A Harry Potter TV series

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…would be awesome, right? And here’s how I would do it.

Ever since the third movie, I’ve felt that movies can’t adequately tell the Harry Potter story. The world is too rich. There are too many characters, too many magical creatures, too much backstory. Subplots upon subplots must be left out for time, but this causes confusion and sometimes story changes.

The first two books translated well enough, as they were short and simple stories, but as soon as complexity came in, the overall tale started to suffer. It probably would have been best to make two films each from Azkaban onward.

Still, movies can’t beat television when it comes to telling complex stories, because television has the time to do more. It’s why I’ve all but stopped going to the movies, but still watch TV (though not much, to be honest). It’s why when I’m scanning through Netflix to find something to watch, I usually avoid the movies and look for a series to sink my teeth into. Maybe this says something about a decline in the quality of movies in general; I don’t know. I just know that I like to be engaged with many characters and a deep plot and an interesting setting, and I don’t get enough mental stimulation from most movies.

In any case, I’ve long thought Harry Potter should be done as an animated series with 30-minute episodes. I’d prefer some really pretty anime art, but the brilliant Iron Man: Armored Adventures has me reconsidering the potential of CGI 3D cel-shading. Regardless of how it’s animated, it needs to look beautiful and magical. (This was one thing that kind of felt off to me about the Harry Potter films; many things that should have been beautiful were not, including the centaurs. The mermaids were supposed to be fearsome, of course, but that doesn’t mean everything had to be frightening.)

The series would have a team of regular writers, and, assuming she wanted a hand in it, J.K. Rowling would be the producer, and she’d sign off on all the story concepts. In general the main plots would follow the books pretty much to the letter. We’d get to see all the scenes we’ve imagined, maybe not the way we imagined them, but in a new and interesting way.

There would also be some original one-off episodes thrown into the mix. I’d let the writing team write some of these, but I’d also woo guest writers, people who’ve written good stuff for other shows, and just see what they might do for Harry Potter. Rowling would have to have veto power, but I imagine she’d be open to some different interpretations and situations for her characters, and would only speak up if she felt like a writer had misunderstood a character. These one-offs would be stand-alone; they could not affect overall continuity in any major way (although minor effects would be fine, and background characters could get more spotlight. Wouldn’t you love “A Day in the Life of Luna Lovegood”?).

Story arcs would flow from the canon material pretty naturally. I’m not sure how the episodes would break up into seasons, since the books are all different lengths, but this is something the writers could discuss and figure out. The original episodes could help with padding a season out when needed. Also, just because the series would be following the books wouldn’t necessarily mean there couldn’t be expanded flashback episodes. I’d love to see a story arc about Dumbledore, a story arc about Snape, a story arc about James and Lily, a story arc about Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Even the diary flashback about Tom Riddle from The Chamber of Secrets could be expanded into an episode, or perhaps worked into a longer series about Tom Riddle and Voldemort that would go with the Half-Blood Prince episodes. Following Harry’s story doesn’t mean the series would have to only follow him. Maybe some of the original episodes could spend more time with Hermione. The possibilities are endless.

The point would be a robust series, with a known beginning and end, and a lot of known stuff in the middle, but then plenty of possibilities for new stories and new visuals and new music and new actors and a fresh, full way of experiencing the universe J.K. Rowling envisioned.

Would that not rule?!

Salvaging our elections process

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It has long disturbed me that the people we “elect” to national office often aren’t the best qualified or most representative of the will of the people they represent, but instead seemingly the ones who manage to get their names and faces out in front of people the longest. This implies that our politicians spend the majority of their time chasing and then spending money…not exactly the scions of fiscal responsibility we want in control of our budget.

A friend suggested to me that in the UK, they cap campaign spending and have a limited time set for campaigning, and that these would be excellent rules to implement here. I don’t know what the UK system is exactly, but I have my own thoughts on how this would work out. I also came up with a third condition that I think would maximize effectiveness.

  1. Make all campaigns, and candidates, transparent

    The first step is to ensure that the public has free and easy access to the same information about all candidates. This should include things like a campaign’s budget, and which companies or lobby groups have donated to the campaign. (Private citizens’ donations would remain private, unless they passed a certain percentage of the campaign funding cap.)

    This should also include things like a candidate’s resume–past offices and jobs held, voting history in context. This should not include things like a candidate’s “stance on the issues”, as these are not reliable measures and are often nothing more than editorializing or, at worst, pandering. Nor should this include any analysis. The raw data should be presented in ways that makes it easy for people of various learning types to understand, but the greatest efforts should be made to keep that data pure and complete. People should be able to use that data to make their own decisions.

    Designing this data presentation interface would be the greatest user experience project in the history of America. Determining what data to include and maintaining that data would be some of the most important work in this country, as it would literally allow democracy to function.

