Not anymore. You guys know my shtick.(If I didn't think that was true, my tag would not look like this right now...AIFG.) But if I were still having goomare-boards and running around on b.org, I don't know that I would be such an assertive newbie. The disability being online was an interesting evolution. I didn't mention it for...a year. Because it was fun to wander around and get asked my opinion about books or Scorsese without being filtered through that God's Angel On Earth thing. Passing was totally fun. Until a TTer found out her baby daughter had the same disability as me. I had a real decision to make, but I decided it was time to let people know. I'd come to care about her and her family and anyway was starting to feel like...a closet case trying not to give anything away. That marked a real deepening in my feelings about the new technology and its potential, and I think my life as artistic material. Because you guys are interested in my crip stories...it's new to you, and not as if I posted about my Montezuma's revenge.(Because in school, I wrote about it once. I thought it was embarrassing, like "Why don't you write about your first pelvic exam?" Now, I would write that, too, though, so, whatever.) Not to say I post about EVERYTHING. Some things are too hard to talk about, even still, and the whole world doesn't share my taste for grit anyway. My dad, in particular, yelled at me as a child for making a disability joke because I "made people uncomfortable"

The disability being online was an interesting evolution. I didn't mention it for...a year. Because it was fun to wander around and get asked my opinion about books or Scorsese without being filtered through that God's Angel On Earth thing. Passing was totally fun.

I get that. I think we all pass in one way or another, at first. I wasn't telling people at the Bronze right away that I was married, and a mother, and 30 whatever I was (33, maybe). I wasn't not telling them, but it was a new experience to just be received on the basis of what I did reveal, which was little.

In a way, the evolution continues, because every new person learns stuff about us as it's revealed in dribs and drabs. You don't come on everyday and say, "Hi, my name is erika, and I'm in a wheelchair," or I don't come in and tell all about me. I didn't know the nature of your disability or that it involved a chair, for a long time. I think I finally just asked.

Until a TTer found out her baby daughter had the same disability as me. I had a real decision to make, but I decided it was time to let people know. I'd come to care about her and her family and anyway was starting to feel like...a closet case trying not to give anything away.

Oh, I never knew that was how you came out.

That marked a real deepening in my feelings about the new technology and its potential, and I think my life as artistic material. Because you guys are interested in my crip stories...it's new to you, and not as if I posted about my Montezuma's revenge.(Because in school, I wrote about it once. I thought it was embarrassing, like "Why don't you write about your first pelvic exam?" Now, I would write that, too, though, so, whatever.)

That's very true, it is new in so many ways. I'm interested in them because/if they're good stories, though. I think someone could make a good story about a pelvic or Montezuma's revenge though, or an allergic reaction to walnuts, too.

it was a new experience to just be received on the basis of what I did reveal, which was little

This conversation is fascinating -- not something I often think about, but very true. And I did the same, Cindy, when I was first on the Beta.

Actually, I was asked to "pass" before that -- I was writing personal essays for a very short-lived website, and the age of the audience was supposed to skew younger (and much less married and parenting) than me. So although I was writing these personal essays about my life, I had to leave out huge chunks of it. Weird. I only did it for a while before I said, "You know, I have more to write about if I *do* include my husband and my kids."

Yeah. And I thought it was important, if I'm going to talk about diversity and inclusion and so forth, to, you know, walk the walk. Yeah, I believe that's true, Cindy, but I had grown up with a sense that my experience was just something awful that happened to me and "real" writing wasn't like that, even as I dug around for Black Power stuff and stuff from the seventies women's movement to read(Sometimes detectives aren't the only ones that need to catch a clue. But Crip is Beautiful is few and far between, you know? So I hadn't connected those dots yet. Duh.) I did tell you about how when I met my friend and beta Paul, he couldn't say walk to me for weeks, right? Because he's such a liberal, it made him feel bad. I had to tell him I was spoiled for my not-walking already, it was okay to talk about, and that English left me taking many a stand, my damn self.

For the record, I do understand that deb never does that, (Thanks, Deb) but it's why I always look sideways at compliments

Correct. I don't - wouldn't occur to me. Having clocked time in an iron lung (twice) and wheelchair (twice) myself, I'm fairly insensitive about it. I don't do cheap compliments, or shed easy tears, or accept or offer physical gestures (handshakes, hugs, whatever) that I don't mean. Life's too short.

A tidbit for you: Back at the LA F2F prom, I was waving Nic's digital camera around, and there was a moment of relative stillness, a sort of lull. Nothing weird or "Oh, My!" about it - just your basic lull, happens when you get a lot of people in the same place and there's a lot of energy being expended. And I was waving the camera around, and thinking, huh, nothing interesting, and the camera found the one bit of motion in the entire room, and it was you. You were moving your head, I think - couldn't say, because the camera only caught the tail end of the motion. But I snapped that picture.

In re the chair? As I say, been there, didn't like it, and in your case, I quote Lillian Hellman talking about meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt: he was so interesting that I found myself seeing the chair as just an interesting way to get around.

And in other news, on topic completely, the first major outlet review of Matty Groves is out. From Kirkus, I omit the plot summary (they got it right, but it's always interesting to see what a reviewer focuses on), and just post the summation:

Penny and Ringan may be the most appealing couple of modern mystery, and Grabien again provides terrific historical tidbits

Fantastic, Deb.

And fascinating discussion about online revelations or the lack thereof. I'm fairly cagey about some things myself until I feel like I "know" my fellow posters well enough to guess reactions-good or bad.

Remnants of a conversation that started in Bitches, I'm wondering about handling of dialect. I understand the true clunk of someone without an ear messing language up. On the other hand, I think some of the "simplifications" strip too much out. So I have a question:

How would you present this text:

"Mi a go look a lawyer because mi waan back mi wheelchair. Mi a go sue di police an' di people dem because mi waan compensation,"

in a story? Like that? Clean up the pronunciation?

ita, is the spelling of Patois standardized in any way? If so, I'd stick with standard. If not, and I was assuming the readership was mostly English speaking people who (LIKE ME) weren't personally familiar with it, I think maybe I'd change the "mi" to "me", and assuming waan is want, I'd change it to wan' or even to want. I'd change "di" to "de". Mostly, I wouldn't write it, because I'm incapable.

(Flushing from the compliments) ita, as it is a quote, I think I'd leave it, but I'm not sure how I'd tell her whole story, if she was a main character.

I think there are a couple spelling methods angling for standardisation, but I'm not sure it's been accepted that there's even a need to preserve the form in written word (the assumption being that most people who speak patois a) shouldn't b) are illiterate, I assume).

I think maybe I'd change the "mi" to "me",

I can see that -- I don't think it would overly break the reading of it, except "mi" is used to mean "my" or "I" in that passage, and that might be misleading.

and assuming waan is want, I'd change it to wan' or even to want.

The presence of the "t" would just be wrong. He's not saying a "t," and he would be someone else if he were. "Wan'" could work, although it might take a Jamaican a second to work out what was going on.

I'd change "di" to "de".

Why? It's not pronounced that way, and it's not that much closer to the word it means, to my eye.

Mostly, I wouldn't write it, because I'm incapable.

Which is perfectly fair.

I'm not sure how I'd tell her whole story, if she was a main character.

I feel a need to trawl Jamaican fiction now, and see the ways it's being done, for various markets.