sundries

[rm]

In the last panic to get ready for this trip.

Anyone here want do so some basic web development for Erica and I? Not a whole lot of $$, but also not something hard. It's an afternoon of your life in all probability. Drop me an email if you're interested, we'll be in touch probably when I get to Switzerland. -- Done!

When you stand up and decide to make stuff, especially stuff that's challenging or confronting in theme and style, a lot of stuff can and will go wrong. The people you thought were on your side won't be, not just with an absence of support, but sometimes with judgments that can seem a little startling. This can be extra hard when you're doing work about a topic or a life you're supposed to be embarrassed by.

So let's be clear. I'm a queer woman working with another queer woman on a show about sex work that features a character with a disability who is an adult with his own life, history and sexuality. The show also contains a lesbian romance and two awesome M/F friendships with sexual overtones that provide some romantic ambiguity. These characters are not dumb, and they're not doing sex work because they can't do anything else.

The show is not targeted at women vs. men or gay people vs. straight people. It's not a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge, celebrate your bachelorette party with us" show (although you can if you want). We think what's identificatory about of the piece is the theme of persona and the gulf between who you are and who you want to be. And we think what gets people in the door ranges from "oooo, hot chicks in fetish gear" to "woman changes her life" to "people singing about the weird hidden worlds of New York."

This is a story about longing for a world you can only buy half of and how we fill the gaps.

Sound interesting? You can help us by either donating towards making our workshop production come true and/or spreading the word.

Randomly, a friend noted last night that I often use the construction "person living with a disability" and she said that that read as me being really uncomfortable with people with disabilities. So, I just wanted to tell you what I told her, which is a) I'm sorry if I gave anyone that impression and b) it's an artifact in my writing from when I was writing a lot of material for the website Disaboom, which requires that construction as part of their writers' guidelines. I'll try to pay more attention to this one.

Profiles of several subway preachers.

Now, I have a lot of laundry to do, a pounding headache, and a flight to catch. More later.

Comments

the token gimp approves this message

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I'm not the token gimp on this blog, but it underscores my point.

People first language is a must when working in generalities. A person with a disability is a person first.

Note that this wrecks havoc on word counts (three for one) and in my personal life you can call me crip mc-cripface if I know you like me.

Re: the token gimp approves this message

[rm.livejournal.com]

But if "person with a disability" is okay, it's ONE LESS WORD than "person living with a disability" so I'm all excited and shit.

Re: the token gimp approves this message

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

This is true. I have heard "Person living with..." but that just seems like a lot of words to me. I don't know... My view on person first language is that it should be unnecessary. It's built to remind people who would otherwise not think so that people are people first.

Once those people are eliminated I have no problem going back to disabled. I am disabled. Fact. I am also blonde, loud and caffeinated. In my view, the victory comes when we eliminate it to the level of any other adjective.

another disabled person over here. fat, too! glasses-wearing and geeky, too.

[bizetsy.livejournal.com]

I agree that person first language is a good standard.

I've had people call me horrible, horrible names in regards to my disability (spinal/cord injury), say that it didn't exist, etc, etc. At this point, I myself am fairly desensitized to name-calling of this type. However, for others, I believe in following the best standard possible.

Thanks for caring, rm.

Re: parent of a child with disabilities

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

I'm cool with "living with" in general, but we go with child/kid with disabilities b/c it's shorter.

Re: the token gimp approves this message

[natf.livejournal.com]

As another gimp reading rm, I commented below before reading the comments. Just adding a, "Hi!"

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Finally got a chance to make a pledge. Have a safe trip!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you and thank you!

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

At least you don't have tyour wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it. Or you'd be REALLY swamped.

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Icon.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

Re: subway preachers:

Of course the guy who thinks the world is ending next year is in charge of a pysch ward. Let's hope he keeps his work and personal beliefs seperate.

The "person with a disability" question reminds me: I've been wanting to do a blog or you tube video about the terms "crazy", "mentally ill", ect. I always tell people I have "a bipolar condition", because I am annoyed by "mental illness". For one thing, illness assumes that I can be cured, and unless gene therapy gets really good in my lifetime, I won't.

