This day has been really really odd. I think it has much to do with last night future despair, I sat around in this empty manison looking at my messages from Uni realising they wanted me. I looked at all the forms for apartments and PA's that I had printed out and I worried, worried, worried. I worried about not getting an apartment- that all the benefits I had been told I had due to my disability wouldnt do. I worried about the fact that there is pretty little time until the courses start and I know just how tricky all these kinds of things are. It will take time, and I will likely just have done before I start.

I don't talk much about this, but it's true- right now things are unfair. And only unfair because I am a disabled. I can not go down to Uni thinking it will work out, there is no such thing as
"it's okay I can stay a bit with Jane Doe and then see what I can do about that once I get there. For me things have to be:
"Okay, I need an apartmen that is set up to work for me, it needs to be close to Uni and the tube. I need a PA (or several) that work for me and listen to my needs in order for me to study well. I need a taxi card
...and I need money...what if I cant study full time, can I fund my life in the city by other means?"

Because I dont talk about these kinds of things alot with able-bodied friends I dont think about it much myself either. Therefore, I think it has just now struck me. And it makes me so nervous. To think that all these things might not work out and my courses start at August 25th.

I have been in touch with all kinds of people (who of course are on vacation an will return on Monday) and I have done what I can with all of this for now. But still- I am known for worrying a lot and this really eats away at me.

Making vain attempts to put my mind elsewhere I have been trying to write a new chapter for my Fishy Femme Fiction, pretty needless to say it hasn't worked out well.
And that's also why I wrote this post. I needed space to ramble and I refuse to stare at that more or less empty Word document for much longer.

I really do have faith that all these things will work out one way or another. Still, I hate this feeling of being hog-tied by my own disability. I just want to able to crash down into this city and take it by storm.

Now I'll see what I can do about the state of this kitchen, and enjoy another night of freedom in the rual mansion. And I want do write. In opposite to- I will write

On cripness, gender and sex.

Haven't written anything here in ages, other writing has been consuming a lot of time, as has plain living.
Weeks ago I had a plan to follow up on cripchick and wheelchairdancer's blog posts on disability and gender, I wrote something but didn't think I did well. Today, as I was reading through old things lying around on my harddrive I realised it might have been okay anyway so here it is.

Following in the footsteps of cripchick and wheelchairdancer I will try my best to write about my take on ’crip’ as an identity, its relation to power and sex.

Firstly, I would like to say that it has taken me a while to find myself as a crip-girl. Honestly, my disability even though it is at times very crippling has not been a major issue for me and not until the last year’s part of my identity as such.

I credit this to my childhood and my ideas of myself growing up. Even if I knew there was something different with me, I was never told that different equalled bad.

Growing up in a very including Christian environment I was often told my disability was a blessing. Later I came to know that was not always the take on disabilities amongst other Christians and certainly not amongst other Pentecostals, as my family was.

Growing up in a Christian environment also meant that the ideas of sex and sexuality were different than others. I often found it puzzling that Pentecostals would devote themselves so physically to God and the Spirit while at church but be afraid to touch subjects that I thought alike, lust and pleasure. It was not rare when I grew up to see women hiss the name ‘Jesus’ between gritted teeth as their bodies shock. And when finding out about the Spirit myself I likened it to an orgasm.

Because I had always been told my disability was a blessing, meaning that God had greater plans for me and brother and had let us live even if it wasn’t possible, I grew up believing strongly, and still do - that all that is good within me comes from God. Hence, the love I felt for both boys and girls wasn’t a trouble.
Finding out I was both a crippled and a bisexual I started to asses myself at a very early age, thinking about what I like and disliked. Linking fantasises desires and wishes together I also discovered I was Dominant. (Will this odd-ness never end?)Again, seeing that it was in me and was a good thing since it sprung from love and also couldn’t exist without a submissive counterpart and a consensus from that person, I accepted it.

As a Dominant-crip-pseudo-lesbian I struggled to find an identity that fit me. Combining the weakness and frailness of my psychical condition with the force of my mind and my ‘sinful’ love for other women.

For a substantial period of time I was on growth-hormones since I was way too short for my age. I am still pretty short but without the hormones would have been even shorter. The hormones, a jolly mixture of steroids and testosterone, sent my body off on a post-adolescences joyride. I bulked up like I had never done before; I was longer frail in appearance even though my body was.
In an attempt to mend the gap between my physical appearance and my mind I went into a period of being a very butch girl. Shaving my head and trying desperately to find out where this rollercoaster was to take me I went from crazy unisex tops and shirts to dresses and back again. All the time feeling uncomfortable in an appearance that I didn’t know.

Getting of the hormones I dropped 8 kg to 38kg for my final 145 cm and finally recognised what I saw in the mirror. I went back to the clothes that I had worn as a girl, I indulged in skirts and flowery tops, flaunted my tits and tried my very best to make my body sexual and owned by me, rather than an asexual object owned by doctors and syringes filled with steroids.

As a crip-girl I believe that is my biggest struggle. To believe that my body can be desired through the eyes of others. That it isn’t something freaky but something hot, mostly because I myself through active choice in my appearance and manners make it so.
I thrive on being raunchy and outspoken about my body and my sexuality, since it breaks a long lived idea of crippled people as asexual, making use of it as I would like. Learning to make it work its best to give me and my lovers the most pleasure and so and so.

Through this process of ‘returning to the roots’ I discovered my last add-on identity so far. I was not only a Dominat-crip-pseudo-lesbian; I was also a ‘femme’.
Putting my ‘invalid’ body on display because I chose to, doing it with the tools of a feminine appearance altered to fit my needs (see crip-chick’s post on altering the tools of femininity, such as clothes, to fit the needs of our bodies) allowing myself, with very little physical force, to Dominate through the mind, and enjoying that, gave me the cornerstones of the subversion that now constitute my femme-identity.

However even though I am a ‘fiercely femme Lady’ according to beloved Sister Hillevi, I find I am rarely viewed as that by people who don’t know me. Again it’s that asexual image of disabled people and certainly disabled women that gets me. Also, my ‘classically feminine attire’ combined with a well expressed Christian faith often boxes me in as a sweet-Christian-girl. Not to say that I am not but there is certainly more to me than meets the eye in that sense.

In order for a discussion to take place around disability, gender and identity society needs to acknowledge disabled persons identities not only as homogenous disabled group but see that all kinds of identities fit within the disabled ‘community’ as well as in the able bodied.
That even though I am a disabled person it is not equal to my disability being the cornerstone of my identity.

My crip-identity as it is today took me years and years to build and it was through my other identities that a sense of subversion of my crippled body arose.
When I call myself a crip today, it gives me a space to joke about the quirks of my body, my spasm, my freakishly tensed muscles, a space where I can promote photos as the one here on the blog where I kiss the chrome on my walker.
Also, it gives me a space where I find strength in a world that is made to fit the able bodied, it gives me a sense of community and support, a renewed sense of what my body needs and strength to acknowledge that these needs are different than my able bodied friend’s.

(Might be brainy, might just be ramblings)

On making decisions

I have spent the last two days at my creative writing class, delivering and recieving feedback on the written word. It's always a great time and going there really makes me remember why I choose to write and why I do it with a passion.

I get to read so many beautiful texts in these meetings, I get to hear so many stories and listen to others who's minds work in the same escapistic manner as mine does.

However, it is soon coming to its end with only one more meet-up to go. I am sad. I have really had a faboulous time there, and my writing and I have grown from it.
Telling the others in my class I wasnt planning on coming back this fall, but relocating myself to the Captial, they werent all happy. They sad they felt they needed me in the group and were sad they wouldnt have to chance to read my writing anymore. I said I really wanted to keep in touch with them and that I didnt think working on the novel would be same without them.

My teacher then said when having coffe, she: "Just couldnt have me leaving! And it would be tragic if I didnt use my gift in this and finished my work on the novel"
I said I had no plans on giving up writing and that really, I would keep on writing as well in the Capital.

Still, having them say all these things and seeing how much they appreciate me and my writing has turned things around a little. I have applied to a second year there in case I dont make it to the Capital. But I had only thought of that as my plan B.
What if I have been to hasty and escapistic (oh the irony of it all) in my yearning towards the Capital? I really dont know now.

Much as I have thought of an additonal year of writing class as plan B, I have thought of writing as a plan B of life. Even though I have been told since I was little that I ought to be writer I have never payed much attention to it. It was something other people thought I was destined to be, and I have never liked being told what to be by someone else than myself.
My writing has never been kept in high esteem by me. Dont get me wrong, I love writing and really it has been not only something I have enjoyed but also a mean of survival on so many levels. A way of finding myself and others and a way of learning and teaching. I just never thought of it as something I would do.
And I doubt that skill I apparently have, mostly cause I cant see whats special, if anything, with the way I write.

The only thing I enjoy and cherish with my writing and what I see as an achievment in it is the joy that it can bring to others. That why I trust my texts to the people I adore and admire, to my friends and lovers. To my "sisters" and "brothers" and those in need.
You're right, it would be lying if I said I didnt like getting praise. But mostly when it comes to my writing I cant understand why it's given. It's not that I am greedy and want you to praise me even more. It's the simple fact that I dont understand what I have done. I only wrote.

Reading this back it all seems pretty pretensious, hopefully you know me well enough to know it is not so. It's a sincere question and a very real problem. What shall I do with my future?

My teacher said I could well go do my thing in the Capital and come back up north once a month to take part in a new course they are making. Hopefully it can be done. But it's odd, I thought I had it all figured. What I wanted, how I wanted to pursue this writing buiesness and what could come and not come of it.
What if the, I dont want to be a writer actually is, I dont think I am good enought to become one?
I do wory alot, it's my vata-heart (google: ayurvedic body types and read about the vata, then you know me :) ) and perhaps I worry about this abit too much.
I'll write whatever I want to write, play whatever I want to play, and direct dito. Hopefully all three of them combined.
In the mean time, I am grateful beyond words, to the people who read me, watch me, critique and praise me. It's for you that I do all of this.

If you excuse me, I will need to write now.

On Queer-theology

Having such a crap Monday as I am right now. Cramps, no work and rain. It was lovely to see my Bible Contemplations featured on http://www.queerteologi.se. The page is run by the Swedish Lutheran Priest Niclas Olaison (yes, he is queer) and he approached me last year at Stockholm Pride and asked me to write for it.
To be honest, I had forgetten that I did it and read the piece getting a more and more familiar feeling about- until realizing I had actually WRITTEN IT.
It can be found in Swedish on the link above, and translated here:

1 Book of Peter 5:1-4

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness
of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed:
Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not
because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not
greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to
you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you
will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

In the text for the 4th Sunday of Easter time we talk about being the shepherd of a flock. To watch over it not by force but voluntarily as God wants, not by greed but by devotion. In my faith we are all both shepherd and flock to each other. In our faith we will be able to support others well as to seek support. In the certainty of Christ's love we are able to share all the burdens, big or small, and to share them even with those who are not Christians. In that we commit an act of love. We do God's will.

The importance of being humble is also emphasized in the text. That we do not make ourselves out to be "Lords", but only good examples. For me, it is also important that we dare to face each other in humility and humanity. Jesus came to us to show us what it ultimately is to be human and to sacrifice yourself as a human. In my previous Christian life, I often ran into these "Lords" rather than examples, which found it difficult to meet in the humility that I believe to be Christianity's core.

Why it is so difficult, I do not know. But I know that I try to be humble myself and I see that it plays a big part in how others will respond to and see me. It is not difficult to help if we feel that we can also get help when we need it. It is not difficult to lead if we feel that we can be led, not only by God but by people around us.

Therefore, we constantly have a responsibility to ourselves and others. To be humble so that others may be strong for us and to be strong for those who can not. The need to help or seek help does not always need to come from an explicit Christian faith, but often it can show the way to another way of looking at ourselves and others. A vision that springs from a grace and a freedom - in a sacrifice from God.

I will be featured two more times this spring/summer.

On being crip (sometimes not all that hip)

Recently I have been in the Capital and done things that only the Capital can offer for me. I try to make that place my new home in the future, hence I spread my roots there. Make shops, streets and people mine (in the novel I am writing there is a chapter on how to eat a city - if you are ever moving somewhere let me give it to you, it's very useful.) in doing that I try to get to know my future home.

Hence, I used the subway alot. There's a green line, a red line and a blue line. I know alot about the red line, and close to nothing about the green line, this time I tried the blue line since I was staying with someone who lived along it.

It was dreadful. I hate the blue line with a passion so deep I can feel my fingertips hitting the glossy keys of my keypad somewhat furiously. The blue line was very aesthetic - soothingly bluecolored it made me think of the Swedish childrens book Loranga, Mazarin and Dartanjang where one of the characters dwells in an all blue room.

The falsely soothing blue line had lots of elevators, great you say that the Capital provides means of transportation for it's more vulnerable habitants. Hypocracy I say!
In order for a mean of transportation to be useful it must transport its user. The elvators on the ever so soothin (is it a trick, an act to relief tension build up from travelling in such conditions?) blue line did not.

So I climbed, I don't really mind climbing stairs I do it in the comfort of my own home everyday. I only mind climbing them when I know I shouldn't have to. When there has been an opportuinty to move in a more suitable manner, but that opportuntiy is no more.
It's called climbing a stair in this text cause that is what I actually do. I climb the slippery and dirty stairs of the subway up and down, inside and out. My sweaty plams grip the shiny chrome that a thousand hands have gripped before me.
Some of these might have been crooked as my own, hanging on for dear life on to a shiny piece of metal that reflects their hard working face.
The only difference between abled and disabled bodies is that moving a disabled one is work.

Beside me abled bodies swooshed by. Heels tapping the stairs as light as feathers, hands soaring above the infected chrome.
I study them, they study me. My plaited cotton skirt covered in blue roses, the lace knee-highs making their way down my tensed muscles. The somewhat too transparent t-shirt. (This is the femme part of this text)
They have time to study me since my climbing up the stairs gives them that. I only have time to catch glimpses of them. In these glimpses I must make up my mind about them. Who they are, where they come from, where they are going and why they are going there.

When climbing these stairs I find I am on display. I try to make a room where I feel comfortable being displayed. A perfomance.
I try working my body up the stairs with force, I do not shun my gaze when those patting heels and the eyes of their bearers look at me. The situation make me as overt as I have ever been. There is no way I pass for ablebodied right now and there is indeed nothing I can do about it.

Visability has a price, invisability an even higher one. If making everytime the elevators wont work and climbing is a fact a perfomance is the only way to remain true. Do it!
Remember: it is not the body that cripples a crip but its enviroment.

When I have climbed all the way up. I brush my hands on my skirt, draw a deep breath and enjoy the security of my walker again. (Mind you mountain climbing only works if someone is behind me carrying my walker.)
As always my head is held high, my back is a straight as it can be. I make my way through a crowd that will never known I just perfomed to save my life!

Now is the time when MacGuywer would have made a cableway for himself using an
old gum and his sholaces. Sadly I have none of his skills.
-From my soon to be finished monlouge "Jonathan!" on surving as a crip!

On Christiano-phobia

Due to a piece on this on Swedish Tv’s (SVT) program ”Existens” (http://www.svtplay.se/) I thought I would blog about the phenomena, if there is one.

