I work for a couple cons as a disability access coordinator – that’s the first thing you need to know. I’m not willing to engage in a dialogue about “what are YOU willing to do about it?” Because I’m already there. I’m already digging into these trenches – I just can’t be the only one. This post, in addition to… Read more →
Aging with a disability is a little different from normal aging, I’ve found. I turn 30 tomorrow, and it’s not a small thing for me. Every birthday, I look past tomorrow. Throughout the years, I’ve overheard various remarks (“Wow she made it to 18?” “I didn’t know rubella babies had high survival rates” “You can still see?”) all of which… Read more →
I work in a variety of positions throughout the gaming world, and almost all of them result in me doing at least a bit of educating when it comes to disability politics/preferred language. The most pervasive issue that I seem to come across is the use of language around wheelchairs. People aren’t IN wheelchairs. People USE wheelchairs. Here’s why: when… Read more →
“Evil witch” one classmate called me. Other classmates simply tied my shoes together, laughing when I fell over. Yet others stole my lunch if I put it on my right side (the side where I am blind.) Being called four eyes eventually had a pat response of “Two, really. Can’t you do math?” since one lens of my glasses was… Read more →
There’s a video going around that I’m not going to link here. You’ve probably already seen it, anyway. It’s of a man with a disability being fed by a worker at McDonald’s. Everybody seems to love this video. I’ve seen it deemed heartwarming. I’ve seen it called news. When did compassion become a headline? There’s another news article that came… Read more →
The adage “write what you know” has been sitting in my brainpan for a long time. So long that I took it to heart, and I’m writing a book which, at its core, is about the AIDS crisis. I’m not going to talk about the novel in detail mostly because I hope that you’ll get to read it someday, and… Read more →
As a disabled woman, whenever disability and abortion are in the same sentence I get angry. The most popular post on this blog is from 2013, when I wrote a passionate piece about why the use of disability in abortion dialogues to be so hurtful. Pro Choice Should Not Mean Ableist has been shared, reshared, and viewed over and over… Read more →
I’m not a Chris Christie fan. On Monday, he signed a bill that makes me dislike him a little less. Bill S1760 is a bill which requires high schools in the state of New Jersey to allow students to take American Sign Language (ASL) as their foreign language requirement. This is a big deal because it means that more students… Read more →
This year I did GenCon on wheels. In fact, I brought my own. This year at GenCon had some incredible moments, some weird moments, and one moment where I sat in front of an elevator and cried because I didn’t feel human. I’m using a wheelchair because over the last year my chronic pain has gotten so bad that walking… Read more →
On Saturday I worked as a stage manager for One of Us Productions’ “Criptiques” made possible by the British Council for Culture , Mat Fraser, Julie Atlas Muz, and BAM. And I was the assistant stage manager. I had the opportunity to meet Laurence Clarke, and Liz Carr, and Bill Shannon. To listen to Lawrence Carter Long, Becky Curran and… Read more →