    Once the interface was designed, various vendors could work with the API to allow users to interact with the data in public libraries and in their own homes. The Xbox Kinect, for example, could help kinetic learners. Obviously, this interface would also need to take accessibility questions into account.

    This data would need to be protected just as the internet itself is protected.

    The media would have access to the data just as average citizens would, and they would be perfectly within their First Amendment rights to provide their own analysis of it, and add their own original reporting. However, they should be required to make it clear where the data ends and their own analysis and reporting begins.

  2. Put a cap on campaign funding

    Rather than simply limiting what candidates can spend, I would limit how much money a candidate can raise for an election at all. Currently, some donations aren’t used for a specific election, but are saved for a later time. I would require that all funds raised during the election period be limited to a certain amount and then spent on that election. Any money left over would then be split equally among those who had donated, at the expense of the campaign fund. An outside accountant would oversee this process. There would be no donating to a politician’s campaign in the middle of the year, only during election time.

    The purpose here is not to further distance candidates from the concept of long-term financial planning, but to make it easier for candidates who were not born into wealth or prestige to have a shot at getting elected. Ideally, campaign planning would become so dissimilar to the national budget (and so compartmentalized and short-term by comparison) that it would not interfere with an elected public servant’s understanding or take his or her attention away from the true purpose of office.

    While this would not completely level the candidate playing field, it would eliminate the gross advantage certain candidates enjoy solely due to their personal wealth. Rich candidates could still run, of course, but they would be limited to using the same amount of money as other candidates. Instead of having the enormous advantage of being a major candidate through no personal merit, they’d simply have the lesser advantage of not having to spend time seeking donations.

    As all campaigns would be transparent, people would know when a candidate was reaching his or her funding cap, and therefore they could stop donating in time for the candidate not to have to deal with refunding a lot of money.

  3. Limit campaign activities to a defined campaign period

    Currently, our elected officials are campaigning year-round. They’re thinking about re-election at all times, seeking out more and more campaign money, concentrating more on keeping their jobs than on taking care of their work. Capping campaign funding solves half of that problem. The other half would be solved by prohibiting any election activity outside of a defined election time.

    Our presidential election process is the best example of how long and exhausting an election process can get. By the time voters head to the polls (or not), they’re already tired of the election. They may have tuned it all out. They may simply vote along party lines. They may be frustrated over the political grandstanding and wondering where, exactly, the candidates really stand.

    Setting a short, defined period for campaigning, and prohibiting candidates from participating in any campaign-related activities outside of that period–fundraising, answering interview questions about elections, sending out campaign fliers and such–would eliminate campaign fatigue and also force candidates to get down to the meat of matters rather than switching up their “stances” based on opinion polls. Put some teeth in this one: any candidate found to be engaged in any campaign activity outside of the campaign period should be ineligible to run in the next election.

    This doesn’t mean that candidates wouldn’t be able to discuss issues. It’s imperative that they be able to do that. But they should do so in a way that makes it obvious their goal is to help the country, not their own agendas. This would probably be the hardest thing to enforce, so I would recommend against trying. (These are politicians, after all.) Only overt campaign activities would result in an election ban.

    There should also be some sort of punishment for any media organization that tries to trap a candidate into answering a question that would make him or her ineligible. Maybe a severe fine.

    I don’t support the idea of a state-run media at all. While I believe there is some severe corruption in the news media right now, I don’t think the solution would be for the government to strictly regulate the media. There has to be room for the media to operate for its true and just purpose: journalism. At the same time, though, there are certain media behaviors, such as favoring one candidate over another candidate, or ignoring certain candidates completely, that are too troublesome to ignore. I am hoping that the steps I’m outlining here to change the election process would have the effect of changing how the media approaches elections. I’m not prepared at this time to forbid the media from discussing an election outside the defined election period. That seems way too Big Brother-y. I would hope, rather, that once citizens knew they could get all the information they needed during the election period, they wouldn’t really want the media to be constantly projecting who was going to run and who might be the winner from those who might be running…and they’d say so. And then, finally, a presidential election might not last for three years.

  4. Require all candidates to take a governance test

    Give all candidates a test at the same time, at the beginning of the election period, once all candidates had announced for a position. The first part of the test would be multiple choice, a mix of questions about American history, American government, economics, world history and politics, and basic math. The second part would require candidates to answer an essay question about a current national issue. This would not be a “what is your stance” question, but a “what specific steps would you take in this specific scenario” question.

    Arrangements would be made for candidates to take the test in a way that matches their learning styles. An aural learner could have a proctor read the test to them, for example. The test would be made as accessible as possible to all candidates.

    Candidates would not be required to pass this test to run for office. However, the tests would all be publicly available pieces of a candidate’s data, easy for citizens to retrieve and evaluate. The media would of course also have access and be able to pick each candidate’s answers apart.

