Tuesday, December 14, 2004
When Squirrels Attack
It was a beautiful autumn morning as I was walking back home after dropping off my oldest son at the bus stop. The ground was wet from an early morning rain shower, brown and red leaves littered the sidewalk ahead of me. Thump. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, someone came out of nowhere and tossed a bag of wet rags at me, hitting me just below the neck. I slowly turned to find the culprit, but to my surprise, there was no one there. I looked down at the sidewalk and saw a stunned squirrel lying there. Did someone bop him with a bag of wet rags, too?
It quickly occurred to me that the squirrel was, in fact, the bag of wet rags in question. Just as quickly, the squirrel popped back up onto all fours and scurried across a yard, climbing a nearby tree as quickly as possible. I looked up and saw a power line with a plastic protector about 10 feet overhead. The poor little squirrel must have been standing on that power line waiting for me to get in range before attacking me. Just kidding. The squirrel must have slipped on the plastic cover and fallen, just in time to thump me on the back.
These kinds of things must happen all the time.
But I doubt it.
Since the squirrel was not foaming at the mouth, as far as I could tell, and was not acting erratically (he did the obviously rational thing for a big tailed rodent to do, scurrying off and climbing a tree), so I did not think it was rabid.
A few minutes later, when I got back home, my wife had not yet left for work. I had her look at my back to check for scratches or bite marks. She saw none.
“Tell me, exactly, why I am checking for scratch marks?” my wife blithely asked.
“A squirrel hit me on the back.”
“A squirrel? What? Did you do something to provoke him?”
“No. It was not an intentional attack,” I told her. “he just fell from the power line I was walking under, just as I was walking by. Pure coincidence.”
“Why are we looking for a scratch?” She asked as I looked in the mirror at my upper back, searching, searching for any signs of injury.
“Rabies,” I said. “you can’t be too careful.”
“Well, actually, you can be too careful.” She said, helpfully.
“Whatever. Isn’t this a scratch.”
She so kindly came back over to check. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I peered more closely. Oh, it was worse. Much, much worse. Gray back hair.
Like every other red-blooded American male, as we get older, I do have a few back hairs here and there. Nothing to worry about. Until they turn gray. Even the hair on my head, what’s left of it, has only recently begun to go gray.
I put my shirt on, not telling my wife about the gray hair. If I don’t mention it, she will never know.
As she left for work, mercifully, I could hear her still laughing as she closed the door behind her.
I went to my office to do some Internet research on rabies, just so I could put my mind at ease.
It didn’t help. The County government web site had a warning about rabid animals and a link to a longer article from the county animal control department. The article warned residents that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of incidents of rabies in wild animals and went into great detail about how we can protect ourselves from this threat. My level of paranoia exceeded it’s previous high and my next move was to phone my physician.
“Hi. This is Dr. McKay. I’m a patient of Dr. B------.” (If you ever get a doctorate, the funnest time to use the title is when you call your physician; the receptionist will think you are a physician and treat you more professionally. So far, that has been about the only use of the title I’ve come up with).
After recounting the story with the medical secretary, she seemed appropriately alarmed. I was asked to wait on hold while the doctor was consulted.
A few minutes later, my lovely physician asked me to recount the story again, from the beginning. She does this out of overwhelming concern for my well-being and because she thinks I’m a smartass for using my Dr. title when I call her office.
A brief silence when I finished my story. Dr. B------ was trying to decide how much laughter she could get away with. She chose Medium. “This sounds like something that would make a good Seinfeld episode.”
She’s a very astute physician.
We laughed. Me at myself. She at me. In situations like this, trust me, they are not laughing with you, they are definitely laughing at you. She was careful to make sure there were no bleeding scratch or bite marks and when I told her there were none, she took the opportunity to laugh again (apparently the Hippocratic Oath includes something about “It’s okay to laugh at your patients, but once you are positive they are fine, then and only then can you really guffaw bigtime.”
It did take a few hours to get my paranoid meter down to near zero. The painful course of injections over several days is enough to keep anyone from thinking they have rabies. Unless the probability is pretty damn high.
A benefit that has resulted from the experience is that I have become a much more cautious pedestrian. As proof, I have not had any rodents come into contact with me since then. Who could ask for more than that?
