CELEBRATION! I have finished, finally, after months and months, the counting and tabulating of the BMIzz! If history is any indication of the future, it will only be about another three weeks before I stop seeing little creepy-crawlies every time I close my eyes. What an amazing improvement to my quality of life.
IN OTHER NEWS: It turns out to be an extremely bad idea to clean your keyboard with acetone. I was tidying in my chemistry lab today and spotted the charming red-topped acetone bottle. It reminded me that I have intended, ever since I started this job, to remove the grime on my office keyboard left by my predessor. Well, erm, under the grime there is apparently an acetone-soluble coating. Oops. I removed a large amount of that coating from several keys and actually smeared some of the characters. On the upside, the grime is now gone. My space bar seems to have suffered some drippage. It doesn't space quite like it did ten minutes ago.
1.14.2008
1.11.2008
D'you know?
My mom is going to love the movie Juno. Lion just took me to it as a surprise (as in I was forced to cover my eyes until we were actually inside the theater so I didn't even know what we were seeing). It totally rocked. Well, it mostly rocked. My mom is going to love it, I believe in part because she is a frequent deliverer of teen mom babies. Or at least it felt that way when I was in high school. I'm positive that she called me up to inform me (in a stern tone) of the types of unwanted struggles faced by the accidental mother every single time a pregnant teenager came within 1000 feet of her. This, and the relentless encouragement of birth control use, led her to the fear that such well hammered-in advice may have turned me gay. She swears it was a passing fear.
In any case, as attendee to the health and humor many a predicament laden high schooler, I'm positive she would love it. Plus it's set in Minnesota--though filmed way too much in Vancouver. Ellen Page is snappy and hilarious and fab. Imdb tells me that Kate Winslet is her favorite actress, a fact that I approve of completely. I hope this means she's going to make period movies that I can obsess over with my dad. And, on top of that, she's apparently making a lesbian werewolf move. Or at least there are "metaphorical" werewolves. Allison Janney totally rocks my party in this movie, as ever. And it's a non-tragic story about teenage pregnancy.
Here's what sucks: the women's health clinic is junky and they really really don't deal with abortion as an issue. It felt to me like they had decided to make this movie about an indie kind of girl who finds adoptive parents for her child, but didn't ever decide exactly why she was having the child in the first place. The make it sound both vaguely altruistic (she suggests she'll give it to "a couple of lesbos") and as though she's personifying her fetus (freaking out about its fingernails). Anyway, they really gloss over it. It's not horrible, but it's there. And the clinic scenario really reinforces the concept that women's health clinics are primarily abortion providers and that they aren't places that care thoughtfully for their patients. I think it's a pretty dangerous stereotype to reinforce in the current political climate is all.
Anyway, that pesky issue aside, it is a great movie as a movie, and does provide a pretty refreshing view of the teen pregnancy idea. It also does a pretty good job of staying away from calling Page a slut. Or, at least it makes you mad at the idea that other kids in school are probably calling her a skank. And it gets mad props for making fun of the term "sexually active." Also it made Lion and I cry. And want babies in that weird stereotypical lesbian way.
In any case, as attendee to the health and humor many a predicament laden high schooler, I'm positive she would love it. Plus it's set in Minnesota--though filmed way too much in Vancouver. Ellen Page is snappy and hilarious and fab. Imdb tells me that Kate Winslet is her favorite actress, a fact that I approve of completely. I hope this means she's going to make period movies that I can obsess over with my dad. And, on top of that, she's apparently making a lesbian werewolf move. Or at least there are "metaphorical" werewolves. Allison Janney totally rocks my party in this movie, as ever. And it's a non-tragic story about teenage pregnancy.
Here's what sucks: the women's health clinic is junky and they really really don't deal with abortion as an issue. It felt to me like they had decided to make this movie about an indie kind of girl who finds adoptive parents for her child, but didn't ever decide exactly why she was having the child in the first place. The make it sound both vaguely altruistic (she suggests she'll give it to "a couple of lesbos") and as though she's personifying her fetus (freaking out about its fingernails). Anyway, they really gloss over it. It's not horrible, but it's there. And the clinic scenario really reinforces the concept that women's health clinics are primarily abortion providers and that they aren't places that care thoughtfully for their patients. I think it's a pretty dangerous stereotype to reinforce in the current political climate is all.
