Look out!

Even when I could walk, I walked with my eyes on the ground.

I remember walking into a big column when I was going to see Camelot at one of my siblings' high school. It was my high school, too, but not then.

When I was trying to learn hand controls so I could keep driving after FA rendered my legs unreliable, the instructor kept telling me to watch where I was going not where I was.

It didn't help much because no matter where I was watching, my arm muscles are spastic and almost as unreliable as my legs. I think he learned this when we were on a busy street in D.C, with four lanes going our way. I was in one of the left lanes when my hand steered more than intended and shot us straight across into the far right lane. Thankfully, there were no cars coming then and there was a parking lot I made it to before collapsing. That was the day I stopped thinking I could use hand controls.

When I ride horses these days, the hardest thing to do is look ahead, not look at my hands.

When I am out with Claren, I look down so I can chat with her.

Perhaps then what is most surprising about the posts in front of my building is that I have never run into them ... until today.

Luckily, Dad shouted at me and I stopped right as the post slid past my front wheel and just kissed my knee.

Who am I?

Finding a wheelchair-using hero is a a even tougher than finding a non-redhead superheroine.

There is Prof. X, who is quite cool, but he is bald and can read minds. That is so not me.

Beneath my cynical shell beats a naïve little dude. An example: My second day in North Carolina for my first real job, this guy comes up to me in the store while I was buying batteries and says: Hey, I saw you moving in today.

I remember thinking that I moved in yesterday but instead I say hi. He then asks me to help him as his car has a flat and says he'll pay me back as we are neighbors. I reply: Sure, it's a good thing you caught me now because I just went to the bank.

I drive him to a gas station where he buys with my $40 cigarettes and a tire "they are holding for him."

Then he asks me to take him to the home of a guy who will switch the tires. He then asks for my last $10 to pay the friend putting on the tire and a ride to another house.

In my defense, by this time I knew I was being scammed but was not sure how to end it. But he did not want anything else so I left.


There is also Oracle, the tough-as-nails hacker/computer junkie, who is Batman's eyes and ears. Oracle unfortunately is a girl, Batgirl actually.

I called the police and they came out but the guy did not do anything illegal.

I have one other wheelchair superhero, he's not a comic-book hero, but was in a short-lived Fox TV series: M.A.N.T.I.S. in which Carl Lumbly played a paralyzed doctor who donned an exo-skelton called the Mechanically Augmented Neuro-transmitter Interactive System that allowed him to kick bad-guy ass.

A plus, Carl Lumby has done voices on superhero cartoons, and was in Taxi and tons more. He rocks.

In Purell we trust

Mom and I met one of my sisters for lunch at a place called Noodles and Company halfway between Richmond and Falls Church and surrounded by big-box stores.

It was a nice meal, but I had to use the restroom, which is always a little sketchy. That is just what it was, not bad but a little sketchy.

There was only one toilet, no urinals, so after struggling in I locked the door. Then sat down on a public toilet. No hovering or balancing for me. I figure whatever kills me will not be toilet germs.

I am hoping this is true because after I got back into my chair, I went to wash my hands. The soap, though, was in a wall dispenser hung above the towel dispenser. Totally out of reach.

I scare easy

When I was still driving, I was terrified that a “local cop's cherry top” would scare me so much I would crash ... or run over someone. More than once I would circle back the way I came to make sure there were no dead bodies. Not that I felt anything, I just liked to be sure. Fortunately, I no longer drive, but I still scare.

This is no surprise to anyone who knows me, from the nephew who leaped out at me at the beach and said something about scaring me “out of my tweezers” to Claren who nearly sent me plunging out of my wheelchair when she goosed me as we were playing.

Tonight, my 5-year-old niece learned about my jumpiness.

She and her little brother have discovered the knobs and handles on the back of my wheelchair are perfect places to climb up, especially since they can duck down below the wheelchair back and I can hardly see them.

I heard someone run past me when I was getting in my chair, but I didn't pay any attention because not paying attention during transfers is how I fall.

Or I fall (almost anyway) because just when I lean into the back of my chair, a voice in my ear shouts “Uncle Matt.”

No, really, I hurt myself today

The mark has all but disappeared, but this morning I was pretty sure my thumb was going to fall off.

I had slipped a few days ago and was saved from a nasty fall by my T-shirt, the back of which hooked on to my wheelchair joystick and kept me from falling to the ground.

This salvation was not without a little snag. My big bulk bent the controller down into an unreachable spot. I had to bend it back by hand, which further weakens the metal part holding it to the chair. This is how the first controller broke.

In the bathroom today, I decided the controller was still a little low and decided to bend it back up a little more.

I put my left thumb right next to the metal piece holding it to the chair and bent it back with my right hand. Too much.

My thumb was trapped; it almost immediately started to throb and hurt. I thought I might throw up (sorry, E). I had this image of firefighters using like a mini Jaws of Life on me and my chair. I'd be OK but the chair would be ruined.

I tried to bend it back down to free my thumb, but I did not want to bend it too much. As a result, I had trouble bending it at all. All the time, I could almost feel the molecules of my thumb bone being ground to dust.

Finally, I bent it enough to get my thumb out. It had these two big black marks.

And now they're gone, too. I have no proof of my injury, no scar, no thing. It might as well have not happened.

Stupid chair, if you're going to hurt me, leave a mark so I can get pity.