Category: disability

Triage day in a couple of ways

Posted on by Liz

Work had a lot of bug triage today among other things but then after work I went off to the 3rd of 6 classes in the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team training. It was triage day at NERT class too. We got a video on pandemic flu, the gist of which was, wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough (hilarious electronic music, closeups of a person coughing, freeze, zoom in, turn it to photo negative or some wacky filter effect, cut to other person giving serious side eye to the coughing person as if plague was leaping right the hell out of their mouth!) Then START – Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment. We went over some examples and then some people went out of the room to prep to be the rescue team and 20 others went up on stage (or whatever you call it at the front of a church) and arranged themselves artistically as disaster victims. The rescue team then came in to check them and tag them with triage tape (remembering to tear off a bit and pocket it for each person to record how many were triaged to where.) I will probably do some online practices for START triage (there seem to be lots of them!)

I enjoy the class as a sort of meta thing to think about, how they came up with the most basic possibly useful things to get across. Like 24 hours of basic training but for this very specific temporary purpose. What do you choose to teach? Is there any hope of cramming something useful into random people’s heads? Will it stick? In a disaster I think the more official first responders would want to mobilize whoever seemed useful and on the ball and was on the spot. But, between the first days of whatever it is, and the time when Red Cross/National Guard or whoever get there, maybe this program becomes useful, and/or, maybe it attracts and sucks in the sort of people who want to help and meddle but might without some direction be more likely to rush in and get killed. So it serves that purpose too (to kind of soak up those people.) It’s also interesting to think about which principles from this training are applicable in general, in less extreme circumstances, as … assessing a situation and basic leadership skills I suppose.

Humorous incident, which I will mildly obscure in the world’s longest paragraph, no one patted me THIS TIME (the training is full of nice church ladies who like to pat a wheelchair user and fuss about them pointlessly) but during the 10 minute break I laid down in the little nook of a pew where I was sitting with Danny and Ada and my feet on Ada’s lap, reading stuff on my phone and playing pokemon (feeling tired from my long day and because I have a sinus headache) I knew this would be likely to happen but it doesn’t make it any more fun when it does, one of the Nice Ladys came wittering up to “check if I was okay and needed any help” OK so, number one, I’m sentient and know if I need something or not and would do something about it if I did; number two I’m obviously there with my family and what kind of assholes would they be to just like, ignore me if I were … fainting or dying or something? In actuality she was partly bothered that I was doing something a bit unusual that I should not be doing (lying down in the pew) and partly just unable to deal with her own basic discomfort for my being there at all, which is super obvious and annoying to me but not always visible to others. And she wanted also to perform her role of authority figure in some way, at me, as a result. Like the other lady who kept patting me the first two days (who hate-whispered “you’re WELcome!” at me when I didn’t act right when she told me my bag was on the ground or something – which I actually did say thank you but i didn’t like, SMILE I guess, because I was recoiling from her touch) she didn’t like that I didn’t respond correctly (with the right sort of performative gratitude and kowtowing and probably also not the right sort of self deprecating middle class white lady femininity) Because I kinda looked her up and down a little bit too long before saying, “Well you’re certainly super ready for an emergency!” with chirpy sarcasm. “I just had to make sure that you’re alright blah blah” (Yes I understand I’m being scolded.) “I’m just lucky you didn’t whip out a tourniquet!” and I start cracking up. “Witter witter witter twitter whisp oh well *breathes heavily* it’s just so GREAT that you’re HERE and THANK you for BEING here and we UNLOCKED the DOOR for you over by the RAMP this time I mean we are really GLAD to have you HERE, THANKS” (Remembering Suzette Haden Elgin’s explanations of that speech emphasis pattern as hostility.) Yes… yes i’m sure it took like twelve committee meetings to achieve that dangerous miracle of unlocking the side door which the 15 year old independently went in to unlock for me the first two nights of class; it took about 3 seconds to do… I waited a few beats too long again to let her just work it all out of her system and finally said “Yup well thank you for organizing things.” I mean…. go thank all the other people in here! Fuck… this is why I never like to be part of anything organized unless it is a bunch of fucked up anarchists.

But I am great in a disaster, so go figure. Hope the patting committee spins its wheels for like the next year trying to build Awareness of Helping The Disabled. (Too tired to come up with hilarious acronym for it.)