Anyway, that pesky issue aside, it is a great movie as a movie, and does provide a pretty refreshing view of the teen pregnancy idea. It also does a pretty good job of staying away from calling Page a slut. Or, at least it makes you mad at the idea that other kids in school are probably calling her a skank. And it gets mad props for making fun of the term "sexually active." Also it made Lion and I cry. And want babies in that weird stereotypical lesbian way.
1.10.2008
The Gay=Philosophy part II
And now, while I wait for some my stream monitoring probe readings to stabilize during calibration, I'll continue on last night's ill conceived metaphor.
Ok, my point about philosophy was not really a point. Plenty of philosophy majors don't become philosopers. They go to law school. Or so I hear. But this guy's mom's conception of philosophy that it was a self-contained field. Without the assumption that it was inherently worthwhile, in her view, it wouldn't exist.
This is true of the idea that being gay just ain't OK. I'm pretty sure that there isn't an argument for why one should not be the gay (or why society shouldn't recognize the gay as a-OK) that doesn't boil down to a fundamental assumption that it's just wrong.
Take the big one:
It's bad for kids to have gay parents. Well, no, that's not what the social scientists say.
And then there was this woman, who made the point pretty well at some fundy-type "family" conference.
And pretty much the rest of the parental-type "it makes your life harder" type arguments wouldn't exist if not for the fundamental homosexual menace assumption.
I guess this is pretty obvious to yee small crowd of GW readers. But I do keep coming back to it.
The thing that makes me the most frustrated in talking about controversial issues (particularly queer issues and choice), is that people on different sides really forget that their co-arguers are also people. People forget that we all have common ground. Most of those arguments consist of this scary smoke-and-mirrors game where people skirt around their disagreement and never make it to the base assumptions that divide them. The blogosphere and internet in general seems to make this so much worse. People score these cheap, anonymous shots. They act inhuman and so easily treat others as inhuman.
If you know me, maybe you can tell that I've been reading the online message boards in the letters to the editor section of our regional paper again.
Ok, my point about philosophy was not really a point. Plenty of philosophy majors don't become philosopers. They go to law school. Or so I hear. But this guy's mom's conception of philosophy that it was a self-contained field. Without the assumption that it was inherently worthwhile, in her view, it wouldn't exist.
This is true of the idea that being gay just ain't OK. I'm pretty sure that there isn't an argument for why one should not be the gay (or why society shouldn't recognize the gay as a-OK) that doesn't boil down to a fundamental assumption that it's just wrong.
Take the big one:
It's bad for kids to have gay parents. Well, no, that's not what the social scientists say.
And then there was this woman, who made the point pretty well at some fundy-type "family" conference.
And pretty much the rest of the parental-type "it makes your life harder" type arguments wouldn't exist if not for the fundamental homosexual menace assumption.
I guess this is pretty obvious to yee small crowd of GW readers. But I do keep coming back to it.
The thing that makes me the most frustrated in talking about controversial issues (particularly queer issues and choice), is that people on different sides really forget that their co-arguers are also people. People forget that we all have common ground. Most of those arguments consist of this scary smoke-and-mirrors game where people skirt around their disagreement and never make it to the base assumptions that divide them. The blogosphere and internet in general seems to make this so much worse. People score these cheap, anonymous shots. They act inhuman and so easily treat others as inhuman.
If you know me, maybe you can tell that I've been reading the online message boards in the letters to the editor section of our regional paper again.
1.09.2008
The Gay=Philosophy
Senior year of high school, my friend Lee, who was headed to the hallowed halls of Yale the next year, announced that he was going to be a philosophy major. We were out to dinner with another friend's mother. I shrugged at the idea, philosophy to me suggested little more than old, dead Greek dudes. Our other friend's mom, however, had a very clear concept of philosophy. "A PHILOSOPHY major at YALE!?" she cried, shaking her head, "what a waste." An awkward silenced was followed by some strange grunts on her part and than an explanation of how philosophy, like so many academic pursuits, was just useless.
"You know, she explained, you'll learn all this stuff [about old, dead, Greek dudes] and then go to graduate school and learn more and than just teach other people about it. Philosophy is only good for itself."
