The fat lady sings....

This blog has become quite dormant. I'm thinking of shutting it down for good. But not to worry, I've started a new blog The History Spot...and you'll notice my moniker has changed to HistoryGeek.

I'm moving in a new direction and it's into the past. Stop by to see what I'm doing a learn new tidbits about the stories that shaped us.

It's a boy....yeah, yeah...

My cousin is pregnant. She's a cousin I haven't been very close to, but we are now on FB together. As are her sisters and her mother.

So my cousin is pregnant and she found out on Tuesday that it's a boy. She's posted its ultra-sound, and is now in the midst of comparing how much he looks like his father. Her sister is thanking the lord that the child is mild of temperment. Have I mentioned that the fetus is probably only a few months gestated. ACK!

I guess I should be happy that she hasn't posted this as her profile picture, yet. OMG! I'm sorry. She did!

This family lives in a very different world than I do, it seems. This sister is married. The oldest is going to take a missionary trip to Southern England (I really wasn't aware that the Brits were in need of saving). Dad was once a Republican state legislator.

It's all just very bizarre. Although, I'm sure the idea that I'm a pagan, bi, fat activist who will publicly castigate Pat Robertson is a bit of a shock to them as well.

My horoscope

There is a column in SF Chronicle that has astrological predictions...supposedly, I will be spending most of this year putting things in place for 2011. They didn't tell me why. Maybe it will be a 20/20 hindsight kind of thing.

I don't, generally, make resolutions, but I am working on a project about identity and art. I've mostly just been thinking about it...but I'll keep you posted. I have to do something with it, as I present my experience in St. Louis in March.

Any resolutions from my 2 readers out there?

Facebook is getting crowded

I'm finding, now that I've friended my mother and assundry other relatives on FB, that it's much harder to speak my mind there. So it just may be that I will be around the old blogland to air some of my stuff here.

I just got back from MN. It was a lovely trip, and I felt very cared for around the gluten issue, but boy did it raise all my family issues.

I feel bad for S. I want to see him today, but I'm feeling like I need to hibernate. So I made plans to go for a walk with him, and now have cancelled. It sucks.

So what went wrong? Nothing much...just the frustration of having a father who cannot experience anything he does as good (or ask for what he wants). He showed me a pair of diamond earings that he bought my mother for Xmas. She's wanted a pair forever. The first thing out of his mouth was that he thought they were too small. He couldn't believe that she would be blown away by his gift, just as it was.

Then there's my mom who wants to talk to me, or really anyone, all the time. She's an extrovert. I can't really blame her for it, but it drives me crazy. It feels invasive to me, even though I know that's not the intent.

And my aunt...what to say about her. She's my dad's sister, so she grew up with the same incredibly abusive mother, but her stuff get's expressed a little differently. She's a bit OCD in some of her stuff, especially around cleaning. And there is this way that I feel like if she could she would reel me in and having me living in my parents' house for the rest of my life. Smothering, even though I only see her a little bit while I'm there.

I feel like I sound ungrateful or unloving. But that's the thing. I do love them. I just can't live with them. In fact, I feel like I'm able to love them better from afar.

And so, today, I'm hibernating. I'm trying not to feel badly that I am hibernating.

Something's going around

I just get the weirdest health problems, ever!

Here's a list of a few:

Hydradenitis Supparativa (I might have misspelled this)
Lyme
Celiac (or non-celiac gluten-intolerance...the only people who really care are the health insurance companies)
Kidney stones

This last one, admittedly, is partially my fault. I don't drink enough fluids. Mostly, because my bladder is the size of a thimble. But whenever I pass a stone, I swear to mend my ways. Doesn't happen. But I'm back to swearing again.

The pain isn't really that bad, it's just annoying (especially the peeing through a strainer).

Let's have a naming contest...anyone have an idea for what to call the bit of calcium oxylate I'm currently birthing?

Something doesn't quite smell right

I want health care reform to pass. I really do. I think keeping the same system in place makes about the same sense as city planners returning to medieval ways of letting cities grow - all cobbled together without a broader sense of a plan.

I really want healthcare to be universal, and I acknowledge that there will be a greater burden on some than others when paying for this. It is my belief that people should be asked to pay commensurate with their income. I'm a socialist that way, I'll admit.

I do not, however, believe that a disproportionate burden for healthcare costs should be shifted to any particular group based on "healthy lifestyles." This is, I think, a red herring that makes people feel self-righteous, but is a horribly slippery slope.

I'm fat, so I am biased in this. I would, under the current version of the reform bill under consideration by the Senate, be required to pay more than thinner people who get the same insurance I do. I have a job, and I can afford to do this. In fact, because I have a job, I don't mind paying a bit more for my healthcare. It's that important to me to have everyone insured.

But by asking all people who live "unhealthy lifestyles" to pay more for health premiums, we begin to head in the direction of system that penalizes people who do not have societal access to what's considered "healthy." How do you tell a woman who is holding down two jobs to support her children that she needs to head to the gym or go for a walk when she can't afford gym membership or her neighborhood is not safe...even if she had the time and energy to do these things? How do we justify penalizing a family that lives in a neighborhood without access to healthy food choices (i.e. safe neighborhood grocery stores with affordable fresh produce).

Even the underlying assumption feels offensive to me. The idea behind this part of the debate is that we want to keep costs low, so we need to penalize those groups we think can do something about their potential for health related problems because they might cost more. It is easy for people to believe that this will only affect people who are fat or who smoke, but it opens the door for invasion into other habits as well. People who have unprotected sex open themselves to STDs and pregnancies. Those who engage in high-injury sports (including football, hockey, soccer) open themselves up to orthopedic injuries and the possibility of early onset dementia from head trauma. Where will we draw the line? Who gets to decide.

The reality is that most of the rising costs of healthcare have to do with the aging of our population. The older you get, the more you need healthcare. The greater burden you become on the system. Perhaps we should start trying to determine who is going to live the longest and charge them more now, on the off chance that they will live to 95?

We need healthcare for all people, but we need to think about the way that we are organizing the provision of it with an eye to long term consequences.

Lights out!

PG&E turned the lights off at my work today. It's for maintenance on a transformer that feeds our building...but mid-day power outages for dialysis clinics are not really a great idea.

Anywho, I got a chunk of time off to go home and do some more cleaning. I'm having a Passion Party on Friday (sort of a tupperware party for sex toys and spa products). It's going to be small, but I'm looking forward to it.

It feels good to look forward to something.