Happy Belated Birthday, Affordable Care Act!

I realize I’m a bit behind, but the Affordable Care Act (ACA) recently turned three years old in the U.S., and I feel the need to write a post on it.

Because of the ACA, I don’t have to wear these braces on my arms all the time, and I can type as much as I need to!

Three years! Legislation that, for some reason, seemed so tenuous even just a year ago, has been implemented for three years! That is quite an accomplishment, not only for the Obama administration, but for people all over the U.S. We still have a long way to go, of course. For instance, some of our governors are still dragging their feet about expanding Medicaid access and though the ACA significantly expands coverage and the availability of health insurance, it still does not ensure universal coverage for everyone. However, as a speaker at a conference I attended a few weeks ago said, the ACA changes our dialogue around healthcare. Instead of bickering about whether or not we should provide it in the first place, it’s going to make us consider how we’re going to get coverage to people. It may, she suggested, prompt individual states to institute universal coverage, much like Massachusetts currently has, and so we in the U.S. may get universal coverage someday. And that dream seems nearer and more achievable because of the ACA. I sincerely hope she was right.

For the time being, though, the ACA is still something of a controversial subject. Even though the Supreme Court has declared it constitutional and it doesn’t seem like it will be going away anytime soon, mention of the Act will get you derisive snorts and an eye roll from a lot of people, often people who will be helped by this legislation. And there are still lawmakers in Congress who are attempting to cut off funding for the Act, since they weren’t able to kill it in the courts.

So, I wanted to write about how the ACA has impacted me. Because if it weren’t for the ACA, I wouldn’t have healthcare coverage, and for the first time in my life, I desperately need to be able to see a doctor on a regular basis. Just this past summer, I graduated. Without the ACA, I would have been unable to remain on my parents’ health insurance plan. I would have been unable to see a doctor about my carpal tunnel. I would have been unable to see a doctor about my ulnar nerve problem. I’ve started developing other health problems that require medical attention, and without the ACA, I wouldn’t be able to have that care. Not only would I not have access to care, my conditions wouldn’t be treated. I wouldn’t be able to write or work. I wouldn’t be able to be a productive member of society. By investing in everyone’s healthcare through the ACA, we ensure that people can be healthy enough to go to work and contribute to our economy and society. When everyone is physically able to give back to the system, we all benefit.

I know a lot of people who don’t see the ACA that way. And these people aren’t figures on FOX News or talk radio. These people are my friends. They’re my family members. They’re people that have known me for years, and I care about them deeply, and I know that they care about me. So, to my friends and family who oppose the ACA–people that I know and love–every time you complain about “socialized medicine” or “government interference,” essentially, what you are saying is that you want me and people like me to live a life of pain. You are telling me that you want me to have to give up being able to do the things that I love and the things that I need to do to work. You are telling me that I don’t deserve to see a doctor. You are telling me that you want me to I have immobile hands and fingers and an arm too weak to perform even the simplest tasks.

I know you probably don’t see it that way. I know that you probably think of your arguments in abstract terms. But you know what? The ACA affects real people. I am one of those people. I am able to live a healthier life because of the ACA. Because of the ACA, I don’t have to be in pain everyday. And there are millions of people out there who are suffering worse than I am. There are people out there to whom my suffering is like a paper cut, and you know what? Because of the ACA, those people can do to the doctor or the hospital. They can get the care that they need. They can have conditions treated before they become chronic. They can go back to work and resume their normal lives. The woman in remission from cancer was able to switch her coverage when she changed jobs, because the ACA says that she can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. The man whose old sports injury has come back as osteoarthritis in middle age? He can have coverage too, even if his job doesn’t offer it. The woman who just a year ago suffered such crippling depression that she couldn’t attend her kids’ birthday party? Now she can afford her medication! The ACA is about giving real people necessary healthcare. It’s about taking care of everyone, so that we all benefit. It’s about letting people have a higher standard of living and quality of life. It’s about telling people that they are worth enough that they don’t have to live everyday sick and in pain.

So the next time you complain about the Affordable Care Act, you look me in the eyes and tell me to my face that you think I should live everyday in pain. Me–a person you know and love and who knows and loves you. Could you do that? Could you honestly tell me that you want me to spend my days in pain and unable to work or do the things that I love? Because I sure as hell could never do that to you. In fact, if I knew that you were in pain, I would fight with everything I had to ensure that you didn’t have to be.

The Affordable Care Act has changed my life. It’s about real people, and I am one of those people. It’s allowed real people to have a quality of life they never could have had before.  It’s saved the lives of real people.

Minor Differences in College Life versus Post-Graduate Life

I’m currently working on a post that’s actually substantial, but in the meantime….Lately I’ve been noticing that there are certain things that used to be a normal part of my life in college that are almost completely absent from my life after graduation. Conversely, there are things in my post-graduate life that were never part of my life in college. I’m not talking about big things. Obviously, I don’t go to class every day anymore and I didn’t get a paycheck at the end of every month in college. No, I’m talking about little things like:

1.) YouTube. When I was in school, I spent so much time on YouTube. It was a convenient means of wasting time when I should have been working on papers. Now, the time that I spend tethered to a computer is in an office, where my co-workers and boss could see and hear what I was doing if I started watching videos every half hour. So, I’m really not on YouTube very much anymore, and I’m completely clueless about this whole Harlem Shake phenomenon. (It makes me feel old.)

