I often think about help that comes with little respect, because I so often get it. But it’s naked. I’d rather not get the help if the respect doesn’t come along with it.
Using the Bad Guys
Nowadays, I like to bug my x-boyfriends on the phone via texting, because I don’t have to worry about impressions anymore, and I feel good knowing I can rise above the crisis that broke us up. Some of the dudes hate my guts probably, but I do it for me.
Hypothetical Regret
“I just wanted to regret something I had done rather than regret something I hadn’t done.”
Creative Thinking: the Key to Transforming Misfortune
Transforming misfortune is not just putting a positive spin on something awful. It is an entire outlook stemming from creative thinking.
My Brother’s Inventions
My brother Ted is the best problem-solver I know. This is because he’s a master at creative thinking, thinking of alternatives.
Crooked Communication
The ways communication is ineffective, at least for me, is often when disrespect clouds the channels between its sender (communicator) and its receiver (‘communicatee’).
Voices of Miracles
This poem records how I felt the first time I walked with crutches (otherwise unaided) at the age of 17. I had to listen to hear the miracles cheering me on as I ventured. There I was, so scared and focused that I drooled on the ground, but I did it. And when I reached my destination, I really did need some convincing. Good thing those miracles were there to tell me, “you did it!”
Techno-world Part 1: Words and Deeds
My cell phone died this past Monday. (I think I crushed it between my wheelchair and my desk.) This week, sure, I am on edge because I have its alarms set for taking medications, and I don’t want my friends to think I’m ignoring their texts. But in the midst of disrupting my life, I have to notice the undeniable peace that goes with not having my cell phone.
The Value of Validation
“More than anything else, I just need validation,” I told my friend John.
Techno-world Part 2: Language and Assumptions
Communication is so muddied with verbal debris these days that it’s not even effective anymore. Computer terms have monopolized everything, nouns are changed into verbs, and all is a practical cycle of work, eat, sleep.
Techno-world Part 3: Dead-end Thinking
Sometimes the design flaws made in accommodations for us wheelies lead me to wonder if they were made out of genuine concern for inclusiveness or mostly for the sake of appearance.
Techno-world Part 4: Snap-out-of-it Society
Feelings are feelings.
My Scooter
This short limerick emphasizes the playfulness in my attitude growing up with a physical disability and motorization. (It isn’t gone now either–I’m still goofy this way–after all the years, I still zoomed around doing figure eights even at work where I was supposed to look professional!)
We’re the Special Ones with Less
This poem offers a unique perspective on disability. It’s not always easy to see success in the midst of difficulty, but such paradoxes make performers out of all who live with hardships. Weakness in a physical disability, or any shortcoming, tends to amplify the accomplishment in whatever a person does, especially when someone without the shortcoming does the same thing.
Techno-world Part 5: Communication Elimination and Interaction Overhaul
A fast-paced world ends up in people disrespecting each other.