New EasyStand Blog post: This Winter Deserves a High Five

Check out my new EasyStand Blog post about the warmest and most accessible winter season of my life: This Winter Deserves a High Five.

One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Interesting Access Picture

That’s my van and that’s a shopping cart partially blocking the accessible parking spot. Those striped access zones often become cart corrals for people who are too lazy and half-assed to walk the extra ten feet to put them where they belong. Just last week I witnessed an able-bodied guy in his late 20’s, who was very clearly using a handicapped placard illegally, load up his SUV with stuff from his cart and then leave it where it was. I try not to let stuff like that ruin my day, but at the least it really pisses me off. Just one of the reasons why using handicapped parking can be very annoying sometimes.

New EasyStand Blog Post: Dealing With Set in Their Ways PCAs

My new EasyStand Blog post dishes on dealing with PCAs who are too set in their ways. Please check out Dealing With Set in Their Ways PCAs.

This Guy’s Update on Dating With a Disability

Almost a year ago I wrote a blog post on the EasyStand Blog called “This Guy’s Take on Dating With a Disability.” The intent was to pull back the curtain on the challenges that I had faced meeting women and dating over the years as someone with a disability. Given the limited space I was provided (I have a somewhat flexible1000 word limit per post) I tried to delve into all of the issues that were involved with that in a truncated history of having little relationship success. In short, I went on barely any dates and had no girlfriends over a twelve year span. It was a lonely period. Very lonely. Worse, I knew that with all of the good things that I had to offer a relationship I wouldn’t have gone date- and girlfriend-less over a twelve year span if I had been able-bodied. Simple fact. And thus I strongly felt like my disability had a lot to do with that.

Now that post was one of the two most personal things that I had ever written in my life and I really put myself out there with it. As I labored over every detail and edited and re-edited it my biggest concern was that it would come across too woe-is-me-and-my-poor-little-disability. I do not use my disability as crutch for anything in my life  as far as I can keep that in my control and I made a point of specifically mentioning that in the post. Rather, the premise was to offer insight about my own unique personal experiences on the matter. And that’s exactly what it was: My own. Unique. Personal. Experiences.

But despite that emphasis and although that post got the most Facebook “likes” and Tweets of any other post that I’ve written on the EasyStand Blog the overriding reaction was that it was too cynical, negative, that I didn’t try hard enough, that I blamed my disability too much, etc. Quite a bit of people – predominantly women – left comments at the bottom of the post mentioning variations of all those things. Some made valid points but others had outright vitriol, one going so far as to call my “take” (quotations added for condescending emphasis) crap. It was hurtful and unexpected but I responded to every one as politely as I could. If you haven’t read any of the comments I encourage you to do so because it was a good dialogue. And, really, who argues with a lawyer anyway?

All that being said, and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I am thrilled to report that I met a very special someone shortly after writing that post and she has been in my life for 9 months now. In fact, today is the 9 month anniversary of our first date. A few months ago it dawned on me that I should add a comment to that dating with a disability post to update both new readers and re-readers and commenters that my relationship status had changed, and so much for the better. You can read that on the post here but what I wrote was this:

“I wanted to trackback and update new readers of this blog post as well as past readers who still follow the comments about my relationship status. Shortly after this post went up I did try internet dating via okcupid.com for about a little over a month. I put together what I thought was a pretty compelling profile with a good sales pitch, even though I have a tough time talking myself up. I was upfront about my disability in my profile and added that I was looking for someone willing to see beyond wrapping paper to the gift underneath, if you will. Even though I had almost 140 different women check out my profile during that short period of time, and got emails from okcupid telling me that their profile search traffic numbers and attractiveness rankings showed that women on the site found me “very attractive,” I only got two messages from women kicking my tires, neither of which I was interested in. I myself had a hard time finding women that I was attracted to, or if I was something in their profile turned me off (obnoxious, seemingly uneducated, etc.) and didn’t send any messages myself.

