Another link.

Sarah Vowell has some things to say. So does Frank Rich.

Still annoyed

I wish to clarify after my last post that I am not pleased about what I see as misogynist media coverage about Sarah Palin, but I do NOT approve of Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate. I thought there was quite a bit of misogynist media coverage of Hillary Clinton, too, but you won't see me voting for John McCain in some sort of insanely misguided effort at revenge.*

I was listening to some dopey show on NPR this morning, and a random English professor on their "panel" said something about the Sarah Palin pick that made me say "Yeah!" She said something to the effect that it is insulting that John McCain, apparently driven to pick a woman, picked THIS woman, rather than, say, Elizabeth Dole. He picked a woman who was unqualified, who is more or less just a puppet, rather than a woman who could actually be GOOD at the job. It's insulting to all women that John McCain thinks we'll vote for just any woman, just because she's a woman. If I didn't already hate him, I'd have to hate him for this.

* Because I hate John McCain. FYI.

Condescending and icky

Something that annoyed me today: the Yahoo news teaser was about Sarah Palin, which makes sense, but the links were things like "her unusual family" and "learn about her workout and diet" - which I think is unacceptable. I don't recall any links about Joe Biden's diet when he joined the ticket. (Though, to be fair, there was quite a bit of fluff about his family situation, too - media pandering is somewhat equal opportunity.)

Open your wallets!

Make a donation. I did. It looks like Oregon is going for Obama, and I don't have the resources to fly off to a swing state (Virginia, anyone?)* to campaign, so I have donated. Please spend it wisely, Barack, or Dutch won't send you her drawing after all.

In other news, today was Dutch's last day in her daycare classroom. After a three-week hiatus, she will move to... the Ladybug Room! Preschool!


* Wikipedia, which knows all, says that these are likely swing states:

• Colorado
• Florida
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia
• Wisconsin

So if you live in one of these states, start your doorknocking campaign!

If we don't answer the phone, we've already left for Chicago.

Dutch just sat, with remarkable patience, through Obama's entire speech. She colored and drew pictures. She declared after the speech that she was going to send Barack Obama her drawing, to help him celebrate his winning. Then she suggested that we should go visit him. I said he was pretty important, and probably didn't have time for visiting with us. She said "NO! We're going to go visit HIM!!" and I said okay, maybe sometime. Then I told her Barack Obama wanted her to take a bath (I'm sure that's true, in an abstract way, what with all this talk about personal responsibility), and it totally worked. Poor kid - she's lived her whole life under the shadow of George "I Can't Be Bothered to Think About Anybody Other Than Myself" Bush.

Anyway, I cried a little. I do love me some rhetoric. And I do love it that we have finally hit this milestone in our slow and painful march for civil rights. And I would so so so love to believe that we are going to elect a president who will fix everything. And hey, health insurance! Early childhood education! An army of teachers!!! I love armies of teachers!! But, um... clean coal technologies? Nuclear power!?* Eep. But Cook is always dolefully reminding me that politics is all about compromise, so I shouldn't always be surprised that I can't have my perfect candidate. So I'm going to commit myself to supporting the campaign of my okay candidate.

And I'm baffled by the notion that Clinton supportors might vote for McCain rather than Obama. I just can't imagine that anybody could go from supporting an okay candidate to a truly awful awful candidate. I'm hoping that's just a Republican invention. Please.

Anyway, folks, go brush off your campaign hat.** I am going to spend the next four years whining if McCain wins, and you know you don't want to have to deal with that, so you'd better get going.

* Sorry, Josh. I'll never be won over on this.
** You know, the straw boater with the stars-and-stripes band.

Well, hello!

Are you still reading after all my wacko ranting and sentimental raving lately? Good! If you happen to live in California's 46th Congressional District, I want you to vote for Debbie Cook. All I know about her is that she supports universal single-payer health coverage, and that's practically all I want, too. So vote for her!

My recent tangle with our healthcare non-system (an angry Kaiser employee I know has a favorite tagline that HMOs should not be allowed to call themselves healthcare organizations) has reminded me of something that I knew before but have been ignoring - we have a moral and strategic obligation to dramatically improve the healthcare problem in this country.

