Mom-NOS, Book Two

So, COVID-19. Full disclosure here: I learned during the pandemic that I am more risk-averse than the average person. We all locked down, but I was one of those people who locked down in a hypervigilant sort of way. When other people started relaxing and going out in public again, I was still unapologetically vigilant. My family and I vaxxed as soon as we could vax and boosted as soon as we could boost. We were at Def-Con 4 much longer than most. But in recent months, I tried to be reasonable and open minded. I listened when experts said that conditions had changed—that the vaccines and boosters and available treatments were game-changers, and that even if fully vaccinated people got COVID-19, it would really just manifest as a bad cold. In late February, the college where I work—and where everyone is vaxxed and boosted—lifted its mask mandate, and I stopped masking there for the 10 hours a week that I was on site. I started taking calculated risks in other locations—I ate in a restaur

In the fall of 1984, I was in my first semester of college. The Berlin Wall was still standing and would be for another five years. Geraldine Ferraro had just lost her bid to become the country's first woman vice president. My psychology professor posed a question to a lecture hall of about 250 students: By a show of hands, he asked, how many of us believed that there would be a nuclear war in our lifetime? Hands flew up around the room—an overwhelming majority. Then he asked a second question, again by a show of hands: How many of us believed that a woman would be president of the United States in our lifetime? A few hands raised. In the fall of 2016, I replayed that scene from my college class in my head a hundred times. By then, the Soviet Union and the Cold War had been over for 25 years. Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination and seemed positioned to become the first woman president of the United States. In the weeks leading up to the November 8 election, I walked a

I got a call yesterday from a new case manager in an organization that provides support to my son. She'd set up the call with me because she needed me to complete a questionnaire that charts a client's needs over time. Our old case manager used to email them to me to complete and return, but the new case manager and I are still getting used to each other, so I took her lead. After a little chit chat—howhaveyoubeen,sureiscold,springiscoming—she launched into the questions. She asked, "In the past thirty days, would you say blahblahblah has been better, worse, or the same? My mind went blank. Thirty days? The past two years have been a blur, simultaneously one week and five years long. What was thirty days ago? Who was I then?  "I...I guess...Better?" I answered. "Lovely!" she said. "And why do you think that is?" I started to panic. "Um...I don't know...I mean, we've been making a lot of progress with...you know, we're doing a

 Yeah, so, remember a couple of weeks ago when I was all " I'm going to embrace my gray hair "? About that. My stylist worked her foil magic and softened the demarcation line between new growth and old color just as she said she would. But, yeah. It doesn't make me look like Emma Thompson. And I know, these things take time, patience is a virtue, and all that. But in the past few weeks I have also discovered that I need to use readers to actually see my phone, and between the half-moon glasses and the gray roots, I'm feeling like Miss Havisham.  So I would like to print a retraction, and clarify that for the time being: Things that will remain golden: Retrievers Silence 50th wedding anniversaries Rings given by one's true love on the fifth day of Christmas Slumbers Globes Girls Me Image is me with my Golden Retriever, Roscoe. Our hair is the same color and we are both smiling.

I'm proud of A Hair-Dryer Kid in a Toaster-Brained World . I was proud of it in 2010 and I'm proud of it now. The real-life presentation had a synergistic energy—the right message to the right people at the right time. And based on the feedback the post got (and is getting right now—thank you for that), it translated well to the written page. So, yes. I'm glad I wrote it. I'm glad I presented it. I'm glad I posted it. But. When I gave that presentation back in 2010, I forgot—or, maybe, I did not yet understand—the most basic premise of disability rights: Nothing about us without us. In retrospect, from my 2022 vantage point, it breaks my heart that I didn't find a way to include Bud in the presentation to his classmates. I didn't give him the option to participate. I didn't tell him what I was planning. I didn't give him the option to say "I don't want you to do that." And I really, really wish I had. Shortly after I met with his classm

When my son Bud was in fourth grade, his teacher invited me to talk with his classmates. They had approached her with a lot of questions about Bud and about autism. She knew his classmates cared about him and that their questions were coming from a good place, but she was not sure how to answer them. So she handed out index cards and asked them to write down their questions, and then she passed their questions on to me. They were incredible: What is autisim Do you know all the Diffrent ways Bud learns? How come nose bother Bud so much Why Dose Bud repet so many lines from TV shows or movies? Why Dose Bud Have to move so much? - What disability does Bud have? - Please explain. - Was he born this way? - How did it happen? - What goes on in Bud's head? - Why does he repeat things? - Why does he run in circles? - How can I help? - How come Bud gets attatched to people and then always wants to be with that person? - Does Bud know he's different? - Why does Bud have