In the wake of the obviously long-overdue exposé of the horrendous behaviour of Harvey Weinstein, many high-profile women in the entertainment field have been tagged to weigh in by various news agencies, particularly the New York Times.
Canadian actor-director Sarah Polley was one, actor Mayim Bialik was another. I choose
these two out of the many others because both have been involved in the
entertainment industry for most of their lives. And their op-eds in The Times took very
different tacks.
Ms. Polley took the system that protects predatory behaviour to task, Ms. Bialik said she chooses to protect herself by "...(dressing) modestly. I don't act flirtatiously with men as a policy". To my mind, she also appeared to suggest that ugly girls/women aren't targets.
A lot of people are - justifiably to my thinking - angry with her. As one of those ugly women, I can assure her that she's wrong.
The stalker I had at university was the older brother of a classmate. He was meeting the brother at school and I had thanked him for holding a door open - that's it. For the remainder of the school year, he would suddenly appear around campus in places where he knew I'd show up, despite not being a student. Then he somehow got my phone number.
I started university in the 1970s, no internet in every pocket, and this was pre- Theresa Saldana / Rebecca Shaeffer; stalking wasn't considered to be threatening, much less dangerous or criminal.
When I realized that the Paul Cooper on the phone was not the same Paul Cooper from the model United Nations committee, I told him not to call me ever again. To his credit, he didn't - but then I started getting letters.
Which meant he had my address.
He wrote long, rambling letters about being a born-again christian and how he "knew" that god had ordained me for him and that I would get a sign when the time was right.
People told me he had a crush and to forget about it. The campus police said they could do little to stop him, which is true when you consider the size and location of the downtown campus of the University of Toronto. They also thought he had a harmless crush, but I was frightened, and my boyfriend, friends, and other classmates ensured I was never alone walking around the campus, especially on those dark winter afternoons when I went from Hart House to the arena on The Philosophers' Walk.
The letters continued and I would simply "return to sender". Shortly after the holiday break, my beloved Hank was diagnosed with cancer and left school. But my classmates continued to surround me in a protective bubble for the remainder of the school year and the letters eventually stopped, though I would sometimes see Paul lurking at the corners where he thought he wouldn't be noticed.
Hank died that summer, and I returned to school in September broken in spirit. Three weeks into the school year, the incident occurred.
Following a class, I went to lunch at the Trinity College cafeteria with a group of friends - waiting for me was Paul with a massive bunch of flowers in hand.
He was bubbling over with happiness - Hank had died and this was the sign from god that I was meant to be with him, surely I had to see that.
There, in the middle of a room packed with 200 people, I started screaming and screaming as the impact of his words hit me. He dropped the flowers and ran only to be stopped by other students, while my friends tended to me and others contacted campus police.
This time, he was escorted off the premises and warned not to come back unless he had genuine business.
All I had done was say "thank you", nothing else.
I could tell you other stories; of the man that I went to work for as a summer temp the next year, who had the agency replace me without letting me know so that he could ask me out. On a Monday morning, I walked into the office to find someone else sitting at my desk, and he was waiting for me, wearing a new suit, sporting a new haircut. They didn't know my grandfather had died 2 days before and my family thought it would be good for me to go to work that day.
Or of the man that had a serious mental illness that worsened over the course of the year I knew him, and how no one took me seriously about the assaults because he was my boyfriend and had a key to my house. It wasn't until he caused a scene somewhere else and was coming to my place to "get" me that the police did anything - and even then, I had to phone a friend who worked for CSIS to get someone to come to my house. To the credit of the Toronto Police, when this came to court, they formed a protective bubble around me and I have never forgotten their kindness that day.
I am fortunate that I don't remember details about the assaults and that I had a wonderful psychiatrist who told me that I didn't have to remember in order to heal like so many people said.
He was fortunate that he had rich parents who could pay for his problems to go away, and that he was blessed with a ridiculously handsome face that helped. Like the probation officer that I called after he contacted me in violation of a court order. She didn't believe that a man "who looks like that" could be guilty of everything in his file. I called her supervisor and got him assigned to a male probation officer.
I am not attractive, I am not flirtatious, I did not invite these actions - these men did what they wanted, how I felt was not a matter of consideration. This is the mindset of the abuser/harasser - they will have what *they* want, PERIOD.