2.) Walking. I’m willing to bet that I still walk more than the average American since I don’t have my own car. However, when I was a student, walking was built into my day. The longest amount of time I’d spend sitting would be in four-hour seminars, but after the seminar was over, I’d have to stand up and walk home or to the library or to my next class. Now, I spend eight hour days sitting at a desk and I don’t have an excuse to get up and walk around regularly. It’s tough to get used to and my back doesn’t like it much. (And we wonder why Americans have so many health problems.)

3.) Conversations about old-people things. Yesterday, I had a chat with my dad about what exactly a 401(3)b–the non-profit version of a 401(k)–is, under what circumstances you can tap into it, why you need alternative savings as well, and what happens to it if you lose or change your job. I’m very grateful that I have parents who are willing to explain this stuff to me and give me financial advice, but retirement was an issue that never, ever crossed my mind when I was in college.

4.) Feeling dumb. Occasionally I’ll see something on a blog or in the news and it will call up vague memories of something I learned in school that I just can’t remember anymore. Just today I was reading a book on politics that briefly referenced the sociologist Marcuse. I can recall a time when I read some of Marcuse’s work and feverishly crammed notes about him for a test, but for the life of me, I can’t tell you anymore who he was or why he’s important. (I can, however, describe in great detail the couch I was sitting on while doing the cramming. It’s odd what the brain remembers and forgets.) When these instances come up, I feel really dumb–like I should know something that I’ve forgotten. (I also wonder why knowing it at the time seemed so incredibly important, and if it really was so important, why don’t I remember it now?)

5.) New priorities. Of course, learning doesn’t stop just because someone is no longer in school. I now know tons of things about grant writing, fundraising, types of nonprofit designations and what they mean, how to create a social media campaign, and the weird and confusing world of government contracts and subcontracts. These are all things no one ever taught me in school, but they’re things I’ve either picked up interning in the nonprofit world or had to go out and learn myself. So, maybe it’s not that I’m dumb, but the topics I’m interested in learning and my priorities about what I’m learning have definitely changed.

Obviously, when I graduated and entered “the real world” I expected a lot of things to change. These are just some of the minor changes that I either hadn’t expected or hadn’t really thought about until now. It’s strange to think that I’ve been out of school for almost a year now, but in many ways, I’m still thinking of myself in relation to college. Being a student has consumed my identity for most of my life, and while I’d say I’m doing fairly well outside of academia, it’s like that identity hasn’t fully updated yet.

The Big Phallus Theory: The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Culture, and Women

(While I tried to avoid them, you may find some SPOILERS for The Big Bang Theory in this post.)

 

One of my favorite sitcoms is The Big Bang Theory. While the show is not always strong on plot and rarely portrays life in academia accurately, its likeable characters and nearly unending stream of insider gags for nerds make it an entertaining means of spending half an hour. I love Leonard, the everyman. I enjoy Sheldon’s elevated dialogue. And I can both sympathize with and laugh at Howard and Raj’s awkwardness. I also appreciate that it features a smart, sensible heroine, Penny, who isn’t afraid to assert herself and can talk back to the guys.

What I can’t stand is that, like most of nerd culture and the wider culture, the show often reeks of sexism. Some of it, like Howard’s frequent lewd comments that reduce women to sex objects, I can ignore. Indeed, if I restricted myself only to popular culture that presents women as nothing less than fully realized human beings, I’d probably never be able to watch another movie or television show again. I’ve become so used to explicit sexism, in the form of derogatory comments about women, in my media diet that, I confess, I often recognize it and then choose to ignore it. It’s one of the patriarchal bargains I make as a feminist and a woman living in a culture that recognizes my gender’s worth only in so far as it meets certain standards of sexiness, attractiveness, and compliance. What does bother me about the show that I haven’t been able to ignore so easily is the implicit sexism in the lack of female nerd characters.

Seriously, where are the women nerds? I see them everywhere in real life. They attend conventions, they go to the movies, they cosplay, they talk about Star Wars and Star Trek  and play Skyrim and Dungeons & Dragons. They consist of the majority of people that I know and I’d say nearly all of my female friends are nerds. I know women who can code websites, quote Lord of the Rings, act out scenes from Doctor Who, recite the noble gases and their atomic weights, and kick your ass in Call of Duty. Why are these women not represented, or even acknowledged, in The Big Bang Theory? I’m not even asking why they aren’t main characters–though a show about four female nerdy friends would be awesome and so much more entertaining than Sex and the City–so much as I’m wondering why, in the show’s universe, they don’t even seem to exist.

Well, one might point out, what about Amy and Bernadette? Perhaps, in the strictest sense of the term “nerd,” someone who is brilliantly smart and obsessives over even the tiniest minutiae of something, Amy and Bernadette are nerds. They’re both smart, they’re both biologists, and they both have Ph.D.s. To give credit where credit is due, just a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable to have not one, but two women characters in the S.T.E.M. fields on a television show. However, Amy and Bernadette are still ultimately defined in the show by their relationships with their male significant others. They are judged, and often found wanting, by their ability or inability to meet cultural standards of attractiveness, and they do no participate in what has come to be the domains of nerd culture–things like comic books, science fiction shows and movies, and video games. There are no women regularly featured in the show who enjoy these pursuits, even though such women exist in real life.

