Overcoming the Status Quo

 

 

Double standards have always been a bone of contention for me. I’ve argued against boys being allowed to do things for no better reason than that they’re boys; likewise, I’ve walked away from any group that takes a “girls are better” stance. I’m not looking for # 1. I’m looking for equality.

No, I’m not saying guys should be participating in the Miss America pageant, or that women should be playing in the NFL, but if men want their own pageant, go for it. There is no gender limit on beauty. And if women want to play football, let’s organize teams. Some things, of necessity, need to be “separate but equal” rather than inclusive for the sake of safety.

Someone once called me a misogynist because I expressed a distaste for something that was uber-feminine, and I didn't care to participate. I am not. I have no issues with women and girls. I simply don’t wish to participate in some of the things I consider prissy.

When someone starts a sentence with, “Men are such…” and proceeds to a derogatory word, I have been known to snap, “Sorry, I can’t accept that from anyone who propagates the myth of PMS.”

That shocks some people. I’m not negating some people’s true pain. However, I have worked in all-women departments, and every time someone was in the mood for a candy bar or a pretzel (or both), the comment came back, “Oh, you must be PMSing.” How about, no, I was just hungry, and a candy bar appealed to me at the moment?

In that same department, the women seemed to enjoy announcing their periods to the room, as if they expected a prize. I once asked someone who did that, “Tell me, do you come out of the bathroom and announce which bodily function you just performed, too? That’s the same thing!” Personally, I don’t want to know. I don’t care to think about those things. At least when we had a guy in the department, that nonsense stopped. I was sad to see him go.

By the same token, I hate hearing guys refer to women and girls as “bitches,” or worse, the C word. It makes me wonder what barn they were brought up in that they were never taught that is unacceptable. Yes, occasionally an individual can act like a bitch, but the generalization is what I find repulsive.

I once went to see a comedian I wasn’t much interested in at a club. My friends thought he was fabulous. Once he opened his mouth, I thought otherwise. He couldn’t say more than two words without dropping an F-bomb. I’m no prude; I’ve been known to use the word quite liberally at times. But really, someone buy this guy a thesaurus. To add insult to injury, his jokes were entirely about women. If you were just learning English, you’d never know that. He never once used the word woman or girl. They were all bitches and c*&^s.

I can’t imagine that this guy ever had more than one date with anyone. I was so tempted to shout out, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” but I didn’t. With his attitude, I couldn't imagine he had a wife to kiss.

The problem was, he wasn’t funny. Even if you substituted the word woman where he used other words, his “jokes” fell flat. I think shock value – which faded after the first five seconds – was all he had. My husband was with me at the time, and even he was offended by this guy.

I’m not miss prim and proper. The occasional vulgarity doesn’t bother me, as long as we’re not standing in a classroom full of children.

I find that people like that comedian tend to be the same ones who want to limit me because I have a second X chromosome.

It was enough that I had to struggle through my childhood trying to be allowed to do things without having outsiders trying to limit me as an adult.

My parents were definitely the chauvinists typical of their generation. That’s just who they were. While I was allowed to do some things with my brothers, I was prohibited from doing other things, even if other girls were allowed to do them.

When my brothers were between 5 and 7, there was a free gymnastics class for that age range, an attempt to get local children interested in gymnastics, I would assume. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to do that. It looked like so much fun. And of the three of us, I was the uncoordinated one. If anyone needed something like gymnastics, I was it.

When I turned 5 they had raised the age to 7. By the time I turned 7, they had discontinued the program. My parents made no attempt to find something similar for me, even though my brothers had organizations they belonged to, like Scouts.( And they’d participated in the now defunct gymnastics program.)

I was told there was no gymnastics around for kids my age. So, I turned to the next best thing: dance. My best friend was taking ballet, and she was younger than I was. I didn’t actually want ballet. I wanted to learn tap. No.

The first excuse I was given was that my mother didn’t drive, so I had no way of getting there (Let’s just ignore the fact that my best friend’s mother did drive and lived across the street). The dance studio was less than a mile away. It involved crossing the main street in our town, which I was allowed to do to go to the post office, and taking two back streets to come out on the road alongside the tiny shopping center it was in. I could have walked or even ridden my bike. No.

