The Small Things

Today I had my first visit to the ophthalmologist. The good news is that I have, “Beautiful, healthy, nearly perfect eyes.” The bad news is that I have a very slight astigmatism in my right eye. I’ve been prescribed glasses for night driving and for making it more comfortable to read small print, but on the whole I’m fine.

Except for a few glaring instances, beautiful, healthy and nearly perfect have been the story of my health in my adult life. Over and over again doctors have ecstatically proclaimed my perfect heart beat, good blood pressure and beautiful teeth and commended me for taking care of myself. Until recently my good health was something I was happy to smugly take credit for. And why not? I eat right, I exercise, I don’t smoke. Surely, this is the reason why I’m for the most part in exemplary health. Except I’d forgotten one key thing, something that has very little to do with me. I’ve had excellent doctors all my life. Sure, it’s on my head to make my doctor’s appointments, fill my prescriptions and follow their advice when I’m sick. But the reason I’m able to do that so easily also has very little to do with me. You see, I’ve also never gone without health insurance for more than a few weeks (when I was between jobs) in my entire life. This pretty much makes me an anomaly in modern America.

I’ve never had to desperately scour the internet for a homemade cure to my health problems because I couldn’t afford to see a doctor. I’ve never had to half the dosage of my meds or go off them completely because they were too expensive. I’ve never had to choose between having dental work or paying my rent. I’ve never had to compromise my reproductive health by skipping pelvic exams or going off the pill. I’ve never had to languish in depression or chronic pain because the crappy insurance I feel lucky to have won’t recognize my problems as real. I’ve also never had to undergo the humiliation of being harassed by medical bill collectors when I couldn’t afford to pay for a procedure that I urgently needed.

I’m not any smarter or more deserving of medical care than the people who do have to make those hard decisions every day. It’s easy to stay healthy when you can actually see a doctor. It’s also easy to stay healthy when you happen to be in one of the few professions that isn’t expecting more and more of their employees (working longer hours) while taking more and more away from them (cutting pay and benefits). Most of my friends are college educated people in professional fields and most of them have at some point or another had difficulty obtaining the medical care they needed. Not being college educated shouldn’t preclude one from having affordable health care, we all should have affordable health care. It’s just that we were taught all our lives that higher education would afford us some security to save money, see a doctor when we’re sick, have a roof over our heads. That’s a big part of why we bothered to go to college, it sure as hell wasn’t the dining hall food. Now it feels like they’ve re-written the rules and all of the sudden what used to mean security just isn’t enough anymore.

We like to think that there’s something wrong with people who don’t have insurance. They’re lazy, they’re too stupid to get a good job, they made some bad life decisions and dammit, we shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s fuck ups! What we can’t admit is that they’re just like us. If I lost my job tomorrow there would be no doctor’s checkups every time I felt something wasn’t quite right. I’d probably be pretty stressed out so there goes my good blood pressure. I wouldn’t be able to afford my gym membership anymore so there goes my “beautiful heart beat”. I’d be priced out of the organic produce that gets delivered to my door on a bi-weekly basis, in fact if I was living near the poverty level I’d be priced out of most produce (Hello Dollar Menu!) so my eating habits would go right down the toilet. I could probably manage to squeak by… unless I got sick. If I got sick I’d be screwed. That, my friends, is the scenario we all can’t bear to think about. It’s easier to just think that the poor get what they deserve and those of us who are clinging to middle class by our fingernails are somehow the Elected, as if we’re living in Puritan Fucking New England.

What if I did lose my job tomorrow? What if my luck ran out and I got sick tomorrow and my insurance didn’t want to pay for my treatment? Wouldn’t I deserve a safety net? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?

To say I’m disappointed that there isn’t going to be any real health care reform doesn’t go far enough. I’m thoroughly dismayed by the fact that the opportunity to actually do something good for the people of this country has been turned into a political mud-wrestling match where each side hopes a definitive victory will gain them absolute power. The lives we lead every day have been completely forgotten in the clamor.

