Item the first: For anybody who thinks they might want a Giant Ridiculous Dogge on their very own, my mom and her partner have a bitch in whelp, and are expecting puppies on the ground in January if all goes well.
You can read ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) thecoughlin's informational post here. If that intrigues you, the Eiledon Briards website is here.
Item the second: Climbed tonight with buymeaclue and TBRE and The Jeff. Did not climb particularly well, mind you, but I did get out there. Better luck on Monday. *g*
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
“This is an original and unusual work whose purpose is to make madness”
That’s what I read on the dust jacket flap for THE DIVIDED SELF, R.D. Laing’s first published examination of ‘ontological insecurity’ — the sense for some people that they’re losing themselves, becoming lost in the world.
For many students of psych, Laing holds a special place. He was described by my lecturers as a ‘psychedelic psychologist’: criticised for his mind-bending poetry, applauded for his humanity. If I recall correctly, Laing & his students would check themselves into mental institutions to expose them from the inside out as places that ‘blamed the victim’, that described the patients’ behaviour in ways that re-emphasised (& moralised) their illnesses.
‘Look at how the patients cluster around the lunchroom an hour early. Clearly they’re displaying greed,’ went the populist view of the ‘crazy’ behaviour found in these institutions.
‘Look at how little the patients have to do here, & how often they’re ignored. What else is there, of a day, apart from eat lunch?’ argued Laing.
And this was really Laing’s stance: that our attempts to fit into the world as it is cause us distress. That psychosis has a social birthplace. That the conversation of crazy people was a result of an attempt to express the distress caused by a crazy world. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an enigmatic language of personal symbolism which is meaningful only from within their situation, claims Wikipedia. Laing also went a little bit further (some might say ‘a little bit too far’) in suggesting that the voyage of psychosis was ’shamanistic’, leading to deeper revelations about truth & reality. A popular & dare I suggest potentially destructive portrayal of mental disorder, the kind of thing found sometimes in Janet Frame’s (occasionally self-justifying?) writing, & such movies as ‘The Fisher King’: a kind of poetic self-destructiveness, later validated in a sentimental reality. More productively, Laing’s ideas have ended up, in a pragmatic form, establishing the foundations for modern psychotherapy. Relation to the world is equivalent to the relation to the self, argues psychotherapy. Change your perception of the world, change yourself.
One strand of Laing’s thinking, traceable to Marx and Sartre, condemns society for shackling humankind against its will, taking away individual freedom.
This I’ll come back to in later days, having just finished Albert Camus’ THE OUTSIDER (aka THE STRANGER) & not found myself completely convinced of the tyranny of society, nor the absolute rights of the individual.
On the one hand, I applaud Laing’s recognition of the reality of the individual, the dichotomy between self & other & the anxiety that can cause. On the other hand, I can’t carry that through to the *lack* of responsibility of the individual. If the world and my distress has lead to my disordered (differently-ordered?) thinking, can I be excused from killing a man? By logical extension, yes. By every other moral standard … lines must still be drawn.
Oh, & the rest of that quote from the dust jacket? It actually goes,
“This is an original and unusual work whose purpose is to make madness, and the process of going mad, comprehensible to many who have no direct experience with this phenomenon. R. D. Laing offers new insights to many who, in either a professional or a personal context, are familiar with madness. He examines certain forms of madness in an existential frame of reference — the man who is an “outsider”, estranged equally from himself and from society, unable to experience himself and others as being real and substantial. An individual who is so basically insecure develops a “false” self with which to confront his world, in order to achieve some formula for living with his anxiety and despair. This process may lead to the gradual disintegration of the whole personality, and Laing traces the lives of a number of schizoid and schizophrenic individuals.”
– The Divided Self, R.D. Laing, 1960, Tavistock Publications
 Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
It's been a challenging day. Started nice -- I slept in, and had a very quiet, pleasant morning. Then we decided that we needed to get trash bags...there is a lot of trash to remove, since I'm clearing out my office, and closets, as my vacation task.
The car had a flat tire.
So all the tedium putting on the temporary tire, and discussion about whether we try to get the tire repaired, or buy a new one, or go ahead and do the thing we were planning to do in a couple months, which is to replace all four tires on the car. We knew that Sears was having a tire sale this weekend, so we decided to drive into town and buy tires. Instead of all the other things we'd planned to do.
