04 April 2005

i should be in bed

i should be in bed. i should be asleep. i wasn't going to post. let's be honest...i don't really ever post. i'm not going to apologize again...because it will only keep hapening. this is just the reality of a blog for me. it will be sparatic. so for those few of you who read this out there...well done, and thanks for stickin' with me.

i should be in bed...i have to get up at 530 tomorrow to work, but such is life. sean is gone up to the cabin with the guys (forrest, alex, capp, mark, scott) so i am home alone. i spent the morning with sean finishing up some grocery shopping for the guys and then i spent the rest of my day with my friend terri. she is a wonderful girl, and we're ridiculously similar in the way we are. she is a true blessing in my life. we spent the day in denver not doing to much, just some window shopping (we are both poor) and got some dinner, then we just hung out here at the house. our house is a mess right now...but she doesn't care. i love when a friendship has that reality to it. terri didn't comment that my house was a mess, not because she didn't notice...but because it's not the reason she likes me. she wasn't concerned that i hadn't washed the breakfast dishes, or that my desk was overflowing, or that i had clothes all over the room. she simply plopped herself down on the bed amidst the chaos and said, "we need more days off".

i am reading a book called THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. it's wonderful. i love it, i can't put it down. it is about an autistic boy. he is the one writing to you. i can't even begin to describe why i love it so much....but you should read it. everyone should read it. maybe you'll hate it. maybe you'll not understand. but i love it. it's real. it's life without the frills. it's not depressing, it's just real.

"All the other children at my school are stupid. Except i'm not meant to call them stupud, even though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is diffucult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these poeple are Special Needs.
But Siobhan said that we have to use those words because people used to call children like the children at school spaz and crip and mong, which were nasty words. But that is stupid too because sometimes the children from the school down the road see us in the street when we're getting off the bus and they shout, ' Special Needs! Special Needs!' But i don't take any notice because i don't listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break my bones and i have my Swiss Army knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self-defence and i won't go to prison. " -
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

i usually would not quote something so large...but i wanted to give you a taste. as i read the book there are moments when he just speaks the truth like above. there are moments where my heart breaks and i just wish that i could hold him. it's a book that makes me laugh out loud, and re-read to laugh again. and as quickly as i was laughing, the next moment i'm in tears. or i feel his claustrophobia, or understand the crowding of incoming information in his brain. it is an insite to autistic children like i've never seen before. a real, in their head kind of view. and i'm floored.

He talks about how he has behavioral problems. and how sometimes he use to worry that his mum and dad were going to get a divorce because they fought often and he says,
"This was because of the stress of looking after someone who has behavioral problems like i have. I used to have lots of Behavioral Problems, but i don't have so many now because i'm more grown up and i can take decisions for myself and do things on my own like going out of the hosue and buying things at the shop at the end of the road.
These are some of my Behavioral Problems:
a. not talking to people for a long time (once i didn't talk for 5 weeks.)
b. not eating or drinking anything for a long time.
c. not liking being touched
d. screaming when i am angry or confused
e. not liking being in really small places with other people
f. smashing things when i'm angry or confused
g. groaning
h. not liking yellow things or brown things and refusing to touch yellow or brown things
i. refusing to use my toothbrush if anyone else has touched it
j. not eating food if different sorts of food are touching eachother
k. not noticing that people are angry with me
l. not smiling
m. saying things that other people think are rude (People say that you always have to tell the truth. but they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say "I don't like you" unless that person has been horrible to you.)
n. doing stupid things
o. hitting other people
p. hating france
q. driving mother's car
r. getting cross when someone has moved the furniture

i really do need to be in bed. but here's this for what it's worth. what if we were so honest with ourselves and wrote down all our behavioral problems. are we ever that honest with ourselves?

i am not spell checking this post. i hate spell checking. makes me feel stupid.


1 comments:

Annie said...

Jules,
I feel like you keep getting better and better at this blog thing. Excellent post... made me think and made me smile. You are a good writer. Love you. And I want to read that book.