The Tombstone Shall Be My Diploma

Read my profile! You'll get a better idea of me there!

I'm an awkward extrovert. I'll be an awkward extrovert until the day I die, and they'll have to bury me twice.

Most of my entries are locked, so you'll have to befriend my blog if you care to read more. A big kid at heart, I garner lots of fun things that include stamps from rating communities, usually rating communities with animated themes. Below is a sample, and there are many more stamps under the cut. They should explain more about what I'm like, but let it be known that the majority of my actual blog entries are serious natured. Scroll past this one for unlocked examples.



Stamps



The stamp doesn't say so, but this one was based off looks.













I know I have other stamps for Marina Del Rey besides these. They're somewhere. I lost track. I'm the biggest Marina Del Rey you'll ever meet in your life, minus the killing streak and adding in maternal feelings.











This was compiled (by someone whom I don't know in the least) in the same month as my getting the direct above stamp. Silliness notwithstanding, I'm such a coincidence magnet!

The rest are behind the other cut...

( This is long-winded, just like me! )

Playing Clue with large groups of in-laws that include my senile great-aunt-in-law who is so big she takes up three chairs and so slow she takes ten minutes to figure out what to do whenever it's her turn in the board game made me smack my head on a wooden table multiple times. Gotta get away from offers to do things with that woman! Ack!

I kept losing on purpose, teamed with my daughter who would show her cards to everyone. This game is normally fun. Playing with a lady who can barely move her arms, the size of monster truck tires, a lady who seems to have a giant meatball in her head instead of a brain, amidst a crowd who tries to explain the game to everyone in super slow voices...

This is not fun! Some of them are still playing, including Great-Aunt-in-Law who has yet to figure out the game and remember what to do beyond one minute. If it was funny, that would be one thing. I'm sure it would be funny if I were watching it on television. Living this is just boring.

Maybe I should be more patient with Elizabeth. After all, I've no idea how much longer she has to live. Death came for her niece much sooner than expected.

Also, Benita tried to eat a crow that slammed into a window today and fell down dead. She begged for permission to eat it, saying that it looked really good to eat. Permission denied.


EDIT, ROUGHLY AN HOUR LATER

Elizabeth lost her hair comb. It has not been found.

Tinker Bell, Jacqueline's pug, went missing. James found her while Juan was saying, "I bet it was Mrs. White with the wrench in the living room that got Tinker Bell!" and causing nervous laughter all around at the reference to Clue.

In the board game's last round, the cards were shuffled poorly so that the guilty party was the hall with the billiard room and the library. What evil rooms.

The in-laws are still trying to decipher the Case of the Missing Hair Comb. With Elizabeth's memory and the general all-around slowness involved, it will never be found! James and yours truly are the token geniuses of his family. They're the first to say so.

I love these folks so much.

That being so, this clan makes for the absolute worst detectives possible!


SEVEN MINUTES LATER

Sacrificed my own best comb for the greater good, or to at least end this failure at mystery solving.


SEVEN MORE MINUTES LATER

James reclaimed my comb on the grounds that said comb is a custom-made. He went out to buy his great-aunt replacements. His brother, James Allen, said, "This is just like The Hunt for Red October!" and now James Allen (not to be mistaken for his big brother and my husband, James Alis) will not stop quoting The Hunt for Red October. It's a missing comb, toots. I do not see the correlation at all.

Assholes make up the vast majority in my extended family. They told me at the last minute that they were having Thanksgiving at my house this year. I had hosted just last year. I had no timely warning, no input. A bunch of racists that I happen to share bloodlines with were going to invite their butting in butts in whether I liked it or not. I had to tell them to hit the road every day for the past four days, because there was no way I could host this year.

They instead had their feast in a community center. I popped in with my husband and kids for a little while. Benita thinks Megan is the coolest person ever, much like I once thought my cousin Carol was the coolest person ever. Devoid of Cheryl and Carol, reunions are more awkward, not less. Whatever sense of family I did have from those bastards is gone with Agoraphobic Carol never showing up and Cheryl gone before her time. Relations have spent the past years pretending that I don't exist except to take advantage of my hospitality, and James absolutely doesn't exist to them except when they want to make bad weight jokes.

I was so worried in fear that they would make racist comments on our Asian son and Eurasian daughter. No, they didn't. They just ignored them entirely. The youngest generation played with Benita, with the exception of one boy whom I'll speak on in a minute, and Benita was obliviously optimistic as ever. As for me, I'm shocked and disgusted.

THREE BABIES TO HOLD. James and I came in that community center with three infants. Two were held by relations. Two were complimented. One was entirely ignored except by those whom I actually care for that had met him a couple days prior.

How can you entirely ignore a baby? My heart is broken and sick.

Jubilee and Eulalia have grown well. I heard a lot of remarks such as, "Those twins really do look like their parents put together!" Nothing about Little James.