It quickly occurred to me that the squirrel was, in fact, the bag of wet rags in question. Just as quickly, the squirrel popped back up onto all fours and scurried across a yard, climbing a nearby tree as quickly as possible. I looked up and saw a power line with a plastic protector about 10 feet overhead. The poor little squirrel must have been standing on that power line waiting for me to get in range before attacking me. Just kidding. The squirrel must have slipped on the plastic cover and fallen, just in time to thump me on the back.
These kinds of things must happen all the time.
But I doubt it.
Since the squirrel was not foaming at the mouth, as far as I could tell, and was not acting erratically (he did the obviously rational thing for a big tailed rodent to do, scurrying off and climbing a tree), so I did not think it was rabid.
A few minutes later, when I got back home, my wife had not yet left for work. I had her look at my back to check for scratches or bite marks. She saw none.
“Tell me, exactly, why I am checking for scratch marks?” my wife blithely asked.
“A squirrel hit me on the back.”
“A squirrel? What? Did you do something to provoke him?”
“No. It was not an intentional attack,” I told her. “he just fell from the power line I was walking under, just as I was walking by. Pure coincidence.”
“Why are we looking for a scratch?” She asked as I looked in the mirror at my upper back, searching, searching for any signs of injury.
“Rabies,” I said. “you can’t be too careful.”
“Well, actually, you can be too careful.” She said, helpfully.
“Whatever. Isn’t this a scratch.”
She so kindly came back over to check. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I peered more closely. Oh, it was worse. Much, much worse. Gray back hair.
Like every other red-blooded American male, as we get older, I do have a few back hairs here and there. Nothing to worry about. Until they turn gray. Even the hair on my head, what’s left of it, has only recently begun to go gray.
I put my shirt on, not telling my wife about the gray hair. If I don’t mention it, she will never know.
As she left for work, mercifully, I could hear her still laughing as she closed the door behind her.
I went to my office to do some Internet research on rabies, just so I could put my mind at ease.
It didn’t help. The County government web site had a warning about rabid animals and a link to a longer article from the county animal control department. The article warned residents that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of incidents of rabies in wild animals and went into great detail about how we can protect ourselves from this threat. My level of paranoia exceeded it’s previous high and my next move was to phone my physician.
“Hi. This is Dr. McKay. I’m a patient of Dr. B------.” (If you ever get a doctorate, the funnest time to use the title is when you call your physician; the receptionist will think you are a physician and treat you more professionally. So far, that has been about the only use of the title I’ve come up with).
After recounting the story with the medical secretary, she seemed appropriately alarmed. I was asked to wait on hold while the doctor was consulted.
A few minutes later, my lovely physician asked me to recount the story again, from the beginning. She does this out of overwhelming concern for my well-being and because she thinks I’m a smartass for using my Dr. title when I call her office.
A brief silence when I finished my story. Dr. B------ was trying to decide how much laughter she could get away with. She chose Medium. “This sounds like something that would make a good Seinfeld episode.”
She’s a very astute physician.
We laughed. Me at myself. She at me. In situations like this, trust me, they are not laughing with you, they are definitely laughing at you. She was careful to make sure there were no bleeding scratch or bite marks and when I told her there were none, she took the opportunity to laugh again (apparently the Hippocratic Oath includes something about “It’s okay to laugh at your patients, but once you are positive they are fine, then and only then can you really guffaw bigtime.”
It did take a few hours to get my paranoid meter down to near zero. The painful course of injections over several days is enough to keep anyone from thinking they have rabies. Unless the probability is pretty damn high.
A benefit that has resulted from the experience is that I have become a much more cautious pedestrian. As proof, I have not had any rodents come into contact with me since then. Who could ask for more than that?
Monday, December 13, 2004
Society, Culture, and Kinsey: The Movie (an essay/memoir)
I'm sure many of you have heard of Alfred Kinsey, the zoologist who became famous for his research into sexuality and started the Kinsey Institute for the Study of Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
I have not yet seen the movie that Zoetrope Studios recently released about Kinsey, but I look forward to seeing it. I attended Indiana University in the mid 1980's, majoring in Sociology and Political Science.
The Kinsey Institute had a major library collection, the largest of its kind, on matters related to sex, including much pornographic material. Access to the collection was restricted (as you might guess, situated as it is in the northern reaches of the bible belt) and students had to obtain permission to do research there. If a student had a research project that they believed would benefit from access to the materials in the Kinsey Institute, they had to get a letter of permission from their professor in order to gain entry.
