Author: bripike

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Last night I finished reading the latest pick of the faculty book club that I belong to a school. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was a very interesting book and I learned a lot about the medical industry that I did not know.

The book is about the story of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells became famous. Henrietta’s cells (HeLa cells) are used all over the world in medical research. Research done using her cells created the vaccine for polio and her cells have been used in research for cancer and AIDS. The books is crafted in a way that shows the separate stories of Henrietta and her cells and how those stories eventually converge and the havoc that it wreaks on her surviving relatives.

The book was written by Rebecca Skloot, who incidentally was at AWP this past weekend, and she began when she was just a student. She became interested in HeLa cells and how no one seemed to know anything about the woman from which these cells came from. Skloot’s research is dense and complicated but she does a good job of breaking the science down, making it accessible to a wide audience.

However, it is the personal narrative that Skloot constructs that will draw you into the book right away. It is a heartbreaking narrative that raises important questions about privacy, morality, poverty, education and health care. I think it is important book for people to read not only because Henrietta and her family deserve to have their story told, but also because people need to be aware of what the current laws are regarding human tissue. As Skloot says in her afterword, “When I tell people the story of Henrietta Lacks and her cells, their first question is usually Wasn’t it illegal for doctors to take Henrietta’s cells without her knowledge? Don’t doctors have to tell you when they use your cells in research? The answer is no–not in 1951, and not in 2009 when this book went to press.”

All books are meant to educate the audience in some way shape or form. This book opened my eyes to a lot of different issues occurring in the medical community and I think we owe it to Henrietta and all people like her to listen to her story.

Rebecca Skloot set up a scholarship fund for descendents of Henrietta Lacks. Donations can be made at www.HenriettaLacksFoundation.org.

Image of stained HeLa cells courtesy GE Healthcare (by way of Henrietta Lacks) via CC  
On May 29, 2010, there was finally a headstone erected at Henrietta’s gravesite. 
Henrietta and Day Lacks, circa1945. Courtesy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

AWP Aftermath

Last Wednesday I boarded the Megabus in Indy with a couple dozen other writers from Ohio, Illinois and Indiana and trekked off to Chicago for AWP. What is AWP? Association for Writers and Writing Programs is what the acronym stands for and every year they hold an annual conference where writers of all kinds descend on a city for a few days. This year was the biggest AWP yet with 10,000 plus participants crowding into downtown Chicago for a few days of literary bootcamp.

I don’t use the term bootcamp lightly. AWP is a marathon of panels, readings and networking. I’ve gone the past three years (Chicago, D.C. and back to Chicago) and I always enjoy myself but I also feel at the end like I could sleep for two days straight. It is a lot to take in in short period of time.

This year I had the good fortune of being a panel with three other writers who I meant at the Two Year College Caucus meeting last year. The title of our panel was “Reconsidering/Recreating the Workshop in the Online Environment.” My particular part of the presentation focused on blogs and how they can encourage collaboration and communication in an online class, which can in turn improve group dynamics which can make for better workshops later on down the road. I think our panel went well and that we had a pretty good turn out considering they scheduled us for 10:30 AM the first day of the conference. They also put us in the Grand Ballroom at the Palmer House, so I felt very small (literally) when I got up to speak at the podium but I am grateful for the experience.

I went to two great readings while I was in Chicago. One was celebrating Carnegie Mellon Press’s 40th Birthday and Nicky Beer was among the group of poets reading. Her book, “The Diminishing House” is one of my favorites and I had the privilege of working with her while I was getting my MFA at Murray. I also went to a reading about apocalyptic literature and listened to Nicky’s husband, and my former mentor, Brian Barker, read from his book “Black Ocean.” These two readings were by far some the best events I attended during the week.

Honestly, my favorite part about AWP is getting to see friends that I don’t normally get to see. It’s fun to walk through the crowd and see a familiar face. I find that just as inspiring as any panel that I could attend.

As a final note, the bookfair was crazy as per usual. I know next year, in Boston, they are going to have it in a convention center so it won’t be so confusing to navigate but I don’t think it’s the layout that makes the bookfair daunting. I feel like the fair is just sensory overload. There are hundreds of journals and small presses doing really wonderful things with their publications and they all want to tell you about it. That can be a tad overwhelming after you’ve walked around for an hour and not even seen a quarter of what the fair has to offer. That being said, I meant some neat people this year and picked up some interesting journals to read.

I came home from AWP exhausted and carrying a stack of books, which means it was a good conference. Till next year…

Consider the Lobster

I like good food and I had some fantastic food last Tuesday for dinner. RJ and I decided that for Valentine’s Day we would cook dinner, so when a deal came up from Goose The Market, we were sold. Goose The Market is a local gourmet grocery store here in Indy and it is awesome.

Inside of Goose the Market. Photo courtesy of The Butler Collegian

If you have not visited Goose it is located at 2503 N. Delaware Street. You should go and eat lunch there (get the Batali sandwich) and then you should eat some of their made from scratch gelato. You can also check out the Enoteca and drink some wine while enjoying some delicious snacks.

Enoteca. Photo courtesy of Goose The Market.

Anyway. Back to our dinner. The deal that Goose was running was $75 for

  • Fischer Farms dry-aged 16oz boneless ribeye
  • 1 whole live lobster  (1.5 – 2 lbs each) ready for the pot
  • 2 servings housemade orange zest & cardamom bread pudding ready to heat & serve
  • 1 bottle Cercius Cotes du Rhone Villages 2010 (85% Grenache, 15% Syrah; 93 pts, Robert Parker)

RJ went and picked the food up from Goose and in the process apparently formed some sort of bond with the lobster who was shuffling around, alive, in a plastic bag in the back of his car. He named him Pete.

