Wendy Wasserstien

1/31/06
A playwright of our generation died yesterday at the age of 55, just7 years older than I. I followed her career, especially as a neophyte play and screenwright myself, with interest as I never quite understood her import on the world stage (excuse the pun). I had seen Heidi Chronicles, but didn't quite relate to the characters even though I had shared the world they inhabited. Perhaps there was some jealousy in not seeing what made her work so much more special than mine: the "hey, I can write like that!" Or maybe I just never cared for her style. But I was always interested in her the person, most recently when her secret conception and difficult pregnancy at age 48 was made public. Like myself, and many other women in my generation, child bearing came late, and with much medical reproductive assistance. Sadly, as a celebrity she had to endure not only the pain of a premature birth, but the speculations into the origins of her sperm donor and commentary on whether her obesity and age contributed to the pregnancy problems that resulted. I wondered to myself whether she had used donor eggs and fumed that I hated when celebrities had late pregnancies without revealing all the particulars, thus fueling many women's mis-conceptions about how late you can push your reproductive envelope. But I admired her drive, the sheer application of will, to write, to reproduce, the shrug off society as she lampooned it. And now, as I take stock (wish that it were of the summer kind) of my own writing aspirations and how little time we have to acccomplish our goals in life, I am saddened by the loss of someone I did not know personally and whose work I didn't absolutely adore but who represents a life lived according to one's own compass. What a role model for women, for those she wrote about, for those she inspired and for her daughter who follows.

Condoms & Crisco

1/27/06
The ladies always laugh when I can't get the condom off of Dick. No matter how hard I stretch and pull, it always looks like I"m trying to yanka rain boot off a recalcitrant toddler. It really looks silly as I tug the rubber to beyond believable lengths, Dick holding on for dear life. But I'm a professional so we know I'll eventually get the dang thing off with a twang. And I do. Fortunately Dick is only my plastic dildo that I use to demonstrate correct condom use,k not the detumescing penis of a compliant boyfriend. No, Dick is my trusty, flesh colored 7 inch anotomically correct, male member, complete with viewing stand and a non threatening look. I bring him out about half way through my health talks, when I sense my audience slumping in their seats, tired of hearing about the perils of high cholesterol, low fiber intake and paltry levels of physical activity. As part of an otherwise standard talk about nutrition, chronic disease, health and disease prevention, I must sneak in a few minutes on family planning and sexually transmitted diseases to satisfy federal grant requirements to education the community about contraceptive choices and reproductiv health. I love my job; where else but as a Health Educator for a non-profit, private family practice clinic can I hand out carrots and condoms with a clear conscience and a smile?

Today, I'm visiting a battered women's shelter with my demo box of nasty junk foods and sugar drinks, the plastic case of contraceptives and a baggie of sugar and can of crisco, when I manage to drop Dick into the can of vegetable shortening. This is a first for me, but turns out to be just the ice breaker i needed. After introducign myself and letting the group know that I was thereere to answer any health related questions they might have, I had lain out my wares and waited. After about 5 seconds of timid silence I launched into my spiel about the fat content of a king size bag of Cheetos and how much sugar is in a 20 oz bottle of pretty much anythign these days. This always wakes them up. They start asking questions now and I seem to have their attention. I manage to turn their stomachs when I show them just how many tsp of fat they're ingesting in that nice big bag of Cheetos by spooning out tsp after tsp of the clotted grease onto a plate. They're horrified to see 7 glistenign globs of whtie vegetable shortening as I harrange them about letting their kids this this stuff more often than once a light year. I ask them to imagein teh slithering substance quitely lning their arteries over the years until one day they wake up iwth an impending stroke or heart attack. They slink back into their chairs. I quickly follow with my 1-2 diet punch and ask them to guess how many spoonfuls of sugar in any of the 20 oz. bottles of Coke, Apple Juice, Hawaiin Punch, Sprite and chocoloate milk I have lined up on the table. They all guess Coke has the most and as i start spooning white table sugar into a clear glass and ask them to tell me when to stop,l they groan. No one gets close to the 12 little ladles I've dumped into the glass and am now waving around. Do you really want to be drinking this much sugar 1,2,3 times a day? Are you letting your kids drink juices thinking they're "healthier" than soda? They all shake their heads soberly.

Okay time to change subjects. So that's when I ask about thier family planning needs, causing a few blushes here and there, especilly amongst the Asian women. No one wants to venture a question so I bring out my pelvic model and begin my demos, waving Dick around pointing at my own orifices with him to demonstrate how easy it is to spill seed and spread disease if he's not wearing his raincoast. They love this and laugh heartily. Anal, oral, vaginal, doesn't matter I remind them, you must protect yourself. Some of their eyes widen as I mention these acts but they're riveted as I probe the pelvis with Dick, show them how to insert diaphgragms, rings, etc. And then of course, once I drop him into the can of crisco I mention that lubrication is always helpful but that they might prefer K-Y to the high cholestoral kind. I've got them now and the discussion begins. Questions fly, we laugh, comiserate with the general plight of women, understood piggishness of men and relax into the morning.