In the piece they interview Swedish Pentecostal Christian politician Lennart Sacredéus who says he has experienced this kind of phobia. That he knows people who have been ridiculed and persecuted for their Christian faith.
Sacredéus says:

“It is when they have displayed a traditionally Christian point of view in
certain questions that they have experienced this kind of “critique” from
others, in their work environment, in their schools, amongst ‘friends’.”

As an example the program brings up the standard traditionally Christian “points of view” as pro-life and homophobic statements. Of course nothing about people being persecuted for what I believe is the most traditional Christian point of view: Love thy neighbour.

This made me wonder, is it so that when challenged for certain statements of their faith right wing Christians will now go around calling it a phobia? And have I experienced that phobia anywhere?

Firstly, I do well believe that when challenged in the more conservative areas of their faith Christians like Sacredéus (part of the Swedish Christian party which opposes gay marriage, gay adoption and abortion for a start) might well be crying wolf about a phobia spreading through the land. There is no phobia! There is critique on what kind of view on other people and their autonomy these kinds of groups present.
In the same program the former Arch Bishop of Sweden KG Hammar says:

“It is only ridiculous to assume there is a Christo-phobia, what is happening is
that conservative Christian values are given critique, like all other things are
critiqued. As Christians we must all be ready to take critique our self if we
critique others.”I agree, I think KG Hammar is actually one of the most
reasonable Christians Sweden has ever seen. If the conservative Christian
movement needs to go on about homophobic and oppressing ideas they can well face
up to being critiqued on that, as they critique the lack of “morality” in the
secular world.

I agree, I think KG Hammar is actually one of the most reasonable Christians Sweden has ever seen. If the conservative Christian movement needs to go on about homophobic and oppressing ideas they can well face up to being critiqued on that, as they critique the lack of “morality” in the secular world.
However, I find there actually exists an other kind of Christiano-phobia. One that has nothing to do with the ideas that specific Christian’s present but with the concept of being Christian.
A phobia that makes me, a highly progressive bisexual Christian, as bad as any conservative bigot ever was.
It has nothing to do with what I believe, only the fact that I do believe!
A phobia that tells me that it doesn’t matter how many autonomous choices I make in life. How much I try to break away from bigots and other foul “religious” people. The pure fact that I accept Christ as my Saviour (oh my- really?) is enough to make me a stupid and un-emancipated girl. One who is fooled by doctrine and patriarchy into submission and silence.
If the people telling me these things knew the least bit about me they would see how ludicrous there statements about me are.
(I use my vast knowledge of the Bible in ways they could never imagine- Hah!)

I often experience a stiff silence when I come out as a Christian (yes I really feel I need to come out about it.) When I tell people I was brought up in the Pentecostal movement it’s often even worse. I find I start every conversation on my faith with an excuse.
You see I am not….
Even if they say...
My point of view on this is not…

Now I wonder who gave the conservatives the right to patent my faith!?
Also, who makes it perfectly okay for non-believers to tell believers believing is a sign of weakness!?
(I will not speak about my “favourite” non-believer Richard Dawkins here; I think that man has had enough publicity already!)
In my life as a Christian I seek opportunities to actively do good for others, I seek opportunities to be friendly and help, to be supportive and to speak up in anyway suitable when things are not as they should be. I try to love my neighbour. Sometimes I fail, of course I do.

But I try my hardest to love the homophobes, the patriarchal oppressors, and the pro-life madness people.
I try; I really, really try to love the mad and mean Richard Dawkins. In my love for the people behind the arguments I find it natural to speak up about the wrong that they do.

All of you – YOU GIVE CHRISTIANITY A BAD NAME!

On being ill

I have yet to blog on Christianophobia, there is a draft and my thoughts on that will soon be up.
Being ill I really haven't had time to do anyhting but be miserable and groan.
However, I refuse to be ill anymore. Going off to the Capital tomorrow onthe fabulous yellow bus.
Lovely club nights and discussions on Femme. Vintage shopping and what not.
When back I mean to direct, write and map coming projects again. I am sickly behind on all of that, but let's not worry.