    This should give the candidates plenty of impetus to spend the time outside the campaign period making sure they have actual knowledge that will assist them in governance.

  5. Eliminate PACs and Super PACs

    I figured this went without saying, but then I figured I’d better say it anyway. There would be no point in limiting a candidate’s campaigning without doing this.

I foresee many things changing, should all these conditions be met. With elected officials no longer spending the bulk of their time on campaigning, actual governing should improve. The thought of this would appeal to those members of Congress who actually do want to govern properly, and just don’t have the time. I think there would be enough support for this kind of reform even within government that it could go through. The hardest part would be creating the data interface, since nothing like this has ever been done before.

Once this system was in place, we would start to see a lot of new faces in politics, and I think the constant refresh would do a world of good. We would also see more of a focus on actually running the country, and less on the power and prestige of being a long-term member of Congress. Maybe the newer, more civic-minded members would think about how members of Congress are treated differently by the law than regular citizens are, and maybe they would start to change that.

Weight loss, body image, and girly-ness

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I grew up half girly and half tomboy. I’ve always liked cute things, and I’ve always liked dressing up and looking nice, but I’ve also always enjoyed getting my hands dirty, wearing comfortable clothes, climbing things. As a child it always irritated me that my dad and brothers could go outside shirtless on hot days and I couldn’t.

me in middle school

Me at age 12

I tended toward comfortable and eclectic clothes in middle school–pink sweat pants, high top black or white sneakers over two pairs of alternating-color socks, large untucked T-shirts cinched with a thick leather man’s belt and giant belt buckle, brown trenchcoat. I don’t think any color pictures from that time have survived, but here’s one from when I was in the 7th grade, age 12. I was in the paper for participating in an English Composition competition. (One year I made it to state.)

It was funny after the summer between this year and 8th grade, when I put my belt back on for the first time in months and discovered I had suddenly developed curves. I vividly recall looking at a picture of myself from the previous year and thinking that my waist looked like a tree trunk by comparison.

It was probably at that point that I started thinking about looking more girly. Maybe Mom gently nudged me in that direction; I don’t remember. I do know that in middle school I was extremely arrogant. I got along better with teachers than with most other students, and that (plus my wardrobe choices) caused me to be shunned by the general school population. Food was thrown at me in the cafeteria, for example. I did have friends, but I didn’t respect them as much as I should have. I felt that I was above it all. I was, of course, achingly lonely, and to balance this I decided to passive-aggressively talk about people in front of them…to walls. This did nothing for my reputation and also caused some hell for my younger brother, unfortunately.

By the time high school rolled around I was ready to reinvent myself. Toward the end of 8th grade I visited the high school for some function–I think it was probably related to French, which I’d started taking that year–in a cuter outfit than I’d normally worn throughout middle school: jeans, a knit red sweater over a beige blouse, and earrings. While there I met a guy who knew nothing about my wall-talking, crazy-dressing, antisocial behavior, and we got to talking. It was not the first time a guy had expressed interest in me, but it was the first time it wasn’t someone I’d known since elementary school. It was exciting.

I dressed better in high school, and kung fu kept me in relatively good shape. I was convinced I was fat, though, and then one day my dad, trying to be helpful, told me I was “a little overweight.” This drove me to screaming tears. I had always suspected it, you see, and the outside confirmation just made it worse.

One time I was sexually harassed during gym class. A boy touched me on the backside, and when I spun, startled and scared, he was leering. I fled to the locker rooms and wouldn’t come out. The female gym instructor came to talk to me, and I told her I didn’t think I was pretty. Somehow, I had conflated the incident with my insecurity and concluded that only “ugly” people got touched inappropriately. The instructor didn’t figure this out, though, and simply assured me, “You’re not the most beautiful girl in class, but you’re certainly not the ugliest.”

(Later, I was getting a soda from a vending machine, and as I bent over I felt something touch my bottom. I freaked out and accused the boy in line behind me of touching me. He swore up and down that he hadn’t done it, and he looked angry to even be accused, so I immediately changed my story. After all, why would a cute guy like that want to touch my bottom? I must have just brushed up against something.)

I had no boyfriends in high school. I had likes, and I had crushes, but I could never get close, or never let someone get close. The boy I’d met at the French event ended up in my freshman year French class, but while at first I’d found his behavior flattering and chivalrous, eventually it became tiresome and oppressive and even embarrassing. I wasn’t attracted to him, and I didn’t know how to handle it, especially given the long love notes he would continually write me. Somehow, eventually, I told him I wasn’t interested, and he turned his attentions to one of my friends instead, much to her chagrin.

