Monday, March 30, 2015

Binaries




I'll tell you a story that happened to me relatively recently. On a very extended road trip to a conference, a woman riding along with me self-identified, during conversation, as queer. I made the assumption, one not uncommon, that this meant she was a lesbian. If I had it to go over again, I would not have followed that train of thought. Had it been me, I would find the description a touch presumptive if it were assigned to me. After all, queer is a term I assign to myself in ways beyond my sexual orientation.

What further led me to make this particularly incorrect assumption is that during the full five days I spent in her company, I noticed she pursued other women with great vigor. When one of them proved to be straight, she tried once more, only to find her latest interest equally uninterested. That was five years ago. Five months ago, to my astonishment, I discovered that she had married a man.

I did some Quaker writing work a few years back. For whatever reason, for that assignment, I decided to focus on the homosexual part of me. I enjoy exploring bits and pieces of who I am, even if sometimes I only confuse others in the process. This is not my fault, but it is my reality. The Friend with whom I worked has, since then, always playfully assumed that I'm only interested in men, or perhaps gay is my primary identification. I've never corrected her, because I enjoy this kind of amusing back-and-forth banter and would not have it otherwise. But even so, it makes me recognize how difficult it is to completely peer outside the gender binary. We like to think that things either are or are not, and it's not necessarily our fault to misunderstand.

Other queer Quakers regularly read my writings and draw their own conclusion from them. We held a retreat a couple months back for other young adults, during which I gave a guided discussion. Two regular attenders, having read about a typically honest rendition of myself, were equally silly and playful as I offhandedly discussed and inquired about the dressing styles of women. They've found my identities, as confessed in writing, a little amusing, but I gather that others aren't sure what to do with the information. Everyone has been tolerant, but only those who also identity as LGBT have enough information at their disposal to recognize precisely how much of what I am.

A regular writer to a prominent feminist website has made a recent suggestion that her readers ought to make an effort towards exclusively reading the books of women rather those of men. She is speaking mainly towards other cisgender women and in some ways, this exercise doesn't necessarily apply to me. Reading women writers has never been a particularly difficult effort on my behalf.

Nor has this, as I have also learned, been an issue for queer men like myself. Reading the works of women has never taken a particularly conscious effort on my part, partially because I already find myself routinely attracted to the concerns and interests of the opposite-sex already. I often feel more feminine than masculine, but not every day and at every time. This is not the same with masculinity, which doesn't feel particularly comfortable, but has a kind of numbing familiarity that keeps me reasonable sane with the understanding.

I find myself often more interested in the ways of women because the ways of men felt have isolating at worst, uninteresting at best. These women authors have spoken to me in a manner that the prose of a man could not. But even today, should I read a work penned by a female writer, who I am in totality and how I feel about myself doesn't require any definitive effort on my part. The ways of men, by contrast, make some sense to me, and sometimes make no sense at all.

I wonder if anyone I know truly understands me, or whether they ever will.  And maybe understanding isn't all that important. Explaining myself for the sake of being completely and thoroughly comprehended is a difficult endeavor, just as it is difficult for me to understand myself. Maybe playing teacher isn't my role, even though from time to time I feel it needs to be. I can't teach myself who I am, so what makes me think I could ever educate someone else?

If I write or read about who I am, it's as usually as much about coming to grips with myself as sharing anything instructive with another person. I've learned much about women from the words they've shared with me and others, and yet to me, to a large extent, their gender is as meaningless as mine, whatever my gender is. I know that may be hard to believe. Rest assured I don't think that I or anyone else lives in a gender-less world, but perhaps a more complicated world, instead.

This I do know. My partner and my friends, as they are instructed, need to understand how to not be confused by who and what I am. I challenge many assumptions, and I've learned that challenging these interlocking identities are not necessarily easy to manage for myself and especially so for others. At LGBT conferences, we're cautioned not to make assumptions about people's sexual orientation or gender identity, which usually means we're so cautious to not be discriminatory that we don't take mostly harmless risks and assumptions as I did, like the woman I was so sure was a lesbian, yet she turned out to marry a man.  

What I did was commit a particularly easy reminder of the complexities of human expression, especially sexual expression. It is easy to forget how complicated binaries are, but it was hardly a terrible mistake on my part. We know those who aim deliberately to hurt, to use discriminatory attitudes to injure. But most of the time, we do mean well, wrapping our minds around someone else's complexities.

I might take some small annoyance at the queer Quakers who find my genderqueer identity somewhat funny, something of an inside joke. But I get to make the ultimate decision, and the more I think about it, the less I worry. We're all in danger of being misunderstood at any time and though we can limit it, we can't entirely stop it.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Quote of the Week


"It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people."-Simone Weil

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Saturday Video




Countin' on my fingers
Countin' on my toes
Slippin' thru your fingers
Watchin' how it grows

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
Someone oughta tell you
what it's really all about

Do you ever wonder?
Do you ever hate?
Six feet under
Someone who can wait

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
Someone oughta,
Someone oughta tell you
what it's really all about

You're never gonna make it baby
Ooh You're just gonna make it crazy
Ooh You never gonna make it baby
Make it baby
Make it baby

Countin' on my fingers
Countin' on my toes
Slippin' through your fingers
Watchin' how it grows

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
Someone oughta tell you
what it's really all about

Buy another fixture
Tell another lie
Paint another picture
See who's surprised

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
Someone oughta tell you
Oughta tell you what it's reallly all about

You're never gonna make it baby
Oohh You're only gonna make it crazy
Oohh You're never gonna
Make it baby
Make it baby
Make it baby

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
You can love me baby
but you can't walk out
You can love me baby
but you can't walk out

Someone oughta someone oughta
Someone oughta someone oughta
Someone oughta someone oughta
Someone oughta someone oughta

You can love me baby
but you can't walk out

Someone oughta tell you
Oughta tell you what it's really all about

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The Art of Meaningless Interactions



Nearly seven years of frequenting the multiple hospital systems of the DC metro area has provided me an insight unknown to many others. Last week I had my first medical procedure of two in total and was reminded again of how freely scrub-garbed nurses converse with their patients. Most react in ways that are almost always highly professional but a few like to toe the line. Viewing it for themselves, significant others might be very jealous, particularly same-sex co-workers who lack the same courage.

