Life is funny.

If anyone is actually reading this blog, they may want to skip this entry. It’s been over a year since I’ve written anything. C has autism. I know it! I know it like I know the sun is in the sky even though I’m in the office and can’t see it. W doesn’t believe it. His mother told me I was overreacting for referring her to the local early intervention program. That process started about six weeks ago, and since then I’ve learned that C has a speech delay and sensory integration problems. Um…..yeah. So, basically she rarely speaks and she bangs her head. I knew that. I’m so frustrated. I’m praying for a hearing problem. Is that wrong? I’m longing for the early weeks, when C was finally diagnosed with pyloric stenosis, and the surgery took an hour, and the next day everything was normal. Problem solved. Everything now is so gray, vague, wishy-washy. I know what’s happening, but that doesn’t solve anything.  Diagnosis does not equal a cure. She is nowhere near the typical verbal abilities for her age.  She screeches and repeats monosyllables. She does a crazy frozen chicken dance when she’s excited. Her facial expressions don’t indicate what she’s feeling until she’s screaming. She hits her head with her palm or finds something to bang her head on when she’s frustrated. She squeezes underneath her play vanity and just lays there. She walks her room in circles, picking up toys to hand to me. The toys are unloved, unplayed with. She hands me another toy. She lays facedown on the carpet, silent for minutes. I long to hear her voice. I can tell the difference between noises for the sake of noise and actual attempts to communicate by the hesitant, high-pitched tone of her little voice. I struggle to remember what her real voice sounds like. Yellow duck, done, up, cow, moo, oink, cat, book, all are words that she no longer says. Her baby brother, F, squeals and jabbers, and I try to remember what she sounded like at six months, but I can’t. She didn’t sound like anything.

That’s it for now. I’m tired. I have work, housecleaning, paperwork, laundry, and a million other things to do. And C has therapy twice a week. I also have a six month old baby who is just getting lost in all this craziness. It’s difficult, and I have a feeling things are going to get harder in August. W starts college, I’ll be in school too, and we both have to work to try to keep our heads above water.

it's sunday morning, and everyone here is asleep. the dog, the baby, the cat, the husband. i got up early for some time to myself, and decided to finally finish watching loose change. i am fucking disturbed. i really hope none of it is true. why can't we just curl up with a cup of tea and our belief in America? see, now i'm pissed off and i don't know what to do about it. does anyone else just feel overwhelmed? i totally understand blind patriotism….you know, just trusting that the people in power are doing what's in our best interest. believing that the lot you're given is what you deserve. but i can't accept that. not anymore. the "american dream" is kicking our collective ass, and we're too scared of losing what we do have to question it. being a parent completely changes my willingness to openly question and push for change. if i follow what i believe and forsake the protestant work ethic because i know that it is the motor that runs capitalism, then i am unpatriotic, lazy, a pinko-commie bastard. and i may ruin my daughter's chances of succeeding in this society. on the other hand, if enough people would just assure me that they'll do the same….well, then i say fuck capitalism. let me establish a barter system, refuse to pay taxes that fund the killing of innocent people, start my own tribe, become part of a new self-sustaining society. what are we supposed to do? is this what happens to democrats once they reach the top levels of government? do they just roll over and sigh "oh, for fucks sake!" then proceed to vote for their own pay raises and retirement plans, while the rest of us pray that social security will still be there when it's our turn? arrrgh.

At what point did I become an old woman?