That, unfortunately, was about the best I would do in high school. I spent most of the rest of my time crushing on a boy who wasn’t interested, and occasionally attempting to pursue other boys. No boys pursued me, with the exception of a senior who wanted to take me to prom my freshman year (my parents said no) and a guy who was already dating my friend (and who I therefore cold-shouldered mightily, with restraint I should have shown later in college). I met someone really nice and interesting at the BETA Convention one year. He saw me alone at the hotel restaurant and invited me to eat with him and his friend, and then we explored around the hotel together, and after that we were going to go out on a real date and everything…but I bailed at the last minute out of fear. I was afraid we hadn’t really made a connection, that he was just trolling for a chick. I didn’t know how to trust. I never saw him again.

My first actual boyfriend, therefore, didn’t happen until college. My husband doesn’t like hearing about him (for obvious reasons, but also because they are very different people), but I am pretty thankful I had him in my life. He helped me to accept my body and be comfortable with the way I look, and that change was extremely powerful. I wish I had been a better person then, had been able to treat him better, especially given everything he did for me. I don’t think we should have ended up together, not by a long shot, but I should have broken up with him and stayed broken up when I realized that the first time. At least I know he’s happy now.

When Sean and I first got together, I weighed around 150 pounds. I’d lost a lot of weight due to cancer. I looked pretty good, I was dressing well, and a lot of local guys were noticing me. Sean and I were dating, but he lived nine hours away, so sometimes it didn’t feel real, and I’d entertain the notion of having a local significant other. Ultimately, I didn’t act on these ideas, but I did tell Sean about them; reading the chat logs later, I couldn’t believe how heartless I’d been. I suppose I was coming into myself as an attractive woman who was aware of that fact, and not thinking about the consequences to those around her…not even the man who had already professed his love.

me in 2000

Me in May of 2000

As time passed, I started gaining weight, and when I’d buy new clothes, they weren’t cute. They were comfortable. I had a lot of stretchy pants and big t-shirts. Every now and then I would “dress up”, but for the most part I was, well, slovenly. I was in a relationship; I didn’t need to find anyone. My guy was two states away. There was no one to impress. Really, I wasn’t thinking about these things at all. I was just putting on clothes.

It was actually Sean who got me started dressing nicely. I’d gone through the “I’ll dress how I want because I’m better than you” phase; I’d gone through the “I’ll dress to hopefully please guys, but I hate myself” phase; I’d transitioned into accepting my body; I’d gone through the “Hey, I’m thin! Look at me!” phase; and now I was in some sort of “Whatever” phase. Then there came a time when I was visiting Sean, and I threw on my normal t-shirt and stretchy pants and went to go say hi and bring him a snack at work.

And he was so cold to me. He got rid of me as fast as he possibly could. And he made it perfectly clear that it was because of what I was wearing, that he was embarrassed to be seen with me.

I went back to his parents’ house and sat down at the desktop computer I had lugged down there and just cried. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about this at all. It was shocking to me because it had never occurred to me. I was that comfortable with myself; I just assumed that he was my boyfriend and he would like how I looked no matter what. What a difference from just a few years prior–I never would have assumed such a thing in high school!

A lot has changed in the intervening years. Sean has become far less brusque with me than he used to be. Where once he was abrupt and cool, now he is gentle and supportive. Warm. Tender. Meanwhile, I have become far more attuned to how my actions affect him: how I dress, the things I say. We each enjoy doing things that make the other happy, and we’ve learned a lot about that in the nine and a half years of our marriage.

Now Sean can tell me that an outfit doesn’t really work for him, and it’s fine. I may choose to wear it anyway, if I like it. Or not. And I can express to him what sort of support I need when I need it.

me in February 2009

Me in February 2009

Sean’s fondness of dressing well started to rub off on me fairly quickly after that work incident. I began to choose prettier, more flattering outfits. I started to rise out of the mindset that being overweight or obese meant I didn’t need to worry too much about how clothes looked. Fortunately for me, stores were starting to come out with some plus-size fashions that I really liked. I tried to avoid wearing a lot of plain black, because although black is slimming, it’s not pretty. I started to get a good idea of the types of fabrics and the clothing styles that flatter my body type versus the ones that make me look awful. I embraced “work casual”, nice blouses with black slacks, on weekdays, and wore t-shirts and jeans on the weekend. I kept this up even as my weight ballooned.

I looked at other people as inspiration, people who always dressed well and looked great despite not fitting some arbitrary shape requirement for beauty. I didn’t work on my appearance hard enough to be on their level, but I did work at it a lot more than I had before I realized it was something worth working on.

I don’t want to undercut the epiphany I had in my post on beauty, but I’m realizing that I already felt beautiful, and still do. I knew I didn’t look like a model or like my ideal self-image, but at the same time, I knew I could make myself look nice, and that was powerful. I also knew, and know, that at home, there is a man who loves me, who finds me appealing. While I can dress up for him, and enjoy doing so, I can also just be completely naked, and he’s happy. It isn’t an ideal he wants, it isn’t the image I create by putting on certain clothes. It’s me, and everything that I am.