All because of my slippery side-kick, Dick. Thanks, bud, couldn't have done it without you.

Mountaintop Philanthropists in Purple

1/24/06
What a privilege to share lunch with a bevvy of sex educators (and one beau) at the Pasadena mountain top home/art show case of Adeleide Hixon a retired, widowed philanthropist with mucho moolah, charisma and fierce enthusiasm for Planned Parenthood and teen sexual health. A great beauty in her day, you can see in her fine features and twinkling tourmaline eyes, as portrayed in an oil painting done in the 40's, Katherine Hepburn style, Adeleide rejoices in tweaking one's stereotype of the little old lady who lunches. No fear in talking about sex, having fun in bed and giving up on a nation of pathetic parents who can't say no to their kids because they can't say no to themselves, she shares her opinions like a dealer his/her cards. No fear of carbo fanatics, fat phobics and Zone Dieters she served up a thick cheesey soup, Caesar salad with real anchovies and hefty slab of cream cheese laden carrot cake. Who dares to serve anchovies these day! I loved it; the view without of stunning Sierra Madres, the veiw within of our own mountains and molehills of morals, cultural incompetencies, fears and fascination about sex, sexuality and what it means to be a human of either gender. All this in a black ceilinged, modern home with a soaring roof and purple painted walls to match the hostess's Chanel suit. Now that's living!

Women Rule?

1/23/06

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, as our our fundamentalist fearfuls attempt to take away a women's reign over her own body, 2 nations have elected women to be presidents, Liberia & Chile. After years of war and economic corruption, they promise to use maternal skills to right the wrongs their countries have suffered. It will be fascinating to watch how differently they rule, if at all. Will they put more resources into services and "nurturing" citizens than men who traditionally spend more on war toys and incarcerating the bad kids? How will other leaders take to these mothers who may or may not play by the same rules as the good old boys? Can we, in this nation of white middle age male politicos learn from our African and South American sisters?

Marketing Cars

1/17/06

I think the NPR commentator got it wrong today when opining about the switch car makers are making from using evocative names for their vehicles to numerical monikers such as the Ford Explorer will now be called the MX 540 or some such enumeration. He felt that we are switching to names that sound more techno, or even Europpean to keep up with trends, but no where did he make the connection that the MX sounds a lot more macho and military than the outdoors-y Explorer. Anything with MX infront of it sounds to me like the latest version of some weapons delivery system and aren't we now living in a war era? If we're not actually fighting in the fields of Iraq or Afghanistan we're sneaking around fighting terrorism abroad and at home in our neighborhood libraries, on your mulah's cell phone and your teen daughter's blog. As we physically and intellectually flabbier, doesn't it feel good to drive around in some powerful symbol of strength and world domination? How ironic that the more of these we drive the more power we cede to those nations who fuel this pseudo sense of security. I say, get a bicycle and flip off Haliburton, oil sheiks and our petrol dependent auto industry.

Yesterday I saw a legless, armless man whizzing by in his motorized wheelchair with a grin on his face, wind whipping around his head like an aviator's scarf. A young kid ran along side and hopped on for a ride as the rest of his group ran after them.

Comas & Conscience

1/13/06

Ariel Sharon's medically induced coma made me think about what is the conscience if it can be turned on and off by bio-chemical adjustment. All the personality, character, stored memories, experiences, realities, spirit? Where do they go? What is this entity that we call our "selves" when we go to sleep? Does it reside solely in our brain cells? It can be altered by alcohol, caffeine, anti-depressants, music, dance. One can feel full of energy and out to conquer the world, maxing out credit cards with the conviction that, yes, that 14 piece furniture set will make your life a better experience one day and then cringing with fear when the post-man arrives to deliver the circulars. Both are valid feelings, one experiences them the same way, that is with total belief that it is a true feeling to act on, but they are polar opposites. When someone undergoes surgery the body's reaction is the same whether it receives anaesthia or not, but the brain percieves the sensations differently when the pain receptors are turned off or muted. So, the gall bladder patient has been cut open with no memory or pain and walks away slighttly gassy but not too much worse for the experience. Yet the soldier may have the same invasion of his body with a piece of shrapnel and be forever affected, mentally and physically, by that same experience because it included conscious awareness and the perception of pain.

So, when we are in a coma, are we really who we are if we're not experiencing ourselves and the world as usual? WHen you present a different face at work and at home, with friends and with foe, are you not encompassing more than one perception of yourself, of life? What then, is the true self, awake, asleep, fearful, joyful, explosive, composed? When you are all of these things at once do these characteristics cancel each other out and become white or blend together and become black, or are wer really a rainbow? And when asleep or comatose, just passing behind a cloud, until the skies clear again?

