Great day.

You would think that a day that included cat barf, cat pee, and ants would not be a great day, but you would be wrong. The main thing that made this day great was the 1.5 mile round-trip walk to the pool and back with Bean, and the way that the trees, especially the occasional birch trees, which always take my breath away, looked against the perfect summer afternoon sky. We had such a fun time that he hardly complained at all about being made to walk rather than ride in the car, and he didn't mind when I got cold and sat in the sun while he continued to splash and swim and play.

I can't emphasize enough what that walk did for me. It was a great lifting of spirits, which had not been low to begin with, but it was one of those moments when the natural world and the sense of the presence of a benign spirit connect with you so that you feel pure joy. It's hours later and I'm still ridin' that high.

Working my way through other people's problems.

I came to two realizations today. Well, ok, one realization, because the first one is pretty obvious and I figured it out a while ago:

1) Don't post all your shit on Facebook. I am continually astounded by what my Facebook Friends are up to. People who are job hunting or will be, soon, post on Facebook about their annoying students. In detail. Others forward bits of private emails and also email messages from listserves. Why would anyone visit this trouble on themselves? Don't they realize that their future employers will not be impressed?

2) I recently spent time with a friend, and being with him made me feel very stressed out. I couldn't figure out why, because I had felt pretty great beforehand, but while I was with him, I was getting increasingly edgy and upset. I finally figured out that it was simply because *he* was so incredibly anxious and stressed - but in a low-key way, so that I didn't realize it at the time - that he was triggering all of my own anxiety. Once I realized this, I was able to let go of the accumulated stress and find my way back to my happy place. (No, I'm not a horrible person - he is just someone who carries around a lot of anxiety.)

Legs.

We are now almost entirely moved into our new home. All that is left in the apartment seems to be cleaning supplies, a chair that is headed for the landfill, the pictures on the walls, and a few random items. Probably one or two carloads, altogether, if I include the stuff still in Mr. P's closet. Not too bad.

Meanwhile, the new place is cozy and comfortable and I really like it. But, as some of you know, I have a bit of a bug phobia, and our basement has a lot of spiders in it (little ones, at least). I even went to therapy a few years ago specifically to work on my arachnophobia, and I learned that it is an anxiety disorder and that using relaxation really helps (it does - I am in a much better, happier place than I was when I first went for treatment).

So I'm a teensy bit on alert here, but still quite comfortable.

However.

This morning I found six legs in the bathtub. They were not attached to anything. I don't know who they belonged to. Two were big and four were small. I really don't even like to speculate about this, and I don't feel much like using the tub. I imagine that there may have been an epic battle in the tub involving one or both of the cats, but again, really, it's probably best not to speculate.

Whole Foods boycott still misses the point

You have probably heard about this already. Just for the record, I shop at Whole Foods all the time. On the one hand, I wish the boycott a lot of luck, and I hope that jerk, John Mackey, loses money (it's not lost on me that telling people to take responsibility for themselves and eat right conveniently puts money into his pocket, since eating right would mean eating organic, non-genetically modified, "whole foods", wouldn't it?).

But the larger problem here is that as long as we see food as a matter of individual choices rather than community responsibility, most people are not going to get the healthy foods they need. I had the chance to meet Winona LaDuke a while back, shortly after my breast cancer was diagnosed. (She said, "I bet you're eating organic *now*, huh?" And I was/am.) But I asked her, "How do we do this organic thing in the city, when buying organic means shopping at exclusive and expensive stores that are out of reach of most folks?" And she said: backyard vegetable gardens. But it became clear to me, after thinking about this, and about the time and space and knowledge needed to garden, and about the need for shared greenhouses, that this is really a community endeavor. We can't simply garden for ourselves any more than we can simply buy produce for our own families at Whole Foods. We need to find ways, as neighborhoods, to make healthy food available to everyone.

So, to get back to my hands - on the other hand, boycotting Whole Foods is really not as effective as is working toward other, community-supported, long-range solutions. It might make a difference re. health care, which is, of course, the sole purpose behind the boycott, but it doesn't solve these larger problems. Also, Trader Joe's does not have a great record re. unions, at least in MN (they were recommended as a place to shop during the boycott). Local co-ops may be the place to go, but they are financially out of reach for most people.

Thoughts?

I shoulda gone to art school...

...or at least taken a class in color and/or painting. I'm trying to manage a couple of small painting projects before we move, and it feels a lot like trying to make up a song, like my brain isn't big or strong enough to manage the different colors/sounds all at once, especially when the paint swatches/notes are so very close in color/tone. Right now I've got this bright purpl-y thing going that was supposed to be much darker and with more brown in it. Maybe another coat or two...

And IKEA continues to confound me with it's impossible instructions. I consider myself to be fairly smart, and I decipher a number of these to put furniture pieces together. This hinge business, though, is a whole nother thing.

And, we're moving. So I'm off to grab a few more random things off bookcases and dressers, out of cupboards and closets. See you later.

So, What Is Feminist Mothering?

My new post on Feministe.

I'm at Feministe this week.

Stop by, and stay tuned for more posts...

The vacation thus far.

We've been to New York and New Jersey, seen several friends and lots of family (and one performance of "Mary Poppins"), and had unbelievable cat drama that began within a few days of leaving and that seems to be continuing. As I write this, my friend is on her way to the emergency animal clinic with one cat who, my friend says, "sounds like she is crying" and seems to have injured her leg. Previously, my other cat gave this friend such a hard time when she tried to give her her thyroid medication that we had to call around - from the east coast - to find someone in the Twin Cities who could do this for her. (Thank goodness, we found someone.)

It has been a very exciting - and expensive - vacation. I think we will have to stay put after this. I'm hoping things will calm down because I am worried about my furry babies.

Other highlights:
* I rode the subway - by myself - for the first time in about a decade. They don't use tokens anymore. Who knew?
* I saw the new Harry Potter movie. It rocks. And I've hidden the people on Facebook who are complaining about how much they don't like Harry Potter and are not going to read the books or see the movies. Blah blah blah. I'm going to see it again.
* Bean met two very friendly dogs this week and has come a long way toward being less afraid of dogs. I also spent some serious thought considering whether or not we should get a dog. Perhaps my cats's issues are simply psychic freakouts about this possibility.

We leave tomorrow at 8:00 am. I'm up now, waiting to hear back from the vet. It's going to be a short night.

Christina Hoff (yawn) Sommers

"All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank."

Eyeroll. Yawn. More eyerolling. It would be nice if the Chronicle would stop soliciting anti-feminist diatribes from Sommers and Daphne Patai - whose own works on feminism are littered with inaccuracies and anecdotally-based conclusions - and would instead ask some actual feminist scholars to write about feminist scholarship. In the meantime, read Tenured Radical's excellent response.

U-Haul mystery.

Some of you know that Mr. Plain(s)feminist and I are about to become first-time homeowners. That process might be something I should blog about at some point, though I suspect that most of my readers have already become homeowners and would not be surprised by the things that surprised us (such as closing costs - ouch!). Many of my friends are already on their second or third houses.

Anyway, in preparation for our upcoming move, I decided to pick up some file boxes so that I could unload and then get rid of some filing cabinets that we don't really need any longer. I had a really good experience with U-Haul boxes (sturdy and just the right size) the last time we moved, so I looked up U-Haul on the internet and set off for one not too far from me.

When I got there, the address was printed in big numbers on the building, and there were storage and U-Haul signs, so I knew I was in the right place. However, there seemed to be no front to the building. There were two doors; one was a heavy, single door, set between two loading docks, with a sign above it that read "Sales." The other was a heavy, double door, next to a dumpster, and opened onto another loading dock. Both were windowless doors that looked like employee or back entrances. There was one window in the building, but there was shelving set against it on the other side. Both doors were locked. I felt certain that I was at the back entrance of the building, but when I tried to drive around to the front of the building, I found that there was no way to get there. The driveway ended and was blocked by a large dumpster. The building itself was set on a block next to a railyard, and the street did not go all the way around the block so that the southern and western sides of the building were inaccessible.

I finally sat in the parking lot and called the number I had gotten off the computer, which remained busy each time I called. Then I called the number on the side of the building and got an answering machine. There were plenty of cars in the parking lot, so I assume that they were open for business. But how their customers were able to get into the building to do any business, I will never figure out.

Please welcome back to the blog...

...my buddy Wide Lawns, whom I've been following for a couple of years now. I got crotchety and de-blogrolled her a while back when she overhauled her blog and changed its focus significantly, but she is a fabulous writer and she has won me back. Check her out.

Chapter 37, wherein I gross myself out.

So, for the last couple of weeks, I have watched as hives on my leg grew larger and larger. They started out as two distinct red weals, not unlike the ones I had on the same leg during my chemo (Taxol) days. But then they got a little bigger and developed a red, raised ring around each with a paler center. I figured that I must be having a reaction to Tamoxifen, as "rash" is listed under possible severe reactions. I also suspected the raspberries and strawberries I've been eating with abandon, which have never caused problems before, but which are suspect fruit nonetheless.

