Shut Up, Megyn Kelly...

 a former colleague and friend has acted to stem the tide of "I have a disabled friend, and she doesn't care/thinks it's funny," coming from Camp Kelly.(Hey, we're not all the same, but if any of us have had a taste of diagnostic hell, we wouldn't wish it on...Megyn Kelly.)

My disability is on the diagnosable side, but it still took a year for doctors to find it for my parents, which of course, being one, I don't remember, but it was probably complicated by the doctors looking at my mom and seeing a crazy blonde hippie who didn't finish college.   Even though her sense of "Yeah, she babbles and everything, but shouldn't she be...I don't know, *moving* and stuff?" was pretty bang-on accurate(although I can do a few things that people at, well, let's say my documented ability level, tend not to be able to, so even once you get one, it's not always a roadmap.) 

Even the expensive specialist made my parents look up "cerebral palsy" in their Funk and Wagnalls(No, we were a Britannica family...it's just fun to picture the Laugh-In of it all...Mom as the Special Needs Sock It To Me Girl) I don't remember being diagnosed but I do remember playing with a lot of failed equipment experiments, including the walker I decorated with crayons.

When I was twenty, I went to my first love's family party and got pinkeye from his niece.  Which, by itself would be both frustrating and gross because I am too uncoordinated to put my own drops in and licensed housing doesn't exactly pay caring-nurturer wages even when everyone involved is not twenty and glad not  to be wearing the stupid hat from Del Taco anymore. Even placing my face so someone else could do the drops could be challenging sometimes.  (Literal *decades* later, I found out that eye drops are sulfa, to which I'm enormously, itchingly allergic. Hope Christina's answer doesn't take this long, but I hope the resolution is complete.)

Back in the nineties, though, they just think that, well, it takes a couple tries, with possibly a side of "She's a crip--maybe she's not clean, picking stuff up with her spazzy little fingers," so I get drops again, and some ointment, and part of every school day is spent thinking "Must not scratch face," even though I want to more than I want to masturbate, even with an absolutely *gorgeous* philosophy major in creative writing with me.(He might not be cute anymore, or even alive, but I still wonder what would have happened if I'd been confident when we met.)  

I went to an eye specialist who told me, essentially, "Inside your eyes is fine...why are you here?"

And I say "Your guess is good as mine," and pick up more stuff that makes my skin worse.(The stuff that helped cost like $50 and my insurer didn't pay.  Clearly, I was running some kind of concession because nobody has eye infections that long, so I bought that.  And not much else. For about eight months.)

I don't get sick often, for being broken, but boy does it turn into a saga when it happens.  The dermatologist that made the Itching Cycle of Hell stop was my hero for a long time, even though I hardly ever wear make-up anymore cause she made me all  Throw The Bums Out about what touches my flesh.

And I know that doesn't touch what Christina Applegate is living right now.   

 

Might Be Bigger Posts, But...

 -It is literally and physically tiring how many architectural barriers there are in America. Dental cleanings are probably the simplest medical procedure, but not from a wheelchair.  No wonder I'm late for that mammogram.  And somehow, because it doesn't snow here, my town has a rep as some kind of Southwest Disability Mecca--I swear I don't know why.  Everyone's parents got the same unkept promises.  maybe.(Don't come...it sucks.)

--If Marilu Henner had gotten bored playing Hot Donna on an Actual Seventies Show, would she have been a rebel iconoclast too, or just a difficult bitch? Would dying young have given that version more mystique than looking practically ageless?

--a dude in a wheelchair paid me a compliment today. Not especially into him, but still haven't outgrown twelve year-old urge to tell some puppy "And that's how I met your father." Will I ever have enough going on to stop doing this? Even though Middle America's lid-for-every-pot-gasm could fully kill the passion. should there be any.

Wish Someone On The West Wing Had Known...

 despite Donna's injuries and recovery being a Season 6 B-story, that nobody comes home from the hospital with a perfectly-fitting electric chair(they might have gone with a scooter for Donna, as she appears to have abled-person balance and posture. But if they did that, my thoughts about the doorways would be even more salient as those are taller and wider. There is no way she could just bop through doorways that were built for radio's heyday. Just no.)

Also, I could accept, maybe, that whatever she doesn't get in take-home is made up for in a banging benefits package or that Dr. Abbey knocked some heads together or something, but you'd have to mention it.  Home-health companies aren't like "No problem...whatever you need," It's almost science-fiction unreal that Donna can just work and not come to the end of the rental period and have to call her  doctor or something.

