A Dirty, Sophisticated Gray

Of Men and Medicine

2010-05-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

Here is an SAT question to make you feel young again:

birthday cake : candles :: popcorn : ______

Answer, after the story...

They were going to watch the season finale of Lost together, and in keeping with the theme, my friend decided to make black "smoke monster" popcorn. She also printed out pictures of each of the characters and taped them to chopsticks (we eat popcorn with chopsticks). When her pseudo-boyfriend saw it, he really liked it and that was very clear.

Then he takes all the chopsticks out of the bowl and takes the paper figures off.

"Uhh...What are you doing?" she asks.

"I'm giving you back your chopsticks," he says.

...and then he proceeds to crumple up the papers.

"Okay...well, you can do that, but you don't have to do that in front of me," she says.

"Oh! Oh, don't worry, I'm going to recycle it."

...

WTF. How inconsiderate is he that he would just take her creativity and effort, appreciate it for less than a minute, and then just throw it all away! We vented on this for awhile, until she decided that she had to say something to him about being rude.

So she goes over and talks to him, and in his defense, here was his logic:

"It's like a birthday cake! I was just blowing out the candles..."

Answer:

birthday cake : candles :: popcorn : chopsticks

Anticipation

2009-06-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone suffers from writer's block. I blame the lack of inspiration, but really, what does that mean--where would inspiration come from? Some people might advise you to go out and do something, do something new, just don't write. New experiences certainly have powerful effects (i.e. facilitating falling in love, 21:20), but if you want to stay close to home, I suggest writing about something unimportant: a low priority project, something random, or just phrases.

Prompts from writers' communities help me find that random insignificant thread of thought. A few years ago, one of the major communities was The Alchera Project by Laurie Murray, and it offered prompts that compelled you to think about mundane things in unusual ways. Since Alchera disappeared, a number of communities have erupted to replace it, and I've moved onto one that gives a serious nod to Laurie: Cafe Writing. As Alchera was the beginning (in both writing and myth), I still dedicate my words to Alchera.

For Alchera. Option Two: Timed Writing

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best-" and then he had to stop and think. Because although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.
~A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Take seven minutes (use all seven, but don't go over), and write on the subject of anticipation. This is a timed exercise and it's expected that it won't be perfect. Any format - fiction, essay, verse - is welcome.

I bounce on my heels as I wait at the platform. Bounce? No, more like balance. I try to balance on my heels and wonder why balancing on my toes is so much easier. Is it because our body naturally leans forward, that we fold forward? Maybe we're weighted forward. (Though I can attest to a number of women whose butts would scream otherwise.)

Once in awhile, we all lean forward, forward, even more--at the waist, to the side--we lean over the platform and peer into the lighted darkness, hoping to see that light move. Nothing? A collective sigh, then, as we all right our centers and return to bouncing (or balancing) on our heels.

A rumble and a breeze, and we all pace back up to the platform, a little closer this time, pass the yellow line with just one step, maybe two. More leaning, even farther perhaps, until a resigned exhale at the gust of wind and movement that sweep us from behind. Nope. Wrong side. Other direction.

A lady stands defiantly past the line with a newspaper open. Her lack of leaning (forward or back) is obvious, and even when her paper rattles with the rumbling breeze, she refuses to step back. Only when the conductor beeps his horn does she relinquish her place, as if proving how unafraid she is to tip over and die, even accidentally; she simply concedes her way, then steps aboard.

The Magic of Paying Attention

2009-03-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

The New York Times recently published this article about a coed commune focused on female sexuality. The founder Nicole Daedone created One Taste Urban Retreat Center, a place for individuals to consider female sexuality in a different light. The mainstream idea is that it is something mysterious or elusive or wrong. Men don't understand it; women are ashamed of it; everyone dismisses it. However, Daedone perceives female sexuality as a tool similar to meditation, something you use to learn more about yourself and your relationship. In this community, women and men practice "orgasmic meditation" in which men bring women to orgasm while both parties focus on those feelings of coming and giving. One man, a 50-year-old Silicon Valley engineer, says it helps his concentration at work because it forces him to focus on this tiny part of a woman's body and to consider its larger consequences.

