Fashion for Real Life: Clothes for People with Disabilities
Living well with a disability has a lot to do with finding new ways to do things. Likewise, accessibility is about throwing out the norm and finding another way to your goal. “Izzy Camilleri has seamlessly united fashion, form, and comfort by defying centuries of design and pattern-making conventions. Most fashions are designed for a…
Thoughts on Walking and Not
This is a photograph from the last summer I walked. It’s the summer of 1976 and we’re at a cottage rented by my parents. Standing with me are my little sister — then actually little — and my best friend AB. We’re spending two weeks in this cottage made of wood, the exterior walls painted…
Mayoral Debate on Disability Issues
Earlier this week, I attended a mayoral debate on disability issues. For those not familiar with the Toronto political scene, we have a municipal election coming up in about a month and the candidates have been debating up a storm. The main contenders for mayor are John Tory, Olivia Chow, and Doug Ford (taking the…
Inspiration Porn, Stigma and the Way Out
Imagine a photo of a child in a wheelchair with a basketball, someone running on carbon fiber prosthetic legs or a person with RA deformities knitting. Across the bottom of the photo is emblazoned this text: “your excuse is invalid.” That’s inspiration porn. Porn involves the objectification of one group of people for the benefit…
Expect the Unexpected
Because there’s moisture inside. There’s not supposed to be moisture inside the joystick. There are electronics inside the joystick box, including a circuit board, wires and all sorts of things that you very definitely do not want to get wet. Which is why I put a protective sandwich bag over the joystick whenever I go…
Weird around Wheelchairs; Thoughts on Disability Etiquette
“What size is she?” Early in our relationship, The Boy and I had wandered into a store. I’d expressed an interest in some T-shirts that were on sale and as a sales clerk expressed an interest in helping me, she asked The Boy the above question. She did not ask me. She asked the person…
Shining a Light
In almost 1400 posts over the last 9 years, I have shared my life here on The Seated View. Many of those posts were about RA, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and disability and my thoughts and feelings about living within a reality that is sometimes difficult, sometimes funny and sometimes just… life. Some posts were explorations…
Corrupting Youthful Minds
When I was young(er), I very much wanted to be a teacher. As I was finishing my Masters degree in Social Work, I seriously considered going on to do a PhD in Sociology. And then I realized that if you counted from grade 1, I’d spent 27 years in school and that was enough for…
Breaking News: I’m Not Crazy!
Between the damage from the big flare in 2004, as well as acquiring fibromyalgia around the same time, a number of interesting twists have been added to my life, the main one having become ridiculously sensitive. A millimeter’s worth of change can throw me off completely, triggering a cascading fibro flare with all its attendant…
The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona Seeks Editor for Online Publication!
Since June, I’ve mentioned now and again that I picked up another freelance gig, but haven’t said too much about it. I’ve been very lucky woman to have the opportunity to work for Stephanie Parker, President of The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona on a wonderfully exciting and important project. In the last four months…
Brave
The term brave or courageous is often applied to those of us who live with a disability and equally often, you’ll hear me take issue with these bouts of admiration. And that’s usually because these labels are stuck on us not because we did something particularly brave, but because we got on with life. Instead…
A Matter of Millimeters
I am extremely thenthitive. Perhaps not so much emotionally, but physically? Fuggedaboutit. Decades of RA, especially the wreckage after my 2004 flare, combined with fibromyalgia has made me as sensitive as the girl in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea. My body works all right within my current parameters, but if you mess…