On to day three of Sakura-Con! After the first two days I was lagging pretty bad, and also I had been trying to blog, with a variety of speeds from dial up to limited broadband since we started. I had uploaded some pictures and took others on the way and uploaded them to an online account to use in the blogs. Here you can see me, working away until 4:00 am and past to get the blog post done.
Yes, I may not spend as MUCH time seeing stuff as before but I still work as hard as I can.
Day three was a NEW outfit, a combination of the Bustier and virginal thong bought in Port Angeles at a Hello Kitty store (amazing the things you can get there!), and a skirt that had arrived between going to the doctors’ appointment (insert slow somber music) and going to Sakura-con. It was sent as a random present by a reader, and it sure came in handy, a perfect match. But first I demanded that people see that YES, I did shave all places (TAKE a picture!). I had other pictures with my legs spread but I chose the ‘virginal and chaste’ look here rather than the ‘town slut’ look.
I also took pictures of the back, showing the thong, and the ribbon tying me in but choose to go with STYLE instead. Also, thanks to Linda forgetting my white push-up strapless bra, I was natural, but thanks to the WONDER CREAM, I was perky and natural! Seriously, I had the cream all the girls want at 11-13, you literally rub it on (of course in my case, a little lower than the breasts), and your breasts get bigger. SWEET!
And here I am, all dressed up and ready to rock and roll with my elbow length lace and ribbon arm warmers.
The plan was to see some of the exhibit hall and get gifts and then to go to some of the panels on during the day, particularly the one on Kyudo: Japanese Archery. It has the super tall bows and a very different grip system; but also see the goth lolita fashion show.
The exhibition hall (of sellers) was sort of both GOOD and bad, as I had found out on Amazon that the manga about the crossdressing fencer Le Chevalier d’Eon went to volume six, however volume 4 was totally missing. I had 1 and 2, and I returned to try and find volume four.
Le Chevalier d’Eon is a real person, and a spy for the French in the 17th/18th century. He or She spent several years as a Lady in Waiting in the Russian Court, but also several years as a guy in another assignment. But what is known and well recorded even in steel plate is that as a fencer, this person was unbeatable.
And could win even with all the petticoats. However, after too many trips to different Royal courts as different genders, the job as spy was over; but d’Eon continued to switch genders, and teach fencing. Eventually, not knowing the gender of d’Eon, the King ruled that d’Eon could not publicly duel or fence while wearing petticoats. At the death of d’Eon, the King’s physician examined the body and the person was buried, it is still unclear whether d’Eon was male, female, ambiguous genitalia, or had an intersex condition. They are the one great fencer that is sort of NOT talked about in fencing as the guys don’t want to claim a cross dresser and the women fencers aren’t sure if d’Eon WAS a female, ergo in the west, d’Eon is rather obscure. In JAPAN, they made an anime about him, where his twin sister (who is a better fencer than he) possesses him and gender changes him for a time for the good of the King! The manga looks like it has d’Eon as male (maybe, still unclear) who dresses as a female, or a female who dressed as a male usually, returns to female clothes to protect the King with her/his blade.
Okay, history lesson over! Volume 4 was no where to be seen, however, as we went to another manga shop, the person was putting out boxes of $2 manga, which is like putting out a box of catnip to a cat (or me!). And then they had just updated and tripled the size of the $5 manga (sadly, I could not get to it quickly due to narrow aisles and a rush) but I quickly blew much of my ‘gift’ money. On the rounds I spotted, followed and asked for a picture of this girl in a wonderful corset and costume. 
The Corset is covered in skulls! That’s right, you don’t have to be a GUY to be a fetching pirate anymore! We arrived at the place I wanted to buy gifts only to find all things but one sold out! Ahhhh! He told me to email him at his warehouse which I will do today to see if he has certain cool items, which I can’t say or ruin the surprise.
Now the question came up about, what about Kitty Ears? First off, on the first or second day we got Hair Clip kitty ears ANYONE could wear. And used peer pressure to get Linda to wear them. 
I think she looks quite fetching, but she refused to wear them outside the hotel room. As for me, I ran out of money on gifts, sadly, but a kind soul (Cheryl) found a place that had SIMPLE white kitty ears, with tufts of white hair. And they were inexpensive. So I agreed for her that I would take them as a gift and wear them. Suddenly, no longer are we getting the SIMPLE white ones but the ones with purple ribbons and all sorts of stuff as she says, “This way it will go with any outfit!”
I was like, “This is very fu-fu!”
And she was, “But it is CUTE!”
So I gave in and here you see me with my pair of slightly over the top kitty ears!
But hey, if you can’t go slightly over the top when you are wearing a bridal thong (for the next 12 hours as Linda ‘forgot’ to put any underwear in the change bag – talk about convenient for HER, and also a good thing I have limited feeling), then when can you?