Which, of course, is not true. But Philosophy, as a discipline, is dependent, I think on the assumption that it is useful or valuable in some way.
Next, I will explain why I remembered this today and it struck me that the assumption that homosexuality is an evil menace functions in a similar kind of way.
1.08.2008
Saved By Word Games
After usurping my buddy Turtle's TV for the Iowa caucus, and the state it put me into, I was definitely not suffering through that much Wolf Blitzer again. (Wolf Blitzer? I know, I know, the funny of his name was beat to death in 1991, but I'm not over it). My not watching of tonight's NH primaries got a little help-along by the fact that Tuesday is stone soup night at our house, the brainchild of my darlin' (who is also known as Lion, in some circles). Our family of friends comes on over (or we head to one of them sometimes), everyone armed with potential soup ingredients. The results have been, uh, varied since this tradition came into being, but overwhelmingly edible. Tonight brought us vegetable soup with beans. It was pronounced bland, but like pretty much everything, a little bit of added cheesed dressed it up nicely.
Hm, veggie-bean-cheese soup sounds kind of weird, I think.
Weird or not, soup and friends took my mind off of the primary. And there is little in my mind that feels more like contentment than the steamy air of a soup-in-progress kitchen.
I only thought to look at the results a few minutes ago. And so it looks like McCain and Clinton in this round. Ooh, I like very much that it's an across the board different result from that in Iowa. Now I guess it's ten more rounds of crazy campaigning before South Carolina and it looks like Obama and Clinton are neck in neck! It's like watching a rugby match.
And just for kicks- to bring it back to, uh, this blogs loosely connected themes, Healthline has a little sum-up of Obama's universal health coverage plan. It's interesting. And complicated. I'm definitely all for a single-payer system, myself. Simple! That means cheap! If you don't know how that stuff works, go watch the animation that Graham at Over My Med Body put together.
Hm, veggie-bean-cheese soup sounds kind of weird, I think.
Weird or not, soup and friends took my mind off of the primary. And there is little in my mind that feels more like contentment than the steamy air of a soup-in-progress kitchen.
I only thought to look at the results a few minutes ago. And so it looks like McCain and Clinton in this round. Ooh, I like very much that it's an across the board different result from that in Iowa. Now I guess it's ten more rounds of crazy campaigning before South Carolina and it looks like Obama and Clinton are neck in neck! It's like watching a rugby match.
And just for kicks- to bring it back to, uh, this blogs loosely connected themes, Healthline has a little sum-up of Obama's universal health coverage plan. It's interesting. And complicated. I'm definitely all for a single-payer system, myself. Simple! That means cheap! If you don't know how that stuff works, go watch the animation that Graham at Over My Med Body put together.
1.07.2008
Whew
Well, this is really silly but I've made it to my goal of five med school interview invites.
The number five is not based on anything reasonable, like I read somewhere that five was a good number to do. It's just the number that the med student I met at a wedding in October had had. Seemed like a good number. Though it's a strange thing to have a goal about since it's not as if I really had any control. I'm more amused at this one than completely thrilled as I was with the others, I mean, I already got in. But I'm one for keeping my options open, so I'll head on up to MA again to see what they've got.
The number five is not based on anything reasonable, like I read somewhere that five was a good number to do. It's just the number that the med student I met at a wedding in October had had. Seemed like a good number. Though it's a strange thing to have a goal about since it's not as if I really had any control. I'm more amused at this one than completely thrilled as I was with the others, I mean, I already got in. But I'm one for keeping my options open, so I'll head on up to MA again to see what they've got.
Old People! Hooray!
Well, I missed yesterday. Alas. I did, and I think this counts, considering posting on what I'm about to post on, but there were major distractions in trying to finish my darling's xmas etc. present before she got back from an extended stay with her parents in North Carolina. And then there was the distraction of her being home.
Yesterday something pretty amazing happened in my life. My mother, actually, did something amazing.
