It Should Be Spring By Now

On snow days and survival. Or, a list of things to distract you!

Image description: Left: View out my window, of the edge of porch with brown wood and a roof, and a black railing. The ground is covered in snow and there is a bush covered in snow at the front. Behind are trees, also covered in snow. Right: A gravestone in the front of the frame, on green grass. Daffodils are blooming behind the grave.

I have not been traveling and have mostly been having a difficult time with little tasks, like standing up from the toilet, which leaves me little to want to write about. (I mean, I could tell you about how my legs are generally weak in the mornings, and that it takes several minutes for them to come back online and so I sit on the toilet for ten minutes, just trying to psych my legs up to functioning and there you go. I’m already bored and frankly mildly embarrassed.) Though I do feel it imperative to point out that at this time last year, we were in Oxford, England, and it was already spring. See above. The flowers were out and blooming, and it actually made sense that March 1, being St. David’s Day, celebrates daffodils. Meanwhile, this year, we are in Massachusetts, which three days ago went through a Snowmageddon and looked like the snowy picture above (taken on February 25). And we’re supposed to get more snow this week. Argh. I keep repeating to myself, Spring is coming. But it’s hard to believe.

As a result, I don’t have much to write about personally, but I did spend the snow days reading and engaging some things that I want to share. So hunker down with me and wait out the cold in front the fire, and check these out.

First, in my ongoing quest to find representation that’s not just metaphorical zombie-portrayals, I really liked Kelly Mack’s roundup of disabled people onscreen who aren’t just inspiring. Who are even occasionally dicks. It made me want to go back and rewatch There’s Something About Mary, which I have honestly never before felt the urge to do. And reminded me of my frustration that series (season) two of We Might Regret This is out in the UK but only available on BBC 2, which is only available in the UK. (NOTE: If someone can explain to me how to get/use a VPN that will convince BBC 2 that I’m currently in the UK, I will love you forever and maybe even send you a marshmallow present. Which is the best kind of present.)

News Comment: Disabled Rule Breakers

I also, in my rabbit-hole descension of the last snow day, discovered My Gimpy Life, which appears to have run its course but the extant episodes on YouTube are pretty great. I especially related to “Crowded,” as you will appreciate if you’ve read my Stack for any length of time.

All of this was partly prompted, of course, by the BAFTA awards incident, in which John Davidson, a man who lives with Tourettes’s (and was the inspiration for and writer of the award-winning movie I Swear), involuntarily shouted out the n-word at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo as they went onstage. BAFTA and the BBC handled this (live-but-delayed-and-therefore-editable) confluence of disability and race spectacularly badly, leaving everyone feeling like shit and capping things off with the normally-lovely Alan Cumming apologizing “if you were offended.” Alan, NO. Apologies that include the word “if” are NOT APOLOGIES. I am usually wholly on Team Disability, but this essay below made so much sense and a fantastic point. Which is, ultimately, yes the disability is real but that doesn’t mean you can’t apologize when (not if) it causes harm to others, too. Even if unintentional. Maybe especially if unintentional.

Racism, Ableism, and the Burden That Kills

And that sent me down a political path, which is not ideal in this moment, as my country is still attacking its inhabitants and now has started an unprovoked war in the Middle East (remind me: how successfully does that tend to go for us?). In any case, Michael has written about this very thing this very moment—the starting a war thing—much better than I.

Low, Dishonest

He also triggered my final piece of bingeing, which I will share with you and which kind of brings this post full-circle. Michael casually mentioned that, on the podcast, Past Present Future, host David Runciman spoke with political theorist, Paul Sagar. Sagar is a professor at King’s College London. He is also the author of the Substack Diary of a Punter, in which he writes about surviving and now living with a severe spinal cord injury. An avid rock-climber, Sagar fell and broke his neck in summer 2023; he’s been writing about it ever since, and I cannot stop reading him. Not least because he’s a great writer, but also because my disability is caused by spinal cord injuries (though not externally inflicted), and because what he writes is both painfully honest and also has moments of real depth and beauty. I’ve been ruminating on a very early post he made, wherein he thinks about the daily humiliations of severe disability and the juxtaposition of that with intimacy. “If humiliation is having to be at your most vulnerable in front of strangers and feel swamped with shame, then intimacy is the capacity to be totally open and vulnerable with another person that you know and trust and instead feel safe, loved and affirmed by. Indeed intimacy is the real hallmark of being loved and in love.” I just. I can’t. It’s exactly right.

Humiliation and intimacy

The full-circle-ness of it all is that, while I am highlighting his writing about his disability, his podcast appearance makes no mention of that, and engages Sagar in his professional capacity as a published expert and academic. Which I fear means that I am being one of those people I hate. Goddammit. Read it anyway.