FIRST ADVICE POST

Erin:  SO i need advice

(cue you smiling and cracking knuckles in preparation)

Kaitlin:  yesssss

the moment i’ve been waiting for

Erin:  jamie has this big comfy loveseat and it’s stripey and ugly and we’re going to get a slipcover for it. but my furniture is, well you know what style, and i don’t see how these things are going to mix well

and her coffee table is hope-chesty-looking

like her stuff is country, and mine is rock and roll so how does that work

alt-rock livingroom? (editors note: notice how she tries to answer her own question.  not possible.  that’s why you’re asking me.)

Kaitlin:  A little bit country? A little bit rock and roll?  Sounds like an  Osmonds problem to me.  Bleach your teeth and call me in the morning.

Erin: aaaaaaaaand the doc has spoken

My Story (A Medical Memoir)

I was a sickly child.  I was burdened by constant respiratory infections and dyspeptic symptoms.  When I was seven, my parents had the good sense to, despite their relative lack of wealth, to take me to an esteemed doctor, the best in Little Rock, Arkansas.  That doctor, who had spent several years studying medicine at the Sarbonne, was an expert in Leech Therapy.

At the time, using leeches was unknown, especially in our small southern river port.  Only a few years later, everyone was using leeches.  Leeches for back pain, leeches for diabeetus, leeches for blood borne illnesses, humor balancing, whatever.  And they worked.  That’s the remarkable thing.  My respiratory problems were gone after a good week of leeches and a therapeutic visit to Hot Springs.   My doctor advised me to keep using leeches, visiting him once a month for two hours, in order to maintain the renewal of good, healthy blood in my system.  At any time I could have stopped the therapy and probably maintain some level of good health for a while, but like my mother always says, better safe than sorry.

As you can imagine, the recent report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) on leech therapy has been very upsetting for me and my bowels.   They claim that the advice is cautious and that they’ve been debating it’s value for “over 400 years.”  The news that they believe this therapy may be unnecessary and possibly even endangering me, and that they claim there is “science” to back it up is bad enough.  But knowing that the government may prevent my monthly leech therapy sessions is really terrifying.  Everyone knows the best way to prevent a humor imbalance, and therefore dyspeptic symptoms and respiratory ailments, is by forcing the body to renew it’s blood supply.  It’s common sense.  And that’s why I’m standing up against this so-called “science,” and I won’t let the government ration my health care.   Who are they to come between me and my esteemed doctor?   Next thing you know, I’ll be told that the mercury treatment I have been given off and on for my recurring yaws is ineffective and dangerous too.

My mother gave me this beautiful jar for my 13th birthday.

R to L: Esteemed Doctor, Kaitlin at Age 22

 

Service

I am currently an Americorps VISTA.   Just so you know this blog is no reflection of the corporation or anything like that.  Anyway here are some funny videos that Paul Newman narrated about VISTA:

 

“Are you a white person?  Why don’t you put that valuable skill to work!”

Spirochaete

Because I am a currently nonpracticing but still licensed advice columnist, people sometimes ask me: “Kaitlin, what is the most charismatic bacterial phylum?”

This is always a tough call.  As someone who is particularly interested in environmental causes, I am of course tempted to say cyanobacteria (side note look at the strange decorations on that website).  When I really take the time to define and appreciate charisma though, I always settle on the same answer:  the Spirochetes.

An excerpt of what would be my favorite web comic if it weren't a reference website instead.

Spirochetes are delighful, dancing coil-shaped organisms.  Their shape says “party,” where the shapes of other bacteria say “textbook diagram study session.”

Two Facinating Spirochaete:

1.  Syphillis (Treponema pallidum)

Syphillis is probably the most well known spirochete, made famous, of course, by the documentary “Jerri’s Burning Issue,” which chronicles a high school student’s struggle with the disease.  It also well known for afflicting most  people who achieved any greatness in the ninteenth century.

This American Life recently featured a man who claimed that the development of the syphilis treatment Salvarsan, the first antibiotic, was a major turning point in the path that American medical care took to becoming the crazy mess of problems talk about daily.  His argument was that it was the first time medicine actually cured people of a disease, changing people’s expectations of medicine as a whole.

2.  Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi)

Lyme disease was discovered fairly recently, with the first cases being diagnosed in 1975.  Lyme disease has been made most famous by former Real World Seattle cast member, Irene McGee.  Our knowledge of Lyme disease is murky and it is controversial among doctors.  Like the early days of the study of syphilis, most of the controversy lies in whether or not Lyme disease is a short term or a long term illness.  People believed that once syphilis was treated with mercury (which was the earliest treatment) until the symptoms went away, it was cured.  It wasn’t until many doctors began to notice and draw connections between a huge variety of symptoms in patients who had decades before been diagnosed with syphilis that syphilis was discovered to be chronic.  This debate is currently happening with Lyme disease.  Lyme disease is exciting because it can lead to symptoms that look like both schizophrenia and arthritis.  The worst symptoms are probably various forms of dysautonomia like palsy.

