With Callous Disregard

This. Definitely click through on the links Liss has helpfully provided, they are worth the read. It's exhausting, infuriating, and despair-making, and I don't even have little ones, let alone ones with autism. I get why people distrust the medical establishment, but I also still insist that medical science is the best protection we have: paraphrasing Einstein's quote, "All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have." Science is only a tool, and it can be abused like any other. It has been before, and is, and will be again. Particularly in alt health, where all kinds of magical claims abound. Sometimes they turn out to be true, and most of the time not so much. Often measuring their truth claims is hampered by the limitations of current technology, or even sometimes how we think about them and frame research questions. It is true that changing your thinking and questioning your assumptions about what you think you know leads to breakthroughs and important new knowledge. Also, it is often those outside the priviliged class of knowledge makers, those on whom knowledge is deployed, who show that knowledge is incomplete, flawed, and/or comes from a deeply biased place that has no place in responsible science. Before this turns into a huge essay on Kuhn, Haraway and feminist standpoint theory, all I can say is let your own embodied knowledge guide you, but not blind you. Also, skepticism: embrace it.

In Which Greta Christina Says What I've Been Thinking For a Long Time

It's a hazard of the trade when you work in alt health, I know.

But damn--if I have to listen to one more person earnestly impress on me how the universe will provide for me if I let it, how things are meant or not meant to be, or how staying positive!! will totally make everything turn out peachy, I'm going to throw up all over hir shoes. Really, I will. At least Greta has given me fodder for a reply besides a tight-lipped smile and a "Yeah, wow, look at the time, I've gotta get to somewhere else." And she pretty much nails it.

You should check out her Facebook meme project too. I can't deny that sometimes a little of the appeal of being an atheist is how horrifying and scary so many people find it, even though of course it's really pretty innocuous and it usually shines quite a big giant floodlight on that person's unwillingness to be totally intellectually honest with hirself. But mostly, it's just tiresome and annoying.

This makes it all worthwhile again, though. Enjoy!

Why I Want to Be a 'Punk

This post started as a reply to a comment in the last post, and had the added benefit of helping me earn my self-anointed crown of The Procrastinatrix. But it kept growing and growing, so I decided to make a whole other post about it, since it's stuff I've been thinking about for a while and have been trying to tease apart its threads since I got here.

The comment that started it all stated that Boulder and Denver were totally saturated with LAc's and trying to start a practice in either place was only for the punishment gluttons. I think Denver is still pretty wide open if you know where to go and you have a decent referral network in place. This is especially so with CA style practices, if you are willing to set up shop in some the the scrubbier places like the southwest or northeast.

Likewise with Boulder, only there you need an EXCELLENT and large referral network, otherwise, it's beyond annoying. Also, they have two community clinics now that apparently Mary and Sammhita are running separate shops or at least two locations of the same shop. Jen sent me an article last week titled "10 Things About Colorado You Thought Were Cool Until You Got Here", and Boulder is one of them. It's not even the yuppiness and priceyness I don't like. There's this very self-conscious and self-congratulatory awareness and identity of being awesome by virtue of living in Boulder and driving a Subaru and shopping at Whole Foods and doing yoga and having an outdoor lifestyle, whatever that means. Blearrgh.

Earnestness, or performed earnestness that calls attention to its authentic earnestness is obnoxiousness of the first order, I think. And I resemble this description a bit, I admit: I couldn't stand Whole Foods even before their libertarian asshat of a CEO opened his literary piehole in the WSJ and if I could find a yoga teacher who would just teach us the movements without narrating to me what kind of enlightenment I should be getting or how awesomely balanced my chakras were supposed to be becoming I might actually go more than once every two years. But maybe not--running free outside and alone holds a hell of a lot more appeal for me. But, I do drive a Saabaru which I freely chose because I liked it and I play outside a great deal. I guess the difference for me is that what I do isn't my "lifestyle", emphasis on style. It is, quite simply, my life. It's my culture and my orientation and my values and my redemption and my community and the only thing I've found ever that consistently puts me back into phase with myself so I can deal with the rest of the world. There's nothing decorative or "styled" about it. I really can't emphasize that enough.

Which is why I have no interest in people who (earnestly or not) feel the need to "work on themselves" like they'd work on restoring a classic car or model train set. Back a couple of years ago when some Cristo-type artist "stuck" the city of Portland with giant acupuncture needles after mapping out "meridians", and it was all controversial and shit, Skip put up a post about it. I do recommend clicking through and scrolling down the comments, particularly to Lisafer's discussion of what she calls "Hipster Chinoiserie", or the interest in Chinese medicine that is really just interest in it as decoration for something. Go ahead, I'll wait.


