The Roving Activist’s Blog

It’s 5:52 am.  Do you know where your Roving Activist is? Would you believe – at work! Yes, I’m here at work, and have been here since 4:15 am, or thereabouts.

For those who know that it usually takes a miracle to get me out of bed before 7 am, let’s just say that I’m super excited about going to Atlanta tonight! Lisa and Reggie came in at 4:00 this morning and loaded our van with our gear and luggage. Of course, since Lisa was helping out, I had to tag along, especially since once they’re gone (they left at 5 am on the DOT!), I won’t see her until tomorrow night.

So I’m here doing some work, and taking a break to think, and talk about how excited I am (did I say that already?) even though I am exhausted from being sick all night (remind me to stay away from Wendy’s) and getting up at 2:45 am.

I’m excited because I’m preparing for battle. I’m going with ADAPT to Atlanta, Georgia to work to free our people. Doing battle to free our people always gets me revved up. I can put my anger over the institutional bias that keeps people with disabilities and seniors locked away in nursing facilities and other institutions across this nation to good and positive use. I can take that fire in the belly and rage over injustices perpetrated against my community and channel it to help fight for justice.

Yeah, I’m preparing for battle, ’cause Georgia is one state among many whose rate of institutionalization of people with disabilities has gone up in the face of the Olmstead decision (the 1999 landmark Supreme Court decision affirming the right of people with disabilities to live in the community). Georgia is one of a number of states (including my own) that is using the budget crisis to keep our people warehoused in institutions, or forced into one.

Being an old-school, fierce warrior-womyn, the prospect of doing battle doesn’t scare me at all, but really gets my juices flowing! It might be long (as most battles are in this War On People With Disabilities), hard, and infuriating, but I’m not about to let NOTHING or NOBODY turn me around!

Yes, I am excited. Can you tell?

Thank goodness I’m back! I’d been gone for so long because for some mysterious reason, I couldn’t post. I’d write a cool post only to discover that it wouldn’t go online. Between illness, being mad busy with work, and life in general, I didn’t have time to figure out what was up. Finally, after some research on Wordpress, I figured out that I had to bite the bullet and upgrade the software. I looked at the instructions and thought: OMG, I’ll never be able to do this!!!!!!! Things were getting down to the wire, and I really needed this done (you’ll see why in the next post).

Thank the stars for Mark, my lifesaver, who did the upgrade for me! Now, with this version, I should be able to upgrade with a mere click.

Thanks Mark!!!!!!!

…to see if I can now upload posts.