The Post-Gazette has a story today detailing the costs of transit cuts in the city of Pittsburgh.

The city’s Port Authority needs $47 million to avoid cuts of 35 percent. According to the P-G, the Port Authority would have to reduce services hours by 35 percent, lay off 555 employees, and eliminate more than 40 routes, resulting in service ending entirely to over 50 communities. Pittsburgh public transit would lose 15 to 22 percent of its ridership under these cuts.

This could be devastating to many communities, and leave a lot of people stranded. Either you walk or you drive to wherever you have to go. Don’t have a car? Can’t walk that far? Sorry, you won’t be going to work today. Or bringing groceries home.

But people who ride public transportation are not the only people who would be affected by these cuts…

Chris Sandvig, project manager of the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group’s GoBurgh Initiative, which has studied the benefits of transit in stimulating development, said Wednesday the actual costs would be far greater than those absorbed by displaced riders.

He estimated that $100 million to $200 million in infrastructure spending would be required to accommodate the additional traffic generated.

With Downtown parking already scarce and the city proposing to lease its parking garages to a private operator, increased demand could cause prices to skyrocket — an impact that would be felt by all commuters, not just former transit riders, he said.

“We really don’t have anywhere to put those cars,” Mr. Sandvig said.

Much of the additional money spent by former transit riders “doesn’t stay in southwestern Pennsylvania,” he added. “It leaves,” going to oil companies and automobile manufacturers.

Parking in the city of Pittsburgh is already a contentious affair. And driving? Do you really want to ask?

I grew up in California and I am used to navigating snarled, jammed, poorly-designed and/or simply overloaded roads and highways. It’s highly frustrating! But I know how to handle it. But I can tell you that driving in western Pennsylvania, especially the city proper, is nothing like I’ve ever experienced on the west coast. It’s not just that the roads are jammed; that’s true in any city. It’s the way Pennsylvania doesn’t know the value of a good sign — they’ll tell you when a lane is going to shift three feet, but they won’t tell you where the hell you are. That makes it rather difficult to figure out where you’re going, too.

Ahem. Anyway.

Imagine how bad it is trying to drive in a city already packed to the brim with wheeled vehicles (and the occasional duck boat) and occupied parking. Now imagine adding another 16,000 to 24,000 drivers.

Just because you don’t personally ride public transit doesn’t mean transit policy doesn’t affect you.

Cross-posted at three rivers fog.

Monday, January 25, the Pittsburgh Penguins met the New York Rangers at Madison Square Gardens. My boyfriend Marc-Andre Fleury, who sat out several games with a broken finger, was back in net for the first time since the injury. I was all set to marvel at the sexy athleticism on the Penguins’ side when I realized that opposite Fleury, all bedecked in catching gloves and giant leg pads stood… Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist.

Well, I’ll get to Lundvqist later. But because today is my twenty-fourth birthday, I thought I would share with you the hotness that is Marc-Andre Fleury!

Beware: extremely image-heavy below the cut.

I have been having a total shit week, very busy with doctor’s appointments and dealing with some extra-special obstructive, discriminatory shit at work, so I haven’t been up for anything that requires engagement. Just mindless reading. But I can always count on the Penguins to cheer me up.

Marc Andre Fleury made the most ridiculous save against the Philadelphia Flyers last night:

This is why he’s my boyfriend. And also why my husband doesn’t mind.

I feel like a five-year-old who just got teleported into Disneyland for the first time. I start bouncing up and down giddily and crying do it again! do it again!!

Philadelphia’s Jeff Carter rushes to the net and makes a shot, which Marc-Andre Fleury thinks he has frozen but ends up coming out for a juicy rebound. Philadelphia’s Daniel Briere works in front of the net trying to chip the puck in, and Fleury falls on his side reaching to stop the puck just outside his crease. Briere makes one last attempt, trying to chip the puck over the body of Fleury, and Fleury, still lying on his side, rolls on his back and curls up just enough to grab the puck out of the air with his glove, legs in the air, rather like a turtle on his back…

Paul Steiggerwald: — good save by Fleury — the rebound, loose around the net, Fleury can’t corrall it — OH! makes a good glove save on a puck that was going over his body and into the net off the stick of Daniel Briere.

