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My remarks at the 2023 University of Washington Online MPH Graduation
Roughly 72 percent of commencement speeches by graduating students begin with, “Here we are, we made it,” so I am wary of beginning there. Okay, I just made that statistic up off the top of my head. But congratulations are in order! Remember to take time to thank all of your people who supported you these last 18 months, because we all relied on someone for guidance, strength, ad hoc pep-squadding, and more. So thank you, Emile and Lucas, for being patient with me whenever I ran off to work on another school assignment, and thank you so much, Susanne, for always encouraging me and for all the extra labor you had to do while I was in this program.
Meanwhile, the public health sector is in the midst of many crises affecting individual, community, and population health. We are entering into these crises as professionals now, and we will be working in this chaotic environment, in a sector which is challenged by competing mental health needs, substance use disorders, infectious diseases, the rampages of climate change, and persistent health disparities. In listening to everyone’s final ILE presentations this week I was struck by how much the literature talks about system transformation but how little of it is actually happening.
I was working in public health before I entered this program, but I had previously felt like an outsider or an interloper. Now that I can put MPH after my name, and trust me, I already ordered new business cards, I’m not sure I feel very different about my location to the field. You may feel similarly, that you are too small to change large-scale outcomes around type II diabetes, maternal health for Black women, opioid overdose rates among unstably housed people, improving cancer diagnosis, increasing hepatitis B vaccination rates for Asian Amerians, or cleaning up neighborhood soils or particulate matter as industry just chugs more waste into the environment.
But there are more than two dozen of us in our cohort. We are not one person, we are many. Some of us will create new interventions and will show that they are more efficient at improving health than the last interventions, or as my older son would say, “take that, previous science!” Some of us will apply our training around prioritizing racial justice to our current professions, and that commitment will create ripple effects in our areas of influence. Others are moving into policy, and may re-orient the state or their region so that many lives at once will have better access to health care. None of us, in other words, are actually in this alone.
At our after-class toast on Thursday night, I asked those in attendance if the reasons you applied to the program were still your motivators at the end of the program. I was surprised to see unanimous agreement, although we talked about how much we’d learned, or we mentioned the new ideas we were incorporating into our vision of public health and how we wanted to interact with those visions. Enrolling in this program was a good thing we all did! I grant you permission, although of course you don’t need my permission, to reflect back from time to time on what called you to this field, whenever you think you need a reset. Depending on what part of the field you’ll work in, you might need to reflect more or less often. (As someone who works in HIV and substance use, I reflect quite OFTEN.) Or as my younger son said in the midst of COVID-19, “I just build LEGOs to reduce stress.”
If the work might be at times stressful, public health is also a brilliant conduit for opening up vital discussions around the consequences of unchecked privilege and their specific effects on population health. I can hardly think of a more relevant example than the extreme greed of the Sackler family. In their successful attempts to become billionaires, they manufactured a nationwide opioid dependence by promising they had created a non-addictive narcotic, Oxycontin, that would cure us all of pain forever, which led us directly annual to the 100,000 overdose deaths we see today. This week research was released showing that fully ten percent of Americans have a close familial relation who has died of an opioid overdose. That is just staggering.
This periscope into the whys of our health challenges is a fundamental strength public health work. Public health practitioners have sounded alarm bells on toxic waste sites like the Love Canal, they’ve called out cancer clusters, they routinely work through individual stories of trauma to identify the patient zero when tracking down infectious disease in a community, they assess unsafe food handling practices in the marketplace, and we all know, post-pandemic, that they quarantine people when needed to keep a community safe. My family and I were quarantined in 2013 when I brought pertussis to Walla Walla County after getting coughed on for two hours on a flight from LA, but that’s another story for another day. But the point is, public health has this history, not completely unproblematic history, of course, of linking A to B and of beginning important conversations around association and causation, in an effort to improve health, lives, and systems. And now we are a part of that history and practice. If we have critiques of those problematic elements, we also have the capacity to do the future work in public health differently, with those limitations in mind.
I’m so excited for the work we all will do. I know our contributions will not be small. They mostly won’t be easy, either, although I am here for the quick wins whenever they show up. Public health has been politicized, and I have been struck by the uneasy realization that there is no public health intervention that takes place outside of the political sphere. So dig in, you know why you want to do this work, and you are ready to tackle these big challenges. The cohorts of students ten, twenty years from now, ought to be looking at a robust history of declining disparities, because people like you and made a real difference. That’s what I wish for us all, brilliant ideas among servant leaders in public health who built relationships and made our lives better. Congratulations, colleagues! I’m proud of every single one of us.
