Lovers of opposition, lovers of spice, especially Ginger

I love to read my blogger-buddy and fellow corporate-hell denizen, Ginger Baran's blog, not because I most often agree with her (which I do) but because, on the occasion that I don't agree with her, I find her arguments so well-reasoned that they are difficult to dispute. In her most recent post (at least, at the moment of the composition of THIS post), I found I had a number of bones to pick with her-- too many, in fact, to respond in a comment. However, from here on, I'm going to directly address Ginger:

You know, Ginger, I find it challenging the ways in which I both disagree with you and completely agree with you. I, for one, have never smoked a cigarette in my life and am hopelessly allergic and HATE going places wherein I feel smoke is being inflicted upon me. While I really think folks should have the right to screw with their health if they feel the need-- and I'm extremely wary of actual legislation that says differently-- I gotta say, man, I love it that I can sometimes go to a bar and not feel like I've got some primeval, Pandora's box variety of flu at the end of the night. Frankly, I do not think social venues like bars should be the prerogative of smokers, and those with lungs and sinuses of titanic strength, alone. Regardless of how this issue is solved, it's going to be unfair to someone--either those who feel their rights are being infringed upon by non-smoking legislation or those who feel their health is being infringed upon by those who legitimately assert their right to do with their bodies as they will. For my money, though, I'd kinda rather the law err on the side of the health-conscious-- mostly because the great out-of-doors is a large area, and though subject to inclement weather it may be, it seems to have quite a good sense about how to circulate smoke-polluted air away from the delicate flowers among us.

And I should probably also cop to the fact that I'm one of those health food Nazis that are, according to your post, among the Haters of Joy. True enough, I've been known to lecture many a friend, colleague, passing stranger, anyone who'll listen, about the evils of artificial sweeteners (neuro-toxins, all) and the repugnance of the gloppy substance known as margarine. Real, honest-to-god sugar and real, honest-to-god butter aren't the greatest things you can put in your body, but my basic food rule-of-thumb says that if it comes from a plant or an animal, it's OK. If it comes from a lab, steer clear! Of course, my food philosophy goes quite a bit deeper. For those who've been reading my blog for a while, you're probably well aware that buying organic is more than just a health issue for me-- it's moral and it's ethical. Because I do not want to a)destroy the planet with my consumerist habits, b)destroy my body with chemicals and genetically modified weirdness, c) mistreat animals solely for my gastronomic delectation, and d) deny honest, hard-working, small-scale farmers their daily bread, well, I try to be very conscientious with my food-buying habits. Am I a killjoy when I see someone eating a preternaturally blue cupcake from the local mainstream grocery? You bet! Would I deny anyone the joy of real Tennessee pork barbecue or a gooey old-fashioned buttercream cake? No way on earth! Truly, I must acknowledge that a lot of the best food is really fattening and doesn't do any favors for one's girlish figure... but so long so said items are made from naturally occurring food items, I have no beef (ha! I'm so punny.)

However, I can't help but believe that a trans-fat ban is a great thing for everyone. Trans-fats do not occur in nature. A trans-fat is what you get when you force a vegetable fat, which should be liquid at room temperature, to be a solid at room temperature-- a la margarine. Basically, you're taking an unsaturated fat (the good, necessary kind that helps your body function correctly) and chemically altering it so that it becomes a saturated fat (the evil, heart-clogging, obesity-inducing kind)... so then stuff like margarine, which is misleadingly marketed as cholesterol-free, becomes a substance that your body THINKS is cholesterol-like... and so, you have all the bad repercussions of an animal fat like butter, plus a bunch of mysterious and creepy chemicals that you've just ingested... and, because most people think margarine is better for them than real butter, they use MORE of it, thus compounding the evilness of said product. (Mom, do I have all that right? That's pretty much how it works, right?)

So, yes, I'm invested in the so-called "healthy living movement." I'm even rather evangelical about it. But I actually think it makes my experiences with food and eating MORE joyful. Since I completed my fast, I've been pretty much eating vegan and wheat-free. When I go out to eat (rarely more than once a week), I break my rules about meat, dairy and wheat... but try to still choose sensible food. Albeit, I've been having a miserable craving for yellow cake with big fluffy vanilla icing lately-- and I'm hoping I'll have a reason to give into it soon (I'm thinking if I pretend to be a supportive friend to someone whose depression takes the form of a sweet tooth, I can disguise my own craving as bonhomie and general generosity of spirit.) But truth be told, my fridge has a big, bright halo hovering above it, so full of fresh vegetables, tofu and fruit it is! And thus far, my body is rather happy that I've been eating so carefully lately. I'm cooking for myself more than I have in a couple of years, and I'm beginning to recall the joys of having intimate knowledge of each component of a meal, the joys of not having to read the label for some hidden high-fructose corn syrup or monosodium glutamate, the joys of knowing the things I eat are not only going to fuel my body, but support it, too. Yeah, it's about being healthy. And yeah, I wish everyone else would come to see what's so great about eating the way that I do. It's like a high, I swear! I'm downright languorous after a good, hardcore Ashtanga yoga practice and a bowl of spinach-and-chickpea curry! But, yeah, Ginger, your questioning whether we should have LAWS about such things is dead on. It is, after all, a free country and we are all entitled to the right to a slow, crazy-making death by aspartame.

