Lauded Up the Wrong Tree

     A few years ago, a video was posted to Facebook that was supposed to be really inspirational and motivational. In fact, here it is:
Quadriplegic Motivational Speaker

       My reaction to it was not positive.  I didn't think it was that bad, but it actually got me blocked on Facebook (by someone I knew in high school and grade school, but don't miss in the least.)  Most of all, my response to it was honest, and I feel a thing that needed to be said.

       As it happens, any time I write something that I feel is important, I have a tendency to paste it to a document and save it somewhere on my computer.  As a result of a recent hard drive crash,  I was reviewing the data on the replacement drive to make sure everything was there, and ran across the document with this in it.  I present it now for your judgment (because I'm sure someone will judge it.)  Seems that the opening sentence was a tad prescient:


 This will not make me popular (though I never have worried much about that), but in many respects this guy has it easy. Yes, he has no arms or legs. And people look at him and see a cripple.

I want you to consider something, though. There are people out there JUST as disabled as he is, but you can't SEE their disabilities. They have all their arms and legs, but because of brain damage they can't function the same way that everyone else does. And because they don't look different, and they don't slur words, and they're smart and eloquent, people don't BELIEVE they can't do these things.

Sure, it's easy to say, "Yes, but he has arms and legs!" when, in reality he can't read a book without help, he can't fill out a job application, he can't fill out papers to get the disability benefits that the Americans With Disabilities Act claims he's entitled to, and he can't get help with those things from the agencies that are supposed to provide them BECAUSE THEY DON'T BELIEVE IT because they can't see it. And because he's smarter than most people you'll ever meet.

Imagine the frustration of being brilliant, of having ideas, concepts, and the need to share them....and not being able to write. Or type. Or read, because the words change. Sure, you can comprehend anything you read, if you read it correctly. Oh, yeah, college is a breeze......while they're sticking you in the "learning disabled" department, which means that they'll give you extra time to take your tests in a room with thin walls and no door while they chat loudly on the other side of the wall. Then, when they grade your paper, the algebra teacher takes off points because you couldn't spell your name right....and SHE was on the other side of that wall, yakking away so loudly that you couldn't concentrate.

It's easy for this guy to look on the positive side. People can SEE that he's different. They can see that he is, in their eyes, disabled, crippled. So some may gape at him, and some may make fun of him. But at least they know, they admit, that there's something wrong.

Where does all this come from? My best friend of the past 24 years. He's been through ALL of those things I named, and more. And my son is going through much of the same, but with less severe problems.

In comparison, this guy who has less than a whole body but an undamaged mind has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. Because his damage is visible.

Think on that a bit, and THEN look at yourself.

Hey, Wait, My Mirror is Broken

       I said recently that I was not going to rant in a particular post about what it's like to grow up and realize that your parents were much less functional than you thought they were, but would post it later.  Since my subconscious has apparently decided that I'm going to write a post today (or merely the clumsiness of declining eyesight) I guess I'm going to write about it now.  It's certainly been the biggest thing on my mind of late.

       I've always had a very....precise memory.  Granted, that has changed as I've gotten older and more abused.  Being in a car accident in 1992 and spending a week and a half on morphine (to which I'm seriously allergic) did a lot of harm to that, and being in another car accident in 1999 that caused spinal and brain damage nearly destroyed it entirely, but after 15 years of neurofeedback and neuron-repairing supplements and drugs, it has gotten about as good as it probably ever will.  As a child, I remembered entire conversations and would repeat them in detail upon request--at the intense annoyance of my mother.  I usually won arguments, especially when they involved previous conversations or promises made, because I would quote the entire conversation word for word, even when it made me look bad.

       So, OK, yeah, I could be an annoying kid.  I was right, and knew it.  Largely, I only made it known when I was at home, and when a dispute happened.  I didn't speak much at school. If I had done the same thing at school, they might have decided to advance me just to get me out of their hair.

       Gee, I kind of wish I'd thought of that at the time.

       I never would have done it, though.  I had far too much...unwillingness to be noticed.

       By anyone.

       I was a quiet child on the whole.  I was also an only child which, in retrospect, is probably a very good thing.  As such, I spent a lot of time playing alone in my room.  On weekends, I spent a lot of time playing in the neighborhood with the neighborhood boys, mostly because there was only one neighborhood girl (except the year when there was another one), and I wasn't very girly.  I rode a bike, I played in the creek, I climbed trees, we built forts, and I got into theological arguments with the boy across the street.

       Yeah, so I wasn't the most normal kid.  But I was generally quiet.

       I was never close to my mother.  Early on, she pushed me towards my father, making sure I learned to say "daddy" before I learned "mama".  I idolized him, and spent a lot of time learning, or trying to learn, all the things he did.  I helped him work on cars, work in the darkroom developing film and pictures, helped him with carpentry and furniture refinishing, helped him with the household electrical systems, helped him with the plumbing, and, in 1976 when he was let go from the firm he'd been with for several years and opened his private practice, I went to work for him as an office assistant.