So now I’m losing weight. I have so much more energy, and I’m finding myself pouring more and more of it into being girly and cute–new outfits, pedicures, trying different things with makeup. Maybe I’m becoming more “acceptable” or more attractive to the world at large. But that was never the point. This weight loss was never about that. It was also never about me finding happiness in myself, because I already did that. This is about getting healthy, living longer, being able to do more, just enjoying life. It’s stirring up so many memories as it happens, though, so many thoughts about my body that I haven’t really worried about in years. I suppose I’m losing some emotional weight too.

I’ll let it all slough off me and emerge stronger and even more vibrant.

me on April 1, 2012

Me on April 1, 2012

Equal rights for women

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In my previous post, I talked about Georgia HR 954, a bill that would move the cutoff point for abortions to 20 weeks and limit the circumstances under which which abortions can be performed in the state. I addressed some specific problems with the language of that bill in the post.

Now I’d like to talk a bit more about why broadly-written legislation like this is problematic, and why this debate is not so simple as “kill children” vs. “don’t kill children”.

Soraya Chemaly of the Huffington Post has compiled an excellent roundup of information on this topic, entitled 3 Videos Everyone Who Assumes Women Are Free Should See.

The first video tells the stories of women who were criminalized for wanting to have their babies on their own terms. In other words, their stories aren’t about abortion at all–they’re about when and how the women and their partners wanted to bring their children into the world. Why were hospitals interfering in these decisions? Because the state governments had passed “personhood” laws for zygotes, giving doctors the right to supersede mothers. In one instance, law enforcement came to a woman’s home, dragged her to the hospital, and forced her to have a C-section. In America.

Here’s a direct link to that video.

As Chemaly points out, the “personhood” idea behind these laws is the same thing as the Personhood Pledge most of the Republican candidates for president signed. What does this mean? That these men have promised to, if elected, work to grant “personhood” to life inside the womb at fertilization. So, for example, if a woman has a miscarriage, she could be charged with feticide.

What this sort of law ignores is that women are not incubators. Here’s how Chemaly puts it:

I’m not keen on pitting a woman’s rights against those of her fetus. Although useful to understand certain issues, it sets up a false and misleading dichotomy. Gestation, during which a woman chooses to share her body in complex, fully integrated ways, is the exact opposite of separation. Women are not separate from their fetuses. A key strategy of this movement is to pretend that they are and to enshrine that idea in dangerous laws. Women are not production facilities or vessels or any number of other updated variations of spermist theory homunculous container. But, because of the constructs being established by this movement on “behalf” of zygotes, a hospital can waive your right to life, in violation of your or your family’s instructions, to save your fetus.

I think there is an interesting social aspect to consider here. A lot of the female advocates of “personhood” for zygotes and/or stiffer abortion legislation are mothers. Mothers are exceedingly familiar with self-sacrifice. It comes naturally to them. They give up much and more for the good of their children. Some women do so happily, others reluctantly, but all eventually become some sort of martyr, some sort of hero. To these women, their own lives don’t matter. To these women, an abortion would be a failure, regardless of circumstance.

I am not a mother myself, and I probably never will be due to infertility…but these feelings are not foreign to me. I held them throughout my young adult life as a fervent anti-abortionist. I knew–knew–that I would give up my life for my child, without hesitation. I was convinced that my theoretical child deserved to live more than I did, and that if there was ever a time when a pregnancy threatened my health, I would choose the baby over myself. Even if the baby was in danger and I was not, I’d choose it over myself. If I was ever raped, I fervently believed that I would raise that child and make something good out of something terrible. If I knew that my child would be born with severe physical or mental disabilities, I would have it and love it, because it would be my baby, and the difficulty would make me stronger. Knowing ahead of time would just give me time to prepare.

Abortion, for me, was simply not an option, and I didn’t see how any woman could feel differently.

This is where the problem begins. When you believe everyone should think the same way you do, and you start supporting legislation that forces them to follow your way of living.

Time has passed, and my opinion has shifted. I am no longer certain what my decisions would be in the situations above. I spent much of my young life hating myself, believing I wasn’t worth anything, and those feelings informed my decisions. Now I have come to see at least a little of my own worth, and I am not so eager to sacrifice myself.

I am not saying that I would not do it. Technically, we all give things up every day just to maintain the status quo. Compromise is the cornerstone of any relationship, and we all have at least one person we must compromise with. I am not just doing what I want, living as if I don’t affect the world; instead, I am seeing my value and place in it, and thinking more broadly than I was before.

