Bitter Notes

Are you a jerk? Do you like bargains? Here’s how to get two acts of jerkitude for the price of one.

1. Say something jerky. Don’t stint, and don’t be subtle. Be flat-out insulting. If at all possible, insult your victim’s entire group. This works best if it’s a group they can be perceived as choosing, rather than something they’re born into. Pick on their religion, lack of religion, or sexual orientation rather than their race or ethnicity. Or if we’re talking about someone female, go ahead and be a sexist pig. Our culture’s perfectly fine with sexism — it’s funny, even! — and the point here is to be insulting in such a way that the insulted one won’t be able to call on mainstream mores for support. Isolate and devastate.

2. When the insulted party reacts with dismay, anger, and indignation, widen your eyes and soften your tone. Your model here should be a two-year-old who just accidentally shattered a bottle of something very expensive and who’s now baffled by Mommy’s screams.

3. In tones of injured innocence, ask, “Why are you being so defensive?”

And boom — you just hit them again without even having to take the trouble of raising your fist. The focus immediately turns to the victim’s response, rather than what you did to earn it.

It works every time. People would rather be accused of axe murder than defensiveness. Axe murderers at least get some uneasy respect. Being seen as defensive is just pathetic.

Why?

If you want to get kids interested in history, find a book about castles and the defenses they used against invaders. Nothing pathetic about portcullises and drawbridges.

If you want to get kids interested in science, sit down with a good book about animals and how they protect themselves against attackers. Nothing pathetic about triceratops and poison dart frogs.

Defensiveness is a natural response to being attacked. In terms of logic and basic maturity, “Why are you being so defensive?” is right up there with “Quit hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?”

I belong to a lot of groups that get a lot of attacks, so I’m intimately acquainted with defensiveness. I’m an American atheist feminist homeschooler who strongly supports homebirth and who, because of her own religious background, refuses to say that Christians as a group are morons. Oh, and I think sleeping around is distasteful at best and unwise at worst — for everyone, not just women. If there isn’t something on that list that pisses you off, please either friend me on Facebook or check for a pulse.

Take it from someone who’s been in the trenches. Defending that which is worthy of defense is good. Calling someone defensive is pure jerkitude.

Defensiveness is on my mind for many reasons. One is the recent renewal of interest in Jesse Scaccia, whose infamous blog posting began with the announcement that homeschoolers are self-aggrandizing society-phobes and who replied to comments on said posting by asking why homeschoolers are so defensive.

He’s hardly the first one to make that kind of attack, and sadly he won’t be the last.

The next time you’re accused of defensiveness, do not back down. Do not insist that you’re not being defensive, really you’re not.

Own it.

“Damned right I’m being defensive!” you must say. “You just attacked me, you smug tub of jerkiness! Who wouldn’t be defensive after what you just said? And what drugs were your parents doing when you were conceived?”

However — and this is important — while vigorously defending all that needs defending, you must not fall into the trap of being the wrong kind of defensive.

This entire posting is in defense of defensiveness — hence the name. But there are two sorts of defensiveness. One is perceived defensiveness: an angry response to an insult. This defensiveness is necessary, important, and good. The other is the defensiveness that goes all the way down — the kind you carry around with you days or weeks after the original assault.

Internalized defensiveness damages you and your cause.

Internalized defensiveness allows the attacker to define terms.

Internalized defensiveness leads to depressing statements such as “Girls can do anything boys can!” (something I saw announced on a young feminist’s web site) and depressing ideas like “Homeschooling is just as good as public schools.” It leads you to believe that you should be measuring up to someone else’s ideals, rather than remembering what yours are.

Positive defensiveness prompts you to stand your ground. Internalized defensiveness leaves you running to keep up.

I tripped into a pit of the latter sort last night, and I’m still kicking myself.

When I became pregnant, I was terrified by the idea of having a son. I grew up with lots of sisters. My only brother is autistic, and autism hits more boys than it does girls. I also didn’t want to have to worry about the whole to-circumcise-or-not-to-circumcise issue — I already knew I was against cutting, but I had some vague idea that a natural member needed special looking after. (It doesn’t, at least not by me.)