Being the blunt people we are, guess what I and my husband did? We directly asked. We were directly ignored. We asked why were getting ignored. One cousin dared to say, "It's too bad we have to look down and see a Chinese baby." I whisked the baby into the bathroom and hid to avoid doing something I'd not regret.

We left as soon as possible, but not until my precious autistic nephew and his family left. I can't stand my cousin Kathy and her snooty sister and her snooty husband and her snooty teenage daughters. I love her second grade son. "Everyone" says that he's so hard to control and so noisy and impossible. "Everyone" is utterly clueless if that is how they see him. He is so much more easy to manage than "normal" kids are. All I did was sit and talk to him like a friend, as opposed to speak to him like a constant enforcer of discipline in the style of every other female adult there.

I talked with my nephew for literal hours while James kept the peace with the bigots. My heart broke all the more today, listening to this sweet boy with a bracelet identifying him as autistic say, "I'm embarrassed to tell you about school because of when I'm bad there. I'm so bad I got kicked out of two schools."

Children don't need perfection from parental figures. They don't, they don't, they don't. I have tears in my eyes right now.

I told the kid that there was no way he should ever be embarrassed around me, that I understood entirely, that I've been there and worse. "Not like me," he said. "You've never been as bad as me. I'm bad all the time."

Excuse me. I'm going to go and slap some teachers for destroying the self-esteem of such a beautiful boy. Kathy kept saying to everyone in earshot that the schools had no idea how to handle him. What on earth is wrong with those schools? Just engage the kid in a friendly manner, and he's fine! How can the schools not figure that out? I figured him out in a millisecond!

A large number of people also told me that the boy spoke longer with me today than he has ever spoken with anyone. Hey, he's quite the little flatterer! "I don't think you're annoying. I think you're... nice and... nice and... nice." I think I felt myself blush when he said that. He is eight. I had known him in the past, but he had no language skills in all the years before. So many still speak as if he has no language skills. They'll turn to his mother or aunt or father, asking for translations. That makes no sense to me. He speaks clear English. I'm an actress who graduated a lot of speech training, and I say he speaks completely understandable English. "If you're autistic, too, why do you wear a silver watch and no autism bracelet? Where do you put the battery in the watch? It doesn't have a screwdriver!" He's inquisitive!

I want to steal that kid! He doesn't deserve his asshole parents and his incompetent school! I know I could home school him. I know he would absolutely thrive living at my house.

My heart is shattered on the floor. Why am I related to monsters? I'll never receive a satisfying answer for that query.

The youngest generation is the only reason I put up with this bullshit. I only see my nephew twice a year. Were it not for him, this would be the absolute last year for going to these sort of celebrations.

One last entry before we are out of here!


This is how positive my daughter's attitude is...

"Today was a good day when my mommy only had five seizures."
~~ Sincerely said after what was NOT a good day at all

"THAT MAN WAS ONLY MISSING THREE FINGERS!"
~~ Said, in earshot, of a man we met while shopping outdoors

"You are only a little rude."
~~ Said to a boy who was slamming doors on everyone

"I am almost rich."
~~ Said amidst my moaning on finances

"DADDY SAID I COULD! DADDY SAID I COULD! DADDY TOLD ME TO!"
~~ Said after practically flooding the bathroom with bath water, soap bubbles, soap figurines, an inflatable book and a destroyed cheap shower rod... James had told her to "have fun" and she did


I attempted to emulate her, but my attempts were failures. "I am only sick for 39 percent of my life" coming from me doesn't have the same effect that a sincere positive outlook from a five year old has.

Do you know what the worst thing about Jacqueline's death is?

She was a defeatist in life with such low confidence in herself and such shaky faith in the things to come.

What I want to do is buy a larger house with room for an old-fashioned six foot oil painting of the woman. For her, I will love myself every moment of every day and go back to the good things I left in the dust. I'll go back to not giving a damn as to however it is I come across. It gave me a life of adventure, and it gave me a husband and children. I wish that piece of me had done more to rub off on her, but by the time we were close, I was worrying so much about technicalities and labels that I forgot... what sustained me... and that was indeed a lot of shooting in the dark, metaphorically speaking, and yet you've got to get something that way. Much better than never living at all if your lot in life is a choice of those two extremes. If she had known this sooner, she would have saved herself a lot of pain earlier in her life. I have to never forget one of the few precious concepts I was born appreciating. It truly is a precious knowledge. Whatever "regular" is, I believe she gave me a glimpse of exactly what I would have been were I born that way.

I've spent every day since her death bawling like a baby. Pseudoseizures are at their height. My husband is handling this so much better than I, and she was his mother! Making her a birthday cake made me sick to my stomach. She couldn't eat it. What a bad idea.