The big lie politicians tell you, the lie that gets exaggerated and amplified by the media and splayed everywhere to terrify us into our opposing camps is that there is an absolute Good and Evil in these situations and that everyone who doesn’t rally around your particular pole is moronic, evil and dangerous. The left and the right both do this, I’m not saying any one is better than the other. They can’t let us believe for one moment that we aren’t any different from our neighbors and that the survival of all that is good and just in the world doesn’t depend on your particular side having a definitive victory. If they allowed us to feel that even people who don’t share our views are basically good and we all want the same basic things out of life (we all want to be happy, healthy and safe, we all want to leave behind a better world for our children) then they would lose all their power. The power to make decisions for us that have nothing to do with making our lives better and everything to do with increasing their own power.

I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised. For now I’ll go on being thankful for the small things, knowing that for many people being able to see a doctor if their eyes hurt (or even if something worse happens) is a luxury, not a right. I’m no different from any of them. I just happen to be on the winning side of the system. For now.

Confession of the Day: I’m A Premature Bridezilla

A friend of mine recently posted a blog entry complete with to her ideal renaissance-inspired wedding dress. Never mind that she doesn’t happen to be engaged or even in a serious relationship at the moment. She momentarily pondered if this made her a bit silly. If this makes her silly, then I’m just plain certifiable. Friend, I’ll do you one further, much further. I’m not engaged either but I not only have a dress in mind… I have my entire damn wedding planned. You heard me. 

For a while I’ve wanted a Dia de los Muertos inspired wedding. My mom cringed when I once mentioned this in front of her, but hear me out mom, I’m not thinking cheesy-ass goth wedding, I’m thinking Martha Stewart Living Halloween Issue wedding. Picture it. A crisp fall day on Cape Cod. It will be just cool enough to wear an amazing Supermaggie scarf. The color scheme is purple, green and orange. The dress is 1950′s style, maybe with some colorful embellishments like this. Obviously this unique ensemble will involve a fascinator instead of a veil. Papel Picado and brightly colored lanterns adorn the place. On each brightly colored picnic table there is a different Mexican oilcloth tablecloth. The centerpieces are white ghost pumpkins carved into tasteful lanterns, and surrounded by short mason jars with bunches of Gerber daisies. The cake is a tower of Lyndell’s cupcakes atop a vintage cake stand with a sugar skull bride and groom at the very top. 

Oh, and this all won’t be mind numbingly expensive because it will all be vintage, etsy or DIY. 

Where’s the hypothetical groom in this? Oh, he just has to show up and look pretty. And wear a top hat.

Seriously though, what is up with wedding fever? or should I say wedding planning fever? Is it because a motherload of my friends have gotten engaged or married in the last year and watching them plan their weddings naturally makes me think of my own? Is it because in spite of my combat-boot stomping, anti-patriarchal “I don’t need no stinkin’ marriage to make me complete” feminist trumpeting  I’m secretly starved to settled down in partnered, heterosexual bliss? Have I been brainwashed by society to fantasize incessantly about “my special day”? 

Maybe I’m secretly a romantic at heart. Or perhaps it is the party planner coming out in me. I’m a theater person for chrissakes, most of the shindigs I throw involve mood lighting, atmospheric design and costumes (not to mention interactive craft projects, hooo!), is this all just a natural extension of my tendency to do it up?

So what’s your take on it? Is it normal and natural to dream about your wedding before you’ve even gotten engaged? Why do we all do it even if we scoff at romance? Am I helping to set womanity back like 200 years just by writing about this stuff or is it all just good clean fun? Do I even give a fuck?

20 For My 20s

So I just happen to be on the cusp of a very significant birthday. The great 3-0. At first I planned to do a huge self-deprecating retrospective of all the birthdays of my second decade, forever immortalizing the pageant of bad self-esteem, bad boyfriends and bad haircuts that seemed to characterize my 20s. Then I thought better of that idea, if only because I actually rather like the person I’ve become since I turned twenty five. Besides, dwelling on the past is like, so immature. I’m ready for the future.

