ship_them_all

Japanese: Samui desu ne?

my teachers: its like a, a little rise at the end of a sentence, to show that you are seeking a response, while not warranting the -ka particle which would make it a proper question.

me: ok. i guess i get that??

this post: its like saying “innit?” 

I don't mean you can't get good at things through repeated practice. You can do that, I have done that, but I don't trust it.

I was driving this morning and thinking about how I have never developed the blasé contempt for it most people seem to despite never having caused an accident in 20 years because my sense of time is such that I might as well have been driving for a week. I'm a good, safe driver, but I do not have a heap of confidence in my driving despite having regularly done it for two decades because my sense of time is such that those two decades may as well not have happened.

I finished editing a novel today. When I publish it, it will be the 64th novel I have published in the last 10 years, not counting ghostwritten work. You'd think after a decade and 63 novels I'd be confident that I was capable of writing, editing, and publishing a novel—even be confident about the timeline for this—but no. No, I feel like I'm doing it for the first time, every time, and I was surprised to have finished the editing at all, let alone on time. Because those other 63 novels were published in a past I have a vague at best concept of. I have a record that says it happened but I do not feel it.

I cannot trust my future behaviour because for me there is functionally no past. I know it occurred, I have records, but I don't feel it the way people without this kind of memory issue do. I feel inexperienced at everything I've ever done and I cannot accurately estimate my skill level at anything, particularly not on the fly.

frequently when i’m out and about with someone walking, they can’t anticipate what path i will take and therefore they’re in my way pretty frequently. this is fine! i can politely ask them to step to the side. but it makes me think about how little non-wheelchair users understand the way wheelchair users move. as someone who used to walk everywhere, it was an adjustment period for me to figure out how to navigate the world in a chair. here are some things that didn’t occur to me so that you don’t cut off your friend right as they’re building momentum to go up a ramp 😆

for context, i use an active manual chair. the world is very different in a power chair. even among active manual chair users, there is a huge diversity in physicality and strategies for getting around. this is a general guide that i think will apply to most manual wheelchair users. i’m starting super basic and getting more complicated as i go.

———

1. manual wheelchairs are a momentum game. it is very easy to maintain speed and direction. but speeding up, slowing down, or turning, is hard. one thing this affects is if we’re on a wavy sidewalk or other twisty-turny walkway, that is a pain in the ass and i am taking as straight a path as i can.

2. wheelchair users also have to pay attention to the slope and condition of the pavement, so our path somewhere will be different than yours, even if we’re taking the same route to the same place. for example, i usually have to go down slopes straight, not diagonally, to avoid tipping over sideways. one area this affects is crosswalks. many intersections have one curb cut for both roads you could cross, which means i will go down curb cuts to a crosswalk as if i am aiming for the middle of the intersection.

your path in orange, mine in blue. to you it seems indirect, but to me it’s the path of least resistance.

i also will be building speed in the second half of the crosswalk. this is a much easier way to tackle a ramp. if i approach with momentum, i won’t have to drag myself up the slope once i get to it.

3. building momentum and maintaining it is only half of the job. the other half is stopping. manual wheelchairs cannot stop on a dime if they’re moving with any kind of speed. if i tried to stop immediately when going downhill, i would fly out of the chair. so don’t walk right into the path of a wheelchair in motion and then stop! i will have to turn to the side very quickly and hope i don’t tip. i can’t tell you how often parents pushing strollers will stop their stroller directly in my path and then get offended when i am alarmed and turn sharply to avoid hitting their child. from their perspective, i was being careless and going “too fast.” in reality, normal walking speed takes a few feet to slow down from and stop.

4. in terms of slope. see this street in san francisco?

i can’t go down this street, it’s way too steep. i would give myself friction burns on my palms trying to control my speed. if i was in a situation where there was no avoiding this street, like in an emergency, i would be breaking my straight-slope rule and zig-zagging in the middle of the road.

this would require several zig-zags back and forth, more than the four that i drew. i also could not go up this road other than with this method. up or down, i risk tipping over sideways if i’m not careful.

4. in a similar vein, consider terrain. slopes with grass or carpet take huge amounts of energy to get up. this grassy hill isn’t insurmountable, but it would take me like thirty minutes to get up there. honestly i would probably go backwards, because it’s easier to pull yourself up a slope than push yourself.

other types of terrain can be completely immobilizing, though. this decorative gravel pathway is beautiful, and inaccessible to me. my casters (front wheels) simply will not go through that.

5. in terms of walkways and obstacles. if there’s a deep gap in the pavement lined up the way i’m going, and it’s, say, an inch wide, that is an obstacle for me. my casters are one inch wide, and my back wheels are an inch and a half. i’ll get stuck in it like a train on a track.

i have to straddle this, even if it means being too close to the middle of the sidewalk and preventing us from walking side by side.

similarly, if a crack is greater than an inch high, i’m gonna wheelie over it. at two inches, i have to. a wheelie may require a change in speed, either faster or slower depending on the person.

i have 4 inch casters, so a lip as little as 2 inches will stop me in my tracks. a lip as little as one inch, hit with any speed, can knock my casters out of square. casters can get knocked out of alignment pretty easily depending on the chair. i’d rather not have to pull out an allen wrench and a level, so i’m gonna wheelie.

this happened when i hit about a 1.5” lip on a pavement crack when i was going downhill at maybe 3mph.

