In a Hallmark Movie, We Would Date, Of Course...

 My friend Xav(Name changed at his request). and I had a plan to help each other find a date.(Once we sort of established that the little flare-ups of chemistry that we have aren't...quite it, in some way that we don't want to offend each other by digging around in too hard, even though  we probably have been "fixed-up" by ableds with far less compatibility than we actually have--ask me about the summer a whole attendant-services agency thought I should date a disabled guy who never used the internet before. 4 years ago.) No, don't.  That was awful, although Phoenix is the summer is so boring, for a hot second, I bet against the laws of time, space, and, well, everything I know about the people that made the suggestion, to hope that it might... but shockingly, it did not. Even trying to be generous about everyone's impulses there, hard not to see that as "You have  brain damage and defy filing too...let us kiss with tongues!1"(Abled people: really?!) Even worse, they asked me about it long and fervently enough that I became grateful that the interaction fizzled and we didn't try to "stay friends".

I'm not trying to do that again, here, even if technically, it wouldn't because Xav has a muscle disease, as opposed to my brain damage, in (which is the kind of distinction I thought as a kid might make people in the neighborhood stop calling me a Jerry's Kid. After weeks of diligent educational effort...I think I got a few of them to switch to "spaz"#progress #themoreyouknow

It is a little distressing to find out that you've been old enough and "on the market" long enough for the dating site world to have changed around you to outpace your meager tech skills(Much less your faith in creating a profile that could be both winning and halfway accurate.) Not that I've been searching the whole time, of course.

X. is a lawyer, a wheelchair user, who likes food and movies, a Democrat that has a first-class dirty mind that could make the right woman very happy.

If it could be you(especially if you're local to AZ) drop me a thought in the comments.

 

"FutureFest" Will Come Out This Winter....

 (in a friendly market, so the suspense was minimal, although there were definitely trips of mine they declined to go on.)
But I am proud of it because I've tossed around the idea about someone having a "recovery' from their disability, only to get stymied by the twist that might send her(mostly, though I think I started one with a male character too) to choose disabled life anew.

Funny how my first adventure in science-fiction led me to my most "Write what you know," resolution ever. To Wit: tech let her down.

In other news, I wrote about someone having a hard time considering Britney disabled, only to discover that I do, too.(maybe in a different way, and also knowing that people who are not in our community don't necessarily feel like the Welcome Wagon shows up when we invite them in, but if she wants to claim it, she has a mental-health disability. If she would say that someday, it would be huge for the mental- health movement...not sure how much it helps if we say it, but when I tweeted about it, maybe  I was being too delicate.)
Although, yes, I have a lot of old. internalized shame about my own conditions, I think this is related to some of the embarrassment I felt being rebuffed at times like that, both in my own family and as a baby activist with a disability-pride brain-freeze.(Memoir title: Looking For Solidarity In All The Wrong Places) I got a lot of this:

ME(flush with excitement about an article, or some shit) So, you can see, if we come together, in our shared needs as disabled people....(Thinking about this now, I can't believe I ever thought this would be this easy, ever. I think even forty-seven year old me is not proud enough for twenty-year-old me.)

NEWBIE(especially if they're older)

I don't have a disability...I'm being *treated* for(disabling condition)

So, I pretty much don't say someoneI don't know is disabled unless they are out somewhere in a chair that's on fire.