My Doctor Appointment with Medical Student

Poor student. The Doc sent him in alone at first. He looked like he graduated from high school yesterday.

He apologized, repeatedly and in many different ways.for everything he asked, everything he said and for just being there.

I wanted to just stop him and give him some stage direction. “Listen, Martin. You need to start projecting confidence. Act like you have it all covered. Be the doctor you want to be. PRETEND.”

At the end it just became farcical because he couldn’t get the blood pressure cuff to work. It was awkward. The nurse took my blood pressure in like 10 seconds. He fumbled with that thing for 5-8 minutes before just surrendering.

He finally left and I figured the debrief would take a good long while. When that many mistakes are made, it requires some telling. It wasn’t as long as I expected.

Then my regular doc came in and was his usual cheerful self. I am glad Martin has my Doc. He’s kind and generous and has a sense of humor, so I think Martin will probably calm down under his tutelage.

He upped my antidepressant dosage and told me to come back in 3 weeks. If my insomnia doesn’t get under control he might put me on on Trazadone to help. I don’t want Ambien or anything like that. I really feel like that made the depression much worse when I was on it.

Anyway, Martin and I survived the doctor appointment. Although I think Martin was a bit battered from it.

The System not the Example

I listen to a podcast called TLDR. They did a story called Quiet, Wadwa. It was essentially a conversational interview with Amelia Greenhall, who wrote a blog post called Quiet Ladies, Wadwa is Speaking.

Vivek Wadwa is a researcher who is regularly quoted in articles about women in Tech. Vivek is a man. He is very in favor of diversity in tech jobs. He’s written books on the subject. Except when an excerpt was published in the Huff post it was written by two women and it’s Wadwa’s picture and name on the byline. But you know…these things happen. Publishing decisions apparently.

The problem, of course, is that the media and corporations are going to a man for information about how to get women into tech jobs. Ironic. Greenhall found it annoying. And so she and Meredith Haggerty discuss it. Haggerty never interviewed Wadwa for his response.

A shit storm was brewed after the podcast and Wadwa cried foul after he got lots of mean tweets and facebook crankiness. So they took down the podcast and interviewed him.

He probably should have just shut up. Haggerty just lets him bury himself in a defensive whine. He’s angry and butt hurt. Because people have been mean.

He has in fact been on the receiving end of abuse commonly received by just about every women who acts in a very public way on the internet. He doesn’t seem to recognize it. He’s just trying to help, why is everyone not seeing that?

He finds it deeply unfair, but doesn’t get the irony that he is experiencing just a taste and for a short time of the sort of abuse that gets heaped on women in this position regularly when they speak on issues.

Wadwa is representative of good intentions in a system that can’t support them. Good intentions don’t change his inability to truly understand the subtle complexity of what a woman experiences in her daily interactions with the world. He, possibly innocently, invited a woman he was in a twitter argument with to have a private chat with him. Invited women he didn’t know to come to his office and discuss the issue privately. Those kinds of things are laden with all kinds of issues for women. None of them are present between two men. And he apparently doesn’t know it.

Being an advocate for women’s issues doesn’t mean you have to be a woman, but if you aren’t, you shouldn’t be the public spokesman.

TLDRs follow up podcast on him is symptomatic of a system that is squeezing women into corners and then telling them they are not accurately measuring the corner angles when women complain that there is no way out of the corner. Wadwa is a classic example of angle measurement. He wants to discuss ways that he was wronged and so now the story is about that. The larger problem is getting out of the corner. And whenever we drive issue by an example, we lose sight of the bigger problem while we all discuss angle measurements in this corner of it.

The more women allow ourselves to be dragged into measuring angles in each unfair scenario, the easier it is for us to be kept in the corners. We can only lose because its not about the particular angle, its about getting out of the corner. So that even if we miraculously emerge victorious from a particular issue battle, we are still in the same fucking corner.

The examples need to be there. They need to be bricks in the path we walk out of the corner. But the bricks of a path are many and no particular brick is the one that makes the path work or fail. Its about many bricks making a structure. Not about each individual brick.

Which is not as interesting and a whole lot harder to sell.

What if Beauty had No Value?

I’ve never felt beautiful. But like almost every person I know, I always wanted to be attractive.

I know all the reasons that beauty if a foolish thing to value. It fades. It is skin deep and does not represent the person.

I know how much pain my continued desire for it has caused me. Just releasing that desire would be a great relief from the pain. A huge freedom.

But, like so many things of this nature, knowledge isn’t the course of mental change. Ultimately the deep rooted belief that beauty has worth is more powerful than the knowledge that personal beauty is not really representative of anyone.