My brothers would have been allowed to do that much, which I pointed out. I was even allowed to ride my bike to my piano teacher's house in summer for lessons with my brother, and she lived farther away. Out came excuse number two: we can’t afford it. That was the excuse for anything my mother didn’t want me to do.

Scouts was the next thing. I knew lots of people who were in scouts. Both of my brothers were in scouts. I couldn’t imagine a reason my mother wouldn’t say yes.

She found one. No, I couldn’t join scouts. What do you want to do that for? (Oh, I don’t know, socialization? Learning to do interesting crafts? Camping?)

She wouldn’t allow me to join scouts because the only troop I could join that didn’t involve her driving was, according to her,  run by a group of women who sat around gossiping while the girls ran wild.  She didn’t want to get involved with that sort. To this day, I can’t imagine that’s the truth of it. What girls would stay? It sounded like some exaggerated tale she heard from a friend because someone they didn’t like was running the troop, and my mother ran with it. The irony was, after my mother learned to drive, and after I was in high school, she actually took over a scout troop when her best friend moved up to the next scouting level to be her daughter’s troop leader.

Then there was Civil Air Patrol. I could join that at 13. My brothers were in that. I was excited at the idea of finally being in something.

When the time came, I was excited to finally be a member of something. Yes, the older kids who were in charge of the various groups I was in had been in my position under my brothers, and used the situation to take their frustrations out on me. Yes, we had actual classes (after being in school all day) on airplanes, and flying, and things that didn’t really interest me, but I was waiting for their version of camping, SAR caps, which was training for going on search and rescue missions. Civil Air Patrol goes out on search and rescue missions, especially things involving plane crashes where planes and people are missing.

At the time, girls weren’t allowed to go out on Red Caps, which were the actual search and rescue missions, but they were allowed to go on the practice ones. This never made sense to me, but you do what you can.

For a year and a half, I attended my once a week meetings, the marching, trying unsuccessfully to learn left from right, the boring classes, just for a chance to go on a SAR cap that never seemed to happen. When one finally happened that wasn’t cancelled, it was the weekend I had to take my placement test for high school. Kids in public school don’t have things like that, but Catholic high school put people in tracks according to their academic level. So, I missed the SAR cap, since I couldn’t reschedule the test.

But that was okay. There would be others. 

There was a trip to Cape Kennedy scheduled. We would get to tour the facility, see the space ships and Mission Control, and everything else involved with space flight.

There were two weekends that they were sending people there, in the summer, so it wouldn’t interfere with school. I was set to go the second weekend.

The first weekend, something went wrong. I think it was either a hurricane or some serious storm, and the first trip was cancelled. Oh, how sad! I was glad I was in the second group, but I did feel bad for the first group.

I could have saved my empathy. When they told us about it, they also told us that they rearranged who could go on the second weekend. Only those who had been on the SAR cap were eligible, and this included people from the cancelled first weekend. They had a list of people schedule to go, and alternates for anyone who didn’t show up in time. Since I hadn’t been at the SAR cap, I was immediately eliminated. I was crushed. I tried explaining to the squadron commander that I had only missed the SAR cap because I had to take a high school placement test. Sorry, rules are rules. I, who never got to go anywhere, once again didn’t get to go.

The meeting after the second trip, the squadron commander came in to where everyone was assembled at the beginning of the evening. He was extremely angry. As it turned out, not everyone who was supposed to go showed up. And none of the alternates had shown up, so there were empty spaces. It turned out that if I’d gone to the airport they were leaving from, bags packed, I could’ve gone to Cape Kennedy. But there was no reason to suspect that would be the case, so I wasn’t there.

I was probably angrier than the squadron commander. He was the one who told me I couldn’t go. I had been eliminated even though I would have shown up no matter what, had I only known.

That was pretty much the last straw for me. I quit. I wasn’t going to put up with all of the slights and meanness of the older cadets for nothing. And when they asked me why I was quitting, I told them. I was kicked off the trip the weekend I signed up for, for no reason. I was tired of being the also-ran. My brothers got to do things. I did not.

At least when I went to high school, I was allowed to join some of the clubs I was interested in.  Because I was in Glee Club, I got to sing at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia at 15, long gown, opera gloves and all.

