Wings to Fly

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" -- Frida Kahlo.

I came across this quote during some aimless surfing of the Net early this morning. I don't even remember what site I was on; I think it was Pinterest. I read these words, and I felt an instant connection: it was a pull in my chest, a Yes, a Thank you, a feeling of having heard exactly what I needed to hear without even knowing I needed it.

Let me tell you something, honestly: it's hard to be disabled. I laugh and joke; I make light of it and brush it off, but it's hard. It hurts and restricts; it curtails even the simplest of desires. How does one make a snowman from a wheelchair, for instance? I get out of bed every morning and put my feet on the floor, and something on my body hurts. There are days I can barely manage ten steps before my quads start to scream or my ankle cramps up and gives out, landing me on the floor. I go places with my family and always end up trailing behind, exhausted and aching while they're still enjoying themselves. I put on a smile and say I'm having fun too, because no one likes a killjoy, but at a certain point all I'm thinking is, When can I sit down? 

The older I get, the harder it is. The more afraid I become. There will be a day when I can no longer walk at all, and that thought terrifies me beyond all semblance of reason. It keeps me awake at night. I get scared. I get angry. I wrestle with self-pity and a feeling of universal unfairness. Sometimes I cry with longing, just a clean, simple longing to walk down the street straight and unaided with my chin up, no pain or fatigue to slow me down.

At times like that, I really have to look for hope. I have to actively seek it. I have a private reserve of dignity and strength to draw upon, and as my life plays out I add things to it. The quote by Frida Kahlo hit me square in the chest, and I have pulled it into myself and made it a part of my hope. Everyone seeks something to identify with, something to ease that sense of being utterly alone we all feel sometimes, something to counteract the fear. Frida did it through words and art, and I thank her for it. Next time I look down at my twisted feet and feel the urge to cry, I can say to them, 

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"

It may not sound like much, but it is. It really is.

25 Days of Cripmas: Forward, March!

It's the truth. It's the God's-honest, scout's-honor truth. I do this. I'll be having a bad body day, everything will be hurting, I'll be at the point where I just want to pitch myself on the floor and kick and scream like a giant 2 year old, and then I imagine some of the people I know being forced to do what I do every day, and suddenly I'm giggling and feeling superior.

Sissies. They couldn't handle this. I imagine myself as a drill sergeant, yelling at the limp-armed pansies to push themselves up the hill faster, dammit! You have 5 minutes to get to class and your scooter just quit? Figure it out, whiner! Your class is up 3 flights of stairs and the Registrar won't move it? Buck up and crawl up them! Ah, yes. I would make an excellent trainer of pseudo-cripples. I could run my very own boot camp.

This could be glorious.

25 Days of Cripmas: Rockabye, Baby

Right about now, I'm wondering what the hell made me think I could commit to something 25 nights in a row.  I had the best of intentions, but it's winter and I'm crippled and achy and depressed. Cripples are always achy, but it's worse in the winter. Cold air is the devil; it seems to have the maniacally magical ability to turn one's joints into so many rusted hinges and tighten all of one's muscles -- which sucks double-time for those of us whose joints had their billionth birthday the second we popped out of the womb, and whose muscles are already perpetually wound too tightly. If I were a guitar, I'd lose a string the second somebody touched me.

My body is telling me to hibernate. Sleep, little crippled baby, sleep. Rest your aches away. No need to clean this place or pick up the phone or go anywhere; just sleep. And I must say, unlike previous years, this year there is (gratefully) less of the depression -- or at least of the kind of depression that leaves me sobbing at random intervals, and walking around with a frown on my face so heavy I can feel it pulling down on the corners of my mouth. No, I'm not exactly sad ... just tired. Sleep, says my brain. Sleep.

There's a clinical term for this, but I can't remember it. Not hypersomnia, although that is also apt. Something else. Something I saw in the DSM once as a sign or a type of clinical depression, but can't quite remember. I think it starts with an L.

