warning: ancient crone blood

OK, first, as someone who's a white woman, I see a lot of that aspect of my identities on TV. I see some portrayals of queer women on TV, but there's a lot of problematic stuff. Like, "And how long until one of these characters meets a horrible fate?" is basically how media has gone for a long time, or the film was made by an indie company because that is how they could get funding and so it's not terribly well made. And please don't get me started on the L-word.

OTOH...there's not that many great depictions of disability in television media? Also, usually when disability is portrayed people pick something very visible ("look this is the character who's disabled you can tell by looking at their accessibility device or some sort of visible difference") and making the Entire Fucking Storyline about the fact that they have a disability. And it's basically the ooooonly thing you know about them. And that they're inspirational and brave. *barf*

So along comes Switched at Birth, which I know I have raved about before. I am raving again. Partly because *look here are lots of intersectional identities* and *here are Deaf people arguing about disability politics and toeing the 'party line' and cochlear implants on ABC Family*. Also, they're multi-dimensional characters.

Yes, Daphne is Deaf. Her main storylines (to where I am in season 2 *don't spoil the rest I know there's more*) are about the whole switched-at-birth thing, her complex relationships with her now-blended family, class differences, "wait technically I am white but I was raised Latina til I found out about the switch so...", all the boyfriend drama, and aspirations to be a chef. Probably more things too. Like I said -- so much more than "she's the Deaf one" because there's LOTS of Deaf Characters. Also, it's a very "social model of disability" show.

Ahoy be spoilers for a couple points in the show where I felt the show did things *really well*, just so I can truly convince you to watch it. Also, links to a couple clips.

( minor spoiler in season 1, I'm not sharing how this event happens it's mostly about a one to two minute clip )

( spoilers for a couple plot points in season 2 with longer scenes involved )

I just.

Bring the teenage soap opera drama. Bring it all. I lurv you so much, this show.

P.S. I've been off-and-on pondering some thoughts on Daredevil and disability. This blog post has a lot of the things I had feelz about, as does this science one. I just...feel like while there's some good "here's accessible devices in action" and "here's the occasional person being a douche," Matt Murdock doesn't actually lose that much privilege via being blind-with-superpowers. That would not be such a big deal except for general lack of representation, because then Average Person gets tons of misconceptions about being blind. But there is no *one* experience for any one disability. Just, I think Matt Murdock is very outside the average range.

I am trying to avoid griping too much about how much my body DNW the random 30 degree temperature changes and barometric pressure nonsense that is going on here right now. Also, today I have a serious case of Missing Rogue (even though Haley is wonderful). *sigh*

Instead, have some linkspam which is mostly me talking about knitting and spinning and suchlike:

My mom (and dad) got me glorious yarn for my birthday. I have been trying to decide what to do with it, as it is technically enough for a sweater. However, as I am heat intolerant and my mom very considerately chose chunky yarn so it would be a fast knit...I have finally decided to make a cape poncho thing with it. *is excite* I am also excited because the pattern seems to be exceedingly well written (what's this, I actually read through the pattern before knitting anything? *gasp*) and has both charts and written instructions for the lace and cabled sections. If you want piiiictuuures, it is called the Covetable Cabled Cape on Ravelry. If you are curious, the yarn I'm going to use is 50/50 wool/alpaca and ~purple~.

Also in knitting and spinning news, I have several skeins and skeins-in-progress whose colors I think will work well together. They also are of a relatively similar thickness and the textures work well together, too. I am thinking of making a shawl, perhaps Hitchhiker, perhaps something else. Who knows? I shall wait until I've finished the current spinning.

Some of the skeins I want to use have yet to be fulled. That is, they are spun, but I need to get them wet and soapy and thwack them to turn them into actual usable yarn. This is a fun process -- and a definite stress reliever -- I just haven't really had spoons. Actually, come to think of it, there's one spun bit of yarn that's still on a spindle. I, um, need to wind it onto a niddy noddy. Errr...maybe I'll do that soon. If my arms will let me, it can be a bit ache-making. Maybe if I take breaks? This is what I need small children to use as manual labor share the joys of spinning with. My second nephew is *very* good at winding yarn onto niddy noddies, or at least helping keep the spindle from flying all over the room while I do it. Does anyone else have that problem? *ponders the possibility of recruiting partner* (Partner is crimping CAT-6 cables today, though, so maybe not).

That's about all for now. Going to attempt to resist falling asleep. Naps, they seem to be consuming me these days.

So it's looking like I'm SOL regarding pain medication. I'm on Lyrica already; I can't take any kind of anything that messes with serotonin; NSAIDs are out with my gut the way it is; don't want opiates because All The Reasons.

My doctor wants me to go to a pain clinic; I'm not sure what they'll do other than offer me strong opiates or something and give me physical therapy, but I'm supposed to be getting PT for my dizziness so yes that would be out for insurance reasons alone, let alone me going bananas. Anyone have experiences to offer on pain clinics?

In the meantime, my side effect journey of daisies and rainbows and leprechauns has made me leery of adding more chemicals to my internal chemistry project. Like, I've *always* hated being on this many meds and just kind of grinned and born it. But seriously? This is frelling ridiculous. And so, yes. I'm looking for non-medication ways to keep this under control, at least until a neurokinin-1 antagonists maybe comes on the market approved for pain management. *crosses fingers* But that could be awhile.

So yes, I'm soliciting suggestions in this post for pain management. I will do my best not to immediately rule them out because, say, I've tried acupuncture and it didn't work. Nothing is too woo for this post. I just want a working list to, er, work off of so I can fucking knit and spin regularly again. (I have knit TWO ROWS this week and spun nothing and it's making me cranky, who knows what I would have done without video games.)

Thank you, dear circle, for all your support!

PS fewer seizures yesterday! woo!

PPS Yes standard disclaimer regarding I know you're not medical professionals blah blah won't sue you blah blah check with my doctor blah blah.

Smeegle's Seizure
poem by untonuggan 

( trigger warning: PTSD, reference to rape, seizures )

___

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.