After that I ran into this gorgeous Goth who I asked to take a picture of. She had a lace parasol as well! 
Afterward we compared clothes and she had the lace gloves from ‘Lip Service’ (as do I!), and the corset was made for her by a corset company here at the Con last year. I stay away from those companies as they use phrases like “Only $120” while my Bustier, thong and thigh highs came to a total of $23. She had some other lip service stuff but the wonderful Indigo dress she bought in Indonesia. Okay, well, I guess I can’t top that!
I then went to see about Kyudo with Cheryl, and as we were early I went to get some pictures at the Lolita fashion show, which I thought would be about girls coming down the runway. It was NOT! It was a power-point presentation of the different stores that sell sweet lolita, goth lolita and punk lolita. BOO!
For those who are somehow in a cave, here is how it goes. Basically, in the same way Betty Paige created the ‘vamp’ look, there is the ‘lolita’ look, which is best displayed in the movie ‘Kamikaze Girls’. It is NOT, as many customs agents thin, about being 10 and underage sex (that is loli-con), it is about wearing things that you WORE at those ages because they were leftovers from earlier historical ages. So a ‘Sweet’ Loli (or Lolita) would wear and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Dress with matching purse and maybe a plushie. I had a picture of some yesterday. I think I also had a picture of a Punk Loli (punky but schoolgirl!). Here is another ‘Sweet Loli’ as she has her basket and her plushie but also an outfit which cost quite a bit.
Sweet Loli’s big name for where to buy stuff is Sweet Baby and costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Goth loli’s big brand name is....h.naoto (like, oh, say my bag on the back of my chair!).
So a Goth loli, has both the ‘school girl’ look as well as the ‘goth’ look as this girl does, outside the convention center.
She also has an h.naoto bag on her back (from the fall collection I think). You can see why, regarding backpacks, I wanted a BIGGER one for my wheelchair. I don’t do goth loli, as after a certain age, TRYING to look 16 or 17 is kind of creepy, and for me, I just go for ‘everyday goth’ as it were. But a full goth loli in Japan will cost about $500 to START (that neck chocker is $40 for example!).
The whole lolita thing is about having what Thoreau would call a “Life Lived Deliberately” in which you enjoy the ways of the older things: you drink tea, you visit with friends, you walk slowly so as not to disturb the crinoline. You use a parasol to keep off the sun while you walk or picnic in the cemetery. You write a diary, you write letters and have a wax seal.....life lived deliberately. And you come to Sakura-con and get your picture taken.
Meanwhile, being the SHY and retiring sort I approached the guy getting ready for the Kyudo demonstration and asked him if I could hold the bow. I had wanted to in Japan, but there was no chance to go to a dojo. Kyudo is considered a martial art and popular with high schools thus popular in anime but I just liked it from having made bows myself. So he let me use his bow, made of carbon fibre and worth a LOT, and here I am, one cat ear a little tilted but having fun.
I could not however PULL the bow as he needed it for demonstration and he promised me to use the students bow AFTER.
Kyudo has 500,000 practitioners and the ‘simple’ form has eight steps. 
Before the event the organizers of the Sakura-con talked to the guy in charge about moving CLOSER when they found out that his bow of a 70 kg pull (about 145 lbs) was going to be discharged INSIDE. Due to having people attending killed is bad form. Kyudo is like ‘super-zen’, as the master of the Dojo had been doing the ONE simple form for five years and felt after another five he would be ‘better’ at it. I talked to him afterward (SURPRISED?) and while the theory is that you can hit the target in the dark, the whole point is that you focus on only ONE thing: the target. That is what you practice.
There are eight steps of which I am only going to talk about four: the first is the stance. You move until your feet are shoulder width apart.
This is more than just for balance. It is because each person’s arrows must be custom made for them depending on that distance. Your arm is at one foot, your hand at the other. We will skip the getting the bow ready and bowing and all that and get to the fun stuff: the last three steps (shooting!).
First you pull the bow (Yumi) a third of the way while over your head, but your hands are in the correct position. 
In Kyudo there is no sighting (that is in your MIND, hence the Zen), there is nothing but the bow. So you pull the string with your thumb, you hold the arrow with the first two fingers and you sight by resting the arrow on your hand holding the yumi (bow).
You then bring the string back to full extension, which is behind your ear and down to your eye level. 
This is where you concentrate on shooting, for about 3-5 seconds generally. In many cases it is not accuracy but the idea that ‘correct form in shooting makes correct hitting.’ Which is why it is a martial art. As the arrow is released, the yumi (bow) will spin away and end up on the opposite side.
