Everything is Relative

I have a lot of qualms with posting this, but it’s what’s on my mind right now. And…a few people have been asking about my specific diagnosis…and others are probably wondering what the heck I mean by being so excited by the promise of being pain free one day…so…here goes. Going to dust off the old blog….

I don’t really know what people think of me, but I feel like a lot of people could probably think I’m a super negative person. I complain about dating. I complain about home teachers (or the lack thereof). I complain about social issues at BYU. I complain about the weather. I complain about school. I complain about work. I complain about dating some more. 

What those people don’t get is how much of a positive spin I’m actually trying to put on my life. That by complaining about the super inconsequential, nobody-cares, petty things, it helps me not complain about the big stuff that actually, ya know…matters. (Now…we can debate all we want about the social implications of social intimacy and secrets and personal space and personal problems and honesty and openness and all that jazz, but that’s not really the point of this post. We could also debate about how trying to be positive isn’t good enough and I’m so imperfect and all that jazz but we could list both of our imperfections all day and in the end, it wouldn’t matter, so lets not and say we did.)

I don’t like talking to people about my real problems, so know this list is in no way exhaustive…but let me at least describe to you exactly how I’m feeling right now (and you should know, I’m not exaggerating):

-       My left pinky toe feels like it’s dislocated.
-       My next toe feels like its been sliced down the middle.
-       My middle left toe feels like someone is pulling on it, trying to dislocate it.
-       My next toe feels like it’s broken at the knuckle.
-       My left big toe joint feels stiff as a board.
-       My left ankle feels like someone smashed it in with a sledgehammer.
-       My left knee feels like someone is shooting a nail gun at it.
-       Repeatedly.
-       My left hip feels like a heavy weight boxer has been using it for a punching bag.
-       My left shoulder feels like it’s being stabbed with a hot poker.
-       Repeatedly.
-       While all the muscles surrounding it are being shredded like pulled pork.
-       My left elbow feels like someone is trying to chisel it away.
-       My left wrist feels like it’s been snapped in two.
-       My left pinky finger feels like I jammed it in a doorway.
-       My left ring finger feels like it got caught in an alligator’s jaw.
-       My left middle finger feels like it’s going to just completely fall off my hand any second.
-       My left index finger feels like its been driven through a pencil sharpener.
-       My left thumb feels like a steamroller steamed over it.
-       My lower back feels so tight, I wonder if my vertebrae are fused together*.
-       My upper back feels so tight, I wonder if cracking it would make me pass out.
-       And to top it all off, I've got an ingrown toenail in my left big toe.

And I have felt like that for every hour of every day for the past eight years (well…minus the ingrown toenail part. That part’s only been for the past few months).

I do not know what it is like to not be in pain. I try to imagine it. It’s like a person that’s been blind their whole life trying to imagine a Picasso painting. I’m not being melodramatic; I’m being honest.

Not a single doctor has ever been able to tell me what is wrong with me, either…until yesterday.

Yesterday I finally got an answer. I’ve been diagnosed with ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS (http://www.spondylitis.org/about/as.aspx). It’s a form of arthritis that is especially rare in women that, if left untreated, could result in my bones growing and fusing together* (the website explains it much better than I can).

Not MS.

Not lupus.

Not any OTHER autoimmune disease—or combination of diseases--I might have had.

I just have arthritis. And it’s treatable!!!

IT’S TREATABLE!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot explain to you how much of a relief this has been. I feel like this single, brilliantly bright blessing form Heavenly Father is finally outshining all the trials I’ve been going through over the past seven months. I am just so, so, so grateful. This diagnosis has been an answer to so many questions I’ve been searching for answers to for so long.

Soon…I’m hoping my list will look like this:

How do I feel right now?

            - I feel NORMAL!

and I'll know what that means!!!

So…thank you everyone for being happy for me yesterday. Thanks for reading this and understanding how life-changing such a simple diagnosis is for me. I’m not trying to shove a pity-Heather-party on everyone…I just want to help you understand why this is so huge for me and why I’m so happy about it.

