The Wrong Way

True confession: I am not the most useful person. I hate to cook and have never excelled at it anyway. Please don't ask me to fix or assemble anything. It's like I have hands made of stone. I ride my bike upwards of 75 miles a week but do you think I can master filling the tires with air (Hey! The process involves an adapter!)? Mother Earth help me if I ever find myself stranded with a flat.

When my sister and I were younger, she used to amuse herself by asking me to draw. One time she chose an elephant as the subject, and as I have no trouble making an ass of myself, I obliged. I wish I had a .jpeg of the finished product. My elephant was illustrated from the head-on perspective and Jenny held onto to the artwork so she could refer to it throughout the day while bursting into tears of laughter. I had unironically constructed a rendering of IHOP's Funny Face Pancake.

My friend Rob, a former Navy rescue swimmer and certified RKC Level 2 trainer says that when the breakdown of society arrives and we're all living in trees (Rob is also a well-informed and detailed conspiracy theorist) I will have to sleep my way to survival, else I will be dead in 15 minutes. I think there is a compliment about my looks in there somewhere so I'll take it.

One thing at which I excel, however, is hard, tireless work. And I'm not always certain this is an asset but I am possessed of a stubbornness that rivals that of Tyco Brahe, the 16th century Danish noblemen and astronomer. Brahe died of a bladder infection 11 days after refusing to get up and urinate during the middle of a long banquet in Prague. He felt it would have been a breach of etiquette. This totally sounds like something I would say.

The refusal to back down in the face of adversity is alternately a blessing and a curse. While it parents a survival instinct that has enabled me to process and move beyond vicious life blows, it also begets a tendency to ignore loud, blaring sirens in my head that try to stop me from moving in the wrong direction, figuratively and literally. The "head down and brace for the worst" approach can lead one to misinterpret the difference between necessary persistence and time wasting, bullheaded exhaustion.

I have been contemplating the blinders long worn as a method of getting through the day. It's like a weird sort of empowered learned helplessness. Assuming that a given set of circumstances is inalterable, I have performed miraculous feats of fortitude bordering on masochism in order to prove that I can't be destroyed. It's at once pathological and a condition which instills a perverse form of pride.

The thing is though. It's that downside, the part where I fritter away months or years enmeshed in predicaments from which normal people might sensibly extricate themselves, that plagues my waking nights. It's a pattern I am trying to tackle. Recent decisions made in support of pursuing a healthier me have brought pain to others, but hopefully it's of the quick sharp paper cut kind, the variety forgotten in 24 hours. Because I am trying to recognize that long, drawn-out Puritanical fortitude won't earn me or anyone I care about anything but lost time in a short life.

Motown Meltdown

I want to talk about something in a politically non-partisan way. It's true I am a liberal Democrat by stripe and spend part of my freelance writing life as a hard blue columnist for a popular left website. But I am a human, a woman and an American first - in that order - and sometimes I witness scenes that make me wonder how anyone from any vantage point can believe that this country is on the right track.

This past Memorial Day Weekend I ventured with Steve by Amtrak to the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. It is here that my partner spent his formative years. He attended college in the late-1980s at Wayne State University in the heart of the city, holding down various jobs before he migrated to Chicago in 1996. I traveled with him to the Motor City, the once-glorious birthplace of the automobile, the R&B Garden of Eden where Berry Gordy established Hitsville, USA and launched the Motown legend. In the 1930s, Detroit was christened the "City of Champions" owing to its successes in the sporting realm. During the first two-thirds of the 20th Century, Detroit was Americana, the symbol of society's mechanization and social evolution.

But then the Motor City fell on some famously hard times, troubles that date back several decades. Between 2000 and 2010, the city's population fell by 25%, plummeting in the ranks from America's 10th largest city to its 18th.  The 2008 housing bubble burst delivered some of its loudest pops in Detroit, where a perfect storm of unsustainable subprime mortgages, crushing unemployment and falling home prices left behind scads of abandoned buildings and lots, often as far as the eye can see. Opportunistic investors can still take advantage of foreclosed homes that cost hundreds, rather than thousands of dollars. The sinking ghost town is a breeding ground for drug activity and violent crime, further eroding home values.

It's true that White House policy over the last four years salvaged the auto industry, Detroit's remaining lifeblood when combined with tourism/casinos and hospitality. But with local budgets strangled and plagued by red link, there are simply no resources left to level the rampant blight that welcomes visitors to town.

I was astonished when I alighted from the city's Amtrak station last Friday evening, a structure no bigger than your average two-car garage, aesthetically dull and devoid of concessions or any comforts beyond a restroom. The station was constructed in 1994 as a replacement for the former Michigan Central Station, which closed in 1988. A quick Wikipedia search of the Central Station revealed more glory come decay. The previous structure was once identified as the tallest rail station in the world, with some 200 trains traveling in and out each day at the outset of WWI, while 3,000 workers held jobs inside the station's office tower. Today exactly six scheduled Amtrak trains enter and depart the city each day, while less than a handful of workers enter the minimalist station.

