Sherry Chandler challenged me to provide 6 unspectacular things about myself. Seeing as how I’m basically quite boring, this shouldn’t be too hard.

• I have 2 birthdays. I was born on April 10, 1960, which was Palm Sunday. When I was younger I celebrated both.
• In my 20s I was a Dungeons and Dragons addict. I played an elf thief named Liam, and was known to dress up for costume parties.
• I can’t eat green grapes. They squish when I bite them. The solid red grapes are ok, if you cut them in half first.
• I hate to drink iced tea (non-sweet) out of a plastic cup. It has to be glass.
• No martinis for me. Gin gives me hives.
• I have a birthmark on my neck that looks like a vampire bite.

I’ll tag Lynn, ***Dave, Billie, CG, Jo(e), and Ahistoricality. (This is a test to see if anyone is actually reading.) If anyone else wants to play along, leave a note in comments so I can read your list!

I got a comment the other day that really made me think. From the very perceptive CG Hill: By now you should be doing well enough to put a serious dent in the “What am I doing?” fearfulness that seemed to be hovering over your shoulder when you got back into the swing of things.

He’s right. I’ve operated from a position of fearfulness for a long time, and thanks to the budding confidence that comes from success in school, I’m starting to grow beyond it. Every assignment I complete, every A I get tells me tells me I’m intelligent and capable, not worn out and obsolete.

With the design phase of my job finished, most of my work anymore amounts to data entry. Sure, I handle a few emergencies when they come up, like a server security change that wipes out access to half my web apps, or someone implodes his email, but there’s nothing I do that a 21-year-old kid just out of ITT Tech couldn’t do faster, and probably better. It’s pretty hard on my self-image.

But school has shown me I can and do learn new things. I can not only keep up with kids half my age, I can excel. I’ve started looking forward to my tests instead of dreading them. Seeing that A pop up on the screen after I hit SUBMIT is my reward for my hard work. Then I get to report it here, and bask in the praise of my supportive friends. I feel proud of myself for the first time in years.

It’s carried over to things unconnected to school, too. I’m doing things I never thought possible. I’ve been out of my house every single day for the last 3 weeks, and I talk to people when I am. I chat with the barista while she makes my latte, and I visit with the postal clerk who sells me a book of stamps. I stand outside and make small talk with the neighbor when I get back from the grocery store. Little things to someone else, but huge to me.

But the biggest change is the way I view myself. I go the entire day without telling myself I’m stupid, and can often–not every time, but often–walk past a mirror without tearing myself apart over my age and my weight. Last week when a friend greeted me by telling me how horrible I look, I was able to blow it off and change the subject with only a minimal amount of hurt. By proving my mind, my body doesn’t matter quite so much. There’s more to me than that.

I’m starting to like who I am. It feels good.

Homework: 2 @ 100%
Group participation: 2 @100%
Test: 96% (Would have been 100% if I hadn’t gone back and changed 1 answer)

There are still a couple of really big assignments that haven’t been graded yet, but my cumulative grade is north of 96%.

For Mere, who was much relieved that the universe didn’t end.

Media Advisory:
Monday, September 15, 2008

For Information Contact;
Randy Alexander (901) 359-4982
Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504
www.adapt.org

ADAPT Fights Back re: Nation’s Low Income People with Disabilities Left Behind in Election Year Agendas

Who: ADAPT Community (500 disability rights activists from all over the country.) ADAPT is the nation’s largest cross-disability grassroots disability rights organization.

What: News conference to announce opening of DUH City.

When: 10 a.m. on Monday, September 15, 2008

Where: The plaza outside the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
451 7th Street S.W.,=2 0Washington, DC 20410

Why: The 2008 election campaigns have included rhetoric about tax breaks for middle income families, and media coverage has included stories about families who have children with disabilities.

Left out of all the election rhetoric are the candidates’ positions on and commitments to those babies with disabilities who grow into adults with disabilities who all-too-often survive on extremely low incomes (less than 30% of the median income). These extremely low incomes are often the fixed benefit amounts of SSI and Social Security.