So…here’s hoping this little honesty session doesn’t make anyone think any less of me. Feel free to ask me any questions…don’t know how well I can answer them, but I’ll do my best!

<3, Heather

*So far, nothing is fused together, just very inflamed.

Hiatus

Well...I'm going on an 18 month hiatus. See ya'll in August 2012.


psst...for any of you that might know what a Mormon girl is doing when she says she's going to be gone for 18 months.....I'll be in Everett, Washington. xD

Movie Recommendation: Alice

I tend to forget about the sub-genre of story-retellings, but whenever I find one I almost always fall into immediate, fanatical, passionate love with it.

Such is the case with my latest find: Alice.

I found this little gem by clicking random videos on YouTube. I found a fan-vid for the main couple that was so impressively spliced together and the movie itself looked so pretty and enticing (and heck, Andrew Lee Potts quite tickles my fancy!) I felt like I would be doing myself a great injustice for not tracking it down and watching it. I do not hesitate to tell you that I was correct.

Third Time’s a Charm

…Or so they say. I’ve never really believed “them” but here I am, eating my own words.

And they’re not the tasty kind like in The Phantom Tollbooth.

The thing is, I’m a quiet, observant type. I like watching, and I like listening. By being so observant, I typically form very strong opinions on the things people do and such, and I’m not afraid to share those opinions so much as at the time, in verbal conversation, I’m either 1) too lazy, 2) too bored, or 3) too annoyed. 

"Dear, do not speak unless you can improve the silence!" - Personal Motto #32

Because of or as a cause of my observation-based social tactics (antics?), I also tend towards watching other people do something before I attempt to do it on my own. That way, I don’t fail. Again, it’s not that I’m afraid of failure—no matter how much I observe, I can never guarantee success and if I never act that in itself is failure—I just would rather make informed decisions rather than ignorant ones.

But, here I am, starting my third blog within a two month time period. I think the reason I failed at my first two attempts was that the two were pretty specifically niched, and so when topics came up that didn’t “fit” I felt nervous to write, and so I didn’t. Furthermore, I was having a hard time reaching out to similar blogs to try and get my name “out there.” (I mean, I’m writing for me, but why post something online if you don’t want it seen?)

So why “variable alterity?” It’s kind of an oxymoron, for one thing, and for another, it sounds quite a bit presumptuous.

I plan to write about a lot of things, because a lot of things interest me. I have a lot of goals that I care a lot about, a lot of topics that are very near and dear to me, and a lot of time on my hands (at least, for a little while…). Some of these things seem to contradict each other…

My ultimate goal in life is to be a marvelous wife and a wonderful mother. Also, I would love to continue my education, get a Ph.D. in Horribleness in sociology and teach at a university. Then again, I would also love to be a steampunk and/or fantasy and/or [insert other genre] YA author. As a sociologist, I’m fairly postfeminist and one of my main criticisms of feminism is that it features a high sense of entitlement for women to literally have access to anything and everything they want whenever they happen to want it. I firmly believe you can’t have everything in life (or at least not all at once) but I feel torn between seeking a family and seeking a degree because the decisions I make now (“should I go out on a date tonight, or should I stay in and study for Contemporary Social Theory?”) might literally affect my decisions on these matters later. Further, feeling torn like this makes me feel like I’m betraying my postfeminist ideology in that the very fact that I’m confused as to the order I want to do these in implies that I could want to do them all at once—I don’t want to do them all at once, but plenty of people will tell me I can and I’m sick (on so many levels) of arguing with people that do! And if I’m sick of arguing with people that do, why should I want to continue in sociology!? And even then…I’m not actually postfeminist…I’m a Levinasian theorist that happens to agree with some postfeminist criticisms of feminism. LET ME BE LEVINASIAN!!!

…I could go on, but I think you can get a sense of the feelings of hysteria I’ve been dealing with over the past few months.

So those are the variables: ideology, career, family, likes, dislikes…

So there’s the alterity: I’m a Levinasian theorist that believes that it’s okay that I have all these divergent interests and that it’s okay to be Otherwise and change and live.

