Double bind

  In psychology, a double bind is defined as when a person receives conflicting orders that contradict one another and becomes confused. To follow one order would be to disobey the other or incur some kind of punishment. This can apply to when body language or tone of voice doesn’t match what is being said. Double binds can be used by abusers to confuse and gain control over their victim.An example of a double bind would be when a mother is visiting her son. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she recoils. He takes his hand away, thinking that she doesn’t want to be touched. But then the mother says, “What’s wrong, son? Don’t you love me?” Her body language is not matching up to her actions.Another would be if a teacher told students to write a paper using sources to back up their argument but also to write the paper on their own and not to consult any outside texts or people. So the students can either research their articles and be accused of cheating, as they consulted other sources, or turn in a paper with no sources and be accused of plagiarism.A double bind is a more subtle form of psychological abuse that can leave the victims feeling panicked and unsure. No matter what they do, they’re going to be wrong. Or the abuser is saying one thing but doing another, leaving them uncertain of what they actually want and unable to appease them.While this might sound like something only a psychological abuser would say, average people, sometimes unwittingly, put people into situations where they are doubly bound. A boy dating a girl might tell her that he dislikes “sluts” and girls that move too fast, but then inform her that if she doesn’t want to have sex with him within 4 weeks of their first date, he will break up with her. A girl might tell a boy that she doesn’t like men who are dominate and rough, but then demand that he has violent, kinky sex with her.Bosses, parents and other people in positions of authority who give orders to others can find themselves giving their subordinates double binds without realizing it. This is why it’s important to realize how we are treating people and how we give instructions. Everyone needs to make sure that what they’re doing is not putting people into a psychological situation that has been recognized for over 50 years.Seriously. We have enough problems. Take it easy on people.