In my life's category of “Things I wish I’d done,” I did, in fact, receive permission to do research there, from a sociology professor. The paper was for the Sociology of Work course and the topic was to be something about the sex trades. The professor was pleased that a student was interested in gaining entry to the collection and my request and his letter felt like our little way of challenging the system. Using the collection was not that important to my paper, but his permission letter sure made it sound like it was.
As for the missed opportunity part, before continuing with my research, I changed the topic of the term paper to worker exposures to toxins. It was a good paper. Got an A. The only comment the professor wrote on it was "Very well done. Why did you change your topic?"
I suppose the reason was a very organic one. The new topic just interested me more and made the paper much easier to write since I was fascinated by the topic and eager to learn more about it and to write about it. At the time, I gave very little thought to the fact that I was missing an opportunity to gain access to restricted materials and the importance of doing my part to bring down the walls of secrecy and facing challenges to freedom of thought and expression. Even less did I think about the more prurient aspect of it all; being a young, and might I say virile, man with access to perhaps the world's most extensive pornography collection. Well, after all, it was serious research that truly interested me.
I related this story to the (now deceased) sociologist William "Bill" Simon a few years later when I was in graduate school at the University of Houston. It turns out that Bill had, at one time, been the director of the Kinsey Institute, the first to do so after Kinsey himself, before coming to Houston to teach. He told me that the largest part of the collection is listed under the letter A and asked me why that was so. I thought about it, considered issues like A for Asian, since many Asian cultures have vast traditions in erotica, but realized the material would be listed by author. I could not think of an author starting with the letter A who would have been prolific in writing about sex. (Anais Nin? No, last name started with N, and I'm not sure she would be called prolific. Aristotle? Impossible; his references to sex were never, as far as I know, in works dedicated just to the topic of sex. And they are hardly erotic.) "Anonymous," he told me. So many writers of erotica and pornography do not wish to seek attribution for their work, that the largest portion of the collection was listed under anonymous.
Imagine if that were true for most writing! No need for bylines or royalties and no way for biographers to study the work of authors. The larger issue though has to do with shame or perceptions of shame. Erotica is an important element of many cultures, probably every culture ever in existence, but it is secretive, hidden, denied, considered wicked, kept out of the public eye, covered up, private. Which only adds to its fascination, I suppose.
In popular culture, sex is everywhere, ubiquitous, common. Sex is used to sell everything from soap to cars to beer, clothing, politicians, food and on and on. Politicians? Yes, as a matter of fact. One could even go so far as to say that this most recent presidential election in America was decided on the basis of sex. From the journalistic commentary on whether or not Sen. Kerry received Botox injections (to be more sexually attractive) and how much Sen. Edwards looked like sexy movie hunk Tom Cruise to the Republican candidates appealing to public worries about abortion and gay marriage ("can't you see folks, those things remind us that people are having sex and it must be stopped!") A slight majority of Americans voted in support of policies intended to curb sexual activity, in effect.
But, as in every cultural situation, the sex was implied, covert, kept in the dark, hidden just out of view. Where it has to be in order to keep it naughty, fascinating, exhilarating, and attractive. Irony lives on.
Back in the 1980's, my favorite TV show was Night Court, a situation comedy about the characters surrounding a local New York City courtroom. A main character was the prosecutor, played by John Larroquette (brilliantly, evidenced by his long run of best actor Emmy awards), a randy Lothario whose every thought and deed related to sexuality. However, if you watched the show, you would see that all of this sex was implied, hinted at, unverified. Many episodes of the show centered around the character losing out on sexual opportunities (like the time court went long because of a tortoise-like defendant who used up so much time that Larroquette missed out on an opportunity to spend a night of passion with busty blonde triplet Swedish airline stewardesses in a hotel room). You see, it was the 80's and one could seek sex, but damn sure better not actually go through with it.
One of the least erotic experiences in my life occurred in Houston when a couple of grad school friends invited me along to a strip club. The whole experience is, to say the least, empty, devoid of any gratification. The dancers, far away on a raised stage, gyrate disinterestedly, the audience, below seated at tables holding their 3 drinks (minimum), staring and observing, but never, ever connecting in any way with the humanness of the entertainers. Even the lap dance (which a helpful colleague paid for to surprise me) was hopelessly uninteresting. It begins with the dancer explaining the rules, no touching by or to the dancer, and then the dance (a ridiculous series of movements that violate your personal space but left me not thinking about sex in the least, although I did manage to think of a few variables to add to my latest research project and think about issues related to my federal income tax filing), followed by the heartfelt request for a tip as the music ends ("you want a tip? get a new line of work."), followed by reaching into your nearly empty wallet to retrieve a 5 dollar bill that you needed for groceries or a library fine, but which you hand over to this striving single-mom who needs the money for her kid's school clothes and to make payments for her breast implants. All in all, a thoroughly uninspiring little ritual.