       I tried to get close to my mom many times over the years.  She tried to teach me how to sew periodically--much to the distress of her sewing machine.  My hand-sewing was atrocious and not functional (though I did, eventually, learn to sew buttons on), and whenever she tried to get me to sew on her machine, I broke the needle.

       Needless to say, she stopped letting me use her machine.

       As I got older, and my mother went back to college, I spent more time trying to interact with my parents on their level.  One of the things I did was hung around and listened to them talk.  Alas, most of that was not talk so much as argument.

       I noticed fairly early that they often seemed to be having two separate conversations.  I learned a lot about philosophy (because that was my mother's course of study) and got to hear an awful lot of two separate viewpoints that were never...constructively compared.

       When I was 9, in early 1979, the argument was so bad that my mother packed a suitcase and threatened to leave.

       I pitched a fit.  I'd never pitched a fit like this before--in general, I didn't pitch fits, but now I did.  I demanded that she not leave, and screamed it so loud, standing in the driveway, that I'm fairly sure the neighbors heard me, and possibly thought I was being tortured.  To compensate, my mom and I went to see the Steve Martin movie The Jerk at North DeKalb Mall.

       I begged her not to leave, but on the most basic level I wanted her to go.  She was unpredictable, unstable, and did not seem terribly attached to me.  Yet instead of watching impassively as she drove away, I screamed and bawled to keep her from leaving.  I often thought, in the intervening years, that this had been an enormous mistake.  However, it made her happy, so she did not take anything that night out on me, and I did enjoy the movie.  In truth, I was afraid of her for a long time.

       When I was a teenager, I started seeing the instability as more of an issue.  I transferred to Open Campus and took psychology, and realized while I was taking Abnormal Psych exactly what was going on.  I consulted with my dad after I figured it out, and he confirmed it: she was paranoid schizophrenic.

       It turns out that "figuring it out" when you're 16 is a whole different flavor of understanding from watching it become more and more obvious until the police take it into their own hands to have her evaluated and getting a formal diagnosis when you're 45.

       For one thing, no matter how clear my own deduction was, and no matter the (information) confirmation by friends with a much greater understanding of psychology than my own, the formal diagnosis made it much more real.  It's one thing to look at a situation and think, "Hey, yeah, this describes and explains the behavior very well." It's another thing entirely to look back over the past thirty years or so, after having a formal diagnosis, and say, "It's absolutely true.  She was schizophrenic.  How do I know what parts were real, and what parts were her delusion?"

       I guess I will never know.  I catch myself sometimes, in the middle of conversation, starting to tell a story from my mom and then stopping myself because I don't have verification from anyone else, so I have no idea if there's any truth to it.

       I will end this with the thing that she started talking about a few years ago that really started me realizing how....well, crazy she really could be.

       We were standing in the dining room of her house together, looking out the windows.  She started grumbling about the scrub pine at the back of her property and how she hated pine trees.

       Of course, I've always loved pine trees.  I love the way they smell, I love the bark, the pine cones, the fact that you can make a tea from the needles that will help with a cold, the fact that every part of a pine tree is useful when they die, but they're beautiful when they're alive.  I just love pine.

       I said something to that effect, and she started ranting about how they killed people, they were dangerous, they would make you shrivel up and die.  She gave an example (that I have not been able to verify, of course) of a family that had moved into a shack in the middle of a pine forest, and they had all turned black and died.  She was adamant that it had been caused by the pines, and would hear nothing of my statements about the bioflavanoids found in the needles, or any other benefits they might have, and refused to believe me even when I provided scientific studies. 

       I guess at that point, I really started to figure out that you can't argue with insanity. 

Food and Consequences

Yesterday, I was having a very bad day (for reasons that are not currently entirely relevant) and my best friend took me out to eat, just the two of us, to make me feel better.  He asked me where I wanted to go, and I just told him "Someplace different" which is a tall order, as we have been to a huge variety of places in Atlanta, and many of the places we haven't been are because of food allergies.

We decided to drive up Roswell Road because that is where we knew some Persian restaurants to be, or at least to have been in the past, and at least there are tons of restaurants there.

We found Persepolis, and opted to go there because we miss 1001 Nights that was off Roswell Road in Sandy Springs back in the late 1980s.  We recently tried 1001 Nights in Johns Creek in hopes that it was the same, but it was a hugely expensive, bitter disappointment.

Not so with Persepolis.

They start by putting a lavash on the table with a plate of herbs, feta cheese, radish and walnuts.  We had them take away the raw onion because neither of us can eat them.

The waitress, Maria, was friendly and knew the menu well.  When my friend asked her about a dish that he had had, and loved, and been searching for, since that one visit to 1001 Nights in 1988, she directed him straight to a dish that fit the description (which the owner of 1001 Nights in 2014 could not do), and one similar to it.  We ordered it with Chicken Barg, and were thrilled to find that it was exactly right.