Tap tap, is this thing on?
Well, the last four years have been an adventure, I suppose. I ran for office in 2018 for the state house in my legislative district, and came in a distant second, but the experience itself was life-affirming. My kids got older and I no longer have any diaper duty. Susanne went through the tenure process and has settled in as an Associate Professor, and is working on her next book.
My book projects, on the other hand, are a bit . . . quiet. I have a full draft of the Unintentional sequel, but I have a POV issue to resolve, and an improved ending to write. I stopped trying to sell short stories when work got busy.
My work, well, that has grown, which makes sense, as it has been my focus these last four years. It’s no longer a sleepy little nonprofit with a tiny caseload. When I walked in the door in July 2010, I literally wiped up the dusty keyboard to a then 11-year-old iMac. Its memory was half-filled with photos and music files of Yanni, for no discernible reason. I mean, I guess some people really like Greek air flute music, or whatever. There were four employees, two of whom were extremely part-time, I was slotted for 20 hours a week, and one full-time case manager. We ran the whole deal on $180,000 a year.
These days the agency has an annual budget of $3.4M, 27 employees, 3 of whom are part-time advisory board members, 3 staff who are part-time, and the rest of whom are full-time. We’ve got somewhere on the order of 200 clients across half a dozen programs, and a vehicle fleet, which still blows my mind. Nobody’s computer is older than 3 years. But along with this growth has been a shift in the time I have to dedicate to writing, and that is a cost I am willing to bear a while longer. At some point though, I want to get back to it.
In the interim of 2018 and now my mother passed away, from appendix cancer that spread to her lungs. I spent roughly two-and-a-half months with her in that last year of her life. It was time well spent, but saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, by far. Double mastectomy and sex changes, and catching Lucas at his birth, and hearing that my Dad had died after the fact, saying goodbye was excruciating. And then she didn’t die, and I got to see her again! But when I left in early January 2019 (as opposed to leaving shortly before Christmas 2018), was the last time. Saying goodbye again was also painful, although somehow, slightly less so. I’m grateful she is no longer in pain.
The pandemic could be a great reason I stopped blogging, but of course that wouldn’t explain the first two years of my absence. I just ran out of time in the day as work became more involved. Years ago I jokingly said that my goal was to make the agency too complicated for me to run it anymore. Now I realize what a stupid thing that is to say. It’s definitely more complicated, and I’ve driven away at least one bookkeeper in the process, but I am still hard at the work, as is the staff.
But to be clear, the pandemic has been a trying time, as I know it has been for nearly everyone. I like many others try to mediate my risk on a daily basis, but I’m not wearing my mask as vigilantly as I once was. I do watch the transmission rates, for what that’s worth (I’m sure we are missing a lot of data and that the accuracy of the published transmission rates are no longer great). I get my boosters and last week the boys got their boosters. I still don’t get on a plane or run through the grocery store open-faced (like a sandwich). But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fatigued by it.
Once upon a time this blog was to communicate with my social fabric of friends as Susanne and I made our way across the continent from DC to Walla Walla. It became my lifeline to sanity as I faced two years of unemployment because nobody in Walla Walla would hire me (or Portland, or Seattle, for that matter) in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession. Now I am the job creator, a fine twist of fate. When I was writing, jobless, and looking to get noticed as an author this blog was a requirement oft-referred to by agents, none of whom contracted with me. Somehow I published two books anyway, and army-crawled my way through the publishing industry. Then this blog was part of my writerly persona.
Now? What now? I think time will tell. Speaking of time, I don’t have a lot of it, between work, a master’s program in public health, two tweens, and a beautiful spouse, but I will commit to at least one post a week, and see how it goes. I’ll have some unpublished stories on here, thoughts about the work I do, reflections on speculative fiction, and possibly some political posts, but honestly I’d like to focus on other topics for a while.
I hope you are well, and if you made it this far, welcome back.
Therapeutic Memory Reversal
Author’s Note: I’m doing my own mini-McSweeny’s, running pieces of fiction that received multiple rejections from semi-pro or professional paying markets. This story has come close to acceptance half a dozen times but I need to move on to other ideas. I hope you enjoy it for what it is.
Ze lifts the small crystal cover with one finger and pushes the red knob underneath it. With zir other hand ze holds down a metal knob and turns the instrument clockwise one, two tight clicks, waiting for the trickle of memories to start flowing through zir headpiece. Ze braces zir arms on the counter, the room lights kept low because receiving memories is still painful, even if they get easier to acquire over time.
