Been talking to Philip tonight about different things; it seems that there is no likelihood of him returning to Houston after college; he hates the idea of working for a company where he has no self-expression. So, he's uncertain where he can find that, but he's pretty sure he's not going to find it in corporate America.
I'm sorry that he won't be coming back - I've really enjoyed his company. Interestingly enough, though, he's starting to act like a "boi" in that he's picking up after himself less and less, buying fewer groceries, etc.
It's probably in response to the full life support program offered here at the Casita de Divo, as opposed to anything else.
Got my diabetic "anti-medicine" book in the mail today - it's very, very interesting. I have to read it ASAP.
DJHJD
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Deputy Doogie Dog
In the West, the Dog is man's best friend, but in Chinese Astrology this Sign is a little more unpredictable than that. Dogs are loyal, faithful and honest and always stick to their firm codes of ethics. However, this Sign has trouble trusting others. It's generally quite trustworthy itself -- except for the occasional "little white lies" the Dog tells in order to make things go more smoothly. The Dog makes a wonderful, discreet and loyal friend (despite any white lies) and is an excellent listener. This Sign tends to root for the underdog and its keen sense of right and wrong makes it duty-bound to the core. The Dog's mantra seems to be, Live right, look out for the little people and fight injustice whenever possible.
Dogs can also be rather dogmatic, too. They don't go in for light social banter; instead, they go straight for home, expostulating on the topics that are most important to them. At these times the Dog's narrow-minded or stubborn side can become apparent; this Sign has trouble staying light and calm when an important issue is at stake. This Sign can also be very temperamental; mood swings characterize its emotional life and often the Dog needs to run off to be alone in order to recuperate. Part of the problem is the result of this Sign's load of irrational fears that turn into niggling anxieties that turn into hurt feelings and occasional grouchiness. This sensitive Sign needs to warm up to others over time and gradually learn to trust them. Without that trust as a foundation, Dogs can be judgmental and coarse.
The Dog's discerning nature does make it an excellent business person, one who can turn that picky, guarded nature into a keen sense of the truth of another's motives. Where love is concerned, Dogs often have a tough time finding the right match. They can be so anxious and overwrought in the romance dance that they'll stress their partner to the max! In any forum, this Sign is happiest when able to be quite physically active; at home or at work, the Dog will always be constructing something new or cleaning something up in order to make things better. Dogs need to work on controlling their irrational worries and would also be well-served to relax their mile-high standards, which can sometimes wind up alienating the ones they love.
The most compatible match for a Dog is the Tiger or the Horse.
Dogs can also be rather dogmatic, too. They don't go in for light social banter; instead, they go straight for home, expostulating on the topics that are most important to them. At these times the Dog's narrow-minded or stubborn side can become apparent; this Sign has trouble staying light and calm when an important issue is at stake. This Sign can also be very temperamental; mood swings characterize its emotional life and often the Dog needs to run off to be alone in order to recuperate. Part of the problem is the result of this Sign's load of irrational fears that turn into niggling anxieties that turn into hurt feelings and occasional grouchiness. This sensitive Sign needs to warm up to others over time and gradually learn to trust them. Without that trust as a foundation, Dogs can be judgmental and coarse.
The Dog's discerning nature does make it an excellent business person, one who can turn that picky, guarded nature into a keen sense of the truth of another's motives. Where love is concerned, Dogs often have a tough time finding the right match. They can be so anxious and overwrought in the romance dance that they'll stress their partner to the max! In any forum, this Sign is happiest when able to be quite physically active; at home or at work, the Dog will always be constructing something new or cleaning something up in order to make things better. Dogs need to work on controlling their irrational worries and would also be well-served to relax their mile-high standards, which can sometimes wind up alienating the ones they love.
The most compatible match for a Dog is the Tiger or the Horse.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Tuesday that feels like Monday - ver. 2.01
This morning's blood sugar - 310. Still 200 points too high, but it's much better than the last few weeks, and it's 22 points lower than yesterday morning's reading.
In response to my New York Times article about there being no bisexual men, my dear friend Alma wrote me:
"Interesting. I’d always just assumed that there were some men who would just as soon stick it in a tree.
However, just to make thing a little more complex, read this: Dreg?er, Alice Domurat. (1999). Intersex in the Age of Ethics. University Publishing Group. One of the people interviewed doesn’t even identify him/herself clearly as either a man or a woman.
And if you really want to be infuriated about societal attitudes toward gender (assuming you can bump up your medication and avoid a stroke): try: Colapinto, John. (2000) As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. Harper Collins
On the other hand, I’m fully prepared to believe that there are guys out there faking it to get their laundry and cooking done
Yours in utter cynicism,
Alma"
I just adore her.
