February 2012
1 post
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IN WHICH I GOT PISSED AND WROTE A LETTER
A deaf student at CMU may not graduate because of interpreter regulations: http://www.cm-life.com/2012/02/23/deaf-student-may-not-graduate-because-of-regulations/
After reading this, all I could see was white-hot rage. If you’d like to join in, please do so!
President George Ross —President@cmich.edu
Susie Rood Student Disability services— sds@cmich.edu (check out her Job...
January 2012
5 posts
3 tags
It took a year and a half before I was able to wear two of the same shoe after my accident. I used to have an amazing collection of 30+ pairs shoes but bagged them all up and gave them all to goodwill when I realized they weren’t feasible anymore. I had these amazing bright red patent leather pointy Mary Janes with a kitten heel I *still* miss. Especially as a young woman, this was a very...
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.@United airlines and the ACAA
Note: First post about this at this link.
I read up on section 382 of the ACAA. ([PDF] http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/legislation/acaa/TAM-07-15-05.pdf) Text from the document in italics, bold added for emphasis.
I note that the following occurred during my experience with United:
After landing at SFO, I was wheeled to the customer service desk. I told the guy sitting at the desk that I had a...
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United Flight 5334 via SkyWest (partner airline),...
1/9/2012 edit: Follow-up post regarding the ACAA and United at this link
I booked a flight on November 1, 2011 to visit family in Texas over the holidays.
When I originally booked the flight, I called the very next day to ask for accessible seating, as I have a physical disability. I have a partial amputation to my right foot following a highly traumatic motorcycle wreck. I walk with a cane...
December 2011
2 posts
1 tag
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iPhoto sucks
The tag data for many of my pictures is screwed up. Pictures are kind of jumbled together.
Just spent a half hour looking at pictures of Pixel as she was a kitten, quietly crying to myself that I abandoned my cats. SHE WAS SO CUTE AND I JUST LEFT HER.
Then 3 rows up it’s an early-on healing appendage picture. Totally killed all the feelings about missing my kitties.
I’m going to...
August 2011
4 posts
3 tags
"Just walk to Powell!"
The BART protests are going to be a regular occurrence in all of our lives, I fear. While both sides of fight have dirty hands, I have heard what my fellow passengers have to say about the entire situation.
By blocking access to BART, they are making an already trying commute a nightmare for some BART passengers. People who take public transit often have the sole mode of transportation available...
I want to move
this is bullshit
That last place I saw, the roommate who let me up specifically told me that they really liked me. Why!? Why would you raise someone’s hopes like that then send them an email rejection?!
My living situation is taking a noticeable toll on my health. I’m losing a lot of hair, I’m grinding my teeth at night, I get maybe 2 hours of sleep a night....
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ADA access lawsuits aren’t about screwing the small business owner.
You know how it gets to that point? The small business ignored the request that the plaintiff sent them: please install a ramp, fix your doors, etc. When the letter is repeatedly ignored, then lawyers get involved.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was put into law over twenty years ago. It’s hard to proactively...
I take 10-15 pills at night before bed.
It makes me feel like the count from Sesame Street:
One Seroquel! One! Mua-ha-ha-ha!
Two Multivitamins! Two! Mua-ha-ha!
Two sleeping pills! Two! Mua-ha-ha!
Three Nortriptyline! Three! Mua-ha-ha-ha!
Four joint-health supplements! Four! Mua-ha-ha!
July 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Invasive Imagery
Trigger warning for blood, gore, personal injury, etc.
Asphalt is a blur.
Plastic scrapes noisily along the curb.
Bounce. Crack. Pull.
My scalp grinds along the curb. Tufts of red hair scatter the road after being torn on the pavement. Seconds feel like eternities in the hot, stagnant, languid air.
I try to look up but my field of vision fills with red. Warm blood pours into my eyes and...
June 2011
19 posts
Being Emmalee: Dont read if you dont... →
beingjaynee:
This is a letter that has been anonymously floating around the internet for years.
I have moderate to severe endometriosis, and well here it goes…
Having chronic pain means many things change, and a lot of them are invisible. Unlike having cancer or being hurt in an…
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S. Bartholomew Hamilton
San Francisco has always been home to some of the most innovative and creative people in the country. The City is full of amazing music, art, technology, and architecture every day. From the engineering feat that was the Golden Gate Bridge to the music of the 1960s at Fillmore, we have always thought outside the box. It would stand that how we move around the area would have innovations, too. The...
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Doing any kind of research about any kind of traumatic event on the internet is absolutely futile. I was trying to find a support group either in-person or online for people involved in disfiguring accidents. Within ten minutes of browsing, I found my way to a message board of people discussing whether they would after an accident rather die than live life in a disfigured body. Cue hundreds of...
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Muni Limericks
I’ve really been enjoying silly limericks lately. They are one of the few art forms that encourage bullshit. :D
There once was an F operator
Who had a dick like a tater
Tourists would board
And look at his gourd
So great it was in the paper
…
Once on the N Judah express
A drunk woman got on in a dress
Curtsied and smiled
Then fell down the aisle
Oh Honey,...
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There once was a hella packed L
Whose ridership continued to swell
“Get out at West Portal!”
The operator chortled
It’s hell living on Taraval.
