Skip to main content

HAWMC Day 19: Best Dinner Party Ever

When I first read today's prompt to pick my five ideal dinner guests, my first thought was, "Easy. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. Done." While this dinner would be pretty much the highlight of my life, however, my choice does not have a whole lot to do with Crohn's.  So, since this is a blog about Crohn's Disease, let's see if I can find five people that would be a little more relevant to my cause, eh? 

I'm keeping Tina Fey, though. She's my number one. She doesn't have a chronic disease that I know of, but I know in my heart of hearts that she's a cool enough lady to be able to chat about poo without blushing. I mean, it's Tina-Freaking-Fey. If you need more explanation than that, you obviously haven't been paying attention and I urge you to read her book while watching a marathon of 30 Rock. Right now. I'll wait.

My number two is Robert McRuer, the author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. I read Crip Theory for my senior research project, and it pretty much changed my life. I'd honestly just love to sit and listen to McRuer talk for a while and this seems like an opportune time to do that. He writes about disability, I'm disabled, that makes this a relevant choice, right? Right.

Number three is my Grammy. She died when I was thirteen. We were pretty close. I'd just really love for her to know what I'm up to and that I turned out alright. I want to her to know that I'm still dancing. I want her to know about this blog. I think she would like it.

Number four would probably be Alice Sheppard of AXIS Dance. I've talked about AXIS before, but I don't know if I ever mentioned that I got the chance to see one of their dancers (Alice Sheppard) speak at a conference about a year ago. She was one of the most engaging speakers I've ever seen and she had some fantastic insight into the intersection of disability and dance. I would love to have a chance to pick her brain.

Finally, my number five. This is kind of a weird one. Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee. I know, I know. Bear with me. I've been really, really frustrated with the representation of disability on Glee for a while now. (If I hear the word handi-capable one more time, Imma scream.) I know that they mean well, but that is not an excuse. I'd honestly just love to sit and have a chat with the dude about the language that should and should not be used in reference to disabled bodies. And if these other super cool people are there to lend their perspectives as well, so much the better.

Welp, that's my five. Who would you choose?


Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 4, 2012 at 12:10 AM

    You are a girl after my own heart. Can I come to your dinner party? Suffice it to say, you had me at Tina-Freakin'-Fey. But the rest of your insightful picks push it over the edge. Obviously I never met your Grammy, but just your mention of her brought up fond memories of my own. So, if I get to bring a dinner guest, I think I'd like to bring her. Or maybe Zooey Deschanel. Love your writing style. It makes me want to sing, dance, and be merry!
    ~Tosha

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Exciting News!!

Alright folks, something really and truly exciting is in the works over here. I've been asked to contribute to this really awesome new channel that will center solely around Crohn's Disease. WEGO Health  is this really amazing online community and they're currently launching a series of channels that deal with different diseases/illnesses/ect. For those of you who aren’t familiar with WEGO Health, they’re a different kind of social media company – with a mission to empower the top 10% of online health social media contributors to connect with one another and with healthcare companies. They call those folks Health Activists – but they’re people like me and you who are community leaders, bloggers, on Facebook, on Twitter, leading online forums, and usually “all of the above.” As part of their mission, WEGO Health has recently launched a new Health Activist video platform called WEGOHealth.tv where they are presenting the authentic voice of the online community in the form...
4 comments
Read more

HAWMC Day 2: The Quote(s) That Changed My Life

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. How, in my life, there are a series of identifiable moments when someone said something and it opened up the world in an entirely new way. These are often called "aha moments" in the feminist community. I've had a lot of these moments. Not all of them have been these incredible moments of clarity that allow me to better identify and speak about the injustices of the world, many of them have been much more personal. Instead of these sweeping realizations, they are slight awakenings. This does not mean that they have had a smaller impact, however. In fact, I think these  moments, more than the grand moments, change the way I live my everyday life. I've had a few of these moments in relation to Crohn's, and I know I'm bending the prompt (to pick a quote and write about it) a little bit here, but I'm having a hard time choosing which of these moments was more important to developing my understanding of what...
3 comments
Read more

I'm My Own Woman! But could I get a little help...

I went to this panel/performance at Access Living  last Friday. It was on the intersections between disability, race and community. Very interesting. There was one thing that the moderator said, though, that really struck me. It's something I've read and taken note of before, but for some reason hearing it in this context really drove the point home. He made the point that disability and disease challenge the idea of "the individual." In American society, we're pretty much taught to take care of ourselves. Individualism is extremely important to the way we conceptualize our bodies and our minds. The "I" is at the center of the American dream. If I work hard and educate myself, I can rise through the ranks of society. So, what happens to this concept when a body must depend on others to perform certain tasks, or even to make it through the day? This is more of an issue for some types of disability than others. With Crohn's, for instance, as long a...
4 comments
Read more