haddayr

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”

Treasures

I have no idea what a non-autistic 10-year-old’s pockets are filled with on laundry day; here is the treasure I found last night in AJ’s pockets: Two pairs of earbuds, only one of them his Gorgeous origami paper, the back of which contained directions for making a dove Five watch batteries (?) This incredibly detailedContinue reading “Treasures”

A scream in the night

Blearily, I head up the stairs tonight to get the boys’ nighttime started. Jan has a thrown-out back and we are both out of it. I make sure AJ is tucked into my bed with his Kindle (he reads there before bed while his little brother and I read in the other room). “Bob*,” IContinue reading “A scream in the night”