LeftyByDefault.com – Laura Overstreet

Lately, I have felt silenced and trapped.  Indeed, I realize now that these are feelings that I have long had but only in the past few years have I felt empowered and knowledgable enough to release them. However, I cannot – at this time anyway – write the words and expose my truth in its [...]

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 [...]

“Twenty/20″ I like numbers. I like what they tell us, what they signify, their symmetry, and how they have occupied my time over the years. Dates and anniversaries are the epitome of the power of numbers for me. I’m one of those people who can tell you the dates of almost any significant thing that [...]

Last Wednesday evening I wasn’t feeling great, thought I was just tired from working hard for several days.  As I got ready to go to bed though, I noticed that the tiny aches I had all day were now accompanied by the feeling of a fever.  I checked, and sure enough, it was 99.7 degrees. [...]

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 [...]

I am honored to have my first guest post at FWD! Cross-posted at FWD/Forward: FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward Book Review – Dancing at the River’s Edge: A Patient and her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness by Alida Brill and Michael D. Lockshin, M.D. Alida Brill first landed on the “other [...]

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 [...]

I have spent most of this week hoteling it. We had vinyl floor taken up in the kitchen and hardwood floor put down, and that floor along with the other existing hardwoods, were sanded, stained, and protected with polyurethane. Dusty, smelly, and obstacle-creating. The hotel existence was odd though. The first time I’ve stayed in [...]