batter up

In the same sports writing vein as my bowling post, I now continue with a short story of one-arm batting. Apparently all it takes to get the sports juices flowing is having a guy in your house for a while––in this case, an Indian guy who's never played baseball, but loves cricket. No offense to all the sporty ladies who need no such motivation.

And so last night, in the spirit of American summer fun, we went to the batting cages. It seems appropriate if I here tell you that, as a child, I was a remarkably good pitcher. We have the home video to prove it. We also have footage of me swinging a huge orange plastic bat. Incidentally, the same video shows evidence that I used to sport a white girl fro. Eventually my parents fitted me with a nice lefty glove which I still have. The orange bat is no longer with us.

But though I have warm fuzzy feelings about baseball, even if i can't stay focused enough to watch a whole game, my talent was never really nurtured, so I probably missed an opportunity to become the first female major league pitcher; with one arm no less. The closest I ever came was dating a pitcher for some time.

My good aim, however, did later come into play. When I was diagnosed with scoliosis, I was told that one of the symptoms is not being able to throw a ball accurately. When someone tells you something is wrong with your body, it's nice to be able to say, a little haughtily, "Actually, my aim has always been quite good." If I had only known I would be balancing atop a horse in the not so distant future.

However, it's been a long time since I "played," so pulling into the the parking lot of the batting cages, I was conscious of being out of my element. Asif and Opie got in the cage first, starting with the slower pitches and progressing to faster speeds. Asif even held his own at 70mph. I wasn't feeling any more comfortable. Little Gen was next, though I'm not sure if she was having more fun batting or wiggling her butt.

After some deliberation, it was decided I would try a slow baseball pitch. I entered the chain link fence, the spotlight, and waited for the first pitch. Clunk went the machine and out came the first ball...

I don't think I scored any home runs, but I actually hit most of the balls. Plunk, plunk, plunk, all jitters behind me, I started to get into it....my confidence rising with each hit. Before I knew it, I was floating on a one-arm batter's high. I could hear the crowd. And my arm is no worse for the wear this morning, though I think I still prefer throwing the ball to having it thrown at me.

But I'll leave the major leagues for some other one-armed girl to pitch into. I'm satisfied with the occasional Sunday evening game. Asif, on the other hand, could have a new career ahead of him.

My high was only slightly deflated when a small girl passing by the bench stopped short to look at Finneas. "That sucks," she pronounced after my standard explanation. "I think it's cool," I countered. "I think it sucks," she said. When I proposed that she give my small arm a pat, she refused saying, "It's scary."

Oh well, can't win 'em all.

OneArmGirl 

e-love

Just another Tuesday night, I'm looking through my fifty plus new eHarmony matches, weeding and deleting. Sorry, 'archiving,' which makes me feel as though I'm sending the guys to be filed in a stuffy basement library run by old men wearing sweater vests.

I haven't actually logged into my eHarmony account since last December when I opened it. I've been too scared.

The first time I tried to open an account with eHarmony, after filling out the extensive questionnaire, and waiting for the calculating or sorting or whatever secret process eHarmony conducts in five seconds, I was sent back the message "Sorry, you are unmatchable at this time."

Unmatchable? And that only took five seconds? Geez, this is worse than I thought. Granted, I was going through a rough bout at the time and may have answered the question "How often do you feel depressed" by ticking "Most of the time"...

Nothing like being rejected by eHarmony to boost your spirits.

Truthfully, online dating intimidates me. When I finally finished the 'application' process, got accepted, and was in, I suddenly found myself in a whirlwind of men coming into my inbox with impressive resumes demonstrating high marks on our twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility. Seven new matches every time I logged in!––How's a girl supposed to handle that?

Even in our times of telecommunication, eHarmony was not a natural step for me. I used to disdain the concept of internet dating. It seemed too intentional, too obvious. I'm no denier of the importance of compatibility, but at the end of the day, I'm a romantic, wanting something about love to be magical and unexpected. Unlike most everything else in life, I've always been strangely relaxed about love, trusting that the right one will be there at the right time.

I've never been a big fan of e-communication, in which we have the freedom to say and do things we'd maybe never say or do face-to-face. It offers the illusion of relationship, when the reality is much messier, visceral, and complex. OK, so you have 400 Facebook friends, but how many of them have your back when you've got bigger issues than what to comment on that Akon video that Johnny Johnson posted on his wall.