I just turned the Democratic Convention off, in a huff ("The Greatest SUBSIDIZED Generation, you mean!!!!" Click.), but I hadn't heard anybody talk about health insurance in the time I was listening. Or childcare. At the moment, those are the things I care about, as I can't seem to get health insurance, and we're facing a looming three-week childcare "vacation" that will require much tacking-together-of-random-childcare options to get us through. Oh yeah, and millions of other people have way worse problems with these issues than I do. That's a good reason, too.

And everything she thinks blows her tiny mind.

Last week, watching Dutch tackle the airless blue world of the pool every evening, I kept thinking of the Loudon Wainwright song "Daughter," the lyrics of which include the line "That's my daughter in the water, who'd have ever thought her?" The song is definitely a dad song ("every thing she owns I bought her, I lost every time I fought her") and in fine Loudon Wainwright style is at least partly based only on finding words that rhyme, but it's kind of sneakily, cheesily profound (also in fine Loudon Wainwright style).

I've obviously been thinking a lot about parenting, and I'm pretty sure that the most powerful thing about it for me is that my life is tied irrevocably to this person for the rest of my life, and for the beginning of hers. This stranger, really - a little girl in a pink swimsuit ("Mama, my favorite color is pink! And my favorite letter is S! No, my favorite letter is a pink S!"), gamely pushing her face underwater and immediately popping up sputtering and blinking, frantically wiping the water off her squinched-up face. A kid with long arms and legs and oh my god these huge feet! A kid with an opinion on Every Single Thing, and a powerful sense of her own dignity. A kid who talks in her sleep, and make no sense at all. A kid with an unknown adulthood ahead of her. She isn't mine; she never was, not from the first alien glimmer on the ultrasound. She's her own self. I am lucky to have the job of hanging around to witness the painful and joyous moments of her work to find her own place in the world. I am called on to administer bandaids, answer questions ("Mama, don't scientists know everything?"), provide fodder for future therapy sessions, makes smoothies, and explain that it's not okay to comment on strangers' fart smells on the bus. Important stuff, but not essential to who she is. It's the essential stuff that makes parenting so gripping, so difficult, and sometimes so delightful.

Anyway, here's an example of the limits of parenting to explain who children are, in greater scatological depth than you probably want to read. You're forewarned.

The scene: Dutch and I are walking home from the bus stop after swim lessons. Dutch complains of a belly-ache, and I suggest that she may need to poop.

Dutch: Why?
Me: Because I'm a detective, and I have put together three pieces of evidence. One, you have a belly-ache. Two, you often complain of belly-ache and then feel better after pooping. Three, you've been farting. That all adds up to my convincing argument that you may need to poop.
Dutch: You're not a detective.
Me: Oh? What makes you say that?
Dutch: One, because you're not a detective. Two, because you're not a detective. Three... ARF!
Me: (silent due to my inability to talk while wriggling in the steely grasp of her logic.)

Toxic Treats

Hey! Parents! Grandparents! People who ever take care of kids! Here's an Environmental Working Group site for YOU! Yes, just for YOU! It's a little heavy on the consume-your-way-to-health-and-a-healthy-planet side of things for my taste, but it has lots of nice little easy-reading blurbs on important stuff...

Founding member of Mothers Against Automobiles

Cook and I were talking about the campaign to lower the drinking age to 18. I think it's pretty reasonable - I see that college presidents have plenty of good cynical reasons to support this, but I believe there are also good solid arguments for bringing drinking out of the dorms and let kids learn how to drink reasonably. Cook mentioned that MADD is opposed to it, not surprisingly. My counter-suggestion is that we lower the drinking age to 16, and raise the driving age to 21, since driving is way more dangerous than drinking. When I am Dictator, it shall be so.

Faith

The scene: Dutch and I are lying side-by-side in her bed. She's been quiet for a while, staring off into space (because she WILL not shut her eyes until she actually falls asleep, and sometimes not even then). I'm pretending I'm asleep, and it's not a very difficult pretense, since I pretty much am.

