Thanksgiving and Jacoby Miles

Six days ago, a fifteen-year-old gymnast named Jacoby Miles sustained a life-alerting injury at a local gymnastics gym. She fell off the bars doing a dismount she’d done hundreds of times, pinching her spinal cord and paralyzing her from the chest down. I haven’t stopped thinking of her since I heard about what happened. I had tears in my eyes watching the news video clip, and it’s probably for a number of reasons.

When I was fifteen, I torked my back doing a beam dismount I’d done hundreds of times. Five months later, I was diagnosed with a severe stress fracture in a vertebrae most people don’t have: the congenital abnormality of a 6th lumbar. It bored the living shit out of me, but I was out of the gym for ten months. I hated it. I didn’t want to sit still. I wanted to be in the gym, where I had friends and had a good time. I spent as much time hanging out there as the staff would allow, because for me it was the only place I felt like I fit in. As I went from agonizing back pain every day to feeling physically regular, mentally I was angry because the only thing I really loved to do, other than write, was taken away from me.

The injury never completely healed, but eventually after those ten boring-ass months of rehab I was able to come back. I went on to compete a few more years, eventually becoming a gymnastics coach, which I’ve been for fifteen years, and now I have a fifteen-year-old daughter who is a competitive level 7 gymnast.

Sometimes my back still hurts. It’s a signal of something I never knew how to do when I was a kid: stop. I used to just run through everything until I was so sore I couldn’t move, and as I’ve grown older I’ve had to learn how to slow down and listen to my body.

But I remember how often I cried and how sad I was without gymnastics, and that’s a huge part of why my heart goes out to Jacoby. According to the articles I’ve read, the doctors are saying it could take a miracle for her to walk again. As my mom said, “if anyone can do it, it’s a gymnast.” We’re strong and determined. I can’t imagine what it would have been like at fifteen to be injured so badly that I had to be in a wheelchair. It was enough hell at such a young age to go through rehabbing the injury I have. I can’t reconcile in my head what Jacoby’s experience will be like, but my heart most certainly goes with her on her journey.

As I’ve said, I've coached gymnastics in the Seattle area for fifteen years. If Jacoby had been one of the kids I’ve coached, or any of the kids on my daughter’s gymnastics team, I would be absolutely beside myself. My daughter’s recreational optional team has competed against Roach Gymnastics, Jacoby’s home gym. It’s horrifying enough to hear that such a rare accident as this even happened, but to have it happen locally, to a member of our gymnastics community, really brings reality home. It could be any of us, at any time. But hearing how many people have rallied behind Jacoby and her family, seeing how many news organizations are spreading her story far and wide, encouraging folks to give donations to the Miles family, is 50 shades of awesome. Tweets from American gymnastics royalty like Gabrielle Douglas, Nastia Liukin and Chellsie Memmel, and support from people all around the nation: it’s phenomenal. It reminds me that my little incestuous gymnastics community, where everyone knows everyone, is a part of a larger gymnastics community. And we stand together with our own.

It’s been an especially difficult few weeks for me personally. Without oversharing, I can tell you that no one died but it’s still been hard to get up in the morning. My own fifteen-year-old daughter sprained her ankle at a gymnastics competition, and the same week she also got a sinus infection. Small proverbial potatoes compared to Jacoby’s circumstances, and un-fucking believably hard to watch. We want our kids to be healthy and happy, and to have the things they want (within reason). To watch them in pain is nothing short of hell on earth. One of the things I’ve focused on, even as my life has become more complicated recently, is that my daughter’s injury and illness were not that bad. It was little more than an uncomfortable and temporary annoyance. The ankle turned out not to be as bad as we’d initially thought, and antibiotic knocked the sinus infection out for now. For that, I’ve been thanking my lucky fucking stars every day. While she dodged a bullet, another kid is taking one, and it breaks my heart.