Today, after determining that the spots were, in fact, getting larger and not fading away, I began to think that I ought to do something about them. First, I called my oncologist's office, and we discussed the possibility of my stopping the Tamoxifen for a week to see if what I had been calling a rash went away. Then, I went to see my healing coach (also an RN), who took one look and said, "That is not a rash. You need to stop diagnosing yourself and go to urgent care. Those look like bites, and they could be tick bites." Next, I had an appointment with my physical therapist, who also weighed in: "You've been having a lot of medications; you should see your oncologist and make sure it's nothing to do with those." So, I hiked across the hospital campus to my oncologist's office - which was, strangely and fortuitously, completely empty - and asked to see the nurse. The nurse took a look and got the NP, who took a look and said, "Tick bite. Go to urgent care." (They also reassured me that Lyme Disease would be easily treated since it had only been a couple of weeks since the red spots had shown up.)

I drove directly to urgent care and hung around until they opened. The nurse took one look and said...

...

..."ringworm."

UGH.

Disgusting.

And also, completely unexpected.

The doctor also took one look and said, "ringworm," though the ringworm test failed to show evidence of ringworm. So we did a Lyme Disease test, just to be sure. I expect a phone call in the next day or so with those results.

Meanwhile, I'm not allowing to go in the public pools (found this out a bit late, as I'd been in several over the last week and a half) until this clears up, and Mr. P. just had to wash the bed linens (for the second time this week - there was another vengeance cat pee recently).

At least it sounds like ringworm isn't actually a *worm*, which makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing. *shudder*

The MJ Furor.

Seriously, this is bizarre. The fan frenzy surrounding Michael Jackson's death is turning friend against friend. One of my Facebook friends has been defriended by one of *her* Facebook friends - and called a "douchebag" - for not liking Michael Jackson. I have a suspicion that this is not an isolated incident.

I also think it's odd that we are surprised by the internet and Twitter traffic his death has caused. This is what happens when an icon dies. Had Twitter been around when Princess Diana died, it would have happened then, as well. Further, while I am in agreement with the lamentations about the state of journalism and of America's attention span as evidenced by the media focus on Michael Jackson rather than, say, Iran, I also don't think this is anything new. Has there been any noteworthy media coverage on the Congo, lately? No? Thought not. At least in this case, there is a particular news item that is overwhelming other news stories, and it is not simply that America doesn't give a shit.

Guest Blogging on Feministe!

Wow, I am so excited - I was invited to guest blog at Feministe this summer! I will let you all know when this will be (now I have to think of something to write about...).

PSA: Stop Using Zicam

I am a huge fan of Zicam, but I will now stop using it. Click for full statement:

FDA NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: June 16, 2009

Media Inquiries: Siobhan DeLancey, 301-796-4668, siobhan.delancey@fda.hhs.gov
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

FDA Advises Consumers Not To Use Certain Zicam Cold Remedies
Intranasal Zinc Product Linked to Loss of Sense of Smell
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today advised consumers to stop using three products marketed over-the-counter as cold remedies because they are associated with the loss of sense of smell (anosmia). Anosmia may be long-lasting or permanent.

The products are:
--Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel
--Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs
--Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, Kids Size (a discontinued product)

The FDA has received more than 130 reports of loss of sense of smell associated with the use of these three Zicam products. In these reports, many people who experienced a loss of smell said the condition occurred with the first dose; others reported a loss of the sense of smell after multiple uses of the products.

Raychel.

This is a reminder that same-sex marriage is not the only, or even the most important, battle.

ETA: I am unable to confirm that the murder actually happened; there is apparently some suspicion that this is a hoax.

Fat and food politics for breast cancer survivors.

I went to a sort of "spa day" yesterday that was held by my onc's office. It was lovely to have a positive, confidence-building experience like that with other survivors - we had healing touch sessions, massage, tai chi, etc. - but I am really rankled by the way that the issues of food and weight were handled. The nutritionist spoke in very vague ways about food, listing certain foods that had particular anti-cancer properties. That was helpful. What was not helpful was the following:

Telling a room of women of all shapes and sizes to "be as lean as possible without being underweight," which is a recommendation of the American Cancer Society. Here's the problem with that. The research on diets tells us that they don't work - including Weight Watchers. The vast majority - over 90% - of dieters (including Weight Watchers) gain all the weight back, plus more, within five years. Meanwhile, the stress on your body and heart of gaining and losing and gaining and losing weight is phenomenal. Heart disease is (I think?) the leading cause of death among women. Something to keep in mind.

Moreover, telling anxious women to lose weight (the nutritionist was rail-thin) without giving them some real guidelines for how to eat healthily and exercise sufficiently is just mean. And further telling them that the recommendation for daily exercise is 60-90 minutes a day is insane. How many of us would ever be able to do that? Most people would say, "I can't even come close to that - I give up." Further, it was unclear what she meant by "exercise," since one of the suggested activities to count into that 60-90 minutes was GARDENING. She also said that walking around in the office counted into that. So I think that the actual recommendation is for 60-90 minutes of ACTIVITY, and 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. But she was extremely vague and did not clarify this when asked. Perhaps she didn't know.

Finally, the food at this event was typical, midwestern lunch food - white bread, chicken, cheeses, green salad, and several pasta or other salads, with cake and brownies for dessert. How about using this as an opportunity to share whole foods and vegetables that women may be unfamiliar with? How about showing how delicious eating an anti-cancer diet can be?

What I came away with after her presentation were the (false) ideas that gardening is an aerobic activity; that Kosher meat is no different than conventional meat; that sugar is fine to eat in moderation (without any mention of paying attention to when you eat it and with what). I'm frustrated for the women there who are going to take this as true because the woman who said it has a lot of fancy certifications.

Working for Water.

I just read this extraordinarily moving piece, and I wanted to share it with all of you:
"The Constant Potter".

Um, what should I call this? Celebrity news fail?

The sentences in italics appear in the article as clickable links for more information. This is so blatantly bizarre that I will just leave you to it:

Kelly Clarkson: I'm Tired of Hearing "the Fat Joke"Us Magazine - June 5, 2009 6:07 AM PDT

Kelly Clarkson says she's tired of being bullied over her weight.

"For seven years it's been happening. It's like, 'OK cool, the fat joke,'" she said during an interview with 2Day FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show in Australia.

Look back at the weight ups and downs of your favorite Idol stars!

Despite the taunts, the American Idol champ says, "I love my body. I'm very much OK with it. I don't think artists are ever the ones who have the problem with their weight, it is other people."

See stars who underwent dramatic weight losses

Clarkson has also come under scrutiny over her sexuality. She says she doesn't care if people think she is gay.

Look back at the most controversial Idol contestants of all time
Her only gripe?

"The rumors are not helping me on the dating front!" she said. "I prefer the boys. I'm extremely flattered when I do get hit on by girls, and I think it's hot, but I'm not into it. I like boys."

Check out 20 unforgettable moments from this year's American Idol finale

She said she's in no rush to find Mr. Right.

"I'm only 27, not 40 and still single!" she said. "I enjoy being single, I love work and I think people are so passive with relationships and I'm not that person."

See which Idol stars have gotten married or had babies.

Added Clarkson, "I'm an extremist, I'm either in a relationship or I'm not. I'm honest about it and I'll tell people, it's just there's nothing to tell. I have a very good life."

Hell and back, and integration.

In Reinventing Eve, Kim Chernik writes about the brave women who descend into Hel (one "l") and return (they wear a Hel-met - no kidding). In Surfacing, Margaret Atwood's main character "dies" and spends time in a world of the dead before coming back to her life, reborn.

It occurred to me today that I've been approaching living after cancer, living under the threat of cancer, all wrong.

I got a phone call this afternoon from my oncologist's office. When I heard, "This is Dr. X's office," my immediate impulse was to panic. 'Why could they possibly be calling me? They never do that. The only reason they could be calling now is to tell me that something is very, very wrong - right?'

In fact, they were calling to invite me to a special retreat for breast cancer and ovarian cancer survivors - food, massage, tai chi, and speakers on survivorship. All in all, a lovely day.

But the phone call still made the contents of my stomach sour. Thinking about cancer leads me down a path I don't want to go, and so I've tried to pretend it never happened - yes, I have these scars, but really, it's just a misunderstanding. Yes, I take these pills, but I am healthy, damn it. I hide from it and feel great, but every single time - *every* time - I am caught out by a doctor appointment, a change in treatment, a new celebrity who has been diagnosed, or, most recently, a new feature film about someone with cancer - I panic.

I'm tired of panicking. I feel like an animal that has been abused. I am cringing already, before the loud noise and the kick.

I think the problem is that I need to integrate this experience, somehow. I need to learn how to live with this in a way that isn't fearful, but that doesn't erase it, either.

So, despite my gut instinct to run screaming from anything pink, from anything at all suggestive of cancer, I think I will go to this retreat and try to figure out how to place these two worlds together and move forward.

For those of you who are thinking it's been a long time since I've blogged about cat pee...

...guess what? One of the cats peed on the bed yesterday. As always, we don't know why. We suspect it is the same old recurrent problem, which her thyroid medication has seemed to help until now. However, since we spent much of Saturday afternoon outside with the neighbors, where the cats could hear and see us but couldn't be with us, it is always possible that this was a vengeance pee.

I keep thinking that I wish she could talk so that she could tell us, but it occurs to me that, cats being cats, being able to talk would not solve the problem. I'm sure she would either refuse to speak or else hurl Elizabethan curses at me. And if it *is* health related, she would be highly indignant at my inquiries as to the state of her bladder.

If you call yourself "pro-life" and you aren't protesting violence against clinics, then your name is a lie.