I tried and tried and could not get a picture even in Movie mode of the arrow in flight, it was just TOO FAST. However, the full extension is the release mode, where the arrow is released and as you can see here, the yumi has spun away. 
The target being shot at is a makiwara, meaning a special design straw target which you shoot at closer range in order that you can focus on technique as your chances of missing are slim. I did ask afterwards and no protective ear or arm gear is used, so for beginners you practice and in a very Japanese answer, “Some students learn very quickly, while others are not so” – meaning some have red ears and burn marks from the string for a LONG time. But that is a steep learning curve having had my ear thwacked ONCE, I still remember it and the “Don’t draw back so far!” (this was the western style bow)
At the end of the questions he bows, everyone applauds, his students bow and then he says to me, ON THE microphone, “Yes, you were promised a bow to draw! If you will come over here.” So I came over and there were some people asking questions and I got into a great conversation with two girls about thongs and this one had just come to the line, “I’ve only ever worn one once! And that was because…” when this very austere Japanese man interrupts and it is my turn. I am the only person allowed to touch the bows besides the students. The bow I am given is shorter and I can pull it, so I ask if I can, and yes, so I pull it to the one third 
and then down to behind the ear and then say, “and now I would release” and then bring the string in. (don’t release a string with no arrow). They checked to make sure I am pulling with my thumb and it will not slip off.
After I do it a few times the instructor tells me along with another instructor that since the bow was actually made to be drawn from a horse, I should try drawing it across my body. That essentially, being in a wheelchair allows me to do the sport ‘correctly’ – as in more historically correctly than they can. Which is odd, as things are usually adapted to Wheelchairs instead of people in wheelchair being told, “Oh, we have been waiting for you as you are the only one who can do it the RIGHT way!” But I do two of the one third and then full draws
and everyone agrees that this is the way I should shoot as it is ‘proper’ and sadly there is no Kyudo club in Victoria. There is one in Seattle and one in Vancouver, so I will have to drop by and start as a beginner when I am in those cities, as I like the sport. Often having an individual style, a style of grace is as or more importance than your accuracy. And I have ALWAYS had an individual style (of course the instructor may just yell, “Don’t shoot like you are driving a forklift McClung!!!”).
Linda had come to the convention center to pick us up and is now convinced that NEXT YEAR (see, Elizabeth the optimist!), she will have a ticket too. She went up a few floors to take pictures and really liked this character,
which has both the umbrella AND a skull as well as contacts for red eyes (if you know the character and series please let me know!).
Also, as the ultimate in sweet lolita, living the Rococo life (Rococo is often a word for ‘the sweet lolita life’), here was a girl sitting on a bench. 
Wow. That is really all I can say but Wow. Also that if any teenagers are out there, go give your Dad a heart attack by telling him that THIS is what you want for your prom dress. Wow. And what is even better is that when the sweet lolita girl turned around, she was a cutie, with her neck choker, her bodice with lace and roses.
Yes, hard to buy groceries in, I admit, but to have tea with friends, and to write in your diary, it would be fun (assuming you had the help to get INTO it and out of it again!).
Lets finish with this pair, from another series I have missed. I love the hair, I love the face on the school girl.
I love the cheek to cheek. Anything that promotes Yuri (girl/girl pairings) I am for. And there were MANY girl/girl pairs at Sakura-con. Before I left I checked and I had WON a draw where I only HAD two ticket. Yet I was one of the three winners. I used my winning credit for Doujinshi (means book from struggling artist/circle who puts out high quality full color illustrations or story to sell at Con) full color art book!
Actually it was not the end as we headed from there to the international Village where the Japanese Center was with bookstore and all. Cheryl found a volume she was missing and I found my out of print, thought never to have been printed volume 4 of Le Chevalier d’Eon! So now if you want to get me Volumes 3 and 5 off the wish list (HINT!) you don’t have to worry, I have volume 4 ready! After that, we took the ferry and the drive and rolled back to Cheryl’s. Where we slept and then….did some postcards!
That’s right, I did postcards the night before and that night and the next day while waiting for the ferry as I felt, “Elizabeth, everyone has been so nice and the problem is, what have you GIVEN lately?” I was trying to explain to Linda, “I am a giver!” She said that just surviving and writing about Sakura-con might be gift enough for many. I said I know but I wanted to not go 2 weeks without postcards. Last week I couldn’t due to the medical stuff but this week I made SURE that 16 postcards went out in the mail. Not a lot, but it is a start! And I hope this week I can work during the week and have 40+, but I will do what I can do, I want to give back, you know, use letters and postcards to have like a conversation, Rococo style!
I did promise to show you my leopard print thong panties right?!
Well here I am corset, body shave, wet hair and umm…all.
