Category: bay area

DCC open mic night

Posted on by Liz Henry

First of all I am vastly sad that Alice has died. Hilarious, witty, insightful, compassionate, she was amazing to talk with. I admired her more than I know how to express for her writing and work making spaces for us all to be heard, and I will miss her and am aching for our community and all the people who were her nearest and dearest ones. My heart feels like it is just flying through space somehow in a spaceship alone as I think about her and about death and mortality.

It sounds like while Alice was living her last, the DCC open mic night that she funded from the Disability Visibility Project was happening. I wish she had not died and that she had been there. I wondered why she wasn’t there but didn’t want to bother her and didn’t know she was critically ill at that moment.

Well, I am going to just do my post and write up my notes from the wonderful community event that was a strong manifestation and celebration of disability culture. It was very clear that sparks were flying around the room and through our screens as people were excited and artistically charged up by everything we were hearing! I think that writing about others’ work from last night is a good way for me to honor Alice.

Our open mic was hosted by local luminary King Lotus Boy. There were about 40 people attending online and 20 or so in person in the space. All three of our founding leaders of the DCC, Emily, Mika, and Dagny, were there to make things go smoothly and they were fabulous hosts as always! A note, when I am not sure if people have a public presence online as a writer or artist, I will just put their first name and not link. (But if it’s you, and you want me to name you and link, let me know.)

an instagram post flyer for the hybrid open mic with a photo of king lotus boy in full drag looking magnificent

First up was Max L. who read a delicately structured piece called “Shine”, a sort of battle of images of light shining out through holes and (abusive) people trying to plug up those holes, about ARFID and neurodivergence, the food forced on them trying to plug the light burning through their mouth. The complex web of these images worked so perfectly as they kept building and circling to convey the complex experiences of being beleagured and suffering, while being so powerful and fierce inside, and coming to be able to live & shine in that power. I am not sure how this poem looks on the page but I was thinking of it as a prose poem – a difficult form to sustain and Max pulled it off.

Leche read a beautiful poem of houses falling apart, houses with no safety net, of longing for complex webs of care and love, passion and comfort, basically, a queer artist polycule. I wish my notes were better on this one, but I was vibing. Hell yeah!

Fern was on the signup, but didn’t make it. I hope to hear from Fern next time!

Avra showed up for us reading two poems that kind of snuck up on me as they started off feeling a bit prosaic, built up momentum steadily, and then hulked up to pack a punch. The first one started off with cornfields and maybe moving cities and I got the impression of a family and then it kind of became about being refugees and it was carefully not delineating exactly what from, but I certainly thought of the trans migrations I am watching my friends go through now. “We need to believe there’s less evil here.” That was a great line that made my nostrils flare.

Avra’s second poem called Walk This Way hit me the same way as it was a description of her walking with her granddaughter and noting her toe-walking and then going back to her own grandmother who I think raised her, and criticized her, then talking about her own experiences of ambulation class (at which I had to give a little beatnik snap of recognition… how many times I have had to do gait training PT over the years!) This wound up to the start of that amazing punch I mentioned — The poem talked about the criticisms she (the narrator of the poem) faced of her own disabled gait as a child. (“These days, grandmas know to keep that shit to themselves”) And we returned to the talking books she listened to at her grandmother’s knee and how those talking books made her a poet. It worked as a story, it worked as musing across generations, and it got across that disability culture exists — that we “do” cultural transmission across generations, that it’s a living thing that we can decide to change, like Avra (or the narrator of the poem if it isn’t plainly autobiographical) decides not to be a bitch to her granddaughter. These were poems that were often plain talking — as you can see in the lines i noted and quote here — in a way that worked well as poetry, and that stick in my mind.

Masha Aleskovski then got up to the mic. She talked a bit about TBI and hemiplegia and then sang two poems – her own songs and her composition. Her ethereal voice echoing through the cultural center and the atrium, about moonlight, trees, spirit – just incredible. I need to go into all caps because THERE WAS ALSO MEOWING IN ONE SONG. The meowing and howls and inchoate calls to the sky worked so well done with her gorgeous voice. (clear to me, classically trained) Everyone was so blown away listening to this spiritual night fairy taking us to the fucking stars!!!

Alex, from online, then sang us a very sweet folk song with ukelele (or was it a guitar? my memory fails) The song was called “If the world was ending” by Julia Michaels. There was a big round of applause for this touching song!

