Vienna waits for you...

Styne Lane @StynaLane 

It’s disability pride month, and did you know disabled people in the US with Medicaid are not allowed to have more than $2 000 in money and assets combined, or else we’ll lose our often life-saving health insurance? [upside-down smiley face] Don’t fucking tell me forced poverty isn’t A Thing™

Did you know disabled people in many countries (including the US and UK) can’t get married or often even LIVE with their partner because it causes a massive decrease (or removal entirely) of their disability benefits? Which should only make sense to you if you’re a eugenicist? [smiley face]

Did you know it’s still 100% legal to pay workers with disabilities less than minimum wage? [smiley face]

Did you know disabled people with COVID are dying because they’re being denied care to save resources? A disabled man in Texas was denied care (and FOOD) in hospital for SIX. DAYS. Doc told his wife that, since he was disabled, he didn’t have a quality of life WORTH saving...

Did you know that disabled people fought for ages to get accessible accommodations for work, school, medical care? Did you know we were told it was IMPOSSIBLE to work from home, IMPOSSIBLE to attend school from home, IMPOSSIBLE to have telecom doctor appointments? ...

...Did you know these were all sorted and made available within a month of abled people needing them after the onset [of] the pandemic? Did you know now that states are opening back up, these accessibility accommodations are being revoked for many? [smiley face]

This is almost fifty years ago: I added psych as a major so I could access the books on homosexuality in our university library. They were locked in the back and you had to go through the librarian to get them. If you were not a psych major the Dean of Students would interrogate you as to why you wanted to read such deleterious material.

Seeing the newspaper that one of my professors and his friends had been arrested at his own house, having a barbecue in the backyard, for “associating with a known homosexual”. Believe me, these things twist you, and make you think twice when invited to a party at someone’s house.

Having a handsome young stranger make eyes at you at the all night diner as you study for finals, and wondering if he is one of the detectives assigned to entrapping gays. Going through the teeter totter emotions of wondering if he might be the love you are looking for, or is he the trap that will flush your whole life down the toilet.

Coming to barracks at the end of the day in the Air Force, and watching the swarm of OSI and Security Police escorting a friend out under arrest for having gone to a gay bar. Wondering if he would name you, because that was the only way you could stay out of jail – by naming at least five other gays.

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

“our government can’t afford a single payer healthcare system. where would we get the money?”

Cashier: ??!?! Thank you! You’re the nicest person ever!

Miranda: We could save the world!!!