Archive for January, 2005

Homosociality, pro-feminism, and the support of other men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 11, 2005
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism and Men and Masculinity
. 38 Comments

Still sick.  This bug is absolutely tenacious.  At least the sun has shown its face again in Southern California, which is an immense relief.

This flu (for I now admit that is what it is) has left me so drained that forming coherent blog thoughts seems immensely difficult.  But I’ll try today…

I’ve been thinking about homosociality a bit these past few days.  Homosociality (as explained so well in Michael Kimmel’s Manhood in America) is the principle that all men, including heterosexual ones, are raised in our culture to be more eager to please other men than women.   It doesn’t take much in my classes to get heads nodding as the subject comes up!

To use one cheap and easy example, homosociality explains the function of catcalls and wolfwhistles.  I’ve often been asked by female students why men whistle and hoot at them from construction sites and passing cars.  "Why do they do it?  Do they think this actually ‘works’ to pick up women?"  I usually inquire whether the whistling was done by a single man or a group; the answer is almost invariably that it was the latter.  The answer, seen through the lens of homosociality, is obvious — men whistle and yell to connect with other men.  Women are devices for creating non-sexual, same-gender bonds.   This doesn’t explain all catcalling behavior, but it goes a hell of a long way towards doing so.

One of the most significant difficulties (and opportunities) about pro-feminist men’s work is that it challenges homosocial norms.  Pro-feminist men are often characterized as "wimps" — soft, gentle men with submissive natures.  Actually, pro-feminist men who work to match their language and their lives have to be remarkably brave.  Few things are more difficult than speaking up against sexism in all-male environments!   To do so is to risk anger (and in a few areas, perhaps violence) and ostracism.   In most contemporary Western cultures, there is a strong code that declares that men don’t criticize their fellows attitudes towards women and gender.  Given the intense desire for male approval that most young men have, it scarcely seems likely that many will feel comfortable taking feminist positions in all-male environments!

When I was an undergraduate, I quickly mastered the "talk" of feminism.  In my classes, and around female friends, I was, if not a model of egalitarianism, a thoughtful, polite, and intelligent critic of gender roles and the patriarchy.  But get me alone with my male friends (especially with a beer or two in me) and I spewed the same objectifying garbage that they did.   There were many reasons for this.  First off, I was deeply ambivalent about feminism as a younger man.  Being alone with the guys gave me a chance to "blow off steam"; indeed, the more I tried to match my words, actions, and politics in mixed groups, the more I felt the overwhelming need to act boorishly around the guys when we were alone together.  Second of all, I was desperate for male approval.  In college, most of the guys I hung out with lived in my co-op; they were all pre-law or engineering types.  None were liberal arts majors, much less interested in taking women’s studies classes!  I knew that to criticize their words and actions would be to lose their companionship — and at that stage of my life, the craving for companionship won out over my ethics, hands down. Indeed, I often made fun of the very material I was studying, as if to reassure my companions that I didn’t take it too seriously, and thus could be trusted to remain one of the guys. 

This kind of double life left me feeling ashamed and fraudulent.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I grew comfortable challenging men in single-sex environments.  I’d like to think I do it politely, but firmly.  I certainly don’t do it on every occasion I hear sexist humor or beliefs expressed.  Like most folks, I’ve learned to pick my battles — and frankly, sometimes, I’m just too tired or busy to speak up.  But what has given me the courage to speak up those times that I do has been the support of other men.  It wasn’t until I started to do men’s work with other pro-feminist men that I began to feel sufficiently empowered to start calling guys on their (sometimes) unintentional miosgyny.  Doing male retreats (through church, and with groups like Men Can Stop Rape) put me into contact with guys who didn’t just share my politics, but had spent far longer than I had living out pro-feminist beliefs as strong, courageous men.

When I talk about these issues with younger men and boys, they almost invariably acknowledge the tremendous power of homosociality.   Many of them are receptive to feminist ideas, but cannot even imagine actually speaking up about them when they are alone with other guys.   I acknowledge how difficult it is to match language and life in the face of homosocial pressure to conform, and I am particularly careful to stress that just because they aren’t ready to speak up yet, it doesn’t mean that they are "frauds."  The key thing, I tell them, is finding male allies who will support them and share with them a commitment to take small steps towards changing their own lives and (perhaps in due course) asking other men to do so as well.