Nicole B. then read a scene from her novel, Creating Love, which is about a woman who is a wheelchair user and creates an embodied AI, maybe a cyborg, I think to be her lover. In the scene we heard, our narrator was about to take Edmund on a flight, and was coming up to the TSA checkpoint deeply worried that they would catch that Edmund’s ID was faked. This might traumatize Edmund badly! The TSA agents start to question Edmund. The narrator realizes she needs a distraction quickly.

At that point I started to laugh hard because it was clear what was about to happen!! The narrator cripped out fully , acting confused and loud about how she could not stand up for the xray and demanding to know what was going to happen and then I think also started dropping things and spasming. (I can’t remember, because I was giggling so hard.) The TSA agents assume that Edmund is the airport attendant wheeling her to her gate (despite him having a boarding pass!) Edmund then gets offended and says “I’m not her attendant, she’s my girlfriend!” While the narrator has a lot of emotions about this since he never called her that before, and the TSA agents die of guilt for assuming things.

It is very hard to pick a scene from a novel and read a short excerpt to a crowd and have it both make sense, and not be boring as fuck, and I know this because I have been to a shit ton of literary readings. This reading was perfect – clear, entertaining, and enticing. Nicole is one to watch here, because this novel is fire. The room burst into applause and everyone started demanding where can they buy this book. We all felt deeply invested in what happens next and what in the world happened before as well. The novel is finished, but not yet published as Nicole is just starting to talk with agents.

TextaQueen then read us two poems and kindly posted their full text in the chat as well. The first poem, return, describes a cameraderie from behind glass. Maybe a hospital stay, maybe a train trip, maybe a space ship, – maybe just commuting to work in a weird metal box hurtling forward at 60 miles an hour — it is left beautifully ambiguous. Though I saw most clearly, being home, with chronic illness and in protection from illness, the extra isolation that came to us with COVID. The glass of screens and the cameraderie of the chat, the longing and loneliness.

group chat alert vibrates
somewhere under blankets pets pills
phone as hard to find as spoons
our connection untied to consistency
we send each other ease we wish to feel
our choirs meet on screens
wormholes to let us warble
there is no path to light
no A to B to Z

This poem worked well aloud and holds up well on the page as well. I love a densely packed poem that fucks with language and structure! And yes — take us to space, please. The loneliness and isolation that is part of a lot of disabled people’s experience, taking us to a deep human longing for space travel, freedom, and the hope alien contact, crops up a LOT.

Texta’s second poem explored everyday experience (drinking some boba tea, looking at a flower, going to work) but the boba is like, deeply weird as a physical experience and the flower is like, a sort of crawly robot bug and goes on the bus with her to work and crawls inside other people’s brains. Texta is a virtuoso at getting embodiment and emotion and particular vision — a visionary – into the poem.

my clever friend returns to me
sits up on my shoulder
reporting its research
whispers clicks and whistles
slides back inside my shirt

if only i understood its language

Justin Archuleta then read a poem that was structured like a quiz, a multiple choice quiz of him quizzing himself and speculating about in what ways his disfluent speech or stuttering is impairing and how it is or isn’t disabling or being disabled. His exploration was deeply thoughtful, viscerally described, I could almost taste the dry glass and panic, the unpredictability, and appreciated his soul searching. You can read this poem online “Is Your Stuttering a Disability” in Carte Blanche magazine.

Deidre then performed / told an ASL vision-story. She mentioned Adrienne Maree Brown in connection with this story but I didn’t catch how she was involved and I think the story was by Deidre. It describes the year 2050, the smoke and crisis, but then bounces to a 2050 with clear skies, beautiful trees, seeds in the ground, picking a cherry and popping it in her mouth, a child asking her, how did you survive the hottest years on record back in 2025? Graceful and expressive, she painted this future world we could have, so close, almost within our reach, and I felt deep sadness at the state of the world but also hope that we can work and fight for our visions of a better future.

Ayelet sang a song, about the ocean, unmasking, hiding and then “coming out”, the awareness of developing trust, looking deeply into others with understanding and wanting to know more about a person. It was a love song of neurodivergence and queerness!

I’ve lived my whole life
Hiding the signs
Hiding my light
Until my voice takes flight
Then I’m alive
Then I’m alight
But somehow in the silence you and I

I read two poems, one my poem to Mel Chua and all of the community around her in her last year or so, online and in person. I miss Mel very much. She is on my ofrenda with Beth, Eno, Stacey, and so many others. I also read a new poem called Wry Crips (which is a call out to Patti Overland) but isn’t about her, it’s more about that experience when you meet another disabled person’s eyes and share a look or a nod and you feel seen and feel in community.

