Well... That's Special

Ohai!

Yup, I still realllllllllyyyyy suck. But I swear I have something for y'all tonight that more than makes up for my absence. I'll show you that later. In the meantime here's what's been going on here...

I have been in a LOT of pain. The past couple of months have been terrible pain wise. Wanna know why? Remember how Fanny irritated my sciatic nerve? Well... it looks like even though Fanny is gone the sciatica remains, and it's been having a massive flair up with this weather. To make matters worse I went to my doctor on Wednesday, she said apart from the increase in pain I'm probably developing a tolerance to my pain meds. In other words, I'm in more pain and my pain meds are no longer effective. SUPER DOOPER! My doctor wanted me to take two Neurontins, one in the morning and one at night. I tried the one in the morning thing... but that rendered me useless for the rest of the day. No good. No good at all. So I'm taking the two at night instead. Seems to be helping thus far... still in pain... but not as much. Blah.

I've been trying to be a social creature, YAY ME! On Sunday I had a "Walking Dead" Party with some of my friends. We had a grand ol' time eating brain cupcakes and watching the show. Random, but I hope I'm not the only cripple who related to this scene...

I actually have plans for this weekend too. On Saturday AND Sunday! HOLY CRAP! Working on New Year's Resolutions... LIKE A BOSS! 

So... on to that special treat that I totally owe you guys. A little backstory first. On Valentine's day my dad got me a helium filled balloon. Ok? A couple of days ago it started to die so I figured it was time to cut the balloon and let it go free. The thing is I couldn't let perfectly good helium go to waste. The result is this... I think there might be a swear or two somewhere in there... whoops

Crippie Inhales Helium from Special McSpecial on Vimeo.
Sorry about all the nose scratches... allergies are a bitch. If y'all are wondering my sister is the one singing opera and swearing in the background ;) 
Crippie's Tippie - Take a note from Hershel, if some random person asks to see your specialness, demand alcohol from them! 

Crippie Acts Completely Out of Character

Ohai Everyone!

I hope everyone had a marvelous Monday. Mine was alright, full of the usual pain and discomfort that January and February have brought me, but otherwise no complaints. I do have a fun story to tell y'all though... a refreshing break from me talking about being in constant pain for the past few months.

Well, as you all know the past two months have kinda sucked... a lot. So what did Crippie do about it? Believe it or not I spent Thursday night getting fairly drunk with my coworkers. You see, I was at a party for all the employees at my office (YAY social life points), and I was allowed 2 free drinks, whatever my little heart desired. Normally I do not drink alcohol, partly because it doesn't mix well with my rather strong narcotics, and partly because I just don't enjoy the taste of it. Believe it or not I actually decided to have a drink, not just any drink... a relatively strong one at that. Usually when I drink I dilute the crap outta whatever I'm having, and get a buzz at most. For some off reason I thought a chocolate martini sounded tasty. What can I say, the thought of chocolate milk with lots of alcohol in it intrigued me... plus, it was free. How can I say no to free alcoholic chocolate milk?!?!? So, I consumed an entire chocolate martini in a relatively short span of time AND on an empty stomach. Yup, I'm brilliant. At least I had water too so I was hydrated. I was pleasantly surprised at how I actually found the alcoholic chocolate milk to be tasty. I guess there was enough chocolate syrup and liquor to drown out the nail polish remover taste. Well, about a quarter way through the beverage I either stopped hurting or stopped caring about the constant discomfort. I had a great time being social and being slightly inebriated (YAY social life points), not to mention I had the opportunity to consume some tasty noms. Needless to say, Thursday was a much needed break in what has been a really crappy  few months, I got to be a VERY social creature, AND I acted completely out of character.

CHOCOLATE BOOZE!!!! 

Slightly inebriated Crippie  

Freakin' Awesome Desserts 

And on a completely unrelated topic, since some of y'all were curious about how I did my nails with those polka dots... I used a dotting tool to draw the polka dots on. Funness. Toothpicks and old ball-point pens also suffice. I used painter's tape for the design below if you're wondering. If you're also wondering why on earth I would spend time doing stuff like that... it helps me concentrate on something other than the pain. You really need to focus if you don't wanna screw up your manicure ;)

Tape Mani while showing off my dotting tool. It doesn't make sense, but whatever

And on ANOTHER unrelated note, to make up for my still irregular posts... here's some sleeping animals.

SLEEPY FRIDA!  

