A (not quite serious) note to the universe

[ysobel]

Dear universe,

My life has been kind of sucky lately. I mean, really, I'd think you'd get tired of messing with my body, but apparently not.

As compensation, I would please like the following:

* A pony. Preferably a unicorn pony. Maybe with sparkles.

* Porn. Lots of it. Also rum.

* A handful -- four, maybe, two of each gender -- of assistants that I can use for research purposes regarding sex. (When they are off duty they can, um, sleep, or give me backrubs, or make me yummy drinks.)

* A service dog. With one of those talking collars from Up.

* A telepathic mind-to-'paper' device for getting stories out of my head properly.

* A Kindle or other e-book-reader, so I can see whether it's easier to handle than books are. Oh, and plenty of free books.

* A functional teleporter, so that I can have frequent doses of jmtorres. (And also can go to synecdochic's and rb's stitch-and-bitch sessions. And also visit other awesome people. And also go to the coast where it is cool.)

* More penguins.

Thank you.

Sincerely, and a bit loopily,
-ysobel

(apparently, in addition to being a nice painkiller, vicodin makes me babble a lot. who knew?)

Comments

[sineala]

This reply coming to you with the aid of delicious Klonopin, so hopefully not very loopy. (Also a portion of the text box is disappearing under the tags list, which is not really conducive to writing.)

Re: sparkly unicorn, I recommend Cornify.

I am not really sure of your range of motion, but I can tell you that the Kindle is actually way, way easier for me to use than a book; I was pleasantly shocked. I have, pretty much, one good hand, and I can hold the Kindle one-handed and hit the page-turn buttons with my thumb while holding it. It is awesome. I can also set it down on something and put my whole hand across it, which I have to do to reach the controls on the right. (I can inconsistently hit the page-turn buttons on the right with my right index finger, but the frustration isn't worth it.) There are also cases you can get that you can fold back over the top, like an easel, and set the Kindle down and use it like that.

(This represents a major improvement over "hold book open in left hand, smoosh book against breasts to keep pages from turning.")

And, hey, if you like Baen's SF books, all their ebooks are free for people with disabilities.

[ysobel]

Cornify is the best thing evar. *sparkles*

One-handed usage is actually fairly relevant, since part of my problem is that my hands don't go together very easily. They're about a foot apart, and I can sort of manage paperbacks, and hardbacks are easier from a size perspective but not from a weight perspective.

Really, I wish there were a way to try out a Kindle-or-similar to see if it would work well enough for me. Except then I might end up wanting to get one, and that requires, y'know, money. *sulk*

And I did not know that about Baen's SF books! Er. How does one register for that? (I found the way to sign up through paying, but there was no handy "I am disabled" tickybox.)

[sineala]

Hmm. I know Amazon's hyping a sort of grassroots "try the Kindle out in your city" program where you use their bulletin boards to coordinate with people who have Kindles and want to share. (If you poke around their Kindle-selling page you'll probably find it.) Alternatively, a lot of public libraries (like mine) have Kindles for loan for a couple weeks.

I didn't know that about Baen until today either. It looks like you go to this page and fill in some info about your disability and a doctor who can verify you've got it (although I'm not clear on whether they actually contact them or if it's some kind of empty threat), and bingo.

(I would try it myself, but as I can hold books -- although it's harder for me to read paper books for as long as I used to be able to -- I don't think I qualify. Bah.)

[rainbow]

Ooh, thank you for that link!

eta: You may still qualify; I filled it out as I have CFIDS and fibro and holding books is increasingly hard for me; I was emailed a password this morning and have been reading "Bedlam's Edge" all day. All the Baen books are listed as "previously purchased" for me and available for download. Thank you again for linking to them!

Carys

[rho]

What if tubgirl had been a penguin? (safe for work. and mostly safe for brains. mostly.)

(I'm sorry, but it just came into my head when you mentioned penguins.)

[ysobel]

... that so needs to be a whipped cream dispenser. Refill through the beak, and then poke the belly to make the whipped cream shoot out.

[dreamatdrew]

So far as it goes, for the e-book bit, I have found that random palm-os based device and weasel reader = good for reading when not feeling all that physically able (or when you like to read in bed on your side and have a tendency to sleep on your arm). (Palm in pawn shop around here is about 50$)
So far as the free e-book thing goes, I cheat & torrent, but then again I own most of the books I went looking for as they are faves that I re-re-re-re-re-read.

[rainbow]

Sparkly unicorn ponies and penguins for the win!

We used to call penguins "duckies" -- Chris was babysitting a 2 year old one time in the late 70s/early 80s who insisted that her big stuffed penguin was a ducky, and it stuck.

[cesy]

Can I borrow the teleporter occasionally, please?

I am not the universe

[katieastrophe]

but I can help with the porn thing :-D