Things I Might Have Written To The Last Editor From Whom I Bought Feedback....

 

Dear H.

Even if I sent this, I wouldn’t blame you for not responding to it (although I might have liked your thoughts on POV and wished I hadn’t been so nervous to ask.)  If you did find a moment in what must be an unbelievably hectic schedule—despite the glamour and fairy dust working on writing stuff in hip Brooklyn seems like it has when you’re brain-damaged and scratching little stuff out in your hometown that maybe never gave a flying fuck about you, or, best case, is still wondering where the cute version in the hair ribbons went, I would welcome an additional moment of your time, though I must remind myself of two things as the days pass: I may not get that, at least right now, and you don’t actually live in “Younger” NYC, which is too bad for all of us, don’t you think? I wish I did! But maybe on the day we had our zoom consult, you killed a roach the size of your thumb or something—not that that thought satisfies like when I picture my little size-2 doctor who trivialized my digestive complaint green and on the ropes with morning sickness(This chick hardly had a bump, but there must have been some tough parts, and that doesn’t make me sad after kind of getting “You’re disabled…what do you expect?” as an answer for something, maybe the twentieth, but feels like the millionth(Kind of like the weather in places where there’s wind-chill.) time over the course of a life of wheeling. Also, I have absolutely heard that in place of “I don’t know,” more than a few times, and they were wrong. So, this could clear up, too, even if a certain wonkiness could be part of my deal.  I get that, hey, I told *her* about CP. And would it be so hard to say “That must be rough,” because it definitely can be.)

Your feedback was fairly helpful, even if it also hurt because I’ve been writing since I really was a child and might be developmentally expected to hope to be somebody’s “Bestest Scribe Ever,” and get spiritually adopted based on a few pages. The fantasy lingered, I’m sorry to say. (Also, it’s hard to fathom that very many people will care about a perfect story collection here in #AssholeNation, so sometimes I’m not even sure why I’m taking the time to, say, metabolize the trauma from five years ago as so many fresh ones are barreling down the pike.) But, still, at the same time, I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t that.  All of my other unfinished work seems ludicrous in different ways, besides. It’s a lot of pressure feeling like everything I write could be my last words.  Nothing seems good enough.

As an under-represented writer (Because if I’m on the margins, they tend to be neat margins, not even like ripping a page from a spiral notebook.  Which is kind of a weird place to be, in art as well as in life—there seem to be a lot of places where I don’t fit, but I’m not…you know, troubled enough to raise a ripple when people are looking for Special talent.) Not that I’m complaining about my breaks. Even so, there is still this perfect disabled character in my head that I feel bad about not trying to bring to life, even though writing her would probably be boring and I’ve never met anyone who’s that perfect every day.  Just…kind of picture the Have It All cartoon feminist crossed with Snow White and dropped on her head, ever so slightly, and you kind of get it.(Do I also feel bad that I never really had a shot at being that person?  Even knowing it’s an impossible thing to live up to and would probably have never made me happy? Yeah.  Sometimes.)

Yours in creation,

The Bohemian Crip

A Sameer Appreciation Post(Stream Mo--it's really good!)

 I binged 2 seasons in a week

There seems to be a minor vogue for neurodivergent characters on TV and streaming recently, to, in my opinion, mixed effect. Some shows lean in a bit too hard to the “It’s like a superpower” dynamic to the point of creating a stereotype that seems like it would be as hard to dislodge as the tragic kind it’s meant to replace. Maybe that’s why I’ve only seen, say, “The Good Doctor” twice, even though it has Richard Schiff in it and therefore can only get so bad—it’s hard for me to get interested in a character caught somewhere between “icon” and “really effective machine.” Of course, many shows take seasons to explore dynamics, and even something I think is great to watch might have an episode or two that either fails in its mission or serves a larger arc that failed to capture my attention. It’s nice to see a show take a more leisurely approach, though.

What makes Sameer interesting is what makes the show, Mo, itself interesting. Comedian Mo Amer has a brother on the autism spectrum, which gives their characters’ interaction a personal and cultural context—for instance, Sameer is a more thorough guardian of his family history than the more easy-going and code-switching Mo, who at least in an initial meeting seems like he could fit in most places(Is that because so many places are both “home” and not for him?)

Although my own disabilities are very different than Sameer’s and I come from a very different background—my own ignorance of Islam frequently on display as I binge-watched both seasons in about a week because I’m feeling, well, not exactly stateless, but that the United States does not provide a haven for its disabled citizens, there was just something so, you know, capital-D, Disabled, about Sameer knowing and caring so much about a chicken business that he has such a minor right to, when the abled people whose jobs it really might be either stopped giving a shit or never did. 

 Sameer had some ideas that he got, both from paying(maybe too much) attention and from his culture. Watching that situation made me fill up with love, pride, and the frustration you feel when a family member steps in it.I think he had a good idea that good bosses might pay attention to.  A lot of places don’t have good bosses, though.