I’m not going to end this post by spewing irritating platitudes about how everything happens for a reason. I remain unconvinced that it does. Some days you just feel like the universe is conspiring against you. Maybe it is, though I tend to think that the universe has bigger shit to deal with than most of our little lives. In any case, some things happen for no reason other than that they happen. And we get up the next day and move forward whether we feel good or not. It happens to all of us, in a myriad of different ways, every day.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of the usual “I’m thankful for my family and friends and God,” or whatever everyone’s 30 Days of Thankful on Facebook says, I remain thankful every day for a healthy kid, and to be a part of a gymnastics community that truly does take care of its own.

And I wish nothing but health and happiness for Jacoby, her family, and her teammates.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

For more information on how you may show support and make a donation to Jacoby's family visit www.goteamjacoby.com and show a little love this shopping season.

Drug Testing the Poor

I’m going to address something that’s been bothering me for some time. Last night I read an article in the New York Times informing readers that the state of Florida’s mandatory drug testing for those seeking public assistance hasn’t been effective in saving money, catching drug offenders, had an effect on the number of folks applying for assistance, and in fact has cost the state tens of thousands of dollars in just four months.

And yet, all over my Facebook page I read friends’ posts about how more states should do this, and that is what I’d like to talk about.

Being poor is not the free ride right-wing politicians and pundits will have people believe it is. In fact, it’s hell. I hate it. It’s a waking nightmare, and in addition to being depressing, difficult, and terrifying, sometimes unbearably so, poor people are called names. Freeloader, moocher, idiot, slut, and now we’re being told that somehow we must be poor because we’re spending all our money on drugs.

Pardon me, but fuck you. Fuck you for your sweeping and erroneous generalization. We’re not all crackheads any more than we are all sluts or freeloaders, and I resent the implication. Of course there are exceptions. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. But to lump all poor people together and shame them into having their privacy disturbed is not only shitty but is also being called unconstitutional.

And don’t give me that nonsense about how your employer makes you take a drug test. Boo-fuckin’-hoo. At least you're fortunate enough to have an employer. And, if I’m not mistaken, you chose to be employed by them. Purely anecdotal, but I’ve known plenty of people who have turned down jobs because they felt like mandatory drug testing is a violation of privacy. And, yes, I have made a series of miscalculations in my life that have resulted in my being poor, but that is a far cry from making a conscious decision to be poor. Your argument is invalid.

Think about all this for a minute. I’m not really expecting to change minds, but pause for a moment and let what I’ve said sink in, and think about the people in your life who are struggling just to stay afloat in this world before you post something that passes judgment on those of us who have had to ask for help. It's not fun. It's not a joke. We're not laughing at the taxpayers who help us out. If you pay attention you'll find that most people like me are humbled and grateful that our government does sometimes help people when they need it, because it's not easy out there. For anyone, I know that. Just think about it for a sec.

"The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class."

George Carlin

Election Season: I Didn't Come Here to Argue

Election season is almost over. If you know me, you know I’m a bit of a current events junkie, and seeing as though my hours at work have dwindled down to three a week, I have a lot of time on my hands to read. And I do. At great length. Now, I’ve heard some complaints from friends and loved ones that I would like to address. Mind you, none of these complaints have been directed at me, personally, but I’d like to take a moment to say a few things anyway. I like to share the information I come across. I love blogs and opinion pieces, even ones I don’t necessarily agree with. Listening to other people gives me an opportunity to think, not only about other people’s opinions and why they hold them but about my own, and why I hold them. It’s food for thought, if nothing else. I think it’s good to be culturally aware.

But: here comes the big “but,” I know that sometimes I offend people, or people disagree with me. If I’ve offended you then I’m all on board with having a polite conversation between two grown individuals. I’ve even been known to apologize for hurting people’s feelings. And if you disagree with me, that’s fine. I’d rather talk about that, too, if you want. I’m not going to start saying mean things to you, or insulting your intelligence, even if sometimes I may want to. I did not come here to start an argument, but a discussion would be great.

There is a guy who I am no longer friends with because the politicking got to be too much. We vehemently disagreed with each other, and eventually I got tired of him telling me how stupid and uninformed I am (for not watching enough Fox News or reading the GOP website). I just got tired of the insults and decided I don’t want to be friends with someone who behaves like that over disagreeing about something. I think it’s incredibly petty, and I don’t need friends who call me stupid. Call me out on my bullshit, sure. I can hang with that. But if you really think I’m stupid, why are you friends with me?? And why the fuck am I friends with you?? If you call me stupid on my Facebook now, I have a lot of great friends who will gladly come to my defense. But my policy is not to engage in a flame war because it so often accomplishes nothing, and I have other shit to do. I’m not going to try to change someone’s mind. I’m busy.