Dutch: Mama? Remember how when we were in Los Angeles we went to the no-wave beach and we saw the dinosaur bone? And it was SO big?
Me: (silence)
Dutch: Grandad said it was probably a dinosaur bone. It wasn't a chicken bone. It was a dinosaur bone. That was so cool! I didn't know there were dinosaurs in Los Angeles! That was the FIRST TIME I have ever seen a dinosaur bone!
Me (aka Mama Killjoy): Honey, it wasn't a dinosaur bone.
Dutch:(silence)
Dutch: Mama, I think it was a dinosaur bone. Grandad thought it was a dinosaur bone. It really wasn't spiky at all. It was very big. It was from a dinosaur. I'm SURE it was from a dinosaur.
Me: Hmm...

later, after more silent staring into space...

Dutch: Mama, you have a happy life ahead of you!

My daughter is my pride

Cook reports that Dutch told him today that she loves him, and she loves his name, but she doesn't love men. She does not like to lie in bed with men.

My kid is practically ready to leave home and live in a studio apartment with her roommate, eating peanutbutter sandwiches and pickles.

Dutch, after her second swim lesson and lots more face-submerging, declared that she wanted to take a shower. A shower! And she ENJOYED it! Soon she'll be cutting daycare and hanging out with her friends all day in back alleys, smoking.

I've been thinking about this piece of news lately. Aside from the fact that the Bush Administration appears bent on leaving the country in smoking ruins, there's a lot here to think about. Sneaky administrative end runs, for one thing. Also, my fear that Dutch will grow up in a world controlled by people who think that she is important only for baby-making.

Having had a kid makes me even more fiercely pro-choice. Raising a kid is a pain in the ass. More than once, particularly in the early days of Dutch's life, holding my screaming, apparently-eternally-opposed-to-sleep infant, at the end of my emotional and physical tether, I have marvelled over the fact that MORE people don't abuse their children. Nobody who doesn't want to parent should be forced to parent. And yes, you can make a woman go through pregnancy and then give up her child for adoption, but wow - that is a herculean task. Pregnancy is like a crazy extreme sporting event that goes on for nine months, and the accompanying hormonal weirdness makes it pretty hard to make good decisions.

And of course, why is is so very very very very very important to ensure that every sacred sperm gets a chance to invest in a baby, but not at all important to ensure that every baby gets good prenatal care, healthcare, education, childcare, etc.?

Anyway, I'm pissed off - I apologize for all my ranting lately, but it seems to be that kind of month.

In the good news, Dutch had her first of ten swim lessons today (at an outdoor pool, on the first cold day in weeks, with thunder and lightning storms threatening), and she had a great time. She announced before the class that she was NOT going to put her face in the water, and she did not want to talk to people she did not know, but as soon as she was turned over to Shawn, the cheeriest, clowniest swim-teacher in Portland, she was putty in his hands. She blew bubbles, she kicked, she sang songs, she played "motorboat," she fetched rings from the bottom of the shallow end (forcing her to put her face in the water), and he switched activities so frequently the kids never lost interest. Their reward for doing something challenging, like putting their faces in the water, was that they got to high-five Shawn, to which he responded, every time, by theatrically falling backward in the water and crying out "you knocked me down!". It was like watching an efficient dolphin-training session. I was very impressed. Apparently swim classes have changed since my youth. I sometimes forget how much distraction and entertainment can accomplish in getting kids to do things. Note to self.

Boring update

It's not so hot today. Yesterday was really awful, but today is totally bearable. I'm sitting around internetting, and considering what to make for lunch. Dutch is wandering around, lost somewhere deep in the recesses of her imagination (something about preparing leaf-and-pumpkin soup for her invisible evil friend, Schoon), and Cook, bless him, is cleaning the fridge. We had pancakes with blueberry sauce for breakfast. We went grocery shopping, too, and we MAY, if we summon the energy, leave the house again to go for a walk. Maybe. It's a good day, in spite of all the many upsetting current events.

