Bedtime Story

Our first video blog. Aw.

I interview The Kid, kinda, about Star Wars.

The Kid, Star Wars Expert. from Molly G on Vimeo.

By far, the highlight is the appearance of "the fuzz" at around 00:55.

Out of practice

I've let the blog go to seed a bit. I need to moderate some comments for viagra out of the posts from 2006, and when I went to type "blogger.com" into my web browser, I wrote "globber.com." I'm totally out of sync with the me that used to write this thing. I'm a mess, generally. I need to get my writer self back, I don't even know what voice to use any more.

So, like, my life changed pretty significantly last year. I moved to take care of my mother, and my jamming personal space was totally disrupted, so the ambiance I like to write in is all but gone. I also changed jobs, same company and all, but totally different job, where I'm now essentially a technical writer. I write all effing day, and I don't have the creative juices to write for myself anymore. It's totally soul crushing, this technical, sterile writing. I spend all day cracking my brain for new and interesting ways to describe benefit shortfalls nowadays, I just don't have the energy to talk about myself for more than a second.

But that's brought me to another reason for this drought: the fucking fact that I am writing a blog. Who writes blogs? Am I one of those people? I completely lack the skill of many mom-bloggers who can write about just about anything that happens to them and manage to make it sound interesting... Many bloggers have lives that sound enviable, in some way, or at least their online personas make it so. Urban, social, experimental, I dunno. Just enviable. No one envies me... I'm pitiable by most, a fact I resent more than any other, including the fact that our country tortured prisoners of war, or some kind of horrible truth you don't want to look at, like how fat you've gotten since high school, or that your favorite tee shirt is now see-through, or whatever.

But I hate, more than so many, many other more important things, bloggers who whine for a living. Not just bloggers, people. I'm totally not a whiner, by definition. So, that is not my blog.

And I can't make this blog a series of "how my son was injured by mental health professionals," no matter how badly my psyche wants me to take up that subject, again and again and again, because nothing's going to make my feelings on that subject better but time, maybe therapy (if only I could find a therapist I thought was smart enough for the discussion), and some serious congressional smackdown of the fuck-holes who invented pediatric bipolar while concurrently getting paid by the pharma industry to sell their products.

The Kid is his own story, and I am my own. I've been telling his through my own eyes for so long, I don't have a story of my own any more. Oh fuck, when did I become like one of those lazy bitches who'd show up crying on Oprah? Ick. I repulse myself.

Anyway, I really want to figure it all out. And I'm just enough a member of this generation that's not quite Gen X and not quite Gen Y, that I'm all for trying to figure it out on the internet, where I get input from random strangers, and dear friends, who know my address.

Bear with me. The next few posts are going to be rough til I figure out what I sound like again.

Over the years I've developed quite the ritual to prepare for big school meetings. I always read everything I can in the days before, favorite chapters of my favorite books about The Kid's various issues; I lose sleep, I toss and turn; I get really stressed for a good 24 hours; I drink some beer; I listen to loud hard rock music in the car on my drive over to the school. All of this has served me pretty well, I suppose over the years, but now, I have a new secret weapon. It's a talisman, of sorts.

My friend Karen makes jewelry. That's not entirely accurate. She is a purveyor of gorgeous beads and charms who can combine them into the most sublime combinations with personalized touches and gorgeous details. She is also a mom of two fabulous young men. The older of the two is smart as a whip, an outgoing and funny little guy. The younger of them is a happy, gentle kiddo who loves words and letters, and has autism.

Karen has started two new endeavors recently, two etsy shops: one selling charms, the other jewelry. Karen made me a bracelet, a private power source for my every day life... She personalized mine, with beautiful colored crystals in the colors of Autism Awareness, The Kid's initials, a bead that says "HOPE" and a charm with the sign for Ohm, for my quest to approach each person in my life with the true, deep acknowledgement of their light and goodness (a wordy way of saying I try to say "namaste" to everyone I meet, even in IEP meetings), and for The Kid's abiding interest in Chakra Symbols.

This bracelet is definitely one of the things I would reach for if I had to flee my house in the dead of night. Not only is it beautiful, but symbolic, a talisman. It gives me power. It reminds me I have support in my friends, I look down at The Kid's initials and am reminded of why I do it all.

Take a click over to her site. Her stuff is beautiful.

(cross posted from www.hopefulparents.org)

Pharma Humor

This took me a while to finally post, but this has had me laughing for weeks now.



It's absolutely right on.

It's not you, it's me.

I have to come clean. Promise to hear me out first. Please. Okay? Don't get mad before you've heard everything I have to say. Are you alright? You, um, might want to sit down for this.

I've been posting elsewhere.

I know, I know. It's shocking that I can even get my fingers to the keyboard at all, let alone to a second blog. I just get something about this other blog. I'm drawn to it. I can't explain it.

Please don't be jealous. I love you. I really do.

http://www.hopefulparents.org/blog/2009/2/12/least-restrictive-environment-anxiety-attack.html

Happy Birthday, Baby Who Is Not A Baby

Sometimes words just can't get it right. Perhaps a very amateur picture slideshow can attempt to tell you how blown away with how big my boy is.


The Kid's first 9 years from Molly G on Vimeo.

Why I will be rooting for the Steelers this weekend...

In all fairness, I would have been anyway, but a Pittsburgian friend of mind told me this story today:

In 1975, The Terrible Towel® was created by the late Steelers broadcaster Myron
Cope to inspire fan involvement in a playoff game against the then-Baltimore
Colts. Thirty-three years later, The Terrible Towel® remains a Steelers
fan essential. And for the past 12 years, the sale of any The Terrible
Towel® product benefits the children and adults with intellectual/developmental
disabilities who are served by Allegheny Valley School. The funds that
Allegheny Valley School receives from The Terrible Towel® are used to cover
costs such as equipment, program expansions and renovations to our facilities.

The Allegheny Valley School is school and community care provider for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

How awesome is that?

Disability is my life.

And I'm completely finding myself in disbelief that this is what it's come to.

My child is disabled. My mom is disabled. I care for them. I worry about them both, 24/7.

My professional career, which began, years ago, as a temp job, has become completely and totally about disability. [and before you go there, it's totally about insuring against disability, not actually helping those with disabilities, unless you consider those who have become disabled after already having been insured, AND you are rich. It's not noble work.]