ChiKat

I grew up in a wildly white suburb. My grade school was 100% white. There was one black kid (Hi, Chris!) at my high school.

That means there are a lot of things about black culture that I don't know. Here's my question for you: When I'm writing in this blog, when do I use the term "black" and when do I use the term "African-American"? Is one more respectful that the other?

I'm a true internet dork, so I tried to Google for the answer, but I have had no luck. So I thought I would ask my readers what they prefer.

Comments are most welcome. Thanks for doing your part to make me multi-culti!

We live about six (dark, poorly lit) blocks from a main road. The main road has several bus routes, so people often have to make the trek to that road along streets that are deserted and a bit creepy at night.

The blue glow from the police emergency phones is meant to be reassuring, but it adds to the ominous quality.

My husband was walking the dog late last night. He ran into a woman who was making her way to the bus stop. My husband said hello, and they exchanged the usual small talk. She mentioned that he must feel so much safer with the dog than she felt walking alone. Since it was only six blocks away, my husband offered to walk with her to the bus stop.

I know! He's adorably nice.

They got to talking and he mentioned that he hated when I walked in the neighborhood at night without the dog. He felt that a young, white woman like myself was an obvious target, and he hated that about this neighborhood.

The woman walking with my husband agreed that I was a target, but she said that what she hated even more was the fact that as an African-American woman, she couldn't walk safely on the South Side after dark. It made her so angry that she was in a neighborhood she grew up in, surrounded by people of her race, and yet she wasn't safe.

I thought that was a pretty interesting assessment of things. She's right – there are some days that I feel like no one is safe in this neighborhood.

Then there are other days when all my neighbors wave to me, and I meet someone's new baby, and someone has a new dog and we all get along. Those days make me love it here.

This weekend, I was at our make-shift dog park with two other dog owners and our dogs. We heard three gun shots from about a block away, then saw two cars race away.

The other dog owners and I all knew the most likely source of the gun shots. Down the street, there is a Section 8 apartment building. When there are problems on that block, the Section 8 building is almost always involved.

I can't adequately express how much that pains me. Being poor shouldn't mean that your only housing options expose your family to crime and violence. If the government is going to provide housing to low-income residents, that housing should be safe and secure. But in the 30-year history of Section 8, and in the entire history of public housing, we haven't figured out how to make low-income housing crime-free for the residents. Why is that? And what can we do to change that?

My husband sometimes rages against his job. His work could change the world (really!) but the pay is lousy. The other day, we were contemplating what life would be like if we had a baby living in our condo and he confessed how angry he was that he couldn't afford a house for us.

Part of the reason we can't afford a house* is that I choose not to work full-time. When we moved back to Chicago, we talked a lot about what we wanted to do. My husband wanted to give this difficult but significant career a try, and I wanted to relax and write part-time is a low stress environment. We got what we wanted, but we had to give up other things, like decent salaries.

We made these decisions together. I think it's interesting that despite that, my husband still feels a responsibility to take care of me and provide for me. I'm the one sitting on a part-time tush. If anyone should be pulling more weight around here, it's me. But society seems to ingrain in men this idea that they are the responsible ones in the family, the providers.

I wonder if we will ever get to the point where a stay-at-home-dad is just as common as a stay-at-home-mom. Will it ever be commonly accepted that it's just as likely that the woman is the bread-winner, rather than the man. Are we fighting biology on this one, or societal expectations?


* By house I mean a single-family home in a safe neighborhood in Chicago that's close to public transportation and/or the beach. These days, the going rate seems to be $800,000+. There are cheaper houses in the city, but I have this dream of not having security bars on my windows, so that vastly limits our housing options.

I know it might sound a little strange for a woman desperately trying to get pregnant to be ecstatic about Plan B being approved by the FDA, but I'm thrilled. I'm so glad the FDA managed to pull its head out of its political ass and realized that this pill was safe and effective.

Even more importantly, I'm so glad Senators Clinton and Murray used their political weight to block the new FDA chief's Senate confirmation until the FDA made a decision about the Plan B pill. I usually rage against Senators blocking confirmations and legislation because I believe everything deserves a vote. But in this case, with the FDA ignoring their own scientific panel and trying to bury the pill for political reasons, I'm glad Clinton and Murray stood up for women's rights.

To be clear, this isn't even an abortion issue. Plan B is a heavy dose of regular birth control, so it can prevent a pregnancy from happening during the first day or two after unprotected sex, but if a woman is already pregnant, Plan B won't harm the fetus. And yet, some people in this country are so paranoid about women having sex that they want to remove any and every family planning option available to women. That enrages me.

I want a baby. But I'm so glad I've been able to decide on the right time to have a baby for me and my family. The ability to make that decision shouldn't be taken away from me by the government.

