Nosy Personal Question #12
Camellia M. writes:
As a mother, you have faced birthing a boy three times and three times made a decision of whether or not to circumcise your son(s). Since you have been raised up living in a white dominated society (Houston, TX) that promotes cosmetic genital surgery, yet your family is from a culture where circumcision has never been practiced and is considered alien, how did you make your decisions? How do you feel about your decisions today?
Well, it was actually a pretty easy decision, considering that I’ve never even seen a circumcised penis in real life, whether through diaper changes or any other circumstances, and that my kids’ dad is uncircumcised.
(Hey, isn’t it weird that circumcision has the same first five letters as circumstance?)
I grew up in a family that eschewed frivolous medical procedures. Hence, I have all my wisdom teeth and my broken nose remains brokenly crooked. Aside from that, I believe that as long as you teach your child to clean under it properly, foreskin is not a big deal. So why fix it if it isn’t broken?
I mean, yeah, if your kid’s nose is broken, have that shit fixed. Don’t just let her sit alone in the free clinic waiting room for three hours until the bleeding stops and she walks home. But if your baby’s penis has foreskin, I wouldn’t worry about it. Foreskin’s okay.
Note: Camellia’s brother Ralphie is (was?) one of the contestants on Last Comic Standing. Check him out, if he’s still there.
Nosy Personal Question [Bundle] #13
Kay K. asks several questions:
What are your favorite movies in the following categories: drama, comedy, and action? Why are they your favorites?
Um… hmm. Okay. Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a big movie buff, and my favorites change at the drop of a hat or the whim of my memory.
For drama I’m gonna say Sense and Sensibility, which is probably not even a drama, because it makes me cry like a weenie. But it also makes me laugh, so maybe it’s not a drama, in which case I’ll choose The Sweet Hereafter, because it only makes me cry.
For comedy I’m gonna say Hedwig and the Angry Inch, even though that’s a musical and slightly tearful, also.
For action I was gonna lie and say The Matrix or Bladerunner, but in my heart I know it’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and I don’t care who laughs at me for it.
What book or books changed your life and why?
Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, because, despite their religiousness, they really helped me shed my retarded society-enforced beliefs about what it means to be a “real” writer.
Also, I have to say Salinger’s Franny and Zooey because it was the first non-genre adult fiction I ever read. I was twelve years old, plowing my way through my dad’s sci-fi and spy paperbacks because I loved to read and had already done the whole school library. My dad bought me Franny and Zooey because he thought I’d like it, and also probably because he was going through one of the Zen phases to which hippies are prone. I liked it very much. It changed my world to know that adult books could be about subjects other than men fighting and getting laid.
Who are some of your favorite writers?
I love Salinger, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens, and I don’t care what people say about them. And I love Nabokov to death. And I like Margaret Atwood and Sandra Cisneros. And I like George Saunders, even though I’ve only read the two short story collections by him. And David Sedaris’s earlier books made me laugh. And that’s all I can think of right now. I’m kind of sad that I don’t know too many contemporary people. Any suggestions?
If you could have dinner with one famous person, who would it be and why?
Judith Martin (Miss Manners) because that woman rules my world with her subtly vicious yet always polite wit and wisdom. (And I mean vicious in the most flattering, awe-filled way possible.) I would be totally intimidated by the thought of just meeting her, but I know that if she was forced to have dinner with me, her extreme sense of decorum would ease any initial awkwardness. She’s actually one of my favorite writers, too, but I was shy about saying so in the last answer since so many people are uninitiated in the ways of her bad-assness and therefore like to hate on her along with the inferior rest of her ilk. But, dude… she RULES.
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