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Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
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6:01 pm - People Say Ignorance Is Bliss, But I Don't Know...
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The Man sez: Coworker 1 is pregnant, and we are all sssssssuper excited for her. Coworker 2 has adopted the position of pregnancy mentor because she has a baby. I have this overwhelming urge to school them on not being ridiculous every time I hear C2 tell C1 crazy bs. I have a very low tolerance for bs (and pain!) so I find myself rolling my eyes in an exaggerated manner behind C2's back many times each and every day. Some of C2's gems include which sex position will ensure a specific gender, a psychic C2 found on the Internet who will commune with the spirits to determine the exact day of delivery of her current and future babies (for a fee), an amber necklace for babies to wear to ease the discomfort of teething (with... magic?), all kinds of folk gender tests for the unborn baby (mixing pee with cabbage water, suspending a ring on a string over her belly, Chinese zodiac calculator, etc) a confusing mix of pro- and anti-hospital delivery commentary, and placenta encapsulation. WHY JESUS WHY??
See, these are not aa couple of people who just fell off the turnip truck. Both of them have college degrees. C2's degree is in biology!! How does that shit happen? The older I get, the more shocked I am to discover how very little critical thinking is applied by the supposedly enlightened people around me. Oh, the humanity. I don't consider myself to be one of the great thinkers of the modern age, but seriously come the fuck on.
But ignorance is bliss. I do not underestimate the placebo effect. The part of me that cannot abide by misinformation (e.x. The time I told my linguistics professor that the textbook he assigned had a pretty glaring error in the first chapter {the number of words for "snow" in eskimo, which is a factoid often passed around but was thoroughly debunked decades ago. By Linguists.} ) wants desperately to shout "Nn, but that thing you just said is so, so incorrect and I can easily disprove you!!!" But there is a new part, a new voice in among the chorus of my inner monologue, and this voice tells me to be judicious. Is this bit of wrong information potentially dangerous? Could it allow for a beneficial placebo effect? Because I've lived a colorless life. I know how difficult it is to look at the world through cement-colored glasses. As disgusting as placenta encapsulation may be to me and as scientifically impossible as the effective mechanism by which it purports to "treat" baby blues, so what? It probably won't harm her or the baby. I would say that it's her money to waste, but C1 is the type of highly suggestable person for whom a placebo is as effective as authentic medical treatments. Snake oil is not a waste of money if you believe its cure. Well, as long as it's not the old timey snake oil that had, like, mercury or lead paint or whatever deadly shit people treated as a panacea. Thus, even though I found plenty of evidence to debunk the placenta's curative properties, I kept my mouth shut.
But I'm not finished. The first consideration is the potential danger in C2's New Age homeopathic BS. Eating your own afterbirth is nasty but not particularly risky for the average woman. The amber baby teething necklace is a prime example of a ridiculously ridiculous "natural" product with real risks. First of all, you're willing to put a necklace on a baby? Like, a string of pea-sized beads around the neck of a creature whose muscles are too weak to reliably support its heavy melon head? You won't put so much as a blanket in the crib with the baby, but a necklace that presents a constant low-level threat of strangulation is totes cool? Huh? This brings me to the second point, which is that "natural" and homemade remedies are of an unknown strength. This means dosing is kinda impossible. Oh, and companies that make "natural" remedies such as supplements (you know, the kind meant for consumption) are not regulated by the FDA. All manner of shit (literal shit. Actual feces) has been found in these unregulated products because, well, no one is regulating the production. Ew. You use unscented sensitive skin BPA-free and eag only organic grass-fed free-range hormone-free everything, but a product that may or may not contain rat droppings is totally cool. For a baby, a human whose developmental process includes putting everything in their mouths. Also, not all things found in nature are good for you. Three just off the top of my head - urushiol oil (poison ivy), mad cow disease (spongeaform encephalitis-causing prions), digitalis (deadly poison in foxglove leaves). Third, how the fuck is a fucking necklace going to do anything??? No, really. Think about this. The rate of absorption through the skin is very low compared to, like, everything else. That's why the skin is such a bangin' organ; it keeps the shit outside outside. It's a quality barrier. When your baby is sick, you don't rub the antibiotics into his skin. You don't apply immunizations topically. I readily admit that there are times when you will do that, apply something topically, but it usually goes on the thing it's supposed to fix. Last time I checked, my gums were not a part of my neck. To sum up, you want to purchase a product whose therapeutic effect is unknown, the strength of each dose cannot be controlled, and it must be used in the form of a choking or strangulation hazard FOR YOUR BABY. Yeah, I think I'll say something.
