But you know what? It's fixable. Well to a point. And i'm not lettin it stop me. I'm going to Dublin on Tuesday. And I think I've learned that from having a disability. Stuff sucks and things go wrong. but you can't let it stop you.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Less to do with Disability than Sense and little Sense
My laptop got stolen tonight. My door doesn't lock because the key is too tricksy for me to turn and the organization hadn't replace it. Someone came into the house and waltzed in and took my phone and laptop.
But you know what? It's fixable. Well to a point. And i'm not lettin it stop me. I'm going to Dublin on Tuesday. And I think I've learned that from having a disability. Stuff sucks and things go wrong. but you can't let it stop you.
But you know what? It's fixable. Well to a point. And i'm not lettin it stop me. I'm going to Dublin on Tuesday. And I think I've learned that from having a disability. Stuff sucks and things go wrong. but you can't let it stop you.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Fray
I saw the Fray from the front row last night. I stood there for the entire show and watched them play the songs I've known by heart since I was seventeen. It was amazing.
Not so amazing is the Kings Cross area-- they don't lie when they say it's sketch-- or the cold that meant I had to leave London early or keep sneezing.
Getting on the bus was one of the most difficult things I've done in a while. London is definitely my city...
Not so amazing is the Kings Cross area-- they don't lie when they say it's sketch-- or the cold that meant I had to leave London early or keep sneezing.
Getting on the bus was one of the most difficult things I've done in a while. London is definitely my city...
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Southern Belles in London Sing
Last night i went to London to see Amanda Palmer play at the Electric Ballroom. I'm a concert addict, it seems, I'm seeing six this term, only one of which did I think to call for disabled seats (and they gave me an extra free ticket, pity it was the last one I booked).
I set off for London at 11 or so but my train didn't leave 'til 1:30 and as usual I underestimated my walking speed. Once in London I realized that my cute Converse were NOT a good idea for walking 'round the streets of London. Scraping the back of my heel, dastardly shoes! The hostel was okay. First floor does not mean ground floor, but not bad. When I got to the room all the bottom bunks were taken, so i wrote a note on a girl's 'claimed bed' slip in the hopes that she'd grab a top bunk This comes into play later.
I set off to find food, coffee, and a postcard to get Amanda to sign (rather than shipping posters home, plus I already have a signed poster from her...)
I found SUSHI I have failed at finding good sushi in London since ever. It was great. Then I hobbled (shoes) into the line and stood outside the venue with the other cold people for an hour and a half. I think I may have been the only person on my own. The crowd was a crowd and I am proud to say that my usual epic fear of crowds did not kicked in. I managed at one point to get three rows in but the two girls in front of me then couldn't move and I was too close to think 'oh I'll just stay and hear the music' because I could SEE THE STAGE Security Guy that the girls in front of me asked about me getting closer said 'Oh go see my supervisor to the far right under the red light'. It's a club. Can I tell you how many red lights there were? No because I couldn't count them.
Eventually I found myself perched on the top of a three stair stairwell near the stage, a kind of breezeway to the steps for the next floor, but there ended up being little space where people weren't standing. Disabled visually impaired me could SEE THE STAGE. that doesn't happen. I stood the whole time (I'm making that six hours) and I'm fine. I didn't know I could do that.
After the show I got my postcard signed and Amanda recognized me. And it wasn't the cane, i didn't have that in Atlanta!
On my walk back to the hostel it was lightly snowing, but didn't stick. At the hostel girl was asleep in bunk. I hope she didn't speak english because otherwise she's a bitch. Downstairs to the bar/reception. The guy was quite good about switching me to a new room but the whole group in there was asleep so I felt awful going in and out to change.
Next morning I hobbled to the tube, not because of standing all night before but my shoes. New shoes, bad idea.
The Underground and I need to have a talk. I love it. Love, love. But it doesn't make sense there are stairs in stations that have lifts from the station level down to a set of stairs. Paddington has escalators right until the platform. How is that supposed to work with LUGGAGE let alone disability?
Train and tube were uneventful, except vague ponderings on the snow outside the train window. And then, sure enough, slush all over Oxford. Other people look so collected walking through it as if it were nothing. I feel like Bambi on the first day of spring. But I made it home and to my tutorial with no incidents.
We'll see how next week goes when I go back to London to see The Fray!
I set off for London at 11 or so but my train didn't leave 'til 1:30 and as usual I underestimated my walking speed. Once in London I realized that my cute Converse were NOT a good idea for walking 'round the streets of London. Scraping the back of my heel, dastardly shoes! The hostel was okay. First floor does not mean ground floor, but not bad. When I got to the room all the bottom bunks were taken, so i wrote a note on a girl's 'claimed bed' slip in the hopes that she'd grab a top bunk This comes into play later.
