You Probably Don't Want to Read This Post

This is not a political blog post.

This is not a rant about stupid legislation.

This is a post about poop. (Believe me, if you want to stop reading now, I'm totally fine with that.)

So...one does not qualify for a colonoscopy until one is 50 years old. But there's a fancy new product out there called Cologuard, which allows you to screen at home under the age of 50. And, because of a few personal factors (obesity, early-onset menopause), my doctor decided it was a smart move for me to test early. And, since I've watched friends fight colon cancer and hope to never have to face that myself, I was eagerly on board with this idea.

Amy Reed on Unsplash

Until the box arrived. 

Sam saw it first.

"Hey, isn't that a box you have to poop in?"

I was like, "WHAT? How do you know anything about that?!"

And he said, "Jeesh, Mom, there are ads for it all the time on YouTube. Everyone knows what that symbol on the box means. It's a poop box."

Helena chimed in. "Oh, yeah, that's the poop box. I've seen it on YouTube."

I wasn't mortified, yet. Not until representatives from the company started calling me. In the middle of class. And texting me. Daily. "URGENT REMINDER! Complete and ship your kit ASAP!"

The kit sat on the kitchen table for two weeks. We all pretended like we didn't know it was there. Waiting for me. We moved it so that we could eat. We put it back on the table.

But I couldn't do it. There was no way. I have the worst gag reflex in the world. And, although I can handle blood like a champ, bodily fluids —especially bodily fluids that smell— put me right over the edge. There was one time back in the day when I was pregnant with Sam and changing Helena's diaper, and I vomited ON her. And then I had to clean that up, too. And vomited on her again. There was another time when I gagged so hard because of the smell of someone's greasy hair that I threw out my back. But I digress.

The kit sat on the table for two weeks, while text messages continued to blow up my phone. "URGENT! Send us your shit!"

So, this morning, I took a deep breath, and I did it.

I read the kit directions and got everything all set out. The bucket you poop in. The probe (PROBE!!) that you have to rub around in the poop and put in a little test tube. The "Preserving Liquid" (DO NOT DRINK!) ready to go. The bracket that you suspend the poop bucket in, so that you can safely do your business. I set it all up. I was ready. The directions said that you have to poop enough, but not too much. Don't worry if your poop doesn't look like the poop in the sample photos. This was a lot of pressure. Literally.

I took a deep breath and got down to business. I focused in on the muscles. Poop, don't pee. Poop on demand, into a bucket suspended from the toilet seat, and clench but don't clench. You got this. You can do this.

So, I did it. I did the deed and was done. I got up, ready to rub the probe around in the pile of poop and OH MY GOD there was a LOT there. So much. Also, corn. I forgot that I had eaten corn yesterday. #mortified. But there's no going back. I can't start over. It's gonna have to be corn-poop. I want to die.

And then I start to gag. 

I gag and I gag. I have to rub the probe in the poop. Oh god. And seal it back up. I gag.

I have to pour the "Preserving Liquid" (DO NOT DRINK!) over the poop. It says that all the poop must be submerged. I peek into the bucket. I kegel for all I'm worth, trying not to pee while I gag.

You guys. There's too much poop. I have to scoop some of the poop out. They don't provide a poop scooper in the kit, so I have to run to the kitchen, tears streaming out of my eyes, nose running, gagging, trying not to pee my pants, to get a spoon.

Helena is all like, "Mom, are you okay? Are you sick?"

And I tell her that I'm doing the poop thing and there's too much poop and she's like, "GOD MOM. TMI!!"

So I get a spoon, and I re-engage. And I scoop and I look, and I gag, and I repeat, and my Fitbit buzzes excitedly. "You're earning Zone minutes! Keep up the good work!"

I'm not going to go into details about the process, but suffice it to say, I am never, ever, going to be able to get that image out of my head. Or eat corn ever again. Or use that spoon.

Finally, I was done. The probe was in its probe-holder, the poop bucket lid was tightened (MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T LEAK), the labels were on, the box was sealed. All I had to do was drive it to a UPS Store and ship it back to the company. 

And after standing in line for 20 minutes at the UPS Store, holding my (clearly labeled) box of poop, and then handing it to the twenty-year-old boy behind the counter, I was done.  That's it. I can just sit back and wait for the results.

And there ya have it, folks. A blog post about poop.

I can't wait to do this shit again next year.

The National Anthem: A Metaphor for our Country

 I have a complicated relationship with gratuitous nationalism.

The Pledge of Allegiance (for example) is a hot mess of flaming flatulence, a socialist and racist —and incredibly successful—attempt at subjugation.

After 9/11, the American Flag began to look like performance theater, waving in every yard like some sort of collective club insignia, proving that we were the good guys. Car dealerships compete to wave the most flags, the biggest flags, proving they are the most American as they sell foreign-made cars.

Playing the National Anthem before sports events is downright nonsensical. I can’t believe I have much in common with Mark Cuban on anything (other than the fact that we both can't dance), but the National Anthem doesn’t represent everyone and it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with sports. Sports are entertainment. Sports are a business. Sports are not patriotic. It’s just tone-deaf to play the National Anthem at a pro basketball game or a high school football game or any game that isn't the Olympics.