So, I'm almost done logging, reading, returning, calling, setting appointments and the like. Time to clean up, and get ready for this afternoon's round of meetings.
In response to my New York Times article about there being no bisexual men, my dear friend Alma wrote me:
"Interesting. I’d always just assumed that there were some men who would just as soon stick it in a tree.
However, just to make thing a little more complex, read this: Dreg?er, Alice Domurat. (1999). Intersex in the Age of Ethics. University Publishing Group. One of the people interviewed doesn’t even identify him/herself clearly as either a man or a woman.
And if you really want to be infuriated about societal attitudes toward gender (assuming you can bump up your medication and avoid a stroke): try: Colapinto, John. (2000) As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. Harper Collins
On the other hand, I’m fully prepared to believe that there are guys out there faking it to get their laundry and cooking done
Yours in utter cynicism,
Alma"
I just adore her.
So, I'm almost done logging, reading, returning, calling, setting appointments and the like. Time to clean up, and get ready for this afternoon's round of meetings.
We've known this all along ..
July 5, 2005
Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited
By BENEDICT CAREY
Some people are attracted to women; some are attracted to men. And some, if Sigmund Freud, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and millions of self-described bisexuals are to be believed, are drawn to both sexes.
But a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.
The study, by a team of psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.
People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. "You're either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.
In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.
The study is the largest of several small reports suggesting that the estimated 1.7 percent of men who identify themselves as bisexual show physical attraction patterns that differ substantially from their professed desires.
"Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures," said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study.
The discrepancy between what is happening in people's minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle "that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire."
"We have assumed that everyone means the same thing," she added, "but here we have evidence that that is not the case."
Several other researchers who have seen the study, scheduled to be published in the journal Psychological Science, said it would need to be repeated with larger numbers of bisexual men before clear conclusions could be drawn.
Bisexual desires are sometimes transient and they are still poorly understood. Men and women also appear to differ in the frequency of bisexual attractions. "The last thing you want," said Dr. Randall Sell, an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University, "is for some therapists to see this study and start telling bisexual people that they're wrong, that they're really on their way to homosexuality."
He added, "We don't know nearly enough about sexual orientation and identity" to jump to these conclusions.
In the experiment, psychologists at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto used advertisements in gay and alternative newspapers to recruit 101 young adult men. Thirty-three of the men identified themselves as bisexual, 30 as straight and 38 as homosexual.
The researchers asked the men about their sexual desires and rated them on a scale from 0 to 6 on sexual orientation, with 0 to 1 indicating heterosexuality, and 5 to 6 indicating homosexuality. Bisexuality was measured by scores in the middle range.
Seated alone in a laboratory room, the men then watched a series of erotic movies, some involving only women, others involving only men.
Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.
But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.
"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate psychology student at Northwestern and the study's lead author.
Although about a third of the men in each group showed no significant arousal watching the movies, their lack of response did not change the overall findings, Mr. Rieger said.
Since at least the middle of the 19th century, behavioral scientists have noted bisexual attraction in men and women and debated its place in the development of sexual identity. Some experts, like Freud, concluded that humans are naturally bisexual. In his landmark sex surveys of the 1940's, Dr. Alfred Kinsey found many married, publicly heterosexual men who reported having had sex with other men.
"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual," Dr. Kinsey wrote. "The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats."
By the 1990's, Newsweek had featured bisexuality on its cover, bisexuals had formed advocacy groups and television series like "Sex and the City" had begun exploring bisexual themes.
Yet researchers were unable to produce direct evidence of bisexual arousal patterns in men, said Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and the new study's senior author.
A 1979 study of 30 men found that those who identified themselves as bisexuals were indistinguishable from homosexuals on measures of arousal. Studies of gay and bisexual men in the 1990's showed that the two groups reported similar numbers of male sexual partners and risky sexual encounters. And a 1994 survey by The Advocate, the gay-oriented newsmagazine, found that, before identifying themselves as gay, 40 percent of gay men had described themselves as bisexual.
"I'm not denying that bisexual behavior exists," said Dr. Bailey, "but I am saying that in men there's no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation."
But other researchers - and some self-identified bisexuals - say that the technique used in the study to measure genital arousal is too crude to capture the richness - erotic sensations, affection, admiration - that constitutes sexual attraction.
Social and emotional attraction are very important elements in bisexual attraction, said Dr. Fritz Klein, a sex researcher and the author of "The Bisexual Option."
