Public transit story # 21: Punky's Dilemma

The City of Berkeley has an ordinance which prohibits smoking in various public locations, including bus stops. Being the comprehensive city that Berkeley is, there is another chapter of the same ordinance detailing exactly how this information is to be posted. The penalty, supposedly, is fine and/or imprisonment.

Unfortunately, the Berkeley police have their hands full with such weightier issues as drug dealing, vandalism, the occasional assault or homicide, speeding, expired parking meters, and kids who ride their bikes on the sidewalk; and so I have yet to see a single officer of the peace confront any of the hardened criminals known as bus-stop smokers. Thus, enforcement is left to such health-conscious and/or respiratorally challenged citizens such as myself. And, except for one memorable incident, I have found bus-stop smokers to be quite willing to light up elsewhere if asked politely.

Several days ago, while waiting for the bus in downtown Berkeley, I was suddenly accosted by the smell of cigarette smoke. I turned around and realized, with horror, that I knew the offender. He had once been a client of mine--one toward whom I'd had some pretty intense, negative countertransferential feelings. He did not appear to recognize me. It had been well over a year since I'd encountered him in a clinical setting; we weren't acquainted for very long; and plus I'd since chopped off my (formerly ridiculously long) hair.

I really wanted to remind him, for the sake of my lungs and the gerb, that smoking is prohibited at the bus stop. But I did not want to risk him recognizing me--and possibly striking up a conversation with me (see countertransferential feelings above). In addition, I didn't think I'd be able to be perfectly polite in my request (again, see countertransferential feelings above), and I feared I might accidentally address him by name and find myself in awkward conversation. On the other hand, my bus was already late, and if I didn't say anything, I would continue to breathe his secondhand smoke until my bus finally showed up.

Finally, I decided just to get up and move to another bench. This was a fine solution until his bus pulled up near me, whereupon he ambled over, continued to puff away until it was his turn to board, and tossed his still-lit cigarette by the curb. He still showed no sign of having any idea who I was.

I briefly debated stomping on the discarded butt, but then my bus arrived.

Was avoiding interaction altogether the right thing to do? I don't know. My rule of thumb on greeting present or former clients in public is to let them greet me first. On rare occasions will I be the first to say hi; but I only do this when I'm out alone. But this situation was not about saying hi--and therein lies the rub.

Passing the buck

Last month I was chosen to attend a "town hall" meeting at work. It was a chance to meet our new CEO, to find out the company's official corporate goals (executive summary: global domination), and to voice our questions and concerns.

Several employees voiced concerns about our terrible benefits package. We work for a ginormous health insurance conglomerate, and yet we get shafted by the insurance policies written by our own employer. It makes me sad when I have to quote benefits to a member whose plan is more reasonable than my own.

Our new CEO said that they are aware of employees' dissatisfaction with the benefits and that they were diligently working on something better in preparation for open enrollment season.

Well, open enrollment season is upon us, and guess what? Our benefit package is even worse. Mrs. Gerbil and I will see up to a 10% increase in our premiums, our already stratospheric deductible, some prescription co-pays, and our out-of-pocket maximum. The official reason for the increase is that it reflects "rising healthcare costs."

Now, I may be a cynic, but I happen to believe that a major factor in rising healthcare costs is insurance companies. Yes, they want to protect their profit margins. But think about it: advances in healthcare technology (including medicines, laboratory tests, and procedures) don't come without a price tag. Yet providers must accept very low reimbursement rates in order to participate in managed care networks. For example, I recently had standard prenatal bloodwork and (on account of my Ashkenazic heritage) some genetic testing. The lab charged my insurance company over $1000, but because they are a network provider, they'll be paid only about $300. Sucks to be them. But it also sucks to be the rest of us, because if the lab pressures the insurance company for a higher reimbursement rate, the insurance company will pass the increased cost along to the employers who buy their packages... who will then pass it along to employees in the form of higher premiums and/or crappier coverage.

There are, of course, other explanations for rising healthcare costs. This article from the Annals of Internal Medicine does a good job of outlining them. But in the end, I still think that the industry which currently pays our bills has created a fantastically self-perpetuating cycle of cost increases. So I'm all for socialized medicine--even if it means I'd have to find another job.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering: all that expensive labwork came back normal. Go little developing gerb!)

Irony

Yesterday Mrs. Gerbil and I finally bid farewell to the Big Gay Subaru.


My parents bought it new in the spring of 1995, toward the end of Mrs. Gerbil's and my sophomore year of high school (the year we met). It became mine a few years later, and two and a half years ago it became Mrs. Gerbil's also.

It was a good car, but alas, it was growing progressively more senile. And so we traded it in for a piddling amount toward a shiny new 2007 Outback (possibly to be known as the Bigger, Gayer Subaru).

We didn't remove the rear windshield decals from the Big Gay Subaru. They were pretty old and included one from my alma mater, one from my doctoral stomping grounds, and a rainbow flag. We'll be up near my alma mater in a few weeks, making procurement of a new Fairest College decal quite simple.

But here is the ironic part: Though Mrs. Gerbil and I live in possibly the gayest city on the planet, I have absolutely no idea where to get a new rainbow flag sticker.

(Irony part 2: My doctoral stomping grounds of Cleveland were not exactly the most gay-friendly. Even so, I knew exactly where to buy all manner of gay stickers, including the one affixed to our now former vehicle.)

I'm sure I could get thousands of new rainbow flag stickers in the Castro. But I think I'll just wait a few weeks and buy one in Massachusetts.

First class

Last week I went back to my old stomping grounds for a little visit. I had racked up enough frequent flyer miles on Continental that my flight was free... plus $10 "tax," of course. (How do you assess sales tax on something that is free? Ask an airline executive; I sure don't know the answer.) To my delight, I even had enough miles to fly first class--but only on the way there.

I had never flown first class before. I'm intimately acquainted with the uncomfortable nature of the seats in the main cabin, and I figured that the big cushy seats in first class would be thousands of times better, especially for my preggo self. Plus, I was flying overnight; and so I thought I'd get a decent night's sleep (something I've never accomplished in coach).

Oh, I was so very wrong on both counts.

The first-class seats were indeed big and cushy. However, after about an hour I realized that they were actually less comfortable than coach seats. A former physical therapist of mine once explained to me that airplane seats are designed for passengers who are 5'10"--i.e., six and a half inches taller than I am. (Given that I once had to explain to her what a treatment goal was, I am not sure I should have believed her about seat proportions. But it sounded right.) The first-class seats also appeared to be designed for people considerably taller than I--and considerably wider to boot. In the ultimate irony, I found myself with too much leg room. I like to rest my feet on a carry-on tucked under the seat in front of me, as this prevents my feet and my butt from going numb. In first class, my carry-on was too far away from my little tootsies.

As for my disappointment with not sleeping, well, it's really my own damn fault. The magic of pregnancy also brought me the magic of getting up to pee several times a night, not to mention the magic of generally decreased quality of sleep. I'm not sure why I thought I would get nice, uninterrupted sleep on an airplane when I can't even get this in my own bed; but I suppose I really did set myself up for a letdown on this one.

There is, however, at least one distinct advantage to first class, and that is the food. The food is better and more plentiful than in coach. We even got little tablecloths for our tray tables. There was apparently also free alcohol, of which I obviously did not partake. (I wonder if the flight attendants put two and two together after observing my vehement refusal of wine and my multitudinous trips to the bathroom.)

Oh, and there were warm salty nuts. Lots and lots of warm salty nuts. They kept appearing in little ceramic bowls.

I was happy to be back in my rightful place in coach on the way back to California. I put my feet up on my carry-on bag, got a bit of sleep, and noshed gladly on little pretzels from a foil bag.

I will admit, though, I did kind of miss the warm salty nuts.

Public transit story #20: In vino veritas

Yesterday was San Francisco's annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of all that is leather, fetish, or otherwise kinky. (NB: the aforementioned link is probably not suitable for work.)

I have never been to the Folsom Street Fair. It's really not my scene. However, there were some really hot fairgoers on the BART with me in the late afternoon, which I found pretty interesting.

Many of these fairgoers were also inebriated. One guy took the opportunity to squat down (presumably out of range of the security cameras), remove a bottle of wine from his backpack, wave it around victoriously, and take a long swig. Thus emboldened, he stood up and reached for the overhead handrail.

