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WELCOME! these postings are things that i either think about or experience during the course of my day. i have a passion for women's issues, holistic health practices and dietetics, writing and writers, anything medical, and a whole lot of science and societal norms/social crit. and anything that includes all or many of those things is probably pretty cool and worth reading and commenting on. hence, this blog. it's titled "oh life..." because that happens to be something i say alot and has become my catch-phrase. good or bad, it always seems to apply... especially to the things i write.

send me an email at auteureclaire@gmail.com 

our american diet is killing us; i'm living proof

Andrea Beaman, who was featured on TopChef now has her own cooking show on the VERIA TV network (which is a channel that celebrates all things homeopathic and holistic).  Last night, she was also featured in a little story about her health history and how she came to a healthy lifestyle and way of cooking.

I had watched her cooking show a few nights ago and I could tell there was something about her that I liked, but couldn't quite put my finger on it -- there was something very familiar that spoke to me... I just didn't know what.

Well, on this little special show tonight that gave her medical history, she explained how she was diagnosed at about twenty-four with a thyroid problem and instead of taking the medications, she decided to live a macrobiotic lifestyle.  It worked and within two years, she was totally healthy and her thyroid had stabilized.  She didn't need the medication and the little annoyances that are associated with an auto-immune illness no longer tortured her.  It may seem like two years is a long time for healing, but if you think about it -- it took her twenty-four to screw her body up.  Two years -- that's a pretty small percentage of time, comparatively.  I'm doing my best to keep that in mind, as I have the same thyroid illness she did.  Mine has stabilized but I still deal with the complications.  Yes, I wish a total healing would happen immediately and my God, it's almost been a year of this diet.  But if it takes two years to actually feel good, not just look good, then eating food that is high in nutrients is well worth it.  I don't want to have a disease.  I just want to be happily ignorant like before. (Only this time, I'll know better.  And hey, as of yet, I haven't had a cold or virus since January, which is major for the girl who was always getting colds).

It frustrates me that this is how human beings have to learn -- first we have to be given something awful in order to do things the correct way.  It's not enough to know that disease and illness can occur -- unless we experience them firsthand, we go on eating loads of processed and low-fat and nutritionally-deficient food.

These natural alternatives to western medicine are seen as weird or cooky or unfounded.  But the fact is that these things provide the nutrients our body needs to work.  If we input nutrients, we must get positive results.  Healing from the inside out is the only thing that makes sense -- medications are simply masking the damage we're doing with the things we eat and drink and consume.  Western medicine addresses the symptom but it rarely tries to find the root cause as a solution.  Imagine how silly our medical system must appear to the rest of the world!

Her story was hopeful for me because my story is the same as hers -- just not yet finished.  Illness is terrible and thyroid illness gets downplayed.  People think it just can't be that bad.  Unfortunately, once they're diagnosed with something, they'll understand.  And I just don't see how in this world of low-fat and sugar-loaded foods, anyone could NOT get a chronic health problem.  If the body isn't getting a steady stream of nutrients, it's just not possible.  It's not enough to worry about fat content because that tells us nothing about nutrients.

I swear America is screwed.  I'm living proof.

for death or long life

I hang out with my grandmothers for selfish reasons. Like, for example, most of the time I just want to memorize the stories of our family. This is because my cousin Nicole and I are really the only ones in the younger generation who will be able to pass them down -- our family is small and my brother and other cousin are young and boys and they simply don't care what it means to know a lineage. They don't care that when I look at the pictures of my grandmother's mother, I see my own mother looking right back at me, with the same sad eyes and pretty hair and smile.  Or that my Mimi's life story can be told in rings and necklaces and diamonds and pieces of gold.

Whenever I visit either grandmother, I keep quiet and listen.  This is what I came up with amidst all their words and stories:

For Death or Long Life 

I.

I tell her,

No, you can’t die;

I’ve never lost someone’s company before.

She says,

Oh you’ll be fine.

But I know it’s soon – she’s 82 by now.

So I memorize

the history of our family –

the parts she’s always left out before.

I’ll try to wear it somewhere inside of me

(to keep it pickled in a bloody stew)

so that her sister-in-law (my great aunt)

will never actually be someone very kind

and the names of every city our people’ve lived

won’t become just a snapshot

of rosy setting in my mind.

II.

I’ve never been young,

I tell him.

And I’m honest

but I like to think also that

my words are something cryptic and gray,

like that idea of age itself,

because when does “growth” turn to “aging”

or pasture straw to hay?

Well, once I heard a man tell a child

she stops growing when she is twenty.

I felt sorry for the poor little girl

with that sad idea

she will always live with.

on "purity balls"

At the beginning of this month, while perusing the internet as usual, I came across this funny article about "purity balls". Let me just say here, when I read the headline, I definitely wasn't thinking of a dance or ceremony. I didn't know what kind of new contraption some man had thought up over breakfast to keep his daughter virginal. Seriously. Anyway, as usually happens in my life -- after I read or learn or notice something, it presents itself clearly and plainly to me very soon again after. So I had read that TIME article about this trend (in the Midwest I believe), where fathers and their daughters commit to her virginity by signing a contract and attending a fancy ball. Then a few nights later, TLC was airing the very documentary that the TIME article was written about.