Anyhow, enough rambling. I shall now treat you to some funnies about sleep, and laziness in general.

My beast a few winters back.

25 Days of Cripmas: Flippin' Out!!!

OMG, you guys have GOT to watch this! Apparently there is something in Australia called Nitro Circus, which (as I understand it) is all about doing EXTREME stunts. And there's this kid, Aaron, he does a BACK FLIP in his WHEELCHAIR. And then he does a DOUBLE BACK FLIP. I was going to make you wait till tomorrow to see the double, but I'm two nights behind, so strap on your helmets and hold on to your rims -- here's a DOUBLE DOSE of pure adrenaline!!

I think I have become a fangirl.

25 Days of Cripmas: Accessibility? Fail!

Every cripple knows that non-cripples don't know shit when it comes to accessibility. I gave a speech to a Diversity class at the university last week during which I described some examples: "accessible" bathroom stalls too small to accommodate a wheelchair; automatic doors that stay open for 4 seconds at a time; ramps so narrow that when you finally make it to the top, you have no room to back up and open the door and thus actually enter the building. The latter issue actually used to force me to have to bribe my fellow students to enter Russell Hall for me (where Student Disability Services was, and still is, ridiculously housed) and bring forth an SDS person for me to talk to. I felt like that shady guy on the street in the trench coat, selling stolen watches: Psst. Kid! Hey, kid! I'll meal you into the dining hall if you go in there and get the lady in the 3rd office on the left ...

Things like this are such a ridiculous trend, in fact, that there is a newly-formed facebook page called "Wheelchair Ramps and Access from Hell." (CLICK HERE). Today's treat is a few of that page's photos.

Such as:

Apparently, you're supposed to get a big head start and fly off the end into the air. As far as getting back in the house, well .... no one thought of that.

This clearly falls into the category of, "When we built it, we were drunk."

That last one gives me a headache. Clearly, architects have no idea how hard it is to push oneself in a wheelchair. Add a slope, and even if you have strong, sexy arms like mine, you wanna die by the time you reach the top. I have developed a trick for big, complicated ramps: I just grab the railing and pull myself up the slope arm over arm like a rope climber.

Now, big, complicated ramps do have one good use: going down them is a blast. Let go and fly! Before the hairpin turn, jerk hard to the left and go over onto one wheel for three hair-splitting seconds! Right before you reach the bottom, give one big push on the rims and then THROW YOUR ARMS IN THE AIR LIKE YOU JUST DON'T CARE and see how long it takes you to skid to a stop. Stupendous fun!

Cripples get to do it, and the rest of you don't. We have some perks.

25 Days of Cripmas: Coincidental Birthday Post

So today's 25 Days of Cripmas coincides with my birthday, but don't get too excited: I'm not posting anything special. Mostly I was telling you that to excuse the fact that I'm just going to throw up another comic and be done with it, because it's been a long day and I'm tired. Wore out. Beat. Etc. I don't have the energy for deep thoughts and/or witticisms. So here's your cripple comic, and I'll talk to you later, ok? Ok. Good.

25 Days of Cripmas: Twofer Your Trouble

Oh noes! After midnight again! My best friend and I have been kind of, shall I say, mesmerized by the first season of American Horror Story. Murder, madness, mayhem, possible demon spawn, and kinky ghost sex in latex bodysuits... everything a girl wants in a good TV show.

So tonight I'll give you 2 funnies, to avoid falling 2 nights behind. (Yes, I know I still owe y'all one from before.)

Enjoy!

The delightfully sick minds behind Cyanide and Happiness make the world a better place.

Quick! Someone get me a little red wagon! I don't do beer, but I could haul a shitload of wine this way.