I needed a wall to hang on to hold myself up, and this was it, sorry, I will work on getting a pole installed soon! Oh yes, this blog post is totally work safe! I just wanted to show you how I shaved my legs to go out in my skirt and goth gear. Come on! You KNOW how much effort that takes. From there things just…
See, only 16 hours ago it looked like THIS: wondrous, peaceful and sunny as we visited these serene gardens, showing the bedrock of Vancouver Island. 
A genuine Victoria tourist spot (unlike my apartment).
Except, once you let in a ‘Certain Element’ things sort of go down hill sometimes. Linda is nice. But I got BORED. Linda went down the stairs and I was up there looking over the SAME plants and I got bored okay! So I started flashing peopleby boobies and then Linda came to the bottom of the stairs and I yelled, “Take a picture of ME!”
And she did (she really will take a picture of anything!).
That was supposed to explain how after an hour of a full body shave with assistance and finding that LINDA had put out my leopard print thong, I was like, “oh you want it like that do you?” And then tried to convince Cheryl and then Linda to take a picture of me, with thong, my corset, goth earrings, necklace with Hello Kitty holding a bloody knife and a carved out human heart and….well, um, perfume? And they did. Do you want the rest of the photo series (available for download for a nominal price!)?
Anyway, after I had my fun (or the wall had it’s fun – the poor things that wall has to put up with). We head out to take over in my skull shoes and skull blanket and little black skirt to find…..SNOW.
So after stopping by some dead bodies to take a picture of the snow flurries (come to Victoria for all the main attractions: me flashing people, um….me in a thong holding myself up on various walls and SNOW – which is what makes us so different than other Canadian cities). We are going to try again tomorrow to see the museum and some other sites…thong and all.
As you can see, I am deep, deeply grieving: it just comes out in odd ways (send more thongs!).
When the Wheelchair PT Janet was trying to explain a point about my disease and caregiving today while tuning the new wheelchair, she said, ‘I bet some days you wish you could walk away from it all.’
I look at her with a quizzical look.
“Not you honey,” she said, “Though I bet you wish you could just up and walk away from it all.”
She was talking about having to make the tough decisions every time my autonomic system fails in a new way, to call 911 and spend 30 minutes trying to get them NOT to accidentally kill me or just wait 30 minutes and see if I get worse.
I thought what life would be like if I wasn’t in a VIHA clinic, getting tuning done on my wheelchair, if this wasn’t part of my day. What if I didn’t have home care later? I could just walk across the lawn to the sea, could walk up the stream leading down to it.
But the truth is that I haven’t the slightest idea what I would do, except that I would have more time to figure out how to do it. Should I just go back to writing books or try to take over the world, or just play cards with catgirls (watch out they cheat).
So, so, many choices.
I have tried to avoid that game of staying two steps in the past, playing ‘if only I wasn’t….” and instead figure out what to do NOW. When I became disabled, I let loose the voice inside that said, ‘…..if only you weren’t too scared.” And I dressed how I wanted to dress, which ranged from goth, to sex goddess waiting...
and back again.
Linda said on this picture, “She isn’t a goth! She’s smiling.”
I said, “Exactly, she a true goth, she knows who she is and what she wants.” I remembered, “Do you remember when I started wearing goth armwarmers, gloves, corsets and suddenly they went from something ‘ohhh’ and forbidden and maybe kinky and ‘what type of people wore them’ to ‘what type of corset today, the lace and velvet or the spider web?’”
She did remember and smiled. “And then I convinced you to get a corset and we all got dressed in boots and arm warmers and went to the cemetery. And suddenly the corsets were what everyone wore.” It was a good memory.
Now days, I wear the corsets less, because I go out less, but I still try to get one out once a week, but the stockings and mary janes, the kinky books and the 4 inch heels are languishing, waiting. I talked to Linda about sex fantasies today (mine) because I want to know what turns me on. And we talked about stories we had read in the Manga Object of Desire and the stories in it and found that this one story about a woman who works as a maid in a maid cafe was the one which turned me on. Was it because I wanted to dress as a maid? No, but I did want to have a nice matching set of ‘sex undies’:
the tap pants and bra or the panty and bra set, the negligee and ribbons in my hair the same colour. So, that is in my shopping future, something else to look forward to I think!
Okay, back to my sexual fantasy and arousal. We figured that this girl worked in a maid café and then at a party she asked if she could be a maid as that would be fun, to be a ‘professional’ maid. Other people looked down on her, and her partner came to her rescue. And I think that is what I admired, that she knew what she was, she knew that the clothes were just that, clothes and didn’t define her, but were a part of her expressing herself,
and that she did what no one else did at that party, lived out one of her dreams. And the part that makes it fuzzy and glow inside is that she had a partner who watched out for her: who made sure that others did not make her feel bad about her dreams; who was aware of all the things she did and was there when she needed him/her (him in this case). That’s erotic to me.
