Bohemian Crip Watches Movies: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot...

Ok, before the reviewing and snark starts,I think I have some tips for screenwriters and directors in America.

-being born with a disability doesn't really mean there is no conflict or identity issues. Granted, it's not like waking up after a Volkswagen crashes into a highway pylon, but we don't have a special manual to manage our stuff(as much as people tend to want to believe "not knowing what you're missing" is a huge help or something. Also, lucky for us there are no huge conglomerates both beaming and exaggerating "what we're missing" at any hour of the day or night.  Oh, wait...)

_I don't think there was a single paralyzed actor in any of the rehab scenes...seriously?It's bad enough that lead actors tend to view disability as both award-bait and some kind of emoting decathalon,(I get the language concerns, but "Tropic Thunder" made me laugh for lampooning this.) but we can't be supporting cast in a *disability* movie. Kind of insulting, even for someone who's left a lot of her passion about representation in the keepsake box with the high school yearbooks.

All of that being said, however, "Foot" was decent flick which made good use of the Callahan memoir as source material(The chronology might get confusing if you are not deeply familiar with the book of the same name, like me.) Joaquin's performance was good, but, I don't know, for most of the movie I feel like the note he most took to heart might have been something like "He's a cripple, but, like, a *baller* cripple." although I think Van Sant is too good of a director to have really taken it there, but it made it hard to believe him till the end.I liked that some of the icky parts of disabled life appeared in this, as well as vintage chairs, etc.
While everyone will prob say how brave Phoenix was to pee in front of us,I think it was really nice to see something understated from Jonah Hill, whom I've persisted in liking as an actor without really being sure why...I'd love to tell you I'd thought he had this in him, but it's nice to get a surprise about an actor without a rogue penis, or grabby hands and stuff ,attached.

A Taste of "Twist"...

in honor of the New Year...

noticed my beautiful neighbor in a wheelchair about two months before I was paid to.  Maybe it was the novelty of not being the only chair user out and about in our complex, or maybe because the way she stopped short of imperfect perfection left me feeling love-and-hate inferior. She was neat, stylish, and even though we’d only waved or made superficial chatter at the mailbox, she had a charming but ready laugh that showed that she may have been one of the few living and breathing impaired people that had a shot at one of those great attitudes America liked us to have.  A year and a half into my flirtation with the entrepreneurial spirit, both my optimism and my haircut were both feeling a little ragged. I hated to admit it, but people didn’t really trust my investigative or researching skills. On some buried level, instead of seeing my chair as a sign of resiliency and enhanced problem-solving as I tried to do, prospective clients may have wondered why I didn’t see the oncoming car or whatever they imagined the catalyst for my condition to be. If there was one thing life on wheels had taught me, however, it was that no conversation is enhanced by pointing out the futility of planning for a birth accident.  That musing threatened to bring on a habitual wave of maudlin thoughts that made me incredibly excited to lunge at my phone before the vibration of the second ring had fully finished.  I must have been panting like Mark Wahlberg in an action sequence, though, because my mentor asked “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, sure.  Perfectly imperfect.” I willed it to be true, and hoped that I didn’t sound desperate. I also pushed my unruly bangs from my face. By the end of the week, I had to at least make ground on the haircut front.

“Whatever that means.  Look, I may have some work for you…are you interested?”

I tried to keep my expectations in check.   Cops from my late father’s precinct wanted to help me out, but they could use the internet to find their own lost dogs as well as I did, and, given the slowness of my two-fingered pecking, probably faster, if the Web hadn’t freaked them out worse than any seamy corner at midnight.  (Although I had discovered I had a knack. I’d found three and had pictures of happy canines and their relieved guardians in my home office.) “Really?”

He cleared his throat and I felt as though I could hear him thinking.  “If you’re not up for it, I understand. Billy Torres is already a PI but I didn’t show him the ropes or anything…  and you do have to work for me for three years before you can get your own license. Even so, though, I’d say that your experience is more relevant.”

 Billy was sweet, but strong as an ox and loud enough that I could hear him have a phone call with Tommy when I was seated across the room.  I couldn’t imagine what kind of job we’d both be in the running for, and it felt like it had been a long time since my experience was relevant.  “No, I don’t mean that…I’d like a chance.  I was just…thinking."

An Ironic Blogger's Resolution...

I'm usually not the resolution type, particularly since when I did it most, I was really longing to be a completely different woman, but I think I'm going to do less talking in 2019.Or, at least, weigh in when it seems like it matters, instead of pretending social media is Radio Free Europe and I'm getting dispatches over the iron curtain.. It was really important to find my voice, but I waste it sometimes.(Not by the time I write about stuff here...)
UPDATE 1/2/19
Things which I plan not to weigh in on in the future:
Super-early 2020 polling
Celebrity beefing
the latest irritating/racist ad campaign for Urban Outfitters or similar

When Memes aren't Fun...

