What can I say about airline travel that hasn't already been said more profanely by someone else? Seems to me that if I get on a plane in New York City and sit in my seat for six hours, I should end up in Amsterdam or Paris or Seattle, not Minneapolis.
I was amazed at the general calm that prevailed during the three hours we sat on the runway - no one yelled at the flight attendants, none of the small children had big meltdowns, people were amazingly well-behaved. But I can't have been the only person who was astonished and disappointed to find, once we were in the air, that they still charged us for the food. Pretty sure that's not customer service 101.
Things to be grateful for: that I wasn't trying to make a connection. That I didn't have to check baggage. That, unlike the flights to Detroit and Memphis scheduled later, ours wasn't cancelled. That the hotel was still serving dinner when I got here.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
For adults only (sort of)
~by Jay
Mingle2 - online dating
Saw this over at Pandagon and couldn't resist. Our blog earned a PG rating due to 2 mentions of the word "sex" and two mentions of the word "death".
I wonder how much more sex it would take to earn an R or even an NC-17. If this is true to movie ratings, it would take very little sex to make us unsafe for kids, but a whole lot of violence. Because of course we can't let teenagers know that sex can make them feel good, and that it's possible and even maybe fun to have sex before marriage, or sex with people of the same gender. But it's perfectly fine for 13-year-olds to watch people - and usually women - stabbed, shot, or run over by a car. That's good healthy American teenage fun. It's OK to show women's bodies bloody and bruised, but we need to protect children from seeing two women kiss each other.Hmm, wonder what our rating is now.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
My raison d'blog
~ by Jay
Over at her other blog, MPJ (Mary) tagged me with a meme - five reasons why I blog. And then I have to tag five other people. I don't have five regular commenters, so I'll be tagging people who may or may not know I read their blogs...but before I give in to that anxiety, I'll write my post.
1) I decided to start blogging because I found I was censoring myself when I posted to discussion groups, and I wanted to be able to speak freely about politics, in particular.
2) I've never been able to keep a journal, although I adore the idea and own a number of beautiful blank books purchased for journaling. They remain, well, blank. For some reason, sitting down and writing in an actual book seems too - I don't know - self-conscious, maybe? for me. But I know the value of using journaling to process one's life. As I write this, I realize that I can't process internally - I can't think something through on my own. I need to talk about it with someone else - simply the act of explaining what I'm feeling helps clarify things, but if I don't tell someone, I'll just go around in circles in my own head. So blogging works for me because I'm not writing for myself; I'm writing for whoever reads it.
3) I like to write. I love words, and I've collected a lot of them over the years. It's fun to bring them out and play. In high school and college, even though I couldn't sustain a journal, I wrote all the time. I wrote term papers and newspaper articles. I wrote poetry. I wrote letters to the editor (and had one published in the New York Times when I was 20; I was very proud of that). I wrote for the yearbook and the literary magazine in high school. I wrote letters to my friends, and to my parents. And then I started medical school, and all that writing stopped. I wrote one paper in medical school, for my third-year surgery rotation, and it was no fun. I learned to write notes the way doctors write them, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity. When I started to use Email in the mid-1990s, I started to write again. Blogging offers me the chance to write in long form, for myself. And I love reading what I write.
4) I wanted to collaborate with Mary.
5) I needed something to focus my attention, something to do that was fun but not required. I needed something to do just because I wanted to, and not because anyone else was depending on me to do it.
So there are my reasons...and I'm tagging Orange, TherapyDoc, FemaleScienceProfessor, Flea and W. Gladstone at Left Unsaid. Now that I'm done with that, I'll get back to the anxiety about what they will all think of me for doing so!
1) I decided to start blogging because I found I was censoring myself when I posted to discussion groups, and I wanted to be able to speak freely about politics, in particular.
