I’ve posted before on my love for mommybloggers. (Note: not all of them refer to themselves that way. It’s a favorite term of mine, but please don’t assume that they love it too.) And one of my favorites, Heather Armstrong, had a great post today. She was reflecting on the decision of Brigham Young University to kick a player off their basketball team for violating the behavioral code of the (private) school. The code is, as you can probably guess, very, very strict. Getting one’s girlfriend pregnant is most decidedly not okay with them.

I liked Armstrong’s balanced take on the issue—both her acknowledgement that as a private school, BYU can set up any code it wants to, and students shouldn’t be surprised if they are punished for violating a code they agreed to follow; and it’s a really tough consequence for this poor kid, who has plenty of crisis and chaos in his life without being humiliated by his alma mater. And all of this got me thinking again about the concept of code, as in, code of behavior.

What’s your code?

Lots of clients ask me if certain behaviors are okay. “Is it okay if I ask her to just deal with the fact that I like to drink?” “Is it okay if I don’t tell him I had an affair, as long as I put a stop to it?” “Is it okay to check his email without him knowing it?” “Is it okay to…” well, you get the idea.

And here’s something I often say in response: “what does your own code of behavior say about your question?” Or, “I don’t know. Is doing that consistent with your own honor code?” We all have codes of behavior, whether we’re conscious of them or not. My parents taught me tons of things—and most of the time, they didn’t know they were doing it—about how to behave, how to handle emotions, how much it’s right for me to demand from others, and so on. I also learned codes from peers, teachers, religious mentors, and many others. Sometimes I learn them positively: I observe (or benefit from) another person’s honorable behavior; other times I learn from somebody else’s mistakes. But I—and you, and everyone—we all have behavior codes that we follow…and don’t follow.

So if you’re wondering if something you want to do is “okay,” ask yourself, how does this line up with my code? What do I really think about my code? Does it need to change, or do I need to comply with it in this case? (Sometimes it’s the code—not the behavior you’re contemplating—that’s the problem. To take a couple of obvious examples, imagine a woman who learns the code that women should not complain when they’re being exploited or abused; or imagine a man who learns the code that men don’t have legitimate feelings and should just “suck it up.”)

What’s the right answer? I don’t know. But we can learn a lot by taking a good hard look at your code(s).

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Ahh, it’s March 1st. Such a lovely day. Every year I feel as if the month of February is the longest month of the year. Winter is still going in full force, it seems, and it’s been months now since we’ve really enjoyed nice weather. The light is returning, but it’s still dark during dinner, and not too light in the early mornings. And this year, there was a long cold spell at the end of February, delaying my spouse’s rose-pruning and keeping the garden dormant. Blurg.

But now it’s March 1st! In ancient Rome, so unloved were the first two months of the year that they didn’t really have names. March was thought to be the first month. Hence, “September” means “seventh month,” even though it’s the ninth on our calendar. “October” means “eighth month,” even though for us it is the tenth. Fifteen years ago, when I lived in Minneapolis (where February can be particularly cruel), a friend of mine with a doctorate in history told me this trivia about ancient Rome, and in a moment of idle speculation and late-winter whining, we thought up names for January and February. (Well, he did.) They are the months of “Malum” and “Odium,” in keeping with their awful natures.

(Maybe I shouldn’t tell the world about these somewhat dorky pastimes in my history as a nerd/geek. Ah well. I could do worse.)

So, for me, March 1st is a lot like September 1st—it’s a “little” New Year’s Day, a time in the calendar when, for the hundredth time, I can start fresh, and look forward to at least six months of mostly decent weather, lengthening days, and sweet warmth. It’s a “today is the first day of the rest of your life” kind of day. What will you do today, this New Year’s day, to live life more fully, more joyfully?

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I was working with a couple a few weeks ago, and we were discussing how some of their fights get out of hand. In the course of our discussion, I said something like, “So, when you can tell that the other person is about to bring the crazy, you should…” And one of them interrupted me. Laughing, she said, “Oh, I’m so glad you use the ‘crazy’ word! We had a therapist who never used words like that and thought it was offensive when we did.”

I was glad to make this personal connection with my clients, but I then reflected on why I use the word ‘crazy,’ and other slang words from our long history of marginalizing people with mental illness. Is it really okay for me to use these words? People refer to psychiatric hospitals as “funny farms,” and their words for the patients are worse. Shouldn’t I affirm the dignity of people with mental illness by not using these offensive terms?

I do want to affirm the dignity of all people, especially those who suffer serious mental and emotional problems. But I think the best way to do that is to reclaim these words and use them to describe ordinary, everyday, batsh*t-crazy behaviors that we all do…that I do. There are times (rare, I think, but you’d have to ask him) when I am acting crazy with my partner. I’m sucking my thumb (no, not literally) in a sulk about something I think he did, or I’m bringing my bad mood home, or I’m just generally being unconscious or irrational. I can go bonkers. And so can he. And so can you!