The firefighters and EMTs on the other hand are just great. A+ for them. They don’t act weird. They have probably met a wheelchair user before and had a normal human conversation.

The circle of life on the bus

Posted on by Liz

So I was waiting for the 51A bus in the rain in the dark with some other folks and was super happy when the bus pulled up and it was near empty and the driver let down the ramp without any weirdness or fuss. There was another guy in the front of the bus sitting on the other side. The bus driver got out some big old straps. I thanked her and said I would rather not, and didn’t need them. She said she would have to call her supervisor because it was policy that she had to restrain my wheelchair, or I would have to get off the bus. She was nice about it and I just kind of nodded like, OK…. and said I had been riding buses in wheelchairs for many years and go ahead and call.

The guy across started yelling at me during this exchange, from almost the first moment, that I was a bitch, an asshole, a cocksucker, a goddamned bitch and he hopes I die young.

At that point I stared back at him and said it was too late for that since I’m already 50. (OK, well, 49 and a half.) The driver told him to shut up a few times and told him he should not call me out of my name. By that time we had driven off because her supervisor told her to tell me that, should I be injured because of not being restrained on the bus, they could not assume any liability. Thanks. OK. I agree! We drove down Broadway towards downtown.

Then the guy said someone should kill me. Staring right into my eyes he said “I’ll kill you myself you bitch!” Driver finally told him to shut up or she would make him get off but that just made him madder. At some point he started just mouthing or whispering his threats while flipping me off.

I felt very glad I was not strapped to the bus while I was a couple of feet away from this horrible man.

Was I married? He bet I was not. I’m too nasty! Too much of a bitch! He’s been married 4 times! He was in Vietnam! Also, he’ll kill me! I need to die! BITCH!!! You’re a BITCH!

It was amazing how much venom he got into the word “Bitch”!!!!

Let’s take a moment to quote the beautiful words of the immortal JOREEN,

Bitches must form together in a movement to deal with their problems in a political manner. They must organize for their own liberation as all women must organize for theirs. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.

Thank you Joreen!!! You give me strength!

At one point I said, You know what, we all have the right to ride this public bus, me, everyone, and you too even though you’re a sad and crazy old guy yelling at me, you get to ride the bus. That’s it. I was shaking with rage and fear but that’s what I said!

So that went on for a little while and I mostly didn’t say anything more, and I kept my camera on and pointed at him in case things heated up and my other hand on my folded up cane that I was half sitting on, which is quite sharp on the folded ends, carbon fiber edges, and which honestly I was ready to drive into a motherfucker’s throat if he came at me, and then he got off the bus while humbly thanking the bus driver and apologizing to her and everyone else on the bus FOR WHAT A BITCH I WAS SORRY TO EVERYONE EXCEPT HER THAT BITCH and now he was gonna go to Grocery Outlet. Bitch.

Wild!

Then, like, all the women on the bus came up to me and patted me and were sweet and concerned to check in that I was ok and say they were so sorry I had to go through that. And stuff. They were very nice but I was so mad I found it hard to talk any more. I actually thought then, Oh, they were more scared than I was. Until he got off. Huh.

My BART ride and extra bus ride home were peaceful. I then twittered cathartically about my experience all the way home, at some point realizing I should put on headphones and listen to the loudest possible riot grrrl and punk music. Thank you 7 Year Bitch, L7, Tribe 8, Crashprez, The Soviettes, MDC, Black Flag, and J Church. Very healing to the soul.

So, I am still super mad, and I so wished I could yell at that guy (more than the little bit of pissy backtalk that slipped out from me in the moment ) And also I had the thought that actually he did cross a line legally and it was all recorded on the bus camera which is easily obtainable through FOIA request. Like, he did threaten me and stuff but… Actually I just wanted to go home and recognized that my truly obscene amounts of privilege did not need to be whipped out just here. I disagreed with how the bus driver handled it but also figured that she probably saw this guy every day and she had a notion of whether he was really going to be violent or not. And I still had a part of me that didn’t want to agitate to kick an old guy out in the drizzling rain any more than I didn’t want to get off the bus myself and wait another 25 minutes for the next one. Anyway so I did not escalate and didn’t ask the bus driver to kick him off. She really was super calm and chill about the whole thing and I admire de-escalating in general. But, she could have – should have maybe – protected me a little more, I think. I’m going to be thinking about how I could have tried to set a boundary myself with the guy that I would have felt better with than what I went with which was “me shutting up while he yelled insults at me”.

