finnish nudes on display

finnish nudes on display
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

there's little doubt that this title will result in 10 billion hits on google but i like the statement that the window display makes, probably without intending to.

i don't talk about it a lot. i used to. i used to talk about it all the time because for a while it was like the medals that my masters advisor said that he'd needed after vietnam but then later was able to pack them away, that one day he woke up and it wasn't everything that he was. but it's been coming up again here and there and what we try to bury comes back to the surface again eventually.

yeah, i'm dyslexic. i have a so-called "learning disability" and i hate that term more than anything because i think it becomes something much more than it is, that it becomes an identity, an identifier...a way to sort me out."oh, i see...no wonder...you have a learning disability." "oh, i see...you can't read." "oh, i see...everything looks backwards to you." "oh i see...you won't understand no matter how well i try to explain it."that's why i don't talk about it any more. no, i was never in special ed. i was actually on the AP track throughout high school. they never even figured it out until i was a senior in college. which is weird, which puts this type thing into a very strange set of circumstances...i mean, if i were paralyzed my entire life and it wasn't "discovered" until i was a senior in college and that all those years before i was just somehow figuring things out for myself without anyone noticing that i couldn't walk...well, that would be pretty weird, that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

but a learning disability...there's an interesting story, especially if you remain invisible, undetected. "how did you do it?" "how could you be dyslexic? you seem so smart." "that's a shame they didn't catch it early enough."

why? so that a label could be slapped on me, resultant assumptions made, a trajectory produced on how far i might go, expectations lowered, voices lowered...whispers in the hall about how that's all we can do, that at the end of the day that's all there is?

everyone has a funny story about how they are probably a "touch" dyslexic too and i tune it out because i've heard all the variations before. some days i have trouble hearing a bit when allergies strike so i'm a "touch" deaf. some days i wake up and find that my back hurts so i can't walk much until my back stretches out so i'm a "touch" mobility impaired. every day i wake up and i find i can't see until i put my glasses on so i'm a "touch" blind.

i guess we're all trying to make one another feel like we really do understand, that we're trying to point out that we're not as different from one another as it seems...but when we point out the differences, that means that we've noticed that one of us is not like the other. and is that good or bad? some days...some days like these, i'm not sure.