It is not terribly surprising, though it is very frightening and very sad, that yet another doctor who provided women with safe and legal abortions has been gunned down by the so-called "pro-life" movement. There are a lot of people who call themselves "pro-life" and who genuinely believe in protecting all human life; these people very often do not push to hinder women's access to abortion or to legislate against it because they understand that women have always had abortions, whether they've been safe or not, and that women will continue to have abortions even if abortion is outlawed - in which case, many women will have lasting health problems and many will die. These truly pro-life people also recognize that the business of terminating a pregnancy, no matter how much it may trouble them, is only *their* business if it is *their* pregnancy.

But reproductive rights aside, what do you call a movement that knows its members are actively targeting and commiting acts of intimidation and violence upon those it opposes? Certainly not "pro-life." Video-taping Planned Parenthood workers and putting the license plate numbers of Planned Parenthood clients on the internet is intimidation with the threat of violence. Driving cars into clinics (which was, believe it or not, defended as a "non-violent protest"), shooting doctors, and other clinic violence is more extreme, but such acts are on the same spectrum of behavior aimed at forcing someone else to behave as you would wish them to.

If I sound a little less diplomatic than I might normally sound, it's because I am furious that people are still being told by their movement and their "churches" that pretend to honor God that violence is an acceptable response. And any members of this movement or these "churches" who do not actively and without qualification oppose such actions are part of the problem, and the blood is on their hands. This just confirms what many of us already knew: for many of these people, life is not the issue. The issue is control.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Leslee Unruh, Randall Terry, and others.

Are we back here again?

Today, I was talking with Lesbian Mom A on the playground after school. Lesbian Mom B asked me if my family was a two-mom family. I said, "no." She asked if I was a single mom. I said, "no - I have a partner, who is male." "Oh," she said, because there was a "lesbian party" this past weekend that presumably I would have been invited to had I been a lesbian mom and had the Lesbian Mom Club known who I was. And I felt a little bit like this would have been the time to say, "but I'm bi!" except that it would have felt a little bit like asking the popular kid, who hasn't invited you to her birthday party, if you can come to the party. (Also, I couldn't process where she was going quite fast enough, so that we were past it before I figured out what was going on.)

I think it's great that some of the lesbian moms at this school have gotten together as a group for support and friendship, and I don't think that all lesbian gatherings must include Bs or Ts or Gs, necessarily, but when I first moved here, I was delirious at the notion of finding some LGBT parenting community. Instead, I found The Lesbian Mom Club - which, it seems, does not even include all the lesbian moms - it seems to be a club for the cool and popular. And, on top of this, it's totally backchannel - there's no mention of the group in the weekly announcements that come home from school, so either you are invited to take part or you're not.

So, instead, I'm finding my little community one person at a time, and I guess I'm a little resentful that in 2009 we are still doing the Lesbian Club thing and not thinking about what other LGBT folks - and allies - might be lingering around the outside of the playground, wanting to come in and be part of the community.

Is this true, or what?

Read this.

It is decided (I think).

I will be teaching Eclipse in my intro Women's Studies course next spring. I think the feminist criticism that I have read of the series - that Bella has no real character, that the gender roles are fairly pathetic, that Native Americans are used in a way that is fairly disrespectful to them as people and also fairly stereotypical, the clear messages re. abstinence and the eroticization of same, and a whole bunch of other things that I won't get into now because I don't want to post too man spoilers - is dead on. Still, I finished reading the series this afternoon and then spent an hour going back and re-reading parts of the novel I'd just finished. Yes, I rolled my eyes many, many times during my reading, but yes, it is good enough that I will go back and read it again, and I no longer have any qualms about having just shelled out $40 to buy the last two books in hardcover.

I am really looking forward to classroom discussion next year. There is a lot to sift through. By then, the second movie should have come out, so my class will be able to watch Twilight and New Moon before moving on to the third novel, which is, in my opinion, the best of the four (and also the one that is probably best suited for discussion in a classroom, just because there is a lot more going on, plotwise and in terms of character development, than happens in the other books).

A pretty good representation of "access".

I had three thoughts when I saw this.

First, I thought, "this is why even a cursory knowledge of physics is important."

Second, I thought, "this is why people with disabilities should be included in every aspect of construction planning."

And third, I thought, "this probably represents the state of affairs re. disability access in the U.S. fairly accurately."

Appropriate behavior of medical personnel.

I find it fascinating to observe how the medical staff relate to me as a patient. This week, I've had an interesting experience that I'm trying to figure out how to handle.

In the radiation treatment room, there is a small dressing area, around which one could, if one wanted, pull a privacy curtain. There are also gowns and towels. Because I only need to take off my clothes from the waist up, I never bother with any of this. I probably would if I still had the right breast, but since I don't, and since I'm going to walk 12 feet and then open the gown and remove the towel, it seems silly and actually somewhat complicated - I'd have to wrap and clutch or tie the gown, or hold the towel in place while hopping up on the table. I don't know if the female personnel have ever felt uncomfortable with this, but they are always busy doing whatever it is they do - readying the table for the next patient or for me - while I am getting dressed/undressed.

But lately, there is a new radiation therapist, and he is a man. That's not really an issue for me - but he's a man who seems to be in need of a clue.

The first time he was there when I was there, he came into the room after I was already on the table. While I was getting dressed, he turned away to protect my privacy. The second time, when I arrived, the privacy curtain had been partly pulled. I took this to be a reflection of the presence of the male therapist, and I thought about it, and I thought about my usual procedure, and I decided that maybe I needed to mention what would otherwise be an elephant in the room. So, I said to him, "Look, I really don't bother with the gown/towel. I hope that won't make you feel uncomfortable." He seemed surprised, and said, "Oh! Well, what about how you feel?" I said, "There's nothing there, so I feel fine about it."

Now, I can understand that this might not be how the average patient reacts, and I can also understand that he might still have felt uncomfortable, but from my perspective, at this point, this falls into the category of Not My Problem.

The reason I mention this is because I am wondering if this had anything to do with what happened next.

At the end of my treatment, the table I have been lying on, which has been raised, needs to be lowered so that I can climb down. I was lying on my back, and had brought my arms down across my chest, resting them while I waited to be fully lowered. And, as the table was moving, this therapist was holding onto the side of it in such a way that his bare forearm was touching my bare arm. It was not a case of "oops, sorry, didn't mean to brush against you." It was a constant presence. And it felt deliberate. It felt as if perhaps he thought it was a buddy thing - or a way to show dominance. I really don't know what it meant or why he did it, but I do know that he was aware of it, because we both glanced down to see that our arms were touching. It was not an inappropriate touch in that it was not sexual, but it seemed inappropriate for him to be touching me at all. I didn't fully get this until later - at the time, I was too busy thinking, "hmm, this seems odd," to react.

Now, as a patient, I get handled a lot. Some of this handling is unpleasant, such as when someone incompetent is drawing blood or taking my blood pressure. Much of it, fortunately - because this is certainly not the case for everyone - has been gentle and/or generally unremarkable. But never, with the exception of one clear violation years ago, has it been this kind of unnecessary touching.

There is no reason to touch the patient, particularly a patient in any stage of undress, unless it is medically necessary.

The next day, this same therapist leaned over me - not once, but two or three times - to check a measurement. He was standing on my right side and needed to lean over to see the measurement, but in doing so, he leaned ON me, not just brushing my body but actually LEANING on me.

At best, this seems to show disregard for me as a patient, wouldn't you say?

But there's more. I have a pair of wire earrings; these were sitting on top of my clothes on the bench. He saw them and complimented them, and remarked that he could probably make them himself. Hey - he probably could. I'm not offended by that. But he said this while holding them. He picked up my earrings without asking. Further, I found out today that - still without asking or even notifying me - he took one and made a photocopy of it while I was on the table with my head stuck facing the other direction. His plan, another therapist told me today, is to try to make a pair of earrings like mine.

More power to him. Had he asked me if he could photocopy the earring, I would have said sure. But he didn't - and so now, I think I will have to speak with his supervisor about the lack of respect and of good judgment this therapist has showed to me as a patient.

The skin-care regimen.

According to my radiation oncologist, a new study has suggested that wearing deodorant/anti-perspirant is not an issue for radiation treatment (it used to be standard, I think, to tell patients not to use it if the underarm area was in the treatment field). Despite this, I have not been using it under my left arm; I think the sweat glands are not operating, anyway, which they told me would happen as a result of the radiation (wow - that means I will save 50% on my deodorant costs!).

At the beginning of treatment, I was given a special skin care cream (I think it's actually called "Special Skin Care Cream") to put on the irradiated area 4-5 times per day. Once my skin started to feel irritated, they gave me a more complicated regimen. Now, I put the cream on 2-3 times per day, and at night, I apply Pro-Shield (the same exact stuff I used to put on Bean to deal with diaper rash!), which is a sticky substance that you don't rub in. On top of the Pro-Shield, I put Adaptic strips, which are gauze strips that have been treated with some kind of greasy substance (feels a little like Vaseline). Then, on top of these, I put plain gauze bandages (not the kind that stick on). To keep all of this in place, I put on a tight-fitting tank top, which I then cover with a t-shirt to protect my sheets from all of these sticky, greasy substances.

It seems to work pretty well. It takes any sting out, and I think that the redness, which I notice is a bit more pronounced following treatment, seems to fade a bit by the next morning.