I love the feeling of having groceries in the house (in a clean fridge!) - the giant box of olive oil, the full container of yogurt, the jars of beans, the bowl full of tomatoes. It feels so safe, and so rich with potential.

So I'm going to go make lunch and admire our shiny fridge.

Thrive. Whatever.

So my health insurance application got rejected. Rejected! I applied to Kaiser for the same individual coverage into which they accepted me nearly two years ago. They have all my medical records, including my past application. I left this coverage because I got excellent Kaiser coverage through my job, and I didn't think it would be hard to get back into it, as the only thing that I have done in the intervening time is to get a physical and go to the TMD clinic for a nightguard, which I thought was very much in the alleged Kaiser spirit of preventive care to fend off future problems.

I was rejected for three reasons (identified, no doubt, by the computer that read my application):

1. "minor height/weight variation" - I think this is because the online form doesn't accept half-inch increments, and I may have in the past reported myself as being 5'4", but this time said I was 5'3" (I was feeling short when I filled out the form.)
2. "TMD" - yup.
3. "Unfavorable hospitalization or medical attention" - The only thing I can think of for this is the time I went to my (Kaiser) clinic for a checkup after I unexpectedly passed out two years ago.* They screened me for any possible cause (apparently it was a random episode of something crazy called "vasovagal" something-or-other) and I thought the case was closed. Also, this happened before I was accepted into individual coverage last time.

I was so surprised and angry to be rejected that I felt kind of paralyzed at first. Then I pulled myself together, wrote an appeal letter, went in for a checkup (my job coverage is good through the end of August) and asked my NP to write a letter saying I'm healthy. My NP was gratifyingly shocked and indignant on my behalf, and I think she'll write me a good letter.

It's not the end of the world if I stay rejected, since I can get crappy coverage through school, but it's ominous. I am a healthy, youngish person with only minor health issues in my past, and I really think I'm a pretty good bet for an insurer. Sure, I need to eat less and exercise more, but that's not exactly an uncommon situation, and I have really no other behavioral risk factors in my life. I get preventive healthcare when I need it, I don't take risks. If I can't get individual coverage now, at age 31, I will never be able to get it again. Seriously, never. This means I'll have to either always have a job with benefits (a rare and rapidly disappearing thing), or I'll have to have only catastrophic insurance, in which case I wouldn't be able to get preventive care.

I'm pissed off on my own behalf, of course, but I find this to be a really frightening indicator of the disastrous condition of our national healthcare non-system. The employment-based system works great for people who get jobs with benefits and stay there (and don't get their benefits taken away), but for the many many many people who move from job to job, it's terrifying. My experience suggests that I should never again seek preventive care, lest it become a barrier for getting coverage in the future. I should wait until I am seriously injured or ill to seek care. That is NOT the way people should be encouraged to use healthcare. Nobody benefits from this.

There's another reason I think we should have universal single-payer health insurance (though I know it'll never happen) - when the government pays for the healthcare of its citizens, the government is invested in protecting the health of its citizens. The government does things like regulate to ensure that consumer products don't contain hormone disruptors. I think this is an excellent role for government. I know that there are lots of issues with single-payer universal coverage, but I think it'd be hard to pretend that those problems are worse than the problems we have with healthcare in this country. I'd much rather pay lots of taxes to government to strive for healthier communities than pay lots of taxes to unregulated contractors to kill people in a country halfway around the world. But hey, that's just me.

Also, I'm just mad at Kaiser. Thrive, my uninsured ass.


*Remember that, Trapeze Girl? Remember how your adorable and sensitive son was so worried about me, and my adorable and insensitive daughter abandoned my prone body to beg crackers off a stranger? Thanks for taking care of me!

The heat, it is out there.

It is hot. Soooooooooooooooooooo hot. I will not be sitting in front of this hot computer until it gets less hot.

The truth, it is out there.

I just read this article and I think you should read it, too. It's based on some studies and a very scientific Newsweek poll, but I just like it because it voices a truth that's pretty much taboo to articulate. Having kids ruins your life. It does - it kills your old life completely, and you will never get it back again. I've said this many times, but people usually laugh nervously and sidle away, pretending they didn't hear me. My coworker said to me today (I think after I had just said something about my kid driving me nuts) that I didn't "really seem like a mom." I was kind of flattered and kind of insulted.

