I'm not into "Sports Illustrated".  Because I'm a girl, I think that the swimsuit edition is a complete and utter waste of time.  I completely and utterly expect the male population to disagree with me, and that's totally fine.

I was surprised, though, and a bit pleased, that this year's edition included a plus size model, Ashley Graham. Not because I think women should be flaunting their goods on the covers of national magazines, but because I've never believed that there is any one, single standard for beauty.  

So, when Cheryl Tiegs, (c'mon, we all know who Cheryl Tiegs is, right?  Model, actress, etc?) spoke up about this, I was pretty irritated with what she had to say.  

"I don't like that we're talking about full-figured women because it's glamorizing them because your waist should be smaller than 35 [inches]. That's what Dr. Oz said, and I'm sticking to it," she explained. "No, I don't think it's healthy. Her face is beautiful. Beautiful. But I don't think it's healthy in the long run." -cheryl tiegs, in an article by Francesca Bacardi, eonline.com, 25 feb 2016.  

Tiegs later clarified her remarks via Twitter by stating that she wanted everyone to be healthy and happy, and apologizing to everyone she had hurt.  

Kudos to Cheryl for apologizing and backing off of a particularly ridiculous topic, because I don't like that she's criticizing full figured women just as much as she doesn't like Sports Illustrated talking about it. She's absolutely correct that it is unhealthy to be overweight.  It's also unhealthy to assume that the same standard of health applies to everyone, so we must all conform to one particular image for women.  I've got news for you:  it will never happen.  Genetically, we're not predisposed to be carbon copies of each other.  And while it may be unhealthy to be overweight, I know many overweight people who are healthy.  Case in point:  the very large woman in my yoga class who can do crow.  I don't weigh that much and I can't do crow.  

Women who pick at this issue, and make a big deal out of "fuller figure" women hitting the spotlight are dangerous, because this is the attitude we are trying to overcome.  There was a time when being a fuller figure equated to certain rules in society, and those rules were:  feel ashamed, wear ugly clothes, and slink off into the shadows, because we cannot bear to look at you.

Thankfully, because of women like Ashley Graham who are breaking those barriers and showing the world that beauty is acceptable outside the cookie cutter ideals of the past decades, we don't have to feel that way anymore as women.  And in case you think this bothers me because I, too, happen to be one of those curvy women, that's not the only reason.  It's because people shouldn't be criticized or ostracized because they are different.  Not in appearance, or behavior, or ability. And when you're a sixty something year old model, criticizing a curvy twenty something who just landed (what for her is) a dream job, you really come off sounding like a jealous, bitter old has-been.  If you're really so concerned about health, then make it about health.  Find something positive to promote or talk about.  Share with us your secrets, Cheryl, because at 68, you still look great.  But please,don't make full figured women a target. And especially don't do it while sneaking in a plug for that quack Dr. Oz.

 

I really wish that we would have a good, strong ice storm.  Just so that I have an excuse to not leave my house, to bail on commitments for the rest of the week, and to just be a respirating sack of complete and utter uselessness for a day.

 

black and white road, by Rachel Stogner

I'm sure that most people would disagree, but this is the kind of day that I just absolutely love.  It is just cold enough, and just damp enough, to invite a certain kind of feeling.  Maybe it's instinct, but it's something that makes us want to hide inside, turn up the heat, and wrap a blanket around ourselves.  Perhaps we turn off all the lights and let the weak light from the clouded day filter in through partially curtained windows. Maybe we ruminate about the past, or dive into a good book while eating foods we really shouldn't.  Maybe we miss someone.  Or worry about loved ones who aren't so fortunate that they can study the gray day through a glass window.  I'm guilty on all counts.

The storm door is creaking ominously while the wind blows it back and forth. I should get up from here and latch it closed...but I'm kind of enjoying the slow creak. It's almost an invitation to passing spectres to stop in and say hello.

I feel a story coming on...

Today I started fooling around with the settings on my blogs.  I completely took RSPHOTOSPOT off the grid for now.  Those pictures are pretty important to me for various reasons.  At some point, I may sell prints of those...so I don't want to run the risk of someone copying them until I can figure out how to watermark them.

The other thing I figured out was that I can remove ads from my blog.  It's true that you can make money from people clicking on the ads that pop up.  But, I have never seen a red cent from having ads on here, and I found out that there is a setting you can select that will cause the ads to disappear.  I was relieved...because this was supposed to be a blog about autism, among other things, and herbal supplements that supposedly "cure" it are not my cup of tea.

"There was nothing in the world

That I ever wanted more

Than to feel you deep in my heart

There was nothing in the world

That I ever wanted more

Than to never feel the breaking apart..."

-The Cure, "Pictures of You"

In the last couple of weeks I've stumbled on two separate articles that talk about how we are dying differently, as humans.