Was very impressed with the later-diagnosis storyline, both as we watch Sameer connect dots that he has been seeing all of his life.  “I feel like everything I do makes people uncomfortable,” he tells his therapist, and also the fact that eventually? It’s not Mom and Culture vs.  Diagnostics the way that it might be on other shows…Mom has a point about the harm of labels and the fact that his family does do a decent job of being supportive and including him in things(Mom is also traditional without being, well, a rube, right? She does come to accept that her grown son might need help that she can’t provide.)

The therapist doesn’t push too hard or try to drive a wedge, though, allowing him to reach his own conclusions in a way that I wish everyone could get, also.

 

Obligatory Miracle Worker Post...

 In researching after watching the movie, maybe fully for the first time last night--although this might be the biggest disability story that every American seems to know(even if they only know the half of it, and kind of want to keep Helen out at the pump understanding "WATER" for much of her life,) I found somepossible medical causes for Helen's condition. My mother, not in any way a doctor, subscribed to the scarlet fever theory, possibly as a means to get tween me to finish my antibiotics.(I heard about that about Mary Ingalls, too, since I grew up in the heyday of "Little House", although again, real life had more mixed messages than its pop-culture variant.  Mary got to go to college and not bust her butt on the homestead, but I don't really think that meant she found a blind stud and a chance to be in loco parentis to a rotating cast of blind kids.  Maybe in that case, it would be enough just to live and not have to worry about the crops as much as your mother...I don't know. The whole role-model thing with these ladies and me? Is kind of stretched thin, anyway, even if I'd had more pictures of their life to take off the playground

I really do like the "Miracle Worker" movie, even though I can see its influence in much lesser efforts in the genre of crusading mother or teacher figures trying to reach the promising disabled kid who's "still in there" and all that kind of stuff.   The movie does attempt to reckon with both Helen's mother and Anne Sullivan working with Helen so hard out of their own trauma...Mrs. Keller from the guilt that a young mother might feel having a daughter almost die--her love and fear holds Helen back, though--and Anne Sullivan's amazing rise from the kind of poverty that shocks modern Americans.(Not sure if Anne was in the workhouse because of her disability or if she got it while she was there, but she really went through a lot.) I also think it was unique how much the movie tried to deal with the divisions in the country in Helen's post-Civil War childhood..

This Month Might Be Defined...

 More by what I don't say(and not only because health stuff has slowed up my posting) than because I wrote something great.
"Wedded Twist" draft 3 is not going badly, but I think I'm proudest of some judgements I didn't share.

From Dreamwidth...

a workshop exercise... 

I took a little class called "Writing Fandom" but I'm still surprised that this came out.

First Post of January...

 

I missed a commemoration of my late friend, but finished up my Sex and The City rewatch this weekend.  Which might seem like an unfortunate snapshot of my headspace as we enter this new year, if I’d started out with any hope whatever—I would have had little enough if Harris won—your country shoving you aside for enough years does kind of mean that you disappoint Journey and “stop believing’ “but I guess I needed some fantasy to get me through the last few weeks.(And it’s hard to be a woman this age with a lot of stuff that you “couldn’t help but wonder” and not have Carrie with you in your heart, sometimes, however tarnished the rescue-fantasy ending now seems or because your own lady-posse may love you but they’re not exactly…yours to command. Or, you know, all ladies.)

I wanted to do it one last time—even with the acknowledgement that it’s sort of like giving your brain a lot of pretty pixy-Stix, in case Comstockery truly does have the floor in this country and I’m not quite tech-savvy enough to get it from Canada or Germany or wherever pre-Handmaids will get our hands on naughty shit (a strong possibility since I have not started streaming HBO yet.) I wanted to pretend that I could watch JD Vance throb with pain, and maybe something else he could lie about for his next book, as I contemplate Samantha Jones coming so operatically and wonder for the eighth or tenth time:

Whether a: That’s some bullshit that hardly ever happens—no offense to Kim Cattrall who almost makes me believe it. 2. I’m kind of a quiet comer, either by nature or because I never can stop thinking that people shouldn’t know what I, or on super-rare occasions—think Ling-Ling the panda—we might be doing. Or 3.  Nobody has really rocked my socks yet.  Or D: All of these. (All of us Scantron babies know that when you’re really confused, D is a decent bet.  Right?)

I feel shy about posting that, but in the spirit of making resistance naughty this time, I’m going to, and not just because I don’t have a kid to point to and be all “No fair…she’s going to have fewer rights than me—that’s some *bull*shit.” Even though, yes, it is, but that’s not my experience. I’m not exactly at peace with my experience, either, but word-power is like other power: Use it or lose it. At least, I’m not Melania, or Usha, or with any of the male podcasters who thought that Cardi and Megan were lying because they never felt one before, if you get my drift. Which brings me back to my very quotable friend, gone these ten years already—although if we could just go “ollie, ollie, oxen free,” or something they say in Jamaica and get her back, this would have been a decent decade to skip, being that it sucked and all, but the finality is the hardest part.   Anyway, she had frequent droughts and reminded us to always feel good about the awful folks we never slept with.