However, some people must gain at least a modicum of enjoyment from the experience. The number of strip clubs dotting the Houston landscape is rivaled only by the number of Baptist churches, in my estimation (which may or may not be accurate). Which, if accurate, would be truly ironic, since the church and the dens of iniquity are important parts of that precarious balancing act so central to modern culture, that universal tug-of-war that results from man’s gift (and curse) of free will. More importantly, it is that necessary tempering of the human spirit that makes life possible, glorious, fulfilling, and livable. Without sex, humanity dies out. Without control, humanity obliterates itself. Without freedom, humanity wouldn’t bother to stick around. Without limits, humanity wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy.
And so our culture goes on, people have sex, people make babies, people have a good time, people enjoy each other emotionally and physically, people define and explore their limitations. As Casey Kasem implored his audience to do each week during his “America’s Top Forty” broadcast, we “keep reaching for the stars”, but keep our “feet on the ground.” Writers write their little stories and sign their name with pride, except for when those stories may be too offensive to some, in which case they gladly sign “Anonymous” and let the world know it’s okay to read it, but to follow the writer’s lead and not tell anyone.
And so Alfred Kinsey is now immortalized in celluloid as a movie about his life is proudly distributed to theaters around the country. His legendary insights about sexuality and his sex life (widely portrayed as “legendary” as well) are shown for all to see on the big screen. While the collection of work his institute has gathered sits in a little-used, restricted access library containing works written by unknown authors who gladly kept their work on the q-t. Irony lives on and the struggle continues, within and among humanity.
Here’s hoping the movie is worth $6.50.
I have not yet seen the movie that Zoetrope Studios recently released about Kinsey, but I look forward to seeing it. I attended Indiana University in the mid 1980's, majoring in Sociology and Political Science.
The Kinsey Institute had a major library collection, the largest of its kind, on matters related to sex, including much pornographic material. Access to the collection was restricted (as you might guess, situated as it is in the northern reaches of the bible belt) and students had to obtain permission to do research there. If a student had a research project that they believed would benefit from access to the materials in the Kinsey Institute, they had to get a letter of permission from their professor in order to gain entry.
In my life's category of “Things I wish I’d done,” I did, in fact, receive permission to do research there, from a sociology professor. The paper was for the Sociology of Work course and the topic was to be something about the sex trades. The professor was pleased that a student was interested in gaining entry to the collection and my request and his letter felt like our little way of challenging the system. Using the collection was not that important to my paper, but his permission letter sure made it sound like it was.
As for the missed opportunity part, before continuing with my research, I changed the topic of the term paper to worker exposures to toxins. It was a good paper. Got an A. The only comment the professor wrote on it was "Very well done. Why did you change your topic?"
I suppose the reason was a very organic one. The new topic just interested me more and made the paper much easier to write since I was fascinated by the topic and eager to learn more about it and to write about it. At the time, I gave very little thought to the fact that I was missing an opportunity to gain access to restricted materials and the importance of doing my part to bring down the walls of secrecy and facing challenges to freedom of thought and expression. Even less did I think about the more prurient aspect of it all; being a young, and might I say virile, man with access to perhaps the world's most extensive pornography collection. Well, after all, it was serious research that truly interested me.
I related this story to the (now deceased) sociologist William "Bill" Simon a few years later when I was in graduate school at the University of Houston. It turns out that Bill had, at one time, been the director of the Kinsey Institute, the first to do so after Kinsey himself, before coming to Houston to teach. He told me that the largest part of the collection is listed under the letter A and asked me why that was so. I thought about it, considered issues like A for Asian, since many Asian cultures have vast traditions in erotica, but realized the material would be listed by author. I could not think of an author starting with the letter A who would have been prolific in writing about sex. (Anais Nin? No, last name started with N, and I'm not sure she would be called prolific. Aristotle? Impossible; his references to sex were never, as far as I know, in works dedicated just to the topic of sex. And they are hardly erotic.) "Anonymous," he told me. So many writers of erotica and pornography do not wish to seek attribution for their work, that the largest portion of the collection was listed under anonymous.