There is no doubt that the Motown Museum is an impressive tour and a fabulous bargain at $10 per entry. But when Steve and I went in search of food after our Saturday afternoon excursion, we had real trouble locating anything more than a KFC here, a unserviceable Subway outlet with reinforced bullet proof glass protecting the counter there. I suppose I take for granted that when I walk out onto almost any Chicago street, multiple culinary options await.

And oh the heartbreaking destruction of the streets and architecture, the abject poverty, the lack of pedestrian and vehicle traffic that evokes the classic Kurt Russell film, Escape from New York.

I do not fault the citizens of the Motor City or even the local government for a failure to resolve what must seem an insurmountable mountain of challenges. It is possible that Detroit's most glorious days are simply in the past. But that is no excuse at all for our failure to deal with the conditions of this piece of our collective history on a national level. I found myself wondering at several intervals over the course of a three-day visit, "If a tourist from another land decided to stop in Detroit, what impression would it leave of the country as a whole?" Is Detroit's decline a metaphor for the decaying American dream, the death throes of a dynasty that can no longer sustain its promise?

Stranger in the House

I haven't ventured this deep into a steady's territory since January 2007 when I met my now ex-husband Eddie's parents on a visit from Mumbai. I fared alright at the time but that was five years ago. I know it's rote and passe to write in such pedestrian terms but I was, quite literally, a different person then. Or maybe I was exactly the same but I had no grasp of what that shape that ought to take.

I have evolved now - for better or worse. I have come a long, long way in a yet to be completed quest to accept my fractures and quirks, though somehow the incremental certainty has made me less rigid and more relaxed. I'm learning to accept that I might not be everyone's cup of tea and that "everyone" might include traditional sources of unconditional love, but so what? I deserve to sleep at night however unconventional.

And so I take this new and fragile self-awareness to the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan this holiday weekend in an effort to get acquainted with my partner's family. We'll journey by Amtrak, fulfilling a long-felt desire to travel by train in the process. He makes things happen for me that way.

I've been present for phone call exchanges between my mate and his people and it's a heartbreakingly loving experience, from parents to siblings. He is a good man and it follows that he's a fabulous hybrid of nature and nurture. Time was when I would feel oppressively strained and skittish: entering into a situation in which I felt so out of my element, the product of the most unhealthy of environments.

I mean no harm. I'm just a little feral sometimes. A well-meaning superior at the office told me that I'm likable but "need time to grow on people."

But whatever. I have spent too many years psyching myself out of enjoying the moment. I make him laugh. I can make them laugh too right?

Mother's Day 2012

"Give me a blog topic," she commanded as she prepared one of her standard bachelorette "dinners" - a packet of creamy chicken flavored ramen noodles and some defrosted, pre-cooked cocktail shrimp. No cocktail sauce and the meal eaten over the sink because he wasn't there to sit with her.

"When?" he asked as he devoured a carefully prepared chicken salad on the other end of the line, a healthy, fresh concoction with pan roasted pine nuts, avocado and extra onion. He skipped the fattening but delicious fresh parmesan cheese because she wasn't there to harangue him with her nonstop dairy lobbying. He should have felt relieved.

"Like now," she replied. "I am about to write and you are about to go to sleep. You got up at an ungodly hour but at least you didn't wake me. Anyways, give me a blog topic." An on-and-off insomniac with a penchant for bad dreams, she had slept like a rock next to him the night before.

"Why don't you write about Mother's Day?" He shifted in bed with his work clothes still on, wishing her head was in that sweet spot in the crook of his right arm.

"You mean the Mother's Day that wasn't disappointing because you let me recognize that my mom abandoned me 11 years ago, held me in your arms while I cried for a few minutes and totally neutralized the whole crisis? You told me I was beautiful, smart and loving and she was the loser. Then we went for a bike ride, got massages and you baked me a meatloaf and a pumpkin pie while we danced to Frank Sinatra's 'Polka Dots and Moonbeams' in the kitchen. It stopped being Mother's Day, the annual spectacle of parent-child love from which I feel curiously alienated because my mother is neither dead nor alive. She's just missing - by choice. But after those first few minutes of release you swept me up and none of that mattered. Where's the drama in that?"

As she grilled him, images of Sunday's Malbec, open windows, a warm oven and her cheek against his neck fostered a feeling of reminiscent dreaminess that belied the serious of her inquiry.

"Maybe that's your story," he said matter of factly.

President Barack Obama, who frequently appears battered and weary at the tail end of a bruising first term, came to Virginia this past Saturday in a vigorous mood. The POTUS chose the swing state he won in 2008 to formally launch his drive for re-election, casting the 2012 race as "a make or break moment for the middle class."

