A circle has too much symmetry

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Pumpkin Pictures






















This is the Kid's Work





























This is my master piece

Appointments

Why is there is so few female gynecologists? I have put off getting that annual exam for many reasons but now I am ready to get an exam and I can’t. These are my requirements in order of importance:

1. The doctor MUST be female
2. The doctor accepts my insurance
3. The person doing the exam has a MD, which is it self is not assurance they are qualified but I taught physics for pre-med students and I have been terrified of all medical providers since. The idea of a nurse practitioner diagnosing me scares me even more than a MD.

So with that list of requirements I set out to make an appointment today, to no avail. All the female doctors within a 70 mile (yes 70 miles) radius are completely booked and only taking pregnancies. All the men at the clinics were available, which makes me wonder what kind of man is a gynecologist? Seriously, I can’t wrap my mind around it. Of all the medical disciplines, why would a man choose gynecology? Oh and how much can one expect HIM to truly understand about the female body? I can just see myself responding to a comment like “This won’t hurt” or “You will feel a slight discomfort” and saying “How in the hell would you know?”

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Cell Phone

In my travels and adventures last night I lost track of my cell phone. I know where my phone is but it is not with me right at the moment. My cell phone is my only phone, I use it all the time. I talk while I drive (yes I am one of those people). I text a million times a day, well not really but a lot. I check my phone none stop. The people I talk to daily have custom ring tones. In other words I love my phone and use it all the time. I realized that my phone was missing late last night on my way home, and I really thought I would miss my phone today. I don't; I don't miss the sucker at all. I don't care whose call I am missing. I don't care that I won't talk to another person all day. I don't have any urgent (stupid) ideas I have to share with my friends right now. I really like how it feels not having a cell phone. I think I might leave it places more often.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

And then you came

And then you came to me. You wanted to take care of me, to love me, to rescue me. I needed to be rescued; I just didn’t know I had to rescue myself. You with your pain free life, your uncomplicated wants and desires, your simple mind and life. I let you love me and you did, completely. I let you take my pain; humiliation, suffering and I gave you all that I had. You took it with a smile; you took it because you got me every minute of the day in return. It was enough for you, it still is.

And time elapsed, and I learned to heal in the safety of your love. I learned my wants and desires in the comfort of your financial embrace. I found myself; all the while you patiently waited. You loved me through the whole process, now matter what hell I put through your way on my road to self-discovery.

And now I don’t need you to rescue me or take care of me. I have discovered how to rescue myself. I have given you so much pain; in the finding of myself I have almost destroyed you. I owe you so much, and yet I can’t stop hurting you. I hurt you because your love is suffocating me. Perhaps if I hurt you enough you will leave, but you are still here. My leaving you might destroy you, and I don’t know if I can do that to you. If I don’t leave you I might destroy me, and I don’t know if I can do that to me.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Fear

I hate could have, should have, would have feelings. The doubts and second guessing that comes with making decisions about my personal life. In my professional life I rarely have could have, should have, and would have feelings. I vaguely recall that I did early in my career and now that I think about it I did a lot when I was younger. I can recall obsessing about stupid things I said, bad presentations I have given or general screw ups. Over the years I learned a something priceless when it comes to my career, no one listens to you. In general no one recalls the exact things that you say, just how you say them. It doesn’t matter what your answer is just as long as it is quick, decisive and confident. Your life it just not that important to everyone else, you really have to do something major for the general world to pay attention. For example if you flip out in a meeting, break down crying or bleed everywhere people remember that but everything else is gone.

Thus I make decisions and I don’t obsess about them, and even if they are the wrong decisions I know I can deal with whatever the outcome is. I still feel this way even now when my decisions involve the lives of other people. Don’t be confused I am not cavalier with other people’s lives and never knowingly put them at risk. In fact I do everything within my power to protect people but I still am willing to make decisions and not overly obsess about them. So how do I translate that confidence in my professional life into my personal life? Get a PhD in love? Because at the heart of my confidence in my professional life is a very strong background in knowledge and experience. I just don’t answer quickly, decisively and confidently, I really DO know what I am talking about.

The counterargument is I have been in a relationship since I was 15, yeah that right less than a month alone since I was 15. That is a whole lot longer than graduate school, post-doc, teaching, conducting pure research or working in industry combined and I still don’t have a strong knowledge or experience base. However I think I can deal with whatever the outcome is and being alone, which I am not even now, would not be so terrible. Isn’t that it; the fear of being alone, but what is so bad about being alone? Wow I think I am on to something here.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

My only light

To the world you may be just one person,
but to just one dog you may be the world!!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Skinny Jeans

I have been cycling between dieting and exercise since I was 25. I go through spurts, exercising hard for a few months and then slacking for a few months (or more). Needless to say I have been unhappy with my body for a long time. I am currently in the mist of a good run on the exercise front and the whole diet thing. I have been playing a lot of sports and eating less and I am finally seeing the results. Last week I bought work pants and they are a size 8. That is right a size 8, my goal is to wear any size 8 pant comfortably regardless of the designer or style.

The true test was this morning; I brought out my skinny jeans. The jeans I wore when I had no body image issues; the jeans that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away when I started becoming a “big girl”. They are size 7 jean and back in the day they fit me comfortably. This morning for the heck of it I tried them on. I was really nervous when I put the first leg in the pant thinking; oh there goes my self-esteem for the week. I was certain I would not be able to get them over my thunder thighs and even if I did not over my rear but guess what sports fans? I pulled them all the way up! I did not have to lie on the bed or suck it in to zip them up. I did have the whole muffin top thing going on but I was able to put on my size 7 jeans!! I did not wear them because they were too tight around the waist and the fact that they are extremely dated. The waist was much, much higher than I am used to wearing but yes a size 7 jean fit.


It is only a matter of time before I am true size 8 and that size looks great on my 5’9” frame.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Protection

I am finally starting to get geared up for hockey which is not an easy or cheap task. I bought ice skates, hockey socks and something called a pelvic protector. It does not require any stretch of the imagination to picture a pelvic protector. It is a V shaped piece of plastic, an insert to a pair of biker shorts. The shorts are equipment with a nice little pouch where the insert goes. So imagine me in a locker room full of seasoned hockey players putting in my insert.

I opened the little pouch on my shorts and started sliding the cup (an appropriate term) into place when; Wow stop the press it was touching my stuff! Not just touching it, up close and personal and very distracting. I immediately moved the cup off my stuff; it is a pelvic protector (it says so right on the package) and not a stuff protector. Noticing my embarrassment a well meaning teammate instructs me that I have not placed it correctly. Apparently the cup needs to go over the stuff a lot farther down than I had it; and it is right up close and personal to my stuff with only a thin layer of material between it and me. I am not sure how to ask my teammates about the intimate contact the cup is making with my stuff and how my normal movement causes relative motion between the cup and my stuff and seriously how to stop it. I still have not figured out how not to wind up sprawled out on the ice when I stop or turn and now this distraction.

Hockey is a lot harder than it looks.