Source Blog: atriptosaygoodbye.com
First of all, thank you so much for coming to my lil website and reading our blogs and showing interest in our journey to see the country and sprinkle Annie along the way.
I’ll be writing here daily probably. I’ve taking a liking to blogging lately and I’d rather tell you about my trip in mass than one at a time over text. Plus I’m not one for doing any physical work or lifting more than a few fingers at a time. So here I am, in the car on my iPhone to keep you all informed. Plus I need your money in the form of web hits for advertising 
Lets be real, even my vacations are entrepreneurial.
At the time of finishing this I’ll be in the car on the way to Oklahoma to stay with Bills family in Broken Arrow. I can’t believe I am already gone. I’ve been talking about this trip and scheming since late January. Time really flies. I’ve been so nervous with anticipation for this journey. Will I like travelling? Will I enjoy sleeping in strangers beds, on floors, and couches. Will I tolerate the major change in lifestyle? For an entire month? I must be crazy. But, I am cautiously hopeful that it will be the time of my life.
A few pros I have going for me. I’m with four extremely easy going people. I’ve never heard Steve complain even once in his life. As long as Joel gets his lunesta and nap he doesn’t care what we do. Bill, the professional wanderer of our crew, is happy as long as we are being safe and prudent. Hugo. Well Hugo just is along for the ride and we’ll get smiles laughter and emphatic “that’s awesome’s” all day no matter the condition. He’s our cheerleader.
So since I have been the architect behind almost everything, they kind of look towards me to find out what we are doing next. I’m the navigator. That sense of control and empowerment and trust gives comfort to someone like me. Someone who had never even thought about doing anything remotely adventurous before in his life.
So I picked a great crew for my journey. I hope they enjoy it as much as I think I will.
I don’t know if you all know but we are filming hundreds of hours of footage of our trip. At first that was really really stressful. It was a large and expensive undertaking for 3 dudes who have never used camcorder or edited film and two other dudes who can’t physically turn them on. So far it hasn’t been relaxing to have them with us all the time and charge the batteries and upload the content to our storage drive. It is a pain in my ass since I’m the one with the knowledge and vision for the footage. But I spent $3,000 so I’m not turning back. Plus it was annies dream to do this this summer. I’m not as smart as her when it comes to such a project and the camera doesn’t love me like it loved her. But I’ll so my best. I won’t let her down.
It was her dream to put together a pilot for a tv show or movie about adults with disabilities living a life that isn’t in fear and isn’t in shame and shouldn’t be pitied. She believed the disability rights movement would have more success if our people were depicted in media as social, funny, sexual intelligent human beings that despite our challenges we don’t want pity and want equal opportunities in life and do what we can to achieve. A non-pity based reality portrayal would break down barriers in society that deter us from meeting our full potential as individuals. Whereas watching little people run around on farms in a made for tv larger than life exagerration doesn’t really help me break down the barriers to get a job or have successful relationships with my peers. It only enhances the fascination with the “supercrip” and holds the rest of us regular crips down. I am not a supercrip and I am not a poster child. Leave that nonsense to Christopher Reeves and Matty. Ooh, bad joke. R.I.P.
All that being said. I have some amazing footage, including interviews with some awesome gimpies in Chicago and champaign as well as a drunkfest at the anheuser busch brewery tour. It’s only been 4 days but I am hopeful so far that I am doing a good job at meeting one of our goals.
So what have we done so far. Well I organized two impromptu ash sprinkling ceremonies for Annie for Friday and Saturday, one in Chicago and one in Champaign. We are bringing her with us everywhere we go in her old make-up bag and in a McCormick Basil dispenser with sprinkle top. It also has a custom label made by my mother. Included in our Annie Kit are two backup containers in case we have a sprinkling mishap. Well, only one backup now – i gave one to her best friend Angeline who will have her buried with a priest later this week. That’s about the most wholesome thing i’ve contributed to so far on this journey. Though, I’m quite sure Annie would love the lighthearted approach we are taking to a very serious matter. That was in her way of life, and I know that if the tables were turned she would carry me around in a 2-liter of mountain dew or possibly something much more perverse and unexpected. Haha. I’m laughing cause I just asked one of the dudes where she was. It has been the most common joke so far, “where did we put Annie?” and although it is funny in a Kurt Vonnegut kind of way, leaving her behind is on our list of things not to do. We already lost all of our silverware, a bag of cheerios, and our regard for decency in public (reference coming soon).
In Chicago we gathered 30 of her friends and co-workers at Starbucks on Taylor St in her favorite neighborhood and home for two years. We sprinkled her in the bushes in front of the Joe DiMaggio statue. The great Yankee was our 4th cousin. Annie believed it was her fate to be in that area for a long time. A great little Italian paradise, our cousins statue next to the source of her favorite addiction, a grande vanilla latte with whole milk no whip cream. She went as “Annie D” (for delicious or DiMaggio), she owned those streets. Everyone knew her, from the shop owners who would swoon her with free foods to the old neighborhood boys who swore to protect her. She made friends with everyone and anyone – rich old Italians with mob money and local artists who don’t shave or shower.
