The XX Factor

A Blog Worth Reading

If you’re interested in adding another woman-authored blog to your list, I recommend Sarah Scott’s Mayday Productions . A former Martha Stewart Omnimedia employee , Scott ended up “tits-up in a ditch,” as she put it to me once in a line borrowed from the title of an Annie Proulx short story , when she was in a cycling race accident in 2005. “I don’t remember if the EMT woke me up, or I just came to on my own, but I remember looking down at my thighs and thinking about dead meat. Big hunks of dead meat.” On her blog, she candidly chronicles the physical and psychological challenges of life post-spinal cord injury with blistering honesty.

The new me is paralyzed from the bottom of my sternum down, 100% reliant on a wheelchair for mobility. I’m no longer a size four with marilyn curves etched on taut muscles. I no longer wear heels, and I’ve had to give away most of my clothes from my old life. Some I’m still holding onto, but slowly and surely they continue to be discarded as I keep loosening my grip on the past.

Her bio adds: “My life is decidedly not tragic, despite my good looks.” And, on a parallel blog, she covers her work training service dogs in words and photographs. If your interests include autonomic dysreflexia , apotemnophilism , and armoured women , Scott’s blog is a must-read .