I do try to kind of get into people’s heads sometimes. I don’t know if you knew this about me, but I’m not a Romney person. I’m not even a little bit conservative. There are too many reasons why not, and the Obama administration has done a great deal to help people like me. I appreciate that, whether the Romney camp thinks I’m a moocher, or a slut, or an idiot, or whatever. There are some Romney supporters, though; I just can’t get there. Why would a teacher, a single parent, or someone who is sick and on government funded medical assistance in order to stay alive vote for Romney?? These are all people I know, and I don’t get it. Because he’s anti-choice?? Because he’s white?? Because he’s a businessman?? What is it?? I cannot figure it out no matter how hard I try. But I’m also not going to pick a fight with a friend over it, either, or tell them they’re stupid or uninformed. I think that’s mean, and I’m not out to low-blow my friends. Like I said, I’ve had that done to me and I try to have a little more integrity than to act like I get to shit-talk people and expect to be treated with respect.

Anyway, I know people are exhausted by this election and ready for it to be over. I’m kind of excited to see how the whole thing plays out. There are bound to be some great jokes and, hopefully, some inspired activism on the horizon.

In any case, go out and vote – or stay in and vote. Help someone else vote, if you can. I promise I won’t call you an idiot in front of all your friends if I disagree with you.

The end.

Night Time is the Right Time to Talk About the VP Debate

Election season is taxing on anyone who’s paying attention to it. If you’re reading, watching, tweeting it, you’re probably exhausted. Nevermind that having a day-to-day life that doesn’t include an IV drip of current events, partisan and otherwise, it’s easy to feel uninformed.

I didn’t watch the VP debates earlier tonight. I’m coming out of a cold medication fog and my daughter is entering one, so I spent the evening relaxing, making her some fall-time, Chinese-themed comfort food: egg drop soup and mango fried rice. And I feel uninformed. I also feel very comfortable in that. At least for the moment.

I would like to address one thing, though. From an outsider’s perspective, as someone who read the tweets, a browsed a few articles, laughed at a few graphics, and saw some varying Facebook status updates, my observations are purely anecdotal, but I’m going to put it out there anyway. My friends on the right thought Joe Biden was rude and smug. I can’t speak to that because I didn’t watch this evening, but I will say this:

Who cares?? When politicians on the right do it, the left gets all up in arms: when politicians on the left do it, the right gets all butt-hurt. It doesn’t make it right or wrong. It’s just kind of what it is, as they say. You don’t get to the top of the political ladder by not being a grand-standing yutz on at least some level, and sometimes that includes being snide and condescending and smarmy and pissy and rude. But when it’s your party it pisses me off and when it’s my party it pisses you off. I lean to the left, so of course I think it’s funny when a left-leaning politician schools a conservo, and I say “psh, whatever, what do you know,” so forth and so on when I feel like the mud is coming from stage right. I think at this saturation point, in the age of newer and newer new media, there’s a time to be outraged, or even just annoyed, and a time to say fuck it: whatever, dude. What the hell do you know, anyway, whoever-you-are??

And with that I bid you good night. NyQuil wishes and TheraFlu dreams, y’all.

Math Illiterate

I’m just going to put this out there because I’m tired as hell of hearing it. Hopefully I can rally and not have to take another math class as long as I live, hence not have to hear from other people about it.

Yeah, I share on Facebook and Twitter how nervous math makes me. I share how I hate it, it’s boring, I don’t understand it, and it sucks. I don’t like it. I don’t get it. And in reply I get a bunch of responses about how good other people are at math. It’s easy. Seriously. Just do this, this this, this, and this other thing. Have you heard of this?? Did you try this?? Maybe if you this?? I’m really good. Maybe I can help you.