There you have it.  The spirochete is a terrifying, sneaky bacteria with a shape that makes everyone want to be it’s friend.  Congratulations, Spirochaete!

Like Big Fish but bad.

I’ve discussed the topic of my local library here before.   But last weekend I discovered that I had never been in the Media room, which it turns out has a reasonably good movie collection which you can check out for free.   I always feel sort of dirty using public libraries as video stores and free internet … places… but I think it would be valuable to get over that.  In practicing to get over that I checked out 3 movies last week.   These were all movies I had kind of wanted to see a little but was reluctant to spend any money on seeing them:  The Baxter, He’s Just Not That Into You, and Across the Universe.  This  is what I think of Across the Universe

This is important because I need to warn you to never see this film. It’s awful.  Don’t listen to any of those glowing reviews.  It was so terrible that I felt an overwhelming compulsion to blog about it.

Let me be perfectly clear:  If there’s three things I love, it’s (a) musicals (b) sixties nostalgia and (c) overstatement of the importance of the Beatles in our culture.    I also really enjoy attractive people and colorful things.  Given all of these factors, it’s no wonder I was drawn to this movie.  Its also surprising that I was so intolerant of its pathetic clumsiness.   This is a movie that had three goals:  (1) Pack as many Beatles songs into a single movie as possible, cause the Beatles are awesome!!! and we love them and will buy tickets to see movies with that premise, (2) tell a compelling tale of romance with an interesting ensemble cast, and (3) tell the entire story of “the sixties.”  All of these are well worn territory.

First of all, aren’t we tired yet of the story of “the sixties?”   I’ll summarize:  “It was a tumultuous time of cultural upheaval and groovy clothes!!! and then it turned dark and violent sometimes.”    Answer:  Yes, we are tired of it.   And unless you can do something interesting with this theme, don’t do it.  It’s embarrassing.   (Dear that generation, we get it you guys were awesome thanks for your hard work, maybe you ought to get your narcissism checked out by a doctor, love Kaitlin)

Along the same lines, the film is so ambitious to fit in everything that it lacks the capacity for character development. From what I can tell, the ensemble cast is assembled solely for the purpose of needing to include certain archetypes: “Black Guy who is Kind of Like Jimi Hendrix,”  “Rock Star who I’m surprised Survived the Movie,” “Oppressed Midwestern Teen Asian Lesbian,” “Nice WASP-y Girl from Suburban Boston,” “Wildcard who goes to Vietnam,” “Dude Who Got His Part Because He Looks A Lot Like Paul McCartney,” and “Bono For Some Reason.”    At times their interactions imply a closeness that seems dubious, only because there’s very little warmth between the characters, or even intertwined plots between the main characters and those who were just added because they needed vehicles to show how there were rockstars and lesbians and black people and hippies in the 60s.   The romance is cute.  It’s cute.  Attractive people falling in  love–great.  Can’t complain about that (except that it’s sort of weird and terrible that they kill off that guy in vietnam so that the two protagonists are free to fall in love.)

And the Beatles songs.  Some of the songs are well incorporated into the plot, like “Hey Jude,”  “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “Revoloution.”  There were some musical sequences that I’ll admit were well done, visually compelling, and I actually enjoyed them quite a lot despite contributing very little to the actual plot, including “Come Together” (which features a delightful hooker chorus, and unexplained trip moving south from Harlem,)  and “Happiness is a Warm Gun” (which unfairly forshadows mental illness and possibly a heroin addiction for the Wildcard who goes to Nam).    There are 33 SONGS IN THIS MOVIE.  33.   At the beginning, which in a intro to literature class would be called the  “exposition,” the film had a normal plot-to-music ratio.  Needing to fit in the 33 songs, towards the end the film becomes an endless barrage of song after song, connected by weak plot tissue.  “Another song?” you will say, if you watch it that long.  and you will get up and play with your cat, or iron some pants.  Which is admittedly convenient.  The music is also shitty.  I forgot to mention that.  It’s oversung.  The female voice is terrible.  The dude who looks like paul mccartney it turns out cannot sing like him.  Hey Jude is a challenging song, and the guy who sings that is probably the worst.  Luckily we now have Auto-tune, making it possible for anyone to sing beautifully.  Sometimes during the more challenging songs, though, (like the title song and Hey Jude)  it sounds like you’re listening to a T-Pain song.  Or a robot.

Conclusion: This film makes me wish that you had to pay for Auto-tune by the second.  That way, there would have been less money in the budget for people-turn-into-water-cloud-sky-scenes and the many many endings.  And Bono for some reason.

Paul McCartney

Dude Who Looks Like Paul McCartney/Star of Across the Universe

An Inquiry into the Analogy Existing Between Brute and Human Physiognomy

Given the utter failure of my offer of advice, I’m not sure why I’ve decided to offer up this new service on my blog.  But I am.  I’m proud to tell you that I have studied the science of physiognomy, and am prepared to analyze any face of any man you may bring to me.  For the features of a man’s face are indeed windows into his very essence.