I dedicate myself to her memory. If this is what chases away my own mother's ghost, I dedicate myself to her memory tenfold. I will continue to better myself, but I will always keep the beautiful and confident fireworks. Our fireworks can explode together and follow other corny lines from the tip of my head, and I'll stop belittling myself and I'm not going ask for you to excuse me because I do not need excusing for leaving to cry more.

Jacqueline Paola
"Paulette Bonafonté"
19 [20] November 1959 - 16 [17] November 2009

Image from her wedding vow renewal, 2002


We are making her a chocolate birthday cake today. She did not live to see her birthday nor her son's family's return. It is times like these when I wonder what the fates are smoking that such unexpected deaths sneak up on those so dearly loved and needed.

WHY HER??? COME BACK, COME BACK, COME BACK!!!

She and I had our fights. She was my mother-in-law, and our similar styles and closeness in age caused petty clashes born out of nervousness on both our parts... and I loved her. We grew to adore each other. I never once expected her to leave so soon. I'm only kidding myself if I theorize that lively people can't die before their time. Jacqueline was a continual blast of fireworks suddenly ended by a storm not found on radars.

Who around here is good at interpreting dreams?

I was recently added by a friend of a friend, and I've got a simple little thing to say to her. I may be completely misjudging the scenario, so bear with me and feel free to tell me that I don't know what I'm saying. This person is in high school, as are her number of friends that have recently started to frequent LiveJournal. If I'm not mistaken, she was specifically talking to one of these girls not too long ago. She was telling her to stop complaining of her lot in life. I think I know exactly who it was she was speaking to.

Honey, if I'm right in my guess, then I have to say that you and your circle of friends tend to treat this pal like she isn't as smart as the rest of you, like she's only a silly pain, like she doesn't dream as big enough as the rest of you because she isn't quite that smart. Please stop doing that. You're probably doing it by unintentional second nature. From what I've seen, she is quite happy as of now. That doesn't mean she is oblivious. Don't be surprised if she starts questioning every thought from you lot five or ten years from now, if not sooner. Most friends from my high school years wound up as enemies quite some time after graduation, and those who didn't all but one became people I never purposely talked to again.

Just respect her. Remember why you became friends in the first place. I should hope it wasn't to make yourselves look better. I bet it wasn't. I bet you all became friends because you're excitable girls with common interests who love to laugh at the adventures known as life. Years from now, you're going to regret whatever smidgens of superiority you feel toward her because you take more advanced classes than her and she may or may not be struggling with her regular classes. What does the public school system know about intelligence in the first place? I left high school two years early like a bat out of hell after eating up credit hours like cookies, even though I was constantly threatened with special education classes and did get stuck in a few. That's a large part of why I left like a bat out of hell.

You added me to your list of friends. You get my soapbox. Don't like it, leave it.



Got something else to mention, on a different topic. Take a look at this shallow little article...

You've really got to take a look. It's almost humorous.

I shall dissect this thing from a personal standpoint. It'll be fun.

First of all, I love how this says "wives" and assumes two things. It assumes heterosexuality, and it assumes that HFA females do not exist. This is already off to such a great start.

Quotes from the article are put in quotations below.

"Asperger's Syndrome is a neurological disorder considered as high-functioning autism. Individuals with this syndrome have difficulty with social aspects of intelligence. This manifests itself as a notable lack of 'common sense.'"

Sure. Nothing offensive there, and no, that wasn't sarcasm on my part. Now, here comes the train wreck.

"Because these types of brain disorders seem to be more common in men, many times wives have trouble getting the support they need."

Because everyone is heterosexual and we just don't care about affected women and their husbands.

"The shortcomings of adults with Asperger’s Syndrome have been camouflaged beneath layers of coping strategies and defense mechanisms. Their behavior often gives the impression of someone perhaps a little eccentric or odd - but passable because of their high or gift in an area or career, such as engineering."

That last sentence had a word missing. I'm barely passable. I'm certainly not passable because I know anything whatsoever of engineering. The stereotype that functioning autistics are good at what's technical is a load of crock. My mind isn't technical in the least and it hates math. I lucked out because I've always had obsessions related to socializing. I'm an extroverted female who is seen as an overly emotional ditz. I'm not gifted, though I could say the corny thing and say I was gifted with a large maternal heart.

"Life with an AS spouse is very isolating. Since the AS person in public often appears normal, others do not understand the spouse's suffering. Spouses of people with Asperger Syndrome play an abnormally large caregiver role. Even when AS people are successful professionals, their families cannot rely on them to participate fully in family life since they typically don't do their share of chores or provide emotional support to other family members."

