The House recently voted to cut Planned Parenthood funding and eliminate Title X funding. Planned Parenthood is consistently referred to as an abortion center by it’s critics. However, minimal searching results in PP’s 07-08 annual report where a pie chart reports that abortions make up 3% of their services. The bulk of services are contraception and STD testing and treatment. Anyone who has actually looked at services offered by Planned Parenthood locations would see that abortions are not even provided at all locations.

So what if we judged everything by what it did 3% of the time?

Hospitals exist to injure you and most of the time it’s due to negligence or as those evil doctors want you to believe, “a mistake”.

Twitter exists just to publish Justin Beiber’s tweets.

Everyone in Washington DC has HIV or AIDS. Hmm, that seems related to PP’s funding…

All of your restaurant food has spit in it. On purpose.

Women don’t deserve to automatically be considered pre-pregnant by doctors, have laws passed that limiting my control and the choices I can make regarding my own body and watch as elected officials make decisions based on their own personal dogma. Planned Parenthood doesn’t deserved to be recognized for only one type of service they provide. And that one controversial service they provide? It’s really important to a lot of men and women and it’s not something that should put a wonderful agency on the chopping block.

Check the Planned Parenthood site for ways to show your support.

(I looked up the 3% facts! They are real according to the Internet!)

I had a no-baby shower last weekend. I think it was the best shower I’ve been to. Drinking, cheese filled foods, cupcakes, a fish hat and lots of friends and some family. I got some baby showed decs from the party store and tacked NO onto them but apparently it wasn’t clear enough what we were celebrating because the people at a table near us asked if I had a boy or girl. At least they were nice enough to assume I already had the baby if I was drinking. A little vodka in the breast milk is good for baby!
I registered as a not-the-mama-to-be and got some awesome gifts. My grandma took the opportunity to ship me half of her kitchen. I think she is afraid she will never see me or my female cousin get married and she doesn’t know what to do with all of these kitchen things.

Work has been fucking depressing. We have more budget troubles and we did not apply for either of the research grants I was working on. One of the grants would have been a revival of a project we worked on with a local university. For some reason, no one decided to ask the professors at the university if they were also applying until the day before the grant was due. Surprise, they were and they were upset that we didn’t tell them we were applying, too. Maybe if we had called earlier, we could have collaborated again and submitted the damn app.
So now the next round of applications aren’t due until early summer and I keep telling my boss “we have to start early” and she keeps..doing nothing. This is something she really has to start because it’s a collaborative grant and she has to initiate the collaboration because no one knows little research assistant girl!

I e-attended a NASW CEU presentation. I’m happy that they have developed this in person/online CEU workshop series. They’re not terribly expensive and they have a good range of topics. They still have some kinks to work out. The sound went out on the presentation for a while and the mic didn’t pick up questions the audience asked. The presentation was on holistic therapy which sounds good but it was a little too new age for me. Past life regression? Really? So much for evidence based practice! I was hoping for a little more accessible topics, not some woman selling her book.

Also, I am adoring Amanda Palmer’s post on her song Oasis. I think we need more upbeat songs about abortion. Let’s dance.

The more work I have, the less I do. I brought summaries of the grants I’m interested in applying for to the executives and they said yes to three! How do I go from zero to three? Could it have something to do with state budget cuts and the agency having no money?
One grant is only research, the 2nd is resurrecting an old program and the 3rd is mostly a program and I might throw some evaluation components in to give myself a part in it. Normally I wouldn’t get involved in a program grant but this one is big so I want to be part of it and see if I can get a raise out of it.
Even with my slacking, I’m still doing more work than I was last month. A lot of what I’m doing is independent work so it’s easier for me to get things done. I’ve stopped going to the 4 hour meetings. Now my boss just pulls me in for parts I’m involved in. I’m having more one-on-one meetings. And my boss finally laid the smack down on a pain in the ass director so I no longer have to chase him. It’s not that he’s suddenly doing his work. It’s just that I no longer have to follow up 10 times to remind him to do stuff. Let him sink.

I have 3 clients again at the GLBT center. The 3rd client is the easiest to work with so far. I identify with her in some ways which is something I will eventually discuss with my clinical supervisor. Last week we talked about one of my clients that is “internet famous” in her subculture and asked me to read her blog. I took her blog address without saying yes or no and I admit, I looked at it. I told on myself, knowing my supervisor would tell me I shouldn’t look at the client’s blog. My information should come from sessions, directly from the client, not through the information she shares with her internet community. The next session I told her I wouldn’t be reading her blog and she seemed OK with it. She has a lot going on in her past and I think she wanted to be able to say “just read this and understand me” but telling me all of those details in session is important to The Process. I’m slacking with clients, too. I haven’t done progress notes in forever and haven’t started my monthly report.

What have I been doing with my time? Not quite sure.
I went to the Chinese Democracy listening party, got a new GnR tshirt and the CD in the mail. The CD is growing on me, I really like Better. And the shirt is a total boy magnet.
I made Mac n Cheese Pancakes twice and they’re so simple and good. The 2nd time I made bacon, prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe and mimosas to go with them.
I’m making meatloaf cupcakes for the family tomorrow. My mom is jealous of hearing about my adventures in weird food and not tasting any of it. My mom called me today and told me a list of the liquors and wines she has at home and didn’t even mention food. I called her back and asked if we were just drinking this year and told her I fully supported that idea.