(For some reason, guys like to show off by doing pull-ups, flips, and other vaguely gymnastic feats from these handrails--especially when the train is zooming through the Transbay Tunnel at speeds upwards of 70 mph, and even more especially when they are under the influence of at least one substance.)

Alas for this sloshed fairgoer, he miscalculated his upward trajectory. Instead of executing a flawless pull-up, he whomped his head on the handrail and set his equally inebriated friends to laughing.

In case you were wondering

I mentioned once that Mrs. Gerbil and I were thinking about parenthood.

Well, I suppose now would be a good time to announce that we are expecting a little gerb!

(Of course, dear reader, you are quite intelligent; and if I haven't already told you in real life, you probably would have surmised this from my newly belly-riffic avatar and the baby ticker.)

Hooray for little April gerbs!

Let them eat wedding cake

Right now there is a bill on the Governator's desk which would make marriage in California gender-neutral. This very same bill landed on his desk for the first time two years ago; and the Governator vetoed it. His rationale was that gender-neutral marriage was against "the will of the people." That, in turn, came from a ballot initiative passed in 2000, Proposition 22, which was supported by just over 60% of the voter turnout. Translation: The material and emotional resources of a group of otherwise free citizens was subjected to a popular vote.

The Governator hasn't officially said that he will veto the bill this time around, but it sure looks like he will. And, if he does, it will be for the very same reason as before.

Today is Mrs. Gerbil's and my second wedding anniversary. To the best of my knowledge, our getting hitched has not caused a single opposite-sex couple to break up, nor has it damaged a single child's well-being. And yet there is a very loud minority which believes that our private promises to each other are a real and immediate threat to a whole bunch of people we don't even know.

I could point you, dear reader, to a slew of peer-reviewed articles in professional journals which demonstrate that, regardless of each spouse's gender, marriage confers more than just legal and financial benefits. I could point you to statistics about the rates of dissolution of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and how these rates are far, far lower than the rate of divorce among opposite-sex couples. I could point you to data that show that children raised by same-sex couples are just as healthy and well-adjusted as children raised by opposite-sex couples.

But I won't. You can go find them if you want, though.

Instead, I am going to issue a challenge. As a social scientist, I know that sometimes one gets results which one does not like; but those results are just as important as the ones that one does like. So I want to see data that suggest that same-sex marriage has a direct effect on the integrity of opposite-sex marriages. Here are the rules:

1) The study must have been published in a peer-reviewed professional journal whose impact factor places it in the top or upper middle tier for the field. (See here for an explanation of why Paul Cameron's "research" is hereby disqualified.)

2) The study must have been published in the last 5 years (i.e., since same-sex marriage became legal in Canada).

3) The study must demonstrate a statistically significant (i.e., greater than expected by chance) proportion of participants cited the availability of same-sex marriage as a major contributing factor in the dissolution of their marriage. Also, all participants must self-report exclusively heterosexual attraction, behavior, and identity.

4) The study must not have any methodological problems. (I probably haven't mentioned this before, but I'm frequently solicited to be a peer reviewer; and I show no mercy on manuscripts with poor research design and/or faulty analyses.)

4) The study must be available in English or German. (Why? Because I can't read any other languages.)

So, there is your challenge. Any takers?

Oh, and I'll eat my hat if anyone can come up with anything.

Here is a picture of the hat. It's my favorite hat, but I'm willing to sacrifice it for science.

Tales from the cube

toothpastefordinner.com

Most nights I come home from work with a couple of choice stories for Mrs. Gerbil. These stories fall generally into one of three categories: Calls that Break My Heart, WTF?, and Oh My God I Thought I'd Never Get That Person Off the Phone.

Although I skipped kindergarten (I was a precocious little gerb) I do know about sharing, and I think I'm generally pretty good at it. So, I hereby share a handful of vignettes, previously heard by Mrs. Gerbil.

I can't believe we let you into the network
me: Does the member meet criteria for a parity diagnosis?
caller: Yes, she has bipolar disorder and major depression.
(explanation for those unfamiliar with DSM-IV: by definition, you can't have both)

And you are calling now because...
caller: Oh, I didn't think you were open now.

Try again later
caller: Is this DirecTV?
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. This is a mental health insurance company.
caller: Oh. Do you have the number for DirecTV?
me: No. You might try the phone book, though.
(the next day)
same caller: Is this DirecTV?
me: Sorry, no. This is a mental health insurance company. Try the phone book.

How can I help you?

Rebel with a Self-Perpetuating Cause

In these parts, everyone's got a cause. Whether it's immigration, keeping immigrants out, world peace, taking over the world, stopping global warming, disputing global warming, gay rights, "traditional family values," preserving Lake Tahoe, developing Lake Tahoe, keeping sex ed in schools, keeping sex ed in the home, gun control, the right to bear arms, multiculturalism, hegemony, keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance, removing God from the Pledge of Allegiance, eco-sustainable-green-whatever, NIMBYism... well, let's just say James Dean wouldn't have stood a chance in the rebellion department.

I guess if you want to be an agent for social change, the Bay Area is a good place to be. After all, this was the hotbed of radicalism in the 1960s. (Some people seem to believe that it's still the 1960s, but that's another story). It's said that if you throw a rock in Manhattan, you will hit either a psychoanalyst or a person who's currently in psychoanalysis. Around here, I think that if you throw a rock, you hit a social change organization. And the funny thing is that there are hundreds of tiny organizations working toward the same goal--but not always together. Sometimes they don't even know that their comrades exist; other times they just don't want to cooperate, often for reasons of personality politics.

(To wit: I once was asked in an interview how I would increase the organization's visibility to queer youth of color. I said that I would find out first which other organizations were already successfully providing services and activities for this demographic--of which there are many--and then see if we could co-sponsor some of their programming. The interviewers' collective response was one of stunned silence. I'm still not sure whether mine was just such a novel idea, or completely the wrong answer. Whichever, I didn't get the job.)

Now, I'm all for social change. The status quo is certainly better than it used to be, but it's not as good as it could be. What saddens me is that I see a lot of pushing for too much, too soon. Let me be clear that I don't think we should just hang around until public opinion changes, and then move in and re-work the system. I'd love it if, overnight, marriage equality were a reality across the US. But realistically, that's not going to happen. Eight years ago, there was not a single state in the US which offered any official sort of recognition of same-sex relationships. Now, seven states and the District of Columbia offer at least some rights to same-sex couples. Yes, there are still those who think that Massachusetts is going to slide into the Atlantic on account of marriage equality (come on, it's been over four years! so where's the sliding already?) but I think there are also those who've figured out that two chicks getting married isn't actually all that bad.

Simply put, every one of us is afraid of change; and so if we try too hard to change, there's going to be backlash. Even changing for the better is scary. In fact, fear of change has been hypothesized to be a sort of "allegiance to the self"--when you change, even for the better, in a sense you lose the person you were before. I think this happens on a societal level too. The more a small group of people yells, "THIS HAS GOTTA CHANGE!" the more the rest of society girds its loins.

But then we have another problem, which is that the more the agents of change are told to sit down and shut up, the more frustrated they get, the louder they yell... and the more they are told to sit down and shut up. If they are wise, they will take a moment and re-evaluate their tactics. But throwing tantrums is human nature; and it takes a lot of mental and emotional wherewithal to decide to take things slow when you want what you want and you want it yesterday. So in many caes, nothing gets accomplished--

--except that as long as the status quo remains, there's something to try to change. Not changing tactics is a very self-protective mechanism for those who are oriented toward fomenting social change. For once you've completely accomplished your goal, your choices are either sit back on your laurels or find some other cause to champion. And sitting back on one's laurels is pretty antithetical to the personalities of those who work toward change.

So there you have it: Change, and the world changes with you. Keep doing the same thing over and over, louder and louder each time, and you might find yourself the chronic kvetcher amongst a whole lot of pissed-off sticks-in-the-mud.

Now what?

Animaniacs came out just as Mrs. Gerbil and I were starting high school. The timing could not have been better. We were just barely too old for kids' cartoons, but just old enough to get adult humor. For Halloween of our sophomore year, a bunch of us even went out trick-or-treating as several of the Animaniacs. Appropriately, Mrs. Gerbil was Wakko, and I was the Brain.