My husband is introverted by his own nature. I don't isolate him. He chose me. Even if I do completely idiotic things, I don't isolate him because we're two separate people and the rest of the world is smart enough to realize that we are two separate people! The only times he isolates himself for my sake are all by his own will because, and here's a funny thing to know, he actually loves me. He does indeed play an abnormally large caregiver role. So what? He knows I'm thankful. He went into our relationship expecting to play a larger caregiver role than needed. As to the bits on chores and emotional support, I've been doing nearly all the chores since unemployment out of gratitude and I shower my family with emotional support! If hugging and kissing my family to pieces every day isn't emotional support, I don't know what is. My kids are too young to start coming to me with their problems, but they will most certainly be able to once problems arise. My parents never listened to me. They only told me I was bad and that I shouldn't have lived. Why on earth would I ever treat my children the same way?

"Although people with Asperger’s Syndrome do feel affection towards others, relationships are not a priority for them in the same way that it is for people who do not have Asperger’s Syndrome. People with Asperger’s Syndrome generally seem to be more focused on a particular interest, project or task than on the people around them."

Eh, and does this mean that priority cannot become relationships in a family? Once I knew I wanted a family, I poured into it all I had. This is my own family! I adore them, so what does it matter that I'm quirky? I had enough sense to not have kids when they weren't a priority. Again, James found me and James loves me. That was always his choice. I am as surprised as the next person that I never pushed him away in the past.

"Because the person with Asperger’s Syndrome does not have the same relational needs as the non-Asperger partner, he or she is mostly unable to recognize instinctively or to meet the emotional needs of his or her partner. Marriages can thus form seriously dysfunctional relationship patterns."

Bullshit. I'm lots of things. Retarded ain't one of them. Besides which, the both of us have strange relational needs. Neither of us predicted falling head over heels in a straight relationship. True emotional affection itself is a much larger part of our love life than sexual feelings are.

"The denial, the complex and multi-layered coping mechanisms and defensive strategies make it difficult to live successfully in a relationship with someone who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Often the afflicted will deny there is a problem, since one of the disorder's main characteristics is the lack of ability to imagine someone else's point of view."

I'm exceptionally honest about myself. Denial that anything is wrong happens on rare occasions, but give me a few minutes and I'm back to my honest witty self. That "one of the disorder's main characteristics is the lack of ability to imagine someone else's point of view" is just a lie. Even classically autistic folks can imagine other viewpoints. Expressing that they imagine other viewpoints is the challenge. As for me, I can put myself in anyone's shoes. I am so honored to be so beloved. No one always shows how they feel, regardless of how supposedly "normal" they are.

"People who do not have Asperger’s Syndrome enter a marriage with the normal expectation that the priority of a marriage relationship will be about togetherness, mutual terms and meeting of needs, but in reality the relationship ends up being more one of practicality and convenience for the person with Asperger’s Syndrome than for the loving and meeting of emotional needs of the marital partner."

Again, James's expectations were less normal than the reality. Admittedly, I chose my mate for "practicality and convenience" at first, but I was never silly enough to settle for just anyone. I always trusted James. How can you not fall in love with someone who loves you more than words can ever say? His "emotional needs" connect back to me. Simple as that. Isn't that what a partnership is supposed to be in the first place, a union of trust where each person's own emotional fulfillment is found in the joy of another?

"In many cases, the Asperger partner analyzed the partner prior to marriage and assessed them as being capable of filling a compensatory role for his own deficits. The non-Asperger partner then unwittingly fills the role of personal assistant. In the privacy of their relationship, the spouse who does not have Asperger’s Syndrome will more than likely be physically and emotionally drained, working overtime to keep life on track for both of them. Perhaps the relationship has taken on more of the characteristics of a business partnership or arrangement."

Unwittingly my ass. I'll not deny much in this paragraph, but this once again generalizes. Why would I give my trust to someone who didn't realize what they were getting into? Also, we're two people. We're not every specific case.

"For those who had normal expectations of the mutuality of marriage, there will be a sense of betrayal and a feeling of being used and trapped. Instinctively they know that their partner needs them, but feelings develop that the relationship is about the needs and interests of the person with Asperger’s Syndrome and that there is not even room for their own voice."

When did James ever want normalcy? As true as this no doubt can be, what relationship isn't flawed? I'm perfectly capable of apologizing and setting things right. Sure, there will always be more incidents. It's called balance. I owe James a lot of the balance that I now have.

"Many partners feel that they are daily sacrificing their own sense of self to help fulfill the priorities of the partner who has Asperger’s Syndrome. They begin to feel that they are entirely defined by the role they fill for their Asperger partner. There’s a sense that there is no mutuality, no equality, no justice."

This just keeps repeating itself, doesn't it? Look, Lady Who Wrote Drivel, I'm sorry that you had some bad dating experiences with two or three men with Asperger's Syndrome. You weren't their type. You're far too judgmental.