But at a major political conference? Playing the National Anthem makes sense. Play on.

Look, it’s a complicated song with a complicated history. Set to the tune of an English drinking song, it requires an incredible range and a perfect pitch. It’s become a flashpoint of political tension, as those who kneel to speak out against injustice are villainized by those who see no injustice at all. No one agrees on what the National Anthem really symbolizes. And the third verse of the song is downright racist. 

And yet, to me, the National Anthem is beautiful and sacred. Whether you choose to stand or choose to kneel; whether you choose to salute, or put your hand on your heart, or bow your head; whether you choose to hum along or sing or sit in silence...you do NOT perform it in order to showboat. If you can’t sing it straight, don’t sing it. And if you really can’t sing, by god, don’t sing it. 

The National Anthem is a complicated song that mirrors how complicated our country is.

But it is NOT a song you fuck with. It is not a song you sing on a national stage because your daddy knows someone. This is not a song you can sing because you think you can sing.

To destroy the National Anthem is to disrespect what so many have fought for, even if we can’t agree on what it all means.

It’s interesting to me that the ones who have publicly slaughtered it the worst—Roseanne Barr, Sailor Sabol—they have been right wing ideologues who don’t even seem to understand the words they are singing.

And to them I would say—

If you are so full of hubris that you think you deserve to sing the National Anthem at a major event? You don’t.

Your white privilege, your sheltered life, everything that has lifted you to a national stage without merit,..that all is truer than any key you attempted to sing in.

I realize, Sailor, that you are still a kid, only 19 years old. You didn’t put yourself on that stage. Some truly terrible adults did.

But you are representative of what is wrong in this country: white people, stomping around, belting out their version of nationalism. And it is so horribly off-key. It is out of tune. It is embarrassing. It takes a very skilled Black man to even begin to make you sound good. A man who would never, EVER, be invited on that national stage. A man who understands music, and who represents himself --and our national anthem-- and our country, in a way that you will never understand. 

In some ways, this really isn’t about you. It’s about a system that promoted you, that gave you opportunities that you did not earn on your own merits. This is really more a rant at the systems, at the people, who put you in that position. Who elevated you, who told you you were exceptional, who allowed you to believe that you were.

And the end result is that you stood on a national stage—a stage built to model a Nazi SS symbol, a literal stage of white supremacy—and you belted out a completely tone-deaf version of a song you claim to revere, to a nation you don’t even begin to understand.

2017 Lansing Catholic Players, from left: Kabbash Richards, Roje Williams, Michael Lynn III, and Matthew Abdullah kneel during the National Anthem. Photo by Al Goldis, Lansing State Journal.

2

I Started a Blog Post...

When you haven’t written in forever, it becomes incrementally harder to pick up the figurative pen. Kind of like when you haven’t called your mom or your dad in a month or two, it’s awkward at first when you finally call. It feels stilted and unnatural. There are so many stories to tell and yet they all seem so old and stale and irrelevant days or weeks or months after the fact.

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

I have started at least a dozen blog posts in the last 4 months. I started a post about the holidays and rewriting family traditions during a pandemic. I started a post about traveling to Arizona, and how conflicted and excited and thankful I was. I started a post about trying to find ways to take care of myself and remember my own beauty, even as I stare at the scale in horror, even as I refuse to wear jeans because I am so uncomfortable, even as I buy clothes online in yet another size, hoping that maybe this time I’ll feel pretty.

I started a post about the ridiculousness of shoving standardized testing down the throats of our children during a pandemic, how absolutely ridiculous and meaningless that concept even is. When our students and our teachers are struggling, let’s isolate and ostracize them even more by forcing them to take bullshit tests that tell us what we already know: their SES and their mom’s educational background.

I started a post about waiting, endlessly waiting, to get back some of the things I love. Drinking an IPA with my guy at the rail of my favorite bar. Hanging out with the roller derby crowd. Going to a movie. Ordering a meal at an actual restaurant instead of taking home another bag of food from the drive-through window, only to realize that they fucked it up and put cheese on my kid’s burger AGAIN.

I started a post about the National Anthem. I started a post about The Love Boat. I started a post about triage teaching. I started a post about the low birth rate in the United States. I started a post about my white privilege. I started a post about Dr. Seuss. I started a post about anti-racist teaching, and how terrifying that is, knowing that any minute now, an angry white dad and a fragile white mom will try to once again threaten my job because of my “liberal agenda.” 

And I started a post about leaving toxic relationships and finally giving away that last piece of clothing from my old job, finally erasing that domain and rebranding my website, finally deleting those old logins and passwords from my Chromebook, and finally realizing that almost everyone there never really was a true friend, and that maybe I'm okay with that.

When you haven’t written an actual post in forever, it seems like every abandoned idea you’re sitting on is old, the relevance has passed, and you’ve got nothing important to say.

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

But sometimes you accidentally butt-dial your dad, and even though the conversation is stilted and awkward, you are so happy to just hear his voice. Sometimes you call your mom because, even though you don’t have any good stories to tell, you just want to say hi.

Sometimes you start a new post and you write about how you haven’t written in months. Sometimes you decide that you’ll take the leap, finish the post about nothing, and actually publish it this time.