I love Pinky and the Brain. Like all good cartoons, the plots are highly predictable. But there's something just extra cool about lab rats with designs on world domination. With few exceptions, each episode ends with Pinky's question, "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tomorrow night?" and the Brain's answer, "Same thing we do every night, Pinky--try to take over the world!" And by the next night, the Brain has already developed a brand-new, highly detailed plan. How much time does he actually spend thinking up new plans? Does he mull over possibilities for a while, or does the whole thing come to him all at once? We will never know.

But one thing is certain: once one plan fails, he manages to come up with a new one. The Brain does not sit around and ponder where to go from here. He has no need of that cliche "next steps," because the only thing on his agenda is to try to take over the world again.

The phrase "next steps" fills me with a weird sort of revulsion. I was taught to avoid cliches (like the plague, haha) at geek camp; and yet my visceral reaction to "next steps" is very much unlike my visceral reaction to other cliches. It's similar to my visceral reaction to words like "sustainability," "green living," and "ecoresponsibility." These are fantastic concepts, but sometimes I think they fall victim to name-dropping. (I admit, I had to Google "sustainability" to find out what it really meant, so many times did I hear someone say "we're focused on sustainability" without mentioning how, exactly, this focus was accomplished.)

Because Western thought and life are quite linear, I suppose it only makes sense that we should think about what to do next. I'm fairly certain that my problem with the phrase "next steps" is that it gets used when nothing's actually been accomplished yet. For instance: I used to work in a non-profit that worked with a whole bunch of other non-profits. As a group, we had tremendous difficulty deciding what to do now, and yet somehow we were perfectly happy to discuss (for hours at a time) what to do next. Non-profit paralysis had set in for many of us--the deadly combination of not enough money, not enough time, and not enough resources. Having "next steps" meetings was a defense against having to do something in the present that might, of course, fail.

The other problem with "next steps" is that someone actually has to follow through with them. Brainstorming "next steps" is great; but who's going to make sure the list doesn't wind up in the circular file? Perhaps it's an odd sort of motivation for those who aren't actually doing anything measurable in the present, a way to avoid feeling aimless once the first task is finally completed.

Or perhaps I am too much of a cynic. Perhaps I don't have enough patience or tolerance for other people's way of doing things.

Some (including but not limited to Mrs. Gerbil) have said that the world would be much better off if I ran it. So I think tomorrow night I'm going to try to take over the world. I'll plant subliminal messages in car commercials that link the phrase "next steps" to "I will do whatever Gerbil says."

They tried to make me go to rehab

I get a lot of calls from people who want to go to detox, or who want their family members to go to detox. Often they are legitimate candidates for immediate, do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 detox. For example, they've decided to go cold turkey from alcohol and now are tremulous and sweating. Or they've been quadrupling their Xanax and their psychiatrist won't write another prescription. Withdrawal from alcohol or benzodiazepines can be fatal; and detox is a medical procedure which (hopefully) keeps the withdrawal process safe. I can't begin to count the number of alcohol- or benzo-dependent people I've had to convince to go to the hospital immediately... not tomorrow, not the next day, not next week when they already have time off from work. I've found "Withdrawal can kill you" to be a fairly effective tactic.

Opiate detox is another story. Opiate withdrawal is highly unpleasant, to say the least; but it is not necessarily dangerous. Managed care does not always cover opiate detox, especially of the inpatient sort. I have no idea why. But if I get a call from someone who wants to detox from Vicodin, I tell them to go to the hospital immediately. Some will ask whether withdrawal will kill them. I reply, "At the very least, if you try to do it yourself, it will be extraordinarily uncomfortable."

But then I have some people who want to detox from cocaine. There is no medical detox procedure for cocaine. Cocaine is rapidly eliminated from the body; so even if there were a way to do cocaine detox, it would have to be done very quickly. When people ask me for cocaine detox referrals, I tell them to go to the ER right away if they have any unpleasant physical symptoms or pre-existing cardiac problems. But unless they are suicidal, homicidal, or using alcohol or benzos with their cocaine, they can most likely wait until the next day for an assessment for some other level of care.

My favorite callers, though, are the parents who want their teenagers to go to marijuana detox. (Oddly, no one ever seems to call for detox for their own pot habit.) Again, there is no medical detox for marijuana. Marijuana hangs out in the body for a while, but there's really nothing to do about it--and no real need to do anything, either. I am often tempted to tell these folks that marijuana detox is a home procedure involving a couple bags of potato chips administered over the course of a few hours. But I don't, as this would be poor customer service.

The Spam Files: Episode II

Spam makes the everyday exciting!

spam that passes the buck.
from: Michelle
subject: Maria wants to know what you think

spam that's easily obeyed.
from: Ed
subject: Don't let Ed ruin your sex life!

spam that... wait, what?
from: Milli Kopra
subject: The permission entry for which to search

Mangled care

Mrs. Gerbil and I finally went to see Sicko last night. I was very impressed. I'm not a Michael Moore groupie--perhaps because my parents had me watch Roger and Me when I was a mere pre-teen, and I was rather bored by it--but I do appreciate a good exposé when I see one.

And it got me thinking about what I currently do for a living.

The insurance group I work for was not featured in Sicko. My actual company was not even mentioned; the behavioral health insurance system is a whole 'nother movie. So in that sense Sicko was not about what I do 40 hours a week.

Another sense in which Sicko has nothing to do with my job is that I never have to deny coverage for any individual person. I can tell a member that his plan does not cover couples therapy, but I never have to say that his particular request for couples therapy will not be approved. There are two reasons for this little bit of relief. First, "adverse determinations" can only be issued by reviewers with clinical licenses. Second, as long as a person's plan permits a specific type of treatment, it's my job to say "yes."

(And here's a third sense: I hear that the medical carrier under our corporate umbrella no longer does procedure reviews, as nearly all requests were being approved anyway.)

But this movie was about what I do simply because I work for managed care. I believe that the health care system in the US should do its darndest to promote preventive care. HMOs--health maintenance organizations--started with this very same philosophy. I also believe that, when a person needs medical treatment, he or she should get it. There shouldn't be a need to call within 24 hours of admission, or to expend time/money/emotional effort filing appeals, or to hire an attorney... or to have to decide to skip treatment altogether because insurance won't pay. Health care should not be about money--and there is where the Big Bad System and I diverge.

All of my statements above, about why Sicko doesn't point its finger at me personally, are really just displacements of blame. Like most of my co-workers, I took my job because Mrs. Gerbil and I were hurting for dough. It's been less than six months since I began, and already we're financially back on our feet. And (not surprisingly) we get really cheap health insurance, with more-than-decent coverage for what we're likely to need. Yup, managed care treats its employees well; and I think my company is one of the best in this regard.

Still, I'm part of the Big Bad System, and I'm just doing it for the money. My paycheck might not be the direct result of in-house adverse determinations, but many of our plans are carve-outs from other medical carriers. And those carriers do issue adverse determinations. There aren't many degrees of separation here.

So, no. I'm not directly involved. But lest I be accused of sounding like a complacent WWII-era German (Godwin's Law, anyone?), I hasten to point out that I do have a well-established history of fighting the system.

And on that note, I offer the following tips to anyone who might need them:

1) If you have insurance, read your Evidence of Coverage Document. Cover to cover. As soon as possible. Call member services if you don't understand the terms of your policy.

2) If you believe your claim has been wrongly denied, raise a stink. File an appeal. File a second appeal. Then contact the state oversight body for your plan. This might be the state board of insurance, the state commission on managed care, or some other such body; and you can find out which one applies with a single phone call to member services. Just don't call me about your claims.

3) If you get stuck with a huge hospital bill, contact the patient advocate about financing options.

4) By federal law , virtually all US hospitals are required to provide examination and stabilization treatment for truly emergent patients, regardless of their ability to pay. If your plan refuses to cover non-network care you received while completely unconscious, raise a stink (see #2 above).

5) Above all, don't give up. A cynic might say that somewhere, someone is counting on you to give up ("Baby needs a new pair of shoes!"). But I am not that cynical. Yet.