Bob Errey: Absolutely sick save by Marc-Andre Fleury, laying on his right side, and Briere thought he had himself when he chipped it, but Fleury somehow got the glove reaching back! …

I am going back to tag all my photos. I have wanted to get my collection organized for over a year now.

Of course, this means going back through all my photos before I moved out here, too. From March 2004 through December 2006. It felt much longer than it seems, typed out like that. Feeling trapped. Controlled. Cut in half, the only person who loved me 2500 miles away. My friends, so loving, but my social circle so wrapped up with my family that I have not been able to keep up those beautiful relationships since the move.

It hurts. The good things hurt. The bad things aren’t documented, with few exceptions (me staring glassy-eyed at the camera with a distressed smile, forced to pose with my family at the church event celebrating my class’ graduation, where my family threw a fit because I spent some of my time with my friends and their families, and they felt betrayed). But I remember them immediately when I see the smiles. Because the happiness was never unfettered. The happiness was desparate, tenuous, fragile, aware of its own brevity. There was no such thing as a moment of happiness that was free from all the pain. It was all baked together, inseparable, each a part of the other. I could never have happiness without knowing it would bring even worse pain as soon as it ended, and knowing how soon it was set to end…

And now here I am, cut off from the life I had, no contact with anyone except the occasional email to my mother (though she seeks me out daily, by email, calls to my husband’s phone, invitations to myspace and twitter and facebook, finding my accounts by association with my friends) living a totally different life, much calmer, freer, and finally now able to feel happiness… unguarded.

I had to have my shield, then, and it had to be strong, and always ready. My self, the person I truly was, was holed up in a fortress deep inside, very small, restricted, not allowed to explore, grow; too dangerous. I was saving it, unable to nurture it, but protecting it for the day when I might be free from the constant assault, safe.

Here I am. I don’t need a shield here. I have, in fact, grown accustomed to living  without the weight of the armor, always protecting. Grown accustomed to just living, just doing, just being what I am, and enjoying it.

But whenever I dip into my past, I find that I am vulnerable again. I have to fumble for that shield. Shit, I forgot it. Shit shit shit shit. Overwhelmed, crushed under the weight of everything rushing back.

I lose touch with the world I sit in, right now, in this chair with the windows open and streaming in light and noise from outside, the locusts foreign to me when I moved here, my cat sleeping comfortably on the floor, the kitchen in a mess as we reorganize where we keep the spices and the dishes. The kitchen where I can cook, now, without fear that I will be yelled at, guilt-tripped, physically pushed aside, my work taken over, can’t even put a pot of water on to boil without it being changed, always wrong, never able to do anything and have it just be mine.

This kitchen now, where I enter, I pour my tea from my refrigerator, I put my pot of water on to boil, I take my box of pasta down from the cabinet over the sink, I clear the dishes out of the drainer and put them away. And that’s that. No one behind me to move everything I set down, chastise me, ensure I am never allowed to do a single, small, petty little thing for myself.

I am caught up in the old kitchen. Where my hand is grabbed as I fry up the pork for tacos, held, and another hand does the same thing I was just doing, while telling me that I was doing it all wrong. Where I find my pot of water mysteriously moved, set on different heat, on a different burner, after having been yelled at from the living room about doing it wrong. The laundry in the back, where I am instructed on how to operate the washer as I try to set a load of clothes to wash, even though I have capably done my own laundry many times, I am assumed to never know, never understand, never be capable, never be self-reliant, always someone else’s burdensome extension.

Going through these pictures of the good moments, the fun, the smiles and sun streaming, this is where I am, caught up, again guarded.

And suddenly I start, and wake up. And realize that the person I am waiting for to come home is not my mother, but my husband. That it has been a year since I have seen my mother, and a year and a half before that. I have not set foot in California in two and a half years — now the same amount of time between when I finally got my first digital camera and when I packed all my belongings in flimsy cardboard with layers of packing tape and stepped on to my much-anticipated one way flight from LAX to PIT.

I am sitting here as the locusts make their locust-noises, I hear the rhythmic hum of the ceiling fan in the downstairs neighbors’ bedroom, I see my cat sleeping peacefully on the unvacuumed carpet and the bucket of cleaning supplies ahead of me. I realize that I have a bed not fifteen feet from where I sit, a nice queen size bed with a memory foam topper, in which I sleep every night, happy and secure, with my husband. Happy. And secure. Unguarded.