"To claim on the basis of this study that there's no such thing as male bisexuality is overstepping, it seems to me," said Dr. Gilbert Herdt, director of the National Sexuality Resource Center in San Francisco. "It may be that there is a lot less true male bisexuality than we think, but if that's true then why in the world are there so many movies, novels and TV shows that have this as a theme - is it collective fantasy, merely a projection? I don't think so."
John Campbell, 36, a Web designer in Orange County, Calif., who describes himself as bisexual, also said he was skeptical of the findings.
Mr. Campbell said he had been strongly attracted to both sexes since he was sexually aware, although all his long-term relationships had been with women. "In my case I have been accused of being heterosexual, but I also feel a need for sex with men," he said.
Mr. Campbell rated his erotic attraction to men and women as about 50-50, but his emotional attraction, he said, was 90 to 10 in favor of women. "With men I can get aroused, I just don't feel the fireworks like I do with women," he said.
About 1.5 percent of American women identify themselves bisexual. And bisexuality appears easier to demonstrate in the female sex. A study published last November by the same team of Canadian and American researchers, for example, found that most women who said they were bisexual showed arousal to men and to women.
Although only a small number of women identify themselves as bisexual, Dr. Bailey said, bisexual arousal may for them in fact be the norm.
Researchers have little sense yet of how these differences may affect behavior, or sexual identity. In the mid-1990's, Dr. Diamond recruited a group of 90 women at gay pride parades, academic conferences on gender issues and other venues. About half of the women called themselves lesbians, a third identified as bisexual and the rest claimed no sexual orientation. In follow-up interviews over the last 10 years, Dr. Diamond has found that most of these women have had relationships both with men and women.
"Most of them seem to lean one way or the other, but that doesn't preclude them from having a relationship with the nonpreferred sex," she said. "You may be mostly interested in women but, hey, the guy who delivers the pizza is really hot, and what are you going to do?"
"There's a whole lot of movement and flexibility," Dr. Diamond added. "The fact is, we have very little research in this area, and a lot to learn."
Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited
By BENEDICT CAREY
Some people are attracted to women; some are attracted to men. And some, if Sigmund Freud, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and millions of self-described bisexuals are to be believed, are drawn to both sexes.
But a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.
The study, by a team of psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.
People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. "You're either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.
In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.
The study is the largest of several small reports suggesting that the estimated 1.7 percent of men who identify themselves as bisexual show physical attraction patterns that differ substantially from their professed desires.
"Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures," said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study.
The discrepancy between what is happening in people's minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle "that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire."
"We have assumed that everyone means the same thing," she added, "but here we have evidence that that is not the case."
Several other researchers who have seen the study, scheduled to be published in the journal Psychological Science, said it would need to be repeated with larger numbers of bisexual men before clear conclusions could be drawn.
Bisexual desires are sometimes transient and they are still poorly understood. Men and women also appear to differ in the frequency of bisexual attractions. "The last thing you want," said Dr. Randall Sell, an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University, "is for some therapists to see this study and start telling bisexual people that they're wrong, that they're really on their way to homosexuality."
He added, "We don't know nearly enough about sexual orientation and identity" to jump to these conclusions.
In the experiment, psychologists at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto used advertisements in gay and alternative newspapers to recruit 101 young adult men. Thirty-three of the men identified themselves as bisexual, 30 as straight and 38 as homosexual.
The researchers asked the men about their sexual desires and rated them on a scale from 0 to 6 on sexual orientation, with 0 to 1 indicating heterosexuality, and 5 to 6 indicating homosexuality. Bisexuality was measured by scores in the middle range.
Seated alone in a laboratory room, the men then watched a series of erotic movies, some involving only women, others involving only men.
Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.
But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.
"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate psychology student at Northwestern and the study's lead author.
Although about a third of the men in each group showed no significant arousal watching the movies, their lack of response did not change the overall findings, Mr. Rieger said.
Since at least the middle of the 19th century, behavioral scientists have noted bisexual attraction in men and women and debated its place in the development of sexual identity. Some experts, like Freud, concluded that humans are naturally bisexual. In his landmark sex surveys of the 1940's, Dr. Alfred Kinsey found many married, publicly heterosexual men who reported having had sex with other men.
"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual," Dr. Kinsey wrote. "The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats."
By the 1990's, Newsweek had featured bisexuality on its cover, bisexuals had formed advocacy groups and television series like "Sex and the City" had begun exploring bisexual themes.
Yet researchers were unable to produce direct evidence of bisexual arousal patterns in men, said Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and the new study's senior author.
