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Another thing: Please write me more letters on problems of creativity! It makes me think!

Dear Cary,

I recently quit a Ph.D. program in sociology. When I started it, I was full of enthusiasm and desire to learn about the human experience. As I progressed through it, I found myself wishing to be a participant in society rather than an observer. I care very much for social problems and wish to fix them, and you compromise your academic integrity -- or the perception of it -- when you engage in social activism. Beyond that, I was very tired of working to someone else's expectations for no money. The things I enjoyed writing were more creative nonfiction, and I knew my career would not survive that.

So I left. I now work helping disabled homeless people find housing. The day of my job interview, I found out that I am pregnant. Now I am six months into the pregnancy.

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The newspaper reports that “Arizona Army National Guard members over the past decade engaged in misbehavior that included sexual abuse, enlistment improprieties, forgery, firearms violations, embezzlement, and assaults.” Much of the wrongdoing, according to the Arizona Republic , was carried out by National Guard members who went into high schools to recruit new members. These non-commissioned officers (NCOs) “engaged in sexual misconduct, collected recruiting fees to which they were not entitled, forged Guard documents, and committed other offenses such as hunting the homeless with paintball guns.”

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