I’m not so fragile! I’m mnot going to like, be fucked up that some asshole yelled at me! Assholes have been yelling at me on buses since I was 10 years old! They called me a faggot and a bitch and spit in my face and I cherish the memory of some guy who told me on Facebook 35 years later that he cherishes the memory of tiny 11 year old me double flipping off everyone on the bus clutching my bookbag to my chest and screaming shrilly, “FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!” I cherish my fierceness! I am a little badass inside! I don’t like being yelled at! It freaks me the fuck out! I would never tolerate it in my everyday life, not for a moment from anyone at all! Obviously, I’m fucking bothered or I wouldn’t be writing this hours later. But you know what….. WHATEVER. You know what is the best fierceness – it is maintaining your vulnerability. I don’t have to not be bothered, it is right to be upset, inside, it lets me defend my vulnerable self, which I assert to the world.

Anyway, I got off the bus pretty near my house and went across the street to see if this guy who lives on the corner was there because, he got all his stuff stolen again, and I got him some warm things but the shoes the VA gave him were two sizes too small, he took them because, half way on they kept his feet warmer and drier. He has a wheelchair but cannot push himself in it very well as his hands are also messed up but he gets along pretty ok. Whatever I asked him his shoe size the other day and realized it is the same size as my brother in law, and i was at him and my sister’s house all today, so I had these shoes to give him. He was happy about the shoes but he was also drinking and a bit messed up. I realized suddenly that between the bus stop and his niche on the corner I had seen a blanket and some bags and a backpack. Bob do you have your backpack. Was that your backpack over there on the other block? Oh no does it have an american flag on it? I went to see. Yes…. so… I brought him all his stuff. I think it just fell off the back of his chair as he was going along and he was too messed up to notice. No one had even gone through it. He kissed my hand drunkenly and invited me to sit with him. I went home but felt like so much more human because I took all the meanness and transmuted it into kindness and being decent to other people which is literally JUST WHAT HAS TO BE DONE. What is to be done? Do the work in front of you and be decent about it people. Like I said on the twitters Kindness is punk as fuck, and this bitch will bring you a boot party where it’s a present of boots that fit your feet and keep them warm and dry. Motherfucker, you will take these social services and this transformative justice and this example of nontoxic masculinity, OR ELSE. P.S. Fuck you, asshole!

How weird is it that I went from hating on one old guy to helping out another one. It is really true, that helping someone out is something to be grateful for, because they trusted you enough to let you do it.

I’d like to thank this cat, this nice loud riot grrrl music, this feminist manifesto from the year I was born, this soothing mint tea, and this excellent marijuana for the massive improvement of my evening.

Also my nice spouse who spent all weekend and all day since 5am trying to like save Europe from Article 13 and Article 11 and thus save the entire fucking Internet. And then who brought me the soothing mint tea.

The rest of the day was super nice, I spent it working while my sister worked on her stuff, and we showed each other physical therapy exercises and had tacos. When I stopped working I got to show my nephew how to write a little Inform7 and then I left him playing Zork.

Good night all.

Progress on BART interactive fiction

Posted on by Liz

I threw out the first prototype trying to write a train simulation from scratch and started over using Emily Short’s Inform7 extension Transit System. Now, I have two working train lines, the Red Line going from Daly City to Richmond, and the Yellow Line going from Daly City to Antioch. I could not quite figure out how to make the trains go north and then turn around and come south again and still be able to tell the direction of the travel from the platform. I’m leaning towards having separate north and south lines for each train, arriving at their correct platforms within the station.

Then, because I went all through the 24th St Mission station (the agent kindly let me in free to take notes!) I thought more about the level of detail for the game. I could stick with a very simple model or could make it very walkable in a way that means by playing the game you’d learn the geography. Leaning towards starting simple but having a placeholder for each station, then expanding the station descriptions and maps gradually as I go.