Pete

 Now I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the essay by David Foster Wallace entitled Consider the Lobster, but both RJ and I have read it and it raised some brief concerns about dumping poor old Pete into a vat of boiling water. However, our reservations were short lived and we were hungry, so Pete went into the pot.

Pete. Cooked. 

During the cooking process, I uncorked the wine. It was really good wine, evidenced by the fact that we drank the entire bottle.

Delicious.

Finally our dinner was ready and it was worth the wait. I would personally like to thank Goose The Market for supplying one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

Hifi Hilarity Guest Post

This post comes from my sister over at HiFi Hilarity. Check out her blog for my guest post and overall blogging goodness. Enjoy!

My sister, for some reason, has been operating under the idea that I am somehow cooler than her since we were children. I am well aware that I am cooler than most people (with an ego expanding more rapidly than the universe, apparently) but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m cooler than Bri. She’s older, and therefore most experienced in the ways of adulthood than I am, and subsequently less likely to have a psychotic episode when faced with the task of purchasing a mattress. She’s also a poet, which is a far cooler occupation than 99% of the population has, myself included. She’s a go-getter, an ass-kicker, and braver than the average grizzly bear. That last part may have been a little bit of an exaggeration, but she’s been braver than the average adult since we were children.
A notable example of her fearlessness would be the failed “camping” excursion of 1993ish.* My father, being the do-it-yourself-er that every man’s man wishes he was, had built a playhouse for us. This was not just an ordinary playhouse. however: it was a veritable fortress of fun and adventure, complete with a swing set and metal slide guaranteed to give you third degree burns on a hot July day. It also came with a tree house, lofted off the ground and only accessible via ladder. One summer day, my daring sister had the idea that we should “camp out” in the tree house. I’m quoting “camp out” because this clearly would not be the kind of camping real outdoorsy folks do: this is the kind of camping weenies do when they want to sleep outside but be comfortably close to hot water and cable. Our preparations would have made Suvivorman jealous: we loaded up with our sleeping bags, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the requisite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hauled into the tree house for a night of adventure and intrigue.
I have mentioned before that my sister is an adept teller of stories (her occupation suits her well) and she, at the time, also had a knack for terrorizing her younger and dumber sister. After about 10 minutes, she started in on a cheesy scary story to test my fortitude. I persevered, having survived scary story telling before, and we were proud of our bravery. What I had underestimated was the power and vastness of the western Pennsylvania woods at night time. My parents had set up our homestead on an expanse of property surrounded not by neighbors, but trees. Foxes and deer were about as common as Labradoodles, and a lot scarier to a 6 and 11 year old. As we sat in our tree house, with nothing but the dark and the power of suggestion to keep us company, the sounds from the woods would begin to overwhelm our tiny ears and render our brains completely incapable of rational thought.
“Did you hear that? What was that? Who is that?” I would ask, huddled in my sleeping bag like a frightened burrito.
“It’s probably just a deer.”
“Bigfoot?”
“A deer.”
“Mike Meyers?”
My sister, despite her inherent childhood instinct to pick on her little sister, was a good sport and tried her best to reassure me that a serial killer was not waiting in the woods to stab me in the face. But after a few more screeches from the barn owls (which sound like banshees to untrained children ears) and few more snapping twigs, I couldn’t take it anymore and bolted back to the house, banging on the unlocked door for my parents to save me from whatever it was that wanted to eat me. My sister followed behind me, disappointed that I had chickened out, but damned if she would be sleeping in that tree house alone. She forgave me for being a weenie, but my father still pokes fun at the fact that his spawn couldn’t even go fake camping.
So, dearest sibbie, you may think that I’m cooler (and I am pretty awesome), but I still think you are the badass of the two of us. The Badass Poet. That should be your new blog name.
* The early 90s are a blur to me, probably because I was 4 in 1990.

How I Discovered I Like 5k’s…

I’ve never been a runner. When I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, my dad decided to enter in an all comers meet that the track team hosted for community athletes. My father has always been an athlete. He’s done marathons, bike rices, canoeing, cross country skiing and some combinations of those activities. When he decided to enter the local all comers meet, I went along with him to watch and see just how badly he was going to kick everyone else’s ass. The day of the meet was miserable. It was rainy and cold and I spent most of my time running between the timing tent and the concession stand where they were selling hot chocolate. My dad eventually ran his race. I don’t remember what race it was but I do remember that he beat the high school track star who was none to happy to be shown up by a 40 some year old dude. It was awesome. What was not so awesome was as a result of my father’s kick ass run, the track coach, Dennis, decided that it was his duty to stalk me for my entire high school career. He figured that since my father was a runner, I must be a runner. He finally gave up when I joined the swim team but I could tell he was disappointed.

Flash forward fifteen plus years and I’m deciding that I need to get into better shape. I’ve heard about this program called “Couch to 5k” and while I have no desire to run a marathon, I think that as a fairly healthy 30 year old, I should be able to run 3 miles. I didn’t care about my form or how fast I was. I just wanted to run a 5k and see how it went. I spent the entire summer working through the Couch to 5k program and eventually I made it to the run for 30 mins mark. I was slow, but I didn’t care. I entered my first 5k on Halloween 2011 and I ran the entire race. Since then I have run four 5k’s:

Legacy 5k, Run Like  Hell, Drumstick Dash & The Jingle Bell Run.

I like running races with themes and I have discovered that I like running with groups of people. It’s fun and motivating. I also love it when people dress up and have fun while exercising. I mean what’s cooler than running a race beside a zombie? Or a guy dressed up like  giant Christmas present? Or a bunch of teenagers dressed as turkeys? I still don’t really have a desire to run a long race but I’ve signed up for my 5th 5k on Feb. 25 🙂