In real life, however, nerd culture often has just as much, if not more, of a problem with sexism than The Big Bang Theory does. While The Big Bang Theory ignores nerd women and pretends that they don’t exist, real life nerd culture can be downright hostile toward women attempting to claim the identity of “nerd.”  Whether its people accusing women of only pretending to be nerds in order to hook up with guys or creating the “Idiot Nerd Girl” meme that I’ve attempted to reclaim in this post, a lot of guys seem to want women out of their conventions, their role playing games, and their Internet spaces. But why? The most obvious answer is sexism, but it would be too simple to leave it at that, so I’m going to dig a little deeper.

Though the cultural perception of nerds is changing, it is still largely a negative one, as evidenced by the male main characters on The Big Bang Theory. All of them, in some way, have failed to live up to to our culture’s unrealistic and burdensome ideals of masculinity. None of them are physically strong. Neither are they particularly attractive. They know little of sports. They aren’t charismatic or suave or charming. They aren’t physically or emotionally tough. They prefer the comforts of their apartments to the outdoors. Nerdy men are, as the show and the wider culture seem to suggest, not masculine. The show has frequently paired short, wimpy Leonard with Penny’s tall, dark and handsome beaus to make this point. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj could often be better described as “feminine” than masculine. There is, however, one group that is lower than nerds on the social hierarchy: women. Whatever male nerds are, they are still more masculine (and thus higher on the hierarchy of patriarchal culture) than women. But when women start entering nerd spaces–and demanding an equal right to be there and be recognized as nerds–they challenge the modicum of masculinity that nerd culture has been able to salvage for itself. They also challenge the perception of women, within both nerd culture and the wider culture, as nothing more than accessories that convey masculinity, and thus worth, on a man. (Think about how, when Howard was first dating Bernadette, he worried that she wasn’t good-looking enough. An attractive girl conveys to society that there is something “manly” or “masculine” about the man she is dating, thus increasing his worth in the eyes of patriarchal culture.)

I think there is a place for women in nerd culture, and I’m sure that women will continue to attend cons, play video games, and go to special screenings of Star Wars. Just as women have fought, and are still fighting, for their right to inhabit the biology labs and physics departments where Bernadette and Amy have managed to reside, I suspect that women will continue to exist in nerd spaces and gradually gain acceptance there. I also suspect that, as nerd culture continues to grow within the mainstream, the stereotype of nerd men as less than masculine will diminish.

However, just because the stereotype of nerds as feminine may disappear does not mean that sexism within nerd culture will necessarily end. Though I would be very glad to see our culture expand its definitions of masculinity beyond its currently narrow confines, I suspect that this will do very little to challenge the standards of beauty to which women, even nerdy women, are held, both inside and outside of nerd culture. Maleness, I still sadly suspect, will still be privileged within nerd culture, in part because nerd culture is inherently exclusionary. To be a nerd, it helps to be male. It also helps to be white, cisgender, and educated. I suspect being able-bodied helps too, though I have seen a broader spectrum of ability represented in nerd culture than I have in mainstream culture. It is required that one be at least middle class, as I doubt the working class has the time and money that are necessary to indulge in nerdy pursuits. Gaming systems can be incredibly expensive, as are books, DVDs, and high-speed Internet connections. One must also have the leisure time to master the games and fantasy worlds present in nerd media. Sadly, in many ways, nerds are often primarily defined by what they consume.

I would like to think that nerd culture is smart enough to look at its own privilege and try to include a wider range of people. After all, many of us nerds define ourselves by our inability to fit in, our difference from mainstream society, and our stories of bullying and rejection. Perhaps we could use those experiences to sympathize with those whom society bullies and rejects. Until more nerds are willing to make this effort and look beyond their own privilege, however, I suspect that nerd culture will largely remain another old boys club.

A Tip About Doctor Visits

Since I sporadically blog about my health, I’m going to write about seeing a new doctor today. It went pretty well. The woman was friendly and personable and listened to my descriptions of my symptoms and the history of what I’ve been diagnosed with so far and what treatments I’ve tried. She never said “Oh, but you’re too young to have this!” And she didn’t give me any unhelpful suggestions like, “Have you just tried to stop writing?” She didn’t have any immediate answers for me, but I did have some tests done and I got some referrals. I left feeling like I’m being proactive about my health, which in and of itself sort of makes me feel better. I hate just lying around and hoping things will suddenly get better on their own, when I’ve been doing that for a year and so far it’s just made me feel useless.

