No, I'm not returning to blogging. At least not yet. I'm still far too ill (though slightly better than I was when last I posted). But I have been doing a little housekeeping off and on over the ...
(For the five of you still reading...a brief lapse in the illness-induced silence as the muse paid me a visit this morning on the occasion of a letter-writing campaign to NIH Director Francis Col...
There is a slogan that pops up in feminist discourse from time to time: sexism hurts men too. And while I don’t know that it’s an argument most men find so persuasive they then choose to aban...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-sexism-gave-men-womans-disease.html
A year ago I tried examining the question of why ME/CFS patients have been so unable to advocate for themselves effectively, particularly in the arena of fundraising. Except I did not find my th...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2009/09/mecfs-advocacy-conundrum.html
I woke up Tuesday with a sticky despondency I have not felt in a very long time. It was early -- that is, in Michelle-world, 1 pm -- as I had an appointment with my primary care provider to discu...
Some of you ME/CFS readers might remember that ten years ago the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) got caught misusing money Congress had appropriated specifically for CFS research by using it fo...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2008/11/cdc-research-funding-scandal-20.html
I never fail to underestimate the depths of humiliation that illness continually takes me. A few weeks ago I was having what I thought was a Good Walking Day. A day when I didn't hesitantly shuf...
A Tale of Two Conferences This spring there were two conferences about ME/CFS in the UK. One was hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine and was widely derided by ME/CFS patients because it...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2008/07/buddy-can-you-spare-paradigm-media.html
There's a passage in the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in which the protagonist, a prisoner in a Siberian gulag, feels ill and goes to the dispensary to get out of work for that d...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2007/09/theres-passage-in-novel-one-day-in-life.html
CAMPAIGN TO RECOGNISE DANGERS OF MENTAL ILLNESS - INDEPENDENT ONLINE EDITION > HEALTH Annotated > Stigma also played a part in denying mental patients treatment for > physical ill...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2007/09/cousins-among-medically-oppressed.html
It's the annual CFIDS Awareness Day (well, tomorrow is but today was the lobby day -- which I did "virtually" at the CFIDS Association ). Last year I shared what I've lost having CFIDS, but this...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2007/05/gifts-of-illness.html
So the US and its puppet in Baghdad are celebrating a twisted form of Eid al-Adha today by sacrificing that most flawed and defective animal, Saddam Hussein , to the god of whatever the hell Bus...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2006/12/feast-of-sacrifice.html
Yesterday was CFIDS Awareness Day . So I thought that I would list the things that CFIDS has taken from me. You know. For awareness sake. Hiking Singing -- I used to sing all the time. In the s...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2006/05/list-of-loss.html
> Healer of my soul > Heal me at even > Heal me at morning > Heal me at noon > Healer of my soul > > Keeper of my soul > On rough course faring > Help...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2006/03/dying-days.html
I'll admit it. I'd never really thought about feminism much. Not that I haven't known that I'm only able to not think about it because of the sacrifices many women before me have made. When I we...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2006/02/born-again-feminist.html
Some of my earliest memories of doctors involve the pediatrician we saw when I was seven or so. He put me on a diet in which I couldn't eat corn (my mom only cooked three kinds of vegetables: gre...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2006/02/fat-girl-goes-wooing.html
Several days of spending several hours unpacking box after box of my life has given me a lot of time to contemplate the changes I have made, both recently and over the course of my life accumulat...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/11/thoughts-while-unpacking.html
Ha'aretz: Family of boy shot dead by IDF donates organs `for peace between peoples' When Israeli soldiers shot and killed his son, Ahmad Al-Khatib remembered his older brother who had died of k...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/11/in-each-others-hearts-and-lungs.html
All the talk about books in the comments section of the post below has me thinking a bit more about my library. Tubbs quite rightly chided me about even thinking about getting rid of books. So,...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/10/bibliophilia.html
I finally broke last night. Actually, I started breaking in the elevator as I went to meet with a professor yesterday afternoon. Nauseous and exhausted and nearly twenty minutes late, it’s lik...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/05/meaningless-titles.html
My little Michelle broke her foot the other night. She fell off the bed when I turned over in my sleep and crashed onto the hardwood floor. The next night as I curled up in bed with her, I notice...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/03/my-little-michelle.html
It feels odd not to be fasting on Great and Holy Friday. But, it's one of those once in a lifetime occurrences when the Feast of the Annunciation falls on this somber day. And in the Eastern Chur...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/03/hail-mary_25.html
I read a great article in The Sun (the magazine, not the British tabloid) earlier this week interviewing Yossi Klein Halevi, an author who I'm not familiar with, but after reading this, I want t...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/03/holistic-faith.html
> “...In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh > that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder > they do not love your fles...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/03/wholeness-of-being.html
> O Lord and Master of my life. > Keep from me the spirit of indifference and discouragement, > lust of power and idle chatter. > > Instead, grant to me, your serv...
http://behindthesurface.blogspot.com/2005/02/needing-lent.html