Saturday
I’m sitting on my porch swing right now, having just picked a used hair scrunchie from the trash across the street. (It was closer than going upstairs to my apartment. That’s true laziness: I’d rather pick trash than climb stairs.) Today I went to a few different garage sales, but they sound so much more alluring on Craigslist. “Everything must go! Tons of cool stuff!” Then you get there and realize the reason everything hasn’t gone already. No one wants those old Lionel Richie CDs, okay? I’ve owned that same wooden dishrack from Ikea five times already. I’m not buying yours.
Speaking of Ikea, my mother, an inveterate shopper and decorator, had never been there. A shanda, as we say in Yiddish. I felt it was time, so I called her up and we took the trip. Her mouth was hanging open the whole time, but she didn’t really like the relentlessness of the aesthetic.
Now I’m going to eat some more Pop Tarts. When I’m by myself I do nothing but binge on crap food. And I love it. I mean, have you had the new Strawberry Cream variety? You don’t know happiness till you’ve tasted that gooey pink crud on your tongue.
Liz | 3:36 PM | Uncategorized
This weekend
I’m all by myself this weekend, and the apartment yawns cavernously. (How’s that for a terrible sentence?) Thus, I will blog a little, despite the fact that I know less people read on the weekends; my readership drops by 25 percent on Saturday and Sunday. Why is that? I think you’re all just using me to pass the workday, and then, come the weekend, you’re like, “Screw Spikol. I have garage sales to attend.”
But if you’re around this weekend, I’ll B there 4 U, as Prince would say.
Liz | 5:06 PM | Uncategorized
Truly bizarre development
Okay, Bollywood star Navin Nischol (pictured) and his brother have been arrested for Navin’s wife’s suicide. I’ve been working on the mental health beat for many years now, and I’ve never heard of such a thing.
The arrest was prompted by Navin’s wife’s diary. One damning entry read: “I, Geetanjali Navin Nischol, am committing suicide because Shri Navinji is an alcoholic and is beyond reform. Because of his alcoholism, I am mentally tortured by him and he is being instigated by Praveen Nischol to torture me and I hold Praveen responsible for all this torture to me.”
Needless to say, my take on this is that it’s preposterous to hold someone else responsible for a suicide—no matter how much he drank. It’s dangerous to suggest otherwise because it could make suicide survivors feel more culpable, as if they don’t already feel guilty enough. Bollywood fans, stand strong behind your man. Even if he is a schmuck.
Navin Nischol arrested for wife’s suicide [Daily News and Analysis]
Liz | 4:23 PM | Uncategorized
A shot in the dark
Last night Philadelphia police killed two men.
One man had an arrest warrant out on him. Cops came to find him at his West Philadelphia home, and when he saw them, he ran. They shot him while he was running away from them. He was unarmed.
The other incident screams “suicide by cop,” though I can’t get confirmation of that. Restaurant owner Sam Ryan, 36, was sitting on his front stoop, his house burning behind him. He was holding a gun. When cops approached him, he pointed the gun at him and killed him. There’s a suggestion that he was distraught because his longstanding neighborhood chicken-wing joint had gone out of business.
I want to find out more about this case, so I’ll be leaving early. If anyone in Philly is reading this, and knows Ryan or even ate at his shop and wants to reminisce, please get in touch. I’d like to give him a fitting tribute.
Liz | 1:58 PM | Uncategorized
Bollywood drama
As I wrote before, veteran actor Navin Nischols’ wife Geetanjali (pictured) committed suicide some weeks ago. Now Navin is being questioned in her death; apparently, the police are considering charging him with “abetment to suicide.” She left a note blaming Navin and his brother for her unhappiness. I guess police are taking that quite seriously.
Navin Nischol interrogated over wife’s suicide [The Hindu]
Liz | 12:20 PM | Uncategorized
In Memoriam: Julia Thorne
The ex-wife of John Kerry and the mother of his two daughters has died of cancer. She was very committed to speaking out about her battle with depression, writing the 1993 book You Are Not Alone: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey through Depression, with Larry Rothstein.
Thanks for your efforts, Julia. Travel well.
Julia Thorne, author and ex-wife of Sen. Kerry, dead at 61 [Boston.com]
Liz | 11:38 AM | Uncategorized
MySpace cry for help?
The AP reports that a 20-year-old soldier, Dylan Meyer, who committed suicide in his barracks at Fort Gordon, Georgia, made his intentions clear on his MySpace page. Was he hoping someone would see his post and try to help? It seems like the only people who are on MySpace all day long are desperate men searching for busty women to add to their friends list. Poor Dylan never had a chance.
By the way, the AP story’s dateline reads: CYBERSPACE. I feel it’s only a matter of time before datelines read: THE DARKEST POCKET OF THE UNIVERSE.
•Possible Myspace suicide probed
•Soldier found dead after apparent suicide
Liz | 10:00 AM | Uncategorized
Um, hero of the day: Yakov Smirnoff
After you bust your ass being a Cold War paragon of cultural humor, it’s time to get serious and help others. After all those years of making us laugh—and heartily!—the comedian will now make us cry, on purpose, maybe while we’re prone on his couch.
Today Smirnoff graduates from University of Pennsylvania with an M.S. in psychology, which he’s planning to use to promote an “Age of Enlaughterment”—and no, I am totally not making that up.
In Graduate School Of Psychology, Tests Psychoanalyze You! [Philadelphia Will Do]
Liz | 3:11 PM | Uncategorized
Guantanamo: Sexual and religious torture, but then pizza!
Jumah al-Dossari, 33, has been a Guantanamo Bay prisoner for four years—though he hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists and/or hanging himself 12 times; he accounts for a third of the suicide attempts at Guantanamo. He alleges he’s been grievously abused and mistreated, and Amnesty International has highlighted his case.
Authorities say he has opporuties to interact despite his maximum-security isolation. From the Independent (U.K.):
[Authorities] even claim he can “interact with one or more interrogators in various ways, including eating Western food such as hamburger and pizza.”
Oh, well then. That’s a different story. Maybe if they just throw in some apple pie, he’ll stop trying to hang himself.
Guantanamo Bay prisoner ‘tried to commit suicide a dozen times’
Liz | 2:39 PM | Uncategorized
Traduccion dificil
Southern Oregon University is offering a new seminar for health and human service professionals —which includes a trip to Guanajuato, Mexico—to address the question of Hispanic mental health care concerns. Officials in Oregon have seen Latino clients misdiagnosed with mental illness simply because their behavior was unfamiliar to Anglos.
Mental health specialist Alejandra Moreno told the Mali Tribune: “The same disorder might look different in a Hispanic person than in an Anglo because of our different mourning traditions or practices of disciplining our children.”
The seminar should close that gap somewhat. Can I go too?
Mental health care: lost in translation?
Liz | 1:00 PM | Uncategorized