25 Days of Cripmas: The Spoon Theory

On a slightly less humorous note, today I would like to present you all with a little something called "The Spoon Theory." It's an essay written by one Christine Miserandino, who has Lupus. She runs a website, But You Don't Look Sick, dedicated to supporting everyone with a disability -- seen, as Cerebral Palsy, or primarily unseen, as Lupus -- and is familiar with the notion that all disabilities have unseen components: just because you may look fine doesn't mean you are fine.

"The Spoon Theory" is Christine's brilliant way of explaining the unseen consequences of disability to those who have no way of truly comprehending them. The first time I read it, I cried -- I was so relieved to have found someone who finally understood the fight. Life with disability is so often full of doctors who poke you, people who stigmatize you, friends and loved ones who mean well but don't quite get it... it can be lonely. Disability can leave you feeling stranded on a desert island, desperate to talk to a volleyball. TSP is ant-lonliness. TSP is connection.

So without further ado, I present to you the full text of "The Spoon Theory." (All rights reserved by Christine Miserandino of But You Don't Look Sick.)

The Spoon Theory

by Christine Miserandino www.butyoudontlooksick.com

My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

As I went to take some of my medicine with a snack as I usually did, she watched me with an awkward kind of stare, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have Lupus and be sick. I was shocked not only because she asked the random question, but also because I assumed she knew all there was to know about Lupus. She came to doctors with me, she saw me walk with a cane, and throw up in the bathroom. She had seen me cry in pain, what else was there to know?

I started to ramble on about pills, and aches and pains, but she kept pursuing, and didn’t seem satisfied with my answers. I was a little surprised as being my roommate in college and friend for years; I thought she already knew the medical definition of Lupus. Then she looked at me with a face every sick person knows well, the face of pure curiosity about something no one healthy can truly understand. She asked what it felt like, not physically, but what it felt like to be me, to be sick.

As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being effected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity. I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand. If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.

At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have Lupus”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands.

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case Lupus, being in control.

She grabbed the spoons with excitement. She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she is always up for a good time, so I guess she thought I was cracking a joke of some kind like I usually do when talking about touchy topics. Little did she know how serious I would become?

I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of “spoons”. But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn’t even started yet. I’ve wanted more “spoons” for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has Lupus.

I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said ” No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can’t take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too.” I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon. I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If I have bruises that day, I need to wear long sleeves, and if I have a fever I need a sweater to stay warm and so on. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this.

I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get to work, and she was left with 6 spoons. I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s “spoons”, but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less “spoons”. I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a cold comes, or an infection, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on “spoons”, because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, as well as standing on a train, or even typing at her computer too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently. Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night.

When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to drive home safely. Then I also explained, that I didn’t even bother to add into this game, that she was so nauseous, that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “Christine, How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.”

Its hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to. I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day’s plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count “spoons”.

After we were emotional and talked about this for a little while longer, I sensed she was sad. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she realized that she never could truly and honestly say she understands. But at least now she might not complain so much when I can’t go out for dinner some nights, or when I never seem to make it to her house and she always has to drive to mine. I gave her a hug when we walked out of the diner. I had the one spoon in my hand and I said “Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons” and I chose to spend this time with you.”

Ever since this night, I have used the spoon theory to explain my life to many people. In fact, my family and friends refer to spoons all the time. It has been a code word for what I can and cannot do. Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding Lupus, but anyone dealing with any disability or illness. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general. I give a piece of myself, in every sense of the word when I do anything. It has become an inside joke. I have become famous for saying to people jokingly that they should feel special when I spend time with them, because they have one of my “spoons”.

© Christine Miserandino

25 Days of Cripmas: CRIPPLE FIGHT!!

Technically it's after midnight where I am, which makes this Day 2 of Cripmas. I know, I know: all that hype, and I don't deliver on time. Fear not! I will make it up to you in a few hours! And as for Day 1, I leave you with perhaps THE BEST Southpark clip EVER -- TIMMEH! and Jimmy Vulmer bashing the excrement out of each other in Cripple Fight.