"People married to someone with Asperger’s Syndrome continue to hope for the mutual meeting of emotional needs within the marriage and resent the reality of living on terms dictated by the needs and priorities of the partner with Asperger’s Syndrome. In effect, their flexibility is exploited by the inflexibility of the person with Asperger’s Syndrome. This prompts an extremely manipulative behavior pattern, with the neurologically typical spouse going overboard to prevent stress. Living with someone who sees only his or her own viewpoint cannot help but damage a spouse's self-esteem."

My husband doesn't have a resentful bone in his body, nor do I have a million needs and priorities. He gives to me because he wants to, usually not because I need him to. I'm extremely flexible and spontaneous in most respects. If I'm manipulative on a daily basis, it is sincerely unintentional and I don't think that I am. As aforementioned, I can see beyond my viewpoint. My self-esteem is what's damaged and what will probably be shaky forever. That's due to living in this cruel world and has nothing to do with our relationship. James's self-esteem is quite healthy.

"The neurotypical spouse must thoroughly evaluate all the issues before deciding if there is enough of value to make continuing the relationship worthwhile. Those who stay in a relationship with an Asperger’s-afflicted mate should do everything possible to be independent socially and financially. In most cases, the afflicted spouse will not be able to make substantial changes, so the neurotypical spouse must be able to accept that. Knowing what to expect will make the marriage more predictable and manageable, if not easier."

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN TO INFLICT BREAK UPS! It basically comes out and says so here.


There is so little chance for "until death do us part"; almost all the statistics are against us. Having twins and now twins-with-new-triplet dramatically increases our chances of separation. Having at least one child who isn't fully normal herself increases our chances of separation. Our sexual preferences increase our chances of separation and not only that, neither of us care too much for sex in the first place. We wanted children while we had the chance and I wanted pregnancy. I have a plethora of mental conditions against us. I have an idiotic bigot of a birth father who wants custody of our children.

Screw it all. We'll not only make it, we're going to thrive. We thrive as of this moment. Money is irrelevant, especially when you've got neighbors sending packages to your house by the literal dozen.

A toast to living the impossible.

I hate young mothers. Oh, not all of them. I'm sure there are plenty of loving mature young mothers out there. I'm sure my mother-in-law was one of these to a certain extent, despite having three teen pregnancies. But my mother-in-law came from a dirt poor family for more generations than we are able to trace. Most of you know that I came from money, none of which I ever inherited for myself, and that I opt for the "white trash" stereotype over the rich manipulative game of my lineage's living in a heartbeat. I couldn't have stayed in that game if my life depended on it.

The perspective of my father, aunt and deceased mother is the direct reverse of the perspective of James's mother and aunties. Now, granted, there are plenty of generational blurs along with differences in class. Jacqueline was the surprise youngest of thirteen children and is technically from my own generation. It will never stop astounding me, though, the differences between my family in general and James's family in general. My family's perspective is that if you're not the best person around at whatever it is you do, you might as well kill yourself. If you have an addiction, you might as well kill yourself. If you're disabled at all, you might as well kill yourself. If you don't have ambition to begin with, you should join the military (as a number of my young relatives are pressured to do) or do something equally straining and if you can't handle this, you might as well kill yourself.

Yet if you have suicidal thoughts, you're horrible, even though "you might as well kill yourself" is practically the clan's mantra! Then there's wondering why the family struggles so much and why there is a high suicide rate amongst us. I've never been suicidal. I am immensely proud of this.

James's family gave his baby sister a cruise that they absolutely could not afford because she didn't drop out of the 11th grade after having to repeat it. James is the biggest success to come from his family, in terms of material wealth. He's the only member of his family for generations to have attended college, much less hold a doctorate. His brothers do well to hold down jobs that get them by. My in-laws burst with congratulations and positive energy at every minor accomplishment. They view James and I as complete geniuses. We're practically worshipped by them more often than not.

Such a lack of balance.

Returning to what I was saying, I hate young mothers. More specifically, I hate those snooty young mothers in their twenties or even late teens who were born with silver spoons in their mouths. Their daddies pay for everything, they have four hundred shoes and need more closets, they wreck their cars and their daddies always come to their rescue with better vehicles, they walk around with purses made for high school students and such cocky naïve attitudes and the certainty that their children will always be happily perfect because they are happily perfect in their own minds.

I used to say that I hated these kind of young brides. As young mothers, they're worse than young brides. They're dangerous as young mothers who leave their babies at daycare centers all day with money not their own and then say their babies are just like them. Their babies don't recognize who their mommies are.

I bring this up because someone whose pull-up diapers I changed a few times from back when has had a baby. I learned this today and I'm in shock. I guess it didn't register to me that this would happen, though I heard she was married. The baby is a girl and her name is Carly. It's not short for Charlotte. It's just Carly. Means "free".

I've said the name over and over to myself, and I still hate it. Carly's parents could have picked much better names. I can't wrap my mind around her mother being a parent.

