Adulting, Caitlin-Style

Image shows Maite in a nice sit position showing off her "riding jacket" which is red and black. She wears it when she rides in the car. Also visible is her blue bed on the left, her bowl stand behind her and a colorful rug to her right.

When my buddy Derek and I went to guide dog school as sixteen-year-olds, we were the two rogue “minors.” Presumably because of this, the “powers that be” placed us at a dining table with Dorianne, an incredibly sweet, funny, and savvy lady who had her own kids and had taught many others.

As I recall, Dorianne said that she’d been told to keep a proverbial eye on us; she quipped something to the tune of, “I guess I’m supposed to be the grown-up in charge.”

Derek and I were amused by this turn of phrase. I often trotted it out — “You’re the grown-up in charge!” — when begging Dorianne to do something for me: come out to the paddock to let our dogs play, so I wouldn’t have to go alone; help me find an errant sock with her minimal usable vision; and, most famously, checking to see if darling Lanniekins was really eating his own … well, you know … in the relieving circle.

As a twenty-something, I’d occasionally need to be the grown-up in charge, or felt that I did: when tutoring very young kids while all other adults were occupied; meeting younger blind folks out and about and feeling responsible to get us from point A to B, whether or not they actually needed that support (usually, as can only be predicted if you know me, the opposite was true); sitting with my grandpa after he developed dementia; moving through the world with folks who were disabled but not blind and who, subsequently, sometimes asked me to support them in advocating for respect and equitable access to things. Still, I skated through most of my twenties with the vague sense that, if I ran into something I couldn’t handle, there was always, quote, “a REAL grown-up” close at hand, who would take up the mantle of adultness (I almost wrote “adultery,” oops) when I felt hesitant to do so.

For me, blindness is relevant. For me — and I give that clarifier again, because I’m sure not all blind folks feel this way — it’s a relief to know that there’s someone else around, whether they be blind or sighted, to help me run block (physically and-or verbally) with ridiculous randoms, to confer about a question or confusion, to just … be with me in space. For me, especially if I’m in a setting I don’t know with folks I don’t know, I’m constantly evaluating, planning, and staying on guard, and blindness adds an indisputable layer to that. When you’re blind and in a new place under stress, there are simply certain things you can’t independently, instantaneously know, anticipate, access, or find. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s not true or pertinent all the time and in every situation; it’s just how it can be.

Today, as a thirty-six-year-old, I feel like I’ve been thrown into a brutal crash course in adulting … and I shocked myself by realizing that (a) it’s not quite as hard or as terrifying as I imagined, (b) I can actually, truly manage much more than I think I can, and (c) I feel much more confident in and secure about myself once I’ve gotten through it.

* A very close relative of mine has recently been in the ER and hospital several times. Martha helped immeasurably, AND there did come a time when I needed to be with this person in the hospital, solo, while they were completely not themself (crying, shouting, uncomprehending, lashing out at staff, holding onto me with a vise-grip, etc.). We finally got them calmed down with meds, whereupon I waited for them to finish some last tests before going with them to a different location via ambulance, then Ubering home in the dead of night with a driver who didn’t speak English. All this after a very long, stressful day spent with Martha, finding them somewhere to land, trying to gather their belongings, ascertain what was going on with them medically, calling the pertinent people, and so forth.

You do what you gotta do, I learned … and it all went fine. I was able to stay calm and regulated, support my loved one with kindness and patience, and advocate to randoms for the things I needed in order to stay grounded and effective as a support (a phone charger, a drink, the bathroom, meds brought to us directly so we could avoid negotiating the pharmacy while they were agitated, etc.).

* For that same relative, I’ve made innumerable phonecalls, met up with people I don’t know, and generally tried to help co-steer someone else’s life. This also included hella math, paperwork, and things way outside my skill set, so if not for Martha, I could not have managed it. Despite needing help, I was still struck by my own ability to stay organized, capable, and respected.

* My beloved grandma, of German-Jewish-New-York-accent Facebook fame, passed away in August of last year. It was very sad, of course, despite her long and productive life … but it was also incredibly scary and frustrating because, on her last day, I couldn’t visually see what was going on; her breathing was shallow and those around me were trying to determine whether or not she was still alive. This is a creepy and helpless, blindness-specific feeling which I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I got through it, and was able to remain calm enough to support the rest of my family who were there, after which I somehow got nominated to call loved ones who were not there.