I think with the coming of spring, this is very much the time to cultivate dreams. Some people like to garden, 
and so this is a favorite season coming up. They say that ‘love’ is what makes plants grow. Since I live in a building opposite to the sun, I will say that I tried love, but I think that having the sun and some water probably helps too! But I can see the attraction; planning out the garden then enjoying it, or like we did, growing a window box of parsley and other herbs and then going to cut some fresh green onions, parsley and other herbs to add to the Mexican Chicken. Spring is a time when every bulb and every flower is making plans
(usually simple plans like, “Open and get sun, and spread seeds” – but plans all the same). And we enjoy seeing the beauty of their plans in action.
I guess it seems that I have left the ideas of loneliness, isolation behind. But life isn’t simple so why should I be? I have spent the hours staring into the darkness, aching.
Desires. Yes, I have the aching to find others like me, to stop feeling so alone. To spend days not treated like a thing. There is the dark side of me, and the light side and they exist together.
I was giving the tech sass and he couldn't get why I needed such a high end low mobility chair. Then not long later, after I had a grand mal, he worked around me, shocked, silent, uncomfortable, as I tried to watch and talk with him using my good eye. I was still the same person, the same mind, sort of, in the same body.
Tonight, going for my nap, I had another seizure and started crying, because the pain and exhaustion of it all. Yeah, it was just one of those long, long days. And now I had just ‘one more’ seizure, like each one wasn’t a special hell. Linda gave me Miko to hold and touched me.
The touching me made me cry more than before, because it was what I ached for so long, within the seizure. I know Linda or others hold me, or speak to me while I am seizing: but they are locked outside and I am in.
Many people (not the readers here I think) see me that way, a ‘poor thing’ locked, chained to a body that is dying on her.
And what point is there in explaining that I am who I am, that I have this FABULOUS dress sense due to disability. That my disability has shaped my humor, my viewpoint, my caring and my actions. I am not the prisoner, because I act, it is them.
Before, I lived my dreams, I got a Ph.D. so I could spend my time with my great love: books. Books were my morning, my evening, my rising, and my fall of the day. 
One time, running out of air, dying, I dreamed I was about to be taken to the LIBRARY where I would meet Borges, and Calvino and all the great authors, who worked daily on new works in the library, and the books were sold in the bookshop.
That changed, those dreams. Well books haven’t, they are still the great mirror of the soul.
They are our entertainment, our challenge, and the way we change ourselves without leaving the chair. Books are still touches of greatness. But they are currently closed to me.
In the same way people believe that EFM is now gone, or is here only in shadows or that is who they want. I have a vocation, and I serve that vocation. 
And as long as there are those who need me, I serve. Or to put it in another way, I will never have the physical ability that I once had, but on the other hand, I now have other ways to ensure that those who need help, are heard, are seen, are remembered. Sometimes, my words, sometimes my presence but understand, who I am has not changed. It is one of the reasons I am going for my BC wheelchair racing rating. It is one of the reasons that I say, “Okay, you’ve told me it is impossible four time, now are you going to take my money so I can go do it, or not?” Every time I send postcards, I am EFM. Every time, I face another specialist who tells me I better hurry up as they are busy after making me wait 50 minutes to see them, I am about to go EFM.
The thing about me, is that while I change, I grow, I like to think that becoming disabled has helped me to grow, in many ways, I do not change. I have a code, I live by that code. And part of that is that when there are those in need, I stay, until every last one is taken care of. If there are five spots and six people, I stay. And just being that way drives some people wild. They try to bully you, they try to belittle you, they attack; I wish I knew why, but the law remains, and I remain, and if they are a bully to others, they shall not pass.
Linda says she has seen this look on my face more than few times (and since becoming disabled).
So…..spring is coming, and there is a future ahead of all of us. ALL OF US. I have a future, I have choices. I almost stopped the postcard project after several bad weeks. But I didn’t, because I know from my own life the joy or anticipate that post can bring. I know that anticipation itself is a gift.
That someone sending post that isn’t just formulas is a gift. That someone thinking about YOU, and sending gifts, however small, is something special and something to treasure.
I do.
We all have this future and we have to decide what we are going to do with it. Or who we are going to live it for. For you? For others? For both, I hope. That this, not new years is when I make my plans, my dreams, my desires of what will be done, because I can hear the wind, the sound of grass, see the buds of plants. I look out and know that I better get something going and catch up to nature,
because change is coming whether we want it or not…just as it does every year.
