At 29 weeks about 20% had no problems and about 50% died or had moderate to severe problems.

At 30 weeks slightly over 20% had no problems. About 45% either died or had moderate to severe problems.

At 31 weeks, about 30% had no problems. Death or moderate to severe problems were outcomes for about 40%.

IQ:
85 or above -- no problem
70 to 85 -- mild
problem
55 to 70 moderate problem
below 55 severe problem

Hearing loss in best ear:
below or equal to 25 dB -- no problem
between 25 and 55 dB moderate problem

below 55 dB severe problem

Vision:

ascertained form participants self-report although being blind or severely visually impaired was slassed as a moderate problem

Neuromotor (based on a number of tests of walking, coordination, posture, and muscle tone according to Dutch norms)

Health status focusing on vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, and cognition, self-care, daily activities, social integration, economic self-sufficiency.)





Even at 31 weeks, 40% of the preemies had an outcome of death or moderate to severe problems. FORTY PERCENT! That's far too close to half for comfort. If you give birth at 31 weeks, you child has a 40% chance of "moderate" problems. Note that what they mean by "mild" is not necessarily what the average public means by mild. When I think of a child with mild problems, I think of a child with glasses and maybe some mild ADD--not a child with an IQ of 75 and some Cerebral Palsy. A child with moderate problems will usually not be able to live independently nor pursue the kind of career with which they could support themselves.

And 31 weeks is not an itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, "Should we save this one or not?" baby in the preemie world. 31 weeks has not been considered the limit of viability for a hundred years. There is no debate about whether it's kinder to let the 31 weekers go.

I don't want that kind of life for my child! I have a friend who's confined to a wheelchair because of severe cerebral palsy. I know it's more politically correct to say that she "uses" a wheelchair, but my friend is confined to a wheelchair. She can't use the bathroom by herself. She can't drive herself, and if she could I don't think she'd understand how to use a map--even though, to hear her talk, you'd never guess that she has mental deficits. Her mother is a wonderful person who always seems cheerful, but when she talked about hoping that my friend would walk across the stage at her high school graduation (she didn't) or that some kind of brain implant would cure her in the next 10 years (so far it hasn't), the edge of a last, desperate hope poked through the mask like the edge of a coin corroded to a razer's edge by years of suffering. I had to live with my parents for a year after I graduated from college/university, and I considered that hellish (as much as I love my parents...). My friend will probably live with her parents until they are too old to care for her. My friend's mother is afraid to put her in a group home for fear that she will be abused. It happens.

My friend is a great person, and I think she had a rich childhood and, in many ways, is having a rich adulthood. She loves some of the things she does. She is certainly treasured, and I am glad that she is here. Her life could not in any way be considered a long dying, even though I doubt that she considers it complete.

I know where the Baby Doe people are coming from, because I was pro-life when I was religious. I can certainly see the argument that people are PEOPLE dammit, even small, different people.

But now that I don't HAVE to believe that, now that I am able to pick my morality from those that surround me, I think that if I knew for certain that the child in my womb would never live independently, and I had a choice, I would choose a morphine drip, a soft blanket, and my arms for that child over tubes down their throat and the hum and beep of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Alas, that choice is illegal.

If it weren't for the terrifying though of my child breathing, breathing, keeping the oxygen levels just high enough to keep him alive but not high enough to stop brain damage...for days, or forever, then I would never go to the hospital before 30 weeks.
I would bleed to death alone in the woods before I would take that child to be hooked up and poked, half-formed and in pain, in the cold, cold light of the warming lamps.

The Philosophy of Wonky-Facedness

Yesterday, I went to visit my little sisters in College Town, and came home with pierced ears. I suppose, at 24, it was none too soon. I’d been meaning to get my ears done for a while, but had never gotten around to it.

I’d read a few articles on the relative benefits of hand piercing versus gun piercing a couple years ago, which made a pretty good case for hand piercing. According to those articles:
1. Hand piercing is more sanitary—all relevant parts are single-use.
2. There’s less tissue trauma caused by the sharp needle than by the blunt ear post shot from the gun.
3. Hand piercing allows a ring rather than a stud to be used as a starter, which means less tangled hair, less poking into the neck, and more room for the ears to swell should they have a mind to do so.
4. Hand piercers tend to be well-trained professional. Gun operators tend to be hastily-trained teenagers at high-turnover retail businesses.
5. Hand piercers work in tattoo parlors, where sterilization and precision are extremely important. Gun operators work in retail, where volume is extremely important.
6. Gun piercing is contrary to the “philosophy” of body modification because piercing guns can only be used on ear lobes.

I was almost sold when that pesky sixth reason came and stole my thunder. Come to think of it, these weren’t exactly neutral sources. Does reading articles by professional piercers about the dangers of mechanizing piercing make any more sense than reading articles by Victorian cabinet makers about the dangers of mechanizing cabinetry?

I don’t know, but I do like me a good, handmade cabinet. On the other hand, handmade dove joints are always kind of wonky.

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any neutral sources. The makers of the piercing guns aren’t very well represented on the internet. The opinions of the American Medical Association on hand vs. gun piercing are not widely spread. I guess they’re wasting all that brain power on piddling things like cancer and bedsores.