In 2006, according to Priced Out in 2006, the federal SSI benefit was $603/month and the average cost nationally of renting a studio/efficiency apartment was $633/month.

There are not enough AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE, INTEGRATED housing units to handle the current demand in communities across America. When the Community Choice Act (S 799, H.R. 1621) passes, and older and disabled people can choose to live in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing homes and other institutions, the need for affordable, accessible housing will increase. And as the baby-boomers continue to age, the demand will grow exponentially.

HUD, Congress and the Administration have broken promises, cut funding for housing stock and housing subsidies and enforcement of anti-discrimination housing laws, and simply ignored the nation’s low-income people with disabilities altogether.

ADAPT has established “DUH City” (reverse of HUD) to bring attention to and document the struggle of low income people with disabilities. When the average rent for even an efficiency apartment is more than your monthly income……where do you wind up? All too often you’re forced out on the street or into a nursing home or other institution. DUH!

ADAPT’s tent city will be typical community complete with its own newspaper, TV coverage, and other services.

The DUH City Website

Receive live updates on the action via Twitter.

Violate a protection order and strangle a woman?

Claim it was an accident and that the goal was to knock her unconscious with a “sleeper hold.”

Sentence: 5 years.

Selling an ounce of marijuana will get you more time than that.

Ergo, it’s worse to get someone high than to kill a woman.

Times like this I’m ashamed to live in Washington State.

This story just makes me sick. The District 4 Court of Appeals in Wisconsin has ruled unanimously that the police violated a man’s right to privacy when they installed hidden cameras in his wife’s nursing home room to prove that he raped her at least 3 times since she fell into a coma following a stroke. They pronounced that David W. Johnson had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” while visiting his incapacitated wife in a care facility, so videotapes of him “having sex” with the woman were inadmissible in court.

From WISN-ABC News:

The appeals court affirmed Taggart’s ruling. Johnson believed he could spend time alone with his wife in private, was lawfully on the premises and took precautions to seek privacy such as closing the door, the court said.

The court rejected the prosecution’s argument that Johnson forfeited his right to privacy when he illegally had sex with his wife, noting proof of the assault “has not been admitted.”

Even worse, the woman’s sister, now her legal guardian, backs him up.

“She believes her sister’s husband was merely expressing his love for his wife and was trying everything he could to bring her back to consciousness,” Kelly (Johnson’s attorney) said.

In my universe “expressing love” does not mean using the unconscious body of a woman for sexual gratification when she is unable to give or deny consent. We recognize that concept relating to alcohol. Surely a comatose state is even more helpless. At its worst that’s rape of the most vulnerable; at its best, assuming your beliefs dictate that her soul has fled its shell, it is all but technical necrophilia.

I wonder what the ruling would have been had the assailant been her brother, her friend, or her religious leader. Do husbands hold special privilege where consent is assumed in absence of active protest? It took hundreds of years for the courts to rule that a man could indeed be charged with rape for assaulting a woman to whom he is married. Why does that not apply in this case?

I hope prosecutors will appeal this and take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary. The rights of those unable to protest or protect themselves must be guarded. As well as being a gender issue, it is also vital that it be recognized as a disability issue as well.

Let me say it one more time:

LACK OF CONSENT IS RAPE.

It’s rape even when the victim has formed a legal/religious partnership with the perpetrator. It’s rape even when she isn’t able to say no. It’s rape even when the door is closed. It’s rape even under the guise of “love.”

And it sure as hell is rape even when the perpetrator claims it is a means of resuscitation.

The law needs to protect this woman. Obviously the ones who claim to love her won’t.

Homework: 7 @ 100%
Participation: 100%
Test: 84%

Weekly grade: 94.72%

Cumulative: 97.05%

When I was a kid, after my grandmother died I didn’t have anyone to get excited over my grades, or hang my gold star papers on the refrigerator. So I decided to reward myself for my hard work, and give myself gold stars here. Goofy, I know, but it feels good.

When trolls attack ….

I got my grades back for my first week of physical geography.

Homework: 95, 100, 100, 100
Test: 100

I’m so proud of myself!