Segseat Blog

The Lawn is Dead...

Long live the garden.
Evergreen,perennial,fragrant and flowering.
Cheers.

Photos in spring of new blooms.
It's a great thing to do, highly recommended.

Now of course I'm drunk with power
and looking for other landscapes to impose my will on.

I mean to write at least once a week, early New Year's resolution.
We'll see how that goes.

Happy Holidays, don't stress, just dig your friends & family,
(and maybe some beautiful drought-tolerant plants).

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The title's a joke. No vacation.
We fell down the rabbit hole of native-plant gardening.
Deep subject! Now we're scrambling for plants and imagining
the pop of the cork on that icy bottle of champagne we'll share
when the front yard is actually a garden.
Landscaping's a blast; small scale, site-specific earthworks.
If I'd known about bender board in my childhood it would
have been my favorite toy.

All I have to say about Segthings is that people treat me
pretty much the way they would had I not been injured.
As I've said, eye to eye contact trumps everything.
When the garden's been installed,I may put some energy
into trying to further adaptation of verticality
in mobility devices. I've met an enormous number of people
who get ,instantly, that wheelchairs have become obsolete.
This of course means a wider variety of seating and other
improvements. Big subject.

As the White Rabbit said,"Oh my ears and whiskers, I'm late!"
Gotta get to the nusery. More Segwayology next time.

It's Alive!

Hope your summer's going well.
Just a quick shout out to say the next post will be part two of physical therapy piece.
I'll post early next week at the latest, so check back.

Meanwhile, "Surf's Up!". (You know I'm kidding right?)

P.T. or D.P.T. ?

It may be that your injuries are new and temporary, or old and only starting to interfere.
There may be disease involved or something congenital. Whatever you or those you love are
experiencing as a physical impediment, physical therapy is extremely important.

Unless you are or have been an athlete,dancers included, most of us never fully inhabit our bodies.
There's no instruction book and plenty of distractions to keep us living in our heads.
This is true for most "able bodied" people;how much more so for the damaged.

It's impossible to explain the surrealism of living in a body that refuses to comply.
I can't say what it's like to live in a body that never functioned normally. In either case,
the right physical therapist can help you re-integrate your mind, body, and emotions.

There's a natural urge to retreat from the physical self when it's experienced as a source of pain.
You don't make a conscious descision to retreat, it just happens. Without therapeutic intervention
you will continue to lose function and your quality of life will diminish. We want the opposite, right?
A good P.T. or D.P.T. can teach you how to use whatever you do have in a way that maximizes your strengths, finds work-arounds for weaknesses,and helps you to understand the body you have.

D.P.T.'s are doctors of physical therapy. This is a relatively new discipline, a Ph.D in physical therapy.
(It's like having a "shrink" for your body!)
Eventually it will be possible to make an appointment directly with a D.P.T. who can then treat ,refer, or prescribe the way an orthopedist or neurologist does. The goal is to make these practices more reciprocal
and have them function as a team for the patient's benefit.

There's more to say, a lot more, next time.
(What I'd like right now is a beach towel, a frozen margarita and a really bad book. Cheers!)

Summer in the City

We were staying with friends in downtown Manhattan, in the kind of weather that feels
like a gigantic invisible dog is standing over the city just panting.
We walked down to the river. It was cooler there.
We walked through a park full of sculpture and flowers.
Toddlers splashed in the fountains of a playground as limo drivers gossiped & smoked,
waiting for buildings to empty.
You can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island across the water, it's beautiful.
New Yorkers are smart, tough,kind and hard-working.
If it were up to me, Manhattan would be our capitol.
Yeah, I love New York.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

This is the wonderful British artist Andrew Holmes.

We visited Andrew at the Getty where he's in the middle of
his residency, during which he's been working on drawings
and an installation. He generously showed his studio to a small
group of friends last weekend. Wonderful work.

This is the kind of thing I've spent most of my adult life doing.
Obviously the Segway/Segseat makes it possible once more.

There's a revolution going on. You're participating just by reading this.
Maybe it's an evolution. Since the Americans with Disabilities Act and
devices like motorized wheelchairs, more of the disabled have been
mainstreamed back into the larger community. That's good for everyone.
Those of us who've lost some of our physical capabilities have other
contributions to make.

The Segway's verticality is absolutely radical.
We are seeing the future of mobility devices, as anyone who's used
or seen someone use the device in this way instantly understands.

When you use this technology you take on as well the responsibility of
educating others. The ability to look someone in the eye and "walk"
at their pace is magic.

More to share in June.

The Native Plant Thing

We're replacing our crabgrass with drought resistant native plants.
I always assumed crabgrass was a native plant.

This is an overwhelming enterprise at first;there's so much to know,
so many variables.
Now I find myself loving the Latin names,(Latin ROOTS, horticulture joke).
Hummingbirds and butterflies love the sages and California lilacs we've
seen in other gardens and everything smells good.
This could also be very funny 'cause both of us are extremely urban.
According to other gardeners we've talked with the plants know a lot more
about our landscape than we do; so we'll let them teach us.
(Sounds pretty "Hippy" to me...forward! into the past!)

The garden and the Segway are green choices. I'm sorry we
can't plant a redwood grove. (And a solar Segway would be
deep green.)

Next time: You Say You Want a Revolution?

World Famous Crochet Museum

Another opening, another show.
Happy sunburned people wandering around looking at art
or flopping on couches giving in to the heat.
Great live music by Victoria Williams, Ann Magnuson,
Ronin,(nine year old future Rock Star, you heard it here),
Shari Elf and various High Desert luminaries.
Luminary is almost literal it's so bright out there.
Art Queen in Joshua Tree, check it.

More soon.
Thanks to all comment writers. You're amazing!

Urban Myths

I've been reading various other blog's comments about the Segseat.
It's myth busting time children.

1.) I'm thin.
2.) I have what's called an incomplete spinal cord injury.
3.) My injury was caused by a renegade L.A.P.D. dectective,
from the Ramparts division, pursuing,( at high speed) a parole violater
who consequently ran a red light straight into me. He was charged only with hitting me.
4.) An incomplete spinal cord injury is considered "minor".
5.) A "minor" injury can completely ruin your life.
6.) It takes enormous discipline not to be bitter, to engage with life,
to insist upon remaining among people rather than withdrawing.
7.) I would give or do anything to have my life back.
8.) Only unfettered stem cell research offers the possibility of restoring the full use of my legs.
9.) The Segway/Segseat is the best solution for now.

Clear enough?
Good.

Shopping

This is the best way to buy produce.
Hope your holiday was a good one.
Next time, more text.