* Martha has had to have several surgeries over the past few years. After her last one, during which she had to be dosed VERY heavily with painkillers, I doubted in my ability to get her safely out of a cab and into the house. Martha had initially requested that it just be the two of us, since surgery recovery is a vulnerable situation, but, with her (albeit loopy) consent, which was the best I could get in the moment, I reached out to a friend for help. After a very scary and carsick Waymo home, our friend met us at the house and helped Martha get situated. I was very grateful for this, since the drugs had knocked her out pretty spectacularly, and helping someone physically when you’re a small-bodied, sometimes-klutzy blindie, is anything but a piece of cake.

* Maite, our precious “rock wilder,” has had to go to the vet twice in the past month, culminating in the news that she has osteosarcoma in her jaw. She’ll need extensive surgery, which will remove part of her jaw and at least one tooth in order to get rid of all the cancer. Poooor Maite! We were desperate to get Maite seen ASAP, but our surgeon, who is the only “dogtor” Maite adores, is very busy and hard to book. Both times he could fit her in, once for a biopsy and once for a CAT scan (haha, a dog’s CAT scan), Martha had work commitments she couldn’t change. Now, Maite is my darling angel baby and everything like that, but she’s also a leash-reactive rescue who has high vet anxiety. She’s a Rottweiler, which freaks out a lot of people. She acts weirdly extra-protective of me when Martha’s not around. And she also, you know, doesn’t listen to much of anything that I say, because I’m just her little snuggly Stepmom who kisses her face and gives her goldfish crackers and cheese constantly. Martha is her person, her actual mom, and The Enforcer.

So I was like, “Um, I absolutely cannot take her to the vet for a big procedure.”

And Martha, of course, was like, “You absolutely can,” and suggested some folks who could drive us and support.

I thought and thought about who to ask. I wanted — needed — someone who I felt would be comfortable both with me and with Maite in a high-stress situation. This is not always easy to find, haha. And also, someone we could afford.

We got one of Maite’s sitters to help us — she was my first choice — and both times, Maite was good as gold. It helped that we pre-drugged her hard, and that our helper was awesome, but still, I was able to stay chill and level-headed for Maite’s sake, ask and answer questions under pressure, and not flip out when scary things happened, like Maite’s seatbelt not being compatible with the car, and Maite coming out of the cage with blood all over her face because she hadn’t wanted anyone touching her poor little hurt head. I felt like a much more competent “pawrent” after this.

All this to say: when my dad came to town this past weekend for a visit (he has moved out of state this past year, which multiplied my feeling of being the grown-up in charge), and I said that I felt like I aged ten years in this past calendar year, he agreed.

I felt different around him than I have before. I’ve always felt fairly adult around him — that’s just how we interact — but I felt like a Real Adult, with capital letters, this time. Like we weren’t so much parent and child, but more like adults commiserating together about how life can be sweet and stressful by turns. That felt new, and even though a lot of the experiences leading to it were difficult and unpleasant, I feel stronger in hindsight, knowing that, even when I think I can’t, I actually, really can.

Image shows Maite in a nice sit position showing off her “riding jacket” which is red and black. She wears it when she rides in the car. Also visible is her blue bed on the left, her bowl stand behind her and a colorful rug to her right.

Caitlin’s Take On The Finch App

Screen shot of The Mouth & Caitlin (Caitlin's Birb and pet in her Birbhouse). The birb, The Mouth, stands in the center of the room wearing a purple shirt, purple bear (?) slippers complete with claws, a multicolored lei, some kind of maybe sunglasses on her head with heart-shaped frames. She's holding a ukelele, also purple. No pants. Next to her is her mouse, BB, wearing a fedora. In the house behind her there is a mostly purple bed (with a yellow pillow and white bear head pillow), a wall decoration showing that she completed some event, purple framed window, white bunny ceiling light, red dino clock over the purple enchanted door. Her doormat has multicolor lego shapes. The rug under her feet is...dark yellow? Behind her there's maybe a boom box on the floor (no dresser which usually goes there) and something with a green top. It's not visible because The Mouth is in front of it.

So, Martha already did her blog post about Finch, and now it’s my turn.

Listen, I’m SO into this app. I do feel the thrill and zeal dimming, just slightly, after a couple of months of daily use, but only slightly.