Helen is all snuggled up and adorable

Crippie's Tippie - If you're like me and take heavy duty narcotics, drink in extreme moderation and make sure you sober up before you take your meds. NEVER MIX ALCOHOL WITH PAIN KILLERS. EVER. 

Resolutions and What Not

Hi Everybody!

I'm totally late on all of these New Year's posts... but whatever. While I didn't exactly accomplish all of my resolutions last year, I didn't fail miserably either. So here's my resolutions for 2013...

FREAKING DRIVING

Seriously, I need to get over this driving thing yesterday. It's really frustrating. Time for this buttercup to suck it up and drive to some places.

DESIGN ALL THE THINGS! 

I'd love to expand my freelance horizons. I'm still working on setting up an online shop. Crippie's gotta hustle and make some money ;)

BLOG REGULARLY AGAIN, FOR REALZ

I have every intention of getting back to blogging every day. I'd also like to spruce up the place a little. I was thinking of doing theme days like "Music Monday". I dunno... what do you guys think? Anything you wanna see? And I plan to add a crap ton of adorable animal pictures :D

SOCIAL LIFE! FIND ONE!

Pretty much self explanatory... a social life would be loverly

That's pretty much it... I don't think I'm being unrealistic... we'll find out. In the meantime, I need to get to bed!

Crippie's Tippie - Be realistic when setting goals, otherwise you'll just feel like a failure

Try to Remember

That Time in Decemberrrrrrrrrrrrrr (The Fantasticks joke if you were wondering)

Happy December everybody! 

Yup, I totally failed at NHBPM this year. Yesterday's prompt was "Recap NHBPM". Well... I missed the first 10 days due to Hurricane Sandy and my general lack of interwebz. Once the internet returned I did what I could, but I've been super tired recently and I put sleeping above blogging (as it should be). On the bright side I didn't ignite any flamewars and or hate mail... which is a plus. Meh, I'll probably use those prompts one of these days. Congrats to everybody else who actually finished NHBPM, if I could hand you a cookie I would. 

This week is gonna be a pretty awesome week for me. Partly because Hanukkah starts on the 8th and mainly because my 24th birthday is on Tuesday! YAY ME! I'll be celebrating by hanging out with the family and maybe going out for dinner tomorrow (several people in my house have had a tiny stomach bug today, myself included. So we'll see what tomorrow brings). I'm sure that most people my age would be beyond bummed about not celebrating their birthdays by going out with a bunch of friends and getting completely hammered. While I am perfectly fine with that not being the case, it does make me feel kinda weird that I don't. I dunno, I guess it's events like this that highlight that I do not behave like your average 20 something. Apart from that weird feeling, I really do not mind not being the norm. My birthday "party" will consist on nomming on steaks with my family, and it'll be awesome. Bonus awesome points for being to remember my birthday come the day after ;)

Funny, my last official birthday party was 10 years ago (annnnddd now I feel old). I stopped having parties because people stopped inviting me to theirs, lying about not having parties, etc. Yeaaahhhh birthday parties kinda trigger a buncha negative memories about being abandoned by people. That's probably the main reason that I am perfectly content with spending the day with my family and maybe a friend if possible. As depressing as that may sound, there is no way in hell that I'm gonna let a few traumatic memories rain on my parade. One thing I've learned in my decade without the parties is that they are not necessary for a good time. Having a friend over for a movie can be just as fun :) 

Crippie's Tippie - The whole "spare the cripple's feelings by not inviting them to things" logic is flawed to say the least. Can you say "EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE!"?

Can I Pass Out Now?

Greetings!

I hope y'all had a fabulous weekend. Mine was purdy damn awesome. There was a HUGE party at my house to celebrate my mom and grandma's birthdays. It was fabulous. I was social creature and hung out with a crap ton of relatives and family friends, not to mention the noms were delicious. Instead of a cake we ordered cupcakes and cake pops from a local bakery. Crippie has to give a shout out to the Eat Sweet bakery, they did an incredible job AND they ship cookies across the country!

I had such a blast this weekend. Some people my age wouldn't enjoy hanging out with a massive amount of people over the age of 60, but I rather enjoy it. Mainly because we can have conversations like this...

Elderly Person - Oh man, my hip has been killing me recently
Crippie - ME TOO!!!!!

Another Elderly Person - I can get up out of these damn chairs
Crippie - DUDE, ME TOO!!!!

Yet Another Elderly Person - It's so humid, I can hardly move
Crippie - YOU'RE PREACHIN' TO THE CHOIR SISTA

I can relate very well to elderly people, y'all get the idea.