Last night my baby was at her grandmother’s house, we had the night off, and there was a sock puppet party to attend. So we made dinner, then went to the house. I only knew the girl that hosted it, and all the others were supercool hipsters. All carefree witty sarcastic college kids. And everytime a conversation got started, the only little anecdotes I could come up with were about my daughter or some other topic that just wasn’t that cool. I had absolutely nothing to say, except that in a fight with any past president, I would choose to fight Reagan. Trickle down? I’ll show you trickle down, bitch. I felt awkward and out of place, and I just wanted to go home and eat macaroni and cheese. Is this phenomenon typical for married mothers? I feel that I have all kinds of fun and witty things to say in the presence of close friends, but put me in a party and I feel like a hippopotamus in a duckpond. Conspicuously large, dumb, and in the way. Honestly, I’ve felt uncomfortable at parties thrown by someone other than myself for years, but for some reason I assumed that after staying in for so long (about a year) that I would just swoop in and be the life of the party. I should have known better….

And why am I only comfortable at parties that i am throwing? Maybe because I feel that I have control over who attends. Although, I’ve never been really picky about it. Only when I go somewhere else. It’s so bad now, I can barely go to the bar, which I used to love. 123 Pleasant St.? One of my favorite places. Last time I was there? 4 months ago at 2 am for about 15 minutes. Too many people were there and I had to retreat.

I guess for me, parties as I know them are a thing of the past. Dinner parties at my house with a couple beers will have to permanently replace late-night parties at my house with bottles of Absolut and naked dancing. At least until Chloe goes to college. Or summer camp.

Does anyone else feel that it is ok to occasionally add your trash to another person’s on the street on trash day? Even if it’s full of diapers? Here’s what happened: My trash had already gone, and I had a stinky, disgusting bag of diapers that I really didn’t want hanging around another week. So when I noticed that the trash on the next block was still there, and I was on my way to class, I nonchalantly carried the bag with me, and added it to some other household’s pile. The guy living there just happened to be walking to his car, and he gave me a reall really dirty look. You know, the kind you would give someone who cut in line, or farted in an elevator. I didn’t realize I was breaking some unspoken social rule. Honestly, I lived in a house once with a strange pseudo-family dynamic, and the oldest person there (who was probably only 25 at the time) insisted we did not need to pay for trash service. We just put it all on the side porch and a few times a month would sneak to the Dairy Mart and throw it in their dumpster in the middle of the night. Which was fine. Until all the cars owned by people in the house rolled over and sighed, “oh, for fuck’s sake!”, then refused to cooperate any longer. So the pile on the porch grew. And Grew. And Grew. Until no one would speak of the porch, or the origins of the stench coming through the door into the kitchen. Then, our breaker in the kitchen blew. The “patriarch” of the “household” stated that he would deal with it. He insisted it was not the breaker, and he would need to contact the landlord, who is another story unto himself. So we waited. Nothing happened. Everything in the freezer went bad. The microwave was moved into the living room, which was cool, because we could play super mario AND heat up our ramen noodles at the same time, without moving! The meat in the freezer started to stink. The landlord never came. Eventually one of us broke free from the collective spell, and went downstairs, only to find that the breaker had blown after all. The patriarch moved out. So did two other people in the house, leaving me and my last roommate to deal with everything. I vomited, everywhere, which just added to the clean up.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is this: taking out trash is important. paying for things like trash service is important. blindly following someone who says they have things under control is bad. (see any history book or political publication for examples) (they are numerous and disheartening) And finally, exercising your best judgement with due regard to people around you is possibly the best advice ever given.

This blog is for me. It is not for you, whoever you are. What are you doing wasting your time listening to me, anyway? You are allowed to read this because I wish it so. I get to write this now because it’s late, my baby’s asleep, my husband is not home from work yet, I’ve already done all the inane household upkeep, and I’m avoiding studying. That last one is key. I’m thrilled to no longer be a part (at least not a major part) of the minimum wage workforce, yet I’m finding it hard to concentrate on college.

My proposal for this blog is that it will be an attempt for me to put the contempt I feel at society in general into some sort of constructive criticism. Now, there will definitely be times when I’ll let “constructive” go to hell, and just decide to complain. There will probably be other times when I will write completely ridiculous stories about life in general.

So, if you feel like reading or commenting, please feel free. I believe that people who post anything on the internet should be prepared for any comments.