I want to second the notion that it is OKAY TO NOT WANT KIDS. It is more than okay, it is probably a smart decision. I mean, we can't afford as a society to all stop having kids, so it's good that many people (like me) find the hormonal momentum too overwhelming to resist, but it'd probably be better if there was less pressure on the kids-are-the-best-thing-ever front. Because they are not the best thing ever. Having a kid is like getting a new housemate who turns out to be the absolute worst housemate ever and cannot be evicted, EVER. The article also mentioned that having kids has gotten more expensive as our social support systems crumble around us.*

I do love Dutch, and her whining, and her sticky kisses. There is no point in considering my life without her, because she cannot be undone, and I cannot possibly want her undone. Beyond the general societal taboo on wishing your child undone, I just can't imagine that my life without her could be richer than my life with her. It would be different. I'd have a lot more time to myself. I could choose my own housemates, ones with better manners and more timely rent payments.* There's no way to know what parenting will do to your life until it happens, and then you've already gotten on the boat, and it's overflowing with love and fear and frustration, and you lost your return ticket somewhere. I don't think very many people, even the worst parents of the worst kids, would ever wish their child undone.

Having a kid isn't harder than not having a kid, either, mind you. It's just hard being a grown-up, and if you don't have kids you have other challenges. I hate it when people with kids condescend to people without kids, or treat the decision not to have children as a decision to be an infantile narcissist. I think there's something about parenting that makes people crave validation, and we get that from having people make decisions similar to our decisions, whether it's the decision to have a kid in the first place or the decision to give the kid a pacifier. We have a kid, and gosh, it's really not what we expected and it's really demanding and annoying and tedious, and we start to look around uncomfortably and wonder... did we make a mistake? Are we doing this wrong? Should we have gotten that kitten instead? Childless people make us nervous because their choice makes ours look kind of... ill-considered.

Anyway, best of luck to all of you in your parenting or your non-parenting, your six kids or your two kids or your no kids. I support you. You made the right choice. Your life is hard, but you're terrific.


*Still waiting on your first check, Dutch. Get a job already!

We're back! Dutch got eaten by mosquitoes, frolicked at the beach, went sailing for the first time,



























made new friends,













and generally had a fantastic time.



















That's all I've got to say about it at the moment.

Gone Fishing

I'm on vacation. I'll tell you all about it soon. It'll be Really Really Exciting.

An effort to balance out my recent bus-related crankiness

Reasons the Bus is Better Than a Car:

1. You can read.
2. You have to spend time with people who are different than you.
3. You have to be patient.
4. Your kid doesn't have to be in a carseat.
5. Your kid has to spend time with people who are different than you.
6. You can talk to your kid without having to concentrate on driving.
7. Your kid has to learn about waiting.
8. You pollute less.
9. You spend less.
10. You learn to be a little more zen about your time.
11. You get to hear that your child's classmate is now lobbying her mother to commute on the bus, because "Dutch rides the bus all the time."

Things I like right now.

An update! Right now, the things I like are:

1. Over-the-counter decongestants. I have a cold, and my colds inevitably go straight to my sinuses, causing me to suffer AND to torture my cubicle-neighbors with endless days of snuffly snorty noises. (I have no paid sick time, after all. I'm not staying home.)

2. Cook's big white teapot. We're decaffeinating gently, by drinking black tea instead of coffee. Eventually we'll work out way out of caffeine dependency, thanks to #3.

3. The 10:00 bedtime rule! It's been in place for only four days, but it's terrific. I feel so much better when I get 8 hours of sleep under my belt. The temptation to stay up a little later to enjoy my down time and read a little more (or blog a little more) is fierce, but I'm trying to stick to the new regimen.