(For the record: Appropriately, I used a tiny little portion of my paycheck to take Mrs. Gerbil to the movies.)

The Battle for the Toy Box

Next month, select Wal-Mart stores are supposed to begin stocking the Tales of Glory line of Biblical action figures.

Apparently there is a "Battle for the Toy Box!" going on. It seems to me like a pretty one-sided battle, declared by the side that perceives itself to be under attack. But that is a snark for a different day.

For today, I bring you: The Nativity Play Set.


You will notice, in the lower right-hand corner, a choking hazard warning. Presumably this is due to the diminutive size of the molded PVC Baby Jesus.

Now I may be a heathen Jew--and a secular heathen Jew at that--but it's always been my understanding that one is supposed to take Jesus into one's heart, not one's trachea.

But then I wonder: if you successfully swallow the plastic Baby Jesus, does it transubstantiate itself into a plastic Communion wafer?

I would test my questions myself, but I don't want to lend credence to the old fear that Jews eat little Christian babies. Then again, PVC was not around during the early days of blood libel. So perhaps my excuse should be that I just don't want to set foot in a Wal-Mart ever again.

There's no place like someone else's home

For Christmas last year, Mrs. Gerbil and I ordered her father a great new doormat.

There was a problem with the way the order was processed, however. It was supposed to be shipped directly to him in Seattle, but billed to us in Berkeley. What actually happened was that the order was shipped to him at our Berkeley billing address--where he obviously does not live. Having already paid a stiff UPS rate for the initial wrong delivery, we sucked it up and paid a stiff US Postal Service rate to get it to its rightful location. We were not pleased.

But our troubles did not end there.

Apparently, our innocent, incorrectly processed doormat order landed Father-in-Law Gerbil on a "new homeowner" list--for Berkeley, where (as previously stated) he does not live. At first we got a few Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, addressed to "Our New Neighbor." We were confused. We'd been in Berkeley for a year and a half and had been getting at least two BB&B coupons per month, addressed directly to me. But BB&B coupons never expire, so the more the merrier, right?

Then we--or rather, Father-in-Law Gerbil--started getting ads from exterminators. And roofing companies. And house painters. And Lasik eye surgeons. And gyms. And the AARP. And real estate agents looking to sell his home for him, which is even funnier given that we pay rent for the address at which he does not live.

I dutifully cross out the address on each piece of mail, scrawl NSR (no such recipient) in big bold letters across the front, and stick it back in the mailbox. This works fairly well, although not for all the mail we get for people who don't live here. Some church has been trying to get a former tenant (who hasn't lived here in at least six years) to attend their Christmas and Easter services, and they do not seem to know from NSR.

But what really got me is yesterday's mailing from the PG&E Care program. Like all good utility programs, PG&E has a discount program for customers with low incomes, disabilities, or assorted other things which might interfere with paying ridiculous energy bills. Father-in-Law Gerbil was thereby informed that he may be eligible for a discount from a utility company which serves an area in which he does not live.

Our PG&E account is in my name. I pay the bills every month, and occasionally I get medieval on their asses. Occasionally I get something from the Care program, but since we don't qualify, I just toss the mailings in the recycling. Anyway, the important part of this is that there is already an active PG&E account at this address, in excellent standing, and it is not in Father-in-Law Gerbil's name.

Even better: Just before said mailing went out, PG&E cashed my check for our most recent bill. Which bill, I hasten to add, does not bear any part of Father-in-Law Gerbil's name.

Father-in-Law Gerbil loved the doormat, by the way.

The Spam Files: Episode 1

I find spam simultaneously very annoying and very funny. This is in sharp contrast to my opinion on junk mail of the paper variety, which I find very annoying (and not funny at all). I have, in fact, been known to call companies which persist in clogging my home mailbox, in order to ask them please to stop killing trees in an attempt to get my business.

(Admittedly, I have also been known to attempt to get exceptionally annoying spammers in trouble with the help of Sam Spade, but I soon realized the futility of such pursuits.)

Mrs. Gerbil and I have very different approaches to spam. Whereas I will clean out my spam folder multiple times a day, she lets the messages in her spam folder ferment quietly until Gmail deletes them automatically. At any given time I have between 10 and 60 spam messages; but her spam census is consistently over 2000. I've asked her many times why she doesn't just delete them all periodically, now that one can do this with a single click. Her philosophy: Why bother? Every deleted message will just be replaced by one more, so every 30 days her spam folder goes through a complete turnover all by itself.

In my opinion, however, deleting spam by hand has its advantages. For one, I get to laugh at the randomly generated subject lines. For another, I get to share the most ridiculous ones, right here on this very blog!

So, without further ado, I bring you The Best of the Worst. Or something like that.

spam that makes you feel good about yourself.
From: Jimmie Weeks
Subject: You're not ugly

spam that tells it like it is.
From: Beatrix K. Clark
Subject: fraudulent

spam with problems.
From: Cruz Y. Lara
Subject: Hi, how your dink?

spam that knows just a little too much about our personal life.
From: Amazing Performance
Subject: Turbo sperm for you and your girl!

spam that got it backwards.
From: Relaxation
Subject: How Cialis works!

Ah, yes. The joys of randomly generated text.

Smooth

Grocery store cashier: Do you have a twin sister?

me: Huh?

cashier: It's not often that we get such beautiful customers... [observing my wedding band] ...and I see you're already taken.

me: Sorry, I'm an only child.

cashier: It was worth a shot.

You, too, will be assimilated

I have now lived amongst Bay Area Californians for two years and three weeks. I have striven so hard to maintain my small-town, East Coast sensibility in this land of "greener than thou," "size matters," and (my personal favorite) "I was first before you were first." And I'd thought I was doing a darn good job of it.

There is sort of an unspoken rule at BART stations that passengers should form the closest possible thing to a line while waiting for their trains. At the edge of the platform, black tiles mark where the doors of each car will (or ought) to be. Rarely is there a single-file line behind any of these tiles; two or three deep seems to be the norm. And, for the most part, the First Commandment of the Playground is observed--i.e., Thou shalt not butt in front of thy neighbor.

Owing to my bizarre work hours, the trains are hardly ever full when I head into work. If there's a Giants game, coming home is another story, although even then the problem is more the fine odor of the drunk fans than their multitude. But sometimes, especially weekend mornings, there are a lot of people trying to go to San Francisco all at once.

Some people will still line up almost patiently at the edge of the platform. Others, however, will mill about aimlessly while waiting for the train--and then swoop in sideways once the train arrives, displacing the people in line. Often this results in glares, disgusted sighs, and not-so-subtle comments to traveling companions of "oh my God, what a bitch!"

Butters have always bothered me because of their blatant disregard for the social order of the line. Most of the time I don't care where I am in a line, as long as the line keeps moving and no one is stealing anyone else's place. But witness my evolution--or de-evolution--on this issue:

June, 2005. I'm at the head of the line while waiting for BART. Someone butts in front of me. "Jeez!" I think. "That person has no manners!"

June, 2007. I'm at the head of the line while waiting for BART. Someone butts in front of me. "WTF?" I think. "Can't he see I was here first?"

As much as I hate to admit it, I've become Nobuttus of BART.

With only about half of my small-town circuitry remaining, I'm now part of the swarm.

Resistance is futile.

Inservice, part 2

I should preface this by admitting that I am a spelling champion. By this I mean I won the school spelling bee when I was in the fourth grade (and still have the trophy somewhere to prove it).

And now, with the aforegoing disclaimer: Please do not write "parody" when you mean "parity." For, honey, this makes my teeth hurt.

A parody pokes fun at something by imitating and exaggerating its style.

Parity, on the other hand, refers to identical coverage of mental and physical conditions under an individual's insurance policy. In my humble opinion, this ought to be more of a standard than it actually is.

Sometimes parity only applies to specific disorders, often referred to as serious mental illness (SMI) or biologically based mental illness (BBMI). Parity diagnoses may include major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and developmental disorders; as well as emotional disturbances in childhood.

Parody diagnoses, on the other hand, include Intermittent Hook-Up Disorder.

Inservice

If you've ever tried to do anything remotely related to health care of any sort in the United States, you've hopefully heard of HIPAA. (For the record, that's one P and two A's--as in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.)

