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.

In Which Bohemian Crip Could Kill Your Fun Accident Game In One Word...

 GAME: Name one thing that almost killed you.
BC: Birth.

We've All Been Becca Myers...

 otherwise known asthe Paralympic swimmer who couldn't come to the Paralympics without her mom as attendant. I can't swim at all, so I've not literally been where Ms. Myers is, although my own personal-care needs, though different, are extensive enough that, no, I can't really teach them to somebody I've just met.

As disappointing as this is coming from an organization designed to center disability, I think it just illustrates our culturally two-faced attitude about the value of caregiving generally, in the way it looks better from a fuzzy distance where neither providers or consumers ask for anything.

Bohemian Crip Watches Movies: Give Me Liberty

Give Me Liberty  may be the single most representative non-documentary I've ever seen(I'm 47). As such, it's not exactly a restful viewing experience as it reminds me of about a year's worth of paratransit trips, complete with noise, chaos, missed intentions and a destination that's "ten minutes away, tops," but seems to be receding in the distance.Everyone with a disability in the movie has a disability, which is rare enough that some viewers, including my mom, found it off-putting at times.  I think it's pretty awesome, even if every other movie I've ever seen sort of makes me think that the most "mainstream-salvageable" riders will both have a meet-cute and hit Publisher's Clearinghouse and somehow be rescued from being who they are.

Paratransit driver Vic has already brought his work home, living in a senior-living complex with his grandfather while he drives clients around working-class sections of Milwaukee, pretty much knowing going in that doing his job for one client may mean disappointing someone else, and always keeping dispatch(the closest to The Man that this story features) one step behind. Somehow, he ends up driving Grandpa's posse of old-timers on a day when there's a protest march in the city and a full complement of disabled riders(Some of whom run late all the time because they don't have enough support at home, which is often the fact, Jack. Although there are little wins in this movie, it doesn't try to tell us the United States leaves no crip behind.)

25 Years Ago...

 if I'd written about states ending sub-minimum wage it would have been very different, both because disability writing occasioned in me a sense of queasy obligation, and because, twenty-six years ago, I boarded paratransit with a resume that was barely a thought clutched in one hand and "What Color Is Your Parachute?" clutched my in my other, exceptional hand. I told the driver, who was black and probably had his own problems that I was "sort of" on a job search and what a trial it had been...I told him more than I needed to because I didn't need to be a success for him and prove that my education had been worthwhile. He thought he was helping when he suggested Local Workshop Provider, but I was a little offended. You know, I went to school,  I was the only crip in the room for a reason. Just ask me, I'd tell you how unusual I was. I didn't take him up on that whole piecework thing, and I moved away, and I thought I'd forgot most of the cravings of my "Suzie Mainstream" period like all the pink sweaters I wore back then.

Although, today I might say that the faith in workshops for disabled people and the mainstream's faith in "Parachute" might come from two sides of the same delusion about the power of individual intangibles like "work ethic" to be the one ingredient that separates the successful from the also-ran.(as opposed to luck of the draw, social class or whether this blog is ever sweet enough to get hyped on "The Ellen Show? Not usually.)

I'm not especially informed on the payment issue, but I do think if these people are workers their work matters they should get paid more for it, however, my experience makes me ask different questions Like, why is "a sense of dignity and purpose" tied up with a job anyway(Let alone with a job that many companies kind of present as them providing a service to the community that's not strictly essential.)

Why can't these co-workers just hang out together without pretending they have to be in the same workspace at 9:03 Monday-Friday if that's what they really care about?(Although, yes, it's probably easier to find transportation to one regulating box than any number of locations, but that's wrong, too and needs to be addressed.)

Are disabled people ever allowed to do anything that's not Improving?(asking for millions of friends)

Is any American who is not taking a phallic substitute in space allowed?

What about The People Who Aren't Lauren?

 I don't think David Axelrod(or Kurt Warner, (who is what this recent op-ed discussion made me think of, because local press would make you think that Mr Warner invented housing segregated by ability level and it's a great new idea that being a quarterback gave him vision for.) are wrong for wanting "pleasant tree-lined streets" and friends their adult children relate to. Those are nice things that maybe everyone should have a shot at having.

Residential placement was different for me than it is for Lauren, because my parents aren't bold-type names who know donors who they can tell to take their toys and go home when they feel that she or they have been disrespected. (thankfully, all I was was disrespected, which takes a toll, but not like the ones taken by abuse or more serious neglect. I avoided most of the real "snakepit" scenarios, but I bet Lauren's place isn't understaffed, with a great many of the people being glad to  work there cause they don't have to wear the dumb hat, like at Del Taco.(A lot of us were nineteen) At the time, both sets of parents(again, different for Lauren...the odds of both sets of 'rents and me agreeing on what should happen next? Close enough to nil that maybe the mathematician from "Numbers" could have found the actual number.) They were both running businesses and didn't really have the inclination or connections to build me my own planet.(Do I want one? Sometimes. More than I want to talk about my goals with another near-stranger who's trying to seem friendly while keeping an ear out to make sure my story doesn't change too much....I'm not here to make the argument that the institutional alternatives as they currently stand are anything like what most people need.  Just feeling that the Axelrod/Warner vision is a bit less than small-d democratic.)

How much does Axelrod know about what his daughter wants?(All right, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe you don't write op-eds about people you're not close to, right?) But even now, I live with my mother and she's not above nudging a little about something that "we talked about" or "we agreed" so I could imagine that maybe "Axe's" own fear about the homestyle placement instead of the dorm one dominates the conversation enough that she doesn't share anymore if she thought about something else.