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uberta @ 2011-06-02T16:26:00

2011-06-02T21:26:53Z

I know everybody's migrating to Tumblr, but I don't see how you're supposed to have regular conversations there!

To my memories of my parents:

2011-05-28T22:03:57Z

Perfect. If I could send it back in time, I would, and I love how it's even upbeat.

And I feel fine

2011-05-21T22:26:48Z

For a doomsday, this is shockingly dull.

You know, minus the whole "shockingly" part. I said, "HOLY ****, JAMES DISAPPEARED!" to tease a few people. Brought a few laughs.

I'm bored.

Time to go be exciting again, I guess.

I feel like telling you this

2011-02-26T14:10:45Z

In 1995, I did the Spanish version of La Macarena with the Dixie Chicks at a nightlong cancer-fighting fundraiser. This was before the Dixie Chicks were famous. Sony signed them only that very summer.

La Macarena brings back a very awesome memory.

That's better

2011-02-20T04:54:09Z

Helped Benita sell Girl Scout cookies today and will also do so tomorrow and the next week and the next. Took her and other girls to the Justin Bieber movie, although most of them had already seen it and just wanted to see it again. They sang throughout the movie. Very cute.

Within the hour, I'm too tired to blab as much as I thought I was going to.

Oh, the usual

2011-02-15T00:52:15Z

Valentine's Day, how symbolic thou art.

James has been showering me with affections and presents.

The rest of the world has been pooping in my pudding. I am now in debt to people who did nothing for me, an enemy to even more people than I was yesterday, have walked over 14 miles for what turned out to be a complete waste of time, and am apparently in danger of getting dismissed from my teaching position because of prejudice from folks who have not actually seen me teach. Fun day. Oh, and now that I'm home, my Internet is only slowly and sporadically working.

This Valentine's is thus far more symbolic of my life in general than most years are. I'm loved (by James). While other people wish they weren't single or whatever, I receive limitless love from my spouse and worry about the outside world's hatefulness toward me.

Writer's Block: Over the top

2011-02-11T16:45:15Z

Elvis Presley. Most of "his" songs were not his and were instead taken from black artists. Elvis was one of many people of his era to take songs from African-Americans and make them popular for white people. I dislike that entire concept. This isn't to say that there was anything wrong with him singing in whatever genre he wanted to. Genre and dance are for everyone. Songs themselves have to come from you or be written for you or at least be used with permission if you're going to make money off them, without the aforementioned type of agenda.

I don't hate Elvis. But he is still adored today while Pat Boone (who was, in my opinion, truly evil about this whereas I wouldn't call Elvis malicious) and others have faded from memory.

Watching Super Bowl XLV with family

2011-02-07T00:22:33Z

We don't have stakes on either team, so this is a relaxed atmosphere for a Super Bowl. The commercials are funny, as always. Eminem's Brisk Iced Tea commercial got laughs from me.

So did this. . .

Megan: "Wisconsin's G is for Green Bay - "
Moi: "Packers."
Megan: "Whuh?"
Moi: "Green Bay Packers."
Megan: "What?"
Moi: "Green. Bay. Packers."
Megan: "I hate that you knew this and I didn't!"

Ah, yes. Such ultimate shame. My cousin's very tomboyish daughter sees me as something of a foo foo.

I wish I hadn't drowned these baked potatoes in flavor quite so much.

Proposed DSM-V Changes for 2012

2011-01-29T20:46:14Z

I am in favor of merging ASD diagnoses.
What I am not in favor of is trading one form of rigidity for another.

Imagine how this will be used against people's best interests!
"I'm sorry, Level 1's don't qualify for this."
"I'm sorry, Level 3's can never do that."
"I'm sorry, Level 2's are so fucking impossible to work with at all!"

Ugh.

Furthermore, what happens when people can't be pegged into one category?
If you think it won't happen to most, you're wrong.
According to this, I'm a Level 0 - 2 who used to be a Level 1 - 3.
What's that supposed to mean???

Another issue is that these categorizations do not cover the main problems for many people, myself included.
What is the purpose of choosing only certain aspects of diagnostic criteria to determine "levels"?

And what's more, a person's ability to "pass" for typical does not necessarily determine shit.
What defines "passing", anyway?
I think of how very differently my husband and I come across. Who passes better depends on what people you ask!

Guys, what the bonkity fuck?

Feel free to take the image. Hell, please do. I saved the proposed criteria from the DSM-V website and simply macro'd it.

Writer's Block: Hocus pocus

2011-01-23T15:33:26Z

Whaaaaaaat kind of question is this?

I think...

Dad would be a vulture. Fuck yes, Dad would be a vulture.