6. putting it all together. see how diagonal this crack is?

this is another situation where i have to go straight relative to the slope. because that crack is wide, it will probably also require a wheelie. if i tried to approach that straight relative to the sidewalk, my left caster would get up the slope, i’d wheelie, then my right caster would land in the crack. i have to go this way.

(also lol at the trash can blocking the curb cut)

My meme-ish poster about executive dysfunction, or "The Sits" as we call it in our house. This is to share my experiences with exec. dysfunction, everyone's a little different ☺️

Eva Stratt, meanwhile, is a stain. Graffiti tucked away in alleys and under bridges, forever painted over by the powers that be. A name meant to be forgotten. Stratt has always known this was part of the deal: after all, humanity needs a villain just as much as it needs its heroes. The best she can hope for is to be erased entirely on Earth.

- being on a multicultural ship means moments of cultural exchange are inevitable, and shenanigans often ensue

- in a previous post, I mentioned the ship acquiring cats, one of which being a black cat named Astro who lives in little russia

- except Russia has a superstition against black cats, and it took some adjusting for Dimitri and his denizens before they fully accepted the cat

- including a lot of jumping around, swerving, anything to avoid the animal from walking in their paths, the cat seemed to notice their avoidance of him, which only made him hang around (terrorize) little Russia more

- it took Ilyukhina holding and cuddling the cat for everyone to stop avoiding him, and soon enough Astro and Dimitri became the dad and the cat he never wanted (follows him around, he takes him to meetings, even letting the cat sleep with him)

- Ilyukhina loves punching people when she notices their clothes are inside out, her common victims are Grace and DuBois (ask him why, he'll gladly tell you), she tried on Yáo once but his military training had him easily bending out of the way while she tripped and fell over

- despite starting off on the wrong foot, Eva and Lokken quickly get along quite well

- incredibly German Eva 🤝 incredibly Norwegian Lokken aka two people you have to push or be really close with to get any ounce of facial expression out of (unless you are Grace, who is always on the receiving end of Eva's smiles and Lokken's cursing)

- Lamai still takes some time to adjust and get comfortable on the vat, and one of the events she misses is Songkran

- Ilyukhina and Hatch find out about the festival, and they along with the rest of the crew (Ryland, Dimitri, Annie, even Lokken got dragged in) pulled her out of her lab and onto the deck, then instantly started blasting her with water guns (only after she got soaked did they pass her one)

- (it was the most relaxed and happy they had seen her, she especially loved taking her stress off on Hatch, she and Lokken terrorized him with their water guns)

- except the day the did this just so happened to line up with an important meeting with EU leaders (Eva and LeClerc were there entertaining world leaders to convince them that yes nuclear bombing Antarctica is a good idea)

- LeClerc gets caught in the crossfire, Eva stood far enough behind to not get wet, but she quickly reprimanded Grace for not paying attention (it was Ilyukhina who shot him, but she quickly ran and they all knew Eva wouldn't be too mad at Ryland)

- (they were running late for the meeting, he had no choice but to show up half soaked)

- but when the meeting ended (which was incredibly quick, Eva does not play around and the EU representatives might be a little scared of her now), he joined in, he and Hatch formed an understanding (French speakers and all) and Steve got his revenge on Lamai and Lokken

- which didn't last long, the astro ladies joined forces with the science ladies and quickly started chasing the men (Dimitri and Ryland elected to stay out of their way but still ended up being targeted by them anyways)

- (Eva funded the purchase of the water guns, she was glad the doctor was no longer as shy and tense as when she first came on the ship)

- though English is the lingua franca of the vat, it is inevitable that foreign curses are picked up by everyone (and perfectly replicated)

- including Eva's favourites: verdammt, scheiße (a classic), and drecksau (most common after meetings with governments that refuse to cooperate)

- one day spent in little russia is enough for Ryland to learn more than enough Russian curses, even the most unusual ones like пизда малосольная (lightly salted pussy) and чтоб тебе дети в суп срали (i hope your kids shit in your soup)

- the kids in question are the vat cats, spoken by Olesya after Dimitri refused to let her experiment with the astrophage (she wanted to try them to see if they had a taste, cosmic sprinkles, she called them)

- so many Quebecois curses are Catholic based, when François and Eva heard them come out of Steve's mouth they had to do a double take cause isn't he religious?? (he's protestant, so he has no issues using phrases like tabernac, calisse, or ciboire)

- Eva, despite all the languages she does speak, does not know Norwegian or Thai, but that doesn't stop her from picking up Lokken and Lamai's cursing

- Ryland tries to implement a swear jar, but that quickly fails since money is useless on the ship, and it also backfires on him since he doesn't actually speak any other language, they ask him to repeat what they said to confirm that they were swearing but his teacher heart refuses even if it's not an English curse

- Lokken loves to call him a liten jævel (little bastard) or when she's really irritated, whisper that he's stygg som faen (ugly as hell) when she passes him in a corridor but he has no way of proving that she's cursing him out since there's like no other Norwegian speaker on board

- saw a post recently about Martin having heritage outside of the US (because of his French surname) and I've decided his family is from Guadeloupe

- aka beach-loving Lamai 🤝 grew up on a beach Martin = convincing Eva to let them have a day off on an uninhabited island