No, I’ve never done or heard of any of that. Obviously I suck at math because I just crawled out from under a fucking rock yesterday. I have textbooks and resources. I have amazing people who have tried in earnest to help me. What I do not possess are the skills to cram an entire textbook, of which I have the loosest grasp on the one before it, in five weeks.

If that makes me a fucking moron, than I suppose I am a fucking moron. But the next time you decide that the correct reply to someone telling you that they’re struggling is to tell them how great you are at what they are struggling with, take a look at your face in the mirror and then punch yourself. If I went around telling everyone I know who struggles with writing how great I am, that would make me an insensitive asshole.

Think about that for a minute.

The Merits of Knowing When to Quit

Our society sends a pervasive message of never-say-die. Quitting is widely considered a bad thing. From horrible jobs to toxic relationships to our workout regimen, the message is that quitters never win and winners never quit. Stick with it. Keep going. Push yourself and you’ll be successful. It’s all fine and good sometimes. It’s certainly not healthy to constantly be quitting things, or writing people off without really trying. But where is the line between perseverance and self-destruction??

I see my friends staying in bad relationships because if they leave they’re considered a quitter, abandoning someone they’re supposed to care about. Shoot, I’ve done it myself. Thankfully I put my proverbial bitch hat on and left before I married the guy I’d been actively allowing to destroy me from the inside out for three-and-a-half years. And why did I stay?? Because my friends told me that I write people off too easily, that I should give this guy a chance. And I thought they were right. So I stayed, and when I left I was so angry with myself for ignoring my needs for so long. That’s not healthy, either.

Who of us hasn’t had a soul-deadening job that was killing us?? Of course, people need a livelihood, and sometimes that’s enough to make us stay in bad situations for longer than we may want to. But eventually we leave. We quit. And we feel better for it.

The idea that giving up and moving on is bad is especially disturbing for me because now I see this with my daughter. She’s stuck with her sport through all manner of difficult times and obstacles that would have crushed the dreams of a lot of people, and I have endless respect for her for doing so. But now she’s applying that persistence to her pursuit of a school that her father and I can ill afford the tuition to, and the lesson being learned is a harsh one.

My daughter has always done well in school. From preschool through 8th grade she had the opportunity to attend an exclusive school for gifted kids in Seattle's independent school system. It was a tremendous gift since her dad and I don’t make the kind of money necessary to pay for tuition ourselves. Her 7th and 8th grade years she got a full ride: $20,000 a year plus a month-long study abroad in Turkey, paid for. This past year, like so many other 8th grade families in the independent school system, we did the whole high school application thing. It’s a lot like college, only with more expensive schools. I went to the meetings and open houses, drove to the study sessions, made phone calls, sent emails, filled out paperwork, and paperwork, and paperwork. But none of the kids who applied for financial aid got into the schools they’d applied at, and my daughter was one of them. She was waitlisted at three of the schools, and the one she got into outright she did not get financial aid for. They needed a $30,000 commitment in order for her to be able to attend.

She cried. A lot. And I don’t blame her. We heard all the rumors and the stories about the slacker kids who got into the good schools because their parents have big bank accounts. I hearken back to the fact that none of the kids in her 8th grade class who applied for financial aid got into the schools. I understand that times are tough, and the schools need to make money to stay open and in the kind of high-end service that’s expected of them, but ultimately the message these kids learned is that fancy schools are for rich kids. It doesn’t matter how hard you work; getting good grades and having terrific recommendations is all fine and dandy until your parents can’t waltz in with a $30,000 check and a $20,000 donation. It was a difficult lesson for a kid whose hard work has been duly rewarded her entire life. For it to not matter all of a sudden was a tough pill to swallow, and I felt terrible for her.

So she wound up in public school, which she still gripes and bitches about. Now we’re three weeks into her freshman year; her first year in a public school, where the teachers and administrators give a big song and dance about how they don’t want kids to fall through the cracks and then lose her registration paperwork the day before school started. On the first day of school, the bus skipped her stop and she had to be driven. And away she goes, sliding right through the cracks.

This is what all her hard work has led up to. This is what she gets for trying hard and doing a good job. Because her parents aren’t rich.