Done? Ok then. I'm as irritated by it as she is, and largely for the same reasons. I'm not a goddamn lifestyle and my work sure as fuck isn't about being someone's hobby of spiritual enlightenment. Without realizing it when I began writing, I think I've fleshed out that long-ago promised post on why I can't stand luxury spas and other trappings that deliberately convey exclusionary status by virtue of their cost, rarity and general ostentatious displays of excess. Because at the end of the day it's all a big, elaborate conceit. Because by the time you've gotten to that level, all the other things that go into a zen spa acupuncture treatment are worlds away from the acupuncture and completely about something else. Which is not to say there is no value in such things, and that if places and treatments (giving or receiving) like that really make your heart go pitter-pat, well that's valid.

Just please don't tell me that's all there is to what I do, or all there should be to what I do. If that were true, I wouldn't be an acupuncturist any more. All this time I've been laboring under the delusion propagated by the Marilyn Allen types of our establishment that value is connected to cost, and high cost equals high value, and that if people see that I live a high-cost "lifestyle" (see?!) then they will accord me more respect and value more greatly my work, which will be proven by the amount they are willing to pay for it and I will be a rich (which defines successful) acupuncturist who brings honor and prestige to the profession. I have also been laboring under the delusion that my unwillingness to participate this way means my self-esteem is for crap and I need to "work" on that so I can be a rich successful acupuncturist who brings honor and wealth and prestige to myself and my profession.

Don't get me wrong--I'm all for prestige and respect for my work and my fellow LAc's. We are some pretty amazing people and we do beautiful work in the world, no matter what the setting or patient base. The thing is for me, that prestige and respect and success and value, to me, have nothing to do with how much money I make or charge. Which is not to say I intend to take a vow of poverty, or that I think money is evil and loathsome and too dirty for my noble spirit to brook any truck with. It's just that it's only money. It's functional for me, and enables me to do what I want to do. And except for a few choice pieces of gear and technical clothing, what I want is pretty simple. Also, so. I value community, connection, family, friends, love, simplicity, integrity and kitty cats a lot more. I can't pretend for the life of me I don't.

So yeah, personal growth takes consciousness and discipline and reflection, but it also takes integration and the willingness to live it as you're doing the work. And if you have to advertise what you're doing so people will give you the cookies you think you deserve for being such a speshul widdle snowflake, then enlightenment: ur doin it wrong. Avoid nothing, face everything. As you live it. It really doesn't get more simple than that. And you by no means have to execute it perfectly--fucking up royally is part of the process. Art and activism are inseparable from life. I also have a lot of contempt for dogma, stereotype and cliché.

That being said, that's no reason for Absolute. seriousness. at all. times. Back in my halcyon Women's Studies days, my favorite inspirational quote was a saying attributed to Emma Goldman: "If I can't dance it's not my revolution." My medicine and my work and my approach to both are joyous, fluent, flexible, often unruly, possibly irreverent, probably humorous and generally sacred by being not at all sacred. Hmm. Sacred is another word with I have trouble with, but that's still another post. For now, my work is me and my work is of the world. It is humble and borne of love. It is my offering to the multiverse. No fanfare, no fuss.

Mental Aether Update 2

I almost don't know what to say, so much has happened since the last post. And I'm actually sleepy at a somewhat reasonable hour, which is a minor miracle. So I'll just sum up for now.

Loveland is out. Also, the practice purchase in Longmont is a no go. True, it has its problems, but I could have dealt with that if I knew I were totally in love with being her and committed to staying indefinitely. Or at least for the next 5 years. Which I'm not. Necessarily.

Practice is slow, for a number of reasons. The economy blows goats. No one here knows me. People who have heard of me are freaked out about losing their jobs, and even if they are not, $75 per tx is a tough sell when your patient base is what/where it is. Every time it seems to pick up it slows back down again.

I feel exactly like I felt on the JMT last year. Sitting on a rock at the base of Donahue Pass, miserable and hating myself for wanting to quit and knowing I was going to, even thought it was what I wanted and I knew it would make me happier. I really just want company.

So for some reason I picked up Lisa's book about Acupuncture is Like Noodles, and was instantly made happy and inspired again. A lot of it resonates with me, and themes I've been rassling with lately. Namely, privilege. Throughout my acupuncture education, there was absolutely no examination of privilege or intersectionality. There was no attempt to locate any of what we were learning in any kind of historical or cultural location that MIGHT just not be universal. There was not much attempt of any kind to be critical of anything at all. And it really gave me buttrash sometimes, especially when concepts like yin and yang got conflated with gender performance and what a woman or man was SUPPOSED to be or supposed to act like. It really made me want to yell at things.

