Soap-frigging-box

My hamstrings have been in a murderous rage for days now.

Days.

And everyday I wake up thinking that they'll be better.

And every day I wake up to find that they want to kill me.

I started wondering if perhaps they did try to kill me and the reason they hurt so badly has to do more with the imagined nightly massacre than anything I could possible so during my waking hours.

Of course that's exactly what's going on. 

Uh-hunh. 

Le sigh.

Boot camp has, once again, kicked my ass. 

hamstrings.

This murderous rage has taken my brain to new levels of soap-boxiness. 

Just ask anyone in my policy class...

Monday my professor asked me to tell the class about how this one town I used to do some work in is based on one's position in a coal company; the higher you are in the company, the higher you live on the mountain. This entire town is between the river (in the valley) and the railroad tracks. As in, ten feet out the front door there is a road and then the river (which the EPA said no one should fish from because of mine drainage, but everyone did), ten feet out the back door are four sets of railroad tracks- which are always busy- and ten feet on either side is the neighbor's house. Not yard. House.

So I'm telling the class about how when I met this one family, they had a toilet (which was tied in to the county line  by an EPA mandate to clean up the river in the late 1990's (it used to run directly into the river)) and a bathtub in their house. The tub emptied under the house. As in, I looked down the drain at the dirt a few feet under the house. The family washed their dishes, clothes, themselves and everything else in the tub. All of their water came from the tub. 

These are taxpaying American citizens with jobs.

And next to no access to health care (which is how it came up in class- is health care a right?).

And I think I started crying somewhere around the memory of looking down the drain, realizing that countless other people in this town lived the same way.

Crying.

Who does that?!

SOAP- FRIGGING- BOX.

Oh my.

(The happy ending to this story is that an awesome volunteer put a kitchen sink in the home. He also tied the bathtub into the black water line so the threat of creepy-crawlies crawling into the house went out with the bathwater.

I will love him forever for that.)

Which begs the question: is health a right?

What about health care?

I know I treasure my health.

I love the dichotomy of working for a company that promotes a healthy lifestyle while being trained in a hospital where I see acutely ill people. I see how the choices we make everyday have a direct effect on health.

Did you know that in Bhutan there is a happiness index?

Supposedly, during his wedding, the king of Bhutan asked a visiting reporter if he was having a good time- and if he was happy. 

The reporter was shocked.

In my policy class, we talk a lot about what people need versus what people deserve.

I need my hamstrings to stop screaming at me every time I move.

I deserve is a kick in the ass for crying about it.