American

Father: Look at my new lawn mower! Do you want to sit on it? I am going to ride it to get cigarettes!

[Note: He is not a smoker.]

Me: You are really awkward.

Father: I am American.

Later...

Me: I'm going to get a haircut. Do you have any input to offer?

Mother: What input? You have chicken hair. Just tell them to give you shorter chicken hair.

Not exactly rocket science

It's a bit eerie to see a thin 20something young woman lying there completely unconscious, completely naked, her limbs being repositioned and sterilized by four female nurses, six male surgeons, being watched by two med students and one terrified undergrad, all of us completely hidden behind scrubs, caps, and masks.

She could be someone I know. Until they turn her around and I see the giant lump protruding from her shaved head. This isn't her first brain tumor.

A craniotomy is exactly as violent as it sounds. But there's more blood than you're imagining. The neurosurgeon I am shadowing, along with his resident, worked almost silently for two hours, occasionally adjusting the overhead light or their seating on the stools.

The med students kept trying to narrate the procedure to me (it seemed like a competition?) until they switched to asking if I was going to puke. "It's totally okay. It's normal to be queasy the first time. The important thing is you do something about it." Read: don't you dare do it on my shoes. These have to last through all my rotations.

A live brain looks significantly different from the kind I am used to seeing. I wasn't queasy, but I was definitely worried. I'll be seeing post-op patients next week and hope to see her. I'm also hoping I won't say something stupid like "Hi I've seen you naked!" or "That sure was a lot of blood!" or "Can you believe they just put a chunk of your head in a bowl on the counter?"

All in all, a far cry from the tedious, fat-snipping stomach stapling I saw earlier in the week.

Definitely up there on the Life-Changing Experiences list. Not in the way of writing a "Describe a life-changing experience" essay, more like, being grateful to my fifth-grade self for making a good decision.

Welcome, new readers (or, old readers of whom I have only recently become aware). I'm afraid my straight male readership is now heavily outnumbered.

Déjà vu

'“Woman suffrage wants the wife to be as much the ruler as the husband, if not the chief ruler,” warned one antagonist.'

-the olden days

"The feminist agenda disrespects men. Unconditional respect was pushed aside in favor of respect conditional on what men do for women and one man for one woman."

-modern times

We've come so far.

Almost time

This is a feeling of rather wholesome tiredness after a day of eating burgers and doing the crossword and self-congratulation.

But I have to remind myself. August is almost over and there are 3 left and there are petitions to create and biochemistry to re-learn and data to quantify and clothes to sort by color and by sleeve length and backpacks to prep and mothers to appease and there is a lot of work to be done. It is not the time for self-congratulation.

I want to make a blogroll but it would consist of the whole internet.

It is the twenty-second and it is almost time to panic.

First!

Well, it got published.

I highly recommend delving into the comments section. My favorites are the ones that "don't buy" my, um, scientific evidence.

All studies cited are on my currently sick computer. I'll post them here when she's up and running.

Edit: here are cites.

Farr RH, Forssell SL, Patterson CJ. Parenting and Child Development in Adoptive Families: Does Parental Sexual Orientation Matter? Applied Developmental Science 14(3):164-178.

I can't find the original Pediatrics paper for this, but

Jim Giles, "Children of lesbian parents do better than their peers." New Scientist. June 2010.

P.S. Thank you Amelia for helping me brainstorm and edit. You are pretty cool!

Happy 90th!

"Woman's cause is man's: They rise or fall together."

A couple people need reminding of that, even now. (By "a couple people" I mean depressingly vast swaths of the country.)

Opinion Exchange

Half of my current tabs are different views on the proposed Islamic cultural center in Manhattan (more on that later, maybe). The other half are different views on Ke$ha's blue lipstick.

That about sums it up.

I don't have the energy to systematically refute every point in Kersten's column today. Maybe I'll write a letter to the editor, though. Hormones even get a mention! Link provided for your own amusement/disgust. Actually, really liking that letter idea.