I do think that part of the appeal is that I missed out on Tamagachis, NeoPets, The Sims, and lots of the pet-type, virtual-reality-ish things my peers did. Derek and I got our revenge by being really into furbies. We even learned Furbish, made up our own spinoff language, and, thanks to Derek’s ability to Internet-sleuth, figured out how to make them talk and sing together, even though we never had access to the actual directions. But somehow, the furbies never scratched the “I want a little electro-pet” itch. And actually, I’m not sure Finch is quite doing that, either.

The thing is, I don’t entirely understand why, precisely, this app is working so well for me … which, in itself, kind of fascinates me. As it stands right now, Finch and VoiceOver play fairly nicely together, but I don’t get descriptions of my “birb” or anyone else’s, unless I take screenshots and run them through Be My AI, and who has time or motivation to do all that? There isn’t even an easy way for me to remind myself of what my birb is wearing, much less change and coordinate her outfits. (Martha will often laugh and tell me, “Uh, honey, your birb has no pants on right now, just so you know.)

Because, thankfully, the app isn’t punitive at all, the way others are, I don’t feel obligated to check in every day. Your birb will not be harmed if you flake out. I do enjoy the whimsical, childlike “choose your own adventure” stories you can engage with every day, as well as the surprise prizes you get from the “quests” and the Question Of the Day.

My main fun right now is saving enough rainbow stones to buy clothing and furniture, in part for me, but more so to gift the Finch friends I know in real-life. While it would be hugely helpful to receive immediate descriptions of their birbs and houses, so I could get a read on their preferred colors and aesthetics, it’s still a delightful challenge for me to choose things based solely on their real-life personality, interests, etc. This is less doable, of course, with the Finch friends I’ve found through Facebook’s Finch groups … or, as Martha and our friend Amy jointly dubbed it, “the Dark Finchie Forest.” The community has been SO kind and generous, although a lot of the interaction is pretty visual and image-centered. One opportunity which I pounced on was offered by a person who gave 50 random gifts to the first few commenters. Another person constantly does gifting posts where she’ll send you five gifts, anything you want. These people aren’t always asking for trades … in fact, rarely so, since they are extremely hardcore, already have most or all of the items, and know hacks that enable them to donate the items to others without losing the items themselves. I’ve been trying to figure out what these “gifting fairies” get out of all this labor, some of which includes detailed spreadsheets, Google Forms, contests, and gifting to hundreds of people, multiple times. So far, I haven’t discovered why they do it, other than that it brings them joy and seems to be a hobby for them.

I’m not nearly that intense about it, but it brightens up my Finch day to receive some random gifts every once in a while. Other folks online are quick to hop on as random gifters, accountability buddies, or just birb friends if you want more people in your trees to share vibes. People are also often quick to throw you a few extra plushies, which are equivalent to a ton of rainbow stones. So you can either sell these plushies as a means of buying more things, or send them along to other Finch users, especially early ones, to help them build their inventory and get started.

While I’m not doing a HUGE deep-dive into the “dark dealings,” as Martha calls the Finch folks online, I continue to be touched, and also slightly baffled, by people’s endless kindness and capacity to just … give stuff on Finch for no apparent reason. I’m trying to pay it forward as best I can. Because I have no interest in collecting sets, coordinating outfits and birdhouse decor, etc., I’m not very good at trading back or helping people find things they’re looking for. But I’m really getting a kick out of Finching with people I know IRL and treating them to little spurts of Finch joy when I find things they might like.

As for my personal goals, I’m kind of amazed by my newfound dedication. It helps that I’m currently on leave from work (that’s another blog-post for another day), so I have extraneous energy and time to work at achieving my goals. I was always that nerdy kid who wanted every prize or treat or reward, even if it wasn’t something I even cared about. (I asked doc Martha what this says about me as a person and she didn’t have much to say, so feel free to throw out theories re: what this behavior says about my personality.)

Besides reminding me to have a water bottle on hand, Finch also acts as a nice, clean daily checklist, reminding me about little things I intend to do: eating applesauce “to ward off rickets,” as we say; eating my baby-food prunes and taking extra Metamucil to help with digestion; doing odious daily chores, like cleaning out my thermos, checking on whether or not the dishes are done at any given time of day, and monitoring laundry, trash, and recycling; and, most notably, flossing and wearing my retainer. Seriously, I have struggled with consistent (okay, any) flossing and retainer-wearage my entire life, and this app singlehandedly cured me. I’m totally going to tell my dentist. I mean, I know it won’t work for nearly everyone, but it’s so fun! And so simple! And free, unless you want to pay for Plus (which I did, in a fit of pique, while under the influence of a sedative, because I got mad that I couldn’t send the summer Ice Cream vibe or buy a pair of koala slippers).

