thoughts

Day 74: Fitting In

| Aspergers Girls
No makeup. Hair needs to be brushed. Oh, crap, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet. This is like camping all over again! Thank you Grandma for my clear skin. Thank you Dad for my Italian nose. Thank you hands for pulling back all my wrinkles!
If you click on this photo, you will see a messy study. A sign of genius. I can't even stop rambling about a photo. May the Gods help me! Everyday Aspergers -- Samantha

“Life is a pair of skinny jeans and you are a big fat ass. That’s it. It’s uncomfortable being a human being.” ~ Tom Papa (comedian)

I wanted the title to be: Fitting In. You are Weird and a Big Fat Ass, but I thought people might take it the wrong way.

The more I’m sharing about myself, my quirks, my outlooks, my geek posse, my fears, my memories, my embarrassing moments, even my empathic experiences, I’m realizing I am not an alien after all! In fact, I’m thinking some of you might be aliens.

A dimmer switch for Sir Brain would be nice. Sometimes herbs and exhaustion help to dim the thoughts. Wine helps, and the ingredients in certain brownies that I will never try again. One word: Paranoia. I actually visited all the layers of hell—anyone smiling knows what I mean. I could digress on this subject and make you laugh hysterically. Major chocolate craving coming on…

Anyhows…(I meant to put an S there for effect. But now that I’ve explained this the effect is gone. But I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t spell anyhow and pass judgment. Because I live in constant fear of people finding flaws and errors in my ways and passing judgment.)

Anyhow…It’s sure nice to know I’m not alone. Sure nice to know everyone is messed up (I mean that in a good way). Nice to know, too, that most of you have all the same thoughts and weirdness I do, but you have the ability to keep most clammed up and shut away inside. Which, I guess, has its drawbacks, too. At least I’ll never explode because I held too much back. I’m not a slow ticking time bomb (despite what my mother-in-law once wrote about me).

I am like a garden hose set on slow drip—the perfect companion to a thirsty dog or playful child in the heat of the summer days.

Writing this off the top of my head. Let’s see what comes out. Drip, drip, drip…

We are All Weird

We are all weird

We are all trying to fit in

We aren’t happy all the time

We’ll never be happy all the time

That’s an illusion

We worry

We fear

We dream, sometimes big

We wish and wish and wish

We copy and imitate in hopes of being accepted

We try to figure others out

Try even harder to figure our own self out

We cry at sad movies

We laugh at dumb jokes

We light up a room

And can bring about feelings of gloom

We are powerful, magical, mysterious

And filled with a gentle charm

Our esteem is worthy

Even though we may not know

Our life has purpose

Even as we search

We are so remarkably fantastically beautiful

A reflection of beauty

One to the other

I’m so happy to know you

Each and everyone

So happy to stand in your light

Breathe in your energy

Breathe out your kindness

There is no better blessing

Than knowing you are not alone

That there is always a hand, a smile, a knowing wink

I giggle at our quirks

I celebrate our uniqueness

But I dwell and live fullest in our connection

The connection we share in seeing one in the other

Okay. This is a little beyond PG-rated, but as you’re my friend, and all, I just have to say, if you search online videos for “fitting in” there seems to be a lot of bike fitting, horse saddle fitting, golf club fitting, clothing fitting, fake male “private parts” fitting. Oops. I hope I didn’t just steer someone in the wrong direction! Don’t want you to obsess about the fit of your saddle.

Serious and Uplifting. He makes a lot of good videos.

Funny!

Day 72: Lessons Learned

| Aspergers Girls

Lessons Learned

1) When a young man says, “I’ll call you,” the statement is often equivalent to “See Ya.” It’s another form of goodbye, where you never see the person again.

2) Just because a man goes to couples counseling with you doesn’t mean he’s not married and also going to couples counseling with his wife.

3) People will most definitely look away and cringe, if you share up close photos of giving birth or breastfeeding. Then they won’t want anything you offer them to eat.

4) When you are a restaurant hostess at a popular night spot, even if your boss says to be honest with the customers about the wait time for a table, do not smile and say: “That will be about 137 minutes.”

5) If one hairdresser tells you that you should always wear bangs, that doesn’t mean you have to wear bangs for the next five years.

6) If a dentist says, “In order to blend in your dead front tooth with your other teeth, the best method would be dyeing all of your other teeth darker,” run and don’t look back.

7) When the orthodontist tells you, as a teenager, to wear the headgear and neckgear for your braces to middle school, don’t!

8) If a boy calls you cow eyes, don’t go home and cry, punch him.