However, the left side of my chest and underarm is looking pretty ravaged. The skin seems to still be healthy - it's not like a bad sunburn where there's blistering and peeling, though I suppose that may come later - but many of the hair follicles have darkened, so I have basically a large red patch within which there are tons of darker little dots.

I do also feel the effects of the radiation internally; there is a tightening and some loss of range of motion, and some soreness (this is more occasional than constant). It's not permanent, but I'll need to stretch to get the range of motion back.

But only eight more to go!

(Edited to add: "ravaged" is a strong word to describe my skin. It's really not that bad. I think it might look startling to someone who was seeing it for the first time, but since I've been watching it gradually, it doesn't look so bad to me.)

All about radiation therapy.

I have about 11 treatments left. I am getting red and oddly spotted. However, I'm still feeling pretty comfortable. I've been busy with work and neglecting my blog, but it occurred to me that I hadn't written about the radiation yet.

So, let me walk you through this process. First of all, a lot of people have asked me if I've felt sick from the radiation. No. The reason is that they are not irradiating my stomach. (I don't know if you automatically feel sick if your stomach is the target field - it probably also depends on the dose you are getting.) I've been going for about 4 weeks now, and so far, I feel fine. I have experienced some tiredness, but as I've also been burning the midnight oil a little too much, I'm not sure the tiredness is related to the radiation. Mostly what I notice in terms of this is 1) sleepiness, which is different from fatigue and which suggests to me that I need to get more rest, and 2) moments of slight fatigue, where I might decide not to stop off at the grocery store on the way home because I don't have the energy for that. This usually occurs at the end of the day, and it's not much different from my usual energy level at the end of the day.

I'll tell you more about how my skin has reacted in a separate post. I want to tell you more about how they actually do this.

First, they make a mold for you to lie in when you're on the table getting the radiation therapy; this ensures that you are in exactly the same position each time. I had no idea that this was such an exact science, but it really is, so being in the exact same position each time is important. I had to lie back on what looked like a plastic pillowcase containing some of those little beads that are used in certain stuffed toys and pillows. I put both arms above my head and turned my head to the side, and then they filled the pillowcase with air and moved the beads around so that it formed a supportive mold. We played around with this until they found one that was comfortable, and then the mold hardened; each day, when I go in for my treatment, they pull my mold out from its shelf and put it on the table for me.

Second, they take an exhausting number of pictures - a CT scan and x-rays. I say "exhausting" because that's what it is - I was about 6 weeks out from surgery, so I still had not gotten back my full range of motion, and it was uncomfortable (not awful) to have my left arm in that position. I had to lie still for an hour, so they didn't start treatment until the next day. They take the pictures and scans so that they can be sure you are in - all together now - exactly the same position each time. They also gave me a dot tattoo on each side and on my chest, which are further used to line me up each day. I didn't know these were coming and felt a little violated by them, particularly the very visible one on my chest, which looks like someone was throwing Sharpies and happened to hit me.

I do what is called "gaited breathing," which means that I hold my breath during the actual radiation therapy. When my lungs expand, the chest wall moves away from my heart, which allows them to prevent my heart from being exposed to the radiation. There are four angles from which the machine delivers radiation; each time lasts from 12 - 35 seconds, depending on the angle (and the temperature - it was really hot and humid the day I had to hold my breath for 35 seconds). If I can't hold my breath, the machine will stop because I will move out of target range. It's pretty cool.

I lie on my back on the table, in my custom mold, with a cushion under my knees. The machine fascinates me - it revolves around me to get the different angles. The whole thing takes about 10-20 minutes as long as I am in the correct position and they don't need additional pictures. They do take x-rays, I think once a week, to ensure that I am in - guess what? - exactly the same position. Last week, I was off by 4 millimeters because my lungs had gotten stronger from all the breath holding and so they needed to adjust my position. That took about an hour. While it was more comfortable than the initial session of picture-taking, I did get a crick in my neck from being still for so long (they gave me a stretching break about halfway through).

Every other day, they use what I think is called a "bolus" - this is a packet of something that they lay across my chest that draws the radiation to the scar.

There is a little curtain that you can pull for privacy, and a gown you can put on and a towel you can cover yourself with (you have to remove clothing from the area that is being treated). I don't bother with any of these things. I think that this threw the therapists, at first, but what's the point? It seems like false modesty, though I appreciate that this is available for those patients who need/want it.

End of Part I.

"Mother" is not code for "wife".

On my drive home today, I was alternating between listening to Madonna's "Hung Up" for the umpteenth time (literally, because I keep playing that track over and over whenever I drive anywhere these days) and listening to the radio. Just as I was getting close to my exit, the radio djs read a letter from a self-proclaimed "mistress" who wanted to know if mistresses had any rights on Mother's Day. This woman had been seeing a married man for over a year and had had a baby by him, and she felt that she deserved some respect on Mother's Day and some of his time.

The response that I heard - I didn't listen for long, because I was close to home - was fairly predictable: men and women were FURIOUS at this woman and went on at some length to vent their spleen at her lack of self-respect (for getting involved with a married man) and so forth. The djs, of course, were supporting all of this.

I didn't have the stomach or the time to listen further, but I did briefly consider calling or writing in. If I had done, here's what I would have said:

Interestingly, none of your listeners seem to have heard the part where this woman mentioned that she is a *mother*. The holiday is Mother's Day - not Wives' Day. The fact that someone is a wife is not what entitles them to be celebrated on Mother's Day; the fact that someone is a girlfriend or a mistress has nothing to do with what kind of mother they are. We don't even qualify what kind of mother one has to be in order to get a card or flowers or a little attention. There are no "For a tolerable Mother" cards by Hallmark. All that is necessary for participation is that one has a child.

I'm also fascinated that what pissed off your callers was that this mother wanted to be recognized on Mother's Day and not that the man in question had cheated on his wife and was continuing to do so. For all of their righteous indignation about self-respect and responsibility, none of your callers felt it was important for the child of the mistress to be with his/her mother AND father on a holiday, and no one mentioned the negative impact on the children in both families that such a father might have. No one wondered if that father was paying any kind of child support or clucked their tongues about the model he was setting for his children. No, it was easier to deny the mistress' motherhood; if it was even remembered, it was conveniently minimized so that she could be more easily condemned.

So, really, your listeners, like society at large, don't actually care about mothers, not even on Mother's Day.

You would think that, by now, I would have come up with a response.

Today, someone asked me if I was going to be ok. Last week, someone asked me what my prognosis was.

I know this is coming out of a place of concern, but what if my prognosis sucked? Do they think I would want to talk about it in the middle of the meeting (both of these instances occurred at meetings)? Or that I would want to share this personal information in the first place?

It has been suggested to me that I could say - with a smile - something like, "I appreciate your concern; you know, I just don't find it helpful to even think about questions like that."

But I wish I could come up with something that would also be funny. I suggested to a friend, who gets asked a lot about how she lost her leg, that next time, she should respond as follows:

Person: (Noticing missing leg) "How'd you lose your leg?"

My Friend: (Blank look...then, looks down; aggravated expression crosses face)
"Crap! I must have left it at the library just now! Gotta go!" (leaves)

I suppose this sort of thing is more easily done with strangers.

667th post.

Too bad I didn't notice that the last one was the 666th, because then I would have had something to write about.

* All I can think about right now is that the smell of the freshly-cleaned catbox is nauseating. I don't know if I'm reacting to the smell of the Clorox or if Mr. P. did not do a thorough enough cleaning job. And the box is located unfortunately close to my desk.

* I have before me a pile of grading. I am making some headway. However, the fact that I have no room of my own makes grading at home difficult, particularly if anyone wants to use the living room or dining room, watch t.v., or, as so often happens, bang on all surfaces with large, inflatable, squeaky hammers that one has acquired at various fairs. At least certain persons with an affinity for such activities are currently in school.

* I wonder if anyone else enjoys shredding as much as I do? I have a little desktop shredder that is only supposed to go for two minutes at a time, so it's taken me months, but in about five minutes, I will be all caught up on my shredding. I love it. Shredding stuff makes me feel super-organized and about as OCD as it is possible to be. At this point, I am writing my social security number down on random pieces of paper so that I can shred them. Well, not quite. But almost.

Mother's Day Redux.

I got this comment from A Little Gnocchi on my 2007 Mother's Day post:
"Well it is 2009 and your original post was 2007. I found it on page 3 of a Google search "alternative mother's day". The first page of the google search was all different types of flowers...I was looking for other stuff like these Diaper Drives for Mother's Day The focus of both drives being to help out families who are struggling with some of the basics that cost too bloody much: diapers for the young, tampons & pads for women, incontinence pads for the elderly or infirm."

And with that public service announcement, here, again, is Why I Hate Mother's Day.

Overheard at a 7-year-old's birthday party.

A 7-year-old guest, anxiously asking the father of the birthday boy: "Is it ok if someone farts in here?"

New and improved hugs.

I have it on good authority that hugging me is better now that there aren't annoying boobs in the way. The hugs are better from this side of the equation, as well. If you've hugged me both before and after, feel free to weigh in on this, ahem, *weighty* issue, but I'm going to assume that the hugs now are an improvement over the old ones.

Before I go to sleep and forget it all...

because Twilight, the movie, is rather forgettable...

* Bella comes across, not as the woman in the book who is overcome by Edward's presence, but as simply, annoyingly, tongue-tied. This very quickly becomes painful to watch.

