Collision

On a day when you collide with reality…or maybe arrive at work late and collide with your desk…well, you can be pretty certain that all this is operating on the metaphorical level. Unless you're a quadriplegic. Then, nothing is level, Everything is uphill. And things may, or may not, be metaphors. Which explains why yesterday I collided with my desk. Vehicular collisions in the quadriplegic world are in no way confined to streets. In fact, they can involve furniture, vis-à-vis, desks. Not Read more [...]

Garden Refuge

Since the election…if it can be called that…I live with a generalized sense of paranoia and dread. The country has an authentically fascist contingent. And the new cabinet features some deeply authoritarian types. So where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me realizing that I have asked the wrong question. Where it leaves us it is a much more worthy question. It's also a more productive one. As a disabled person, I do feel a particular vulnerability…in general terms. Whatever. Where does Read more [...]

Rain

Do I dare to eat a peach? Prufrock's question resounded through my morning. Do I dare to drive up Van Ness Avenue? After all, it's raining. I'm a quadriplegic. Anything could happen. But in reality nothing much did. In fact, once I had arrived at the Episcopal church on Clay Street, it was apparent that this was the optimal time. Parking places were abundant. But in my mind the whole drive was a sort of dangerous slalom, with not an empty spot to be found for my van anywhere. Forgetting that in drought-stricken Read more [...]

Not Pretty Days

I do acknowledge that it was one of those days, or certainly one of those times, when I had reached my wit’s end. The occasion was heightened by Bella, our aging and arthritic boxer (mix) who decided to burst into urinary full flood right on our hardwood floors…for reasons that will forever remain a canine mystery. Naturally, whether propelled by Sod's law or Murphy's law (precisely the same cosmic legislation), I was attempting to rush out the door to my weekly adult education class. And Read more [...]