A Smaller Target

Monday Meme: Number 1

Weight: 165

Yes, I know this isn't the first time I've done a meme on Monday, but you don't think I can actually be bothered to count them, do you?  The numbers will go forward from here. 

1. What curse word do you use the most?  Probably "shit" but prolonged contact with Paul is turning it to "bloody."


2. Do you own an ipod?   I did until it was stolen along with my backpack when we were in London. 


3. What person on your f-list do you talk to the most?   Bessie Granger.


4. What time is your alarm clock set to?  5:45 AM for work days. 


5. Do you still remember the first person you kissed?   Yes.  But do they remember me?


6. Do you remember where you were on September 11th, 2001?   Yes.  In my apartment at the university.  I got a call from someone on my staff telling me about the first tower attack and asking how we should try and support our East Coast students.


7. Would you rather take the picture or be in the picture?  Neither.  Though I'm growing to like having my picture taken.  I don't enjoy taking pictures. I like to remember thing instead.


8. What was the last movie you watched?  In the theater: "Breach."  On DVD: Hard Candy.  I recommend them both.


9. Do any of your friends have children?  Yes.


10. Has anyone ever called you lazy?  Yes.  And they're right.


11. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep? Yes.  Ambien when the occasion requires it. 


12. What CD is currently in your CD player?  Tori Amos: Strange Little Girl


13. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk?  I'm allergic to milk and only like latte flavored.


14. Has anyone told you a secret this week?  Yes.  And they're good too.  :b


15. When was the last time you had Starbucks?  I had Coffee Bean about 10 minutes ago.  Starbucks on Saturday.


16. Can you whistle?  Badly.


17. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?  Eyes, hands, thighs.


18. What are you looking forward to?  Finishing the chapter I'm working on.  Except that it actually requires working on it.


19. Did you watch cartoons as a child?  Yes and as an adult.


20. Do you own any band t-shirts? Not at the moment.


21. What will you be doing in one hour?  Wishing I didn't have to work tomorrow.


22. Is anyone in love with you?  Yes.  And I'm in love with them too. 


23. What was the last song you heard?  Tori Amos singing Amazing Grace.


24. Last time you cried?  Earlier today.


25. Desktop computer or a laptop?  One of each.


26. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?  No, but I still think about getting a tattoo someday. 


27. What's the weather like?  What we call "June Gloom" in SoCal. 


28. Would you ever date a girl/guy covered in tattoos?  Sure. 


29. What did you do before this?  Walked to Coffee Bean and read the introduction and first story in Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. 


30. When is the last time you slept on the floor?  I'm not sure.  It must have been a while ago.  I did sleep on the ground backpacking with Lisa a few months back.


31. How many hours of sleep do you need to function?  Four or five.  But it leaves me cranky sometimes.


32. Do you eat breakfast daily?  Generally I drink it in the form of a protein shake.


33. Are your days fast-paced?  Not if I can help it.


34. What did you do last night?  Watched "Hard Candy" with Paul.


35. Do you use sarcasm?  No, I try never to use those I love.


36. How old will you be turning on your next birthday?  40!


37. Are you picky about spelling and grammar?  No.  I've delegated that to Paul.


38. Have you ever been to Six Flags? Yes.   


39. Do you get along better with the same sex or the opposite sex?  I think about the same with both.  But I have more female than male friends.


40. Do you like mustard?  Yes, but only the yellow kind.


41. Do you sleep on your side?  I never used to, but since my tummy tuck, yes. 


42. Do you watch the news?  Not often.  I generally read it online or in papers.


43. How did you get one of your scars?  The slide from backyard swingset set fell and the bolt hit my forehead.


44. Who was the last person to make you mad?  An eBay buyer who apparently can't read.

Retrotagging: (Anyone who does it.)  Your name here.

Bits 'n' Bobs

I've got nothing comprehensive to write, just thoughts on a number of things.

Let's see.  I had to cancel and still need to reschedule an appointment with my plastic surgeon.  I'm hoping to get cleared for getting back to the gym.  But I needed to cancel because my stomach wasn't feeling very great.   Plus the last thing I wanted to do during spring break was go into campus.   The healing seems mostly done.  A few places where bits of knots are still working their way to the surface, but the skin looks mostly good. 

Work is a bit tense.  I'm getting paid a little ($75) extra to do a 2 hour presentation at a workshop this weekend. Not a lot, but then it's a presentation I've done four times already, so not hard either.   And the good news is I found out that I still have a job for next year.  The bad news was that one of the other grad assistants wasn't so lucky.  He's basically got a job through the summer, but not for the next academic year.  This sucks.  There's not a reason I can see for it to have been him to get the cut -- he works hard and does his job well.  Just one of those injustices.  Oh, and I think the two of us who survived the ax are likely just going to be expected to learn and do his job.  Great.

