The snowman was gifted to me for my Placenta Shedding Anniversary last Thursday. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to represent the fleeting snowscape of Victorian winters, or if it’s to symbolize my frailty.
My right wrist was in a brace (angry tendons) for the week leading up to my birthday, which meant I had to wipe my runny nose with my left hand. To further my excuse for not posting in over a week, my newly repaired laptop got caught in a loop of blue-screened doom. I managed to get past that with the help of ASUS’s tech support, but now the screen flicker has returned.
At this point, I think I need to train myself to blink in sync with the flicker so that everything seems normal. Adapt or die.
On my birthday (but not for my birthday), the building manager installed a lock on the front door. Up until then, anyone could enter my building and loiter in the hallways, not that it was ever an issue. The new lock means I keep smashing my shoulder into the door when trying to exit the building. This also puts all us tenants at risk of locking ourselves out after stepping outside in shorts and a t-shirt to take out the trash. (I look like I belong in the trash when I do this.)
The other night, Yann and I were outside the building smoking a joint when he raised the question of whether the building manager was also planning on installing a buzzer.
“I know it wouldn’t make a difference for you, but how would the rest of us know when, say, our pizza delivery arrives?”
I hadn’t yet mellowed out from the weed and snapped at him:
“Why… Would I give a fuck?”
It’s not Yann’s fault he’s accustomed to a simple, commonplace assistive technology like buzzers. Those things are so ubiquitous that they aren’t even considered assistive technology. To me, buzzers are a perfect example of something that was designed as a workaround for hearing people’s inability to know when their pizza delivery is waiting outside.
I can’t predict the arrival of my pizzas either, but this has never been anybody’s concern but mine. I don’t dare to suggest a visual alternative for myself, like a door flasher instead of a buzzer, because that would be asking for too much.
This frustration stems from having my request for a flashing fire alarm be ignored. The BC Building Code requires the installation of smoke alarms in all rental suites for the safety of tenants, such as… Yann. Not me, since I have the “special need” of not dying in a fire. This means I still need to deal with the fire inspector invading my home to test a piece of technology that does nothing to protect me from involuntary smoke inhalation.
I also deleted my Twitter account about a week ago: I’m done with the twits and twats of Twitter. I had grown tired of opening Twitter and reading about how disabled people are a drain on society. I was tired of people insisting that gene editing is not the same thing as eugenics. (Have people not seen the movie, Gattaca? People are still going to be left behind if accessibility is ignored.) I was suffering from over-exposure to inspiration porn.
Twitter has made me sensitive to comments such as Yann’s. I know he doesn’t believe I don’t deserve some sort of visitor alert system too, but I know many would see it as a frivolous expense for one person.
It’ll be a while before I recover from years of Twitter negativity. Eventually…
squaremeat.com 