I miss this old blog! I can't believe I can never blog here again!
I was doing a GOOGLE search on some random topic, and I stumbled upon a link to my own old blog! I read it, and then I read the comments on the last entry, and found out that someone was DEMANDING that I come back! The person had even started a Tblog account specifically to demand that I come back!
So if you are one of the faithful readers I never knew about, I'll tell you a secret. I said I was not going to keep an online blog any more and would be keeping a journal in an undisclosed, locked, offline location. But the SAME DAY, I started a new online blog! You can read it, but I can't post the address for it on this blog, because my relatives are nosey and will rat me out. (You know who you are, relatives!) So, e-mail me at Angelsister23@yahoo.com and I will let you know where to read my new blog.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
I thought it would be fun to have a blog about my life, and I thought someday it would be like http://right-brained.blogspot.com" title="http://right-brained.blogspot.com" target="_blank"http://right-brained.blogspot... and have billions of faithful readers. However, I ended up having only one reader, and so a lot of the things I wrote seemed to be directly to that one person, who happens to be my very best friend and close sister, and who probably more often than not finds herself reading about her own self in this blog. All hell broke loose when I used this blog one day to vent about my mom. Notice that I don't say LIED about my mom, but I used this blog to say things that I probably otherwise would have only told Caroline. Unfortunately my mom stumbled upon the blog and read an unflattering post, and now I am in TROUBLE. So lets set the record straight.
1. I am sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.
2. I love my aunt and would be at her house every day if she didn't live an hour away... and if I didn't want to go there it was mainly because I had stuff to do and was too tired to make the one hour drive... plus I hate calling people and asking if I can come over because I feel invasive that way. (Does invasive mean "In the process of invading?" because that's what I'm trying to say.)
3. I am never writing in this blog again. My new blog will be at an undisclosed, locked, offline location.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; &n bsp; So. Hmm. Right now I am trying to call Caroline back, but every time I call her phone she doesn't answer, and every time she calls me back I am not by my phone. This has happened about ten times within the last half hour! Times like this is where technology fails to serve us!
& nbsp; I cannot stay on this computer long because I have to practice my guitar for a test tomorrow. I have to somehow learn all the chords that I neglected to practice all last week!
This weekend is a big and frantic weekend for me! First, tomorrow I have to go to a different school to observe for the morning. I am trying to double up on my observation hours so I can end up with 30 hours by May 18! So I will be at a special education preschool in Itasca. Then, I go to Harper College to do my workout (have to workout every day now to make up for all the weeks I skipped it) and then go take my guitar test (because I ditched school on the Midterm day).
Do you get the feeling I've been neglecting my life in order to play Neopets and work on my website?
Next I will go home and try to meditate and rest for a few hours. Then I will get in my car and go get Johnny, so I can drop him off at the church so he can go on a Men's retreat.
& nbsp; I told my Dad that I was taking Johnny to the men's retreat. My dad cautioned me, "Don't let him talk you into doing anything stupid!" (He is always saying corny things like that, just to bug me) I said, "Like what?" My dad replied, "Like going to a crackhouse."
& nbsp; I tried to imagine that conversation.
Johnny: "Angel, instead of taking me to church, would you just mind dropping me off at the crackhouse?"
Angel: "Sure, Johnny, anywhere you wanna go, as long as it gets you out of the house for the night. That's the main thing."
Hmmmmmmmmm.....
Anyway...
Afterdropping Johnny off, I will go back to Caroline's house. Caroline will come home from work. We will party.
And then the next day, at 12:30 pm, I have to work! :( :( :( WAH!!!!!
Today I had a meeting at the local foster care agency, about becoming a mentor to a teeange girl. I already was a mentor to a teenage girl from there, but it only lasted a month. Then the girl quit on me. So they got me a new girl. I hope she doesn't quit on me, too! The staff keeps talking about how the kids have abandonment issues.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; ALERT! In the past few weeks, my parents' house has been burgaled into several times!
& nbsp; We are not sure how the burglar keeps getting in, or what he/she wants. The odd thing is, nothing is ever missing or broken, and no one is ever hurt or threatened.
& nbsp; No, quite the opposite, in fact. This burglar burgals into our house and brings things in. Specifically, he brings in packages of flan mix. He sneaks them into the cupboard, to be found by the next person looking to make some pudding.
& nbsp; It all started when I took a field trip, for work, with the Travelers, the group that takes teenagers with mental disabilities on different field trips each week. The first week I worked there, we went to Pepe's for Mexican food. I saw that they had flan... one of my favorite desserts... on the menu. Unfortunately I didn't get to order any flan, because the teenagers were ordering meals and I didn't want to be a bad example by getting a dessert. So I ordered a burrito, but then became obsessed with flan.
(This has something to do with my Asperger's Syndrome-ness... I tend to get obsessed and persevorate over odd things. Many of the things I persevorate on have to do with food items I don't have regular access to! I would never, for instance, persevorate on hot dogs, or peanut butter and jelly, because half the time that is all my mom has in her house!)
Anyways. Shortly thereafter, my parents went to Mexico. When they came back, they too were craving flan, which they got to eat all the time in Mexico. I suggested we all go to Pepe's and get a flan fix. Man, Pepe's has the BEST flan! It is more like creme brule, almost.
But the Pepe's trip didn't fix my flan obsession. It just made it worse! Soon, I wanted to make flan myself. I went to the Jewel, bought a package of do-it-yourswelf flan (very similiar to pudding mix), brought it home, and cooked it for dessert.
The flan was so delicious, that the next weekend, while I was at Caroline's, I brought some more flan and made it at Caroline's house. None of them ate it. They were afraid. I ate most of it myself. I got a horrid stomach ache.
After that flan experience, I decided I wanted to try American Custard, to see what the difference was between that and flan. I bought a package, but never made it.
A week later, my mom announced that she had been at World Market getting some supplies for her work, and she had picked up some packages of imported flan mix for me. I was like, "Dang, lets have flan!" But then I remembered I had bought the American custard, and I thought maybe I should make that first. I decided to get the American Custard package out of the cupboard, and do eeny-meeny-miny-mo to decide.
I opened the cupboard. I grabbed my American Custard. Behind it was a package of flan!
"What the...!" I yelped. I was certain there had been no flan just the day before. I had already cooked all the flan I could find! "Hey look, there's flan here!"
My mom said it must be a very old package and I should cook it right away before I went bad.
But I told her that there was no way the flan had been there a few days ago.
We asked my dad. He said No, he had not bought a package of flan! He only likes to eat flan in Mexican restaraunts, as a treat. He doesn't view flan as an everyday dessert to make at home from a package.
I knew for sure I couldn't have bought this new package of flan because it was a different brand than I had gotten before. Every grocery store I've been to lately carries only one brand of flan. If you want more than one flan package, you buy two of the same kind. There is no flan experimentation going on.
Yet here was an Alien Flan!
I cooked it, and it was pretty good. I didn't like the carmel sauce as much as I'd liked it with the other flans I'd made. This carmel sauce tasted like Nyquil to me. (When I sipped it directly out of the little pouch it comes in, I mean. Mixed in with the flan, it was fine!)
Days went by. I didn't think about flan. One way for me to get over a food obsession is to have it all the time... and it seemed to be working. I still loved flan... but I was getting over my insecurities and fears about not being able to have it. I now had PLENTY of flan. No reason to panic!
Then today, I came home from an ACOA meeting. I decided to eat some ice cream. I wanted strawberries and chocolate syrup on my icecream. I wanted whipped cream, but of course we had none. I decided to have sprinkles instead. I opened up the cupboard.
Out fell a colorful little box I'd never seen before.
I looked at it. It was a NEW box of flan mix! It was way different than any of the other flan packages we'd accumulated. In fact, it looked like it had come directly from a Mexican grocery store. The words on the front were in Spanish!
I rushed downstairs to confront the elders of the household. "Did you buy this flan?" I demanded.
They all denied it. Looks of bewilderment crossed their faces.
My mom suggested that maybe my grandmother had brought it.
I tried to imagine my elderly grandmother getting into her car, driving for an hour to get to my house when nobody else was home, sneaking through a window, and putting a box of flan in the cupboard. Hmmm..... no.
My dad said, "Maybe it was Flan-ta Claus?"
I still don't know who is sneaking all this flan into the house. I am not sure I care. All I know is, I think I'll make flan for dessert tomorrow!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Shit, I better post fast before Caroline gets pissed off! The odd thing was, on Saturday when she commented about the lack of updates on this blog, I was actually STANDING RIGHT BEHIND HER but I didn't know she was reading MY blog!
& nbsp; Anyway. Here it goes.
