Me: So, I heard that last week's episode of Supernatural had Bobby and--

Emmy: No.

Me: But, I really want to--

Emmy: No.

Me: C'mon, I can take--

Emmy: No.

Me: Can you at least tell me what happened?

Emmy: What happened is that Katie & I looked at each other part way through, and we shared a moment, and we decided, without words, that we were not showing you that episode.

Me: But--

Emmy: NO.

So we watched Episode 2.04 of Dollhouse instead.

I don't think this was an improvement.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/532652.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I made a post about the weather.

As I type this, Halifax is getting its first snowfall of the season.

To me, this is “Yay! snow!”

To Don, this is “Well, I guess I’m not going out anymore until spring.”

We live in a really shite neighbourhood for snow-clearing. Although our landlord is excellent about keeping the snow and ice off the area in front of our building, there are two places on either side of us that aren’t. One is a business, so I’m not sure what’s up there. The other is a private residence, and there’s a variety of reasons that could be happening, including that the person living there may have a disability and/or be a senior and be unable to clear their walks.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/532332.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Ask me about my latest procrastination techniques!

Today I:

- Did my three hours of volunteer work at Pier 21 and didn't notice the time passing the way I usually do

- Got back into arranging guest posting for FWD/Forward, which I hadn't been doing because I wasn't procrastinating on school work (WE HAVE SUCH AWESOME GUEST POSTS OMG I CAN'T WAIT FOR TOMORROW)

- Baked a double-layered chocolate cake, from scratch, and iced it, with icing made from scratch

- Looked at some of the email I've been not having time to look at because I've not been procrastinating

- Updated my calendar with the next three doctor's appointments for Don

- Canceled my phone subscription to the internet

- hung a painting

- cleaned my desk, which involved filing papers.

What I did not do:

- Work on my SSHRC application
- Work on my historiography essay
- Study
- Do my french homework
- Work on NaNo

I am the reason I can't have nice things.

I'm currently refraining (with difficulty) from uploading new icons to DW.

Don tells me the cake is lovely. I haven't actually had any yet. But I am sorting my podcasts!

*sigh*

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/532052.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

And if this keeps up there won't be any. It's about the irritating habit of casting currently non-disabled people to play disabled characters.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/531766.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Vandalism? Destruction of property? Damaging imporant services? Blame the cripples.

No, really.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/531698.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Two things combined, just in time for me to go to bed.

Latest Data Follows Historic Trends

Despite years of bargaining with producers to include the hiring of performers with a disability in Casting Data Reports, this protected category continues to be left out. Fifty-six million Americans — 20% of the U.S. population — have a disability. Despite being the largest minority group in the country, people with disabilities remain virtually invisible in entertainment media.

Glee Cast to receive award for Diversity

The cast of the quirky Fox musical comedy will receive the organization's 2009 award for favorite new diverse ensemble cast in November, according to Reuters. The series, which focuses on a less-than-cool high school glee club, mixes jocks and cheerleaders with a boy in a wheelchair (Kevin McHale), a geeky girl (Lea Michele), a gay student (Chris Colfer), an Asian goth (Jenna Ushkowitz) and an overweight African-American girl (Amber Riley).

Of course they are.

I'm going to bed. Wake me up when the revolution comes.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/531395.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

(Or, lists make posts)

• I have to come up with a bio for the history department. Halp? Any suggestions? What should I include? Here's the ones they currently have. I'm thinking of using this photo, or maybe this one. Halp! Halp!
  
  
• FWD/Forward has taken off like a rocket ship. I have actual content, written by me, going up soon. (It's been hard for me to write original content - mostly I do linkspams and arrange guest posting.)
  
  
• Grading Hell is going relatively well - the prof I'm marking things for told me he was pleased with the last set of exams. I'm not incompetent! This is awesome!
  
  
• Don's vocal cord is still not working properly. But, his wheelchair was repaired, even though they blamed it on him at first (He obviously went out without much battery power left in the chair. That must have been it, and not the loose wiring that they discovered when they actually looked into the problem.)
  
  
• Oh hey! People made awesome suggestions on helping Don out with the whole talking in public thing (He can talk in quiet situations, but anywhere where there's more than library study area noise and you can't hear him). I took a piece of white paper and got it laminated, and bought some cheap dry-erase pens. He hasn't used it too much because it's getting into the colder season and he doesn't have a lot of energy, but the option is now there, and it makes things easier. Thank you for the suggestions and thoughts.
  
  
• I am forbidding myself from taking on any more tasks this year omg. I'm on (adds on fingers) five committees. FWD is a lot of (good, wonderful, exciting) work. I'm hoping to take on more marking because it's good experience. I'm applying for various grants. I have classes. Oh, yeah, and that pesky thesis writing. *headdesk* This is why I can't have nice things, people, I always end up making myself too busy.
  
