| AbeMunder 2004-08-30, 2:11 am |
| AMWW#97: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, I GUESS
by Abe Munder, the Wheeled Wonder
(AbeMunder@aol.com)
It's my buddy Paulie's birthday. And like a cad, I'm ducking him.
I've been imagining our conversation: "Congratulations on another year, Paulie!
Are you having a good day?"
He'll smack his lips, that little click he makes out the side of his mouth.
"Well, that's just the thing . . ."
That's when I'll settle in my chair, and be glad I refilled my coffee
beforehand. Poor Paulie is about the only person I know who would respond to
Happy Birthday with "Well, that's just the thing . . ." You probably know
Paulies of your own.
Paulie's a good man. We met in a disability activism group in Chicago. He's
laid-back, intelligent, politically motivated and just cool in that he and I
like the same things. A mutual friend tells us we constantly remind her of
each other, only a dozen years apart (Paulie is older). If we had met earlier,
oh yeah, we would have gotten into some trouble.
You'll have to forgive me for sounding high-handed here, but Paulie's one of
those people that you want to save. Not because I'm better or more together
than him, but because I care and I see what he's doing. I wince when I hear
Paulie or anybody talk about life in the past tense: "One thing I regret not
doing is . . . if I had to do it all over again . . ."
Look around you. If you are outside of a coffin, life is present tense! And
the thing about Paulie is he's a whole mountain of goodness and talent, with a
few cobwebs over the top. Oh, we've had our talks. But he can't see it.
Right, Paulie, you are disabled, you got a bum deal. Most people can't see
beyond your wheelchair. All of that is correct. Now, what? What are you
going to do with it? Be a professional dour person? Cynically snickering at
the world? Is that what all disabled people are supposed to be--is that their
uniform--perpetually glum and serious? Attending meetings all the time to
discuss obscure funding issues? What about laughter, where does that fit in?
Paulie becomes more paranoid. Why isn't this agency treating me correctly?
Which attendant is stealing from me? Why are they looking at me? "They"s are
everywhere, lurking.
More bizarre. Paulie will date only disabled women. I can't tell if it's a
sociopolitical position on his part, like some in Deaf culture who are militant
and almost exclusionary toward outsiders; or maybe it's suspicion, like that
old saw where one gay person warns another that "You can't trust bi's
[bisexuals]" because they're seen as dabblers, daytrippers. Those peds will
only leave you for another ped! I don't know, but from here it looks like the
peds aren't the problem.
My friend is one of the grumpy disabled I've met on my journey of the last
several years. Sour, righteously angry, and irritated by almost any positive
story about disability, like they smell a sellout or a conspiracy afoot: at the
MS society, at Big Pharma (the cabal of large pharmaceutical manufacturers), at
the oil companies and the White House and yes, a vast general conspiracy named
life itself. There is some truth in it all, and their indignation is
accurately placed. These are people who struggle, who live hard every day, who
hear nothing but maybes and possiblys, punctuated by the occasional slammed
door. But often around them I sense something more, I get an acrid taste in my
mouth. A strain of rot has seeped into the spirit. It's bitterness. Where do
you go with bitterness? Can you actually do something with that, convert it
into energy to get things done? Or by the time it's set in like gangrene is
the game over, and you grow content with the bitterness, something tangible to
carry to your corner and gnaw on like a bone? Can we be satisfied with so
little from this fleeting life?
With Paulie I'm always tempted to reach over and grab him by the scruff of his
neck and shake him. Lighten up, Buster! We're going out for drinks together,
and after the first few we are not going to start swearing, no, we're going to
laugh. We'll laugh with all the pretty girls there, even though there's not a
chance in hell they'll sleep with us. No, they wouldn't give you the time of
day except in your dreams and in this bar, but you know what? When they see us
laughing, they will laugh too along with us, and then we'll laugh some more.
And yes, the rich will still rule the world, and the Man has got us by the
gonads, and yes we still need to push this and that piece of disability
legislation through the process, and when we close this place down, folks out
there still will not understand disabled people, but we'll do all of that
Monday. No, Monday, Monday. I said, Monday.
For now, let's have some fun! Happy birthday!
-- WHEN IS THAT XXXXX GONNA DIE! --
On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court hears arguments over the
constitutionality of emergency legislation that has kept Terri Schiavo alive
since October. The 40-year-old has been ruled to be in a vegetative state
(presumably not Florida) though she is not in a coma; courts have sided with
the efforts of her husband Michael (author of the compassionate phrase that
heads this blurb, according to deposed witness Carla Iyer, RN) to have her
legally starved despite the absence of living-will directives and over
objections by her family. Background:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=a...=UTF-8&selm=200
31021163306.15037.00000627%40mb-m02.aol.com&rnum=1
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=a...=UTF-8&selm=200
31030003124.08083.00000307%40mb-m13.aol.com&rnum=3
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=a...=UTF-8&selm=200
31117062434.12348.00000273%40mb-m25.aol.com&rnum=2
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