It’s a hard transition.

[I am having with the WordPress backend and cannot paste the full post here. Once I get WP upgraded I'll put the post here as well. Visit Feministe to see the post for now.]

In the run-up to Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, I have posted my photos from Game Six, Tuesday night (June 9th) at Mellon Arena.

I was in the midst of an awful whole-body migraine at the time, and ended up taking more painkillers than is technically safe to be able to attend the game. But this is the kind of thing that happens once in a lifetime, and it is one thing I firmly decided when I was a teenager in high school facing the choice between completing assignments or attending this or that social event (Prom and Grad Nite, mainly): there are times where I will sacrifice my physical wellbeing for the sake of participating in something that is important to me. I will not let my disability keep me from doing something fun, just because it is “fun” and therefore not allowed for the chronically ill (who face pressure to never, ever do anything that takes any sort of energy which is in any small way enjoyable to them — because then they are failing in their responsibilities to everyone else in the world, and seen as transgressing the dominant narrative of disability as a tragedy, something to somberly nod to one another about).

This doesn’t mean I abandon all responsibility and throw myself into every trivial thing that comes along. It means that I already have to sit out most events because of my disability, and I already have to put a disproportionate amount of energy into the basics of life, and I can’t let myself fall into that rut of always doing the more Serious and Important thing because that’s what I’m supposed to do, so yes, sometimes, I will say “fuck it,” bear the consequences, and go do that Really Fun Thing I was wanting to do, because I should not be denied participation in these things — sport games, concerts, art festivals, dinners out, parties, etc. — or shamed for daring to participate in them, just because I am disabled.

Anyway, pictures. I managed to get picturesof both Pittsburgh goals, as well as that crazy insane shift at the end of the game where Rob Scuderi stepped in front of the net and did some stand-in goaltending for the waylaid Marc-Andre Fleury. Enjoy.

The entire set

Me with Iceburgh, the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot (as posted previously here):

Inside Mellon Arena just before the game began:

It was a last-minute decision Friday night. My husband snagged two tickets to the Penguins-Capitals games at Verizon Center in Washington, DC and the next morning we started the five hour drive.

It was a great experience — I love the DC area and I was excited to go back. But five hours in a car makes for stiff muscles, and I was already dealing with some endo flareup. So I was dealing with spasms and pain even with my TENS on (here’s the trick: if you have a big bag, security doesn’t bother patting you down when you enter) and more painkillers than I should have taken.

We had nosebleed seats but whatever, they were seats. It was a great game, even though we lost. It’s hard not to enjoy an NHL playoff game. Especially being able to whisper at each other about the clueless fans behind us who had several amusing misconceptions about how the game is played. (It’s fairly doubtful that the linesmen are biased in calling off-sides. It’s one of the most objective and least arguable calls there is. But “they only ever seem to see ours!”)

Throughout the game, the people behind us kept tapping my shoulder and yelling at me for leaning forward. They “couldn’t see.” Of course, everyone else in the section was leaning forward, and I couldn’t see without doing it too. But most of all, my back was killing me, and doubling over stretches the muscles in a way that helps relieve some pain. (Ask mattw — I sleep in the same damn position.) I tried sitting back for part of the second period but couldn’t last.

After a few times of them tapping me, toward the end of the game, I turned around when they tapped again and stuttered, loudly, wide-eyed and annoyed, “I have a disability — in — back in a lot of pain –”

and they sneered and threw up their hands at me. So I turned back around.

I was steaming inside. I complained to mattw on our way out when the game was over, noting that my TENS was turned up all the way and I’d already taken way too much medicine. And when we reached the bottom of one escalator, the couple behind me tapped my shoulder and the middle-aged bearded guy said, with a smile, “They meant it nicely.”

There are several things going on here. We were wearing Penguins shirts at a Capitals game, and there’s a budding rivalry there. It’s a playoff game, and there’s the whole MVP debate going on (Malkin vs. Ovechkin), so of course it’s contentious. I severely doubt they would have bothered me if I’d been wearing red & blue rather than black & gold. So I understand it. All in good fun, in that respect. A little rivalry can make the sport more fun.

