Showing Off...

I decided to write today and yesterday. It went well, and I am surprised that I was actually able to produce something substantial. I'm about ready to get ready for bed and sleep, and I'm procrasinating completing the final touches on two minor projects.

It's easy to know what I am capable of doing, but it's frightening showing what I'm capable of doing to others. I'm always terrified that one stupid error will throw a wrench in the project and change their perspectives from "she can do it" to "what in the world was I thinking in having her work for us?"

I guess that I have two three goals for tonight:

1. Do research on a 990 form and estimate how much money to ask  a foundation for;
2. E-Mail the work that I've been doing to that same npo with the time invested in completing the work;
3. Finish completing the work due for the media workshop classes I'm taking through Bread and Roses Community Foundation.

I hate writing

I'm supposed to be writing, but I hate it. I cannot think at all and validate  why an organization needs office supplies. Ahh!! I was supposed to do this last weekend, and I didn't...

Why did I tell people I can write?

I think that I lied to them....

My First ADAPT National Action

Last week I went to Washington, D.C. for my first ADAPT Nationals Action. It was powerful, moving, emotionally, and physically draining.

Before I begin with story time, let's clarify what ADAPT is for those who do not know. ADAPT is an organization that uses nonviolence civil disobedience to ensure that civil rights for individuals with disabilities are protected. Majority of the folks in ADAPT have disabilities, and the saying "Nothing about us without us" holds true.

ADAPT also supports the Community Choice Act, which ensures that people with disabilities have the choice to receive services in their homes. (Under our current system of Medicaid, people with disabilities are only entitled to nursing home care.) 

Back to the story....

There are two versions of this story. Let's tell the 'nice' version first. 

Version 1: I was in D.C. for six days in April. Stayed at a nice hotel. Ate really good food. Drank fancy wine. Met awesome friends. Danced. 

As you can see, though, there is no plot. No conflict. Nothing exciting is going on. It just sounds like an awesome time.

Why it was, but plots and conflicts always make stories interesting. 

Do you want more? Why I believe so!

Version 2:


ADAPT Nationals consisted of 1 day of fundraising,  2 days of direct action, and 1 day of legislative visits. One morning consisted of us being out of the door at 5am.

I was in a group of 400 individuals who were fighting for their rights to remain in their homes and not live in nursing homes. We participated in rallies and actions to ensure that the Olmstead Act, which is supposed to stop the institutionalization of those with disabilities is actually enacted. (A Supreme Court decision means nothing unless the states actually abide by it.) We also visited politicians and did a surprise visit on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a hotel to get  support for the Community Choice Act. We surprised Nancy so much that she decided to drive away!

I learned many lessons on the trip:

I learned how to operate a bullhorn and became surprised that when I talked in it and led chants, people actually responded. It still is scary to know that my voice can hold so much power and people actually listen to me. It makes me feel like a warrior.

I also learned that people with disabilities hold much more power than the general public realizes. I believe that it's because we're all about the cure and fixing the individual and not about the acceptance of the individual and listening to him/her.

I also saw first hand the importance of home and community based services for individuals in the home. It was moving to hear people who were either in nursing homes or in danger of being placed without their permission in nursing homes say "nursing homes are death camps" and "down with nursing homes, up with attendant care." I also heard stories how people were denied services and had to move to get the necessary services so that they can be independent.

Finally, I learned that much more needs to be done in fighting for and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities. We need to put pressure on our politicians and make them hear the stories from people who are in danger of being placed in nursing homes or reside in them. We also need to change society's attitude that disabilities are a human condition that need to be cured. We need acceptance of disabilities.

It'll take time to do this. It will be done through education, actions, and making people see the issue firsthand. 

Will I do ADAPT Nationals again? Yes!

Olmstead Decision

 ADAPT

Sleep is what my body needs

I'm supposed to be doing research for one of the two organizations I do grantwriting consultancy work for. To tell you the truth, I feel lazy and just want to sleep. I don't want to work.
It seems as if this week has been all about the sleep. I don't know why my body craves it, but it does. I'm hoping that it's a cycle and my body is healing itself and gearing up for fun again.
It has to be. The weather is beautiful. There is sun. People are out. And all I want to do is sleep...

Is Music the new silence?

I would love to be able to quiet my mind and become used to the silence. I can't, though, and I'm always listening to npr, wxpn, or watching frontline or hulu on my computer.

I sometimes wonder if it's just me. I don't believe so...it's my generation. It's our need to feel connected even when we are alone. (I also think that's why my generation loves to text.)

If my generation is like this, I wonder what other generations will be like....

Will they learn that their thoughts and feelings can comfort them?

Will they be like me and believe that they have to hear another voice, see an image, view that text to be a part of this world?



Frontline: digital nation: music is the new silence

Wendell Potter: Cigna Exec who told it like it was in health care...