Love Italian Style: Puttana in the Bedroom, Chapters 13 & 14

 It’s time to talk about sex. Something that Melissa can never seem to talk enough about. But never fear, she assures us, if you’re a whore in the bedroom, your husband will never cheat. Ever. This is a fun section.Melissa kicks off the introduction with these words of wisdom,To be a puttana in marriage, a woman needs to keep herself in shape. She has to be seductive. She must be willing to try new things for her husband’s pleasure and her own. And, most important, she has to be available for sex.The way I see it, if a wife is a puttana, her husband will never feel the urge to go outside the marriage to actual whores, or strip clubs. He won’t hit on women in bars, or drool over his friend’s girlfriends or the secretary. He’ll rush home to his wife, who makes sure he’ll have a good time (the best time) in the comfort of his own home.So why do men cheat? Their wives weren’t good enough whores in the bedroom. Glad we got that cleared up. Here I thought the reasons why men cheat were varied and complicated. But it’s not! A man who cheats just has a lazy wife who doesn’t want sex.Joe quickly pipes up to back up this fact. He educates,A man will never go outside his marriage for sex unless he’s not getting it at home. I know a guy whose wife refused to do it. He wound up cheating. They went to a psychiatrist to try and work things out. My friend told the shrunk everything. The wife agreed. She had no interest in sex, and wasn’t going to change. After a few sessions, the psychiatrist flat out said, “I got no help for you, buddy.” A couple that stops having sex needs help. But if the wife won’t change, they’re beyond it.First off, a psychiatrist is a doctor specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses and they can also prescribes psychiatric medication. A couple with marital trouble should have been going to a counselor, psychologist or therapist. But anyway.It really makes it quite clear that women are responsible for their men staying faithful. If a man isn’t entertained enough or getting enough sex, he just has to cheat. He has to get sex from someone, so if his wife isn’t DTF then he has to run to the nearest girl to fulfill his needs. Not his fault. He’s just doing whatever he has to in order to survive.Don’t either of them realize that there are women who have done everything possible to keep a man faithful and committed and nothing has worked? Also, this section has no consideration for women who have physical or emotional problems with sex. Women have to give men sex or suffer the consequences. If a woman doesn’t want sex, the man has to leave. Simple as that.And of course, this doesn’t even take into consideration that there are some men who have intimacy problems or emotional issues. In their traditional marriage, all men want sex all the time. That’s the major facet of their lives. In order to be a real man, you have to order your life around your penis.But all of this is lost on the couple. Melissa makes another joke that Joe has to have sex at least once every other day or suffer a painful demise from blue balls. The joke doesn’t get any funnier or lighten the fact that she is his personal sex doll.Moving on, Melissa starts talking about her body. Yet again. She brags,I’m proud of how I look, and not embarrassed to say so. Caring about your looks is superficial only if you do it for shallow reasons. I work on my outside to gain confidence on the inside.What? Confidence isn’t something that should be contingent on your outside. A confident woman is confident no matter if she’s in tip top shape or has stopped going to the gym. Also, the idea that caring about how you look needs to be justified is so silly. Everyone needs to take care of themselves and feel comfortable with their appearance.But while Melissa makes it sound like she works on her body for herself, a huge chunk of this work is obviously for Joe. She writes,When we’re in bed, he [Joe] objectifies the hell out of me — and I love every minute of it. In or out of bed, I want to feel like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen. I want his eyes on me. Being his sex object takes effort. I put in the time and reap the rewards.It’s one thing for a woman to be proud of being a sex object and wanting to be objectified by her husband. But it’s totally another for this woman to write a book advising other women to do the same and frame it around the idea that her marriage is successful because of this. Melissa might not see anything wrong with her husband not seeing her as a person. But a lot of women want to be seen as sexual creatures with feelings and intelligence as well.Anyway, Melissa then talks about how she appreciates Joe’s body and mentions that he used to be a stripper. Apparently, he still loves stripping. Not something I’d see as a career path for a traditionally manly man that could choke on his own testosterone, but whatever. Imagine if their daughter ever wanted to became a stripper. Scandal!Moving on, Melissa starts droning on about her fitness regime and how she works with a personal trainer and exactly how she tones her ass, so on, so forth. She does squats and leg lifts and bicep curls and other shit that no one really cares about.But just when things are getting boring, Melissa drives right back into her ancient gender roles and writes this little aside.Things not to do in front of your husbandDouble standard alert. Joe can and does a lot of the things on this list in front of me. I don’t necessarily like it, but I give him a pass. He’s part animal anyway. But I was raised to keep my bodily functions to myself. Ladies are discreet about such things. It goes back to the idea of dating your husband… Don’t let politeness die, and never let him see you…1. Poop. Moms, you know the book Everyone Poops, right? It’s wrong. Girls don’t poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn’t happen. Or, that’s what Joe thinks! We’ve been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don’t do it when he’s around or awake. In an emergency, I have my