The stuff about class was just as awesome as the stuff about gender and sexuality (and I'm reminded of Dorothy Parker's line about how heterosexuality isn't normal, just common). To wit, that if we really valued ourselves and our work we would charge expensive prices for it and if people couldn't pay then it meant they just didn't value their health or they weren't ready to get better. Because everyone can tell stories about poor black single mothers with elaborately braided hair and painted nails who buy groceries with food stamps. It boils down to the whole "Why you haz cell phone?" argument. But of course not all working class people are like that. Most of them aren't. And whether they are or are not, is not the point. As Lisa cogently notes, a person earning $25k a year pays about 7% of their monthly income for a $100 treatment. For a person earning $150k, $600 represents about 7% of their take home pay. No one morally scolds the professional earning $150k for balking at paying $600 for acupuncture, even though doing so would likely not jeopardize that person's ability to keep their utilities on.

I've been in tight spots too, and I have to say--that's just not accurate about people not valuing their health. It sounds a lot like blaming victims to me, like the concurrent obsession with mendacious fuckwittery like The Secret wherein if anything bad happens to you its your own damn fault for not thinking more positively. Ugh. These are people supposedly in the vocation of helping people with compassion. To me the class bigotry is unmistakable. Privileged people never tire of hearing the ways in which their own privilege is justified and makes the world as they experience it a just so story.

So I'm going back to my original passion of having a community style practice. It squares with just about everything I want to do, with all that drives me and gets me up in the morning. The only question is... where? Stay tuned.

14er Day!

See how windy it was?

Well, it happened. I spent a perfectly good Sunday clambering up and down Longs Peak, the highest 14er in the Front Range. It's a rite of passage, really, if you are a Coloradan. I mean, we have a few 14ers in California, but people don't keep little passports and check each peak off as they bag it. Perhaps because most Cali 14ers are somewhat technical, or at least a huge pain in the ass to access, even if you want to spend a weekend doing it.

So, I figured it was about time. I've heard about the legendary shitty weather. I was supposed to climb the Kieners route in June with my BMS class, but my need to spend a week on the San Juan (I'm so NOT sorry) negated that. This seems like the best time of year to go for a "hike" route, even though our weather has been unpredictable even by Colorado standards, which is saying something.

Jamie and I had tried to do Audobon the day before, but weather. It was cold,rainy and generally shitty from waking up in the morning, and it didn't get better until we were mostly back to the car, lolsob. As a few drops fell, and thunder rumbled languidly in the distance, we looked at each other, not wanting to turn back but... we said, we'll turn back if the graupel comes. Sure enough, right before we popped out above treeline the graupel hit--fortunately for us we had timed it perfectly and the hill plus trees provided the perfect lee if we hunkered down low. It passed, and we decided to go up to the top of the ridge and see what it looked like. It looked better, but then there was a huge, ugly black cloud moving fast from behind the summit, straight at us. The cold wind picked up and nearly knocked up sideways. It was painful, but we bagged it and started down. By the time we got to the car, it looked better at the peak, but... it's close, we'll do it another day.

So for Longs, I crashed at Bob's and we got up at 4, were out of the house before 4:30, and were walking by 5:05. The parking lot was FULL, so we found parking on the side of the road, which was also pretty full. And it was COLD--about 45º, less than I would have thought, even if it is 9400 feet. And it was windy--cold windy. Bob's headlamp died a sputtery death before we even got to the trailhead, so it was all on our little LED flashlight (I forgot mine too, duh). A harbinger of things to come? Sort of.

We stopped after about an hour when Bob announced he had to dig a cathole. He said something about, "You can go on if you want..." trailing off into the trees. But it wasn't settled, so I sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. I tried to take a 5 minute catnap, thinking surely he wouldn't miss me coming back to the trail. Weeeeell.
After 20 minutes or so I decided to go tell him I was going to start moving, because I was starting to shiver. But I couldn't find him. I shouted out, but nothing. So, do I assume he moved on, or? I picked up the trail and started walking, and asked the first party of people coming the other way if they'd seen a man meeting Bob's description. Sort of--they were positive they did, but then they also asked if he was wearing glasses and a turtleneck and trekking poles (he was wearing a short-sleeved crew, no glasses and no poles). Hmm. I made a note of the burnt snag at the side of the trail, checked my watch, and kept walking, in case I needed to find the spot again. After a few more minutes who should come hurrying down the trail, confused because he knew I wasn't as slow as some of the people out there but no way I could be that fast either. We resolved to wait for affirmation of communication from now on.

We peeled off onto the Jim Grove trail, and soon enough joined back up to the masses and found ourselves at the Boulder Field. We found ourselves some boulders to hide between and snack on last night's leftover pizza. This was where the fun part would start.

Boulder-hopping onto the north face, no big deal, just easily winded from out of shape and 13k feet. Then, the route crossed a snow field. The snow was rock hard and crusty. We had no axes or crampons. We opted to scramble up the exposed rock spine at the edge of the snow, and discovered that there was a net of ice, or verglas, strewn over lots of the rocks, which made placing hands and feet limited. We started up a crack that looked a little dicey but doable, until Bob, who was above me, said, "Let's not go this way." We downclimbed, traversed back across the snow and onto the proper crack.

