Hiatus sounds a lot like Meatus

In 12 minutes a hired car will be picking me up from W118th and 7th and taking me to Newark airport. I will pay $43 + tolls, will board a plane on Continental, and then it will fly me back home, where I will stay for at least 2 months. I've been in my own home for only 23 days in 2009. Weird. I'm starting grad school in about 7 days, but am more excited about Sam's imminent arrival on the 28th. I've been on the east coast since January 24.. working mostly in a little town called South Orange, New Jersey. At the end of the contract I decided to stay in NY for a few days. I've had a relentless, wretchedly obsessive "thing" with New York for 8 years. It's finally over - I hope. Whereas all of the other 1000 times I've visited I felt a tickling sense of elation, when I visited this time I didn't feel it once. It was really liberating.

Other random thing I've been doing: passing out copies of Fatties of the World Unite! I decided on a whim (and with the use of a friend's unlimited free copies at the Seton Hall University library), I printed out 35 copies of it.. well, the first 3 chapters are what I have. I've been leaving it all over anywhere: the bathroom, the park. I went to Philly the other day, and I left it there too. Philly isn't as bad as everyone says, by the way.

This is one of those ranty, insignificant blogs for the lifers. Obviously.

The hired car is here. I must go.
More later - for real! If you want a copy of Fatties email me, and I'll send it to you.

Is there a Sin Tax in Medical Care?

Thesis: People who smoke, drink, or are overweight get poorer medical care because doctors simply diagnose the cessation of these "sins" rather than looking in depth to the cause of the problem, which may/may not be the sin itself.

I'm not saying that the abovementioned don't increase the chances of health problems, but I'm saying that (1) they don't always, (2) the medical field inflates them and (3) may possibly be drawing false conclusions about their risk in your medical diagnosis.

On a trip I took in 2005, I got a back injury while on a crazily forceful amusement park ride that, I think, gave me some kind of whiplash. Direcly after I got off the ride, I had the first back spasm of my life in the bathroom of a restaurant near the ride. Even though it really fucking hurt I didn't think anything much of it because it was short. Following the accident, I had back stiffness, but a year later, I woke up one day and had another back spasm (just like the one after the ride, but this time it didn't go away). Even moving my arms sent elecrifying pain all throughout my body. I had back spasms for about 7 days and they slowly subsided until I was able to walk again 9 days after the initial one. Since then, I've had pretty much no respite from some level of back pain.

My chart:
Age: 27
Sex: Female
Height: 5'7''
Weight: 230 pounds (mostly in breasts ;))
Smoke? No
Drink? No
Drug Use? No
High Blood Pressure? No
Food Allergies? No
Drug Allergies? No
Notes: Gets no less sleep than a narcoleptic grandmother, doesn't have a stressful job, no children, higher than average resistance to infection, eat no processed food, and was born into a family where everyone's fat.

When I go to the doctor about my back pain all they recommend is that I lose weight. And despite my re-telling of the injurious ride, the diagnosis doesn't change. On a recent visit to a Kaiser doctor in San Francisco - where I made an appointment to discuss preventive pain care for my back - she said she couldn't help me until a further injury had happened, but the best way to prevent it was to lose weight, and then handed me a dietician recommendation. If the weight didn't cause the pain in the first place, then why do I always get the same answer?

Despite my having discussed my back problem with 3 doctors, the only person who has even recommended an X-ray has been my chiropractor. She's great, and says she doesn't care how big I am as long as I follow her directions on back care.

Testing my theory, I've asked some sinful friends about their experience with the medical system. Just last night I had dinner with a fellow big-boned femme who'd been forced to take multiple gestational diabetes tests during her pregnancy despite having no symptoms of the illness and having had negative results on previous screenings. When, in fact, doctors don't know exactly what causes gestational diabetes, couldn't her time at the doctor be more effectively used? Read about G.D. here.

I have a few other stories, but I encourage you to do a bit of asking yourself. Maybe you have an experience where you felt your actual condition was overlooked because of other habits. And I recommend you call your doctor out on it. I definitely will the next time it happens.

A is for abortion

You know those pictures that anti-choice people hold up at rallies.. you know, the ones that have pictures of mashed up fetuses next to a quarter or a bunch of limb nubs neatly arranged on some kind of tray. I always wonder about the person who does the arranging. I mean, who is the person who takes these photos? Does that guy get paid or does he just do it for love of the movement? Who gives them these fetuses? Is the guy behind the camera advising him to move this little leg to the left a little so it can be in frame? And do they go to, like, Kinko's to enlarge these photos?

Dunno if you heard, but a famous "baby executioner," Dr. George Tiller, was recently shot and killed while he was - get this - at church, by someone who probably - get this - thought God told him to do it. God, get your story straight. Tiller was known for providing late-term abortions in Wichita, Kansas. He even had a website, which is currently offline with a message asking us to respect their privacy.

The anti-choice people are smugly spinning this as a chicken's-come-home-to-roost story, saying (without saying) that he was finally executed the way that he'd executed all those poor little babies. The word execution brings to mind images of little tiny babies getting guillotined, which - I'm pretty sure - isn't what happened.