Any suggestion that dressing, speaking, looking, or behaving in a certain manner will protect you from this is WRONG! PERIOD!
And having the suggestion come from someone who uses their credentials as a scientist as proof of their feminist bona fides makes it even worse.
I deleted the update to my October 2014 post that I posted in the spring of 2016; none of it was true anymore.
Here we are at World Mental Health Day again, and my life has retreated to the point it was when I wrote about my struggles with avoidant personality disorder 3 years ago. There is no doubt that the issues I am facing in my workplace have a lot to do with this.
And the loss of the only supportive relationships in my life has been the most detrimental of all.
There are many people in this city who are smarter and more qualified than I am who cannot find work representative of their talents, so 5 interviews in 3 years shouldn't be regarded as a bad thing, but that's not the way my mind perceives it. That my two most recent directors dismiss my abilities, experience and education is even more debilitating.
Two days from now, Pints & Politics through the Urban League is hosting an event about loneliness. I signed up and I've been reading the links they've posted about loneliness in the context of living in a city. It's been difficult reading those articles.
This letter from The Guardian (UK) stood out:
When you’re approaching 50 and trying to ‘start again’ in a new place, it can be really hard. In a city it can feel like the whole world is out having fun, which makes you feel like a bit of loser.
I was 45 when I moved to London and I am approaching 60 now. It is difficult to meet people for friendship when you are a middle-aged single woman. Most other single women in your age group are juggling children from their now-ended marriage, their jobs, and, usually, a new relationship. The female half of couples in your age range regard you as a threat to their relationship, and other single women in the same position as you look at you as competition. My experience of this city until 4 years ago is that it is cold and insular.
I have managed in that time to meet people who share my interests - mainly politics - but the biggest issue I've faced is that they are 10, 20, 30 and - in a few cases, more - years younger than I am. And other than a couple of interests, I have nothing in common with them. So I find myself on the outside, with my nose pressed up the glass of social media feeds that make me feel even more alone.
Tonight I returned from a weekend where I spent days tending to my aging mother. It's emotionally draining for a reason other than the obvious one.... in 20 years, there will be no one to look after me.
In the 2 years since I developed chronic ideopathic angioedema, my panic attacks have returned; I'm afraid to sleep, afraid to be alone.... afraid that one day it will be the type of swelling that affects my tongue and and throat instead of just my lips and I'll die alone here and no one will know.
*****
I was betrayed this summer by someone I cared for, my personal safety and security compromised. And there's a voice in my head that tells me that I should never expect more, that this is what I deserve.
I have no one to talk to about this, no support system.
More than anything, I hope other people don't have these feelings too, and that they are able to reach out and find what they need. As the song says: there must be something better than this.
I'm not sure where this post starts; today is the 16th anniversary of my father's death, and that event always leaves me with a deep sense of loss. But I think it stretches back 25 years to the day I got my first internet account.
In 1992, there was no world wide web, no pictures, only words. And I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a group filled with witty, challenging, loving words created by a group of witty, challenging, loving people from around the world, mostly, of course, in the United States. Over time, I got to meet many of them. We went whitewater rafting, held quilting bees, attended chocolate fairs, and weddings, and consumed copious quantities of amazing food and drink.
I think it's fair to say that Nancy was the most beloved member of our group. She was a funny, kind, deeply loving woman with a great love of animals - no more so than her pet lizard, Herman. Nancy was a docent at the Memphis Zoo, the doting mother of Jenna and Derek, and an employee of the University of Memphis, where she covered the door to her office with Dilbert cartoons.
In May 1998, Nancy was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the bile ducts. The tumor was large and would have been difficult to remove surgically, but, by some miracle, Nancy's HMO agreed to let her have treatment at the Vanderbilt University Hospital cancer centre. The doctors were going to perform a chemoembolization - where the artery feeding the tumor would be blocked with a plug containing chemotherapy drugs to cut off its blood supply and shrink it to a point where it could be removed.
This is a fairly routine procedure today, but almost 20 years ago it was considered experimental, and Vanderbilt decided to fight with Nancy's HMO for her to have the treatment. They had it all arranged and approved, and she checked into the hospital in Nashville for the procedure.