* None of the vampires, with the exception of Edward (barely) and Alice, look like I'd imagined them. This would be fine except that they mostly looked like those black and white postcards that add tint to blond hair and red lips. Not a good look, especially for Dr. Cullen. (Mr. P says: "Bela Lugosi meets Pleasantville.")

* The tree-climbing scene was stupid.

* The book, overall, doesn't translate well to the screen (because there's so little plot), so actually, I have to give the director and screenwriters credit for getting as far as they did with it.

* The scary vampires weren't scary (although all the vampires do seem to have scary hair). The filmmakers need to watch 30 Days of Night.

* The film did preserve some of the passion of the novel, but only some of it.

* I do not have a feminist analysis yet. I know there is a battle raging around this book, but so far, I've gotten as far as noticing the eroticization of abstinence (which, again, plays out much, much better in print than on screen). I also noticed that Bella's girlfriends pretty much disappear whenever any guy is around, and that's kind of sad - the only person she really connects with in the whole story is Edward. On the one hand - ugh. On the other hand - this makes both of them loners who find someone special in each other.

* The music was all wrong. Whiny, nasally boy "alternative" singers?! Really? A little goth would have gone a long way. It didn't have to be Bauhaus. Even Evanescence would have worked.

* I do like the complete reinvention of vampire legend. Why should Anne Rice have a patent? The book was pretty creative in playing with exiting vampirology, like the idea of what happens when they go out in the sunlight.

* I suppose I should be grateful that Edward doesn't morph into a Buffy vampire, at least.

* Despite all of this, I'm probably hooked for the series.

Things Annoying Me Today.

1) The association of "trans" with "men" - not as in "transmen," but as in the idea that a transgendered person must, of course, be male. As in, 'oh, no, transgendered men are taking over Women's Studies!' As in, 'allowing trans people to use public bathrooms is the same thing as allowing men to use women's rest rooms!' What drugs is the internet taking that we are still having such difficulty with these issues?

2) That I have not, as I thought I might, gotten up early and finished all my grading.

3) That there is nothing good on t.v.

Guest post by Angry Lesbian Bride on getting married in Iowa.

Dear Readers in Same-Sex Relationships,
If you are thinking of heading over to Iowa to get hitched, read this first.
PF

My wife and I were having our usual, lazy type of Saturday morning (possibly early afternoon) on April 4, 2009. We had slept to the point of sloth and risen only to cook and eat a huge breakfast together (hash browns, lattes, cheeseomelets and bacon). After we ate, I ventured out to get the newspaper. When I opened it, I did a little jig of happiness. My partner (let's call her B) now describes it as a victory dance/lap around the house in my bathrobe. I would maintain that she is exaggerating, but I do have a tendency to giddiness, especially when the happy event I'm experiencing is unexpected.

Just to add some perspective, it WAS love at first sight when we met in May of 2007. Just over a year later, on June 14, 2008, we held a modest, non-legal wedding in a park in Minneapolis. We had a huge number of attendants because all of our sisters and most of my wife's nieces were in our ceremony. I think our guests just barely outnumbered our wedding party, actually, but it was beautiful and perfect and we loved it. Our cake pretty much melted, but that's the only thing that really went wrong. Just in case you are wondering if you missed a court decision/law change, gay marriage is not legal in Minnesota. We live in South Dakota, so it really doesn't matter (legally) what we do or where, since the constitution here was (barely) changed by popular vote in 2006 to ban same-sex marriage, even though there was already a law banning it. I guess they just really, really wanted to be sure no recently-married gay or lesbian couples would be embracing and kissing on the courthouse steps in Sioux Falls.

What state you live in matters a great deal because in 1996, Bill Clinton signed into law the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), allowing states to ban same-sex marriages and to refuse to recognize such marriages performed elsewhere. I am curious to know if a legal gay marriage performed in, say, Connecticut, is recognized right next door in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is also legal, but no one seems to know and I'm betting it's not because of DOMA.

Clearly, however, my wife and I don't care about DOMA or anything else (although we do know we need to set up legal protections for each other and our theoretical children, especially when you consider that my parents are both homophobic lawyers). We choose to call our wedding a wedding and our life together a marriage, even though it has no legal standing anywhere. We have already loosely planned to take vacations/elope in the various states that it is possible, so when the state right next door suddenly allowed it, I hopped to attention and started planning right away, on the floor of our living room on April 4.

I thought it would be fun to write a queer guide to marriage in Iowa for out-of-staters like myself. Every state handles marriage differently, so you have to research a little bit to make it happen. I've already done that for Iowa, so why not share and help others out?

I thought "what could go wrong? It's the LAW. The SUPREME COURT of Iowa said so." I became the excited, jumping-up-and-down instant-wedding planner. B is naturally more cautious, and warned me from the beginning that there were bound to be problems.

I hope this isn't too tedious, but I'm just going to walk you through the whole thing so far.

We decided to get married in Des Moines, since it's the capital city and only 4 hours away by car. Also, if anyone we knew wanted to fly in, it would be easier for them there. I already had May 1 off as a vacation day. B thought she could get it off. We would leave in the morning in time to pick up our license and get married on Saturday, May 2, which is pretty much as soon as possible in the circumstances.

I googled LGBT organizations in Des Moines and found one that had a link to a wedding chapel.

I called the chapel and talked to the owner. We talked about the package we wanted, where the chapel is, email addresses, when I should call again to finalize, and what number to call on Monday to get the legal ball rolling. Elated, I hung up. B and I started sussing out other details, etc.

I called the Polk Co. Recorder on Monday, 4/6, to make sure that my Googled information was correct and that we had all of our ducks in a row. I explained the situation to the friendly woman on the phone and she put me on hold to check her information. I had the impression that I was her first same-sex questioner. After a brief time on hold, she told me:
-There is a three-day waiting period once the license is issued before it becomes valid.
-Don't forget your $35 check to us.
-Go ahead and fill out the application in front of a notary with your one witness as soon as possible. She would put it in the mail that day.
-Call on the 24th to see if that is the day it will issue. She had heard it could also be the 27th because of furloughs. (It turned out to be the 27th.)
-Pick up by 5pm on Friday, May 1, for your planned May 2 wedding.

We received, signed and sent back our contract for the wedding with the chapel. It's a 1/2 hour elopement package and we will probably have to pay for two witnesses, since no one we know lives in the area.

A few days later, we had our first possible roadblock when B found out that she couldn't get May 1 off from work. We emailed the officiant to see if she would be willing to pick up our license. She said she would, but I should let the recorder know so that they would allow it.

I called the Polk Co. Recorder on the 13th to check on the process and make sure our officiant could pick up our license for us. I spoke to the same, helpful woman as before. She was apologetic and told me that it might be sent back, since they were now being told, just as that afternoon, actually, that they were not to keep applications by same-sex couples that arrived before the 27th. I hoped that I concealed my dismay and disgust, and pointed out that I had been told, specifically, that it would be held. She apologized again. I asked for her name to make sure that, if I called again, I could speak to the same person, and she told me. She also said I could call the next day and speak to her supervisor. I said I would be on a business trip, but that I might be able to squeeze it in. After I got off the phone, I emailed the owner of the chapel and asked if, through no fault of our own, we couldn't marry on May 2, we could change our date without losing our non-refundable deposit. She said that would be no problem, which at least kept me from feeling that the recorder's office potentially owes us $150.

About 20 minutes later, a strange thing happened. My phone rang, and it was the same woman from the recorder's office, apologizing profusely and saying that, since I had called the week before and been told that she would hold our application, she would still hold it. In effect, making an exception for us. She clearly felt really bad about upsetting me before. (I did not yell, scream, or cry, but my voice may have wavered slightly.) I said a little prayer to the Midwestern Gods of Tact, Thoroughness and Reason, and thanked her, making a note of the fact that she told me to call again on the 27th and check on things. She also said it was fine to have our officiant pick up our license.

We booked the hotel suggested by the chapel owner. It was a good rate and a convenient location at a national chain hotel. The lady on the phone congratulated me and sounded really pleased when I told her we were eloping lesbians.

Yesterday, I was riding in a car on the way home from a conference (my business trip). I was with three colleagues. My cell phone rang, it was a woman from the Polk Co. Recorder's office. She is the supervisor of the woman I spoke to the first three times. I think she was the one calling me because her subordinate was afraid of me either yelling or crying. She said that they had just been informed that applications made before the 27th might not be considered valid later, so she is going to return our previous application and payment so that we can do it again. I would like to say that I kept my cool, but I burst into tears. I'm crying again thinking about it. I wanted to be mad about it, but both women from that office have been so thoroughly midwestern and kind that I can't hold a single drop of ire for them. We talked for a few more minutes, trying to figure out if there was a way to beat the three-day waiting period and still get married on May 2, but it isn't possible unless we manage to have everything signed before the post office closes on the 27th and that isn't possible because B works until about 5 without a lunch break and anyway how would I find a notary who works that late? The waiting period can be waived, but we would have to find a judge who would do it and appear in court during the week, which isn't possible since we both work full-time jobs.

One of my colleagues handed me a tissue as I tried to get my snivels under control and txt B about the situation. I realized that the only thing worse than a 6-hour car ride is one that includes a bawling co-worker, so I pulled myself together. The woman who handed me a tissue told me that she was a notary and she would do anything she could to help us. We talked about logistics, but I still can't find a way, short of time travel, to make May 2 work. I complained a little to B on the phone and she pointed out how little it matters that it be that particular day.