My mother still wouldn’t let me join the outreach club that worked in the poor neighborhoods near the school, since she didn’t want me “rubbing elbows” with “those people.” (What was it you taught me about not judging people?) I wasn’t allowed to join any peace marches, although she remained silent about the school having a peace moratorium over the Vietnam War, which was basically an assembly that took place by the flag pole in front of the school for about 45 minutes. That was a whole school event on the school grounds.

The one thing I did get to do that she wasn’t pleased about was when the glee club went to a school in, I think it was West Philadelphia, to join with their glee club and get to know each other, and teach each other songs that we performed. Our glee club took a school bus to the other school, in the middle of our school day – we were excused from class – and when we arrived we were welcomed. The school was in a black section of Philadelphia, and we were, while not segregated, a school from a white suburb. I think at the time one student at our school was black, and she wasn’t in the glee club.

It made no difference to any of us. The two glee clubs mixed together. We learned several new songs, and taught them a few that we were performing. Once everyone knew all of the songs, we had a performance, and had the best time. That afternoon was one of the highlights of my high school career, and one my parents almost didn’t let me participate in. Only the fact that our entire glee club was going allowed me to go.

Those of us who were in high school in the early 1970s were a tenacious bunch. We were determined not to let our parents’ prejudices stand in our way. Some of us, at least, didn’t want the efforts of people like Ruby Bridges to be in vain. We were outraged by the events at Kent State. We believed in the possibility of a better world, where color, ethnicity and gender wouldn’t be a barrier to anything. I just hope it wasn’t a dream to be shattered forever.

Itches and Twitches

 

 

I’m not sure if I always was a twitchy person, or if this is something that happened over the years.

When I go to bed or try to relax in a comfortable chair, it takes me a long time to get situated, find just the right position. Even then I tend to move around quite a bit.

One thing I do know, and I’m not sure whether or not this is a form of claustrophobia or something else entirely, is that I can’t stand to have both hands taken out of commission at the same time.

I first discovered this when I was 17 and had been in a car accident.  In those days seatbelts were only just coming into use beyond the high end luxury cars. The car I was in was not one of those, so there were no seat belts (and don’t even think air bags. They simply didn’t exist). Anyway, the car I was in rear-ended another car and I was thrown forward, hitting my head hard enough on the windshield that the glass cracked.

I didn’t lose consciousness, but a concussion was suspected, and they took me out of the car, put me on a stretcher, and loaded me into an ambulance. The EMTs put a blanket over me and then strapped me onto the stretcher for safety. Unfortunately, both arms were trapped under that strap. Immediately, my nose began to itch. Then other parts of my face. It made it hard to stay still because I was trying to free my arms so I could scratch my face.

Even though one of the EMTs tried to scratch whatever was itchy on my face – apparently, this isn’t a reaction that’s novel to me – it was a very uncomfortable ride. While she meant well, another person can never adequately calm an itch.

I don’t recall the situation being more than a bit uncomfortable, and once at the hospital, my arms were freed.

In more recent times, I’ve noticed more severe, almost panic attack level issues.

At night, especially once I’ve gone to bed, I get itchy. Not everywhere all at once but more like an Old MacDonald’s Farm variety of itchiness: here an itch, there and itch, everywhere an itch, itch… I will scratch one place, only to find another crop up as I try to settle into a comfortable sleep position.

Yes, it may partially be due to dry skin, but sometimes, especially if I try this just before bedtime, putting on lotion or cream of some sort makes things worse, especially in summer. I suspect sweat or humidity have more to do with it in summer. So, it takes a while, between itchiness and being fidgety to find sleep.

While that’s not panic attack level, a few other things are. And just to be clear, I am not on the spectrum.

I’ve had two very mild cases of Covid-19. The entire first few years of the pandemic, I was blessed to be free of the infection. In fact, both times I had it were in 2024. Both times it lasted about 24 hours, except for the cough.

During that 24 hour period, everything seemed to bother me. Clothes that felt like they were strangling me or twisting on my body when I lay down, when sitting in a confined space, trying to sleep, walking any distance, and so on. I sometimes felt as if I were going to suffocate.

