Sick

I watched this documentary about Bob Flanagan about ten years ago, but The Partner had never seen it, so this afternoon we headed out and got our hands on a copy from Le Video. The whole experience of the film, for me, has been totally recontexualized. What's different now than then? I now believe it should be requisite viewing for all nursing students. Not into S&M? Can't really deal with someone driving a nail through his penis? Tough. Sit through this movie if you want to know what it is like to have a chronic illness and if you want to know what it's like to die. As a nurse or future nurse, it's important. Allied with some of Flanagan's pain journals, it can really provide a window. We just have to be willing to peer through it.

As for my mom, who I think reads this blog from time to time, you definitely don't need to see it.

Indachshunation

On the lookout for a new dog. We have suffered through months of trying to find just the right kind, size, demeanor, temperament -- one that The Kid will quickly warm up to. Guess what it's gonna be? "Another Dachshund huh? Well, you guys have kind of embraced being wiener dog owners, and I'm sure you still have a cookie cutter that is a wiener."

So, if you hear of any dachshunds for sale. Let me know.

That's Sammy, above with The Kid, circa 2003, Western Addition, SF.
~Comment provided by my comedic and lovable little sister.

You're a MEPN? Be a DIVA!

Still suffering from the group-think exercise known as indoctrination to the medical model of cultural competence, I was interested to see a former colleague from my doctoral days featured in this article*. It's about UCSF's DIVA program. Who knew this program even existed? Certainly not I, and I've been with this institution since I was barely out of my teens. Well, not only does it exist, but it's headed by the socio-cultural issues in health care instructor, as well as the much respected Howard Pinderhughes. I have some reservations about the article, even though I understand what its trying to do. My sense is that the way to the heart of this problem is not through the individual and his/her experience, as the informal "research" that the program is based upon suggests. It is, in fact, where the whole issue tends to fall apart. But, we can't do much about that, so, for the time being, MEPNs should pay attention to the article and hopefully, one of you will get involved with the DIVAs. They need some students to contribute his/her real-world experience (outside of nursing and outside of anthropology/sociology) and to give allied feedback about our clinical and classroom experience. It's worth it. Even if you have to belong to a group with the world's stupidest name.

*The publication is not yet available online; I will provide a link when it becomes avialable. If you're affiliated with the university, you should have recevied Science of Caring Volume 20, 2 in the mail last week. Check out the article entitled Seeking Diversity Deeper Than Numbers, pp 11.

My Honey Bear

The Kid told me recently that he thinks he's going to be reincarnated as a kinkajou. Not to worry, says he, "you'll be the mama kinkajou. That's how reincarnation works."

Beware

That's right... another Bonnie Prince Billy album is due to be released March 2009. Guests include Leroy Bach, Jim Becker, Jon Langford, Greg Leisez, Rob Mazurek, Nicole Mitchell and Azita Youssefi.

That news pretty much made my day.

Is it the Sea is a live album that was released in September, way more worthwhile than the "more accessible, less academic", Lie Down in the Light. I haven't officially reviewed it, basically because I was wildly disappointed.

Oh well, here's to a new album/ new year.

Translation of My Life

I remember the past.
Before there were poems.
I was eight. The world
simple as a primer.
I lived in a small town
far from the ocean.
Home, then school,
then home again,
back and forth
on my blue bicycle...
There are photographs,
yellow and crumbling,
to prove what I say.

...Understand, I was only a girl
living the days as they came.
I did not know then I would leave.
Though I had a secret
I did not tell and will not ever,
I did not know I would leave.

By Elizabeth Spires
abridged

Iraq in Fragments

If you see one independent film this year, this should be it.
The three part documentary by Seattle's James Longley is clearly made by a filmmaker with a story to tell. Forgoing the role of the "neutral" participant observer, always a moral dilemma, Longley makes no bones about his intention to convey a very clear point-of-view. Whatever your perspective on that approach, it makes for a pretty powerful movie.

From Salon.com's Andrew O'Hehir: "Alone among the works I've seen and read about Iraq in the last three years, Iraq in Fragments captures the tremendous complexity and variability of the country, offering neither facile hope nor fashionable despair. It offers no prescriptions, and the ideology you bring to the film may well determine what you see in it. If it has a lesson for Americans, it might be: We bloodied our hands in this place. Before we try to wash them off and walk away, we owe these people the respect of seeing them as they are."

Naked Clown Calendar

Speaking of clowns... this, I hate to say, was a terribly bad idea, even if it is for a really good cause.
Buy the calendar if you're really into that kind of thing... or for someone you dislike... or if you just want to instill some deep coulrophobia in an ex-friend or lover. Actually, please support the Judy Finelli Fund. Just burn the calendar after - or use it for a gag gift or something.

*What ever happened to the clowns of yore?

Stop Clowning Around!

Did you see this article in the New York Times about the clowns teaching nursing students about bedside manner? Really. The idea and article both would have been worthwhile had the journalist not decided to refer to all nurses as "women" and had it not insisted that nurses need to figure out that their job is about more than "bedpans and blood samples". Thanks. Nothing like a few stereotypes to ruin a good idea. Another opportunity for nursing and circus to come together, wasted.

*On a more uplifting note, I hear from Nurse Z. that Nurse K. is a natural on the flying trapeze, so maybe there are more chances for the nursing-circus union yet to come!

Bubo Virginianus

Yesterday, Tennessee Valley, dusk: great horned owl. Awesome.