It’s what makes me interesting; it’s what makes me human. That’s what I want this blog to be about: me. My goals, my dreams, my decisions, my fears, my failures and my successes. As my Other, I hope I can help you learn something about yourself I write. As your Other, I hope you’ll teach me something about myself.

Let’s go on this journey together.

--Heather

P.S. How many pop-culture references did I make in this post, sheesh! You might think I was a total media geek or something…

P.P.S. Don’t worry…If you're lost on terms like “Levinasian” and “postfeminism” and “alterity” I'm sure I'll have a post defining them soon enough... ;)

The "I Want That" Conundrum

Once upon a time, I asked someone why they thought puns seem to have such a bad reputation. Their answer was that upon hearing a pun people will typically think “That was funny,” “I could have come up with that,” and “You’re not so original” simultaneously, and since we can’t stand for people to be better than us (in the case of plays on words, cleverer than us) we tend to focus on the latter two.

I found this answer both satisfying and insightful, and was appeased to let the matter drop. However, becoming aware of this thought process in explicit terms, I began to look for it, and I was surprised to see how many times I think to myself “You’re not so original” or “I could have come up with that.” I would think about when I was watching TV shows. I would think that while reading blogs. I would think that while reading books.

Then I started noticing a different thought that lay beneath these. It was very simple, and would probably seem harmless to the general passerby.

The thought was: “I want to do that.”

People are Rude

Why are people rude? I would like to suggest that there are three primary reasons for why people are rude. They are:  

1)    People are jerks.

2)    People can only act based on the information they have access to.

3)    People are naturally inclined to believe they are correct.

There are very few legitimate reasons why someone should be a jerk. People that are rude for this first reason are the genuinely unsavory type of people that the general populace of society does well to ignore and disparage. These are the people that fall along the Rudeness Spectrum between murdering innocent people and trolling YouTube videos. I don’t think you need me to explain why people like these don’t add anything positive to society, but I also like to think people like these are actually fewer in number than we might naturally suspect.

Now, there’s the people that are rude for the second reason. These are the type of people you look at, and you don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, but if you asked them they probably wouldn’t think they were being rude. Take, for example, the chick that cuts you off in traffic—no, not even in traffic, just on the long, lonely highway with no one around and no reason for her to merge and cut you off. Yeah, cutting someone off is rude, but I like to think that people don’t drive like that on purpose. They just lack information. Maybe they are willfully ignorant (maybe they just merge without checking their mirrors, for example) but the truth of the matter is that they are acting on whatever information they have access to.

Sometimes, Group #2 might be rude because of something we don’t tell them. For example, I was once talking with a friend of my same faith about why people leave the Church. Basically, I said that the only reason why people leave the Church is because they don't have a strong enough testimony and he said something that our religious leaders cite more often, that being that people leave the church because they’ve been offended. Now, these comments always bother me because I’ve experienced many offenses at church that I feel to be far beyond the typical “offended inactive member” and I’ve never even considered leaving the Church. I’ve never left the Church because I have a personal, strong, unwavering testimony that the Church is true.  

But, was he being rude? Maybe, but not necessarily intentionally. He doesn’t know what I’ve gone through, and so he wouldn’t know that I might know a thing or two about overcoming offenses. (That's not even taking into consideration what he's experienced that I haven't; perhaps to him, I was being rude.)

The third group of people is similar to the second, as being correct requires something to be correct about and a means to be correct about it (i.e. information). In reality, everyone thinks they are correct, but there are a few “sub-types” that are typical of the “correct rude person.”

Type A: The Know-It-All. This is the person that will always correct some poor grammar; this is the person that knows every little tidbit of trivia about every little scene from a movie and must tell you every single time you watch the movie with them; this is the person that will deny any inaccurate statement to their grave. I have yet to figure out if Know-It-Alls actually take themselves seriously, or if they know they don’t really know everything about everything and just have insecurity issues that they think no one will like them if they are wrong about something. Typically, I find that people don’t like The Know-It-All, so for their sakes, I kind of hope it’s the first.