Since then, the lingering issue with clothes and confined space has been a challenge. No, I don’t mean I can’t wear clothes. But sitting on a bus, either at a window seat (which used to be my favorite) or in the middle, which I’ve never liked much, I have to have the chance to get situated before anyone sits next to me. I’ve found that if I’m wearing a coat, I have to take the coat off or I start to feel like I can’t breathe.

I’ve also noticed that I can no longer wear turtle neck shirts or hoodies – unless they’re zip front. Either of those things feels like I’m being strangled. While it’s easy enough to simply not wear that type of clothing, it’s resulted in my having to give away several things that I used to like to wear. It isn’t the texture or the material, it’s the way it sits on my skin and closes in on my neck.

The other part of Covid-19 that affected me was the cough. I’ve had coughs often in my life, and they never much bothered me. But this one is a heavier one, one that forces you to work very hard to get it out. Sometimes I’ve had to stand up to make the cough effective. Of course, my doctor prescribed me medication that wiped it out in a few days.

Unfortunately, I spent the last year trying to get rid of such a cough when it came back. I didn’t have Covid-19. I tested and the test was clear. I only had a cough, not even a cold.

My original doctor died suddenly in 2024, and I had to find a new doctor. Unfortunately, all there are now are groups: revolving door doctors where you theoretically have a main doctor, but when you make an appointment, you never know who you’re going to get.

After the cough coming and going for several months, it decided to stay. I made an appointment. “My doctor” wasn’t available, so I got someone else. I told her what my previous doctor prescribed. She smiled and ignored me. When I left I had a prescription for something else.

The prescription did nothing for about a week, then began to work until I finished the first container. I renewed it. The renewal, the exact same thing, stopped working. I gave it a couple of weeks, but nothing.

Back to the doctor I went. A different one of the group. I had to start from scratch explaining everything because they apparently don’t read the notes of previous appointments. Since the prescription didn’t work, and she thought it should, she prescribed me something else. It did not work at all.

A third time I tried to make an appointment, but no one was available, so I had to go the tele-med route with my medical group. That doctor, even though yet again I went through the history of the cough, and once again told her what my previous doctor prescribed that worked, wrote me a prescription for something else. When I asked why no one was giving me what I knew worked, she told me that they don’t prescribe that for “someone your age.” Last year I was only a year younger. It didn’t cause a problem then. Why would it cause a problem now? Still, she insisted on something else. It didn’t work.

By the time I had waited a few days for it to not work, we were up against the weekend, when doctors no longer have office hours. Having not slept in two days because of the cough, and the walk-in clinics having no hours left, I went to the ER. There, I was given an x-ray, which they said was normal, and two pills containing some cough suppressant and codeine. I suppose it got rid of the cough for the night. I know it knocked me out by the time I got home. I was supposed to get a full prescription of it the next day at the pharmacy.

Before filling the prescription, I called my primary doctor, and she was actually there, and made an appointment for me for that day. She didn’t want me taking codeine, so she prescribed something else. She also wanted me to see a pulmonologist and a gastroenterologist.

Well, her prescription was as useless as the others. But now I had other doctors unnecessarily involved, and I was also told I needed to see an ENT. The ENT gave me four prescriptions and scheduled me for a CT scan!

Somewhere along the line, with pretty much none of the prescriptions doing anything but taking up counter space, someone finally prescribed what I had said on the first visit worked. Lo and behold, within a week, the cough cleared up.

But I had a bunch of unnecessary (and expensive) tests done, all because no one would listen to me. I was given about a dozen useless prescriptions because someone decided that what would work shouldn’t be given to “someone my age.” I could understand that if I’d never taken the drug before, but considering I’d had it a year earlier, that platitude was meaningless.

I understand that the doctors wanted to find out what was causing the cough, but none of the tests showed that. And the cough itself just generated more panic-attack like behavior. I reached a point where, despite constant exhaustion, I practically feared going to bed because it usually meant a resurgence of the cough. I developed rituals to help me relax and sleep. And when I get in one of those uncomfortable situations, like being in the middle seat with my coat on or some similar clothing issue, my reaction is to start coughing. That’s not the cough I was being treated for, it’s simply a reaction, a fight or flight type of thing. That cough goes away as soon as I can move out of that situation.