Whether we like it or not, young and not-so-young men are homosocial creatures.  Though the influence of mothers and wives, girlfirends and sisters can be tremendous, most will have their worldviews heavily shaped by their fathers, brothers, and male peers.  I think pro-feminist men can see that as a real opportunity.  Our sex has given us an unearned credibility with other men, a credibility that on many gender issues may exceed that of women feminists.  We need to respond by banding together and reaching out to each other and to our brothers who will, in many cases, be initially unreceptive to a pro-feminist message.  We’ll have to battle our own insecurities and doubts, and the periodic pressure to chuck our ethical commitments and just "go along to get along."  But I’ve seen this done, and I’ve seen it work.

I’m so grateful for the women in my life who have shared with me their stories, who have encouraged me to do pro-feminist work.  But I cannot do the work I need to do without a band of brothers who share those same commitments.   Male acceptance and approval is a uniquely powerful elixir, and rather than ignore or deny that reality, I have chosen to rely on it.

 

Rainy Sunday check in

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2005
in Blogging, GLBTQ, Sports and Youth
. 7 Comments

My beloved and I have not stirred from the house once today.  Both of us are still struggling with bad colds — and with the pouring rain, had no reason to go anywhere.  We have had a day of rest and financial planning — two not entirely mutually exclusive pursuits.

By Tuesday or Wednesday, I promise to be back to some more thoughtful posting.  I’ve got some more "men’s stuff" percolating in my brain, but I am too fogged by cold medicine to let my fingers hit the keyboard just yet…

Though most readers may not be interested, may I point out that lowly Exeter played mighty Manchester United to a scoreless draw yesterday on the latter’s home field?  ‘Tis a stunning surprise in English football’s FA cup, and I am happy for that fine little city that my brother calls home.  And in Scottish football, Celtic beat Rangers again, which is also cause for rejoicing.

From the shameless self-promotion category, I’d like to thank Brian Ulrich for nominating this blog for the Koufax Award for Best New Blog.  (Any blog started in 2004 counts, and this Typepad puppy dates back almost exactly a year; my anniversary shall be on Thursday.)  As flattered as I am, I’m not voting for myself — I’m casting my vote for Amanda’s Mousewords blog, which is one of the best (and most frequently updated) feminist sites in the ’sphere.

I’d love to hear David Morrison’s take on this story about the sons of a gay couple enrolled in an Orange County Catholic School:

In a clash that pits Catholic teachings against shifting values of
American society, a group of parishioners and parents has accused
Orange County church leaders of defying Pope John Paul II by allowing a
gay couple to enroll their two boys in a diocese school.

But Father Martin Benzoni, who oversees the 550-student elementary and
middle school, last week rejected the group’s demands. He released a
new policy stating that a child’s education comes first and that a
family’s background "does not constitute an absolute obstacle to
enrollment in the school."

Benzoni acknowledged the conflict
between the two-father family and the teachings of the church, but said
that the boys — both kindergarteners, adopted by a pair of Costa Mesa
men — had been baptized in the faith and deserved a Catholic education.

"I firmly believe that this policy is in line with the teaching of the
Catholic Church," said Benzoni, who is a member of the conservative
Norbertine order that runs the school and parish for the diocese.

Dismayed by the decision, some parents said they plan to ask the
Vatican for help, while others said they may pull their children from
the school.

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?   If one doesn’t affirm homosexuality (which no one except for the boys’ fathers seems to), is the presence of these children something that undermines the coherence of church doctrine?  Or is it an opportunity for the church traditionalists to teach conservative moral doctrine to children who otherwise would almost certainly never get it?

One of the most notorious Catholic conservatives in America, William Donohue of the Catholic League, rather surprisingly wants the boys to stay:

"To single out these kids because of their gay parents would be
invidious.. You cannot burden the innocent."

The upset parents’ group proposes a radical solution:

Michael Joseph Sundstedt, a Newport Beach attorney advising the group
of parents, said they want families enrolling their children in St.
John the Baptist to sign a "parental moral covenant" agreeing to abide
by Catholic teachings. While unusual in Catholic schools, similar
declarations are required by many Protestant Christian schools.

The two fathers might sign the declaration even though they could not
abide by it — "that’s between them and their maker," Sundstedt said.
"But I strongly suspect that those parents wouldn’t sign the agreement."

But Father Gerald M. Horan, superintendent of schools run by the
Diocese of Orange, rejected the idea of a parental covenant. If the
school barred gay parents from enrolling their children, they would
also have to ban children of parents who violate other church
teachings, including those who are divorced, use birth control or
weren’t married in the church, he said.