The female nurses of one particular hospital system are known for their shamelessly flirtatious behavior. I won't lie and say I don't appreciate being treated like a Greek God every now and again. Sometimes, with enough flattery, I even believe I'm as good looking as the behavior these women insist I must be. That said, the preface to last week's surgical procedure began unexpectedly, usually full of banal questions, but instead with intensely flirtatious conversation. It is the kind that left me a little giddy and light-headed by the end, the sort of sensation that even powerful medication, administered through IV, cannot produce.

If I had to reach for an answer of how I'd define what just happened, I'd think of it as a game of a sort, far more than any meaningful activity that intends to reach a lasting conclusion. The nurses behind their glass covered station are always ready for the next attractive stranger to show up, if only to break the monotony of a ten-hour-shift and changing bedpans. I'm sure such behavior is discouraged by some hospitals and the higher-ups in charge, but apparently this is not the case with everyone. At times, for a maximum of thirty minutes to an hour, I believe myself to be very physically attractive, worthy of the treatment and attention dispensed upon me.

I have to be careful of how I word this sort of exchange and share it with others. Put the wrong way, I seem like a delusional narcissistic consumed with chasing women who obviously see me as gorgeous as I believe myself to be. So I'll say it very differently. I don't think this sort of conduct takes place for my benefit alone, or for anyone's benefit, really. I'm merely the latest interesting trial study. None of this is going anywhere. They know it as well as I do. There was a time where I might have believed otherwise, a time where I was much younger and more naive than I am today. The truth is present as I view the latest exercise in meaningless eye candy walk by the nurse's station directly after me. I view the same look on the same faces of the same nurses once directed my way only a few minutes before.

Waitresses have learned to hone the craft of flirtation to improve their tips. Salegirls did much the same thing a couple generations before ours. The difference here is that I know it's all an act. I am not a wealthy businessman looking for an attractive companion or an escape from reality. But I'll buy the fantasy one more time, because the lie feels so good. We will never meet again, but for a time I'll be the most important person in her life, at least until the pain killers wear off.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

The Fallacy of Celebrity Opinion



Once again, I pause to ask why we care what celebrities think. Even though some of them possess a kind of nominally activist sensibility that is minimally informed by fact, more celebrities speak in logical fallacies and possess as much maturity as an online argument. Aside from supermarket tabloids and a thousand small-talk conversations, I can't understand the need or reason for this kind of discourse.

I follow why we get sucked into this kind of moronic game. Contrary to what we might think, what makes many celebrities appealing is that they look average, much like the rest of us. Some celebrities win fame by being exceptionally physically beautiful, but most that grab our attention are members of a cult of talented musicians, athletes, and actors who look like regular people. Because they look like us, we find it exceptionally easy to identify with them.

By virtue of the fact that people care what they say and care about their opinions, celebrities are given a bully pulpit to convey information to others. Unfortunately, their prejudices and often very foolish beliefs show the limitations that come from being an average Joe or Jane. I have largely ceased to care what ill-informed celebrities speak and say, because they proport to be an expert on a supposed topic and are really nothing more than modestly gifted rubes. I tend to hold the opinions of academics, scientists, theologians, and writers in much higher regard because one tends to find a much higher standard of rational thought.

As we know, sometimes even the supposed experts fail us, but far less frequently than pop stars and popcorn flick matinee idols. While this is not always the case, as we know, I nevertheless fail to understand why most celebrities are taken seriously and given chance after to chance to form a kind of demented public opinion.

Enough soft news exists already to feed a thousand flame wars and manufactured quarrels between fevered egos. Remove the names and we might as well be talking about any lunch hour in a high school. And admittedly, a kind of Schadenfreude is present here, not simply because we like to see people fall onto a particular part of their bodies. Quite often we, either secretly or not, want to be celebrities ourselves.

The irony of celebrity status is not how difficult it is to achieve it, but rather the reverse, how easy it is to luck into money and to somehow achieve the privilege that gives us great influence over others. But we in the peanut gallery manage to get fooled over and over, not recognizing that wisdom, not facts, is always in short supply and anyone can manage to sound smart and inspiring by memorizing a few key sound bytes.  

The cult of personality we call celebrity is an odd construct. It exists to make money, of course, but it contains as many wanna-be winners as a lottery drawing or a day in a casino. Even if we know the risk involved, we're always ready for one more hand, one more two digit, six number sequence. And should that be our fate someday, all I have to say is this. Do your homework.

Your opinions might make you money, but it's just as easy for them to cost you dearly. Celebrity gives us the delusion that we are somehow in control of our fate, that we are the final spin doctor, and that we get the right to leave the game at a time of our own choosing. Be careful out there, and should you have the hankering to open your mouth, anything you say can and will be used against you.