A bit from my poem to Mel, “To put it in context”

as you move
to a beat
unhooked
from the sun
the lines of juice
& power
trace that
space ship
harness
to your body-pilot
cockpit,

limit
& cradle,
sustained
and fed
the fierce
light in your
hands
that roll out
in manifesto
cadence – as
in the club
a dancer

caught
by other dancers’
arms, flexible
listeners
staunch
as redwoods
check
the screens’
sight lines,

I cannot help but think of Alice reading these lines and I hope she was surrounded by love and had a peaceful exit. As Mel did.

Ash was our last performer with storytelling and comedy, talking about unhinged things they have said. (I actually missed a bunch of this – I had to pee – sorry!)

There were more people on the list but we had to wrap up the event.

Themes running through much of the work I heard last night — lots of embodiment, complexity, longing, love, and compassion — those science fiction themes coming through SO strongly – and centrally, how can we communicate our perspectives and experiences across a distance that can be so alienating. We have stories and novels and fiction to convey inner lives and complex experiences, we have poetry and song to anchor our emotions and thoughts from embodiment to language – And we turn strongly to speculative elements, surreal, fantastic, or science fictiony threads to push out the ways that things do not (have to) make SENSE or the ways we are alienated and alien (or that others are, from us). I think of the ways we experience dehumanization for example in that TSA line or in encountering any institutional setting, and how disconcerting it is, how hard to convey. Putting your cyborg/AI frankenstein lover into the TSA line with you really hammers it home. It means a non disabled reader can catch a glimpse of that experience and ways that we have to cope. Including a dry and bitter humor and sense of the absurd, that I always appreciate seeing in others.

This was a long post but I wanted to honor all the performers and people who showed up last night as I think of Alice and my other friends. Thinking of Alice writng and talking about her own death (https://time.com/6960765/alice-wong-muscular-dystrophy-essay/). I am thinking of Freddie Baer who just died this week and the work we will do to preserve and honor her work as well. I remember going to work on Alice’s very early Wikipedia article in 2016? 2018? and fixing it up with whatever I could find. It is so important for us to document our work and existence. Love you all. Over and out!

BART Basel 2024

Posted on by Liz Henry

There were so many amazing scenes at BART Basel this year – Francois and the decaying golden banana, the woman with the woven toilet paper roll mobile sculpture, the trumpeter in Glen Park station – the piñatas – the guy with the fake butt – the fashionista with the beanie baby pug and bodyguards – Penelope, the girl with the spray bottle of water spraying her grandma’s raincoat – Too many to list!

At BART Basel, the crew sets up a pedestal with a glass cover, a red carpet, a backdrop, and a small but effective PA system and microphone. People come up to present their art; after 20 minutes or so the entire set-up and crowd gets onto the train to go to another station and hold another event!

a lady holding up a woven sculpture in a huge crowd in the train station

We started at Embarcadero, then moved to Civic Center, then to Glen Park, which is probably my favorite station architecture. The crowd was huge – and splendidly dressed!

I exhibited and read my short poem Take the 49, which is about the wrong transit system, so now I really need to write a poem about BART and read it on the bus.

liz holding up a tiny zine; another copy is in a glass case beside them

This year I made two tiny zines – Take the 49 and Copies, both under Burn This Press. They came out super cute!

two tiny colorful zines

a zine open to show a poem about the bus

The 49 poem does a lot in a small space. Late at night, that bus tends to go very fast down a major street that in the daytime is crowded and slow. I was going for the feeling of speed and joy, a little recklessness, the feeling of bumping over streets and pavements in bus but also in my wheelchair, being like those metal rolls in old music boxes, because often I’m coming home from a musical event at night on the bus, the music is still playing in my head, and i’m in a state where every sound of the city at night is like music & it all combines beautifully. One night a driver really did tell me a story about his old job painting the bridge and how at least the bus is warm – he was waxing a bit poetic about it all – and it was – as the kids say – “a mood”. While I don’t remember why we were chatting, we had a nice connection, but I don’t really remember what he looked like. I hope he sees the poem some day!

My outfit for BART Basel was in BART colors, silver/white and blue. I had a moment where I showed a group of people my belt buckle and handmade train-track belt, and there was an audible collective gasp. Very gratifying!

a brass belt buckle shaped like the front of a bart train, on a blue belt

You can admire more photos of BART Basel in my Flickr album or in this larger collection of BART Basel photos by many people!

