A bit of a verbal meander

This is my contribution to Blogging Against Disablism 2009.

I kind of agreed to write a BADD post a little while ago, but have very little idea about what I should write. I want to write something deep, meaningful and thought-provoking, but I get the impression that one should be deep, and have meaningful thoughts, in order to fulfil that brief; this post will not be deep, meaningful, nor thought-provoking.

Of course, this post would be better if I had any personal experience of disablism, but I don't: my temporary able-bodied* status is still going strong. As such, disability issues are not at the forefront of my mind. I also feel that I don't really have a right to join in with this event - the closest I have ever come to experiencing disablism is getting salad for lunch while everyone else eats lasagne, because nobody has bothered to order me a decent gluten-free alternative** (although the vegetarians were catered for; that's not even a dietary requirement, for goodness sake!). I did, of course, get the smug satisfaction that they were getting fat while I was not, but this was tempered with the fact that I was eating lettuce for lunch. Alternatively, I occasionally get a big, tasty-looking meal while everyone else gets crappy sandwiches, and I end up feeling conspicuous and guilty - as though I am trying to make a point that I am more special than everyone else.

I suppose that this does have some bearing on disablism, though. I mean, it's a thouroughly trivial example of a petty discrimination which ruins a few meals for me (seriously - I had to eat salad!), but it does give me a tiny insight into what people with an actual disability might feel when their needs are not being met, and also when their needs are being met. I mean, there is a certain amount of stigma attached to being disabled. I gather that some people do not want to advertise their disability, and that receiving accommodations for this can be tricky. I don't necessarily want to tell people that I can't eat gluten - it makes me sound like a faddy eater, possibly the sort who wants attention. Logically, I think that very few people look down on me for not eating gluten (although those who decide to cater for me have to be at least a little bit annoyed), but I still don't want to single myself out. Although I would rather do that than make myself ill, of course.

It's all about exclusion, isn't it? When adaptations are made readily and with the minimum of fuss, people can feel included and welcomed. It is so exciting going to a barbecue where there is food that I can eat (i.e. probably not sausages or beefburgers), as I don't have to stand on the sidelines feeling hungry and wondering why I bothered in the first place. It shouldn't be exciting - it should be normal (although this is an extremely trivial example - it's just a bit of food. I often bring/make my own now. The best beefburger I ever had was one I made myself). It is presumably the same with an actual disability; quietly facilitating what needs to be facilitated without making a fuss should make a big difference to how that person experiences things. Anyway, one should be kind to people. If everyone were just kind, disablism would be much less of a problem.

So yes, I have a, erm, useful perspective, and can contribute ever so much. Hmm. Perhaps I had better stick to expanding my own mind.Oh, the joys of having such a narrow and limited perspective.

So, what should I be doing to be less disablist myself? I sort of feel that I am doing OK - I try to offer to help people when they look as though they are struggling, and stuff. I often feel that I have so few interactions with people with a disability that this is not an issue which concerns me, in general, though. Having said that, I don't necessarily know whether or nor somebody has a disability; it is not as though a special badge or uniform is required, is it? I don't see that my role is to do any more than to treat other people as I would like to be treated if I were in their situation, being mindful that their situation may be more difficult than I realise; I should be as tolerant of other people as they are of me! I think that if this rule were to be applied, the only disablism which survived would be due to ignorance of other people's needs. I suppose that this is still a bit of an issue (to put it mildly), which is where Blogging Against Disablism Day comes in. I shall take a lot more out of today than I am putting in. Well, I suppose that I could hardly take less than this measley little post.

Do I have a greater responsibility? Should I, rather than simply trying to be good and kind, and to include people wherever possible, should I be campaiging against disablism? Or working towards pointing out things that need changing (in that way which annoys people so effectively) and making what changes I can.

So, people, apologies for my uneducated stance. Do let me know- other than not being quite so shallow and thoughtless, what should I be doing differently?

