60 Seconds

Tomorrow, Monday, I am going to be inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame. I've been given the schedule of events and it looks like it's going to be a very cool experience. I'm still a little in shock at being both nominated and accepted, I never expected to be in any kind of Hall of Fame for anything much. It's cool, too, because I'm being honoured for my work in the promoting the idea of healthy sexuality and sexual rights for people with disabilities as well as for my work in abuse prevention. As such, I'm being inducted in the Builder category. To be seen as a builder of the community to which I now claim membership is wonderfully affirming.

But here's the kicker. After being inducted I am given 1 minute to speak. That's 60 seconds. Man, that's a toughie. I've known this for several weeks of course and should have been thinking about it. But I approach problems by avoiding them for as long as I can. This works well at removing stress for a couple of weeks and then shooting it up for a couple of hours. Not healthy, not optimal, but it works for me.

So today I have but one job. I've got to write a one minute speech. I can fill a day, in fact several days, on a variety of topics, but filling one minute seems impossible. I wrote a couple of lines yesterday and read them to Joe. It took me about 5 seconds. OK, now I've got 55 more.

So if any of you have hints for what to say, I'm all ears. I'll probably still be working on this on Monday morning. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG! Fear just clutched at my throat ... time to stop and get to