And, if you love transit systems so much that you want to read a ridiculous, sweet story about BART and SFO as cozy roommates, here’s a link to Next Stop, San Francisco, which I wrote in response to the tweets from SFO and BART’s accounts during the protests against anti-immigrant/ anti-muslim ban policies in 2017.

The event was so much fun. I loved seeing everyone’s art, or (in)significant objects framed as art, and the joy of the crowd, who were in “eclectic dress” as described on the invitation.

Its organizer, Danielle Baskin, has done so many hilarious cool projects over the years. I appreciate her and the whole crew who made BART Basel a thing – not just a thing, but a tradition!

Whill battery hack night at General Lithium

Posted on by Liz

This week we held a little powerchair hack night with GOAT, Justin from General Lithium, CriptasticHacker and associates from Spokeland, Morgan from CIL, and more friends, to explore the battery technology of Whill Fi and Ci powerchairs. A Ci battery teardown is in progress along with an investigation into the Fi and its charger.

There was also knitting, and an adorable small support dog on a fluffy cushion. I had a cool moment realizing how many of us knew, or had worked with or learned from, John Benson (aka, Cripple A). I was thinking John, a fabulous human being, should get an award, and Morgan said, what he would really like is a parade. My mind took off with this great idea! What if we had a fabulous parade in his honor, with musical instruments and punk marching bands and a zillion wheelchair users zooming around?! We will also hopefully see him and some other repair and DIY wizards at our upcoming events!

a probably AI generated image of a futuristic looking glowing powerchair on a glowing disco platform

We didn’t do any formal talks or introductions, but CriptasticHacker kicked off by talking about one of his finished projects, the WBSW, Wheelchair Battery Spot Welder!

We have learned some things from cracking apart the Ci battery.
– It has hidden screws under the bottom corner pieces
– You still have to pry it open with a screwdriver and mallet
– The battery is encased in several layers of totally sealed plastic for waterproofing
– And under that it is podded, 5/6ths encased in rubbery gel stuff so you can’t really take it apart and hack it well.
– It has 1/4 kWh

For the Ci, our best option to soup it up (as it has fallen out of warranty and parts don’t seem to be readily available!) may be adding a new battery or batteries, which we could do for about $400 per kWh. We could easily fit 2 of those under my seat in the undercarriage basket. Then those could hook up to a new replacement (V)ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) which we then connect to the motor (managing the voltage etc. so it will be compatible).

For the Fi, we were able to access it a bitbetter and Zach, Henner, mjg, and others had a look with digital microscope, logic analyzer, etc. To figure out what is going on with the power management . Zach will describe all that on his hackaday.io page!

three people gathered around an electronics workbench

It was interesting to see the different approaches in play at the various workbenches. The laborious and intensive work needed for detailed understanding and reverse engineering is in some ways a philosophical stance, of learning, reuse, and conservation, but in other ways, a factor influenced by resource constraints. In other words, necessity is the mother of the meticulous teardown! The people with capital, on the other hand, had less patience with this approach and were ready to throw resources at a problem, and use new (or repurposed) stuff to do complete workarounds, or simply throw it all out and invent something new that would be more rapid to get working, even if unlikely to be elegant or refined in the first prototype.

There was a long discussion on how to make a kit to convert manual chairs to power with Justin and Morgan. To that I added some wild eyed ideas but also a pointer to these interesting, cheap, DIY open source wheelchair designs and to Whirlwind Wheelchair. We see people every day in the Bay Area who are struggling with clunky or broken chairs. It is a good topic for future exploration – what other conversion kits are out there? What were the problems and pitfalls? How feasible is it to to come up with a maintainable, cheap, design for such a thing?

I learned during the event that ESC (pronounce the letters in it) is an electronic speed controller (the thing I normally just call “motor controller” with a vague handwave.) VESC, frequently mentioned by our hardware hackers, is a particular technology – or we could call it a movement – that I think looks amazing – for “flexible, efficient, and reliable power systems for your platform”.

Another cool nexus of ideas that came up: Whill chairs come with Bluetooth and a phone app. You can control the chair from the app, configuring it with one of three pre-set acceleration curves. Could we write a new app to communicate with the chair and program it in different ways?

