This is Day 2 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in the comedy classic of my generation, Animal House.

One side effect of carrying around a few extra el-bees is a proportional increase in the chestal area. For the first time since…oh, hell—high school? college? (maybe some of you lurking ex-es could chime in), I have significant boobage.

From the cultural cues that surround us, you’d think this would be a good thing. In most respects, however, it’s a colossal pain in the assets. I’ve always liked small boobs, both from an aesthetic and practical point of view. As have my various partners. (At least, as far as I know. Lurker exes?) Not only did my tiny breasteses look great in and out of clothes, but unlike those of my well-endowed sisters, my own girls required virtually no maintenance from a containment perspective.

No more. I’ve been sensing for a while now that my old “bras” (aka a wardrobe of dago tees) weren’t cutting it anymore. No matter that I wash and dry them on the hottest settings, replace them dutifully each spring, and wear a fresh, tight one each day: I’ve moved from a barely-A to a big man-handful, and no amount of cotton ribbing and denial is enough to keep things under control. And the few actual brassieres I bought for Casual Mom audition drag are a good six years and 1.5 cup sizes past their usefulness.

Because brother, I hate bra shopping almost as much as I hate bra-wearing. From a physical or political perspective, they’re equally annoying. Why the hell should I have to sacrifice time, money and comfort for the sake of propriety, otherwise known as the reigning sex’s inability to keep their eyes off the prizes? If I don’t mind my tits winding up the low-hanging victims of gravity, how they dangle should be my own damned business.

Alas, I live in a world where others will look, either askance or lecherously, and I’m not enough of a booby buddha to not let it get to me. So for all my feminist decrying, the bottom line is that mainly, I’ve just been too cheap and too lazy to do anything about it.

Until yesterday. I had an errand to run in that hideous sprawl just east of Los Angeles known as the Inland Empire, home to the biggest IKEA in all the Southland as well as, it seems, some of our more revolting specimens of masculinity. Despite my very obviously being dressed so as to not solicit attention of any kind—baggy cargos, loose, long-sleeved tee and the ubiquitous dago underneath—many of these charming gents gave me the surreptitious once-over. Whatever. Some people really don’t have enough excitement in their lives.

Then, in the parking lot of an adjacent mall, one of them openly stared straight at my boobs and—before he was out of eyeline, much less earshot—cracked to his equally vile friend, “See? Like those, bouncing all over the place.”

At first, I was incensed. This roly-poly cholo—this marginalized weeble in oversized baby clothes—dares malign me and my few extra ounces of bouncy old lady-flesh? Fuuuuuuuuuuck you, esé. I’m the revolution, baby; I’m an Agent of Change. I’m your mother, your sister, your daughter (well, more like your abuelita, really); how would you feel if some punk piece of trash guero caught one of them in their own vile line of fire?

And just as quickly, the flame of anger burned off and I realized the truth: I was no better, and arguably far worse than they. My lowest-common-denominator thinking, my impulse to objectify them rather connect with any common humanity was as foul as anything I was condemning in them. So what if I wasn’t as out-loud-obnoxious about it? That sprung from common sense and an instinct for survival, not anything noble.

Plus, there was the stark physical truth that they had pointed out, however rudely: my containment system was overtaxed, my meatflaps were flopping all over, and if I wanted to continue to fly under the radar, it was time to walk into Ross Dress for Less and, er, take matters in hand. Which I did, albeit in a grumbling sort of way. (If bra shopping is ever fun, it is not under these circumstances.) The universe, sensing my delicate mood, graciously directed me to six models on the tangled rack, three of which not only fit, but set me back a mere twenty bucks total. I did a patented actor change in the car, and poof! back under the radar I went.

Teachers: wherever you are, I thank you. I thank you for reminding me that I, too, am a pig, that some hills are not worth dying on and that sometimes, the solution is actually crazy simple.

Two boobs from the barrio put two boobs in a bra.

Nice symmetry, that…

xxx
c

Image by wolfheadfilms via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, Los Angeles, Rants, thank you sir may i have another.