25 Days of Cripmas Eve: A Little Homer (Simpson) For Ya

It's 25 Days of Cripmas EVE!! Y'all need a present. A teaser, if you will. Another one? Oh, yes! Because I'm so excited about 25 days of Cripmas that I can't wait another minute to start! So here's a little Homer for ya:

25 Days of Cripmas (WITH TEASER!)

So I've been doing some thinking about what to do with OLC over the holiday season, and I have decided that there shall be a "25 Days of Cripmas" marathon! Yay!

Starting on the 1st of December, I will post something humorous and/or thought-provoking on OLC each day. It could be a Youtube clip of a cartoon featuring a cripple, or a comic about cripples, or a meme or a little drawing -- anything, really. You won't know what it is unless you come look. (HAHA! You're trapped!)

My plan is to have everything from an outside source and link it here to OLC so you can see it. I'm picturing something kind of like ABC Family's "25 Days of Christmas", only cripple-tastic and on this blog. (I know, right? Genius.) It's gonna be epic. You MUST tune in and share it with your friends, because Santa Claus is watching you.

Teaser! Teaser!

Joe tries to vacuum tread marks out of the carpet --
I lose it EVERY. TIME. 

Owning The C Word

It crossed my mind that perhaps I ought to discuss why I use the word "cripple" to such excess. I am sure there are people who consider it unseemly, gauche, or just plain weird.

Well, it took me a long time to come to terms with cripple. I used to hate it ad extremum -- when I was a kid and someone referred to me as crippled, I always developed an urge to kneecap that person and then stand over him or her yelling, Who's crippled now? Huh? Now who's the cripple, stupid face? (I have never been good at angry insults. I'm the kind of person who thinks of a priceless retort 2 hours after the argument has been resolved.)

But then I grew up, and in recent years I have learned that there is a certain amount of empowerment to be found in claiming for yourself those words that are so often pejorative: cripple, retard, dyke, nigger, cracker, faggot, fairy ... by taking the words back from the mouths of the ignorant and wearing them like a badge of honor, by making them yours, you can remove their power to hurt you. 

I must sound like a therapist or a self-help guru. For the record, I never bought in to that, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." crap. Words do hurt. I spent enough hours crying in school bathrooms as a kid to know that words are some of the most hurtful things out there. Language is powerful; it's supposed to be. How else would we communicate, if words -- spoken, or written, or signed -- had no power? Nonverbal cues can only go so far. As a species, we have evolved past the point of easily reading minute gestures and expressions and have come to depend on words; whether this is a good or a bad thing is an argument for another day, but it does leave us with the fact that words carry a great deal of power -- and just like any other powerful thing, a word can be made into a weapon.

So think of my tendency to bandy about "cripple," then, as a way of impudently striding up to the weapons made of words and rendering them useless. I steal the arrows from the bows and dull the heads of all the hatchets; I take the bullets from the guns and replace them with blanks. "Cripple" cannot harm me if I am armored with it.

This is not to say that a word cannot worm its way in -- that happens sometimes. I harbor an intense and inexpressible hatred for "invalid" when used as a noun and applied to a person: in-valid, as in "not valid." I cannot bring myself to use the word to describe who I am, even in peremptory jest. I want to fling that word to the ground and stomp and stomp and stomp on it until it's 20 different kinds of dead. Thankfully it's archaic and I only see it in books, otherwise there might actually be some people laying around minus their kneecaps.

But to go back to the original idea, here: I use "cripple" as a joke. As armor. As a preemptive strike against something that might otherwise hurt. I have an older, unmarried female friend who is reclaiming the word "spinster," and while I don't know her motives there, it seems to empower her as much as reclaiming "cripple" has empowered me. She's having fun collecting spinster things, and I am having fun with my little crippled blog.