I really thought I was over that until the other day.

I had signed up to donate platelets, something I’d never done before.  I thought it would be much like donating blood except that they return everything else once they get the platelets. I was wrong.

I was led to a “bed” if you will, that is somewhat U-shaped, with a horizontal section for your legs. It was tilted back, so the patient is semi-reclined, not a position I’m comfortable in to begin with. It was slightly worse than being in the middle seat on a plane.

I discovered that I would not have just one arm hooked up to needles and tubes, but both arms. For two hours.

I knew I only had one arm with reliable veins. The ones in the other arm tend to roll. I told them that. They were sure they could make everything work. While they were working on the first arm, I was my usual twitchy self. I had to ask one of the phlebotomists to fix the leg of my jeans because it had inched up and the hem was digging into my leg. She was happy to do so.  For a while I had a hand free to scratch various itches, but I was desperately uncomfortable the way I was positioned. They got pillows and wedges to get me in a generally comfortable position, although I wasn’t sure it would remain that way for a full two hours, even with a movie to watch.

I’m not generally all that picky about things, and I don’t often complain in situations like this. The people there were quite kind, very professional and very willing to do whatever I needed to feel comfortable.

But when it came time to stick the second arm, things quickly fell apart. They found a fantastic vein. They stuck. For about a minute, things looked good. Then there was a lot of blood and they had to remove the needle. The vein had rolled. There was a nearby vein that was just as good, but because the first vein had bled into the space between the two, they couldn’t use it. So they went lower down my arm, and finally settled on one in my hand.

This time everything seemed fine. Then it wasn’t. While the other arm was all hooked up and ready to go, the phlebotomist suddenly asked if my hand felt all right. It did. Then it didn’t, and there was a lot of pain and the area around the needle started to swell up as the vein decided to roll and they once again had to remove the needle.

At this point they realized the procedure wasn’t going to happen. They kept apologizing because my veins kept rolling, which wasn’t their fault.

In a way I was relieved. I wasn’t sure I could manage two hours of not being able to scratch any itchiness or move, really. I’m just too twitchy an individual.

Will I go back? To donate blood, sure. To do the platelets? No. Much as I like to help people, I have limits. I simply don’t think I’m the right person for that kind of donation.

It was a learning experience, but not one I’m ready to repeat.

 

 

British Courtesy

 

 

I hope this won’t come across as a rant. It isn’t meant to be. It’s just some wonderings and musings about things I’ve read as well as things I’ve observed.

Recently I’ve seen a number of people online who say they’re from the UK complaining about Americans. It took me aback because I always thought we liked each other. And these are not political statements, simply the expressions of people who have observed Americans either on TV or in person. Also, my experience in traveling has shown me that people in the UK are very nice to me, an American.

Granted, the current political climate has made the US anathema to many of our former allies. I’m ashamed of that and horribly embarrassed by what has caused that, even though I had nothing whatever to do with it. I’m not terribly keen on America myself these days. But enough of politics.

Admittedly, I’m an Anglophile. It’s not the, “Ooh, I love your accent.” It’s “I love your country. I love that it’s not all asphalt. I love that, in some places, there are cows or sheep on the roads. We don’t have that where I’m from, and we didn’t even when I was growing up among geese, chickens and nearby orchards. I love that it’s not mini-America. (For one, your television shows are better.)

Yes, people employed at B&Bs and hotels are supposed to be polite. That’s not always the case. I’ve seen people being less than polite to others at restaurants and hotels – and I’m talking about the employees, not just some guy on the street.

But there are people who don’t have to be that have been kind. For example I’ve had several people offer me their seat on the underground when it was crowded, especially if I had a suitcase.

Yes, I know that there are signs on the underground telling the riders to give up their seats to pregnant women, the elderly and those with disabilities. Okay, I’m old enough to be considered “elderly,” I suppose. I am retired. But I don’t think I look so old that I need a seat.

While it’s kindly meant, it’s embarrassing, especially if I’m only traveling one stop. Otherwise, yes, because it’s expected, I’ll take the seat.