Finch has also really, really helped me build in movement throughout the day. Again, it’s a clean, easy-to-access list of goals … so, as I flick through it a couple times a day, I’m reminded about body-focused reminders: deep breaths, stretch breaks, “functional fitness,” going outside, walking after a meal, jumping jacks, and, my favorite, “jumping,” which has always been my vestibular “blindism / stim” of choice and continues to bring my joy, even in my thirties, when I encourage myself to do it despite my internalized ableism.

All this to say … this app continues to be such a delightful life hack for me, even as the world catches on fire in innumerable ways. I highly recommend it if you, like me, have a bit of a prize-craving, gift giving and receiving, surprising-people personality.

You can find me, Caitlin, and my birb, The Mouth, at Finch code:

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Happy Finching, if you’re into it … cheep!

Screen shot of The Mouth & Caitlin (Caitlin’s Birb and pet in her Birbhouse). The birb, The Mouth, stands in the center of the room wearing a purple shirt, purple bear (?) slippers complete with claws, a multicolored lei, some kind of maybe sunglasses on her head with heart-shaped frames. She’s holding a ukelele, also purple. No pants. Next to her is her mouse, BB, wearing a fedora. In the house behind her there is a mostly purple bed (with a yellow pillow and white bear head pillow), a wall decoration showing that she completed some event, purple framed window, white bunny ceiling light, red dino clock over the purple enchanted door. Her doormat has multicolor lego shapes. The rug under her feet is…dark yellow? Behind her there’s maybe a boom box on the floor (no dresser which usually goes there) and something with a green top. It’s not visible because The Mouth is in front of it.

Relationships are Complicated

Since being diagnosed with breast cancer, I’ve had a hard time trusting my body. To be clear, it’s not as though before I was diagnosed I loved my body deeply. Like all relationships, my relationship with my body is complicated. There’s a whole mix of love, despair, admiration, frustration, caring and neglect.

I generally feel – or felt – that I understood my body, that I knew what it needed even if I didn’t always manage to give it what I needed. I trusted that if I gave it what it needed, it would give me what I needed.

I had a motorcycle accident years ago that the doctors said would leave me with a limp and constant pain. I walked out of the hospital after just 9 days, against doctor’s orders and “treated” myself with the things I believed my body needed. And guess what? No limp. No persistent pain (except that I started having migraines after that accident – but even those have diminished to just one or maybe 2 a month).

Even the migraines responded to my personal regimen of massages and CBD and regular hot tubbing!

Then I went in for my first mammogram (on my way to top surgery) and they discovered cancer.

Here I was, doing all the right things, working out in ways I enjoyed, eating food I liked, working at something that really mattered to me, giving back to the community and being in a flourishing, loving relationship. How could I have cancer? Even a little one?!

I know, I know. Anyone can get sick. There’s no way to protect ourselves completely from cancer or any host of body ailments. And yet I could not shake the feeling that my body had betrayed me. That I had taken care of it, and it had forsaken me.

I have been running for literal decades. When I was training for a marathon, I would feel a little nervous before the long run on the weekend, but otherwise I feel good and strong when I run. In fact it’s been a go-to method for improving my mood for a long time. But these days, every time I set out, I feel a little more than just nervous. These days I’m not sure I can trust my body to do even this simple thing, putting one foot in front of the other, over and over. While my body feels more like me than ever before (remember all this started with potential top surgery), it also feels less like my own, somehow. It feels like I don’t know my body. Like I’m not sure how it will respond, or what it will do.

I’m glad to be recovered from surgery and revisions (just so you know, I had a TERRIBLE experience with multiple surgeons at UCSF – I’ll tell you the story if you ask). I’m glad I had health insurance and a partner who loved me through all of that. And I’m glad to be cancer free. And at the same time, I’m worried every time I go to run or work out.

Relationships are complicated. Guess I will have to make peace with that.

Brrrring!