My client is right: it’s okay to use these terms, particularly if we’re trying to work on our crazy behaviors. If everyone is crazy some of the time, then no one need feel ashamed of it. We can get it out in the open and go to work on it. So here’s my question for you: are you staging a Nutty with your partner? If so, come sit by me. I’ve got some ideas about how we can shrink your head!

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If you’ve ever had counseling, you most likely experienced negative or critical thoughts and feelings about your therapist. I’ve worked with fantastic therapists myself, and even they will strike a wrong note, or just say the wrong thing, in our work together. What to do?

Simple: tell the therapist. If you think I’m taking us into a topic or issue that’s not interesting, not helpful, or just plain irritating, let me know. Hard as I try, I’m not perfect and might take us down a path that just isn’t right. Not only is it okay for you to let me know, it’s actually a fundamental dimension of good therapy. It could even be a breakthrough moment for you: by confronting me with your concern about our work together, you gain experience connecting with another person on a difficult and painful topic. It’s a chance to practice courageous and healthy honesty. It’s good for both of us!

Often enough I can sense that we’re off track, and I’ll beat you to the punch. “Are you mad?” I asked a client a few weeks ago. “Yeah,” she said. “Are you mad at me?” “Yes,” she replied. And the conversation that followed was probably one of the most helpful experiences she had in our work together.

So…let me have it!

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I admit it: I make fair-weather fans look like die-hards. I just don’t get excited about football. To be brutally honest, I don’t really know how to play it. (What’s a down? What’s a turnover? Sorry, but I am a football nonentity.) But for ten minutes every other year or so, I get excited. And I just had a fun ten minutes. Who dat?!

I think I am glad the Saints won mostly because I went to New Orleans last year and hold the city in a special place in my heart. And of course I love it whenever underdogs win. I’m not completely okay with this, though, since I’m from Minnesota and the Saints beat the Vikes the other week. But…this is good. Congratulations, New Orleans! You aren’t the Ain’ts anymore.

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Sometimes I blog about issues related to general health and well-being. In that vein, today is World Vegetarian Day (and the first day of Vegetarian Awareness Month). I’ll let the organizers speak for themselves, but for me this is a day to do two things. First, yes, I will refrain from eating meat today. But more importantly, I will renew my commitment to being an informed consumer.

True confessions, I am not a vegetarian. But at the same time, I try to find a balance in my eating, which means that there are days and seasons when I refrain from certain foods, and abstain from alcohol. Most spiritual practices and religious traditions encourage some form of what I call “rhythmic eating,” which is a pattern of eating simply (or even fasting), and feast days when you absolutely say yes to French fries (my poison) and dessert. I trust this ancient wisdom.

And I am getting better and better at reading labels. For example, I thought for a long time that “cage-free” was better than “free-range” because it meant that the hens truly did have room to walk, flutter their wings, and do all the other things animals like to do. It turns out that “cage-free” is a more accurate term than “free-range,” but it doesn’t mean the animals were raised or treated more humanely. Now I know to look for the term “free-farmed.” (And I also know that eating animals and animal products is a lot more complicated–and problematic–than I thought.)

So take some time today to pay attention to your diet, and your relationship with all living things. Happy World Vegetarian Day.

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I think I’m on a roll. This is my second political post in a row. I made it through all of 2008–a huge political year!–without talking politics on this blog, but this summer there are too many crucial issues being debated for me to stay silent. The first was the White House being inconsistent and unhelpful regarding DOMA and DADT. And the second is Referendum 71.

I’ve found out that it’s hard to get information about Referendum 71 and how it came into being. This webpage gives you a lot of different takes on the complicated story. But the basics are these:

1) the Washington State Legislature passed–and Governor Chris Gregoire signed–a measure expanding the rights of registered domestic partners in the state of Washington;

2) registered domestic partners are not only same-sex couples, but also heterosexual persons who live as domestic partners, are not romantically involved, and do not want to marry because they would lose government-funded health benefits if their marital status changed;

3) a group of citizens tried to collect enough signatures to put this law–written and signed, as noted above, by the people’s duly-elected representatives–up to a public vote; and finally,

4) a yes vote will preserve the original law, and by extension the rights of domestic partners across the state. (And by “rights” I mean decidedly non-radical things like the right to visit your partner in the hospital, or the right to decide who gets your stuff when you die.)

Oh, and I should mention that there are legal actions being taken that call into question the validity of many of the signatures that got Ref-71 onto the ballot in the first place.

I have at least two problems with Ref-71, and I suppose at this point in the post you know what they are! The first is the basic question of justice and fairness. My partner and I are registered as domestic partners, and while certain people might like you to think that this means we’re dangerous radicals, all it really means is that we enjoy all of the rights of married heterosexual couples, with the exception of saying that we are “married.” As citizens of this state, and of this nation, we simply enjoy the right to choose our kin, the right to manage any health crisis we might suffer, the right to decide what happens after one of us dies.