2) I've never been able to keep a journal, although I adore the idea and own a number of beautiful blank books purchased for journaling. They remain, well, blank. For some reason, sitting down and writing in an actual book seems too - I don't know - self-conscious, maybe? for me. But I know the value of using journaling to process one's life. As I write this, I realize that I can't process internally - I can't think something through on my own. I need to talk about it with someone else - simply the act of explaining what I'm feeling helps clarify things, but if I don't tell someone, I'll just go around in circles in my own head. So blogging works for me because I'm not writing for myself; I'm writing for whoever reads it.
3) I like to write. I love words, and I've collected a lot of them over the years. It's fun to bring them out and play. In high school and college, even though I couldn't sustain a journal, I wrote all the time. I wrote term papers and newspaper articles. I wrote poetry. I wrote letters to the editor (and had one published in the New York Times when I was 20; I was very proud of that). I wrote for the yearbook and the literary magazine in high school. I wrote letters to my friends, and to my parents. And then I started medical school, and all that writing stopped. I wrote one paper in medical school, for my third-year surgery rotation, and it was no fun. I learned to write notes the way doctors write them, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity. When I started to use Email in the mid-1990s, I started to write again. Blogging offers me the chance to write in long form, for myself. And I love reading what I write.
4) I wanted to collaborate with Mary.
5) I needed something to focus my attention, something to do that was fun but not required. I needed something to do just because I wanted to, and not because anyone else was depending on me to do it.
So there are my reasons...and I'm tagging Orange, TherapyDoc, FemaleScienceProfessor, Flea and W. Gladstone at Left Unsaid. Now that I'm done with that, I'll get back to the anxiety about what they will all think of me for doing so!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
I Want to Hyperlink My Life
~by Mary (MPJ)
Some time ago, I heard a piece by Sarah Vowell on Public Radio's This American Life (at least I think that's who and what it was, but my googling skills are failing me, because I cannot find the reference). She and a new friend were having difficulty having conversations, because each was missing so much background information on the other; they would constantly digress to introduce people and events from their past that would give their new experiences context. So they made each other long audio recordings about their lives. They would make recordings about their old relationships, their childhoods, their inside jokes, and share those, so that all that all of that information could simply be understood in the next conversation.
The need to provide explanations, and sometimes forgetting what information is relevant to a particular listener is one of the reasons I feel I'm so bad at real life conversations. I'm constantly providing too much or too little context; I'll start a story and forget halfway through where I was going with it or I'll get to the end of a story having left listeners behind because I made some mental jump somewhere that they couldn't follow.
I love communicating in writing, because I can take my time and think about what I need to say and how I need to say it. If I digress, people can skim, or better yet, I can keep with the flow of the story while relegating the digressions to some great elsewhere (sometimes parentheses!), somewhere I can point people who are interested in that information. On paper, that's generally the footnote. (Not the endnote. I hate them! It's so distracting to see that little superscript number taunting you with more information and then have to flip to the back of the book only to find out that it says, "Ibid, pg. 204.") On the Internet, that's the hyperlink.
One of the things I'm finding that I love about blogging, is that I can write about all of that background information and just hyperlink it in to other posts. I don't have to tell the whole story of anything, complete with digressions, right now. I can tell one little piece, and link you back to the context information. (For example, "my father once threatened not to pay for college after I was out too late with my friend Jess" becomes a much richer and more complex statement if you know the hyperlinked information, either through reading it or having been through it with me.) One can even use hyperlinks in creating art.
Now, if I could just find a way to hyperlink my real life conversations, I'd be set.
The need to provide explanations, and sometimes forgetting what information is relevant to a particular listener is one of the reasons I feel I'm so bad at real life conversations. I'm constantly providing too much or too little context; I'll start a story and forget halfway through where I was going with it or I'll get to the end of a story having left listeners behind because I made some mental jump somewhere that they couldn't follow.
I love communicating in writing, because I can take my time and think about what I need to say and how I need to say it. If I digress, people can skim, or better yet, I can keep with the flow of the story while relegating the digressions to some great elsewhere (sometimes parentheses!), somewhere I can point people who are interested in that information. On paper, that's generally the footnote. (Not the endnote. I hate them! It's so distracting to see that little superscript number taunting you with more information and then have to flip to the back of the book only to find out that it says, "Ibid, pg. 204.") On the Internet, that's the hyperlink.