“The attention which the French have, of late, paid to Physiognomy, may be ascribed not only to the infatuating nature, and intrinsic excellence of that science, but, also, to adventitious circumstances.  France, or, more properly, its metropolis, has, within a few years, become, as it were, an immense stage on which all varieties of human aspect and action have been exhibited.  Their painters, at present, employ the pencil, not on pieces of ancient history or mythological fiction,  but in designating the various national physiognomies, costumes, and conformation (?) of body, which Paris now presents assembled from all of Europe, and from some parts of Asia.  The Physiognomist has there an ample scope for the study and enlargement of the Science:  The Briton melancholy amidst success–the Frenchman happy amidst adversity–the phlegmatic German, the choleric Russian, the proud Spaniard, the vain Pole,  the grave and jealous Turk ; these parading her streets and gardens, or thronging her Caffees, must present a group, whose motley and various character mocks both narrative and description.”

The science of physiognomy offers us a method by which we can reach a much greater understanding of society as a whole, as well as those we meet on the street.  Who can we trust?  Who should our daughters marry?  Who should be sterilized before they reproduce?  All of these are pertinent questions, and I am prepared to answer them for you.

To demonstrate this powerful science, a friend has kindly (and unintentionally) submitted two (2) photographs for analysis.

Donkeyball

For almost the entire time I’ve been at my job in Elkins, There’s been extensive construction on the main thoroughfare outside my office window.  There’s usually a line of cars standing still, and usually I like to reflect on how glad I am that I am not that person in the car, stuck for 15 minutes trying to go less than a mile.    Actually I usually don’t think about it very much at all.

Today, however, I glanced out my window and saw a livestock truck.   That’s also not unusual, but I looked at it a few times before seeing that the magnetic sign on the front door said

“BUCKEYE DONKEY BALL”

Besides being hilarious in itself, the phrase Buckeye Donkey Ball is mysterious.  What is going on?  Is it like a dance?

It turns out, Buckeye Donkey Ball is the oldest donkeyball company in the nation. Donkeyball is a game where people ride the backs of donkeys to play basketball or baseball.   Usually a group will hire a donkeyball company to come in and do it as a fundraiser.

Naturally many animal rights groups are upset by this.  And I understand.  By definition, these animals are being exploited.  But I wouldn’t worry about them being abused.  I watched all the videos on YouTube, and the fact is, it looks pretty boring.  All these donkeys hanging out, letting people mount and dismount with ease.  It’s so boring that nearly every YouTube video of donkeyball had to have some kind of lame introduction.  Actually I haven’t done much investigation into the abuse claims at all.  I just like that someone had this idea, and that it still, even in 2009, even in the Obama Administration, it is still used as a fundraiser.  Yes.  Yes.

Whoops!

The House of the Future (1855)

Over the past few years, I’ve been very curious about two mundane materials:  linoleum and rayon.   Both fascinate me because while they seem like products of the post-wwII plastics manufacturing revolution which made materials like polyester and vinyl commonplace, both actually originated in the mid 19th century.  They are also both materials which, if they were invented now, would probably be marketed as “green.”  In fact, just a few weeks ago I was at a green building conference where one speaker passed around some samples of a somewhat pricy green flooring option called Marmoleum, which as far as I can tell is the same as linoleum but German.

Rayon:

Rayon comes from wood.  Rayon also goes into some of my most beloved sweaters.  It was the first synthetic fiber, and today in the context of ubiquitous polyester, it’s sometimes referred to as “semi-synthetic,” due to it’s more-naturally-fibrous-than-petroleum cellulose origins.

It was first developed as an artificial silk.  The cellulose fiber was first created in 1855, but a practical manufacturing method wasn’t developed until about 30 years later.   Rayon is used in a lot of different contexts and made to resemble a huge range of other fibers, like cotton and wool.   It sometimes goes under the alias viscose.  Tampons are made out of rayon.  I can’t say for sure, but I would bet that those textiles made out of bamboo are made through the rayon process.

This is an Aluminized Rayon Apron, which we will all be issued in the event of a full ozone layer collapse

Rayon stockings

Linoleum:

Linoleum comes from linseed oil.  It was also invented in 1855.  The story of linoleum is that the guy that invented it left a can of paint open, and became interested in the film that formed at the top of the paint.  He invented it as a cheaper alternative to the popular rubber-and-cork flooring Kamptulicon.  Kamtulicon is sort of interesting in itself, because it enjoyed a very short-lived heyday, cut short by the end of the rubber boom making its manufacture impractically expensive.   Linoleum from linseed oil fell out of fashion in the 1960s, replaced mostly by vinyl flooring that people still referred to as “linoleum.”  So if you’re going to go buy some linoleum, make sure it isn’t actually just vinyl.  Because pvc will kill you, and linoleum will be easy to clean.

The ingredients of linoleum. Looks delicious.

In roarin’ rochester

I’d like to learn how to do the partner Charleston.

Advice

I think I would make an excellent advice columnist.  So if you have something you need advice on, let me know.

Marriage?  Yes

Decorating? Yes

Nutrition? Yes

Crop Rotations? Yes

Crop Circles? No

Gene Therapy? No

Let me know.