But having a boy has turned out just fine. In terms of terrifying parental moments, it may even be better than having a girl would have been. I love and enjoy my friends’ daughters, but what if I’d had a girl who admired conventional femininity and asked for pink sparkly outfits, or even just wanted me to braid her hair presentably?

So it blindsided me when someone I know started in on me the other night about how I was letting my kid down so far as raising a “real” boy is concerned.

I happen to think that the sentiment behind the phrase “Boys will be boys” has caused more damage to the world than the idea that those poor savages just need a good colonizing to fix them up. The fact that both notions are often held by the same people is probably not a coincidence.

I also happen to think that “Here’s why I think you’re a bad parent” is the most efficient possible way of telling someone that you wish they’d stop talking to you.

And I think that getting into an argument about either parenting methods or notions of proper masculinity is the shortest route to a screaming headache. Getting into one argument about both is suicide in a glass.

So after being surprised into one moment of sheer blinding rage, I did the right (i.e. non-masochistic) thing. I left the table in question, saying as I did so that we didn’t agree on what constituted appropriate post-dinner conversation.

And then I blew it by internalizing all the way home, well into the night, and first thing when I woke up in the morning.

My son wasn’t “boy” enough? My son wasn’t being “allowed” to play with his inner testosterone cowboy? I — the least girlie mom in our whole circle, the one who lives in blue jeans and has never in her 44 years on this planet known what to do with her hair because she can’t get behind the idea that hair qua hair is worthy of her time or attention — I was apparently force-feeding my poor wimped-up son rainbows and My Little Ponies?

My son is independently pursuing a self-study course in physics. He hopes to major in mechanical engineering in college. He sports a fedora at all times. He freakin’ adores parkour. Not that, for better or for worse, any of these fields, fashions, or pursuits have ever been predominantly associated with men or anything.

My son received The Zombie Cupcake Book and a multi-tool in his Easter basket this year. So far as sheer unadulterated guyness was concerned, we might as well have thrown a spare penis in there while we were at it.

I made the mistake of vocalizing this last bit at the table the next morning. My son pushed his bowl of oatmeal away, closed his eyes, and murmured, “Happy place…happy place…”

“Oh, cut that out and eat your breakfast,” I snapped. “And put away the rice milk. You should be having beer with that. No — peppermint schnapps!”

“Um,” my son said.

Which was a good point, even if I had to finish the sentence myself.

What was I doing?

I’d thrown myself into the worst kind of defensiveness. I hadn’t even been accused of it by anyone — I’d done it to myself.

I was wasting precious time and energy trying to measure up against somebody else’s bogus standards. Which was exactly the kind of thing I warned other people against doing, and have been trying not to do for years myself.

Don’t read the comments on the Internet article about homeschooling, I always caution my fellow home edders. You’ll see a bunch of people saying stupid things about homeschooling. You already know people still say stupid things about homeschooling. What’s the point of making yourself miserable? Pick your battles and get on with your life.

I conked myself on the head a few times for good measure and reminded myself of the proud defender’s simple rules for good living.

Call an arse an arse. Say it loud and proud. Defend. But don’t get drawn into the wrong kind of defensiveness.

Because as soon as someone can goad you into an argument with yourself, they’ve won.

I promise to take all this to heart the second I stop typing this.

Really.

Really.

Stopping.

Now.

I know this makes me unique in the annals of human history, but there’s a relative of mine who’s driving me nuts. If you’re reading this, you’re not her.

She’s not a crazy-making person in general. She’s fun and funny and has a job that makes the world a better place. I enjoy her company, and I think she enjoys mine. For a long, flattering time, she tended to like things just because I did. I turned her on to Jane Austen, Nine Inch Nails, and homemade beauty products — all in the same year. It was like having an adoring younger sister.

And like a younger sister, she had a bounden duty to get under my skin once in a while.

I learned this one night, years ago, when I invited her over for dinner because, hey, she was already there and we’d need to eat at some point. This was long before either of us had kids, in the days when I actually spent whole afternoons hanging out with friends just for the heck of it.

We were talking about what we’d eat. I wanted to make a rich, homey stew. I must have asked her something about food preparation, because she made a face.

“I don’t do that whole cooking thing,” she said dismissively.