ways of pooping so he won’t hear, smell or see. It’s a challenge. Joe has asked me, in complete seriousness, “Do you poop?” He can’t catch me. He always tries. He springs in on me when I’ve been in the bathroom for a while, only to find me tweezing my eyebrows. Ha!Okay, she went there, now we have to talk about this. First off, I hate to be the one to break this to Melissa, but women are people. Women poop. It’s completely normal and natural. What isn’t normal or natural is making a challenge out of ensuring your husband doesn’t think that you have regular bodily functions or being so proud of the fact that she has put so much energy into this goal.Also, how does she manage to achieve this with someone that she’s living with? She can manage to hold her bowels until he falls asleep or leaves the house? That’s not even healthy. What about when they’re on vacation and in a hotel room with one small bathroom? How does she manage to keep up the illusion that her body doesn’t produce excrement?And what does she gain by doing this? What does she get out of having her husband think that she doesn’t poop? Is this an extreme manifestation of her need to be perfect? She has to be so perfect that she can’t even let people think that she has bowel movements? Why does she have to make people think that she’s not a human being?Who the fuck knows? She continues,2. Fart. I like to call it puff. The only time I would puff in front of Joe would be outside, in a tornado, with him wearing noise-canelling headphones and a clothespin on his nose.Of course. She doesn’t poop, why would she fart? But again, I have to ask how she manages this. She has never had an upset stomach and things have just happened? How does she avoid all of these natural functions? At this point, I have to wonder if she just thinks that Joe has never smelled her poop or heard her fart and she is just living in a fantasy land where she believes that she doesn’t shit or ever have gas.Moving swiftly on,3. Change a tampon. I have no words. I can’t even. This is not okay. Just NO. Talk about destroying the mystery. And don’t forget to flush them, please! When men see blood, they think something died.First off, never flush a tampon. It will clog the plumbing. Just throw them away. But anyway, women have periods. No amount of denial or flushing is going to change that. Men need to deal with the fact that most women bleed out of their vaginas once a month. It doesn’t matter if men think that it’s yucky or gross. Men do gross stuff all of the time and women are just told to put up with it. So guess what, return the favor.4. Pick… your nose, your eye gunk, an ingrown hair. A lady does not dig for gold. I’m grossed out when Joe cleans house in front of me.Of course it’s gross when he does it, but it’s completely unacceptable for her to do it. Because she’s a woman and women can’t be icky. They have to be perfect and amazing at all times.The next few sections are painfully boring bits about Melissa’s diet. She writes about how she eats, what she eats, why she eats, how she handles cravings, fast foods, liquid calories, cake and splurges. Which this is all well and good for her, her exact diet will probably do very little to help other women who don’t have her same body type, lifestyle and health concerns.But not to be deterred by reality, Melissa continues. She advises women not to let themselves go. But to instead, “Keep love alive. Use deodorant.” She talks about the unfortunate women who let their skin get dry, let their armpits get covered in stubble, etc. No woman should allow herself to get comfortable with her husband. As much as she might think that he loves her, if he sees armpit stubble, he’s still thinking that she’s gross.Chapter 14 is entitled Our Version of Foreplay. Melissa launches into some more advice on how to create sexual tension and keep your man interested and blah, blah, blah. She then writes this strange statement, “Since the days of Salome and Cleopatra, seduction has been a woman’s job.” Uh, Salome is believed to have led to the murder of John the Baptist. How is she exactly a woman to hold up as an example of femininity and seduction?Melissa then writes about sending flirty texts to your husband. She writes, “I wouldn’t write anything that would make me die of shame if someone read it over his shoulder. I never send photos. I don’t trust him not to show someone.” As much as she rambles on about trust, you’d think that she would trust her husband with a racy photo. But whatever.Her suggestions for sexy texts include the following:“I’m wearing red underwear. Early dinner tonight?”“You have no idea what I’m going to do to you when you get home.”“I want you.”My apologizes for putting such pornographic content into this blog. I’m sure a great many of the readers are now scandalized. Stay with me though.Joe pops in to share some male wisdom,Men are visual creatures. If we see something we like, we attack. A lion sees a gazelle, he attacks. His jowls are dripping and he can’t wait to tear at that gazelle with his teeth. But he’ll wait for a while, just watching it. His appetite is stimulated through his eyes. Watching first prolongs the thrill of the hunt.It’s so sexy when a man compares desire to a lion murdering a gazelle. It’s so sensual to visualize the dripping jowls and sharp teeth tearing into the flesh of an animal that had just been stalked and think that he believes this to be downright erotic. But this isn’t the last time Joe equates violence with sex. But that’s coming up.Melissa then talks about how important smell is to her. She’s already established how her husband has never smelled her business. She goes on to talk about all of the various things that she smells throughout the day and how happy it makes her.She ends the chapter by talking about how important it is to touch your spouse. Radical idea, right? Stay with me. She writes that soft, affectionate touches show your man that you care about him and are attracted to him. Ground breaking ideas, I know. Now, on to the next chapter.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