The gist of HIPAA is that (except in very specific cases) personal health information cannot be released without consent. This is a good idea in theory. However, in practice, it can get messy. Even if you pay for the medical care for your 18-year-old daughter, her doctor is not permitted to tell you about her treatment without her consent.

Or let's say your husband, who has never been in therapy of any kind, attempts suicide, and he's admitted to the hospital. You (back at home) want to make sure the hospital has called your insurance company for prior authorization. Unless your husband has already signed a release of information with the insurance company--not a common thing for people to do prior to attempting suicide--you're out of luck.

(And let's not even talk of situations in which an adult is not able to give consent--for example, he or she is severely psychotic, drunk, or in a coma. Or when a non-custodial parent is required to provide health insurance as part of child support--in which case the custodial parent must do the consenting, and I don't want to be a fly on the wall for that kind of conversation.)

Like I said, HIPAA gets messy.

But listen well, for here comes my point:

You cannot assert HIPAA against yourself.

As your provider, I cannot release your personal health information to another provider without your consent (except, again, as permitted or required by law). But HIPAA does not apply if you haven't yet told me anything about yourself.

I kid you not--people have said to me, "You can't ask me to give you my own personal information. That's prohibited by HIPAA."

Um, no. Not quite.

The nanny state, redux

Add to the list of brilliant legislation being considered by the Golden State a bill which would require all pets to be spayed or neutered. If this becomes law (and it's already passed the state Assembly), mutt owners will be fined for not altering their pets, and owners of registered purebreds will be eligible for an exemption--for a price, of course.

Yes, this bill has good intentions. Overpopulation, abuse and neglect, and lack of appropriate housing are serious problems in these parts, and not just for H. sapiens. If everyone would just prevent their pets from breeding, maybe we wouldn't have such problems.

There oughta be a law, right?

Be careful what you wish for. In the words of Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County):

"This is a prime example of why this Legislature becomes a laughingstock, when we want to reach into that personal aspect of peoples' lives telling them this is how you need to handle your animals' reproductive capacity. We ought to be tackling other issues."

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with a California Republican.

Let's imagine that this bill becomes law, and it is fully enforced. As only registered purebreds will be allowed to keep their 'nads, after a certain number of generations the only animals available for sale or adoption will be either purebreds themselves (and thus allowed to reproduce) or a cross between two different breeds (and thus prohibited from reproducing). Mutts, lacking the necessary equipment to pass along their variegated legacies, would become artificially selected out of the population.

Hypothetical as this situation may be, it sounds an awful lot like a really scary thing that begins with an E and ends with a UGENICS.

I made a comment to this effect to Mrs. Gerbil this morning. She reminded me that just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that everyone is going to obey it. This is true. However, why bother to pass a law which you don't want everyone to follow? Why incorporate penalties (like a $500 fine), if not to deter lawbreaking?

I have a better idea. Instead of giving the state the power to determine who's worthy of breeding, why not fund sliding-scale (or even free) spay/neuter clinics? There's nothing inherently wrong with mutts that their owners shouldn't have a choice about whether to have them altered--just as there's nothing inherently wrong with purebreds.

And, if you think about it, mutts are pretty darn consistent with the (often over-hyped) Californian ideals of diversity and multiculturalism.

PS. For the record, our furry bundle of joy was spayed twice before we adopted her. The shelter mistook a post-op Josie for another calico and (somehow failing to notice her shaven, stitched-up underparts) opened her up again before realizing their error.

WTF International

Mrs. Gerbil and I were standing at a street corner in Union Square, waiting for the light to change, when a young man approached us. He was toting a black binder, the sort that activist street team members carry.

(I dread being approached by people with binders, for I do not sign petitions or fill out postcards or sign up for membership or anything of the sort. It doesn't matter what the cause is; it's just that such things require giving out one's mailing address, and I am extremely protective of our contact information. But back to our story...)

"Hi," he said. "How are you girls doing tonight?"

"Fine," I said.

"Where are you going?" he said.

"We're meeting some friends," I said. (Indeed, we were en route to a double date with R and her boyfriend.)

The young fellow did not say anything for a moment. Then he said, "Well, you could make a difference, but I guess you don't want to." And with that, he stormed off.

This, I swear, is the entirety of our conversation.

So, Mr. Binder-Toting Dude, if you are reading this: Let give you a little lesson in activism. Before you get all passive-aggressive at people who aren't interested in supporting your cause, you need to tell them what your cause is.

Qualifications

I am considering applying for a job in a Catholic health system. The online application system won't let me fill anything out until I swear (in electronic form) that, if hired, I will act in such a way which is consistent with their mission statement. Which, naturally, contains lots and lots of references to specific beliefs.

This seemed a little too much like a credal oath to me, and out of place for a self-professed equal opportunity employer. So I emailed them to inquire exactly what it means to endorse this statement.

I spent a long, long time crafting my email. I hemmed and hawed over whether I should describe myself as "not Catholic" or "not religious"; or whether I should leave my own beliefs out of it altogether.

Mrs. Gerbil found it amusing that I'd spent so much time wordsmithing. Her suggestion: "Will godless Jews be considered for this position? Please advise."

Understanding the system

Mrs. Gerbil is always after me to remember that not everyone knows how The (Managed Care) System works.

I usually regale her with at least two work stories each night. Sometimes I just need to de-brief a particularly stressful call; but more often than not the first line of my tale is, "Oh, my God, I had the most ridiculous call tonight." (It should go without saying that I never vent any identifying information--but there, I've said it anyway.) And then Mrs. Gerbil gently chides me for forgetting that the average person does not grok The System.

Hell, sometimes I don't even grok The System. But I will admit that I have a low tolerance for certain types of lack-of-grok, viz.:

Calling the emergency line for a non-emergency. It's 10:30 on Friday night and you have just realized that one of your claims was denied. You call the phone number on your insurance card, press 8 (a prompt clearly demarcated for emergency use only), and demand to know why your claim was denied. I will only inform you that this is a routine matter which is handled during business hours only. Perhaps hearing this will anger you; but unless your claim status poses a risk to yourself or others, it's not an emergency.

Calling the emergency line for a non-emergency matter which has nothing to do with mental health. You go to the pharmacy on a Satuday afternoon, and lo and behold, your co-pay for Lipitor has changed. You call your medical carrier, but they are closed. You hang up, call again, and select the prompt for mental health services. (Huh?) And then you press 8 and demand to know why your Lipitor suddenly costs $50. I will only inform you that you have reached your mental health insurance and we do not have anything to do with your prescription benefits. Perhaps you acknowledge that you just pressed prompts randomly to get a live person; but alas, I have no more information about your Lipitor than you do.

The guess and check method. You are calling about a hospital admission. You have not actually determined who the insurance carrier is, as you haven't bothered to look at the person's insurance card. So, you take a wild guess, and (because you are wrong) you think I should give you the correct information. Perhaps I do know whom you should be calling, and I might even transfer you if you're nice; but there is a reason that triage has already xeroxed the card.

I can't believe you just asked me that. If you work for a hospital, you should know how The System works. Please do not ask me to describe the difference between an HMO and a PPO. Perhaps you are new; but honey, this really makes my teeth hurt.

Strange bedfellows

Hormel Foods is having a drawing for a Toyota Prius.

Yes, you read that correctly. The folks who bring you Spam, that archetype of artificiality, are raffling off a hybrid.



No purchase necessary!

Aha!

Mrs. Gerbil and I have a bad habit of going to the corner store in the evenings for a pint of Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float ice cream. We indulged said habit last night. On the way out of the store, I pointed out the top headline on the Contra Costa Times, which read as follows:

Warming called security threat.

Mrs. Gerbil and I were both struck by the absolute absurdity of the story. But whereas my first thought was "Well, there's a way to get the federal government to pay attention to global warming," Mrs. Gerbil's was "Oh, my God. That's a real newspaper, isn't it."

(In Mrs. Gerbil's defense, here in Alameda County, the Contra Costa Times isn't a very popular paper. The same niche is filled here by the Oakland Tribune, which has made several aggressive attempts to court our readership. Alas, we are loyal to the San Francisco Chronicle.)