I was just about to work up the courage to message a girl I settled on, just to try it if anything, when I met someone out in the real world — a very pretty girl who cuts my hair at the salon I’ve gone to for years, which is interesting considering what I wrote in the 5th paragraph of my post about preferring to meet someone the old-fashioned way such as someone who cuts my hair that slowly builds into something. She cut my hair 3 out of 4 straight trips to the salon. After the third I decided that I really liked her and wanted to ask her out. I went into the fourth haircut planning to ask her out but chickened out as I was paying. But we became Facebook friends the next day (she sent the invite), started texting a few days later, then I asked her out and we went out to dinner the following Saturday night.

And we have been together ever since, going on over 7 months now. She is fun, smart, beautiful, amazing, and everything I could have asked for in a girlfriend. We are very in love and plan to be in each other’s lives for a long time. I’ve been happier the last 7 months than at any other point in my life because she’s in it. And it just keeps getting better too. In the end it just took a ton of patience and being myself, and finding my dream girl was worth the 12 year wait. And BTW, she still cuts my hair every month, and every now and again I even get a few free haircuts out of the deal!”

Not long ago a good quad friend of mine who was in rehab at Craig Hospital the same time as I was in the fall of 1996 asked me if now that I had a girlfriend if I still felt the same way about the subject of dating with a disability as I did then. I said that it was a tricky question to answer. Had I not met my girlfriend the thoughts that I relayed in that post probably would have continued on, if not compounded incrementally over the last year. But now that I do have a wonderful lady in my life I will admit that post was fairly cynical, but that was my mindset at the time. I also think that I should have tried to be more confident around women and asked more of them out, as well as I should have given a much better crack at internet dating, regardless of the cost, a few years before I finally did.

But on the other hand, if I would have done any of that I might have never met my girlfriend, which is tragic to even ponder. So like I said, after years of being patient and holding out for the right one it all paid off in a big way. After two more months have gone by since I posted that update comment I’m even happier now than I was at that point.

So to that I say happy Valentine’s Day and very happy 9 month anniversary gorgeous, I love you so very much!

New EasyStand Blog Guest Post

In my new monthly guest post for the EasyStand Blog I channel a little Hollywood magic and describe how “I Live My Life Three Inches at a Time.” Please check it out.

One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Interesting Access Picture

This is a series of pictures I took a few months ago. One of my doctors has an office in my neighborhood about 6 blocks from my apartment building, and since the weather was decent I decided to roll down the sidewalk to my appointment. Between my place and the doctor’s office building I knew there was road construction that had been ongoing for most of the summer, but didn’t realize how badly it blocked sidewalk access. The most seamless path that I planned on taking revealed a brand new sidewalk that was completely blocked off, presumably to cure the concrete. At the end of the sidewalk on the other side of the street I encountered the signs in the picture below indicating that the crosswalk I needed to use was closed on account of the construction.

As you can see in the picture below the sidewalk wasn’t just blocked off, it was non-existent. My doctor’s office is in the second building on the right in the background.

From the vantage point above the sidewalk curls to the right and comes upon a driveway to a parking lot with the vantage point in the picture below. I couldn’t cross the street to use the sidewalk on the other side because both the crosswalk there and the one at the end of the block were also under construction. Moreover, there was a sign that said “No Pedestrian Crossing.” At that point I sat there trying to figure out what to do. Without sidewalks my only other recourse was to go straight down the street about a block and a half, partially through the construction zone.

Right as I was starting to head back to my place I had a “screw it” moment and went for it. Cars were driving at a fairly steady pace but I picked my moment and shot up the street with the flow of traffic as fast as my wheelchair could go and then crossed over to the blocked off from traffic side of the street to the right of the orange cones below. It was a tad hair-raising. But no guts no glory. I was so close and had already come that far. I was a little late to the appointment but at least I made it.