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Short Turns and the LMC
The SFMTA manages Muni service proactively from a medium-sized office in the One South Van Ness building. It is called the Line Management Center (LMC). I arranged for a tour of it through my seat on the CAC to gain a better understanding of short turns, headtimes, and tunnel management. Like many riders of MUNI, I live in the Sunset/Parkside area. Living out there, one who doesn’t quite know what...
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In researching the history of MUNI, it seems like whenever a bad choice could be made in the past, they did it! High-floor subways, non-standard sizing of the tracks, switching toward rubber-on-asphalt when buses started to popularize in the 1960s. I was reading from the “Transit in San Francisco: A Selected Chronology 1850-1995” by Robert Callwell and pretty much face-palmed from...
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Fun fact
On the LRVs, the doors disfunction sometimes. The door on mine has been hiccuping while it’s open. Keeps trying to open when it already is.
Well, it’s an evolutionary throwback to the lines that used to have an East Bay terminal. Before the Transbay tube, the LRVs had to rely on gills to provide oxygen to the passengers under the water. It’s a diaphragm reflex. Sometimes the...
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I don’t know what made me think of this, but at my job in Houston, there was a UPS driver who had me sign for a package. I had my foot wrapped in an ace bandage elevated on my desk, per doctor’s orders.
Anyway, the UPS guy comes in, has me sign for the package, and as I am, he asked me what was wrong with my foot. I told him that part of it got scraped off, yada yada. Not vague enough...
Sick of it
uctdgirl:
I’m sick of my foot.
I’m sick of being in pain constantly.
I’m sick of being accused of drug-seeking.
I’m sick of fighting for pain medicine that I need to be somewhat productive.
I’m sick of how no one can figure out how to fix me.
I’m sick of being told to just live with this.
I’m just sick of this battle.
I can totally relate. Hope your day starts to look up, I’m...
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Better Places than wells Fargo to put your money
Shoebox
Shredded into cattle feed
Use dollar bills to light joints
Ask that guy that smiles a lot on 6th Street to watch it as you leave it in a big pile in the loiniest part of the Loin
Find out how big a “buttload” really is
Wells Fargo has been stealing my money for months. I explained to them that committing fraud (opening two accounts when I asked for one) is like a...
May 2011
15 posts
3 tags
I never got a single session of therapy regarding how to accept a mangled limb. When I moved back into my own apartment, I covered up all the mirrors. When I moved to SF, I just got rid of any full-length mirror entirely. I can’t recall ever seeing a reflection of myself that includes my right leg from the hip down and recognizing myself.
I see a scar-covered, gnarled appendage. My legs are...
Red, pink and purple hair dye acquired. Let’s see my mom miss me at the airport this time! Hah, she’ll be able to see me from blocks away
I had a tour of the Line Management Center (LMC— muni metro’s underground “brain”) scheduled for today. It was set up at the end of April. Boyfriend (who happened to have the day off) met me at 8 am at 11th street for our tour at 8:30. We poured caffeinated morning brew down our throats because both of us woke up at 6:30 for the tour.
We waited and waited… The...
Accident on the L today
Today at about 7, a Muni passenger was disembarking from the 2nd set of doors on the first train car when a driver failed to yield and struck her with her vehicle. Within seconds, there was a swarm police, two firetrucks and ambulances. I was on a 2-car train about 3 minutes behind that one. I remember standing at Powell and thinking “I’ll get on that L that’s 2 minutes behind...
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Things I have started to carry in my purse at all...
Bus Pass
9-volt battery
Disposable plastic gloves
7 lighters (3 of which are dead)
4 prescription sedatives
Notebook; frantic scribbling
Q-tips
Map with all the libraries in SF with hours
Handful of lolipops (organic, vegan)
Bottle opener
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http://getoutoftherecat.tumblr.com/post/5279117940/... →
This same thing happened to me today on the train.
Near the ballpark, it was hella crowded. I asked a dude if I could sit. He stood up for me and I went to sit in my vacated and asked-for seat. Then a lady tapped my wrist and told me to get outta the designated seat. She wagged her finger in my nose. I held up my cane and looked her in the eye, left eyebrow raised in full crip-rage defiance.
She...
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Who you gonna call?
If there’s one last bus from your neighborhood
Gotta get downtown (Ghostbusted)
If it’s raining out and there’s no shelter
Gotta get downtown (Ghostbusted)
I ain’t afraid a no ghost
I ain’t afraid a no ghost
If you’re tardy, runnin’ to the Doc’
Gotta get downtown (Ghostbusted)
An invisible bus reporting on your map
Gotta get downtown...
Some directions I got from google maps
New feature: Least efficient route!
Start address: The Sunset
End address: 1426 Fillmore St, San Francisco, California 94115
Total price: $3.75
Travel time: about 1 hour 11 mins
Light rail - N - Judah
(Direction: Downtown/Caltrain)
(Service run by San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency)
9:59am Depart Judah St & 22nd Ave
10:25am Arrive Metro Powell Station/Downtown
Walk to...
April 2011
12 posts
3 tags
Models of Disability
Today I read an essay discussing a feminist model of disability. It was very interesting and made some things make sense. I friggin’ LOVE the SF Public Library :)
In the able-bodied world we live in, physical endurance is often lauded as something almost entirely positive. Think about it: “John burned the midnight oil staying at work until 9pm” or “Sue ran 15 miles...