I also implemented (early this morning!) player choice for mobility and sightedness. I may write something for cane use but I sort of don’t want to write service dog, maybe because I know almost nothing about them but also because I am not super fond of dogs. It could be an expansion later. But, I’m figuring out how to make the choices impact each room, thing, and the player experience. I may write a “tap” command that would work like an extra sense in the Touchy Feely sensory extension. I could replace “look” with “tap” for example but I’m leaning towards, “look” will say something either practical or snarky (randomly). The practical would encourage the blind or low vision character to listen, tap (with cane), feel, smell. I have to figure out what “examine” would be understood as (feel for objects, tap for a room, maybe, and “listen attentively” if it’s an NPC). I ended up last night late reading blind wheelchair user forums for thoughts on handling blind/low vision plus manual or powerchair use together in descriptions of rooms or actions.

Coming this weekend an initial github repo with (playable) early versions of the game for testing. There will not be much game there yet but the mechanisms will work and you can board trains and walk (or roll) around.

Notes on 24th street station, I spent my lunch hour there yesterday taking notes and drawing maps. I sat one bench over from the Raccoon McDonalds guy while I ate my burrito and scribbled in my notebook in the Northeast plaza. A lady was selling tamales there – we smiled at each other a lot as i ate my delicious burrito – I saw someone with a chihuahua in a sweater, Lots of music in the background including, in El Farolito, some mariachi guys who wandered in with guitars, accordion, and a big speaker on a hand truck, the murals, rather a lot of pigeons, the tall washingtonia palms, the chinese donut place, silver stone coffee tea cafe, the Southwest corner plaza and its lively market scene, construction going on in the concourse level, saxophone player in the stairwell, the lovely arched ceilings that make me think of how some airport architecture is, like a hangar or wings, the abstract concrete bas reliefs in both majestic stairwells and the strange ridging of the walls (for decoration? for acoustics?) Anti pigeon nails everywhere in high up places. Of course the elevators…. And the platform with its brown and orange tile, its mysterious locked rooms, its beige “contact agent” phones which I longed to pick up but did not quite dare.

The game will have magic, and time travel, by the way! Working title, “Transitory”.

Well that escalated quickly

Posted on by Liz

Going home tonight down Guerrero from the NERT training, I paused on the sidewalk as a couple of cars were coming out of the driveway by Mitchell’s Ice Cream. One pulled out onto Guerrero and the other started to inch out. I was waiting for them both to leave before crossing the driveway in the dark. The second car’s driver noticed me and motioned for me to cross in front of him. But, he was pulled up so far that to get by I would have had to go on the uncomfortably angled part of the driveway as it went down into the street.

So I waved him on, smiling and nodding as if to say thanks for the thought but no… and waited. There was no traffic at all at 9:30pm. So he could just go and be done with it.

He shook his head and started to back up his car a little bit, maybe a foot or so, but it still wasn’t really enough and I decided what I usually do, which is: do I want to wait 10 seconds for this car to move along, or do I want to put myself in front of a 2 ton death machine in the dark when someone could come along and rear end it, etc? I mean, why bother? Am I in a hurry? No and I’m even comfortably sitting down in my nice powerchair.

So I shook my head and waved at the guy again and said “It’s ok I’ll just go after you” and he shook HIS head and started to roll down the window and told me to go on and I said “No I really don’t have any interest in being in front of your vehicle I’ll just go after you go.” He looked angry and started to roll forward while still telling me I should go! As he pulled out into the street he yelled “BITCH!”

Yeah that guy’s heart was definitely in the right place! He was so kind! So charitable! So thoughtful! Too bad his head was up his own ass!

I need this new project like I need another blog entry

Posted on by Liz

That is not at all, and VERY MUCH THANKS!!!!!11!!

New project idea, combine BART riding project with my Inform7 obsession and make a ridiculous BART simulator text adventure. I have got a single train line working by lifting it from the examples in documentation. It’s so satisfying!

Not sure how accurate I’m going to get though I could imagine putting a whole day’s schedule into this. The Red Line comes first since I tend to be aiming for it to visit my sister. I’m so amused — already you can get into the Richmond northbound train, then wait, then it pulls out of the 24th St. Mission station. Wait or look again and it pulls into Civic Center! Bwahahahaha! I’m dying here.

I’m going to make each station and make the player play a wheelchair user and ride in the elevators full of pee, because I’m evil.

Two blocks!

Posted on by Liz

Holy cats! I just walked two blocks and back. It was a little sooner than I should have; I meant to build up to doing that over the next week or two. Going that far was exciting, though I am limping very very slowly.

I will now slather myself with Voltaren and strap ice packs onto my ankles, which are freaking out. Tiny muscles are twitching all over my legs.