I find it funny that there is an air of mysticism and enlightenment about the whole thing, that we have to mix the female orgasm with meditation and yoga to make it seem clearer and more magical. Daedone recounts her first experience with such sexual meditation, with a Budddhist who practiced contemplative sexuality: "He invited her to lie down unclothed,...and, while stroking her, proceeded to narrate in tender detail the beauty he saw, the colors that went from coral, to deep rose, to pearlescent pink. 'I just broke open, and the feeling was pure and clean,' Ms. Daedone said." It sounds beautiful, actually, like a man speaking poetry to his lover.

To me, though, that's not meditation. That's not focus or concentration. That's a man who pays attention. That is a man who watches a woman and cares about her experience, who connects with her in her way, not his. A man who pays attention, who recognizes the difference between a woman's ideal experience and a man's, who is humble and selfless enough to connect to her through her mind and her desires--this isn't magical. It shouldn't be. It should be reality.

Pre-Relationships with Toys

2009-02-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

I recently watched a TED talk by Caleb Chung, the inventor of the Furby. If you don't know or remember, the Furby was a cute, fluffy critter that was a toy craze in 1998, a "must-have" item for the holiday season. Chung speaks about his career trajectory, the making of Pleo (a life-like dinosaur plushie/robot) and his passion for toys, which is summed up quite nicely by his closing statement:

We are designing our children's best friends. There's a lot of social responsiblity in that. I hope we all dream well.

A child's best friend. I never thought about it, but before I watched this, I had the notion that toymakers were as fun and free-spirited as their toys; maybe they're still fun and free-spirited, but Chung definitely his a deeper level of psychological and philosophical tinkering. I also think he's absolutely right. Some people may express resentment at using an object to teach a child emotion such as empathy or caring. While I agree that these things should (and are) learned through family and real human interaction, I think levels of animacy--dolls, robots, pets--facilitate that expression.

It makes me wonder...if you give a little boy a doll, will he grow up to become a less emotionally awkward boyfriend?

However, my friend brought up a good point:

It's also interesting to think how strongly people can bond with an object, though, one that can't actually feel or truly reciprocate. But then, I guess people do that all the time--non-reciprocal emotion, right? Unrequited love and all that?

Maybe people prone to unrequited love are the same children who bonded with objects rather than friends. Do you think toys are teaching people a bastardized version of relationships?

Once More, With Feeling

2009-01-31T14:34:00.001-08:00

It is difficult finding something to fight for. I wish I had a passion. I wish I knew what I would devote my life to or even what category it would fall under. Would I sacrifice everything for my children, for my husband, or for my work? Some people say you shouldn't have to choose, but I think it's harder to figure out your passion if you don't choose. If you don't choose which one to give up everything for, then are you really passionate about it? Is it really your life calling if it can be so easily exchanged for something else?

I'm so distracted by everyone else's passions that it's difficult to find my own. There are advocates everywhere (my friends included) who persuade you to take up their cause, and for awhile, I am inspired. I am inspired until I realize that I am motivated not by their cause but by their passion. Their passion moves me, and I feel that maybe if I had a piece of what they fought for, I would feel that passion too. But it doesn't work that way. What works for one person does not necessarily work for someone else.

So I'm still stuck looking for a cause to fight for, and consequently, no passion. I just don't seem to care enough about one thing to really take action. I care about everything a little bit, just enough to get by (get by what, I'm not sure). But I don't care enough to read through all the data, scour the arguments, and critically think about it myself. I don't care enough about those issues.

That is also what makes this hard. It's a lot easier for me to say what I don't care about than what I do care about.