I got blood draw this morning to make sure I don’t have a bunch of painful diseases. 5 tubes! I’m not sure if I have any blood left. I got lucky with a skilled phlebotomist that didn’t have to go poking around. I can tell if they are good by their stick and aftercare. You do not bend your arm up after a blood draw! I don’t know how many years I was told to do that and would end up with massive bruising. Keep your arm straight and apply pressure. So I thought I would get lucky when I peeked under my bandaid and didn’t see a bruise. I pulled the bandaid off and it really pulled the inner elbow skin up when coming off. So now I have a tiny mark near the needle hole and a big bruise where the bandaid was. I can’t win.

I felt very knowledgeable at work today. I emailed the NIH contacts on the research program announcement my agency might submit an application for. The CEO wants to use this as a chance to revive an old HIV prevention program. I’m not so sure HIV prevention is what NIH is looking for with this program. Being sponsored by two different centers having to do with alcohol abuse kind of leads me to believe they want it to be a “Drinking is bad, kids!” program. Rather than be snotty about it, I took the learnin I gained at the research conference I attended and emailed the contacts listed to ask them. I hope I am right so I can go all RTFM on the CEO.

And now it is time for baking!

Much more going on than tube mangling!

The boy and I went to the opera this week. We saw Falstaff for cheap with our student ID’s. I read a synopsis of the opera beforehand like the Lyric’s site tells you to do. It helps to know what is going on so you don’t have to stare at the surtitles the entire time. This was my first opera so I was impressed by everything, the costumes, the set, the cast were all beautiful. The last scene was pretty amazing and I was really surprised when people started bailing early. Some people walked out before the scene finished, some jumped up as soon as the curtain went down. Stay and clap, bitches! You just spent 3 hours at an opera and now it’s so important to jump in your car? You wouldn’t have to wait so long for valet if you just parked a couple blocks away in the garage, lazy.

I just got an email confirming that I am going to start on my big back tattoo when the boy and I go out of town. I’ve been emailing back and forth with the artist and he says the Julia set I picked out is do-able but he is booked up for months. He’s going to be super nice and squeeze me in and do the outline now and then I will return for the fill in. He would like to do it in multiple sessions even if he had time now so it works out nicely. This tattoo is really detailed so its going to be big. I’m nervous about having a big piece but I really like this artist, I think he will do a good job.

And the last thing that’s been going on this week-my brief proposal got rejected :( It’s my first proposal so I guess this is a learning experience or something. I’m still upset because I think that the topic was really good,substance abuse treatment for people with developmental disabilities. My boss still wants the next proposal to be about substance abuse but dual diagnosis MI and substance abuse just isn’t as much fun!

“My Christmas was great! How was yours? That’s good!”

Repeat X Infinity

That’s been my week at work so far but Christmas really wasn’t bad. I saw the relatives I like and just happened to miss the relatives I don’t like. I got a chance to see my rapidly changing teenage nephew. He has a Myspace profile now so he must be all growed up! I played Rock Band with my cousins and nephew and it was confirmed that I’m terribly uncoordinated. Too uncoordinated to play fake video game drums.

My big brother found Jesus this year so he told me all about Jesus showing him the way and Satan trying to lead him astray and I gave him logical explanations for all his Jesus/Satan arguments. But like a good Christian, he didn’t listen to what I was saying and just kept jabbering about god.

I saw the movie Juno a couple weeks ago but I don’t think I wrote about it. It’s great, go see it. Don’t tell me you don’t like indie movies. Go see it, snob. It’s like Knocked Up but good. It fully addresses the option of abortion and doesn’t pull a shmashmortion like Knocked Up.
I think I just don’t like Judd Apatow. Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad-didn’t really like any of them. And it’s not because I don’t like stupid comedies. I still watch Billy Madison way more than I should.
I’m looking forward to There Will Be Blood mostly because I’ve never seen critics circle jerk around a movie like this. Magnolia made me want to die a little but I liked Boogie Nights and Punch Drunk Love.

I’m going to be applying for a small research grant soon as I figure out what to do for my project. My agency is pretty awesome in that it treats many populations in multiple settings but it doesn’t help me narrow down what I want to study. I lean toward substance abuse treatment because it’s pretty straightforward but I personally have an interest in HIV prevention. The one population my workplace does not target is GLBT so maybe I should get some queer research going!

I’ve been thinking lately about exploring my own semi-professional interests. I’ve always wanted to write a book having to do with sex/gender/feminism but have trouble coming up with a topic that I feel is new or at least not beaten to death. I’ve been doing some research on tubal ligation because a medical professional claimed it was “almost obsolete” due to new IUDs and I wanted to see if her claims are valid (not really).

The two things that IUDs and tubal ligation have in common is that they’re a pain in the ass for young, single, childless women to get. Some doctors say you have to have a child or an IUD is impossible to insert. Studies claim women who get their tubes tied in their 20′s are more likely to change their mind but Essure, a new permanent method of female sterilization, is growing in popularity. (Same concept as tubal ligation but non-reversible.) And from my own experience, doctors are reluctant to sterilize single, childless women. So I think I have my topic.
Another thing that is motivating me to explore this topic is the number of religious, natural family planning and marital books that come up when I search “birth control” on Amazon.