The sessions with Dad went too far. Well. Really ze doesn’t know what went wrong. Ze only sometimes recalls expressions on people’s faces from before the time on ship. So ze—I—sneak back here and try unlocking another piece. When the other me isn’t busy living a hellishly boring existence.
Ze—I, I, I—I will merge us.
Soon.
After the scandal and the election some people said it’s the memories that are gone, cauterized by the pulse of this evil, wild device. But ze wonders if maybe just the pathways are gone, and it can rebuild them, like a new bridge, or a portal. I have to try.
He only thinks he is happy.
Zir finger hovers over a green button. Sweat has lined up across my forehead and the back of my neck. I feel a Pavlovian lump in my throat. Before ze can change its mind, I turn the knob two more clicks. This is going to hurt. Read More…
From My Hard Drive
Author’s Note: This is a reprint of a short story than originally ran in SPLIT Quarterly.
Underwater
He weaves the thick strips of brown leather together slowly, seemingly fascinated that they have a smooth and a rough side. On the suede he traces his index finger slowly, almost lovingly, pushing against the grain, and then smoothing it down with the grooves of his fingerprints.
She looks him over, wanting to make eye contact and knowing he’s not about to grant that small favor to her.
“Hi, honey,” she says, in as much sing-song as she can muster.
He goes about looping another strip of belt material into the snake he already created. She sees that he is making a neat pattern of light and chocolate brown leather. A bit of sweetness in this bland, quiet universe of his. His hair is tousled, even matted in a few places, and he smells a little of urine. Smelling that upsets her. She needs to speak to the staff about that.
She flinches as a man, across the floor from her, squeals at a piece of Formica that is escaping the countertop one increment at a time, near the arts and crafts station. He is suddenly obsessed, slipping his fingers under it and listening to the flap as it slaps back down where it was still glued in place. Flap, flap, flap, flap.
“What are you making there,” she asks the beltmaker.
He continues the pattern. “Water,” he whispers. Read More…
Vote, Donate, Volunteer
I had the honor of speaking at a fundraiser for the 16th Legislative District in Washington State (I’m one of their two state committee members), along with another local activist, Jessica Monterey, and former Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley. Here is the text of my speech:
Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming. One year and two days ago I stood behind the podium in the Press Secretary’s briefing room pretending to take a question from Gwen Ifill, enthusiastic about the possibilities for 2017. It was an exciting time.
We are now four days away from the next election, which may seem like it pales in comparison to last year’s contest for the White House. But despite our bitter disappointment from last November, on Tuesday we have new opportunities to reset our collective political future. We will launch the political careers of three progressive people in Walla Walla to city council, or we will fail to do so. We will elect Manka Dhingra to our state legislature in the 45th LD and either shift the balance of the Senate chamber to the Democrats, or see more conflict and posturing from the GOP and another eventual budget fight. In Richland, we will either elect an incumbent woman of color or a man who has openly called for a replay of Kristallnacht, and who has a fraud conviction on his record. Countless school board seats, contests for port commissioners, city councils, and many other local government posts are the entry point for the next generation of Democrats. I know it can feel like an afterthought or a letdown, or small potatoes compared to the travesties we read about every day from so many news outlets. Read More…
Jenna’s Rainstorm
I listened without amusement to the therapist’s clock. It was supposed to resemble an antique mantle clock, but the mahogany was a cheap veneer and the clock face was cardboard painted to look like mother of pearl, which of course, looked nothing the fuck like mother of pearl. His crappy clock sat on an actual white mantle, which was not a good match for the dark clock, come to think of it, and all of this was over an electronic fireplace with little orange pieces of fabric that “flickered” in the least convincing flamey way possible. Oh, but I was supposed to be totally authentic with him.
This was all bullshit.
Nobody even owned ticking clocks anymore. I’m sure when he checked the time it was using his FitBit. He must have read somewhere before he lost his hair and began his attempts to deceive his clients with clocks and combovers that crazy people need noise, all the time, or they’ll go even more insane. I’d rather have just sat in the quiet. I’d gone whole 50-minute sessions without speaking but then the good doctor just upped my dosage of whichever drug of the month was supposed to make me a more tolerant-of-bullshit person.
He tried to stifle a yawn, but I knew he was as bored as me. I’d burned twelve minutes ignoring him and his clock. I’d throw it in the fireplace but wasn’t a real fucking fireplace.
I sighed, shifting in my seat. At least the furniture in this room was comfortable, unlike the pissed-on, puke-stinking chairs in the patients’ lounge.
Finally he spoke. He couldn’t take it anymore. He probably loathed the mantle clock as much as I did.
