Making it work

Like many disabled people, I am used to making it work. Most of the world isn’t made with my needs in mind, so I’m often in the mode of adjusting, remaking, and intervening in the spaces and protocols around me. Liz Jackson has written beautifully about this phenomenon in We are the Original Life Hackers, “our unique experiences and insights enable us to use what’s available to make things accessible.” 

I do this in my art practice and my daily life, both which I think of as a series of access experiments. Not enough places to sit in museums? Try making artwork that is also a bench. Lots of people think alt-text is boring and a chore? Try framing it as a creative writing practice. Bored while other people go upstairs to see the rest of an exhibition? Try making a fun lounge. Across different projects, I’m trying to offer myself and other disabled people options that feel delightful, express our rage, provide catharsis, and/or foster cross-disability solidarity and connection. 

In my non-work life, to try to mitigate pain, I do things like carry my own seating with me on the go, add various cushions and foam pads to the chairs around my apartment, do DIY modifications to my shoes, design the routes of my errands to minimize walking and stairs, BYO-slippers to friends’ houses that are no-shoes, and more. I’ve found things that help me by trying things out. Lots don’t work—it’s an ongoing series of experiments. 

Bingo & dread

I have to call my health insurance company often. I always dread it. The calls are so awful, it is super hard to bring myself to pick up the phone. 

I was introduced to custom bingo boards in the form of bingo as a to-do list by friend and artist Breanne Trammell about a decade ago. I’ve found that it makes my tasks feel less overwhelming and adds some fun to my work routine. Like Breanne’s studio bingo below, I particularly like to use it as a to-do list for art projects and tasks.

Side note: custom bingo can also be for fun things. This is a board Breanne and I made for a week we spent together in Cincinnati in 2019. It includes projects, events, sights, and foods (including Cincinnati’s famous Skyline chili).

In 2021, I was in a particularly painful, months-long fight with my health insurance company, and another friend who also enjoys to-do-list bingo suggested I make one for my calls. Their therapist had recommended making a bingo board for tough family interactions. It becomes a tool for expectation setting and feeling like you are winning when you are in a less-than-winning situation.

I now use my bingo board every time I call my insurance company.

How to make a bingo board for something you are dreading

1. Identify a task or activity you dread. What has been weighing on you? Kicked down the road further and further? Something that when you think of it you feel overwhelmed and/or stuck?
2. Write the task at the top of your bingo card.
3. Bingo is traditionally a 5×5 grid. Draw it or use this PDF template. 
4. Fill in the “free space.” This is the center square of the board. This should be something that is sure to happen. It can be as simple as “dread doing this task.” My free space is often an inside joke with myself because it is such an essential part of the task that it feels a little silly to even write it down. For example, I *know* I am going to be filled with rage every time I call my insurance company.
5. Start filling in other squares with things that might happen. I write in both logistical things and emotional things.
   • What are some steps in the process?
   • What is the worst-case scenario? 
   • What are supports or forms of care you can find or insert into the process?
   • What emotions might you feel?
   • What frustrates you the most?
6. 24 is a lot of squares and sometimes I run out of ideas. You can always duplicate the tasks or give yourself some softballs like “breathe,” “drink water,” or “have a snack.” It is also nice to leave a few blank because you might have more ideas as you start to use it. 
7. If/when you complete a task, cross off squares as you go. For, me this brings some specks of joy into the task. Instead of just feeling defeated that I’ve been on hold for 45 minutes, I have the momentary satisfaction of crossing off that square.
8. If you have them, it can also be fun to use stamps or stickers. (I’ve been dreaming of getting some bingo daubers but haven’t yet. Seems like a fun accessory for this process!)
9. Do you know anyone else who also dreads this task/activity? I love to make a collaborative bingo board with a friend. You can both brainstorm squares, use your bingo boards, and update each other as you cross things off.
10. Give yourself a treat when you get bingo. My go-to treats are my favorite candy (Nerds Rope) and my favorite chips (Ranch Bugles)! Though I find the satisfaction of getting a bingo to be a treat in itself.

Here is a Mad-Libs-style bingo board you can use as a scaffolding to get your bingo-board-making juices flowing.

More~

Bingo influences

• Breanne Trammell’s website and Instagram. Love you, Bre!
• Custom Bingo Cards on Know Your Meme
• Buzzword Bingo Wikipedia Page

Artist-made tools/ways of processing

• Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt
• Grapefruit by Yoko Ono
• Christine Sun Kim’s Pie Charts
• Jeff Kasper’s card deck Wrestling Embrace
• Yo-Yo Lin’s Resilence Journal
• Park McArthur’s Day

Treats

• Nerds Rope
• Ranch Bugles (I actually preferred the flavor before the official partnership with Hidden Valley, but they are still good)

Bingo For Doing Something You Dread is part of Knottings, a series developed in collaboration with Pioneer Works