Mixtapes & small miracles & movies I strongly dislike
You know what movie I have long despised
and disavowed (inasmuch as one can disavow a film)?
Good Will Hunting.
I saw the film in theaters
and I had a chip on my shoulder about the film ever since I first
encountered the title; my twenty-something literary brain found the title
lazy and cringe worthy in its overt “double meaning” and I’m telling you this because it’s an example of a time in my life when I came to something
— in this case a movie —
with the belief that I would hate it based on the title alone
(because it wasn’t “literary enough” for Snob Gruber)
And guess what?
While I watched it, I hated every fucking minute.
You know why?
Because 1) I did not come to the viewing in good faith.
I already had decided to hate it before I had seen it. Mind closed,
and 2) I was in my twenties; this was not a time in my own
personal growth where I was real open to “new ideas”
and “new ways of being.”
I was pissed off, closed off, mired
in Grudge Math,
and hadn’t even yet sought out a talk therapist
(say nothing of the totally batshit insane-albeit-highly-functional
drinking and drugging that was going on in my private life at the time).
I’m not on this “personal inventory” step yet,
but I’m getting dangerously close every day.)
AA and Tucson
and my wife and my closest friends
and family —
not doctors, not medicines —
saved my life this year.
By this I mean they allowed me
to introduce myself to myself
for the first time
in my conscious life.
Sarah and I are both readers and writers and we know that
“introduce myself to myself” is grammatically “dangersome,”
but we regularly say this in our lives lived together.
I like myself today.
I think I’m a pretty okay person today:
good and deserving and all that AA/”self-care” shit.
Took a mental health day today.
The American Healthcare System fucked me up mentally yesterday.
Like I felt punched and kicked in the feels yesterday
by a System that, ostensibly, exists to help me
be healthier
in body
and mind.
You know what has gotten me healthier
in body and mind since my mbc
(metastatic Breast cancer — sick of typing that out)
diagnosis back in January 2020?
Community.
Speaking my truth.
Quitting booze.
Quitting the lifelong practice
of talking to myself in a far crueler and unfair way
than I would ever dare talk to or approach a fellow adult.
Part of Late Stage Capitalism
and its impact on the human mind is this:
we are suffering —
in that we are failing:
economically, failing
to get the allegedly “great healthcare”
that exists for “all” Americans in this country (lies) and
failing access
to the supposed “great healthcare,”
or the so-called
“great education,” we suffer
because we perceive ourselves, as individuals,
as failures. Instead of, more correctly, examining and
re-making the very systems that are harming us under
the guise of “helping” us.
Your American suffering — be it around healthcare or education or gainful employment — is NOT totally your fault (unless you really and totally threw in the towel and have given up all hope — in which case, I understand, and I am so, so sorry).
The former Menace-In-Chief
liked to talk a lot about “rigged” shit.
Guess what?
Healthcare and education
are RIGGED
against the following groups of Americans:
Women
Black people
Indigenous people
The young
Brown people
Paper-money poor people (of all races/creeds/etc.)
Queer people (of all races/creeds, etc.)
The disabled
The chronically ill
The mentally ill (I count addiction as a mental health issue and a poverty/class/race issue in America)
Our elders (over 70 — can we quit calling them “the elderly” like
they are some irrelevant, meaningless, shadowy group of people who
have no impact on the country? Because that’s not true. They actually impact
the health
— or lack thereof —
of our country
tremendously).
You okay with this, America?
I’m not.
There are a lot of Americans who I know
and love
who all fall firmly into one or multiple
of the aforementioned
categories. In fact,
most people I know and love
are members of one
or many
of the aforementioned groups.
Take myself
(James H. if you’re reading this, all these irregular uses
of “me” and “myself”
are really just for you, my friend):
I am forty-four and at this juncture in my life,
the following truths apply to me:
1) Sarah and I do NOT have “lots” of money. We have enough to more or less, comfortably, make our way through life. We often have had to seek financial support from family and community, especially when catastrophe (what up, mbc?) has struck.
We do NOT have the kind of money
that would allow us to comfortably purchase a house
or take a lavish vacation. The very fact that I am taking
a day off work today is a luxury
not all working Americans can afford.
2) I am a lesbian.
Though I struggle with the linguistic implications/history
of using the word “queer,” I’ll use it here
because most readers will basically know
what I mean when I say “queer” in this context.
(Note to students of writing: write to be understood.
If your purpose is to reach a wide audience, take your weird
little political quirks and linguistic fetishes out of the game. If, however,
you are writing to a small, niche audience, go bonkers with the crazytediousfascinating shit.)
I’m a queer woman.
No one can, upon meeting me and taking one good look at me,
NOT recognize this. My queerness informs a lot of my daily life,
including what clothes I feel most comfortable in.
(Those who know me IRL will know
that I have something of a “uniform”
which has recently opened up
to include a cowboy hat . . .)
3) I have a serious chronic illness.
Two in fact: Crohn’s and cancer.
I will battle these fuckers for my entire life.
Every day. One or both together
will likely kill me and almost did last October.
4) I am a woman.
I was raised in the toxic (for girls AND boys)
European white man’s patriarchy.
As all women know, life is not easy for us.
From the moment of our birth,
we have to fight and compromise always.
It’s hard and distressing and traumatic. Being a
woman in America is seriously disturbing.
5) I am disabled.
My vision is really, really bad.
The retinal detachment has made it a little worse.
If I do not have glasses, I cannot
function in the world.
