Welcome to Cracks in the Pavement!

Shari Lynne: I  moved to Chicago on June 28, 2010. Why? Well, the cheesy, cliche reason of following a boy.  Sean has always lived in Illinois, and I needed the mass transit that Chicago provides, so it was the logical choice.

Sean: I remember Shari Lynne was one of the first ADAPT members I saw when I got off the plane in Atlanta, before we got our luggage. She was cute, pretty, and very amiable. She was engaging. She was militant and ready for action. It was both of our first National Action with ADAPT ( www.adapt.org ). We went on the same train, to head to the Omni Hotel (connected by skywalk to the CNN headquarters) in Atlanta. After dropping off our luggage, we met up at the CNN food court...well, we were all meeting up at the food court... I thought more of us were all going to have drinks after getting there, but only Shari Lynne and I decided to have drinks, and she became my "drinking buddy." We went to Dantana's Grill & Bar...We started talking as we were there: talking shop, disability stuff, disability pride, why we were there, why we FIGHT...The next morning, we met up again at Orientation, and we shared a table.

Shari Lynne: While waiting for orientation to begin, I got hit on and asked out by a hasty, overzealous ADAPTer. I was quite flustered but was friendly and tried to let him down gently. Meanwhile, I was kind of hoping Sean would get the guts to ask me out.

Sean: We gravitated to each other, we seemed to naturally click, but I thought she was seeing somebody because she had this ring on her right hand, which I found out later was an heirloom from her late, beloved grandmother. After a couple more days, and through the encouragement of our mutual friend, JoJo Cross, I worked up the nerve to ask her out.

Shari Lynne: He never directly asked me out. He came up with this paragraph long diatribe that basically boiled down to the words he never said, Will you go out with me? Of course, I was trying to get him to say these simple six words, so I carried it on a little longer saying a couple of times, "What do you mean?" Eventually, I just gave up and said, "That would be good."

Sean: I can be so audacious, direct, forthright on anything else, but I could not find the words to ask her out. I was sweet on her.

Shari Lynne: This is true. I usually cower a little bit, unless provoked by ableist by-standers, when he is being assertive to the point of obnoxious while trying to use the accessible spaces on the CTA buses. In the interest of context, it is necessary to disclose that I have Cerebral Palsy and use a wheelchair to go long distances, while Sean is an amputee, and uses a chair when we are out and about to keep up with me. This requires that we frequently take up the accessible seats on the buses. There are only two spaces on any given bus in the country so it can create problems on occasion, but mostly it just adds to our adventures.

We officially became a couple on 10/13/09 ...which involved a long-distance relationship with Sean in Chicago and I in Grand Rapids, MI ...and we became engaged ...rather randomly...on 7/17/10.

This blog is the compilation of our adventures as an engaged couple who both happen to have disabilities. The experiences of living together, commuting together, learning together, and trying to figure out how the hell we're going to manage to have the wedding we would like without the means to save a dime.

Look back soon as we will delve into more interesting details soon!