West Texas Is A Terrible Place To Have Babies
But it's also a rough place to try not to have babies
My best friend sent me an article about maternal medicine in West Texas, specifically in the Big Bend region where we met. (Shout out to Sul Ross State University in the beautiful Alpine, Texas, some of the best botanical gardens anywhere!)
But yeah. It’s probably healthier to be a cactus than a fertile lady in West Texas: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/alpine-west-texas-scarce-pregnancy-care/
As you may know, the spouse and I have long talked about moving back to Texas, but—well, we’re filthy progressives, and we fit so much better in Colorado than in Texas. Ironically, we live in a fairly military, fairly conservative region in Colorado—El Paso County hosts the Air Force Academy and leans red.
As you may also know, we are currently close to a Planned Parenthood (and have connections there), in Colorado (a blue state), and have a spare bed (full of cats). For whatever reason you may need to visit. It’s obviously worth it to come here just for the zoo; I have a membership and it’s incredible.
Anyway.
I don’t plan on needing maternal healthcare, myself, but I do want to settle down near said best friend someday when we’re eventually grown-ups, and she might want to have a baby, so it’s distantly relevant.
Gary and I are cultural chameleons—we like to go to the gun range with old co-workers from Planned Parenthood, for example (Gary worked there, not me, though I’d be proud to). We photograph dirt bike races for the hippie judge that used to be a Public Defender.
I’m proud to be an enigma wrapped in a mystery, to be married to an educated redneck, to both own guns and work towards more effective gun control, to support public schooling but admit that sometimes homeschool young’uns turn out half-decent. I’m weird in that I don’t feel more weird, if you get what I’m saying.
Apparently, one of the weirdest things I do is willingly caddy for my husband. He likes to golf, I never really got into it—but walking around a pretty grassy field with my husband with our phones put away is really pretty nice. If only it were a better workout—I know! I’ll carry heavy stuff while we walk!
This idea of walking (or jogging or running, but I stick to walking) while carrying heavy stuff is supposedly the magic trick the US Military uses to whip young recruits into shape, quickly. Because the heavy stuff is often a loaded rucksack, this type of exercise is known as rucking.
(A farmer’s carry is technically the exact same thing, though typically a farmer’s carry is a brief warm up, maybe walking back and forth across the gym a few times, while rucking tends to be more mileage.)
Basically, my family trained me that walks together are a valid love language. (Shout out to the Dooley Parents!) I’d jump through plenty of hoops to get Gary to talk a walk with me, so simply carrying golf clubs seems like a small price to pay.
What perfectly logical conclusions have you drawn that other people see as odd?
In a more professional context, I have drawn the conclusion that anyone who doesn’t love reading is reading the wrong stuff. Corollaries of this include: the bar for reading is very low; audiobooks and comics totally count; anyone can find stuff they enjoy reading.
I’m working with a family of immigrants that want their 11 year old to be a voracious reader of English, but they mainly offer him books they’d want to read, themselves.
So, first question: what would you recommend to make an 11 year old science nerd like reading?
One of the greatest book stores on Earth is Book People in Austin, Texas. Their events manager posted an incredible thread on Twitter about recommendations for people wanting to get back into reading. Here’s a copy of the thread in document form—readers of this newsletter can comment and see each other’s comments on our own personal copy!
Personally, after chatting with this young learner, I found myself strongly considering two books: Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, and My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George.
Both books have young boys as their main protagonists. Yay, stories centered on young people; boo, stories centered only on boys. Ender is in training for military command, the pinnacle of their social hierarchy, to save humanity from certain destruction by an alien race. Sam, of the Mountain, bails on society to live in a tree and feed and clothe himself.
Ender’s Game has a tiny bit of profanity, and uses what I think is realistic chatter amongst high-achieving young soldiers. (They, of course, say “fart” a lot. Honestly, it could have more profanity and still be worth reading.) The potential extinction of the human race might be a somewhat adult topic, but the lack of autonomy for children will probably be more relevant to a young person.
My Side of the Mountain was originally not approved for publication, under the fear that it would encourage young people to run away from home. The deciding argument was that if people run away, better they run to the country than the city.
Sam has all the autonomy that Ender lacks. Sam feeds himself from nature, and let’s just say he is not vegetarian. In fact, he kidnaps a baby falcon to train as a provider, and the sequels to the book are about the ethics/legality of a pet bird of prey.
