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Mom - Fwd: FW: Fwd: Fw: Fw: Fwd: Please send ba... 11:48 AM

My Job

(Doing a questionnaire with a female subject on HIV risk-taking behavior)

Me: How many times did you have anal sex in the last month?
Subject: None. Oh, well, wait. Does penetrative count?
Me: Oh, like with a strap-on?
Subject: Yeah.
Me: {stumped} Huh. I don't know. I have no idea how we would code that. It's not really an HIV risk.
Subject: Yeah, I stopped by the community clinic, and the counselor assigned to me, she was so cute, she was like 14. She was all, "Now, you might want to explore other forms of safe sex, such as..."
Me: I guess I'll just leave a progress note. {looking at next question} I'm guessing you didn't use a condom?
Subject: Heh. No, he's on the pill.

Weirdest Compliment Ever

I was giving one of my subjects a 12-lead EKG, which involved her lying topless on an exam table while I counted down her ribs to the intercostal spaces where I place the electrodes.

Subject: You would make a really good doctor.
Me: (flattered) Thank you! Maybe someday...it takes a lot of schooling.
Subject: (pause)
Subject: ...Oh, no, I meant like a street doctor. You'd be real good at sticking people right in the clavicle.

Wow.

Softcore like a twinkie

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold whatever was true for you.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels (Sometimes we'd visit my dad when he was on location and stay with him in his hotel, which was comped by the production company. Otherwise no.)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child (Artist mother.)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I have been tagged to list 6 weird things about myself, which I appreciate because it allows me to talk about myself without actually going into anything relevant/current. Like Whet, my two word answer is, of course, "almost everything," but I'll try to stick to the non-obvious and the non-TMI.

1. When I was around two, I started having recurring dreams about "giant blueberries." I put them in quotation marks because I don't actually recall anything about the dreams (or the blueberries) themselves. Just that they were about "giant blueberries" and they were recurring. (Subsequently I was given the Most Easily Deconstructed Dream Award by the American Psychoanalytic Association)

2. One more about my childhood and then I'll stop because it's too easy. A few months ago my sister relayed to me a memory she has that I've completely forgotten (this is why it's handy to have a twin), but that I don't doubt at all because it perfectly encapsulates what I was like as a kid. So, our mom would always mention to us her half-serious hopes for our future husbands - so-and-so's son who was about the same age, etc - which like most kids we internalized far more than she expected. Apparently, Kirsten and I would be playing in the backyard and suddenly I'd start prancing around, probably on my tiptoes, and speaking in (my five-year-old self's version of) a prim and proper British accent, and Kirsten would be like, "Why are you acting like that?" And I'd whisper, "Because you never know - Prince William could be hiding in the bushes!!"

3. I'm phobic of many bugs, but especially snails and slugs. And I don't mean phobic in the "Ha ha, let's stick a snail in Danielle's face and she'll scream but then we'll all laugh and laugh" sense. I mean phobic. If you did something like that, I would probably start crying and then I would barf on you. Even worse than a live snail is a stepped-on snail. If I step on a snail by accident, I cry. If I'm eating something and I see a snail, I will not only lose my appetite for the rest of the day, but I won't be able to eat whatever I was eating for years because I will associate it with snails. If I try to eat it, I will start gagging. I actually haven't eaten tuna for a really long time and I think it was because it was right underneath the escargot at the Hyde Park Co-Op. This is actually getting worse, and my diet is getting more and more limited, and I really hate it. If anyone has any advice, please do share. (An aside, one of the nicest things anyone ever did for me was in Athens, when Ariel removed all the snails from my balcony so that I could sit out on it. It makes me so happy, in an embarrassed/humbled sort of way, when people are understanding and accommodating of my idiosyncrasies.)

4. I take two showers a day. I think it started as a boredom thing but now I'm so used to it that I feel grody if I don't.

5. It's no secret I'm a celebrity gossip fiend, but what's kind of weird (and annoying) is that what artists (of any kind) are like in real-life significantly affects my enjoyment of their work. Basically, it boils down to whether or not they're nice. If I find out that a musician I like is actually a dick, I won't be able to listen to his music anymore. Some people are exempt from this (e.g. Madonna, I'm sure she's a total bitch) but I haven't figured out a formula yet for who and why.

6. When I was in high school - freshmen and sophomore years - I was really into New Age philosophy, and Richard Bach was my favorite author. But I never got totally into the whole crystals and healing spells and incense and so forth element because I secretly feared that it was EVIL and if I did, I'd go to hell. (I'd spent the preceding two years attending Assembly of God youth group meetings every Wednesday. Evangelistic friends.)

I'm subletting a room in Oakland now, and I'll be moving to Berkeley at the beginning of April. I'll probably be living in a studio adjacent to the house where Burcu and Carlos live, and Loreal is right across the bay in San Francisco. This is a fascinating place and could take a lifetime to explore. I love it here.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
-H. L. Mencken