Mom is harder. She and my father put up similar facades with similar motivations behind them, but Mom was always better at it and she succeeded in actually getting her colleagues to like her. Even today, I hate running into people who knew my mother from her work. There are those who can still tell who I am right away. "You must be Ms. Blah Blah-Blah's daughter! I can tell from your mannerisms and the certain pitches in your words! You must be so proud of your mother! I was always a big fan of your mother!"

What do you say to that?! I say, "That's nice." The woman abused the hell out of me. Out of the house, she put on this facade that people completely fell for.

~~"LISTEN TO ME! IT'S NOT WANT IT SEEMS! IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEEEEEEMS! THE GREAT ANIMAL!"~~

A cruel version of a beaver is what fits her best going by the website I'm looking at, but she would a cruel sort of beaver in peacock's clothing. My father would be a vulture in peacock's clothing, though his costume was harder for him to keep from falling off.

~

If you're curious, James fits the description for elephant (albeit a slow-to-anger elephant). I'd be a rhino who so happened to be lucky in love. I did inherit some of the peacock traits from my parents, but unlike them, I don't use these traits to create a facade nor do I use these traits for wrong reasons.

Oh gosh, if I post another "animals having sex" picture, you're probably going to kill me.

Guess what this day is?

2011-01-17T06:38:14Z

I'll give you a hint: Michelle Obama is exactly one year older than me and today, her age changes.

Writer's Block: Lassie, come home!

2011-01-16T23:48:25Z

When I was a child, I had a sheepdog who got lost more than once as a puppy. She came home every time. She was my best friend and the strongest fighter I knew (as I had been conned into buying a sick dog; her overall amazing spirit made her survive so much), and I still miss her. Of course she is long gone now, but I continue to have the rare impossible dream in which she never truly died and instead searched the world over to find me.

It seems my Potter muse and my "I sure like playing with obscure characters" muse want to be friends

2011-01-16T00:11:07Z

Here is an unnamed bespectacled brunette Slytherin girl born in 1979 or 1980, sorted in the same year as Harry. Professor Trelawney acquired her position at Hogwarts in 1980. When Dumbledore found Trelawney, she was living in a poor town and was implied to be destitute and homeless. My muse wants to make Trelawney the mother of Unnamed Person, thus making the professor destitute, homeless, and pregnant before coming to live at Hogwarts. I do believe Dumbledore would have more sympathy for her had she been a mother, thus offering more of an explanation as to how she managed to keep her job without a hitch for sixteen years.

Further setup for drama would derive from Unnamed's dormitory. Two of the four girls who shared a dormitory with Unnamed worked for the Inquisitorial Squad, run and hand-selected by the very woman who tried to throw Trelawney out of Hogwarts altogether. (Trelawney's own house is unknown, and it is also unknown if she attended Hogwarts as a student. I assume she did attend Hogwarts and that she is a Ravenclaw, although anything could be possible. It is possible that she is a very disrespected Slytherin seen as a disgrace to the house by most, which could be further reason for Dolores Umbridge's hatred for her, but I am more inclined to presume Trelawney is a Ravenclaw.)

I don't know what exactly my muses want to do with these thoughts, likely some paragraphed drabbles that will never see the light of day.

Questions

What are your overall thoughts?

Assuming Trelawney is not a Slytherin herself and/or assuming she was ruthlessly bullied by many a Slytherin before Unnamed's sorting, what do you think her reaction would be to her daughter's sorting? Unnamed was the final Slytherin girl sorted in Harry's year, although it's quite possible that Trelawney was up in her tower room being misty and ignoring the land of the living during her own kid's sorting ceremony.

What opinions should Unnamed have for her mother? I don't want them to be enemies. I want them to be strikingly different in respects, but also alike in respects and not enemies. At the same time, I want there to be reasons for Unnamed to have an ambitious spirit.

Should Unnamed's name be Cassandra or is that too obvious?

At this point, Unnamed's father is unimportant. I don't know whether he knows about her or not, whomever he is. Would Sybill mate with a muggle? No idea, though we can assume heavy drinking was involved.

P.S.

Oh, look, Millicent Bulstrode is another reason why the name Millicent sounds evil. Still, there is also a decent character of the same first name, the former Minister for Magic. Also, in the television show One Tree Hill which I never watch, there is a character named Millicent Huxtable who seems like a good person from what I know about her.

P.S.S.

The general ideas in this entry put the song "Fuckin' Perfect" back in my head!

Mon vie

2011-01-14T04:32:09Z

James was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome today.

About two seconds after he told me, we were passionately kissing outside the clinic. I do not know why exactly we did that, maybe because it just seemed like the strangest thing to do in the moment yet the right thing to do for us as a couple.

Edit: Sorry about Aquata's... interesting comments.

:)

2011-01-12T01:57:21Z

He is now a full-grown dragon! Thank you for your help!

Also, is anyone else completely in love with Pink's new song?

