Cheeze-It

Yesterday I spent all day at a Prison Education conference. It was extremely inspiring and depressing at the same time. Our country has a major problem with prison reform. I have been interning with a prison this semester reading inmates' creative writing and offering them feedback. I get to visit the participants in a couple weeks, and I couldn't be more enthused. These men are thoughtful, genuine poets. Working one-on-one with them will be a pleasure. Most of them take their work at least fifty times more seriously than the undergraduates I teach.

My beautiful school post-conference.

In addition to tutoring inmates, I have been reading several books on the prison experience from various viewpoints (short term, lifer perspective, cop stories etc.). Something I've noticed is that each inmate story I've read ends up miraculously feeling hopeful, grateful for what they still do have behind bars. This floors me. And even I, who has a good life, sometimes get grossed out by their Pollyanna attitudes. They have every right to believe in nothing and soak in seas of self-pity when most of them find a higher purpose and a sense of peace. It's...cheesy to say the least. But I've recently realized two things.

1. I'm never going to read a book by someone who runs off of bitterness. That person will never do anything. So that perspective, which is probably the majority in prisons, doesn't get scribed.

2. While it seems serving life is the lowest of lows, it is all relative. Once you're incarcerated, I'm sure you see how it actually could be worse. At least you're not insane. (Most prisons are full of mentally unstable people because mental health facilities are too full for them.) Although the only luxuries you have are over-priced Cheetos, at least you can work your 50 cents an hour job to earn them unlike the guy chained in solitary for forty years. Compared to that, even some prison terms suddenly seem livable. Cheesy, but true.

So, don't be too cool for the cheesy. You get places by being optimistic--no matter how stupid it might seem to someone on the outside.

Leaving the Last Frontier

So. The final conference gala is in two hours. I've been here for exactly one week. My jaunt up north has cost seven days of my life and a couple thou from the grad and theatre schools' budget. What am I taking home? (A partial list):

-What are we ever taking home--a nice consideration.

-Transactions. Give the characters something to do. Move the stage.

-"Why is this a play?" is a good question.

-It's not hard to make it serious. Make it enjoyable.

-We know the end: we die. So, what's so important in the middle?

-I don't care enough about playwriting maybe.

-I don't care enough about having fun maybe.

-Get personal.

-A stupid idea, written well, is often better than a new idea.

-I can eat a lot of Cap'n Crunch if there is a Sex and the City marathon.

-You can judgit or you can lovit.

-React as if nothing is personal. It actually never is.

-If you don't want to be concerned, don't be concerned on behalf of someone else.

-Pretty much everything can be overanalyzed by some loser as a metaphor about gender in society. And that is me. I am that loser.

-Music.

-It might be beautiful objectively, but it's still okay if you don't like it.

-You also don't have to have a reason to have your taste.

-Or to be you. (Barf, but, y'know?)

-Audiences need some built-in discussion time. I believe this, but I'm not sure how it can happen.

-I need to perform periodically to keep myself unblocked.

-Feel guilty or don't about shutting down when you need to shut down?

-Say the real thing.

January 3rd & Regret

Packed two movies for myself over break. Didn't get the luxury of watching one on the plane to St. Louis because I was still finishing my final papers. Not the plan, but, of course, what happened. As I pulled my suitcase handle up in PHX and wheeled toward my gate with sad, baggy eyes, I thought, "The last thing I need is to be flying back to the desert, crammed into my Southwest seat, editing a play and viciously plunking away at a conference application. I promise to finish my work before Thursday January 3rd."

Well, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow on the airplane?

WHEN WILL I LEARN?

Mia's NYE bow.

Keep the earth below my feet.
For all my sweat, my blood runs weak.
Let me learn from where I have been.
Keep my eyes to serve, my hands to learn.