Abled

And another stupid icicle because the stupid snow covered everything that didn't look dead outside.

Did I mention that snow is stupid? It is in April, for sure.

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It's officially official. I'm enjoying the show Raines. So is my father, which I suppose indicates the insanity is genetic or something. At least the liking for completely screwed up lead characters must be.

Does this mean I have to start a new t.v. club?

I'm not sure I really want to share my wine gums.

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Today's post title (see? I did get to it eventually) has to do with a something that came up in that workshop thingy I was at earlier in the week. It was fairly tangential to what we were supposed to be doing, of course, but then with my short attention span it's just amazing that I wasn't distracting everyone in the room by drawing random pen lines all over my arms at that hour of the day.

Er, yeah. I'm five.

Anyway.

The point was made, briefly, that some people are touchy about the use of the word disabled. That's when I commented to Wheat (yep, Wheat was there putting up with my boredom) that if you followed what seems to be the definition of disabled to certain people, then I'm disabled.

Me and millions of others out there who... wear glasses.

Seriously, though. I wouldn't function in the modern world without the lenses. I wouldn't be able to drive, to use a computer without having the monitor a nose-length away from my face, to read signs... we can go on, but you get the picture. I probably wouldn't get the picture without my glasses, but there you go. Without specialised equipment (isn't that what glasses are?) I would have a very limited life.

I'd be disabled.






Is anyone buying into this argument? I'm not, but if I've convinced any of you then maybe there's something to it.

I hope not, though.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that too many of us are looking for excuses. There are people out there in the world who have very serious challenges in life, but then there are those who really need to start looking at what they can do rather than what they can't do.

Me, I'm a nearsighted astigmatic with a buggered-up ankle and a bad knee. Does that make me disabled? I doubt it. Maybe I can't run up the stairs, but I can still climb them. Plenty of people wouldn't be able to manage even that.

What about, say, left-handedness? It certainly puts me at a disadvantage when using most power tools. When I was in university it made it difficult to find a place to sit because the vast majority of lecture theatre desks have the writing surface on the right-hand side. There have been studies that show left-handers live shorter lives and are more likely to die or be badly injured in accidents. So is left-handedness a disability?

Of course not.

It sounds pretty silly to think that way at all, but it's not too far off from the way some people seem to see their own, relatively minor life problems.

Sometimes I think our PC world needs a great big dose of suck it up, princess.

Now, I'm not the world's most optimistic person (it's not a case of the glass being half full or half empty when the blamed thing obviously has a whopping great crack down the side) but even I can see that when I look at the big picture I have it pretty darned good. I'm able to earn a living. I can afford to eat and pay my rent. I have the luxury of whinging about whatever is bothering me while knowing that whatever is bothering me is NOT the end of the world.

Believe me, when it actually is the end of the world I'll tell you.

Repeatedly.

I'm not about to end this particular blather with a benediction or even a suggestion that we all go out and count our positives. That's completely not me. I'll just say that maybe it might be a good idea if we all took a second away from the usual complaining to realise that there are far more abled moments in an average day then there are disabled ones.

After that you can go back to the whining if you like. I know I probably will.





There wouldn't be many words on this blog if I didn't, after all.

Pointless photo of the day:

And, in an unusual move for Yours Blatheringly, it's completely uncropped and uncorrected. This is the photo as it came off of the camera.

Well, I did rotate it a bit so you wouldn't have to stand on your collective head. I'm nice that way.

The subject matter ticks me off too much to make me want to comment on it, but the picture's here nonetheless.

Before I go any further I should state that I currently have a headache. Not a bad one, but I expect it'll make me sound like I'm in a worse mood than I really am. There's your warning.

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As I sit here I'm being stared at by an electronic eye. It's not on, but I still feel like I'm being stared at.

You see, my father recently picked up a webcam so that he can talk to his grandson. Or rather, to my brother. As far as I know, the nephew isn't quite so clever as to be nattering away at the ripe old age of four months. I would imagine, then, that the conversation will consist of my brother sitting there with the baby on his knee, making him wave and trying to keep his fingers off of the screen and the keyboard.

And when that's not happening, I get to be stared at dumbly by the plastic spy.

For anyone thinking that this will lead to pictures of The Blatherer ending up here on the blog, the response is no bloody way. If I'd wanted a photo of me to grace the pointlessness it would have been here a looong time ago. I'm perfectly capable of pointing the real camera at myself and clicking away, as certain people out there in the actual world can attest.

I don't happen to want a shot of me here, that's all.

Those who visited the old blog can tell you that various body parts (or photos of them, at any rate) were posted there whenever I was too bored to take "creative" shots of the icicles on my balcony or the occasional spider. It's not like I'm shy about being seen.

In fact, it seems to me that I once gave Wheat a bit of a start by posting a close-up of one of my eyes without warning him first. Good times, good times.

I just don't think you should have the desire to see all of me at once, that's all.

Part of it's a privacy thing, admittedly. I'm under no illusion that I'm unfindable (anyone who thinks they can't be tracked down via their internet footprints is too naive to be on the internet), but I don't feel the need to share more of myself with the cyberworld than I have to.

