John McCain is a block from my apartment right now.

Yes, that John McCain. Former Presidential Candidate John McCain is a block away from here at some sort of Security Summit.

My street is packed with people, there's a noisy protest starting up at the park, there are police everywhere, traffic is backed up and I can hear sirens and see the flashing lights even here, on the 6th floor.

Damn it, tonight's plans were to sit in the dark alone with a blanket over my head eating chocolate pudding and feeling sorry for myself, and John frickin' McCain is on my street.

If I wasn't fairly convinced it would get me hurt, I'd see if I could pie the guy in the face. [Note to police: That is a joke. I'd have to make a pie, and I am not wasting a perfectly good pie on John frickin' McCain.]

I'm still going to eat pudding and feel sorry for myself.

Update on SSHRC: I applied anyway. I worked too damned hard on that semi-colon not to submit it. But at least I don't have wonder if I'm going to get it.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/537476.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Bad Cripple:

I have no doubt that people have said, either to you or someone you know, something that sounds like they’re just gaming the system, including a breezy “Oh, I’m just gaming the system.” But you have no idea if they’re serious or not, or what their circumstances are, or how much pressure they’re under, internally or externally, to “pass for normal”.

60th Disability Blog Carnival, or what I was doing last night until they kicked me off campus.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/536983.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

My SSHRC application is due to the department tomorrow. (SSHRC = funding for PhD work at this level. 116 people get a SSHRC grant across Canada. My chances are thus very low. *crosses fingers anyway*)

I think my "give me money" is done. I'm a bit worried about it because you get "two pages, single-spaced, 12 point font, times new roman" to argue in, and I have what looks like a paragraph of space left over at the end. But I don't know what else to put in there without rewriting the whole proposal again. And I also don't want to put in information just for the sake of putting in information. I wonder if not using up all the space will count against me.

Aack, just minutes ago I was all happy, and now I am angsting. Let's start this again:

I think I have a great SSHRC proposal! I even used a semi-colon, and I think I used it correctly. I am awesome! I have letters of reference, and I have my transcripts, and I am partway through filling out the rest of all that paperwork, and I am happy! Happy!

Here is my second paragraph. Sadly, it is not the part with the semi-colon. I am not going to put the whole thing up on the internet, because that would be foolish.

Some historians argue that a disabled identity develops as the result of public policy decisions at the national level which group all people with disabilities into one category, citing the American experience (Longmore & Umansky, 2001). My thesis will challenge that a national policy is necessary, and explore the emergence of a disabled identity in the Maritime provinces at least two decades before a Canada-wide disability policy was passed, namely the Disabled Persons Allowance Act of 1954.

I am awesome, I am smart! I am also hungry. Food time!

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/536709.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I forgot this post was going up. Wheelchair Bound. I feel a bit hinky about this post, because a couple of people I think are awesome have used wheelchair-bound around me in the past week or so, and I'm worried they're going to think the post was directed at or written because of them. But I had agreed to that post about a month ago, and it has nothing to do with them. Just saying, in case you were worried. (I'm not that subtle.)

Anyway, the quote:

I considered making this entire post “People don’t like being told they’re wheelchair bound. Stop doing it. Try ‘wheelchair user’ instead. Thank you.”

I also wrote a post bringing attention to Codeman38's writing about how Disney's rental DVD of Up doesn't have Subtitles, as subtitles are now a special feature. Dear Disney and Pixar: Closed Captioning and Audio Descriptions are not special features. Codeman38 has left some relevant comments in that post, and if I were a better person with more energy I would edit the post accordingly, but instead I'll just tell you they're there.

There is a post going up sometime in the next 12 hours about being a Bad Cripple. I also wrote it some time ago, but it is also timely, as the issue of What Exactly Is Anna's Ability Status Anyway has come up. I admit to being both bothered by this (because, you know, what business is it of yours?) and understanding where the objection comes from (because it bothers me that so many people want to talk to me about wheelchairs, when I am not the wheelchair user in this family).

Ah well. Just don't ask me why I'm up at 3:30 in the morning, and everything should be fine.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/536575.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I whined that I was feeling sad and tired, so people wrote nice things about me on the internet.

People are nice.