I don’t have games on my phone. I used to do duolingo (before the app got taken over by AI – Atrocious Imaginings) and word games before I knew the level of treachery at the New York Times, but that’s it. Total transparency – I do have insta on my phone. I know it’s also awful in many ways, but I’m far from perfect. And so when I’m on my phone, most of the time is spent messaging folks (we love a voice message around here), watching a youtube (yes, yes, there are problems there too) on how to manage some crochet thing, or reading a book. Plus I call my mom once a week or so. That’s it. My phone spends most of its time in a phone stand.

Caitlin, on the other hand, is VERY attached to her phone. She doesn’t do games either, but she nearly always has it in her hand. She reads a lot on her phone, and she has many more people to text than I do, plus scrolling, and YouTube. Then about a month ago she started using WaterMinder. She really appreciated the gamified way the app got her drinking more water. Every time the reminder splashes, we all sing out WowTER in big voices.

I admit that I give her a hard time about how much she’s on her phone. And she gives me a hard time when I don’t pick up or notice that someone has texted us. (bonus track at the end for more on that) That said, we were pretty comfortable in our two camps, phone-on-stand vs phone-in-hand.

Then a friend of ours was wondering about a gratitude app that we could use and share our gratitudes without too much pressure. Caitlin is kind (and as I said, very attached to her phone) and she went on a search. What did she find? She found Finch.

If you are not aware of this app, the website says:

“Meet your new self-care best friend! Finch is a self-care pet app that helps you feel prepared and positive, one day at a time.

At Finch, our goal is simple: to make daily self-care something you actually want to do — not something that feels like a chore.

We know that building healthy habits can be hard. Life gets busy, priorities shift, and it’s easy to put yourself last. That’s why Finch was created: to be a gentle, encouraging companion that helps you take small steps every day toward a more supported, balanced version of yourself.”

What they don’t tell you here is that there are cheerful chimes and rainbow stones you collect when you complete a goal. And with those rainbow stones you can buy outfits and furniture to decorate your birb house. That’s not a typo, that’s what Finch calls it. You can get micro-pets and bonus points for completing goals in different areas like Connection, Calm, Gratitude (yes, that’s how she found it), Movement and Self-Kindness.

So then wherever I was in the house I would hear this brrring! sound as well as various cheeps and dings. Caitlin thought it might function as the gratitude minder she was looking for and so I downloaded it too.

And guess what? They have some decent psych-science behind what they are doing. And it does work for the Gratitude Goal in that it reminds us to share a gratitude (in the app you cannot message each other – beyond sending Good Vibes that the app writes for you). It turns out the brrrring! sound is really fun (and motivating)! Our friend did a lovely job of decorating and dressing up her birb – and they even had a white-cane for Caitlin and sports headphones for me.

And nowadays if you were able to listen in at our house you’d hear laughter, Maite talking, singing and…brrring! Finching. I still don’t keep my phone quite as handy as Caitlin does, but I do pick it up just to log my goals several times a day. If you decide to join, and you know either of us, let us know so our birbs can be friends!

Image is a screenshot from Finch with Caitlin and my birbs and micropets. The background is a forest scene, green grass, trees, that kind of thing. Caitlin’s birb is on the left with her baby bat. She is holding blue pom poms, is wearing a rainbow shirt and is smiling and dancing. Her thought bubble has what looks like a scared robot. Next is my birb’s pet seal who is quite a bit larger than the bat because I didn’t know I could keep it from growing up so it reached toddler, I think. Then my birb is sitting on the ground next to the seal. My birb is wearing a multicolored striped shirt, red glasses, sporty headphones and has sideswept brown hair. Its thought bubble has a sailboat.

Bonus track: The other day Caitlin left me very early to do things with her mom, and I was supposed to take Maite to the vet. I was so tired, I fell back to sleep after she left, not my usual behavior. When I woke up, I leapt out of bed to give Maite her pre-procedure meds. Then I dressed and took her right outside for her walk so we wouldn’t be late. Back inside, I took a quick shower and got dressed. As I was pocketing my keys and wallet, I unlocked my phone for the address of the vet. Imagine my surprise when I saw multiple missed calls and texts from Caitlin. The vet had called, apparently, while I was blissfully sleeping and then tried her phone. They had to cancel Maite’s procedure and wanted to reschedule. Caitlin then proceeded to call me, text me and call our neighbor to get him to come and knock on our door (he didn’t. or if he did, he did it while we were out walking). I promise you, I would have looked at my phone before I left, but Caitlin really needed that immediate response!

words from home

I don’t know about y’all, but I love reading these posts. Many of you probably know that in the very beginning of our friendship, Caitlin and I did a LOT of writing together. We met at a school we were both working at and as summer began, we decided to start our own writing group, just the two of us. We agreed we would write for 10 minutes every day, and send that writing via email to one another. I looked forward to reading her words every day. Sometimes we’d exchange emails beyond that, usually related to what one of us had written. After a while I asked, “Do you do texting?” which now seems hilarious to me, knowing how very much Caitlin texts, and also because it NOW feels like, doesn’t everyone text?