Here's the thing: WHERE ARE THE YOUNG BOYS????

Sure, it's fine to parade little girls in white ball gowns and tell them they're so beautiful and lovely and worthwhile. But where in the world are their male peers? Because we all know these little girls pose no hazard to each other. What's happening is that males are being made out to be the evil aggressor and girls to be dainty and delicate flowers that must learn to refuse those evil boys. Who is teaching the little boys?

Really what was upsetting to me about this "Purity Movement" as it was called is how the fathers have the best of intentions -- yeah, really. I'll admit that. -- but somehow misunderstand what sort of affirmation a female really requires. The father in charge of putting on the ball had seven children of his own (I think) -- five girls and two boys. These people must read the Old Testament because in one scene he was giving the children their weekly blessing, in which they kneeled before him and he looked into their eyes and told each how special and great they were and what they would do in life. It was troubling to see each of the boys get a blessing like, "You are a man of God, you are a warrior, you will lead people...", and the girls get a blessing like, "You are so beautiful. You are kind, you are a blessing to me, you are so beautiful." He couldn't stop telling these girls how beautiful they were. There's nothing wrong with thinking your offspring are the most gorgeous and unique combination of DNA out there, and then telling them so. What made me cringe was that that was ALL these girls were -- pretty. What ever happened to listening to a person and talking to them? Doesn't that give a person value and affirmation?

At the ball, most of the girls were dressed in white and taffeta and lace.

They were dressed like little brides, many of them. There's so much to say. I don't know if I should even comment on that. How about you just imagine what I would say. Or better, here's what I would say, à la the talking cat (and in a New York accent): "OH MY DOG".

I WILL give these men and families credit though. They've lived tough lives and don't want their daughters to go through these tough experiences. I just can't help but feel that the tough times, as painful and uncomfortable and unfair as they are, serve an educational purpose and shutting real life out never allows it in. Obvious statement I guess.

I've seen alot of my peers needing male affirmation so intensely that their lives end up chaotic and sad. I can't say if it's because they didn't have a father to give them positive attention. Maybe, maybe not. Alot of them didn't have a father who spoke nicely to them or was even in the picture. I just can't say. What I can say is that watching some of your friends (and many other women my own age) do ANYTHING to get male attention is so disheartening to me. Halloween is a prime example. Thousands of pictures of them in a bikini on Facebook is another prime example. As I like to say, when will they realize they are fine? They are fine. They don't need to post two thousand pictures of their body for me to find them beautiful. They are already beautiful even if all of Facebook can't see it for themselves. And that's what these fathers wish to avoid. But there's gotta be some sort of moderation between people who will sleep with anyone that blinks at them for the attention, and someone who thinks of her body is a pure vessel for someone else to acquire. God, I guess those are sort of the same thing. Seeing it in print like that -- they're the same idea: a woman's body is for someone else.

Here's what Eve Ensler has to say regarding purity balls:

"When you sign a pledge to your father to preserve your virginity, your sexuality is basically being taken away from you until you sign yet another contract, a marital one...It makes you feel like you’re the least important person in the whole equation. It makes you feel invisible."

This is what I take away from the documentary:

One girl, 21 or so, married. She was upset because her husband had "dated" a few girls before her. Here, "dated" reads "befriended".

He had never slept with those girls. He had never even kissed a girl until their wedding day -- to her, the bride. But the girl was upset that he had even been romantically interested in someone five years before he knew of her existence.

what the antibiotics in meat really do to our bodies

So, we're all well aware of how the meat we eat and buy contains antibiotics because of the fact that the animals are so close and confined that they're constantly getting sick.  Well, all I've ever thought about this is that yeah, antibiotics getting into our system from these animal proteins is bad only because it's extra chemicals that we don't need.  Or, something to that extent.

i am not a nordic porn star

I peruse alot of blogs of people I don't know.  I'm not talking about acquaintances -- I'm talking about random people on blogging networks whom I will never meet.  I really like to see the sort of honest and intelligent things that concern people.  Myspace aside, there are a few sites that have alot of smart conversation going on.  I found a blog posting on said site about an episode of Oprah this week.  I wanted to read what this blogger had to say because I had watched about half of the episode she was referring to.  

god forbid sarah palin know where our food come from

Are people/media outlets serious with this Sarah Palin turkey butchering thing? Anyone who has a serious problem with "seeing" a turkey being killed, and then will stuff and cook and eat turkey on Thanksgiving day is completely neurotic and totally removed from their own humanity.  I really cannot believe people are giving Palin criticism for allowing her interview to be near a food source being killed.  Yes, it is weird and odd and I wouldn't have chosen that backdrop, but to imply that it's cruel... I'm sure all those people are going to be enjoying every last bite of Turkey next week.  And they'll think nothing of it.  Seriously.  Stop taking aim at anyone for anything. She's an f-ing human being.

I haven't watched it uncensored... I guess that makes me completely removed from my own humanity.  I actually think it just means I have a soft spot for animals.  I just mean that the idea of slaughter doesn't bother me only because I know that's an integral human food source.  

I only saw it censored on TV.  I don't want to watch it uncensored but that doesn't make her a terrible person.   If you're going to call her that , do it over something better.