The h.naoto exclusive feather/batwing rucksack/backpack for 2008 (and the BBC!)

Okay, maybe the title has told you. But seeing is believing. h.naoto, the goth loli designer, of Angry & Hangry, of japanese gothic, goth loli, nois and punk has sold ONE customer out of Japan the 2008 h.naoto japanese translated Feather Rucksack, which I call the batwing backpack. And here it is:
It has some sort of soft leather for the shoulders which should wear well for the wheelchair, bringing me my gothic punk street cred. Under the wings it has the same carrying space as the Punk 2008 rucksack which can take a laptop with ease and the accessories in the pockets, or can take my medical and fetish supplies (odd how those two go together!) and carry them with cool elan’. Shall we try it on the wheelchair, I think so…
Looks pretty good so after Linda had it set up I put most of my essentials in it and took off today, meeting all with a smile including the local panhandler from in front of the video store. We had a discussion about low income people are green friendly due to using alternative funding sources (trading, taking stuff people throw away, making money off of recycling) and how making a high density, high income core is actually forcing the people who make it green friendly away.

I got to the store and they had already noticed the backpack, as well as several customers in the store who had seen it driving past me. Here is a great picture of me showing my boobies....I mean the backpack (see Soot-san from the Ghibli Museum around my neck!). I tell you, not like I like to name drop (oh well too late!) but h.naoto GETS noticed. Wait till I take my Hello Kitty H.naoto Gothic bag in. And this is a “good” get noticed, not like, “Tommy, move away from the woman in the wheelchair, it looks like her meds aren’t quite balanced!” Which is what I usually get.

I also got today a request on the street today for a postcard, so the postcard project lives on. Here are a couple of the postcards I posted 10 days ago, I waited for the postcards to arrived until I showed them here, so they would be a surprise to the person getting them, but now everyone can enjoy the fronts. I do, “pretty, my precious, so pretty!” (click on the picture to make it full screen)
And here are the more, um, specially requested cards, like Yaoi and Yuri and yes, (avert your EYES!) even hetero pairings.
So if you want a postcard, goth, or loli, or friends having fun, whatever you want let me know. Or you want a “special” post card of “good friends” because you like to see two nice girls together having fun, or two good male friends having fun (or want to figure out what will happen next to the Uke in your mind), then please let me know with an email (mpshiel at hotmail.com). Or like today, if you live in town, just ask me. The postcard project has slowed down due to health but I still did over 25 postcards and mailed them on the weekend! Slowed down isn’t DEAD. So please, ask away, and what you see on the front is NOTHING compared to the backs – trust me. I am a very naughty person (or clean and wholesome, I send out LOTS of cards to kids, children, nieces and nephews), so clean and friendly, or naughty and cheeky....when you want me to be (and I WANT to BE!). So have relative or friend who needs a card, let me know!

Before I finish this post I wanted to ask a favor regarding the BBC. The head of the disability section of the BCC is getting rid of all bloggers and replacing them with a few selected columnists. I have written 25 essays for the BBC. Of these one was used for part of a BBC 4 Radio broadcast, two or maybe three were finalists for writing awards, one is currently being taught as part of disability rights course in a university and one or two are being used as examples of a “voice of the client” in training of care givers in agencies. Plus there were magazine and other reproductions of seme of my other essays. Of my 25 essays, maybe five or six were great, 10-12 were good, and well, the rest we will kindly overlook. The thing is, writing for the BBC brings up my game, but also, I can write the same essay here and it won’t end up in a teaching setting because this is just “some woman’s blog.” While saying, “Here is some material from the BBC….” That’s how it goes. Which is also why I have done it all, on a two week and then a monthly schedule with the BBC complely free. No payment whatsoever. I also did it because I believe that the voice of people with chronic pain, of the newly disabled, of those with chronic illnesses and those with degenerative disabilities are not heard or represented.

The BBC has selected a host of new columnists and perhaps only the three new male columnists have shown up and the new female ones will show up later. But so far, none of the columnists to replace the bloggers has an auto-immune disease, or a degenerative disease (though the one recent post about degeneration and rehab, did get the highest responses of all). There are no chronic pain disease, or chronic illnesses and I am concerned that the voice of many people with disabilities: from EDS to fibro, CFS, neurological pain diseases, MS and even SMA along with so many other people with disabilities are being eliminated (much less the voice of the caregivers). I wrote an essay yesterday, which, depending on when they revoke my access codes, may be my last post, called Toilets, farts, hair and what ‘must be done’.

I would appreciate it, and I can’t repay you except with thanks and comments, if you could click on the link and put a comment as you think it appropriate. Some of the topic we have covered here on this blog, but surely, you must have SOMETHING to say about disabled toilets. I would like the BBC to understand, that while they want to turn Ouch into something covering the politics and public face of the stable, employed disabled individuals, that isn’t what the minutes and often nights of disability are about. I can’t write posts like the other columnists about my sunny vacation, or my wonderful experience with the medical profession. And, from the comments, I don’t find a lot of people talking about that either (depression, frustration, doing what you need to in order to survive, yes, that I hear). I would like, maybe not me, but a group representing both those with disabilities and the caregivers who stayed with them. I think the diversity of those people who comment on here would be a great addition to the BBC site and the REALITY of the diversity of disabilities. Even in MS, or Lupus, we have one disease but hundreds if not thousands of individual variations of presentation. I am NOT ashamed that my disease presented in an atypical way (it isn't my fault and I'm not going to play that it is; I'm atypical, get over it!).

Yes, I have anger that a main disability site (BBC’s OUCH) wants to create an image that “This is the simple and joyous world of disability!” Hey, sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is funny, sometimes you somehow end up with a cool backpack for your wheelchair, but no, every day for many people there is a day which is NOT good, and every day, many, many people are fighting the system and paperwork somewhere (including me today - apparently it takes paperwork and processing to get "a callback within 48 days from a supervisor," she corrected herself, "I mean 48 business hours starting tomorrow."

I said, "After dealing with government, neither would surprise me"

Sorry, I feel very passionately because to me, this is like Mr. Anon coming on and trying to silence me. That a place I contributed to is trying to silence and put a mask over a whole aspect of disability (and a largely female aspect at that!). One thing I will not do is live a lie. So, if you want to speak, please do so for me (or yourself), at the BBC post link.

Thanks (and don’t forget to email me about getting yourself or a friend a postcard).