Laughing helps the diaphragm too

I can’t sing like Carol Nackenoff (terrific APD scholar) — though, being a PwD (Person with a Disability) since 1993, and one who has been “self-identifying**” and no longer plays the oboe (and certainly not on our rooftop terrace, though that’s where I hope to develop my diaphragm some day), Pilates and breathing — this is my singing.

Before I had the strength to do this, I tried to start every day with a laugh.  Well, a former SUNY Geneseo professor in speech pathology, specializing in cognitive and linguistic psychology, helps keep the “sisterhood” in laughs that help me exercise my lungs — one of the exercises many can do who live in Manhattan apartments.  Thanks, Joanie!

Given her speciality, I plan on deferring to her “laugh judgment” — for getting at least one of the many gut-wrenching laughs I need for my diaphragm exercise each day. Plus, it has the added bonus of preparing students who will be taking my class on the American Presidency — and will have to face the masculinity of the “Commander-in-Chief” (see below).

After you read below, remember you are only imagining a she/he/they as the last exercise.  After all, we will have reviewed all the ways American Presidents have rarely treated anyone other than SLAMs and SCAMs (straight liberal Anglo-American men and straight conservative Anglo American men) fairly.  Put differently, this is to say, many people who do not or are not SLAMs and SCAMs.  (The “identify” part is there, you guessed it, since many white, straight, radical, liberal, moderate, or conservative men do not subscribe to the patriarchy.  Similarly, many women do (more white women, to be sure). Plus, as my mother always said, women keep women from the dinner table where the straight white men of all political stripes are. Though if you watch Mrs. America, they do do lunch.

American Presidency Page (soon)

* I like the explanation after the acronym, many of my colleagues, friends and family will tell you.  This gives you creative license and people listen more to this than to the really terrible “disabled” person, and I’m bored with the debate about saying “a person with a disability” (as if any one person has only one identity 🙂 )