I tried to tell myself that it's not that much different from having your flight changed/delayed during a trip. You're pissed or sad (I tend to run to frustrated tears in these situations) because you had a plan for it to be one way, but it changes, and it's usually not anyone in particular's fault, so you just suck it up and chalk it up to another travel horror story you can tell later. However, as I thought about it on the 5 more hours I had before I got home, I realized that it's not like that, really. First of all, it's way more important, even if it is just symbolic. Also, it's more like if everyone got on the plane and was ready to go, and you got into your seat and did all of your settling in only to be singled out. Told that YOU are the one who cannot go to your destination on the day that you chose. Everyone else who sent in an application for a marriage license in Iowa last week can get married on May 2, just not us.

So, as pointed out in the Iowa Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage:

Child abusers can marry on that day, just not us.

Sexual predators can marry on that day, just not us.

Parents neglecting to provide child support can marry on that day, just not us.

Axe murders can marry on that day, just not us.

Additionally:

Other gay and lesbian couples who live there and can get their application in on the 27th or 28th (assuming they are not too swamped to issue licenses in a timely manner) can marry on that day, just not us. (which I'm cool with)

Now, I'm wondering if I can have the marriage license mailed to us, to spare our officiant a trip. I'm wondering if we should try to pick a new date. June 13 would be nice, since it's only one day off from our first wedding, but I don't want to schedule with the chapel and maybe have to change it later, again. By then, the new rules will have been in effect for about 7 weeks, so all of the bugs should have been worked out. On the other hand, the rules may have been changed again. The ability for same-sex couples to marry, in theory, can't even be challenged in Iowa now without a constitutional amendment, although I'm sure there areplenty of dedicated, homophobic lawyers combing the books looking for a different way to stop us. Fortunately for us, it is not very easy to change the constitution in Iowa. It would take a few years, at least.

Complicating matters is the fact that I'm supposed to hear about a job I applied for on April 27th. Of course, they would be insane not to hire me, since I am SO PERFECT for the job, but I was considering it lucky that two important things might happen in my life on the same day - our first marriage license and my first job in a new field. Now, I'm changing that to thinking that I shouldn't have to suffer disappointment twice, and maybe these hiccups in our wedding plans spell happy, happy news on the job front on that Monday in April. Or maybe I should just stop being so superstitious and grow up already.

I'm calling our officiant tonight, as planned in our first conversation. I emailed her about the problem yesterday. I'm just hoping I can keep from blubbering when I tell her we have to postpone.

Also, a friend of mine is planning her (straight, legal in South Dakota) wedding. I was already fighting slight annoyance that she can do that. Now, I'm afraid that if she starts nattering about her plans, her dress, how she wants us all to dance for her, I may cry or scream at her. It's not her fault at all. She doesn't even know about any of this. It's not my fault, either. I may just have to go lock myself in the bathroom until it passes or stick my fingers in my ears and say "lalalalala". I'm also knitting wedding garters for a childhood friend and my cousin. I'm trying to only put good thoughts into that work, but it's difficult.

Sigh.

Faceblogging.

Plain(s)feminist is shake shake shaking her booty (I dug out all my disco cds and played them while driving around in the car doing errands).

Plain(s)feminist is despairing of ever getting Bean to finish his homework. (Fuck it. I'm going to bed in an hour and a half, and if it's not done, it's not done. (That goes for my own homework, as well.))

Plain(s)feminist is wondering how she can tell if the dark chocolate she bought that tastes good and is clearly more milky than the dark chocolate she bought that doesn't taste as good is still considered "dark chocolate," and who decides, and where the line is drawn.

Plain(s)feminist is things are looking up - Bean has brought his homework into the study and is DOING IT, RIGHT NOW.

Plain(s)feminist is out of ways to procrastinate and needs to plan class for tomorrow...

Spring Cleaning.

This afternoon, I tried on most of my t-shirts and tank tops to see which ones look ok without boobs in them and which ones do not. The verdict:

*My "Got Breastmilk?" tank was too ironic, even for me; I used to get comments when I wore that one, anyway, and I'm not in the mood for the comments that are likely to come if I wear it now.

*Almost all of the pink and white shirts have to go. Because they are so light, and because most of them are designed to fit snugly, they are too revealing of the weird lumpiness near my left armpit. This means I have to give up one of my "This is what a feminist looks like" shirts, my Amnesty International shirt, my "Feminist" shirt, and my "I love my vagina" shirt. (I will admit that I haven't ever actually worn that last one, as it has been difficult to know the occasion that would make that shirt the proper choice of attire.)

*Even though I will probably never wear it again, I am keeping my Jay and Silent Bob t-shirt, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

*There are several shirts that didn't fit before but do now, and these happen to be some of my favorites, including my Dooce shirt and the one my roommate after college designed for her then-girlfriend's band.

(Oh, my god. I think this is the most boring post I've written in the three years I've been blogging. I'm not kidding about Facebook. Is this what it's come to?)

Anyone else feel like Facebook saps their blog creativity?

I feel like I am so busy "liking" and "friending" and trying to be witty in my comments that I have nothing left for my poor blog. I can just imagine what it would be like if I tweeted...

Daniel Zamlen - missing. If you're in the Twin Cities, please help.

The University of St. Thomas is requesting help over the next few days from anyone who is willing to volunteer to search for UST freshman Daniel Zamlen, who has been missing since Sunday. To help, go to room 154 of Murray-Herrick Campus Center on UST's Saint Paul campus, 2115 Summit Ave, between 9am-5pm today, tomorrow, and thru this weekend.

I am so excited - SPEAK! Radical Women of Color Media Collective

I didn't know about this until now, and I'm really excited to order my copy - check out the list of contributors!!

Trans.

I think this is the most intensely I have ever felt my gender and my gender presentation to be at odds. I say this having been mistaken in my youth for a boy, and having gone through a couple of periods (in college and grad school) during which I cut my hair quite short and was often called "sir". The grad school short haircut was a mistake - I had gone in to get a cut and had a disastrous miscommunication with the hairdresser, who cut my hair shorter than it had ever been before. After that haircut, there was a noticeable, confused reaction from people who saw me on the street and couldn't tell whether the close-cropped person in a bulky winter jacket was a man or a woman.

I have been surprised to find that I kind of like my new body, sans breasts. I feel somewhat streamlined. I feel comfortable. I'm still figuring out what clothes to wear - I had finally figured out "what not to wear," and now I need to rethink it all for a new shape - but it's also kind of fun to try on looks I could never wear before.

I've been wearing a lot of earrings and scarves this week, both of which signal my gender to people. The scarves help camouflage the absolute flat plane of my chest - they don't hide it, but I think they make it less obvious. The earrings make my hair look more intentional. Together, they look good, and I've been happy with how I look.

But yesterday, I ran out of clothing options, and I ended up wearing jeans and a fleece hoodie. I forgot to wear earrings. And I realized that I was a walking gender contradiction, at least to some people. I don't pass as a man, and my voice and my movements betray me as a woman, but upon first glance, I am sure that some people would mistake me for a man or would need a second glance to figure me out. Thankfully, I didn't think about this until halfway through the day, so I didn't spend all day worrying about whether or not people were staring at me.

I know that I'm writing about this from a place of privilege. My hair will grow back and it will continue to be a gender indicator that will allow people to easily read me as a woman. Or maybe I will get prosthetics and that will be their cue. Either way, this is a temporary state, but it's one that requires some thought on my part.

(Off-topic: Please welcome David Capogna to the blogroll.)

Teaching blog wars.

I am curious to know if any of you who are teachers have taught about what happened with Seal Press, Jessica Valenti's books, and/or Amanda Marcotte's book. I'm going to be teaching a class that will look at conflicts in feminism/Women's Studies and where the movement/field is headed, and I'm thinking about looking at one or two of these moments. If anyone else has done this, I'd love to hear how you did it.

Facebook Fun.

You know how Facebook will suggest friends for you? Lately, it's been looking like this on my Facebook page:

PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW
Ginormous Asshole
Add as Friend
You and Ginormous Asshole both went to Random High School.

You know what I just realized?

My surgery was eight years to the day from my miscarriage. There has got to be some meaning in that. I don't know what it is, but it seems meaningful to me, and not in a bad way.

The "f-word."

7-year-old Bean has been hounding me for days to tell him what "the f-word" is. Apparently, the issue came up at his afterschool program, where the kids were working on a list of rules. Some of the older kids suggested that not using "the f-word" or "the bad finger" would be good rules; for the littler kids, however, this raised more questions than it answered: a bad finger? What could that mean? And what, on earth, is "the f-word"? (Some guesses: "fart" and "fool.")

So, finally, when he started asking me about it yet again and pleading with me to tell him what it meant, I sat him down.

"Bean," I said, "I'm going to tell you. But this means that I'm treating you like a grown-up, and you need to understand that you can never say this word at school or at afterschool program. If you feel like you want to say this word, you can go in your room by yourself and say it quietly. That's it. Because it is not a nice word."

"Okay," he said, seriously and expectantly.

"The 'f-word' is 'fuck'. Remember how I told you about the man putting his penis in the woman's vagina? That's called 'intercourse,' or sometimes, 'sex'. The word 'fuck' is a very rude way to say that. You might hear me and Daddy saying it sometimes, but it isn't nice and we shouldn't do it. Putting up your middle finger at someone - no, not that way, like this - means 'fuck you.' It is very rude and not nice and we don't ever do that. Okay?"