It also occurs to me that an online profile, much like a resume, is really only a list of the parts of a person. At best, it offers a hint of the whole. I'm all for full disclosure in dating, but when I list my one-armedness, it feels like just another disconnected part, a strange bit of trivia. Can you really get a sense of the person without seeing the whole? Chemistry doesn't seem email-able.

Yet the benefits of having some of the dating legwork done for you can't be denied. I often feel too tired for the dating scene. I want to skip ahead to when we sit in twin rockers on the porch till death do us part. So, these days I'm much more open to blind dates and being set up by friends. And I can't help but see how arranged marriages can cut out the stress of finding yourself on a date with a guy who shows up in a kilt and expects you to drive (true story I heard recently). Not that I have anything against kilts.

I opened an eHarmony account in December more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see who I was matched with and whether or not it lined up with the kind of person with whom I thought I was compatible. Turns out, I have a lot in common with PhDs who enjoy the opera and lumberjacks who can't live without their dog. Great, I could have told you that before we started. I didn't, however, expect to be so compatible with Asians and Pacific Islanders.

But I have yet to commit. I'm still not paying for my eHarmony account, which means I can't actually communicate with my matches. And after thirty minutes of reading twenty different top three things they can't live without, I'm starting to have trouble telling any of them apart, and I just want to go to bed.

I'm coming around, slowly. I think looking for love online is a valid option. But I'm still not sure it's for me. I've always believed no matter how large or small the pond, the right fish is swimming somewhere in it, and I'd much rather just happen to meet under the same water lily.


OneArmGirl 

learning to breathe

Astride my bicycle at a red light, I reached back to scratch my back and somehow hooked my, admittedly large, turquoise ring on the beaded strings that hung from the back of my tee shirt. Ok, I thought, no biggie, I just have to unhook whatever's been hooked. I moved my arm left and right, expecting the ring to quickly dislodge itself from my clothing, but after a few seconds of this, I was still tangled. I twisted my hand more vigorously. Nothing. That's when I started to panic. I clawed at the ring with my remaining fingers desperately whilst thinking how absolutely ridiculous this was, yet no less horrifying. What was I going to do when the light changed? I had no hands! My tee shirt was effectively martial-arts-style strong-arming me. I couldn't ride my bike without arms. If I managed to get off the bike without falling over, what then? Was I supposed to fling my torso over the handlebars and try to walk the bike, steering with my chest. Would I have to find some stranger and ask politely, "Excuse me, but I seem to have found myself in a bit of a bind; would you mind detaching my hand from the back of my shirt?" That was so mortifying it didn't actually occur to me.

Unnecessary goal achievement

What did occur to me was that I was on my way to the zoo to meet a cute guy I hadn't seen for a year, a guy I'd been waiting excitedly to see for some time...did I mention he was cute?...Is that how it would go down?––I would nonchalantly stroll up to him, hip popped to one side, arm twisted behind my back, pretending to be a contortionist? I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. But just as I was moving into panic over my own stupidity, suddenly the beads released my ring, and my hand slipped free. The light turned, and putting foot to pedal, I was on my merry way. 

I wish I could say this was one isolated incident. But in fact, just a few nights before, I was sitting shotgun when I attempted to exit the vehicle only to discover that the strap on my purse had become entangled with the very same treacherous tee. Did I wash the shirt between wearings? Wouldn’t you like to know. Fortunately, in this case, Asif, who was sitting behind me, kindly responded to my pathetic whining and disentangled me. 

Getting entangled in your own tee shirt may not be a big deal to those of you prone to random klutziness or unhappy accidents. I am not. I’ve spent my life (mostly subconsciously) learning to be careful and precise. My fear was that any wayward movement or spill might be attributed to my handicap––people would say “Oh, must be because of her arm.” What my friend Michelle once called gracefulness, I call calculated movement. Specificity became my craft, and I perfected it. Whenever I do anything, particularly in front of people, it is efficient, deliberate, precise. Timing and balance are key­­––from turning a baby in my arm to opening a door with my foot while balancing any number of things on my knee.

In recent years, I’ve discovered this obsession with specificity has a side effect. When I am concentrating on a particular task, even pouring milk in cereal, I often hold my breath. This could be for two possible reasons: breathing creates a variable of movement that introduces space for mistakes, or I’m concentrating so hard, I simply forget to breathe. In almost anything I do, there comes a moment where something is suspended, book or baby, balanced between where it was and where it is going, when just a breath could cause a disastrous miscalculation. 

My life is a dance in which command of basic physics and spacial awareness is second nature. At this point, I couldn’t act haphazardly if I tried. So you might understand why finding myself tangled in my own clothes atop a bicycle was somewhat disconcerting. It wasn't in the blueprint; but then, beads rarely are.