Saturday was so damn awesome that I don't really care how much pain I was in today. Today's weather sucked beyond all reason. If it wasn't insanely humid it was pouring. Yeah, I definitely had difficulty moving today. Meh, still totally worth it.

Now that everything is settling down in my house I can finally rest. I've been super tired for the past week. It's probs gonna take me a few days to recover from the parties. While recovering from parties and being social can be rather rough at times, the positives of the few awesome hours completely make up for it.

Crippie's Tippie - Sometimes you need to just go and put yourself out there, regardless of how much it will hurt in the morning.

Yup, I'm Insane

Ohai August

I hope all my readers are having a lovely week. I'm still kinda recovering from Cripplefest so I'm a wee bit tired. I better hurry up and recover because there will be another massive event at my house on Saturday. Approximately 60 people will be coming to my house for a cumulative "LOL, my mom and grandma are old" party. I'm gonna have to clean soooooooooooo many things tomorrow... oy! 

On top of that general craziness I have my own guinea pig drama to deal with. As y'all might remember, the last time we heard from Aggie & Maggie they were in separate cages because they now hate each other. Well, I gave them some time to forget that they want to kill one another but alas, it does not seem to be working. Whenever I put one close to the other they goes all "bath salts"on each other and try to eat the other's face. *Sigh*. Aggie is still rather content being a solo pig. I have not noticed any changes in behavior from her. Maggie on the other hand is depressed. She just sits around her cage and sulks. I can't just leave Maggie alone in her cage and I have very limited options. I could trrryyyyy to put her with the trio, but I don't see that ending well. My other option is to get her a new friend. Since Maggie is a little asshole getting a buddy for her is no easy task. Generally speaking it's easier to either get a senior pig and or a baby pig, they are not as likely to hurt them. I can't afford to take care of another senior pig now, not to mention that I really don't want to go through the whole introduction process again when the senior croaks. So it looks like I need to find a baby guinea pig that Maggie will like. My plan of action is to contact the nearest guinea pig rescues and shelters, ask if they have baby pigs, and ask if I can bring Maggie over for a "play-date". Since Maggie is such a butthead I can't just adopt any baby that I want, if she doesn't like the n00b I'm screwed. Maggie has to be the one to choose her friend. What can I say, I'm a crazy guinea pig lady. I've already contacted the nearest rescue (an hour away from me) asking about a play-date, no response yet (keep your fingers crossed readers). In the meantime I'm checking Craigslist and Petfinder to see if any new piglets pop up. Oh, if by chance any of my local readers are looking to rehome a young, female guinea pig... hit me up.

So yeah, things are slightly hectic around here, but it's all good. It's definitely a change from the usual. Again, due to the craziness, I don't know if I'll be able to post this weekend. I'll try though.

Crippie's Tippie - Cannot say these this enough... if you want a guinea pig, ADOPT. Also, guinea pigs are hard freakin' work. 

Maggie's Tippie - Unless you're a weirdo like Aggie, piggies like to be with other pigs. If you're adopting pigs, make sure that we have friends.

Cripplefest 2012!!!!

HALLO!

CRIPPIE'S BACK EVERYBODY!!!!

Boy howdy did I have a ridiculously awesome week with all of my cripples. I got to see my buddies from all different parts of the country, and even the world (side note: I picked up a crazy Norwegian accent over the course of the week, apparently its annoying, ja?). For one week, I was normal, and it was fantastic. I stayed out late and hung out with friends, took goofy pictures, invented inside jokes, all that jazz. Not to mention the whole having discussions with doctors and fellow cripples so now I have a bunch of post ideas for future weeks... OBOI.

Apart from the obvious awesomeness of being a normal for a week, this week also kicked ass because... I DROVE ON A HIGHWAY AND A BUNCH OF OTHER PLACES THAT I'M REALLY NOT COMFORTABLE DRIVING!!! YAY ME!!! I reckon that necessity and getting to see your cripples is a fairly good motivator when it comes to getting on a highway. It'll take some more practice before I'm totally ok with driving on these scary ass roads, but it's def good to know that I am capable of driving on them!

So yeah, it's pretty safe to say that Cripplefest was the highlight of my year. I saw my peeps, discussed cripple issues, made a bunch of new cripple friends, AND I drove on a damn highway. WINNING. Oh, also people managed to take a bunch of awkward photos of me, so without further ado I give you "Crippie Being Special"

Crippie's Tippie - Throw your own Cripplefest, they're freakin' awesome!

Counting Down To Cripplefest!

Howdy!