"Okay," he said, still serious. Then, thoughtfully, "You know, I bet I would've ended up saying it by accident, if I were just fooling around and saying silly words." (In fact, he has.)

So that's where we are. So far, so good.

Lost and Found.

Tenured Radical writes about a stranger returning her lost iPhone; her story reminded me of the time I accidentally left my wallet in a rest stop women's room in South Dakota and got it back - in Omaha, Nebraska - by the end of the day. Here's what happened: I was taking Bean and my parents to the zoo in Omaha, and we were driving from Sioux Falls. When we got to the zoo, I realized that I didn't have my wallet (nor did I have any way to pay for us all to go to the zoo, which became a problem at first because my parents couldn't find their credit cards). I remembered putting the wallet on the window ledge in the large restroom stall where we had stopped on our trip down and called everyone I could think of to try to alert the rest stop staff to check the bathroom. I actually did get through to someone who searched the bathroom twice for me (it turned out to be the wrong rest stop, but anyway), but he couldn't find it. So, I called Mr. P., who had stayed home to work, gave him the task of cancelling all of our credit cards, and resigned myself to having lost the wallet.

About an hour later, I got a call from a good friend, who had gotten a call from a woman who had found my wallet on *her* drive from South Dakota to Nebraska. My friend had recently written me a check, so the woman who found my wallet called the phone number on the check. Fortunately, my friend had my cell phone number and was able to reach me; the woman had told her she would leave the wallet with a ticketing agent at the airport (she was in Omaha to catch a flight). So, when we were done at the zoo, we swung by the airport and picked up my wallet (with everything still inside).

An odd epilogue to this story:
My friend had gotten the name and number of the kind woman, and I called her a week or two later (after she had gotten back from her trip). Unfortunately, the gentleman who answered the phone was somewhat rude - I asked for the woman and he wanted to know who I was and what I wanted, and after I explained, he told me she wasn't home. I asked if I could leave a message, but he seemed confused and surprised that I was calling for this woman. In fact, he sounded a bit like he was trying to be funny, but he ended up exasperating me. I got off the phone and called her again some time later and left a message on her voice mail, thanking her and offering to take her to lunch if she were ever in the area, but I never heard from her.

ANYway. What are *your* unlikely lost and found stories?

Reconstruction thoughts.

First - I don't miss my breasts. I'm not thrilled with the scars, mostly because right now they aren't scars but healing wounds, but I don't miss the breasts themselves. I'm considering not bothering with prosthetics, but I think what will most likely happen is that I'll buy a pair and wear them for special occasions, like dressing up. (This is less because I want to make any kind of political statement about breasts as accessories and more because I am extremely low-maintenance when it comes to my appearance.)

But second - it occurs to me that the only reconstruction options that were discussed with me were for female breasts. I wonder what my options would have been had I asked simply for a flat chest. Would there have been any additional options? Do men with breast cancer have any reconstruction done following surgery? I'm not sure that I would have wanted anything different than what I have now, or that I would have been a candidate for anything else, but it's interesting to think about how breast reconstruction options may or may not be limited due to assumptions about gender.

So, here's the deal.

The chemo didn't kill all of the cancer cells. Specifically, they found cancer cells alive in all of the nodes and the tumors they removed. I don't know exactly what that means, but Beloved Oncologist has been reassuring. Apparently, when you have estrogen-receptive cancer, which I do, the hormone treatments can sometimes work better than the chemo. So we'll hope that that happens in my case. Apparently, we are still talking about curing my cancer, so that's a good thing. And Beloved Doctor Who Diagnosed Me was, as always, very sweet and upbeat and assured me that I was going to be ok.

But I was not really thinking of this (incomplete cancer kill) as a possibility, and now I'm finding it difficult to process. Fortunately, I meet with both Beloved Oncologist and Beloved Healing Coach tomorrow, and I will set up an appointment for next week with Beloved Therapist.

In other news, the drains are out (the second one was removed today), my arm is still quite sore, and my hair is growing back. Oh, and now that they've removed the surgical tape, I can see that I actually have two enormous scars and not just one humongous one.

After seeing Bint's scar pics (see comments on my last post), it's occurred to me that my left scar will probably permanently change color from the radiation. Which is ok - not what I was necessarily hoping for, but something I can get used to. It helped to see hers and to have an idea from that of what mine might look like (which is reason #15 why showing scars is a good thing).

I am home...

...and looking a bit like I've wrestled with a shark, but I'm getting used to my new self. I found that the narcotic pain meds they gave me were more trouble than they were worth (whatever happened to Tylenol #3?), making me nauseated, so I stopped taking them soon after the surgery, which was fine, as everything was numb enough from the surgery that I wasn't in much pain. Now, as the nerves are waking up a bit, I'm taking tylenol and ibuprofen. But mostly, I'm not in real pain, just some discomfort that is more annoying and distracting than anything else. The pain from the Taxol was worse - more intense and more constant. What I have now can mostly be alleviated by lying down.

You all may get to see some scar pictures in a few weeks. I'm not sure about that yet. I have this intense desire to show people, though, and I'm pretty sure flipping up my shirt at social gatherings or in public wouldn't be appropriate. I don't know if this need to share is about sharing trauma or simply thinking the scar is cool or what, but in my case, I think it's partly about normalizing not only my body but the whole experience.

I also wanted to see scar pictures before my surgery, and I had trouble finding them. Mine is, I think, more extreme than the ones I did find.

TMI follows here - turn back now:
I confess that I actually find the drains kind of cool at this point. There are long tubes that drain fluid beneath the outside of the scar (I think it's a uniscar, but can't tell for sure) into little rubber grenades that hang from a rubber ring around my neck. What comes through the drain tubes initially freaked me out, but now it fascinates me. It is like watching those images of a fetus developing in the womb, where there are all kinds of fluids and things floating around it, or like watching the bits and pieces of life under the sea.

(If you've just now lost your lunch, I apologize, but I did warn you.)

See ya in a week or two...

I have no idea when I will next feel up to posting. Everytime I do a "I'll be offline for a while" post, I end up posting a few more times before I really go. It's like trying to get out of the house on those mornings when you keep leaving your wallet, your car keys, your books, etc.

On Tuesday, I will have my surgery - both breasts, ovaries, fallopian tubes. I don't know when I be ready to sit up in front of the computer and type. I'm guessing it'll be at least a week. But, you know, it might be less time, or it might be more time, depending. So don't worry if you don't see me here - it just means I'm recuperating. I'll be back to tell you about it.

Meanwhile, I am hopefully done with my surgery nightmares and nearly done preparing at work for my absence. I have managed to catch a cold, which will hopefully not upset the surgery schedule - I'm hoping I can be done with enough of it that we can proceed as planned (thank you, Zicam!)

See you all soon.
PF

My head.

Media Education Foundation distributes "The Price of Pleasure."

I promised back in November that I was going to blog about "The Price of Pleasure," and I don't think I ever did. While I appreciated the film's critique on some levels, I was left disturbed by several elements of the film itself.

The main issue I have with this film is that it is manipulative. I use that word very intentionally: it is a film with a particular political argument to make, and yet it presents itself as a neutral exploration of the porn industry. When porn performers are included, their words and images are carefully shaped to make them appear either insincere (acknowledging some criticisms of the industry but continuing to work in it), unintelligent (not seeming to understand that they are exploiting / being exploited), and/or selfish (being concerned with personal success and not the political implications that the filmmakers want to present). Several of these performers, and notably, Ernest Greene, have protested the way they appear in the film and contrasted this to the "unbiased" presentation of the issue that they were promised by the filmmakers.

The film includes a few sensationalized dramatizations with voice-overs of women talking about their experiences with a partner who used pornography. These dramatizations are badly done; they reminded me a bit of the ads for products like the Snuggli or a specialized kitchen tool, in which actors are shown having tremendous difficulty talking on the phone while keeping a blanket on their shoulders, or trying and failing to peel a carrot without cutting themselves. The music employed throughout is discordant and unsettling, and it is used to make the viewer associate negative emotions (the music particularly evokes anxiety and fear) with the images that are being shown. Further, with the exception of the porn performers and clips from some porn films and magazines, there are no interviews with women who use porn or whose partners use porn and who feel empowered or at least NOT disempowered by it. This is not because such women do not exist or are hard to find. This is because the film has a particular message - porn exploits women and teaches men to abuse women - and these other perspectives do not fit into this message and would undermine it.

What all of this means to me as a feminist and educator is that the film is not going to be useful, generally, to me in the classroom, and that it would best be paired with additional perspectives to round out the experience for students.

What motivates me to write about it today is that I received a catalog from the Media Education Foundation, an organization that has distributed some excellent films (the "Killing Us Softly" series; "Wrestling with Manhood: Boys, Bullying & Battering") and some pretty mediocre ones ("What a Girl Wants"). MEF films do present pornography as exploitation, so it is not the affiliation that surprises me, but the fact that "The Price of Pleasure" continues to be presented as something that it is not. For example, Michael Kimmel, who I otherwise respect a great deal, is quoted in the MEF catalog as saying (taken from a review or cover blurb, I believe) : "I've been waiting for a film about pornography that was neither sanctimoniously scolding nor callously celebratory. And, finally, there is THE PRICE OF PLEASURE." The film's description reads: "the film moves beyond tired and often paralyzing liberal-versus-conservative debates to offer a nuanced take on the cultural implications of pornography."