  
• So, of course I'm doing NaNo. Unlike every other year, when I went in with a plan, this year my plan is "I don't know, write things and see what happens." And thus, I'm already ahead of any previous year of work, in that I already have 3770 words that are not in my thesis or on my historiography essay or in my SSHRC application. Go me. That procrastination thing is awesome. (This is me!. No, I won't tell you what my book is about. It has magic, and it takes place in Halifax, and there's a talking cat who sounds like the Marquis de Carabas in my head.)
  
  
• And yet, I'm lonely. I haaaate that this year is so busy, that last year was so busy. Katie & Emmy are very tolerant friends who let me basically ignore them except for a couple of hours of watching t.v. together (during which I yell at the screen - y'all do not want to watch t.v. with me), and Mel & Seth are so nice about the occasional "Oh yeah, you're alive, that's good" email being our primary form of contact. I have no idea why anyone would want to be my off-line friend, since it seems to amount to "people you don't see much and hardly communicate with". (I don't even spend much time keeping up on email that isn't directly related to what I'm doing. Woe.)
  
  
• I just realised this isn't a list, but a series of paragraphs, and I could have made it not a list, but now I don't want to go back and change anything because my prose is deathless and perfect.
  
  
• Ack, 5 minutes left in my break. *runs*
  

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/531117.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/530789.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

If I could teach everyone in the world one thing about wheelchairs, it would be this:

Electric wheelchairs are heavier than you. If you walk in front of one, and it hits you, you are going to hurt. Do not cut off the wheelchair user.

Manual wheelchairs are not used by sacks of potatoes. Do not treat manual wheelchair users like they are sacks of potatoes.

That may look like two things. It really is one thing: Wheelchair users should be treated like they're people. It pains me deeper than you know that I not only need to type that sentence out, but that the people who most need to learn it will probably never read it.

I hope next year at this time I'm in Edinburgh.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/530471.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I'm reading a book that managed to piss me right the fuck off within the first 200 words.

This isn't actually new, but I'm especially impressed since it took such a small sentence to do it.

"Suppose, for the sake of argument, that deafness is not a disability but a distinctive identity."

You know, let's not SUPPOSE it. Let's actually look at decades of writing and activism around that topic. Let's examine what makes people who are Deaf say it's not a disability, but that they're part of a linguistic minority. Let's react like this sort of idea has been going on since at least the 1800s. Let's acknowledge that Alexander Graham Bell actively worked to shut down residential schools that taught Sign Language because of his fear of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. Let's actually respect what Deaf people have to say. Let's put that capital D in there because IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.

It's like he said "Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the people I'm talking about didn't lie when they said what they did."

sigh

The question he's actually discussing - what makes people very uncomfortable and even angry when certain types of parents want children like them - is really interesting, but I'm just livid at the dismissal of years - decades even - of activism ignored because we're just "supposing" that it might have some merit. We can put that challenging idea aside afterward.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/529722.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I'm trying to get Don & I to a party that's being held at my Adviser's place as part of the History Graduate Society. (Why? Politics.)

I tried to call Access-a-Bus. You must call Access-a-bus exactly 8 days in advance. Last time we called Access-a-bus, it was only 7 days in advance. Access-a-bus is not open on weekends. I called them Monday, and it was too late.

I tried to call Need a Lift. It would be 70$ return. Also, they don't run after 6 p.m. (This information was no where I could see on their website, and confuses me since earlier we took them at 11:30 at night. I suspect they make exceptions for airport runs, which I appreciate.)

I tried to book through Casino Taxi, who do have wheelchair accessible vans. Except you can't pre-book them - they'll just give you the cell number of a driver on the road with a wheelchair accessible van, and you talk to them directly. I don't know why this is. I don't know if there will be anyone on the road on Halloween Saturday Night with a wheelchair van. I don't know if they'll answer the phone. I will probably try and call them tomorrow and arrange something anyway.

I tried to look at taking regular transit. There is one bus that goes in that general direction. According to Google maps, we'd need to walk for another 15 minutes before we'd get there. Not really a drama, except I have no idea what the sidewalks are like out there, and I don't really trust other people who insist "Oh, it's okay!" At least the route is wheelchair accessible.

Or, I could just not go, which strikes me as far easier at this point.

But hey- they had it at this place because I said it needed to be someplace that was wheelchair accessible! Isn't that awesome?

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/529462.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

People have asked for a copy of the information I was/have just sent to Courtney & Miriam in regards to Courtney's request for academic books on Disability.

( I have put my response behind the cut )

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/529407.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

You can read Courtney's post about Feministing's chat.

I'm almost done with the recommended reading list I was going to send them (I will cross-post it here).

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/528950.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I spent the bulk of my working day today at the Legislative Library of Nova Scotia. (They don't have wireless there, or twitter followers would have been subjected to a series of "In your leg library, researchin' yr history" jokes. You can thank the NS Legislature later.)

I got to look through several old (1867-era) textbooks for the School for the Deaf & Dumb. The last one I looked at helpfully informed me that Heaven is even further away than Saturn. Useful to know!