Over spring break one of the things I did was watch a download of the BBC special on bipolar disorder done by Stephen Fry and broadcast in Britain late last year.  The documentry was called "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive."  I didn't watch it via U-Tube (Paul torrented it for me) but it is there broken into a number of parts.  However you find a version, I highly recommend watching it.  First off, it's full of good information on the illness and presented very well.  And second, of course, actor Stephan Fry (whom I've always been very fond of) is wonderful company and ends up revealing a huge amount about himself.

Watching it was wonderful but also hard.  Paul, who had downloaded it for us, watched it with me.   Why was it hard?  Because my interest in the disease isn't just academic, but comes from long standing concerns about myself.  I asked Paul afterwards and he commented that he had been thinking about me as we watched the program and the symtoms had been discussed.  While long heavy depressions are rare for me and I'm mostly able to stay stable, my moods can swing significantly over the course of a few days.  Not constantly, but not with any sort of reason behind the switches either. 

And then there's the more manic periods.  Those I do experience profoundly, though mostly as positive (except the extent to which they drive the people around me to crazy exhaustion).   The wild periods of my life filled with magic optimistic energy that seems bottomless and goes on and on until suddenly the bottom falls out of it and there's nothing left.  One of those periods lasted close to six months.  During it, I took 20-28 units each of my last two quarters at Ohio State with a perfect 4.0 for both quarters, wrote 15 or more papers each term, had some undergraduate essays published, delivered papers at two academic conferences and got accepted into graduate school.   And then whatever was sustaining me ran out, leaving me unable to even complete the corrections on my undergraduate thesis. 

Watching the program was also somewhat comforting.  To the extent to which I experience this, I know I don't fall on the more severe end of the spectrum.  Mostly I tend to think I keep things hidden well via self-talk and awareness of how I'm feeling.  But clearly that's not really the case -- Paul's obviously noticed.  After experiencing living with addiction and depression in my first marriage, I've always been totally determined not to have my mental state affect Paul's life or our marriage in so far as I can help it. 

Ezpy's Vagina Monologue

Weight: 166

There's been plenty already written in reaction to the Vagina Monologues suspensions at John Jay High School in Cross River, New York.  You probably already know about it, but just in case, the principal at the high school in question, Richard Leprine, had told the girls their performance of excerpts from the play "The Vagina Monologues" could not include the word "vagina" because the term was "inappopriate."  The line the three opted to read, in defiance of the order, was

My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country.

The girls were initally suspended for one day by their principal for having disobeyed his order. The suspension was overturned, despite the girls not having appealed it, by the president of the school board when it was pointed out that a male student had been allowed to say the word "fuck" in his performance without his being sanctioned.

One of the questions I had when I first started thinking about this issue is how could the author and work even have been cited as the performance source if the word "vagina" wasn't allowed to be uttered? Would the students have to have had to say "this selection is taken from a play with a title this school's principal deems too obscene even to be uttered"?  I suspect that wouldn't have gone over very well either.

A point some have made about the restriction on the term "vagina" was that

This isn’t censorship: it’s more akin to TV programmers avoiding more sensitive material until after the 9pm ‘watershed’

I could understand the "watershed" comment if the word used had been one of the FCC "bad words".  In fact, when I first started reading about this case, I had expected that the word was "cunt" which is also in the play and would have made the principal's objections more understandable.  But the word "vagina" is one that can be said on TV at any hour.  It's the correct medical term for that part of the body.  And it's actually part of the title of the play.  There isn't another word that could be put in its place to somehow be less obscene because the word itself isn't any sort of an obscenity.

The comment that he made initally that the reason the word wasn't to be allowed was that there were members of the audience who were very young.  This objection turned out to be false -- apparently the youngest audience members anyone can confirm were there were 13.  The original statements out of the principal were that the girls had defied their teachers, a statement which was denounced as false by the teachers themselves, who were apparently supportive throughout.  My feeling is that respect isn't some sort of default -- it has to be earned.  I haven't seen much regarding the principals actions in this case that would be worthy of respect.  Aside from everything else, he was apparently verbally outsmarted by three sixteen year olds, assuming because they didn't say they disagreed with him that he had their agreement not to use the term.  As the child of a retired high school vice principal and someone who themselves works with teens and twenty somethings, I don't find this impressive for a school administrator.  By contrast the girls made a good choice and were willing to take the fallout from it.  What more could one want from 16 year olds?