One of the things I'm finding that I love about blogging, is that I can write about all of that background information and just hyperlink it in to other posts. I don't have to tell the whole story of anything, complete with digressions, right now. I can tell one little piece, and link you back to the context information. (For example, "my father once threatened not to pay for college after I was out too late with my friend Jess" becomes a much richer and more complex statement if you know the hyperlinked information, either through reading it or having been through it with me.) One can even use hyperlinks in creating art.
Now, if I could just find a way to hyperlink my real life conversations, I'd be set.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
And Things I Love
~by Mary (MPJ)
My own take on Jay's beautiful list of things she loves...
What my husband calls my "CCDs" (Crappy Crime Dramas): the Law and Order franchise, the CSI franchise, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, whichever one is on TiVo when I need to fold laundry and the kids are away or asleep. I cry at the ending of every single episode of Cold Case, even the ones that piss me off because Lilly so clearly needs to attend (and so clearly never has attended) an Al-Anon meeting. There's just something unbearable about misunderstandings and missed chances, and so bittersweet how happy the ghosts are at the end, after their painful lives and deaths and the long empty years of waiting for understanding and closure.
Kids as they figure out what language means and how to approach the world around them. They have their own funny pronunciations, like "Ga" for "Daddy," or, as they grow, "tairs" for "stairs" or "binocleeors" for "binoculars." And they play around with the meaning of words, like when I was making my lunch for my son and my daughter said, "Come on, Mama! I'll lead you to Brother's appetite!"
Making love to my husband, when I feel this spiritual connection between us; more than our bodies are one at that moment, our souls are too...
When my kids say "Mama." I chose to be Mama, not Mom or Mommy or Ma or Mother or anything else, because when I picture a mama, I picture someone both strong and loving. A mama has broad shoulders and arms strong enough to carry heavy loads, but hug and hold gently. A mama has hands that are calloused by work, yet soft enough to wipe away tears. There's nothing in the world like hearing, "Snuggle me into bed, Mama," or "Pick me up, Mama," or "Kiss it, Mama" or above all, "I love you, Mama."
Walking out of the cool corridors of a baseball stadium into the stands, where summer sunlight makes the field blindingly green, and it all opens up in front of you in one moment: green grass, white bases, red-brown earth and players (preferably in Yankee pinstripes) warming up.
Kids as they figure out what language means and how to approach the world around them. They have their own funny pronunciations, like "Ga" for "Daddy," or, as they grow, "tairs" for "stairs" or "binocleeors" for "binoculars." And they play around with the meaning of words, like when I was making my lunch for my son and my daughter said, "Come on, Mama! I'll lead you to Brother's appetite!"
My iPod. It's like listening to a radio station that is always playing my favorite song, and it always surprises me. I just shuffle the whole collection and whatever song pops up, I always find myself thinking, "Oh, man! I love this one!!" -- everything from "old timey music," like Tony Bennett or Mel Torme, to classic rock, like the Dead or Dylan or Neil Young, to mellow 70's stuff, like James Taylor or Paul Simon or Cat Stevens, to my 80's favs like Men at Work or the Cure or Howard Jones or Wham, to that vague grouping of post-high-school stuff, like the Goo Goo Dolls or Melissa Etheridge or Smash Mouth, to the favorites that just seem timeless to me, like the Beatles and Billy Joel.
When my kids say "Mama." I chose to be Mama, not Mom or Mommy or Ma or Mother or anything else, because when I picture a mama, I picture someone both strong and loving. A mama has broad shoulders and arms strong enough to carry heavy loads, but hug and hold gently. A mama has hands that are calloused by work, yet soft enough to wipe away tears. There's nothing in the world like hearing, "Snuggle me into bed, Mama," or "Pick me up, Mama," or "Kiss it, Mama" or above all, "I love you, Mama."
