I watched "Ironside" yesterday...

For one of the first times ever. Just kind of watched what followed "Rockford" last night so I can't say if it was a typical "Ironside" or not, but it reminded me more of "Streets of San Francisco" or something than Rockford, which I love, but I'm still sort of surprised I haven't watched it anyway, though it predates me slightly more.
I noticed:
-It seemed like the one tip Burr got about looking paralyzed is to not move around, ever. which makes every scene he's in a pretty static shot of him behind a desk somewhere, asking someone else to check something. He is the boss, so I guess that could make sense, but it makes him a pretty tepid lead(But maybe those are the "Worst episodes ever," that people have griped about for years...I should watch some more before I say that.)

--he was in a car accident and went to the hospital in one episode...kind of goes against my experience with the medical profession that they let him go home alone afterwards. In fact, what he wants is pretty unquestioned by everyone, so much so that I'd almost call this show as much a Fantasy as a crime show.




_Every place Ironside goes is accessible.  Which I know is the dream, but part of me did want to see the cop with the natural hiking his chair over a curb, because it would feel real to my experience. 

A Fictional Midwestern Fourth...

From one of my stories, at least tentatively titled "Saturday...In The Park" because I can be lame like that.(Yes, this is the one with the sneaker track in it.)

was supposed to have a vacation, not time to face hard truths about the justice system. 

It was my new friend Perry’s battle and I was grateful for the chance to help, but the whole affair was very different from my expectations.   At first, though, I was enjoying a little Midwestern hospitality with my mentor and business partner Tommy Merrigan and his family. For a desert-dweller such as myself, it felt novel, if a little sticky, to be outside drinking a frosty beer on the Fourth of July instead of inside praying for the continued health of my air conditioner.  Since I’d lived in the same Phoenix condo for five years and only known one of my neighbors, it took me aback that people waved at me after less than a week, but I recognized the young and vaguely stork-like man and waved back. I thought he was old-school and carrying a fanny pack, but he’d rigged a baby sling out of a towel and carried a doll in it. A woman who could only be his mother, despite being ripe where he was scrawny, and brunette where he was blond, panted a greeting and then said 

 “When I say ‘Wait up’ what does that mean, Perry?”

“Give you a chance to catch up,” Perry replied, bored with the whole topic.

“If you know that, why didn’t you?” The mother said, irritated for the moment. Then, she spotted the little passenger still clinging to her son’s mid-section.  Now that he had stopped moving, even though he seemed boyish, I could see that he was older than I’d figured:  twenty or so.  I guessed he was past the age when even special-needs mothers think it’s cute to play with baby dolls in public, but I still felt for him that she said “I thought we agreed you’d leave that home.”

Perry knitted his eyebrows.  “I’m not playing with it.  It’s for practice. Me and Tammy might have one.”

“It’s ‘Tammy and I’ and you better not.  I’ll tell you the same as I told your brother and your sister. I’ve raised my kids. “This statement might have had more authority if she hadn’t been spilling out of a tube top, but what did I know? My nurturing skills seemed to have peaked with putting kibble down for my cat and nagging my friends to take their vitamins.  It was looking like I’d never be anyone’s mother…much less, and this part of the thought spilled out before I could stop it, someone like that. Yes, even though my own wheelchair made me “someone like that” to a lot of people.

Maybe the judgmental thought made me work harder to get to know Perry. I really did feel for his mother, too, but maybe she should learn to let things ride more often.  The jazz band playing the Independence Day festival had gone on break and Tommy went to stand in the watermelon line.  We were alone; I had to say something.” So…Is your girlfriend here tonight?” It felt like a cheap come-on, but I didn’t think Perry heard it that way, whether because he was out of the game, or because he hadn’t learned that people mean more than they say, I couldn’t be sure, but talking to him was as restful as the best parts of being nine.

“No. She’s visiting her grandma that had a heart attack. She should be back late tonight, though.”

“Oh,” I said. “You must miss her.”

“Me and Tammy kiss on the lips.” He offered, then looked sadly at my wheelchair, as if thinking I might get more lip-kissing without it.  I couldn’t blame him--’d thought that before myself. He showed me his phone.  “here’s her picture.” Tammy was tiny and pretty, with a ready smile and only a slight vagueness around her big brown eyes. I nodded my approval, suddenly not trusting myself not to sound like an old lady and tell Perry how great it was that “you could hardly tell” that anything was different about cute little Tammy.

“Great.” I said.  “It’s nice to care about someone.” It crossed my mind to wonder if he knew, as magical as a make-out session could be, that it wasn’t magic that made babies.  I had a discreet question on the tip of my tongue, then decided I didn’t need to be quite that groovy hanging out on the fairgrounds. 

A Story of Mine Hinges on a Sneaker Print...