In the pantheon of Not Getting Things Done, this weekend was King-Daddy Slackoff. Part of the problem was a profound and unanticipated Need For Rest; another part was Family In Town (which is to say, not a problem at all—these are fun relatives.)

The biggest culprit was a return of my old pal, the urinary tract infection. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing a UTI, imagine a white-hot poker being shoved up your urethra while your bladder is full of pee, and someone squeezing on your belly to keep you from releasing either. And that’s the part you can discuss in mixed company.

I was raised to fear medicine, and so will put up with eight other kinds of pain—post-surgical, pre-colonoscopic, etc—but I am a baby when it comes to white-hot pokers up my urethra. When it became clear that two glasses of cranberry juice and an extra trip to the can was not going to right matters, I phoned my OB/GYN doc’s answering service and, after a brief but tense exchange (”I’m sorry, we don’t have 24-hour emergency contact for yeast infections”), got her to call the doc on call, who immediately called back with a prescription for my new best friend, nitrofurantoin. Sweet relief, right?

Well, sort of. The white-hot poker has been exchanged for mind-bending headache that threatens to blind me, a side effect of severe caffeine withdrawal for which there is no cure…save caffeine.

I thought I would make it. Really, I did. I AM TOUGH!!!! And I was tough until about 4pm, when it was either stab my own eyes out or give in to a cup of Barry’s. Weak Barry’s, for a weak communicatrix.

So it’s clear that I need to add this to the list of things to grapple with in the not-too-distant future. Caffeine isn’t exactly nature’s RX for Crohn’s disease, I know; I just hadn’t realized how off the diet I’d actually gotten.

Crap on a cracker. Coffee, tea, reality television—what am I not addicted to…?

xxx
c

Photo by kana* via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: Rants.

My Macs continue to conspire against me, one getting hinky as soon as I get the other one fixed. For months I’ve been hobbling along on my 12″ PowerBook, watching my useful time working in Photoshop slowly shrink as the program decides to lock up more and more, in much the same way that it did on my G5 before it went south in July.

Die on me once, shame on you; die on me twice, shame on you, you mercenary POS robber barons.

Sigh…

So this afternoon, after a new business meeting down in Orange County, I’m driving back up to one of the 67 Apple stores in the Los Angeles area to give them even more of my money. Why?

(a) Because #@*() Apple won’t let me install the Tiger OS that came with my $2800 PowerBook on my $3000 G5 and I need it to sync the computers and end this madness

(b) Because I killed the “a”, “q” & “1″ keys on my spare keyboard and I’m tired of swapping back & forth or finding work@arounds

(c) All of the above

—

For some reason, WordPress decided to gobble up 1/3 of this post between my pushing the “publish” button and it showing up on a browser near you. I don’t know why; clearly, I am more technologically handicapped than I even realize.

Anyway, as I said (I think) the first time I posted this, the events of the past several days have helped me understand why The BF says he must visualize half-clad young Japanese women before he can wrap his mind around other people’s stupid computer questions. I am just trying to take care of my own stupid computer problems and all I can think about is a stiff bourbon and a long, hot bath, followed by a swift whomp to the head with a 2×4 before falling into a deep, deep sleep until sometime next year…

xxx
c

Image above is a still frame from a Japanese TV show called Zuiikin’ English, in which half-clad young Japanese women aerobicize to common English phrases such as “I Was Robbed by Two Men” and “Spare Me My Life.” Via TV in Japan.

TOPICS: Apple, Rants.

Regular readers of communicatrix-dot-com know that roughly four years ago, I spent one delightful summer sliding into a severe onset of Crohn’s disease: colossal weight loss, fever, diarrhea. (I know, I know—sexy!!!)

It’s a long story, but the short of it is I was sick, brother: 11 days in the hospital followed by four months of bed rest to get to anything remotely resembling my pre-Crohn’s-onset life.

