Not feeling awesome tonight. I went out today, lodged my Centrelink form (some of those guys really have no sense of humor), walked down to Darby street, saw Manneh and his work friend on their lunch break and sat with them while Manneh ogled women walking down the street and verbally commented on their breasts, I bought more henna dye and some sweet lunch from Natural Tucker, visited the very cute High Tea With Mrs Woo shop, and bought some more postcards at Blackbird Corner.
I navigated my way to Eckersley's in search of free Avantcard postcards, got quite a handful.
All up I got 25 postcards today (some doubles, and some free). Want one? :) Send me a message;
I missed the 100 bus by about thirty seconds and waited almost an hour for the next one. I sat next to this little old lady at the bus stop who had 'lived in the same place in Gateshead for more than 50 years'. This guy kept pacing backwards and forwards in front of us on the road, throwing his hands in the air and saying something about 'are you trying to say something to me?' and 'Jack the Ripper', to himself. Every now and then someone would think he was talking to them and he would frantically apologise. He started yelling and pointing at cars, and a few people actually stopped, in the middle of traffic, got out of their cars and started inspecting the front of their vehicle (his pointing must have made it look like he was telling them something was wrong with their car). The old lady kept covering her mouth and giggling at him, and eventually he wandered off. This situation got me thinking about how 'afraid' you feel when somebody is not behaving in a way that you can predict.
I watched a documentary at the Dungog Film Festival called 'Dance Like Nobody's Watching', about a lovely young man called Paul Matley who has down syndrome (he wrote much of the film as well) and he talked about stigma attached to disability, and being afraid of people with disabilities, and that he doesn't 'suffer' from Down Syndrome, and I think a lot of it comes down to not necessarily seeing somebody with a disability as 'weird' or 'strange', but more of a feeling that people with disabilities are 'unpredictable'. We want to know that people aren't going to do anything that takes us out of our comfort zone, and people with 'disabilities', whatever the type, seem challenge this.
The old lady beside me said 'he must be mentally disabled, or on something, or both', and giving it a name seemed to make her feel better about it. I felt totally helpless, like he was going to walk into traffic or hurt someone. Most people at the bus stop ran away from him, or laughed and stared at him, and I basically just sat there not knowing what to do, pretending it wasn't happening, for fifteen minutes. I just hope he didn't damage himself or anybody else on the way home.
It's Chorus' last night here, and he just got himself tangled in the cords from computers, the modem and router and pulled it all down with him. I'm worried about him, heading off to this new place. What if he tries to come home? I asked Dave and he said that when he comes to visit he'll bring Chorus some time.
Although I want to spend the night curled up on the couch, our house inspection is tomorrow, and I need to mop and sweep and clean. C was basically the manliest he's ever been today and cleaned up the yard and chopped things, very impressive.
Naaight.
I navigated my way to Eckersley's in search of free Avantcard postcards, got quite a handful.
All up I got 25 postcards today (some doubles, and some free). Want one? :) Send me a message;
I missed the 100 bus by about thirty seconds and waited almost an hour for the next one. I sat next to this little old lady at the bus stop who had 'lived in the same place in Gateshead for more than 50 years'. This guy kept pacing backwards and forwards in front of us on the road, throwing his hands in the air and saying something about 'are you trying to say something to me?' and 'Jack the Ripper', to himself. Every now and then someone would think he was talking to them and he would frantically apologise. He started yelling and pointing at cars, and a few people actually stopped, in the middle of traffic, got out of their cars and started inspecting the front of their vehicle (his pointing must have made it look like he was telling them something was wrong with their car). The old lady kept covering her mouth and giggling at him, and eventually he wandered off. This situation got me thinking about how 'afraid' you feel when somebody is not behaving in a way that you can predict.
I watched a documentary at the Dungog Film Festival called 'Dance Like Nobody's Watching', about a lovely young man called Paul Matley who has down syndrome (he wrote much of the film as well) and he talked about stigma attached to disability, and being afraid of people with disabilities, and that he doesn't 'suffer' from Down Syndrome, and I think a lot of it comes down to not necessarily seeing somebody with a disability as 'weird' or 'strange', but more of a feeling that people with disabilities are 'unpredictable'. We want to know that people aren't going to do anything that takes us out of our comfort zone, and people with 'disabilities', whatever the type, seem challenge this.
The old lady beside me said 'he must be mentally disabled, or on something, or both', and giving it a name seemed to make her feel better about it. I felt totally helpless, like he was going to walk into traffic or hurt someone. Most people at the bus stop ran away from him, or laughed and stared at him, and I basically just sat there not knowing what to do, pretending it wasn't happening, for fifteen minutes. I just hope he didn't damage himself or anybody else on the way home.
It's Chorus' last night here, and he just got himself tangled in the cords from computers, the modem and router and pulled it all down with him. I'm worried about him, heading off to this new place. What if he tries to come home? I asked Dave and he said that when he comes to visit he'll bring Chorus some time.
Although I want to spend the night curled up on the couch, our house inspection is tomorrow, and I need to mop and sweep and clean. C was basically the manliest he's ever been today and cleaned up the yard and chopped things, very impressive.
Naaight.
