About Face!

I believe I have spoken/written about being an exhibitionist before in this blog but I just did a cursory search found very few references towards exhibitionist are exhibitionism. I'd like to think that at one time I was a shy guy – – in fact I still do believe in some regard that I am. I am shy until I feel comfortable in the surroundings that I am in. I was raised in a dogma which tended to give the shy person the opportunity to overcome this dubious disability. Everything from praying in public, speaking in public in front of large groups of people i.e. congregations of the ward. Performing in skits in front of the selfsame ward. I have one time even studied the accordion, the big accordion the 120 base accordion, and at least once a year having to perform in front of a crowd. So I suppose over the span of my life I have worked the shyness out.

I have often maintained that if you are a person with a disability you had better not suffer from shyness. Quadriplegia in particular is a somewhat exhibitionary disability. You cannot bathe yourself, you cannot dress yourself and if you have a wardrobe malfunction you have to get somebody else to correct the malfunction regardless of the personal nature of that malfunction. Of course, there are different levels of quadriplegia I been a partial quad. I can do, actually, a lot of stuff thank goodness but still there are things I cannot and I must rely on someone who is more able-bodied and me. More than once I have had to disrobe or have been disrobed for one reason or another in front of a group of folks I had no idea what was happening. For example, I often wear pants that are larger than I need for the convenience of dressing and using the restroom through the day. One time when I was crossing the street but I was still using a manual wheelchair I fell out of my chair and of course my pants felt my knees exposing everything (I do not wear underwear). Three women were across the street with me actually stopped and assisted me back in my chair. They were most gracious and pulling up my pants. He smiled at me and went on their way. I've had to just accept the fact this is my life

I have talked before about the fact that public transit buses only have only to wheelchair stations, meaning they can only carry two people in wheelchairs in the tiedown positions. These stations are parallel each other on opposite sides of the bus. When one of the stations has a chair locked down that chair compromises the ability of a new chair coming on board to turn around and back into the station to be tied down. I started telling drivers or asking drivers to let me know when there is a wheelchair person on board when the bus pulls up to me. This will allow me to back on to the bus or access the bus backward allowing me to access the wheelchair station more conveniently and in some situations coming on the bus backwards is the only way that you can access that station and be facing forward. As more and more people who use wheelchairs for mobility are showing up on the bus this is becoming more and more an issue. In fact recently I have just elected to tell the driver to secure me in the wheelchair station backwards. This is somewhat intimidating since I have to face the rest of the passengers for the duration of my bus trip. This would not be easy for shy guy. Oddly enough the drivers have not had a problem securing my chair this position which is somewhat surprising. I have really considered working up a routine in doing stand up/sit down comedy from the bus trip. I doubt this will happen.

I took this image on today's trip felt a little odd doing so from a privacy standpoint of the other riders but then I thought what about me? I'm having a face you all so I guess all works out in the wash. There is no more privacy and perhaps that's best.