I did, however, try something new with this doctor. Before I went to the appointment, I made an outline of my recent medical problems with my hands and arms. I listed approximate dates of symptoms, previous doctors I’d seen, diagnoses I’d been given, and remedies I’ve tried. I found that it was a lot easier to just hand the doctor the list I’d typed up than attempt to explain to her what I’d been going through, what I’d already tried, and what symptoms I was having. I think it helped because, previously, when I’d tried to explain what was going on to doctors in the moment, I often found myself not knowing what to say. I find doctors sort of intimidating, which I know is ridiculous because doctors are just as fallible as anyone else, but I often feel like I’m taking their valuable time away from other patients. I’m not dying. I’m not suffering from a terminal illness–at least, I doubt that I am. I often feel almost like I don’t deserve to be there when there are so many people with more serious health problems and a more immediate need for care. (This was especially true this summer when I was seeing a doctor whose office was located in a hospital. One day, on my way to an appointment, I was on my way to the doctor’s office and I found myself behind a woman who appeared to have undergone surgery on her legs. She was struggling just to walk down the hall, even with the aid of a walker and a therapist by her side. I knew, logically, that by seeing a hand doctor located in the same hospital, I wasn’t taking anything away from her, but after watching someone just struggling to walk a few feet, my own problems felt sort of insignificant. This is an issue because, when I got to the appointment, I downplayed how much my arms were bothering and making activities like typing or driving difficult. I wasn’t honest with the doctor about just how much discomfort I was in, so he assumed I was improving more than I was.)

Anyway, by sitting down to make a list, I was able to remove myself from the intimidating environment of a physician’s office and focus on my health problems without comparing them to anyone else’s. Making the list also helped me focus on the most important things I wanted the doctor to know. So many times, I’ve left an appointment thinking, “If only I would have remembered to mention this or that!” Well, today, because I had a paper with all of the most relevant, most important things that I wanted the doctor to know, I didn’t have that problem. It also made the conversation that I did have with the doctor more focused. Instead of starting out by describing my problem to her, I was able to quickly bring her up to speed on everything I’d already tried or had done. The timeline gave her a quick overview of the basics like when my symptoms started and how long I’d had them, so she was able to ask me more detailed questions about what treatments I’d tried. Overall, I left feeling like someone had actually listened to me and that I’d adequately expressed myself. And, because the doctor had an accurate idea of what I’m experiencing, she was able to put together some potential plans for treatment.

So, the moral of this story: if you have complicated health issues or have trouble talking to doctors, try writing down your symptoms and history before the appointment. I suspect things will go much more smoothly.

Uncanny Clowns for Fallen Angels: Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich’s The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1

(Because I’d rather be safe than sorry with TRIGGER WARNINGS, this post contains a brief mention of suicide and some discussion of intimate partner violence. Also, while I tried to keep them to a minimum, there are some SPOILERS for The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1.)

Yesterday, as a present to their loyal sinners (aka fans), Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich released a trailer for their second episode of The Devil’s Carnival, an independent film series based around devilishly delicious retellings of Aesop’s fables that inverts our common conceptions of Hell and Heaven.

You probably already know of Darren Lynn Bousman—he’s a director of the popular Saw franchise. Terrance Zdunich has done a little bit of everything, not limited to illustrating, writing, and acting. The two previously worked together on a rock opera, Repo!: The Genetic Opera, an excellent movie that didn’t receive nearly as much publicity as it deserves but that has found a cult following, anyway. (Seriously, Repo! is my favorite movie. I can probably recite the entire thing: Erherm. “The not-too-distance future. An epidemic of organ failures… Chaos! Out of the tragedy…”—Wait! I’m writing a blog post. Sorry.) This past year, to the delight of fans like myself, Bousman and Zdunich released their second collaboration, The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1, which they publicized themselves by doing a road tour of the movie, shown in small theaters across the country. At the Q & A with Bousman and Zdunich in my city, they said that they wanted to make going to the movies fun again. They certainly did. The event featured not only the movie but also local performing acts, audience participation, and a costume contest. (And, you know, a chance to meet and shake hands with Bousman and Zdunich themselves! In person! A friend and I left the theater squee-ing. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones.) The experience was not unlike going to a shadowcast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, except for the fact that Repo! and The Devil’s Carnival are genuinely good movies that can be enjoyed in a non-ironic way.

Of course, when I say that The Devil’s Carnival is a good movie, I think it’s a good movie that requires a certain peculiar disposition. It’s for the freaks, the geeks, the weird, and the imperfect. (Or, at least, those who proudly self-identify as any one of those things.) I’ve seen the film classified as horror, but I don’t know if I would call it that, exactly. It’s macabre. It’s dark. There’s blood. And suicide. It’s creepy. It’s morbid. It’s uncanny. It’s a little confusing. And there’s singing. Lots of singing. But it’s not the upbeat, catchy singing of popular musicals. It’s completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and with Hollywood recycling the same old franchises and plot lines in order to create blockbusters, the sheer novelty of The Devil’s Carnival can be, in itself, arresting. I find it disarming. The eeriness of the film followed me for a long time after I’d left the theater. What I mean is, this is a movie that, like Repo!,  challenges its audience to think, to mull over the story. It unsettles more than it satisfies, partly because it is the first in a series and so must leave its viewers wanting more. But its different-ness, its newness also demands contemplation. It turns familiar conventions on their heads and mashes together the whimsical and child-like with gore and the grotesque. Also, Lucifer, the devil, is the good guy. But he doesn’t exactly inspire the warm fuzzies that we tend to associate with “the good guys.” He’s harsh and he’s fair. I think he’s brilliant, but then, I’m a fan of devil-centric stories. Why? Because I’m a freak and a geek. I’m weird and I’m imperfect.

