Was it the tuna?

I was thinking about this Saturday Night Live skit I saw in the late 1980s: John Larroquette is dead and in heaven, and he meets the Angel Gabriel, played by Dana Carvey (or somebody, I didn't google the details so I could be getting many of them wrong) and he gets this chance to ask all the questions to things that he would never have known the answers to otherwise. Questions like "Is professional wrestling real?" (it is) and "which is the one true religion?" (it was something crazy like snake handling or Assembly of God [CS: *wink*]), and I was thinking about all the things in the world that we don't actually know. We may think we know the truth, with our research and our strong opinions, but the reality is that for some things, we really and truly just don't know. And we never will (as long we we're alive, anyway).

When I was pregnant with Child 1 I ate about 4-5 cans of tuna a week; I thought it was good for us, with that healthy fish oil and Omega whatevers. He was about 2 months old when the media first reported on the high levels of mercury in fish and the effects that could have on a developing fetus. I remember saying to somebody that since the kid wasn't born with 3 eyes I guess there were no problems there! Later on, after he was diagnosed, we read about the symptoms of mercury poisoning and how they can mimic autism. Was there a connection? Like I said earlier, I can research my ass off, and I can have an opinion on the subject, but the truth is that I will likely never actually know the truth; the real truth, that only Dana Carvey could tell me after I die.

That would be my question, though, if I end up like John Larroquette, getting all my questions answered (although probably not by the Angel Gabriel, because Supernatural fans will know that not only is that dude a total dick, he's also totally dead): Was it the tuna? If I hadn't eaten all that tuna when I was pregnant, would Child 1 not have been autistic?

Now, don't misunderstand me here, I'm 8+ years past diagnosis and I've moved well beyond blaming myself. They didn't give you those warnings not to eat fish when you were pregnant in 2001, I didn't know. Nobody knew, except probably the tuna companies, and so nobody was able to tell me. If there is a connection, I know that it wasn't my fault. And I'm not asking for articles or studies that prove or disprove the theory: trust me when I tell you I've already seen it. I'm just saying that before my Reaper leads me off to the neverending Dead show in the sky (Shoreline, August 1991) it would be nice to be able to actually get an answer to the question. SNL style.

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The ebbs and flows of poor personal hygiene

Earlier today I was sittin' ... just sittin'.... you don't need to know where.... and I was looking at my arms and noticing that I have a ton of freckles and sun spots and shit. I remember asking my doctor about them years ago, she said they're there "because you're old." I love her. That's just something that happens to your skin when you've spent your life in the sun, it develops freckles and spots and other unsightly things.

But today I noticed something was new; there was a new spot I hadn't seen before. I spotted it and immediately thoughts of melanoma went through my head. That's the kind of cancer that killed my brother so everybody in my family is hypersensitive about any changes to our skin. I inspected it and saw that it was dark and symmetrical in color and shape, so probably not melanoma. Probably just a new freckle that's there because I'm old. I pondered the new spot on my arm, thinking about life and how everybody ages; one day my kids will be my age and I'll probably be dead; one day they'll have kids of their own who will also be my age... the circle of life, the constant ebbs and flows of it all. Very existential stuff for a Sunday morning.

But then I moved and I bumped my arm onto the side of the counter and suddenly half of my new spot was gone! So, I scratched at it and the rest of it just came right off.

Huh.

I guess it was food. Last night I made duck with a miso glaze and my spot was the exact same color that the duck skin had turned out to be. A nice, deep dark red, almost black; it really was very tasty.

So much for the ebbs and flows of life, this was just some food I'd dropped on myself while I was eating, about 12 hours earlier.

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Kids these days....

I had an interesting encounter on Twitter yesterday. It all started when Tracy said she didn't think Britney Spears should be a judge on X-factor (or something, I don't know), and got called a bad name by some teen Britney fan. Well, I thought that was funny, and I like to make fun of people like that, so I butted in with something snarky and got this in return

Wow! This will be such fun! I love fucking with people like this; angry, pointless and not very smart. So I gleefully responded with something or other, and we went back and forth for a while. This was, without question, the best one:

But as we went on, she started to get smarter; my first clue was her proper use of "you're a cunt," instead of "your a cunt," which is what I would have expected. Her grammar improved; her spelling improved; she literally questioned my "logic." Okay, you can fake being stupid, but you can't fake being smart, and this girl (she's 17) was obviously smart.

Sadly, once I figured that out, it all stopped being fun for me. I like mocking stupid people, but not smart people pretending to be stupid. But I wondered... why would an obviously smart girl pretend to be dumb? Is she playing a role? Does she get some sort of advantage for being dumb? She was pretty, assuming her avatar was actually her; does she think she needs to be stupid in order to get guys? In order to get ahead? In order to get... anything?

I actually felt quite sad about it. Is this what society teaches girls? Is this what parents teach girls? Was this true when I was 17? (I don't remember, it was so fucking long ago....)

As a parent, I consider it my moral responsibility to raise my kids to be nice people, and honest, and true to themselves. But since I have boys it is also my intention, as a feminist, to make sure that they know that it is their moral responsibility to treat women with respect.

How are the girls of today being raised? Are they being raised to own their strength, and to respect themselves? Based on my twitter encounter yesterday, I'm afraid that this isn't the case. Then again, I don't know what the real case is. I'm sure that anybody who is raising girls and who is reading this will tell me that they're raising their girls in that way, but even so, what about the rest of the world?

Anyway, I signed off by telling her that it was awesome to be smart and that she should own that; smart women can rule the world! She thought I was just a crazy old person (she was right). I'm sure she will mature as she gets older; she will (hopefully) go off to college and realize that there are so many more options for her than to play the role of dumb, angry girl on Twitter. I'm sure she'll figure that out. I hope she figures that out.

(Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the pitbull eating my legs thing was just a joke, in which case: good job! If that was a joke, it was a good one. I'd even say she won that round....)

What do you guys think?

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