A 1979 study of 30 men found that those who identified themselves as bisexuals were indistinguishable from homosexuals on measures of arousal. Studies of gay and bisexual men in the 1990's showed that the two groups reported similar numbers of male sexual partners and risky sexual encounters. And a 1994 survey by The Advocate, the gay-oriented newsmagazine, found that, before identifying themselves as gay, 40 percent of gay men had described themselves as bisexual.
"I'm not denying that bisexual behavior exists," said Dr. Bailey, "but I am saying that in men there's no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation."
But other researchers - and some self-identified bisexuals - say that the technique used in the study to measure genital arousal is too crude to capture the richness - erotic sensations, affection, admiration - that constitutes sexual attraction.
Social and emotional attraction are very important elements in bisexual attraction, said Dr. Fritz Klein, a sex researcher and the author of "The Bisexual Option."
"To claim on the basis of this study that there's no such thing as male bisexuality is overstepping, it seems to me," said Dr. Gilbert Herdt, director of the National Sexuality Resource Center in San Francisco. "It may be that there is a lot less true male bisexuality than we think, but if that's true then why in the world are there so many movies, novels and TV shows that have this as a theme - is it collective fantasy, merely a projection? I don't think so."
John Campbell, 36, a Web designer in Orange County, Calif., who describes himself as bisexual, also said he was skeptical of the findings.
Mr. Campbell said he had been strongly attracted to both sexes since he was sexually aware, although all his long-term relationships had been with women. "In my case I have been accused of being heterosexual, but I also feel a need for sex with men," he said.
Mr. Campbell rated his erotic attraction to men and women as about 50-50, but his emotional attraction, he said, was 90 to 10 in favor of women. "With men I can get aroused, I just don't feel the fireworks like I do with women," he said.
About 1.5 percent of American women identify themselves bisexual. And bisexuality appears easier to demonstrate in the female sex. A study published last November by the same team of Canadian and American researchers, for example, found that most women who said they were bisexual showed arousal to men and to women.
Although only a small number of women identify themselves as bisexual, Dr. Bailey said, bisexual arousal may for them in fact be the norm.
Researchers have little sense yet of how these differences may affect behavior, or sexual identity. In the mid-1990's, Dr. Diamond recruited a group of 90 women at gay pride parades, academic conferences on gender issues and other venues. About half of the women called themselves lesbians, a third identified as bisexual and the rest claimed no sexual orientation. In follow-up interviews over the last 10 years, Dr. Diamond has found that most of these women have had relationships both with men and women.
"Most of them seem to lean one way or the other, but that doesn't preclude them from having a relationship with the nonpreferred sex," she said. "You may be mostly interested in women but, hey, the guy who delivers the pizza is really hot, and what are you going to do?"
"There's a whole lot of movement and flexibility," Dr. Diamond added. "The fact is, we have very little research in this area, and a lot to learn."
Monday, July 04, 2005
Monday, Monday ver. 633.01
Happy National Delusional Day! With fireworks! You could also call it "Happy Values That We No Longer Observe Day!
Slept in, slept a lot, felt better, got most of my computer work done, baked bread, still way behind the curve as to what I have intended to accomplish, having been sick all day Sunday.
Note to file: If you're going to get sick, go to St. Joseph's emergency room. They're fabulous.
E is back home, Sean is stuck in B'sville with PJ, Mikey's celebrating the departure of TRB (episode 16,) and I have a fully jam packed week lined up. Have calls and documents to make up tomorrow, then three meetings back to back, and class tomorrow night.
Have to scrape up the money to see the doctor; at the ER Saturday night, the doctor asked a bazillion questions about why my blood chemistry was so far off .. was I doing drugs, gaining weight, changed eating/sleeping patterns? Stress? Mikey busted out laughing. Uh, yeah. Stress.
Anyway, we'll see what gets done this week.
Slept in, slept a lot, felt better, got most of my computer work done, baked bread, still way behind the curve as to what I have intended to accomplish, having been sick all day Sunday.
Note to file: If you're going to get sick, go to St. Joseph's emergency room. They're fabulous.
E is back home, Sean is stuck in B'sville with PJ, Mikey's celebrating the departure of TRB (episode 16,) and I have a fully jam packed week lined up. Have calls and documents to make up tomorrow, then three meetings back to back, and class tomorrow night.
Have to scrape up the money to see the doctor; at the ER Saturday night, the doctor asked a bazillion questions about why my blood chemistry was so far off .. was I doing drugs, gaining weight, changed eating/sleeping patterns? Stress? Mikey busted out laughing. Uh, yeah. Stress.
Anyway, we'll see what gets done this week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)