haddayr

Reality Check

ME: AJ, I think you’re handling this disappointment really well — without yelling or freaking out or whining. AJ: I am doing a HORRIBLE job! Listen to me! I’m whining right NOW!

I made it I made it I passed the audition

And so did one of my besties!!!! So, I am going to be in the show Listen to Your Mother, doing a live version of my last MPR commentary on my youngest son whose name isn’t Bob, who turned the tables on strangers who stare at his mom. I am in quite fine company.

Audition

Just auditioned for the Twin Cities version of Listen to Your Mother. The women holding the audition were lovely. Because my piece had to do with disability, they assigned me to specific place that was more accessible than the original audition space that was in a warehouse up two flights of stairs. I was soContinue reading “Audition”

MarsCon!

Goodness it was fun to see my kids geek out at the Klingons who menaced the entrance and play MTG and stare open-mouthed at the 3D printer and giggle at the air cannon and sit bored through my panel, taking the talk of kissing in stride. It was not fun to have food poisoning makeContinue reading “MarsCon!”

Disabled parenting

I’ve written a rather uncharacteristically personal piece for MPR this time, about parenting a shy kid when you stand out in the crowd: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/02/28/haddayr

Ick.

I was at first overjoyed to finally be working on fiction again. But it has become clear that this story is so disgusting I cannot eat for hours after working on it. Ah, the glamour of the writing life.

Ill-suited

I do not think I am overstating when I say that I have handled having an inexplicable, wildly fluctuating, baffling and mysterious disabling disorder with a fair bit of levelheaded calm. Panache, even. Style. (My wheels and my crutches are sa-WEET.) This is not how I’m handling my concussion. Not at all. I wonder. IsContinue reading “Ill-suited”

Love

Bob* and I are reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s These Happy Golden Years. Bob is eight. Love is icky; kissing, unspeakable. In tonight’s chapter, Almanzo just kissed Laura and gave her a ring. Bob handled it as best he could, hands over his ears, wincing until it was over. Then, we both pretended to vomit intoContinue reading “Love”

Helpless

Fifth grade is a time, books like Raising Cain tell me, that boys are figuring out what it means to be boys and eventually men. They are figuring this out in a seething cesspool of social jockeying, confusion, cruelty, and thoughtlessness. And my small-for-his-age, glasses-wearing, underweight, anxious autistic kid is swimming in it. I rememberContinue reading “Helpless”

Finally at peace with my hatred of Valentine’s Day

As the years go by, I feel increasingly sheepish about my utter loathing for Valentine’s Day. It seems like such a stereotypical Gen X thing to do: sneering at candy hearts and sweet sentiments and sex. Who sneers at sex? Oh, so insufferable, my loathing for this day. But I can’t help it. For aContinue reading “Finally at peace with my hatred of Valentine’s Day”