Now, I know that it's rather silly for me to assume the girl in question is one of those young mothers, but I can't imagine her as a mother in another way.

Last night, I dreamt another annoying dream set in the future. In this dream, there were ornately handpainted portraits of my children... although the boy was a little girl looking significantly younger than his same age sisters "because the artist thought he'd play a joke", I was told. A girl looking to be in her early teenage years waltzed into my house with a group behind her and promptly auctioned off the portraits and then auctioned off my house without my having any say in the matter. As per always in these kind of dreams, James was absent.

Bet that girl was Carly.

I shouldn't view Carly's existence nor the existences of other children born to mothers like her mother as a slap in the face. Guess what, folks? I view it as one big slap in the face. "Who cares that you're a mother now? We're so much more smart and lucky and happy than you are. We can have kids, too, loser, and we'll live to see our great-grandchildren! We can be better moms!"

"You were probably the furthest memory from their minds when they had children," is what my more logical side tells me, although that's close to word-for-word what James said at the same time that my logic thought it.

Please read the post here. anthimaeria brought my giant glitch to my attention. The large letters in the announcement are now readable, as opposed to covering up a good chunk of the whole journal entry.

If you're too lazy or preoccupied to click on the link, WE'RE ADOPTING A BABY BOY... but I recommend clicking on the link.

Though, to be sure, I've written the long versions before. If you're in the communities for these kind of things, you've seem the long versions.

Still without a voice. Forget that walk. Babies still hate formula.

Finished a 5k last week, coming in fourth to last. Felt like crud for that. In perspective, I had c-section in July and finished a 5k in October, and finished in a sweater and long skirt!

Yesterday, I had a lovely case of swine flu hypochondria. It turns out that my sore throat, chills and cough are just a sore throat, chills and cough. I usually come down with this when the weather changes, but a handful of acquaintances have caught swine flu in a matter of days and, frankly, that kind of thing is just the ticket for sending me off the edge.

Anyway, because I'm contagious, James is staying home today to formula feed the babies. They hate it. It's good to feel needed. In James's words, "Of course they hate it. They're used to their mother's milk."

He was speaking baby-talk to them earlier, and either I was delusional or he wasn't making sense at all. I highly doubt that nursing babies think they can fly. They know nothing of flying. Maybe they were wriggling.

I am going overboard trying to convince myself that I don't have swine flu.

I've also lost my voice. After I wrote down "I LOST MY VOICE" on paper and showed it to James, he gave me congratulations. I glowered. "Um, I meant darn," he said. No, he didn't.

I have the greatest family.

I almost wrote I must have done something good to deserve James, then realized how much that sounded like a certain song.

I...

Briefly speaking, it looks like I'm an honorary researcher these days. When your husband's co-workers invite you to lunch and the lot of you get into discussions of their field, I'm betting you can consider yourself an honorary researcher.

To veer from the subject, the fortune cookies we get at one restaurant always seem jumbled around. But maybe they aren't. After all, most of what those little pieces of paper say could apply to anyone. Last time around, mine said something about my having great charisma that causes everyone to like me. "This belongs to everyone at this table but me," I said. "It belongs to James. People that couldn't stand each other are getting along now for his sake," said another. Oh. How was she to know that was the wrong thing to say? I gave a partial grimace, the one that says I am so stressed out and going to ignore you now. "It belongs to you," James interjected. He said something else, but I forgot what it was because I glanced at the table and realized that I had accidentally reached over for his fortune. Mine was still on the table. Jubilee made the little squeaking noise she started making this week whenever she's hungry, and no one ever did get around to opening what was supposedly my fortune.

There has to be symbolism in all that.

According to statistics, however accurate and inaccurate they are, my family goes far beyond the exception to the norm. Would that I could go back to the past and give my younger self a hint. My younger self at any time, even in this year. This isn't just "so 0.00000000000001%" that I'm used to it. That's just me. What's much more astounding are the odds beaten by my children and husband. We're elements of survival and rarity itself blended to make this, this beautiful creative hilarious loving unit that the world never could predict. Nita somehow has the impression that marriage is two people adopting each other. We all adopted each other, according to the way she looks at it. Her twin sisters adopted each other, she adopted them, her parents adopted each other, her parents adopted her, she adopted her parents, the babies adopted everyone... or something like that. (NB: She's home at last either late October or early November. Around 28 October.) You know what? That's not a bad outlook. It's silly, but her idealistic parents hope that, looking back twenty years from now, we can all say that we couldn't have chosen any better. I certainly don't believe I chose my parents. There's no way James chose his stepfathers.

Immediately after deciding to have children of our own, originally children of my own in my words - and that was when James proposed, I spent night after night pleading for any life that would trust me and love me enough to take the risk of choosing me.

