I'm in this facebook group for crip women. I like them mostly, but I don't think we solve each other's problems so much as BTDT them.(Which sometimes seems good enough, but is sometimes more "demented and sad, but social." New member in her twenties with crutches pipes up all "I'm lonely and envious and want what my friends have," Which, like, hello, my summer home, right? I just wish I could be further beyond all that mess, right?(Maybe I'd be a better writer, too, if my choices made more an impact on how I live...my characters don't have arc because the closest to action I ever get is ducking the filling of all my shit sandwiches.) I hated to tell her I didn't really have any answers besides to think about what is good in her own life and to think that nobody is blissfully happy all the time.But a lot of the other women are like "Put out a dating profile!" and "Have you tried therapy?" all of which is decent advice I've tried multiple times, but if there's anything worse than being lonely, it might be doing a full fucking Peggy Oleson sales job on yourself(happy, not dingy, real and serious but not a buzzkill) only to have someone write "wassup?" back.(If you ever do this, fuck you, especially when you ask me for more pics when you don't take your sunglasses off...have I mentioned that this town kind of sucks lately? Still does. Maybe moving would fix it all. Therapy. Therapy is good. I've learned a lot from it, but I'm clearly not Done, right?(Although there is an evil voice in my head that says "Maybe she would be. Maybe that's you, because you're defective and gross."
BuT I hate to see this chick fiddle with some damn profile, trying to break through to Mr. or Ms. "Wassup?"

Of what my computer still calls "Realityhostproject", but if it becomes a book, I'll call it "Day Job"(After both the fictional reality show, and all of the work that I find myself thinking about as I have been writing this one...it's been about half a book for a few years now, maybe if I create some vague signposts, I'll actually know where I'm going and finish(I can't ever really see myself as a Rowling-style writer with binders full of backstories--I want the right to change my mind a little, but I think I've had the same problem as the folks who program Windows as far as trying to keep my options too open

Dear Saeed Jones and the staff at BuzzFeed's new imprint,
Hi! I'm an "emerging" writer from a group you probably had never considered:writers with physical disabilities.(If you really have not considered what it is to write as one of us, nor to have us as colleagues or friends, you are clearly not alone, as evidenced by the fact that I'm forty-one years old and can still feel comfortable describing myself as "emerging".) People do consider us, but generally with a sad shake of the head and some platitude like "It really makes you think." It's really hard to live with yourself knowing that just the occasion of entering a restaurant might cause an outbreak of bogus profundity that deep, but the barriers writers like me face go deeper than the internal.For many of us, it's not just a matter of hopping a curb or boarding a flight. Able-bodied people feel very complacent about the ADA, but in many places true access remains a work in progress.Being paid to write and actually learn more about my craft is my dream, but on the off-chance I got selected(despite my hodge-podge of references and loose "professional" connections,clearly a long-shot in itself) it would instantly create a problem as far as my disability and attendant-care benefits. Social Security is a good program, but part of what sucks about it, despite the "dignified" narrative pushed by many of its defenders, it provides best for disabled beneficiaries by keeping us poor. Who knows what would "emerge" if we were allowed to pursue happiness as well, instead of being so hungry for validation we consider applying for fellowships "for the exercise". Can you imagine entering a contest and hoping, at the same time, that you do and don't win? It's happened to me a bunch of times. Not that just taking it away would free everything up, because to meet the needs of my impairment, I'd have to earn, say, a salary and a half.It's little wonder than, the hundreds of thousands of people on the disability rolls every year, only mere hundreds ever get off. I used to imagine myself as one of them, but I don't seriously think about that anymore.(I still hope it *could* happen, but it is not the article of faith it was when I was in school as The Smart One(TM))

Some of us need attendants to help us get up in the morning or expensive drugs or equipment that gets paid for by Medicaid. Plans vary from state to state(some states just have waiting lists where their attendant programs should be. Boo! Hiss! so it is not even a national program...it might follow you within your state, but that's all.)I couldn't possibly apply for aid in NY for a four-month fellowship, as much as I might want to take it. Some of the hardest part about being a disabled adult is having to be the optimistic lovable loser, like the Chicago Cubs but less beloved. Maybe we are like the tall white guys who stand there shocked and get their butts kicked by the Harlem Globetrotters.Nobody wants to play for the Washington Generals, especially as you get older and it's harder to pretend you don't know that the shellacking is coming. America seems to want us to suit up with big stupid grins on our faces anyway--god help you if you throw an elbow actually trying to win.