“What is on your mind today?”
He was careful not to say my name because I might go off on him again. Read More…
Trans & Gender Nonconforming Reading: Moderator Notes on Trans Literature
NOTE: These remarks were delivered at AWP17 on February 11, 2017 in Washington, DC.
People ask, “What is trans literature? Is it literature about trans people or by trans people? Is it emerging? Is it literary or folk? Is it in vogue or invisible? Is it limited to a form or a genre or is it a post-modern queering of narrative?”
These questions miss the point. Further, this questioning enforces an authenticity of the poetic and the literary not demanded of cis writers or cis-centered literature. As many writers on the margins have pointed out, as Dr. Nafisi said to us Thursday night in her stunning rebuke of tyrannical, Western cultural norms that seek to delegitimize Iranian cultural production and cultural identity, the mainstream ideology never seeks its own authenticity, it can only, in a kind of Freudian compulsive repetition, work to pull down the provenance of marginalized literatures. Mainstream literary ideals continually misunderstand the value, the meaning, the quality, and the scope of trans literature.
Just last week the White House and its team of dementors and destructors floated language for a new executive order that would erase the legal foundation for trans civil rights in America. This horrendous mashup of reactionary illegal-ese written in the dungeons of the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation, if signed by President Hairdemort, would define for the first time, by any government in the world, that “sex is an immutable characteristic from birth.” At the exact moment that the United States is pondering the erasure of trans and gender nonconforming people from the legal landscape, we are facing an ongoing question in the literary world: “What is trans literature?” Read More…
Getting Past the Noise and on to the Resistance
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to my Facebook page.
To resist, we have to get over a few narratives that American neoliberalism and reactionaries have handed to us. Namely:
1. The idea of scarcity—that there is only so much energy to use in resistance, or that there are only so many opportunities for resistance, so we need to all agree on how to approach an action or campaign. This just isn’t true. AIDS activists didn’t move the NIH, FDA, White House, and general public on their cause by all working in lockstep to do the same thing, and they didn’t have only 1986 to do it. The ceaseless march of protests, the myriad of forms of resistance that included direct action, lobbying, negotiation, public relations campaigns, research, and so on, and that extended for more than a decade brought about change. In just three days of his presidency, Trump has seen leakers, philosophical arguments waged online, editorials from the press, rogue federal employees, and the largest global demonstration in history. There is enough room for all of us. Read More…
One Little Week in Issues
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, from Wikimedia under a reuse license.
We began this week with the now-usual, unhelpful conversation about whether Donald Trump is a jerk for going on about a former Miss Universe and her weight and ethnicity. Lost in the noise around Alicia Machado’s value as a human being (Mary Matalin called her a “tart”), was the leering, grotesque womanizing personality of Trump, which Hillary Clinton framed for 100 million Americans in the first debate when she said:
And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called they woman “Ms. Piggy.” Then he called her “Ms. Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.
Here There Be Puppets: My Experience as a Delegate to the 2016 Washington State Democratic Convention
I have voted in every election since I came of age in 1988, with one exception in 1989 because I didn’t file for my absentee ballot by the deadline and I couldn’t vote in New York State as a college student. I’d never really considered myself very into the Democratic Party per se, but I’ve voted for progressive and left-of-center candidates my whole adulthood. I can’t say I have a primary issue because in my mind they all vie for attention—reproductive rights are very important to me, but so is ending the death penalty (if I’m being honest I’m a prison abolitionist but there are no candidates calling for that), and so are trans civil and human rights, and then I’d really like to see a sea change on green energy investment. See what I did there? I hate the welfare reform passed in 1996, I hate the 1994 crime bill, and I think the Affordable Care Act fell far short of what we need for all humans in the United States to access the care we need, no matter our legal status or which identity categories apply to us. Friends have said I am “left of Chairman Mao,” and thus I recognize that I do not fully fit into any party’s platform.
This year I decided to take the plunge and see what immersing myself into the Democratic Party would be like. I wasn’t excited because of the ruckus between the Clinton and Sanders camps, but I did support Hillary in 2008 and I did have to come around to Barack Obama, who has both delighted and significantly disappointed me (23,000 drone bombs just last year) since then. Still, I can remember needing to suck it up when Clinton conceded in 2008 and so I can sympathize with Sanders supporters now. It’s a difficult space in which to exist, especially after a primary as painful as this one has been. I’m ready to move on from the “Berners are all sexists” and the “Clinton supporters are not real progressives” reductivism of the past several months. Read More…
Trans/plant/portation 