You can also steer the chair from a phone or tablet screen via Bluetooth. I have never actually used this feature. But we can see that airports are starting to explore using Whill chairs on auto-pilot, to take passengers to their gates. Using programmed routes but also LIDAR, like robot cars! That put a gleam in several people’s eyes. Actually, it put a whole range of different and hilarious facial expressions on everyone’s faces!

And as one more note for future investigation: The chairs also appear to log and send diagnostic information to the manufacturer. I’d certainly like to see that traffic! I wonder if it is encrypted and what the heck it is sending!

I’m really looking forward to Grassroots Open Assistive Tech hosting more electronics and hardware tinkering nights, as well as other DIY gatherings!

Overheard:
(just for fun – it was a lively event!)

“I’m so impressed with the fact that you bypassed the VMS…. Expert move”

“….. and then it would explode!”

“That motorcycle [points to motorcycle in a giant pile of e-bikes] has a battery bigger and more powerful than a tesla powerwall. and it goes 160 miles an hour! [gleeful laughter]”

“You can control it via bluetooth? Woah!! That’s my kink!”

“There are no standards for bike wheels, so there are 4 different kinds of 26 3/4 wheels and none of them work with the others!”

(Justin): “I’m gonna take your 1/4 kWh battery and give you THREE kWh. We can just strap the batteries under your seat.”
(me:) “Oh, great! I’ve always wanted to be launched into fucking SPACE with my ass on fire!”

“Is this illegal?” “No surely not!” “Well, maybe? But we’re just taking things apart, and looking at how it works! How can that be illegal?”

(FYI: This can be a complex question! You may want to read this Coder’s Rights Guide from EFF as a starting point. )

More pics from the event:
Wheelchair battery hack night at General Lithium

Thanks to everyone who showed up, chatted, tinkered, and especially thanks to our congenial hosts, General Lithium – they are a battery tech company, but they also have a nonprofit wing that runs this maker/coworking space in the heart of San Francisco. Have a look at their events page and membership information!

San Francisco wheelchair repair program

Posted on by Liz

If you’re out on the street and your wheelchair breaks down, you need immediate help. (You can’t always rely on Love and Magic!)

And similarly, if you’re stuck in your house because of a flat tire, wobbly wheel, bad battery, blown fuse, or whatever mystery problem your wheelchair has, what happens? In the East Bay in the Bay Area we have the great non-profit Easy Does It, which will come pick you up and fix your chair for free. (Shout out to long time repair expert John Benson, who is an amazing person and who supported their program for many years with his Secret Wheelchair Parts Warehouse!)

Now, finally, in San Francisco we have the Independent Living Center SF Wheelchair Repair program that does something similar! I went last week to the ILRCSF launch of the program and hung out with Vince Lopez, who is an experienced repair tech and all around great guy. Lana Nieves who heads up the organization welcomed around 40 of us to the spacious conference room, Vince talked about his experience as a tech, we toured Marisol’s assistive tech lending library, and also heard from Michael from Pride Mobility who was there to offer whatever resources and connections he can provide.

a row of masked people in a conference room posing for a group pic

This new wheelchair repair center is funded by San Francisco Disability and Aging Services and is available to San Francisco residents, for emergencies and repair visits within the SF city boundaries. The repair program has limited hours (I think working daytime hours) and you can request either emergency help, or schedule an appointment, by calling their number at 415-609-2555 or emailing info@ilrcsf.org. Vince will come to you if that’s needed with a bag of tools. He can also provide rides to a safe location where you can transfer, in a wheelchair accessible van ride (provided free by Waymo) and even a loaner chair, powerchair, walker, or scooter if he has one available.

a man posing next to a row of loaner rollators, manual wheelchairs, and powerchairs

The program is also supported by many wheelchair manufacturers and by MK Battery. (You can get your batteries replaced! Free!!! At least for particular lead-acid scooter and wheelchair batteries they have stocked.)

shelves with new wheelchair batteries in stock

One last nifty service, you can get your wheelchair washed down completely in their portable washing station. I noted it looks like something that is not too hard to build, made from super-sturdy plastic tarp/map base, PVC pipe, shower curtains, a hose, and a pump to drain the water out. (This kind of setup can be used in a kitchen or even a yard for people to wash in if their own bathroom lacks access.)

people in a conference room looking at a wheelchair sized portable wash station

Murderbot’s spa day!!

After the event I got some help from Vince back in the shop. My Whill Ci front fenders break often, I’ve gotten them replaced several times, then lived with the brokenness and loud rattling for probably over a year now, sometimes temporarily fixing it with duct tape and Sugru.