Now, about this country being run, not by Big Brother and other looming enigmas, but by the equally appalling pharmaceutical companies, you know you have my full agreement. Though, I would argue that, those of us who do not trust conventional medicine because it's funded by the drug business and because it's far too focused on fixing what's broken, rather than preventing stuff from breaking in the first place are, in fact, the (whole-grain, artisan) bread and (non-GMO, antibiotic-free) butter of the "healthy living movement." I mean, the best way to avoid having some well-intentioned but also very well-paid guy with a stethoscope try to foist something that comes in a light-resistant bottle on you is to eat good things and avoid ingesting and inhaling toxic things. But, then again, for those of us who have been blessed with relative freedom from congenital disease and handicap, health is very much a matter of cause and effect. When you take care of yourself, you stay healthy. When you mistreat yourself, there are consequences--and far too often, those consequences require us to involve medical professionals who either are well-meaning but do not have a naturopathic philosophy, or are highly motivated by the mortgage on that summer cottage in the Hamptons that was built on a wobbly foundation of Vioxx and Cialis and Ortho-tri-cyclen and Propecia and Phen-fen and Botox and Zanex and Zoloft and Effexor and Allegra and... and ... and ...

But as far as alcohol, and judgementalism regarding it, go, well, I could care less. I don't much like getting drunk myself and I don't much care to hang out with drunk people. But so long as you don't throw up in my car, in my house, on my person, or in my line of vision, well, I could REALLY care less. A glass of wine sipped while leaning over a pot full of vegan, wheat-free goodness is a a great relief after yet another day of demoralizing, soul-squelching work, ain't it?

And now, about the closing of birthing centers... my god, it makes me want to collapse into one of those big, overwrought, Shakespearian sobs. The notion of having a baby while someone was leaning over me, trying to convince me that I should be drugged into oblivion during an act so important as forcing a small human out of my vagina? You've gotta be kidding me! I have a friend who had her first daughter in a birthing center similar to the ones you've described, but in Tucson. Truly, she was in full-on labor for 36 hours, the last 3 of which were all about the pushing.. and truly, she tore, um, forward instead of backwards (wow, I can't even think about that scenario in terms of nerve endings; can you?), but she told me that she never once felt out of control of the situation or her own body throughout the entire process. And her second kid, she had at home with, I believe, a doula. Because I am wont to ask pregnant women a million questions, I recall asking her about her specific reasons for not even procuring the services of a conventional OB-GYN-- and she said that she felt childbirth was one of the few last truly gendered activities and she didn't want hers corrupted by a male-minded model of medicine. And this notion may be completely and totally gender-separatist, but I GOT that when she said it. More or less, she didn't want any man (because obstetrics, like all medical specialties, is still dominated by men) telling her what to do when she was at her most female-- her most feminine!

On a quasi-related note, I was flipping channels at some point over the weekend, and I briefly stopped on a Shania Twain interview. She was saying that though she's made a career off of, as she puts it, lyrics that speak from "the woman's point of view," she has decided, once and for all, that she's not a feminist. She went on to say that she simply loves men and what they contribute to her life too much for her to consider herself to be a feminist. And I gotta tell ya, this irked me somethin' fierce!!! Feminism does not now, nor has it ever, meant that those who identify with pro-woman sentiments are man-haters. Admittedly, there is always some fury that arises when folks are clamoring for equality, and much of that, over the years, has been directed at men in general, because, well, they've had all the power. But that doesn't mean that one who claims to be a feminist can't still love individual men. Or occasionally even want to get laid by one. And earlier incarnations of feminism have also encouraged women to aspire to a standard of maleness: that old "if you want to be taken seriously in a man's world, you better act like a man" bit. I find this equally problematic because all I ever wanted to be was a girl. And I find nothing disempowering (quite the opposite, really) about being girly, wanting to be cute/pretty/sexy/whatever, wanting to own my own sexuality without having to negotiate anyone's age-old, tired, saggy, and/or pitiful virgin/whore dichotomies. And for the girls who feel disempowered by having doors opened for them, well, I think perhaps they've done the disempowering themselves! I, for one, could care less if some guy opens the door for me or doesn't-- so long as he doesn't slow me down, right?

So, all this is just to say that every woman, like my friend, has a right to decide what happens to her own body through every step of the reproductive process--from everything that happens leading up to conception to everything that happens leading up to birth. And the more we drug her and financially force her into the hands of the narrowly defined confines of Western medicine, the louder the outcry from both women and men who value basic human rights SHOULD be. So, folks, let's here it! Cry and cry and cry some more!

And don't get me started on insurance companies...

Jesus, Ginger, do you whip out these soapboxes just for little ol' me?