Quote of the Week


"True friends stab you in the front."-Oscar Wilde

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Saturday Video




Shoot your dice and have your fun, Sugar Babe
Shoot your dice and have your fun
Run like your Mama, when the police come
Yeah Sugar Babe, oh my, Sugar Babe

I got drunk and I fell on the floor, Sugar Babe
I got drunk and I fell on the floor
That's good for whiskey, Mama, and I want some more
Yeah Sugar Babe, oh my, Sugar Babe
Sing it slide

Shoot your dice and roll 'em in the sand, Sugar Babe
Shoot your dice and roll 'em in the sand
Well it ain't gonna work Mama, I know damn that
Yeah Sugar Babe, oh my, Sugar Babe

Put your hand on your hip and let your mind roll by, Sugar Babe
Put your hand on your hip and let your mind roll by
'Cause your body's gonna shrivel, Mama, when you come to die
Yeah Sugar Babe, oh my, Sugar Babe

Friday, March 20, 2015

The Evolving Face of Teacher/Student Sex



In a disturbing and relatively recent turn of events, several female high school and sometimes even female middle school teachers have been arrested and charged with inappropriate sexual behavior. They have been accused of pursuing sexual relationships with their students or other students known to them on campus, each of whom is a legal minor and under the law cannot voluntarily consent to sex. The latest, Jennifer Marie Perry, aged 27 years, is charged with having sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old male student inside a car in a parking lot nearby the school.

The vast number of these offenses are shocking, to say the least. They challenge the cultural assumption that, in matters of sex and attraction, women are always to be pursued and men are always the pursuers. That said, I don't know much personally and in greater detail about such situations like these, save one. It involved a woman, a young high school teacher, who had serious issues with body acceptance. Long thought of as overweight and undesirable by herself and others, the sexual attention she received from a male student led her to believe that even an unlawful relationship would validate her sense of self as attractive and as a worthwhile person. It is a far too common phenomenon, understandable in many circumstances and contexts, but highly unfortunate and risky when it happens in a classroom setting.

If I were to place a bet on the veracity of this case among all the others, this instance would seem the most plausible. In almost every other instance, much does not add up. The female teachers were almost uniformly physically attractive and most were less than ten years younger than their victim. No one is sure about the larger trends that behavior like this portends. Public school systems are notoriously tight-lipped over sensitive issues like these. Only the minimum information has been shared with the media, which is par for the course. Barring a trial or a lawsuit for unlawful termination, more details are unlikely to be forthcoming.

Investigators launched their probe Feb. 24 after being contacted by school administrators. Chief Deputy Randy Christian said Perry went to school officials and reported that students told her there was a rumor going around at school that she had engaged in a sex act with student.
"Our investigation indicates that this was a one time occurrence," he said. "The student was not in any of the classes taught by the suspect."
Perry, who is married and from Odenville, graduated from Jacksonville State University in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in secondary education with a concentration in English Language Arts. She taught freshman English at Pinson Valley High School, and was the cheerleading sponsor.
 "You know it is not an easy process to become a school teacher. Obtaining a degree and successfully going through a competitive hiring process in a school system is a challenge and those that secure a job I know count themselves fortunate," Christian told AL.com. "For the life of me, I can't understand why after successfully navigating such a process that a teacher would risk a career by carrying on such a relationship with a young person entrusted to their care. It's also kind of amazing they believe it's possible a teen will keep their little secret."

This may well be the only definitive information the public receives. As I've said, school systems are content to brush things under the rug, whenever possible and while wielding great restraint. Yet, in this circumstance, are we obscuring the truth if the full truth is not known? A story exists. This instance, like so many before, was technically consensual, but the motive is unknown. Does it matter who made the first move, how this situation proceeded, and would that give us additional information to which we are deserving?  

In my years as a card-carrying feminist, I've come to understand that our society often removes the right of women to take charge of themselves as fully sexual beings. Speaking in a heterosexual context, men make the first move and women respond to it, but women are routinely hesitant to come on too strongly or too forcefully. In that regard, they do not possess a shred of agency. As a teenage boy, this caused me consternation and frustration, to always have to work up the courage to make my inquiries and to try again, though in fairness not every woman I encountered made her desires so opaque.

Alabama is one of the most conservative states in the country, and if such events were to occur in California, no one would be shocked. The larger trends are entirely unknown, though I doubt they are only found in one small Southern state. It makes me wonder whether these sorts of crimes are commonplace everywhere, especially when school systems pretend they never existed.

A pattern does show itself with repeated confrontation of the facts. Nearly all of the young women accused and then convicted were married and violating their marriage vows. Is this at least partially symptomatic of unhappy nuptials, or is that too simplistic an explanation as well? Having now entered the land of hypotheticals, I'll stop my inquiries. Our sample set is not large enough. That said, I don't see this trend ending and neither do I see a set of plausible reasons why unless this problem gets farther and farther out of hand.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Surgery Over for Now, Until Monday



In my ongoing effort to demystify the American health care system, I will share with everyone the only mildly catastrophic events of yesterday. For starters, I thought the surgery would not be a big deal. After signing and then initialing the requisite ten sheets of paper, I was taken back by a quirky Filipino to exchange my street clothes for two heavy surgical gowns. The clothes I wore to the procedure were placed in a series of clear plastic bags.

So far so good. The problem, I'm afraid, manifested itself rather quickly. Because of the number of medications I take, I am easily prone to dehydration. Before being put under, one cannot eat or drink anything after midnight. A nurse noticed I was severely dehydrated upon arrival, evident by my severely chapped lips. Three separate nurses working in tandem for half an hour could not find a vein. I was stuck at least seven times, then told that the time and location of the procedure would have to be rescheduled until Monday of next week. The site of the new surgery contains a machine that uses ultraviolet light to locate veins that the human eye cannot detect on its own.

There's no way to say "colorectal" and disguise the nature of the problem. As I'll explain in more detail, I arrived with two separate problems, a fissure and a series of growths found both inside and outside the colon. The growths inside my colon will be removed in surgery, but there's a chance they might be precancerous. One or two of them will be biopsied, and ten days later the results will be known. Cancer or not, I've been warned the procedure will be painful.

The best case scenario is that no precancerous growths will be detected and the process ends there. The worst case scenario is that precancerous growths are found and the process of biopsies must continue. Each subsequent surgical procedure is scheduled out two months at a time, to allow for healing. At this point, I am far too annoyed to be worried. I will resume being annoyed if this process lasts a year from start to finish.