Vince called Whill support, got them to email him the service manual (which I’ve asked for for YEARS and haven’t gotten!) and we got down on the floor to pop the wheels off and figure out what was wrong. While I was on the floor scooting around on my butt, I took the opportunity to wet-wipe the dust off the entire front of my chair.

a powerchair frame up on a jack with its wheel off

Some foam tape, new screws, blue loc-tite, and some cleaning, vastly improved my broken fender and wheel situation. More calls, a quick trip to the nearby hardware store, and a lot of fiddling around fixed my chair! (I got to try a loaner powerchair while all this happened!) And Vince is continuing to investigate if he can wrangle a replacement joystick controller out of the company — another thing I have asked them for but he is apparently the wheelchair support tech whisperer, because he got actual help incredibly fast!

(While I get told to buy a new Model C2; sure, like I just am going to drop 3500 bucks when I could fix my current chair?!) Fortunately now we have California’s new Right to Repair law to support our efforts to maintain our incredibly critical assistive tech! So when I do get a new powerchair eventually, the manufacturer will have to keep its parts available for at least 7 years.

My chair’s fenders no longer rattle, which is great, so I can perfect my technique of me + Murderbot sneaking up on people on the sidewalk!

Nice encounters

Posted on by Liz

On the way to swim laps at Balboa pool I was congratulating myself, “Great how I didn’t even have to think to do this, just pick up my nicely organized swim bag with everything in it, and go!” As I started to get undressed in the locker room, realized I had forgotten to bring any towels.

Everyone in the locker room told me about times they had done this and just dried off with their tshirt (I did not look forward to doing this and then putting the shirt on!) Asked the lifeguard if I could borrow a towel and just bring it back washed the next week and he found me one (and took it back afterwards to put with the lifeguard’s laundry).

So kind of him! Must remember to bring cookies or something next time as a thank-you.

My swim was good; despite a nasty sciatica flare-up, I went 900 meters, the last 100 without using my legs since I was hurting but feeling stubborn and wanted to hit 1000. Then came to my senses and stopped. Listened to Prince as I swam (waterproof ipod + headphones) and then, appropriately, “Go Slow” by Fela Kuti. Impossibilityismalogicalization!

Knocked off work a bit early to grocery shop, realized maybe i should have a nice afternoon of it, so I took the bus to 18th and went to Bi-Rite (for the nicer selection of flowers than Good Life), got pastries from Tartine and took them to the park. Some kids came to dramatic trick stops at Dolores & 18th as I crossed the street and as one of them wiped out I saved his skateboard from flying out into traffic.

I picked out a sunny spot with a view in the middle of the park near the statue of Miguel Hidalgo (Libertador). Just then a young man approached me with a very open and innocent aspect wanting to ask me a question if I didn’t mind. I took an internal stance somewhere between wary, patient, and open to things myself – what was he going to ask me? Wheelchair related? Asking for money with a story behind it? Just wants directions to somewhere?

“Sure, what’s up?” “Well I’m from out of town and heard that you can just be hanging out in this park and people will sell you weed but is there a close by place I can buy some?” “Well that’s true but I haven’t seen anyone and it’s pretty random. All I’ve seen is a pizza and beer guy.” His shy, sweet friend then came up to join him and we discussed local dispensaries and ways to walk there. I ended up sending them on their way to Apothecarium, with handshakes, smiles, and Alex’s assurance that he would buy me a blunt and be right back. (Alex from L.A. and friend Roseanne never returned but I didn’t mind and hope they had a lovely afternoon.)

Later when Danny joined me in the park I told him I was somewhat honored to be the person asked where to buy weed (Smart since crips always know, right?) He side eyed my pants (which are completely ridiculous instagram ad pants made entirely of fabric patches badly sewn together) and leather jacket. I guess???!!! Maybe I just look like a NICE PERSON.

I ended up working in the evening to make up for my afternoon of swimming and park-lounging, and because it just needed to be done so why not.

Looking forward to a long weekend of organizing stuff (bookshelves and cabinets and garage) and working on my game project.

Beach day

Posted on by Liz

Spent a late afternoon at Aquatic Park lying in the sand. It was gorgeously warm, and then a thin river of fog started pouring past the Golden Gate Bridge. Perfectly sunny in our little sheltered cove while the fog river got thicker & streamed in further, cargo ships blaring their horns as they emerged from the mist — I also watched them on the Marine Traffic app.