Despite its refreshing unusualness, The Devil’s Carnival is also very traditional. Its plotlines follow retellings of Aesop’s Fables, updated to apply to contemporary situations.  For all of its inversions, the film is essentially a morality tale. Don’t be greedy and selfish. Don’t trust others naively. Grieve, but then move on. I agree with these proverbs, but it’s the film’s portrayal of the second one that I find a bit unsettling, as the moral is applied to a teenager, Tamara, who, the audience is lead to believe, dies at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. On the one hand, the film could be read as blaming the victim—faulting Tamara for getting into a bad relationship in the first place, even though, at the start of the film, she appears to be trying to leave her abuser.

On the other hand, however, the film does treat the problem of intimate partner violence as serious, literally an issue of life and death, when it is too often dismissed not only by popular culture but also by policy makers. The Scorpion, Hell’s shadow of Tamara’s earthly amore, is not left blameless, though he also does not suffer nearly as much as Tamara does, at least not in the first episode of the series, anyway. The film also explores our culture’s perception of True Love, ultimately concluding that our ideals about love are just as dangerous and deceptive as they are sweet and coddling. I, personally, do believe that, to some extent, our culture’s perceptions of True Love probably contribute to the pressure that women feel to stay in abusive relationships, in addition to other social and psychological factors. Women are taught that we are not worthy unless we are loved, or appear to be loved, by someone else. We are also taught that a good and loving woman stands by her man, no matter what he does, even if he manipulates and hits her. We are taught that anything, even abuse, is worth True Love. None of this is true, of course, but it is perpetuated by our culture’s depictions of True Love. By challenging the concept of True Love, the film does, at least to some extent, grapple with a cultural element of intimate partner violence.

Ultimately, while the three human main characters, including Tamara, are punished for their flaws, at least part of the responsibility is thrown at the feet of God, who in the movie’s universe, is an unrealistic perfectionist, creating imperfect humans and then blaming them for their failings and barring them from Heaven. Were his creations always happy and care-free, the film suggests, God might approve of humans, but he can’t abide them as they are—flawed and surrounded by the troubles of the world. Lucifer, as the film portrays him, may be strict about his six hundred sixty-six rules, but at least he gives humans a chance to learn from their failings. He has “grace for cheap,” while Heaven offers nothing but indifference.

As I said, this is a film for the imperfect, for those who don’t fit in, and who have strange and macabre tastes in movies. In part, this cult appeal is due to the aesthetics of the movie, but I also think it has to do with the film’s depiction of Hell. In The Devil’s Carnival, Hell is for the flawed, the monstrous, and the imperfect. It’s a place where strange people—people who wouldn’t fit in Heaven and probably wouldn’t want to go there anyway—have a hope of finding their place. When I, dressed in a black corset, black gloves, and knee-high boots, went to the local showing of The Devil’s Carnival¸ I hardly stood out. There were people wearing all kinds of bizarre costumes and clothes, accented with outlandish make-up and multiple piercings and tattoos. We all looked awesome, but anywhere else, we would’ve looked freakish and probably received stares and disapproving looks. United by our love of Repo! and the work of Bousman and Zdunich, we fit right in with each other. Our difference became something to celebrate. What I like about The Devil’s Carnival, more than its delightful creepiness, is that, like a few other cult movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, it gives people like me a chance to get together and revel in our strangeness. Bousman and Zdunich didn’t just create a film—they’ve made an event, an experience, and a community of fans.

I have no predictions for the next episode in the series. I expect it will treat viewers to a more in-depth look at the universe that the first film established. I suspect there will be more fables. I’m quite sure that there will be more haunting songs. Whatever it brings, I’m very much looking forward to it.

Why We Want the World to End (Or Don’t)

(I’m not completely happy with this post, since I seem to be writing it from a very Western, very humanistic perspective. Usually I try to write in such a way as to challenge Western-centric views, and I ultimately tend to prefer Donna Haraway’s posthumanism to humanism. However, like the rest of the nation, I’m still reeling from the tragedy of the Sandy Hook shooting and I’m not really sure how to process it. So I’m falling back on old worldviews that I’ve been surrounded by all my life and that are Western-centric and humanist.)

December 21, 2012, has come and gone, and yet we and the world are still here. (For my fellow Whovians: the Doctor saved us! Again!) But why all the hype and build-up? Why are people so attracted to the idea of the end of the world?

A fascination with the apocalypse is nothing new, of course. Perhaps as long as there have been people, we’ve been contemplating our own demise. Many different religions have stories about the world ending or nearly ending or predicting the end of the world. We have movies about the end of civilization brought about by global warming or a zombie virus or another species. Why are we so fascinated with this stuff?