A poem, on a tumblr
A pony, also on a tumblr (I got into twitter because I was procrastinating on my thesis last year. Who wants to bet I've got a tumblr by December 25?)
a list, on a blog
an announcement, also on a blog. I have a few of those, so hopefully I shan't start another.

Meeting tomorrow for Senate Review Committee, Class with Thesis Adviser, a working group that I have already sent my regrets to because I have to finish my SSHRC application which is due on Friday and Home Care may or may not being on Thursday so I need to call and confirm one way or the other (Don's usual home care work has left for a better paying job, and more power to her, but the agency hasn't told us if anyone else is coming out, or when), book appointments for Don with various people, pick up meds (is it pick up meds time again?) and there's something I'm forgetting.

I also think I'm pretty much Glee-discussion-ed out, if I may mangle the English language so. I may have it in me to do another round-up of posts from people with disabilities on FWD/Forward, but I don't think there is anyone left who wants to hear my thoughts on Glee, or my thoughts on their thoughts on Glee. Mostly, I think Emmy & Katie & I will watch Castle. It looks mostly harmless. (Oh, and Xena. Does anyone else think the world is just waiting for a Highlander vid featuring Amanda but using the intro to Xena?)

(Do ignore my whining, btw. I do it mostly because it's about non-consequential things. Real problems are things I don't talk about, ever. It always worries Don when I get quiet, because that means something is actually wrong.)

I'm babbling so I don't have to either go to sleep or finish my reading. *makes self turn off computer*

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/536073.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

It just occurred to me that I gave an interview about sex and disability to my school newspaper. Using my real name. That talked about my sex life. That my classmates might read.

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

At least I only grade papers, instead of teach a class. What was I thinking?

[I mean, other than my desire to remind people that people with disabilities can be sexual and all that jazz, but aaaaa!]

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/535973.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

My post on Jordan's Principle, which was also published during IBARW, is up at FWD/Forward. If you recall the post I did about First Nations children dying 800 miles away from home while Provincial and Federal governments bickered about who would pay for their care, it's that post. Although I'm thinking I need to just start tagging certain things on FWD/Forward with "Anna is bitter" or "bitter Canadian warning", since wow. I write bitter stuff a lot. There's a post coming up this week where I go on a parenthetical rant about Nova Scotia, too.

My post, How to make your blog accessible in five not-very-complicated steps went up yesterday at Bitch. Unlike the post about Glee, the comments are not full of fail like "but it's so hard to think about other people's experiences!"

( Ranting about Glee )

Anyway, yeah. I have written things. That Jordan's Principle post was supposed to go up at 1:00 p.m., not a.m., but that's just the way things go sometimes.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/535734.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I have some posts going up round the nets today.

First one is already up at FWD/Forward: "That's why we call it dismissing legitimate concerns instead of acting", in which I get angry and tell people off. Yes, it's about Glee.

All of this, of course, is an awesome way of dismissing some very serious and real concerns about the way the show has chosen to portray disability. If you make the entire discussion about how those uppity people with disabilities should just shut up and stop complaining because their ideas are stupid and they should feel stupid, then of course it’s easy to dismiss them out of hand. And who needs to discuss nuances in the presentation of disability, anyway? Everyone knows that there’s no connection between how identifiable groups are portrayed on t.v. and how other people react to them, right?

And there will be a post going up at Bitch Magazine's blog later today about making your blog more accessible to certain types of disabilities. (If you're bored right now, go check out their blog. It's pretty much accessibility-fail. I know that people with screen readers all personalize their settings, and are, of course, very familiar with how their reader works and would likely have fewer problems than I did. However, I tried to navigate the site with WebAnywhere, an online screen reader, and wanted to cry.) I have a French test this morning, so I need to run, or I'd be putting it up right now.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/535377.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Katie, Emmy and I had a very brief chat, and have collectively decided that Glee stopped being even irritatingly fun two episodes ago and we're not going to watch it anymore. I mean, Emmy, who regularly watches the episode saying "potato potato potato" over Finn's lines, couldn't even get herself to do it, because she was watching the whole episode with a look of horror. Katie wisely decided not to watch it at all.

There was a stage where Glee was just irritating but with some awesome. I still love Mercedes and Kurt, and there have been a few songs that I've really enjoyed their version of. (I really liked the boys' mash-up in "Vitamin D", for example.)

But, I think there are two things that sum up what I think it really wrong with Glee.