Well, okay. Maybe not the most tactful thing to say to someone who cooked both for pleasure and out of sheer economic necessity, but all right.

And then she went on.

“I mean, I could,” she said. “If I wanted to. Cooking is just knowing how to read a recipe.”

Is it, now.

I fumed a bit, but said nothing. This stew had a lot of fiddly bits, so I went ahead and got to work early. Pretty soon my friendly relation asked if she could help.

“Yes, please,” I said. I gave her a potato, a cutting board, and a knife. “Could you chop this? Dice it, actually.”

She took what I offered wordlessly, and I went back to sautéing onions and peppers. After a few minutes, I glanced up. She had the potato in one hand, the knife in the other, and an utterly blank expression on her face.

“I have no idea how to do this,” she said.

I don’t remember if I laughed. I know I assumed that the point had been made. The recipe for this stew called for a chopped potato in the ingredients. There were no instructions on how to accomplish this. There also wasn’t a picture of a potato next to the word, or directions to the nearest supermarket, or notes on how to exchange money for root vegetables since the barter system no longer applies in our country.

Okay, I’m a little bitter.

This was years and years ago. I haven’t called it to mind for ages. Until last night, when my husband mentioned that this relation had just asked a mutual acquaintance to read over her manuscript. Something very interesting had happened to her, and she’d decided to write a book about the experience. She planned to look for an agent soon.

Why was I suddenly seeing potatoes?

When she’s not writing, this relative works in a very specialized field. Not everyone understands the training necessary to do her job. She’s regaled me with stories of people who think her work looks easy and fun. They waltz into job interviews with no experience and no idea what they’re doing.

And the most ignorant and unqualified ones are baffled when they’re dismissed minutes into the conversation.

“She was stunned,” my relative said about one particularly clueless candidate. “She had no idea how to even begin to do the job, and she also had no idea why we didn’t want to hire her.” She shook her head. “So many people think they can just jump in and try. It doesn’t work like that.”

I hear that, sistah.

People think that because they can type, they can write.

People think that because they have a cool idea, they have a book.

People think that because they have what they think is a cool idea, they have a book.

It’s absolutely true that every once in a while, someone who makes every rookie mistake in the world can not only sell a book, but create a bestseller. I’m thinking of the writer who thought that every verb needs an adverb and every noun at least one adjective. She hauled out the thesaurus every time her characters “said” something, not realizing that “said” is one of those invisible words readers don’t notice no matter how often you use it (but they sure as hell notice when you refuse to use it no matter how much dialogue you write). This writer thought that character development was a crutch for people who didn’t have cool vampires and werewolves to liven up the landscape. Oh, and she thought that naming characters was a simple matter of harvesting monikers from your immediate circle of nearest and dearest. She wrote Twilight.

Okay. It can happen. Every now and then, an outstandingly lousy writer can manage to strike a popular chord and become a millionaire in the process.

However, most lousy writers just clog up the desks and try the patience of increasingly bitter editors and agents. They get the rejections they deserve and make life a lot harder for the rest of us.

I saw this relative recently, and she mentioned what she called her book. (I happen to agree with the agent who wrote in her blog that it’s rank arrogance to refer to your manuscript as a book unless and until it’s published and professionally bound.) She also mentioned that she’s reading and enjoying the Hunger Games trilogy, which I praised for its good clean prose. No flowery speeches. Barely an adjective or adverb to be seen. People “say” what’s on their minds. My relative nodded ruefully at that last point.

“I kept thinking about that while I was reading,” she said. “In my book — well, I was trying really hard to make it interesting. I noticed I was using the word ‘said’ a lot, so I actually bought a thesaurus to help me think of other words I could use instead. I thought it was bad to use the same word over and over. But then I realized that the Hunger Games lady uses ‘said’ all the time.”

I suggested that she use Suzanne Collins’ prose as a model for her own. She nodded. “In my next book,” she said.

Because apparently rereading and rewriting are menial tasks best left to people who chop their own potatoes.

She’s never even read Twilight.

I guess she’s hoping she wrote it.

The apology is irrelevant.

The apology is irrelevant because:

1. You haven’t apologized for the fact that you kept referring to female university students as “co-eds.” And you kept drawing out the syllables. Apparently it comes as a shock to you that there are colleges out there that allow women as students. I’m probably risking giving you a stroke by mentioning this, but (I’ll whisper here): (there are actually more women than men on most college campuses). (this became the norm some time ago.) (so get over it.)