In some sense, I think it’s cathartic. When bad things happen, especially really, really bad things, I think a part of us believes that the world just can’t get better. This weekend, after being bombared by news of the tragic shooting in Sandy Hook, when I was searching for something to read, I didn’t reach for the comforting essays of David Sedaris or the wisdom of Greg Epstein or the motivation of Eve Ensler. No, I cracked open World War Z by Max Brooks, a faux historical account of the zombie apocalypse, set in our own near-future. It was a morbid mix of media—Sandy Hook on the television and a book of grisly zombie attacks in my lap. Yet the combination seemed fitting. The shooting and the book both spoke of the darker sides of humanity, the destructive parts of our nature, our callousness. It’s easy to look at all of the violence in the world, the poverty, the inequality, the injustices, and (worst of all) the indifference, and think that we really are, as a global society, devouring ourselves. Sometimes we seem like the snake that eats its own tail—we’re causing our own demise and yet we keep cannibalizing ourselves.

Of course, this is only one perspective. While Sandy Hook showed us humanity’s low points, it also showed us how noble and courageous we can be. There was the teacher who, after hiding her students in a closet, bravely defended them from the attacker at the cost of her life. There was another teacher who barricaded herself and her class in a bathroom until the police came. We can’t bring back the 26 people who died, but we are finally having serious, national conversations about gun control and about better care and access to care for the mentally ill and support for their caretakers. For every sensationalistic reporter who’s blamed mental illness for the shooting, I’ve heard at least two people point out that those suffering from mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than its prepetrators, so we’re also having conversations about the stigma surrounding mental illness. Yes, much of the talk surrounding the shooting is unproductive, but at the same time, we’re also bringing up topics that need to be discussed and dealt with.

And that is, ultimately, why the apocalyptic genre has never really appealed to me. Yes, it has its place. It warns us of our faults and failings and shows us the sides of ourselves that we’d rather not see. But it rarely goes beyond that. It cuts out all of the hard work that needs to be done to truly make this world a better place. It’s lazy. Why worry about greenhouse gases or pollution when we could all be raptured tomorrow? Why advocate for legislation that grants women and people of color and those in the LGBT community equality when the world could end in a week? Why promote a living wage or workers’ rights when the zombie virus is going to infect us any day now? If the aliens are coming next year, do we really need to worry about finding a cure for HIV/AIDS or preventing world hunger? If we are, as a species, inherently destructive, then why should we try to fight our nature and make the world a more equal and just place? Creating change is hard. Waiting for the world to end is easy. I think a part of us is so drawn to stories about the apocalypse simply because ending it all would be so much easier than working slowly and diligently, day by day, to fix what we’ve got.

Yet, every day, so many people are doing just that. From individual random acts of kindness to large-scale social movements, people all over the globe are working to make the world a better place. And change happens. It’s incrimental, of course. It’s not nearly as dramatic as the apocalypse. Instead of basking in the glory of being the lone survivor of the end of the world, it’s building networks and teams of people, putting aside our own desires for the good of those around us. It’s engaging in the daily drugery of community organizing or volunteering or taking the time to listen to a friend’s problems or even just being polite to someone when we’d rather snap at them. It often doesn’t feel like we’re making headway, but we are. Violent crime rates are actually dropping in the U.S., despite what we see on the news. We’ve found cures to diseases that once would’ve been deadly. The idea that women should have the right to the same educational and career opportunities as men was once unheard of. Gays and lesbians can now openly serve in the U.S. military. This is not to say that the world is perfect—far from it—but to point out that change does happen! Society can get better. It happens slowly, but it does happen. And it will continue to happen because of the dedication of ordinary people to doing what they can to improve the world.

At the beginning of this post, I made a little in-joke for other Doctor Who fans. For those not in the know, the Doctor is the humanoid main character from a British television series, Doctor Who, a story about time travel, space travel, and the better nature of humanity. I doubt that we will ever see zombies in Doctor Who. Yes, the show has featured antagonists that are zombie-like, but they tend to be comical and easily defeated. I don’t think that we will ever see the Doctor facing down an unstoppable zombie horde like the mass of Zacks in World War Z  because zombies simply cannot exist in the same universe that contains the Doctor.

Here’s what I mean: zombie stories, like other apocalyptic stories, rest on the assumption that humanity and this world that we’ve created for ourselves is ultimately ruined. Humanity is corrupt, we’ve devastated the world, and there’s nothing left to do but end it all. But there are other stories, stories like Doctor Who (and The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Star Wars and Star Trek and so many others from countless time periods and cultures), that believe in the better nature of humanity. These stories tell us that we are brave and strong and smart and that we can ultimately progress toward building a better world. They tell us that ordinary people can create change, that we can perservere and make the world a more equal and just place, and that over time, even the smallest gestures and efforts can build into something significant. Out of tragedy, they tell us, we can rally together and, through our hard work and better nature, we can create change. Even in the wake of something as terrible as a shooting at an elementary school, we can believe that people really are good. We can create a world that brings out the best in humanity and where troubled young people get the help that they need instead of resorting to violence and where everyone feels safe enough and supported by the social system that surrounds them so they don’t feel the need to own guns.

We can sit around and dismiss humanity and the world as not worth bettering. We can give and wait for an apocalypse to wipe us all out and do nothing. We can look at all of the problems in the world and say that there’s nothing we can do and nothing is worth fixing. Or we can say with the Doctor, “The human race just keeps on going—keeps on changing. Life will out!” But we have to act. We have to make that change happen. It isn’t easy, but it’s ultimately worth the work.