[bizetsy.livejournal.com]

I'm annoyed with "mental illness", as well, for people in general. So much pathologizing in the world these days!

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

As someone with several incurable illnesses, some of which are disabling neurotransmitter problems, I do not feel that 'illness' implies cure. It implies that there might be treatments, perhaps, but treatments don't always work (something the laypersons don't always understand).

[delle.livejournal.com]

when my (then) 18 mth old daughter was diagnosed with asthma, I was most strictly enjoined by the medical staff at Children's Memorial that she "has asthma" not "IS asthmatic". seems like semantics, but according to the staff it was very important. as the top poster says, she is living with asthma, she is not asthma.

so I don't read "person living with disability" as being a negative. they are a person first, not just the disability.

fwiw

[merrycaepa (from livejournal.com)]

Out of curiosity and if I may, when was this? Back when I was a diagnosed, the term that was always used was 'is asthmatic.' 'Has asthma' seems a far better alternative, imo.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I prefer 'having' my diseases and disabilities and my wheelchair than letting them have my identity as well. (With the wheelchair, 'wheelchair user' is vastly preferred to 'is in a wheelchair' or the ugly 'wheelchair-bound', for instance.) Although there are days when I do feel that, Soviet-style, asthma haz me, I would prefer those to be as few as possible.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Every time you say something about Dog Boy and Justine, I get more excited about it. The idea that it might be out in the world where lots of people can see it warms my evil little heart, it does.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That makes us feel really good. We've had a slightly rough couple of days (hey, things can't go right all the time) so that people care (and aren't bored) by the constant status updates makes us really happy.

The benefit and challenge of pursuing the show in this way (both with Kickstarter and many, many small donors via the Internet) is that it requires us to constantly refine how we explain and focus the show. Which is really good, but an unexpected aspect of the thing.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

I just want you to know that I am planning to make a contribution, but I must wait until the beginning of November when I get paid. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And we totally understand the calendar (my desk job only pays once a month as well, and it affects things in my world too)

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

As a deaf woman, I'm utterly bemused by constructions like these. I lived with a whole plethora of increasingly convoluted constructions to describe me as a child until, when I was about 12 or 13, I put my foot down and said I AM DEAF. YOU DEAL WITH IT IF YOU'RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THAT.

Now, not everyone's cuppa, yadda yadda, but if you ask me how I want to be addressed (and hey, that's cool, in fact that's good), I will tell you -- I'm deaf. And if you ask another deaf person and they give you a construction they like then you know, I'd treat that the same way I'd treat how someone notes they want to be called and remember which one wanted which (and wouldn't make assumptions about the next person).

Because in my experience, all this foo-fah language was always forced ON ME. No one asked ME what I wanted to be called. So I get a fairly strong negative personal reaction seeing all this carefully constructed stuff. But that's me, and that's one data point, for what it is worth.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My question with folks I know who are deaf is generally if they prefer the big-D or the little-d. But then I lived in DC for years and years and studied ASL, so I'm used to navigating that one on different terms than a lot of hearing people.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Most places like the person-first language for us cripples and broken folk. I rather like the "person living with a disability" since it does imply that we are living and having lives, which is kind of neat. But I use "disabled persons" all the time myself for brevity.

[amara-1783.livejournal.com]

Good point on the implication that we are living. To me the 'living with' construction always seems like it's implying a strange and dysfunctional cohabitation with one's disability. But that's probably just my weird brain forming random associations ;)

[natf.livejournal.com]

We call ourselves PwMS (Person/People with Multiple Sclerosis) but do not add the word "living". Either works for me. A catchphrase some of us use is "I have Multiple Sclerosis but the MonSter does not have me!" I never did assume that you were uncomfortable with PwD(isabilities) and had subconciously assumed the phrasing you use is a regional/USian thing (a bit like in the US 'Asian' = Chinese/Korean/Japanese and not Indian/Pakistani whereas in the UK Asian = [person looking like they extract] from Asia and so includes the Indian subcontinent).
English vs english languages, eh?