Today, I was in the hospital for the first time since getting ill. I’m not sick this time; I was visiting a friend who is. Several things struck me about the visit, though, probably in large part because of the parallel experience I had four years ago on the other side of the bed:

1. Our current health system blows gigantic, acrid chunks

I know this isn’t coming as a huge surprise, but for people lucky enough to stay healthy or even well-insured, it’s easy to downplay or forget. My friend can’t afford coverage, and had to wait until he was ungodly ill at both ends (severe respiratory illness and something like what I have, neither of which has been diagnosed yet) until he could be admitted.

I had great coverage and still had to wait 6 hours in the ER because so many people without coverage are admitted via the ER. (My fever was only 102.2ºF when I showed up; they told me I should have come before, when it was 104.4ºF. Yeah, and the night staff was on duty, and I was delirious with no advocate to accompany me. No, thanks: I’d like to keep my colon.)

I don’t know what to do about any of this. I’ll be interested to read Dave Pollard’s chronicle as he goes through much of what I had to, since he’s pretty smart and pretty Canadian. But our health care system? For all but a very, very few? Sucks.

2. If you’re not feeling sick, a few days in the hospital will cure you of that

No rest. Horrible food. Except for the maternity ward, a dismal environment.

The staff at Cedars, where I was incarcerated, was great. They still couldn’t do anything but stabilize me. (Believe me, I was and remain grateful for that.) Even my doctor, the sainted Graham Woolf, told me I might as well try going home to see what happened, since a lot of people get better once they leave the hospital.

3. If you’re wondering what to bring, start with toilet paper

When you’re pooping 36x/day, hospital tissue feels like 3M’s finest 40 grit. Even relatively well butts are attached to sick bodies, so any bit of comfort helps.

Ear plugs are also hugely helpful, as is edible food (provided it’s cool with the doc). If you bring a book, make sure it’s light reading, both in terms of subject matter and weight. A TV Guide is really, really nice (you watch a lot of TV), as is lip balm (you breathe a lot of dry air).

And flowers are lovely, but if you’re bringing them, don’t forget the vase.

4. Stay well

The most obvious, but the easiest to forget. Be a fierce advocate for your own health before anything happens. Get your annuals, even if you have to pay out of pocket. It’s more important than any phones/lights/motorcars/single luxuries. If you’re just scraping by, I don’t know what to tell you. Hit the clinic, hit up your parents, hit a bank (kidding…kidding…). Eat right. Move your ass a little. Don’t take stupid risks behind the wheel or anywhere else.

Take it from me: the only trips you want to make to the hospital are as a visitor. And even then, only when necessary…

xxx
c

Photo by katastrophik via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Related links:

How to have a great colonoscopy
The inside poop on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet
A brief history of my onset, and a tribute to Elaine Gottschall

TAGS: Crohn’s disease, SCD, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, hospitals, medical-industrial complex, Big Pharma, patient advocacy

TOPICS: Rants, SCD/Crohn's disease.

the rolling blackouts have started
and my building is dark
or will be
when the sun sets

no power for the two old ladies
who have lived there
since it was built
way, way back
in ‘59

not that they have A/C
or insulation
or even the magic
of cross-ventilation

(that’s not how they built things
in ‘59
no matter what anyone says
about the Good Old Days)

but there is no power for their fans
or their ancient refrigerators
or a light in the bathroom
so they can run a tub
of cold water

plenty of power on Wilshire, though–
can’t have those personal relocation devices
hitting each other

and they say
there’s so much power
at the mall
that the air-conditioned merchants
leave their doors open
to help cool
the shoppers

(nice merchants)

lately I swing
between wondering if this is the end of the world
and hoping it is

there would be a kind of satisfaction
in watching the wolves
set upon the drivers of SUV Nation
and the barons of McMansion Estates
and other members
of the Clueless Majority

stay here long enough
and you’ll know what I mean
unless you don’t
in which case, the wolves
will probably get you next…

that is
if they don’t take me out
on my way back from Peets
where I came to cool myself
with stolen dinosaur bones
and a strong sense of irony

xxx
c

Posted at 9:31pm. I’m home and so is Mr. Watts…for now.

Image by Spamily via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: blackouts, conservation, consumerism, energy consumption, Environment, Poetry Thursday, Rants.