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5:23am March 7, 2013
[A small sculpture in ebony of a black cat with a regal air. One of her front legs is snapped off halfway down.] feliscorvus is extremely talented at making things. Not just in her job as an engineer, but in her hobbies as painter, sculptor, and all kinds of other things that involve making things or altering things that are already made. This is one example. She was both consciously and unconsciously modeled on cats known to both of us, but neither of us knew she would turn out so well until she happened. This is one of her first few attempts at sculpting cats from wood. And the cat she made turned out wonderful. And she sent this cat to me. Like many cats in the real world, this sculpture had an accident that lost her part of one of her limbs. And like most cats in the real world, being pragmatic and lacking the prejudices about disability that most humans have, she gets on fine without it. I’ve been compared before to a three-legged dog. I wasn’t insulted. The person making the comparison was another disabled person, and was trying to describe the way I adapt to most of my disabilities pretty naturally, without making much of a fuss about it. This sculpture lives in the same housing I do, for elderly and disabled people, and one of my neighbors suggested that by losing a leg she was just trying to fit in with all the other gimps around here. And she does fit in. Her personality has only been amplified over time. And she does have a personality. The more you get to know her, the more facets and layers of that personality become visible to you. And now lacking a leg is part of it. Some people will tell you that disability has nothing to do with personality, but in many cases that is nonsense. Disabled people are shaped by the world we live in, our bodies, and all the ways those things connect together. We can pretend that we are totally separate from the way our bodies function, but it’s only a pretense. And her missing leg shapes her as much as her other legs, her tail, and her head shapes her. So my neighbor was right, she’s one more gimp in a building of gimps and she’s no worse off for it. She wasn’t exactly intended to turn out this way, but apparently she never quite wanted to have that leg made, it was going against what the wood seemed to want. So it makes sense that it mysteriously not only fell off but disappeared completely such that no search of the area she was found in, has ever found that leg. And despite the way some people think about disability, she is no less complete without that leg than with it. In fact in some ways she seems more complete, but don’t ask me to explain why.

[A small sculpture in ebony of a black cat with a regal air. One of her front legs is snapped off halfway down.]

feliscorvus is extremely talented at making things. Not just in her job as an engineer, but in her hobbies as painter, sculptor, and all kinds of other things that involve making things or altering things that are already made.

This is one example. She was both consciously and unconsciously modeled on cats known to both of us, but neither of us knew she would turn out so well until she happened. This is one of her first few attempts at sculpting cats from wood. And the cat she made turned out wonderful. And she sent this cat to me.

Like many cats in the real world, this sculpture had an accident that lost her part of one of her limbs. And like most cats in the real world, being pragmatic and lacking the prejudices about disability that most humans have, she gets on fine without it.

I’ve been compared before to a three-legged dog. I wasn’t insulted. The person making the comparison was another disabled person, and was trying to describe the way I adapt to most of my disabilities pretty naturally, without making much of a fuss about it. This sculpture lives in the same housing I do, for elderly and disabled people, and one of my neighbors suggested that by losing a leg she was just trying to fit in with all the other gimps around here.

And she does fit in. Her personality has only been amplified over time. And she does have a personality. The more you get to know her, the more facets and layers of that personality become visible to you. And now lacking a leg is part of it. Some people will tell you that disability has nothing to do with personality, but in many cases that is nonsense. Disabled people are shaped by the world we live in, our bodies, and all the ways those things connect together. We can pretend that we are totally separate from the way our bodies function, but it’s only a pretense. And her missing leg shapes her as much as her other legs, her tail, and her head shapes her. So my neighbor was right, she’s one more gimp in a building of gimps and she’s no worse off for it.

She wasn’t exactly intended to turn out this way, but apparently she never quite wanted to have that leg made, it was going against what the wood seemed to want. So it makes sense that it mysteriously not only fell off but disappeared completely such that no search of the area she was found in, has ever found that leg. And despite the way some people think about disability, she is no less complete without that leg than with it. In fact in some ways she seems more complete, but don’t ask me to explain why.