Poor Pluto. Stripped of its planetary status.

In grade school, I was taught that there were nine planets. No one ever mentioned that there was a lot of debate about that ninth planet. There are so many things that I was taught in a black and white manner in school, only to learn years later that there are a billion shades of gray complicating the story.

I had an epiphany the other day about why I disagree with this current administration so much. President Bush said that "the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize." In other words, we had to attack Iraq before Iraq could attack us.

The thing is, that wasn't the lesson I learned from September the 11th.

I learned that our borders weren't safe. I learned that our air travel wasn't safe. I learned that our intelligence agencies were hording information rather than sharing it across intelligence branches.

What I learned from September the 11th was that the government needs to spend our tax-payer dollars on secure borders. I want well-monitored, controlled immigration. I want secure air travel, even if that means having the National Guard patrol the aisles on every plane. I want a highly effective FBI and CIA that share information with each other to prevent attacks.

I want protection, not preemption.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am about not having to use Enbrel again. I've mentioned before the Enbrel truly was the wonder drug for me, allowing me to walk without pain. It made me feel like I could be my age, instead of an old crone. For that, I'll always be thankful.

But at the same time, every week, the injections felt like torture. It depressed me to have to inject myself. The needle hurt. The fluid burned. I would get ugly welts at the injection site. The entire experience would send me into a weekly spiral of frustration and rage. I hated the weekly reminder that my body had betrayed me by chaining me to a lifetime of pain.

Learning that diet changes could give me back control over my body was a distant hope. I wanted to do everything possible to stay healthy, but I don't think I really believed that I could be free of medication due to diet changes. Having hope like that seemed to be asking for disappointment.

But I'm so glad I tried the diet changes anyway. Actually, I didn't just try them – I threw my entire being into the diet changes. And I dragged my husband along for the no-dairy, no-sugar ride.

These days, I'm by no means pain-free. My hands and feet still ache in the morning. But within 30 minutes, the pain has gone (for the most part) and I can get on with my life.

I don't know if I can stay like this forever. Being without sugar is HARD. Being without dairy is harder. I love food, so going vegan means there are so many things that I miss (cheese enchiladas being at the top of the list…sob…followed by cheese ravioli…I can't go on…the list is too painful to contemplate). But skipping out on all those fabulous foods means that I don't have to inject myself each week AND I avoid joint damage. The best of both worlds. So for now, I'm sticking with the freak diet.

I had a fabulous appointment with my rheumatologist yesterday in which he REFUSED to acknowledge that my diet changes had anything to do with my pain-free days. I've been off Enbrel since February when I started trying to get pregnancy. A few months before that, I went sugar-free. This is the conversation I had with my doctor:

"I really think this diet has been great for me, because I'm been pain-free for months now."
"It certainly looks like you are in remission. That is great news."
"I'm really pleased. Of course, when I stop following the diet, the pain comes back."
"Well, diet and exercise do play a role, but that's probably coincidence."
"Really? Because I have flare every time I make a poor diet decision."
"You're probably in remission with occasional flares that happen to coincide with times when you think you have eaten poorly."

It's a pretty darn amazing coincidence that EVERY TIME I indulge, I get an RA flare.

I'm amazed at how the medical community is completely frightened of diet changes rather than long-term medication.

On the super-incredible-bright side of things, if I continue to have this low level of pain, I won't have to go back on Enbrel once I actually (ever?) have a baby. I can take Prednisone once in awhile for the pain, but otherwise I will be medication free.

Not having to self-administer painful injections on a weekly basis is all the motivation I need to stay away from chocolate.

One thing I love about the south side is how comfortable girls are with their bodies. The Caribbean Festival was this weekend, which meant that there were a ton of girls in sequined bikini tops, hot pants and feathers. The girls were all shapes and sizes. There was a lot of jiggle, a lot of cellulite, and a lot of fun. You don't have to be thin to flaunt it around here.

I love that. The guys seemed pretty happy with all the flesh that was on display also. But I think the real encouragement for girls to show off their curves isn't coming from the guys, it's coming from the other women on the south side.

I think black guys and white guys both enjoy a woman who fills out a pair of jeans. But when I was growing up in the (mostly white) suburbs, the prevailing attitude was that only the skinny were pretty. Only the rail-thin could wear super-tight clothing. That attitude wasn't coming from the guys – it was coming from other women. It was coming from the girls who rolled their eyes in disgust at a little jiggle.

On the south-side, any woman can wear super-tight clothing as long as she has the right attitude. And most of the girls I've met do have the right attitude. They love their curves and aren't afraid to show them off. It's one of my favorite things about the south side (my husband doesn't seem to mind, either).