Also, the girls in question didn't request that their suspensions be overturned -- their original comments after the fact were that they expected to be suspended but decided leaving the play's language intact was worth taking whatever punishment the school might give.   The overturning of their suspension was a decision made by the school board president.   He decided that the decision to suspend them was incorrect because the orginal order to remove the material was not a correct one, especially given that, as stated above, a male student's use of the word "fuck" hadn't been questioned. 

School, especially public (or "state" for my UK friends) schools  are in an interesting position.  School attendence is required -- school is not a freely-made association that a club or even a place of employment might be.   Yet students remain part of a free society with free speech rights.  It is therefore important that schools not abridge the free speech of students unless doing so is absolutely necessary.  This clearly wasn't the case here -- another alternative could have been presented rather than attemption to restrict student speech.  If they issue was concern over audience sensibilities, the school could have included a mention in the program that selections from "The Vagina Monologues" were being performed.  One would guess an audience member, reading that, would realize that the word "vagina" might be used and could opt to leave if they didn't want to be exposed to the "v-word" word.  Instead, the restriction would seem to speak more to the principal's discomfort with normal medical terms for parts of the female body rather than anything to do with the content of the play itself. 

What bothers me most about this is not even the issue of censorship, but the fact that by is actions (which I have to think were done without a lot of thought) this principal went a long way toward inappropriately shaming and sexualizing the female students.  I don't have children, but I know from friends with teenage daughters that one of the hardest tasks they undertake is keeping their teens from developing shame about their bodies.

Not Much

Weight 167

I'm sorry this blog has gone a bit quiet.  I'm doing okay.  Spring break started on Friday and I've been trying to get some writing done on my dissertation so I can have a chapter finished at the end of month. 

Food was bad for a bit.  I sort of crashed and burned a bit on my pledge not to have sugar during Lent but have gotten back into it.  As ever, the first days out are the hardest.  I've armed myself with the SF chocolates so we'll see how it goes. 

There will be more soon, I promise.  Thanks for all the comments and emails.  I do love hearing from everyone!

Secrets and Confessions

Weight:  I got dressed too fast this morning -- not sure.

I didn't do a meme yet this week.  But what I did do was send something to Beth as my secret to be posted on the blog Weighty Secrets.  Of course, I warned her when I did it that I'd probably end up mentioning it here.  Because, of course, I'll post about almost anything. 

My secret is about my first marriage ending.  It's here. 

Do you have a secret?  Go ahead and send it to Beth.  She'll tell everyone, but never say who it came from. 

Of course, if you're like me, you'll tell anyway.

Memories of the Mean Kids

Weight: 170  (okay time to start seriously looking at my carb intake again -- back to Fitday)

There's a thread on another forum I read that was prompted by this news story.  The discussion has tended toward annoyance at the authorities and a general feeling that this may be / is an example of "political correctness" (god how I hate that term) gone mad.  To me, it seems like the article doesn't report more than it does.

Anyway, it reminded me of something that happened to me when we moved to Los Angeles when I was 12.  Here's a copy of what I posted:

I've been reading this thread this weekend and have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I definitely played sexual and spanking games with friends as a small child and young teen (and now as an adult, but that's another story). If what was going on was just consensual sexual exploration, yes, I think the adults should tell them not to do it at school and then butt out.

But on the other hand I'm really reluctant to judge the school and locals without knowing all the details which clearly aren't being written about in this article.  Why?  Because at 12 I experienced a level of sexual abuse at the hands of my fellow 12 year olds that has definitely been unequaled in my adult experience.  It wasn't a gang rape, but it was a "gang molest." I don't at all believe the notion that sexual abuse is somehow less traumatic when the person doing it is a child then it would be if they were an adult.

Because it was the 1980s, when my parents reported it to the school there was a sort of "kids will be kids" attitude, right up until my parents called the police.  I'm sure they wouldn't have involved the cops (because they said so) if the school hadn't made it so clear that what happened was just kids playing and being kids.  After the police got involved, some male students were suspended.  The irony, imo, was the female students involved were at least as responsible.

Background: When I was 12 my family moved from San Diego to Studio City.  Not a huge move, but I had to leave the school and friends I'd been with since first grade and start over again in the seventh grade of another Catholic school.  Yup, I was the new girl.  I was also short, dark and wore glasses.  While this was a Catholic school, it was also filled with children of the film industry (some of the students were actors themselves) who were socially a lot more sophisticated than I was. There were three girls (Angela, Michelle and Michelle) who basically controlled the class by a combination of being rather funny and really mean. And when I say "the class," I mean a significant number of the male as well as female students.