"This is the quagmire that [the parents’] position represents," Horan said. "It’s a slippery slope to go down."

Good for Father Benzoni for taking the boys.  But I must admit to being mystified by the two fathers!  Why on earth would you send your sons to school in an environment where your children are very likely to be taught that their parents’ relationship is unnatural and sinful?    That invites a kind of cognitive dissonance into a child’s life that seems to me likely to be overwhelming, confusing, and unfair.  Still, it raises a host of interesting issues.

But I need to get back to the couch.  I’ll be down in San Diego visiting a dear cousin of mine tomorrow, and more regular blogging returns Tuesday.

The joys and burdens of free time

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 7, 2005
in Pasadena City College and Stuff
. 10 Comments

It’s odd not to be teaching.  Pasadena City College started its winter intersession on Monday, and I’m sitting this one out.  I won’t be teaching again until February 14.

Since I started teaching full-time eleven years ago, I’ve taught every semester and every summer.  When we compressed our calendar and added a winter intersession a year ago, I taught that one too.  One quickly gets hooked on the "overload" money, and since expenses invariably rise to meet increased incomes, it’s hard to cut back on one’s teaching load.   Still, though it will be a pinch, I’m doing it for Winter Session 2005.  Six weeks of freedom.

When I’m swamped with work, I often fantasize about lots and lots of time off.  I’ve been looking forward to this vacation for a year.  I do have a variety of small plans in place: to clean up both my home and work offices; to start (finally) working on some sort of a sexual harassment consulting business.  But now that the vacation time has arrived, I’m at a bit of a loss, and I am in danger of frittering away my free time.  (If I start posting seven times a day, you’ll know that’s what is happening!)  So this weekend, I’m going to plan out the next month as best I can, leaving room for fun but also making sure that this precious time is not wasted.

Matilde the chinchilla suggests that if I were to take her out three times a day (instead of her normal two) that that would be a superb use of my time.  So, off to that happy distraction!

Search term update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 7, 2005
in Blogging
. 9 Comments

Some search terms folks have used to find this blog since 11:00AM today:

chinchilla coats (and still they come — again, folks, look in the albums for where chin coats belong)
Ugandan marriage and family systems
hugo schwyzer (lots of folks looking me up today, which worries me)
san francisco ultra-marathoner (actually, most of them live in Marin or the East Bay)
gay rings on fingers, meanings (He/she is probably taken, so stop googling)
pro-feminist men (rumors of their demise greatly exaggerated)
best of hugo (that one was from the German Google)
engagement tattoos (now, there’s a thought…)
poem about why i’m proud to be canadian (huh.  got me stumped how that got here.)
male male touching (not so stumped by that one)
Mexico pentecostal persecution (yet another unblogged injustice)
christians and asexuality (hey, if Paul could do it…)

The proverbial blast from the past

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 7, 2005
in Memories, Music and People
. 7 Comments

It’s a gloomy day outside, and my cold is persisting.  Another day of no running.  At this point, all I can do is be thankful that my worst ailment is a cold, and that in due course, I will be able to pound pavement and dirt again.   I am well enough, however to run errands — Matilde the chinchilla is in need of Craisins, her favorite treat, and I can certainly brave the rain and the chill on her behalf.

I don’t have much to blog about this morning.  One small note:

Danny Sugerman has died.  The self-proclaimed greatest fan ever of the Doors, he wrote the 1980 biography of Jim Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive. (Now very much out of print.)   I was 13 in 1980, and that fall simultaneously discovered the book and the music of Morrison and the Doors.  For the next two years, I was absolutely obsessed with them.  I had every Doors album on cassette, and would spend hours listening to them in my room on my tiny, single-speaker tape recorder.  I carried the Sugerman biography with me to school, reading over and over again of Jim Morrison’s fabled talent and even more fabled wretched excess.

In my early teens, I was shy, unathletic, and soft.  I had a bowl haircut.  Jim Morrison was everything I dreamed of being –  remarkably intellectual, desperately thin and sexy (I would show pictures of him to female classmates who had never heard of the Doors, and they would drool), and even more important, totally uninhibited.  Morrison remains the only rock and roll figure I’ve ever idolized, even though he died when I was four.  (It occurs to me that I am today a full decade older than he was when he overdosed in Paris at age 27.)  His was the only face I put on my wall in my early teenage years; I had at least three Doors t-shirts.  I bought his books of poetry (don’t worry, nothing he wrote will show up here on a Short Poem Thursday.)  In July 1981, on the tenth anniversary of his death, I stayed up all night listening to a Doors marathon ont he radio and lighting candles in my room to his memory.  Ah, fourteen.