But what you really want to know is whether or not I ever made it to the zoo. I did. And I met the cute guy, though just as he walked up, I discovered blood from a razor cut had run and dried down my leg. Hot. Thus, in the first few seconds of conversation, we greeted each other and then I said, “I think I’m bleeding.” To which he said, “Me too,” and pulled up his pant leg to reveal a large cut on his leg. 

Then we proceeded into the zoo, wherein I almost ran into a cement column while I was looking at a map, and later, nearly collided with and sat in the lap of an elderly woman in a wheelchair.

I’m a little concerned.

OneArmGirl

 

 

but what does it mean?

I would first like to set the record straight by announcing, much to the amusement of at least two of you, that I have never slapped any one or thing for any reason, though I imagine it's never too late. And as Joey so famously said, "It only takes one arm..."

More importantly, my lovely and dear Boo, friend and former roommate, is shortly moving thousands of miles from me to the Northeast, where her equally lovely husband is going to school. This is a much lamented event in my life. So much so, that I was forced to drink two beers and a glass of wine just to make it through our last evening together, at some point in the duration of which I may or may not have been sitting on her lap. 

And so, in respectful salute to this separation, I here publish a magazine clipping that Boo cut out once upon a time when she was scrap-booking our six months of living together.

I can tell you from experience that if someone scrapbooks time spent with you, then gives the scrapbook filled with memorable journal entries and funny clippings to you as a gift, it is love indeed. But when I saw this clipping, I knew beyond a doubt that Boo and I will forever be soulmates (is that redundant?)

But what does it mean? I've been entranced and disturbed and curious for several weeks now, pondering the significance of the above. Admittedly, I have some far-fetched ideas about things, but I feel as though I could spend the next six months just staring at this, pondering its wacky significance. But I don't have that kind of time...So I ask you, dear peruser of this ridiculous blog, what does it mean?

Or should I say, what does it mean to you? ;)

OneArmGirl 

Don't know about your local, but here in the dry, fire-ridden Southwest, hopes for fireworks are a bit hampered this year. So as I sit indoors, encased in air-conditioning, I would like to wish you a very happy 4th of July. Or for you non-Americans, just another day. Wherever your day takes you, may it be filled with merriment and plenty of shade.  As mentioned above, I will not be going anywhere without air-conditioning.

But if you have a moment between your coffee and a piña colada, I would like to ask a question. What do you want to know about OneArmGirl? I do my best to offer a well-rounded view of life here at OAG, but living here, it's hard to know what I've left out. Are there holes in my story? Have I mentioned something that you want 'fleshed out' as we writers say.

This is wide open, folks. Feel free to ask anything that tempts your curiosity, from 'How do you feel about online dating?' to 'Have you ever actually slapped someone with your little arm?' I may not, of course, answer all your questions here on the blog, but I need your help. Please help me.

Send all inquiries to OneArmGirl@gmail.com. Let's juice it up!

OneArmGirl   

the others

Growing up one-armed can be a very lonely experience. But this never occurred to me until I was well into adulthood. As a child, I was surrounded by two-handed people doing everything the two-handed way. So I kind of forgot that I was different––like the little chick that starts to bark, thinking the family dog is its mother. 

Meeting another girl––or boy––with only one arm was very rare. I can only think of a handful of occasions. There was a guy in my class at college with a deformity leaving him minus one forearm and hand. But we weren't friends. It was almost like we avoided each other on purpose because it was too weird. The sum total of our communication in four years amounted to a brief greeting one afternoon when he rolled by me on his skateboard. I don't even remember his name. I do remember he was the lead singer in a punk band, and I'm not really into punk.

I'm actually pretty shy when I see people "like" me in public. I feel awkward, wondering if I should talk to them or pretend I don't notice. Most often, I sidle away, feeling like one of us broke an unspoken rule about not turning up at the same place at the same time––someone didn't get the memo, there's been a glitch in the matrix.

But meeting other handicapped people was not high on my agenda for the first twenty-five years of my life. I mostly did everything I could to forget what made me different. I preferred to blend in with the crowd, and when everyone around you has two arms, it's easy to forget you don't.

Allies

But two's company, and when I met Rick, I realized how alone I really felt. Rick lost his left arm to cancer when he was a kid. I met him on a hot summer day at a vaulting clinic. He told me to stand on top of a horse, so I did. The connection was instant. We exchanged notes on one-arm living. He taught me to hold a horse hoof between my legs. Allied in a world of two-armed people, we relished the company. When I'm with Rick, I feel special and average at the same time.