It turned out that Youngest Sister had been thinking about getting pierced for a while also. When I suggested it as a Thing to Do on our Sisters’ Day Out, Middle Sister, who had her ears done at Claire’s for her fourteenth birthday, pounced. Off we were to the tattoo parlor.

Our piercer was a petite blonde with some “tribal” tattoo (are tribal tattoos actually related to a tribe, or are they an American invention, like tribal belly dancing?) spreading across her chest and poking down into her camisole. Her hiphugger capris revealed twin black bandages over brand new work. She was meticulous, wiping off the mark on my sister’s left ear and repositioning it by a millimeter three times. My ears she got marked in one go. “Good?” she asked. “Good,” my sisters confirmed.

Middle Sister revealed that her ear piercings were quite uneven. Maybe there’s something to this down-with-mall-boutique-piercings crowd.

Youngest Sister went first. She winced, but did not jump. Then me. It hurt a little more than giving blood, but was over much quicker. Youngest Sister and I popped some Aleve, but Y.S. later declared that her ear still hated the piercer. Mine never hurt unless I accidentally tugged them, though the left ear did turn a lovely subdued purple with a litte network of tiny, bright red lines.

I examined them today, and discovered that the right earring is a little lower than the left. I checked the earlobes. Perfectly matched. But still…the right earring was definitely lower. Oh, dear. My right ear is lower than my left ear by about half a centimeter. I’m just uneven all over.

When I was about 12, my mom and I went to see the orthodontist to see what progress we had made and what was left to do. As he flashed pictures of my face from all angles across the screen, my mom’s eye was caught by a frontal picture with the line between my front teeth extended up and down by several inches.

“Here teeth aren’t in line!” my mom exclaimed.

“What?” asked the orthodontist.

“Her teeth don’t line up with her nose!”

The orthodontist studied the picture for second, then lowered his eyes and said quietly. “Her teeth line up with the midline of her face.”

So now I have beautiful earrings and an awry face. Such is life.

Anti-Bariatric Surgery Rant

Please, if you are in a delicate state of mind with regard to bariatric surgery (i.e., you or a loved one just had it and are scared), don't read this. I won't be pulling any punches.

If you are thinking about having bariatric surgery please do read this.

Recently, I went on this forum
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/...sus-facts.html

and found a link to this study
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...ct/294/15/1903

It makes me want to cry. Medicare went back and studied all of their fee-for-service benificiaries who received bariatric surgery between 1972 and 2002. That adds up to 16 155 (sixteen thousand one hundred fifty-five) people.

4.6% of those who had the procedure died in the year following.


4.6%? 4.6!!! That's nearly 1 in 20! Especially considering that this is an elective surgery.

As junkfoodscience says:
"Risks of dying from obesity: Actual mortality rates according to body mass index among a 40-year study of 1.8 million people, found the very fattest 0.2% of women at age 35 had an annual risk of dying of 0.18% (compared to 0.13% for "normal" weight women). So, by having a bariatric surgery even the heaviest woman increases her risk of dying about 45-fold."

WHY IS THIS NOT BEING SCREAMED FROM THE HILLTOPS?! Why is this still allowed to continue? Why? Why? Why?

Clearly, obesity surgery is not about getting healthier. It's cosmetic. The patients may not know it, but now the doctors know that this is a cosmetic surgery, and a cosmetic surgery that will certainly kill 1 in 20 people who have it done.

That doesn't even count the others who have brain damage and other quality of life issues because of the surgery, or the people who die long, lingering deaths of malnutrition.

Please, if you are considering bariatric surgery...think again.

Get therapy. Join a support group. Join (or start) a group to combat fat prejudice.

Get the facts. Read

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

Read the articles and the studies Sandy Szwarc sites in that blog. Yes! You can learn to read a scientific study! It just takes a little practice. And DO NOT trust the media to do your reading for you.

Watch this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQ...elated&search=

Learn to be healthy. Learn to love yourself. Do not count your self-worth in pounds (or kilograms, or stones, or whatever).

Throw away your scale! Buy a nice pair of walking shoes to put in its place.

I know it's easy just to say it. Western (and much of Eastern) culture has an incredible amount of prejudice against fat people. And why? Because it's unhealthy? Because it's bad for the person who's fat?

NO! Because Americans (and many other groups) have been taught that the best way to love themselves is to hate another group of people. What do you think daytime and reality TV is all about? Watch Jerry Springer, or Judge Judy, or Wife Swap/Trading Spouses, or the early weeks of American Idol. What is the appeal of all of these shows? Do we really want to learn the inner workings of the court system or the recording industry or dysfunctional families? NO! The main appeal is that we get to sit in our living rooms and hate/put down/feel superior to spoiled soccer moms; deadbeat dads; cheating girlfriends; and agressively whiny, talentless singers.

STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! Refuse to hate anymore. Even if they deserve it. Because you don't deserve it. You deserve to grow out of your prejudices, to understand that you can be a wonderful, beautiful person without taking anything away from others.

And because it leads to ugly, horrible things. Because the celebration of any hatred leads to the proliferation of other hatreds. Because 4.6% is far too high.