For most of my life I have been more or less overweight. I figured my body was just something I used to carry my brain around.
Tentatives at presentation (clothes, makeup) were just not as serious as with my women-friends. I mean, it was just not as important to my identity as “smart” was.
Back then — only a few years ago — I actually had a mental health worker (therapist) who allegedly had a particular interest in eating disorders ask me how I got through life without being ashamed to go places because I was fat.
I shrugged my shoulders and told her I lived in a world where it simply did not matter. The only place it kept me from going was mixers — and as I had determined men were a waste of time and I actually believed I would never marry, what did it matter anyway? Read more on Act Like Wonder Woman And Become Wonder Woman…
Filed under Brain, Psychology, weight by on Nov 5th, 2014. Comment. 
My husband introduced me to the original “Star Trek” series and movies and of course the character I most identify with is Mr. Spock.
His famous catch phrase is “Humans are illogical.”
That’s an understatement – and as a psychiatrist I often see those who are far, far past illogical.
One of the topics I have frequently commented about is perhaps the most illogical of all – SPORTS.
It seems there is always a story in the news about sports injuries and deaths, and it is well established that professional sports ruins the lives of the athletes who perform and the cities that finance these bread-and-circus entertainments for their fans.
Yet, sports fans are like religious zealots – they just don’t care about the wreckage and carnage as long as they get to drink heavily and act irresponsibly.
It’s even more of a tragedy when the athletes are not professionals – they are children.
Read more on Minors Should Be Protected By More Than Helmets…
Filed under Brain Damage by on Dec 14th, 2011. Comment.
I was a 2nd year resident in neurological surgery when there was news that a single neuron could link with a single computer wire and messages could travel from the one to the other. Nobody in my doctors’ lounge seemed to care.
I remember seeking out a psychologist who had a fairly high tech research background, to see if he was anywhere nearly as excited as I was. To say “no” is a gross understatement.
He told me about an idea which long before that had been both funded and forgotten. The idea had been one of a prosthetic frontal lobe. Frontal lobe of the brain, among other things, tells people what is “appropriate” socially. The one example I will never forget is the physician who (inappropriately) peed in his pants on rounds, and ended up having a frontal lobe tumor. So the idea was that somebody who had a hunk of frontal lobe excised to get rid of the tumor, or presumably some other kind of illness, could have a teency-tiny computer to hold in their hand that would do some frontal lobe kinds of things that they no longer could.
The attempt to develop this happened on the east coast, presumably sometime after Noah’s flood, and the funding dried up just like that great flood did.
Of course, another possibility is that men do not much care where and when they pee. I doubt this, since I had a patient in Oklahoma who had purchased a fair amount of real estate in his life and thought it necessary and appropriate to “mark” it in the same way a dog marks his territory. Yes, it involved peeing in public, but the fellow had no known frontal lobe pathology at the time.
Ah, those Oklahoma men. Read more on Maybe Those People Who Annoy Can Get A Prosthetic Brain…
Filed under Research by on Oct 6th, 2011. Comment.
Sometimes people are shocked to find that I lead a relatively normal life. After all, I’m supposed to be some high-falutin’ muckety-muck know-it-all doctor – not your average American woman.
But believe it or not, I live the same mundane life as many others. I am married and have laundry and meal preparations and shopping just like most people. Although, I must admit, I have a husband who is more helpful than the ordinary married man when it comes to the mundane things in life.
Often when we are out shopping and doing errands, I let my husband run in to a store and take care of business while I sit in the car. Most of my time is spent in offices and I live in a natural wonderland of beauty – Southern California – that I get to enjoy all too seldom. It seems as if in the life I have chosen, moments of quiet and calm are too rare, and I like to daydream, and look at fresh ideas, and to observe my world.
Recently, while my husband made an appointment to take the car in for a minor repair, I waited in the vehicle and observed a small flock of crows. They were gathered on the sidewalk, under a tree.
I watched a crow who could walk only to the left. He did not appear to have a wing or leg injury. Apparently there was some kind of potential crow food on the ground. He was having no luck at all retrieving it. As the obviously impaired bird moved to the left, the food was unreachable on its right. Read more on Why Can’t People Be More Like Crows?…
Filed under Brain Damage by on Apr 23rd, 2010. Comment.