And because my opinion has shifted, I can now see that there are times when an abortion might be the right decision for a family. It will always be a painful decision. But now I see that it is one to be made by the people involved: the mother, the father, the doctor. Not by blanket legislation that ends up taking reproduction decisions out of the home and handing them to the state.

I am not in favor of late-term abortions; once a fetus is to the point that it could survive outside the womb, it is unconscionable to terminate its life. I am interested in the fetal pain issue and will continue researching the studies that have been done in that vein; someone on Facebook sent me some references to look into. Ultimately, if there is going to be an abortion, I think it should happen as early as possible.

But there may come a point when it’s obvious to everyone involved that something needs to be done, and broad, restrictive legislation only causes further pain in those instances.

Georgia HB 954 and big government

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People are all of a sudden starting to hear about Georgia State Rep. Terry England’s comparing of women to livestock, and using his statement to rally people against HB 954, the “fetal pain” bill. This is old news. Rep. England made his comments last month; here’s coverage from the Huffington Post.

In the ensuing weeks, the bill has been rewritten, and there are now allowances for the health of the mother, thus rendering the current rallying cry inaccurate and possibly damaging. The real issue with this bill is not the fact that one man said something ludicrous. It is that this legislation would give the Georgia government control over the relationship between doctor and patient, leaving the doctor essentially impotent and the patient with no input into her medical care whatsoever.

The text of the bill can be found here.

Section 1 is the justification for the bill. Its main claim is that there is “substantial evidence” that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. I would say this is the argument on which the entire bill depends. However, I am having trouble finding this “substantial evidence”.

This is the most recent study I can find concerning fetal pain. Unfortunately, it’s from 2005. (I do find the summary interesting in respect to the claims made in HB 954′s Section 1.) This particular study’s results indicate that fetuses aren’t capable of feeling pain until the third trimester.

If someone has a medical journal link (not an opinion piece, blog, online petition, or even a “news” story, unless it has references) with more updated information, I’d be glad to see it.

From the get-go, the bill begs the question–a logical fallacy. Section 2 is just as problematic. Note how all the provisions allowing physicians to do their jobs have been stricken. The decision is not in the hands of patients and the medical professionals who actually know what they’re doing; lawmakers are instead giving them a blanket rulebook to follow.

Section 2 also contains the new language that will supposedly protect women from carrying dead fetuses or from endangering their own lives and/or health. However, check out this bit:

No such condition [permitting an abortion] shall be deemed to exist if it is based on a diagnosis or claim of a mental or emotional condition of the pregnant woman or that the pregnant woman will purposefully engage in conduct which she intends to result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function

Mental health is not considered a part of “real” health under Georgia law, apparently.

Then there’s this:

In any case described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) of this subsection, the physician shall terminate the pregnancy in the manner which, in reasonable medical judgment, provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive unless, in reasonable medical judgment, termination of the pregnancy in that manner would pose a greater risk either of the death of the pregnant woman or of the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman than would another available method. No such greater risk shall be deemed to exist if it is based on a diagnosis or claim of a mental or emotional condition of the pregnant woman or that the pregnant woman will purposefully engage in conduct which she intends to result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function. If the ["product of the abortion" is struck here and replaced with "child"] is capable of [the phrase "meaningful or" is struck here] sustained life, medical aid then available must be rendered.

The bill does not go into who would then pay for the continued medical needs of the fetus, which at this point obviously could not survive outside a medical facility…nor who would take the child in if he or she somehow managed to live through this ordeal. Note the striking of the word “meaningful” in the text. We all know how hard it is for premature babies–this would be so much worse. Who can imagine what physical and mental damage the child might suffer? And then to not even have parents who want him/her? To become a ward of the state? Do you really think such a life would be “meaningful”? No wonder the word was stricken.

A huge issue with this sort of legislation is that it completely ignores the impact on the rest of society and the rest of life after the event it’s trying to prevent. “Save the babies” sounds like a wonderful cause…until you start to wonder, save them for what, exactly?

Please note, I am, in general, opposed to abortion. I think that life is a wonderful and amazing thing. Longtime readers know how I’ve struggled with my infertility, how I’ve always wanted to have children. The idea of abortion for convenience’s sake makes me sick. But that’s what contraception is for, so you don’t get into that situation in the first place. And of the very few people I have heard of who’ve actually had an abortion, none of them have said the choice was “easy” or “convenient”.

I believe there are times when a woman can and should get an abortion, and that should be between her, her partner, and her physician. I think places like Planned Parenthood, which help educate women on birth control, health, and reproductive issues, are important not because they push an “abortion agenda” (they don’t) but because they help women to take ownership of their own lives, to make choices that are good for them, their families, and their communities. And because that assistance is optional.