Love Italian Style: Cook in the Kitchen, Chapters 10 & 11

 Melissa starts out this chapter by reiterating how she decided to toss her bachelor’s degree aside work as a secretary for her husband’s company. All because he wants to be able to go on vacation with her. The story doesn’t make anymore sense the second time I read it. Melissa attempts to explain, “Teaching no longer felt like the right path. Something in my heart told me to help build the company with Joe for the sake of our future children.” And so you could go on vacation with him, right?Then Joe takes the reins and talks about how they struggled during the 2008 recession and the downturn in the housing market. Their story of struggle is very poignant. A lot of people struggled and continue to struggle due to the economy and they made it through with two small children.But of course, logic and personal stories can only last so long. Now, Melissa ventures into finances. It seems a little off that someone who lives in wealth and privilege to be doling out financial advice to women who will never drive a new Range Rover and live in a mansion. Sure, Joe worked for all that they have, but he had enough luck and good timing to be successful. Some people work just as hard and never yield those kinds of results.Of course, Melissa can’t resist another opportunity to bring up her “singing career”. She writes about the adjustments that they had to make in order to accommodate her hobby. Melissa states, “Joe loves his children and spending time with them. But he does resent the idea that their mother isn’t available to them 24/7.” Of course he does.Then, Joe hops in to add in his two cents.It was an adjustment. For years, I was the one making money. I paid for everything and Melissa took care of the house and the kids. That was our life. Then suddenly, I’m earning, and I’m paying for the recording studio, and for her songs, and for her choreographer, and the hair and makeup, and then she asked me to take phone calls for her and to stay home with the kids so she could do an appearance somewhere. What happened to our normal life as a married couple? I thought I was a big real estate guy. Am I seriously turning into my wife’s assistant?Yes, how terrible is it that she has her own life away from the home? How demeaning is it that he has to answer a few phone calls and stay at home with the kids on occasion? What is he, a woman?Melissa talks a bit about how all of their money goes into a joint account and they have no separate bank accounts or anything of that nature. She writes, “Separate accounts and credit card statements just open the door for secrets and lies.” Yeah. Just like hanging out with your single girlfriends will lead you into temptation. Doing something without your spouse is dangerous and can only lead to trouble.Chapter 11 is called Good Homekeeping. But it somehow starts off with Melissa rambling on about her “singing career” yet again. She writes that singing was always associated with her father and she loved being the center of his attention while he filmed her. She writes that she didn’t sing for the longest time after the car accident that claimed her father’s life. But when she had children she started to sing to them.Soon Joe encouraged her to do something with her “amazing voice” and then after finding a modicum of fame on reality TV, she funneled it into singing horrible songs and lip syncing her way around a stage. But she writes that she would give up her “singing career” in an instant if it jeopardized her home life. She states, “There’s no happiness without Joe and the kids.” Which is what all independent women say at one point or another.But now onto housework. Guess how much Joe does. No seriously, guess.If there’s spilled milk on the floor, Joe’ll walk by it five times without once picking up a sponge. I used to ask, “Are you going to keep ignoring that spill or clean it?”He says, “Nope.”Someone might look at Joe and think, “Chauvinist pig.” He sounds like one sometimes! They might look at me and think, “Throwback.” The way I see it, Joe is cleaning up messes at work all day long — things you can’t wipe up with a sponge. That’s his job. It’s my job to clean up spilled milk. I just do it. There is simply no point to arguing about something that requires all of five seconds of my time and next to zero energy.Joe? A chauvinist pig? No way! I also love how Melissa figures that it takes so little time and energy to clean up a spill, but Joe couldn’t possibly manage to do it himself with that little time and energy. Joe might work 12 hour days, but Melissa’s days are 24 hours long. Yet she doesn’t seem to see this obvious fact.Moving on, Melissa then relates a fascinating story about how she had a huge argument with Joe about changing a burnt out lightbulb. She figured that changing this bulb was “man’s work” and she was too dainty to do it. So she asked Joe, but of course, Joe had just worked a long day and didn’t want to. So the fight ensued. Joe eventually sent one of his workers over to change the bulb. Because doing anything around the house is too much for him.The next section just gets worse, however. It’s titled Do you really want to see your man on his knees next to a bucket of sudsy water? Then we launch into a staggeringly sad section on iron-clad gender roles.In theory, men sharing household chores is great. I’ve heard women say, “Nothing is as sexy as watching my man do the dishes after dinner.” When I hear that, I think, Um, I can think of about a thousand things that are sexier than that! … Anyway, a study came out recently that pretty much confirmed my belief. It said that couples who stick to traditional gender role chore division have more sex. Couples where the man does typical “feminine” chores have less sex. I can tell you why. When gender roles are confused, sexual roles are, too. If he’s at the sink, and then changing diapers, then who throws who down in the bedroom? In our marriage, Joe is always the man, doing masculine things… I’m the woman, and I do the female things, including housework.Seriously? I’d love to know what study she’s citing here. Also, is having more sex a sign of a better, healthier relationship? If a couple has sex once more per week than another couple, is their marriage stronger or more fulfilling? I doubt it. One explanation for this result could be that men who do less housework are in marriages such as Melissa’s where they demand sex and get it because they’re domineering and controlling, not because their wives are more sexually attracted to them.As far as her views on gender roles, this is where the “traditional” proves that there’s nothing modern about her marriage. She is still subscribing to beliefs in gender roles that are completely outdated and stifling for both sexes. Chores are not gendered and no one should feel more or less like their gender from mowing the lawn or cooking a meal.Also, where is her idea coming from that if a man washes dishes that he can’t “throw down” in the bedroom? Is this some other kind of scientific study that she can’t produce or another poll she did of her friends? Being able to help around the house has nothing to do with what you do in the bedroom.Not pausing to reflect on her life, Melissa launches into a section that’s probably supposed to be funny about how bad a driver that Joe is and how he always demands to drive. Then the kids get car sick and ill and Melissa has to drive the rest of the way. Fascinating.She ends the chapter with a section urging women not to “keep score”. She tells them never to think about what they’re doing and compare it to what your spouse is doing. Probably because if she did stop to think about it, she would realize how much she does for him and how he can’t be bothered to do the simplest thing around the house. Better to completely ignore how unequal their relationship is in order to avoid reality.The more I review this book, the angrier I get. It was one thing if Melissa was writing a memoir and talking about this terrible marriage. But this is an advice book! She is supposed to be advising women on how to have great relationships with their spouses. She’s telling them to do everything for their mate and not expect anything in return except for financial support.A woman who is looking for a more fulfilling relationship is going to be disappointed to discover that she can have it all but only by giving up all of her needs and changing however her husband prefers. But we’re only halfway through the book! We haven’t even gotten to Melissa’s pooping habits yet. Stay tuned.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Cremorne Theatre