In the spirit of "It takes a village" my brother and I were raised by a bevy of folks outside my parents. Among them are Ethel and Lorraine. And they are as old and interesting as their names make them sound. They were our day care, our baby sitters, our nannies. It's been years, of course, since they carted us to piano lessons, but I see them when I'm home. I stop by as you would with any grandparent. And until yesterday I hadn't managed to come out to either of them. There are some excuses. I live on the other side of the country. They're old. And then there were those sideways whispers from intermediaries that "They won't understand." An 83-year-old, old-fashioned, mid-western farm girl is not going to get on board with your crazy lesbo thing, I mean, she calls "lunch," "dinner" for pete's sake!
But them, my mama wanted to do something as yet unprecedented in our family. She wanted to give my darling a cameo in the annual february letter. (This is like a holiday letter for procrastinators). And of course, no one displays the grainy inkjet photos and winter cheer than Ethel and Lorraine. Just like that, it was time. Mom asked how I wanted to tell them, and I could feel that old fear of rejection lump bubble up out of my stomach. And that's when the first bit of amazing-ness happened. My mama stepped in just like you imagine a parent can and took the burden right off my shoulders. She suggested that she do it for me.
Really, it couldn't have been any other way. I'm not about to fly to Minnesota in the next couple of weeks just to go, "poof, I'm gay!" and the advent of hearing aids hasn't actually made it possible to have a conversation that consists of more than "Yes, we're coming by in ten minutes," with them. But I thought I might have to ask her to do it, and then coach her. It turns out that she's one of those cool moms who's gotten all hip to your world.
I'm glad that I trusted her because yesterday brought news of the go around with Lorraine. And you know, just like pretty much every coming-out I've been through, I should have trusted her. She wiped my snot as a kid and went to my soccer games and drilled good manners into me. Who knows you better than the people who know about the naughty things you did as a child? My 83-year old, old fashioned, mid-western farm girl of a nanny is a-ok with me being gay. And was, as reported by my mother, was quite dismissive of my worry that she'd be anything but. Mom showed her a picture of me with my darling, whom Lorraine pronounced to be "pretty." Hey, it's 2007, she might be old but it turns out that she already knows some kid-raising lesbian moms. Anyway, lesson learned.
Yesterday something pretty amazing happened in my life. My mother, actually, did something amazing.
In the spirit of "It takes a village" my brother and I were raised by a bevy of folks outside my parents. Among them are Ethel and Lorraine. And they are as old and interesting as their names make them sound. They were our day care, our baby sitters, our nannies. It's been years, of course, since they carted us to piano lessons, but I see them when I'm home. I stop by as you would with any grandparent. And until yesterday I hadn't managed to come out to either of them. There are some excuses. I live on the other side of the country. They're old. And then there were those sideways whispers from intermediaries that "They won't understand." An 83-year-old, old-fashioned, mid-western farm girl is not going to get on board with your crazy lesbo thing, I mean, she calls "lunch," "dinner" for pete's sake!
But them, my mama wanted to do something as yet unprecedented in our family. She wanted to give my darling a cameo in the annual february letter. (This is like a holiday letter for procrastinators). And of course, no one displays the grainy inkjet photos and winter cheer than Ethel and Lorraine. Just like that, it was time. Mom asked how I wanted to tell them, and I could feel that old fear of rejection lump bubble up out of my stomach. And that's when the first bit of amazing-ness happened. My mama stepped in just like you imagine a parent can and took the burden right off my shoulders. She suggested that she do it for me.
Really, it couldn't have been any other way. I'm not about to fly to Minnesota in the next couple of weeks just to go, "poof, I'm gay!" and the advent of hearing aids hasn't actually made it possible to have a conversation that consists of more than "Yes, we're coming by in ten minutes," with them. But I thought I might have to ask her to do it, and then coach her. It turns out that she's one of those cool moms who's gotten all hip to your world.
I'm glad that I trusted her because yesterday brought news of the go around with Lorraine. And you know, just like pretty much every coming-out I've been through, I should have trusted her. She wiped my snot as a kid and went to my soccer games and drilled good manners into me. Who knows you better than the people who know about the naughty things you did as a child? My 83-year old, old fashioned, mid-western farm girl of a nanny is a-ok with me being gay. And was, as reported by my mother, was quite dismissive of my worry that she'd be anything but. Mom showed her a picture of me with my darling, whom Lorraine pronounced to be "pretty." Hey, it's 2007, she might be old but it turns out that she already knows some kid-raising lesbian moms. Anyway, lesson learned.
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