The Aggie Update - Aggie has been a very good girl and her eye is looking better and better by the day. It's starting to look black again. YAY AGGIE!!! Poor baby hates those eyedrops though. While she lets me put them in, she starts to cry after a minute or two :( Since the pain is very much temporary I found the best treatment for her sorrows is treats. She forgets about her eye when she sees a nice piece of watermelon. I'll probably have to put her on a little diet when she gets better ;)

I hope y'all had a lovely Sunday and Monday. I was a social creature over the weekend. My friend and I went to see the Katy Perry movie. It was actually pretty good, which says something because I don't particularly care for her music. My favorite part was watching a grandma and her young grandchildren's reactions to that "Peacock" song, I was LOLing on the inside. 

Apart from the social-ness Crippie has been preparing for Cripplefest!!! What is Cripplefest? Well, it's when a bunch of people with my disorder converge at my house and we all bask in our awesomeness. All of this awesomeness will be occurring in about 2.5 weeks. Oh my goodness I'm so excited. Cripplefest has to be my favorite time of the year. I get to hang out with my friends in person, meet a bunch of new people from across the world, share stories and experiences, win some scar wars, all that fun stuff. It's the one time when I feel like a normal. For once I'm not the odd person out for having tumors all over their body. I'm seriously stoked for this *high pitched squeel* IMSOEXCITED!!!!

Some of my cripple friends will be staying here for about a week, which will be so freakin' awesome. It's also kinda hilarious because we all kinda look alike in a way. We don't think it has anything to do with the disorder, it's just a coincidence that we're the same height, same hair, glasses, etc. Apparently we're all also darkly funny. For those of you who think I'm a little weird... you are correct... now picture a room fuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll of Crippies. Can't you just sense the awesome! 

So yeah, I apologize in advance if posts get a little sporadic towards the end of July, I'll be busy entertaining my peeps! 

Crippie's Tippie - Cripplefests and gatherings are a great way to prove that you are not alone

Growing Up Crippie

Ohai!

First off, "Crippie's Corner" has reached over 20,000 page views! HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP! Thank you guys so much. When Crippie started blogging I was shocked to see that I had 20 views. I cannot put it into words how much it means to me that you guys are interested in what I say (my piggies are in the background saying "um... mom... all those people just wanna see our faces"). Gotta give a special shout out to Mary, Mario, & Chris for their awesome comments :D

Since we are dealing with a special occasion here, Crippie figured she should answer a cripple question of awesome caliber... "how did having a disability effect you growing up?" Where to begin...

When Crippie was just a lil Crippie, let's say under 10, I knew I had "bumpy bones" and that they made me suck at gym, but that was about it. My disability had a relatively small impact on my life. I had some really good friends, went to birthday parties, did well in school, all that normal jazz. The only time being a cripple really had an impact was in gym. I was horrrrriiiiiibbbbbblllllleeeeeee at most gym activities and kids would pick on me for it. Again, relatively minor in the scheme of things.

Crippie had surgery when she was 10 make my leg straight, and I wound up with massive complications. This is when my disability had a profound effect on me. I was in constant pain, couldn't walk, and couldn't attend school. My "friends" along with damn near everyone I knew opted to no longer associate with me. Fun, right? So Crippie spent the next few years with minimal social contact. Being visibly crippled and being in Middle School do not mix... at all. I was never invited to "hang out" with people, never attended a birthday party, nothing. No one wanted to associate with me so I became very used to being alone. I focused on my studies, I figured winning tons of awards and whooping everyone's butts in class was a subtle "screw y'all".

In high school most people still wouldn't associate with Crippie, but I figured ways to better select friends. Crippie opted to hang with people who wouldn't shun me for being a cripple... these people were other cripples and members of a local religious commune. I had a handful of friends in high school and at age 17 I was finally invited to a birthday party! Still, I had very limited social interaction. My summers were consumed with surgeries, so I couldn't exactly go "hang out" with people. Crippie compensated for the general physical sickness and social inadequacies by being insanely smart. Crippie did insanely well on all of her exams, and graduated in the top percent of her class. I never missed a day of high school and won a bunch of scholarships and awards!

I guess it's safe to say that being a cripple had a massive effect on my life, especially my social life. This is why Crippie doesn't take a lot of her "autistic tendencies" terribly seriously... hard to tell if they're actually autistic tendencies or a result of being treated like crap by damn near everyone outside of my family. It was definitely challenging growing up with a disability. It was very painful, very frustrating, and very isolating. The more I think about it... the more I realize that my life really sucked from ages 10-18. Alas, no point in dwelling on that... now Crippie has to acknowledge the crap, learn from it, and move on.