When I was younger I used to dread turning 30, the proverbial age that all us hip young kids are supposed to hand in our street cred and high tail it out to the suburbs to become soul-less, minivan driving cyborgs. 30 was a completely different universe to us. It wasn’t just that you became old at 30, it was almost as if you ceased to be, or at least ceased to be in any incarnation that we could identify with. Saying someone was “like 30″ was probably the worst insult one could one could drone at another over the bong water. “Dude, that guy is like 30, what’s he doing still hanging out at Manray? That’s just creepy”, or, “Yeah, sure I’ll get a real job, maybe when I’m like 30 or something.” 30. Too old to go clubbing, to enjoy even vaguely interesting music or wear combat boots and a feather trimmed black negligee over your favorite velour mini-dress to your 9am playwriting class. In short, 30 was the end of it all.

Could my black-eyeliner-smeared 20-year-old self ever have imagined I would look forward to turning 30? Would I have ever dreamed that the secret is that I’m actually getting cooler with age and not less so? All of those awesome things that the shy, image concerned me would never dare to try in her early 20s? I’m doing those things now. And what of 30 being the end of it all? Not even close. Get this: I’m not even afraid of things like partnership, starting a family and eventually even moving to a place where every spare inch of ground isn’t covered with asphalt and cigarette butts. I don’t ever have to be afraid of those things changing who I am. In my life I’ve met so many badass women who have still managed to maintain their professional goals, potty mouths and travel habits while being kickass partners and moms, I know when my time comes I’ll be able to do it to– and still be me. And what if I don’t choose a partnered life? That’s OK too. I’ve met countless other women who’ve shown me that there is no credence to the spinster stereotype and that being on your own is by no means the same thing as being lonely. Life… whatever you’ve got coming, I’m ready.

Yet, I wouldn’t be the confident person I am today if it hadn’t been for the me of my 20s, bad at home dye-jobs at all. I spent so much of the last decade trying on different identities, seeing what fit and discarding the old ones like thrift-store finds that I couldn’t quite make work with the rest of my wardrobe. I figured out what worked for me and what didn’t, culled what just didn’t feel right and hung on to what did. I worked my ass off to find my passion, become independent and be good at my job. I had a shit ton of adventures and good times along the way. And I learned a lot, I really did. Every train-wreck and triumph I’ve had over the last 10 years has made me who I am today. So here’s a run down, 20 for my 20s. 20 important things I’ve learned, many of which I’m still working on, but hey, life’s a work in progress…

1) You know that thing you have been dying to try but you’re afraid to because you think you aren’t smart enough, talented enough, cool enough, tough enough or attractive enough to do it? You are.

2) While we’re at it, you know all those people who are already doing that thing you want to do? Most of them aren’t any smarter or more talented than you. Chances are the only difference between you and them is that they decided they could do it.

3) It is not your job to make everybody you know like you, agree with you and think you are smart and wonderful and right all the time. In fact, chances are that if you are living your life according to your principals, everyone around you isn’t going to like you agree with you or think you are smart and wonderful 100% of the time. That’s OK. You don’t need to define your worth in terms how much others like you.

4) It is perfectly OK to spend time focusing on the relationships in your life that are mutually beneficial and to let go of those that are not.

5) Don’t ever waste time dating or being friends with someone who makes you feel “less than” or someone you can’t trust our be yourself around.

6) It’s OK to be busy sometimes with lots of different projects. Someday you’ll look back on your life and say, “I can’t believe I did all that cool stuff!”

7) It is also OK to say no to things and unplug your computer, turn off your phone and pretend to not be home for a night.

8. Self care is not vanity or self-indulgence. Taking care of yourself does not mean you are weak and lazy. In the end, your mental, emotional and physical health is all you’ve got so do your best to preserve it! If you are healthy you will do better at your job and be a better partner, lover, friend, artist, etc.

9) Taking time to connect with your true friends is worth it, even if it always seems like there is never enough time.

10) Following your curiosity is always worth it. Money spent on travel and education is also always worth it. That being said, don’t live on credit. Figure out what you can live without in order to afford living that adventurous lifestyle you crave.

11) Don’t let somebody else’s dreams or expectations of you define what you want to do with your life.

12) Don’t dwell on your most negative interpretation of yourself. If you spend too much time being self-critical, you’ll never learn what your strengths are or become a better person.

13) Identify a few core things about yourself that you are proud of, things about you that will never change regardless of your life situation. Use those things as a touchstone to come back to when you are questioning who you are, when somebody else isn’t treating you right, or you need to make a major life decision.