And of course she said, “Yes, absolutely,” and the texting began. We texted so many, many times a day. I used to use an app that allowed me to download my texts and seriously there were thousands of texts before we even began officially “dating” or whatever you want to call it. Speaking for myself, all those words were a real part of falling in love.

We moved in together when the shelter-in-place started in California (thinking it was going to be ‘just a few weeks’) and the texting mostly stopped. I mean, we did still sometimes text each other from the other room when we were each online, working. Sometimes texts were like, What is going on in there?! or Would you please get the dog out of my area?

Fast forward to today and living together means that most of our communication these days is spoken (unless I’m out of town). There are still SO MANY WORDS. We talk a lot! We both have things to say and of course, Maite has plenty she wants to say, too.

And we still write together, although nowadays at the end of a writing sprint, I usually read what I wrote aloud and Caitlin usually makes me wait till the piece she is working on is done. Which means I get to read a lot fewer words on a regular basis, so reading these along with y’all is a real treat for me. I love her turn of phrase and have laughed out loud for real with each of these posts. I love to read what’s going on in her mind in conversations. (I miss those FB posts about things her students said to her!) And I am glad to read about how it’s going out there as she does her thing in a completely unknown place. Bonus points to the person who added those Oreos to her ice cream.

NAME GAME

HINT: Skip to the end if you're wondering why Martha calls me "TJ."

For as long as I can remember, I wanted a nickname. For whatever reason, I've always connected nicknames with words like "blindie," blind jokes, and the right to (with consent) guide me in an unconventional way. All these things have to be earned.
In the same way I despise outer-circle folks going around pontificating about "blindies," teasing me for a "blawkward" (blind plus awkward) moment, or steering me by the shoulders, I have always chafed at people's insistence on calling me "Cait," "CJ," or, God forbid, "Caity," unless they've expressly been told that I liked it.

I wonder if I connected these ideas because, in the same way people project false familiarity around blindness, I feel that people have attached nicknames to me as a means of declaring friendship, connection, or even ownership that isn't really there. Or maybe it's just because, as a blind kid trying to cut it in a sighted world, with extracurriculars, blind stuff, and (then unidentified) ARFID sprinkled over a typical childhood, I felt like I had so little autonomy.

As a kid, I was Caitlin to just about everyone. Very early on, my dad nicknamed me Trouble, or its derivatives, Troub and Troublemaker ... but that was very much his nickname alone. No one else used it until, years later, entirely unaware of my dad's nickname for me, my seventh-grade science teacher also awarded me the same label.

"Cait" and "Caity" were exclusively family names, with only my grandparents and Aunt Linda allowed to use "Caity." My grandpa, with his affinity for Spanglish mixed with the occasional German from my grandma, called me "Diablito," or "little devil." In hindsight, I found it interesting that he didn't use "Diablita"; perhaps this was a nod to my wild-child, tomboyish behavior. I wish I'd thought to ask him before he passed away in 2012.

By fourth grade, I was taking nicknaming into my own hands. My infamous Deraitland bestie, Derek, myself, and some other friends sometimes invented languages. In one, "Caitlin" backwards became "Niltiac," pronounced sort of like "Nil-shyack." In another, "Caitlin" in braille, upside-down, became "Itincoma," which I loathed and Derek, subsequently, used often in an attempt to rankle me.

The nickname I lusted after constantly was CJ, for my first and middle initials. Derek, happily, was DJ, a nickname which I used a lot. CJ never really took, but for a time, we became "Coodge" and "Doodge," with the double Os in "book." But these were very much Deraitland names, and perhaps with good reason. I could be misremembering, but they may have been a nod to our constant fixation with imitating the speech synthesizers of the time. Though CJ and DJ would not have been read as "coodge" and "doodge," those names were reasonable approximations of how a screenreader might have misread them.
By fifth grade, I was going totally rogue. I brailled and typed "Cat Hernandez" on all my papers, as though it was my given name. When some grown-ups would obligingly write "Cat" but never call me that, I tried Kit, Kit-Cat, and, in a final, desperate attempt, C. Nothing worked.