Ladies and gentlemen, "The Price of Pleasure" is sanctimoniously scolding and fails to move beyond tired and often paralyzing debates of any kind. There is no nuance in this film. While it is true that it does "forc[e] us to consider how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate areas of our lives," it does so without giving us enough information to *fully* consider this information.

What I've been waiting for is a film that presents arguments from a variety of perspectives on this issue. I'd like to see a film that does not so obviously have a stake in the porn - anti-porn war, but rather one that presents arguments from sex workers who are working in the industry and allows them to share both the good and bad of their experiences; from people who use or have used porn and can share with the viewer a range of experiences from abuse and addiction to empowerment and sexual access; from people who have important cultural critiques of porn and sex work; from people who are working to legislate against sex trafficking and who see porn as inherently connected to this problem; from people who argue that trafficking is best approached inclusively and who advocate labelling sex work as "work"; from people who have experienced what unionization, or legalization, or decriminalization has meant for sex workers, whether it be good, bad, or in-between; from other people whose perspectives I am forgetting as I write this.

In the meantime - Renegade Evolution, Ernest Greene, folks who are working in this industry - if you are reading this, I hope that you will consider making your own film, specifically for use in the Women's Studies classroom...

My sagging social life.

Today, I had coffee with a friend and then met some others for drinks after work. I had a really good time. Being with them reminded me, yet again, that one of the side effects of chemo that is less visible is that there is less energy and time for one's social life. I have really missed that.

Obama's controversial middle ground.

The other day, the local paper ran a headline that went something like, "Obama takes controversial middle ground in abortion debate." What he was doing was focusing on the reasons that women need abortions in the first place, hoping that by concentrating on addressing these problems, he could reduce the number of abortions. This is not a bad thing to do; when I lived in SD, I met an amazing woman who raised money for women who needed abortions, and she said that she very frequently heard, "I just can't do it - I have two kids already and my partner just walked out, and I don't have the money." So, certainly, I support all of the things that will pull women and children out of poverty and grant them access to health care and education and help them to prevent unwanted pregnancies - all the things the Republicans oppose, in other words.

But here's what's weird to me. In SD, Obama's approach was pretty much the same as the pro-choice activist approach. In much of the rest of the country, however, this stance is perceived as being not committed enough to choice. And even more interesting - in SD, the anti-choice movement was completely opposed to such an approach, while in the nation, at the moment, it seems that the anti-choice folks are hesitantly encouraged by Obama's focus (though they are far from happy about some of his other moves).

I don't really have anything to add here that I haven't said already, many times, but I thought this was interesting.

Unarmed people killed by police.

A commenter shared this with me. Please check it out.

I don't know yet if I agree with T that police officers shouldn't carry guns, but I'll admit that it really changes my own perspective to think about what it would feel like to know that I myself might be likely to be killed by a police officer. I don't walk or drive down the street living in that reality. I know of a female college student who was beaten up at a protest by a cop who was known for violent behavior. I had a student who was raped by a police officer at gunpoint. A friend of mine watched a cop shoot and kill a puppy during a power struggle because he wanted to show he was in control. So I have a healthy fear of the police, but at the same time, I also live in a white body and I am the person that cops are supposed to be protecting and I know this subconsciously. And to protect me, don't they need to have guns? This is what is going on, almost below the radar, in my head when I think about taking the guns away. And that is a hard thing to admit.

But Black men are at tremendous risk from the justice system, and at some point we have to ask ourselves as a society, at whose sacrifice are some of us being protected by cops having guns? And then it becomes pretty obvious that that's exactly what's going on - we are sacrificing people of color so that whites can have an illusion of safety. (Not unlike our foreign policy, actually.)

I'm also thinking about what happened here this past fall with the RNC and how quick people are to use weapons when they have them. This certainly isn't unique to police officers, but it does give me pause.

Thanks, T, for making me think about this in a different way.

The chemo is having one last go at me.

I've had a pretty good run with the chemo and really feel like I have no business complaining. But this DAMN TAXOL has decided to mess me around this last time as much as it can.

I had my last chemo one week ago, and the pattern has been that I get it Friday and have fairly severe aches, mostly in my legs and feet but in other places, too, Sunday - Wednesday, with Monday and esp. Tuesday being the worst. It was the worst the first time, better the next two times, and a little worse this last time. But what sucks is that, this time, having made it through the achiness earlier in the week, I'm getting aches in my fingers, hands, wrists, and forearms yesterday and today and probably tomorrow unless I get lucky. For a while, I was really worried it had to do with typing, and I have a ton of papers to finish grading online. But then, I noticed some hives on my leg (Taxol can also cause hives) and figured that it was all the Taxol. Another helpful symptom is that the pain goes away for a bit and then comes back - if it were typing-related, I think it would either be more constant or happen when I held my hands in certain positions. And the Taxol-related pain has done this disappearing every so often (which is actually quite helpful).

I'm glad to be done with this. Though apparently, the medication I'll be taking in a few months can cause some of these same symptoms. Yay!

Perspective and possibility.

So, as I contemplate my upcoming mastectomies, I'm finding it very helpful to broaden my perspective. Hopefully, this is not an exercise in cis privilege. But I've found trans theories and writings to be extremely helpful and soothing. From the perspective of a cis woman with cancer, mastectomy is not a positive thing. From the perspective of a transman, though, it could be liberating. And I've found it really helpful to reflect on this and to think that the same surgery that I'm having might be something that someone else would be happy to have. Not that I'm not happy to have it - I think it's a pretty good trade. But I mean, it changes the way I see the surgery to recognize that the reaction to it is really about perspective.

I'm thinking about doing a ritual before my surgery. I am someone who does not participate in ritual on a very regular basis, but when big things happen, it's important to me that they be marked in a meaningful way. I think by claiming this as a ritual moment, I'm helping shape my own understanding of it as well as my healing.

Interestingly, when I did a Google search on ritual and mastectomy, I came up with a few links to Jewish poetry and mikvah rituals. I started thinking about a mikvah - a ritual bath for Jewish women. The technical problems here are that I'm not so much Jewish as JewISH, so I'm not sure that the Mikvah Association here will let me in. A friend suggested I do it myself in a friend's hot tub, but some of the side effects of the chemo are exacerbated by hot water. I decided to call my oncologist to ask about this. I wanted to know if I needed to worry about making the side effects worse or about my lowered immune system in either a hot tub or a public facility (that, I'm guessing, wouldn't have chlorinated water).

I called and left a message for a nurse to call me back. How do you leave a message for something like this, when you know that the person you're leaving the message with is not going to understand it at all? This is Minnesota, after all, and while there is a sizeable Jewish population in the area, the odds that the person answering the phone was Jewish were pretty small. So I said I had a question about baths. "A bathing question?" the receptionist said. "Yeah," I said. (I wonder what on earth she thought.)

The nurse who called me back was not the nurse who I had left the message for. The nurse I'd left the message for is one I have had a good relationship with - and she's pretty quick. The nurse who called me back was Weird Nurse, the same one who freaked me out prior to my chemo treatments by droning on and on about nausea.

Weird Nurse was not terribly helpful. She was concerned that I could burn myself because the numbness I'm experiencing makes it hard for me to know the temperature of the water. So I assumed the hot tub was out, and asked about the immune system issues. She told me to be very careful, which confused me, because if I'm going to be immersed in a pool of water, how exactly am I going to be careful? And of what? I needed some more specific advice.

So I said, "look, could you just tell my (Jewish) oncologist that I am thinking about doing a mikvah...no, a mikvah..m-i-k...no, m-i-k-v-a-h...MIK - VAH...right, tell him that, I'm pretty sure he'll know what that is, and ask him if that's a problem given my immune system. Thanks."

So I get a call back and she says, "Wow, I had to look that up. You're right, he knew what it was."

And I said, "And what did he say about the immune thing?"

She said, "He said be very careful."

I said, "Um, of what? The water temperature?"

She said, "The water temperature primarily."

I got off the phone and told Mr. Plain(s)feminist, who said, "Clearly, G-d doesn't want you to do this."

So I may hold off on the mikvah for now. But I'm still in search of a ritual.

The worst review ever.

I happened to read a theater review yesterday because it was near me and I needed something to read - and I think this is, hands down, THE worst review of a play that I have ever read. Here are the opening two paragraphs:

"Planting Shelly Anne," the newest offering from the Workhaus Collective, is a play that ought to be buried deeply in the ground.

Jeannine Coulombe's narcissistic, jumbled, 95-minute whine-a-thon is dreadful in almost every respect: Its storytelling is bloated, infuriating navel-gazing exacerbated by a playwright in love with her own voice. Its staging is affected and ineffectual. The performances are the best thing about it, but — obviously — that's not saying much.

There are many, many other negative comments in this review, but the one that stands out is this: "John Riedlinger and young Renee Roden do no harm completing the cast as Shelly Anne's inattentive husband and bratty, neurotic daughter."

I wonder, is it really conscionable to write such a nasty review? On the other hand, was the reviewer left any choice? I felt bad for the playwright and director (the actors mostly seemed to be treated more kindly, as the critic focused his displeasure on the staging and the play itself).

The entire review can be found here, for now.