But, we had no pro--and our only ropes were a cordelette and a 15ft length of 11mm rope someone had fashioned into rap sling which Bob retrieved on our way up, thinking it might come in handy. Ahem.

The crack route got icy, and there weren't super bomber handholds everywhere for starters. The cable has long since been taken down, although the fatty eyebolts are still there and frequently used as rap anchors. Thus, making sure your hands and feet weren't going to slip or otherwise make you lose your balance was super, SUPER important--because if you did, you were probably going for a tumble off the north corner of The Diamond, a huge, sheer cliff on the east face. It would be a recovery effort more than a rescue, likely. But we didn't let our brains go there until after we sat, shaky, at the top of that section saying, "Let's never do that again."

Fortunately, Bob is a better and taller climber than I, so he led us up. We fashioned a ridiculous belay for me with a loop of the rope around my wrist and him holding onto the other end and the rock with a death grip. Also fortunately, I'm good enough that I only needed the rope as a kind of aider for my left hand on the last pitch, where he could hitch it securely around one of those eyebolts.

All that was left was more scrambling to the top, where we popped out onto a huge, windy and cold football field at 14,265 ft, or something like that. Even tucked in behind a rock it was still cold. Bob grabbed his super sexy red GoLite down jacked for me, but packed only a thick fleece for his insulating layer. I admit, and so does he, the wind was unexpectedly cold that day. We finished the rest of our pizza, and headed back down the Keyhole route like everyone else that day--we had Cables all to ourselves. Still, it wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it might be.

The route down was just long--seemed way longer than the way up, but then I guess it usually does.

Jamie and I are doing Elbert on Labor Day weekend. According to my sources, there is considerably less of a pucker factor on that one. Stay tuned!

More Women We Love

Finally, someone publicly debunks Uncle Pat's racism for the crustified, unreconstructed wankery that it is.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

How I Love Sarah Haskins

The next person to offer up patriarchal, crustified wankery dating advice like this bolus of writer's crap that appeared in my inbox yesterday is totally getting this link.



I do recommend clicking through to the Intent articles comments thought. The mind reels.

CU's PA Program is Officially Awesome

So I meant to put up a post when I got home on Friday and then things got away from me. I've officially begun the search for a good PA program and to organize the effort to get in! I've thought about it a lot over the past year or so, I've shadowed a couple of PA's (ones in family practice and one who does ortho surgery), I've talked to docs who've been in the profession long enough to sense which way the sands are shifting, and I'm pretty well there. I know from the message boards that PA's exist who hate their jobs because they would rather be docs, but those who thoughtfully weighed their decision between the two, evaluated the differences and came out on the side of PA are really, really happy.

On the MD side is my ego and the fear that maybe I am able to only work for myself. On the PA side is getting to do the part of the job I love the most (diagnose and treat) while not having to mess with the responsibility of a practice, of getting to work with a doc so there is someone to bounce difficult cases off of, 4-5 years of training as opposed to twice that, the ability to pick up and change specialties as easily as changing jobs instead of having to complete a whole new residency if I end up not liking what I'm doing, etc. etc. In short, it looks like it will fit into the life I want, instead of requiring me to dedicate and conform my life to it. Sure, there are specialties you can choose if you prefer to "dabble" in medicine: radiology or maybe physiatry, ER can be pretty flex too. But still. The more I learn the more excited I get, and I don't think I've felt this excited since I realized I needed to go to acupuncture school. Being a PA will, of course, mean that I will not only still be able to be an acupunk I will be able to get to people who would otherwise not think to try it in a million years. It will satisfy my need to integrate the two worlds. I can work with overseas and underserved populations that as an LAc are years away. And so on and so on.

So I visited my first program on Friday. Holy shit! The medical campus makes up for being in the middle of east Jesus nowhere by being all sparkly clean and new, and by having all kinds of cool stuff like a standardized patient program and high tech mannequins for practicing procedures and treatment scenarios. In the gross anatomy classes you only share your cadaver with 3 other students and you don't rotate--you get to do a full dissection. They have overseas rotations including India, Ghana, and a Spanish immersion in Costa Rica. You can put together your own rotations if there's someplace you'd like to work and they are open to it. You have the advantages of going to a school that also has a medical school, dental school, nursing, PT, etc. schools and all the professional resources that those provide. They work integratively with some of the other schools so you begin to get a sense of what it really means to work as a team.

Predictably, it is competitive. 600 applicants compete for about 100 interviews and about 40 of those get spots. I have my work cut out for me as I plan my prereq courses and start prepping to retake the GRE (sadly my awesome previous score is so 1998) early next year. It will be at least 2 years out, but I'm so excited sometimes it's hard to sleep at night. I am still a dork.

A very, excited and purpose-driven dork.