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.

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.

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.

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.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 3

Before reading the final installment in this piece, please refer to Part 1 and Part 2.

Dinner was, fortunately, not the awkward affair I’d been afraid of. The ten of us were seated at two long rectangular tables pushed together. Dr. Smith and her partner sat at one end, while Erinne, Alex and I sat at the other. I intended to stew in my own misery and mourn the loss of my four-point-oh, but then someone ordered a bottle of wine and Alex started making jokes about the poets and authors he’d run into during the conference.

Jalia took out her camera and snapped shots of everyone toasting to another successful year of AWP. When our plates of food came, she took artsy photos of everyone’s dishes before we started eating. Veronica talked about the exposure our university’s literary magazine got at the conference and her hopes for making it a reputable journal. Dr. Smith and her partner discussed how nice it had been for them to catch up with friends and professors from their grad school days. Erinne said the conference had inspired her to start working on the next chapter of her novel and she’d also made some good contacts for publishing jobs.

Eventually, we finished our dinners and the bottle of wine, and the conversation turned to what we’d all be doing after graduation. Some of us had no idea. Some of us wanted jobs. Some of us were still waiting to hear back from grad schools. All of us dreamed of being writers. Maybe someday we’d submit a panel and get to present at AWP. Maybe we’d get to join our idols like Art Spiegelman and Jhumpa Lahiri as keynote speakers. Maybe, someday, breathless and excitable undergrads would run into us there and whisper, “Oh my god! Isn’t that the author of—?” Or maybe they’d make fun of us and wonder why their professors ever recommended our books. Or maybe we’d attend just as an excuse to see each other and drink wine together again.

I didn’t speak to Dr. Smith much, if at all, that night. I did, however, leave dinner and go back to my hotel room feeling peaceful and pleasant and not caring much about my GPA or what anyone else thought of my writing.

* * *

I mentioned before that writing about other people’s lives is neater and tidier. It’s easier to impose an ending on an experience or situation when the author is not still struggling with it. In my own life, such complete endings are rare. I wish I could I say I confronted my professor about her comment and asked for an explanation. I wish I could say that I met her in her office and swore an oath to prove her wrong—that I would be a true creative writer and a social activist! Or I wish I could say that I argued my case and brought her around to my way of thinking about writing and activism. I did none of those things. For one thing, I was too afraid. I felt too small to call out my professor, someone that I had previously admired and would have never thought to question. For another thing, I was too angry and bitter. I eventually got over the loss of my perfect GPA, but I was still hurt that someone who shared my passion for both poetry and feminism could so completely misunderstand my work. I was afraid that if I tried to bring up the subject with my professor I would either rant or cry. Both scenarios were mortifying, so I never put myself in that situation to begin with. I stayed silent and nodded “hello” when I passed her in the hall, but I never brought up her comment on my capstone.

For a while, after I graduated and the sting of her comment wore off, I wished I would have said something. Now, though, a year later, when I’m no longer angry, I wonder if it would have even mattered. It wouldn’t have changed my grade, but it might have restored some of my previous admiration for her. It might have allowed me to graduate thinking of her as a friend and mentor and not just another academic. It might have also built up some of my confidence in my own writing. Even if she would have held to her remarks, I think the fact that I was willing to justify my work might have made me believe that my writing was worthy of defending.

To be a creative writer is to believe in the value of your work, even when no one else does. It is to write constantly, even when you don’t think your work is any good, because you must practice your art. It is to submit to contests and publications and agents again and again and again, despite the rejection letters and the setbacks. It is to post on the Internet, even if the only readers you attract are detractors. The writers who believe in the value of their work enough to continue in the face of such trials are the ones who finally attract an Internet following or win a contest or get their work published.

And writing is not easy. It’s a solitary business. It’s often taken me away from the excitement of everyday life, sometimes so much so that the only stories I  have to write about are those of my friends. Or sometimes I find that, really, I fall back on writing my friends’ stories and not my own because I don’t have enough faith in the importance of my own life and experiences. Who would care about my life? I often think. Sure, I’ve done things like attend one of the most prestigious writing conferences in the U.S., but I didn’t do anything while I was there. While my friends were out getting drunk with people like Eli Shipley, I was in my hotel room writing poetry. The only thing that happened to me at AWP was I took a heavy blow to my self-confidence.