Best trick – brought a stretchy skirt to put on over my jeans. Then took off the jeans. Instant beach readiness. I also had on my new sandals (with socks in my bag for evening) so I could admire the little flower and jewel on my super glam copper painted toenails in the sun.

liz in sunglasses

I love watching people get into position to take photos of their day with loved ones & friends. It’s specially beautiful.

A little girl spent about half an hour running up and down the beach after seagulls, waving a stick, screaming “Please be my pet! PLEASE be my pet! Maybe YOU want to be my pet!” She didn’t give up hope! I love her!

Many people don’t know how to be at a beach with small children. Please, stop yelling at them not to get dirty or wet! Just take off their shoes, socks, and pants and let them run around. OMFG. Yes – I’m judging! Then brush them off and put their clothes back on, problem solved. Nobody cares if they see your 5 year old’s underpants at the beach!!!!! (To be fair I basically grew up on a beach so…. maybe it just doesn’t occur to them.)

One mom who did exactly this was in the “brushing off the toddler and his older sister” phase. Having spent really too long cleaning the smaller one, she focused on the sister while the drooling toddler flung himself face down back into the sand right next to me. Total sandface. I was lying with my face in the sand myself and as the mom gasped in horror I demonstrated to the baby that I too had sand all over, and we stuck out tongues at each other. Best mom . . . as she didn’t yell at her children … and didn’t mind my exchanging saucy facial expressions with the baby.

Later at home I realized i had gotten sand everywhere and I could magically hear my grandmother’s voice in my head from 40 years ago. “Ugh!!!! SAND!!!!” I’d be thinking, you have 2 kids in your beach house… at a beach. Duh, there is sand. It’s amazing how you can hear someone’s voice in your head, even when they are long gone. Sometimes when I’m lying in the sand I also think of my Aunt Gilda who would take us with her to the fancier part of Town Beach (Canonchet) where she had a cabana to change in (oh, so fancy!) She seemed so old to me, and probably was (she was my grandma’s aunt, really, so my great-great aunt) but she looked super glamorous in her beach chair, very tan, huge floppy hat and sunglasses, chain-smoking.

At my other grandparent’s beach house which they bought when they moved back to the U.S. there was an outdoor shower which sprayed onto a huge rock with a distinctive shape, sort of flat and good to stand on but with an unevenness in the middle, and I would stand on it thinking that it was from a glacier, so if I were able to travel in time I would be actually inside the glacier and then in very slow motion would sink down, down, while the glacier melted around me. There were similar rocks in Wesquage Pond just across the street where my uncle and cousin and sister and I would play a game where we each owned a rock for our home base. To go on someone else’s rock you had to pay a certain number of reeds. I wonder if these rocks are underwater now or if you can still hop from rock to rock… (inside a glacier of course.) The outdoor shower was much better than my other grandma’s house where you had to get brutally hosed off on the lawn before going inside. (Really, so much sand. And, while I’m complaining, I’d like to give a special mention to the way that even little kids bathing suits had a sort of pocket in the crotch (why???) which would collect FISTFULS of sand.)

Well, anyway, Danny came to meet me after work & we wandered around – ended up having fish & chips at a pretty nice place – and a giant mai tai.

Notably, I am feeling a lot better! Better enough to go off on an expedition in the afternoon (hour long bus ride) and stay out in the evening a little! Much improved.

The Hostility of the Helper

Posted on by Liz

When others perceive us (disabled people) as being in need of help there can be a strange dynamic in play. They deny our agency, our perspective, seeing us as an obligation. They are forced, in their minds, to hold the door open or tie down our wheelchairs or grab our arm unexpectedly and try to steer us up the steps, forced by their concept of what is proper and even moral. It’s the right thing to do. They’re prepared to do their duty. “No, thank you” isn’t a possible answer to their concept of dutiful helping. The dark side of their duty is anger. They’re already mad, before we respond in any way to defuse or exacerbate the situation. Pre-loaded with dehumanizing forces. The undercurrent of hostility can poison the respectful interdependence that is possible between any people. They will perform their duty, and we the helped will perform gratitude. For survival, sometimes we have to accept hostile, angry, disrespectful help. I wonder how others think about this and how they keep their equilibrium, a philosophical distance or perspective maybe, and either move on or are able to change the Helper’s minds. The compliance that makes us one of the good ones while we may be burning with fury. It is no different from what most of humanity has to go through and most of us will meet it as we age.