I’ve been in underground stations that had neither escalators nor elevators (few and far between, but I assume they’re very old stations that can’t be retro-fitted). No matter how lightly I pack, I’m usually there for at least two weeks, and my suitcase, although a carry-on, is heavy. 

Anyway, looking up the long stairway with suitcase beside me, I take a deep breath and brace myself to get up the stairs. Invariably, someone comes along before I’ve put foot on the first step, and takes my suitcase to the top and waits for me to catch up. These people have my undying gratitude because there have been other situations in which I had to struggle up a few flights of stairs with said suitcase.

People in the UK are helpful when I ask for directions or other help. But I approach quietly and ask politely. I don’t act like an entitled person.  I don’t push my Americanness as if it were a rite of passage card. I say please and thank you, excuse me, and could you help me. I thank people even if they’re unable to direct me to where I need to go. And of course, my first line of seeking information is a policeman or an information center – or the front desk of the hotel I’m staying in. I suppose I’m desperately afraid of making a mistake and being considered rude.

Yes, I know there are loud, obnoxious people from the US, with lots of money and not much in the way of manners. I shudder when I’m in the queue behind them because I don’t want to be tarred with their brush. Sometimes I find myself apologizing for my fellow countryman’s behavior because I want those who come into contact with Americans to know that we’re not all like that. Some of us were not raised in a barn.

It’s true we Americans have some confounding ideas. We’re used to free refills of salads and soft drinks in many places, we expect ice in our drinks even in the winter, and sometimes we fail to recognize a serving size because ours are so huge. But I tend to do as the natives do. I’ve surprised more than a few waitresses when they asked if I wanted ice in a drink, and I said, “No, thank you.” I’ve learned what a biscuit is and that tea is actually a meal. But I’m sorry, I will never be able to eat baked beans at any meal. I’ll take the toast, thanks, but give the beans to someone else, please.

I’ve never had an issue with the people in any part of the UK when I’m traveling, and I don’t understand the people online who are from there and have such negative things to say about Americans.  Yes, they may have run into some of the rude ones – there are rude people in just about every country, but I let it go because the nice ones outweigh the rude ones – and maybe they’re playing up their own vitriol, but every time I see something like that online, I wonder if the next visit is going to be the one where I get treated like a blight on the world for where I come from. I certainly hope not. But I will continue to employ good manners wherever I go.

I was raised with the notion that when you travel, whether it’s to a relative’s house a half hour away or to another country, you are a guest. You don’t own the place. You are in no way entitled to anything. If it isn’t yours, you don’t touch it without invitation. You are, as a guest, there by the kindness of your host.

I may sound old-fashioned, but, well, I am old enough to be one of those people you give up a seat on the tube for. I’ve never found courtesy hurt anyone. A please, a thank-you, even – or especially – if the other person is being rude, often goes a long way toward good-will. But if all else fails, it’s fine to just walk away. No expletives or derogatory remarks needed.

I look forward to the next time I get to visit the UK. There are so many places I haven’t seen yet, and I love discovering new places. I have several trips worth of places. It’s also nice to know that there are two people there who enjoy spending time with me. There may be more.  I never assume.

I have distant relatives in the UK and Ireland whom I’ve met, and they’ve all been amazing, even though one, who I will assume was teasing, said, once we’d met, “Well,  you can check off that you’ve met me now,” as if I were only meeting people to say I had. I want them all to know I’m extremely jealous that they get to live where I wish I could, that they live in the culture while I only get to look in the window.

The next time I go in summer, I want to see the Orkneys and the Shetlands, and if time permits, possibly the Outer Hebrides.

I also still haven’t seen the Channel Islands or the Isles of Scilly. And I’d like to spend some time in Yorkshire. I’ve been to York but not the outlying area. I suppose I’ll need a car. (Yes, I’ve driven in the UK before, so I can deal with driving on the left, and I spent most of my adult life driving a standard shift car, so that’s not a problem) I particularly want to go to a town called Langhorne, since the next town over from the one I grew up in was called Langhorne, and was the “big town” in the area at the time.

The ideal thing for me would be to spend a few months traveling around the UK, but I’m not sure my husband could deal with my not cooking dinner that long, and my dog would miss me. But who knows? Maybe the dog and Jeff would finally bond!