Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Abate, abate, damn cheese!

WHY I DON’T WRITE ABOUT POLITICS
In high school I was on the debate team and spent precious weekend hours dickering back and forth at a million words a minute against pairs of pimply arrogant boys in navy suits. Nuke war and NAFTA and ERISA and FGM and economic growth and Middle East instability and juvenile crime and over and over and over until at my very last debate the very last word popped out and I was done –I had used up my lifetime allotment of rhetoric. This hasn’t prevented me from enjoying thoughtful political discussions on my friends’ blogs, it just explains my lack of participation.

UNPROFESSIONALISM
I am the person in the office who doesn’t yield to casual Fridays. Not to make others look bad, but because I want to be taken seriously and in casual clothes I look/feel too much like my co-workers’ kids/nieces. Anyway, I had a true Gen X/Y moment earlier this week: I showed up to an important one-on-one meeting with Doritos hands. The orange dust refused to abate despite frantic sucking and wiping. At least I didn’t crack open a diet Mountain Dew.

A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY DIED...
and my aunt got a new pancreas. My mom’s youngest sister, who has had diabetes since she was three, had a pancreas transplant a few weeks ago. This woman, who has tested her blood sugar several times a day as long as she can remember, is no longer diabetic. Her doctor told her she has no dietary restrictions. She had her first Orange Julius. Her diabetes had consumed all aspects of her life – getting sick and recovering and having transplants (she’s had two kidney transplants as well) had become what she does and who she is. Now, if the transplants continue to do well... who knows what her life will hold? I’m sure there are more than just Orange Juliuses that she’s been wanting to try.

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