   Anytime you see a sign like this, you know you’re in for a good time.I had always wanted to see Shakespeare Abridged. It had been playing somewhere in Williamsburg several years ago and for some reason no one could make it to any of the performances. But we did see The Complete History of America (Abridged) several years ago. It was cute, but not nearly as hilarious as I had been led to believe. I was a little skeptical of Shakespeare Abridged based on the previous performance, but also because this was not just Shakespeare, it was Shakespeare in Australian accents. I thought it might be a little strange. I was in for a surprise though.Shakespeare Abridged was a fun romp through Shakespearian drama with plenty of laughs, history, and fake vomiting. The style was great as it went through all of the plays in different formats. They acted out the key scenes in Romeo and Juliet. Then described Othello in rap form. Titus Andronicus was a cooking show. The comedies were all wrapped up together to form one master play using all of the conventions that Shakespeare used again and again for all of the plays.Hamlet took up the entire second act. It was acted out using the key scenes, then acted out faster, then faster, then backwards. It was hilarious. After we left the show, my stomach ached from laughing so much. Also, the three men who comprised all of the various characters interacted with the audience. Australian audience are talkative and not afraid to talk to the actors. The three men intertwined jokes that they made with the audience into the show.Overall, it was an excellent night at the theatre. I would definitely go see this show, or any of the other Abridged shows, again. I can only hope they have the same wit, excitement and energy that the three performers here had. In a different performance, the actors probably won’t have Australian accents, but no one’s perfect.