The issue with HB 954, the real truth behind the “pro-choice”/”pro-life” debate, is not abortion at all. It’s about the government making choices for private citizens. I don’t want the government telling me I can’t get birth control or an abortion any more than I want them telling me I can’t have weight loss surgery or a heart transplant. It’s none of their business. And once they start dipping their toes into that water, it’s not long until they’re all-in. Have you heard about the banning of religious garments in European schools, how everyone thought it was a great idea until suddenly people couldn’t wear cross necklaces anymore? Not so great when it affects you. And men, this sort of legislation will get around to something that affects you eventually. [Edit: Come to think of it, Florida's Stand Your Ground law affects everyone in that state, doesn't it?]

HB 954 has not yet been signed into law by Gov. Deal. There are a couple of petitions against it on Change.org, but I don’t know how effective those actually are. If you feel as I do, I’d recommend writing or calling Deal yourself.

Six months out

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I recently had my six-month phone checkup with the office that performed my weight loss surgery. They’re very pleased with my progress, my protein levels look good, and I’m getting enough of my other nutrients; on the other hand, my cholesterol might still be an issue, and we’re waiting until June to see if my pseudotumor cerebri has improved. Still, everything generally seems to be dandy.

While I had them on the phone I inquired as to how much more weight I might expect to lose. They told me that on average, their patients reach a BMI of 26. For me, that would mean a weight of 147.

This is consistent with my high school weight range, but it’s a little higher than I was hoping for. A BMI of 26 is still considered overweight, for one thing. For another, at 167, I don’t really feel like I’m all that far from 147, and I’m not sure I’m prepared for this to be done in just another 20 pounds. Now that I’ve lost so much excess weight, I’m painfully aware of all my sagging flab, and I want it gone too. I don’t think 20 pounds would do it. I almost feel like I have 20 pounds of flab just in one thigh!

So I’ll keep eating right and working out and letting the surgery do its thing, and we’ll see what happens. And I’m going to really try not to worry!

Sayonara, unajuu

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One of the strangest things for me about weight loss surgery has been the change in my reactions to food. Some foods I used to adore are now too bland for me; some foods I didn’t really care much about have gained extreme importance. Of course, there are foods I’m supposed to be avoiding, but even when I cheat and let myself have a small bite, I often discover that I don’t like it enough to warrant the cheating.

One example of how things have changed: I am very picky about meat products now. Most ground beef dishes, like burgers and meatloaf, are too dry for me. I tend to find them flavorless and unpleasant. I have also grown tired of eggs, no matter how they’re cooked; I’ll eat them if they’re what’s available and I know I need the protein, but they no longer give me any satisfaction. (Part of me wonders if I might find farm fresh eggs more palatable. I’ll have to give it a try sometime.) Ham doesn’t thrill me, but it gets the job done…but I love a good pork chop. And of course, steak is marvelous. I eat them rarer than I used to, because that way they’re nice and juicy and soft. We’ve started going to Ted’s here in Atlanta, and I’m addicted to bison steak. Fish also makes me happy. I love a good grilled or broiled salmon fillet, and I’d eat sashimi every day if I could–but it has to be good sashimi. If it’s possible, I’m even pickier about sashimi now than I was before.

I still enjoy cottage cheese, but I have become even pickier about brands. There was once a time when I could eat a non-favorite brand and be okay with it, but now, unless it’s Walmart brand, I can’t stand the stuff. I don’t know what it is about how Walmart makes their cottage cheese versus the way the other companies make theirs, but something is different to my now overly sensitive palate.

Then there’s sweets. I always had a sweet tooth before. Cookies, pastries, brownies, cakes, chocolate candy, anything chocolate really…I’d gobble it all up without heeding quality or quantity. Now, of course, I’m almost completely off sugar, except in cases when it’s unavoidable. There are times when I let myself have some sugary snack–usually when traveling, because I don’t keep that sort of thing in the house–but when I do, it never meets my expectations. It always feels pointless. The taste doesn’t do anything for me. I can vividly remember how eating sweets used to make me feel, but now, after having weight loss surgery, eating them will never make me feel that way again. It is such a strange feeling…almost a feeling of loss, until I remember that this change is what has allowed me to drop 100 pounds.

That brings me to unagi.

In 2001, I went to Japan for the first time. It was an amazing trip that changed my life. While I was there, I had unagidon, barbecued eel over a bowl of rice, for the first time. I promptly dubbed it my favorite dish in the world and sought it out thereafter as much as possible. Towards the end of my homestay in Yatsushiro, my host mother, noting how much I adored unagidon, made me a huge bowl with a double helping. I ate it all.

Since then I’ve found unagidon and its sister dish unagijuu (also called unadon and unajuu, respectively) in various restaurants in the US, including my former favorite Augusta Japanese restaurant (which unfortunately seems to have gone downhill in recent years). Here’s some delicious unadon I had there in 2008, complete with onions.

unadon

You're supposed to eat unadon on Eel Day to build stamina for the summer heat.