Fortunately, at least one portion of the procedure was completed. The inside lining of the colon tore, which is called a fissure. Healing a fissure is usually accomplished by injecting it with Botox, which immobilizes the muscle. The injection was not painless, but it was quickly completed, and I was allowed to remove the hospital gowns and get dressed. Prior to that, I'd had both of my legs up in stirrups, which reminds me of either childbirth or a gynecological examination, two procedures I will never actually experience for myself, thank God.   

Before I go any further, I promise that this site will never become an after school special. I'm more angry at myself than anyone else, more angry at me than bad luck or risky behavior. Though I couldn't tell you who or when, the growths that have developed are as a result of having unprotected sex with another man or with other men. I am not contagious, but my fate from here on out is to periodically need to have several growths removed at a time for the rest of my life. The next go round, minus the worst case scenario, will likely be in another five years or so. Though this is wasted energy and only keeps me upset, I must admit that my mind keeps fixating on likely culprits.

This could be much worse. No, really. I mean it. But it's always a bit unnerving when the surgeon greets you with the phrase, You're HIV-, right? The anesthesiologist, openly gay and extremely kind, was sympathetic. I appreciate living in a city where I don't have to disguise who I am with coy code words. I am fortunate to live as part of a younger generation where, as we know well, other queer men twenty years older were not as lucky. It was for that very reason, which doesn't seem very reasonable today, that I didn't insist upon my sexual partner using protection when I should have. The very act itself doesn't seem as appealing today.

I will now resume staring at the ceiling in a catatonic state under the effects of Vicodin. I've written under the effects of caffeine, nicotine, psych meds, marijuana, alcohol, but I don't think I've ever tried to put something coherent down in words while on a narcotic. That said, if I can, I will. If I can't, I'll try to have a little bit of something up here from time to time. I wasn't aware this process was going to be so time-intensive. The first part of next week is going to be a wash, just FYI.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Surgery

I'm having surgery on Wednesday afternoon. Posting this week will be light. The procedure is not extremely invasive, but I am anticipating several days on pain pills. In the meantime, I have many other things to make sure that I get done before I go under the knife.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Quote of the Week



"You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."-John Wooden

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Saturday Video



I remember
How the darkness doubled
I recall
Lightning struck itself

I was listening
Listening to the rain
I was hearing
Hearing something else

Life in the hive puckered up my night
The kiss of death, the embrace of life
There I stand 'neath the marquee moon, just waiting
Hesitating...

I ain't waiting

I spoke to a man
Down at the tracks
I asked him
How he don't go mad

He said "Look here junior, don't you be so happy
And for heaven's sake, don't you be so sad"

Life in the hive puckered up my night
The kiss of death, the embrace of life
There I stand 'neath the marquee moon, just waiting
Hesitating...

Well a Cadillac
It pulled out of the graveyard
Pulled up to me
All they said get in, get in

Then the Cadillac
It puttered back into the graveyard
And me
I got out again

Life in the hive puckered up my night
The kiss of death, the embrace of life
There I stand 'neath the marquee moon, just waiting
Hesitating...

Friday, March 13, 2015

The Winner by Shel Silverstein



The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
But everybody said, "Watch out -- that's Tiger Man McCool.
He's had a whole lot of fights, and he always comes out the winner.
Yeah, he's a winner."


But I'd had myself about five too many, and I walked up tall and proud,
I faced his back and I faced the fact that he'd never stooped or bowed.
I said, "Tiger Man, you're a pussycat," and a hush fell on the crowd,
I said, "Let's you and me go outside and see who's the winner."


Well, he gripped the bar with one big hairy hand and he braced against the wall,
He slowly looked up from his beer -- my God, that man was tall.
He said, "Boy, I see you're a scrapper, so just before you fall,
I'm gonna tell you just a little what a means to be a winner."


He said, "You see these bright white smilin' teeth, you know they ain't my own.
Mine rolled away like Chiclets down a street in San Antone.
But I left that person cursin', nursin' seven broken bones.
And he only broke three of mine, and that makes me a winner."


He said, "Behind my grin, I got a steel pin that holds my jaw in place.
A trophy of my most successful motorcycle race.
And every mornin' when I wake and touch this scar across my face,
It reminds me of all I got by bein' a winner".


"Now my broken back was the dyin' act of handsome Harry Clay
That sticky Cincinnati night I stole his wife away.
But that woman, she gets uglier and meaner every day.
But I got her, boy, and that's what makes me a winner."


"You gotta speak loud when you challenge me, son, 'cause it's hard for me to hear
With this twisted neck and these migraine pains and this cauliflower ear.
'N' if it weren't for this glass eye of mine, I'd shed a happy tear
To think of all you'll get by bein' a winner."


"I got arthritic elbows, boy, I got dislocated knees,
From pickin' fights with thunderstorms and chargin' into trees.
And my nose been broke so often I might lose it if I sneeze.
And, son, you say you still wanna be a winner?"


"My spine is short three vertebrae and my hip is screwed together.
My ankles warn me every time there'll be a change in weather.
Guess I kicked too many asses, and when the kicks all get together,
They sure can slow you down when you're a winner."


"My knuckles are so swollen I can hardly make a fist.
Who would have thought old Charlie had a blade taped to his wrist?
And my blind eye's where he cut me, and my good eye's where he missed.
Yeah, you lose a couple of things when you're a winner."


"My head is just a bunch of clumps and lumps and bumps and scars
From chargin' broken bottles and buttin' crowded bars.
And this hernia -- well, it only proves a man can't lift a car.
But you're expected to do it all when you're a winner."


