I am a long-time fan of handouts.  I think that sometimes, the best thing to do when the explanation is long is to prepare the information, let the person read it, and come back when you can have a real conversation with them.  On at least six occasions, I have threatened to make business cards explaining various measures of gentle feedback that I don't care to explain.  So, in this vein, I was hanging out withel_houria on Monday and was discussing how ridiculous med school is going to be w/r/t health at every size, and how much patient explaining I'm going to have to do (or not do) about just about every thing in my life.  It turned into a book.  Do I need any more chapters:

1. Oppression, Trauma, and Access to Health Care (of course, I am actually going to have to write a book about this, more or less)
2. Integrative Medicine
3. Health at Every Size
4. Harm Reduction
5. The Sex Trade and Street Economies
6. Don't Call the Cops
7. Modern Food and Modern Disease (this one is a bit more mainstream, thx Michael Pollan)
8. Access to food and health impacts (somewhat related to two of the above)
9. Use the Right Pronoun and Let People Pee
10. The Patient is the Expert of Themselves

I just got an assignment where I have to read a book where the author talks about the challenges of treating Morbid Obesity (not a disease) and Chronic Pain (aka, ladies, it's all in your head!).  I'm going to have to prepare this shit, pronto.  

Yesterday I ate lunch with my friend JS, and we ended up eating at the parthenon, and she said to me "I'm so glad, because now I can check this off of my list!"--her very last day of med school is Friday, and she is moving to the east bay for her residency, so after 15 years in Chicago, she's eating everywhere she will miss.  And she busted out an actual list, about which I was quite impressed.

So, where should I eat before I leave (besides hot dougs, because really)?

Holy bananas, I'm tired.  But!  I'm still going to the YWEP art show, and you should too, if you're in town, because it's going to be excellent.  I have never been more authentically excited for a benefit we've done.  

Admittedly, some of the reason I'm tired is because I ate some Lenten specialities at Taqueria de La Casa Del Pueblo, on Blue Island about a half block south of 18th st.  Cactus/eggs, Zucchini stuffed with cheese, the best chile relleno I've eaten in Chicago, and beans that make you cry.  Tortillas, of course.  One of many meals I will miss when I leave Chicago. 

:::please forward:::

 

Support grassroots fundraising and join us for an evening of art created entirely by the artists from the Young Women’s Empowerment Project!

 

We invite you to our second annual art show

Survival of the Artist:

Resisting Recession, Depression, and Oppression

Friday, March 20, 2009

1^st show: 7 PM

2^nd show: 8:30 PM

Insight Arts’ Center for New Possibilities

1505 W. Morse Avenue (Morse Redline)

Chicago, IL

 

Original art, screen printed clothing, and poster sales benefit both the artists and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project.

 

To purchase tickets online, visit www.brownpapertickets.com or the following locations:

Early to Bed

5232 N. Sheridan

Chicago, IL 60640

773-271-1219

 

Women & Children First

5233 N. Clark St.

Chicago, IL 60640

773-769-9299

 

For more information, email lara@youarepriceless.org or check out our website, www.youarepriceless.org.  

Insight Arts’ Center for New Possibilities is wheelchair accessible.

 

About YWEP: The Young Women's Empowerment Project is a member based social justice and leadership development project lead by and for girls ages 12-23 in the sex trade and street economy. YWEP offers safe, respectful, free-of-judgment spaces for girls and young women to recognize their goals, dreams and desires. We are the only organization in the country led by and for girls and young women impacted by the sex trade and street economies providing harm reduction information, political education, healing options, resources, and leadership opportunities.

Is Slumdog Millionaire a colonial fantasy, or should I really start watching movies before I judge them?  I listened to half an interview with Danny Boyle and was so grossed out I couldn't finish it, but that doesn't mean the movie is awful, does it?  What say you?