Pro-porn feminism and how it works

 I recently wrote another article on porn. For some reason my porn posts seem to get the most hits. I wonder why. Anyway, I posted the article on the GodSwill Facebook page as the focus of the article was a religious movie. A lot of people loved it and two posters were quick to condemn me for degrading women and being a chauvinist pig.When I asked them if they realized that I was actually a woman, they were quick to inform me that I don’t understand female sexuality and my understanding of my own sexuality is completely based about the physical limitations of my body. Of course, when you post something to a great deal of people, you’re going to get lunatics such as those. But it got me thinking about pro-porn feminism and how a lot of people don’t understand how it works.A lot of people are still walking around with the idea that no woman could enjoy or find fulfillment in starring in or consuming porn. This idea is so flimsy that I can dispelled it myself. I watch porn and enjoy it. Therefore it’s possible for a woman to do so. Also, unless a recently study has come out, I do believe that there are porn stars who enjoy their work. The idea that a woman involved in porn has to be a sexual abuse victim with with daddy issues, striving to please men is just insulting to everyone. A woman doesn’t have to find sexual fulfillment through conventional means or be shamed if she doesn’t.If you want equality and freedom for women, then they need freedom to express themselves sexually in any way that they see fit. If it’s by being in a porn movie, then that’s their choice. No one has the right to tell someone what they can or can’t enjoy sexually.Also, porn, as long as it’s sex between two willing and consenting adults is not degrading to women. Some people argue that porn turns women into sexual objects, but if that’s the way a woman wants to be seen, then that’s her decision. Women also sometimes enjoy fantasies and weird things in bed. It doesn’t make them wrong or tainted.A man thinking that women are objects has had a lot more than porn to create that opinion. If society didn’t hammer home day after day that women are things and men get to be in charge of them, then watching a woman have sex wouldn’t be enough to convince him of that. If anyone wants men’s opinions of women to improve, taking away porn is not going to help. Changing the way women are viewed in society will.But the heart and soul of pro-porn feminism is that people are capable of making their own decisions about their bodies and expressing themselves in any manner that they want. Pro-porn feminism doesn’t demand that everyone watches porn, it allows everyone to freely explore what is right for them and enjoy their own sexuality.There are some types of fetish porn and weird shit out there that I don’t like and would never in a million years think of actually doing. But that doesn’t mean that I have to talk badly about it and encourage everyone else not to watch it or enjoy it. It’s none of my business what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.So the next time someone thinks that it’s impossible for a woman to enjoy porn or that all women in porn are slaves to a sexist industry, please inform them that neither of these postulations are true. If someone wants to make the world a better place for women, then support women’s rights to choose their own paths in life and fight against the sexism that casts them as objects and sexual play things in every aspect of their lives.But really, whenever I see a man complaining about women in porn being degraded, it often seems like he’s trying to rack up brownie points for being a sensitive, feminist guy and not because he understands women, their sexuality or their needs. Rushing in on a white horse and declaring women so dainty and chaste that they can’t make their own sexual choices is just degrading to everyone involved. Women don’t need to be protected from their own sexuality.

The first time I tested my Psychic Abilities

aSo I recently downloaded a copy of Intuition & Psychic Ability: Your Spiritual GPS for free. Thank you, BookBubs! I've been able to download tons of horrible books for free lately. But anyway, I started reading the book and decided to try one of the psychic exercise to hone the natural psychic abilities that author Jennifer O'Neill says that everyone has.I followed the instructions on her first recommended exercise and found that I have amazing psychic powers psychic! It's true. I was blown away.How you do the exercise is so simple that anyone can duplicate it. All you have to do is get someone to walk around and pick out random objects from around the house, without letting you see what they picked. Then they get placed into bags or boxes that are completely opaque. You are supposed to then do the meditation exercise and after your spiritual body is focused, you go down the line of bags or boxes and write down any thoughts, feelings, ideas, colors, numbers or objects that pop into mind. Afterwards, you go through the items and see if anything you wrote down matches up.Simple, right? But what's even better is how she tells you to interprets the results:Don't see how you were wrong, see how you can make the connection! In other words, if you wrote down yellow, and it's a pair of dark sunglasses, yellow makes sense as it represents the sun. If you wrote down something relating to the outdoors and the object was a sneaker, it makes sense also because you put on sneakers to go outside.I can't really lose! So off I went. Sharon helped me out by hiding two objects in one bowl with a lid and one object in a drawer. I then did the meditation and then took notes of everything that popped into my head. Here's how it went:Psychic thoughts about the box on left:-12-Network-Berries-Brown twine/Stick-Snow-ToileItems actually in box on left:-To wrapped peppermint candy-To corkIt might seem like I was way off, but really. I was so dead on that it's rather scary. First off, the peppermint was red and white and I guessed the color red. Right on! Also, those candies are really popular around Christmas, which is in December, which is the 12th month of the year. Also, there is usually snow around Christmas and holly is a plant associated with Christmas. That plant has red berries. The brown twine/stick was obviously in reference to the cork. Also, it was a wine cork and a lot of wine is from France and toile is French! I'm a psychic genius.But then I looked in the box on the right and my psychic powers really became pronounced.Psychic thoughts about the box on the right:-14-Coin-Butter-Dark blue-Sky-Stars-Moon-Milky Way-Button-ThreadCurrent item in the box on the right:To butterfly necklace.I know what you're thinking. I guessed "butter" and the pendant was a "butterfly"! Pure psychic talent, right? The heavenly things were all because butterflies fly through the sky! Amazing, isn't it! Afterwards, I felt very hungry for pizza. I guess that using my psychic abilities were very draining and I needed something to eat in order to recoup my strength.Coming back to reality, it's clear that none of this is evidence of any real psychic power remove. I did the meditation and wrote down whatever came to mind. I never had a clear view of anything in either box. The only way I could make to connect was to draw it myself with very broad stroke. Also, when I thought about "butter", I was thinking about the food. It had nothing to do with a butterfly.A lot of "psychic" tips given to police are never specific enough to lead them to a killer or put them on the right path. Only after the mystery is solved through real police work do psychics pop up and proclaim that they knew the entire time. Why, I said I saw the number 64 and the killer's house number 6450 was! The number 64 by itself, with no context, wasn't enough to send police to the killer's door. It could only be matched up after the murderer had already been caught. Hardly ground breaking.Also, the more liberal you are with your interpretations, the more you're bound to be accurate. Believers are quick to make connections themselves. Once i saw a psychic reading where the psychic informed her sitter that I knew a man named Mike. Uh, who doesn't know someone named Mike? I have 4 guys named Mike on my Facebook friends list alone. But the believer piped up that his friend was named Mike and the psychic must have honed in on the close relationship.Some might argue that I was a skeptic going in, so of course, I wasn't going to be able to harness my unknown psychic ability. But the fact is that things work regardless of whether or not you think they're going to. You can be skeptical of Calamine lotion, but the lotion doesn't care if you believe in it or not. It will still stop you from scratching your poison ivy. You can believe that antibiotics will do nothing and they will still work. A proven ability shouldn't rely on my belief in it.Besides, O'Neill was quite clear that everyone has psychic abilities, so I should have them too, even though I'm skeptical of psychics and psychic powers. There are plenty of other exercises that she recommends and lots of lame-sounding meditations. I can't wait to try them and report back on them all!One that I will not be trying is the Past Life Recall exercise. You're supposed to sit with a friend and do the meditation, then ask each other questions about your past life. I would just make something up. I mean, come on. I have a very active imagination and I know enough about history to be dangerous. I can't do accents though. That might work against me if I decide that I was a poor Irish immigrant woman on the Titanic.As always, my views will change in exchange for evidence. Current evidence. Scientific evidence.