"Got a steel plate inside my skull, underneath this store-bought hair.
My pelvis is aluminum from takin' ladies' dares.
And if you had a magnet, son, you could lift me off my chair.
I'm a man of steel, but I'm rustin' -- what a winner."


"I got a perforated ulcer, I got strictures and incisions.
My prostate's barely holdin' up from those all-night collisions.
And I'll have to fight two of you because of my double vision.
You're lookin' sick, son -- that ain't right for a winner."


"Winnin' that last stock-car race cost me my favorite toes.
Winnin' that factory foreman's job, it browned and broke my nose.
And these hemorrhoids come from winnin' all them goddamn rodeos.
Sometimes it's a pain in the butt to be a winner."


"In the war, I got the Purple Heart, that's why my nerves are gone.
And I ruined my liver in drinkin' contests, which I always won.
And I should be retired now, rockin' on my lawn,
But you losers keep comin' on -- makin' me a winner."


"When I walk, you can hear my pelvis rattle, creak and crack
From my great Olympic Hump-Off with that nymphomaniac,
After which I spent the next six weeks in traction on my back,
While she walked off smilin' -- leavin' me the winner."


"Now, as I kick in your family jewels, you'll notice my left leg drags,
And this jacket's kinda padded up where my right shoulder sags,
And there's a special part of me I keep in this paper bag,
And I'll show it to you -- if you want to see all of the winner."


"So I never play the violin and I seldom dance or ski.
They say there never was a hero brave and strong as me.
But when you're this year's hero, son, you're next year's used-to-be.
And that's the facts of life -- when you're a winner."


"Now, you remind me a lot of my younger days with your knuckles clenchin' white.
But, boy, I'm gonna sit right here and sip this beer all night.
And if there's somethin' you gotta prove by winnin' some silly fight,
Well, OK, I quit, I lose, son, you're the winner."


"So I stumbled from that barroom not so tall and not so proud,
And behind me I could hear the hoots of laughter from the crowd.
But my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth are still in my mouth.
And y'know...I guess that makes me...a winner."

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Thursday Musing

Self-Compassion

Self-kindness: Self-compassion entails being warm towards oneself when encountering pain and personal shortcomings, rather than ignoring them or hurting oneself with self-criticism.

Common humanity: Self-compassion also involves recognizing that suffering and personal failure is part of the shared human experience.

Mindfulness: Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach to one's negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. Negative thoughts and emotions are observed with openness, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which individuals observe their thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.

Conversely, mindfulness requires that one not be "over-identified" with mental or emotional phenomena, so that one suffers aversive reactions. This latter type of response involves narrowly focusing and ruminating on one's negative emotions.

The Hate that Hate Produced



Approximately once a year, I end up in the middle of a heated conversation online. Though it changes no one's mind, I try to use it as an example of how not to be goaded into losing my temper. I'm not always successful, but apparently this last go-round I was. Gloating over winning an argument online, assuming I even triumphed, is a futile gesture. The person who attacked me round after round failed to understand the basis of my argument and even completely missed who I was and for what I stood. This, too, is commonplace during internet debate, if one can call it in such dignified terms as that.

At Purdue University in Indiana, a female college student was harassed by someone with an ax to grind, for reasons unclear. In typically classy style, the man responsible posted fliers of her across campus. These fliers shared her personal phone number, picture, and made the specious claim that she wanted to be raped. Though I knew this to be a deplorable act, I tried to keep things in perspective. Yes, whomever did this should face consequences and a genuine wrong was committed. But those who sought to bring this man to justice immediately over-identified with the act, reading into it the sum total of their own fears.

Feminists, gender studies faculty, and women's rights activists are often loaded for bear, waiting in the wings to prosecute something like this in their own backyards. They've read innumerable studies and are familiar with instances of such behavior at other institutes of higher learning, so now is the time to spring into action. Highly emotionally charged events like these often lend themselves to hyperbole. I'm not criticizing their intentions, but I am critiquing their approach.

The well-meaning feminist community decided to label childish and immature acts like the posting of the flyers mentioned earlier as "terrorist." I know what was meant by this comparison, but it is still inflammatory and out of proportion to the nature of the offense. It is just as inflammatory in reverse to the behavior of the man who earlier broached basic privacy and tried to shame a woman into submission. Instead of resorting to terms like "terrorist" that will speak only to the choir and be criticized by everyone else, I would instead say that an epidemic of sexual assault does exist on college campuses.

But as we know, this is nothing especially new. It's been around for a very long time, probably as long as colleges and universities were made co-ed. Our renewed emphasis makes it seem as though incidents like these are something that is growing and swelling at an alarming rate. I don't have any statistics in front of me, but I think that the problem is about as prevalent as it always was, much like race-based discrimination in the criminal justice system. It is no less wrong, but it is not akin to a suicide bomber killing fifteen innocent people in an open air marketplace, bombing an embassy, or lynching a black man falsely accused of a crime.

A friend of mine was enrolled at a women's college called Agnes Scott, which is located in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. In the early 1980's she was very nearly sexually assaulted by a serial rapist who had been preying on many woman on campus. It is only due to her own quick thinking that she did not end up a statistic, as he entered her room while she was taking a shower. Making the problem worse, the perpetrator of these acts was black and most of the students were white. These are the sorts of events that are often downplayed because they are complex and can be quickly derailed when race competes with gender. These stories are not simple or simply rendered.

Activists are obsessed with sexy causes and initially throw a tremendous amount of energy into them. In the 1990's, everyone was obsessed with the phenomenon of eating disorders among young women. Now, twenty years later, few people talk about it, leaving us unable to know if all that mental energy went somewhere productive. Because I don't hear about it in activist communities and on the news as I once did surely doesn't mean it went away completely. Now, the new cause célèbre are instances of rape and sexual assault on college campuses.