Its the belief that beauty has worth that gives it value all over the world. Even though it is an illusion we all recognize, we still hand over the reins to the belief.

Logic is not the power player in my brain that I want it to be.

Grandma’s Quilts – Weekly Smile

My grandmother made each of her 11 grandchildren a quilt. They were quilts with blocks made from discarded cloth, often old clothing – no matching color coordinated calicos in these quilts.

My quilt and 2 of my cousins quilts were made with squares cut out by my great grandmother who was pushing 100 at the time.

There was a time when my grandmother would never be sitting without a quilting frame near her so she could put in a couple of stitches. Its part of my memory of her.

When she died there were 2 quilts sitting her a chest. They were given to me. So now I have 3 quilts from grandma.

When I became homeless, I took all three quilts into the car with me. They kept me from freezing at night.

When I got a room at a rooming house, I put the quilts on the cot and suddenly it felt like I was home.

This is the rooming house room made homey by grandma’s quilt

When I moved into this apartment – I put the quilts on the bed and it was OK. Because my grandma came too.

These quilts make me smile. They make me feel warm and safe. They are not coordinated designer fabrics. But they are very beautiful. Because they make me feel good.

Why denial of Manmade Climate Change is a marker for a bad political leader.

The job of president is a job in which you make large decisions on subjects where you are not an expert.

It requires intellectual rigor. It requires the ability to assess what experts in a field are saying. To decide what the essential facts are from those experts.

If, in the face of an overwhelming consensus from experts in the field, you decide that a tiny non-expert minority are correct, you do not own the most basic requirement for being President.

The ability to make a decision based on information from experts is a PRIMARY JOB REQUIREMENT and they show they can’t do it when they deny manmade climate change.

Some of the climate change deniers may actually believe the climate change science, but are willing to take the denier stance because its politically in their best interest.

The second great indicator of a leader is the ability to do the right thing even when this might not work in their personal interest. In other words integrity. This one is where probably the entire field for 2016 fails, but its hard to pick out unless they deny climate change.

So if the Presidential Candidate is a climate change denier he/she is either unable to make good decisions based on evidence from experts – ie their entire prospective job, or they have integrity problems, which means nothing they say can be relied on.

Its a red flag for me. Climate Change Denier = NOPE.

3 Day Weekend…

sleeping

Only Lily thinks we used it well. She thinks cuddling for three days in bed is the epitome of the good life.

Well, it was NOT the plan. And I still have 1 day to break the cycle.

Actually, as I write this I’m realizing – I did leave the house. I went grocery shopping on Friday. Grocery Shopping is a terrible trek through a dangerous forest of horrors filled with hostile forces. (your experience of grocery shopping may differ) ACHIEVEMENT.

I have not begun the PLAN. Upon consideration – Starting on a weekend was not my optimal planning. I am terrible with weekends. They are just voids of stillness for me. I need to start on a workday and then use that momentum to carry me into the weekend. So. Still hope.

Talking to the other side.

If you really want to talk about a controversial issue, step into the shoes of the person you are talking to. Why do they think that?

Because frankly, there is very little in this world that is entirely black and white. And there is a ton of political stuff that is not driven by evidence but by personal values.

And if you are arguing from a position of personal value, which most of us are – make sure you fully understand your own personal values. Why do you feel the way you do about an issue? What are the values that drive your emotions on the issue and how does the position you have taken support them.

Try to understand the values that drive the position of the person you are talking to.

Because honestly, for most people evidence will not weigh heavily against personal values. People will cite evidence all the time, but the evidence is not why they support their viewpoint. The personal values are the reason. The evidence is used to support a position they took long before they even knew the evidence existed.

And before you discuss an issue and cite evidence, please look up your facts. Check your sources and if all of your sources come from the folks who are heavily endorsing your political viewpoint, look a little deeper.

People who are politically invested with a lobby are not your most reliable source of material.

People are complicated.

Don’t EVER forget that.

They can care deeply about some important injustice and laugh hysterically at a silly viral video just moments later.

They can love fiercely and blow off a minor flirtation without regard to anyone’s feelings.

They can swear like a sailor on heroin and hug a child with a broken doll with all the tenderness of pure compassion.

They can win a nobel prize and still make ridiculous errors of judgment.

We are not just one thing. And the biggest disservice we do others and ourselves is when we try to define others or ourselves by one moment or emotion or achievement.

People are not defined by one thing. They are complicated piles of garbage and art.

It is probably the best thing we can do a human is to remember that about ourselves and about the people around us. No one is one thing. No one deserves to have their entire life be judged on one thing.

Planning

1024px-wikimedia_strategic_planning_09-svg I’ve never been a huge Resolution person. However, this year, the New Year’s happens to fall when I’m starting to feel a bit of hope about my future, so I figured I would use it as an easy marker to my goals.