4. Blueberries. Oh, how I love them. And I love getting them at...

5. Farmers' markets. I'm so spoilt that I hate buying produce at the grocery store now. Why should I eat vegetables that were picked more than 8 hours before I buy them? Tonight we had pesto with potatoes, green beans, and hardboiled eggs, with blueberries and white currants for dessert. Thank you, oh farmers of Oregon. Thank you, Tom McCall. * Dutch declared the pesto to be "a little on the spicy side" (due to the presence of garlic), but licked her plate clean.

6. Random pleasant encounters with strangers. There have been quite a few of those this week, and I am grateful. Today, when I was walking (blissfully alone, having sent Cook and Dutch off to a "pinkalicious"-themed birthday party**) on a popular jogging/biking path, slogging upstream through packs of taut and perfect-looking joggers, feeling fat and floppy and frumpy, and I saw a woman coming toward me who was also a little on the fat-floppy-frumpy side, and she grinned at me, like she not only knew me, but was really happy to see me. We beamed frumpily at eachother, and I felt happy all the way home. It's amazing how tiny little social moments like that can be so powerful.

* Though I do think it's time to start setting up rural reserves, folks. The UGB will only take us so far.
** Three-year-old girls are so extreme in their tastes that caricatures are basically useless, because you can never go further than reality. While standing by a table laden with pink foods (including pink tortilla chips), snacking on a pink cupcake, I listened to another mom complain about the annoying Barbie Phone her daughter loves. Dutch cried tonight because she desperately wants a dress exactly like Best Friend's pink, frilly party dress. If you have no three-year-old girl in your life, or know only blessedly non-caricature-like three-year-old girls, I can sketch the caricature out for you in three words: Pink. Sparkly. Pink.

Genetic dice

So when Cook and I, lo these many years ago, were playing the annoying parents-to-be game ("I hope the baby has my nose and your chin!"), I kept a secret list of traits of mine* that I hoped the baby didn't get. My finger-crossing efforts didn't pan out,** and she didn't escape them all. I can't deny it any longer. I won't even begin to discuss the personality traits in question, but these are the physical traits she got:

1) Keratosis pilaris, in which your hair follicles get plugged up, and your skin gets all rough and red-spotted. I'm not sure of this, but it looks like Dutch has it too. This is a pretty common skin condition, though I have it more grievously than most people, because I have so many more hair follicles than 99.99% of the human population. Which leads me to...
2) HAIR!!!! I am the hairiest woman I've ever seen, and I hate it. Hate it. Dutch is showing distinct signs of fuzziness, though a good fairy of some sort did bless her with the mitigating kindness of at least having lighter hair, so I can hold out hope that she will resemble an orangutan rather than a gorilla.

Anyway, I didn't intend to whine so much, but it does kind of bum me out that Dutch will experience in her life some of the things that have made me self-conscious about my appearance. It's not easy being female in this world,*** and I dread the day when she begins to feel bad about herself. Yeah, it's totally superficial of me to feel that way, and I should be concentrating on drilling into her that we are all beautiful and that she should express her individuality and so on, instead of being anxious about her ability to look just like everyone else. But I have keen (as in sharp hurtful blade, not as in spiffy and nifty) memories of how utterly awful it felt to be 13 years old, and how deeply I yearned to look just like everyone else.**** I wouldn't wish that feeling on anybody.

Today Dutch and I walked past the sports field on campus at 7:45 AM, and saw the women's basketball team working out. We stopped to watch for a minute, and I found myself earnestly lecturing Dutch about how tall and strong and fast they were, and how they were making their bodies healthy, etc. Since she's likely to be a very tall, bumpy-skinned, hairy teenager, I think the positive messaging should start immediately. Anyway, they were gorgeous, as women athletes somehow inevitably are, so she was impressed. She then helpfully pointed out to me that I am not tall, strong, or fast. I intend to inform her that the positive messaging has to go BOTH WAYS!!!

* Yes, and Cook's too - I admit it.
** Damn you, Alemonia! DAMN YOU!!!!
***No, it's not easy being male either, you poor things.
****I can reassure myself that at least Dutch will go probably through her adolescence more fashionably dressed than I did, since she's already more fashionable than I have ever been.