That's why you come to a blog called "One Little Cripple," and not something with a sappy, hopeful-sounding title that will uplift you and instill in you teary-eyed admiration for the writer. Because OLC is real. Being a cripple is a gritty, gutsy, not-always-pretty human experience that I, as a cripple, can own, and in owning it, share it with others. My usual medium is humor. That's how I have chosen to share this journey with you: through humor. And since I consider throwing around the c-word like candy at a parade to be humorous, you'll be seeing it a lot.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go play like a crippled Wednesday Addams and recline on my 8,000 spikes.

Hard Hat Area!

If you've come to OLC more than once in the past few days, you may think someone slipped some crack into your coffee, but worry not -- you have not been drugged. (At least I hope you haven't.) The look does keep changing. I'm trying to figure out the best "feel" if you will: the best layout, the best arrangement of all the page elements, yada, yada, yada. It'll get there. In the meantime, if anybody has any suggestions, please, please, please comment with them! I love comments. Comments are what let me know that people are actually taking the time to read my blog.

Oh, and I'm putting this out there, too:

One Little Crippled Announcement

If you are good with custom background images, or if you know someone who is and who'd be willing to help me in that department with payment in non-refundable gratitude only (cripples are generally poor) please refer that person to me. This whole Tile the Background Image game is producing unsatisfactory and highly annoying results.

Thank you.

E-Crip-Ment Review: Heavenly Brand Acupressure Mat

Hello, this is One Little Cripple radioing in from the Land of the Crooked Spine. Yep -- I'm talking scoliosis. Most everybody with a spastic form of CP has it, it seems. SCO-lee-OH-sus, e-i, e-i, OH-sus, e-i, e-i, OW.

Okay, enough singing. My spine doth protest. Apparently singing hurts it, as does, let's see ... sitting, standing, walking, breathing, blinking, and pretty much anything that involves any kind of movement or state of existence whatsoever. (Alright, so that was hyperbole. Sue me. My inner poet is awake and frolicking about the room, acting all silly.)

But really, it does feel like blinking hurts sometimes when your spine has a better curve than some roller coasters can boast of. When I was a kid, the surgeon talked about putting me in traction for awhile to make it grow straight. Boy, I was glad my mother said no back then, but these days I almost wish she'd said yes. The Land of the Crooked Spine is not a fun place to be.

Recently, I've started looking into alternative treatments for my back pain. I could run a pharmacy out of my medicine cabinet already; I don't want any more pills unless I'll shrivel up and die without 'em. So first I tried these stretches where you get down on the floor and pretend to be a cat: dip your spine and hold; arch your spine and hold. When I'm all arched up like that, I like to narrow my eyes and hiss at the real cat, 'coz it freaks him out.

Then I added a corset brace -- you know, one of those things that goes on like a shirt and fastens across the front? It worked fine for about a month, and then it hit I'm-a-miserable-failure status and it's been there ever since. The Velcro wore out. The thing was white, so it got all dingy and gross-looking, too. And then the bottom part started folding up in the front like some kind of demented window shade. Really? Really. It was too much. Bye, bye, back brace.

So then I bought an acupressure mat. For those of you who may not know what acupressure is, it's basically acupuncture without the needles. There are sharp things involved, but no actual puncturing goes on.

Anyhow, I read up on how acupressure is supposed to help realign things in your body and what a great, non-medicine form of pain relief it is, and I was hurtin' so bad I said, "What the hell," and ordered one.

Heavenly brand Acupressure Mat - Blue then entered my life. Over 8,000 sharp, toothy little points of pain. What? Yes. 8,000 little plastic spikes on which I recline for 10 minutes each day. And you know what? It's worth it. This thing really works! My spine hurts less! At first I thought it was just some kind of extended relief phenomenon I was feeling from rolling off the whole bed-of-nails sensation -- you know, like 9 hours later I'm still going, Thank God that's over. But then I started getting used to the stabby feeling, and finding ways to lessen it -- first time users should put a sheet over it before lying down; it's not as intense that way -- and I'm still in less pain than I was before!