Both boys are heroes, and both books prompt conversation about the role of society versus nature, and exactly how much dominion we have over nature. Both, in fact, are relevant to last week’s discussion of cats as useful workers or as invasive aliens.
Ender’s Game comes down hard on the philosophy that if a bunch of humans need to be sacrificed to save the species—fine, do it. The sequels confirm that if we need to kill some cats to keep a species alive, we should do that, too. MSotM—if anything, MSotM pushes the idea that we all need more nature, and we all could be more self-reliant. Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs—well, not quite. Take everything that tastes good that you can get your hands on.
In other literary news, I haven’t made a lick of headway on Lucifer’s Hammer, mainly because I’m rereading Ender’s Game to discuss with this student. I have so many books I’m meaning to read! What a beautiful first world problem!
Speaking of lists of books to read—do you keep a literal list? I know plenty of people keep a list both of books read and books to read in their planner, but I’m not that organized. Then again, a Google Doc would be easy and straightforward… and shareable…
I also think of my bookshelves as physical lists, but now I can see that’s problematic: I don’t sort by read or unread, but by the author’s name (fiction) or the Library of Congress classification system (nonfiction).
So. To jump back to the original topic, because I’m not done thinking about it: would we, could we ever move back to Texas? I’ve read about soon-to-be-college students considering reproductive rights, even access to basic health care like contraceptives, when they consider what states they’d like to live in. The thinking is that even not-quite-ivies like Rice University and Sul Ross State are set in Texas, and it’s already hard to access health-care in Texas, especially the rural parts.
On the other hand, this seems like an effective scheme to keep progressive folk out of Texas, or encourage them to move elsewhere. Wouldn’t it be more effective—better for more people—to move to Alpine and maybe let a midwife stay in our trailer a few nights each week? Or even pursue midwifery training, myself?
How far does “be the change you wish to see in the world” actually go?
Then again, isn’t this a bit like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I mean, we’ll never have a down-payment for land, so who cares where we’d theoretically buy land?
I choose to be optimistic. Maybe this newsletter will make me a superstar, and people will pay me to tell them what books to read. Then, we’ll just move wherever Dr. Best Friend gets a tenure track academic position.
Or, like, an hour outside that city. Let’s be reasonable.
Speaking of optimism versus reason, if all goes as planned—by the time you read these words, all three kitties will be vetted for the year. Since I’ve got free time this summer, we made a separate trip for each cat—will be making, in the case of JJ, who goes this afternoon.
We’ve already dosed him with pre-exam anxiety meds. The anxiety is a big part of why he gets his own trip—all our kitties have special needs of some sort or another. Puig’s special need is constant snacks and affection. Holly’s special need is the blood of twelve vet techs, shed under a full moon.
Holly went in yesterday, under a heavier dose of anxiolytics than the twice-as-heavy-JJ got today. They decided it’s probably safer to knock her unconscious for a tooth cleaning and then take all the samples they need for bloodwork and a general wellness check, so she’ll be going back in November.
Puig has no teeth, and has therefore graduated out of needing dental care.
JJ—well, with JJ, we’ll find out. He’ll probably need a dental.
Philosophical soapbox time!
We get our cats (at least, those with chompers) a dental cleaning just about every year, though we might stretch it out to 14-18 months when we’re cheap or they’re young. There are those who say this is too much, too frequent.
To them, we say—we respectfully disagree. Dental hygiene is linked to cardiovascular health and overall well-being. If we were serious about dental care, we’d have established a kitty tooth-brushing routine by now—but we haven’t. So regular dental exams, x-rays, and cleanings are the route we choose.
(Apparently, letting them lick up cat toothpaste is actually genuinely better than nothing.)
Alright, friends. That about sums things up—more what I’ve been reading than what I, personally, have been writing, but at least we’ve got plenty to think about.
What has driven you to distraction lately?
Cheers,
Melooley
More brilliant bumblings about by THE next Spike Jones of the printed page. The Spike of City Slickers fame, that is.
Our other Spike is doing just fine but is incomparable, thank you very much. Apples to banjo kapos, you know.
What has driven me to distraction recently is web novels and games. I need to focus more on getting ready for the school year. It's not too bad though.
I do actually have a list. It's a combination of two things. Browser tabs for pdf file books and kindle wish-list for official digital books. I used to have a physical paper list but I haven't used that approach since 3rd grade.
It's concerning that in West Texas it's that much more dangerous to be a (to be)mother.
Fantastic that the kitties are doing well. Lots of love sent their way.