Basically, both articles state the same thing:  That our quality of medical care has gotten so good that we can people alive who would have succumbed much sooner to natural causes if this were twenty or thirty years earlier.

You may wonder why I'm writing about this.  It's because I watched a family member die this way.  A few years ago, my grandmother tripped over a footstool in her apartment and fell, breaking one of her ribs.  She couldn't get up again, so she scooted on her bum across the floor to let EMS in.  She was taken to the hospital, where we expected her ribs to be taped up or whatever.

Instead she became deathly ill with pulmonary edema.  Fluid was accumulating outside of her lungs.  It had something to do with the rib.  But her condition worsened.  She was sent to a rehab hospital in Fort Worth, then sent to another hospital.  During one of her hospital stays, she evidently suffered a stroke, because she lost the ability to speak, and she began curling up in a fetal position.  Her brain was damaged.

She also developed an intestinal blockage.  She was sent to hospice care at one facility, where her dental care equipment was stolen and her teeth weren't cared for.  I bought more and made sure she was clean.  It wasn't a job for the faint hearted.

We finally found a place where she could rest and be looked after, and we were given an option to withhold food from her or have her fed with a tube.  The thought of starving her to death was too much.  We opted for tube feeding.  A couple of weeks went by and her body stopped using the food.  It had to be removed.  From then on it was a waiting game where we were called almost every day and told, You better come now, she won't be here much longer.  Only to get there and wait and wait.  It was emotionally draining.

There's something in us that wants us to go to extraordinary measures to save our loved ones.  I think, in my grandmother's case, we made the best possible decisions of the options open to us.  But I read about so many cases like this, where people become old and frail and sick, and they are kept alive when they aren't really alive anymore.  I don't want to go like that.

I love life too much to live like a dead woman.

My hope is that I live a long, long time. Long enough to see my children grown and happy, to be with the people I love, to squeeze every last drop out of this life that I can.  But what I do not want is to be saddled with tubes that pump food into my stomach and air into my lungs.  If I'm at that point already, if I can't talk, or communicate, if there is nothing there left but a shell, then let me go.

It's heartbreaking to watch a family member die this way.  It's like watching them die over and over again.  You feel like you're in limbo, because you know that they won't get better, but you can't quite let them go.

I'm not sure what prompted me to write about this tonight.  I try not to think of my grandmother too much.  She was a complicated person.  I don't like thinking of people I've lost, I guess.  Maybe it's because it hurts too much, or because I view death very differently from a lot of people.  It's a sad event, letting go of someone.  But for me, it's just that they had somewhere else they needed to be, and I know that one day, I'll see them again, when it's time.  When my Grandma Rose passed away (different grandmother), it was hard.  She was one of those people who never gave up on life.  She suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis and could barely walk, and lost the ability to use her hands for all the things she used to enjoy, like sewing and crocheting and making things.  But she still pushed on, and I never, ever, EVER heard her complain.  Except once.  Once, I went to visit her at her house and she stopped talking suddenly. Tears came into her eyes, and she said, Oh...I hurt so much.  But that was it.  I never heard about it again.  She was a five foot four warrior and her ilk is rare in this life.  When she died, she lingered about a week and then she was gone.  I think she was busy.  I think she had things to do.  

I think that medicine still has a long way to go in this regard.  Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should, and I think the human factor needs to be revisited in medicine..but that's just my opinion.  

The Writer's Conundrum

I think that the last story I was working on left my character stranded in a snowstorm in Michigan.  She's still there, doggedly trying to make her way downtown, while everyone else is inside where it's warm and safe.  And this other story I was working on left a very interesting man receiving a phone call about a mysterious woman who had woken up from a coma.  He's still there, holding the phone.

And then there's Kebechet, the Egyptian Goddess of Embalming, still prowling the halls of the underworld and waiting for me to come back to her...oh, and let's not forget the five year old Elizabeth Bathory, hiding from her brother in the drafty halls of Castle Cachtice.  She's still hiding.  And the seven foot tall woman from another planet is still hanging out in a bar in far west Texas, trying to figure out who she's running from and why she doesn't fit in.

Interesting, no?

The thing about writing is that writing really is a world trapped in a person (kudos to Victor Hugo, see previous blog entry), and as a writer, it's dreadfully easy to jump between worlds.  It's like your brain is a Tardis, and if you let it, you can end up pretty much anywhere.

Sometimes I think about and work on a story for so long that I have to leave it be.  Sometimes it lies around for years.  And sometimes I can sit with a story and it becomes absolutely vital that I finish telling it.  The man holding the phone was one of those.  He's a first draft.

But this is also why I don't talk about the details too much.  It's not that I don't value other people's opinions.  It's just that they're not flying my Tardis, and too much input can skew the whole journey.