Into town we went. Yay, they had tires for a decent price. And it would only take an hour and a half to put them on. And we all of the mall to wander around in while waiting. Only, I hate malls.
But what's that, on the way back to Sears? A Humane Society adoption center? Yeah, you know what's coming....
She's a very lovely, sweet, 8 year old cat. Black. No photos yet because she's currently hiding under the bed. She simply grabbed onto my attention and would not let go. I got her out to make her acquaintance, and even as she was trembling with fear, she nestled into my arms. The more scared she got (by the dogs, by the people), the closer she clung.
I don't know what her name is -- it certainly isn't "Alfie", which was on the tag. She was turned over to the Humane Society over a month ago, taken from a house where a crazy cat lady was keeping 18 cats. She's good with other cats, and so far there have been no fireworks at all. She likes being held, and she's a lap-sitter, which is something I've missed. Our three feral rescues are not lap cats.
I'll have photos at some point, but she's your basic domestic short hair black cat, with golden eyes. Tappan thinks her name might be Olivia, but I'm not sure of that.
19 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
I have gathered up the prezzies and trinkets for the Family, I even put batteries into that little annoying doll.. (grin) ..
Called my Wicked Evil Stepmommy and chatted with her where we will all be, and indicated that if she wasnt with us, she should call.
Guess I should get dressed, I have less than 90 minutes now..
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
It's been a busy week or so. I had Christmas family functions on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. All were good, all had lots of food and there was also a lot of wine. I think I consumed the least out of everyone (wine, that is).
Yesterday, I went with Tom's family to see Avatar. It was good. I had been told that the plot was bad, but the effects were good. I didn't think that it needed a great plot. It had one, simple as it was, and the story kept moving nicely throughout. The 3D really screwed with my eyes though, probably because it was nearly 3 hours long.
Other than that, I'm now sitting here eating leftover Toblerone chocolate mousse for breaky. Yummy.
6 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Today is the fun family observance, the enjoyable one. Dinner out, and then afters at the eldest nephews place.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
My Prayer Today: that I can achieve Satyagraha - to bear what must be borne in order to do what is right. Please, may I have the strength to bear this...
4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
I work pretty damned hard at being strong and smart about all this cancer stuff, but sometimes the horror of it all overtakes me again, flashing by like an S-class Mercedes on the autobahn.
Then all I've got left in my hand is tears.
Oh, well. At least I was in the shower. And it proves I still have a heart.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Around 600 words on The White City today, and still waiting for it to tell me how it goes. I wrote the last scene (denouement), and the closing sentence, but I'm missing like four scenes that comprise the climax.
It's interesting writing Sebastien in a situation where he is NOT in charge.
Tomorrow is a work day. God damn it. I will have focus and I will get somewhere.
Well, time to stare at it for a while again.
3 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
Ehrlich, E. (1997). Miriam's Kitchen. New York, Penguin.
I can't recommend this book. I can't recommend this book because it is too delicate. It is too coercive. it is too emotional.
I loved this book.
There are two aspects to the book: in one, Elizabeth Ehrlich listens to her mother-in-law talk of life in Poland, of being a survivor, of being a young mother in Israel and an immigrant to the United States, and begins to learn from her how to cook the families' traditional dishes. In the other, Ehrlich herself begins and makes the move back to kashrut, to keeping a kosher home. It also contains recipes which work (I've tried a few).
For those here who don't know me very well, I am a lapsed Orthodox Jew, whose parents were completely non-observant, but whose grandparents were conventional Orthodox. I was sent to a Jewish elementary school but to a "secular" state secondary school where I was the only Jew. I regard myself as lapsed but believing, where my parents would both call themselves lapsed but non-believing. For the past five years I have felt guilty about not keeping a kosher home, but I married out. I made my choice and I'm not about to make someone else's life a misery (although it has occured to me that being lactose intolerant would make a full dairy kitchen irrelevant). Combined with my interest in oral history, I was utterly ripe for this book, I am completely its audience.
Much of this book is written as an elegy for a lost place and time, but also for a future set of choices, what will be preserved, what will be lost, what will be actively discarded. Ehrlich is writing both a memoir and a cultural history in which she takes in the radical politics of her parents, and weight of responsibility, in which she works out the cultural space in which her own choices were received by others.
Miriam and many of her friends were holocaust survivors. There are many ways in which this becomes linked with the food culture. I'm going to quote you just one paragraph which both indicates the power of this book, and why I am so reluctant to actually recommend it. This is not a book for everyone although I think I will be returning to it over and over again.