I also had all the joy of reading report after report after report about how women with disabilities need to be locked away from society in order to prevent them from breeding. (The Commission report didn't think they should have permanent measures used against them because it would upset the normal folks, so they recommended building houses someplace outside of the city for them.) Oh, and reports about abuse in homes for the "Harmless Insane". And fun reports about how single mothers make imbecilic babies. Fun times.

(I also saw Ysa! That part was good.)

I have this fantasy wherein I'm searching through old books in the Leg Library (not the archives, they'd never let me get away with this) and suddenly stand up and shout "Do you have any idea what this is?!?!" or "I've found it! I've finally found it!" But, sadly, there are people with maces in the Leg Library, and I worry what they would do to me.

Eh. Hard day. And you may note the time stamp on this - it's coming up on 2 a.m. Silly Anna.

I do feel much better knowing that Heaven is further away than Saturn, though.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/528755.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Hey CBC! You know what's not funny?

Men breaking into women's homes to steal things. Yes, even if those things are women's underwear. (Just like the guy breaking into homes in Halifax just to watch women sleep is not funny.)

I'm too tired to get into it. Gayleen is awesome, read her thoughts, for I have none.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/528620.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I'm just finishing up my first stint of marking midterms. I obviously can't get into it, since this is a public post, but I now totally understand why professors embrace the "throw them down the stairs" method of marking papers. Also, I'm so very very sorry for my handwriting in uni. So very sorry. Do you think it's too late to write type an apology note?

Anyway! Just for fun! It's the anthropology song! (Why does history not have a history song? I mean, besides "History Is Made By Stupid People". Or maybe there is one. I should go seeking that out.)

I've embedded it behind the cut. And it comes with subtitles! (Or whatever it's called when they're above the action instead of below it.)

( Anthropology sounds so cool when you sing about it! )

Must. get. back. to. marking. now. Woe.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/528258.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I really want to write something scathing about the latest Glee episode, but I just keep freezing up when I recall That Scene. You know, the one right at the beginning where Will pulled Artie (was it by his arms?) across the floor (without warning) to "put" him where he belonged. When Finn & Puck both turned down the male solo so suddenly there was no male soloist available but Will. And then Will spun Artie around in his wheelchair.

Artie is not a sack of potatoes. He is not a prop for Will to move around on stage as he sees fit. He's not incapable of singing the damned solo to "Bust a Move".

Well, except when you're in Glee. I'm told it's ironic.

I guess it is, if you think that none of this shit happens to actual people who use wheelchairs all the bloody time.

(Of note: Tina not only didn't get a single line, I think she was hardly in any scenes. Why have her as a main character if you're never going to do anything with her short of have her fake-break on a single note? She doesn't even have a last name in this show, y'all. She's just Tina C.)

Why am I watching this show? Because people get right tetchy with you if you critique a show's use of disability and haven't watched Every Single Episode. Don't I know that sometime between now and the end of the season Something is going to happen to change everything? It will turn everything on its head! The treatment of Artie will somehow be justified because Someone in the show (likely either Rachel, Finn, or Will) is going to learn a Very Special Lesson about disability, and that will make everything better!

And now I'm told the latest episode of Dollhouse goes down that hoary old trope of "Things that happen to people with mental health conditions are okay, but when the same thing happens to someone who doesn't have a mental health condition, it's wrong". But I guess that's okay, because we should Trust Joss.

You know, seriously? I'd rather not see disability represented on t.v. than watch this crap just so I can explain What Is Wrong With It. Now I'm going to have to watch this episode of Dollhouse just so I can bloody well take it apart and send Joss Whedon a letter.

I hate everyone. I'm going to grade first year history midterms because it has got to be better than this.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/528083.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I just spent the evening grading mid-terms, and now I fear I have crushed young souls and driven them away from the study of history forever.

So Don's insisting on feeding me and we're going to watch more Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.

Tomorrow night is Glee. I have already been warned.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/527753.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Just what it says on the tin, folks. I'm looking for books, generally aimed at the Young Adult market, that feature a character with a disability. You don't have to have read them yourself! I'm going to ask my YA librarian next time I'm in my fancy library downtown, too.

Please link around - I'm going to be dropping this into my various dropping-places over the next few days, too.

Thank you!

ETA:

Feel free to recommend children's books as well. Genre or non-genre is fine. I'm looking for anything here.

Don't worry if the portrayal is bad. Feel free to flag it up, though.

Feel free to plug your own book. If it hasn't been released yet, please leave a release date.

Thank you!

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/527437.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Campaign school was fun but exhausting. Oh gosh, so much fun. Plus, they gave me a stress ball shaped like a giant pencil, and I love it.

I'm pretty wiped out now, though, and my next day that's only half-full is Friday.

But despite being so busy, I found time to watch Glee.

I have lots of thoughts on the latest episode (and agreed with most of what Karen said at hers about it), but the only one my brain can come up with right now is...

Wow. They actually managed to do some choreography and stuff that included Artie and didn't look awful, tokenized, or impossible. He danced with someone. It was kind of nice.

Too bad he and Tina combined got four lines.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/526872.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .