And I Don’t Mean to be Mobility-ist...

(I do have one more important thing to tell you tomorrow)

Jan 30, 2025

Today is a Part Three, picking up from Part One and Two earlier this week.

As I always with full sincerity (and a hint of desperation):

If it weren’t for you supportive Word Nerds here, I probably wouldn’t be able to justify writing every single weekday.

A lot of people write once or twice a month on Substack for paying subscribers, so my neurotic self is over-doing the best-that-I-can as perpetual thanks to you but:

I take your support and presence to heart.

So, I hope to keep going: archiving and expelling!

Want to change up the pace? You can read some of a fiction novel I shared here as thanks.

Want to read some novellas? Here are some on Kindle (though I can send to anyone who needs the help). There are even more than you see listed here, so reach out if you’re in a reading mood!

One last thank you for the road: THANK YOU!

I was so proud of my first week back of doing all my work things at once…

Instead of the full time job (truly) of surgeries and health as another unending busk.

I’ve spent the last couple of days explaining how hard it is to push my body too far… and try to trust my “know-stomach-know-stomach” (how I’d write out the American Sign Language concept-word for instinct).

I am balancing my two writing jobs… though I felt a failure in many ways too.

I kept up mildly with the critical doctor To Dos, and replying to some gig asks from my agent and other local opps.

I frantically was refining choreography by day, and implementing and educating from noon on (because of commute).

I was Mom-ing and getting time with my youngest as she was approaching her SOLs, a new semester, and even staying up until 2 AM together one night so she could work extra hard on a project.

I was able to sort of pull some extra weight (sort of) just a couple weeks (at the time writing this) after surgery when my partner then became sick, and had to be quarantined in the other room for a stretch until we were sure it wasn’t contagious.

I went into my normal PhD-pushy mode and still gave him meds, wet washcloth on the forehead, and so forth. (Easier said than done when I’m not supposed to bend, lift or twist?)

I had some meetings, kept up with my goal of writing almost everyday here, and … finished watching Season Two of Silo with my love and youngest because it’s so good but - thankfully for me- not gory.

I also did body recovery things I HATE, to try to help with vast amount of dancing and sitting: like icing my back at night even though we don’t have heat (only some space heaters) and there was a cold freeze advisory in my area, so I cannot describe how cold my house is right now.

(All choreography I film for students, for example, feels genuinely like dancing in a freezer.)

It’s still ironic that I genuinely hurt SO much more from sitting and typing than I do from dancing.

It’s sounds so ridiculous but if you were a fly on the wall: you’d see it, clear as day.

Perhaps it’s because other muscles can’t compensate in the same way as when all are in play?

Maybe our muscle memory knows what humans have always wanted to naturally do across time (dance, celebrate, walk, hug) and not what current society forces us into 24 hours out of the 24-7 (sit, type, text, repeat).

And I don’t mean that in terms of being mobility-ist towards the great many who cannot dance, celebrate, walk, hug (ableist and/or inaccessible to all bodies). I truly think we can define each one of those things to our own body, and how it personally moves or emotes.

But I still think we crave these things, in some way, no matter what age or stage of life we are in.

However, the most important thing I was able to do by far was help put together a proper memorial for my mentor who hadn’t had one at that point in time.