Today was a very big day for me as I talked myself pretty much into a stupor with Janet who is now going to be the Olympic swim coach and Ted from Motion as they brought my $23, 000 chair. My GOD! I felt bad, that a family in a trailer park is living without a new double wide trailer because I have this chair (seriously, aren’t medical costs obscene!).
I have been having a lot of memories of Japan, and my trip there because I am helping another wheelchair user right now do some booking of hotels from my blog. So if you haven’t read the Japan section I recommend hitting April 2008 and scrolling to the bottom or hitting here. The cherry blossoms are coming out in Japan AND coming out (according to Stephanie) in Victoria.
The Cherry Blossoms near me, by the parliament, are actually a gift from the Emperor of Japan in the 1930’s when Victoria hosted his daughter. This is considered a great honor as Japan marks cherry trees as those from the cutting of the Emperors’ trees and those which are NOT (of course the Emperors’ trees are somehow better). Also much like the UK, they keep a record of ‘significant trees’ – but in Japan ‘significant cherry trees’, so we went during Sakura (the cherry blossom festival as the blossoms open all over Japan at different times) and saw a few of the trees. And stared for twenty seconds before saying, “Do you see anything particularly significant?”
And Linda would say, “Looks pretty much like every other cherry tree to me!” But hey, we tried!
Speaking of trying, I have decided not only to begin my work in editing a book about becoming rather suddenly disabled and how you get to join the cool club (don’t worry, everyone gets there either temporarily or eventually, just keep doing those ski jumps!). I also have written to the BBC to ask to start writing short blogs for them. All of the bloggers were booted off laste last year, and the new site is fine but lacks a bit of the common touch and experience. When most of the writers have jobs for the BBC or are independent comedians while most people with disabilities are unemployed (over 75% in recent surveys - and I consider the complexity of being ME a full time job). 
So I am going to be really cheeky (wow, what a TOTAL surprise for everyone!), and ask if you can ask Ouch to let me blog for them....for free. The ‘Contact Us’ section you get to by hitting HERE and going down on the left and hitting Contact Us which provides an email address OR you can just put in your comments right there. So I have provided a possible response you might want to put in, just cut and paste:
I like Elizabeth, she show me her panties and she not kill anyone yet. Please let her show her panties and shots of her begging for money on the BBC. Also she is FAR away from your office and cannot hurt you…that important!
If you DO put that in the comment...I will be very, very, VEXED, and come and do things to you; you don’t want to see me vexed (other people do, but you don’t),
I may do evil things…..like roll over you many times with my power chair (it actually has a setting you push on the computer for rolling over things, I was rather disturbed by that).
One last thing before back to the powerchair, is for those who are disabled or know someone disabled, I have found a manga series called REAL about wheelchair basketball. 
The wildly popular writer of basketball series (think millions of copies sold), has a new series about three young men who all are in wheelchairs through different ways (cancer, car accident…), but all end up using wheelchair basketball. I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t tell you how good or bad it is, but it is on my wishlist and I thought if you have a friend or young person in a wheelchair who thinks there is nothing out there for THEM, try this. We all like to be represented in the media of popular culture; we all belong here.
You can thank today’s pictures to Victor who gave me a gift that keeps on giving…kick ass pretty pictures. It is a great gift. Thank you Victor! This is how I thank him, I think he will understand.
Besides, the more I try to explain that picture and me thanking Victor, the more sordid it sounds.
Back to the Power Chair (still deciding on a name for it between Lurch or Igor), it is small enough to go from my work desk to my bed and back as well as outside….in theory. It arrived today as did Janet, who talks three times faster than other humans and is about the only person who can out-talk me. She looked like she had been in a fight but it turns out she fell down while walking her dog and her face hit a rock (ouch!). I told her that I could help her in lessons on falling down. She said that she was sure I could, and would see if she had the time. Then she started instructing me on how to use the chair going downhill, like to tilt it backwards on a steep hill to stay inside (it has no seat belt as apparently in an argument I don’t remember I refused a seat belt?). I asked her, “will the tilting make it go FASTER!” She said no but I would learn how to CONTROL the chair or I might fly out of it. I told her, I was used to flying out of wheelchairs
and what I need is how to make it go really FAST down a hill! Though having a full on electric wheelchair fall atop me I think might hurt. She said she would not tell me until I learn to control the chair first. I said, “It is straight down hill, what do I need to control?”
Anyway, the other thing which has me irked is there is this big button in the middle of the control panel and it does......nothing. I told the tech, Ted earlier that I wanted rockets out the back, or sparklers or a little death ray. I mean I pay over $23,000 and they can’t provide SOMETHING to go with this big button? Just a little death ray out the front? Or sparklers to go with my Kimono? 