14) Learn to like the body you are in. Work on trying to love it.

15) Never ever be afraid to speak up for yourself.

16) Everything you need is right inside you. You can’t always get what you need from other people, so learn how to achieve goals and feel good about yourself independently without somebody elses’ approval or support.

17) That being said, no woman is an island. Learn how to ask for love, care and support when you need it. Sometimes your loved ones can’t read your mind.

18) You are smart, don’t downplay your accomplishments. Just stand securely with them.

19) If you are itching to take a risk or make a change, chances are it is a good risk or change, chances are you will be successful in your venture. Don’t ever be afraid of the future. Just do it.

20) You always deserve to strive for more, be it more happiness, more life fulfillment, more love, more adventure, a more satisfying job, whatever. If you want it and you are willing to work hard to get it, you owe it to yourself to go for it. Settling for life being just OK is never enough. Strive to be enormously satisfied with everything you do, set realistic incremental goals and don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get exactly what you want right away. In the words of Cheetah Rivera, “Try not to take yourself too seriously, but always take your work seriously.”

Health Care Reform, Fever Style

You knew I was gonna go here eventually.

So a couple of Wednesdays ago I attended the big town meeting in the beautiful “All American City of Somerville MA” on the arm of the gallant GeekUSA. What can I say, the couple that is politically active together, erm… blogs together?

Anyway, we stood outside Somerville High School for over an hour waiting to get in. At least four thousand people from Somerville and the surrounding towns waited with us, many holding signs and engaging in political discussion. On the news later that night the town meeting was described as “mostly peaceful” without all the derisive shouting matches that have characterized other town meetings across the nation. This makes me proud even though I am ashamed to say that I was one of the people who contributed to the non-peaceful segment of the evening when I lost my shit on this snot nosed LaRouche supporter holding a giant sign picturing Obama with a Hitler mustache when he tried to engage these nice Cambridge ladies behind us about “Obama’s Nazi healthcare plan.” To the credit of the Cambridge ladies, they listened politely to him until I butted in. I might have told him that he, “should be ashamed of himself comparing healthcare to the Holocaust”, that he needed to “pick up a history book before he talked again” and that he was, “willfully ignorant”. Although I’m sure it didn’t sound half as rational and intelligent as that because I was sputtering with anger.

What can I say, I fucking hate those LaRouche guys. Yes, I’m familiar with Godwin’s Law, I still fucking hate them. The reason why those people make me so angry is not just because they carelessly misrepresent and distort history to their own ends in a way that is incredibly disrespectful to those who actually lived through the Nazi era, it is that I feel like they have to know on some level that what they are peddling is complete garbage, yet they continue to proselytize about it anyway. I just don’t understand why you would do that unless you were a crappy human being.

Moving on… healthcare. Unlike some people, I don’t like to blindly follow my leaders, even if they are leaders I helped elect. I went in there open minded but attempting to have a critical eye. I honestly wanted to cut through the bizarre three ring circus that has been the health care debate and find out what’s actually on the table here, so I could like, form an opinion on my own. There has been so much hoopla over death panels and socialism that it is hard to cut through the noise to the real problem… there are 46 million un-insured Americans out there and those of us lucky enough to have health insurance in the first place are watching helplessly as our premiums go up and our benefits shrink.

I sat in the hot, cramped Somerville High School gym for hours listening to John Kerry answer for the health care reform proposal. It was John Kerry more passionate, personal and down to earth than I have ever seen him . Here’s what I learned… and yes, Joe Wilson, I believe it.

• The new reforms will end discrimination against people who have pre-existing conditions. In a country where somebody who has had pediatric cancer can have trouble getting insurance for the rest of their lives you’d think that this would be a good thing.

• For the last time, nobody is trying to take away your health insurance, or take away your doctor, or force you into a nationalized health plan. There has never, ever been an option on the table that would end private insurance, I don’t know why the hell people are so confused about that. The comparisons between the proposed public option and nationalized health care in countries like Britain and Canada are erroneous because they are not the same thing. The public option is just that, an option. If you are unemployed, or your employer won’t insure you or you just don’t like the insurance your employer provides for you, it’s there. If you like what you have, you can keep it. Why do I believe John Kerry when he said that? Because for one thing, he said it himself, it would be too damn expensive to nationalize U.S health care.

