2 random thoughts

2 random thoughts for today

1 – I got summoned for jury duty, and this time I’m going to get a permanent exemption. I hate to do it, for reasons I have to think about. Perhaps it’s simply that I hate the thought that my disability makes me unable to do even 2 weeks worth of full time work. I did get on a jury once, so I do know how hard it is for me from experience, not just from guessing. I have 2 difficulties – one is getting there by 8 AM and still getting enough sleep. And the other is related to the locations of the bathrooms. The courtroom I was in had some bathrooms nearby, but they weren’t wheelchair accessible. To get to the accessible ones you had to go down a hallway that was 2 blocks long (I kid you not, there was a bridge in it over a street) to an elevator and then find the way to the bathrooms in the lobby of the building. On break time I did not have even enough time to get to the bathroom and back, let alone use it! So, I limited my beverages and food intake so I wouldn’t have to go. Even using a catheter, you need bathrooms sometimes to empty a legbag. And an IBS flare up would have been horrible. So, they’ll grant me an excuse on medical grounds, but I don’t like it much. I like to think that I’m the kind of person everyone would want on a jury! And if everyone like me found a way out, who’s left?

2 – We had dinner in the Gaslamp District downtown today, and I was noticing how many beggars use wheelchairs. I didn’t count but it was a much higher percentage than you see in the general population. I would even say 25% of the beggars. That deserves its own discussion perhaps, another day. But it reminded of a time when I was 16 years old, in downtown Philadelphia, pushing myself 2 blocks from my dad’s office to a dental appointment. I hadn’t been using a chair very long then, so I was a novice and those old chairs were heavy, so it was slow going. I had a cupholder on my chair and I was carrying a newspaper tucked in next to my hip. A young adult black man – the image in my memory is rather tall, thin, adult but not old, perhaps as old as 30, way older than me – came up to me as I passed and reached his hand out right next to me. I thought he was going to take my newspaper! So, I swatted him away!! Then a group of men started laughing at him (and/or me), I assume they were his friends. Later it occurred to me that he was only reaching out to put money in my cup. There were people in wheelchairs begging for money in the 70s just as there are people begging now. I had never been part of a group that took handouts, and it had never occurred to me that anyone might see me that way. I guess a girl in a chair is a girl in a chair. Back then I had a lot of trouble knowing how to behave when around one of these street people – do I nod or say hello, or do I ignore and move on. Now, well, it depends on where I am. In Berkeley there are just so many street people that the only way to tolerate them is to ignore them one and all it seems. They are quite pushy there. But in San Diego (maybe because we have fewer that seem deranged), I find it doesn’t really hurt anyone to say hello, and acknowledge a small type of brotherhood, they might not get my dollar, but friendliness is good for us all. Besides, once in a while I find myself thinking, that “there but for the grace of God, go I”.