Bliss 101

6 January, 2006

David Lynch has a plan to teach people, including kids, how to do transcendental meditation. This sounds good to me. To spend time each day clearing the mental palate of thought, with the side effect of losing negativity, seems like a sorely needed activity. How much time do we spend stewing over perceived wrongs, mis-perceptions, lack of understanding, failures? How much money do we spend on therapy, self-help gurus, books and programs in the search for some kind of tranquility? What does this society do to promote self sufficiency and resiliency? Not much. J.S. Bach's Reluctant Messiah speaks to the need to look within, as of course have countless other sages and sources on mental health. When Prozac fails and the Pinto Grigio no longer hits the spot, let's all try a little Ohmmmm.

Nipple Rings

4 January, 2005

So, we're all sweating and puffing away on our gravity boards as the teacher circulates, counting down our sets for the Strength Class, when he blurts out: "I'm wondering if I should get my nipples pierced." Those of us with extra breath to spare, let loose with a guffaw or two and he goes on to talk about how he used to have them pierced but was playing softball one day and ran into the chain link fence and when he pulled away... well, we all got the message and winced in commisery as we laughed again. "Too much information," I quipped, upside down doing bicep curls and wondering, what a conflicted world we live in. Complete strangers get together in partial dis-robed states to push our bodies to the limits, grunting and contracting, like orgasmic beasts as we ponder another's self-adornment of usually private areas. This in a nation that is fascinated by the human body and sex in all its permutations, yet has outlawed certain acts of coition and continues to shame those of us who might be tempted to copulate outside the box.

Having thought about Kwame's discussion of homosexuality and how he was glad that we no longer look at gay sex but gay couples as the "issue" I got to thinking about what's so threatening about gay sex. You might not want to think about certain body parts conjugating away with like parts, but after you get over that (or don't or even get turned on by the thoughts) you have to wonder what's the problem. I happen to think that gay sex is purely an evolutionary threat to pro-creation and as such is unbearable to a partriarchal society that needs to ensure its lineage. Gay sex, women's lib and the pill do more to unseat a male's power over the female than other forces of nature because once women don't need men (can't wait to read my christmas present, Maureen Dowd's "Are Men Necessary") to take care of them, they're free to have sex and babies on their own. Maybe sperm will become obsolete (ironic if most of the scientists working on cloning are men) after all.

And men can become those pretty play things, adorned in piercings and six-pack abs and manicured nails, teh Metro-sexual, that women will partner with for no more than the pure fun of a colorful mate. We could all then trade nipple rings and coupons for nail salons while earning our own ways in the world, inter-dependent, rejoicing in how different body parts are just that, different. Won't matter where you put them (albeit safely, please), as long as its consensual and celebratory, revelatory, exploratory, without category. And maybe we'll stop wearing make up to the gravity class and just work it for the pleasure of using these bodies that, in the end, should be adorned, worshipped, respected, pierced or not.

Cosmopolitanism

2 January, 2006

How timely for a New Year to be introduced to the term "Cosmopolitanism," this in the NYTimes Magazine article by Kwame Anthony Appiah. My best friend and I, in 1984 met each other at Public Health School, the only two women wearing heels amidst a band of Birkenstocked, be-flanneled colleagues and instantly pegged ourselves as the Cosmo twins. Not because of some interests in Madison Avenue sexual adventuring but because we sensed in each other a worldli-ness, a flirtatiousness with that world and a huge appetite for life that included African dance, Statistics 101, deep fried garlic, cigarettes, international family planning, men, women and children. 21 years later, we are still close to each other's hearts after years of career, marriage, child-bearing and soul searching has taken us in different directions.

Now, the idea of Cosmopolitanism can mean more than just a city sense, and all that entails with its heterogenity of peoples, flavors, life-styles and beliefs, but a world view that is shared by people of distinctly different cultures from Islamic to Eastern Europpean. Kwame suggests that we step back from our cultural imperialisms and look to our individuals selves with out prejudice and sites a second century BC playwright (also sited by Jung) who says Homo sum: humanin il a me alienum puto: "I am human: nothing human is alien to me." This quote was particularly illuminating to me a while back, while (and still) trying to figure out how to accomodate internal emotional and cognitive battles. That we humans can be on this planet in so many diverse ways from paying women to pole-dance for us to mutilating their genitals, from worshipping CEO's who fill our stock coffers to tearing them down with glee when their greed gets the spot-light, to angel-icizing children but also working them in factories or trading them as sex slaves, says there is no one way to be human.

And how gloriously frustrating and frustratingly glorious! Of course, this comes from a liberal American whose basic needs are met and who has the time to pontificate and ponder to herself in a variety of public and private ways. But there is relief and recognition in having a major newspaper publish, thereby validating, thoughts that I've been entertaining for years and now must challenge myself to honor. As Rushdie's (op. cit.) novel "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations fo human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolution of the pure. Melange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world."

I can foresee, with globalization, that this trend will be hard fought and hard won on societal (when will we ever sign the Kyoto agreement?) and individual levels (more/less therapy please!). And huge upheavals, with today's horrifyinigly effective arsenals, likely. But out of all the psycho-societal chaos, like the new seedlings that sprout after a tornado passes through town, what marvelous new life will be born? I hope to be around and aware long enough to taste it and share it with my loved ones.