Fuck You, Glamor!

For some reason I cannot identify, I have an unending subscription to Glamor that I never have to pay for. It's very odd.

Anyway, Glamor might make me crazier than Cosmo, in that Glamor likes to position themselves as the urfeminist fashion magazine. You read that right. Urfeminist fashion magazine. It's obnoxious. It is simply hateful to see "You're all right just the way you are" articles interspersed with this crap (gee, I wish I could move pictures around while editing blogger in Firefox):

1. See the first picture? This is in answer to a question about going grey at 28. (Welcome to the club, people.) If you don't feel like clicking on it to enlarge, the caption says that models were deliberately greyed at a fashion show. Is that hair grey? No, it fucking isn't. That hair is not grey, not at all. If you're going to tell me grey is the new blonde, accompany it with a picture of actual grey hair.

2. See the second picture? Those two models represent (top) a "leggy" body type and (bottom) a "plus size" body type. Can you tell a difference? Because I can't. Neither one of those women is plus sized. In fact, given that the average size for American women is a size 12, that "plus size" woman isn't even close to average, let alone plus average. In fact, that's what I look like naked.

I AM A SIZE 2.

I cannot shop in department stores, their smallest size is a 6. I buy a lot of my clothes in the junior's section.

I AM UNDERWEIGHT. IT IS NOT HEALTHY. Stomach bugs put me in the hospital because my body has nothing to fall back on when I can't eat. I am cold 8 months of the year. My kitchen chairs have cushions rather than hard seats because I don't have natural cushioning to sit on, so if I sit on a hard chair for any period of time, I cut off the nerves in my rear and my legs go numb. Do you know how much well cushioned dining room chairs cost? I do.

That "plus size" model looks exactly like the underweight, size 2 wearing woman on the other end of your computer screen.

Feeling bad about yourself? Don't. You couldn't possibly have any idea what healthy or average or normal even looks like because of this shit. You couldn't even get close. And Glamor is at least part of the reason why.

Fuck you, Glamor!

You Don't Know Me!

I really hate the Angry Pharmacist. The Angry Pharmacist hates his customers. Just hates them. It's really obvious. Which is why this piece of advice to doctors scares me:

Want to know the scoop on a patient? Ask us! Patients will tell you what you want to hear so you’ll give them an Rx. However we see when they are getting their refills, who they go to, and how they act. The patient that complains of a 10/10 low back pain to you may waltz into the pharmacy like nothing is wrong. You may not see how your patients act outside of your office, but we do. We usually see your patients enough to get a good gut feeling if something fishy is going on with them. If we don’t know, then their insurance company computers can tell us if they have been naughty or nice (like Santa!).

[emphasis added]

Sure, during the 1 minute and 30 seconds a month we spend together, you can tell more about me than the doctor that's been treating me for years. And he should totally listen to your reporting of my pain over mine, because I'm a junkie whore and you have an Rph after your name, which apparently grants you psychic powers.

If you are dependent on painkillers to live your life, and I don't mean addicted to painkillers, I mean your pain is so intense that you need powerful narcotics to walk across a room (assuming you can still pull off walking), you know why this scares me. (Hi, denelian!) As bad as my days are, they'd be a whole lot worse without vicodin. I know because I wake up that way and it sucks. I sometimes end up crawling to the bathroom to pee first thing. Now imagine that being all day long because some angry, self-absorbed, megalomaniacal asshole decided they know me better than anyone because they saw me walk 30' without screaming in agony.

First of all, showing pain and discussing pain are verboten in American society. It is unseemly to display pain. It is rude to talk about it. Don't make a scene. Stop bothering me, jeez. So, no, I'm not exactly inclined to humiliate myself by displaying my pain for all the world to see, and that includes you, Pharmacy Asshole.

Secondly, I rarely limp, it's true. I rarely limp because a physical therapist once spent some time explaining that any gait change is very bad for your body and that limping to relieve the pain in my hip would lead to pain in other places (and wouldn't really do anything for my hip anyway). The last thing I need is more pain, so I suck it up and walk straight. It's painful, it's pure force of will, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but it's not waltzing. Fuck off.

Thirdly, the 10 point pain scale is bullshit. It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. Ask any chronic pain patient about the 10 point pain scale and you're likely to be dealing with frothing at the mouth within 3 seconds. It's that fucking stupid. I know 10 is supposed to be "worst pain you can imagine", but I can imagine being on fire and how likely is that to come up? (Plus, just guessing here, I don't think I would be asked to quantify my pain were I to see a doctor while actively on fire.) So when I am asked to quantify my pain, what I say is "my pain is for real. It's affecting my mood, my outlook on life, my ability to do the things I need to do and I need you to do something about it, because that is your job." Then the doctor looks at me funny and I say, "9.5. 8 on a good day."

I really hate this shit. I hate going to the pharmacy to pick up a legally prescribed, valid prescription for a real medical condition and knowing that the people behind the counter are judging me based on that alone- and maybe they'll make a phone call that will leave me unable to live my life. So I try not to sound eager, but not too fakely disinterested, nice, but detached because too nice is a junkie's trick, educated, calm, etc. It's ridiculous. It's a prescription, give it to me and stop fucking judging me.

Brutally Honest and Operative Words

Apparently, my hair looks like this today.

I truly hate the brutally honest. They're always so proud of their honesty, as if "honest" were the operative word in that phrase.

Hey, I like honesty. I certainly don't like being lied to, and I have enough short term memory loss to make lying an activity I can't reliably engage in, but not all honesty is necessary or desirable. I'm not even talking about theoretical Jews in hypothetical attics, I'm talking about hurting someone's feelings for no benefit.

Look, if a friend of mine modeled a low cut blouse that they were very proud of and then mentioned they were wearing it to a job interview, I would tell them, gently, that while the blouse is fabulous and they look fantastic in it, not appropriate for a job interview. That's beneficial.

There is absolutely no benefit to walking up to someone having a bad hair day and loudly asking "What did you do to your hair?!"

It's curly hair, it's humid, the results can be a bit unpredictable. And large. I don't get days off for bad hair days, I can't wear a baseball hat, so there it is. I left the house telling myself it wasn't that bad, don't worry about. Then I get this:

What did you DO to your hair?!

WHAT did you DO to your hair?!?!?!

WHAT did you DO to your HAIR?!?!??!!?!?

I patted my hair a bit, not that patting is likely to help, and muttered something. I may actually have muttered "asshole", but old lawyers don't have the best hearing.

WHAT?!

"I'm having a bad hair day," I explained, unable to look up from my desk. Like prairie dogs of humiliation, several of my coworkers had popped up over the tops of their cubicles to look.

"Oh, I thought it was a new style. Are you sure you didn't stick your finger in a light socket?"

Really, I did not think it was that bad, but there's the rest of my day. Shamefacedly trying to hide my hair by staring at my desk or my feet, because if I can't see anyone else, I can't see them seeing me.

So do me a favor. If you can't think of something nice to say, don't fucking say anything, because the operative word in the phrase "brutally honest" isn't "honest", it's "brutal".

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