“If money were no object where would you live?”

I’m sure the woman on twitter that posed this query was just trying to relieve the comparative slowness of Holiday Internet, as well as hearing fantasies about Vermont B&Bs and Irish pubs (both fun lives for the right person, I bet, and I wish my own escape fantasies could be that fantastic and fun) I got stuck, though.

Imagine having a choice.(Which I don’t. Not without someone’s heavy lifting, and, I don’t know, a big lottery win…the prize patrol showing up at my condo? And still I know I am closer to being free than my institutionalized peers, naturally, but I am still not free, and thinking about it bums me out.)

Same reason I don’t like those memes about “Who would you be in 1909?” Because as much as I’d like to say, you know, henna-rinsed goyischeEmma Goldman, I know the real answer is either dead, with my dead mother, or, best case, in a ward for defective young ladies.The only thing I enjoy about that game is the dark kind of street cred I get for blurting that out…less fun is realizing that my future choices don’t feel different enough.)

10 thoughts on the Senate appointment...

10.  Augh... Martha McSally?! "Let's get this fucking thing done!" McSally?! Euw.




9. Way to reward failure and a dishonest campaign(also hating people's healthcare)


8.Not sure I belong in the same party as Grant Woods, though.(Not trying to say he is a bad person, but I'm not sure we share many priorities.  Not that I want to create some big DemExit drama, but that seems like a huge tent)

7.  It wasn't Cindy's seat to give...it belongs to the people of Arizona.  But let's not interrupt the latest round of ring-and-butt kissing.
6.  I know that I generally hate Ducey's choices, including tie colors.(Except the ice cream place, I guess, although I do regret eating there.)

5. Does anyone sentient believe the "bipartisan cooperation" pitch?(Anyone but Sinema, who, bi or not, probably only really gets off when she hears the phrase "bipartisan consensus", so, it's been almost as long for her as it's been for me.)




4. I voted for Sinema mostly to keep McSally out...how can I make the "Your vote is your voice!" pitch now. Maybe my voice wasn't *silenced* but I feel like it got muffled a whole hell of a lot.

3.  Sick of Koch puppets running my state. 
2.America will be better when Mitch McConnell is a private citizen.
1.Bet the first McSally scandal will arise when she tries to thumb-wrestle all the pages.

Holiday thoughts...

-kind of doing the nostalgia trip thing, watching my favorite movies and eating peppermint-stick ice cream. Trying to feel both grateful and convivial.

-This is, however, the time of year when my singleness feels the most weird and when I feel kind of bad about never having developed skills as, say, a sparkling party hostess.Even though I know there wouldn't have been many ways to develop such talents when my wheelchair gets stuck in every kitchen I've ever had, and, in fact, kitchens are the most difficult room to modify for access, it's still hard not to take that personally. Have to admit also that it frees me up sometimes, I guess, as does getting old enough to brush aside the thoughts of "Someday..." regarding the home-and-family idyll, etc.(Although it's not like I'd say no if pelted by some kind of bliss-bomb.)

-But I have to admit I don't know what I'm doing instead, since, you know, this isn't exactly "La Vie Boheme" either, but I've revised "The Wedded Twist" to my own satisfaction, and maybe will shortly find a home for it this spring(Are these two things unrelated? Probably not, Dr. Freud.)

If you are reading this, I wish you Equality, Justice, and Peace for the holidays and for 2019.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate "Attitudes Are The Real Disability"

10. I really hate when boring phrases like this catch on.Able-bodied America should strike it out of banality, if nothing else, but they love it so much they want to argue with me about retaining it.
9. Because it makes disabled people into human object lessons.


8.  That there are still people that read that and go (sniff) "Really makes you think!" instead of ignoring it like a fart.
7.It makes people ignore disabled people's real problems, because we're Special.
6. Puts a lot of pressure on disabled people to live up to brightening others' lives, which we don't need. as a kid, I actually felt guilty for not being like that, but I think now disabled kids should be taught like girls are about airbrushed photos: Nobody always looks like that.

5.  Once you are no longer a cute kid, as a disabled person you can be an inspiring motivation fairy that helps strangers you don't care about start that workout they've been lying about for five years.
4.  Duh...disability(and an inaccessible world) is the "real disability"
3.  why should non-disabled people get to use us to have feels?
2.  "No amount of smiling at a bunch of stairs ever turned it into a ramp."--Stella Young
1. Forty years later, reading it, I kind of feel like Stormy Daniels must hearing some guy say...I don't know...."Some women say I'm a lot to handle," Yeah.  Right. How nice for you. Sometimes it's just really hard to whip up that womanly receptivity that 10,000th time so I kind of unloaded on Mr. Decent But Clueless...