Love Italian Style: Cook in the Kitchen, Chapter 12

 Chapter 12 is all about the children. Antonia, Gino and Joey. Melissa writes about getting pregnant right after the wedding and how she had difficult pregnancies with fluctuating hormone levels and required bed rest when she was pregnant with Gino. Then she starts from the beginning with all of the births.Joe pops in to talk about Antonia’s birth and gets a little creepy. Apparently he wanted a boy. He relates, “I was afraid about having a girl. I know how I can be. I’d be insanely jealous of any boy coming around for my daughter. Having a boy would be so much easier.” He’d be jealous of a boy who wants to date his daughter? Why? Does he want to date her?Anyway, Joe then breaks out in hives and starts itching right after the birth of his first child. But for the second baby, Gino, Joe manages to keep it together. When he discovers that he has a son he writes,When we had Gino, I went crazy. My first son. I was so happy. In the delivery room, I was yelling, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”I asked the nurse, “Is this a big one? Normal Is he big for his age?” I looked down at him and thought, “That’s my boy!” I put a Giants jersey on him right away.Because sons are better than daughters. Neither parent seems to have any sense of awareness of what their gender roles will do to their children and how Antonia will pick up on the fact that while she was okay, having a boy was better. But more on that later.When Gino was about eight months old, he started coughing and struggling to breathe. The Gorgas raced him to the hospital and he was put into a pediatric intensive care unit. Joe writes, “The ward was for really sick kids. Some of them had cancer. Melissa and I looked at each other and said, “We are blessed with what we have.” ” Yeah, screw those other kids who are dying, they have a generally healthy family.Gino is diagnosed with croup and is out of the woods in under a week. Melissa is then inspired to donate and do charity work for children’s hospitals. This includes one where she had to get an open-heart surgery when she was 7.Melissa then talks about Parenting Italian Style. She starts off by discussing how she tries to limit the amount of time the kids have on Real Housewives. Then Melissa goes into a strange section where she talks about how she dealt with being a stay-at-home mom to three children under 4 and how she dealt with Joe during that time. She writes,I was at home with them from 6am to 9pm. Joe would come home covered in dirty head to toe. No matter how tired I was, or  how filthy he was, I was so glad to see another adult. I’d sit and chat about his day, the kids, and upcoming plans. I kept my tone light and my voice smooth. Of course, I was tried and stressed out. I was home with three babies all day long! I felt the temptation to unload my stress on him, to nag and complain. But that wouldn’t turn my feelings around or make him feel glad to see his kids. We’d both worked as hard as we could… He needed peace when he got home. I needed it, too. I wanted to relax into his presence and companionship. Bitching was the opposite of relaxing.Remember that entire section where Melissa talks about how Joe will come home and yell at her because he’s stressed about work and now that’s normal and okay because you should be unable to unload on your spouse instead of ruining a business deal? Why doesn’t Melissa get the same luxury? Joe has to come home to peace, but Melissa has to deal with coming home to verbal abuse.Joe then pops in with some more wisdom about gender roles and his fragile masculinity. He brags,Some guys change one diaper give the baby one bottle, and declare themselves Super Dad. They hand the baby back to Mommy, and then go to the garage to putter around or sneak off to their office to look at porn. I don’t feed babies, or change the diapers. My father never wiped my ass, and I don’t wipe my babies’ either. But, I get on the floor and play with my kids for hours.The paragraph starts out like Joe is saying that a man shouldn’t just do one simple thing with the baby, then hand them back. But then he admits that he doesn’t help with his children at all. He plays with them. He doesn’t feed them, diaper them, dress them, bathe them. He gets on the floor and plays.While that is undoubtedly important, he shouldn’t be criticizing a man who will actually get his hands dirty when his Super Dad routine begins and ends with playing on the floor. But of course, he couldn’t change a diaper or feed a baby, it might make him sprout that vagina that he’s aways afraid of acquiring. Babies are women’s work, so why bother doing anything to help out with them? He has a penis, damn it! He needs to do manly stuff.But if you think that was bad, don’t think it’s over yet. It just gets worse. Melissa then launches into a section entitled Double Standards. She writes that her father was strict with her and demanded to know everything about where she was going and refused to allow boys to be over at the house or to let her go to the mall to just hang out. Melissa then writes,Joe is just as strict with Antonia, and it’s going to get even worse. During any kissing scenes on their TV shows, he makes her cover her eyes. He’s funny about boys and kissing, anything sexual at all. She is not allowed to see it. Antonia won’t be allowed to have boyfriends come over. Even when she’s in her twenties, Joe and I do not want to know. I know Antonia is going to have them, but we want her to respect herself. That means making her realize how seriously we the matter of boy and sex.And if you think that is unfair, just wait until you hear this! Joe jumps in and adds,My sons can have a separate entrance to the house. They can come and go as they wish. They can have anyone up to their room. I don’t care. But I want to keep Antonia my little girl. Look, I know she’s going to meet someone one day, and it’s going to happen. But not with fifteen people!My wish is for her to have one boyfriend for a very long time They have a mutual breakup with no bad feelings. Then she marries the next guy. That would be ideal. I don’t want her to ever have her heart broken. The only way I can see to helping her romantic life work out that way is to be really strict and overprotective about who she sees, when she goes out, and what she does.I know it’s a double standard. But I just don’t care! I don’t see it so much as restricting Antonia, but as protecting her.Poor Antonia. As soon as she hits puberty she is going to have a rude awakening to the reality of a traditional family. Her brothers will be free and unrestricted, but she will be treated with suspicion and contempt. Her father already has her romantic life all figured out and any deviation from this will be a disappointment to him and I’m sure a lack of respect on her part.Imagine if something happens to her. She is never going to feel comfortable talking to her parents about it. She will mention that she thinks she likes a boy in her class and Melissa and Joe will stick their fingers in their ears and sing songs from the public domain until she stops talking. How this slut-shaming, double standard parenting style is supposed to help Antonia grow into a woman is beyond me.Melissa continues, talking about how the kids have to keep their rooms clean and Joe adds in that they have to mold their kids now, while they’re saplings. Whatever. Melissa then finishes up this section by stating not to baby your spouse. Which, I’m not sure a lot of people do anyway.But the most bizarre section of this passage is when she writes, “He [Joe] acknowledges the emotions that matter. He’s quite the crier himself, actually. I take some credit for that. When we first met, he was like Mussolini.” As hilarious as Melissa probably thinks that simile was, it’s never funny to compare your spouse to a fascist dictator that’s remembered as an all-around horrible person. But whatever. This section is over. Joy.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

The problem with skeptics

aI’ve always had the good luck to be friends with super smart people. When I started managing the Southeastern Virginia Skeptics Meetup group, I became friends with even more rational, critical thinkers. It’s wonderful to know that my friends aren’t going to be posting easily Snopes-ed articles about HIV infected needles in McDonald’s ball pits or bullshit about soda cans tainted with rat pee being sold. But there are some downsides to having intelligent, skeptical friends.The main one that I can think of is not being able to pull an April Fool’s Day joke on anyone. Every time I think of a really great joke, I know that someone will question it and possibly pick apart why it isn’t true. I had a plan that Tim and I could argue back and forth over Facebook and “break up” on April’s Fools Day. But seriously.Tim never uses Facebook, we never argue in public even when we do argue and the last time we had a fake argument, it involved me telling him that his dream of captaining a shrimp boat was stupid and he accused me of smothering our child. Then the cops were called. Our fake personas got a little out of hand. So that wouldn’t really work.We thought that maybe we could pretend to get married on April Fool’s Day, but everyone would know that without photos, Facebook check-ins at our wedding location and professional shots of us, that it wasn’t real. I hardly go anywhere without taking pictures and uploading them. Why would I suddenly be picture-less and silent on our wedding day? Even with an elopement, I wouldn’t be able to put my iPhone down.The idea of claiming that I’m pregnant would be stupid, as most of my friends know that I’m sterile and/or that I hate children. But also dumb because everyone freaking does that. One year, soon after I got Facebook, I saw three friends in one afternoon claiming to be pregnant. It’s just too common.I thought that maybe we could post on each other’s walls back and forth about something bad that had happened and make it sound like we had accidentally murdered a drifter and disposed of the body or something. But seriously, how dim-witted would we have to be in order to post stuff like that on Facebook? People would immediately see through it.So yes, having skeptical friends is great, but not when you’re trying to plan an April Fool’s Day joke. Critical thinkers think too critically to fall for feeble pranks. I still have a few months. Maybe I can come up with something so intricate, so well-planned that I could manage to get all of them with the sheer realism that I managed. But, of course, it would have to be funny too.

