What Really Matters, Tech Edition....

Almost didn't realize how much I'd written over the years(and how many fits and starts I'd had) until I changed my back-up system for files. Of course, for now, the novel stays, even though it's like the opposite of a blockbuster, and the collection I'm assembling now, just in case, but some of the other decisions are murkier. So far, my query letters haven't worked...should I keep them, hoping for some revision lightning bolt, or be hopeful that one day I won't have to bring my failings as an elevator pitchwoman along with me when the worst happens? A lot of the fanfiction is archived, but it also feels like an artifact from a much more cheerful civilization...is that an argument for rescue, or a gentle disappearance besides my quarterly Kudos? What about that one page beginning that seemed like It in 2012, but something happened and I never reclaimed that burning passion?  I've saved it a bunch of times thinking "One day..." but am I kidding myself? There is probably space for all of it, but unlike my previous system, I have to make active selections.
I'm not that used to choices anymore. Which may be why I'm not a better writer by this point, really.

Stuck for an ending...

for one of my fiction pieces so I'll do a prompt this week. Best case, maybe I'll write a flash...worst case something will germinate while I play with this, which I got from this site, Self-publishing School
#4 – Your main character has been living a very sheltered, very dangerous life. After the death of their overbearing father, they’re thrust into the real world – only to realize just how different their life really is from those around them.

Here's what I wrote...from this, you can see that "A Patch Of Blue" is one of my favorite movies...see it if you haven't.
 

Though the hospital wasn’t exactly quiet, compared to the bustle of a burger joint during lunch rush, it seemed like it. It smelled better, though, with a welcoming hint of onions. Nora moved forward on her crutches, and felt nervous as she watched two teenaged boys play-fighting in line in front of her.(At least, she hoped it was play-fighting, because she’d be in a bad position if it wasn’t) She felt like everyone in the restaurant was watching her, not because she was paranoid, but because she’d been holed up with her family for days, since she got the call about Dad. They weren’t understanding all the time, far from it, but they had known what she looked like since birth. She dreaded it when strangers looked at her like it was sad when she was out on her own, but her sister said she made it up. Kate was perfect, though, they didn’t have the same problems.

As her time came up in line,  Nora wished she could have faced another hospital-cafeteria pudding cup. Everyone’s order, once it’s laid out, is bigger than she expected…three orders of fries, large, but just the fries, as if everyone agreed a full greasy meal would be unseemly, Kate’s apple pie…she can’t remember who wanted the fish sandwich, her own chicken tenders…and there was something else she couldn’t remember.   The pause stretches out and her cheeks flush…people behind her start getting restless, when it mercifully jumped in her mind. “Um, can I get a vanilla shake?” She sounded so awkward, like she was ordering porn, or gunpowder.

“You sure about that?” the guy behind the counter said. He had dark skin and eyes and even she could tell he was just teasing. He had a little bit of accent, too.  She smiled, feeling lighter for a moment not being the crippled lady whose dad was probably dying, and sat while he put some vanilla stuff into a cup.”yeah, great…”

“Fucking finally…is the telethon over yet? Because some of us have jobs to get back to…” A harsh male voice behind her blurted out.

Meanwhile, she looked at the big unwieldy bag, and her two hands filled with crutches…even without the shake in there, resting in its holder, she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking. Just that her dad liked it when she handled things by herself…tears swam in her eyes.

Is Progress Making Your Life Less Accessible?

 

Could Progress Make Your Life Less Accessible?

Americans tend to be an optimistic people, especially about the power of technology to bring positive change. 59%  of people surveyed in 2014 believed that technology is a force for progress and positive change. I’m not sure if anyone they asked had disabilities, but as a PWD myself, I might have gone along with the sentiment until recently, but I’ve noticed that a lot of the one-touch technology meant for smartphone users on the go has made a lot of things harder for me, including using the phone itself. 