This is the cause, along with transgender discrimination, that is sucking all the air out of the room. Yet again, this is nothing new. In another decade or two, we will focus on something else, some new crusade, and my hope is that we actually learn from the agitation our righteous indignation now produces. We are, to some extent, at the beck and call of the news cycle, the passage of time, and those who shape the news. We don't talk about racial injustice until someone decides to make it an issue, and once again it gets dragged out into the light and dusted off for good measure.

Self-kindness: Self-compassion entails being warm towards oneself when encountering pain and personal shortcomings, rather than ignoring them or hurting oneself with self-criticism.
Common humanity: Self-compassion also involves recognizing that suffering and personal failure is part of the shared human experience.
Mindfulness: Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach to one's negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. Negative thoughts and emotions are observed with openness, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which individuals observe their thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.
Conversely, mindfulness requires that one not be "over-identified" with mental or emotional phenomena, so that one suffers aversive reactions. This latter type of response involves narrowly focusing and ruminating on one's negative emotions.

Being a Quaker feminist can be difficult because most people want good old fashioned retributive justice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. My path and its demands are much more difficult and far more New Testament. I'm to see that of God in everyone, even those whose behavior I find predatory and completely inexcusable. Few other women's rights activists are willing to see it my way. Even worse, to some, my approach might as well be setting these men free or even taking on their cause. And this again is part of over-identification.

But what these activists fail to understand is that it is counter-productive to be the hate that hate produced. We are no different than those who threaten us if we resort to the same anger and the same fears. Tempting though it is, we must resist. We give lip service to the non-violent resistance Martin Luther King, Jr. insisted upon, giving it our fullest devotion, as we instead insist upon any means necessary. We have forgotten his legacy and what he accomplished if we forsake an extremely effective means of resistance in our desire to punish, to force the shoe on the other foot.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

There Goes My Babe


Time to dust off the 4-track recorder again.

The end has come
The sky has lost its sun
The harm is done
He was the only one

There goes my babe
There goes what might have been
There goes my babe
In the cool morning rain

And now my heart
Lies empty and still again

If he were here
I'd long to hold him near
But now it's clear
The price of love is dear

There goes my babe
There goes what might have been
There goes my babe
In the cool morning rain

And now my heart
Lies empty and still again

Monday, March 09, 2015

Death Before Dawn, Part Three

What you will read below is a short story in process. Like a film, I've shot all the scenes and written most of the sections deliberately out of sequence. They will be conjoined later, once I have the material I need. Last month I wrote Parts One and Two. To follow is Part Three, but this will probably end up being placed later in the text. Muses aren't always linear.

To remind you, here is Part Two. New material to follow. When it comes time for publication, I'll likely be asked to remove the song lyrics and poetry fragments, but for now, I'll keep them as they are.

____________

I return to the current day for a moment, a quarter century after such heady times. Since then, I’ve come to understand that everyone’s early twenties are fanciful and a little grandiose. Jason is long gone. I moved on, but he didn’t. I used to count the years since we talked, but after I counted nine, I never felt much need to continue with the ritual. Like many frustrated rockers, he switched to hip-hop, even establishing his own label. I can’t say I’m much of a fan of the genre, but I appreciate the craft that goes into it.

My memory grows longer as my life goes shorter. A few years ago I came to a particular conclusion. Not to be a Luddite, but I’m not always sure we’re capable of processing the centrality of the internet in our own lives. I currently observe the lives, reflections, successes, failures, and general goings-ons of at least ten former relationship partners, twenty people I slept with at least once, and a variety of other platonic friends who continue to want me to be part of their life. I’m flattered by the attention and appreciate the opportunity for open dialogue, yet it sits a little uneasily with me.

The older I get, the more salt and pepper I appear to others. What began at my temples spread to my beard and then even my chest hair. Even though I don’t feel old, I know that I am no longer young. I’m currently supporting a long-term boyfriend of twenty years who I never plan to marry. You’ll never see pictures of us exchanging joyful kisses outside a courthouse. The joy went away long ago. Like Paul Simon wrote, we’re just a habit, like saccharine.

I’m the worker, the cheerful breadwinner, the happy warrior, known to the local coffee shop workers as the sweet gay man who tips well. They do not know my private torment and I do not share. He is highly agoraphobic and rarely works at the health food store on the granola side of town much anymore, at least not since his mother died. I press him to work more than six hours a week, but I never had much heart to be mean even for worthy purposes. Aggression and confrontation is what it would take, but I’d rather he’d take the initiative himself.

I struggle with my weight these days and never had much willpower with food. I’ve taken to throwing food away into the trash can, then pouring dish washing soap on top of it so I won’t fish anything out late at night and eat it later. Oddly enough, my partner has been extremely helpful in this regard. I lost about fifty pounds some years back, but it has returned. I pretend not to care, but I do.

My daily routine always contains music of some kind. I’m trying to teach myself the piano, but I find the left-hand parts challenging. I always did. Picking out simple melodies with my right hand is something I was able to do even as a boy. Integrating both hands together is a challenge. Mostly I stick to guitar. Obscure songs get stuck in my head and I work them out at night after a hard day’s work.

The end has come
The sky has lost its sun
The harm is done
He was the only one

There goes my babe
There goes what might have been
There goes my babe
In the cool morning rain

And now my heart
Lies empty and still again

If he were here
I'd long to hold him near
But now it's clear
The price of love is dear

There goes my babe
There goes what might have been
There goes my babe
In the cool morning rain

And now my heart
Lies empty and still again

I have no one else to impress, no particular cause to advance. My life is not over, but I wonder sometimes if it ever really began. I have never dared to be more than a worker bee with a partner who is emotionally demanding and perpetually sixteen-years-old. I could have done better, and many have told me as such. Some grab hold of life and some let the rope go slack in their hands. I had many opportunities, but I am too timid for my own good.