Coincidence or not, I was bombarded with kids asking me to adopt them after a little over a month of those prayers and I still am.

Three answered me. Four, to count James who doesn't quite count because he was already around before the prayers.

I'm hard on myself. Still, I'm not without delusions of grandeur.

But how can I not think I did something good, something to earn this? Even if I've bombed life so far, which I know I've not completely, hey, I apparently deserve more and better chances.

A long time ago, before James was in my life, I had a fantasy of having a daughter. We would fix each other's hair and waste away days shopping for clothes and be closer than anything and realize we loved each other so much. Then I realized that daughter in my fantasy was just a younger form of myself. Other People's Kids ruined that fantasy shortly thereafter, and they would continue to ruin it for what I deemed too long.

One conclusion I've come to is that a lot of this finds its roots in mere appreciation. I'm not saying it's your fault if you can't appreciate me. It's probably not. It's probably the fault of a variety of societal influences beyond the control of mortals (although it probably seems like my fault).

You see, Other People's Kids aren't mine. Other People's Lives don't belong to me, either. Appreciation is a two-way street, usually not even that simple. My point is, no one likes to just be a substitute. I sure as hell can't make it as a substitute at anything. That's good, because I wouldn't be here if I could and I'm sure my life would be hollow in one way or another. My current life is grandly unorthodox, anything but hollow.

By the way, ye olde fantasy daughter was hollow. Only I can be all that I am. One of me is more than enough.

I'm moved to tears every single day, often at the most spontaneous moments. I cry all the more with every bit of research dug up that shows just how close to impossible this comfortable little fate is. I cry and laugh at once when breastfeeding. Eulalia and Jubilee don't pay attention to any of that. Babies are supposed to cry more than their mothers, aren't they? These two are peaceful, peaceful, peaceful... although Jubilee has taken to making what the neighbors dubbed "Pterodactyl squeaks" whenever hungry. How would anyone know what Pterodactyls sounded like?

I don't care, not the tiniest bit, that my body betrayed me in postpartum. It's always doing things like that. There are no known complications in my children. I've encountered all kinds of medics who actually went and told their buddies about how healthy the twins are.

I've got every reason to keep going! Who cares that there are still loose ends to the question "just what all is physically wrong with me this time"? Who cares that my medications tripped over each other and are making things worse? Who cares about the gloom and doom mentions of how I risk relapses of this and that? All right, all right, I care. I don't worry, though.

If my dreams count for anything, ridiculous as they are, I'm always alive when I dream of the future. I'm usually acting stupid in an equally stupid nightmare, but I'm alive. I didn't come all this way to drop from the land of the living now, no matter what anyone predicts. My family wasn't predicted.

Very minimal cut. I only removed dead journals and journals that no one uses anymore from my friends' group. If you come back around and would like to be added again, it won't be a problem.

ATTN:

Let it be known that at 8 weeks 6 days, adjusted age 2 weeks 3 days, Jubilee Gaia taught herself how to roll over!!!!!!!!

Let it also be known that her mother has sobbed out joyful tears for over four hours because of this!


Maybe I should have seen it coming. She figured out the functions of her neck and head very early (leading her paternal grandmother to say that she is just like James was when he was a baby). But I didn't see it coming at all. This is early!!! This is advanced!!! This is wonderful!!! This has to be a sign that I should quit letting fear of the uncertain consume me. What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful daughter... already living up to her name. I haven't stopped crying since the joyous event took place.

Looks like the question of what to do with the double bassinet is coming sooner or later, since the larger twin can roll over. I think the bassinet should stay for now. Jubilee might not roll over again for a long time, and the sisters have spent most of their lives next to each other. I'm sure any early change to that wouldn't be comfortable for either.

They're going to grow up so normally, wondering why their mother cries whenever a milestone is reached.

I'm getting a kick out of all these applicants to the mother's theme here saying that they would never insist their child do something they wouldn't want to do. Hard to believe, young'ins. When your kids are saying that they don't want to eat anything other than one type of food, when your kids are crying about not wanting to move away from the bonfire, when your kids are insisting they don't want an education... you'll change your minds. Mothers "force" their children to do things every day, because mothers are - surprise, surprise - actually wiser than their inexperienced children. That doesn't make them bad mothers. My mother was an extreme example who gave mixed signals, but generally speaking, all mothers, to an extent, enforce guidelines upon their offspring out of loving well-intentioned duty and instinct. It's called responsibility.

The default "cynical" smiley mood is much too angry. I'm only cynically amused.

I'm watching a new episode of What Not To Wear. Tonight's victim is a woman in her late forties who dresses like she is six - at the oldest. We're talking onesies and jumpers and pigtails and little girl dresses straight out of kid's departments.

