While I myself have two wonderful dogs as pets back at home, with whom I have shared countless moments of non verbal communication, I have found that this is not limited to animals (or humans) that you have had prior contact with.

I really loved Sunshine's use of Clare's logger story to help formulate an avatar and an identity. I found myself easily overlooking this aspect of Clare as I read the story, because it is so easy to use other, neater, words to label him, such as disabled, trans, or queer. Still, Eli Clare writes about his rural roots as a source of great love and fulfillment, even if they come with immense amounts of pain. For this reason, I chose to use this image of flannel as Clare's potential avatar.

I too, like Sydney, encounter many homeless people and drug addicts where I live. There isn't a day where you can walk down the street and not see someone begging for money or strung out on drugs. But, there was this one guy who I would never forget. You could tell he was full of rage and very high by the way he staggered in the street and shouted obscenities that no one could make out because he didn't have any teeth. I was kind of frightened because while he was having his fit, he looked at me with anger and a sense of sadness that I couldn't just shake off.

I think Eli Clare would use Supercrip as his username. On page 13 he wrote “Supercrip lives inside my body, ready and willing to push the physical limitations.” Clare wants the idea of “supercrip” to be dead, but until that happens this username could be a way that he reclaims it. 

After reading this post, I immediately thought of my topic. I hope that the similarity is seen by others as well.

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Meghna, I had a pretty similar experience, although I didn't go to Spain, haha. It was actually at the in-focus event in April here at Bryn Mawr, where we stayed with customs people overnight, yeah? I was so excited, and I was so sure that I would be friends with everybody at this college. Maybe the person I was staying with would become one of my best friends when I attended school later in the year! However, sitting with her in the Rock common room—her talking about her interests and me talking about mine—I realized that our personalities and interests didn't mesh at all.

Considering what I've read of Clare so far, I'm taken with his imagery of feeling in his bones. Beyond his frustration with being evaluated in comparison to an ableist ideal, on entirely superficial bases, he discusses the importance of what's under the skin. He frequently expresses that his deepest feelings and beliefs about advocacy and identity resonate internally, in his bones.