Compare this rousing event, where Obama declared himself "still fired up," in front of a crowd of 8,000 atVCU's Siegel Center, many of whom braved a downpour to get into see the president and first lady, to Mitt Romney's own opening salvo a little over two weeks ago. Romney officially launched his general election campaign in the State of New Hampshire at an afternoon barbecue held at the Bittersweet Farm, operated by Republicans Doug and Stella Scamman. Zzzzz.....

It's true that Ron Paul and Newt Gingrinch had not formally decamped at that time, which may account for some of the event's timidity. But Ron Paul never believed he had a shot anyway and as for Gingrich, this might be the last political office for which he was momentarily considered a serious contender. He was going to roll around in the spotlight and savor every ray before he and third wife Callista retreated to their cynical Catholic piety.

But back to Romney. CBS News noted the symmetry of the campaign's pivot toward the general election in New Hampshire, with reporter Sarah B. Boxer writing, "Romney's current bid for the White House began on June 2, 2011 on Scamman Farm in Stafford, N.H., and the campaign considers his return Tuesday as a full circle moment for the candidate."

Have we REALLY been enduring Romney's second Presidential campaign for nearly a full year? It's like the network television procedural that goes on for seasons while an entertaining, witty gem struggles to find an audience. He is the CSI: Miami of the political playing field. And perhaps for the second time that week, Team Romney selected an ill-advised locale for a photo op. Remember that shuttered dry-wall factory in Lorain, Ohio in mid-April? The one held up as an Obama policy failure that actually closed under the Bush regime? Yeah. Oops.

And it appears that the Romney people, sensing an obvious dearth of triumphant environments in their man's history, were poised to occupy their rightful place once more as fish in a barrel. As CBS News went on to note, "On Monday evening, the University of New Hampshire released a new poll showing President Obama ahead of Romney 51 percent to 42 percent in New Hampshire. Mr. Obama's re-election team is quick to point out that Romney's campaign cleared out of the state immediately following the primary - often noting that his bustling headquarters in Manchester went dark the next day."

By now we're used to this from Romney, right? Wherever he needs to go is where he wants to be! The trees in New Hampshire are so green! The people are so real! And what's that noise? Why it's the shaking of the Etch-a-Sketch, the sound that may preclude residents of New Hampshire from remembering that Team Romney skipped town the moment the State stopped suiting his immediate purposes.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: the Romney folks are strenuously refuting any suggestion that their candidate is out of touch with local voters. Mitt's senior adviser in New Hampshire, Jim Merrill was quoted as saying, "I would characterize what the Obama campaign says as nonsense, complete nonsense."

Ah yes, the "I'm rubber you're glue" deflection, a time-honored tool in the GOP debate arsenal. Game on. Good luck Mittens!

And when I talk about therapy...

And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think
That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink
But oh how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself

- Dar Williams, "What Do You Hear in These Sounds"

Though I understand that the relationship began with commercial exchange as a method of trying to alleviate extreme emotional distress, one of my favorite personal connections is the one I have with my therapist, Dr. T. She is a willowy china doll of a human being with giant blue eyes and perfectly straight cornsilk hair. She is tall, well-dressed in a conservative way, articulate, and though I am unaware of her personal origins (part of the deal), she exudes a hoity East Coast Gwenyth Paltrow vibe in appearance and carriage.

One of the reasons I adore Dr. T, in addition to her amazing insight and professionalism, is that in her case, appearances can be deceiving. She is not the shrink I've been observing on the first season of Mad Men, sitting in a lofty leather chair scribbling notes while Betty Draper droningly free associates. She's not charging me by the hour while offering nothing more than "Hmm...tell me more about that." She is deeply involved in the work I am doing - and it's been hard labor.

She's cried while listening to anecdotes from a chaotic and unhealthy childhood. She's been stern when I'm not listening in return. I daresay we have locked horns a time or two. She has been known to use bad language when we're discussing feelings of anger and resentment. It's actually quite comforting. Dr. T is as street smart in her approach as she is learned, all while maintaining full control and invariably helping me articulate an "a ha!" moment with amazing regularity. She's at once relatable and authoritative.

I've been working with Dr. T on and off for over three years now. I came to her a broken 31 year-old woman: utterly dissatisfied in a rote administrative career, burdened and frustrated by a loose cannon of a mentally ill parent and unhappily married. What I thought I wanted and needed at that time was not a way out, a method of setting myself free, but "fixing" so that I could accept my lot. I didn't want to be the woman who chucked it all and started over - in every sense of the word - at an age when most of my friends and colleagues were settling into stability.