It’s a national sports game, though. At a huge arena. Some people pay attention to the game. Those people might lean left, right, forward, backward, so on. And as long as they aren’t standing up all the time, or wearing a very tall hat or something, that’s accepted, and you work around it. You lean one way or the other to get a better view. People move around as the puck moves around the ice to see better. You move too. And when things are really tense, they probably scoot closer to the edge of their seat and lean forward. So you do the same. And at the very end of the game, people often stand up. Which means you stand up too. IOW, it’s a rather ridiculous thing to complain about, no less multiple times, and angrily (not politely).

Finally, their reaction mattered. When I spilled out why I kept leaning forward, they didn’t do what I expected — look away awkwardly and quiet down as though nothing was ever said. I’m used to that. But instead, they kept gesturing and yelling at me.

That’s what’s so frustrating. It’s not respected at all. Or only respected for so long as it has to be — when you have any reason no matter how trivial to discount that person’s experience or opinion, respect goes out the window. People with disabilities are “protected” in this society only insofar as they are nonthreatening. And that protection is paternalism at its extreme. But that’s a separate issue. When they aren’t subjects of protection, they are objects of harassment.

It isn’t the worst case of harassment I’ve had related to my disabilities, but it bothered me.

the big screen on flickr

The greatest thing to happen to the world of sports since the advent of the telecast.

During their run for the Stanley Cup in spring 2008, the Pittsburgh Penguins, teamed with Consol Energy and Trib Total Media*, decided to put up a giant LCD screen facing the grassy area outside Mellon Arena, so that fans without tickets to the game could stop by — or camp out — and watch the game. For free.

Every game (weather permitting), home and away, was shown on the Big Screen. And fans responded. The place was packed. The energy was incredible. Even better the chance to gather and watch the games that did not take place on home ice.

As entrance (such as it was) was free, the team collected no direct revenue. But they set up concessions — barbecue grill and so forth — and made a good penny off of that. But you could still bring your own food, non-alcoholic drink, your own chairs/blankets/accommodations, and so forth. It was an open and free atmosphere. The area was not roped off, not guarded, not ticketed.

And it’s the most freaking genius thing ever. Yeah, they weren’t gonna make a buck off tickets, but they drew a whole lot of fans to the arena. They fanned the flame of fandom, cementing enthusiasm for hockey in the budding fanbase of Pittsburgh — an area that previously cared only about its precious Steelers. (My husband, a Pirates fan, has quite the complex about this, and I actually share his distaste for antagonistic element of Pittsburgh football fandom.) They found a way to make money off of local fans even when the team was playing an away game. And for once, more people than those who could afford the price of playoff hockey tix were able to gather in support of their team.

It’s playoff season again in Pittsburgh. We never would’ve thought it two months previous, when the Penguins were in such a slump that they aspired to a tenth-place finish in the Eastern Conference, but their fortunes rose and here they are: first round against their bitter rivals the Broad Street Bullies. If there’s one way to draw a crowd to a Penguins game, it’s to play against the hated Philadelphia Flyers! (I think it betrays Philly’s inferiority complex: why would they care so much about little ol’ Pittsburgh if they did not see us as a threat? Ha.) And fortune indeed shone upon us: the Pens get the home ice advantage.

And the team was smart enough to agree to put up the Big Screen again this year! A fan can’t help but be excited. Having had my share of bad experiences with booking overlord Ticketmaster, and being newly unemployed, I can’t exactly afford the price of playoff tickets. But I can afford the two-dollar T fare up into the city. And indeed, we are planning to go to every game possible. Because it’s an incredible experience, one I wouldn’t miss for all the world. I will always cherish the memories of the games we were able to attend last season, when I was new to the city, settling in to my new home. Forming an identity.

And I’m glad someone had the bright idea to do it. I can’t wait til tomorrow night.

See scenes from the May 4, 2008 game against the Rangers pictured above in my Flickr stream.

* Yeah, I’m not happy that my hockey team’s fortunes were sold to** Big Coal. And I know progressives aren’t a huge fan of the Scaife media. But one out of three isn’t bad, right?