But still, the idea that global warming might possibly attract the attention of the current administration seems more appropriate for The Onion than for real life. On the other hand, if the powers that be predictably get their very powerful panties in a bunch about national security, then why not try to spur some action on social issues by fabricating connections to terrorism?

I've already pondered the connection between marriage equality and national security. I'm sure someone else can spin the United States' failing health care system as a threat to national security. And then there's the state of public education (not to mention the cost of higher education). It should be pretty easy to work in the future of Social Security--I mean, they already have a word in common.

Any takers?

(PS: The point of terrorism is to make people fear your next move. In a twisted way, it's kind of like panic disorder--which, at its core, is the fear of having another panic attack. I know I'm not the first to say this, but I think it bears repeating: declaring a "war on terror" means you've already lost. Food for thought.)

I can't believe I'm blogging about this

Paris Hilton's psychiatrist, Charles Sophy, says she's "emotionally distraught and traumatized" from receipt of a 45-day jail sentence.

I could go on a snarky little rant to the effect of "oh, how traumatic it is to be held accountable for one's actions." But I'm not going to go there.

Instead, I ask: Did Dr. Sophy obtain permission from Paris to release information about her mental state, or even to acknowledge that she is receiving treatment from him? Did she consent to the disclosure of the length of her treatment by Dr. Sophy (apparently, 8 months)? Did he specify the reason for the disclosure in his request? Did he discuss with her the possible risks and benefits of his report?

The story here is drawn from "court papers," which I guess are a matter of public record unless marked otherwise. But it seems to me to be a giant violation of Paris Hilton's privacy for the Associated Press to distribute her personal health information--her own historical lack of concern for privacy notwithstanding.

Enjoy the hold music

Thank you for calling The Afterlife.

If you know your party's extension, please dial it now.

For heaven, press 1.

For hell, dial extension 666.

For purgatory, please stay on the line and someone will be with you as soon as possible.

Confession: I am the world's biggest lightweight

I'm allergic to California.

Well, I'm allergic to a lot of things in a lot of places, but California is home to some special type of grass which, I believe, was created especially to torture me. Allergy testing has shown that, indeed, I am ridiculously allergic to California grass. California grass decided to bloom on Tuesday.

Holy crap, did that ever suck.

I broke down and took some Benadryl before going to work. Benadryl and I have a very strained relationship. I will not take the stuff unless I absolutely need it, for it gives me a hangover. Thus: I won't resort to Benadryl unless I'm miserable because it makes me miserable in a completely different way.

Yes, folks, I am a diphenhydramine lightweight.

Between 11 am and midnight, I took one and a half adult doses of Benadryl. I took just enough at work to prevent both sneezing and falling asleep during calls; and enough at bedtime to give me the soundest, most excellent sleep I've had in weeks.

But late Wednesday morning I was still having difficulty forming my thoughts into coherent paragraphs. In the middle of the afternoon, I retreated to bed and took a nap. Mrs. Gerbil called during my nappy-nap and asked for a ride home from BART. On the way there I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't a good time to operate a car or other dangerous machinery, as I couldn't focus on anything less than three car lengths ahead. Against what better judgment I should have had, I didn't hand over the keys for the ride home.

By 6pm I was dizzy and ready to go back to bed, but unlike previous instances I decided that perhaps this was not the best course of action. It had been 18 hours since Benadryl last touched my lips, more than 2 of its half-lives, and this wasn't my usual hangover. I called the NurseLine that comes with our health insurance and was advised (a) to call my doctor and (b) not to get back behind the wheel. So I paged the provider on call, who informed me that (a) there should not be any Benadryl left in my system; (b) even if there were, there's no antidote; and (c) I should probably never take Benadryl again.

Being reminded yet again of my eternal lightweight status made me a very sad, and somewhat embarrassed, sleepy little gerbil. So, Mrs. Gerbil took me out for a nice Italian dinner. We discovered tiramisu to be quite an effective antidote. They don't call it "pick-me-up" for nothing!

Public transit story #19: Chivalry is not dead

On Saturday morning BART was full of people going to the Giants-Phillies game. Lacking a place to sit, I found myself a place to stand.

"Excuse me, miss, would you like to sit down?" asked a boy of no more than 11 years of age. He rose halfway out of his seat before I could answer.

I was very touched. I thanked him for the offer but insisted that he keep his seat. He seemed a little disappointed at first, but then he beamed shyly when his dad (and various other passengers) complimented him on his gentlemanliness.

It's thing like this which maintain my faith in humanity.

Young at heart

Just because I have completed a ridiculous amount of education does not mean I must forsake adolscent humor.



Seriously, those gnus have got it goin' ON.

Potty potty potty

Yesterday I walked by a certain Portolet, which I'd managed to walk by about 15,000 times without noticing what I noticed yesterday.

This Portolet is on someone's treelawn a few blocks from our house. It's been there for quite a long time (thus my 15,000 walkings-by) and is probably there on account of all the construction on that block.

It's a pretty standard-looking Portolet. It's electric blue and brown, with a peaked, translucent roof. Like most other things in this part of town, it's decorated with a smattering of completely illegible graffiti.

So, no, nothing seemed immediately unusual about this Portolet. But upon closer inspection, I found a most mysterious specification printed upon its label:

CAPACITY: 10 PEOPLE.

Assuming they are not clowns, how do you fit ten people in a Portolet?

Well, I suppose that when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Either that, or what the label should say is

CAPACITY: What comes out of 10 people.

Privacy, please

Yesterday our block hosted an enormous garage sale. You wouldn't believe how excited this made me. Garage sales were an important part of my youth. Unfortunately, I have difficulty getting rid of stuff; and when I was younger I would often decide, midway through the sale, that I actually wanted to keep various items.

So my parents instituted a rule: Nothing that leaves the house can go back in the house. It worked.

Well, Mrs. Gerbil and I made a small wad yesterday. But the tragedy of it all was that I had to go to work after a few hours. I would much rather have been sitting out in the driveway than telling callers that I honestly do not have their claims information. Alas.

But before I went to work, I found myself with a little dilemma. Mrs. Gerbil and I live three blocks from a clean and sober house, approximately half of whose residents were my clients at my previous job. I've run into them at bus stops, in downtown Berkeley, in restaurants, and even in the corner liquor store (where they buy cigarettes and snacks, and we buy milk and Ben & Jerry's). It doesn't really bother me, and it certainly did not bother me while they were my clients.

Yet yesterday, I was pre-emptively bothered. I saw one of them walking down the street, then walking back up the street with some garage sale loot. Our building is set back from, and perpendicular to, the street; and there's a privacy fence around the driveway. Thus: I could see him, but he couldn't see me.

I started wondering: What if he comes to check out our wares? Not that he would buy any of our girly stuff, but what if he strikes up a conversation with Mrs. Gerbil and me? How would I introduce him? Should I introduce him? And is it a bad thing if he finds out where I live, even though I haven't worked with him in months?

(Mrs. Gerbil and I have already discussed what might happen if one of my former clients approaches both of us. The agreement: She is not to ask me from whence I know this person, as "I can't tell you" is fundamentally the same as "That's my client.")

My worst fears, however, were not realized. A short while later, he zoomed back up the street, garage sale loot in hand, without so much of a glance up our drive.

I still wonder what might have happened, had he checked out our stuff. It's hard to observe the "I'll acknowledge you only if you acknowledge me" rule when the person is literally at your doorstep. And what if he'd bought something? Would I have felt weird taking his quarter for one of Mrs. Gerbil's sci-fi/fantasy novels?

Signs point to "yes."

Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Gerbil went off to Walgreens to retrieve a prescription of mine. The staff at our Walgreens generally does a terrific job of authenticating their customers, even those whom they recognize (such as yours truly). However, Mrs. Gerbil reports that the pharmacy tech tried really, really hard to give her someone else's prescription.

Apparently the tech asked dutifully for my name and address--and then proceeded to hand Mrs. Gerbil the bag directly behind mine. Mrs. Gerbil protested, "That's not the right one!" The tech said something to the effect of "Did you move? It looks like we have the wrong address on file."

Mrs. Gerbil pointed out that not only have we not moved, but the name on the bag was not mine. They went back and forth about this for a bit before the proverbial light bulb came on, and the correct bag made it to Mrs. Gerbil's little paws.