Things I love
~ by Jay
Baseball on the car radio. Particularly if it's the Yankees, and they're winning, but even minor-league teams I've never heard of, voices I don't recognize talking about balls and strikes and double steals on some field I'll never see as I drive through the summer night.
Sam Waterston on Law & Order. As I type this, I'm seeing that look he gets on his face when the judge has just done something particularly egregious; it's not quite a double take, but almost.
Babies in that stage where they've just figured out that the odd thing floating around is their own hand, and they can control it! And make it do stuff! And maybe, just maybe, get it into position to be chewed on!
Singing along to songs that were popular when I was in high school, especially Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel and Linda Rondstadt. Yeah, it's hopeless old-fogy music, but I know those songs intimately. Not just the words, but the phrasing and the dynamics and the way they fade out at the end. Singing them makes me - not sixteen again, because sixteen wasn't all that great, but sixteen as I wish it had been.
The way my body feels just after orgasm. It's probably the only time I like my body, that lovely liquid feel as if I were part of the bed, part of the field of gravity, utterly relaxed, open to the universe.
Checking on my daughter before I go to bed, when she's completely asleep and soft in her pillow but she'll lift her arms and hug me and murmur "Mommy".
Monday, June 11, 2007
Blockbuster
~by Mary (MPJ)
I post so infrequently here these days that I'm thinking that Jay and I should change the name of this blog to "One and a Half Women Blogging."
I am, as Jay pointed out, a recovering perfectionist, and the perfectionism is one of the reasons I don't post more frequently. I have this great vision for writing posts that will play off of Jay's; we will write and weave a conversation. Instead, she talks to herself, while I imagine my half of the conversation and never get to writing it, because everything in my life needs to be perfectly in place for me to proceed with each step.
You will recognize this if you ever take a trip to Blockbuster with me to rent a video. Believe me, you so do not want to do it. If you are ever in Blockbuster, and you see a crazed woman rearranging the videos while bitching about the fact that the employees never learned the ABC song, that woman is me. There I'll be, looking for Season 1 of House on DVD, walking down the aisle past Battlestar Galactica (still far away) and Grey's Anatomy (getting closer) and Law and Order... Wait! "L" comes after "H." Did I miss House? I scan the shelves... Law and Order, House, Lost... Argh! I rearrange the shelves. My husband doesn't even ask what I'm doing anymore. I can't stand the lack of alphabetical order, and so half an hour later, having put their shelves in order, I am finally able to rent the video. Ok, I'm a recovering perfectionist, so I've gotten to the point where I can usually let it go enough not to provide Blockbuster with free labor, but I do always bitch about it. And it does always stress me out, just a little.
So, I am going to put this post out there, without having organized everything else in my life first, and hope I can relax and enjoy it, even though I know my life is waiting to topple down on me, full of crazy unalphabetized Blockbuster-like chaos the moment I finish typing.
I am, as Jay pointed out, a recovering perfectionist, and the perfectionism is one of the reasons I don't post more frequently. I have this great vision for writing posts that will play off of Jay's; we will write and weave a conversation. Instead, she talks to herself, while I imagine my half of the conversation and never get to writing it, because everything in my life needs to be perfectly in place for me to proceed with each step.
You will recognize this if you ever take a trip to Blockbuster with me to rent a video. Believe me, you so do not want to do it. If you are ever in Blockbuster, and you see a crazed woman rearranging the videos while bitching about the fact that the employees never learned the ABC song, that woman is me. There I'll be, looking for Season 1 of House on DVD, walking down the aisle past Battlestar Galactica (still far away) and Grey's Anatomy (getting closer) and Law and Order... Wait! "L" comes after "H." Did I miss House? I scan the shelves... Law and Order, House, Lost... Argh! I rearrange the shelves. My husband doesn't even ask what I'm doing anymore. I can't stand the lack of alphabetical order, and so half an hour later, having put their shelves in order, I am finally able to rent the video. Ok, I'm a recovering perfectionist, so I've gotten to the point where I can usually let it go enough not to provide Blockbuster with free labor, but I do always bitch about it. And it does always stress me out, just a little.