Imagine if that were true for most writing! No need for bylines or royalties and no way for biographers to study the work of authors. The larger issue though has to do with shame or perceptions of shame. Erotica is an important element of many cultures, probably every culture ever in existence, but it is secretive, hidden, denied, considered wicked, kept out of the public eye, covered up, private. Which only adds to its fascination, I suppose.
In popular culture, sex is everywhere, ubiquitous, common. Sex is used to sell everything from soap to cars to beer, clothing, politicians, food and on and on. Politicians? Yes, as a matter of fact. One could even go so far as to say that this most recent presidential election in America was decided on the basis of sex. From the journalistic commentary on whether or not Sen. Kerry received Botox injections (to be more sexually attractive) and how much Sen. Edwards looked like sexy movie hunk Tom Cruise to the Republican candidates appealing to public worries about abortion and gay marriage ("can't you see folks, those things remind us that people are having sex and it must be stopped!") A slight majority of Americans voted in support of policies intended to curb sexual activity, in effect.
But, as in every cultural situation, the sex was implied, covert, kept in the dark, hidden just out of view. Where it has to be in order to keep it naughty, fascinating, exhilarating, and attractive. Irony lives on.
Back in the 1980's, my favorite TV show was Night Court, a situation comedy about the characters surrounding a local New York City courtroom. A main character was the prosecutor, played by John Larroquette (brilliantly, evidenced by his long run of best actor Emmy awards), a randy Lothario whose every thought and deed related to sexuality. However, if you watched the show, you would see that all of this sex was implied, hinted at, unverified. Many episodes of the show centered around the character losing out on sexual opportunities (like the time court went long because of a tortoise-like defendant who used up so much time that Larroquette missed out on an opportunity to spend a night of passion with busty blonde triplet Swedish airline stewardesses in a hotel room). You see, it was the 80's and one could seek sex, but damn sure better not actually go through with it.
One of the least erotic experiences in my life occurred in Houston when a couple of grad school friends invited me along to a strip club. The whole experience is, to say the least, empty, devoid of any gratification. The dancers, far away on a raised stage, gyrate disinterestedly, the audience, below seated at tables holding their 3 drinks (minimum), staring and observing, but never, ever connecting in any way with the humanness of the entertainers. Even the lap dance (which a helpful colleague paid for to surprise me) was hopelessly uninteresting. It begins with the dancer explaining the rules, no touching by or to the dancer, and then the dance (a ridiculous series of movements that violate your personal space but left me not thinking about sex in the least, although I did manage to think of a few variables to add to my latest research project and think about issues related to my federal income tax filing), followed by the heartfelt request for a tip as the music ends ("you want a tip? get a new line of work."), followed by reaching into your nearly empty wallet to retrieve a 5 dollar bill that you needed for groceries or a library fine, but which you hand over to this striving single-mom who needs the money for her kid's school clothes and to make payments for her breast implants. All in all, a thoroughly uninspiring little ritual.
However, some people must gain at least a modicum of enjoyment from the experience. The number of strip clubs dotting the Houston landscape is rivaled only by the number of Baptist churches, in my estimation (which may or may not be accurate). Which, if accurate, would be truly ironic, since the church and the dens of iniquity are important parts of that precarious balancing act so central to modern culture, that universal tug-of-war that results from man’s gift (and curse) of free will. More importantly, it is that necessary tempering of the human spirit that makes life possible, glorious, fulfilling, and livable. Without sex, humanity dies out. Without control, humanity obliterates itself. Without freedom, humanity wouldn’t bother to stick around. Without limits, humanity wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy.
And so our culture goes on, people have sex, people make babies, people have a good time, people enjoy each other emotionally and physically, people define and explore their limitations. As Casey Kasem implored his audience to do each week during his “America’s Top Forty” broadcast, we “keep reaching for the stars”, but keep our “feet on the ground.” Writers write their little stories and sign their name with pride, except for when those stories may be too offensive to some, in which case they gladly sign “Anonymous” and let the world know it’s okay to read it, but to follow the writer’s lead and not tell anyone.
And so Alfred Kinsey is now immortalized in celluloid as a movie about his life is proudly distributed to theaters around the country. His legendary insights about sexuality and his sex life (widely portrayed as “legendary” as well) are shown for all to see on the big screen. While the collection of work his institute has gathered sits in a little-used, restricted access library containing works written by unknown authors who gladly kept their work on the q-t. Irony lives on and the struggle continues, within and among humanity.
Here’s hoping the movie is worth $6.50.