The acupressure mat works. I wholeheartedly endorse getting one. Heavenly makes them in different colors and sizes; some have more pointy bits and some have less. I think Blue is for wussy beginners, which is why I own it. I am both an acupressure beginner and a wuss. It's a perfect match. There's a foam pad inside the casing with the pointy bits on it -- the casing is fastened at the end with Velcro, so you can slide the pad in and out for spot cleaning if need be, or just roll up the pointy bits and stuff them in your luggage for space-saving travel.

If you are a cat owner, I suggest getting an acupressure mat even if you don't have back trouble -- watching kitty try to walk on all those spikes? That's some funny shit, right there. The facial expression, the way kitty will do a little hot-foot dance ... lowdown mean, but worth every. hilarious. penny.

Crippled Little Feet

Ok, so let's talk about those sexy, non-cripple shoes I mentioned in the OLC premiere post earlier. The shoes with the heels and the straps that this little cripple can't wear because she has Cerebral Palsy and would literally kill herself with a single step. Crash! Neck broken in 5 places.

There are all kinds of sexy shoes for women who aren't crippled. I almost salivate over some of the shoes I see my un-crippled friends wearing or posting to Pinterest. That purple suede platform boot that hits above the knee and laces up the back? I want that. The snazzy little kitten heels with the peep toes? Yes, please. The only thing that keeps me from having a closet full of sexy, sexy shoes is the little palsy problem.

It's not just the walking. I have little palsied feet, too. Ugly little palsied feet. Displaced joints, toes that curl under, absolutely zero, zip, zilch, nothing, nada, no-way, no-how, in terms of arches. These things I call feet look like penguin flippers. And their lovely collection of deformities essentially makes them 2 different sizes: a shoe that fits comfortably on my ugly little right foot will squeeze my ugly little left foot to death. It's almost impossible to walk into a store and find a type of shoe that will fit both feet. I've just grown accustomed to one shoe always being half a size too big. And even if I could find a sexy shoe to fit both feet, and even if I could walk in it, I'd never, ever, wear a peep-toe. My ugly little crippled toes would scare people away.

And so you see the problem, yes? I want sexy shoes, but I cannot have them. I'm stuck with sneakers or ballet flats that always seem to have that dumb bow on them, as if I'm 5 years old and I want to go around with bows on my shoes like a pretty, pretty princess. And I have to stuff the toe of the right-foot ballet flat with toilet paper to make it fit. Classy.

I am not the only cripple with this issue. Orthopedic shoe companies have recently started trying to make their shoes more appealing to crippled women who want to join their non- cripple peers in wearing sexy on their feet, but it doesn't work. You can't un-uglify a toe guard or un-dork a Velcro-fastened Mary Jane no matter what other attractive things you do to the shoe. It's still an ugly shoe, and we cripples with ugly little palsied feet know this. We know this and long for the heels and the peep-toes that are forever before us like candy in front of a diabetic kid.

I mean, seriously. Compare.

We get this:

Ugly as hell

and you get this:

Sexy as hell

Crippledom has given me an acute sense of what is fair and what is not, and this whole shoe thing definitely falls in the "Big, steaming, pile of rotting offal" category. But my misfortune has given me yet another opportunity to make a horrible, make-the-non-cripples-squirm cripple joke --

I will make a Pinterest board and title it:

Shoes I Will Wear When I Can't Walk Anymore.

It will be hilarious. And sexy. Foot-fetishists-wet-dream sexy. 

I have pinning to do.

One Little Crippled Post

Oh Em Gee, I've started a theme blog! I'm actually going to force my million-track mind to stay on one track! And it's a track about cripples, and being crippled, and cripple jokes, and cripple etiquette. (Yes, cripples have jokes and etiquette. It's confusing, I know. I will try my best to educate you.)

Stay tuned for socially inappropriate one-liners about sex in wheelchairs and other things that tend to make the non-crippled shake in their hot, sexy shoes of which I and my orthopedic uglies are jealous ...