So, I am going to put this post out there, without having organized everything else in my life first, and hope I can relax and enjoy it, even though I know my life is waiting to topple down on me, full of crazy unalphabetized Blockbuster-like chaos the moment I finish typing.
Friday, June 8, 2007
How good is good enough?
~by Jay
Finally, a chance to sit down and write something for this blog. It's been a busy week or so around here - the end of school is always crazy, and we spent three days at our college reunion. But I'm back and trying to settle into a routine. I've been worrying about the dearth of posts recently. I feel like a bad blogger. It's bad enough we haven't really established a goal for this blog; now I've left it lying post-less for a week. Maybe I shouldn't be blogging at all.
While I was mentally beating myself up, I read an entry in Mary's blog about her childhood struggles with perfectionism, and TigerMom's comments about being "good enough". Ahah! Maybe I'm not a bad blogger. Maybe I'm a good enough blogger. I've never identified myself as a perfectionist; I'm usually content to do what I can and move on. Of course, I think I would be a better person if I weren't quite so content, so there's my latent perfectionism breaking through.
But how do I know if it is good enough? Sometimes (only sometimes) I miss having grades. Now I'm the only one who can decide if I've done enough, and when I can stop and rest. Is it "good enough" if I stop before I'm exhausted? When my work is graded, I know if it's good enough. Med school was pass/fail, even easier; if I passed, I was good enough.
What's that? You say you're not sure you want a doctor who's "good enough"? You want a doctor who's actually "good"? Well, I can understand that. I wouldn't want to fly with a pilot who's "good enough", either. But the fact remains that I can't be perfect, and somewhere along the line I do have to decide when I'm a good enough doc, a good enough parent, a good enough daughter, and good enough to myself.
At work I mostly use time to set my limits. That's why I work part-time, so it's clear to everyone that I'm not always available. I do the best I can in the time I have, and I try to be clear about when I'm not around. That means I'm not always there when people call and I don't always return calls the same day. It means sometimes forms sit on my desk for a week or so before I fill them out and some days I can't see everyone who needs an appointment. But if I give myself enough time away from work, then I can be good enough - or even better than good enough - while I'm there.
I find that's also true for me at home. Time away from my daughter enables me to be good enough when I'm with her. I also gain a broader perspective from my work and that makes it easier to be a more relaxed parent. And when I'm working, I don't resent Sam - I don't need him to be my entire adult social life or my conduit to the outside world, and that's definitely good for our marriage.
If I were grading myself now, I'd give myself an A- as a doc, a B+ as a parent, a B+ as a wife and about a C- as a housekeeper. But that's OK; piles of newspapers on the dining room table, cluttered kitchen countertops and an unmade bed are - all together now - good enough.
While I was mentally beating myself up, I read an entry in Mary's blog about her childhood struggles with perfectionism, and TigerMom's comments about being "good enough". Ahah! Maybe I'm not a bad blogger. Maybe I'm a good enough blogger. I've never identified myself as a perfectionist; I'm usually content to do what I can and move on. Of course, I think I would be a better person if I weren't quite so content, so there's my latent perfectionism breaking through.
But how do I know if it is good enough? Sometimes (only sometimes) I miss having grades. Now I'm the only one who can decide if I've done enough, and when I can stop and rest. Is it "good enough" if I stop before I'm exhausted? When my work is graded, I know if it's good enough. Med school was pass/fail, even easier; if I passed, I was good enough.
What's that? You say you're not sure you want a doctor who's "good enough"? You want a doctor who's actually "good"? Well, I can understand that. I wouldn't want to fly with a pilot who's "good enough", either. But the fact remains that I can't be perfect, and somewhere along the line I do have to decide when I'm a good enough doc, a good enough parent, a good enough daughter, and good enough to myself.