Only to have someone at the HMO change their minds and pull the plug on the treatment while she was being prepped for surgery.
In the 1990s, universities in the US were one of those employers with "great" health plans for their employees. But, as remains the case today, insurers decide what treatment you get, NOT the medical professionals treating you.
Nancy died on August 12, 1999, she was 56, the same age I am now. Her loss was keenly felt by our group as a whole, and I think it's fair to say that we miss her still.
Despite having good coverage under her work health plan, Nancy's chemotherapy still cost thousands of dollars, and after she died, Jenna and Derek were forced to sell the family home to settle the debts that remained.
Fast-forward a year to Papa's diagnosis with throat cancer.
My father lived in Ste-Thérèse, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence across from Laval and Montréal. His cancer was discovered when he had a stroke caused by a tumor pressing on an artery in his neck. At his choice, he delayed chemotherapy to undergo physio to treat the side effects of the stroke.
Then he had another, more serious, stroke, paralyzing him on one side of his body. And started aggressive treatment for the cancer.
Here's the big difference in how treatment progressed for my Papa and Nancy: Papa had the same oncologist as one of his hockey heroes - Jean Beliveau. Somehow, I can't see Michael Jordan would have been denied treatment as Nancy was - simply because he could pay for it without worrying about those pesky insurance company flunkies.
When my father died, my online family asked if my sister and I required any financial assistance to meet his expenses. Papa had prepaid his funeral and all his treatment was covered by the Ministère de la Santé and the Régie des Rentes, as he was placed on partial pension due to his illness. We got money back from the hospice because the Régie paid a month in advance for his stay.
No assistance needed.
*****
Nearly 20 years after these events, my friends and family in the United States continue to find their health care choices left to the mercy of insurance companies and conservative politicians who are little better than faith healers and snake oil salesmen.
After the vote in the US Congress last week, I publicly expressed my wish that I could adopt my American friends, and thanked my grandparents for emigrating to Canada.
Our health care system is far from perfect, and still underfunded, but I am grateful that I can walk into a hospital and walk out without handing over a credit card or worrying about pre-existing conditions negating the insurance I do have. Yes, my tax rate is higher, but it's a small price to pay for peace of mind.
And that's what makes The True North genuinely strong!
*****
My previous post about my Papa: http://labellatestarossa.blogspot.ca/2013/08/it-must-have-been.html
In the 1970 song "Everything is Beautiful", songwriter Ray Stevens echoes the words of 17th century clergyman Matthew Henry: There is none so blind as he who will not see.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately as a result of a Twitter conversation with my friends Marci and Amanda coupled with a book I've been reading.
I live in London, Canada, a city currently in a state of upheaval due to proposed changes to our transit system. We are the largest city of our size without a rapid transit system of either light rail or buses running on a separated grade. And we are bisected by two rail lines. While the southern line has many over and under-passes (as there are 3 rails), the northern line, run by Canadian Pacific, has one rail that runs at grade.
In the 11 years that I have lived here, I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a bus on Richmond Street, stopped in traffic due to a train blocking the road. To make matters worse, two of the city's main hospitals are on the north side of those tracks and ambulances sit in traffic, too. The proposed transit plans would see a tunnel built under the tracks that could also be used by emergency vehicles.
Amanda has been economizing and using public transit instead of driving everywhere. She is a naturally gregarious person and chats with fellow riders and the bus drivers, and one of the topics of conversation is the transit plan. To her astonishment, a fair number of transit riders and even DRIVERS say they are unfamiliar with the plans.
And that fact astonishes ME, because there's been no shortage of public participation meetings about both transit and the municipal plan that has transit at its centre, as well as television and newspaper coverage. But, more than that, there were information posters ON THE BUSES themselves.
The information posters were conveniently placed in dedicated frames attached to the door of the driver cubby, where they can store their coats in winter. It's one of the first things you see when you step on the bus.
But you have to actually LOOK at it in order to SEE it!
Which brings me to the conversation with Marci and Amanda. Marci asked how we make people LOOK at something in order to SEE the information?
And, of course, the answer is - we can't.
That made think of all the things we look at, but don't really see.