There is no point debating life without a landline if your fingers can barely dial without buttons, as I found out recently. For now, it was easy enough to bring the handset back so I was able to continue my volunteerism uninterrupted, but what happens in a few years? While we all have to live with some uncertainty, I’d hate to see progress put up more roadblocks for people who already face a lot of systemic barriers.

For gamer Grant Stoner, who runs the “Gamer For Granted” blog about access to video games, a glimpse of that future is already here. In an e-mail interview, Stoner describes previous Pokemon games as “easy to play,” adding that he could play some of them with one finger, but in the interest of “innovating a 20-year-old franchise” the latest game involves a controller set-up that even able-bodied people find needlessly complicated, and that Stoner himself can’t use due to lack of mobility.

Access had been improving in the video game world recently, but, he says “developers often incorrectly assume adding accessibility features will slow down production and affect the release date,”making it  harder for games to enter a crowded marketplace, but Stoner believes greater access would open up a wider market.

People with orthopedic disabilities aren’t the only ones that need to fear the encroachment of some innovations.  Writer and editor Chris Kuell, who is blind, has  faced that frustration close to home. 

Raised buttons and knobs are easier for him to use, but to find a stove with one, he “had to hunt.”

“When I’m cooking,” he added, via e-mail from his home in Connecticut, “everything goes in at 350(he has a sticker on that temperature with raised dots so he can find it) and Alexa is my timer.”

While it’s true that people with disabilities are a comparatively small market(and sometimes, a modification that opens a door for one puts up a roadblock for someone else,) my hope for the future is that, much like the ramps and curb cuts that have gone before, accessibility features for household goods expand access for disabled people while also enhancing lives that of people who didn’t realize they needed these enhancements.

Met a comparatively friendly conservative...

ex- Democrat on twitter talking to Mother Jones this week(don't worry, this isn't  Tom Friedman talking to his cab-driver. First of all, that always struck me like the unscrupulous reporter on "The Wire" who managed to have so many broken dolls in pictures accompanying his stories that other reporters joked he bought them by the case. Secondly, although it went all right, and that did make me feel nice on a human level, I can't say it's a magic bullet.)

We come from similar...down-market enclaves in a red state that is, from my perspective, slow at getting bluer and probably spent more time in college working than getting wasted in Cancun. She had a sudden health crisis that disrupted her life...the disruption of being born imperfect formed my life. In some ways, we might always have a lot to chat about...may even have a favorite show or something, though the past few years have been hell on my fandoms anyway and I can't say I've had a My Show for a super-long time. But she saw something in Trump that wasn't the blowhard guy in the back of the room that had a lot of opinions but didn't do his homework(Which is even better than the fascist  I see now) and I did not.  To put it mildly. I always want to ask: What does this guy do for you, that you want to think about his name every time you fire up twitter?
  Knowing that there are very few politicians that I could also list as direct impacts: Ted Kennedy, FDR, and Elizabeth Warren(the latter cause she made it so I don't have to pay a huge bank $15 for babysitting my money every month...it was always at the end so I dreaded not having it, because SSI really is that small, so every time I relax at the end of the month, though more out of ritual than true need at this point, I always turn a thought toward Massachusetts.Thanks, Dr. Warren!)

Still, as much as we did communicate, however briefly, there are questions in my mind that might not have been there five years ago.  Like, would she have been as pleasant if, like so many women that share my name, I had been younger and black or Latina? Don't want to be a knee-jerk progressive straw-woman and say definitely not, but at the same time, I can't be 2000-era me and so sure we've gotten beyond "all that racial stuff". Maybe my disabled-person-on-a-short-leash "one of the Good Ones" pass would be transferable.
I am still thinking of  her "pre-existing condition" too. It's one of the big ones that even makes disabled me hope that she smoked like a chimney or worked in a candy factory and licked things out of the dye vats....almost, anyway, just so there'd be some way of knowing it wouldn't happen to you. On the other hand, she's made it for now.  What kind of health coverage does she have?  Does she fear losing it? How much does she know about the sabotage of the health insurance markets?