I'm not even going to begin on that one. Hip-hip-HIPAA, dudes.

The price of convenience

According to the newsletter Mrs. Gerbil received the other day, the Alameda Green Party is congratulating itself over preventing the construction of some cell phone tower somewhere. I don't know where the tower was supposed to be, as Mrs. Gerbil has already recycled the newsletter and the link which should lead to the newsletter doesn't actually yield anything of use.

But this will not stop my snark. Oh, children, my snark cannot be stopped.

I will concede that cell towers are ugly. I'll also concede that I had no idea that there were so many ways to disguise cell towers. But it's not just aesthetics (or lack thereof) that fuel protests against cell tower construction. It's the possibility of a health hazard. It's the intrusion of commercial activity into non-commercial zones. Oh, and it's the principle of the thing.

Now, I'm all for preservation and good planning and all that, but there's a fundamental problem with cell tower nimbyism: No cell tower, no cell service.

Many people have no land line because their cell phones are their primary phones. That's great for people who know they can always get reception. Mrs. Gerbil and I each have a cell phone, but we also have a land line because cell phones aren't 100% reliable. On our landline we have a cordless phone and an old-school phone with a 25' cord. (Why the ancient model? Because we can't use the cordless to notify PG&E that the power is out.)

If cell tower construction is restricted, then existing towers may get overwhelmed--and then we'll all bang our heads on the wall to the tune of "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."

When I decided to get a cell phone about five and a half years ago, I chose my company based on local coverage. The best coverage in my area came from Verizon or Sprint, but it was well known that there was no Sprint reception on Coventry Road. Coventry is full of all kinds of fun shops, and as I lived about a quarter mile away, I was there all the time. Needless to say, I chose Verizon. Verizon, however, does not have such great reception in our bedroom in Berkeley. But this doesn't bother me. I can put up with the lack of reception in our bedroom, because the only way to fix this is to put up a cell tower on the bed. And that's just plain silly.

However, I also don't subscribe to the belief that cell phone ownership equals constant accessibility. So I suppose it's okay to support the restriction of cell tower construction if you don't mind not being able to use your cell phone everywhere and all the time. But if your cell phone is necessary for your survival, then cell towers are your necessary evil.

Gee, your armpits smell terrific!

Well, I had planned to blog about a Celebrity Deathmatch that isn't, but should be:



but it seems I am not as original as I'd thought.

I would have probably spent an evening moping about this, if not for last night's Target run with my best friend, R.

When R and I go shopping, we are a force with which to be reckoned. Even Mrs. Gerbil thinks so--which is why she tends not to come along. But last night, Mrs. Gerbil had to work late; and so R and I made like teenagers and spent the night at the mall.

We each needed various items from the health and personal care section. Alas, this took a lot longer than it should have, as there are just way too many choices these days. There must be 57 varieties or Crest toothpaste, and it's getting harder to find good old cool mint gel. And really, how many different cartoons need to be festooned on band-aids? R and I find this all very amusing.

And then we spotted the best varietal of all:


R put her astonishment this way: "Dude. The point of deodorant is to make your armpits not smell."

I put mine this way: "Dude. No one's armpits should smell like Starbucks."

I suppose it's possible that R and I, hip as we are, have missed some important new trend in accessorizing--the one that dictates that your underarms must match your hot beverage.

"No" means NO.

One of the unfortunate things about my job is that I cannot do a single thing about claims. I cannot tell anyone the status of a claim. I cannot reprocess a claim. I cannot even say whether a claim has been received. This is because I am not in the claims department.

My department never closes. The claims department does. When the claims department is open, I can transfer callers to a real live person over there. When the claims department is closed, not a single real live person is there to receive the transfer. And the only thing I can do is say to wait until the next business day--which can be a tall order if it's 7pm on a Friday night.

I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that I can't view their claims information. I get at least three calls per day that go like this:

caller: I am calling about a claim that my doctor submitted three months ago.
me: I'm sorry, I can't see any of your claims information. The claims department is open Monday through Friday, from...
caller: But my doctor sent in this claim three months ago and it hasn't been paid yet.
me: I apologize for the delay, but as I said I do not have access to any information about your claims.
caller: What do I have to say to get you to pay my therapist?
me: Please call back when our claims department is open and they will be happy to assist you.
caller: But why can't you help me with my claims?
me: Because I am not in the department that handles claims. That department is closed right now.
caller: Oh. Okay then, bye.

As you can imagine, I get very tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again. I probably say "I can't see any information about your claims" in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm David Spade in that one commercial, except I'm not saying "NOOOOooooo!" for the passive-aggressive hell of it.

Mrs. Gerbil suggested that I come up with fun, creative ways to impart this information. Last night we came up with a whole slew while we were supposed to be sleeping.

Some of them were inspired by cheesy martial arts movies:

~ Your claims information is silent, like the ninja.
~ Your claims information is as the first crocus of spring, but it is still December.
~ Your claims information is as a deer, deep within in the forest.
~ Your claims information is as concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River.

Some of them were inspired by television:

~ In the world of managed care, claims information is considered especially valuable. In this company, claims are handled by an elite squad known as the claims department. These are their hours...

Some of them were inspired by folk songs:
I cannot give you your claims status
I cannot do squat about claims
That's done by another department
So why are you talking to me, to me?
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six AM
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six.

And some of them were inspired by nursery rhymes:

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, but I don't have any of your claims information.

The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich;
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
From eating your claims information.

Old MacDonald had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he did not have your claims information.

Alas, I don't think this would qualify as good customer service.

2007 Report on My Balls

Mrs. Gerbil convinced me last night to make matzo ball soup for dinner. I had suggested matzo pizza (slather matzo with spaghetti sauce, top with shredded mozzarella, microwave 45 seconds), with promise of matzo ball soup tonight, but Mrs. Gerbil reminded me that she wouldn't be home for dinner tonight on account of her Maundy Thursday service. So I agreed to make matzo ball soup last night instead.

Well, I am happy to say that my balls are quite delicious this year. Their texture is midway between fluffy and dense, and the salty liquid in which they are bathed also has some carrots in it this year.

I gotta tell you, Mrs. Gerbil is a big fan of my balls.

A word to the wise

After many, many months of under-employment, I finally found gainful work a few months ago. In the words of Mrs. Gerbil, having a real job is "totally crazy like whoa."

Since late February I have been working the swing shift (including weekends) in the call center of a humongous behavioral health insurance company. Mostly I'm quoting benefits, issuing authorizations, and pre-certifying inpatient stays. But occasionally I get crisis calls, which are always interesting.

In addition to rather sizable paychecks, this job has provided some perspective in my quest to Fix The World By Complaining. I'm now a lot nicer to call center representatives whom I contact in my personal life--because I know now that they can't change a whole lot of anything, no matter how angry I get about it.

I've also learned that every call is documented, or at least should be documented. Details of your calls to your health insurance are considered part of your medical record--which means you can request to see those data at any time. I would hate to see the notes our former health and dental plans have on me.

And I have learned about the mute button.

The mute button is the best way to put callers on hold without actually putting them on hold. It's weird and uncomfortable to be on the phone with a stranger while neither of you is saying anything, right? and it's so much better to be on hold, right?

Okay, maybe not. But in any case: If you don't hear the hold music, you are probably not on hold. You are likely on mute. Which means that the call center representative can hear everything you are saying.

So hold thy tongue, knave.

The nanny state

There is much kerfuffle out here in California over so-called "nanny state" legislation. Members of the state senate and assembly have come up with a number of fantastically intrusive proposals in recent months, including bans on

1) incandescent light bulbs;
2) spanking;
3) children under 4'9" in the front seat of the car;
4) children under 4'9" in the back seat of the car without a booster seat; and
5) smoking in the car while children are present.

