H1N1
Ended the two-month stint in Biology editorial today, moving upstairs to the ninth floor to do professional self-help, psychiatry and designing books. It's been a lot of reading on science (I am a trivia machine now.) It was finished with a decadent lunch (three course meal in the middle of the afternoon in midtown, good god), good conversation, and new friends.
I was sick this week. I'd forgotten what it's like cos it's been a long time of being horribly healthy. You're decked out in a sweater and tights while everyone is gorgeous in summer dresses. Being sick is paralyzing and bewildering and you feel like you're five again. My mom asked, "You're positive it's not H1N1 right?" Thanks, Mom! Some background: my mother is a hypochondriac who collects pills and has a cocktail of vitamins everyday. I've inherited her love of vitamin C bottles--along things like a soft spot for older men (no, I no longer want to bed them. I just stand from a distance and admire their intelligence), and being an emotional driver and emotional cook.
So anyway, I took a sick day, so I lagged a little behind in work, and I still have a last report to write over the weekend--on how biology textbooks present sex and abstinence. It's fascinating stuff. The problem with making claims like "abstinence is the best way to prevent STDs" (and every leading textbook on the market does that, nauseating as it is) is that it suggests that the person with AIDs or herpes or whatever bears the responsibility of having this disease. In other words, it's your fault that you're sick, as it is your fault that you're different. In AIDs and its Metaphors, Susan Sontag writes about the sense of guilt that plagues who are sick with cancer. Because these are diseases that attack from the inside, unlike infections which have a point of origin, the conception that people have is that, "it has to be your fault then." And now, Sontag argues, AIDs is the new ideologically charged illness. As is any STD probably. Herpes is probably embarrassing. As is mono. (Ever heard the parody of "yesterday?" with sexual diseases. In my head, I can hear Huixuan singing it in that lovely melodramatic voice that she used for this song, good times.) And when an entire culture blames those who are sick for being sick, this is a symptom of a society trying to deny themselves of responsibility of care, or just empathy.
Right now I'm thinking of the indignation in my voice when Justin tells me, "Go see a doctor!" I don't believe in doctors, I say, knowing how to hit the spot in the best way possible when you talk to a young medical student.
I was sick this week. I'd forgotten what it's like cos it's been a long time of being horribly healthy. You're decked out in a sweater and tights while everyone is gorgeous in summer dresses. Being sick is paralyzing and bewildering and you feel like you're five again. My mom asked, "You're positive it's not H1N1 right?" Thanks, Mom! Some background: my mother is a hypochondriac who collects pills and has a cocktail of vitamins everyday. I've inherited her love of vitamin C bottles--along things like a soft spot for older men (no, I no longer want to bed them. I just stand from a distance and admire their intelligence), and being an emotional driver and emotional cook.
So anyway, I took a sick day, so I lagged a little behind in work, and I still have a last report to write over the weekend--on how biology textbooks present sex and abstinence. It's fascinating stuff. The problem with making claims like "abstinence is the best way to prevent STDs" (and every leading textbook on the market does that, nauseating as it is) is that it suggests that the person with AIDs or herpes or whatever bears the responsibility of having this disease. In other words, it's your fault that you're sick, as it is your fault that you're different. In AIDs and its Metaphors, Susan Sontag writes about the sense of guilt that plagues who are sick with cancer. Because these are diseases that attack from the inside, unlike infections which have a point of origin, the conception that people have is that, "it has to be your fault then." And now, Sontag argues, AIDs is the new ideologically charged illness. As is any STD probably. Herpes is probably embarrassing. As is mono. (Ever heard the parody of "yesterday?" with sexual diseases. In my head, I can hear Huixuan singing it in that lovely melodramatic voice that she used for this song, good times.) And when an entire culture blames those who are sick for being sick, this is a symptom of a society trying to deny themselves of responsibility of care, or just empathy.
Right now I'm thinking of the indignation in my voice when Justin tells me, "Go see a doctor!" I don't believe in doctors, I say, knowing how to hit the spot in the best way possible when you talk to a young medical student.
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