LeftyByDefault.com – Laura Overstreet

I have not posted in several months, but fear not, I am well and busy teaching.  I have at least one post I am itching to write, but it will have to wait a bit longer.  In the meantime, I encourage you to read two new posts from my dear friend, Alida Brill.  The first, [...]

In my regular presentations and discussions about disability awareness to college students, I am often asked about the best ways to help a person with a disability or to ask if we need help.  Occasionally, parents are looking for ways to help their children talk to other children or adults with disabilities.  I usually tell [...]

Social media. It is a way of life for most of us these days. Who would have ever conceived of common usage of the word “tweet?” Now we use it as a verb and we’re not even chirping like little birds! Social media is a big stinking deal. Even my mom’s on Facebook, people. This [...]

The text of this blog is short to tell you about the podcast I just did with Many Worlds Network creator Alexander Kaminsky.  We chatted about my perspectives and experiences with disability.  Good fun for a Sunday.  Check it out here!  It plays for about 28 minutes.

Rachel Simon, bestselling author of Riding The Bus with My Sister, is releasing the paperback edition of her latest book, The House on Teacher’s Lane, on Tuesday, May 25th. I read Riding The Bus with My Sister, a memoir about Simon and her sister Beth who has developmental disabilities, when it came out in 2002 [...]

Monday I put on my well-worn disability awareness speaker hat and spoke to a college class about ableism, able-bodied privilege. (Well, it’s not really a hat but more of a speaker voice I tune. It’s only slightly different than my usual voice. I can’t command it, it just happens.) It was a human services class [...]

The ABC medical drama Private Practice, a spin-off of the popular Grey’s Anatomy, has been a favorite of mine since it began in 2007. The show is about two private holistic medical practices in Los Angeles. They do a little bit of everything: psychotherapy, fertility, alternative medicine, pediatrics, sexology, general practice, genetics, and super duper [...]

Yesterday was a an absolutely gorgeous Georgia day. I believe the temperature got above 70 degrees, and I was dressed in my favorite spring attire: smooth, khaki colored dress pants, a pink and white striped Oxford shirt, and a white pullover cable-knit sweater. I was just a few colors short of an Easter egg. With [...]

Recently, I have noticed some bloggers discussing the pressure they feel to be happy, funny, proud, and/or any number of similar adjectives at all times despite the pain, frustration, or any number of similar experiences of disability and chronic illness. I will not recount all of the theoretical issues that make up these arguments because [...]

During my Internet time this week, I found three awesome pieces that really exemplify thriving with disability.  The first is a kid who does what he calls “hardcore sitting.”  He has spina bifida and uses his manual chair to do adapted skateboarding tricks.  This dude rocks!  Check out the awesome video here! Next is an article about a [...]