MOST CRAZY THING I DID THIS WEEKEND: Friday night Caroline's best friend Dana took her and Johnny out to dinner, while Dana's teenaged sister Renee watched Dana's daughter and Caroline's two kids. When I got there Renee was still babysitting so there was some confusion as to what the heck I should be doing. I felt bad for Renee because, as a respite worker, I really hate it when the parents come home early and say "pretend I'm not here" and still expect me to watch the kids even when they're sitting there. Its awkward. So I just joined in on the watching of all three children. Anyway that's not the most crazy thing I did. The most crazy thing was when Caroline and Johnny and Dana came home, and Caroline and Dana announced that they were going to go TP one of Dana's ex-boyfriend's (We'll call him Joe) houses. They asked Renee and me if we wanted to go along. Renee and me have both only TP'd a house one other time, and that was a few years ago when we helped Caroline and Dana TP another one of Dana's ex-boyfriend's (we'll call him Dave) houses. So we said sure, and the four of us went to the grocery store to buy a package of 12 rolls of toilet paper.
The TPing experience did not start out well... somehow we ended up circling the block about eighty times, trying to decide the exact right time to launch our attack. Plus, there were no actual trees in Joe's yard, so our main choices were to TP a humungous tree in the parkway, or TP the bushes directly under Joe's window. Renee and I decided to do the bushes but soon everyone just gave up on the tree and helped us with the bushes. We also scattered paper on the lawn. It was drizzling, so it was gonna be really gross.
Then we realized the TV was on in Joe's house, so someone must be awake. We skedaddled.
We then dropped Renee off because she had to go home and get some sleep for work the next day, unlike the rest of us weekend slackers. So then it was just Caroline, Dana and me driving randomly around. Dana decided to drive past the house of Dave, her other ex-boyfriend that we'd TP'd a long time ago. Then as we drove past it, we got the idea that Dana should do something to his car. But Dana was too nervous, and I was still feeling all adrenaline-ee, so I volunteered. I simply poured some milk on the car. Then I jumped back in and we left hurriedly.
Do you think we are horrible people for doing these things? Well, think of it this way... they were harmless pranks, we knew the people, AND it was April Fool's Night!
SADDEST THING OF THE WEEKEND: On Sunday Caroline invited Johnny's sister Trisha over with her 10-month-old baby, Jake. Trisha and Jake went to church with us, and then came back to the house to hang out all day. That is not the sad part. The sad part is that Trisha has a mental disorder, along with the unwise habit of shacking up with drug dealers and addicts and letting them get her pregnant. This all contributes to the fact that Trisha has never taken very good care of her children. She has three other kids who were taken away by DCFS and who are now adopted by a very nice family. And now she has this new little guy. So the sad part is Trisha being all excited to come to church with us, and talking about the pretty new dress she is excited to wear... and then showing up, wearing her new dress, which has a huge stain in the front, and smelling foul, and carrying her 10-month-old son in a baby carrier. The sad part is how beautiful Jake is... he looks just like Codie with his blond hair and big blue eyes and chubby cheeks... and how I had not seen him since right after he was born, but this time he seemed to like me, so while Trisha was outside in the yard with the others, I was inside playing with Jake, who, when given a simple baby toy, acted as if he'd never seen anything so wonderful in his life. The sad part is how I held Jake and how he stopped crying and smiled at me and yanked on my hair, just like my one baby cousin does who is also 10 months old. The sad part is how I drove Trisha and Jake back to their apartment but didn't go up, and how when I say goodbye to them I am never quite sure I will see Jake again, and how I almost feel like I have no right to care how Jake's life goes when I already have Alexander and Codie to care about, and how it almost seems bad to care about Jake when I used to care about Trisha's other kids and now they are gone... but Jake is a very sweet baby... and this was a very long run on sentence but I just think that is that. ::sigh::
BEST THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEKEND: Caroline made a hella delicious dinner with huge slabs of chicken that were so moist and soft you could cut them with a butter knife, with slices of cheese and ham melted on top, MMMMM-MMMM it's making my moith water just remembering it! Also the weather was so beautiful out, and I am glad spring time is here! And Codie has learned to sing a lot of the words to children's songs, actually sing the words as she dances, and it is so cute! And Alexander read me his SRA reading assigment this morning and he's such a good reader and he even loves to read, which is actually miraculous when you consider that two years ago his kindergarten teacher ripped Caroline a new asshole and said that "obviously nobody is reading with Alexander at home" and wanted to hold him back a year. The little guy is a genious... he just works at precisely his own speed!
BEST MOVIE OF THE WEEKEND: Caroline had to watch the movie "I Am Sam" for her new psychology class, so she checked it out of the library and she and Trisha and I (and Jake, oddly enough) watched it together on Sunday afternoon. It is the sweetest and funniest movie, and it is one of my all-time favorites, along with "Curly Sue".
And so ends the review of the weekend! I give this weekend a 9.6! I was sad to leave this morning. Caroline and Alexander had already left for work and school by the time I left. Johnny and Codie and the puppy sat on the front porch and waved at me as I drove away.
Schedule for the next few days: Today: Go to school (for fitness) and then a meeting at work tonight. Tomorrow: School, then ACOA, then drop off some school stuff to Caroline. Wednesday: ???
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Not much to write today, but I like to keep the world updated!
& nbsp; Last night I made it to my first Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting... and now I am addicted! That's how it goes!
& nbsp; Remember how I had originally said I didn't want to go to that group because even though my dad was an alcoholic I felt like I was never really effected by his alcoholism? Well I found out several things.
& nbsp; 1. ACOA can also be attended by people from all sorts of dysfunctional families, even if alcoholism was not a problem. Dysfunction, apparently, is dysfunction.
2. Although I was never bothered by my dad's drinking, the way my mom treated me might have been partly caused by my dad's drinking, therefore I was effected.
So anyway now I have decided to keep going to ACOA. The problem is, barely any meetings exist that I can actually get to. The one I went to was on Monday night, and it was very small but the people were great and I felt comfortable with them right away! Unfortunately I have work training on the next 3 Monday nights, so I will have to find other meetings to go to.
I decided that since I don't have school tomorrow night, I will go to a Wednesday night meeting in Elk Grove Village, just to give myself another dose of ACOA. Then, for the next three weeks, I will travel to a Tuesday night meeting in Naperville. After the three weeks is up, I will go back to the Monday night group.
I also went to the library and checked out a few books on adult children of alcoholics, so I can learn the "lingo!"
Anyway. Today is a peaceful day. I decided I was going to try to accomplish something today so I got up out of bed, and decided to go to the library. I put on my sweatpants and sweatshirt and winter jacket, mosied out the door, and found myself sweating balls! It is so very nice out. So I went to the library and got me some books... and then I came home and sat on the deck and read. Then my animals wanted to go outside too, so I let them come out with me. That made reading harder, because Sammy-Joe tends to wander off so I have to keep moving to be able to keep an eye on him. He tries to escape through the slots in the fence every time he sees a bird. I don't think he'd go far, but still...
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Guess what? Last night Caroline called me to let me know that as I was leaving church, Codie had said my name for the first time! Caroline put Codie on the phone so I could hear her say it. She says it, "Nee-Nee!" (her version of "Nicky", not "Angel")
& nbsp; I have been trying forever to get her to say my name... usually kids don't have much trouble learning my name... but she would never say it. She always either called me "mommy", or "Mimi" which is her name for one of Caroline's sisters. After a while she attempted to call me "Pee-Pee". I guess she just couldn't get the "N" sound down. At any rate, I am happy, and I cannot wait until next weekend so I can go over to Caroline's house and hear Codie say my name in person!
& nbsp; Do you know that when I first met Alexander, he was about Codie's age, and he couldn't say my name either. He thought it was "Tinky-Winky." Oddly enough he could say my older brother's name, which is extremely similiar to mine! The first time I heard Alexander say my name, I had brought him some candy. He calle dhis mommy to show her the candy, and then pointed to me and said, "Nicky!"
& nbsp; I cannot remember the other thing I was about to write about. There was something else, but I just can't think of it! I am on spring break, and out of boredom I have been on the computer almost all day. I think it may be melting my brain!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
I hope you had a pretty good Easter weekend! I did! Do you want me to tell you all about it? I know ya do!
& nbsp; Friday was Good Friday and I was supposed to go to church with Caroline, Johnny, Alexander and Codie. But I spaced it, lost track of time, and did not go. Then, I decided since I missed church, I would go to that Friday night ACOA meeting. But when I got there, I found out that that particular meeting no longer exists! I was like, "Bummer!" I almost went to AA by accident though, because there is an AA meeting in the same building at that time, and I just assumed any group of people would be the group I was looking for. But it was AA. I wonder if they would have been offended by an Adult Child of an Alcoholic joining their meeting?