But taking a heavy blow to one’s self-confidence is an experience that nearly everyone has had. While I haven’t forgotten about it or gotten over it, I have moved past it and am now able to look back on it with some perspective. Maybe that’s all the meaning or ending that any story can hope to have. I just have to realize that it does have meaning, and maybe that meaning will connect with other people too. In telling that story, in shaping it with that meaning, I am a creative writer. If I use that story as a commentary on the arbitrary lines between academic disciplines, I’m still a creative writer. If I use that story as part of a larger meta-narrative that explores the nature of writing itself, well, then I’m still a creative writer. Being a creative writer means seeing the value in words and stories and messages and putting them together to create art. It means being dedicated to the craft of writing. A year after my professor told me that I wasn’t a “true” creative writer, I’m still here and I’m still writing. And I’m only just beginning to come into my voice.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 2

Part 1 appears here.

I flopped onto the red, paisley hotel bedspread and opened my laptop. “Thank god, free wi-fi!” I muttered. The hotel in Washington, D.C., had not provided free  Internet connection. My friend Erinne, Dr. Smith, I, and assorted other students and professors from the English department had been there for the past four days at the Associated Writing Programs conference (AWP), one of the biggest and most prestigious conferences in the creative writing field. Now I was itching to check Facebook and my email.

We’d been held up in Baltimore because of a snowstorm and couldn’t fly back to Detroit until the following morning. So we’d found a hotel—paid for by Dr. Smith’s English department credit card—and were getting ready for dinner, which Dr. Smith and her partner, another professor, had offered to buy. I was planning to enjoy as much of the free food and accomodations as I could before returning to campus, where I would find myself touching up final papers and studying for exams. At least, I thought, I have my capstone out of the way.

“Hey, our grades for our capstones are up!” my friend, Erinne, said, looking up at me from her spot on the other bed, where she sat with her laptop. I watched her scroll for a moment before her face broke into a grin. “Hey! I got an A!”

“Nice! You were great, though. You deserve it,” I said as I waited for my email to load. At the top of my inbox, starred and marked “important,” was an email from our capstone advisor with the subject line “Final Grades.” I eagarly clicked on it.

Dear Em, I wanted to mention this to you in an email so it didn’t surprise you when you read the attached comments from your graders…

What? What’s that? That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound like the comments I usually got on papers. I was a straight-A student. I didn’t get comments like that!

…I wanted to let you know that I don’t think Dr. Smith meant her comments in a hurtful or negative way. I think she was only making an observation about your creative work and your presentation….

Hurtful or negative? What did that mean, “hurtful or negative”? What did Dr. Smith say?

…It was a pleasure having you in the class and you did a fine job on your project and presentation…

I skimmed the rest of the email and then downloaded the attachment. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breath. What did Dr. Smith say?! I’d always thought Dr. Smith had liked me and my writing. Why would her comments be so ambiguous that they could be construed as hurtful or negative?  I didn’t have to wonder long. The attachment opened and I bit my lip as I read Dr. Smith’s comments.

I believe that, in her heart, Em is not truly a creative writer. I think she is a theorist and an activist who uses her writing to draw attention to issues of social justice.

Not truly a creative writer? Not truly a creative writer?! Since when were creative writers not allowed to write about social issues? I scrolled down the attachment to see what my grade was, but a part of me already knew: seventeen points out of twenty, an eighty-five percent, a solid B.

To many students, this news would be a relief. To me, it was devestating. For three and a half years I’d cultivated my GPA of four-point-oh like a rare rosebush. I’d monitored it constantly, ensuring that it always received just the right amount of care and work. I pruned out imperfections before they festered into problems and prided myself on its beauty and perfection. It was my everything, my best thing. It defined me. And now, like a rot that sank deep into the root, this one missing point had ruined everything. Sure, my GPA was still good, but it was no longer perfect, and for three and half years, perfection had been all that mattered to me.

“That bitch!” I snarled, loudly enough for Erinne to hear. Even though I was still in shock, I wanted some sympathy.

“Huh?” Erinne asked, taking out her earphones.

“That bitch, Smith! She said about my capstone that I’m not a real creative writer!”

