for Christmas, i sent my mother a gift card for a local grocery store (she was already in awful shape financially — add in a ballooning ARM and a serious recession and things get pretty bad). i asked if the locations were any good (there were takeovers going on when i was moving two years ago). her reply,

“yes we are going to Food 4 Less they built one on North Court, you can only go there in the daylight, too many shootings”

mmmm, home.

i work in an office now dealing with those same people, those people everyone is so afraid of. the poor people. and especially those who are racial minorities (well, actually racial pluralities where i grew up). you know, the trashy people, the ghetto people, the gang members, the baby mamas and welfare queens.

when i moved out on my own in 2004, a four hour drive from anyone with whom i had even acquaintance, i was warned profusely about the dangers of being a young, single girl out on her own. in public or in my home – no matter, it’s all dangerous. really i shouldn’t be going at all, because you never know what could happen to you, you know, around them.

living in orange county i found in my college peers a strange aversion to using the free-for-students bus system to get around. the system was clean, safe, with good frequency and practically no point at which there wasn’t a stop within a mile at most. but these kids just couldn’t bring themselves to use it. my roommate was without her car for one day, just one day, and she skipped classes altogether rather than take the bus to school and back. my conversation with her made it quite clear why. she felt it was beneath her. and, my curiosity piqued, i found similar attitudes in many of my classmates through my time there.

why? what is it about the bus that makes it so untouchable? it’s not the bus system itself – again, impressively clean, incredibly easy to use, and free! throughout the entirefuckingcounty! no – it wasn’t a systemic problem. it was a problem of proximity. proximity to them.

and, ok, it annoys the shit out of me.

you aren’t going to die of the ghetto cooties if you find yourself within a couple yards of a poor person. they aren’t going to bite you. stop acting like you’re passing through the lion cage at the zoo.

this middle class obsession with “safety,” with where’s a “good” area to live, and especially where is an acceptable place to raise a child, with the very heavy implication that allowing a child contact (especially regular contact!) with the cooties-carrying poor folk is tantamount to abuse – it drives me absolutely upthefuckingwall.

i’m just tired of it. look: i grew up with Those People. hell: i grew up being part of Those People. and though i am mostly comfortable financially now (it’s nice, having a husband who can work full time, not having to rely on anemic disability benefits) we still live surrounded mostly by Those People. Those People are my people.

and i say this as a moderately conventionally-attractive skinny young white chick who dresses and behaves like a solid member of the middle class (trust me, i learned how to “pass”) – all the things which supposedly make contact with Them so dangerous – as long as you aren’t stupid (you know, the old flashing-your-cash cliche), you can walk among Them and make it out alive. because really, when you get down to it – look: They are the same species you are. you can even breed with one and produce fertile offspring! (well, i guess that’s not that much of a revolution – it seemed to be about the only purpose the higher classes [that's you too, mr. middle man] had for direct contact with Them throughout history…)

anyway – if you understand these people as people, and learn a little common sense (that is, not limited to “stay away altogether”) you’ll do just fine. even if you’re white. even if you’re middle class. even if you’re a chick. even if you’re all of the above!

and maybe if more of “Us” started treating “Them” as, well, us (and not in that fakey feel-good liberal way) maybe we’d find out that there’d be much less reason to stay away from Them than we thought.

This has been a rather curious endeavor, working at a state office that provides assistance to several disadvantaged groups — and being able to see things on the other side of that reinforced wall. It is an interesting perspective. And I think having a background (however limited) in disability rights and other issues of social justice helps me understand far better what is going on. I’m not sure about you, but I can hold two opposing ideas in my head at the same time and manage to see the truth in both of them. I am large; I contain multitudes. There are honestly many things that are beyond our ability to fix, address, or really do anything other than acknowledge, if that. Sometimes, there is nothing we can do. And yet — and yet. Are the way things are the way things have to be? When the way things are means our rights cannot be fulfilled, must we abdicate them? Are our minds, our worlds, so limited?

I think I’m glad this is a limited-term job; I am still debating myself over whether I can really handle this. But for the time being, well, I will. It’s who I am. And honestly, I love it. I only wish my body allowed me the option of doing anything else too.

So this is what I have been doing. I’m doing my best to restore, slowly and deliberately, a careful balance to my life. Come say hello.

amandaw on tumblr — for quotes, short thoughts, and other collections.

Surfing etsy for a couple incidental items (light-blocking sleep mask; neck warmer for the Pennsylvania winters, as scarves are too much fuss for someone who has trouble and pain with any movement while so bundled up) I stumbled across what looks like a wonderful store for people with any number of chronic conditions or injuries, including but not limited to my old friend fibro.

The store includes neck/shoulder warmers and scarflettes, keypad and wrist rests and drink cozies. The store and item descriptions indicate that they drew inspiration from the needs of their mother(-in-law) who has fibromyalgia.

The items seem, to this trained eye* to be quality-made, and made with the needs of the users close at heart. They aren’t the standard, mass-produced designs. The neck/shoulder warmer looks absolutely perfect for my own needs — moist heat to loosen and relax the tight, tense neck and shoulder muscles, but not too heavy, as the weight only exacerbates the exact problem I’d be trying to correct! And it’s shaped perfectly to cover precisely the area I need, as opposed to the traditional sorts which are simple oblong shapes meant to maybe cover a few-inch-wide area of the neck. And I’d love the wrist rests at work.

Every person’s needs are different, but if yours are similar to mine, this is definitely worth a look around.

The Ferris Wheels

A shot of the current front page

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For those who aren’t familiar with Etsy, it is a site dedicated to handmade items, where anyone can open up their own shop and start selling. The wonderful thing about it is that the prices are very reasonable, for the most part (it costs about as much to shop at Etsy as at Amazon and other low-price retailers), there’s a much wider range of taste and style available, and almost every seller is open to customization — whether you’d like the same item with that cute little penguin fabric or you want to add a couple pockets there or you need a different size, or… I’ve worked with a range of sellers on Etsy on custom items and they’ve all been excellent, and I’ve been very happy with the products I end up with.

Other etsy sellers worth a perusal (I’ll mark those with whom I have experience):

utilitywear (there will be a post of its own for this one- purchase experience)
florspace (purchase)
umeblossom (custom purchase)
leapinglizards (custom purchase)
danielleloporto (I have had people stop me in the store asking about these wonderful little things – they save me a lot of time and energy and they’re also cute as hell!)
seabreezestudio (custom purchase, VERY easy to work with, quality stuff!)
bagonebagshop
simbiosisbyjulia
jpatpurses
oktak
charmdesign
jennalou06
oladesign
tahirih
lingglass
lobbyloucrafts
cutecumber
borsabella
happykatbags
heatherrlange

Take a look around — the links above are just the stores I’ve stumbled across that fit my personal taste (to varying extents) — there are many more items and styles available.

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* Over my lifetime I have used so many different assistive items, in these categories and many others, that I can fairly accurately predict the comfort, quality and efficacy of an item for my needs based on its appearance and description (and occasionally on a tactile test, but I’ve found anymore I don’t even need that). Keep in mind that I have not purchased from this seller (yet!) but I feel very safe and confident in recommending the items even without that.