It seems like forever since I wrote anything longer than a tweet. Especially since @Twitter went from 140 to 280 characters. And I’ve stayed off of Facebook mostly to avoid seeing propaganda ads (sorry friends and family).
And even “forever” is longer now in the Drumpf era. Today on Twitter, I joked that if dog years are 7 human years, 1 newscycle day is 24 years, and one newscycle year is 14,600 human years. How long ago was it that we thought “One Scaramucchi = 11 days” was funny?
I haven’t even touched my desktop computer in months (ie., several thousand years) because I’ve been avoiding some necessary tasks, so even blogging after a long Drumpf-inspired hiatus is a form of procrastinating.
Events of the last few weeks/experiential years have had me pondering various topics and themes – the #MeToo movement, the current debate in the national press and online communities over the #Kavanaugh nomination, and the insidious influence of the Washington elite old-boy network that seems to secretly run the Kabuki-theater proceedings, at least on the Republican/Theocrat side.
Phew, that last paragraph was exhausting. As is life as a sentient, progressive American these days.
My extreme Twitter addiction can be seen over there in the right column. Gradually, over the last 2 years, I’ve been spending more and more time on the microblogging platform, because of the immediacy of breaking news, crazy fads, and the possibility of interacting with celebrities. As in “ZOMG that one time @Rosie retweeted me!” Or the time @Lawrence “liked” my comment reacting to a recent @TheLastWord commentary.
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My Twitter addiction goes hand in hand with my @maddow dependency. Not long after returning from our 2016 vacation (we were in Hawaii, so we filed absentee ballots), I met new friends at church who were looking for a spiritual home with a side of progressive community. The older lady exclaimed “I can’t get to sleep now unless I watch Rachel to tell me what the hell is going on!”
And I have to agree, except that the last few months, I’ve been staying up later and later watching Rachel and Lawrence on @MSNBC, I’ve been watching former GOP operatives who’re now #NeverTrumpers (and who are responsible for getting people like Roberts, Gorsuch, and McConnell confirmed are re-elected) till all hours. And I keep checking Twitter through the night, hoping for some late-breaking ray of hope.
And aside from such delightful distractions as the #MPRraccoon and #CivilWarPotluck it’s really not good for me or my health.
Bike? I haven’t ridden any of my bikes since July, and very little before that.
Self care? I’ve been eating crap food, and let’s not speak of my love for Payday bars.
Laundry? My husband David does most of it. My clean but unfolded laundry is everywhere.
Much of what I’ve read, commented on, and brooded over has been pinging around in my head, not all of it to do with the travails of women who report being sexually assaulted or raped whenever they damn well decide is the right time to declare it. I don’t have much to report on the #MeToo front, fortunately. I certainly partied and took risks by accepting rides, etc. I never fit the profile of the easy target, so I survived my young womanhood mostly unharmed except for unwanted buttgrabs.
The recent piece on obesity and self-acceptance struck a chord, though. Especially with the photographs of the interview subjects, who got to direct their own photoshoots to show them exactly as they wanted to be portrayed. The images are revelatory.
“My son and I both like to play the hero. There wasn’t necessarily any intentional symbolism in the costumes we chose, but I am definitely a member of the rebellion, and I see my role as an eating disorders researcher as trying to fight for justice and a better world. Also, I like that I’m sweaty, dirty and messy, not done up with makeup or with my hair down in this picture. I like that I’m not hiding my stomach, thighs or arms. Not because I’m comfortable being photographed like that, but because I want to be—and I want others to feel free to be like that, too.”— ERIN HARROP
I love this image. This is Erin Harrop and her son. So much awesome strength.
All of this makes higher-weight patients more likely to avoid doctors. Three separate studies have found that fat women are more likely to die from breast and cervical cancers than non-fat women, a result partially attributed to their reluctance to see doctors and get screenings. Erin Harrop, a researcher at the University of Washington, studies higher-weight women with anorexia, who, contrary to the size-zero stereotype of most media depictions, are twice as likely to report vomiting, using laxatives and abusing diet pills. Thin women, Harrop discovered, take around three years to get into treatment, while her participants spent an average of 13 and a half years waiting for their disorders to be addressed.
Woops, this sounds disturbingly familiar. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment next week that I’ve canceled and rescheduled once already because I’m supposed to be setting up several routine but not particularly pleasant “checklist” health procedures. I haven’t lost weight, I stopped exercising and eating right (in contrast to 2-3 years ago when I was much more motivated and less obsessed with Drumpfian corruption). I don’t want to be lectured by the doc for my “noncompliance.” Maybe I’d better figure out my login for the medical practice website to see her recommendations again.
Some of the other peoples’ quotes about being bullied for being bigger resonated with me. I’m bigger than an average-sized woman; taller and heavier, with an appearance best described as “unconventionally not too horrible.” I was bullied as a kid for being bigger than most, looking different than almost everyone, and not going to the right church in order to fit in. Still, I had it easy, compared to some.
Not fitting in seems to be the common thread for young (and older) women who speak out about being abused or raped. Dr Christina Blasey Ford is currently in hiding, getting death threats and more for going public with her allegation of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh dating back to the early 80’s. She was popular then, but she’s sure getting the outcast treatment now.
Compare that to Amber Wyatt, a young woman who was raped in high school in Arlington, Texas (rather horribly). Back then, she didn’t fit in socially with the well-to-do kids whose parents enabled them to throw massive drunken parties, although she was a cheerleader and was about to move up in the social strata. After the awful event, she became a pariah, was eventually forced to transfer to another school, spiraled down into drugs and self-destruction, and eventually recovered.
More than a decade later, a very thoughtful piece by a reporter who happened to go to the same high school has resulted in Amber receiving an outpouring of support, compassion, and even apologies from some of the people who tormented her AFTER her assault, because she reported it immediately.
Apparently, in America, if you speak out against your attackers, it’s almost a worse crime than being violated….if you’re female and they’re male.
So all this has been on my mind, and has been the big narrative of the last couple of week-centuries. Thinking about the bullying now happening to Dr Ford (by the US Senate, various patriarchal/theocratic astroturf groups, and the Idiot in Chief) led me to think on my own experiences as a bullied or ostracized kid.
It could have been a lot, lot worse. It was bad enough at the time. But thanks to Google, I just stumbled across the current name of my worst old childhood nemesis, the person who made grade school and junior high a daily gauntlet of taunts, physical abuse, humiliation, and desperate attempts to escape any way I could.
But that’s for the ACTUAL long blog post. This was just a foreword; I’m just happy to have survived yet another Infrastructure Week.