Sunday, March 08, 2015

Quote of the Week



"You'd be better by far to be just what you are. You can be what you want if you are what you are."-Alan Price

Saturday, March 07, 2015

Signs You Live in Washington, DC, Part One



1. Signs you live in Washington, DC: You know the capital and GDP of Brunei, but you don't know the capital of Montana or its population.

2. Signs you live in Washington, DC: You are a passionate non-profit worker generating fascinating ideas, but can't change a tire without assistance.

Saturday Video

A very mean, even immature song, but catchy.




Now listen, I think you and me
Have come to the end of our time
What d'ya want, some kind of reaction?
Well okay, that's fine

Alright, how would it make you feel
If I said you never made me come?
In the year and a half that we spent together
Yeah, I never really had much fun

All those times that I said I was sober
Well, I'm afraid I lied
I'd be lying next to you and you next to me
All the while I was high as a kite

I could see it in your face as you break it to me gently
Well, you really must think you're great
Well, let's see how you feel in a couple of weeks
When I work my way through your mates

I never wanted it to end up this way
You've only got yourself to blame
I'm gonna tell the world you're rubbish in bed now
And that you're small in the game

I saw you thought this was gonna be easy
Well, you're out of luck
Yeah, let's rewind, let's turn back time
To when you couldn't get it up

You know what? I shoulda ended it there
That's when I shoulda shown you the door
As if that weren't enough to deal with
You became premature

I'm sorry if you feel that I'm being kinda mental
But you left me in such a state
Now I'm gonna do to you what you did to me
Gonna reciprocate

I never wanted it to end up this way
You've only got yourself to blame
I'm gonna tell the world you're rubbish in bed now
And that you're small in the game

You're not big, you're not clever
No, you ain't ya big brother, not big whatsoever
You're not big, you're not clever
No, you're not ya big brother, not big whatsoever

I'm sorry if you feel that I'm being kinda mental
But you left me in such a state
But now I'm gonna do to you what you did to me
Gonna reciprocate

I never wanted it to end up this way
You've only got yourself to blame
I'm gonna tell the world you're rubbish in bed now
And that you're small in the game

You're not big, you're not clever
No, you ain't ya big brother, not big whatsoever
You're not big, you're not clever
Not big whatsoever, no you ain't ya big brother

You're not big, you're not clever
Not big whatsoever, no you ain't ya big brother
You're not big, you're not clever
Not big whatsoever, no you ain't ya big brother

Friday, March 06, 2015

Thursday, March 05, 2015

What Makes a Strong Woman?



A little over ten years ago, I presided over my recently deceased grandmother’s funeral visitation. This is what most of us are called to do a few times in the course of one lifetime. Wearing a full suit and tie, plus jacket, I nervously circulated throughout the largest, most ornate room of the funeral home. One-by-one, people queued up to offer their personal condolences and remembrances.

A middle-aged woman approached me with great energy, shaking my hand as though it had been an antique pump handle. “Your grandmother,” she said, reverently, “was such an inspiration to me.” Southerners can be gushy, but this unknown mourner was only getting started. “I remember her being such a strong woman, especially when she established the recycling center and the library.”

I thanked her for such effusive praise as I stifled the impulse to speak the truth. A strong woman means something different to different people. If by strong woman we mean (and this is only my definition) a lack of overt femininity, and a wanton desire to live in the world of men, then my Grandmother easily qualifies. She was the only girl in a household of four brothers, younger than all but one of them. They grew up during the Depression without a father, who died when my Grandmother was ten, and mostly without a mother who likely suffered from schizophrenia and, shortly after her husband’s passing, was institutionalized for the rest of her life.

Those sorts of tragedies would make anyone tough, male or female. As a man, I’m certain I have a very different view of what constitutes a strong woman. Rather than resort to abstractions, I’ll tell a few family stories and let you decide for yourself. It is true that my Grandmother’s business sense and accounting acumen was impeccable and that she ran much of the family water well drilling company herself. It is also true that my grandfather, not her, was the true authority behind the company, who only deferred to his wife when his bipolar disorder grew too extreme for another day’s filthy, muddy work out in the fields.

Yes, my Grandfather was a man of his time, a husband who expected his wife to have supper on the table when he arrived home and his newspaper neatly folded. If he disliked what had been prepared, for any reason, he loudly left the house and had his dinner instead at the local barbecue joint. If she resented that treatment, her children never knew. This was the 1950’s, a time before feminism and its own forceful virtues seeking to accomplish strict gender equality.

The closer we get to the 2016 Presidential Election, the more we’ll hear about the value of strong women like Hillary Clinton. I have no doubt that former Secretary of State Clinton is one. She’s lived in a fishbowl for the last twenty-three years and if conquering adversity makes for strength and strong women, she most certainly qualifies. But are there other qualities that go into making strong women besides being a survivor of tragedy and not kowtowing to men?

As you’ll recall, my grandmother was roundly praised for her civic duties. The small Southern town where she and her brood lived had never heard of this strange concept called recycling, nor had most Americans in the 1970’s. The well drilling work of the family business determined that recycling water and other materials wasn’t just environmentally friendly, it also saved them a ton of money. Furthermore, my grandmother felt it obscene that the little town where they lived didn’t have a public library, and she contributed to its construction.

But every life has its worst qualities. She favored the ways of men above the ways of women, which would be a matter of preference, except that she also favored her male grandchildren above her female ones. While in the middle of the political discussions of men that inevitably broke out during family gatherings, my grandmother never argued for women’s rights, acting mostly as though her own gender identity was invisible. She wore dresses and perfume, reluctantly, and despite being an excellent cook, she was not an especially feminine, maternal, or nurturing person.

