Today was the first day of the year that felt like summer. It was warm out—not hot—with a mostly cloudless sky as blue as a Popsicle®. It was quintessential Southern California, the kind of day that begs you to toss your obligations out the window and head directly for the beach with your Coppertone, a [...]
In Family, Parenting, Photos, Race, health on
1 May 2010 with 6 comments
Every Wednesday at 5-o’clock, Ruby has swim class. Once her thirty minutes of floating, leaping, belly-flopping and retrieving pink plastic rings has elapsed, it is our routine to head for the locker room and change her into her “soft pants.” This has proven to be a giant effort because while I’m trying to get her [...]
In Body Image, Love, Parenting, Photography, Photos, Self-worth, Therapy Fund (Parenting Failures), health on
5 April 2010 with 9 comments
…let’s talk about breasts. This week, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPTF) released a new set of recommendations for breast cancer screening that turns on it’s head what women have come to expect as far as screening for breast cancer, the second leading cause of death in American women. Recommending that women not receive [...]
In Health care reform, WTF, Womanity, Women, health on
18 November 2009 with 12 comments
In the midst of the increasingly toxic healthcare debate—if it can even be called a debate any more—I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about my own eventual demise. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am either going to A) suffer a massive stroke at an early-ish age, B) live to be old [...]
In Backwards and In High Heels, Government, Politics, The Column, Writing, health on
18 August 2009 with 6 comments
-noun the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government I am unspeakably sickened by today’s murder of Dr. George Tiller, a man who dedicated his life to womens’ [...]
In Choice, Human Rights, Life, Womanity, Women, health on
31 May 2009 with 10 comments
“You know I love you, right?” I adjusted the bow on Ruby’s sleeping cap as I tucked her into bed. “Unh-huh,” she said. Her eyes were closed and the sound of her acknowledgment was stifled by the presence of her thumb in her mouth. The sound was a pasty gurgle, as if she had pudding [...]
In Backwards and In High Heels, Family, Flu, Parenting, Photos, The Column, health on
3 May 2009 with 2 comments
SignOn San Diego, the San Diego Union Tribune website, is reporting this morning that an SDSU student is suspected of having the swine flu. What concerns me is not that the student might have gone to my gym or perhaps even played basketball outside of my house last week. What concerns me is the seething [...]
In Flu, Race, Racism, health on
29 April 2009 with 7 comments
Thanks to the sub-sub-par genetics of the man who fathered me, john allred, I have astronomically high cholesterol. My combined HDL/LDL score is 359 and the doctor who discovered this almost had a myocardial infarction himself when an MRI of my heart came back clear of any blockages. He practically begged me to drink copious [...]
In Life, My Father, WTF, health on
8 May 2008 with 16 comments