My Doors fascination ended in late 1982, when I (later than everyone else, it seemed) discovered punk.  Overnight, I went from the Doors to the Clash to obscure thrash SoCal punk bands.  Tell me, does any reader remember a band called Jodie Foster’s Army (JFA)? Word has it they are still around…

I don’t own a single Doors album anymore.  As much as I loved their music in my early teens, I can’t listen to them today.  Perhaps it’s because their music reminds me of a time when I felt unhappy and overwhelmed.  Perhaps it’s because at 37, Morrison’s self-destructiveness seems far less appealing to me than it did almost a quarter of a century ago.  But when I read Sugerman’s obit this morning, memories of my childhood obsession with this one particular band came rushing back to me. 

Oh, and one other bizarre note about Sugerman; the obituary notes:


Sugerman is survived by his wife, the former Fawn Hall, who was Oliver North’s secretary during the Iran-Contra scandal.

For those of us old enough to remember Iran-Contra (and Fawn Hall’s breathless 1987 televised testimony before Congress), this is strange stuff indeed!

Foreskins and fidelity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 6, 2005
in Circumcision, Faith, Marriage, Penis and Sexuality
. 30 Comments

Still feeling poorly, I’m taking another day off from working out.  It’s always hard to stay away from the gym and the trails — my fears about losing fitness can become overwhelming.  But where in my younger years I might have staggered through a workout, wheezing and sneezing, I’ve become far wiser in my old age.

I am not feeling so poorly as to avoid the task of taking down the Christmas tree. It is Epiphany, after all, the day by which all good Mennoscopalians ought to have all holiday decorations taken down.  Given that the tree is now tinder dry, leaving it up a moment longer would be a fire hazard…

Anyhow, among the many topics in debate here is circumcision.  In particular, whether any serious comparison can be made between male circumcision and what is sometimes called female circumcision, but more often referred to as female genital mutilation.

Yesterday, I tried to make the case that in gender studies we needed to avoid competing in the "suffering Olympics", with each sex trying to make the case that their pain was greater than the other’s.  I stand  by the argument I made.  But I must confess that as a a pro-feminist, I was deeply and profoundly troubled by the equation of the removal of the foreskin of the penis with female genital mutilation as it is practiced in Africa and elsewhere.

For information on female genital mutilation (usually abbreviated FGM, or FGC), see the Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project.  More can be found here.

I’m not a cultural relativist.  I have no problem dismissing FGM as barbaric, and no problem seeking to have all varieties of female genital mutilation banned.  The near-universal purpose of FGM seems to be control of women’s sexuality, and there can be little doubt that the vast majority of FGM practices (as detailed on the sites above) are intended to make sex less pleasurable for women.

On the other hand, there is no hard evidence that male circumcision reduces male sex drive or pleasure.  Indeed, if that were so, we would be hard-pressed to explain the tremendous interest in sex that millions of circumcised American men display! 

But I’m not entirely untroubled by male circumcision, either.  Even if the physical repercussions are negligible for circumcised men, it is difficult to defend the involuntary imposition of real surgery on defenseless infant boys.  In the men’s movement, we must guard against the notion that boys are somehow tougher and more resilient than girls.  Boys can be victimized and wounded too!

In my Western Civ courses, we briefly cover the Abrahamic covenant, which is where male circumcision first appears in the Torah.  I offer my students three ways to think about male circumcision in this context, suggesting that elements of truth may be found in all three.

1.  Circumcision was intended to ensure male domination in Hebrew culture.  If only men have foreskins, and the removal of the foreskin is a mark of God’s promise to the Hebrews, than only men can "sign" the covenant.  Women, in this sense, are like minors in our culture — needing a parent or guardian to legitimize contracts.  If God had told Abraham to pierce his nose or his nipple, then women could have done that as well; male circumcision is virtually the only requirement that every man could meet and than no woman could.

2.  Alternatively, circumcision is intended to honor women.  In order for the "chosen people" to go on, women will have to give birth.  They will give birth in pain, and they will give birth in blood.  But that pain of childbirth is fundamentally productive; it is a sacrifice that leads to new life.  Requiring male circumcision means that men (or in most cases, infant boys) will also experience (though only once) pain and bleeding from the comparable part of their own bodies.  In some sense, circumcision may be men’s way of saying to women:  "We too will sacrifice, we too will bleed, we will honor (or appropriate) your pain by wounding ourselves in solidarity with you."  Just as the human race can only continue through childbirth, so the "chosen" can only continue through circumcision.  Both sexes will sacrifice together.

