living out
BY SALLY SHEKLOW
The Tush is Out There
Tails & tribulations on the PT table
M
y knee hurt. Fiery daggers shot through
it when I stepped down, tried to cross
my legs or squatted to retrieve
whatever Pussy (not her real name) batted
under the kitchen stove. Privileged to have
health insurance, I mustered my co-pay
and went to the doctor. She referred me to
an orthopedist who referred me to physical
therapy. Triple co-pay.
Unfortunately, I discovered that my friendly
neighborhood lesbian physical therapist isn’t
authorized under my current health plan. I’d have to
entrust my knee to a new practitioner, sight-unseen. If I’d
been less under the infl uence of severe infl ammation, I might have checked
around, asked for references, looked on Angie’s List. I mean really, who knows
what homophobes may lurk in the mysterious fi eld of physical therapy?
In the waiting room, nervous, I leafed through a Time magazine (who reads
Time?). My new PT opened the door and called my name. Athletic, buff, short
hair, polo shirt and khakis — he looked so much like my beloved dyke PT that my
nerves calmed right down. He shook my hand in a friendly grip. “I’m Peter,” he
said. “Let’s have a look.”
Peter was low-key, all business, gentle. He walked me to the exam room,
gestured toward the padded table. “Have a seat.” He proceeded to scrutinize
my knee and the maypole of muscles, tendons, and ligaments attached to it.
We moved to the gym, an apparatus-fi lled room which could easily double as a
doggie agility course. “Step up, bend, crouch, lunge,” Peter instructed. “Close
your eyes and balance on your left foot.”
I steadied myself, breathed, struggled to remain upright.
Back in the exam room Peter had me lie on the table, roll onto my left side,
I squeezed my buns to maintain the pose.
My breath made Darth Vader sounds.
then right, face down, on my back. He maneuvered my leg this way and that.
“Squeeze. Resist. Push. Lift.” Peter measured my lower extremity’s strength,
range of motion, fl exion, extension — pretty much everything except barometric
pressure.
“Shoulders and feet fl at on the table, arch your back into a bridge.” Peter
said. “Hold.” In yoga, this would be known as the double-chin-asphyxiation
posture. Peter focused on his watch and timed my endurance in this position. I
squeezed my buns to maintain the pose. My breath made Darth Vader sounds.
Peter asked, “So, what do you write?”
Oxygen deprivation made me hesitate before I remembered listing writer
as my occupation on the PT intake form — anything to invoke the publishing
goddesses. “Oh,” I grunted, still arched, straining, “A humor column.”
“Eugene Weekly, right?” Peter kept watching his timer.
Buttocks now on fi re and neck folds strangling, I managed to murmur “Mmm-
hmmm.”
“What’s it about?” A standard question. All my columns are about my lesbo
life, but did I really want to come out at this moment? My pelvis thrust skyward
and barely breathing, in pain, vulnerable. How exposed do I need to be? Now
I sounded like Gollum, “This week’s is menopause.” True, but not the whole
truth.
“Oh, right,” Peter chuckled. He rested his warm hand on my throbbing knee.
“My wife and I read that and laughed our asses off.”
Asses? All I could think of was that my own ass was now in dire distress,
fi ghting to maintain my seriously sagging arched bridge. At least we’d dispensed
with the coming out thing.
Finally, the tush-torture test was over. Peter jotted notes in my chart and
rolled close to the exam table on his wheeled stool. Turns out, Peter explained
in strictly clinical terms, that my behind is what’s behind my knee problem.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my derriere, although unquestionably ample, is too
weak to do its job of supporting my knee. De butt bone connected to de knee
bone — who knew?
Peter sent me home with a stretchy band and two pages of exercises to
strengthen my glutes — minimus, medius and maximus. My knee still hurts, but
fi nding a new fan feels pretty good.
Award-winning writer Sally Sheklow has narrated her saga of pain for EW since 1999.
4 AUGUST 21, 2008
EUGENE WEEKLY
letters
TO THE EDITOR
BORED & HARMLESS
The description of dangerous “wayward
youth” in the article “Mean Eugene”
(8/14) is out of line. Those “leatherbound
peacocks” are usually either A) peaceful,
traveling beatniks and punk rockers who
come to Eugene to enjoy its natural beauty
and music scene, B) bored (and harmless)
kids who want cigarettes and/or soda or
C) houseless people who just want a place
to sit down and not get hassled. And they
usually say “Please,” “Thank you” and
“Good afternoon.” I have learned this from
personal interaction, not distant and nervous
observation. An attacker may just as easily
be the polo shirt-wearing suburbanite with
nothing better to do.
Yes, violent people sometimes wear untidy
leather garments downtown. But nowhere in
your article does it say, “Clay’s assailants looked
like the spangers in front of the library.” The
assault didn’t even occur downtown. This
description of scruffy kids and the use of it in
this article could only be based on personal
feelings. Prejudiced statements like this have
helped to grow a web of fear across this city,
changing attitudes from, “There are dangerous
young adults downtown,” to “Every young adult
downtown is dangerous.” In this environment it
is easy to be labeled dangerous just for utilizing
our public spaces while looking a certain way.
A suggestion to EW: Why not interview
the scary high-schoolers at the bus station
or the guy riding the bike loaded down with
bottles? As opposed to just writing what
others think of them.
Christine Anderson
Eugene
IGNORE YOURSELF
This is a response to Michael McDonald’s
letter (8/14) about the art on the cover by a once
local artist Frustr8 (Lopez). In the last paragraph
he writes, “But I have to wonder why you chose
this particular artist, and this particular image.”
Did you read the article? The artist got his start
here in Eugene as an up-and-coming artist and
has since gained national recognition for his
skills. The artist is also spending three weeks
up here (probably on others’ couches) to give
back to our community by encouraging the
youth in their artistic growth and channeling
their energy into something positive.
The person depicted on the cover, Erykah
Badu, is using the art on her MySpace page for
the whole world to see, so I would guess she
likes it and does not feel insulted or degraded at
all. Instead of worrying about something that
you took no time to educate yourself about,
you should be worrying about your friends and
family who are probably voting for McCain
because they are racists and you feel bad about
it. So shame on you for not reading the article
and for being completely out of touch with
what really matters. Next time feel free to
ignore yourself!!
Randy Smith
Eugene
ENFORCE RESPECT
Since I can smell bullshit even before
it hits the ground, I would like to pre-
emptively respond to the inevitable
brouhaha which will be clogging EW letters
pages in the wake of the recently passed
exclusion ordinance.
First of all, the motivation behind
the exclusion ordinance is not “fear of
youth,” desire to establish a “police
state,” “discomfort with the homeless,”
“intolerance of diversity,” or any of the
other crackpot theories which will surely be
proffered by our local keyboard-wielding
freedom fi ghters. (Side remark to the
amateur civil rights lawyers out there: The
ACLU expressly stated that it was objecting
to the ordinance on procedural grounds, not
constitutional ones, since— believe it or not
— exclusion ordinances do not violate the
Bill of Rights.)
In point of fact, anyone who does not
buy, sell or use drugs, who respects private
property, who observes quiet hours after 10
pm, who does not accost or harrass passers-
by and who generally conducts themselves
in a courteous and civilized manner is more
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