• Don’t want to pay for everybody else? Tough shit, we’re already paying for the uninsured anyway. Apparently my insurance premiums (and yours too, if you are lucky enough to have it) have hidden costs in them meant to cover the overhead when uninsured people end up in the emergency room (that’s what happens when you can’t afford a regular doctor). If uninsured people had insurance, it would bring down the cost for all of us. Oh, and BTW, the plan is not going to cover illegal aliens. I believe that too. Think about it, trying to sneak a provision like that into a bill would be career suicide for the Dems.

• But it will destroy the free market economy! Um, isn’t competition a good thing? You’d think people who are so into the free market economy wouldn’t be so terrified for those poor little insurance companies having to um, beef up their product or actually give a shit about their customers in order to compete. If a public option forces private carriers to provide a better rate or better services to their clients it is going to directly benefit us, the consumers.

• But it’s socialism! Um, we already have medicare and medicade. Is that socialism? While we’re at it, the health insurance that government employees enjoy is (gasp!) government run! Maybe all the senators who plan to vote against health care reform should put their money where there mouth is and give up their socialist government run health care and jump into the private insurance carrier pool with the rest of us shmucks. No takers? Didn’t think so.

• But I don’t want the government in control of my health care! First of all, see bullet point #1. The government won’t be in control of your health care if you don’t want it to be. Second of all, somebody else is already in control of your health care, a large corporation that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you and will probably slash your coverage just when you need it most. I look at it this way, at least the government has to answer to the people, big insurance companies don’t have to answer to anybody. If I don’t like the job my elected officials are doing with health care reform I can vote them out in the next election cycle. If I don’t like what my insurance company is doing with my health care (hey there Blue Cross Blue Shield, raising my co-pays and taking away my physical therapy just when I needed it the most, I’m talking about you! BTW, it’s been fun trying to recuperate from a foot injury on my own!) if it’s all my employer provides, I’m stuck with it.

• Come on people, get real. We’re paying over 2.5 trillion dollars to fight foreign wars but we can’t insure our own citizens? Dick Cheney had ties to Halliburton, one of the biggest contractors in the reconstruction of Iraq and nobody bitched and moaned about how it was fascist (OK, well I did), nobody saber rattled about how it was undermining the American way. While we’re at it, I find it rich that so many people are trying to say that Obama’s health plan is “unconstitutional” when the last administration fabricated a war, justified torture, and reinterpreted laws on illegal search and seizure to justify their own ends. Wasn’t that unconstitutional? Or is it only OK to take a piss on the Bill of Rights when you are doing it to justify blowing up foreigners? Is this who we are, a nation of people who would prefer their tax dollars fund destruction overseas instead of making sure that the most vulnerable of our own are taken care of?

The more I see these fucking teabag Circuses on TV every night and see impeach Obama stickers popping up, the easier it is to get cynical about the whole thing. In the end though, I gotta be hopeful. In the end I still live in a country where one of the most powerful people in the land has to come to my stuffy, un-airconditioned high school gym and answer my questions for three hours. Deep down in my heart, I know that just like other unpopular things that have been fought for in the past; civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, that eventually what is just and compassionate will win out. I just hope I live long enough to see it…

I Can Stop At Any Time…

I know this is old news to anyone with a vague interest in fashion but…

Anna Sui is coming out with a new line of clothes for Target!

And they are Gossip Girl inspired!

They hit stores on the 13th!

Squeee!!!!!!!!!

I know, I know. I was supposed to be keeping my fashion dollars out of the big box stores.

I have a big birthday coming up next week and I was supposed to start dressing with a little more dignity, i.e not like a wanna be teenage socialite.

I can’t help it.

I totally want the one on the far left. The black number is a little too Sophomore semi-formal ’98 for me but the silver one… that totally would have worked for a New Year’s Eve On The Moon theme party I had a few years ago. I don’t know how I feel about the jacket over the cute little wrap dress but whatevs.

In general, I’m feeling it.

I think I may have a problem.