3.  But perhaps, circumcision is really about obedience and fidelity in the most private sphere of our lives.  It is axiomatic that nothing is more "personal" to a man than his penis.  In strictly religious Western cultures,once he hits adolescence, few people (if any) other than himself will hold his penis and look at it, with the exception of his wife (and in the modern world, his physician).   Many men in many cultures struggle with sexual fidelity; they struggle to honor their commitments (to chastity or to marriage).  Circumcision is a visceral, visual, tactile reminder that even in this most private area of a man’s life, God is still present.  Circumcision is about dedicating one’s body to God, and in particular, dedicating the very part of the body most renowned for inspiring men to act selfishly and destructively.   Our ancestors were well aware of the calamity and destruction that sexual infidelity could bring to the community; they may well have intended circumcision as an important token to remind every man of the colossal importance of his commitments.  (Of course, in modern culture where circumcision has lost its religious meaning, it’s difficult to imagine that most circumcised men would have this reaction to an absent foreskin!)

This is hardly an exhaustive list of all of the possible "reasons" for male circumcision.  But I must confess (without sharing any details of my own body — that would be far too much information) that I am immensely sympathetic to this third way of thinking about the meaning of the removal of the male foreskin.

Thursday short poem: Thomas’ Refusal to Mourn

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 6, 2005
in Poetry
. 2 Comments

This is a somber choice for the first short poem of 2005.  Dylan Thomas is never easy, and I confess I only "get him" when I read his work aloud.  Lots of folks have tsunami-related poems up in the blogosphere it seems, and this is my offering.  The closing line reminds me of the words often attributed to Stalin: "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."   When I get overwhelmed by numbers and loss, this poem comes to mind.

Again, read it aloud to yourself. 

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in London

Never until the mankind makingBird beast and flowerFathering and all humbling darknessTells with silence the last light breakingAnd the still hourIs come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the roundZion of the water beadAnd the synagogue of the ear of cornShall I let pray the shadow of a soundOr sow my salt seedIn the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child’s death.I shall not murderThe mankind of her going with a grave truthNor blaspheme down the stations of the breathWith any furtherElegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,Robed in the long friends,The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,Secret by the unmourning waterOf the riding Thames.After the first death, there is no other.

Musing on men, the “suffering Olympics”, and accountability

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2005
in Feminism and Men and Masculinity
. 19 Comments

I’ve been reading through the extraordinary number of comments below this post.  No other subject that I’ve blogged about in the past year has engendered (pardon the pun) as much intense discussion as the men’s movement and the various issues related to it.  Really, it’s quite remarkable.

Most of the discussion has been reasonably civil, which is why I haven’t closed the comments yet.  I am so grateful that so many people are willing to wade into the murky waters of men’s issues here on my blog, but I am saddened at how difficult it can be to really get one’s point across.   I know that my own comments often seem short and flip and are easily misinterpreted.  I suspect that that is the case for most of us.

There are a great many threads to pick up on from the comments section.  One general reaction: we need to be very careful about assuming that pain is a zero-sum game.  Claiming that women have been oppressed is not the same as claiming that therefore, men don’t suffer.  Pointing out men’s individual and collective unhappiness and confusion is not a denial of the reality of the continued existence of sexism.  Misery is not a pie — more for me, less for you, and vice versa.  It is helpful if, in gender discussions, we can get past what often seems like the "suffering Olympics". 

We live in a culture of comparatives and superlatives when it comes to pain.  All of the newspapers I’ve read this past week in Britain and America have provided tables that "rank" the human and economic toll of the recent tsunami compared to other catastrophic events.    It’s a perfectly understandable reaction.  We modern humans seem to like numbers, even if our compassion is still stimulated more by individual images of suffering than by statistics.  But the fact that Indonesia, for example, has lost more people than Sri Lanka does not make the suffering in the latter country any less great!  No medals are being awarded here.

Similarly, the fact that women have, historically, suffered more violence at the hands of men than men have at the hands of women doesn’t mean that men haven’t also been physically hurt (by other men, mostly, but sometimes by women.)  The fact that in most developed and developing countries, men are paid more than women for similar work doesn’t mean that working and middle-class men aren’t ever victims of exploitation.   The fact that pregnancy and childbirth is a unique physical burden (and sometimes, a unique joy) for women doesn’t mean that men cannot also experience euphoria, anxiety, and pain around reproductive issues.   