The state senate is to hold hearings on smoking in cars in the very near future. Now, I do believe that smoking is a public health issue. Smoking is prohibited in a lot of places in California, including restaurants, hospital entrances, and Berkeley bus stops, although citizens like myself are left to enforce the latter with varying degrees of success. Several months ago, at the Hayward BART station, I had the following exchange with a woman who meandered into my personal space with a lit cigarette:

me: Excuse me, would you mind smoking somewhere else? This is a no-smoking zone.
smoker: What the hell? I just came over here. I can smoke if I want to.
me: I have been sitting here for a while, and I don't mind if you smoke elsewhere. Just not here.
woman: What the hell?
me: Thank you for respecting the needs of a person with asthma.
woman: Oh, respecting your needs? What about mine?
me: I don't mind if you smoke somewhere else. But it's against the law to smoke right here, and I have asthma. Thank you for respecting my health.
woman: [wandering away, talking loudly into her cell phone] Sorry, some white bitch says I can't smoke near her ass. Oh, wait, that white bitch don't HAVE no ass.

So yes, smoking is a public health issue. But there's something about this no-smoking-in-your-personal-vehicle thing that really gets to me. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that one's car is an extension of one's residence. It's a private space. But the boundaries between private and public are a lot blurrier in the car because, unless your ride is pimped out with tinted windows (which are heavily regulated in this state anyway), everyone can see what you're doing, all the time.

If you smoke in the car with the windows up, your car smells like an ashtray. If you smoke in your house with the windows closed, your house smells like an ashtray. Anyone in a closed car will inhale second-hand smoke--but so can anyone in a closed room. Is it really worse to be in the car than in the house? I'd be willing to bet that kids spend a lot more time in houses full of second-hand smoke than in cars. So why target cars?

I think the answer is that it's a lot easier to enforce a ban on smoking in the car. The police can obtain immediate evidence that someone's smoking in the car--no need to justify a search warrant if you can see the crime in progress.

But you know, there are many other things in California which pose health hazards to children and other living things. There's pollution, crime, poverty, homelessness, abuse, disease, neonatal drug addiction, abysmal public education, gang violence... all of which are much harder to solve with a single piece of legislation.

If this bill passes, I hope someone will be able to sleep better, knowing that parents will be fined for lighting up while driving their children to school--in a district where less than 50% will receive a diploma and where gangs have more power than the principal.

Public transit story #18: Saving it for later

I admit: I have a very poor sense of smell.

For most of my life my nasal passages were completely clogged by allergies. It's only been in the past few years that I've been able to breathe through my nose. Say what you will about mouth-breathers--I've heard it all before.

Now there is a whole olfactory world out there with which I must become acquainted. I can smell lots of things now, but I have no idea what they are. I'm really good at identifying things like natural gas, peanut butter, baked goods, vanilla, popcorn and sulfur. But I tend to label vaguely unpleasant odors as one of the following:

1) tuna fish;
2) toast;
3) burning motor oil; or
4) pee.

You'd be surprised at how often I think Berkeley smells like tuna fish or toast. But then there was one morning when our entire neighborhood smelled to me like nasty stir-fry. The culprit turned out to be the garbage truck, which is powered by vegetable oil. Kitchen waste + hot vegetable oil = nasty stir-fry, indeed.

Mrs. Gerbil has the sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying task of helping me identify odors. Sometimes I need assistance telling burning motor oil from hot engine; but most of the time it's pot versus skunk. I know skunk very well, as I grew up in skunk country and have experienced live skunk under the house, dead skunk under the house, and of course dead skunk in the middle of the road. During my senior year of high school, a skunk crawled under the house, died, and perfumed all of my clothes. I was definitely not the most popular kid in school the next day. But I digress.

Pot versus skunk is tough. Mrs. Gerbil admits that pot smells like skunk, but her rule of thumb is that skunk travels, whereas pot does not. Sometimes, while we're driving on the highway, I'll yell "SKUNK!" and Mrs. Gerbil will say, "No, honey, that's pot." Which begs the question: why does the highway smell like pot, or rather, who's driving while stoned?

BART trains often smell like pot/skunk. (I'd rather people take transit while stoned than drive while stoned, but then I'd really prefer they sit in another car.) I'm reasonably certain that no one gets on BART after being sprayed by a skunk, and also reasonably certain that a whole lot of people in the Bay Area get stoned with great frequency. Most of the time it's teenagers who fragrance BART, but occasionally there's a middle-aged ex-hippie providing the aromatherapy.

On Tuesday an elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman sat down in front of me, and at that moment my world began to smell like a head shop. A lot of teenagers had boarded at the same time, so I gave in to stereotyping and figured one of them was high.

Then I saw the last little bit of a joint tucked behind this man's rather sizable ear.

I was proud of myself for correctly identifying pot, but I was even more impressed by this guy's storage facilities.

Ya think?

This entry is in memory of my grandmother, who passed away suddenly last week at the age of 90. I owe much of my sense of humor to her influence.

Last weekend, Mrs. Gerbil and I found ourselves taking an unexpected trip to Philadelphia. It was a strange, strange time.

We flew Southwest, so of course we were each presented with the famed Box of Carbs during the flight. Happily, Mrs. Gerbil and I are both carb monsters.

We also received several little packages of peanuts.


Now, I appreciate allergy warnings as much as the next person. I have food sensitivities, but I have to read ingredient lists because no one prints handy warnings for things like echinacea, bananas, and flowers.

Mrs. Gerbil, however, is allergic to peanuts. She's not allergic to the extent that she has to avoid things processed in facilities which also process peanuts. But even if she were that allergic, I would hope that she wouldn't need to check the back of the little package to find out whether her peanuts were produced in a facility that processes... peanuts.

Public transit story #17: Private lives

Mrs. Gerbil and I took the bus into town over the weekend, in order to accomplish various and sundry activities such as paying the rent. We were among only a handful of people headed into town on that particular line at that particular time, which should have meant a nice, quiet 5-minute ride.

But no.

Also on the bus was a girl about our age who was engaged in an extremely loud pre-break-up conversation. The presumably-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend was not on the bus, however, but on the other end of her cell phone connection. Mrs. Gerbil and I heard far more than we wanted to about this girl's life, her burgeoning self-confidence, and his infidelities. And about how "the punk-rock world is very small."

The awful thing was that there was really no way not to overhear. Mrs. Gerbil and I tried in vain to hold our own conversation at normal volume, but this girl was just so incredibly loud (possibly because of the volume at which the small punk-rock world plays its music) that we kept getting derailed. We tried really hard not to laugh, but that didn't work so well either.

She was still having words with her soon-to-be-ex as she got off the bus. I turned to Mrs. Gerbil and said, "There are some phone conversations that you just shouldn't have on the bus." Mrs. Gerbil agreed.

I mean, the punk-rock world is awfully small. There might only be two degrees of separation between you and the bus driver.

In sickness and in health

Mrs. Gerbil and I have been thinking (perhaps obsessively) about little gerbs. Conveniently, I've just begun a new job that will not only help fund the production of little gerbs, but also provides much more affordable and comprehensive health benefits. This job is very pregnancy-friendly, and at the moment there are several pregnant or recently post-partum people on site. This is all very good news for the two-member Committee on Gerb Production.

Our new health package includes full coverage for preventive care. Fantastic, I thought, because prenatal care is, by its very nature, largely preventive. But then I asked someone whether prenatal care is covered as preventive care, and I was sorely disappointed to hear that it is not. And then it dawned on me: Like most other health plans, our shiny new one considers pregnancy a sickness.

To be a covered "sickness," pregnancy must have its own diagnostic code, at least for purposes of billing. In the ICD-9 (the current US standard), the diagnostic code for normal pregnancy is V22.2. Anything diagnosable is de facto abnormal, and thus normal pregnancy is abnormal.

("Okay, okay," you are saying, "pregnancy is a departure from normal bodily functioning, so isn't this diagnosable sickness thing warranted?" But humor me here.)

Sickness is by definition bad. Nothing good can come directly of sickness. Sure, you might have a renewed appreciation for life if you survive a serious illness or injury; but the most positive direct result of sickness that I can think of is that once you've had the chicken pox, you are almost guaranteed not to have a repeat performance.

And yet every single human being that ever was is the result of pregnancy. Perhaps you are a cynic and believe that human beings are no good. But hey--you wouldn't be around to hate your fellow human beings if not for pregnancy. Which, I hasten to add, is diagnosable.

Now I shall blow your mind some more with my, well, mind-blowing logic. Even in our enlightened times, women are expected to want to have children. Those who do not want to have children are, at least in some circles, considered abnormal.

Thus: In order to be considered normal, you have to be considered abnormal.

I rest my case.