9) When you are little, don’t wear the same hippy dress you love two years in a row for school photos.

10) Don’t play tunnel tag in the short, Italian wool dress your grandma gave you , unless you wear shorts underneath.

11) Tell your mom when you get your period. Don’t wait three months, and don’t use the free, plus-size, super absorbent, expandable tampons that the gym teacher passed out!

12) Don’t buy life insurance and agree to automatic payments from your bank account, and then wait three years to research if the company exists. It doesn’t.

13) If you have just given birth, and you are sharing a hospital room with a new mother who talks nonstop on the phone into the late hours of the night, complain.

14) If you are an elementary school teacher, and spend three hours on a letter of recommendation for one of your fifth grade students, make sure you spell the student’s name correctly, especially if you don’t want to irritate the parents.

15) While a student in middle school, don’t draw pictures of different boys’ body parts, label them with names, descriptions, and insults, and then leave the illustrations behind at your desk on accident.

16) Even if you have dyslexia, don’t put the spelling words for the test inside the pleats of your cheerleading skirt. You will greatly disappoint your teacher.

17) If you have big ears that stick out, and people laugh at them, wear your hair down until you have high self-esteem.

18) If Italian in America, pluck thick Italian eyebrows, and remember Italian only has one letter l.

19) Don’t save a drowning honeybee in a swimming pool; sensing danger, he will buzz super loud warning his friends. His friends will land on your arm and sting you!

20) When a fake blonde, with a fake tan, and fake nails tells you, “You would look pretty with highlights in your hair.” Don’t say, “I prefer the natural look. I don’t like fake things.”

21) If your boyfriend’s mother invites you to a private lunch, with just you and her, and then says in confidence, “Don’t date my son. You are too good for him,” listen.

22) If you have the flu, and are ghastly sick, don’t beg your boyfriend to take you out-of-town to meet his parents for the first time.

23) Don’t date your weight-lifting trainers. Just don’t.

24) If you are getting a haircut as a teenager, and the hairdresser ignores you long enough for your wet hair to dry, before she returns, leave.

25) The movie Fargo is not a good first date movie.

26) Ask Dad before rearranging his entire dining room and living area.

27) Ask Dad before bringing the puppy home.

28) If you are going to miss one day of college for a funeral, you don’t need to write a letter and then cry to the professor in the hallway, in order to be excused.

29) French classes in high school and college are useless as a second language when you live in California.

30) When you have a long-term boyfriend, and you meet someone at the public swimming pool, you don’t give another boy your phone number and say: “I have a boyfriend, but let’s be friends.”

31) When a young teenager says he’s going to travel from his town 100 miles on his bike to come see you, he might just do that. Better to tell him ahead of time, you have a boyfriend and you aren’t interested.

32) If a young teenager says he’s going to drive his car across country to see you as soon as he gets a job, his license, and a car, probably not true, regardless of what he promises.

33) If you write enough letters to a school district office about the hard water from the sprinkler system damaging the paint on your new red Mustang car, when you park in the parking lot at the school where you work, the district will pay for all the employees to have their cars detailed; however, the superintendent of the district will not smile at you ever again.

34) If you consume too much Excedrin, iced tea, and soda at the same time, you will have a caffeine overdose; and to avoid a thousand dollar hospital bill, you will have to convince the health insurance company the trip to the emergency room wasn’t due to a panic attack.

35) If you’re a teacher and the principal says to you, “You should choose between raising a family or being a teacher, you can’t do both well,” sue him.

36) If an acupuncturist tells you about his failed marriages, his mortgage, his childhood, his parenting woes, and then spanks his wife on the butt in front of you, all while you are under treatment atop the table, don’t go back to that acupuncturist. And don’t feel guilty about not going back.

37) Doctors are practicing medicine.

38) You will offend a LDS person by calling them LSD, even if you have dyslexia.

39) Not a good idea to say, “That pisses me off,” in front of an entire fifth grade class, when you are a teacher.

40) No amount of protesting and letter writing or phone calls will keep a principal from assigning you to teach seventh grade, instead of elementary school, if she thinks you are a good teacher, even if you cry and tell her you hated middle school as a child.

41) If you kiss a mean ugly man enough times, he remains a mean ugly man.

42) When you ask a boyfriend, “Should I get a shorter haircut,” and he says, “That depends.” And you answer, “That depends on what,” and he responds, “That depends on if you are planning to lose weight, or not,” run away from the relationship.

43) The joke: When you’re dancing with your honey and your feeling kind of funny, and your nose is kind of runny, but it’s not, isn’t funny after the age of ten.

44) Don’t read your personal diary to fickle teenage girls.

