When left to it’s own devices, my skin falls somewhere between unfortunate and never-leave-the-house-again. After dutifully going to the dermatologist every three months since I was sixteen, my doctor and I had an explosive breakup when I told her to go fuck herself and then cried as she stormed out of the room. After that I took the Trust No Bitch approach to medical decision-making, and started making exhaustive lists of every medication and product I’d ever taken, taking note of classification and mechanism of action and common side effects. I don’t advocate the belief in the internet as a form of medical training, but if you get the sense your concerns are being ignored, or that just maybe that bitch is even dumber than you are, find a reputable source of information with nothing to sell (like the Mayo Clinic) and advocate for yourself.
margotsmokes
A Galentine’s Day Salute to Girl Heroes
Jo March from Little Women
To be honest, I always wanted to be Beth. Poor, lovely, helpless, blonde Beth who died before any of her less attractive qualities could be revealed. That was womanhood to me, being pretty and offending no one. But in the back of my mind Jo always stood out, because she was a writer which was what I wanted to be. As time has passed it’s become clear that if Beth is the ideal of femininity I sometimes struggle against, Jo is Leslie Knope riding on the back of a lioness holding a collection of arguments by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For all Beth’s saccharine pronouncements of love and beauty in the world, and her sacred place as the moral center of the March household, it was Jo selling her hair that moved me the most, even as a child. Jo was the only one who got shit done. While the rest of her family were running around with chickens with their heads cut off, bemoaning the financial future of the March household, Jo actually did something. She didn’t ask permission, she didn’t look for praise or sympathy, she just saw what needed to be done and did it. With that kind of drive, is it any wonder why she lacked patience for Laurie, who was a bit of a pansy anyway? Jo demonstrated a sense of self-determination I truly admired, but took years to appreciate, and taught me being viewed a stubborn, manly, bitch was more than worthwhile trade off for actual accomplishments.
The Tragically Hip – 38 Years Old
“Let’s go, Michael son, we’re taking you home.” has got to be the most depressing lyric in all of musical history. But goddamn this song is beautiful.
Bloodletting at the Office Park Labyrinth / The Vitamin D Deficient Maze Runner
Had to get a blood test, and my Maury-loving doctor’s office sent me an order to go back to their office, not a lab, which I’ve never seen before. So I’m instructed to go to “the back” and a receptionist sort of, lethargically gestures in a direction, so I start walking. It gets darker and darker. Windows and the connection to the outside world disappears, and is replaced by a twisting corridor with towering angular shelves of files on either side, ready to tip like a German expressionist film. I do not understand how it was possible to fit this floor plan within the confines of this building, that was endlessly unfolding like House of Leaves. I finally reach one lone metal chair facing a scale and sit down. I’m sitting there silently, in near darkness for a few minutes, when a doctor appears out of nowhere and asks if I’m there for bloodwork. “Yes.” “Oh, then you need to go to the back.”
My Middle School Blog: 12/17/2002
Tuesday, December 17, 2002, 09:12 PM EST but we all bleed the same way as you do… and we all have the same things to go through…. HOLD ON if you feel like letting go…. HOLD ON it gets better than you know. <— lyrics fromm good charlotte’s hold on. thats such an awesome song. everyone … Read more