Sometimes it takes a knock on the head to realize you need some thorough first aid and medic training - for me, it wasn't my head, but the head of the old dude I help write memoirs. If we weren't 30 yards from the E.R. we would truly have needed some training to rely on. Thank you, paramedics!
Thank them for what, exactly? I ask in the interest of precision, not skepticism: what did they do that was so commendable? For one, they offered willingness to help my friend and client. Well, everyone on the street wanted to help. I appreciate that, but I don’t think it quite chalks up to whatever I’m thanking. More importantly, they did help my friend and client. I think we’re getting warmer. Everyone on the street wanted to help, but the paramedics did help. What enabled the paramedics to help when Joe Onlooker could not act on his wishes to do so? This brings us to what I’m truly thanking; thank you, paramedics, for undergoing training to prepare yourself for future medical emergencies. I was not prepared. Joe Onlooker on the street was not prepared. My friend and client, himself - old dude - may have been prepared but was also impaired. The paramedics’ training proved to be awesome and necessary foresight, for which I am grateful.
In the moment of medical emergency, there is available neither time nor resource to study proper first aid on the spot. That moment requires confidence, level-headedness, knowledge, accurate assessment, identification of resources, swift decision-making and proper implementation of care. All of these things need to be prepared for before the critical moment. To be a Johnny-on-the-spot, one must be a Johnny-ahead-of-the-game.
You don’t have to be a boy scout to know preparedness changes everything. Men and women alike know that if you don’t have the right tool for the job, you have to acquire the tool, make the tool or fail. I doubt the years I spent hanging out with my brother’s boy scout troop are solely creditable for that understanding I have - more likely it’s the process of trial and error, opportunities missed, public school procrastination and the human tendency to identify patterns.
And you don’t need to be a woman to understand the value of caring for others in need. In fact, all three paramedics who helped my client today were men (or at least presented male), and they were very kind and gentle in their care.
You do need to be respectful of others’ bodies (you’re grabbing their belt to lift them, not to get fresh), to place value on their need for help (by using time now to meet a need which hasn’t happened yet) and to take your commitment to help others seriously (by applying your brain to truly learning and retaining the information). And initiative.
This summer, I took The Serpentine Project’s sliding-scale donation “Community and Herbal Medicine in Disaster Situations” two day training, to get a fresh perspective on thinking ahead to disaster response, to applying the community experience I have and to identifying the usefulness of some of the medicinal resources growing in the ground around me when sterile hospital supplies may not be available.
This fall, I will be participating in a local street medic training to prepare myself to tend to injury and trauma on streets in turmoil. The first training I have scheduled is with the American Red Cross - I found the class I want and enrolled in one process in their student catalog. “Standard First Aid with CPR/AED--Adult and Child plus CPR--Infant” has a fee of $70. Once I’ve taken these two basic first aid and street medic training, I’ll let them sink in as I augment my own standard first aid kit to be able to treat anyone who needs treatment - not just myself and my friends, a circle in which we all trust we know each others’ communicable diseases.
Then, I can go to the next level. Urban-friendly first aid is invaluable, but first aid in remote circumstances can be absolutely critical when there may be no one else’s skills to fall back on, in a 100-mile radius. That’s when I’ll decide to take the American Red Cross “Wilderness and Remote First Aid” one-day class, for a $185 fee, or the National Outdoor Leadership School’s “Wilderness First Responder” course, an 80-hour comprehensive program generally costing $500-600.
The close call my client and I experienced today has strengthened my resolve to make myself helpful in emergency situations - to be prepared to perform first aid for medical problems in emergencies, so that when they happen, we can all focus on healing - rather than guilt, confusion or prolonged injury.
Love and healing intentions,
Alicia Bryan Comma Duggleby
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Writing Treatment
I want to become my own boss, my own employer, to become in control of my own financial destiny. The year is 2010; this is a time in which even those most loyal to capitalism, free enterprise and a national trust have in their recent (current) memory a disillusionment regarding the true instability of these things. I realize I cannot be in control of my own financial destiny any more than I can be in control of my own mortality. I will receive money and I will spend money, as per my wages, the demand of my skills and labor, and also the means of my subsistence. Likewise, I will live and I will die, as will the remainder of my species, this planet and this sun. Fate is out of my hands; entropy rules. Fate is out of my hands; economy rules.
Yet, I can practice rituals which would feel more my own. I can choose which rituals I perform to claim a share of money, rather than seeking others to choose those rituals for me (boss).
I speak to independent contract, freelance work. As long as I have a primary employer dictating my behavior, I will have a binary to choose: stay to maintain an income or quit to flounder in destitution. The alternative I see to this binary, after attempting remedial strategies for years, is to remove the role of a primary employer. If I have, for example, four employers at any given time, then I can quit any one of them without quitting 100% of my income - rather, I would be quitting 25% of my income. If I am in the common practice of finding and contracting new employers on a regular basis, I would also not face the dreary difficulty of finding a new primary employer to commit to and who would commit to me - rather, I would simply be ending a job early and could begin work on another job sooner; I would be in the habit of finding these jobs in the usual places, and I might even have another one lined up already. I would always expect finishing and replacing jobs, thus removing the high stress of the binary: employed/unemployed.
My particular strategy is to seek a freelance niche in the writing field. Many people possess a significant proclivity in one or two areas - a habit or passion which becomes evident in extreme youth and never seems to disappear. I believe writing fills that space in my life. I believe writing is a skill which I can always summon to perform for me when I desire or need it. Currently, I both desire and need it.