Yesterday I met Wendell Potter. He worked for Cigna and became a whistle blower who told the government what the health care industry was really up to.
I'm hesitant to form an opinion on him. Yes, we do need to know what's really going on in corrupt industries from insiders. Howerver, I also wonder why he didn't speak up earlier. It dosen't take a rocket scientist to know that insurance companies only care as money as the bottom line and people come last. Amy Goodman from Democracy Now interviewed him in 2009. Here's a link to hte interview. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter

20 Minutes....

I'm counting down the seconds
Until I have to get out of the downward facing dog..
My legs to the ground,
And so are my arms.
I love it,
I just have to accept the uncomfortableness
And goofiness of my body.

April is for Yoga!

April is for yoga! I'm participating in the yoga challenged. I learned it from my old yoga teacher in Mansfield, PA.

I did yoga for the third day in a row. My goal is to do yoga everyday this month. (I'm worried what will happen when I go to D.C. for a week.)  I used to be a regular follower and lover of yoga. Most of my yoga practice ocurred in my parent's living room in high school, college dorm rooms, my Mansfield apartments. 

After moving to Philadelphia, I stopped doing yoga. I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but I believe that many activities, long nights, and carelessness on my connection to my body to my soul contributed me to not following through with the practice.

Today is Day Three of doing yoga. Day One of my yoga practice was in my grandmother's living room and days Two and Three happened at my parent's residence.

After doing yoga for 20 minutes, Today I did 20 minutes I've been doing the Sun Salutations and developing a love/hate relationship with the "downward facing dog."

It's day three, and I'm noticing something important: I'm moving with my body and not fighting my body. I love it! 

Rotating Objects with Stories to Tell

She, a woman I met 3 years ago on a greyhound bus, encouraged me to write about my life. Tell her what I have been up to; the exciting places I have explored.

I will not do that.

It's easier to talk about others, than it is myself. I'm not interesting, and maybe it's because I live with me. (This might be why I avoid the mirror as much as possible. ) However, the interactions I have with others, yes, that is where the beauty lies.

We go about our lives in daily motions, similar to how the earth rotates around the sun, and our moon does with the earth.  We believe that our lives are of importance. Narratives are created.  "I did this. Did you know that Sally did that?" We never speak about others in the first person. The only time it seems as if we speak about others is if we place value of the individual and positive or negative judgements are created.

It seems as if we are our own entities. We do not have the capabilities to enter into another's mental capabilities and truly know what the thought processes and feelings are. Even if we could  mentally tap into the other's psyche for five minutes, we would have to live with the person and see the world from his/her eyes and vantage point.

We also know that like the planets, we have our own definitive path: life and death. 
Our perceptions shape our environment around us. Our rotations affect how other beings in the universe move. We have options in how we rotate in our lives. We also have events that draw us into other rotating objects.

Speaking of Faith

I do not consider myself a religious person-spiritual, yes, but not religious. Even as a child, my opinions about organized religion would be like the moon: waxing and waning. I did not understand how a loving god who gave his only son could dismiss other people who did not even know his name.

So, today I went to an Episcopal Church for Palm Sunday. It was rather calming to step in and be seeped up by the ritualistic patterns. Parishioners knew what songs to sing, when to pray, when to sit, and when to be open and loving to one another. It was a community that was formed once a week, and then dissipated until they needed one another again. Love, or at least a form of it, existed among them.

Sadly, I knew, though, that they knew of the only way to be saved and if you did not know and practice that way, you would not go to heaven.


Now I'm having an internal debate. I can not prescribe to a belief where a loving god can only love one type of people. I have so many friends who I love and do not believe what I do. I want to know that when I die at a late age, I can join them and we can be happy and loving people together. I also want to prescribe to a religious belief. I want to know that the ritualistic elements of religion, community, love, knowledge that there is something, someone greater than yourself is a very calming element in my life.

Someday I want this to be a possibility: a formation of a religion based on love for one another, forgiveness, and acceptance the differences in culture bring us closer together and not farther apart.

Cooking Lamb

Some people wonder how I can eat lamb. "Lamb is soo cute!" I know that because I used to work at a lamb farm. I would go once a week and feed lamb bottles of milk, hold them, and be in awe how they bonded with their mothers. I also saw them grow up, hangout in the field, and become fiesty little creatures who were more concerned with following other lamb and sheep than being held and coddled by humans.
For Easter, my cousin and I are cooking lamb and possibly forgoing eating the ham. I'm trying to cook lamb more often at home to prepare for this momentous occasion. I'm learning the time limit that lamb has to be on the frying pan when cooking lamb chops. Slowly but surely, I am learning how to cook this delicious creature.

I am looking for easy lamb recipes for a cook who does not spend much time at all in the kitchen.
Suggestions would be wonderfully appreciated. Thanks!