I hadn’t had unadon or unajuu since the surgery, until the other night at Haru Ichiban in Duluth. I was trying to go for something with plenty of protein, since it’s easy to mess up and maximize carbs in a Japanese restaurant. I didn’t even think about sugar. Here’s the unajuu:

My last box of unajuu.

My last box of unajuu.

Look at that sauce. Unlike the unadon above, this unajuu is saturated. Apart from sopping it all up with a napkin (which I didn’t think of until just now), there really was no way to avoid the sauce. And, unfortunately for me, that sauce is sweet.

I mentioned that when I eat sweets like candy or cookies they don’t really do much for me. Because of this, I usually don’t continue eating them. On the rare occasions that I do, though, I get this really nasty feeling in my chest, between my neck and my stomach. It’s this weird gurgling feeling, highly unpleasant. And it only happens when I eat sugar in high concentration.

Let me tell you, that unajuu made me miserable after just a few bites.

I stopped, ordered some salmon sashimi to get my protein, and spent the rest of the evening trying not to throw up. I was successful, yay! But that put the nail in the coffin of my once passionate affair with unajuu…and perhaps unadon as well, if it’s made with that same concentration of sauce.

Goodbye, unajuu. I loved you once, and somewhere inside I love you still, but it’s no longer meant to be.

No longer obese

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me at 167 poundsAs of yesterday morning, I weigh an astonishingly low 166.6 pounds. That’s a hundred pounds less than the highest weight I ever reached, and 90.4 pounds less than I weighed on September 26, 2011, the day I had weight loss surgery. Now, six months out from that surgery, my BMI has plummeted from 45.5, class III obesity, to 29.5–toward the top of the “overweight” range.

I am no longer obese.

I am no longer obese.

I knew this was coming. Whenever I saved my weight in Weightbot on my iPhone, it would tell me my BMI, and I knew that as soon as I hit 29.9 I would no longer be obese. I felt like I was in the 30s forever. I thought about checking to see what weight I’d need to reach to get out of the obesity range, but I somehow never got around to doing that. This month I ended up traveling a lot and didn’t have access to my scale…so while I usually try to wait a few days to a week between weigh-ins, yesterday’s came after a far longer data-free period than usual.

I didn’t even really realize it had happened when I tracked my weight. I saw the 29 and it just didn’t register. It was only this morning, when I weighed in on the Wii Fit, that the truth resounded in my ears: a different, higher in pitch humpty-dumpty “you’re fat” melody, and the Wii Balance Board character, who for years has admonished me, “That’s obese!”, chirped instead, “That’s overweight!”

I don’t know how much more weight I’m going to lose. I’d need a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 to be considered in the “normal” range; for my height, that would mean a weight between 104.5 and 140.5. I’m really not interested in weighing 104.5. My mid range, a BMI of 21.7 at 122.5 lbs, seems about as small as I’d want to go. I don’t really know what I’d look like at that weight, because in high school, at my most fit, I weighed around 145 to 150.

I don’t even really know what weight I want to be. I used to say I wanted to go for 125 and that I’d be happy with 140, but I can’t imagine what I would look like at either weight. I’m actually pretty happy with how I look now, although I’d like to get rid of some flab. I hope I don’t lose so much weight that my natural curviness goes away.

Regardless, I am extremely pleased with the results of my hard work so far, and I hope I can continue refining my body and becoming even more healthy. I updated the comparison photo I made three months after surgery, and included clothes sizes this time. It’s amazing to me to look back at the changes. (Click to embiggen.)

before and after photosI’m wearing the same shirt in the first two photos, and I thought about wearing it again in the next two, but once a shirt is too big for you, it starts getting unflattering. I did put it on this last time, though; here’s a picture. Rather than hiding fat, the ruffles now hide my lack thereof, which defeats the entire purpose! ;)

Pregnancy dream

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Last night, probably because I looked at pictures of pregnant celebrities right before bed, I dreamed I was going to have a baby. It was apparently time to give birth, so I was put into this giant helicopter (the interior was more like that of a blimp) and quickly flown toward the hospital, along with my brothers and a few other people I can’t remember. There was a grizzled man in charge of the helicopter who kept reassuring me that all was well, but I was nervous because things didn’t seem quite right.

Finally at one point I looked down at my stomach and saw that it wasn’t sticking out nearly enough. It looked just like it looks now (which is much better than how it looked in a previous dream).

“How am I pregnant?” I yelled. “Where’s the baby?”

Everyone seemed to notice me for the first time. “Huh. I guess you’re not having a baby after all,” the grizzled man said. He told the helicopter pilot to turn around.

“If I have to pay for this helicopter ride, I’m going to be pissed,” I told my brother AJ.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said.

“But I don’t have insurance.”

“You’d probably only have to pay if you did have insurance.”