Erinne narrowed her eyes. “That’s crazy! Your presentation was so good!”

“Thanks,” I spat. “God, I hate her!”

Erinne nodded.

“And I got a B!”

“Really? But your presentation was better than mine.”

“My GPA is ruined!”

Erinne sighed. “Wow, that sucks. But we’re graduating in a few months, anyway. It’s really not going to matter in the long run.”

“I just…I can’t believe she did that!”

Erinne shrugged and put one of her earphones back in. “Just remember, soon it won’t matter.”

Erinne seemed uninterested in commiserating with me further, so I planned to spend the rest of the evening sulking privately.

However, my self-pity was quickly interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hey, guys! It’s Alex!” a friend of Erinne’s and mine called. “Dr. Smith and the rest of us are ready to go to dinner. You coming?”

Erinne took out her earphones and hopped off her bed. “You coming?”

I sighed.

“It’s free,” Erinne reminded me.

“I guess…”

* * *

What is creative writing? To a roommate who was a brilliant writer but who claimed she was  uncreative, I used to say that all writing is creative. And in a way, it is. All writing, from the worst fan-fiction story to Shakespeare’s masterpieces is creative in the sense that it is choosing words and putting them in an order that has never before been formed. From there, these sentences are arranged in a way in which they are unlikely to ever be arranged again. In the sense that all writing is forming something new, all writing is creative.

There is also, I would argue, a creativity in critical and analytical writing, particularly in the fields of poststructuralism and deconstruction, fields that I learned to love from my old professor, Dr. Smith. Say what you want about Derrida. He’s esoteric, dense, reflexive, and performative. But he is also creative. No one wrote theory like Derrida, and those that have tried it since usually just end up copying him instead of forging new ground. Derrida was a theorist, yes, but there’s also something poetic about his theory. He was—dare I say it!—a creative writer.

There is also, again I would argue, an element of social justice in many creative works in the so-called “canon.” Toni Morrison is praised for her rich characters and lyrical prose, but her stories also often center around the plight of African-American girls growing up in a culture that snubs their beauty and their minds. Is Toni Morrison a creative writer? You’d be hard-pressed to find a critic who’d say she isn’t. Is she an activist for social justice? Of course! She’s been very open, both in her novels and her public speeches, about her fight against racism. Does categorizing her as one—an author or an activist—negate the other? Of course not!

I often find myself drawn to writers who straddle the line, if there is any line to begin with, between social critics and creative writers. David Sedaris might make his readers laugh out loud, but he also subtly draws our attention to the U.S.’s class pretentions and cultural insensitivity. Judith “Jack” Halberstam, a professor of cultural studies who has written many books about the intersections between homophobia and capitalism, writes in a critical style that has been described as “playful,” but which I find poetic. Ani DiFranco plays guitar and sings lyrics about gender and class inequalities. The creativity, for this diverse array of people, is in how they compose their message through well-placed words and well-formed sentences. The subject matter, at worst, certainly does not detract from the superior writing. At best, it enhances the writing, allowing the writing itself to perform the message of the text. The reader isn’t merely told the message through a direct statement—“homophobia is bad”—or through the actions of a main character—Sedaris goes to France and doesn’t find the stereotypes he expected. The writing itself becomes an element of the message. (Ani DiFranco places her message within the legacy of a folk tradition, which her musical style and lyrics reflect.)

This isn’t an idea that I came up with myself. I actually learned it in my four years as an undergraduate creative writing major at a small, Midwestern university. I idolized my creative writing professors, and in doing so, I not only absorbed their wisdom regarding the craft of writing but also their social and political awareness. They wrote poems and novels and short stories, but they also read Foucault and were just as likely to talk about power and the panopticon in class as they were punctuation. They loved writing and words but they also had a sense of responsibility to the broader culture of which they were a part. One of my professors wrote creative nonfiction pieces about the impoverished American Indian reservation where he’d previously taught. Another professor was very open about her role in exposing a serial date rapist after a number of her female students had come to her for guidance and compassion after being assaulted. These were people who’s teaching I loved, whose creative works I respected, and whose social awareness I wanted to emmulate. I didn’t see any conflict between their creative writing and their activism.