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| Thursday, November 10th, 2011
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5:11 pm - What JoePa Did
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The Man sez: JoePa, Joe Paterno, was like a living Santa Claus to me. He was this mythical figure, a symbol of goodness in humanity and nice guys finishing first or at least accepting defeat gracefully, but he was real. I know; I had the exceptional fortune of meeting him as the Penn State team was boarding their busses from the hotel for the Meadowlands before the Kickoff Classic in August 1997. I even remember the outfit I was wearing (blue and white, natch). That's how big a deal it was. My parents began indoctrinating my brother and me into the religion of PSU football since Infancy. No, really. My parents have a framed caricature of Baby Zack in a PSU uniform hanging in our front hall. I eventually stopped believing in Santa. I never stopped believing in JoePa.
I recognize, of course, that he is not blameless in the matter of Sandusky's alleged acts of child molestation. For the sake of argument, though, let's subtract him from this situation and consider again the actions of all others involved. The grad student witness, why did he not call the police himself? No, why did he not stop the abused he witnessed as it was happening? This is the part of the story that bothers me most. I once read Murakami's collection of interviews of victims and perpetrators of the 1994 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system and subsequently found myself no longer able to be merely an observer in moments of crisis. I have found myself doing things that might seem crazy, things like pulling over to stop a child from beating another child with a tree limb. I insisted we contact Child Protective Services when a student came to class with finger-shaped bruises on her cheeks. Stepping in is not optional in situations like these, so I cannot even begin to conceive of how this grad student was able to see an adult actually raping a child and then walk away. Was JoePa wrong to not notify the police in addition to the administrators to whom he reported the abuse told to him by the grad student? Who cares? An adult did nothing as he watched as another adult sexually assaulted a child. Let me repeat this because it seems as though a far greater issue has been drowned out while every media organization scrambles to shred the reputation of a man undoubtedly more upstanding than anyone else involved - A grown man did not invertene when he walked in on another man raping a child. A grown man did not call the police to report the man he watched rape a child. Read those two sentences aloud and consider again this situation. Joe Paterno did not molest eight boys. Joe Paterno did not walk into the showers at Penn State and see a man sexually assaulting a child. And even disregarding the degree as to which others were negligent in reporting or investigating the allegation of abuse, the person at fault here is Jerry Sandusky. Who? Who is Jerry Sandusky? Several coworkers actually asked this when JoePa's firing was brought up. Jerry Sandusky the person accused of the rape. Jerry Sandusky is the accused child molester.