But it turned out that's exactly what needed to happen. I needed to set the prairie on fire. I knew this deep down when I sought Dr. T's services. My life today bears little resemblance to the existence I knew at this time in 2009. It's been an awful, harrowing journey in many ways: friends have died, long term relationships have ended, illness, depression, unemployment - you name the source of grief and it's happened. But amongst the rubble of my former life and methods of coping with it, I am building something new, something fresh and healthy. I'm not ready for the ribbon cutting ceremony yet but I can envision a time when I will be.

And though she would frown heavily while insisting I give myself credit for how far I've come, I know very well that Dr. T's partnership is a key element. The fact that I can write about my personal experiences without shame is not a result I could ever have arrived at without a well-trained, supportive push. The miracle of authentic contentment required intervention in my case. As another line from the Dar Williams song I quoted above concludes, "I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak. I go and I find the one and only answer every week."

America's Health Care System is Still Broken Part II

I will keep writing about this because I am one of the lucky ones. I will keep screaming about the system's inherent abusiveness because I can and I must - for all those who are sicker, less financially solvent and don't have a forum in which their voices may be heard.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote this post, recounting the stress of divorce compounded by unexpected health news of the unfavorable kind. After being diagnosed with Stage 2A cervical cancer, I learned that I was considered persona non grata by prospective health insurance providers until I was in remission. At the time, I received the core-rattling news that none of my women's health needs would be covered for 3-5 years, or until the part of Obamacare that forbids insurance companies from playing pre-existing condition roulette with people's lives takes over in January 2013.

Since I wrote the first post in this series last year, a few important events have occurred:

1. I underwent a successful procedure in June, 2011 that completely removed all cancerous cells from my body - no chemo or radiation required. A six-month checkup in December found no evidence of irregular growth.
2. I have since gotten into the healthiest shape of my life. I was already no slouch in the exercise department, but have taken the upkeep of my temple in whole new directions. I have learned, through therapy and hard work, to better manage stress. I am invested in a romantic partnership that brings untold levels of peace and satisfaction. I am more careful about what I put into my body and my approach to preventive medicine has changed completely.
3. I am officially divorced, no longer on my ex's insurance plan and employed full-time at a housewares manufacturer with great benefits.

As I have already indicated, I was fully prepared for my women's health coverage to be excluded for 2012. Whether I think the situation is fair or not (not) is irrelevant. You know the saying, "it is what it is." I was planning to bide my time, and though I am not religious, ask Mother Earth to keep the cancer at bay. My single-adult premiums on the new policy amount to $6,000 annually and while I felt forced into a "cross your fingers" strategy as pertained to the cancer, at least I would be covered under all other circumstances right? Wrong.

The new Big Brother in my healthcare decision-making world, a company that will remain nameless but rhymes with Dew Toss, Dew Field of Iroquois, has declared a blanket "pre-existing condition clause" that covers EVERYTHING for which I have ever been treated. Surprise! This clause runs the full calendar year, so I have the honor of forking over $6,000 in the event I am shot or hit by a bus (neither of which has ever happened), but if I need therapy (you know because I was depressed about having cancer), antibiotics, birth control or my first annual cancer screening - all of that must come out of my pocket. My doctor and I jumped through numerous hoops and made many arguments, to no avail. A girl who rides her bike 68 miles to work and back, under the age 35 with the bad luck to get a little spot of cancer last year, is reduced to nothingness until 2013.

And as we all know today, the conclusion above represents the best-cased scenario. Subsequent to the decision by a bunch of corporate bureaucrats that I am too risky for any sort of benefits, though my money is still welcome, a bunch of mostly old ,white men on the Supreme Court will sit in judgment of my fate beyond this calendar year. By June we are told, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury will decide whether to throw the baby out with the bathwater on health care reform, because a few hundred lobbyists and Tea Party crackpots chafe against the individual mandate portion.

So we can make car insurance as a condition of vehicle ownership law, but this is somehow different? Can they really declare that no part of the reform benefits the American people? What about the part where, I don't know, insurance companies can't refuse you access to ALL TYPES OF HEALTHCARE because you had a treatable cancer that was cured in one shot?

If the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare, I am out in the cold for 5 years, perhaps longer if an emboldened insurance syndicate decides so. I can't believe this is America.

About the Supreme Court's deliberations, the Daily Beast remarked in November of last year, "By agreeing to rule on the issue of national health care, the Supreme Court foolishly politicizes its deliberation process and needlessly damages its own reputation."

But this is about more than a simple PR misstep, the negation of jurisprudence. This is about American rights and lives. I think I have a patriotic duty to protest my provider's current right to kill or bankrupt me in the unfortunate event that my cancer recurs, or that I come down with the flu and need antibiotics and a short hospital stay. I want the Supreme Court to consider that with the same fervor with which they seem to regard a libertarian's right to refuse health coverage when that refusal burdens everyone else.