Tomorrow afternoon my plan is to go to the warm pool to walk around some more.

Experimental walk

Posted on by Liz

It might seem odd that I got a powerchair and now am walking a little better than before. This might be from the better seating angle and back support or maybe an overall improvement from my stricter approach to daily physical therapy. (Gentle tai chi, eccentric loading, gentle core strengthening, and some stretches as I try to re-condition from the summer of illness/surgery.) In any case, I tried walking a block and back on nearly (but not quite) level ground. I’ve been planning to do this for a while.

The hilly part at the end of the block was more difficult, and my “bad” leg started to feel very strange, wobbly, and painful in specific places, as I think the slope uses muscles that never get any use. By the time I was heading back I started leaning on the wall for support as well as my cane. So it was harder than I thought it would be. It seems best to take this slowly, maybe even keeping it to half a block and back for the first week. I’m also not adding it to my “must do this daily” list yet – it is on the “optional” list until I know if it’s something I can sustain. If willpower could do it I would be kicking so much ass right now, I lie here sometimes and dream of how I will walk the 1 block down the hill and sit on the bench by the bus stop in the sun, and back, which is nothing to anyone else but Mount Everest to me. Must not be goal driven, but try things anyway and see how it goes.

(And anyway no one should climb Mt. Everest it is a gross and exploitative and selfish imperialist endeavor. Go do some manual labor instead that contributes to society.)

Enjoying all the paths

Posted on by Liz

Took a bus and BART to my sister’s in Oakland last night, then went to a party, then BART home before midnight. Once again I was struck by how easy it was for me, when it was clear it would be 20 minutes before the next late-night bus, to just wheel on home from BART without even noticing the ride, because my new powerchair is so awesome and comfy. Though, an extra mile or two per hour of speed would be so perfect for times like that.

Then this morning I did the journey again. I saw the guy who lives on the street a couple of blocks from my house and we had a chat and then he followed me to the bus, getting on through the back door to flip the seat up for me very sweetly. An older lady on the bus got off at the same stop and told me how she was once stuck in the 24th St. elevator for 5 hours and now is too afraid to use the elevator.

At the 24th St. station (and I think the 16th too) I always marvel at the strangely inconvenient path for (wheeled) elevator users. The elevator lets you off a few steps from a ticket entry point, the midpoint of the concourse. But the only wide ticket entry point suitable for wheelchairs is at the very far end of the station. Then, you have to go all the way to the extreme other end of the concourse to the 2nd elevator to get to the train platform. If they would put a wider entrance at one of the entry points in the middle of the station it would cut 5 minutes out of my navigation of that station. No one cares and I don’t really care since I am motorized but if I were in a manual chair, it would matter since it is a long extra distance to push yourself! Still, seeing it be so non-optimal bugs me every time I’m in there!

On BART I noticed an ad for some bed sheets that promised the sheets are good for more than just sleeping. The picture in the ad showed three people’s feet, with socks on, friskily entwined as if they were having a fabulous, but dorky (naked except for their socks) threesome. Why you would want to be under a sheet in that situation is beyond me but maybe it helps them forget they’re wearing their socks during their strange orgy apparently happening on an ugly beige 70s shag rug. The socks were somewhat masculine coded for one pair, more polka-hearts femmy and with smaller feet in another, and then the 3rd pair of socks seemed more ambiguously gendered (yellow, medium size, non-hairy) so I guess that is a win for bisexual threesomes everywhere, even on a giant ad on the BART. (P.S. to the ad author: no one says “throuple” in real life.)

frisky advertisement

A man sitting under the amazing ad for kink-positive sheets reacted with miming exaggerated shock when I moved my right leg to wiggle my foot and ankle around as if he had just caught me in my extreme naughtiness of faking the need for a wheelchair. Dude! You caught me! I can move my legs! I’m totally not paralyzed! He stared at me, grinned, stuck out his leg, and waggled his foot around while raising his eyebrows. It being 9am after New Years Eve I didn’t really have the energy to engage so I played Threes on my phone and didn’t look up any more till he got off the train at Oakland West.

I varied my trip it a little by going to 19th Street Oakland and taking an AC Transit bus. My sister was saying that downtown would not be “exciting” on New Year’s Day, but it was just because it was so empty, fresh, and sparkly, and also because I am not often there and I like to explore all the pathways to get to a place at my leisure when there’s no time pressure, which comes in handy sometimes in the future when I will appreciate knowing exactly where the elevator and bus are at 19th St.