For a number of reasons the kids in my class were kind of fucked up.  I didn't make it any easier by spending most of my free time hiding from them in the library.  The kids who weren't under the thrall of the three mean girls were glad to see me too -- I'd definitely taken the heat off of them.

At the same time, Peter, one of the popular boys, started sending me notes telling me how pretty I was.  But the notes were sent in secret. Or so I thought.

The story:
One day, toward the end of the spring term, the popular kids caught up with me.  One of the boys named Peter, egged on by the girls as I later found out, led me to a somewhat "private" part of the playground and asked me if I had a boyfriend.  I told him no, I didn't.  He asked if I would be his girl friend.

Not knowing I was being set up, I asked what that would mean.  He said it meant I would have to kiss him.  He was cute and popular and I was pretty close to agreeing when he told me it would need to be a "French kiss" with my tongue.  This was something that I'd practiced with a female friend back in San Diego but had never been able to imagine doing with a boy.

I said no, that I couldn't do that.  He gently took my wrist and kissed me on the forehead before trying, less gently, to kiss my mouth.  I started struggling.

At that point it became clear he wasn't alone in this -- all of this had been watched by another four boys and, of course, the three mean girls. In fact, as I later found out, the "private notes" we'd exchanged had also been read by the whole gang.  As soon as I started struggling, the other boys, under the direction of the mean girls, held me down by my arms and legs.

Peter kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth.  At that point I became totally passive, I guess with fear.  My shirt and bra (such as it was) was stripped off and my uniform skirt was pulled up. Peter was directed to fondle my breasts (and did so). Angela, the worst of the worst of the mean girls, suggested that I'd been lying about the kiss and probably wasn't even a virgin (this was based on the fact I used tampons, something that the urban mythology of our class believed impossible of virgins).  Peter was directed to "check" me.

At this point I did freak out and start struggling.  My memory stops there, though I do remember someone's hands pulling off my shorts and under pants.  I think Peter was a little freaked by too.  Fortunately, at that moment my sister (three years younger, but taller and stronger) came over and started pushing at the people who were holding me.  She'd brought with her Chris, the son of some friends my parents had made. He was in my class, something of an outcast too and became a dear friend.

The two of them made the others stop, which they did, after tossing both Chris and me into the dumpster.  My sister gathered up my scattered uniform and helped me out of the trash.  She was the one who "told" my parents what had happened.  I remember that I was angry with her about that, mostly because I felt like she was exposing how socially inept I was.

As this all came crashing down, only Chris and my sister supported my claim that I wasn't a happy participant in what happened.  It was only a five or so years later, when I was actually sexually exploring, that I realized how terrible all this had been and that it had been part of my nightmares for years.

The belief of the parents of the other students was that I only said I didn't want to "play along" after the fact because my parents would be angry with me otherwise.  I understand that now. To believe otherwise would be to believe that they were party to raising a 12 or 13 year old who could participate in a borderline gang rape.

And that's the story.  Sorry for making it so long, but you know how it is once you start writing. I'm telling it mostly because I think we tend to make children out to be much more innocent and kind then they actually are.  Part of what school should be teaching is what sort of behavior is and isn't appropriate in work situations.  Sexual touching at school, even if it is consensual, isn't appropriate behavior for that situation.

I don't think children who behave inappropriately should be treated the same as adults.  But the behavior should be treated seriously. Trust me, for the person on the receiving end, it feels pretty serious.

 

About Plastic Surgery

Weight 168

A few people have written me recently and asked me some questions about plastic surgery in general and mine specifically.  It made me realize I wrote quite a bit about my recovery in the early stages, but a lot less lately.  I've also had a few emails that have made me question my somewhat negative attitude about my plastics, both pre and post-op. 

So, here are some thoughts.   Please feel free to share your own, whatever they are.  Honestly, you won't offend me!

• I chose my surgeon after interviewing only one.  I had plans to speak to a few others, but I really really connected with this surgeon, Dr. Soo, plus the fact she was at USC Hospital where I had 90% insurance coverage, added to Dr. Kaufman being able to do my hernia repair at the same time, made me decide she was the one after our first meeting.