And I was worried that that wasn't a good enough clue. I saw an episode of a show called
"A Perfect Murder" about the murder of actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly(I still haven't watched my favorite "Homicide" ep in years because I find "If it happens to me. it's good to know that you're out there," a bit more eerie than intended, though I do think about her often when I want something warm for...riding my bike.)
While the detective in question lacked a certain Byronic Bayliss soulfulness, though, he risked a loss of professional credibility to take up the cause of a devoted husband who refused to believe, artistic temperament or not, a mother with a career on the upswing would hang herself in the bathroom.
The bathroom itself just didn't look right, and the friends and family's stories remained consistent(although families sometimes don't face emotional problems very much) and as expected, the world of screenwriting and auditions can get really nutty, but it might have gone down as a suicide if the laborer that did it hadn't left a print on the toilet tank.

As I sit here today...

-Our national appetite for gun violence(and elected officials' inaction) have  claimed more lives, this time at a local newspaper in Annapolis, MD. Recent years have been some of the most dangerous for reporters in history--show your local paper some love...

-Jeff Flake still remains a disappointing cowardly   Senator who gets a lot of credit for making the right noises that he does not deserve...counting days till he scurries back up North, perfect smile and all.

-And the thing I was planning to write  today...if you like documentaries, and/or disability rep matters to you, rent "Dealt". It is a documentary of an exceptional person that does exceptional things, but in the reversal of the established trope, his life begins to get better when he stops letting "never let it hold him back,", uh, hold him back.  Also, fascinating to see someone who took Jim Garner's "Maverick" as a role model."Leverage" fans might especially like his dissection of card illusions.

A Civil Plea For Radical Incivility...

On some level, I've always had a problem with manners.  Not that I think it's wrong to thank people when they help you out and things like that, although I have had some lapses, more from exuberance than coarseness.But manners have also meant that I have to be patient with Products of Their Time(TM) saying hideous things in front of me because the wheelchair means I don't understand.My whole life, I've been told I  "have to understand" people that do this, that when they were young crips were shut away, and blah blah, so relating to me with courtesy is some kind of insurmountable etiquette challenge.I have learned to accept that people do that, but I still don't understand.  For instance, I don't really understand marriage, being that I've been a girlfriend for a lifetime total of about twelve minutes. But if I went up to some old couple and said, under  the guise of "curiosity" or "trying to learn" and said "Hey, how long after you got together did you start  letting yourself go?", they'd treat me like I was rude, and I would deserve it.(or worse, they could treat me as a non-threatening repository for their secrets and tell me---I get that a lot, too.)



We face a crisis in our national moment.  This is a disturbing realization, which might make it easy to be comforted by pattern and ritual.  We have to resist this impulse, especially since the institutions, and the highly-paid spokespeople doing all the tsking, are not doing their jobs right now(Maybe they've never done what we needed, but let's take time to ponder that on another day.) Definitely vote and step up your volunteer commitments.  Give up a creature comfort or two to donate--it helps a worthy cause, and, as a secondary benefit, allows you to step off the hamster wheel of acquisition for a bit.(Some of you can do one of these things, some can do both...mileage may vary. We all need to do what we can while we can. But if you have a word or two for Mitch McConnell in whatever despotic Cracker Barrel the traditional Supreme Court-seat-stealing bastard likes his cream gravy from, know that  I'm here in the desert cheering you on(try not to physically hurt him, even though  turtles tend to live forever.) Give Meghan McCain the "View" from the ground--some exposure to the little people and our problems is vastly overdue. Let's not just slip gently into a fascist state...our forebears are fighters and radicals...let's pretend that Glinda, the Democratic Socialist Good Witch, showed up in her pink dress with the red roses on it(or maybe it's red white and blue) and tells us the power was in us all along--let's fucking click our heels together, shall we?

Nothing Ventured...

Made some comparatively long-shot submissions that might have been inconceivable when I was trying my hardest to show my range by not writing about disability topics.(I've looked over a printed cache of those articles recently, and there are bright spots about them: decent quotes or quips and whatever, but they were almost determinedly non-consequential attempts to erase my real life and history and remake myself as the local version as a trend -story yuppette, or "Just Shoot Me" cast member.
 It was hard for me to see at the time because the submission/ pitch process took so much from me every time, but now I can see that it would be better to have worked hard on one piece that really mattered, versus six pieces of glittery, nothing bullshit that came from what I saw on other media.
(Yes, I really wanted to be one of those women, and not what I really was.  Especially then.)
Even though I like my stories, I do think they are long shots, because one is to Mystery Magazine Everyone Wants In(Not their name, obvs) and a disability anthology out of Canada. 
I'm still not Canadian, as much as I might wish sometimes. 

I had a brief e-mail conversation...

While a plan for a full interview didn't come to full fruition, I did have a brief  e-mail conversation with publisher  Lisa McCormick following her unexpectedly robust showing against embattled two-term Senator  Bob Menendez.  McCormick is eyeing a 2020 Senate run, and expressed intentions to "push the Senator to adopt a progressive platform" which I hope will still include increased options for New Jerseyans with disabilities.
Donate to Lisa McCormick here!