Sigh. The controls are electronic and there are 5 settings, from indoors to high speed AND going over things. The problem is that as I can’t really feel my hands, as I turned to talk to Janet, twice I accidentally hit the switch moving it from indoors, to outdoors, to high speed. I had no idea, but Janet said, “Look you did it again! You are going to zoom into a wall if you don’t watch it.”
I complained that once I stop (there are delayed controls for my gross motor function, so if I take a second or so to find forward, it waits and then starts going), the chair sort of still goes. She said, there is a law of physics and something in motion will stay in motion, and we CAN make it stop dead, but YOU, without your seatbelt, would go flying. There must have been my, “that sounds kind of interesting” look on my face as she said, “No, we won’t do that, try it out for a week!”
I have tried driving it but so far I have not made it to the bedroom without a) making interesting marks on the wall or b) crushing my feet (in one case literally to about an inch if I had not pulled my leg clear). Oops!
So I hope I will get better at driving!
Janet is a breath of abusively fresh air as she tells me that this will help me through some of my stages of my ‘potentially terminal disease.’ I was, “potentially?” And she was like, “I thought you were into living!” And then I said, “Well true, I could be the FIRST not to die.” And then we traded stories of people who should be dead due to their conditions, like SMA stage I children (who don’t make it past 1 year) who are teens. It is all about the attitude (I hope!), and maybe the clothes?
Plus she had good advice about how families will do things that seem very, very cruel but are just part of denial. So she made me feel normal with her stories, including her own stories. And said a very good line which is that “your mother loves you but may not like you” about how we can ‘fail’ to live up to expectations. And particularly how they just don’t want to think about their child dying – that the parent aspect of thinking and dealing with a child dying before them makes them have a system failure. Which I could understand: also now I am going to the pool she goes to because that is where all the paralympic swimmers swim and they are used to seizures and all sorts of stuff and don’t call the ambulance. In fact she walked in one day and they said, ‘this disabled swimmer is having a seizure, we have them in this room, do you know them’ which she says drives her nuts like she will OF COURSE know every disabled person in the world, or this city. So she goes in the room and it is her friend, xxxxx, so she does know them.
So, now I have this huge THING sitting in my living room which can demolish my walls but I haven’t quite figured out, besides crushing my feet how to make it work to give me a better life (except now I have head support and thank GOD, I was thinking all this week – please when will the head support come – seriously). I will take pictures tomorrow of the powerchair and me with several of my different corsets, 
maybe I will take it out with me to go dancing – oh, I can see a lot of people having injuries with me on the dance floor – maybe I will take the manual just this time.
I hope you have a good weekend and please, remember like Big Brother to vote me INTO the BBC Ouch house because apparently I think I don’t have enough to do!
Yes, I may not spend as MUCH time seeing stuff as before but I still work as hard as I can.
I also took pictures of the back, showing the thong, and the ribbon tying me in but choose to go with STYLE instead. Also, thanks to Linda forgetting my white push-up strapless bra, I was natural, but thanks to the WONDER CREAM, I was perky and natural! Seriously, I had the cream all the girls want at 11-13, you literally rub it on (of course in my case, a little lower than the breasts), and your breasts get bigger. SWEET!
The plan was to see some of the exhibit hall and get gifts and then to go to some of the panels on during the day, particularly the one on Kyudo: Japanese Archery. It has the super tall bows and a very different grip system; but also see the goth lolita fashion show.
And could win even with all the petticoats. However, after too many trips to different Royal courts as different genders, the job as spy was over; but d’Eon continued to switch genders, and teach fencing. Eventually, not knowing the gender of d’Eon, the King ruled that d’Eon could not publicly duel or fence while wearing petticoats. At the death of d’Eon, the King’s physician examined the body and the person was buried, it is still unclear whether d’Eon was male, female, ambiguous genitalia, or had an intersex condition. They are the one great fencer that is sort of NOT talked about in fencing as the guys don’t want to claim a cross dresser and the women fencers aren’t sure if d’Eon WAS a female, ergo in the west, d’Eon is rather obscure. In JAPAN, they made an anime about him, where his twin sister (who is a better fencer than he) possesses him and gender changes him for a time for the good of the King! The manga looks like it has d’Eon as male (maybe, still unclear) who dresses as a female, or a female who dressed as a male usually, returns to female clothes to protect the King with her/his blade.
The Corset is covered in skulls! That’s right, you don’t have to be a GUY to be a fetching pirate anymore! We arrived at the place I wanted to buy gifts only to find all things but one sold out! Ahhhh! He told me to email him at his warehouse which I will do today to see if he has certain cool items, which I can’t say or ruin the surprise.