Type B: The Academic. This is the person that will assert comments as though they are fact for the sake of brevity rather than accuracy. They will do their best to support their claims with data and analysis and everything like that, and the good Academic will acknowledge that there are exceptions to every generalization they make (either overtly or implied through subtext). Typically, I find The Academic is successful in (you guessed it) the academic world where they can share their assertions in forums where their assertions are understood to follow certain academic formulas (if in writing) or in forums where further discussion easily follows (a classroom, lecture, etc.). However, the same lingual tactics they might utilize in their theses might be ill fit for everyday conversation. You might imagine (in my opinion, rightfully so) that it is often difficult for The Academic to make the transition because, as I pointed out, it’s just typically much more efficient to communicate that way, in their minds.

Type C: The Banshee. The Banshee is a close cousin of the common Internet Troll and acts like The Know-It-All on steroids. They aren’t just out to prove to the world that they are correct—they want the world to know that everyone that disagrees is w-r-o-n-g-WRONG! Take my “Feminism 101” grad student instructor last semester: I disagreed with her on several points and she therefore decided that because I didn’t come to her same conclusions that I never did my reading and that I refused to think critically about the class materials. I read every stinking word she assigned and it’s because I didn’t accept the assigned texts at face value (i.e. I thought about them critically) that I disagreed with her in the first place. She proceeded to grade me down on virtually every assignment once she figured out I really wasn’t just going to mindlessly puppet her (in a junior level theory class? I'm paying tuition to get a real education so, uh...NO, I don't THINK so!). She’s the perfect example of The Banshee: she wasn’t going to be happy until I worshiped the ground she walked on and thanked her for showing me the proverbial feminist light, since, obviously, there are black-and-white, right-and-wrong answers when it comes to social theories. Obviously. (/too soon? heh...)

Type D: The Talker. This one might be a bit of a stretch, but I think there’s some important distinctions between them and The Know-It-All. First, this person only passively believes they are correct. That is, they won’t be offended if you disagree with them or even if you correct them if they are factually wrong on some subject. They do like to share their opinions, though. They like being the center of attention. Sometimes The Talker is friendly and lovable, and I believe there are times when every group of friends needs at least one Talker to keep things interesting. However, occasionally The Talker will just talk. And talk. And talk until it seems like they’re talking just to hear the sound of their own voice. I have a hard time believing that The Talker thinks what they're saying has no value, so I must reason that they think their opinions are correct enough to warrant being voiced in the first place. Maybe I’m wrong.

I think it’s easy to see how The Banshee and The Know-It-All can be rude. It’s probably just as easy for The Academic to be rude, but I think they are more likely to be rude in how they say things rather than what they say. The Talker, I think, is more likely to be rude on the basis of speaking only in terms of their own experience (like Group Two) than the other three are, but I think it’s certainly possible for The Talker to be rude in other ways too. Maybe their drive to dominate the conversation is taken to mean they don’t value others’ opinions as much as they value their own, for example.

So now comes the real question…When you’re being rude, why do you do it?

I think I’m mostly part of Group #2, with a side serving of The Academic from Group #3. I think my life experience is a valid source of information. I acknowledge that others may not have had my same life experience, and so I acknowledge the value in studying and coming to understand others’ perspectives, but that does not mean that I have to take up their perspective in its entirety to assess my life, nor does it mean that they can ignore mine. Further, I think I make the best judgments I can with the information I have. I am not opposed to obtaining further information, but I will use the information I have to support the claims that I make. Lastly, I accept the fact that as a theorist, my job would not exist if opposing views did not exist. Really, I should be grateful to the crazy feminist that tried to convince me of the “errors” of my ways: she’s my job security.

--Heather

The Little Details

Two of my top three favorite movies are Disney’s Tangled and 27 Dresses. (You are welcome to take guesses at the third, just be warned that it’s not anywhere near that ballpark.) I love lots of aspects of these movies; take the line from 27 Dresses: “I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich.” LOVE IT!

But my favorite favorite things in these movies are the little details, like how Rapunzel’s chameleon is named Pascal, and one of the three books she reads is a geometry book or how right as the dream-boat, Kevin, and our Leading Lady, Jane, part ways at the taxi the Wall Street Journal truck drives between them, and it’s the same thing that drives them apart later on…