At work I mostly use time to set my limits. That's why I work part-time, so it's clear to everyone that I'm not always available. I do the best I can in the time I have, and I try to be clear about when I'm not around. That means I'm not always there when people call and I don't always return calls the same day. It means sometimes forms sit on my desk for a week or so before I fill them out and some days I can't see everyone who needs an appointment. But if I give myself enough time away from work, then I can be good enough - or even better than good enough - while I'm there.
I find that's also true for me at home. Time away from my daughter enables me to be good enough when I'm with her. I also gain a broader perspective from my work and that makes it easier to be a more relaxed parent. And when I'm working, I don't resent Sam - I don't need him to be my entire adult social life or my conduit to the outside world, and that's definitely good for our marriage.
If I were grading myself now, I'd give myself an A- as a doc, a B+ as a parent, a B+ as a wife and about a C- as a housekeeper. But that's OK; piles of newspapers on the dining room table, cluttered kitchen countertops and an unmade bed are - all together now - good enough.
Monday, June 4, 2007
White Coat Syndrome
by Jay
Quick, what picture comes to mind when you hear "woman in a white coat"? Is it a doctor? No? You're not alone.
Do a Google image search on "white coat woman" and you'll have 10 fashion pictures - one of a woman wearing only a white coat - before you get to a group shot of a white coat ceremony. Nowhere on the page will you see a portrait of a woman doc.
Repeat the exercise with the "white coat man" and the first four images are portraits of men with white coats and stethoscope, each captioned "doctor".
So you'd think I'd be used to it by after 20 years, but I'm still surprised when I'm standing in the hospital and someone comes up to me and asks me to sign for the stock medication delivery. Or when I'm standing behind the front desk in my office and people expect me to check them in for appointments. Or when I call the pharmacy, clearly identify myself as Dr. Jay, and at the end the pharmacist says "so what's the doctor's name, dear?".
Today a very pleasant woman brought a death certificate over for me to sign. Twice during the five-minute interaction she called me "sir". She apologized, immediately, but still. Trust me, I am from the front view quite identifiably female.
I'm a third-generation doc. Both my grandfathers and my dad were docs. When I was younger, we often visited my grandparents, and after dinner the men would sit in the dining room and discuss medicine while the women sat in the kitchen and talked about other things. The last of those dinners took place the summer before my grandparents moved to Florida, and I was about to start med school. I was fascinated by the conversation in the dining room, but I couldn't bring myself to go and sit down. I stood in the doorway for about half an hour, not entirely sure which world was mine.
I've been ready for a while now to take my place at the table. I think I'm already sitting there. It's just that even with my white coat on, I'm still invisible.
Do a Google image search on "white coat woman" and you'll have 10 fashion pictures - one of a woman wearing only a white coat - before you get to a group shot of a white coat ceremony. Nowhere on the page will you see a portrait of a woman doc.
Repeat the exercise with the "white coat man" and the first four images are portraits of men with white coats and stethoscope, each captioned "doctor".
So you'd think I'd be used to it by after 20 years, but I'm still surprised when I'm standing in the hospital and someone comes up to me and asks me to sign for the stock medication delivery. Or when I'm standing behind the front desk in my office and people expect me to check them in for appointments. Or when I call the pharmacy, clearly identify myself as Dr. Jay, and at the end the pharmacist says "so what's the doctor's name, dear?".
Today a very pleasant woman brought a death certificate over for me to sign. Twice during the five-minute interaction she called me "sir". She apologized, immediately, but still. Trust me, I am from the front view quite identifiably female.
I'm a third-generation doc. Both my grandfathers and my dad were docs. When I was younger, we often visited my grandparents, and after dinner the men would sit in the dining room and discuss medicine while the women sat in the kitchen and talked about other things. The last of those dinners took place the summer before my grandparents moved to Florida, and I was about to start med school. I was fascinated by the conversation in the dining room, but I couldn't bring myself to go and sit down. I stood in the doorway for about half an hour, not entirely sure which world was mine.
I've been ready for a while now to take my place at the table. I think I'm already sitting there. It's just that even with my white coat on, I'm still invisible.
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