45) When you are a kid, don’t announce to your seventh grade class you are wearing your first training bra.

Day 71: I Had a Dream

| Aspergers Girls
What has happened to me in the last five years. What goes on in my head.

Thank you for being part of my journey. You will never know how much you have healed me. Bless you.

As always, this is my journey and I am not trying to push my experience or belief system onto any person. Click here to see my thoughts on spirituality.

I Had a Dream

The Spring of 2005

Except for the light from the slivered moon the road was black.  My foot hit the pedal and I sped up faster and faster towards the tracks.   Mangled is what I wanted.  But I wouldn’t have the nerve to stop, to wait for a train.  There would have to be another way.  Perhaps a motel off the interstate, perhaps some pills and a forever sleep.  I shook away the thought and breathed a prayer.  “Please, help me.”

The ache of the past had become my own Siamese twin.  So much so, I didn’t know where my pain stopped and my true self began.  I was pain.  I was the past.  We shared the same blood.  Everything and anyone could conjure up bitter memories, especially certain sounds and smells.  Everyday was yet another rerun of all the misery I’d viewed before.  The scenery and characters might change, but the plot and outcome never altered.  I knew all the psychological jargon, the self-talk, the imaging, meditation, and so on; and they served as my air so to speak, the invisible space which kept me temporarily afloat as I waved back and forth in a stormy sea clinging to an inflatable raft filled with holes…

The rest of this story is in the book Everyday Aspergers

 

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 68: Karmic Crumbs

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I am fortunate to have married one of the most patient men on earth. I honestly do not think anyone else, besides my children and dog, whom all rely on me for food, could stand to live with me. I have a plethora of unique quirks and habits.  Too many to list, and as many know, I’m a good lister. (Lister should be a word.)

Prepare for digression.

Today I almost wrote on death terror (always on my mind), then moved onto the funny things about aging, and then landed on exploring raw food diets. My heart palpitations started up with the thought of switching to a raw food diet. I’ve tried the diet before. Moving from vegetarian to vegan (no cheese, no eggs) lasted four days. Trying to go from vegetarian to raw-food-vegan lasted about the time I take to walk to the fridge, open the fridge, and devour a slice of veggie-combo pizza.

I sure would like to rid myself of aches and pains, have more energy, and look like I’m 50, when I’m 70, but I’m thinking the heart attack and situational depression from the removal of Italian food from my life and stomach, would certainly kill me. I’m all for people finding something that works for them, be it diet, exercise, love, or faith, as long as the solution doesn’t harm another. Me, going raw vegan, would harm all the people who loved me. The radical mood shifts alone would cause mass destruction.

Which leads me back to my marriage. I am a moody gal. And the fact that my husband sticks around is a miracle. I got over myself, and my ego, in relation to my place in our marriage, about ten years ago, when for the hundredth time, I heard, from yet another woman: “You are so lucky to have a man like Bob.”

Gag! No one ever once, not once, not anyone from school functions, the workplace, the family gatherings, friendly circles, not one person ever said: “Bob, you are so lucky to have a woman like Sam.” (Insert my real name there; for all you logical souls concluding: Well, of course not. Her name isn’t really Sam.)

Not a one! I’m not chopped liver. And my brain is keen. So it’s got to be that whole “high maintenance” attribute I’ve got going on.

Poor, poor Bob. If you believe in the Buddha’s way of a person coming back in a life position based on previous karmic dealings, then I certainly wonder about my husband. For him to end up being my breadwinner, dishwasher, back and neck massager, psychologist, best friend, and emotional punching bag, I figure he must have done me mighty wrong in a past life!

Which logically means I have an obligation to even out the karmic relationship, I suppose. Speaking of such, accordingly, I must have done a whole lot of people wrong in my previous incarnations. Although when I was much younger, I had that whole “pretty girl” thing going on. So I must have done something right eons ago.

I think the biggest karmic wrong doing I ever did in this life was the time I stole the yellow spelling book, with the illustrated cat on the cover, from a girl in pigtails named Alice. She was a straw-haired blonde girl in second grade that sat two seats up in front of me, and she always, I mean always, got the right answers. While I was in the back hooting and hollering to be called on, Alice glided up a smooth arm and remained calm. One day, I couldn’t stand Alice anymore, and I did a terrible, terrible thing. I took her spelling book when no one was about, and hid the book in the back of the room. When Alice’s turn came, she couldn’t answer, and I could. Only, the plan backfired, because we spent the next twenty-minutes calming Alice down and searching relentlessly for her book. Well, everyone but me. Worst part of the whole spelling book fiasco, is that I still feel guilty. I remember thinking right then and there, in the company of a bunch of eight year olds, that I’d never ever purposely do wrong by anyone ever again. And I’ve tried my best to uphold that rule. Though I still fear I’ll be coming back as Alice’s gerbil in another life.