This introspection was brought about by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the acclaimed children's author, who died last month at the age of 51. A week before she died, the New York Times published an essay she wrote about her marriage and her husband. Having never heard of her before reading the deeply moving essay, I looked her up and discovered that she was not "just" a children's author, she had written some witty and insightful adult books, and was generally a "bon-vivant" - she lived very, VERY well!
I went to Kobo and found that her "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" was on sale and downloaded it.
It is, indeed an encyclopedia of Ms Rosenthal's life, but I was struck by how much she saw in those ordinary things that we do each day. I have an odd gift for remembering, but Ms Rosenthal absorbed life and found beauty daily in the world. She perpetrated random of acts of kindness, and hosted a flash mob at the Millennium Park in Chicago in 2008.
Last Saturday was an almost perfect spring day despite the snow the day before. So I hopped on a bus to head out to shop for groceries. I had forgotten to charge my iPad and didn't have anything in my hands to distract me on the trip there or back.
In eight and a half years of making that trip to that store, how had I never noticed that the sign outside the restaurant Piri-Piri has the caption "Eat, Drink, Repeat" under the name? Or that the Portuguese Fish Market sells juices for home-made wine and lists them all on a board on the outside of the store?
I have been making a conscious effort to see the world this week as I continue reading Ms Rosenthal's book. With some luck and effort on my part, I will continue to do so, it's not natural for me. I'd rather tuck myself into my books and games and music on my travels - maybe so that the world won't see me.
In our transit debate, it seems more and more that the people against the plan refuse to see the people who actually use transit. "Certain types of people" use public transit a downtown merchant said to the chair of the transit commission, and the merchants are certain that "those people" don't patronize their establishments. As one of "those people", I'm tempted to ensure that those merchants don't see a penny of my hard-earned money!
This morning, someone nearly walked into me because she was too busy looking at her phone to see where she was going. Has our connected world made us look at things - and people - but not SEE them?
It seems so; and the words written by a man who could not have foreseen the existence of cell phones ring truer than ever: we are willfully blind because we will not see.
*****
Amy Krouse Rosenthal got less time on planet earth than I have had, and that's a sad thing. But her publisher has found a way to honour her spirit, and you can join in. Visit this web page to learn more:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/blog/2017/03/10/amy-krouse-rosenthal-wish/
I was so, so wrong about so many things.
The angioedema took a 5 month break, returning with a vengeance on New Year's Eve. I am now on episode number five in a three-month period. Allergy testing found something new, but it doesn't explain this, and the blood tests were inconclusive. It's back to the drawing board, or more medical tests probably.
My job has taken an even worse turn. I've gone from a boss who barely gives me anything to do, to one who refuses to give me ANYTHING, or access to the tools that would allow me to do the few things she can't take away. I've had one interview in 15 months that went nowhere, and this is killing me. My family raised me to take pride in my work and a job done well, this isn't who I am.
I thought I had found friendship, it turned out to be an illusion.
Last year, the two men that had been in my life for over half a decade each rejected me; one deciding he wanted my tiny perfect friend instead of me, the other for reasons I have been unable to discern.
I am desperately lonely and afraid all the time. The panic attacks I thought were behind me have returned, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, while I get ready to go to work in the morning. I have painful arthritis leaving me unable to do the things I love.
The self-loathing is worse than ever; the fears of dying alone and never being loved are even stronger.
I hold it together for my public persona; my mother called me today to praise my performance on TV 2 weeks ago concerning my community work.
In all this world, I feel there's no place for me. And no one should feel this way about themselves...
"Angioedema is a ... type of swelling that affects deeper layers in your skin, often around your eyes and lips." - From www.mayoclinic.org
I had my first allergic reaction as described above when I was 5 years old and my body finally said "no" to Aspirin - baby Aspirin at that! It was the severe kind, where one's tongue and throat swell as well as the lips; and spending most of your life knowing that you can react like that to a common drug gives you a healthy respect for pharmaceuticals.
Conversely, I'm also a huge believer in better living through chemicals, at least if a medical professional is proffering said chemical. While my teen friends were experimenting, I was the poster child for "just say no". But I wimped out on menopause with 6 years of HRT, and agreed instantly to anti-depressants to go along with talk therapy when I needed them.