When I saw the bruises on our student's face and how perfectly the shape mirrored my hand, I immediately showed my lead teacher. She immediately showed our school counselor and principal and they filed a report jointly to CPS. Well, I assume they did. I didn't stay in the room as they filled out the paperwork. I didn't call up CPS and ask how the investigation was progressing. I notified the people I needed to notify if I saw potential signs of abuse. I did what was required of me legally. I don't think these are identical situations. I was sure that my complaint was filed because I helped word the lead teacher's statement. I knew it was investigated because A social worker from CPS came to school to observe and talk to my coworkers and me. I have not idea what followed JoePa reporting the grad student's story to his administration. It is fully possible that the only evidence PSU administrators found at the time was the grad student's story. This is still enough as to require notification of the police but I do understand how someone might, fearing legal retribution for slander, stop short of this step. "Understand" does not mean "agree", of course. I understand how this situation came about. This is not like what happened with the Catholic church despite some easy similarities. One victim went to his parents, his parents contacted the police, the police began investigating Jerry Sandusky on accusations of child molestation. One (disgusting) man, not a small army of them shephearded by a complicit organization into new communities for decades. Jerry Sandusky gained access to his victims through an organization he set up himself. There are so many ways in which sexual predators protect themselves from being exposed. They exoploit not only their victims but the people in their lives who trust them. We all tend to think of the creepy guy in a windowless white van who lures children with stories of lost puppies. If only it were so easy. Children fall victim to people they trust, so the creepy stranger in a van isn't the one from whom children need to be protected. The sad truth is that predators are able to abuse victims because they are able to create opportunities for themselves. Predators are caught when children tell, not when an adult tells another adult. The best way to prevent sexual abuse is to make children aware of what constitutes abuse and that an adult crossing those boundaries is the guilty person. It sucks that all we hear about is what JoePa did or didn't do because this would have been a good opportunity to make children aware of their rights to be protected from abuse. And adults, please please please internalize this: Step in. There are plenty of times when we see something and turn away because maybe it's not our place to step in. When I pulled over to stop that kid with the tree limb, I wasn't thinking "Who am I to approach these children? Am I being a weirdo?" I was thinking about one of the interviews in the book about the Tokyo gas attack where one person noticed a suspicious odor didn't ignore it and, by stepping in, saved lives. Who knows what those kids would have done? A kid I knew in elementary school is in jail for murder because he was angry and brought a baseball bat to a fight in high school. Forget "see something, say something" and just step in.
Anyway, how was your day?
current mood:  angry
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| Thursday, September 9th, 2010
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1:59 pm - Manic Mania: The Simon Price Is Right
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The Man sez: I dug out my copy of the Manic Street Preachers' "The Holy Bible" LP and put in on my ipod a few weeks ago. I don't know what prompted it - I don't think I've listened to any of CDs my Manics collection in at least five years. To be honest, it all felt quite surreal. I mean, I was so obsessed with MSP at fifteen (and sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen) that it was physical. I was once so upset by a song that I began to cry uncontrollably, Alice had to take me to the nurse, I threw up, and the nurse sent me home from school. Not my finest moment, to be sure. But I can catalog my teenage fanaticism another time. This is about its genesis. This is about Simon Price. This is about Everything.
When I was fourteen going on fifteen, we went to Europe for three weeks. The souvenir my mother bought for my brother was a band biography, Everything by Simon Price. We (me, Mom, three friends from my Girl Scout troop) were bored and waiting for our train to pull in, so Mom agreed to read aloud from this plastic-skinned black brick of a book. She started with the quote that precedes the foreword, the sort of thing no one but my own mother would do. I think she made it through six words before clapping the book shut and exclaiming her disgust. What? What was it that could have put her off so quickly?
Nearly a year passed before I would see the book again. For whatever reason, I wanted to bring it with me on the spring band trip. I think I finished it in three days and immediately began to reread it. I had a mix tape made a few years earlier with the song "Yes" included because I used to hear the rope-skipping bass line through my brother's door constantly. It's a catchy song, musically. His enthusiasm for and relationship to the band made it difficult to feel anything less than he toward them. Everything was the perfect handbook for anyone looking to become a rabid MSP fan. An album like "Generation Terrorists" probably would not have appealed to me at that age because it sounds like a frustrated teenager's re-imagining of Guns 'N Roses. Ah, but you'll miss the symbolism, dearheart. And I'm quite sure I would have glossed over much of the band - b-sides, lyrics, literary and cultural references, band quotes. It would've been all surface and no feeling. Yes, that is a back-reference to MSP. My interest in Everything came at the precise time for the development of my love for the Manic Street Preachers. And this is something that I will always, always value. I read my brother's copy of Everything to the point of disintegration. Really, the binding glue fragmented and bits of yellow resin dust would float out each time I opened it. About thirty pages in the center detached completely. Between the first read in the spring and Christmas of the same year, the book was overloved and trashed. It was a magical Christmas, though. I didn't get the deluxe edition of band photographer/friend Mitch Ikeda's photography book, but I did get another copy of Everything and my brother's complete collection of MSP LPs and singles from 1989 - 1998 (not that I hadn't already appropriated them).