2. You keep talking about personal responsibility and accountability. Fine. It’s about time you learned that it’s possible to say something bad enough that an apology just won’t cut it.

3. You’re in the media. You’re in the business of communication. And yet you still can’t be bothered to learn the facts of the case in question.

It’s absolutely true that contraception needs to be safe and affordable. That’s such a duh that I’m not going to waste my time going on and on about it. You’re not going to get it anyway. You’ve made that clear.

You’ve also made it clear, as Rachel Maddow brilliantly pointed out, that you don’t know how birth control works.

But you’re not even getting that something called the birth control pill might just be used for something other than birth control.

This is not a new concept. Lesbians are on the pill. Straight women who aren’t currently having sex are on the pill. Girls who aren’t old enough to be interested in having sex with anyone are on the pill.

I was given a prescription for the pill after my surgery. This surgery diagnosed and attempted to treat my endometriosis — a disease that many women have, for reasons that have yet to be discovered. The pill was recommended to me as something that might help my continuing symptoms.

Ironically, women who have endo are actually statistically less likely to be having sex than women without it, because one of the more common symptoms of endo is pain during intercourse. Sorry if that messes with your worldview.

Anyway: yes, my prescription to the pill was fully covered by my insurance plan.

Here’s what you said regarding Sandra Fluke’s testimony:

“If we’re going to have to pay for this [birth control pills] then we want something in return, Ms. Fluke. And that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see what we’re getting for our money.”

I hadn’t realized that conservatives are avid consumers of online porn. At the very least, apparently they want to be avid consumers. Provided it’s government-funded online porn.

At any rate: you wanted pictures.

Fair enough.

Here are some images of why I needed the pill. You aren’t paying for my medication, of course. But these pictures, or images very like them, apply to people like Sandra Fluke’s friend.

I apologize for the poor quality, but these weren’t taken by a professional. But as you seem to know, amateur photography can be exciting, too.

Enjoy.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my husband that when I’m done being drilled by the dentist, I’m going to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. We’re broke, and it amazes me that I may still have something of value to offer the world. There is, apparently, a whole organization that will do everything for me: tell me where to go and how to do this, cover any expenses incurred if I’m a match, rub my little tootsies afterward. Okay, not that last one. Still, I had no idea it could be so simple. (Not easy. Owwie, probably. Whatever. I’m used to ouch. It’s logistics I can’t handle.)

I daydream about offering the world a kidney someday. I hesitate because I’m one of those people that the irony gods like to kick when it comes to timing. I just know that I’ll come home from a successful operation only to hear that my son just lost both his kidneys in some dire, Lego-related accident. So it’ll take me some time to make up my mind on that one.

When I mentioned it to my husband, I told him that if I do end up being able to give that gift, I don’t want to know who it goes to. I don’t want to meet them; I don’t want to know anything about them. I’m hypercritical at the best of times, and no matter how hard I remind myself that this is about doing the right thing because you can, I’m bound to feel let down as soon as I learn any details. (“Wait — my kidney is living inside a freaking Raiders fan? Take it back!”)

Human beings let me down more often than not. When they do manage to make me happy, it’s usually because either they amaze me by not being as moronic as I had every reason to expect (“Hey, look! That driver stopped texting before he made that left turn!”), or they rush in to do something awesome that only needs doing because someone else was being a complete and total horror-show (“Aw! That pedestrian risked her life helping that other pedestrian who got run over by that driver who texted all the way through the red light!”).

I’m not going to stop kvetching, ever. (That pause between blog entries is me passed out on the floor from all the fuming.) But like it or not — like them or not — humanity is my clan. I expect from them and they have the right to expect from me, just because. Working organs and needed bone marrow are not things one should have to earn with good behavior and/or a sparkling personality.

I have a hard time understanding the Protestant worldview at times, but the concept of grace is one I can get behind on a secular level: There’s no way anyone on this planet can possibly “deserve” the gift of life one human can give another via, for instance, organ donation. The help we give has to be simply because it’s the right thing to do.