Downtown Oakland looked so pretty, clean from the rain, everything looking green as well, art deco buildings all shining in the morning light. I was at the bus stop near the Oscar Grant mural, across from a building with coppery green panels, amazing windows with sort of pointy arrow motif, and these black tiled and scuplted columns at either end. It was just gorgeous! I could hug that whole building!

Oakstop Building

I just had a look to see if I could find info about it online. LocalWiki to the rescue! It is the Bowles Building at 1715 Broadway. As always when I come across LocalWiki I think of when I just randomly met one of its creators, Philip Neustrom, in Ritual Roasters in like 2005. I was sitting across from him on some couches near the window, noticed his excellent laptop stickers & asked what localwiki was. From our conversation I ended up inviting him and Arlen to speak at Wiki Wednesday and I think later on in some similar wiki-ish context I met Britta Gustafson and Marina Kusko who both love wikis and hackerspaces and are awesome.

At my sister’s I kibbitzed on a game of Settlers of Cataan, ate steak and some gingerbread with apple butter, showed some details of nethack to my nephew, and demoed Inform7 for my sister who immediately started messing with it. It was fun to see them both jump in. When I left, my nephew was gleefully falling through trapdoors in the Gnomish Mines and I’m about to play some more nethack with him today. At the party at Susie’s house nearby I ran into a lot of people I knew. Polythene Pam was playing when I arrived & people were singing along to a song that was incredibly familiar but that I don’t know the words to. I had one of those pre-crone moments where you see someone dressed in YOUR EXACT OUTFIT FROM 25 YEARS AGO and freak out a little in a happy way because they are SO ADORABLE and ‘my’ cultural aesthetic has not died. Seriously this girl was in my same outfit and even in my haircut and middle-of-the-nose-ring and it made me want to cry and also want to hug her but that would have been weird. Sat with Katherine and Nabil, we petted Nabil’s reversible sequin pants (!!!!) talked with Emily a bit about how strange chronic pain or health issues can be, I met some people who were super nice, then I ended up talking with Asheesh in the kitchen, Yoz showed up, Gina showed up just as I was leaving early for my middle of the night journey home.

On BART a guy started yelling a lot but the woman with him (wife? sister?) was composed and philosophical. She rolled her eyes a little once in a while or patted his knee calmingly and acceptingly. I moved up to be right across from him because I thought he was not dangerous, just agitated, and I figured I could apply my de-escalating presence usefully (or deflect his attention from the teenagers he was yelling at) He had a few themes and varied them from Jesus, the bible, cops who kill people and their families which is tragic, homosexuals (could not tell if positive or negative) and how he loves us all (even if he sounds angry) and wants the best for us. I listened and actually so did a drunk guy nearby though he was more laughing at the yelling man, but he kindly called him brother and agreed with him I think doing the same de-escalation technique as I was. The woman next to him in an elegant headwrap carrying a cane then sort of cajoled him off the train. Mostly I felt worried about him and not the people around him (you could easily see someone taking him the wrong way and calling cops on him) So I wish them luck and hope they got home safe.

Home with quite a lot of motoring around, at 30% battery, wishing for just a bit more hefty of a powerchair battery or even an entire spare battery as insurance. Instead I am going to get an extra charger cord and carry it on the chair at all times in a little pouch. Though I don’t usually name cars and wheelchairs or my own body parts, I have decided to call the chair ‘Mr. Beep’ (borrowed from Ahmet the Blind Captain‘s kayak navigational system, because it’s just such a great name and makes me happy to say it).

Visit to the SF Lighthouse

Posted on by Liz

As part of the CripTech symposium I went along on a tour of the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired a couple of weeks ago. Chris Downey, an architect who is on their Board of Directors, kindly gave us the tour and the benefit of his insight into the architectural design of the space.

The lobby was designed to feel welcoming to people who might be coming to the Lighthouse for the first time, or really for anyone. It’s a spacious central space in the complex, connecting through a large, open, glass walled stairwell to the floors above and below. It’s possible to hear people talking or laughing from other areas so you are aware of social activity nearby in the space. I was really impressed with the auditory environment, as I really could feel the warmth of “other people are here” without it being distracting or echoing in any way. The walls were lined in some kind of sound baffle type of felt (I think) with a design of wooden slats overlaid that affect the acoustics of the space and are also quite beautiful.