But a zygote isn't a baby. A blastocyst isn't a baby. A fetus isn't a baby. But I don't even want to talk about what obstetrics and gynecology tell us, I want to talk about the fact that the moment a baby comes into the world, the same people who were decrying its rights, now believe that it should be subject to the country they've created: a country where that child could someday be sentenced to the death penalty (especially if that child is brown and poor - and if the child is a he and is unfortunate enough to be poor and brown, then there's a better chance he'll end up in prison than in college). That child will be born into a country whose politicians advocate for deforestation, a country that hosts hundreds of Congress people who will consider the child a leech if it requires any kind of public assistance, whose mother could be in debt for 10 years if there are complications at birth, whose mother will be given no pay for her time-off taken to have the child, and where that child - if he becomes homeless - will be given work applications (not shiny pennies or t-shirts that say "Thank God You Weren't Aborted") by Christians driving past his cardcoard house on their way to church. (No, by the way the work apps was not an exaggeration. I remember the congregants of my own childhood church bragging about how they gave homeless people work applications.)

It seems to me that the moment you're out the pussy, the people who cared enough about your little baby soul to kill doctors are eager for you to grow the fuck up in our nation under God shaped by nut-bag Republicans.

Bah! Damn fetus lovers. You can't say that life is sacred and put more people in prison than any other country in the world, you idiots. And you can't say you love babies when you clearly are the ones behind the creepy fetus limb picture-taking, you sick fucks.

What New Zealanders Think...

I've been in New Zealand for a little over four months now, and though Bill Maher's comment this morning that "every year 20,000 Americans die because of insufficient healthcare" falls on my ears similar to the way that "do you want fries with that?" it hits my New Zealand boyfriend's ears with the intended effect: horror, disbelief, outrage.

Over time he's asked me to verify a number of the things that he'd heard about America because he'd assumed were made up (or at least exaggerated) by the Simpsons CNN, or Fox News.. things like what churches teach children about Noah being real and Jesus rising from the dead for real, about Monster Trucks (I believe he said "wait, so big trucks run over smaller trucks and people watch?"), 64 ounce cups of Coca Colas, super-sizing, slurpees, healthcare, Ho-Hos. All of which I confirmed.

Now that we're looking into either his moving to the US or my moving to NZ, the fear that every other developed nation has universal healthcare and the US doesn't is something that factors into our decision because he needs to take certain medications and have access to someone who can prescribe them.

On trips I've taken, I've spoken to other travelers (almost always non-Americans no matter where I go.. which I think speaks volumes to differences in standards of living. Maybe it's elitist of me, but I consider the ability to travel a standard of living issue), and their incredulity isn't much different from Sam's.

Every New Zealander I've told of my California residency express jealousy or dreams of someday visiting, but this is in stark contrast to their opinions about our politics, which, frankly, seem to strike them as barbaric.

And - despite my love of saying in GWeese "these colors don't run" - I can't disagree with them.

Lysistrata 2009: Kenyan Women on Sex Strike

If you want to skip out on my savvy commentary, click here for article. Those of you good people who stayed...

In 12th grade, I played Lysistrata, the main character in an Aristohpones play by the same name. Clever Lysistrata gets her fellow Greek women to withold pussy privileges in hopes of ending the Peloponnesian War. And it works. Random detail: I asked if I could read her character with a Brooklyn accent, which gave the whole production a uniquely fabu edge, I thought.

I too now wonder how this was allowed to be part of the curriculum. But this play only provided the stage with a tale we know all too well in our personal sex lives. Who among us hasn't witheld head or a rim job in hopes of accomplishing some greater good? I know for a fact that Sam didn't give me head on my birthday (he says) because he was trying to show me that temper tantrums aren't sexy (I'd just had one). And I'm trying to get him to quit smoking, so I've been witholding head.

In Kenya, at the beginning of the month, thousands of women took a vow to withold sex from their husbands for a week to protest Kenya's "bickering leaderhip," stating they didn't want a repeat of the post-election violence of 2008. The article says that the coalition has asked sex workers to take up the cause too, and that they were willing to pick up the tab.

According to a CNN article, a man tried to sue for damages and mental anguish. But beside this guy, the boycott was successful in prompting leaders to meet. The pussy wins... AGAIN! If only the abstinence-only people could harness the vaginas of their constituents for the greater good of better American politics. Sigh...

New Smut: Part 1 (a pussy story)

The window displayed every kind of delicacy, but all he could see were vaginas. He saw them wherever he went. He saw them in the obvious places - the tight swirl of young rose petals - but also in the sheen of some women's shoes, the frothy cream atop children's hot drinks, and, when he narrowed his eyes, he could see turgid clitorises in the craggy mountain tops of his town.

His sense of smell was maddeningly sensitive. Though as a young man he refused to believe his nose - which told him that this woman had just orgasmed or that woman had just been ejaculated into - now, at 50 years old, he knew that he could pick out phases of ovulation the way that perfumiers could tell gardenia from frangipane.