Sometimes, it pays to take a break from the whole serious side of it.  If I'm bogged down in a story, or I'm stuck in a plotline, then I lay it aside and write something lighthearted.  Something completely different...even, perhaps, a different genre than I would normally write.  And I'm usually pleasantly surprised.

Story of my life.

In my case, it's "worlds".

What Do I Know?

Today my husband and I took our son to his six week check-up with a psychiatrist who has been managing our son's medication.

When I first met this doctor, I liked him.  I told him he was like a unicorn;  it's difficult to find someone who will do medication management for your child's mental health issues and who actually accepts your insurance and who understands autism.  He was in his 70s and had come out of retirement specifically to do this.

But I think that particular visit, which was our first one, was going to be the only one that actually went well, probably because we were new.  After that, we were chastised for being late to an appointment (we were actually on time and had to wait fifteen minutes for him to finish with the patient before us), and this time, he talked over us and took it personally when we questioned his recommendations.  I mean, after all, if you've been doing something for 30 years, people should just accept what you say, right, and not ask any questions at all?

Husband pointed out that this person was our best option right now.  Of course, he's right, but the thought of searching yet again for someone knowledgeable enough to deal with our son's issues exhausts me.  You have to understand, we've been at this for years.  And while he's only 11, I consider myself a subject matter expert on what works for him and what doesn't.

All I could think as I sat there was that if you're in the healthcare industry, and your patient is an 11 year old child who has severe anxiety and bouts of aggression, you really need to check your ego at the door.

Postscript

And just in case I get a lot of input from the previous entry, where people think I'm writing about them...well, if you said those things, I probably am writing about you.

But if you were a close friend who kept that opinion to themselves because you didn't want to upset me, this is not about you.  If you're a family member who gives me input on group homes because I asked for that information, this is not about you.

It's for all the chuckleheads out there who are so ignorant of social mores that they step on the tender feelings of exhausted parents by dismissing their child to some unknown, possibly hellish place (because, friends, group homes and institutions are not always a bed of roses), with a few casual words.

I really don't have a lot to write about tonight, except that I'm tired of feeling cold.

I love cold weather IF I can wear warm clothes, stay in the house, eat soup, drink hot chocolate, and not move from underneath a pile of blankets.  It helps if someone is there to run back and forth to the kitchen and get snacks so I don't have to.

It's distracting to type on this computer because someone colored on the monitor with crayon.  The life.

Speaking of The Life, I haven't written about autism in a while.  So I'm going to write about this one thing that's been on my mind.  I hope it doesn't offend anyone.  But, hey.  My bleeding heart bled out a long time ago...like maybe six years or so.

Remember a while back when I wrote the entry "Autism Brings a Friend"?  I think it was a couple of years ago.  The gist of it was that you will seldom see ASD all by itself.  The parents I have spoken with all tell me the same thing, "My son/daughter has ASD and this and this".  Recently our son was diagnosed with a mood disorder.  I wasn't surprised.

Puberty can be a rough time where ASD is concerned.  If you have a son with autism, the instances of aggression can multiply.  This happens with girls too, but with boys, it's more frequent.  So, there will be times of chaos.  Times when you think you won't get through it.  When things seem hopeless.  When you think that you're not getting any help or that no one really cares about what's going on, because it's such an exclusive issue that not many people can relate to it.

So, we're going through that time, right now.  Here is what NOT to say to someone who is dealing with a child who has ASD and aggressive behavior.  Here is what not to say to someone who is watching their child change, who goes to endless rounds of appointments and sometimes hospital stays, trying to find the right combination of medications and therapies that just might be the godsend for getting through this very difficult time.  Do not say:

Have you thought about putting him in a home?

or

He needs to be in a home.

or

I think you're getting close to the time when you're going to have make some hard decisions.

or anything like any of the above statements.

This is why you shouldn't say these things.  First of all, saying that someone should put their child "in a home" sounds remarkably like what you would say to someone who has to give up a pet dog.  It minimizes the situation.  It blithely ignores the incredible heartache that these families endure, watching their child slip away into the throes of uncontrollable, aggressive outbursts.

Second of all, when you say these things, you are casting yourself as some sort of authority figure in the situation.  How could you possibly know if he needs to be in a home or not?  You don't.

Finally, you are ignoring the biggest, most glaring fact of all.  The parents are already aware of this option. Trust me.  They know about "homes'.  They have read about institutions.  That choice is always there, in the back of their minds, while they watch meltdown after meltdown and feel guilty for even considering it.

So, while you go home, and make yourself dinner, and watch tv in the quiet of your home, maybe consider not making such ill-informed remarks to someone who is, by far, much more knowledgeable and familiar with the people involved, (that would be their own son) than you.