I set off to find food, coffee, and a postcard to get Amanda to sign (rather than shipping posters home, plus I already have a signed poster from her...)
I found SUSHI I have failed at finding good sushi in London since ever. It was great. Then I hobbled (shoes) into the line and stood outside the venue with the other cold people for an hour and a half. I think I may have been the only person on my own. The crowd was a crowd and I am proud to say that my usual epic fear of crowds did not kicked in. I managed at one point to get three rows in but the two girls in front of me then couldn't move and I was too close to think 'oh I'll just stay and hear the music' because I could SEE THE STAGE Security Guy that the girls in front of me asked about me getting closer said 'Oh go see my supervisor to the far right under the red light'. It's a club. Can I tell you how many red lights there were? No because I couldn't count them.
Eventually I found myself perched on the top of a three stair stairwell near the stage, a kind of breezeway to the steps for the next floor, but there ended up being little space where people weren't standing. Disabled visually impaired me could SEE THE STAGE. that doesn't happen. I stood the whole time (I'm making that six hours) and I'm fine. I didn't know I could do that.
After the show I got my postcard signed and Amanda recognized me. And it wasn't the cane, i didn't have that in Atlanta!
On my walk back to the hostel it was lightly snowing, but didn't stick. At the hostel girl was asleep in bunk. I hope she didn't speak english because otherwise she's a bitch. Downstairs to the bar/reception. The guy was quite good about switching me to a new room but the whole group in there was asleep so I felt awful going in and out to change.
Next morning I hobbled to the tube, not because of standing all night before but my shoes. New shoes, bad idea.
The Underground and I need to have a talk. I love it. Love, love. But it doesn't make sense there are stairs in stations that have lifts from the station level down to a set of stairs. Paddington has escalators right until the platform. How is that supposed to work with LUGGAGE let alone disability?
Train and tube were uneventful, except vague ponderings on the snow outside the train window. And then, sure enough, slush all over Oxford. Other people look so collected walking through it as if it were nothing. I feel like Bambi on the first day of spring. But I made it home and to my tutorial with no incidents.
We'll see how next week goes when I go back to London to see The Fray!
A Little Change
Hi guys,
If anyone's still reading this from its first incarnation I thought I'd let you know that until the end of May (at least) this is gonna serve mostly as my travel blog, about traveling with a disability. So feel free to read or not based on that!
If anyone's still reading this from its first incarnation I thought I'd let you know that until the end of May (at least) this is gonna serve mostly as my travel blog, about traveling with a disability. So feel free to read or not based on that!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
So This is the New Year
Hi all,
I am going to try to be better at blogging here this year. I'm going to be abroad at Oxford, so the content may be less knitting and more life, but there will be osme knititng. I'm working on the Hermione's Magic Knitting bag from CHarmed Knits, so there will be pictures up of that when it is done. And, of course, much room in my suitcase/carryon (too much maybe) will be taken up by yarn. It's how I roll.
Hoping that you all had fantabulous holidays!
I am going to try to be better at blogging here this year. I'm going to be abroad at Oxford, so the content may be less knitting and more life, but there will be osme knititng. I'm working on the Hermione's Magic Knitting bag from CHarmed Knits, so there will be pictures up of that when it is done. And, of course, much room in my suitcase/carryon (too much maybe) will be taken up by yarn. It's how I roll.
Hoping that you all had fantabulous holidays!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Book Review: History a History
Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon
I was going to ask for this book for Christmas, but saw it in a Target on vacation and decided to go ahead and get it and read it over the break. I’m grateful that I did. This book took me back to my childhood of Harry Potter reading and playing Harry Potter in my backyard, my young teenage years of obsessive fanfiction writing and my late teens reading the final books as I surpassed Harry’s age and embarked on my own journies. Mellissa writes about movements and events that are recognizable only to the fandom, but which I remember clearly. Switchblade Kitten’s Ode to Harry Potter is on my iPod, and more importantly, on all my old mix CDs.
The only thing I can criticize is the lack of attention to the elements of fandom that are lacking in the novel, and happen to be the ones in which I immersed myself. I spent my fifteenth summer on Fiction Alley, and spent the time before that reading Fanfiction which was not Cassandra Claire’s. I came in through MenaRaisin’s Hermione’s World newsletter and I feel like that is where many, many fans started. I also mourned the lack of mention of JK Rowling’s interaction with LOOK UP the young girl with cancer who wanted to know the end of the books, and the girl who came home from camp to find Harry Potter in her car—early. But those two things happened before Melissa came into the fandom and are, thus, excusable.
All in all, this book receives many accolades from this fan. I was never a BNF, I shipped Harry/Ginny but Fire and Ice was my guilty pleasure. I hung on to the potential of Mark Evans and remember the day JK Rowling’s website went live. Melissa’s book brought all of that back to me, and for this I am extremely grateful.
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