• In some ways I don't think I was emotionally ready for this surgery.  It all happened pretty quickly and relatively soon after my weight loss.  Though my weight had been stable for six months, I don't think I'd really gotten used to the changes in my body.  Had I not needed a hernia repair, I don't think I would have had plastic surgery when I did.  This probably has contributed to my somewhat negative attitude toward the surgery, despite the fact I've had no complications, have healed better than anyone expected and have very nice looking results.  I still resent a lot about the surgery itself, about the time needed to recover, the pain and the limitations having a healing incision 2/3 around my lower abs and from pubis to breast bone is bound to cause.  I can't help it, I hate and resent them.  That this was just the first of what will likely be 3 - 5 rounds of surgery leaves me filled with a sense of despair at the loss of control and the stealing of time each surgery means.

• Yes, I know that I'm fortunate in my insurance coverage and that there are many many post-ops who've wanted plastics for years and have no coverage for them and / or cannot afford them.  Knowing that does temper how often I complain(ed) about how much having to have surgery over the winter holidays sucked.  But there is another side to this.  One reason that my insurance was so quick to cover skin removal for me is that I have profound skin problems pre-dating my weight loss.  Rather than being made better by losing weight (as I was repeatedly told would happen pre-op) the excess skin has contributed to worsening eczema and skin breakdown.  In addition to being unsightly, these rashes and open sores are very very painful (think burning insects under the skin) and have been pretty much on-goingly hellish for eight years.  It's hard to feel grateful for them, however much they may contribute to having coverage for plastics.  After all, they're also responsible for these having to be done as individual surgeries rather than combining them.  My skin most likely can't handle the stress of healing multiple wound sites.

•   The results.  Losing Fred (my pannus) has made a real difference in how I look.  A month ago I thought the swelling had gone, but even from last month to this I can see a real difference.  I've been told that the swelling will probably be there for another 2-4 months and that only in June or so will I have a real idea of the result.  But to my eye it already looks great.  Losing Fred does highlight a bit how much my thighs and bum sag, but I don't really care about that -- I'm still glad that Dr. Soo didn't do the lower body lift.  That side will get taken care of eventually.

• Was the recovery hard?  In a word, yes.    Much moreso than my DS surgery, especially for the first month post-op.  Examples?  Post-DS I was able to sleep in my own bed with my husband from day one after being released from the hospital.  After the tummy tuck, hernia repair, it was more than a month before I could sleep in our bed or even lie down on my side for more than 10 - 15 minutes.  I had to sleep in a recliner.  Sexual contact was also out during that entire time, despite our anniversary being during my recovery.

• Depression.  Yes, this happened.  The combination of the pain meds, different sleeping position, loss of working-out and my asthma also contributed to panic attacks.  I had bouts of the blues where it was really hard to do anything.  This was made worse by the fact I can't read when I'm on vicodine and reading is my major escape when I need comfort.

People write a lot about the costs of plastic surgery, talking about the financial side and / or the pain.  And those are really real, of course.  But for me, the biggest cost is time.  I feel like my weight made me live on the sidelines of life for way too long already.  I hate feeling put back there for any reason.

So there you have it.  My post-op thoughts almost two months away from the surgeries.  I did take pictures pre and post-op and will get around to putting them up, probably behind a password, sometime in the next month.

TGIF

Weight: 167

It's been a quiet couple of days as I've tried to re-connect a bit with friends and family.  I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job, but I'm trying!

This afternoon I went with Lisa Freemont and her mom to see the film Amazing Grace, which stars the dishy Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd .  The film has some flaws and (perhaps) someone not familiar with the history of the British movement to abolish the slave trade might have trouble following it, but it was a wonderful film.  It's just paced a little slow for the first hour or so.  Told as a series of flashbacks and dreams, it explored the life's work of William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament from Yorkshire who is credited with almost single handedly ending the slave trade in the British Empire.*

It also tells (part) of the story of John Newton, a slave ship captain turned abolitionist minister who wrote the words for the song "Amazing Grace."

This film affected me rather deeply as I thought more about how Wilberforce is remembered in this film, which was released to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807.  In the United States, it was during the remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the British abolition in 1857, coupled with the anger created by Dred Scott decision that same year.  We think of modern history as changing so fast.  Yet in looking at how the world changed between 1775 and 1875, even our last 100 years would seem to pale in comparison. 

Anyway, I'm too tired to write clearly on this, but plan to do so a bit more as I'd like to take on the current fashion against the "great man" theory of history.    Aren't you looking forward to that tedious bit of blogging?

Still, the film is good.  I recommend it.

And on my current "To See" list:

• "Children of Men" (still!  And Clive Owen is in it!)
• "Breach"
• "Music and Lyrics"
• "Zodiac"
• "Babel"  (may need to wait for DVD)
• "Borat" (see above)

The list is getting long.  Clearly we need to go the movies a bit more.

---
*note: I know he didn't do it single-handedly, nor would he have claimed to have done so.