I have never obsessed over anything as intensely as the Manics and Everything. Ten years later, I still feel lines and quotes from Everything pressing along the sides of my inner monologue. Do other people feel this? Do other people have that sort of obsessive residue in their veins, bathing their brains with each pump of their hearts? It's not even conscious and I still have this sliver of ice, this love and pain and nostalgia and sweetness permanently lodged deep in my chest. Do other people feel this way? They must or people like Simon Price wouldn't write books like Everything.
Everything started this love - I say "love" because I can't think of another word that succinctly describes the agony/ecstasy feeling.
current mood:  nostalgic
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| Monday, September 6th, 2010
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9:50 pm - You Melted
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The Man sez: So I've lost a lot of weight in the last eighteen months. The number on the scale is now at the lowest it's been in at least six years. Part of me is proud of myself for sticking to a goal for so long. I lost fifty pounds. That's a lot of weight. A second grader weighs fifty pounds. And my weight hasn't yo-yo. Last year, my coworkers didn't notice at first that there was approximately 13% less of me. That was disappointing; I was especially proud of myself and wanted them to notice. But this year was different. I don't know why precisely but I was kind of hoping it would go unnoticed. It reminds me that people are always judging me. Also, it reminds me of our curious inability to envision our physical selves accurately (or maybe it's just me), which in turn reminds me that I don't really know what I look like to others. Well, anyway, of course everyone said something about me loosing weight. Dunno why this surprised me - 90% of my coworkers are middle aged women who obsess constantly over loosing weight and dieting. The first thing said to me on our first day back was "Did you lose more weight, Skinny?" Whuzz? Did she just call me "Skinny"? This was more or less the only thing said to me for the whole day. "Oh my god, you melted!" is tied with "So how did you do it? Did you eat really healthy? Or did you just not eat?" for greatest comment. Even the building service manager, a woman I know by name only because she isn't one of the two Salvadorean women named Maria, came up and did the wow-you-lost-weight thing. I never know what to say back in this exchange. Oh, you look the same as three months ago? Then I scramble to notice something, anything - your manicure is cute, I like your new highlights, your shoes are cool. Then the person reiterates that I have lost weight and the awkwardness continues.
The kiddos come tomorrow. Having a seven kid-free days to start the year has given me a false sense of what school will be like each day. Ah, well... back to wearing schlubby clothes and going home with neon orange paint in my hair.
current mood:  okay
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| Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
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2:31 pm - Up & Down
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The Man sez: Today is down. Today I will go to the pharmacy and refill my scrip for Happiness. I stopped taking Happiness a month or two ago because it bothered me to think that my emotions were being controlled chemically. But now I think I won't mind it. Chemical or not, I was happier with Happiness. Seeing pictures on Facebook of yet another event to which I was not invited wouldn't make me cry. I wouldn't lay awake until four in the morning plagued with thoughts of each and every way in which I am still the chick yet to hatch. I wouldn't always feel like a failure.
I used to feel so, so angry. I was furious that being so eager to please meant that no one noticed what was wrong in time to fix it. I mean, my life is pretty good. I grew up well. I know it could have been infinitely worse in all ways possible. And that's why I was so mad - I should be so much more than I am. What went wrong? Why can't I fix it? Why does it feel like I'm too late?
It's not anger that I feel now, just sadness. I have spent too much of my life sad and angry. It seems impossible that it won't eventually be up, so I have faith that I won't always feel so sad. But until the up comes, I'll take Happiness for the down.
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