Without glasses,
here’s a short list of the things I literally cannot do:
— Make food
— Drive a car
— Read a book
— Write
— Grade papers
— Read a chat window
— Take a walk around the block
— Safely navigate more than a few steps at all in a new environment (whether indoors or outdoors)
There’s more, but enumerating shit is depressing and today is, technically, for my “mental health.”
I feel good today in body and mind and spirit.
A little nervous, but all my life I’ve lived with a constant,
low-grade fever of anxiety.
Not abnormal for me.
And that’s how I have to manage my anxiety
if I am to function in a productive, healthy way:
I have to look at myself objectively and say,
Okay. This body thing is freaking you out right now.
But here’s something I want to know:
is this body event abnormal for you?
If the answer is “no, it is not abnormal for me, but it is
bothering me/hurting me,” I will make a note
to mention it as my next doctor’s visit.
If the answer is “yes, this is abnormal and hurting/bothering me”
I will address it with a medical professional immediately:
like when my retina detached a few weeks ago,
I did NOT fuck around with that shit.
I had my ass in a doctor’s office
and I hate the doctor’s offices because
I totally have medical PTSD — self-diagnosed,
but do I really need a “medical professional”
to tell me the American Healthcare System
has traumatized me profoundly?
No. Everyone who knows me knows
that the American Healthcare System
has been terrorizing Gruber
since circa 1978. The “why” behind this
has a lot to do with Class and Gender in America, but
that’s what the book I’m working on currently
is mostly about, so please just read that whenever
it is finished. (And don’t forget, Transference comes out
with Tolsun Books this fall! Yay!) All this to say:
I am prudent when I need to be, but as a person with a small set of
fairly treatable mental health issues (depression/anxiety principally)
I know I cannot always trust my brain to tell me the truth
about the degree to which
I should freak out. This is why self-care AND mental health care
(talk therapy, medication if necessary) is really fucking necessary to having
a solid quality of life. I learned how to do the things I need to do by having
therapists help me learn how to do the things I need to do in order to not allow
my brain’s “high fear levels” ruin
my entire
natural,
conscious
life.
So, Gruber,
what are you doing with your “Mental Health Day”
you may ask?
Well, know this:
in the past year, I’ve had non-deliberate days of rest
owing to surgeries, health issues (including anxiety, alcoholism, and depression), and necessary medications for said health issues
(what’s up, Ibrance?).
So what is kind of remarkable about today,
is that my “day of rest” was not caused by a surgery,
over-drinking, Ibrance, or Crohn’s,
but caused by my own recognition
that after the insanity of yesterday,
at the hands of the American Healthcare Complex
(more like a prison than a system) I needed ONE DAY
that is not for tasks, students, doctors, insurance companies,
family, friends, employment, but for ME. Just ME. Alone.
The sick, garden variety Capitalism that grows wild all over
America would like me to believe it is
terribly, immorally selfish to take a day off
in your life
where you are not working to make $$
to give to rich white people who aren’t working much and
who don’t know much and who clearly don’t give a fuck about anyone
except them and theirs. (If there’s anything you can ever bank on in this
country it is this: the white man’s deathly fear of actual work.)
The entire system is a sham. A delusion.
Trust me. My friend Tricia posted something recently on FB
that posed the questions: Do you want to dismantle sick systems
or merely become a part of the sick systems’ leadership?
(I’m paraphrasing, but I am also going to be using this
as a guiding question
in every task I undertake
in the name of “earning” a “living.
As though
our one,
brief life
is anything that could possibly be
“earned” in a way
that is only
measurable
by digital and paper
money.)
Naturally, the day started with a phone call to a doctor’s office.
If you’re a working class adult in the United States
with a chronic healthcare problem,
you know that daily calls to doctor’s offices
or other healthcare subsidiaries are just, you know,
part of your daily routine:
like brushing your teeth, drinking
a cup of coffee, or your other full-time job that,
rather than paying you, takes FROM you.
What I’m saying is that I am in servitude
to the American Healthcare system
because I got a few bodily problems
that I don’t know how to fix/address alone
because I am not a doctor.
My main activity
is working on my specially crafted
Spotify playlist for my graduating seniors.
My 2021 babies.
Special to me because many of them
have been with me since they were 12
and because the past fifteen months or so
have been —
well,
you know.
The class of 2021 is particularly special to me.
I will be graduating from FALA along with them this year.
And this Spotify Playlist is, in and of itself, a creative endeavor.
Just the right songs.
Every song a certain type of love letter
from me, to them. (If you’re in education
and feeling no love toward your students,
please
leave education
now. Kids deserve better from us.)
And with that, I’m off to work on playlists, drink more tea, and maybe enjoy a little cannabis.
A word for younger readers about cannabis:
if you trust me, I want you to follow Gruber’s Rules of Cannabis,
provided you are of age and partake
— if you are underage and partake, in cannabis,
I do not want to know, and don’t you dare come to my class high because
I just might make you feel so guilty about doing so — and I WILL know —
that I ruin cannabis for you forever and ever
and maybe you don’t want cannabis to be ruined for you
FOREVER.)
Gruber Rule 1 about cannabis:
no cannabis at school and
no cannabis at work and
no cannabis in therapy and
no cannabis at doctor appointments.
Period.
End of story.
You owe it to your employer
or your peers/educators/healthcare providers
to be sober and present when they are trying
to help you.
Gruber cannabis rule 2:
Keep your cannabis use to your evenings
and weekends/days off
and DO NOT DRIVE CARS
on cannabis. And to quote
my cancer surgeon,
when I asked about whether or not I,
as a lowly cancer patient,
could freely use cannabis,
“Yes. Just don’t smoke it.”
Thank you for allowing that Nancy Reagan moment
from your old pal Gruber.