Luckily, on my return there was barely any traffic so I rolled down the street the two blocks it took to get back on the sidewalk again, getting back on the sidewalk just as a car behind me passed me. I’m sure I got some odd looks and all I was missing was a slow moving vehicle sign on the back of my chair. But this is just a prime and frustrating example of the kinds of access denied/alternative path crap you have to deal with when you use a wheelchair.

A Positive Inaccessible Taxi-ing Situation Update

Back in late September I wrote a post on the EasyStand Blog called “An Inaccessible Taxi-ing Situation” that was about inaccessible taxicabs in New York City. Read the post for more details, but to quickly recap New York recently made a decision to change their fleet of cabs to the so-called “Taxi of Tomorrow” but the problem is that the Taxi of Tomorrow (a Nissan NV-200) is not wheelchair accessible, so countless people with disabilities who use wheelchairs cannot hail a cab in New York. Moreover, it will be the taxicab in service for the next ten years which makes it even more difficult for people who use wheelchairs to get around via taxicabs. Clearly, that is a big problem. Currently, only 231 out of 13,000 New York taxicabs are accessible, which is a horrible and unacceptable ratio for one of the biggest cities in the world.

More frustrating is that the decision about the new cabs was made with full knowledge that they were inaccessible and that some cheaper accessible options were available as well. Even worse than that were the very offensive remarks that New York Mayor Bloomberg directed at wheelchair users who have advocated for greater access to the city’s taxicabs. Most notably, he said it would be “too dangerous” for wheelchair users to try to hail a cab, that most taxi drivers would “pretend they didn’t see them,” that wheelchair users “sit too far from the driver to establish a dialogue” and therefore “they would not tip well.” He also suggested that the cabs will weigh too much, use too much gas, and that there is too much “dangerous” space between the backseat and the front of the cabs and that people were going to get hurt because of it. Yikes. Ridiculous.

As you could guess, this inaccessible taxi situation didn’t fly with the disability community and accordingly the United Spinal Association filed a disability discrimination lawsuit in federal court in New York in January 2011. As far as that goes, some good strides have been made recently to make those taxicabs more accessible. First, on December 20, 2011 Governor Cuomo and lawmakers reached a deal to approve a bill that calls for 6,000 new street-hail licenses to be issued to livery cabs in the outer New York City boroughs and upper Manhattan.  But Cuomo threatened to veto the bill unless the legislature addressed the low number of the city’s accessible taxi vehicles. The result is that there will now be 3,200 more accessible taxi vehicles on New York roads. The deal to improve the city’s overall accessibility was applauded by tens of thousands of New York veterans and people with disabilities.

Then about a week later,  in what was hailed as a landmark victory for the disability community, a federal judge ruled that New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act for failing to provide access to taxicabs for wheelchair users. The ruling states that until the TLC produces a comprehensive plan to provide meaningful access it can only issue new medallions to wheelchair accessible taxis. In his ruling U.S. District Judge Greg Daniels wrote, “Meaningful access for the disabled to public transportation services is not a utopian goal or political promise, it is a basic civil right.” Amen.

In in this fight that has lasted more than a decade Judge Daniel’s ruling was a very huge victory, but the war to get all of New York’s taxicabs wheelchair accessible rages on.

The article linked  in the paragraph above has a lot of good quotes about disability independence, etc. so be sure to give it a full read.

 

Eric LeGrand Honored on SI Cover

Since last fall many of us in the spinal cord injury community have been following the recovery of Eric LeGrand, he being the subject of an ongoing highly publicized SCI story. Especially as it touches the sports world. As I briefly wrote in this post last year LeGrand is a former Rutgers defensive tackle who sustained a SCI making a special teams tackle and is now a quad. Since sustaining his SCI he continues to work hard in rehab, has gone back to school, does Rutgers football analyst work, and remains steadfastly confident that he will walk again someday. A few weeks ago it was reported the he can now sit up on his own for brief moments at a time.

