Friday, November 30, 2012
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:
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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!
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.
I lose it EVERY. TIME.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, November 16, 2012
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:
and you get this:
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:
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 |
 |
| Sexy as hell |
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 ...
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 ...
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