I am still dealing with this headache thing. It is getting better and seems to be both a sinus headache (since there's a spot if I press near my temple it hurts, but don't look that up on the Internet or it will tell you, you are dying) and a tension headache caused by my utterly destroyed shoulder muscles, which I think has to do with my desk set up. All of this said, it's impeding my ability to work and making me sort of aggravated.
Tonight Patty and I are going to Tango del Diablo. I could totally get away with wearing my tux to this, but the effort and physical restriction, especially in light of the state of my head and shoulders mentioned above, seems completely beyond me. Maybe a suit. Hell, maybe a dress because it takes me the least time. I don't know.
Right, so about the refrigerator thing? I am an idiot and not suited for the century. I was turning the knob the wrong way. It's cold again now.
In the realm of Doctor Who tie-in novels, I am currently reading The Stealers of Dreams about a world where lying and fiction is illegal. It's actually freaking me out a little.
We watched another episode of Buffy last night. James Marsters is a great actor because making that speech that ends with him on the cross any type of interesting and moving as opposed to just chaotic and weird took a LOT of effort. Of course, since he's known as the hot guy with the great abs from the trashy genre show, we're never going to get lots of chances to see him really act, and that's a damn shame.
I am getting really excited about Bristol, even though I still have to make my train reservations and my hotel reservations for Bristol itself. Of course, everything is fitting together perfectly... without Cardiff, a problem which is still, foolishly, running around in the back of my head. I should just email the Fabulous Welshcakes store and see if I can get them to post me an order to my hotel, which really would solve about 50% of my absurdity. Today's mantras: London has stories too and Even you don't like trains that much. It's helping.
Apparently, people have decided it's bad for children to have best friends now. I would have suffocated as a kid without mine. I don't like casual conversation now any more than I did then. I would have been miserable attempting to have a set of light connections about nothing in particular. The article suggests that it's about teaching kids not to be so possessive of their friends, but I remember how much my parents hated how close I was to my best friends, and to me I can't help but think this is another way for a certain stripe of today's super-clingy parents to keep their child theirs for longer.
Meanwhile, the doctors vs. midwives thing here is ongoing, and let's be clear, about misogyny and the medicalization of femaleness.
A brief, odd geographic note about the clitoral surgery links from yesterday: While Cornell University is mostly located in Ithaca, these events are related to the affiliated Cornell University Medical Center, which is located on the Upper East Side in New York City.
what? kids should absolutely have a best friend (or more than one, even) - kids without a best friend grow up to be distrustful and socially awkward (points at self)
Man. While I'm a bit out of that article's target zone-- I have a really, really close group of three or four people-- I can't imagine trying to do life without those really close bonds. Not to mention, in middle school and high school there just weren't a lot of the other kids who could keep up with me and keep me interested. Much less people I trusted the way I trust my Horde. (that group of 4 people)
I hate casual conversation as well. It's one of the reasons why it's so hard for me to make new friends anywhere, because I keep to myself rather than make idle chit-chat, thus everyone remains a stranger to me.
This. I just... FROTHED at the mouth when I read this bit:
But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.
Are they fucking KIDDING?! My best friend in middle school was my only bulwark AGAINST the effects of bullying. I'd have attempted suicide years earlier were it not for her.
It's nice to hear your compliment of Marsters, since he often gets no respect. In the later seasons of Buffy I often felt that he acted brilliantly scene by scene, but couldn't hold Spike together as a coherent character over a whole season. I didn't fault him for that, though, because the scripts don't draw him as a consistent character. It's been a long time since I watched any Buffy. I wonder what it would look like now.
Also, on the best friends thing -- it's hard for me to realize that people feel so entitled to interfere with their children (hell, MY children) these days. My parents and teachers had their faults, but they generally left me to my own devices unless there was some clear problem. I was awfully introverted, and forcing me to interact with larger groups would have been a violation...
Ah, doctors vs. midwives, I know the battle well. From the sidelines, mercifully, but let's just say I have an avid interest in the movement for Normal Birth.
That written agreements thing? So. Fucking. Paternalistic. The midwives do not need to be overseen by doctors. The midwives will oversee themselves.
I've given birth in two provinces that have had established colleges of midwives, legal and funded by the province, for about a decade each. The relationship between midwifery and obstetrics is pretty good, around here. There does not need to be an adversarial relationship; the two groups provide different things. Midwives are terrific at attending normal births, and obstetricians are great at managing high risk births. For the many points in between, combinations work.
There is, however, a crazy adversarial thing happening in several places, and it's just awful. The doctors come out looking greedy, the midwives are painted as irresponsible ideologues, and the women who ought to be served by these groups end up as pawns in a battle over their bodies and their experience.
I might be more than a touch political about this one.
OMG is that a knitted uterus in your icon? Too Fucking Awesome.
I've become ideological, but initially, when I was choosing to have an intervention-free birth, it was entirely because what I read convinced me that it was safer and more likely to be successful (i.e. end up without a drugged baby, a major gut wound, and a failed breastfeeding relationship) than with a medicalized birth.
I recall a lot of people being pretty blown away by that church scene, praising the episode's writer heavily, only to have the writer sheepishly and ruefully admit that it was actually Joss who wrote that scene. I remember a lot of people liking the ep...but I wasn't heavily into the fandom, I just read a lot of message boards. So, FWIW.
You sound a lot like me. I feel my mission is to lovingly and supportively help my kids to become resilient. I don't think managing their social lives falls under that mission.
That's interesting about the age range of you and your sisters, my sister and I are almost 4 years apart and definitely weren't each other's best friends growing up. We were rarely at the same school at the same time so there wasn't much social overlap in that sense.
I think it's possible to have multiple best friends, I have one from college and one from high school and while I connect with them in different ways, I love them both deeply. I had a small group of close friends throughout school, though the members of that group changed considerably between ages 8 and 18. The group in middle school was a few of us banding together out of necessity, but probably helped keep me sane.
In NYC the c-section rate is 37% with a 98% episiotomy rate. I'd be a fool to think that those statistics don't apply to me.
As it was I transferred for retained placenta post-partum. However, I had my baby without meds, without getting an episiotomy, and NO tearing. I was stablized by my midwife, and she took me to have a d&c. That's her job - to shepard women through normal childbirth, and determine if her client needs more intense care. She was amazing, and if we have another child, I will be birthing at home with her, no question.
It's unfortunate in the extreme that being logical, looking at statistics, and educating oneself, and using one's rational capabilities is looked at now as "radical" and "ideological".
my sister and I are almost 4 years apart and definitely weren't each other's best friends growing up
We might have been close in my case, because there were three of us and the middle acting as a bridge between the oldest and the youngest--when I was 16, the middle one was 14 and the youngest 12. I dragged them along with me and they were so awesome none of my school ever subjected. But they were remarkable--very smart and grown up.
If you haven't heard Dan Savage's commentary on the McDonalds ad from his 6/15 Savage Lovecast, I highly recommend it. The short version: people are pointing to this ad as being pro-norming, and oh, how wonderful France is for GLBTQ people. If you look at the narrative, though, it's a gay kid who stays in the closet while his dad is all, "sorry you go to an all-boys school because you can't see girls."
I haven't seen anybody else talk about this, though it's possible I haven't been looking very closely on account of limiting some of my surfing time.
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