The Real Blog is the Friends We Made Along the Way

teamwork makes the dream work. and dreamwork. makes shrek

fun fact about me: When I was 6 years old I sent so much hate mail to the president (the second Bush) that the mail carrier had to tell my mom I needed to stop before we got FBI’d

I was COMPLETELY unaware of the US political scene or why the adults in my life hated Bush, but I knew I hated him because he let people shoot wolves from helicopters and that’s mean and shitty

I also had a poor grasp on how stamps worked, so given that I wasn’t allowed to continually throw money away by putting stamps on my presidential hate mail, a lot of the times I just drew squares with little pictures inside on the corner.

This whole obsession with wheelchair users struggling on foot down the aisle at their wedding or across the stage for graduation is 100% powered by ableism.

“The heartwarming story of how one woman worked for 8 months straight so she could escape the horror that is being in wheelchair for a few short minutes to struggle slowly and painfully down the aisle on her special day.”

“the horror that is being in a wheelchair” bitch it’s hella better than struggling slowly & painfully down the aisle ffs

These types of stories teach people, both abled and disabled, that using mobility aids, especially wheelchairs, is inferior.

Who needs a bouquet when you can be a bouquet?

This post floated by a few months ago, and I remember something to effect of there’s a difference between recovery and refusal. That is, like, I have a friend that suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury. He can walk again now, and I don’t think I’ve seen him use his chair in a few years. When he walked at his graduation, it was to show off his recovery. That he wasn’t quite ready to go through a full day upright, but he could walk across a stage, unassisted, and soon he would be able to do that every day. There’s also a difference in someone like me choosing to not use a mobility aid. My mobility is intensely fluid, especially seasonally. So, I would plan a summer wedding. And while I love my cane it can also be the biggest pain in my ass, so I’d want to just go unassisted. But that’s normal for me, at least right now. I can walk without an aid during about half of the year. It’s reasonable to assume I can make it through one day without it. All of that is different than someone that is fully and permanently paralyzed, that will never walk again, dragging themselves along because they feel that’s somehow better. Overall though, my biggest takeaway is fuck the media. Because disabled people should be able to make whatever decision they want without the media turning it into this grand inspirational story.