How do they fit her???? Sure, I can see that she's on the short side, but I can't see how it's possible for these clothes to fit! Kids don't have postpartum curves! I can think of one explanation, though you probably don't want to know.

James just brought me a smoothie. Om nom nom nom.

Back to the show, Kiddie Complex Woman just said that she could no longer be sexy after having kids because mothers don't deserve to be sexy. Erm...

"That's retarded," I said aloud. I don't say "retarded"! But that is one of the most retarded things I have ever heard!

I've now lost all my respect for this nutcase. I'd call her by name if I could remember what her name is. Ah, it's Dias. All right, I will ignore the fact that this is a male name. I was born with a name that was predominately male at my birth and this only changed within my own lifetime, so who am I to judge? So Dias, the idiot who can't fathom the sexiness of postpartum bodies and wears onesies to hide her tummy, says that she dresses like a little kid because she doesn't fit in with adults.

That I can understand. What I can't understand is her logic behind it. "Because when you get old, you die." Honey, you're going to die one day no matter what you wear. You're not going to die within the next year. You talk like you're going to drop down dead at fifty!

I don't dress like a little kid, but I do act like childish. That isn't because I'm going to drop down dead any second! If you can imagine it, picture my generation as riding in a train since birth. Somewhere in between birth and now, probably right in the middle if I had to pinpoint a time, my emotional stamina burned out and I fell off the train. Those still on the train gave me the finger in response.

No need to feel sorry for me. I've since lived outside of age, able to transcend anywhere to any group almost entirely at free will.

What a shame Dias is much less deep than I initially gave her credit for. I hate her. That remark about mother's bodies was too ignorant.

Time for me to convert to a living sexy milk machine!

Last night and this morning, I dreamed the same goofy nonsense three times in a row. Since I knew that James's visiting kid sister wanted me to watch a disc of hers, I assumed that she had the volume up loudly and that she was repeatedly rewinding the disc.

How this made sense in my mind along with the visual images my subconscious gave, please do not begin to ask.

I dreamt of giving birth all over again, this time to girls in their mid-teen years. I then turned into a psychotic bitch, dragging them into a beauty school that we live nowhere near. Then, I announced to their uncle, who actually is a student at the place, that giving birth to twins had completely destroyed my ass. It did not, not in the real world. I had a plan to humiliate my daughters for no reason at all, telling them to give me a full makeover to make up for all the "pain" they caused me.

"What is so funny is the idea of you crudballs giving me a makeover in the first place!" I scoffed. "You look like you're about to shoot a terrible music video for a song called 'I Am White Storm: Pow!' with Michael Jackson!"

They looked perfectly normal, though they both had long blonde hair that I doubt either will grow to have. They twitched their eyes as if to say that they knew their mother was crazy.

This dream repeated itself thrice!

Thinking it was Tylerann's CD, I stumbled out of the bed and found her to ask her how it ended.

She didn't have any idea what was talking about until I told her. "You're not a terrible mother like that!" she laughed. "You're not going to be, either! But maybe you should stay awake now! I don't think your dreams are healthy!"

officer_tim:

Please go away!

That's all. More real entries will come later.

I know I'm offended too easily in certain ways, for both myself and for others. I apologize to anyone reading this who might be friends with the LiveJournal member that wrote up that little rant. It went as follows...

"We drove by a trailer park yesterday. Old campers. The kind of old campers that were dragged behind a car and parked there in 1979. And not hooked up to water and sewage until 1989, when the trailer park forced the issue.

You have to be very poor to live like that. Appalachian, backwoods, rural, white, generations-deep poor."

Lady, my mother-in-law lives in an ancient trailer in the rural Appalachian and she pumps her own water. She used to drive limos in cities of California. She married the owner of that trailer because he actually cared for her, and he still does. She is one of the biggest supporters of gay rights I know. She may not be educated as far as university goes, but she's sharp enough to not resort to calling people trailer trash. Almost all of my in-laws live in trailers. My husband is known as "the rich one" amongst his family. Goody for him. I would love him regardless of income. I'm sick of all this stereotyping people who live in mobile homes to be ignorant white trash closed-minded rednecks. I was born to a filthy rich educated family, and they were closed-minded bigots who abused the hell out of me. When I first had seizures, in my teen years, my mother punished me by slamming me down into the floors and whipping me with her belts, saying that demons controlled me. My in-laws would never dream of such ignorance. They love me like a daughter and I would do anything for those sweethearts, loud mouthed mother-in-law included.

Would it kill you to stop stereotyping? Do you have something against the poor? Think you're better than them? Congratulations! You're a hypocritical buffoon!

I need some sleep. Thank you and good day.

Just as a final note, my in-laws had voted to name the twins after Einstein's wives. They are not named for Einstein's wives. The reason for this is that I think Elsa and Mileva are horrible names. But that aside, how badly off can they be if they know the names of Einstein's wives?