Equipped with my new multimedia functional netbook, I believe I have all I need to create and distribute as much of my word as I please!
The next matter which needs addressed in order to comprehensively cultivate this strategy is to establish a breadth of topics and styles I have passion and stamina to study and communicate. In other words, what will I write about? I need to start somewhere.
My mind keeps returning to gender. I have always found gender to be complex and confusing and I am constantly relating all of life experience back to that theme. Much like writing as a central aspect of my life, I have been developing my personal gender identity and my personal perspective on the phenomena of "Gender." Much like writing, I can imagine remaining rapt with gender through the rest of my life. In fact, it seems that any subject I write on is high-saturation colored by the overarching anomaly: Gender.
Herbs, medicine, song, communication, mental health, and even surviving a harsh Pittsburgh winter all relate to Gender. Gender of mind, gender of body, gender of sex. Gender of pornography, of erotica. Gender of fitness, of transportation. Gender of love. Gender of language. Language of Gender. Gender may be one word that defines all other words in the dictionary. There are thousands of aspects to develop. I can write thousands of words on the subject without ever blatantly typing "G-E-N-D-E-R!"
In my mind, gender finds its root in health. When we speak of gender as a physical sex, we consider the unique anatomy and chemistry of each person - wild yam may be helpful for one woman's premenstrual symptoms, and exacerbating for another. When we speak of gender as a societal role, we consider the morality of expectation and prejudice - the healthiness of our social paradigm. When we speak of gender as an individual's identity, we consider the mental health of the individual - what is the healthiest way for this person to experience theirself that feels true and empowering?
My most significant strategy will be to write absolutely every single day. I will do my best to write well, and I will do my best to type it into the public eye. I can't expect any particular audience, or any fidelity or diligence thereof; this is my endeavor to share because I see that I need it.
Pinky: “What are we going to do tomorrow, Brain?”
Brain: “The same thing we do every day, Pinky; try to take over the world!”
Love and humored thoughts of gynarchy,
Alicia Bryan Comma Duggleby
p.s. Now Playing: Penguin Cafe Orchestra - "Telephone and Rubber Band"
Yet, I can practice rituals which would feel more my own. I can choose which rituals I perform to claim a share of money, rather than seeking others to choose those rituals for me (boss).
I speak to independent contract, freelance work. As long as I have a primary employer dictating my behavior, I will have a binary to choose: stay to maintain an income or quit to flounder in destitution. The alternative I see to this binary, after attempting remedial strategies for years, is to remove the role of a primary employer. If I have, for example, four employers at any given time, then I can quit any one of them without quitting 100% of my income - rather, I would be quitting 25% of my income. If I am in the common practice of finding and contracting new employers on a regular basis, I would also not face the dreary difficulty of finding a new primary employer to commit to and who would commit to me - rather, I would simply be ending a job early and could begin work on another job sooner; I would be in the habit of finding these jobs in the usual places, and I might even have another one lined up already. I would always expect finishing and replacing jobs, thus removing the high stress of the binary: employed/unemployed.
My particular strategy is to seek a freelance niche in the writing field. Many people possess a significant proclivity in one or two areas - a habit or passion which becomes evident in extreme youth and never seems to disappear. I believe writing fills that space in my life. I believe writing is a skill which I can always summon to perform for me when I desire or need it. Currently, I both desire and need it.
Equipped with my new multimedia functional netbook, I believe I have all I need to create and distribute as much of my word as I please!
The next matter which needs addressed in order to comprehensively cultivate this strategy is to establish a breadth of topics and styles I have passion and stamina to study and communicate. In other words, what will I write about? I need to start somewhere.
My mind keeps returning to gender. I have always found gender to be complex and confusing and I am constantly relating all of life experience back to that theme. Much like writing as a central aspect of my life, I have been developing my personal gender identity and my personal perspective on the phenomena of "Gender." Much like writing, I can imagine remaining rapt with gender through the rest of my life. In fact, it seems that any subject I write on is high-saturation colored by the overarching anomaly: Gender.
Herbs, medicine, song, communication, mental health, and even surviving a harsh Pittsburgh winter all relate to Gender. Gender of mind, gender of body, gender of sex. Gender of pornography, of erotica. Gender of fitness, of transportation. Gender of love. Gender of language. Language of Gender. Gender may be one word that defines all other words in the dictionary. There are thousands of aspects to develop. I can write thousands of words on the subject without ever blatantly typing "G-E-N-D-E-R!"
In my mind, gender finds its root in health. When we speak of gender as a physical sex, we consider the unique anatomy and chemistry of each person - wild yam may be helpful for one woman's premenstrual symptoms, and exacerbating for another. When we speak of gender as a societal role, we consider the morality of expectation and prejudice - the healthiness of our social paradigm. When we speak of gender as an individual's identity, we consider the mental health of the individual - what is the healthiest way for this person to experience theirself that feels true and empowering?
My most significant strategy will be to write absolutely every single day. I will do my best to write well, and I will do my best to type it into the public eye. I can't expect any particular audience, or any fidelity or diligence thereof; this is my endeavor to share because I see that I need it.
Pinky: “What are we going to do tomorrow, Brain?”
Brain: “The same thing we do every day, Pinky; try to take over the world!”
Love and humored thoughts of gynarchy,
Alicia Bryan Comma Duggleby
p.s. Now Playing: Penguin Cafe Orchestra - "Telephone and Rubber Band"
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