He loved nothing more than to have his face engulfed, up to the nose, between a woman's thighs. When he hired a woman, he loved to do this very thing. When she arrived, he'd begin with soft-spoken questions. What did her vagina look like? Was it a shell, a filled coin purse, a tiny fringed mouth? What did her vagina feel like? How old was she when she first grew hair on her vagina? Had she masturbated as a child? Did she languish for long hours on her bed putting 1 and then 2 and then 3 fingers into her vagina? Or was she a flurried, fast clitoris rubber? And he would repeat words like vagina, clitoris, masturbation with a crescendoing relish. Each word acted as the click of a projector, bringing to mind a new image that accompanied the word. And he preferred the precise, medical terms for there was a word for every part of a woman in medicine.

He preferred one above others. She was a giggling, chubby girl, and though he knew what her vagina looked like - indeed, he knew the exact taste and texture of her cervix - he loved the way that her dimple would appear as she slumped down in her chair, pulled up her skirt, opened her legs, and asked, "What does it look like to you?" His pulse would rise slowly; blood would begin to pump so loudly he could hear it in the silences between words.

He'd ask her to stand up and he'd make his way onto the floor. On all fours, he would crawl to her feet and then lie on his back and ask her to open her legs. She would and once she'd taken a step forward he would see her hose, her garters scrunched just above the knee, and the soft skin. Then, he would begin to stare at the shell or purse or mouth.

Hers was an overstuffed purse, chubby as her naughtily angelic face. Though she was sun-kissed, her thighs were pale. And the sparse, dark hairs on her inner thighs stood out like small, shiny wires. He continued his gaze up to her mons, the plumpest part. And he traced a line in his mind's eye along the border of hair that separated her soft stomach from her most private and delectable parts. He breathed in deeply. Below her skirt, he was as in another world. A world that smelled like her, and her alone. Almost unbeknownst to him, he had grabbed hold of her ankles in a fit of desperate arousal. He asked her to spread her legs further. And as she did, he felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, her pink insides exposed just barely. The sight of the color filled his mouth with saliva. It ignited his sense of smell. His eyes dilated with lust as he fought to focus them on her.

Oh, the places you'll go...

Gosh, I love travel. The problem with loving travel is that it really sort of puts a dent in your finances and your love life and any desire to "settle down" or "make something of yourself" and buy a home or a car or furniture that can't be deflated.

Since 18, I've been a traveling fiend. I lived in Italy that year, and turned 19 while at the Cannes Film Festival. I saw Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia for the first time, where I discovered Dubrovnik, one of my favorite cities. The next year I was living in Oaxaca, and studying ethnobotany and indigenous peoples. Then, Barcelona when I was 21 - that was the year I became obsessed with Dali's wife, Gala, and I saw the running of the bulls in Pamplona. At 22, I moved to New York for about half a year. NY is still the sort of love of my life.

23 saw Dublin, London and Paris, where the pastries were just as amazing as they looked and came in every color, even green. At 23 I returned to Spain, but this time to Madrid and discovered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Toledo - about an hour outside of the capitol. At 25, I went to the southern hemisphere for the first time and visited Auckland in New Zealand. And 26 (and love) brought me to New Zealand again - and NZ led me to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, Sydney and Bangkok, where I saw ping pongs shooting out of vaginas and where I learned that I could pass as Thai. That brings me to 27, which I just turned on May 19. It snowed on my birthday.

I mean, when you think of it, most people's dreams are of traveling. They spend their whole lives saving up and getting decrepit so they can finally have time to see the world. But - having noted that most travelers are wrinkly Germans - by the time one retires, they end up avoiding the mountain hikes (because of bad knees) and the humid climates (because of heat exhaustion) and the crazy tuk-tuk or cab drivers (don't want to have a heart attack) and the hostels where you can become best friends with an Australian overnight and the subways (all those stairs) and the 6 hour bus rides (hip replacement) and the long city walks (it's hard doing that with a walker). I actually like seeing older folks getting out and living, but why doesn't living start a lot earlier than 60? Aren't we entitled to more than 5 or 10 days off a year? Americans are unique in that we work harder than any other people in the West and we get the least vacation time, almost no job security and the worst healthcare benefits. And what about the people like my grandparents - who have worked all their lives, are in their 70s, and who still don't feel like they can spare the money to travel? Only something around 25% of Americans even have a passport. And that isn't right. Everyone deserves to see the world they're a part of, and the US is not a third world nation whose citizens should be living like paupers. Oooh. I need to deeply exhale.

You might wonder how I do all this traveling. It's a simple financial plan: 1. Work for 1 or 1.5 years. 2. Save as much as possible by living in the least-posh neighborhood of the closest still-savvy, big city (you'll save on commuting and entertainment. Bigger cities have more free entertainment, like book readings, free film screenings, gallery openings, and free mueseum days). 3. Quit your job. 4. Spend all that money on crazy adventures! Fall in love and possibly get food poisoning. Anywho.. here are some photos from my travels in the past few months. Hope you lik-ee. Pic 5: Cook Islands: my hand on a starfish in lagoon. Pic 4: Cook Islands lagoon, Pic 3: Bangkok breakfast of dragonfruit and lychees, Pic 2: baby tiger on my lap at Tiger Temple outside of Bangkok. Pic 1: Marlborough Sounds in NZ