Huge congratulations to her on being a mommy!

FROM ME TO EVERYONE WHO READS THIS :D

Does anyone else think Pink made this song partially for her unborn daughter?

I'm totally picking up maternal vibes from the chorus!

Edit: If Pink's daughter were a boy, the name would've been Jameson. ;D

Don't forget

2011-01-09T17:03:34Z

This dragon still needs clicks and views until grown (in 6 days) to prevent sudden death!

I am soooo dang sensitive.

Wait, they can DIE???? DON'T LET THIS DRAGON EGG DIE!!!!

2011-01-06T01:02:31Z

I will annoy you every day for the next seven days because I am just that paranoid. (Edit: Well, never mind about the annoying you daily part. Did I mention I can say irrational things?)

I didn't know these could die. I'm too soft to deal with that!

View and click for a week or my heart will be broken!

Friends call me Speed

2011-01-04T03:40:35Z

208 words

(I probably hand write about 178 less than that per minute, not that it matters. Hurray for technology!)

The first part is not under a cut because it should not be under a cut

2011-01-01T21:16:49Z

I was curious to see if there were any programs specializing in something, and these were the results of my search. . .

In contrast, there are lines of people waiting to adopt children with just about any other disability and there are programs geared to those people.

As a disclaimer, I myself have not adopted any autistic children, but that is only by coincidence. There have been autistic children whom I have wanted to adopt and could not due to complicated circumstances having nothing to do with the boys themselves. I do, however, plan on adopting at least one autistic child in or around fourteen years, and the reason for the 2025 approximation is both due to the young ages of the precious babies I have now and the fact that I will be legally considered "too old" to adopt after 2025.

Maybe by the 2020s, this world will have a better attitude toward autism. I can hope, can't I? Maybe there will be longer lines than two people (James and I) holding "Please Wait" signs. I bet there are longer lines than that, anyway. There better be. Right now, there better be.

I don't really make New Year's resolutions. It usually is not the end of December or the beginning of January where I find myself thinking about resolutions. In the spring of 2010, I became a vegetarian and I managed to survive the winter holidays as a vegetarian. Jeez, December was harder than November.

2010 was fucking batshit for roughly the first half of itself. At this time last year, the winter was so damn destructive. Though the stroke James had was mild, he could have died last January. As it was, the batshit winter spiraled other batshit events on into the rest of the year. Half of 2010 was a very unstable time frame.

This year is already looking better than that.

We do not truly change, James and I. He has a limp now and sales Avon. I turn softer with each year, and I now have different motivations and new methods of annoying people. We're still us. While I was writing this entry, he started pedicuring my feet and lecturing me about how I need to take better care of my toenails i.e. not kick miniature televisions causing my big right toe to look mutated (which was not something I purposefully did).

I think I also grow wiser, admittedly. This will never be an excuse to close up my brain to new experiences. Potential is a weird kind of thingy.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/potential

Whatever potential is, mine seems to finally be making perfect sense.

But our hearts haven't really changed in years and they never will.

It's a. . .

2010-12-30T21:20:49Z

NIECE!!!

With the uneven ratio of females to males in the family's newest generation among other factors, I was sure this one would be a nephew! But nope, my big brother will be the father of a baby girl! (This is not a birth announcement. This is a discovery-of-gender announcement.)

This mood theme bit is supposed to represent being surprised. It doesn't look surprised to me.

Pinch me. I must be dreaming.

2010-12-30T05:13:12Z

I am not sick on my anniversary.

EDIT:
I'm not being sarcastic! I'm really NOT sick!

Hey particular half-sister

2010-12-28T01:10:05Z

You know, when you get Christmas presents from me, I find it very obnoxious and saddening that you just complain about them and ask me for the receipts. Your reasons for complaining about the gifts are stupid, too, like not wanting to wear a t-shirt that implies loving everyone ("I love you like a zombie loves brains" is what it says). It is not my fault that you went and bought the manga you told me earlier that you didn't have.

You do this just about every year, you bunghole.

And every year when you finish your tirades against my presents for ya, I cry, but you would only laugh if you knew.

They call me quiet, but I'm a riot!

2010-12-24T00:22:23Z

Well, they don't really call me that unless I have zero to contribute to the conversation or I am feeling ill or they are in an unofficial competition to see who can get the most words in.

"They" meaning people in general.

Okieday.

So apparently I'm supposed to tell an 11-year-old that he has autism. Yippee. I'm like a frickin' positive role model; I get to frickin' do stuff like that. Eh, what drives me more bonkers is that Novie's biological brother doesn't know it about himself. He is 15. No one has told him because too many people have decided he would use it as an excuse to not do anything. He is 15.

Anyway, a couple wants me to talk to their son who turned 11 the other day. Yep, he's in that class I'll be teaching next term. He should have been told sooner, too, in my humble opinion. He surely knows he is different. There is too much evidence for him not to figure that much out, and I don't doubt he has overheard the a-word.

Someone said they just use the word "shy" to explain it to their much younger son. That doesn't sit well with me, either, and the reason for that is that I ain't shy and Jube ain't shy and there are others who ain't shy, and anyway, there is a lot more to explain than "shy". I think that kid will grow up really confused with that "all zots are zats and all zats are zots" fallacy.

Bleep bloop. Oh yeah, and the 11-year-old will be here in any minute now and I didn't write anything... down. Aaaah. Ah well, I know the basic specifics about this boy and I know the basic gist of what I want to say. I think the parents should be the ones telling him, but apparently they don't want him to be upset with them. (Gee, thanks. Nothing like having a soon-to-be-student upset with me before the term even starts. Don't worry, though. I doubt he will be upset because I know I'm going to present the information in a positive and neutral way ala "it is what it is ☺".)

I dread how the 15-year-old will react when he finds out, on the other hand. That day will probably come in three years, at which point he will likely be quite pissed that people knew for over a decade before telling him! There is no need for implying that he is hopeless, which is what people are afraid of doing. Ugh. And no, though he is Novie's biological brother, he does not live around us.

My personal opinion is that children should be told as soon as possible, though I know there are many who disagree and I respect this. The reason for my opinion is quite simply that knowledge is power. If your kid had diabetes, you would explain diabetes to him right away. Also, you wouldn't explain diabetes by saying, "Your body is bad!!! It is messed up, dude! You can't handle sugar like other people!" An exaggeration, but you see my point.

I think of my nephew (cousin's son) who was told at the age of seven and was extremely depressed because he translated what he heard as "What this means is that I am a terrible awful person and the worst person ever to be in school, which is why I was kicked out of four schools". That is nothing short of heartbreaking. I cannot fathom why my cousin was so negative to her obviously sensitive boy. She never tried to persuade him otherwise and just let him think of himself as awful!

Novie and Benita are not on the spectrum, but both know that I am. Again, the diabetes parallel. Not informing them would, given the circumstances, be as foolish as not telling them that I have seizures.

~~~

All right, I ditched this entry and returned to it. I've spoken to the 11-year-old who as it turns out already knew without knowing the meaning of the word. He does not appear to be upset so much as a mixture of worried and curious. Also, something is going on with my stomach, because I could not eat the dinner James prepared. ~~Maybe~~ I was nervous.

Let's seeeee, I forgot what I was going to say here before leaving, so I shall finish these disorganized thoughts by saying that I will explain autism in terms of specific symptoms and general symptoms in clear words to my younger children when they are preschool aged. They're all going to be homeschooled, and I really doubt Jubilee and Eulalia will think of themselves as bad or defective with me as their mother. Jubilee, Eulalia, Little James, and even Benita are at stages where they think adults can do anything...

I really forget what else I wanted to say and now we have more guests. (Who invited these #(%&#(&?!! Okay, they're not terrible guests. Sort of. Sis-in-law's brother and people.)

tl;dr
Just present information in a helpful and kind manner, not in a way that will harm confidence. Inform during casual conversation, not directly following a traumatic event or after your child has overheard something. Society is what causes us to think of disability as a shameful thing. There is no point to such thinking and it only causes hurt.

My son has a visible physical disability. I do not want him to be ashamed of that. ("Gosh darn these leg braces. I must be such a worthless individual." Come on! He is most certainly not being raised to think anything like that!) Why should invisible disabilities be regarded any differently?

'nother edit
What I just said applies to every disorder or disability. Depression is not shameful, people. I know that is a bit ironic because one of the things obviously felt when depressed is shame. But it in itself is not shameful and I wish life could be as simple as everyone choosing to lift their heads up high. I worry about y'all. I promise you that my arms and heart are wide open.

GUYS

2010-12-23T01:26:45Z

I was a micro-preemie born in Winter 1965 who didn't seem to have a chance in the world, with all the odds against me in nearly every respect even after I survived infancy.

You guys, I'm alive and fulfilled.

I will never stop being astounded with this. Welcome home, Novie. Happy Belated Eclipse & Solstice Coincide, everyone.

:____ }

2010-12-19T01:14:20Z

We reunite with Novie at the airport on Tuesday.

Once upon a time, when she was a small hurting child,
I promised her a home with me as soon as possible.

I tried adopting her. This did not work out.
With James, I managed to adopt overseas, but not from our own country.

She grew ~~up too fast~~ to be very ambitious, hardworking, and successful,
& she turned 16 at the end of November,
& she became an emancipated minor today,

& she moves in with us on Tuesday.

More on this later. ♥

I know not all the lyrics to the song fit perfectly, but the message sure as hell does!