& nbsp; So thne I went to Caroline's house. I gave Alexander and Codie the Easter baskets I created for them with my skillful hands. Then we all, and Alexander's friend Xavier, died Easter eggs. The way we do it is, first we color the eggs with crayons, and then we dunk them in the dye, and it creates a really cool effect because the dye doesn't stick to the crayon part. It is especially cook when you use white crayon and a dark dye color. But this year we used washable crayons, and so the dye actually washed off a lot of the crayon. It was fun anywaym though! I love dying eggs!
& nbsp; &n bsp; Then Caroline and I went to the grocery store and got some food for the next day's dinner. Then we went home, and drank a few drinks, and had spitritual discussions while watching "The Passion of the Christ" on the DVR.
Saturday morning, Caroline was babysitting her boss's grandson, 6-year-old Bobby. So our plan for the day was to take Alexander, Xavier, Bobby and Codie to an outdoor Easter egg hunt in a neighboring town. However, when we got there, we didn't see any Easter festivities going on! So, while Caroline went on a mission to figure out what the heck was going on, Johnny played army in the park with the three little boys, and I walked around the park with Codie. With our without an Easter Egg hunt, all four of the kids seemed to have the time of their life at the park! Sometimes they are surprisingly easily pleased.
Meanwhile, Caroline had discovered that the Easter egg hunt had happened the weekend before. She tried to find some other Easter thing for us to go to, but it seems that the entire state of Illinois had gotten up at dawn for their pre-Easter festivities, and now everything was over. In desparation, and determined not to take the kids home after promising them a special day, Caroline decided we would go to Enchanted Castle to play mini-golf and play in the climbing room. All of the kids were happy!
So we went to Enchanted Castle. Let it be known that since we had somehow acquired wice the amount of usual kids in the family, we couldn't all fit in one car, so I was driving the three little boyz in my car, while Caroline and Johnny took the baby in their car. My particular car ride with the boys was an experience within itself! I don't know why, but being stuffed in a car together, under the supervision of an adult who was not a parent of any of them, they began to get a little wild and crazy! Some of the conversations that took place in the car, I should not even repeat here. But here are a few milder examples.
Bobby: "Guess what, Angel? I have forty-six girlfriends!"
Xavier: "No he doesn't!"
Bobby: "Yes I do! Even ask my mom!"
Xavier: "Fine, then that means you're cheating on all of them!"
Xavier: "Angel, I know what gay means!"
Me: "You do?"
Xavier: "Yeah. It means, really happy!"
Alexander: "No. It means when a boy has sex with a boy or a girl has sex with a girl."
Me: "you're both right!"
Alexander: "Everyone look out your window! There's a cop! Someone's getting arrested!"
Xavier: "Hey, Mister Drug Dealer! Over here!"
Bobby: "Look over there! That guy is peeing outside!"
All kids: "Eeeew!"
Alexander: "I saw his butt."
Bobby: "That's being mean to nature!"
Bobby: I went camping with my grandpa, and guess what? Eight owls crashed through my grandpa's car window!"
Xavier: "Now I know you're lying! Owls only come out in the winter!"
Me: "Are we there yet?" & nbsp; &n bsp;
Soon we got to Enchanted Castle, where the kids rushed through a game of mini-golf. Then Johnny and I took the four kids into the climbing room. Johnny, who is much braver than me when it comes to shinneeing through narrow plasted tubes in the sky, played in the tubes with the boys. I stuvk to lower ground with Codie, whose favorite thing in the climbing room was the drinking fountain! She figured out how to push the button, but she couldn't seem to coordinate her act enough to push the button and drink at the same time, so she kept ending up soaking her face with the water! She kept at it though for about a thousand tries!
Here's where things get aggravating. Codie was crying for Johnny, so I took Codie and started climbing up to where I saw Johnny. When I got close to Johnny, I let Codie go to him. Then some lady in an Enchanted Castle shirt stood underneath us and yelled up at Johnny, "Sir, why are you up there?"
"Because I've got my kids up here," said Johnny. Codie was right next to him by then.
The woman turned and walked away. I thought that was that, but, ever nervous about authority figures, I started to get off the climbing thing and I asked Johnny if he wanted me to take Codie down with me. Johnny said, "No" so I left her with him. By then I heard Caroline calling me, so I went down and found her with the boys, getting ready to leave.
As we were standing there waiting for Johnny, I saw two men come walking up. Since that whole conversation in the tubes with the lady and Johnny, I had this odd feeling that they were some sort of security guards there for Johnny. Sure enough, a man about our own age started telling the security guards about how some guy was up there climbing around with the kids, and how he wouldn't get down, and how someone was going to get hurt.
Caroline turned to them and informed them, "No, that guy is up there with his daughter. He's my husband."
"That's really his daughter?" asked the security guards.
Johnny was walking up to us with Codie in his hand, and the security guards started saying how they'd thought Johnny was some teenager up there for no reason, and the people who called security started apologizing. But it was really pretty offensive. At least Johnny had been up there playing with all of the kids... most of the parents either stay out of the climbing room, or just sit on a bench insde the climbing room.
So that was our Enchanted Castle adventure.
After that, we all headed for home.
That evening Caroline made a big feast of baked ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, jello, rolls, egg nog, vegetables, and cake. Bobby had gone home, but Xavier was still there, and Caroline's mom came with one of Caroline's little sisters, and we had us a regular party.
Finally, when eveyrone was gone and the kids were in bed, we stealthily hid all the Easter eggs. At Caroline's house, the Easter Bunny (aka me and Johnny) hides the colored hardboiled eggs inside the house, along with Easter Baskets full of treats. Outside in the yard, plastic eggs filled with candy and coins are hidden.
There is something weird about hiding eggs outside in the dark. When it's dark out, you will always think you are hiding the eggs so well, when you tuck them into patches of grass or between garden stones or on the gutter. But when the morning comes, you look out the window and all you see is eggs, in plain sight, everywhere.
Still, I guess we did a pretty good job hiding most of the eggs, because to this day some of them are still missing!
You should have seen Codie. This is the first Easter that she has been able to walk, sort of talk, and really know what is happening around her. We were excited that she'd be so surprised about the Easter eggs and Easter basket! Butshe was very nonchalant about the whole thing. It seemed almost like she assumed there should be colored eggs to find and new toys to play with and candy to eat!It was just another day in the life of Codie, who really is amused by just about everything!
OK so then we went to church, then I left church and came to my mom's house, where my family had gathered. I was so bushed by the time I got here, I didn't want to talk to anyone, but when you are Italian you get bombarded by greetings and questions when you walk in the door! I was so tired, I took my plate of food down to the basement and ate it all by myself. Word on the street is that the ham my Nona brought wasreally weird tasting and not like ham at all, but truthfully I know I ate some and I have no memory of how it tasted. Everything tasted like air, until I finally guzzled down a Dr. Pepper. With some caffeine flowing through my blood, I was able to make it through the rest of the party.
And now everyone is gone, and I am relaxing, using the computer as my "downtime" break.
Caroline says I jump from topic to topic... which I am certain I do because my attention tends to wander... but I think I did a good job sticking to one topic here... although this entry is VERY long!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I am feeling better today! I found out that Ivillage completely wiped out my entire website, (Caroline will say, TOLDJASO!) but that actually cheered me up because it gave me something interesting to do. If you want to see my new and improved website, go to http://angels-place1.tripod.com" title="http://angels-place1.tripod.com" target="_blank"http://angels-place1.tripod.c... It has a child abuse memorial which is the awesomest part of the site so far and the one I've put the most dedication too... because the issue is so important to me. But the site will also feature a Book Blog, where I will write about the various books I read. It will feature a section on my writing and books for sale, of course. It will feature links to my favorite sites on the web. And it will feature a scrap book of my adventures. All this si in construction still, but it is still worth seeing already!
& nbsp; It is late at night an dI am tired but I am addicted to the computer. I have decided that instead of going to EA meetings (which I have been doing online but cannot find face-to-face meetings that I can actually get too) I am going to start going to Adult Children of Alcoholics. I had thought I would have nothing to say there, but I read the website and saw that they also welcome people from all sorts of dysfunctional families, and so I figure I fit in good there! Plus there are enough meetings that if I miss one, I can get to another one that same week. I am dying of suspense because the first meeting is Monday night. (Actually there is also one late Friday night, but I want to go to church with Caroline and them for Good Friday.)
& nbsp; I have mastered learning how to play two songs on the guitar. I can play "Rainbow Connection" from the Muppet Movie (Yeah I know it's about rainbows Caroline shut up!!!!!) (Caroline thinks I'm gay because I like rainbows) Anyway also I just learned how to play "Tomorrow" from the movie Annie. I was trying to learn how to play some Beatles songs but the book I had was a cheat book, which means they try to give you an easy version of the song that someone else figured out, but I can't do that because it makes the Beatles songs sound horrible. I can handle playing show tunes not exactly right, but not the Beatles! Caroline wants me to learn to play "Sweet Home Alabamba." Maybe I will master it in about fifty years!
& nbsp; I sent my psuedo-little-sisters, who are in foster care, some Easter surprises. I try to send them something twice a month. If it is a holiday I try to relate it to the holiday, but if there's no holiday I just look up a bizarre holiday (Like National Kazoo Day) and relate it to that. For Easter I sent them Cabbage Patch Kid coloring books, water color paints, hair ribbons, silly putty, and those toy packages that have stuff like paddle ball and jacks and marbles all in one thing. I got some stuff for Easter for Alexander and Codie too. I love getting stuff for kids. It is my main form of cheerfulness. I got my little cousin the Boobah board game, and I got my other little cousin a squishy baseball.
& nbsp; My hands are cold. I am tired. WAH WAH WAH! I think I will go read in my bed. OKAY?
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I have been reading this book by Julia Butterfly Hill, and it is a true story of a girl who lived in a huge Redwood tree for two years. It actually happened very close to where my little brother lives in Eureka, California. You see the redwoods are these huge, ancient trees that seem to reach up to the sky, and some of them are so thick that you can drive through them. When they get struck by lightening their insides get hollowed out, but they continue to live. I have pictures of myself and my brother inside redwood trees.
& nbsp; Anyway the Pacific Lumber Corporation takes advantage of these redwood trees by chopping them down in mass quantities. Not only does that destroy trees that have been on Earth since beofre Jesus or anyone, but they also destroy homes of many endangered species. Plus. since the trees hold the dirt down , there was a neighborhood that got completely wiped out by a mudslide because a hill had been so wiped clean of treas that there was nothing to keep the mud grounded.
& nbsp; Anyway there was this protest going on and people built a fort up in one of the tallest Redwood trees, which they named Luna. Mostly people were taking turns staying in the tree, so that there would always be someone in the tree. The idea was to keep the lumberjacks from chopping down the tree, and meanwhile other activists would be trying to put pressure on politicians to keep the tree and surrounding trees from being cut down at all.
& nbsp; There was this girl Julia who volunteered to go up in the treewith some other people... but after other people lost interest or gave up, Julia stayed. Everyone had nature names that they used in public, sort of like street names to prevent them from being arrested and stuff. So her name was Butterfly. And she stayed up in the tree for two years, never ever getting down. At one point she really didn't even have anything to eat, because the lumberjacks decided to try to starve her out of the tree so they wouldn't let anyone bring her supplies. But once more people knew about her, people she didn't even know were always bringing her stuff.
& nbsp; &n bsp; When I was in California I heard stories of Julia Butterfly and she is sort of like a legend. I have not finished the book yet. In real life I heard that the tree eventually got cut down, but I also heard from other people that the tree is still standing. So I can't wait to finish the book and find out why she eventually came out of the tree, and whether the tree is still standing.
& nbsp; It is another one of those "Life-changing" books that makes me want to take a second look at everything I do. It makes me want to start recycling, start eating natural foods (as I was reading the book last night at school I was eating a big french toast, egg and sausage sandwich from the satellite cafe, and it was already sort of disgusting... I had thought it looked so good in the oven thing but really it was cold and soggy and greasy and nasty... and as I read the book and chewed my grease sandwich I felt like puking. it back up and getting my money back.)
& nbsp; I am going to finish the book and then I am going to write a letter to Julia Butterfly and maybe I will send her a picture of me inside a tree in California.
& nbsp; In other news... I am going to an Emotions Anonymous Meeting tonight... but if it's all a bunch of old whiny people I am not staying!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Hi! It is Tuesday and my parents are going out of town for the week. They get to go to Arizona and I am stuck here! Waaaah! Oh well at least I get the computer to myself!
& nbsp; I have developed a horribly itchy rash underneath my arms. I get it all the time. This weekend Alexander kept yelling at me for scratching under my arms, because he said that it would make my hands smell. I kept trying to explain to him that I use deoderant so my armpits smell sweet as sugar. Except it was probably that damn deoderant that gave me the rash in the first place. I am allergic to everything!
& nbsp; I have no tolerance for itchiness, either. When I was a kid I used to get horrible exzema and psoriasis on my legs, and I would scratch and sctratch and scratch until it bled. And then it would stop itching, finally... until the blood turned into scabs, and the scabs itched, and I scratched at the scabs until they bled, and then they scabbed again, and itched again, and I scratched them again... for a long time I had horrid scars all over my legs.
& nbsp; That's probably why I developed the nervous habit of scratching at my skin until it bled, even when I didn't have itches. I somehow got the idea that the feeling of scratching made me feel less stressed-out, and it eventually spiraled out of control as I used bottle caps, pieces of glass, or whatever I could to scratch open my skin. I had scars all over my arms and legs.
& nbsp; I only completely stopped that "self mutilation" chaos a few years ago, when the social worker from the police station taught me a safety plan. The safety plan was, if I felt like scratching or cutting myself, I should hurry and get some Cray-pas and paper and draw, which kept my hands and mind occupied.
& nbsp; Anyway, so now I have these itchy underarms, which I cannot refrain from scratching. I put some hydrocortizone cream on them, which is extra strentgh because it was prescribed to me a long time ago for the exzema. I was told not to use it too much on my hands because it can lead you to get arthritis. Do you think I will get arthritis on my armpits?????
& nbsp; Right now my parents just left and I am officially housesitting.
& nbsp; Johnny got mad at me this weekend because I hollered at him for being mean to the dog. He thinks he's playing with the dog by slapping at the sides of her face and getting her to growl and bite at him. He got the idea because Caroline's mom, who has dogs just like their dog, plays that way with her dogs. But I doubt Caroline's mom completely smacks her dogs with all her strength. Johnny just got mad at me when I told him to stop, so then I just tried not to watch but my eyes were getting teary. The puppy kept trying to jump into my lap to get away from Johnny but he would just grab her out of my arms. He does it as much to hurt me as to mess with the dog I think.
& nbsp; But that wasn't even really why he got mad at me.
& nbsp; He got mad at me because later on, Johnny was doing the same thing to the dog, and Alexander was sitting next to me. This time I was just ignoring Johnny, but Alexander piped up and said, as politely as he could, "Daddy, do you know that hurts the dog when you do that?" Johnny laughed and said it didn't hurt the dog, but Slexander pressed on, "But you do that to me sometimes and not even that hard, and it hurts."
& nbsp; After Johnny was going to bed I was about to tell Caroline about how Alexander also didn't like it when Johnny did that to the dog. And technically, she is Alexander's dog. But Johnny heard me telling Caroline and he came out and snapped on me for gossipping.
& nbsp; I know Johnny is doing better and all, and I try hard to be nice to him, but sometimes it is hard because watching him mess with the dog goes against every belief and moral and hope in my heart.
& nbsp; I don't even know that he really does it to hurt the dog, unless maybe he really is sadistic, because he is the same way with Alexander. He will be playing with Alexander and he always ends up hurting him. The other day Caroline's friend came over with her baby, and then they went to the store so me and Johnny were watching Alexander and the two babies, and Johnny was running around and roughhousing with Alexander. Alexander was laughing and having fun. But then Johnny would always do something, like he kept sitting on Alexander's back until he couldn't breathe and was coughing, and he dragged him on his back across the room and made him bang his head on the wood thing inbetween the kitchen and the living room. Alexander was crying and Johnny just kept telling him "Oh enough" and said Alexander was just crying to get attention, and maybe he was, but I don't know! So then I can't hardly go and comfort Alexander because then Johnny will just be madder and make fun of Alexander, so I just play with the babies and after a while Alexander stops crying on his own.
So maybe Johnny really doesn't realize what he is doing. Maybe he just doesn't have that sort of empathy. Some of the little kids with autism who I used to work with, they were the same way. One little boy who was very smart intellectually but socially was very disabled, he would hit people while playing, or while acting out video games in his head. He would be genuinely surprised when he got scolded or punished for hurting others when he was playing... he would keep saying, "But I was playing!" He didn't understand that if he wasn't trying to hurt someone, it could still hurt them. He also had a very violent temper and would lash out and hit people on purpose when he was angry, but those times he knew he was going to Time-Out and he knew he had hurt the person and he understood that he shouldn't hurt people but couldn't help it. But it was only those times when he hit someone while playing that he would cry, "But I didn't do it!" In his mind, he really hadn't.
Anyway. What the hell. Maybe I ought to be a psychologist.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I think I might start going to Emotions Anonymous. At one time a few years ago I thought about joining Emotions Anonymous, and I even bought the little book and the Big Book (it's just like the AA Big Book) and some other junk. But I only attended one EA meeting, which was all the way in Skokie, and which I decided wasn't worth the forty-minute drive. But there is an EA group in Des Piaines now, which is not far from where I live. It meets on Thursday nights, which means I could go there twice a month. (On the other Thursday nights I will be doing MORE Respite AAAAAAH!)
& nbsp; The reason I came up with this plan was because I like to read the Chicken Soup For the Soul books, and they have a new one called Chicken Soup For the Recovering Soul, so I started reading it. It was filled with stories of people whose lives were falling apart, and through some 12-step meeting they found the courage to change the things they could, the serenity to accept the things they could not change, and the wisdom to know the difference. It made me long for that sort of belonging somewhere. A place where I could go once a week and sit around a table and belong.
& nbsp; My dad has been going to AA since I was about twelve years old. (At that time he had gotten his second DUI, lost his job and his driver's license, and almost lost his whole family, so AA really did help him pull it all together.) Also when I was a teenager one of my young street hoodlum friends lived at a halfway house for alcoholics, and I spent a lot of time at that halfway house and met the kindest people I'd ever met. I enjoyed their picnics and parties too. It used to make me wish I was an alcoholic, just so I could join AA.
& nbsp; My dad had always suggested I join a group for Adult Children of Alcoholics, but the problem with that is, in those groups the people have traumatizing memories of their parents' drinking and some are still dealing with a parents' drinking. When I was a kid, my dad's drinking was just a part of my life. It never caused much problems to me. Apparently it caused chaos and horrors between him and my mom, and I did know about the huge fights they had which often ended with things being broken and someone walking out. But I never really thought about it. I never thought, "Oh I wish my parents would stop drinking" or even "My parents are such freaks." That was just my normal, everyday life. Any trauma and abuse I did suffer as a child was at the hands of my mom, who was never drunk at the time. I guessin a way I was a secondhand casualty of my dad's drinking, since according to my dad the abuse I suffered from my mom was a result of her being fed up with his alcoholism, and taking her frustrations out on me because I was an easy target, an annoying out-of-it kid with autistic tendencies flapping and whining around the room. Who wouldn't have wanted to kick me and call me a little bitch? But still, I just don't know how I would relate to other Adult Children of Alcoholics.
& nbsp; When I lived with my older brother who drank heavily and did drugs, I tried going to Al-Anon. The people there were nice, but they were mostly the elderly husbands and wives of elderly recovering alcoholics. They had been going to Al-Anon since 1964 or whenever. They were reciting the books from memory. I didn't find the community and belonging and acceptance I needed there.
& nbsp; Later I tried Families Anonymous, which worked better for me because it was mostly the parents of young drug addicts and alcoholics, and as a little sister I often felt like the parent of my big brother. I could listen to these distraught, desperate parents, who spoke of taking a deep breath and really letting go of their beloved children... and I could relate to that, because I was going through the same things with my brother. But then my brother went to prison, and I decided I was never going to live with him again, and I successfully for the most part managed to separate myself from him. Now I barely ever talk to him, and I only feel a small tiny hole in my life. So Families Anonymous would not work for me anymore.
& nbsp; So I have three choices. I could decide to quit drinking and join AA> (AAAK!) Or I could find an alcoholic to date, and join Al-Anon. (Doube AAK!) OR I could try Emotions Anonymous because obviously I am always going to have myself to deal with, no matter who else drifts in and out of my life. Plus I already have the books.
& nbsp; Then again, there's Codependent's Anonymous... but that sounds sort of forbidding to me.
& nbsp; Temple Grandin is on the TV. I have to watch it.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; So another Espinthebottle guy called me last night. I think I had posted his profile in an entry a long time ago. We had been e-mailing back and forth for a while, and this guy seemed pretty nice and loves to write, same as me. I am surprised that I even answered the phone when I saw his name on my caller ID... Usually I would freak out, push "Ignore" and then immediately dial my voicemail to find out what the guy said. But this time on the spur of the moment I picked up the phone!
(Please excuse the many typing mistakes that may occur here!Thias house is freezing cold and I am not allowed to turn up the heat, so I am typing with gloves on!)
Anyway the thing that struck me is that he sounded very nice, but also sort of fake as if he were talking to a young child. Or maybe he was just very nervous and not usded to talking to people. He told me that when he was a kid in school he had no friends and got teased a lot. Anyway I guess its hard to explain what I mean here... Also he somewjhat sounded like he was interviewing me. He asked me how I felt about environmentalism, and then one second later he asked how I felt about motherhood and whether my biological clock was ticking yet. He told me I had a nice voice. He said, "I'm very pleased with that!" Then he said, "OK that came out awkward!" He is fastinated by the weather. Maybe he is autistic?!!!!!
& nbsp; There is one thing that worries me. With the last guy, he came to meet me at Caroline's house, so Carolien could sort of act as a screener for me I guess. But I am not sure I could invite this new guy to Caroline's house because, I am ashamed to say it, Johnny has decided to be racist.This is particularly stupid coming from him because Johnny's blood sister has three sons who asre half black, Caroline's best friend has a daughter who is half black, and Alexander's best friend is black. However, way back before he went to jail, Caroline's friend's baby's father came to the house to talk to Caroline about storing something in her garage. Johnny came home drunk and flipped out about the guy being there, calling him a "nigger" and yelling at Alexander, "We don't let niggers in this house!" I really think that if Johnny had happened to see a white guy in the house, he would have reacted the same way, except without rhe "nigger" part. Johnny has a lot of hate at the world, and he often will pick up on the most visable or obvious part of a person and use it as a target for his random hate. Anyway ever since then he supposedly has been racist. It doesn't help that his adoptive parents are also racist, although they try to be subtle about it.
& nbsp; I think its stupid because I know he loves his nephews, and they are half black, and they do have the dark skin to make it obvious. Despite the fact that they have a white biological mother, and despite the fact that they are now being raised by a white couple, some day those boys are going to grow up. And people will look at them and see black men, and someone inevitably is going to at some point call those boys niggers. And if I were Johnny, I would be trying to make the world a better and safer place for those kids, instead of contributing to the bad things by calling black people niggers.
& nbsp; I just thought of an idea for a story I may someday write. (Although I'm not sure if it has already been written!) The story will be about a little white boy whose mother later gives birth to a second boy with a black father. The first little boy will be very close to his half brother and very protective of him. Then eventually their mother dies and the two brothers are separated, each going to live with relatives of their own fathers, never to see each other again. The white boy ends up in an all-white community where racism is common, and he learns to be racist and joins a racist group, mostly because he just wants a place to belong. One day when he is a teenagerhe helps to commit a hate crime and sets fire to an all-black church . Many people die in the fire. The white boy later reads in the paper the names of the people killed in the fire, and is shocked to find out that he has killed his own little brother.
Anyway. My point is... I can't invite the new guy to Caroline's house because Johnny will flip out. :(
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Recently I was watching TV at Caroline's house with Caroline and Johnny and a friend of theirs. For some reason the channel was changed to this Naked News thing. There would be a guy wearing only shorts, telling some news, and then suddenly he would drop his shorts and expose all to the crowd! Caroline laughed at my surprised expression. She and Johnny teased me about being 25 and never having seen some guy's manlyhood before.
& nbsp; Contrary to popular belief, I have actually seen many of those things! I spent many years of my life being homeless and living in communal-type situations (such as a crowded hotel room) with both men and women. Homeless men tend to make themselves at home wherever they are, and do not get modest. They would walk around in boxer shorts often. Now, what do you think happens first thing in the morning when a man in boxer shorts gets up out of bed? Well, there is a slot in the front of his boxer shorts, and when guys wake up, a surprise often pops out of the slot!
Not including my little brother when we were small children, or all of the little boys whose diapers I have changed, or even the disabled grown men whose diapers I have changed... The first one I ever got a close look at belonged to a guy I'll call Jerard. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and when I looked at him I noticed what appeared to be some sort of pink banana sticking out of his boxer shorts. I was still a teenager and pretty naive, and at first I couldn't figure out what the thing was, so I stared. Jerard saw me staring, and I looked away quickly. When I looked back, the pink banana was gone.
Another time, I was sharing a hotel room with my older brother, his then-girlfriend, her sister, and the sister's boyfriend. I woke up in the midst of the night to use the bathroom and saw that my brother had kicked his covers off, and something resembling a fat arrow was hanging out of his shorts. Shocked and dismayed, I threw the covers over the offending arrow.
Still another time, another one of my brother's girlfriends kicked him below the belt. My brother stumbled into my bedroom and collapsed to the floor. (He always was a little dramatic!) I went into my bedroom to see what was the matter. With the lights still off, I saw him lying on his back on my bedroom floor, clasping in his hands what looked to be a hotdog. It took me a minute to realize it was not a hotdog. Embarassed, I backed out of the room. (Why did these things always have to involve my brother???)
Speaking of baring it all in public, at work on Mondays I help with an adult Fitness and Swimming class for mentally retarded adults. Part of my job entails going into the locker room to supervise the women while they change into and out of their bathing suits. These women are not shy at all (they are a lot like my two-year-iold niece in this respect) and will pad around the locker room butt-naked until I remind them forty times to get their clothes on so we can go to the gym. Yesterday I had to help a very large forty-year-old woman put on her bra and her diaper.
So you see, I am not shocked about seeing naked people. If I was walking down the street and saw a naked person go by, I might not even notice it. What makes me nervous is other people's feelings about nakedness. For instance, I don't mind changing my bathing suit in the locker room with the MR women, and I don't even mind stripping down to my underwear for a spontaneous swim in the ocean with my little brother. Once I completely changed my clothes, in sheer public, on the beach of a river in Missouri. It didn't bother me, cause everyone was doing it. I probably could have gone to dinner butt naked and noone would have much cared.
That doesn't mean I want to be naked or see naked people. If people are getting naked just to show me their naked bodies, or if I am afraid they will look at my nakedness in a way that I don't like them looking, then I am nervous. I lock the bathroom when I have to go potty because I don't want to be caught with my pants down, but I guess when I think about it it is more out of habit than anything else.
Why am I writing about this? I dunno. Nothing else interesting has happened to me today, I guess!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; This evening I attended a Social Group For Women In Their Late 20's, which I found through http://www.meetup.com" title="http://www.meetup.com" target="_blank"http://www.meetup.com . Freakishly enough, I realized that since I am 25 years old and soon to be 26 (AAAAAK) then if I round to the nearest ten I am actually 30, which puts me in my LATE TWENTIES! So I went to the social group. We went to Dave's Italian Kitchen in Evanston. And here are a few of the things I learned about how Women In Their Late Twenties should socialize.
1. You dress up for these things. A "hang-loose" T-shirt and jeans are not considered dressy enough for socializing with Women In Their Late Twenties. Even if it is your best T-shirt and favorite jeans.
2. Women In Their Late Twenties do not order soda pop with dinner. You just sip water. But if someone offers to buy your table a round of drinks, you can order wine. Then you should wave to the person who bought it for you. Do not make an animated, goofy face as you wave.
3. Women In Their Late Twenties must chit-chat. It is important to act as if you care what they are chit-chatting about. You should try not to let your mind drift in and out of the conversations. Someone might ask you a question. Plus you should be asking questions, as part of the act of faking like you care about the chit-chat.
4. Once again, someone might ask you a question... so it is a good idea not to stuff your mouth full of food. You know better to talk with your mouth full in a restaurant, right? So if someone does ask you a question and you have a huge forkful of lmanicotti in your mouth, it will be awkward and difficult to swallow before you answer. And while you are trying to choke down that huge chunk of manicotti, everyone else will be staring at you with polite, interested looks on their faces. So... small bites!
5 If all of the other Women In Their Late Twenties go to the same book group and you don't, then asking about books they've read is a great idea! For five minutes, you will totally feel like part of the group!
6. Women In Their Late Twenties do not order dessert. They are all watching their weight. When the waiter comes to ask if you are ordering dessert, you should not look at the dessert menu. Avert your eyes. You are supposed to look around at the other Women In Their Late Twenties with a bewildered look on your face, and shake your head quickly.
7. When it is time to pay the check, Women In Their Late Twenties will pass the check around the table. You are supposed to find what you ate, add up the costs, and put that much money into the pile, and then pass it to the next person. When someone hands you the check and some money, you are not supposed to say, "Are we trading?" and try to hand them your money. That doesn't even make sense!
8. When everyone is leaving, and the Women In Their Late Twenties say, "It was good meeting you! I hope you'll come next time!" a good answer is not, "Yeah, probably," and then nervous laughter as you run out the door.
So now you know EIGHT THINGS about dining out with Women In Their Late Twenties. If the situation should ever arise for you, you will now know how to handle it.
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I've been reading a lot of SARK books lately. If you want to see who SARK is, go here. http://www.planetsark.com" title="http://www.planetsark.com" target="_blank"http://www.planetsark.com . Then I saw this thing where you could sign up for a SARK group that meets in real life, but when I looked for one around where I live, I couldn't find any. So I decided to start one. How is that for uncharacteristic? The group is going to meet once a month in a book store cafe. We will do creative and interesting things that SARK mentions in the books, and read all the SARK books.
& nbsp; Here is how I am trying to find members to join the SARK group. I took index cards and wrote on them: YOU are invited to a SARK Reading And Activity Group! Come and be creative, meet kind people, read SARk and SARK-recommended books, and (your idea here)! For more information visit http://sark.meetup.com/14/" title="http://sark.meetup.com/14/" target="_blank"http://sark.meetup.com/14/ . Then I take the cards to a book store like Barnes and Nobles, and slip a card into each of the SARK books that are on the shelves there. Hopefully, when people come to buy a SARK book, they will see the card, anbd decide to come to the website and then come to the group.
& nbsp; In other words, I know I don't have much spare time on my hands, so I must just get into these manic phases where I want to DO something... and either something good will come out of it, or nobody will join the group and I'll eventually lose interest. Who wants to make a guess?
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
Today at my mom's house dinner is Every Man For Himself, because she wants to go shoe shopping. Since this house doesn't have much food in it in the first place, dinner for me was Krispy Kreme Donuts, cottage cheese, and a Cherry RC Cola. Very healthy. Really! I mean it!
& nbsp; &n bsp;Anyway... I never write in my blog on the weekends because that is when I am over at Caroline and Johnny's. Remember I had said I was going to call "Grandma Boy", the guy whose profile I had matched up with on the Espinthebottle thing? Well on Friday night I called him, and invited him over to Caroline and Johnny's house.
& nbsp; Dude, if this was a test, I TOTALLY BOMBED! It was so awkward for me. I couldn't think of anything to say to him, and the things I did say seemed to come out strange and awkward. Caroline is very good at the whole small talk thing, and she was tryng to put the guy and I at ease by keeping a conversation going, mostly asking the guy questions about himself.. which he seemed to love! But whenever she'd try to lure me into the conversation, by mentioning something about me so that I'd be cued to chirp up, the guy just sort of nodded. I felt as if I was playing ping-pong and serving wild serves that whizzed past the guy's head and landed on the floor eleven feet away.
& nbsp; He got along splendidly with Johnny though. They sat together until almost two in the morning, talking about construction work and DUI's and what not. By that time, I was mentally willing the guy to go home, so I could fall asleep!
& nbsp; So that was my big whopping date. Oh well. Ya win some, ya lose some, and then there are some that you were never meant to have in the first place.
& nbsp; Meanwhile, at Caroline's house things seemed to be going well. Caroline's mother and little sisters left on a vacation to Wisconsin Dells, and they took Alexander with them. In return, Caroline and Johnny were watching Caroline's mom's three dogs. Plus of course their own dog. I was in Heaven, I tell ya, Heaven!
& nbsp; &n bsp; Caroline's mom originally bought one dog, a Maltese, because they have special fur that Caroline's sisters would not be allergic too. Then she decided to breed puppies, and bought a little brown toy poodle to go along with the Maltese. When she bred them, the result was four tiny, adorable little tan puppies with shaggy fur and big eyes, called Maltee-poos. Caroline's mom sold three of the dogs from that first litter. but kept one of the puppies because her kids begged for it. That's why they now have three dogs. Also Caroline's puppy is from that same litter.
& nbsp; So all weekend, everywhere you looked, were tiny, furry little faces. At several points, while I sat on the couch, all four dogs piled on top of me at the same time! When I went to the bathroom, four little dogs followed me, wagging their tails in eager anticipation, (Of what, I don't know...) Monday morning after Caroline, Johnny and Codie left, I was alone with the dogs for a while before I left for work. They seemed to be taking turns coming up and sitting in my lap. When one hopped down from my lap, another would hop up. It was like a rotating door of dogs.
& nbsp; Then the time came when I was going to have to leave for work. I turned off the TV... and heard an eerie silence. I looked around. Four little dogs had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at me. They all stood there, frozen, watching me, with startled looks on their faces. They seemed to be saying, "What the..."
& nbsp; "I have to go," I told the dogs. "I gotta go to work!" & nbsp; They just kept staring at me!
& nbsp; &n bsp; I decided to give them each a dog treat, to distract them. One... two... three. .. four treats, and then I headed for the door.
& nbsp; &n bsp; When I got outside, I looked back, and my heart ached. Four little dogs were standing on the window seat, peering sadly out the window after me.
& nbsp; &n bsp; AAAAWWWWW. It was almost enough to make me ditch work... except Caroline woul d have killed me, because if I was going to ditch work I could have at least watched Codie too.
& nbsp; &n bsp; Besides, I have a dog and a cat of my own at home...
& nbsp; &n bsp; I told you I am codependent on animals!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I know you can't wait to hear what my job was today, so let me just tell you!
& nbsp; On Thursdays I help with a Cooking group for mentally impaired adults. Theoretically we are supposed to be teaching them to cook, but it is more like a cooking class you might facilitate with a group of two-year-olds. For instance, today we were cooking chicken, rice, fruit salad, green bean casserole, cupcakes, and Koolaid. So while one staff member is in the kitchen actually doing the cooking, the other two of us have the task of keeping our people happy and busy sitting around a table in the dayroom. Mostly, we let them stir stuff. They can also chop vegetables, but since they are only allowed to use plastic butter knives, the task is pretty difficult.
& nbsp; Whenever it is Thursday and time for my Cooking class, I get a feeling of dread in my stomach. Like I have said before, it is so much different working with adults with special needs than with kids. I hate walking into the adult daycare building where the Cooking class is carried out. I hate the smell of piss, shit, vomit and blood mixed with some sort of cheap industrial cleaning agent. Not Pinesol or Lysol or Comet or anything familiar to me. A cleaning agent with a smell that, when I spray it on the tables to get ready for the class, it makes me feel like the tables are even grosser than they were before. I hate walking through the halls and seeing the people sitting dazedly in wheelchairs in the middle of the hallway.
& nbsp; Many of the people there are older, even elderly. When they were younger, back in the day, they didn't get the kind of care that we expect to be provided to people with disabilities in 2005. I imagine that some of them were actually institutionalized and left in beds or empty rooms to waste away, until laws and theories changed and they began to be released into more healthy environments. Sometimes I think I can actually smell the rot left over from decades of being uncared for.
& nbsp; But oddly enough, I always have fun at my Cooking Class. By the time it is over, I always decide that it is my favorite program. The people in our little group crack me up. There is Peter, who is obsessed with hair and always pantomimes cutting off our hair and tossing it into another room, or says he has to talk to our hair, or burn it. Jenny is the melancholy member of our group. She always has something to complain about... usually the same things over and over. I suspect she may have schizophrenia or something, since she is always insisting that she heard me call up Conway Twitty and tell him that his son was shot in the face, or asking me if I know that her roommate hit her in the head, or that she saw one of us on Wheel of Fortune. Nellie is a very old lady who loves bags and wants everyone to make pictures of hearts for her, and who reminds me of my own grandmother, who was also schizophrenic. And then of course is Katty, the youngest of the group, who is about 35. She's completely off her rocker, but ya gotta love her!
& nbsp; Each Thursday Katty will come skipping delightedly into the day room, saying, "Hi Honey! Hi Honey!" to everyone she sees. If she knows your name, she will call it out... or at least some version of it. She always calls me "Picky" or "Freaky" because she can't say "Nicky". (At least this is better than my baby niece, who calls me "Pee-Pee!") Katty will shove her jacket into her arms, and then start emptying out her purse to show you the things she's collected that day. Today she had several crayon drawings, two plastic cups, and three oranges.
& nbsp; Katty loves to eat. She wolfs down her food with a big smile on her face, and then yelps out, "Hey, I want more! Freaky! I want more!"
& nbsp; Today she finished eating, threw her plate away, and then demanded more food.
& nbsp; &n bsp; "Katty, you threw away your plate! What are you going to do now?" I said.
& nbsp; Katty looked perplexed for a minute. Then she solved the problem. She grabbed my plate and slid it infront of herself. "More, Freaky!" she shouted.
& nbsp; What could I do? I gave her more.
& nbsp; &n bsp;I really do eat the food there. I eat it with my eyes on my plate, never traveling to my table mates... I cannot stand the site of so many gaping, rotting mouths mashing away at their food. Us staff members do our best to keep the food we will eat separate from the food that the people help to prepare. As much as I love them, after all, they do lick their hands and pick their noses.
& nbsp; In other news... I e-mailed "Grandma boy" and asked him if he wants to do something this weekend! He left me a voicemail while I was at work. AAAAAHHHH! I'm freakin' out! No wonder Katty calls me "Freaky!"
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Today for work I had Movers, which is just like Traveling Teens (the one I went to yesterday) except for 10 - 13 year olds instead of teenagers. There are four boys in our little group. Jordan, the thirteen-year-old with BiPolar and autism... cute as a button and very polite one minute, scowling and snarling the next. Then there is Aislan... fourteen years old and sort of "nerdy". I think he may be autistic somehow. He is known for pestering me with such question as, "What would happen if a banana took a shower?" or "If a piano was alive, what would it do?" Beats me, Aislan! Next comes Kurtis, a very large 11-year-old boy with severe autism, who yells and moans during every trip because it upsets him so much to be doing something outside of his usual routine... unless, of course, it involves food! Finally there is Mark... a sweet, slow-talking autistic twelve-year-old who is terrified of Kurtis and spends every trip asking me, "What is Kurtis doing now? What is Kurtis doing now? Kurtis is very loud!" in his slow, careful way.
& nbsp; Take these four little guys, put them on a short bus, and drive them to Woodfield Mall to eat a snack at the Rainforest Cafe. Heres what you get: Kurtis wolfing down his pasta and french fries, licking the remains of the Marinara sauce out of the bowl, slurps down his Cherry Coke, and is in Heaven. Aislan sitting next to me and grilling me on whether I think his parents would allow him to have a science lab in his bedroom, and whether I think it would be possible for him to hide the lab in his closet if they say no. Mark sitting with his face pale and his eyes wide, covering his ears to protect himself from the sound of fake thunder booming through the restauraunt as well as the sound of Kurtis hooting and hollering.Jordan, singing at the top of his lungs along with the music being piped through the restaurant, while he gobbles down his own food and also helps himself to Aislan's pasta and Mark's french fries and soda. And us two staff members staring into space, sipping Cokes and looking tired. There you have it... the Movers.
& nbsp; Despite it all, I really do love this job! It is a job custom-built for me. No matter how tired I am before work, when I am all done I feel happy and energized, almost buzzed from the excitement of it all. I feel as if I have done something. Whereas when I've worked at places like restaurants and stores, when I got out of work each day I wanted to completely block out anything that had to do with work, with this job it makes me happy to think about it and talk about it. I feel like I have a reason to go back. It was the same when I worked at Miner. My work is fascinating, challenging, and fun. I swear, I would never work in any field other than special education or special recreation.
& nbsp; In other news, "Grandma boy" hasn't contacted me lately. Do you think I should send him an e-mail and see if he wants to do something this weekend?
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
I just got home from work! Today I was working with the group that takes teenagers to different field trips each week. I think I talked about this group before, on my first day, when the boy had a siezure!
& nbsp; Today we went to see a movie called "Because of Winn-Dixie". My job for the day had two parts.
& nbsp; The first part, on the bus ride there, was to ride next to Andrew, holding my jacket up in the window to block the sunlight from Andrew's eyes so he wouldn't have a siezure.
& nbsp; The second part of my job consisted of sitting next to Kasey in the movie theater. Kasey is a very sweet and innocent 15-year-old boy with autism. He acts a lot more like a four year old than a teenager. I actually had to have this conversation today: "Kasey. Take that M&M out of your ear!... Because it doesn't go in your ear!... Because it could get stuck, Kasey! Take it out!... No, Kasey, don't eat it!... Because it was in your ear! It won't taste good! It will have ear wax on it! Kasey. Just throw it on the floor. Good job."
& nbsp; Kasey is mostly nonverbal, and communicates in sign language a lot, although he can hear fine. One of the words he does know how to say is, "Why?" And he says it all day long. Sometimes he is able to clarify, with sign language or pointing, what he is asking "Why" about. Other times, you just have to guess wildly about what he wants to know. "Why what, Kasey? Why is that car moving? Why am I wearing this jacket? Why is the sky blue? Oh, why isn't the radio on? I don't know." Throughout the movie, Kasey could be heard crying out, "Why?" every few minutes. In that case, I think it was more of a general question, a way of asking me to explain the plot to him. I had to keep telling him, "Shhhh Kasey! They're looking for their dog! Shhh Kasey! She's crying because she misses the dog! Shhh Kasey! they're having a party!"
& nbsp; It really was a cute movie though. If you have kids, take them to see "Because of Winn Dixie." Even the tough boys in our crew liked it!
That's really all that has happened today. I had to work out in the morning, then school, then observing at Miner for my teaching class, then work. Now I am EXHAUSTED! So, goodbye for now!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; I don't have much to say today and I sort of feel as if I've been brainwashed! I mean. my brain feels empty!
& nbsp; &n bsp; I stayed With Johnny and Caroline for the weekend as usual. But with Johnny home, things are different than they were when Johnny was in jail. I am not sure about Johnny. He seems angry again. I feel nervous around him because I never know when I am going to inadvertently piss him off, and then send the whole household spinning on it's axis.
& nbsp; &n bsp; For instance, Johnny has been developing an odd goiter or something by his eyeball. It has been driving him crazy because he feels as if it is pusshing on his eye or something. So finally on Sunday night he decided he wanted to go to the emergency room. He wanted me to drive him there, but Caroline said she would drive him there if I could stay with all of the kids.
& nbsp; I didn't mind staying with the kids and it is pretty easy to watch them, especially since Alexander had his friend over and so they were mostly in the bedroom together, and Codie was the only one I had to really watch closely. But she cracks me up anyway. So mostly the night for me consisted of playing with Codie, and then at 7 when the dinner was done cooking in the crock pot I got it ready for the kids and we all sat down and ate. The kids had been starving because the crock pot takes a long time, so they were eating a lot. After dinner I made sure to put all of the plates and silverware in the dishwasher, because the day before when me and Alexander had put our breakfast dishes in the sink Caroline said, "How come nobody ever puts their stuff in the dishwasher?" So I put them in the dishwasher. Then life went on, the boys went to their room to play again, and I kept playing with Codie. Caroline and Johnny had to be at the hospital for a long time because the hospital wanted to run all these different tests on Johnny's eyes.
& nbsp; When Johnny and Caroline got home they got some dinner out of the crock pot, and then Johnny was cleaning up the kitchen and he got all mad because I had put the dishes in the dishwasher but there had been clean dishes in there already. Johnny became shocked and dismayed about this and was complaining, so Caroline kept telling him it didn't matter and he should just run the whole dishwasher load again so he wouldn't accidentally put away dirty dishes. Johnny was still disgruntled and I think eventually he did something like just rinsing off all the dishes before he put them away, because he couldn't fathom running the dishwasher again.
& nbsp; Minutes later, Caroline asked Johnny how he had liked the dinner, and Johnny shrugged and said he'd only eaten a little bit of it. I asked him if he wasn't hungry, and he looked at me all mad and said, "I ate what you left for me!" When I defended myself by reminding him that I tried to leave a lot but there were four people eating including two hungry boys, Johnny got madder and said, "I was just joking! God!" Which is what he always does... he'll get mad and make an angry comment, and then claim that he was just joking, even though you can tell he wasn't. So Caroline got mad at him for snapping on me, and they never spoke for the rest of the night, and Johnny fell asleep on the couch.
& nbsp; The thing about Johnny is, if you aren't going out of your way to do everything to make him happy, then you will inevitably piss him off somehow. It's as if he's always looking for a reason to be pissed off.
& nbsp; He was mad Friday night too because even though he had told Caroline that he didn't mind if her and me had our Drinking Night, when we had actually started drinking he got all aggravated because he said he didn't want to have to see it or smell it. He was in a foul mood. And by then it was too late, we couldn't just puke up the alcohol and pretend it never happened!
& nbsp; Anyway a piece of me thinks alcohol isn't Johnny's real problem anyway. I think it's almost like an excuse for him to do stupid things. When I first knew Johnny he would get drunk all the time but he was more of a foolish drunk than a mean or angry drunk. He would just stagger around and when he said anything he would sound like a confused, half-asleep little boy. I feel like maybe when he gets angry and he wants to seek revenge on the world, he is already sort of deciding in his mind that once he is drunk, he's going to do something. Johnny says this is not true but he'd rather kill me then say yes.
& nbsp; 'Nuff about that fool Johnny. I'm not really mad at him. I'm just confused by him.
& nbsp; Codie is trying to learn how to say my name. But the closest she can get to "Nicky" is "pee-pee." She says it so adoringly though... I guess I've been called worse things!
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Survey says... BlogDrive it is! I will be moving my blog to Blogdrive any day now! I would like to wait until I find out what the results are of my psychiatric evaluation... but I am not sure when I will get those results. I had my second appointment today. On the way there, I somehow accumulated a flat tire! I didn't notice it until I got there. You see, they have a gated parking area, so you have to pull up in front of the building, run in and get the parking pass, and then drive to the parking lot. So as I was getting out of the car, someone walked up to me and said, "You know about your tire, right?" I said, "What about it?" Then I looked, and sure enough... flat as a pancake! I don't know what the hell happened.
& nbsp; So there I was, stranded IN THE CITY ON THE WESTSIDE with a flat tire, twenty dollars to my name, and not many independent living skills to fall back on! & nbsp; To my credit, I didn't get upset. I calmly walked into the doctor's office and asked the receptionist for a phone book, and whether she knew the name of a towing company that was close to there. The receptionists promptly took control of the situation. They had the parking attendant come fill my tire with air, and then one of the receptionist was kind enough to actually get in my car and ride with me to a Firestone Tire place, where mechanics put my spare tire on for me for ten dollars. (It was a little embarassing because the inside of my car was VERY messy, and the receptionist was shocked and dismayed by the mess and teased me about it for the rest of the day.) After the tire had been replaced with a donut, the receptionist and I rode back to the office, and I went in and waited for the psychiatrist, who had already agreed to see me an hour later than we had planned.
& nbsp; Sounds like a Chicken Soup for the Soul story, doesn't it? Maybe I should submit it! Never underestimate the kindness of strangers.
& nbsp; And for any of the racists out there, let me just tell you, every single person involved in this story (except for me) was African American. So take your racist tendencies and shove them up your.... Wohwohwohwohwohwohwoh.
& nbsp; As for the psychiatric evaluation... it continued on as planned. The last time I went was more of an IQ test, but this time the doctor was asking me more emotional questions. They centered mostly on depression and anxiety, with some odds and ends thrown in. I really don't know where the whole thing is going! She has to write up a report on me, and then she will call me to make another appointment, and finally I will go in again and find out all about what's wrong with me!
& nbsp; So my big question is... Am I ready to make the move from Tblog to Blog Drive?
& nbsp; The other question is, with no real tire, how oh how will I ever make it to Drinking Night?
THE GIRL IN THE CLOSET... A YOUNG WOMAN WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND HER ONGOING JOURNEY TO COPE WITH HER DISABILITY AND FIND A PLACE IN THE WORLD. CHARACTERS YOU'LL MEET ALONG THE WAY: Angel (author of the blog) Age 25. and has Asperger's Syndrome. Caroline, Angel's best friend. Johnny, Caroline's husband and Angel's other best friend. Alexander, Caroline's 8-year-old son and Angel's "nephew". Codie, Caroline's baby daughter and Angel's "niece"
Dear everyone,
& nbsp; Well! I took the Mile! Which, by the way, turned out to be a Mile AND A HALF run! I did it in 18 minutes and 44 seconds. Sounds like a long time... but really, for me it's pretty good! Plus, we had to look our time up on a chart to find out how good we did, and I found that my time was average for 25-year-old females. I FEEL GOOD, nanananananana LIKE I KNEW THAT I WOULD nanananananan SO GOOD SO GOOD dadadadadadada
Whoops. Anyway. SO. Got the Mile Run behind me. What's next?
& nbsp; I've told you that I might reorganize this blog and make it less of a "Blog about someone with Asperger's Syndrome" and more of a "blog about someone who has many interesting things going on in her life and one of them might be Asperger's Syndrome". One of the ways I am planning to make this change in my life is by moving this blog to a new place.
& nbsp; I've been "blogshopping" among all the places that offer free blogs, and I've found two that I really like. Can you help me choose? Let's take a vote! Leve me a comment and tell me which one you think is better.
Tomorrow I have to go to the city and finish my psychological evaluation at University of Illinois Chicago. I am nervous because eventually this doctor is going to tell me whether or not she thinks I still qualify for Asperger's Syndrome, or whether I have someone else. I trust this doctor more than I trust the other five thousand quacks who've tried to figure me out! I am a little nervous, because if she says I DON'T seem to have Asperger's Syndrome (I mean I guess technically I'll always have it, but if I don't meet the diagnostic criteria now...) then I will sort of feel like my pinky toe has been chopped off. What will I do without my pinky toe? Perhaps I don't need it, but it's just always BEEN there fore me!
I'm freezing cold. I need to go find some heat sources in this house.
& nbsp; Caroline, when I am at your house tomorrow I will call him! I swear! I'll even be sober for the occasion!
College