*also, I'd like to propose, in my own personal Oscars, that people can't win for playing roles in biopics.  I mean, Sean Penn was okay, but come on, Mickey Rourke was BRUTAL. 

Well, my coworker made the brilliant decision to show up at work on Wednesday after being diagnosed with pneumonia, so I've been sick since Thursday.  So, I've spent the entire weekend using a neti pot every five minutes and drinking Various Curative Beverages (fenugreek tea, ginger/turmeric/lime, kombucha+some goji concentrate* a friend gave me, etc.) and trying not to boost my immune system, lest it be more inclined to attack my brain. 

So, I've been watching some movies.  Before I talk about two specific ones, I want to just tell you that I've watched most of the films nominated for oscars (I didn't watch The Reader, but I watched the other Holocaust movie, and, well, dayenu) and let me just say it straight--they were a pile of middling (there were a feeeeew interesting parts of Milk, but you'd miss nothing by renting it, and then maybe you'd feel a bit better about the hagiography), and crap (the rest), and one really good one (The Wrestler, which I thought was incredible.  WIthout revealing relevant details, I think Aronovsy was sucessfully telling the kind of story he was kind of successful in telling in Requiem for a Dream, without the obvious hammer/racism/nonsense that plagued that film.  Mickey Rourke was really, just, amazing.  Also, if you don't like brutally violent films, you have to skip it, because I turned away multiple times.  Even Marissa Tomei's inevitable stripper was not objectionable, and you know it takes a lot for me to say that.)

*Note that I don't know what goji is supposed to do, but it tastes pretty good in the kombucha, and it's supposed to have secret excellent antioxidants, and I had it in the house, so heck.

( Rachel Getting Married, Doubt, in case you want to see them. )

This post contains a few gross and graphic bodily function details.  And advice.

( so I'm cutting it, but I know some of you will love it. )

So, someone tipped me to an AP story about "MAJOR CHILD PROSTITUTION ARRESTS" a couple of days ago.  I'm linking you to the shortest article about this, so that you don't have to listen to all of the objectionable blathering.  So, in these OVER 600 arrests, guess what?

They found 47 young people (no word on if the young people wanted to be found, nor what happened to them afterwards)
They arrested 73 pimps (No word on what that means.  Does that mean men that were there?  Was everyone that was male charged as a pimp?  Because you know who cops sometimes like to charge for pimping and who get treated as males in jail--trans women.)

AND, they arrested 518 "adult prostitutes"--which means people over 18.  Which means that this wasn't shit to do with CHILD PROSTITUTION, but with putting people in jail for surviving, and patting themselves on the back while doing so.

Fuckers.

(oh those "raids in June?"  Same drill.) 

Look, there's no problem with getting people out of violent and coercive situations and if all of those 75 or so young people in the last 2 raids were being coerced, that's fantastic that they aren't any more.  But where are they going?  Back to the same houses that likely as not many of them either ran away from (from abuse) or organized the sex trade in the first place?  Yeah great. Meanwhile, 800 "adult prostitutes" are in jail, and who the honk does that help?  AND, arresting adults makes a big leap about how at 17 you're coerced and then BAM you turn 18 and you're a criminal.  Gah.

But, one thing that made me smile today was Jody Weis (that's "Chicago's Top Cop," for those that don't live here), telling the Chicago Tribune that the "war on drugs" is stupid and doesn't work, and that cops should focus on encouraging people not to kill each other. Good job, Jody.  I don't really think cops can actually stop people from killing each other, but that's a better idea than arresting kids for selling dime bags.  I fear that what this actually means "don't worry, middle class (white, or people that sell to white people) drug dealers, we won't arrest you."  But, I'm hoping for better, and hoping that this will push the police department to really focus on stopping teenagers from being shot.

Is it just me, or is this Modern Love column (usually the most insufferable and awful part of the NYTimes), really astoundingly creepy?

I just ate my first salty food in three weeks just now (a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano), and YES, I feel pretty happy.  Salt, I'm about it.