She could be a little selfish and cutthroat, especially where money was concerned. For her female progeny, Grandmother (never anything as vulgar as “Grandma”) could be impossible to please and quick to insult. I, a boy soon to be a man, could do no wrong. And I very quickly grew tired of her constant complaints and unfair criticisms lodged constantly against my two younger sisters. Though I may seem cruel, I did not mourn when my Grandmother died. But I did not rejoice upon her passing, either. I was struck with a sense of injustice combined with discomfort that I hadn’t known how to address. I still don’t.

So I return once more, a man, asking a question that may have no easy answer. What Makes a Strong Woman? Is there any pure definition that our idealism might have us pursue in a life’s work? We might well be asking if there is such a thing as a Good Person or a Bad Person. We wrestle with degrees and definitions of our own creation. But with politicians particularly, it’s possible to be strong for the right reasons and strong for the wrong reasons, but this is the case both if we are male or if we are female.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

O Lucky Man




If you have a friend on whom you think
You can rely
You are a lucky man!

If you've found the reason to live on
and not to die
You are a lucky man!

Preachers and poets and scholars don't know it,
Temples and statues and steeples won't show it,
If you've got the secret just try not to blow it
Stay a lucky man!

If you've found the meaning of the truth
In this old world
You are a lucky man!

If knowledge hangs around your neck like
Pearls instead of chains
You are a lucky man!

Takers and fakers and talkers won't tell you.
Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you.
When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell
You'll be a lucky man!

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Shaking Hands with the Devil for Health's Sake



I write about my disability regularly because I don't want it to remain invisible. Within the disability movement itself, there are distinctions based on means of perception none of us can control. The man who lives downstairs from me has a clear and visible disability, completely undeniable, just as prominent as his harsh Boston accent with its hard, almost percussive A's. He finds it difficult to go up and down stairs but, like each of us, fights his limitations every day and does what he can.

The man in question shuffles upstairs and downstairs gingerly, slowly, but with great purpose. He walks with the aid of a cane, but is too proud to accept anyone's charity or sympathy. Those who seek to be helpful and hold open doors are greeted with a disapproving stare and grunt. Out of my way, he says. As for myself, I've been too proud myself to let bipolar disorder sideline me for very long. Today I feel really awful, but I want to share my words and thoughts. I never was the type to want to lay fallow.

Speaking about mental illness is now acceptable conversation. For that I am extremely appreciative. Ideally, I wouldn't have to explain myself, but I'd rather educate others than let the details go otherwise unnoticed. The disabled community is broad and expansive, and yet I find myself disinclined to identify myself fully with that movement. I often view a motley gang of cranky people, each feeling resentful in a slightly different way for a slightly different reason. Each of us expresses pain in different ways and everyone has a horror story to share. If I wanted to, I could add my voice, but I will refrain for now.

I could feel resentful at lots of things: insurance companies even post-Obamacare, clueless doctors, and death by a thousand cuts, the innumerable headaches caused by mutual misunderstanding of an unnecessarily complicated system. And yet, I would rather live with the hand of cards I was dealt than rage against the light. I already live in Protest Central, also known as our Nation's capital, and I doubt the presence of thousands of wheelchairs and motorized scooters descending on Capitol Hill would do much good. What is needed is funding for better medications, better treatments, more effective rehabilitation.

Back to my own story. Tapering off of one antidepressant to get onto another was an unpleasant experience, one concluded yesterday. Most antidepressants give marching orders to the soup of neurons located in the brain. These commands tell the neurons how to line up, how they ought to behave, and a variety of other directives. For reasons unknown, my brain does not produce enough of three primary and very essential chemicals. They are, in no particular order, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Each antidepressant works slightly differently in where it places its focus. Some work mainly on serotonin, others target dopamine receptors.

Twenty years ago, the first SSNRIs like Effexor or Cymbalta were developed. I was one of the first to try them. At lower levels, serotonin was boosted substantially. But at higher doses, if needed, so too was norepinephrine. One of the major drawbacks of this class of drugs was that discontinuation syndrome was extreme and led to many having to be hospitalized to completely wean themselves off of the drug. That very nearly was the case with me and it took psychiatrists several years to realize how intense discontinuation syndrome was for those who'd been on the medication.

Now I'm on an MAOI inhibitor, a very strong and effective drug with some unfortunate food interactions. It's in the form of a transdermal patch called Emsam, which cuts down on the reactions considerably. Because it doesn't pass through the GI tract as a pill would, absorbed through the skin instead, I don't have to worry about eating a tiny bit of something verboten and causing a hypertensive crisis. I've had three hypertensive crises already and don't want to have another. During them, my blood pressure and pulse reached dangerous levels and each spike came in terrifying waves, one after another.

As much as I dislike capitalism, I find I have to work within its confines. Though I can't believe I'm actually saying this, I would prefer to work within the system. New treatments for mental illness are expensive and time-consuming. What we have already is fine for some and insufficient for many. I don't want to entertain this argument, but I may have no choice but to strike a Faustian bargain. The more money Big Pharma makes, the more money it can allocate towards the research and development of more effective medication. I think it's completely ridiculous that a 30 day supply of Emsam should cost $1200 out of pocket, but I'm sure the manufacturers' accountants can come up with substantial justifications and rationalizations.

In this situation, I would rather work within than outside. Though I think a system of socialized medicine would be fairer for everyone, I can't fight the views of many Americans, who fear big government and Washington, DC, telling it what to do. A for-profit system at least rewards those who come up with the next big thing. Hopefully, that next big thing will be a new antidepressant, one without potentially fatal side effects. I know for a fact that new treatments are underway, but everyone's waiting on the next big breakthrough. Let it be soon.   

Sunday, March 01, 2015

Quote of the Week



"I feel like the boy who stubbed his toe in the dark - I'm too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh."-Adlai Stevenson, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln