Sure signs of my immaturity

[while husband was explaining the goings-on at a job interview yesterday]

H: "What I really liked was when they said to me, 'Usually, with a new employee, it's a matter of cramming a square peg into a round hole. If you come to work with us, we're willing to fit our hole around you.'"

K: "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."



[at the circus]

Ringmaster: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, before your very eyes...our Skymasters are going to attempt a dangerous mid-air pole-to-pole exchange!"

K: "HAHAHAHAHAHA HE SAID POLE TO POLE EXCHANGE. GET IT??? AHAHAHAHA."



[at work, speaking with coworker Stephanie]

S: "So I got this new deodorant, and it's so good. I keep smelling my own armpits."

K: "You're doing WHAT?"

S: "Seriously, this stuff is awesome. Almost like a Yankee candle."

K: "Oh, I know what you're talking about...like the McIntosh apple one, you almost think you could take a bite out of the wax, it smells so good."

S: "EXACTLY!!!"

K: "So Stephanie..."

S: "Yeah?"

K: "May I take a bite out of your armpit?"

S: "K, THAT'S SO GROSS."

K: "Don't be such a prude. Just let me lick it a little."

S: "WHAT THE FUCK! That's not even funny."

K: "Tease."



[a short time later, a whiff of citrus comes over the cube wall]

S: [peeling] "Hey K, can you smell my orange?"

K: "Sure can. It's quite strong."

S: "It's really citrusy...almost offensively so."

K: "Maybe you should put your arms down."

S: "WHAT?"

K: "Your deodorant smells a little too real. I may have to come over and lick it."

S: "JESUS CHRIST K, WILL YOU STOP WITH THE ARMPIT STUFF?"

K: "I'm sorry. I...I just can't help myself."

S: "You are so sick."

For the pervs out there

http://www.nu-photos.com/repository/



"Nude Photos With Soul"



It's all chicks, but women are prettier to look at anyway. Some very interesting camera angles and shadows.

Profound? Not really.

As I'm sure the two of you who still read this have noticed, the blog has been a bit sparse since I started working full time. I actually have a life outside of my home, and have less and less time to dedicate to staring at my portable idiot box, can you fucking believe it? I do, however, miss the therapy associated with my writing...and I haven't been writing lately simply because I haven't had any crazy adventures that I thought worthy of an entry on the blog. These stories actually do require a lot of thought as far as structure and flow, and to be completely honest, I am a lazy piece of shit when it comes to using my brain outside of work these days. I'm coming up on the six month mark of "being a normal person who works a normal 40 hour week," and I think I'm finally getting used to it, so I'm going to make an effort to write more.

I am, however, going to take a different approach.

I am not going to hold myself to the old rule of "if you don't have a substantial story to write, then just don't write at all." Every day, I come across interesting and humorous things, but they are generally not enough to which I can dedicate an entire entry, at least by my normal standards. I think I'm going to post more entries, but with less content, and save the big long and drawn out stories for the weekends, or for when something worthy happens.

For today, I will tell a short story of the circus that we went to the other night. Youngest Child was really, really into it...the other two, not so much, but the little one pretty much thought it was the most awesome thing he'd ever seen.

This is the part where the Sky Masters did their "sit on a big tall pole and wave themselves around" routine. They had this whole dramatic thing where they pretended to almost fall, and the entire audience was dead silent...all of a sudden, Youngest Child stood up on his chair and screamed at the top of his lungs, "GET DOOOOWWN!!!!!" Our entire section busted up laughing. In his logical little brain, he just couldn't understand why these assholes would endanger themselves voluntarily.




Then came the elephants. Youngest Child had taken a ride on them during intermission (10 bucks for twice around the ring, whoop de fuckin doo), and was completely fascinated. Every time they did a trick, he's stand up, applaud wildly and yell "GOO JOB EPHANTS!!!"



I don't normally endorse circuses, since they mistreat the animals and make the monkeys eat their own shit and stuff like that, but we were invited and we thought it rude to say no. It was a pretty good time though.

Hope

The other night, I was watching some reality television when "True Life: I'm Autistic" came on MTV. Now I'm a junkie for those True Life shows, but I pretty much jumped up and announced that I couldn't watch this one.

As my long time readers know, Middle Child is autistic, and it's a sensitive subject to say the least. I have a hard time watching older autistic individuals on TV and in the community because it forces me to think about my son's future, and what kinds of struggles he's going to face...but after a few minutes, I forced myself to go back into the room. Lately I've been working on not running from things that upset me, and I figured it to be an exercise in self control.

I pretty much cried through the whole thing. Each of the three individuals profiled had a little piece of my son woven into his personality. The lack of eye contact, the odd hand movements, strange verbal outbursts, temper tantrums...thinking of him retaining those behaviors into adulthood is almost too much to bear. We'd always assumed that he'd be ok, that he'd grow out of it, but we've realized that this just isn't going to be the case. We take joy in what he can do, and try not to dwell on what he can't.

The worst part of the show was when the non-verbal boy wrote about how hard it was to not be able to communicate with his peers and to interact with the world around him. As a parent, it's almost easier to assume that your autistic child doesn't know any better, that he's happy in his own little world...sadly, this isn't the case. More likely than not, my son is of normal intelligence, and knows exactly what he's missing out on. I can't think of many things that are more heartbreaking than that.

I've been struggling with it for a couple of days, watching my son closely, trying to get a sense of what he's thinking...all to no avail. He's got these beautiful sea-blue eyes, and almost always have that same far-away look in them. So much for windows into the soul. My son keeps his secrets well hidden.

For all we know, he can read, write, recognize words, do math...it's all a matter of finding a way to unlock his potential. For now, we watch, and wait.

Today, as I walked down the hallway to the kitchen, I noticed him sitting on the floor playing with a Magna Doodle; not an unusual sight, but for some reason, I knelt down and took a closer look.


I think that this is the first time since he was diagnosed that I have felt so much joy. I've been crying since it happened, and I'm still shaking as I type this. My baby wrote his name.

I grabbed the board, I showed my husband, I made the poor kid pose for about a half dozen shots, and then I gave him free reign of the snack cabinet. He sat with his favorite snack, Cheetos, and looked at me like I was out of my mind. For the first time, I knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Jesus Christ Mom, I just wrote my name, take a pill."