Why Frankenbras are the fucking dumbest idea that I have ever heard

aA lot of women have asymmetry in their breasts. In fact, most women have some degree of asymmetry. A lot of it is not noticeable, some of it is noticeable but not a big deal, and sometimes breasts can naturally be two different cup sizes. Perfectly even breasts are usually the work of science, not nature. I have this problem myself and once Googled it as a teenager to learn more about it. There’s not much to learn other than the fact that this happens to a lot of women and it’s usually not an indication of poor health or potential problems.While I was Googling I came across a site that recommended that you deal with the problem by creating “Frankenbras”. Like Frankenstein’s monster, but for lingerie. The basic idea is that you buy two bras; one in one cup size and one in a different cup size, each one fitting one breast. Then you take them apart and re-sew them until you have created a bra that fits your breasts correctly.After I finished reading the idea I thought to myself that this is so insanely stupid I didn’t think that anyone would ever bother doing it. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. So if anyone here is thinking about making a Frankenbra, here are a few things that you should think about.1. You have to buy double the bras – I’m not sure where you shop for bras, but bras can range from $10 to upwards of $70 EACH. Even if you buy bras on sale, that means that the bra you once bought for $10 is now $20. So you have to either buy fewer bras or spend more money.2. You have to sew – Plenty of women think nothing of whipping out their sewing machines and going to town on a new project. But I am a total beginner. I don’t know if I could take a bra apart correctly, let alone sew it back together. Even if you’re completely comfortable with that, it’s still going to be a lot of work.3. Your breasts will now LOOK uneven – When you buy bras to fit the larger breast, molded cups will give your smaller breast enough shape to make it look natural. As long as your larger breast isn’t spilling over the top, you’ll look pretty balanced, just by the cup. With two completely different cups, it will be more obvious that your breasts are different sizes and more difficult to hide.4. There’s no hassle in wearing bras that fit the larger cup size – As I wrote before, molded cups can help fill out shirts and make you look more natural. As long as the bra fits your larger breasts, there’s no discomfort or pain from wearing a bra that is too big in one cup. If a bra looks strange with part of the cup not filled out, just find one that looks okay.In conclusion, I’ve been wearing regular bras with asymmetrical breasts for… minus 12… I’m not 30 yet… 16 years (sorry, had to do some math) and never had a problem. Creating Frankenbras sounds like a lot more trouble than they’re worth. If the difference is small, then don’t even think about it. If the difference is a cup size, then buy bras carefully. If the difference is so severe that it’s effecting your balance, posture or health, then look into corrective surgery. But don’t waste your time ripping bras apart and sewing them back together.

Hoops

 NB: Today is October 18, 2013. I write all my blogs in advance so this could be published after learning more, but this is where I am today.I called Dr. Gilbert Office today to check the status of my insurance and find out whether or not going to cover the breast reduction. They told me that they not heard nothing yet, but they feel very sure insurance covers it, and not require me to go through the hoop more.He said that they were able to join my documents to submit. So they have documentation of different dates that I went to my doctor regularly for back pain. Also have information from Dr. Clark, who made the gastric sleeve, that I've lost a significant amount of weight and my breasts are not getting smaller. One popular thing to require women lose weight until they are approved for a reduction. I've lost nearly 100 pounds and my breasts lost hardly nothing. So clearly, lose more weight will not help.When I went to the doctor Gilbert, took photos of my breasts, the notches on the shoulders of my bra and asked me some questions about my life. I have problems to find clothes. I get heat under my breasts rash in the summer and put deodorant under the girls to keep them dry. I am suffering trying to accomplish everyday tasks.I know that insurance can be difficult at times, so I was prepared to write a letter, see other physicians do physical therapy, you need to prove that I need this operation. Reassure me know that may not mean all that for them to realize that I am needing a breast reduction. When I went to the doctor at the beginning, nobody really worried my theory that my breasts were causing problems and everyone was willing to throw me pills and suggested that I get an x-ray to my column was out of alignment.For now I just have to wait and see what insurance, he says. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get them to cover my operation. But I have hope that I have already provided enough evidence for them to realize that Yes, I need a breast reduction. Keep the fingers crossed until safe answers them. Right, the operation is ready even to December 20.