First, and I don't think this is a spoiler:

Defying Gravity is a duet.

( Spoiler )
This is the show that's supposed to make people with disabilities feel empowered.

You know what really makes me feel empowered? Having a really vibrant community of people with disabilities that I've met through the internet and off-line. Having people who love and trust me enough to call me out on shit when I say something ignorant or thoughtless about disability. Having people who respect my work enough to read it and give constructive feedback. Having women with disabilities being willing to share their varied sexual experiences and expressions on a public blog that I'm a part of. Having a lot of people I've known over the past few years tell me how much they appreciate my posts about disability and how they've really thought about the stuff I've done. Having sabotabby write a rant about how inaccessible the museums are in Toronto, and have that rant not only be discussed by their board of directors, but be reported in the local newspaper as something important. Having a whole lot of people, even people I don't know, who don't know me, contribute to that list of YA books about people with disabilities.

Those things, those things that are actually about us, about our lives, about our experiences, are really amazing and actually empowering to be a part of. They've given me the self-confidence to write more, to question more, to ask for more, and to admit when I'm wrong.

Glee just makes me feel very very sad, and very very tired.

If you want to talk about the episode with me, don't hesitate to drop comments.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/535265.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Oh hey, I forgot another post is up.

Power & Responsibility, which is about the care-giving dynamics in my relationship with Don. It's appeared here before, but I've edited it a bit. (But, overall, same message: Bad things happen when you put spouse in role as caregiver.)

There's a post going up later this afternoon about Sex & Scoliosis that I think people will enjoy. I can't remember what time it'll go up, though. But watch for it. It's good reading. (Also, tell me if the descriptions I did of the pictures are okay. It's picture heavy post.)

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/534888.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

I wrote a guide on how to be more inclusive of people with disabilities when doing a campaign of some sort. I think I waffled back and forth between Political Campaign and Handing Out Leaflets Campaign, but there's food for thought for anyone who does such things.

[The problem with scheduling things so far in advance - I think I wrote this a week and a half ago, and had completely forgotten it was going up.]

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/534588.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Okay, all I want to do right now is go around and leave incredibly condescending comments telling people how they are wrong wrong wrong and bad for not seeing how wrong wrong wrong they are, which is a long way of saying "I need a break."

(But they're wrong. You understand this, right? They're wrong. And bad. Arg, I hate it when I'm like this.)

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/534518.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

( I don't know how long this will be. )

Maybe Glee will do a song by Tom Smith. I recommend Cat Macros. They could do a better job of that than the massacre they're going to do of Defying Gravity.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/534075.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

The glee club members twirl their wheelchairs to the tune of "Proud Mary" and in joyful solidarity with Artie, the fellow performer who must use his chair even when the music stops.

The scene in Wednesday's episode of the hit Fox series "Glee," which regularly celebrates diversity and the underdog, is yet another uplifting moment - except to those in the entertainment industry with disabilities and their advocates.

The rest of the article isn't actually about Glee, except the standard of "We couldn't find anyone with an actual disability to play Artie!" But otherwise it's about people with disabilities still not getting roles in t.v.

But really. Those two paragraphs. *sigh*

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/533966.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Vanished Persian army said found in desert

"We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News.

According to Herodotus (484-425 B.C.), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa and destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimize his claim to Egypt.

Awesome. (I mean, not the dying in the desert. The discovery.)

A few years back they figured out how to read papyrus that had been found preserved in Pompeii or something similar and all I want to do is dance. We keep finding out new stuff about the past, and it is the BEST.

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/533681.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

Expanding a bit, social penalties such as criticism, disapproving looks and even outright ostracism do not infringe upon one’s rights to freedom of expression/speech. They are not legal penalties, they are other people exercising their own rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. There is no right to freedom from other people deciding that one’s actions appear to be those of a self-entitled insensitive jerk and telling others that this is their opinion of one’s character.

From: Once Again, for the Clue-Challenged

{Nothing's going on in my life that brought this to mind.)

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/533461.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

My intro post on FWD/Forward went live. Go, see how even years later I cannot let go of my bitter Westerner attitude! Find out what the plural of Moose is! Learn what happened to that silk-screening class I took!

Originally posted at http://trouble.dreamwidth.org/533204.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Comments at Dreamwidth: .

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: .