Party Crashers

I read Chewing the Fat whenever Dave updates, which is nearly every day. His post, An Elephant Disappears, told of an incident at an airport that demonstrates an extreme of the ableist mindset. For those of us in the disability blog world, it is astounding, but ultimately believable, because we know Dave and know we can trust him, and we know ableism, both as a word and the concept behind it. We know it, and talk about it, the same as we know and talk about the social model or self-advocacy.

It is something, isn't it, how blogs become little homes, or maybe parlors, where we expect to meet with certain visitors who know us and have a history with us, and we say things in ways that our expected visitors understand and build friendships and kinships. And then, every once in a while, a parlor gets inundated with strangers. Some are come back again as friends, most are just curious but well-meaning one-time guests, and a dread few are home invaders. I see it happen so often to Beth, and now see these party crashers at Dave's. And I wonder about the people who go to other people's personal blogs and act rudely. Do they act like this in real life? If so, they must spend a lot of time "thinking it over" under the custody of their local constabulary.

As someone who is more often a guest making a comment than the other way round, I too find it disorienting when I go make my visits to my friends and find all this noise going on. But not to worry. Friends stay around after the excitement has died down, pick up trash and wash dishes.

Purple Day

March 26 is Purple Day. Various epilepsy societies throughout the world are asking supporters to wear purple. How does wearing purple advance epilepsy awareness? Hopefully, enough people will be wearing purple that other people will get curious and ask what all the purple is about.

What it is about is that 50 million people throughout the world have epilepsy, yet there is very little funding available figure out the many root causes of epilepsy and how to manage the conditions. Even worse, few people know what to do if someone has a seizure, and many people are very fearful of those who have epilepsy. Check out Purple Day to find out more about the origins and goals of this awareness day, and the Epilepsy Foundation for more information about living with epilepsy.

Catching up

First off, go check out Charming BB's really great Disability Blog Carnival. Go on. I'll wait. But be sure to come back here. And be sure to leave me a link to your favorite post this month, because I host right here next month. It will mark my first time ever as a blog carnival host. I don't have a theme I expect others to fit themselves into. I'll see what comes up from the submissions I get. Help me out here, and send me your best stuff!

Second off. Er. Um. To continue. Er, no, to switch topics. Yes, that's it. I went to Staple in Austin last weekend, and got a copy of Usagi Yojimbo, Book 1, "The Ronin," signed and with a little sketch by Stan Sakai. Oh, so cool! And many other neat people also were there, such as Rod Espinosa and Chris Allen, who have both done historically oriented comics for Antarctic Press. I bought a signed copy of Allen's Obama, the only Obama commemorative item I have spent money on. I also bought The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, which is a self-published book by E.K. Weaver. And I got a very nice sketch of Amal tossed in for the price! And also, I bought Phuni Comix, which is more of "Science and Religion", which I bought last year and enjoyed. It's probably a niche taste, but I find the silliness appealing.

And lastly, my right wrist separated Thursday night. Oh, it's fine-ish now, but I'd like to know, why is it that I can never find my bandages and splints when I need them? What compels me to put them away? Why aren't they laying out on my dresser along with my old teddy bear, single earrings, and crumpled receipts? I swear, I go through this every single time. Where can I put them that they won't be in the way when I don't need them, but also won't be impossible to find when some part of me has decided to storm off in a hail of bitter recriminations and tears? What do you do about things like this? Where do you put your repair kit stuff that it can be fetched with whatever limb you have working at the moment?

In which I finally make what is probably an obvious connection

The past several days have been absolutely miserable. There was a joint in my body that wasn't complaining, and quite loudly, too. And I was nauseous. I was inflamed. You'd think the nausea would have clued me in, but I am stubbornly dense. Anyway, pain. Of the beaten to a pulp by giants and then rolled over by heavy machinery that won't get off me sort. I only have Darvocet for pain relief, because this bad of pain this much all over isn't an everyday thing, for which I am thankful. And even really bad pain can be ignored to an extent if I can stay distracted. Being distracted, though, is impossible when one wants to sleep.

Monday night, I finally realized that my head was also hurting, that someone was coming along every few moments and wailing on the right side of my skull, sending my eye shooting out the socket. Well, it felt that way. And that is when it dawned on me that maybe I ought to take a Zomig. It worked marvellously well. I actually fell asleep within an hour and slept through the night.

So. Hmmm. Now I'm thinking that my crapped out neck maybe leads to the migraines, and the migraines magnify every other distress in my body. It also helps that the pressure front that was bearing down finally broke into actual storm. However, since I can't command the weather, I will instead follow up on this migraine-joint pain connection.

Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts!

OK, not death. And not a thousand. But still...oh, so very, very annoying!

My fingers go on these jags wherein, for a couple weeks every so often, it seems as if the cuticle around the nails tears at the slightest provocation. Since I handle paper as part of my job (oh, the perils of office work!), I can't avoid the chief cause of the injuries. The last couple of weeks I've been furiously painting Liquid Bandage on one finger, then another, and then recovering the wounds an hour later when the stuff peels off. Anybody know a better product? I have considered Super Glue, but it is pretty much a one-time use product for me, since I can never get the lid off more than once. If it gets too bad, I'll wear latex gloves at work. It looks weirdly creepy, though, so I like to avoid that.