There's another reason for the lack of self-portraiture, though.

My two fans (I mean, the fraction of you who don't already know me in that alternate dimension known as Real Life) probably have a mental picture of me from reading the blatherings. Some of it might come from the occasional description I sneak in there, but a lot of it comes straight from your imagination even if you don't think it does.

I like that.

I like the fact that, in your minds, I look just as you'd expect me to. I like it that, even if you're incredibly mistaken, you're probably comfortable with the picture of me that you've created.

It kind of puts a different spin on being all things to all people, don't you think?

For the most part, I try to be truthful in what gets posted to the blog. I don't make stuff up. What you read here is me... or as much of me as I'm willing to put into a pointless blog. I'm not posing as anything, or trying to prove anything, or hoping to enlist you to a cause. It's all just silly things that occur to me on the spur of the moment.

Even with that, it creates a different me for everyone who winds up reading it.

That's cool.





And do you really think I want to spoil the effect with an unflattering webcam photo?

Nope.








I'm really going to have to put a box over that thing to get it to stop looking at me.

Don't even.

Don't even what? Oh, I don't know. How about:
- ask me how things are going
- ask me to do anything else
- put anything else on my desk
- look at me the wrong way unless you want to be sorry at some point

Yeah, I suppose that might cover it. More or less.

I'm having a day.

I'm also posting yet another pointless flower photo from last year because it hurts my brain to look out and see snow. I'm allowed to be in a snit about the snow, you know. That's the rules.

Whose rules?

My rules.

Shut up, anyway. I told you I was having a day.

And one of the crickets that the toad hasn't found yet is currently singing at the top of its creepy little... erm... legs. At the moment it would be well within my capabilities to find a hammer and fix that problem.






In case anyone was wondering, I am off tomorrow...

Not yet, though. Back to work for me. Pretty sad when a half-assed rant to a pointless blog is what passes for a coffee break in my world, don't you think? Ah well. Call it blowing off a little steam so that I don't injure any of my coworkers. I'm sure they all appreciate it.

See you later.

A course is a course, of course of course

My apologies to any Mr. Ed fans.

So here's the deal. I'm out of the office for most of the day at a course... er, seminar... um, workshop... Well, I'm off doing something or other at any rate. I think.

Yeah, like I think in the morning. Good one.

In any case, that equals no post from me today. Erm... except for this one, naturally.





Whatever. See you tomorrow.

Hello, sick people

Don't worry. The t.v. club understands the title. Or at least they should, because if they don't they've just become a ginormous (is too a word) disappointment to me.

And I know they wouldn't do that.

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Today's pointless photo is a protest (and here you probably thought it was a gazania). Protesting what? Well, as I look out the window right now (and believe me, it ain't easy to do that and type at the same time. Or type and make sense, that is. I could type random letters and look out the window with no trouble at all) I see an admittedly beautiful, picture-postcard January day. Do you know why that might be a problem?

IT ISN'T EFFING JANUARY.

Just saying.



stupid weather

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I'm afraid I have nothing but a headache and wet shoes at the moment (did I mention the SNOW? DID I? HUH?), but I always feel like it's a cheat to say that when I've been deblogged for a couple of days. The couple of days, by the way, was just me being unexpectedly without a computer. And thanks to the Toronto office for stepping into the breach.

Or whatever.

Headache, remember? Doesn't lead to the height of lucidity.

Anyway, I have very little to go on about. I was going to ask if anyone else out there has seen Raines yet, but since I haven't even had the chance to watch my recording of last Friday's episode I suppose it would be silly to bring up the subject. What I've seen of it so far I like, though. Even if it is probably only because Jeff Goldblum sort of intrigues me.

He's just so...

well...

um...

Jeff Goldblum-y. There's no other way to describe it.

Maybe I'll get a chance to watch the next episode a little closer to its actual air date, and we can talk about Raines then.

Or not.





Makes no difference to me either way.

I think I'll stop typing now, if that's ok with everyone.

Pointless post

I've really and truly got nothin' ....





..... so choose your own topic from - ready? - column A.

Who stole the first quarter of my year?

Today's entry is a scratch and sniff. Now this works best if you use the thumb nail of your left hand. Go on. I can wait.

You'll experience the soggy dog odour one experiences after a walk in the pouring rain. And it is. Pouring rain I mean.

This particular pup proves that indeed Labs do have a double-coat which is to say we're taking bets on whether she'll sink in deep water due to the sheer volume of her coat.

And what a joy to dry off. While her sister shakes and dries in less than five minutes, this one takes at least 20 minutes just to towel down. We used to flat-iron her coat after she was dry but now the natural curl is just allowed to come through as she air-dries.

Ah, springtime. As I sit here listening to the gentle rain ... pounding on my window ... there is also the sound of thunder in the distance. Hence lightning around us perhaps. Seems a sensible time to post and turn the computer off, doesn't it.

I think so too.

I remember in earlier years speaking and typing in complete sentences, with proper grammar and everything. Yep, those days are totally in the past.