I want these goals to work, so I am putting together a plan, not a list of resolutions.

I put down a general goal. Then I put down how I am going to achieve it. ON A DAILY BASIS.

That’s why we fail at our resolutions. We seem to think that they must start immediately and they are rarely planned.

For example –

One of my goals is to exercise daily. So my first sub goal – to kind of get me started is to walk to the bottom of the hill I live on and back up it on my birthday – Feb 18. I live at top of highest hill in Cincinnati. The walk down and back will 6 miles on a fairly steep incline. My current state of fitness means a 20 minute walk will exhaust me.

Now I need to figure out how I’m going to make myself do this. So I will walk every morning when I get up, before I get on the internet. I will increase my daily walk by 5 minutes every day. And by my birthday I should be able to accomplish my goal.

When I have that sub goal taken care of, I will set a new sub goal to keep myself motivated for exercising daily.

I increase my odds of winning these goals by not just planning generally – walk daily, but specifically. Walk as soon as I get out of bed in the morning. Because will power is a limited resource and we deplete it. The tank of will power is fullest after a good rest. So morning.

I can also increase my success by eliminating any small barriers that tend to halt my good intentions. So by making sure that I have my clothes out and easily grabbable every morning.

Now the other thing – choosing a priority. I have 4 main goals for 2016. Exercise is my priority. The reason it is my priority is because exercise is a pivot habit. There are habits that help us start to make new and better habits in other areas of our lives. Its sort of a cascade effect. I’m not making that up. Studies have been done. Its fascinating. And exercise is one of them. So that its the one that will have the priority even though getting a new job would seem like the one that is more life changing.

All of these things are plannable and must be planned for me to succeed. But they won’t be the only factor. The battle with the depression is slippery. But the meds have started to work more noticeably. And I’m hoping that will work in my favor.

The bullshit of “If you really wanted it, you would do it”

This a popularly held piece of bullshit that has pissed me off most of my adult life after doing untold damage to my psyche as a child/teenager.

I am going to use my weight issue as an example, but the ‘wanting it enough’ statement is used for lots of things that people struggle with. And almost universally its bullshit. The reasons parallel quite nicely with my example.

I have been fat to some degree or another most of my life. And I tried daily for most of my teens and 20s to diet. I dreamed about being thin, I tried and failed at just about every diet that came down the pike. I knew more about nutrition and dieting than just about anyone I knew.

But I just got fatter not thinner. And it was said to me by friends, family and strangers “When you want it enough, you will be able to do it.” That was apparently the key to unlocking the problem. Just wanting it more than I already did.

Lets unpack that piece of stupidity.

If I want it enough, means that despite the fact that the dream and the desire to be thin was filling all of my imagination -it was apparently not “enough” wanting to allow me to successfully diet.

The constant planning for eating the correct foods, researching new diets, spending thousands and thousands of dollars on it hadn’t quite hit “enough”.

It means that even though my life on a daily, often moment by moment basis was a series of humiliations, of physical limitations, and of just plain pain, it was was somehow not outweighing some mysterious advantage to being fat and/or eating too much. Apparently I needed things to get worse than 400 lbs before I triggered the “enough” category of wanting.

Now lets consider what the implication of this sentence is. Not only am I fat, unattractive, unhealthy and utterly miserable, I WANT to be that way. That’s what someone is saying to me. I enjoy being all of that so much that my obsession with being thin – it was just a drop in the bucket.

And the further implication is that there is something wrong with me because I don’t want this enough.

What scared me was that I believed them. I just accepted that my constant state of desire and of obsession about being thin, wasn’t really “wanting”. I was constantly trying to figure out what I could possibly be getting out of the misery that would trump all of that obsession. It certainly wasn’t on the surface the way my apparently not “enough” desire to be thin was. I felt crazy.

And then one day, it dawned on me. That “enough” was bullshit. I did want it. The entire premise of wanting it enough is faulty.

And people say it because they don’t know why a rational person wouldn’t be able to stick to a diet.

I eventually got a gastric bypass. I don’t regret it. I regret the belief in the bullshit of “not wanting it enough”.

Wanting something is not the intrinsic piece of the puzzle that makes us do something.

People do lots of things every day they don’t “want” to do. They do them for lots of reasons other than personal desire.
People do lots of things every day that they get no advantage from.
They often don’t do things that they could get an advantage from.

Life is far more complex than that statement implies and using it supremely unhelpful advice.

Don’t say it to anyone EVER. For anything they are trying to achieve. Their inability to do something they dream about probably has nothing to do with not wanting something. Admit that you don’t really know why they aren’t succeeding in the endeavor and give them support.