"It was Uncle Fred who at last described this crowd's aversion to the buffet meal. "I was in a concentration camp for five years," he said. "I don't stand in line for food." I blanched and cringed: my wedding. No one had told me, and I never understood for ten long years what was the matter, quite, what...."
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
A friend has just mentioned how often he poops. Several other people chimed in to talk about their own habits. I was taken aback by what people were taking for granted.
I do not mean to be alarmist, but one of the things that so delayed my own diagnosis of celiac was not knowing what was normal. Surely everyone went to the loo about half an hour after breakfast and stayed there awhile? Surely everyone felt bloated and uncomfortable after lunch? Surely everyone had a bowel movement four or five times a day? Surely everyone "had to run"? There are more serious conditions than celiac which cause bowel problems but what they all have in common is that the symptoms are too embarrassing to talk about.
1. Normal bowel movements are in the range of 3 times a day to 3 times a week. It varies but that's sort of ok.
2. It shouldn't hurt.
3. It shouldn't be catching you unawares.
4. You shouldn't feel bloated after eating and have regular constipation/the runs (I can't spell the correct word, sorry).
If you have issues with any of the above, see the doctor. If the doctor tells you that you have irritable bowel syndrome without running any tests explain very, very patiently, that this is a description and not a diagnosis.
Of the possible causes, celiac is now considered so common that if you have any of the symptoms (easy enough to look up) I recommend that you have the blood tests. If you are an Ashkenazi Jew, Italian, Irish or Scandinavian in origin, I raise the recommendation. Also if anyone in the family has aspergers or autism as there seems to be a link but it's not understood what it is or if it really exists.
13 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
So you can all blame jaylake for this one. While reading some of his posts about cancer, I started thinking about The Things People Don't Talk About When It Comes to Menopause. It's truly amazing what gets focused upon, for something that eventually happens to 100% of the female population who survives to that age. When menopause struck here--chemically induced, as in getting pulled off of my hormones--I did the good geeky thing and marched out to buy some references.
Sigh. Some things are talked about, and others are glossed over. Even by the Our Bodies Ourselves collective, and, dear God, I frackin' lived by that book in my very late teens and early twenties. I've had some issues slam into me which are sort of handwaved over, even online, or presented in vague and contradictory manners. Take, for example, the discussions about whether black cohosh supplements should be taken for a few months, then off for a few months. I'm still looking into that.
Most of the sources I've found discuss the common elements of menopause, with very little out there for those of us who tend to be outliers in our responses to hormones. I'm one such--the only thing that kept me close to semi-regular in my cycling was the Pill, even after pregnancy and nursing. When I first went on a high dose contraceptive pill, my blood pressure plummeted to my current levels and remained low until about a year or so ago, when I probably entered menopause, but was masked by the hormones.
Additionally, for a society so focused on reproduction and fertility, little is really said about managing a fading fertility in those elder years when you really, really DON'T want to reproduce, even though the ol' bod manages to pop out an aging egg or two. Especially for those for whom barrier methods are--um--not workable due to allergies or other factors. Nothing gets said about allergies. Nothing gets said about potential risks, and even a candid discussion with a nurse practitioner was marginally satisfactory. And some potential methods are simply Not Discussed for more than a quickie sentence.
This is going to be primarily a LiveJournal project, because some more explicit pieces will be friends-locked due to confidentiality and not wanting stuff to get out via Facebook. Other input will be welcomed. And pieces will be written as time allows in a busy day.
So. Onward, as the Muse moves me.
7 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Teacup today: cabbage roses, a gift from ctwriter.
Tea today: Mokalbari East
Temperature this morning: a balmy fiftyish
Sebastien is having a fraught conversation with somebody he's never met before, who knows him uncomfortably well. I have just skipped the climax and am working on the denouement.
ETA: And a very brave neighborhood cat is apparently using our back porch as a base of operations, as there are two Green Bits (TM) on the steps. I wonder if that was the end of our Kitchen Smouse.
12 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Finished candles.
I really like the blue one.
I should eat something and work for a bit before it's time to go climbing with buymeaclue, The Jeff, and TBRE.
In other news, the rain and warmth came overnight, and now the snow is gone. It was a special delivery, just for Christmas.
20 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Ever wonder what happened to Mark? Well...
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
contemplative
sleepy
grateful
relaxed
geeky