I can go on and make excuses about my home life at that time, but I’m not going there. I’m sorry, Alice, wherever you are! Please keep my cage clean!

Karma is a funny thing. What goes around comes around, so they say. But it seems to me the clueless people always get a better life, at least this time around, and the smart folks end up with all the misery. Which makes me wonder if I want to have brains in my next life.

This post was supposed to be about the high-tolerance level and total awesomeness of my husband. But somehow ended up being about gerbils. This is what Bob has to live with. If you are religious, you may want to stop and say a silent prayer for Bob.

click to see where image was found

Just to make sure I don’t have to be anyone’s gerbil, here is a list of I’m sorry:

  1. I’m sorry to that lady on the phone, whom I said this to: “Well, as long as you are more accepting of children with special needs. The last music instructor had zero tolerance of my son and her classes were boring.” Turns out I accidentally dialed the instructor I was speaking about.
  2. I’m sorry to T for lecturing you on my thoughts on God after I’d had one to many caffeinated beverages.
  3. I’m sorry to Mom for having a blog where I discussed everything horrible I thought you ever did to me.
  4. I’m sorry to my mother-in-law. You were right, when you stood up at the rehearsal dinner and announced loudly: “Are you sure you want to marry her?” But I think karmic wise we are more than even.
  5. I’m sorry to the university professor that I wrote about more than once, and called a “dumbass” to the world. (I’m sorry for the ass part.)
  6. I’m sorry to that Swan chick because I posted a big sign on my blog that directed readers to your website, because you were stealing my stories.
  7. I’m sorry to all the people who signed up to follow my posts, because you honestly had no idea what you were getting yourself into.
  8. I’m sorry to all the perfect-looking, skinny women at the gym that I stick my tongue out at, and for the teasing about your flat chests.
  9. I’m sorry to the drivers I yell at when I say: “Come on! Can you go any slower?”
  10. I’m sorry to my husband Bob for making you fetch me cleaner drinking glasses, for kicking you when you snore, for singing Daddy can’t rhyme, for saying, “You smell,” for asking, “What’s on your face. Can you die from that?”, for telling you more than once: It looks like your gaining weight, for making you move seats five times in the movie theater, for freaking out over the smell of taco meat, for screaming frantically over your driving, for calling you ten times in a row over the possibility of my heart exploding, for making you edit my writing and then critiquing your editing skills, for calling you various names based on the time of the month and the planetary positions, and for all the annoying things I do and say.

Okay. That just about covers me karmic wise until tomorrow.

Side note:  More evidence that Bob is a saint. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, so I made up stupid jokes in my head. Then I got out of bed, went into the bathroom, where my husband was, and told Bob the jokes. He told me I really needed to get some sleep.

Jokes:

Why did the Blue Jay cross the road? Because he was a jay-walker.

What did Jesus say when he looked in the toilet? Holy crap.

What do you call a slutty alcoholic living on the streets? A wine-hoe

I apologize to any jay-walking, Jesus-loving, homeless people. No offense intended.


A nice example of a clean Gerbil Cage

Day 67: Butterfly Red

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Butterfly Red

The accident had happened fast.  No one had expected it.  I hadn’t meant to let go.

I had fallen headfirst, a good four feet, onto the unforgiving concrete. Riding atop my babysitter’s shoulders, I hadn’t thought not to bend my head back and look down. I was only having fun. No one had ever told me not to bend over. And I’d only had the chance to view my backyard upside down for a minute or two, before I lost my balance and fell.

Smack!

After the fall, the sitter screamed and rushed me indoors to the dining area. Her teenage friend was there, too—her screams equally loud and bothersome. For some time everything echoed and twisted and turned in the chambers of my ears. Blood rushed out of my head in every direction, staining all the bathroom towels. I was on the dining room table, up high, as everyone scurried about in nervous circles. I glanced down and spotted my Labrador Sugar. Through my tears, I saw she was panting and pacing, and whining some. My small hand met the warm oozing blood at the back of my head. So much blood.

I awoke, wet and hot, to discover myself trapped beneath a heavy blanket in some unknown place. Nothing looked familiar. I turned quickly and tried to rise up, but some force pushed me down. I was inside a nightmare… (The rest of the story is in the book Everyday Aspergers)

~ By Samantha Craft 2012 Based on true events

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com