I think she looks quite fetching, but she refused to wear them outside the hotel room. As for me, I ran out of money on gifts, sadly, but a kind soul (Cheryl) found a place that had SIMPLE white kitty ears, with tufts of white hair. And they were inexpensive. So I agreed for her that I would take them as a gift and wear them. Suddenly, no longer are we getting the SIMPLE white ones but the ones with purple ribbons and all sorts of stuff as she says, “This way it will go with any outfit!”
But hey, if you can’t go slightly over the top when you are wearing a bridal thong (for the next 12 hours as Linda ‘forgot’ to put any underwear in the change bag – talk about convenient for HER, and also a good thing I have limited feeling), then when can you?
Afterward we compared clothes and she had the lace gloves from ‘Lip Service’ (as do I!), and the corset was made for her by a corset company here at the Con last year. I stay away from those companies as they use phrases like “Only $120” while my Bustier, thong and thigh highs came to a total of $23. She had some other lip service stuff but the wonderful Indigo dress she bought in Indonesia. Okay, well, I guess I can’t top that!
Sweet Loli’s big name for where to buy stuff is Sweet Baby and costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Goth loli’s big brand name is....h.naoto (like, oh, say my bag on the back of my chair!).
She also has an h.naoto bag on her back (from the fall collection I think). You can see why, regarding backpacks, I wanted a BIGGER one for my wheelchair. I don’t do goth loli, as after a certain age, TRYING to look 16 or 17 is kind of creepy, and for me, I just go for ‘everyday goth’ as it were. But a full goth loli in Japan will cost about $500 to START (that neck chocker is $40 for example!).
I could not however PULL the bow as he needed it for demonstration and he promised me to use the students bow AFTER.
Before the event the organizers of the Sakura-con talked to the guy in charge about moving CLOSER when they found out that his bow of a 70 kg pull (about 145 lbs) was going to be discharged INSIDE. Due to having people attending killed is bad form. Kyudo is like ‘super-zen’, as the master of the Dojo had been doing the ONE simple form for five years and felt after another five he would be ‘better’ at it. I talked to him afterward (SURPRISED?) and while the theory is that you can hit the target in the dark, the whole point is that you focus on only ONE thing: the target. That is what you practice.
This is more than just for balance. It is because each person’s arrows must be custom made for them depending on that distance. Your arm is at one foot, your hand at the other. We will skip the getting the bow ready and bowing and all that and get to the fun stuff: the last three steps (shooting!).
In Kyudo there is no sighting (that is in your MIND, hence the Zen), there is nothing but the bow. So you pull the string with your thumb, you hold the arrow with the first two fingers and you sight by resting the arrow on your hand holding the yumi (bow).
This is where you concentrate on shooting, for about 3-5 seconds generally. In many cases it is not accuracy but the idea that ‘correct form in shooting makes correct hitting.’ Which is why it is a martial art. As the arrow is released, the yumi (bow) will spin away and end up on the opposite side.
The target being shot at is a makiwara, meaning a special design straw target which you shoot at closer range in order that you can focus on technique as your chances of missing are slim. I did ask afterwards and no protective ear or arm gear is used, so for beginners you practice and in a very Japanese answer, “Some students learn very quickly, while others are not so” – meaning some have red ears and burn marks from the string for a LONG time. But that is a steep learning curve having had my ear thwacked ONCE, I still remember it and the “Don’t draw back so far!” (this was the western style bow)
and then down to behind the ear and then say, “and now I would release” and then bring the string in. (don’t release a string with no arrow). They checked to make sure I am pulling with my thumb and it will not slip off.
and everyone agrees that this is the way I should shoot as it is ‘proper’ and sadly there is no Kyudo club in Victoria. There is one in Seattle and one in Vancouver, so I will have to drop by and start as a beginner when I am in those cities, as I like the sport. Often having an individual style, a style of grace is as or more importance than your accuracy. And I have ALWAYS had an individual style (of course the instructor may just yell, “Don’t shoot like you are driving a forklift McClung!!!”).
which has both the umbrella AND a skull as well as contacts for red eyes (if you know the character and series please let me know!).
Wow. That is really all I can say but Wow. Also that if any teenagers are out there, go give your Dad a heart attack by telling him that THIS is what you want for your prom dress. Wow. And what is even better is that when the sweet lolita girl turned around, she was a cutie, with her neck choker, her bodice with lace and roses.
Yes, hard to buy groceries in, I admit, but to have tea with friends, and to write in your diary, it would be fun (assuming you had the help to get INTO it and out of it again!).
I love the cheek to cheek. Anything that promotes Yuri (girl/girl pairings) I am for. And there were MANY girl/girl pairs at Sakura-con. Before I left I checked and I had WON a draw where I only HAD two ticket. Yet I was one of the three winners. I used my winning credit for Doujinshi (means book from struggling artist/circle who puts out high quality full color illustrations or story to sell at Con) full color art book!