Honestly, I still don’t.

The third and final installment of this piece appears here.

Synergia: What Is Creative Writing? Part 1

(While I write a lot of critical essays, I also write creatively, mostly poetry and nonfiction. I thought I’d experiment with posting a creative  piece I’m currently working on.)

“It’s sort of like The Great Gatsby, isn’t it? Like Nick Carraway.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” I took a deep breath and tried not to fidgit. I had just presented my undergraduate capstone project, and after giving a dramatic reading of several of my creative nonfiction pieces, which were met with resounding applause from my classmates, my professors were grilling me about my work. If they liked my presentation and felt I answered their questions adequately, then I passed. But if something went wrong, I failed and the past three and half years of hard work to earn my creative writing degree were meaningless.

Dr. Truman ran one of his large, pink hands through his thin thatch of straw hair as he replied. “I mean, the point of view in your pieces. You’re on the outside, always watching everybody, never judging. You’re an observer.”

“Oh, well, yes, I guess so.” I searched for an response, one that would make me sound smart and literary and creative. Then an idea came to me. “But isn’t that our duty as writers—to observe the world around us?”

Fortunately, Dr. Smith came to my defense. “I think, Dr. Truman, if I could just interrupt briefly, that this project is unique because not only does it tell a story but it also attempts to bring critical theory into everyday life through examining life experiences with feminism and queer theory.”

With a new surge of confidence, I continued: “Thank you, Dr. Smith. Exactly! And as critical theorists, it’s also our duty to observe the world as well and point out trends and inequality where we see them.”

Dr. Smith smiled at me. I smiled back.

Dr. Truman nodded and stroked his double chin. “Yes, I think I see that.”

I held back a sigh of relief.

* * *

How does one write creative nonfiction when nothing seems to happen to one? In many of my stories, I find the events of my life building toward a sort of crescendo that never resolves. I almost get into a crazy romance or almost win the lottery, but then these dramatic scenarios never pan out or live up to their tumultuous potential. I’ve traveled, but throughout my journeys to China or England or Germany I’m usually so jet-lagged and so hell-bent on squeezing the most out of the few precious moments I have there that I’m in too much of a sleepy daze to write about my experiences. I also don’t find traveling to be greatly revelatory. I learn things about other cultures or places while I travel, but I rarely learn much about myself.

I’m also not funny, which is almost a prerequisite for being a successful creative nonfiction writer. Either you have to have overcome an addiction or some sort of abusive relationship or you have to be funny. If you have all three and a good agent, you can write a bestseller. Overcoming mental illness is good too, but like most of my experiences, my depression and anxiety have never made for a three part story arc. Instead of being like the lover you meet unexpectedly, spend years with, and finally leave and make peace with, my experiences with mental illness have been more like a day-to-day slog. They’re the lazy roommates that showed up one day and have never left, and I try to work around them as best I can. I expect this is most people’s experience with mental illness, but it doesn’t exactly make for a thrilling memoir, or else we’d all be on the bestseller lists.

What I do have, however, are dramatic, funny friends. And as a creative nonfiction writer, this is the next best thing to being dramatic and funny myself. My friends get into the crazy relationships, triumph against some horrible disease, or make amusing quips, and I go along for the ride. If I’m there when it happens, I figure it’s just as much my story. Right? So I change some names, make up a few details, invent some dialogue, and omit certain identifying particulars, and I have a meaningful, amusing story that I think people will find worth reading. I may only be a supporting character, but I still get to narrate from my own point of view.

It’s also much easier to bring order to someone else’s life than my own. In other people, I don’t see the self doubts, the neuroticism, or the apprehensions. I just see the final product, the front that we all put on to impress the rest of the world. I know it’s a front, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as duped by it as everyone else. I look at people on the bus and think that just because they’re wearing a suit or Gucci pumps they must have life all figured out. Most likely they’re looking at me and, despite my jeans and t-shirt, thinking the same thing. When other people relay their lives to me, I can pick out patterns or romanticize them. In my own life things just seem to happen at the whims of chaos, and I never quite know what I’m getting into until it’s already over. It’s easier to package other people’s lives into neat, tidy stories with a theme and a meaningful ending. My own life never seems to make sense.

Click here for Part 2.