After being there all morning, the street and then the food court we had lunch in were noticeably inhospitable in their acoustics. I realized I felt more relaxed and able to focus while we were on the tour of the building.

There is plenty of natural light, and also bright but not overwhelming overhead lights in long strips going north to south for extra orientation cues for partially sighted people. There were also interesting “light walls” with big glowing panels, and sliding controls which anyone can adjust to play with the color of the light.

stairwell with wall of windows

The flooring is set up so that there are navigable edges for shorelining through the hallways. Travel paths are polished concrete, and seating or other areas are carpeted with metal edges to give more information to cane users about navigating the space. The stairs have distinctive kinds of wood (I think different at the landings so that there is a different sound from a cane tap) and bright but not overly reflective metal edges for high contrast (again, good for people with partial vision).

One especially beautiful touch – the handrails around the stairwell were the softest, silkiest wood with an unusual and nice-feeling shape, slightly concave on the side facing the travel path, and then curved in a slightly irregular way – not a half-circle or half-oval but a more organic feeling shape to fit a hand. If you visit, don’t miss feeling the handrails.

Here’s a picture of Chris demonstrating another thoughtful and elegant touch: the reception area countertops have subtle niches in the edge of the counter to allow a white cane to rest there without slipping to the floor. The photo also shows the wooden acoustic slats that line the wall and the thin metal boundary between concrete travel pathway and carpeted reception area.

Chris Downey

We saw the event rooms, training kitchen, science lab which I think is for making things and doing electronics or computer workshops, and a little maker space with large braille embossing printers and 3-D printers. The art all around the space was really neat, a lot of it from the collection of Donald Sirkin, the guy who left over 100 million dollars to the Lighthouse in his will. There was also a memorial wall talking about Sirkin and his life. (On my to-do list: write a Wikipedia page for Sirkin.)

As a wheelchair user I also noticed the spacious design, since there were several wheelchair users along on the tour we would get into a few narrow hallways, but each time that happened and there was a sort of bottleneck, I was able to go around the circumference of that section of the building and circle back to the “front” of the tour. There were points at each end and at the middle of the building on each floor where the hallways opened up to wider spaces so there were opportunities to regroup and the space didn’t feel claustrophobic. I appreciate not feeling trapped and being able to move freely around a space!

A few years ago I wrote a short text adventure for an unconference space, along with obtaining a tactile map of the interior of the building. It was a simple hack job to give the layout of the rooms. I started thinking through ways to make a much better one for the Lighthouse. So, a textual game where you can walk through a space and develop a feel for its geography and layout. To be done well, this should integrate a holistic impression of the different spaces and how they can be traversed or explored, rather than some straight “visual description” information it would need to include the ways that a space can be experienced by someone blind or with partial vision.

Playing with similar ideas a bit in Inform7, in writing “room” descriptions from the point of view of a wheelchair user, which for me, includes not just an awareness of slopes but of the feel of surfaces and whether they are pleasant (marble is amazing) or jarring (literally). One or two words can indicate that “you” the reader are wheeled. I think that can have an interesting effect on game play. For the Lighthouse, I might try just describing the lobby and a couple of connected rooms as an experiment. Since I am not blind or vision impaired I would need to pair up with someone or do lots of interviewing folks to do this project well if I did it for real! My 4-room experiment of being in a sort of fantasy world game setting, on wheels, gave me a little shiver of recognition to play through, even though I had just written it myself and it was not a surprise be in a garden and then to see the words “You roll into the gazebo.” Yet it was still a surprise, a pleasantly non-alienating one. Is there a word for de-alienating in a healing way, that makes you realize the ways you are alienated (from yourself or from participation or acknowledgement) in default representations? It made me think that representing “you” the player of interactive fiction as disabled along different axes (as living and experiencing reality in particular ways) could be a really powerful game.

Thanks again to Chris and to the Lighthouse and to Karen Nakamura who invited me to CripTech! I particularly enjoyed the tour and am still thinking hard about aesthetics and universal design & how our concept of whose experiences are important affect design & engineering decisions. A beautiful example of technology in action to make a pleasant and functional environment. If we do get a San Francisco Disability Cultural Center someday, I hope it will take the example of the Lighthouse and follow their lead!