Which brings me to my current fit of screaming.

In the span of just a few weeks, I read about:

A man who needs a kidney transplant and was refused care by a hospital in spite of the fact that he had a donor match and insurance. UC San Francisco Medical Center refused to operate because, according to a petition circulated on his behalf, “administrators cannot be sure he will be able to afford follow-up care given his status as an illegal immigrant.”

A child who needs a kidney transplant and who has a large group of family members willing to donate, but who was refused care by a hospital because she is mentally retarded.

Apparently, not everyone’s on board with my message. Said message is a simple one: Gripe all you want; but when the hard work needs doing, for hell’s sake buckle down and do it, already.

I’d like to edit that message for any doctors reading: If you’re willing to refuse life-saving care for reasons anything like the ones listed above, you’re morally required to kill the patients in question.

The little girl in question was given six months to a year to live without that kidney.

You decided you should be in charge of deciding whether she should have it. You presented “quality of life” arguments against her.

Fine.

Just kill her and get it over with, already.

If you’re going to pass judgment on her, I demand that you play executioner in fact as well as in theory. You’ve got the equipment. You could probably do it painlessly. Certainly what you’ve got to offer is a lot kinder than what she’s facing without your help.

If you’re going to play God, act like it.

If you’re not willing to do that, then you get in there and do that damned surgery.

I’m not any nicer than you are. You’ve probably noticed I’m not big on nice. I don’t happen to find nice necessary when it comes to moral decisions. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way. It makes me find Amelia’s situation more stirring and sympathetic than Jesus Navarro’s purely because she’s little and cute.

But even I know she doesn’t deserve a kidney any more than he does. She also doesn’t deserve one any less.

And neither of them deserves one any more or less than I do.

Time to go back to fuming.

I wouldn’t be so bitter about my pain medication not working if my doctors weren’t such jerks about it.

“You have to take it right away — as soon as the pain starts. If you wait too long, it won’t help.”

Oh, okay. Sorry. When I read on the label of my over-the-counter medication about how I should take the minimum possible dose, and only take more if the first one didn’t help — well, silly freaking me for thinking that if the people who want me to buy lots of their product are telling me to ease up on the rocket fuel, maybe there’s a reason I should be cautious.

But wait a minute. The dosage part isn’t an issue any more, now that I actually have prescription-strength meds. What you’re saying is that you think there’s a significant period of time between the onset of my pain and the pain becoming bad enough for me to need to treat it.

Have you been listening at all? This isn’t “Gee, my cramps are horrific” monthly bummer territory. We’re talking about vomit-inducing levels of pain that start out as bad as they’re going to get. I’m fine and I’m fine and I’m fine and then I’m doubled over. Not much in the way of what you’d call a transitional period.

And as often as not, this pain jolts me from a sound sleep — which is its own kind of sad, because it’s like waking up to a nightmare rather than from one. Even if the pills are right next to the bed, how am I supposed to take them in what you would consider a timely manner, if by “timely” you mean before the pain reaches maximum intensity? Maximum intensity is what woke me up in the first place.

And can we please talk about the side effects? Actually, let’s just talk about one: nausea. Awful, miserable, debilitating nausea that leaves me worthless long after the pain has finally passed.

You told me this is easy to avoid. Just don’t take the medicine on an empty stomach. Okay. But as I said, this pain often hits in the middle of the night. I’m trying to stay at a healthy weight, so at two in the morning — which is the time my last pain hit — my stomach is generally empty.

Just grab a bite to eat, then? Really? Have you ever been in pain bad enough to make you scream? I happen to be a food-lover from way back, and I’m telling you, even I don’t feel like grabbing a sandwich when I’m curled up screaming and sobbing on the bathroom floor.

I understand, doctor, that treating pain is a tricky matter. And that’s not your fault. I understand that, too. What I don’t appreciate is that “duh” tone of voice you use to give me advice that turns out to be worthless through no fault of mine. I’m a victim of pain attacks. I’m looking for help. You’re telling me that my medicine can’t be expected to do all the work in this relationship.

Well, thanks. And I hope you live long enough to experience some of the same species of pain I live with. It might help you be a better doctor. If nothing else, you’d be in a position to supply your patients with some much-needed genuine sympathy.