Deep breath. Okay. Let's really try this. A list of things that do rile me up somewhat:

Anti-abortionism. I am pro-choice. I just don't understand where people get off saying that your body and your baby is subject to my beliefs, and therefore, I will impose them on you. Maybe pro-choice isn't the best word, but taken literally, I support the idea of having a choice. I support people who think abortion is wrong; I support people who think it is fine. And officially, I support the idea that both these populations can coexist without forcing their ideals upon one another.

Gender/Sexual discrimination. This is very vague, but in my mind, I'm just thinking of people who are anti-homosexuality. How can you be anti an -ality?

Evolution. Ugh! Okay, maybe this is what I'm really passionate about. I hate it when people say "I believe in evolution." It's weird. You don't say, "I believe in math," do you? Evolution is not a belief; it is a fact. There is evidence. The other problem is that putting it in the same sentence with "believe" makes people think it's comparable with religion. Wrong, again. Evolution and religion have nothing to do with one another. It's like...social studies and history. They're different, obviously. You can't read a history textbook to study for a ss exam. But it's easy to make the mistake of substituting one for the other when you ask something like, Why does war happen? From a history point of view, you can say, This man made that rule but this one crossed that river, and that's how it started. From the social science perspective, you could say the war was driven by ambition and greed. Neither answer is wrong. You're just answering the question in different ways, maybe even answering different questions.

Hm...that's a rather short list. Maybe I do know what I would be passionate about, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Although, when I think about it too much, part of me starts thinking that I don't really care that much. I feel this all too often--dampening emotions and their importance. It's something I found to be too reflexive for comfort, but because of it, I think that I would enjoy emergency medicine. I think I need something as spontaneous and shocking as EM to push some feeling into me. Then again, maybe that too will backfire.

I shadowed a radiation oncologist recently, and my strongest thought was, He seems a little immune to humanity. Does that make sense? How does that make sense? How can you be immune to humanity? But that's what it seemed like. I watched a woman breakdown because she realized she had cancer, and I watched her sister fight for her (fight whom? I don't know). Throughout it all, the doctor didn't react. He wasn't rude nor was he empathizing; if anything, he brought a little calm to the situation, but watching from my perspective, he didn't react. I guess if you're working with dying patients everyday, you have to be a little stoic. Maybe it's mental self-preservation.

I hope I never have to close myself off to save my sanity. When I become a doctor, I hope I continue to feel every tearing emotion my patients feel. I never want to become immune to humanity.

The Plastic (and Silicone) Surgeon

2009-01-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

Women undergo plastic surgery to obtain mannequin-like bodies. Meanwhile, inventors are finding new ways to turn mannequins into more real-life women.

I read a fascinating article the other day about a man named Slade Fiero and his RealDolls. Have you heard of these? They are sex dolls that were originally meant to be mobile mannequins, but their real life feel has made them more popular as sex dolls. Sculpted with silicone and hand-painted, they go for $6,500 for a standard up to $50,000 for a customized. Fiero is a RealDoll doctor; he fixes dolls when they get "sick," and sickness can range from leprosy (blotchiness caused by dents in the skin) to breast tumors (silicone implants that improperly hardened). It's a unique sort of medicine because customers trust him with their dolls the way a person would trust a surgeon with his beloved. And much like doctors, he sees bits of the human psyche and its going-ons in relationships. One customer sent him a doll with its leg torn off and knife-like punctures in her calves. Another had said his was in good condition but the jaw was dislocated, nearly hanging around her neck. "Amazing," he says, "that there are human beings out there like that."

Fiero also struck something with me when he spoke about his appreciation of the human form and its aesthetic beauty. I definitely understand that. My bedroom wall is covered with artistic nudes, from Dali's Musical Tempest to Picasso's Blue Nude. The beauty of the human form is something that society naturally appreciates, and we continually find more ways to express our appreciation, whether it be through Greek statues or porn or the desire to blur the line between woman and doll.

I'd also be lying if its "playing God" vibe didn't spark some interest in me. There is a lot to be said for a man who can literally mold a person that can be a your closest companion.