** God, I’m going to miss Mellon Arena. Oldest arena in the country, and the city sees that as a bad thing. I love that fucking place, inaccessible as it is (and O, is it inaccessible!). But I’m still both a hockey newb and a swPA transplant, so I don’t get to make that call. Unfortunately.

I finally decided to buy an upgraded Flickr account so I can post my pictures without them all getting lost — I have, uh, a lot more than 200 in the works. I started uploading what I’ve processed so far yesterday. Head over to my photostream and browse around. :)

Photography is more than a casual hobby for me; it is something I genuinely love to do. And I like to think I do a pretty good job of it. Playing with color, angle, perspective, focus and detail — I feel the same thrill I feel putting brush to canvas. There is something about art that truly does reach into the furthest depths of self. My photography has carried me through several particularly rough times in my life, and added unsurpassable depth and joy to some of the best times. It is also an art I can put to work even when I am not at my physical best. I don’t know that I can express how valuable that is to me. And I can only hope that others find some enjoyment in the work I put out.

Right now the pictures are from two Penguins playoff games last season, with some kitty pictures sprinkled in between. There’s much more to come.

Incidentally, a friend of mine just posted some of his pictures, and he has more patience than I — he’s described each photo, and he manages to be rather funny doing it. It’s worth checking out, seriously.

I was on the T on my way home from a job assessment in Pittsburgh. I’d been shaky all morning, having difficulty breathing, upset tummy, and so on. I wasn’t altogether well.

It was five or so stops from my destination when I decided I had better take a pain killer. I’d popped one when I got to the building, but it wasn’t doing much for me. I couldn’t just wait until I got to my car, because that would be some time, and I had a long drive home and other things to do after that. With fibromyalgia, delaying a pain pill 20 minutes isn’t just a 20 minute delay and then the same relief you’d have if you’d taken it 20 minutes earlier. It means that it will take longer for the pill to kick in when you do take it, and it’s got more pain to kill, and it’s going to be less effective on the whole. Pain builds, so the longer you go without treatment, the worse you are when you get around to it, and the more work it takes to treat it (which makes things worse for you throughout).

So.

I didn’t have a drink. And there wasn’t really any way to get a drink, unless I wanted to waste an hour and a half getting off the next stop, wandering around looking for a restaurant or market, acquiring the drink, making my way back to the stop and waiting for the next trolley. Needless to say that wasn’t going to help my pain state either.

I’ve dry swallowed pills a couple times before. The last time I was fourteen or fifteen, and the memory is vague, but I did it. I mean, it wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t bad or anything.

So I pulled my pill case out of my purse. And I started saving up my spit. (Oh, stop gagging, you faker, you’ve done it before.)

My mouth was dry, though — happens from time to time; Sjogren’s, allergies? I don’t know, I’ve never really looked into it. Anyway, you swallow drugs with the spit you’ve got, not the spit you wish you had; I put the pill in my mouth and tried to swallow.

And the spit went down and the pill…. didn’t….

Let me pause to clarify something. This is half a generic Vicodin. It’s fucking huge. And this is no sugar-covered caplet or sweet smooth gelcap. It’s compressed powder with a light seal around the surface. And I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted Vicodin powder, but it’s basically powdered vomit acid.

And it was coating the entire inside of my mouth and throat.

OHGODOHGODOHGOD

I gagged and I heaved and my eyes almost rolled back into my head, I swear it — I spat the soggy pill into my hand and looked at it, trying not to puke. Tears were forming in my eyes. Maybe because I let the spit go down first? I sat there trying to save up more, but I kept swallowing in an attempt to get rid of the awful taste and sawdust texture. (Didn’t work.)

Eventually I held back as much as I could, and I gave it one more go.

And I failed.

I wrapped the pill and stuffed it in my purse and tried to distract myself. It didn’t work.

Of course? The train had to make every. fucking. stop between there and my destination.

It took another twenty or so minutes before I got to my car, and I headed straight to the Wendy’s across the street for a nice long drink. But I was tasting that shit for the rest of the day. At the end of the night when I poured my final glass of water — half to take my bedtime medicine, half to use the next morning for same — I tasted it again.

It’s almost gone now. Almost.

I’m not going to be trying to dry swallow any pills again any time soon.