"Cait" and "Caity" remained staples with the family; my dad added "It" and "Little It" to Troub and Trouble; and my sister, for reasons I now can't remember, called me Poopsy. My mom, when I was being particularly cute, would call me her "Little Lamb Chop," which I liked only because I loved both lamb chops and the show Lambchop's Playalong. But such a nickname was too sappy for public consumption.

This seems like a logical time to pause and state that I have no problem with the name "Caitlin." It fits me. I'm especially grateful my parents picked the spelling they did, not only because I prefer the way my spelling looks in braille to that of all the others, but also because it enables me to make my albeit somewhat confusing crack, "Caitlin: remember, two Is but cannot C. Get it? Two EYES but cannot SEE," which, if you don't think about it so hard that you wonder whether the "cannot" means you ought to use a K and not, in fact, the correct C, helps people spell my name correctly.

No ... in spite of the fact that there's no good story behind my name, other than that it went well with Courtney, my older sister's name, and that my dad had heard the name and thought it was, quote, "nice," I like my name. I think, though, that I did sometimes come to associate it with being in trouble. Maybe it was because people couldn't wave, make eye contact, or get to me visually, but often, even today, when I hear my name called, even in a casual way, I immediately panic and think that I'm in trouble. Sad, but perhaps true ... and possibly a reason why I always longed for a nickname that wasn't restricted to a certain crew of friends.

In college, I tried to start out as CJ with my a cappella group. A few people used it somewhat, but in more of a tongue-in-cheek way, not as a true nickname. Amusingly, a label which did stick was "Cajherna," derived from my collegiate e-mail address, which I had not chosen. Apparently, there were so many C Hernandezs that the system spat out the second letter of my name, my middle initial, and the first part of Hernandez. I had to dictate my school e-mail address so many times when signing in at events that my a cappella group, claiming it sounded like a sneeze, began to call me that every so often. Another of the Acquire contingent, Andrea, also took to teasingly calling me Button, which came to light because of a random guy who, upon seeing us in Safeway and recognizing us from busking, said, "I remember you all singing, and I had to stop and tell you ... you're just as cute as a button." Some casual ableism there, as he must have known we were both college students and still insisted on treating me like a disabled child. However, as with "blindies," we took the comment and turned it into something fun.

Some other in-group names:
* Dez: short for Hernandez, from a later Acquire member, Caroline, and later adopted by the CRE Outreach (now Arts Up LA) boys.
* MC, PC, LC: standing for "Poor Child," "My Child," and "Little Caitlin," respectively: all nicknames my dad came up with in the era of texting, again poking fun at people's insistence on feeling sorry for me or infantalizing me, even when nothing is wrong.
* Little: What my sister started calling me, after getting me a braille bracelet which read "little sis." (She, of course, is Big, which appalls my mom, because some people are still laboring under the delusion that being big is bad. I might add that, though she's taller than me, Courtney is actually more delicate / small-presenting.)
* Ti-Ti: What my niece has called me every since she could talk ... technically from the Spanish Tia, although no one in our family speaks Spanish meaningfully, and I doubt the kid even knows that ... I was just always Ti-Ti. It would be so weird if she ever called me Caitlin.

The thing with nicknames, though, is that, beyond lamenting frequently that you want one, you can't force people to come up with the perfect, awesome, organic encapsulation of you. And then, once they find one, you can't coerce other people into using it ... and even if you could, it might seem weird, or nonsensical, depending on the origin of the nickname.

Which brings us to Martha, and TJ.
So you all know our adorable eight-year-old Rock Wilder (Rottweiler), Maite. Mighty Maite. Big MaÃte. Fubu (For Us, By Us). Big Rock. Ruccoon (after Rocky Raccoon). And on and on.

Since Maite was already Martha's "dogter" before I came on the scene, I became "Stepmom" to her. If you've heard any of our videos or recordings, or read transcripts, Maite has a very distinct way of speaking, a little like a kid with some speech quirks, sound additions and deletions, and some unexpected ways of mixing and garbling words and terms. So Stepmom became "Tep Mom" ... and, because I, of course, had told Martha about my quest to be "CJ," CJ, in Maite-speak, became "TJ." And because Martha is Martha, TJ stuck more than CJ did, because MaÃte is such a talkative fixture in our house.