It is unfortunate that activists on all sides of gender issues have given in to the temptation to compete in these "suffering Olympics".  It is hard, of course, when one feels oneself to be a victim to hear one’s perceived oppressor talking about his or her own pain!  "How dare you say you are in pain?", we ask of our romantic partners and of activists on the other side of gender issues, "I’m the real injured party here!"   Some contemporary pop psychology tends to reinforce this focus on one’s own pain and hurt, with the concomitant avoidance of one’s own responsibility.  That’s not helpful.

The strongest and healthiest wings of both the feminist and pro-feminist men’s movement tend to avoid angry and embittered attacks upon the other sex.  (And yes, I know, both sides like to quote the other’s extremists.  But newsflash, people:  Andrea Dworkin is not a mainstream feminist, and Warren Farrell does not speak for the entire men’s movement!  So please, spare us absurd quotations out of context from the likes of these.)  Rather, what authentic feminists do is ask us to do three positive things:

1.  Become aware of the institutions and structures in our own and other cultures that shape and distort our attitudes towards gender identity and sexuality.   (Examples can range from female genital mutilation to pornography to reproductive rights to, yes, father’s issues.) 

2.  Take positive action to dismantle or weaken these structures.  This is basic activism. It doesn’t involve name-calling with one’s opponents.

3.  (This is my favorite). Become aware of our own complicity in "the great crime"!  Rigorously examine our own attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and past actions — where have we been at fault?  Where have we injured others.  How have we, consciously or not, bought into cultural lies about gender and sexuality, and how have we behaved as a result?  We need to focus not on our intentions, but on how others have perceived us.

Obviously, this third one is the toughie.  It’s also charged.  As a man, telling a woman who has been sexually harassed to "examine her own role" in the incident is, to put it mildly, problematic!  This is why I’m such a strong advocate of same-gender accountability groups.  Men need other men with whom they can open up — first to validate the reality of their own hurt, and then to call each other to account for their own role in what brought that hurt about.  If there’s one thing that both the Maoists and the Promise Keepers got absolutely right, it’s that regular and rigorous self-examination in small, same-sex accountability "cell groups" is a prerequisite for real transformation.

There are a whole host of specific issues I’ve got a mind to post on: the comparison of male circumcision to female genital mutilation is one that ought to appear in the next day or two.

Home again

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2005
in Traveling
. 8 Comments

It’s not quite seven in the morning, California time, and I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning.  I am quite jet-lagged. 

There must be something about Hugo and planes these days.  When my fiancee and I flew home from Colombia in August, I was sick most of the way.   Yesterday, I was fine when I boarded the Virgin flight at Heathrow, but by the time we were two hours into the flight, I was making regular visits to the lavatory to worship on my knees.   After a while, I got so tired that I simply used the airsickness bags, as I was unable to leave my seat.  Fortunately for my fellow travelers, I had a bulkhead row to myself!  I was cared for by very solicitous flight attendants (one kind gal in particular had a thick Geordie accent that reminded me of my time doing research up in the delightful grimness of northeast England.)   I couldn’t keep anything down, not even ginger ale, and was so weak by the time we landed that I needed to be taken off the plane in a wheelchair.  (Note: those in wheelchairs go to the front of the immigration and customs lines at LAX).

The wheelchair was pushed by a very friendly middle-aged woman who spoke little English.  At baggage claim, I made several feeble efforts to reclaim my own suitcases.  She pushed me gently back into the chair, and dealt with my bags.  Talk about your gender issues!  To sit passively while an older woman wrestled my suitcases off the carousel was almost as painful as the constant nausea.  I have to admit, I was wondering what everyone else was thinking — I had looked perfectly healthy getting on the plane, and now was white as a sheet, unable to stand or care for myself.

I am happy to report that chicken broth does wonders.  My beloved brought me home, fed me soup and crackers, and put me to bed.  (I did have some playtime with Matilde the chinchilla; she was especially loving.  It’s remarkable how even the humblest of animals know when their guardians are ill.)  In any event, I got six hours of sleep and feel much better this morning.  I’ll take the day off from running and working out, and with luck, be back to a "normal" schedule tomorrow.

I am looking forward to getting back to blogging.  I note that my post below on "How Men Attack" has had over 330 comments as of this morning; I’ll see if I can weigh in a bit on men’s issues once I feel a bit more human.