And now, because of fear, misunderstanding and ignorance, those rights are in jeopardy.

But that’s not all. My second concern has to do with the fact that a certain number of citizens are trying to second-guess a law written, passed, and signed by the elected representatives who were sent to Olympia by all of us. It’s not the second-guessing itself that I object to: please understand, I think that dissent is a crucial part of a healthy democracy. It’s that they’re trying to do an end run around the system. They know they don’t have the votes in the Legislature, and they know Gov. Gregoire doesn’t share their views. Unseating all the public servants who oppose them would take a long time, and be very hard to do. So they’re trying to bring down this law using the undemocratic method of a referendum.

It’s clever, really. A referendum seems to be democratic. What could be more democratic than having every citizen participate in a state-wide show of hands? But it’s not. For more on why it’s undemocratic, go here. But I’ll say briefly (because this post is pretty long already, and maybe starting to sound like a rant!) that we don’t live in a pure democracy. We live in a democratic republic. And only in a democratic republic do all the voices have a forum in which to be heard. Minority rights aren’t protected in a pure democracy. In a pure democracy, whoever motivates 51% of the crowd wins. That’s why our forbears took such trouble to construct a form of government that functions more fairly, and with more stability.

So I encourage you to vote “yes” on Referendum 71. The next rights to be questioned and denied could be your own.

(And thanks for listening to my rant!)

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For some reason I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to news articles over the past few months about the Obama Administration and its positions on the “Defense of Marriage”* Act (DOMA) and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Maybe it’s just that I had a busy summer. But I’m now starting to take an interest. And I’m not surprised to tell you that my favorite take on the issues was written by Hendrik Hertzberg. He summarizes the facts, offers a good analysis of how the Administration got itself into this mess, and states well the consequences of further inaction.

I tend to be a moderate, politically speaking (firmly left-of-center, and I was quite sorry to see Ted Kennedy leave the scene, but a moderate nonetheless). And I understand that Obama is tackling a lot of problems right now. Just today I said to someone that Obama didn’t just take over managing the store, he took it over while the building was on fire, a hurricane was hitting the town, and someone was holding up the cash register. Still, I don’t understand why–at a bare minimum–the White House and the Department of Justice can’t be more consistent, and more progressive, on the issue of GLBT civil rights. I understand some of the moderate-to-conservative arguments about the issue–that we can’t legislate our way through issues like this. (Though I disagree.) And I understand the political realities Obama faces. I would even understand if he and his staff are being a little superstitious: President Clinton tackled both gay rights and health care in his first year, and that didn’t go well. No, not at all.

But it’s time. It’s time for this new president to honor the promises he made to the GLBT community. I have little doubt that sometime this fall a health-care reform bill will become law. And as a health-care provider, I look forward to that. But the civil rights of GLBT Americans must also be asserted, and protected.

* I just couldn’t resist putting “Defense of Marriage” in quotation marks, since in my view DOMA does nothing to defend marriage, no matter how you define the word.

UPDATE: View the comments section for an interesting back-and-forth on the word “moderate.”

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I’m feeling a little curmudgeonly today, so I want to talk about the pop-culture use of the word “schizophrenic.” To borrow a phrase from someone I admire and respect, I want to say this to our whole culture: “You keep using this word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

If you hold opposite beliefs, or do contradictory things, you are not being “schizophrenic.” If you’re a Gemini who loves a great joke but also has a serious side, you are not “schizophrenic.” If you have a taste for both country music and Chopin, you are not “schizophrenic.” The appropriate disease metaphor would be “dissociative-identity disorder,” formerly known as “multiple-personality disorder.” (But then, is it really appropriate to use these serious illnesses as metaphors for ordinary contradictory behaviors?)

Here ends my rant. (And I’m actually in a fairly good mood!) It’s just something that has rankled me for years and years.

UPDATE: A friend tells me that the #2 definition of ‘schizophrenia’ in Webster’s Dictionary is, “noun: the presence of mutually contradictory or antagonistic parts or qualities.” Okay, well, I think they put that in there because people have used the word this way so much that this definition has finally gained official sanction. I see it’s definition #2, though, so I stand by my opinion. (But thanks for the tip, N.!)

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How I love air-conditioning! I’m camped out in my office, reflecting on the blessing and gift of AC. And yes, I understand the terrible irony of it: air-conditioning puts carbon in the atmosphere, which leads to global warming, which leads to wacky weather that plagues the Northwest with desert temperatures, the Southeast with drought, and the Northeast with floods. Ideally we humans will figure out how to cool ourselves–and transport ourselves, and warm ourselves, and everything else we do–without making the whole situation worse. But for now, I hope you can understand that I’m choosing to enjoy a few hours of AC.

If you’re interested in my take on the ethics involved, read further.

(more…)

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