Only several years after college did I start to develop an interest in other people with similar handicaps. It started slow, but now it's verging on an obsession. Turns out I'm in good company. It seems the more I think about it, the more people similar to me I run into...

I recently saw a woman with atrophied hands at a coffee shop. She was sitting with friends, using her nose to navigate a touch screen phone (I can't even do that with my fingers).

Last week, I found myself in a grocery store with two other patrons that appeared to be amputees. It was like a convention that no one had signed up for. I wondered if other people in the store were concerned that it might be contagious.

The one-arm way

At a billiard bar last night with Little Gen and Asif, there was a guy with a stub leg playing pool. Personally, I think he had an unfair advantage, sitting nearly level with the table in his wheelchair. I caught his eye when I walked by and we looked at each other in a moment of recognition, much like bikers hold out a couple fingers when they pass each other on the highway.

This week I received an email from the beautiful and vivacious Pam, one-armed woman and sister blogger at Unarmed...just the way I am. This reminds me that I've never had a girlfriend with one arm or any other missing appendages. Exploring her blog this morning, I find we have a lot of similar interests and I'm suddenly gripped with a strong desire to talk to her about everything she's ever thought, over a glass of merlot, preferably in a rainstorm, on a screened-in porch.

In Poster Child, Emily Rapp's memoir about growing up with a prosthetic leg, her mother explains to her teachers that Emily is not to be called 'disabled,' that she is no different from anyone else. This seems correct, but also sounds a little like rearing children to be "just another brick in the wall."

And I've never been a huge fan of bricks.

OneArmGirl

one-arm bowling

About a month ago, my friend Heidi asked me to join her bowling team to raise money for developmentally disabled adults. I said yes. Though I'd prefer eating calf nuts to fundraising, I sent out a plea to friends and family to support a poor and very pathetic one-arm bowler. It worked. Then, a few days before the game, I got sick, and on the day of, I was in bed with barely enough energy to pick up a glass of water. Bowling was out of the question.

But if I've learned one thing about working with handicaps, it requires constant reevaluation and revision to the plan. So, this past Sunday, I had my own homemade bowl-a-thon with Little Gen and Asif (Little Gen's boyfriend who is staying with us). Asif is from India and only learned to bowl about a month ago, but he is already better than both Little Gen and I. He also cooks us a lot of curry.

Around 9 o'clock we headed over to Holiday Bowl where a helpful young attendant insisted on finding me the perfect bowling ball. "Here ya go, Mami," he said handing me a luscious red nine-pounder, "this is the one I use myself." I have definitely never been called 'mami' before. According to Urban Dictionary, this means I am a sexy Latina, though it occurs to me that I may also be old enough to be his mami.

We sailed through four games, though most of the pictures we took indicate that we did everything but bowl.

I played a bit above my average 70, but kept with my usual one strike and a couple gutter balls per game. Asif, of course, was winning every game. But I pulled ahead and miraculously won the last game. Either I got better the more beer I drank, or my opponents got worse––either seems equally plausible to me. And speaking of that, can you really call something during which you drink alcohol a 'sport'? I have my doubts. Ironically, it occurs to me now that the longer we played, the more developmentally disabled we became.

A family started bowling in the lane next to ours with one miniature bowler. It took everything she had to merely lift her bowling ball in her small arms. But when little Susie Q noticed Finneas, her interest in the game noticeably diminished. She was captivated, entranced. Both parents apologized for her curiosity, which I assured them was perfectly acceptable, and encouraged it with some tiny waves in her direction. She didn't take up my offer to give Finneas a pat, but did afford me a couple shy smiles. I'm glad Finneas got in on the action––I think he was feeling a little left out, riding along while my larger, more competent bowling arm got to play. 

I'm OK at bowling. I think with a little practice, I could be really good. It's one sport where it's not such a big deal if you have only one arm. Problem is, I'm just not a huge fan. Maybe it's the fluorescent lighting or the arcade-like environment; it just doesn't really do it for me.

But you know what does do it for me? Lizards with stub legs. A bearded dragon called 'Stubilina,' to be exact.

'Stubby' for short

Obviously, she was born to be a star. Heidi and her husband adopted Stubilina when her former owner could no longer care for her. Pete tells me these lizards are often missing legs due to their unfortunate habit of biting them off each other in adolescence.

I wonder if Stubilina likes to bowl.


OneArmGirl


And now, we make OneArmGirl history with our very first ever video. Enjoy!