Tags: disability, opportunity, politics, writing

doing the Garcia stuff, because I still wouldn't kick Rahm out of bed for eating crackers.Don't tell the other socialist fucksticks(or his wife Amy, who from a distance I always mistake for HRC, but shorter.She would kill me if I tried anything, though.)
Yes, I can make real political choices, and you can't keep electing someone because you find him " good copy", though I do(still love the invisible flipoff!)

Picking at the rejected story, I sort of get it. Maybe the initial version pulled some punches and deprived my character of some choices, not that I would notice that by myself, because that's what my life looks like every fucking day--for me that's like complaining that the sun came up today. Experiencing that so constantly and then having my fiction rejected for it is kind of like "Argh--the unkindest cut!1" if I can write like Fic!Olbermann for one moment.(Although I will not actually insist that the staff of Hayden's Ferry Review summarily resign, even if my lizard brain might like it.)

Sometimes I worry about my writing if I don't get my life moving soon.(Yes, I like Ms. Austen well enough, but I think it's plain that, small as my life can be sometimes, I'm also not observing many highly stylized and stratified hunt balls and the like. Although the internet could be ripe for some kinds of "comedy of manners" I think, my trifling forays have been the opposite of successful.(I haven't captured that, either.)I get that you don't have to be Hemingway and drinking and fighting and watching bullfights but there's a lot of ordinary stuff I haven't done yet.(But, you know, I want to school, and I'm not, like, writing from the Nervous Hospital or anything

there seems to be an inverse between meeting a person you'd think you'd like even if, physically, they're not what you've "always pictured", and their desire to see pics of you.(Mine doesn't have a lot though because I'm not great at making them fit and to be honest, there is not a lot to commemorate about my life.)

and I don't know why. Of course, maybe I don't care, since some of the stupidest conversations I've ever had happened there, but what does it mean that "some of my responses seem automated"(Everybody's a critic!)

Fascinating stuff. Moskos seems to think there is too much tech in law enforcement, in addition to over-stringent drug laws.(Dispatch and so forth are expected to meet an impossible standard that he says keeps cops from knowing the areas they patrol.
Even with all the Simon prep work was unprepared for his descriptions of what the academy is like--seems like a wasted opportunity overall.

Too many engaged couples making it official to make Valentine's special and so forth.(Good for them, I guess, but all of that ritual is no guarantee.) I guess I never really expected to be among their number, except for high school, where it seems like once you get out everything you do will fall into place more easily.(still don't miss high school, except where I was "promising"--haven't felt like that in a long time.) Maybe I will go back to it someday...maybe not. I do get hit on there, but mostly by the kinds of ultra-shy young men that tend to pick a string of women that seem like low-hanging fruit and send out the same generic messages to all of us.If I could, I would say there is no real life woman whose life is such a combination of sadness and optimism that this will work.)
I don't know what I would want in a partner if I had one, really. I'm not ready to be a third with some experimental couple--that's really what I learned best from my dating profile...in theory, maybe. But I couldn't really go to my mother and be like "Dinner? No, remember, I've got my three-way with the Flenkmans today. "(Not that I'm still Diane Court and I need to tell her everything, but that still seems like going too far too fast. Maybe it wouldn't, if I'd gotten to go through stuff when I was supposed to(shrug)
Maybe my profile was too wild-child.... I went with my instincts, rather than my life experience because, like, 12 dirty weekends in a lifetime doesn't tell you anything about what fidelity means or anything like that. But I wanted to sound fun and not like"With A Little Sweet Talk I won't Report You If You Steal From Me." Which I think is what the way I really live sounds like when I look with my coldest eye(Not that that's a great feeling either.)