Now, the process of applying to schools is arduous. You fill out all the paperwork, get your references, transcripts, grades, recommendations in order and then pay an application fee for each school applied to. Last year it was $90 at each of the 4 schools. Then there’s test prep for the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), which runs a cool $525, not including the diagnostic test or any of the $15 practice tests. Then the test costs $125 to take. Then the parents are charged $36 for one school’s financial aid application, and $40 for the remaining three. And then there’s the price of gas, driving to and from the schools on open house nights and for meetings with the admissions people. Expensive, and exhausting.

And now she wants to do it all again. After the tears and disappointment, she seems convinced that she didn’t get into any of these schools because she didn’t do a good enough job, and that kills me. Part of me really admires her persistence, but in this case I think it’s a desperate and destructive Hail Mary.

Maybe I’m wrong?? Maybe things will be different this time?? Maybe I’m too cynical?? Frankly, after watching her break down as many times as I did as she learned what the world is really all about, I don’t know how I could be anything other than pissed off. I don’t want to jump through all these flaming hoops again, and I sure as shit don’t want to stand back and watch my kid get her hopes smashed by some mean old rich people who only reward kids from moneyed families.

I can’t help but wish that the kid just knew when to throw in the towel and figure something else out. What would be so disgraceful about that??

Them That Can't, Cheer.

Okay, so before I launch into my diatribe about how silly and degrading cheer is, I feel I must clarify something off the top. Cheer in this geographic area is not what it is in other parts of the country, at least not for the most part. There are talented tumblers and stunters and whatnot, but it’s usually just what it is: girls who wear short skirts and yell for attention. I know enough about competitive cheer, which is pretty dang-ola athletic, and that’s not really what I’m talking about here.

In any case, I don’t understand cheer. I guess part of that comes from being a gymnast my whole life, where them that can do and them that can’t, cheer. Maybe part of my attitude is tied to that idea. But, really. I have a young daughter who is a talented athlete. She’s been so all her life. Now she’s talking about wanting to cheer. Dude, I sat through a performance of the cheerleaders at her new high school. They’re cute and fun and peppy and all, but they’re just a bunch of girls in short skirts with pom poms. They’re not dancers, tumblers, acrobats, or gymnasts. Their moves are so rudimentary that I’ve seen recreational cheer classes for nine-year-olds that have more proverbial meat and potatoes to them. So, what’s the deal with this?? Why are we still encouraging girls to do this?? I was unfortunate enough to be sitting in the front row of the gymnasium, so I got an eyeful of each girl’s “spankies.”

And, really, folks. Let’s just call these what they is: panties. Underwear. Teenage girls flashing their underwear in a socially sanctioned environment. Usually we wear our underwear underneath our clothes, and when we don’t someone calls us trashy. Not cheerleaders. It’s not only encouraged but required for their underwear to be out. Where else in polite society can we say this??

There is this pervasive idea that I’m some kind of pedo for noticing when there’s a crotch in my face, but the fact of the matter is that so has everyone else: they just don’t say it out loud because they’re afraid someone will call them a pedo. But it’s a crotch. In. My. Face. A child crotch. And underage crotch. A crotch I did not invite into my field of vision, but there it is. It’s weird and fucked up, but people love it!! They act like it’s nothing. Go, team. Rah-rah-whatrever. Every dude in the place has his eyes glued to an underage girl’s cha-cha-cha whether we wish to talk about it or not. These sensible suburban moms don’t appear to want to discuss it. That’s for damn sure. They’ll tell you you’re disgusting if you say that their daughter’s pussy is out. But there it is. Like Matthew Perry in Three to Tango, “butt, crotch, butt, crotch, butt, crotch.” Apparently the audience is supposed to be so wowed by the girls’ mad skills that we’re not supposed to notice her parts on parade?? Or we’re supposed to notice but not say we notice?? I don’t know. These girls are perfectly capable of doing something substantial with their lives, and yet they’re encouraged to go out into public and bend at the waist to show support for their school. Boys play football, and football is important. Girls stand back and tell the boys how great they are by kicking high and placing their naughty bits on display.

What’s so meritorious about that?? What skill other than the most primitive hip flexibility and a fake smile does that take?? And why does society still support this garbage??