Because I Occasionally Blog about My Health Too…

I’ve previously written about having carpal tunnel. This summer, I did some physical therapy, and for a while, it seemed to help. And then it didn’t. I went from feeling sort of normal to again having tingling, numbness, and stiffness in my hands. So, my therapist sent me back to the doctor, and my new diagnosis is stretched ulnar nerves–a problem similar in symptoms to carpal tunnel, except it’s caused by the stretching of the ulnar nerve in the elbow, which runs along the funny bone. I had some more nerve conduction tests done, and according to the tests, there’s nothing wrong with me. Except I know that there is, because my arms feel weak and numb all of the time. I could have surgery, but my doctor doesn’t feel good about that option, because other than my descriptions of my symptoms, there’s nothing that actually proves that this is my problem.

So, at the suggestion of a co-worker, I’m taking malic acid and magnesium supplements. I’m not usually big on vitamins. A friend’s mother, a dietician, calls them “expensive pee” because most people don’t need them, so their bodies just end up flushing them. And I’ve always lumped vitamin supplements in with other woo-woo remedies that don’t have double blind, replicable studies done by professionals supporting them. But I’m kind of at the point where I don’t know what else to do.

At least this problem isn’t affecting my ability to work, but it would be really nice to have some extra strength in my arms once I get out of work so that I can do things like write my own stuff or take up some of my other hobbies again like making beaded jewelry or learn how to play the guitar or actually go out with people. Sigh… I know a lot of people have problems that are much, much more serious than mine. There are people with life-threatening illnesses that have no cure. There are people who don’t have health insurance and can’t even see doctors about their problems. (As much as I wish the Affordable Care Act were more comprehensive and had a public option, I am so grateful for being able to stay on my parents’ insurance until I’m twenty-six. I’m not sure what I would have done without it, because if it weren’t for the ACA, I wouldn’t be insured right now.) I know there are a lot of things right now about my life that could be worse,  but that doesn’t make this issue any less frustrating.

Some Silly Search Terms

I was looking at my site stats today and was quite amused by some of the search terms that have brought people to this blog. Some of the more ridiculous ones include:

1.) Impenetrable Pussies–Sounds like the title of a bad porno movie. Or an edgy, sex positive, radical feminist blog. But probably a bad porno.

2.) Homosocial Premise–Makes me think of a band name.

3.) Poststructuralism Fog–Also makes me think of a band name, possibly a band started by a group of English department professors.

4.) Jack Halberstam Sucks–No. No, she does not.

5.) Fog Stereotype–Also sounds like a band name

And, my favorite:

6.) Purple Jack Skellington Christmas Tree–I want one!

Seriously, though, it looks like most of the search terms that lead people here involve the name of a television show or pop culture icon with “critical theory” added to it. Either I’m attracting a lot of geeks like myself who want to read critical analyses of pop culture or a bunch of confused college freshmen. Either way, I’ll take it. 🙂

I Have a Job! …Sort Of…

The reason why I’ve been neglecting my promise to myself to blog regularly is because I have a job! …Sort of. I have an internship with a nonprofit, and it includes a stipend. (Unheard of in the nonprofit world!) I’ve been doing grant writing, which has kept me very busy. I’ve also still been job searching. I keep meaning to blog, and I’m still certainly writing on my own time, but I just haven’t gotten around to posting things.

Malls on My Mind

There’s something incredibly monstrous and yet incredibly soothing about strip malls.

There’s one Midwestern strip mall in particular that I like. Like many others, it’s quite a large strip mall–large enough to require its own street signs, and it’s located near other shopping plazas, making the entire area around it a sort of shrine to capitalism. In any one direction, looking out at the horizon, all a person can see are shops.

So it’s quite ironic that all of the times that I’ve been to this particular mall, I’ve had no money. The first time I was there was on a weekend during the summer. The mall was packed with people and I was overwhelmed with the size and architecture of the place. I’ve been to lots of strip malls. I’ve even been to strip malls larger than this particular one, but I’d never been to a strip mall built to resemble small-town America. Or, rather, built to resemble someone’s idea of small town America. In my four years as an undergraduate, I lived in small-town America, and it left me with a strong impression of just how poor people can really be and just how difficult getting a job with barely a high school education can be. In fact, I was living in that small town over the summer and making a small amount of money as a tutor at a program for international students. I’d gotten a year-round taste of just how poor small-town America can be. There was none of the opulence of this mall. None of the wealth. I was overcome with the crowds of people rushing in and out of stores and restaurants. All around me there were Things To Buy: Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Chanel, Gucci, Coach, Prada. I was also captivated by the ambiance. The stores were all designed to resemble old houses, the streets were lined with street lamps, and there was a mural of white people in Victorian dress riding a trolley. Red telephone boxes sat on the street corners between shops. There were speakers hidden in trees that played music! I felt like I was in a grown-up’s Disney World.