In the intervening 50 years since the Aspirin incident, I discovered that Ibuprofen was also out of the question following a similar (though less severe) reaction to that. Which left me with the "safe" anti-inflammatory, Naproxen.
For the past week, I have been dealing with my fifth episode of angioedema since October. I can no longer blame Naproxen for it since I haven't had a tablet since January 4th and the pharmacist I talked to on Monday assured me that it would have long ago left my system.
This time around, I swear my lips made me look like the love child of Angelina Jolie and Mick Jagger, though other people said it wasn't that bad. But the corners cracked and the swelling was crooked, as if some untrained plastic surgeon had gone to town on my mouth with a vial of Juvederm! If I wasn't careful, the blood would trickle from the left side and one would think I was a vampire who'd just had lunch.
Have you ever cut your lip while licking an envelope? Imagine that times 12!
Hot beverages are out of the question, they sting too much. I cause many a laugh in my office by putting a straw in my cup of coffee. The natural acids in fruit are painful - every piece goes on a fork and placed on my tongue so I can eat anything other than bananas.
The lactose in cream sauce stings, as do salty things - and acidic things are out of the question, including tomatoes, just for example.
Hot meals have to cool, cold meals have to warm....
I go through so much Aquaphor, I should buy stock in Beiersdorf AG, the parent company of Eucerin.
9 days out, my lips continued to crack and bleed and I have to soak a washcloth in warm water to exfoliate off the peeling bits twice a day.
There was one upside; a coworker complimented my beautiful full lips when I made a remark about the gorgeous lip gloss she was wearing.
With any luck, some of the fullness will last after the pain recedes; and this will be my last episode of angioedema.
August 2018 Update: This post is from February 2016. Later that year, I underwent extensive allergy testing to see if there was something other than trees and related drugs that could be causing the swelling - but it turned up nothing.
The episode I describe above lasted THREE WEEKS! That's the longest time it lasted. I've also had 2 long breaks with no episodes, from July to October 2017 (and doesn't it figure that I was having an episode when I went to my second Jeopardy audition) and 201 days from January to July in this year.
I had even gone to the doctor a few days before the angioedema returned this summer and told him that I thought it was gone.
The blood testing for C1 esterase inhibitors has been inconclusive - my levels are on the low side of normal, but not so low to explain the recurrence or to warrant the intensive and intrusive treatment of blood transfusions.
It's painful, it looks awful, and it's returned with a vengeance.
I was 13 years old when I heard "Desperado" for the first time.
There was something about the plaintive vocal and it's final line about allowing oneself to be found by love that resonated; words that continue to have meaning in my life well over 40 years later.
It was the start of my love for the music of The Eagles, a love that time has not diminished. No other band has captured the pain of heartbreak and loneliness more than they did in only eight studio albums. Yes - 8! All other albums are compilations.
But those eight albums produced some of the most iconic music of the 1970s - no one can deny that. The haunting opening notes of the title track of "Hotel California" are proof enough of the band's ability to catch your ear and hook your heart and take you on a journey to places you never thought you'd go.
Unless you're a single person who knows the words to "Wasted Time" by heart:
"You never thought you'd be alone
This far down the line
And I know what's been on your mind
You're afraid it's all been wasted time"
*****
I only got to see them play live once, on a magical, hot summer night at the amphitheatre at Ontario Place in July 1996. It was the day before I moved to Ottawa.
Despite being two years into the infamous Hell Freezes Over tour, the band were in perfect sync, and the music still held onto your heart. At the end of the encores, as the crowd filed out and my uncle and I remained in our seats, I remarked to him that if my plane crashed the next day, I would die happy because I had finally seen my favourite band play.
Now it will never happen again with the death of Glenn Frey yesterday.
I have few words to describe how much his body of work with The Eagles and as a solo artist have meant in my life, this blog entry just scratches the surface.
The Eagles' website posted the lyrics to Glenn's song "It's Your World Now" that closes out their last studio album Long Road Out of Eden:
"The curtain falls, I take my bow
That's how it's meant to be, it's your world now"
But for me, it's the title of another song from the same album that captures my feelings at the moment: "What Do I Do With My Heart".