There was also a drink that we were warned many Americans do not like because it's a bit weird.  It was described as a yogurt drink that was carbonated and had salt in it.  We decided, after a while, to go ahead and try it, even though it sounded like nothing so much as a salt lhassi (which is my least favorite kind of lhassi). It was called Abali Yogurt Soda.

We were pleasantly surprised, and ordered a second.

We spent a fair amount of time talking to Maria about foods from different countries.  She, also, likes trying foods from different countries.  We told her about Machu Pichu, our favorite Peruvian restaurant, and after my friend described a few of the dishes on the menu, she described similar ones from her home country, Mexico.  She, herself, had a strong desire to try Ethiopian food, so we directed her to our current favorite, Queen of Sheba.

All of that sounds like a food review, but the real centerpiece of the conversation was the spicing of the food, both there, at Persepolis, and at the different restaurants of other countries' foods.

I realized, suddenly, the big difference between American and English food (well, and much Chinese as well) and the foods of places like India, Persia, Thailand, Ethiopia, and the Middle East in general.

All of those other countries use spices in their foods, not just for heat, not just for flavor, but because those particular herbs and spices are soothing and/or stimulating to the digestion.  Granted, if you get too much heat it can cause heartburn, but generally, if your food is properly balanced with herbs and spices, you will find that your foods will make you feel better rather than "I feel like crap, but it was worth it."

Think about it.  When you eat Texas Chili, pizza from New York or Chicago, fried chicken, or any of a number of other "American" foods, all of which are either too oily or too spicy, most people get heartburn.  If you're willing to try them, if you eat the more pungent dishes from places like India and Ethiopia, you may find that your digestion "cleans itself out" within the next day, but either way, your digestion is happier for it.

Remember the words of Hippocrates: "Let your food and drink be your medicine. "

Misogyny On The Half-Shell.

I saw this article posted on Facebook, and it pissed me off.  I wrote a response to it, and then realized that I feel that it needs a wider, or at least different, audience.

Here's the link to the article so you, gentle reader, can know precisely to what my numbers are referring:

6 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT THINK ARE HARASSMENT BUT DEFINITELY ARE

Yes, that's right, the title for the article was written in all capitals, as though the name wasn't hysterical enough.

Here was what I commented on my hapless friend's post.  I may lose friends for it, but it's how I feel and I refuse to be bullied into feeling a certain way by anyone:

This whole notion of what's "harassment" is, to my mind, becoming absolutely stupid.  It's like women are determined to be victims even when they're not, and it makes me feel bad about being female. 

Before I itemize my problems with this list, let me clarify: I have been assaulted three times. Well, four if you count the one that happened when I was 7.  Never raped, but not for the lack of men trying.  If I had gotten irate every time someone followed me, stared at me, cat-called me (and yes, even though I'm 45 and 110 lbs. over-weight, that does still happen), wolf-whistled at me, propositioned me, and everything short of actually touching me, but if I'd taken it as serious I'd have locked myself in a closet decades ago.  Instead, I chose to ignore the stupidity (including the abuse when someone took amiss that I had ignored them) and learned self-defense. 

1. Johnny Rotten once told me to smile because I was leaning against the stage as he and PIL were setting up for a concert.  I was 17 and very depressed.  He was trying to cheer me up.  On Fantasy Island, every episode Mr. Roarke would tell all his guests, "Smiles, everyone!   Welcome to Fantasy Island!"  Based on that, Julian has, for years, said that to EVERYONE.

Let's not forget free speech.

2. I've never had a man tell me "God bless you."  I have only had women say that to me.  Nonetheless, even though my atheist soul cringes at it (I was an atheist for 15 years before I ever started thinking I might be a Druid, back in my late teens), still, people have a right to say what they want.  Free speech and all that.

3.  Compliments are never actually wrong.  Doesn't matter why you do it.  If you get offended because someone complimented you, you've got issues.  You don't have to take it to heart, but getting pissed off about it is just stupid.  The "implications" listed are assumptions of the really bitter recipient.  I wonder how many men were asked about their motives with this?

Also, free speech.

4. Yeah, OK, staring is creepy.  However, ignoring it is easy unless you have issues, in which case, once again, that's your problem, not the problem of the person staring at you.

Hell, it can feel creepy when your cat stares at you.  Also, I've seen women stare at men in the same way.  It's not necessarily voluntary on the part of the starer.

5.  You can speak to anyone you want.  I've been harassed by lots of women speaking to me that I didn't want to have a damned thing to do with, and I've seen lots of women do that to men.  Just get a spine and either ignore them or tell them to go away.

6.  OK, THIS is a problem.  I've even seen men become physical when ignored.  However, they also do this to men who ignore them, so painting it as just a sexual harassment thing is sexist.  Honestly, if you continue to ignore them (since what these people actually want is for you to get upset at them, to start something) they will just go away.  I've been proving that for years.  Hell, I got out of being mugged because it scared the hell out of the guy trying to mug me because I ignored him, and he had a gun on me.

In essence, this list comes across as being even more misogynistic than the behavior it itemizes.