 I hate that the one thing that creators seem to get from the passage of the ADA is some instinct to hand-wave and say "She'll fit...things are different now." Because they're not, at least, not that much. And we're talking about a really old building there. She'd get stuck somewhere, at least once, and I kind of wish I could see it.  And I definitely wish "This is not who we are!1" reusable tote-bag America could have seen it because all that mommy energy might have gotten people like me more access now.(Maybe, maybe not. But I can't blame people for thinking things are fixed when what they see is that things are fixed.)

 

Let's Still Help Beverly...

 as much as I think I've become used to the Heller-style machinations of our health system, I still can't quantify my frustration upon reading they won't fix my comrade's old medical equipment but they also can't cover a new one...What the hell is that? If the doctor says she needs it, she should get it. #HealthcareIsAHumanRight

Yes, I will contribute with my own money, but I don't have enough to do it myself, and, though it seems that the "$50 from every share" is inflated by crowdfund platforms, I also really am hoping many hands make light work here. Donate, share. replace the band-aid  I don't get any of the donations.

If you can't put in cash, please spread the word. 

Donate For Beverly Here 

More Pleasantville Thoughts...

 somewhat delayed by digestive pyrotechnics yesterday.Even though I don't tell anyone to stifle more than I usually do, I do have a rare agreement with Archie Bunker's "Change!Change right now!" Though I'm not sure how much Margaret Mead's "post-menopausal zest" was really written about with a wheelchair user in the middle of the desert in mind. Not exactly complaining, but mine has not been a life with a lot of "Whew!Glad that's over." in it.

Anyway....

-Are television characters somewhat understood to be in a separate dimension there, or was there an elder actress both learning to speak jive and sometimes wishing she got to have more of a say in what she was a symbol of?

-There is kind of a whiff of infidelity in rooting for Joan Allen and the soda jerk, even if we don't have a full picture of Mom and Dad's marriage and there's a lot of just doing the expected thing that's in the literal script.  Kind of makes me sad that the Dad character doesn't keep up.

-after, you know, a decade and a half of watching retailers fail and customer service get hollowed out and replaced by chatbots and hold queues, the thought of going into a store where you might actually see the owner seems nice and all too rare. I guess I could understand the black-and-white urge to hold onto downtown more than when I first watched it. 

Don't Stop Believin? And Why We Still Need Pleasantville...

 This week featured another long-shot contest submission, with a prize amount that could give your Bohemian Crip's life a real jolt. But I have tried for this market a few times by now, to not much avail, although when they gave me feedback, it was good enough to put aside the Joyce Davenport law school fantasy, that poor threadbare thing, for another year or so.  Even if I'm not sure how I'd have made that happen, either, and I've never sold those pieces that I wanted their opinion on so eagerly.

Basically, they think I'm a writer, but I'm not their girl or anything.  Given the numbers of writers there are, I suppose that's likely, and doubly so for the Disability issues that continually chap my hide for not making room for me, even if when short-sighted abled editors look at ideas like that and see a lock.(Which still seems reductive.   Not that I'm on his level but I hope nobody followed Ralph Ellison around like "Wow, there are sure a lot of black people in this."but I almost bet they did. Maybe I'll end up being a class project someday, too; I'm not sure if I really want that anymore, though. Being me at this age makes it hard to dream at the same time I'm not sure I'm actively doing anything else, either, which my youth repeating the catechism of Ed Roberts and Judy Huemann did not prepare me for, and which actively sucks.)

I'm not completely torn up about that, but it does kind of cut into either "You never know!" or "You already know what will happen when it's just on your hard drive," because, a lot of times I do and the computer passes.

But, hell, maybe I'm due.  And at least, I've started sending out things in which I really believe, so I guess I wouldn't mind seeing them get around a bit before finding what might be some kind of permanent home. Before this, I submitted  to get used to the process, which didn't really happen anyway, or because it was The Chicken Challenge and I thought my chicken bit was hilarious and nobody agreed.(it's fine that not many of those pieces are out and about now, though.)

Watching "Pleasantville" feels different under encroaching fascism--it's one of my favorite movies of the nineties and one of the most beautiful films I know, but like many reviewers when it came out, I also kind of thought it was refighting the sixties, which, given that I am hippie spawn, I'm kind of down for, but  I couldn't have that little Dumb History People satisfied pause at the end, right? Because plenty of people now would be happy if our books were blank and if we never escaped Main Street.
JD Vance hates that movie so much.

"In The Dark" Almost Recovered Its Three...

 but it didn't, at least not enough to make Season Three feel like a good use of my time.  I did get to see Chloe gain some independence and save the day amid all the wild double-and triple dealing and all that, so that got the story back to its emotional core, but it's a little sad when shows have one great season of stories and are on for three.