In contrast, how much I appreciate open-hearted kindness. Moments of being treated just regular, without fuss, being seen, heard, listened to, being a person. Those moments wherever we find them from friends, family, people in our communities, or strangers, are a healing antidote, for us to treasure & keep in our core, against the hatred of people whose cruelty we have to swallow. What helped last night? The kindness of a “just regular folks” bus driver acting decent. Chatting with someone about their baby on the elevator. Hip hop dancers on the train. Reading Mc’s bus poems. Art and culture and . . . I’d maybe call it manners . . . all indescribably precious.

Fabulous visit to Fruitvale BART station

Posted on by Liz

I set out on a sunny afternoon to Fruitvale BART. The station itself is aboveground, elevated, and kind of beautiful. It has glassed in sides that angle outward on either side of the tracks (there are 2 platforms) And a partial roof that comes out from the sides to shelter the platform, which have another angled …. thing… I can’t describe this, argh! Each platform has one side completely glassed in, and then the on side closer to the train there’s a little angled bit that comes down over the platform, with little bart-train-window shaped windows in it, so that from one platform while there is a train in the station, you look up, and those little windows make it look like a WHOLE OTHER TRAIN is floating in the sky above the real train! And, the entire glass part of the platform shelter looks kind of like a giant glass BART car! Is it just in my imagination or has anyone else noticed this amazingness?

On the ground floor I did have a look at a wall of tiles painted mostly by local schoolchildren.

Then I headed out to the plaza just outside the station entrance. Wow it’s so nice! There are little stands (veggies, fruit, caramel corn/lemonade, fancy shea butter soap, textiles, mostly guatemalan woven stuff) and then a nice plaza with a fountain, lots of seating, lots of places to get delicious food, pastries, ice cream. The library is also right there though the entrance is around the corner. I was hanging out outside eating my delicious cornmeal fried fish & chips (perfect) and just going, OK, why is it so damn nice here?! A family went by with some very excited little kids jumping up and down and i realized as t hey approached why the kids were excited – the dad had a bunny in a little soft hutch carrier. Another guy walked by a while later from the other direction with an african grey parrot in an ornate white iron cage on a handtruck. The parrot was upside down, squawking, and clearly having a blast. (For a while I owned an african grey and so I know what they are like!) People in the burger joint talked with me. Some random other lady conversed with me about hair in the nicest way. Another lady and I had a laugh about the bunny. So i was thinking OK this is also how 24th and Mission could be and even is sometimes but it always has more of an edge. But… but it **could**. Anyway, it also was refreshingly not full of young bankers looking bewildered as they eat a dusty bagel in front of a bored security guard (Montgomery station…. that plaza with the fake checkers behind the mechanics monument…. I’m looking at you).

While I was there a nearby high school must have been on lunch hour because the plaza was cheerfully full of teenagers. Can I just say also I ended up chatting with all sorts of people. A friendly public space. I went shopping for a bit and came back to have ice cream (coconut + mamey) from the shop inside Fruitvale Public Market. I hope that the plaza outside the Richmond station can someday be this pleasant – it has the potential to be.

The library was a nice place to work – I found a quiet corner with rocking chair and free wifi by the window overlooking where the trains pull in. And, after work I looked at the local history and Native American history section, found a book on my list to read too (The Ohlone of Central California: People at the Edge of the World, by Betty Morrow). It was short so I had a quick read through and took notes for my game project. The social justice section was strong in this library as you would expect. There was a nice shelf of cheap books for sale by the elevator up top, then below at the entrance a shelf of equally nice free books and a lot of bulletin boards.

Another little plaza to the.. west? is connected and has mosaic circles in the ground and on a large bench (a sun/moon face) and a beautiful mosaic archway.

Anyway as I wandered around kind of randomly I decided I love this neighborhood. I’ll be back to hang out!

From the southbound platform I looked for the Oscar Grant mural but could only see a half of a face sketched onto a wall across the street. That may not have been it? The station was under construction so I may have just not been able to see the mural. I remember his horrible murder like it was yesterday and did NOT realize that was TEN YEARS AGO. Y’all.

Index to all posts describing my BART station visits

Calle 24 Cultural Crime #9823468

Posted on by Liz

Really hating how the McDonald’s at 24th and Mission blasts classical music all hours of the day. It ruins the beautiful soundscape of both BART plazas which normally have several flavors of latin music going at once.

They’re doing it to discourage “loitering” but this is a public space specifically designed for people to enjoy being in! It’s extremely obnoxious – offensive!

I kind of get doing it at midnight but…. just no!