The second time I was at this mall, I was again a broke undergraduate. I was there briefly with a couple of friends when we stopped to pick up some dinner at the Cheesecake Factory nearby. We had come from a Renaissance Festival and were dressed in corsets, long skirts, and boots. We were dressing up in a dressed up town, playing pretend in a pretend town. We were a modern day idea of the Renaissance in a modern day idea of some nostalgic past between the Victorian era and the 1950s. At the time we attracted a lot of stares and strange looks, (a group of tourists was even trying to covertly take out picture) but looking back, we fit right in.

On my third and most recent trip to to this mall, I stopped on my way from a job fair in the area. The job fair had an air of desperation about it. I arrived half an hour early and already a crowd of people had formed around the convention center doors. Some people were wearing suits and ties. Others had on khaki and sneakers. Some had on a strange mix of both casual wear and business attire. I saw button-up shirts and vests mixed with jeans and tennis shoes. People clutched their resumes and carefully checked and double-checked their applications for cashier and food service jobs. Some of them couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. Others could have been my grandparents. No one smiled or chit-chatted. Instead, they scurried from booth to booth with their eyebrows furrowed and their jaws clenched. Everyone was there because they needed a job–any job!

As soon as I set foot in the mall, however, I felt the mixture of grim determination and despair fade away. There were Things to Buy. How bad could the world be? Even though I couldn’t afford any of the beautiful clothes or cookware that beckoned to me from the windows, I felt comforted to see them. Someday, I thought, someday I will be able to afford all of this. I’ll have my own kitchen that I can stock with ceramic pots and I’ll have a walk-in closet that I can fill with designer suits. I’ll have the money to buy a car and drive out to a place like this for lunch and cocktails with friends. Never mind that I’m planning to make a pittance in non-profit communications. Never mind that I don’t even really care about designer brands. Never mind that I have my own perfectly serviceable cookware.

The mall offered up a dream, and it was a dream that I wanted to live in for a while. I walked up and down the streets. I watched a young man wash the hot pink walls of a Victoria Secret store, which featured large posters of busty, skinny, blond models with flawless skin. I marveled at the neo-Classical fountains, featuring cherubs and Greek god figures, and wondered how they looked so at home next to the Tiffany’s store, designed to resemble a 1950’s-era bank. I saw the local police and the mall security circling the center fountain and felt secure, knowing that I was being watched over. At the mall edge, dwarfed by an enormous XXI Forever store, was a small, nondescript building labeled “Community Center Room.” It seemed so bland in comparison to the colorful, bright ads that surrounded it that I hardly noticed it. I enjoyed the perfectly cultivated trees and flowers, especially the exotic palm trees. Everything looked beautiful and bright and pleasant. It’s fake, but it’s lovely, just like the Photoshopped Victoria Secret model’s poster. I almost forgot about the job fair.

Unfortunately, the job fair is far more real than the manicured streets of the mall. It’s been a couple years since I read Baudrillard, but the word hyperreality kept flitting through my mind as I wandered around the mall.Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Chanel, Gucci, Coach, Prada.  Simulacra. A simulacrum is, if I’m remembering my postmodernism correctly, a sign without a referent. It harkens back to an original that never existed. The rosy glow of an American small town that never was is being invoked in the mall’s nostalgic streets. Hyperreality is a reality that is so mediated by technology–radio, television, the Internet–that people can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is mediated to them. A walk through mall is a tightly controlled, mediated experience. The street signs point to shops. Hints at anything to disrupt the illusion are hidden. (I spied a mess of gas pipes hidden behind a black screen painted to look like a garden wall.)

The dream of the mall, is ultimately a lie, I know. The endless luxury, endless leisure, and endless wealth–none of them exist. Its promise is ultimately unrealistic. The merchandise at the mall can only be sold because workers in developing nations are underpaid and overworked, not to mention the underpaid cashiers and sales clerks who work in the mall shops. The location of the mall, accessible only from interstate highways, is also unfeasible. As we approach peak oil and the price of gas rises, driving to such locations, not to mention sending merchandise there by truck, will become increasingly costly. This is not to mention the carbon emissions of these vehicles that increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, driving up the temperature of earth’s atmosphere and radically altering the planet’s weather patterns, destroying coastal towns with hurricanes and floods. The visions of endless Things to Buy encourage conspicuous consumption, buying certain products only because they make one seem richer or more sophisticated and not because these products are inherently useful. It also encourages planned obsolescence, creating products only meant to last a few years, only to be thrown away and replaced by new products. The “free market” isn’t free, and the cost will be paid in an unhealthy environment and shrinking middle class by the poorest and those least able to pay those prices.

Logically, I know all of this. I’m critical of the inequalities that capitalism perpetuates. I shun designer brands. I try to use and reuse and recycle. I take public transportation whenever I can. A part of me feels as though I should be disturbed by the mall. It broadcasts cultural messages that I’ve chosen to deconstruct and expose. It upholds outdated ideologies that, I believe, are crushing common people under their teetering weight. But I’m not immune to the messages. I’ve grown up with the ideologies. I’m just as taken in by the simulacra as the next person. Sometimes, I’d like to ignore reality and exist in a space of hyperreality, in which money is endless, resources are endless, and the past was always perfect. So I find the streets of the mall peaceful and calming. I enjoy walking up and down them, staring into the windows, imagining what I would do with new furniture or a stationary set, and for a couple hours, ignoring reality and living in a dream.