What Matters to Me, 1 of ?

2009-01-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

I'm proud of Obama. It feels funny saying that because I'm really in no position to be proud or un-proud, but no other word fits when I think of all that he has done and plans to do. For all of us, I think he inspires pride because he represents an underdog--whatever personal underdog we have. Most obviously, he has become the empowered African-American who breaks barriers and changes stereotypes. On other levels, however, he also represents a break from [literally] old thought to [relatively] new thinkers. For me, he has forwarded the movement of intellectuals, of educated and eloquent people who may not be your best bar buddy but are certainly people qualified to run a nation.

The keyword is educated. Educated not only applies to Obama but also to his ideology. He encourages people to educate themselves on what matters to them, and he incentivizes this by showing how their values can have real-world impact. Change.org, for example, is not just a promise of governmental transparency. It's the enabling of people, compelling them to care to know. Even if they don't yet know what they care about, Change.org shows them everything so that when something strikes them, they'll know.

I particularly like this website because it's not necessarily pro-Obama. Its healthcare blog, authored by Tim Foley, denounces Obama's single payer system over The Healthy Americans Act, and his argument makes sense. It is a direct, budget-neutral approach with a timeline and bipartisan support, and it has the customization ability to fit every particular state's health needs. All of this makes sense, which makes me wonder why we haven't thought of it before. The problem is its low profile. Written by Senators Wyden and Bennett, its list of sponsors are largely junior senators with little public pull, miniscule compared to big players like Obama and Ted Kennedy. While Foley is quiet adept at showing the pros and cons (and even the pro of the con) of this plan, I wish he could be more optimistic. Is there a way to get these junior

senators a little more face time? Maybe the plan is there and just subtle: educate and inform [you], and maybe a public outcry will pressure the balding know-it-alls into listening. I also wonder how this piece of media is failing against Change.org's voting. I presume they cater to the same audience, and yet, 3876 people are still voting for the Single Payer system. Maybe the magic word is "FREE"?

Working life is boring and lonely.

2008-12-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Why do people blog? Analysts are saying that the Internet and electronic communication have made people less social and more isolated; they are pushing society against the evolutionary pull of communities. I don't think that's true.

We have always been lonely. A new form of communication hasn't changed that. If anything, societal constrictions of 9-5 jobs and professional vs. personal vs. night vs. day etiquette has quieted our cries of loneliness. When we step into the blogosphere, those rules break down, and we are free to scream as loud as we want.

Because now, people can hear.

Life Rhyme

2008-11-16T08:17:00.000-08:00

I'm really taken in by this idea of rhyming--not just words, but pictures too, and when it comes to the coincidences among people, I find that a type of rhyming too. It's like that day when you're talking about really needing new socks, and you go home to find that your mom has bought you new socks. That's rhyming.

Or when you notice your apartment-mate makes popcorn in the pot every night, and the next day, when you stay with a student host for a med school interview, your host is also making popcorn in the pot! That's rhyming. (That's probably also indicative of some kind of weird green culture brewing in NYC.)

Rhyming with words is tricky. I'm always impressed when I listen to song artists who warble words so that they rhyme. I can't think of an example right now, but I'm thinking someone robustly melodious like Beyonce would do something like that.

My favorite rhyming moment happened at MOMA's Dali exhibit. One of the museum's pieces was a short cartoon video called Destino. It was a collaboration between Disney and Dali that was cancelled prematurely but completed by other artists using Dali's story board. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous musical and visual piece that takes advantage of shapes morphing into shapes, fully developing Dali's penchant for visual rhyming. YouTube has a couple of bootlegged full versions and trailers.

Okay, I lied. My actual favorite rhyming piece is the NY Salad collection by Amano. Wow. I love it because it takes advantage of sketching, using the unfinished quality as a transition tool between one idea and another. I also love it because it draws a fantasy out of something very ordinary. It's also super cute.