Speaking of local artist, one such self-proclaimed local Picasso came up to me after the ceremony, said “hi I don’t know what you guys are doing but I like you. I am an artist and you remind me of the scientist Stephen Hawking. I want to give you this.”. Then she gave me her piece of beauty that still had wet glue dripping all over and then she walked away. What a life. You see a cute cripple from across the way and you have the time and ability to whip up a masterpiece. And WTF mate, i am 10x the man Stephen Hawking is. Ha. But it was so funny because this is the kind of life Annie would live – attracting strangers from all walks of life every single day. How appropriate that this happened to me the day we first sprinkle her ashes.
Also. I guess Joe DiMaggio’s brother died on the same day we sprinkled Annie onto Joe. Creepy. RIP cousin.
Then. We interviewed Janie, Annies roommate from when she lived there. Janie has cerebral palsy and is a masters student in the disabilities studies program. She let me cool off my sunburn from day 1 in the sun and let me pee in her hallway. Thanks girl. We chatted for two hours and discussed dating with disabilities. Whether she prefers dating people with or without disabilities, the great debate of our time. And devotees, men who have a fetish for girls in chairs. And annies expertise in scx toys. Greeat convo. For those of you that don’t know, annie was destined to be a specialist in disabilities and sexuality. For those of you who think maybe I should be more prude. Well well. Annie was right in her assertion that able-bodies disregard for us as sexual beings and societys unacceptance of us as potential mates is a major major contributor to depression among people with disabilities. Janie also is an academic in the field.
Oooh Christine another one of annies old roommates cooked us like 100 banana muffins and her friend Alanna made us cookies. I think we’ve only spent $50 per person on food in 4 days and 2 tanks of gas. Thanks to everyone for the help.
Then we went to chanpaign. Home sweet home, Beckwith Hall. I ate all my favorite foods and hung out with all my favorite people. It was so good. It really helped the transition into this trip to be so comfortable in the first few days.
The first night we just mingled with my peeps and waited for Hugo to finish his finals and get packed up. I even got to sleep in my old room. Shannon probably doesn’t want to spoon me so I resorted to cuddling with Steve on an air mattress next to her.
The next day, Saturday, we went to get our tattoos. Annie always gave me so much crap for being a hold out on getting the “wheelchair heart tattoo”. I figured now is a better time than ever and I took the plunge and got my first ink. I also got Annie written below it in Braille. She had my name written in her chest in Braille. All her favorite dudes in the world always continued to be Steve. Plus, love is blind.
We got it from Lunchbox, a local artist nicknamed for his metal lunch box collection. Annie loved this dude and the other guys at the shop. She would stop by after class and bring them treats on occasion. Lunchbox was also responsible for her first tat, the wheelchair heart tattoo, and many of her others and the piercings. It was fitting for this trip I got it from him. My friends Amber, Kushal, Bill and Joel also got the heart inked on them.
It was a fun way to spend 3 hours. We talked some awesome Annie stories and had some rediculous convos.
Favorite quote attributed to Joel the tattoo artist (not our Joel): “everyone loves boobs, even people in wheelchairs”
Then after getting our tattoos we sprinkled Annie outside of Beckwith Hall and Hugo did the honors. Thanks to everyone for coming out.
The rest of the night was more casual convo and inteviews. And Jenna spooned me and fed me a well balanced breakfast of eggs and chicken wings before my adventure to the Dirty Dirty Stl.
Can’t wait til vegas where many of our Beckwith friends are flying to meet us. Nothing like sitting in those aisle chairs! Why can’t they just let us bring our chairs on board!?!?
So then we went to saint louis to visit ji-hae and katie and see the arch. I’ve been here before. My only memory is Annies wheelchair tire popping from glass on the ground at the Arch grounds and having to look desperately for fix n flat to temporarily repair it. Then we all became very loopy from the intoxicating fumes.
Speaking of intoxication, we never made it to the arch because Hugo and I got completely hammered from free beer at the anheuser busch tour. Did I say free! Free! They only allow each person 2 small beers each, but Hugo and I charmed them into 4 each over a two hour period. You have to picture this. A bunch of people being quiet and respectful and little kids drinking their complimentary pepsi. Then there’s me and Hugo. With our posse and over 20 empty glasses having a debate on whether men or women were better at showering us. Unfortunately for me I’m with 4 dudes in a van for a month.
Hahaha. To top it off the employee came and asked us if she could clear our empty glasses. I should have tipped her.
We are awful. Awfully awesome.
Then Hugo and I spent and hour in the bathroom singing filming and doing natures work
Then Katie bought me a stuffed Clydesdale. Haha.
I love life.
Needless to say we never made it to any other attractions. But our hosts were amazing. Katie made bill and I breakfast and gave us real beds and Ji-hae and her brother Sung-hoon were rediculously awesome great hosts, force feeding us food every half hour. Her brother decided he was going to buy us Chinese chicken wings for the car rides. It smells in here and Hugo stopped at a hill billy gas station to drop a bomb but it was well worth it.
Lol, Hugo and bill went into the womens washroom for an hour because the mens was too dirty. I went into a Murphys beer cup. Thanks Jenna for the gift. Joel threw it out though. I told him it was sterile and reusable. He didn’t care. Jerk.
And now at 655pm I’m in Oklahoma. And a home cooked meal is awaiting me in broken arrow outside of Tulsa.
I wish Annie was here.
Wait, she’s in my backpack
hello mr horsey nice to meet you.