Oh, and it has become apparent to me that I do have a bit of a problem, known as "inability to construct an argument". Sufferers have to endure the jeers of unenlightened people saying that their blog post is rubbish, and they often get poor marks in their essays. They may also put their foot in their mouth and, only slightly knowingly, say something rather offensive. Sorry about that. The accommodation that I require is for people to prevent me from putting my "thoughts" on the Internet.*** Alas, this is not one I have received today, and I shall have to endure the consequences (as you have already done). ;-)




*I expect it is my mind which is more likely to be a cause for concern, anyway.

**Full disclosure: eating gluten causes (engage euphamism mode) my digestive system to run a little more quickly than usual (disengage euphamism mode), with the sort of discomfort which can come with that, it makes me feel slightly sick, and sometimes gives me a headache. It helps me to lose weight, though, as I don't feel like eating when I feel sick. None of this is the end of the world, and I will eat gluten occasionally (especially if, for example, I have turned up at a wedding and forgotten to tell them about my dietary requirements. Not that I would do that, of course; that would be irresponsible), but in general I prefer not to feel sick, and I dread to think what it does to my micro-villi, so I try hard to avoid the stuff.

***'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865).
Conversely (and my justification for joining in)
As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do.
Zachary Scott

The weekend is here!

Hooray! A chance to drop items off at charity shops, and refill fabric conditioner bottles; to play the organ in a small variety of different contexts; to feel bad about not having the time to visit Mother on Mothers' Day; to get up late on Saturday.

Only two more weeks before the Easter break. I get nearly two weeks off at that point, which will be a relief. I shall kidnap Anne and force her to make Easter eggs for my family, and attempt to achieve large amounts of organ practice while the church is open, thus heartily annoying anyone who wants to actually go to church to sit quietly and peacefully. If one is doing it correctly, the majority of organ practice should probably be quite boring to listen to.

I shall also hopefully get a chance to recharge my batteries, and may be able to write better afterwards. How I wish that I could stop feeling so tired! I might write something less deeply unsatisfactory than this post. That would be a novelty.

Moving, part 3, felt and choir practice

That previous post was very dull indeed. Sorry about that. Now it has been said, and hopefully I won't be moving again for a long, long time. I want to be here for a year!

Yesterday evening I managed to excavate my piano. There is also a space in the middle of the living room floor: my re-arranging skills are resulting in a great tessellation of furniture. You would no doubt be amazed (or perhaps bemused) at some of the corners I have created.

Paniceth not.* The landlord will be coming this evening to remove all of the furniture that belongs to him (with the exception of the Lovely Chest of Drawers, which is taking up too much place in our bedroom and may be evicted, should we be unable to find a suitable home for it. This may, however, simply end up in another room within the house), thus leaving space for us to arrange our own furniture in a more advantageous manner. Once this has happened I can move my piano into the front room and move the settee from its precarious position upright next to the bed and into the living room. There might then be space in the bedroom for a wardrobe, and I can then start to unpack my suitcases full of dresses.

On Saturday, I should be going into Town. I am teaching a feltmaking workshop on Monday and need to try to obtain enough foam pads to ensure that people are at a substantially reduced risk of stabbing their own legs repeatedly (although only the really stupid ones** are likely to stab themselves repeatedly, and they probably deserve it. Who doesn't learn from being stabbed and take steps to avoid it in future?) by inserting a big thick thing in between the needle and their legs, and I should also be able to take a load of old clothes to the charity shop which will also help the mess in the bedroom (or perhaps we will have moved the charity shop box to a different room by this point). *** While I am in town I shall, of course, have to obtain more stuff. Other than the foam pads, I also want wire so that people can make frames for their felt creatures. I think that I have enough wool to go round (I just ordered some in varying shades of brown, in case they want to make conventional animals. It has just occurred to me that I have no black and should probably try to get hold of some black wool and also some beads for eyes. Thank you, blog, for making me think), and I have also purchased enough needles for up to 20 people to make their own felt creations. I am a bit low on scissors, but that should be easy enough to sort out.

I am dreading letting the marauding hordes get their hands on my wool selection, though. Although I am generally a very untidy person indeed, I am ever so slightly obsessive about making sure that every single wool is back in the appropriate bag as soon as I have finished my felting session (unless I am working in a single colour - it is acceptable to have one small piece of one colour left out). I think that I will end up with lots of bitty pieces of wool put back in bags containing very similar shades, which just will not do. Having said that, hopefully most people will not be using very many different colours, and will be able to keep track of where their bag goes. I think that I have about 40 different colours now, and there are only about four sets of two colours which are very hard to tell apart from each other. Unless, of course, there are colour-blind people present.