In a touching moment before the Rutgers-West Virginia game on October 29th, LeGrand lead the team out of the tunnel and onto the field in the snow in what was his first time back on the field since sustaining his SCI. Last week a cool picture taken that day made the cover of Sports Illustrated’s pictures of the year issue. In fact, LeGrand leading the team onto the field was the primary subject of the issue’s cover story, which was voted as the fan’s choice for the best moment of 2011. It was one of those rare instances where sports and SCI converge. Good for him.

New EasyStand Blog Guest Post: Explaining Spinal Cord Injury to Kids

My new monthly guest post for the EasyStand Blog is now available. After my niece asked “the question”  I discuss the challenge of explaining spinal cord injuries to kids. So check out: Explaining Spinal Cord Injury to Kids.

The Ignorant Side of Macy’s Holiday Holidazzle

Almost two years ago now I wrote this post in this blog’s Annoying/Aggravating/Interesting Access Picture of the Week series featuring the picture below of an elevator button at the downtown Minneapolis Macy’s store labeled “For Handicap Use Only Middle Car Call.” At the time I posted the picture to make two observations: 1) to point out that the use of the word “handicap” was somewhere between poor word choice and offensive to people with disabilities (using handicapped, disability, or accessible would be much more PC) and 2) to question the chances of able-bodied folks actually deferring priority use of the elevator to people with disabilities as is intended.

My initial inclination to the latter was that no they wouldn’t because I’ve seen too many instances over the years where in busy stores like Macy’s every man for himself mentalities often butt ahead of proper etiquette. Even when it comes to matters of disability access and accessibility. And especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Being a wheelchair user I am of the opinion that I should get priority to any parking spot or ramp or elevator that I need to use over anybody that can walk, every single time, in any circumstance. Period. But unfortunately that is not the case fairly often.

But interestingly enough I got a first-hand answer to the notion above with this specific  elevator two days ago when I went to the downtown Minneapolis Macy’s 8th Floor Holiday Display with my parents and my girlfriend. As we approached the bank of elevators I could see that there was already a buildup of people waiting for the next elevator to open up. It was mostly couples, families, and people with child strollers. The people with strollers had a much more genuine reason to use the elevators but the rest could have easily used the escalators that were nearby instead. Having used this bank of elevators about a dozen times over the past few years to use the Macy’s skyway to go to legal conferences in the adjacent City Center I positioned myself right by the elevator in the picture above. But as each elevator door opened nobody got off, nobody made room, nobody paid attention to the disability label on that cart. In fact, people were so impatient to get upstairs to the 8th floor display that they started getting on the elevators to go down one floor just so that they could already be on it when it went up again.

But the most ignorant and interesting part of the story occurred as we were on our way out. After we went through the 8th floor display we went down to the lower level to the café to maybe hunt up a snack. As we were going through the same busy elevator ordeal as before on our way back up to the first floor I again positioned myself near the disability specific elevator cart. To my right was an impatient woman with a baby stroller who was standing right by the sign above and would push the button every time a full cart came down and went back up again. The first elevator cart with enough room for me, my wheelchair, my parents, and girlfriend to fit in we jumped on. As the door closed my girlfriend said that she felt like punching a woman. I asked why and her reason was that apparently the woman by the elevator button said in a real snotty tone something like, “Try waiting in line next time” to us as we got on the elevator.

So to be clear, the very able-bodied woman who was standing right by the sign that designated the elevator for disability use only, who was in fact pushing the button on that sign herself, and watched a person in a wheelchair get on the elevator ahead of her had the audacity to gripe about us allegedly cutting in line for the elevator. That is holiday holidazzle ignorance at it’s finest, folks. Had I heard her say that I would have backed right out again, whether I got separated from my family and girlfriend or not, and chewed that lady out to set her straight. You know, in the true holiday spirit of accessibility advocacy.