Now, because I'm a rule-following people-pleaser, I did object, "But TJ has to stand for something. It's too confusing to explain, otherwise. How about Trouble Junior? Trouble has always stuck, and Maite is clearly the biggest troublemaker in our house."
To which Maite, of course, responded, "That is not no true story, Tepmom, GAH!"

But TJ stuck ... and now you all know the story. And while I would prefer for you to just call me Caitlin, I'm always open to new nickname ideas, should they arise. Just make sure you've earned it, and that I've approved, before you go shouting it all over the place.

The thing is…

…wherever you go, there you are. TJ (Caitlin) calls me The Ruiner, and it’s a title that I hold with pride. IYKYK. However, noticing racism, ableism, sexism and other oppressions takes a toll. TJ and I went on a cruise, y’all, and I had no idea what to expect. Neither one of us has ever done it, but this was our idea of a vacation that combined travel with a special interest, so we decided to go for it.

I’m not sure why I was surprised to find that this floating hotel was a small microcosm of the US. Or maybe a slice of rich mostly United Statesians. Yes, there were people there from other places, but we mostly ran into yt people from the US. Also, if you are looking for the highlights, you’ll have to scroll to the picture at the bottom.

The whole trip started out rocky because they (the cruise line AND the Star Trek folks) refused to make the printed material accessible to Caitlin. All they had to do was email her the things! I know that those documents exist in e-form, because they were printed out and left in our rooms every day. I’m guessing they were printed before we left shore, so they could have, in theory, emailed her everything before we left. Yes, I know things can change, but they could have said, This is how things stand right now, and the schedule is subject to change. It’s not that hard. And I suspect that kind of accommodation would be helpful for many people, not just blindies.

And speaking of accommodations – I saw a number of so-called service dogs on the boat. I know, I know, there’s no way to tell from over where I am what those dogs were there to do. There are MANY ways a dog can provide a service that I would not be able to see. That said, I saw several that I had serious doubts about. The thing is, if I had doubts, other people also had doubts. I’m not saying people cannot have their service dogs with them. At all. But there are people who game the system and convince someone that their dog qualifies. If that dog then behaves badly, it makes it that much harder for people with actual service dogs to get access later.

Meanwhile….colonizer vibes were everywhere. Almost all of the people working on the ship were BIPOC. Wait staff, cleaners, stewards and cooks, all BIPOC and working with a level of invisibility that I found super uncomfortable. Passengers (mostly yt) walked past them without a word, so much so that when we greeted people they seemed surprised that we noticed them. We heard one woman tell the wait staff that he needed to have his eyes checked, and asked if he was blind because he jokingly told her he needed to see her ID when she ordered wine. I met someone just before the trip who had worked on cruises before and they told me that they don’t make much money and that tips would likely be appreciated – but twice employees told us that the tip was too high, and tried to give it back.

The whole thing was extremely wasteful, too. Given that the food is included, I knew there would be waste, but it was more than I imagined. We made it to breakfast just once (it was a vacation, y’all. Don’t judge) and as we were going out I saw a man scooping yogurt out of the cup and into a bucket. Straight to the trash. I get it, once they’ve put them into those cups with fruit, they can’t save them for the next day, but there were another dozen cups waiting for him. Every day I saw many people leaving piles of food on the table as they left the dining area.

The steward was prepared to change our towels twice a day! And sheets once a day. I told him that wasn’t necessary for us, but walking down the corridor our room was on I saw people removing piles of towels and linens from the same rooms every day.

Image shows TJ gleefully petting a dolphin. She was the only one in our group that got to tickle a dolphin and the resulting vocalizations were awesome.

All of these things are present in my everyday life – but on a boat out in the middle of the ocean – there was no respite. I loved being able to spend pretty much every minute with TJ. I was happy to watch her enjoy the Wave Rider and go down the water slide. I enjoyed some panels and Tim Russ jamming with his band. We got to hang out with dolphins which, while also fraught, was a fantastic experience. We walked around holding hands for hours every day. We read and talked and laughed. I love her dearly and appreciated every minute of our time together. AND I was VERY ready to get off that boat at the end of the trip. TJ and I really have co-created a life that I love, and I feel fortunate for every minute of it.