Tonight is the first choir practice in which I am required to play the piano. The pieces I am learning are not ready. One of them cannot be ready in time, but I may be able to force the other one into shape between the end of work and the practice. I do hope so; otherwise it will be very embarrassing.


*Not really a smooth flow from one paragraph to another here. Also, is that the correct form of panic for a plural?

**I include myself in this number.

***Was that the worst and most confusing sentence I ever wrote? I do hope so, insofar as I hope that I have never written anything worse than that.

Annoyed

Today has been a day of challenges. It has also been the day of receiving a pay claim form for that maths teaching I did, so it was not all bad.

Today I am going to talk about being annoyed. If you are lucky, this will be brief.

One of the joys of my life at the moment is that everything seems to annoy me. When people ask me to do things in the wrong way I get annoyed; when people ask me to do things in the right way I get annoyed. I find going to bed annoying, and getting out of it again moreso. Having a shower is a bit of an imposition. The way my legs itch if they are three days away from being shaved with an Approved Razor is annoying. The mess the house is in is annoying. The way I am writing this list is ever so annoying, with a whole lot of extra redundancy. Let's change tactics.

Things I find annoying

• I have too many clothes
• me, in general
• The "bold" thing that is happening with these bullet points
• It appears that my e-mail has crashed
• That previous phrase, with its non-grammatical nonsenseness
• Inconsistent capitalisation
• People asking me to do things
• People coming to talk to me and rubbing their eyes instead
• My reactions to aforementioned eye-rubbing, garlic-smelling person
• The mundanity of existence
• The pretentiosness of me
• That there is nothing actually wrong but I still hate it all
• The distance between where I park my car and where I work, and the fact that this distance can not be traversed within 60 seconds
  
• Text messages
• People responding to the e-mail they imagine I sent, rather than the one I actually sent
• People telling me what to do
• How I have too many crafts, but never get very far with them
• How I whinge too much
• How I can't be bothered to fix the bold issue
• Spilling blackcurrant juice on the cream rug and settee
• Spilling blackcurrant juice on my trousers. Fortunately, they are black. And sticky. That bit is less fortunate
  
• How I do not have enough motivation to get out of this rut
• Nana is still very ill, and probably feels like crap only worse
• Mother has to deal with this and I do not help her mostly because I am not there, but also because I am afraid of people vomiting
• Anne is ill again. Not very ill, but it is happening too much
• Many of my friends are unhappy; some of them are very ill
  
• Some of them tell me about it in text messages. When they find this blog entry, offence will be caused
• I have to take some books back to the library, but I haven't finished reading them because I just don't have the time or the energy
• I am too fat (actually, this is the most minor annoyance)
• I still can't breathe properly but now believe that the test that needs doing will be a waste of time and show nothing, and also lead me no closer to being able to breathe properly
• I keep typing "breathe" as "breather"
• Modern Christian music
• My role in modern Christian music
• Not doing enough organ practice
• My lack of staying power (a year ago, it was actually very good)
• The state of my garage
• My bad attitude
• I haven't done any clarinet practice yet
• I am out of sellotape. Still.
• I should be in bed now
• I feel very trapped
• I am very annoying with this list, and also in general
• I haven't done nearly enough packing
• I am very snappy, and keep making sarcastic remarks at inappropriate times and to inappropriate people
• I have no plan of action
• I need to get a new bike light
• Many of the other things that are happening in the world

Yeah. Still the bold issue (did I break the HTML? How?).

To end on a thoroughly inappropriate note, I was going to show you a photo of the creative sunburn I got last June, but Blogger is broken, apparently. This can only be a good thing; there are enough things in this post that I am going to regret already. I shall get some photos of things that are not felt animals up one day, though. Just not today.

Caged

I am trapped in a cage. I made it myself. You would not expect anything less, I am sure.