Crippie's Tippie - If your friend is sick, having surgery, anything... don't act like they fell off the face of the Earth. Hang out with them, call, text, post a message on their facebook wall, ANYTHING to let them know that you do in fact care. 

P.S. Anyone interested in hearing about growing up with a disability from my mom's point of view? I know she certainly has some tippies for the normals

Crippie Is A Busy Bee

Ohai,

Helen is beyond thrilled with all of her online admirers. Her giant head has already tripled in size! For those of you who are wondering, Helen is a Shih Tzu. The best part about small dogs is that you can reenact the opening sequence to The Lion King. It's not uncommon to see someone in my house going "MMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAA SSSSSAAAAAAAA WHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN YYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" while holding Helen up in the air. She seems to enjoy it.

Crippie had a very busy day today. I worked for 8 hours, came home, had dinner, and then babysat for an additional hour and a half. While many people would find a day like that hectic or annoying, Crippie rather enjoys them. I like keeping busy, it feels like that's what I should be doing. Tomorrow is my day off from work. I could've spent it at home on the computer but I'm not going to do that. Crippie is going to visit the piggies in the shelter again and if possible sign up to be a piggie volunteer. I would sign up to be a volunteer in general, but I can't take exactly take care of the dogs or cats (can't reach down to clean them up). The best part about tomorrow... Crippie has learned that there are GOATS at the animal shelter. Yes, goats, 5 goats to be exact. Crippie finds goats extremely entertaining and I want to meet them.

I feel like I am slowly but surely working on my New Year's Resolution of "finding a life and getting the hell out of my house". Even though volunteering at the shelter isn't the most "social" activity in the world it's an important activity nonetheless, and hey... gotta start somewhere.

And if y'all are wondering... I'm gonna keep posting about those guinea pigs until they find happy homes.

Crippie's Tippie - If you are in the market for a goat, check out the Warwick Valley Humane Society

Resolutions & Such

Happy 2012 Y'all!

It's that time of year again, that time when Crippie makes a few resolutions that she probably won't be able to keep. I'm hoping that writing them here on "the interwebz" will help me remember/fulfill them

CRIPPIE'S 2012 GOALS & STUFF

LEARN WEB DESIGN- Crippie knows some verrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy basic html/coding things, but I suck at it. I'd like to relearn CSS and all that fun stuff. When I do learn this stuff, I wanna redesign the blog with all kinds of shnazzy things. 

GET MORE FREELANCE CLIENTS- Crippie needs to expand her design horizons. I'm also thinking of setting up an online shop for my designs, sell prints, t-shirts, things of that nature. I was also thinking of mayyybbbeeeeee starting a design blog... but I dunno.

CLEAN MY GOD DAMNED ROOM- Crippie's room is a kinda messy and rather cluttered. I've decided that I'm gonna treat my room like a studio apartment, cause I'm probably not gonna be going anywhere for a few years. 

LESSEN DRIVING ANXIETY- The whole driving anxiety thing is getting better... but I still have trouble going to new places by myself. I also NEED to learn how to drive on damn highway. 

FIND SOME FORM OF SOCIAL LIFE- Crippie doesn't have much of a life outside of work, home, internet, and pets. Let's hope I can find some things outside of the house to occupy my time.

So that's about it, I don't think I'm being particularly unrealistic. I hope all my freakishly awesome readers had a lovely New Year's Eve/Day. Crippie didn't go to any parties or anything, I watched the ball drop with my family, dogs, and piggies. Frida was really happy because she got to watch Lady Gaga perform. Btw, if anyone thinks I'm kidding about that Lady Gaga thing I'm not. Frida LOVES Lady Gaga, she will just flatten out and purr listening to her music. Her favorite song is Poker Face but she also enjoys Bad Romance and Born This Way. Some of Crippie's relatives came over on New Year's day. We watched "Cyberbully" and had some pretty awesome food. All in all I'd say this weekend was purdy good.

Also, Emma is responding to the medicine! The tumor in her tummy hasn't changed yet, but even if it doesn't change I'm not terribly worried. 

Completely random question for people who watched "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve"... Did Ryan Seacrest look weird to you? Everyone in my house was trying to figure out whether or not he had plastic surgery done. 

Crippie's Tippie- Attempt to keep your resolutions and make this year really freakin' awesome. Not much of a tippie but I can't think of anything else.