Off The List

 

After almost fifteen years, with only one less-than-mediocre (to put it mildly) viewing, I am off of the list for accessible housing for the city of Ottawa. 

About every two years or so, I get a letter asking me to update/keep my file and last year, I didn't. So yesterday, I received a letter notifying me that my file was closed.

I wasn't the least bit mad. In fact, it felt kind of liberating. Like a gigantic weight had been lifted off me. 

Sure it was a bit of a safety net, but between the viewing in 2019, COVID, and the years of waiting, I just got fed up with it.

I have the option to open another file, should I choose to. But, to be honest, there's a part of me that no longer really wants to live completely on my own. 

My family, off and on, have been considering a move in the near future. It might be a much better option, financially and security-wise, to live with them in a place that can benefit everyone. I've got resources to help out, and I'd probably have a lot more control with this than with the housing list.

Cheers!

Sun-Spider

 

I haven't read any Spider-Man comics in ages and barely pay attention to previews, spoilers, etc. so I only just found out about this searching for something else.

Last September, an issue of Into the Spiderverse introduced the Sun-Spider/Charlotte Webber, a Spider-character with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, a rare disorder and physical disability. She uses a wheelchair in her civilian identity and seems to shoots webs through crutches as a heroine, which I find to be insanely creative. Also, she appears to web up her chair and carry it on her back while swinging.

The story, which I may track down next visit to the comic shop, looks a little cliché, but I'm just blown away by this character and her originality.

Marvel Comics has made a major push recently to highlight and create more diverse characters but, with the exceptions of Hawkeye, Daredevil, and a few others, I've found their disabled characters lacking (especially new ones). So for me, Sun-Spider is a huge win, even if they barely use her (it's for a multiverse-type story).

And I normally don't get like this, but reading Spider-Man, disabled, and genetic disorder in the same paragraph totally made me cry.

Cheers!

Don't Hate the Player

 

When you have to regularly deal with a lot of services and service providers, especially ones that may not be as effective and efficient as you'd like them to be, it can be spectacularly hard not to hate on the people who are just doing their job.

In my case, this includes caseworkers/coordinators, PSWs, cab/bus drivers, administrative folks, nurses, and many more. 

I'm usually pretty good at not lashing out, but can slip up now and then and wind up being pretty rude. Something I'm not proud of, and need to keep reminding myself to work at. Homecare seems to be the current, repeat cause of quite a bit of frustration. The workers are excellent, but the system occasionally leaves a lot to be desired.

That seems to be a recurring theme with a lot of these. Great, even sympathetic people "on the ground", but some pretty broken systems. Unfortunate, really.

It can; however, be a good ongoing exercise in empathy.

Cheers

Housing Anti-versary

 

Not really anymore, but you get the point by now right?

Today marks twelve years since I first went on a waiting list for accessible housing in Ottawa. In roughly two months, it will be fourteen years since I went on a list for Barrhaven. 

Nearly fifteen years!

And only one viewing in all that time...

I no longer let this get to me like I used to, with recent talks with my parents, a financial planner, and mental health counsellor (among others) making the issue much easier to digest. But the memory did pop up on my Facebook feed and seemed blog-worthy.

Plus, anti-versary just sounds catchy and was begging to be used.

Cheers!

Tailgating at Camp

 

I was looking up writing prompts the other day to help shake off some writer's block, and found some related to music. Specifically one about a musical memory, a song that takes you back to a specific place/time.

I was in the car earlier today, driving home from an appointment, and I heard Boston's "More Than a Feeling." And that's what inspired this post.

That song, as it always does, instantly took me back to the amazing summer of 2000. I was fifteen and it was the last day of of a two-week Teen Independence Camp session at Camp Merrywood. A couple senior counsellors had gotten a pickup truck and filled the back with bags of chips and cases of pop, then parked it near our cabin. 

While the other cabins were playing Disney music or the latest top 40, the truck was blaring classic rock, "More Than a Feeling" being the song that still stands out in my mind.

Fun Friday post and a little trip down memory lane.

Cheers!