Navigating

When I began this blog, it was in response to being the only person identifying as disabled in a private online feminist community where I felt constantly compelled to add my disability perspective to every second discussion that occurred. That got tedious for all of us, so my plan was to come here and write about how I interpreted portrayals of disability in books and film. My friends could read up as they chose, and I could get off my soapbox a bit more in our little community.

I knew there'd be some political commentary here now and then, but blogging is an addictive form of narcissism and I had much more to rant about than I suspected. Also, it turns out that every second book and film out there has some portrayal of disability but reviewing them all would slow down my consumption of them. And I'm a movie junkie, so that won't work.

Since high school I've maintained a strategy of not volunteering information about my impairments or health condition as a way to protect my privacy. It comes up often enough through other people's curiosity (and friends' genuine concern) anyway, and in political discussions I've found that my specific physical impairment issues can get confused with personal experiences that are caused by societal conditions.

My specific impairments are irrelevant to the general phenomenon of ableism (and nondisability-centrism -- which is a word I just made up). But increasingly I find I'm interested in sharing specifics to the extent that they might help me explore and discuss the variations in disability experiences that social reactions to various impairments create. I've been moving along the spectrum of ability my whole life (as is everyone, actually) and I think the changes in my experiences are relevant to many disability issues I might blog about. Disability blogging has also been exploding all over, so there's more opportunity to share variations of experiences as well as commonalities.

So. I'm going to be writing some stuff that includes more specific details about my impairments, though I don't yet know how much or what boundaries will make me comfortable. I'm reserving the right to answer or not answer any questions that might arise. I'm saying up front that whatever limits I impose are not about being coy or mysterious, though I'm pretty good at both, aren't I? Anyway, we'll see how it goes. The general theme of this blog remains the same.