It is nice and safe. It is hard to hurt me when I am behind these thick, strong bars that I made (ironmongery of the mind is one of my many talents). I have spent years forging them just so; they contain me.

I suppose that trapped isn't really the right word - I can get out of it. It's just that the door in the cage is very high on one of the walls.

When I get there I can either go straight ahead into another cage (tunnel-shaped; getting narrower), or jump into the unknown and see what happens. It is dark outside my cage; it could be a long fall and there may be nobody there to catch me, just people cheering me on from afar.

There could be another cage where I land. This cage could be less comfortable and safe.

I am building steps out of my cage. Once I get within grabbing distance of the door, though, it will be time to take action. I am building the steps slowly so that this does not happen too soon. As I said, it is safe within my cage.

My cage is not bare. There are plenty of playthings. They do not melt the bars, though.

My cage is portable. It won't go very far, but it does not have to stay in exactly the same place: some variety is permitted, although not welcomed. The doors have to be padlocked shut to facilitate any moving, and it is a while before they will be opened again.

I can still build the steps while I am waiting, though. I can stand at the door and try to gauge what will happen when I step through.

I actually feel as though I might explode. If this were not impossible, I would be mildly concerned. There would be limbs everywhere. People might trip.

Wrestling

Aggressively self-conscious, my words sit uncomfortably on the page as if wrestled there, shouting "Listen to us! We evoke!"

Aggresively self-conscious, I cringe at my clumsy attempts to write; at my pleading apologies.

I cannot tell a story. I can give you the bare bones of a story, but I cannot make it real, worth experiencing. I cannot make the words dance. You can come along for the ride, but the words will not carry you: you must work, too.

Pleadingly self-conscious as this is, I do not mind that people will see this writing. I mind that you will think that this is the best that I can do, or that I am invested in these words. I mind that you may see my self-criticism as a transparent device to gain praise*; or that you will see this displeasure as despair, not as a holding pattern, waiting for better things.

I am detached.

I intend to look back at this with relief, knowing that I no longer roughly shove words into place; able to set them down gently; content.

Do I even want to aspire to a style such as this? Does my interpretation of it have any merit? Yes, I want to fit words neatly and efficiently into order, to amuse and to evoke, but do I want my words to dance like this**?

The answer to these questions will come in time***.

So I play. I think that one day I will tell a story to draw you**** in, to make you want to hear more. Meanwhile, I take baby steps.



* It's actually a poor substitute for content worth reading - I ran out of things to say.

**"like this" refers to how they would dance had I actually managed to make this writing work; an improved version of this, i.e. the style for which I appear to be aiming in this post. Obviously I do not want to make them dance like they do in this passage. That would be stupid.

*** I rather suspect that it will be "No."

**** Assuming, of course, that you come back.

Pretending

Yesterday evening it rained. Then it rained some more. Streams formed in the streets and gardens, and a fountain sprang from the drain at the bottom of the hill. Boys danced in the streams wearing only their underpants. The cat stayed indoors.

We sat inside, sipping wine left over from our hosts' wedding, listening to the rain. One by one, more of us arrived until there were no spare seats. Some of us sat on the floor.

With the window open wide behind me, I breathed cool evening air. As the rain grew heavier, I pulled the window to to keep the splashes out; as it slowed down, I opened it wide to let the cat out.

We talked until late, of making wine, of holidays past and holidays to come, of Monday evenings with friends.

*****************

I talk of trying something new; of being afraid of failing, but putting myself forward anyway; of how life is for living, and how we should not stagnate; of following dreams. I dive headfirst into new projects knowing that I will not succeed; I know that if I do not try, I will never succeed. I pick myself up and try again. I aim to be relentless, and sometimes I am just that.

I do not mind the failing, really. Everything is as it is. It will be as it will be. It is all right in the scheme of things; it will all come right in the end.

This blog is an experiment - I want to see if I can write. It is also a tool - I know bad writing when I see it, and shall learn from these early posts.

Be patient, my non-existent readers: the standard of writing here has to improve. There is no other way for it to go.

Also, please stop laughing. I appear to have got my head stuck up my bottom, but snickering is not going to help me to get it out.