Christmas Murder: A Family Tradition (Trigger Warning)

I wanted to write something cheery, about how good I am doing. I really am doing well. I am going to a friend’s for Christmas, and while i am not religious and they are, they respect this and its about communing and being together, unlike most of the other invites I have had. The things to give people and kitties is in a stack taller than my tree, with some bits on the couch since I just ran out of room. I am still fighting the endless battle of finding a caregiver agency that doesn’t remove the caregivers I get along with, because we get along but I am not grasping by a single thread and falling down a cavern of despair and fear. I am still okay.

I wanted to write about the Iraq war being over, and how apathetic I feel about this and the whys. The too little too lateness, the fact that just because we decided oh hey we’re done doesn’t negate the consequences, the disabled veterans who are now going to be struggling. I wanted to. I only have one article’s worth of energy tonight, and the others may happen later but this article demands my attention. You see I just had a serious flash back because I was skimming the news and I ran into my first murdered child holiday story this year. I had managed to dance around them for a lot longer than normal.

I am not certain if the effect on me was so much stronger than normal because I am doing well and my brain could focus, because the snow outside in the second obnoxiously white blizzard has me aching and everything already felt a bit raw, or if it is because I got a package from my mother today and it contained not only presents that she clearly put thought into and that I liked but some Xrays of my neck when it was broken the one time this hit as an adult. Not snapped but cracks in the bones show up. In my gift box. That this is the only abjectly weird thing in there actually impresses me, but with Grandma changing her number to get around the call block, texting daily despite my lack of reply (even telling her to stop fails), or any other confluence of events this link which comes with a serious PTSD warning made my brain go off into the dark spaces.

My mind whirled through every holiday where I expected to die. That means twenty five years of expecting to die. My wedding, with my sister and her lovely poison muffins which were so very nasty no one even pretended interest, every beating, each time my mother just went to bed, each time I was afraid because I just wasn’t ever good enough for these MONSTERS. My family. My serial killer father. My molester older brother who still whines about how I didn’t let him abuse me. My older sister who decided that its my fault she threatened my life, technically kidnapped me and crashed the car. These WONDERFUL (that is sarcasm) people? Each time they threatened me was right there.

The time my father murdered me for Thanksgiving was right there. The reasons I began to question religion. Right there. In the name of holiday statistics, people die. The part that really hit me was, this will be amplified in a year because of all of the people too blatantly stupid to use their critical thinking skills. The world really does end 12-21-2012 because of all of the people who will murder in the name of apocalypse. We see this with every cult, every Harold Camping, and every other failed prediction. Every single one has huge points of logic, like the Mayan calendars not being prophetic, but people still buy in to this garbage. Same as with their gods. There are reasons to question faith always and by refusing to do so, they demean their religious choices.

I am totally okay with people believing in whatever, so long as it isn’t just because they were told this is their option and never considered asking why. I am okay with people believing in the end of the world as long as its not an excuse for murder. Someday the sun is going to explode and incinerate people. In a billion more years. This is a scientific fact. So someday there will be an apocalypse. In that eventuality we can always hope that there will be a single child launched in a space ship to a distant habitable planet with a yellow sun, and he shall rise up to become Superman. Until then, every year, ever holiday, and every fauxpocalypse people get murdered because someone just needed an excuse.

I do not believe in crimes of passion. I do believe in self defense. If someone dies because they tried to hurt me, that’s cool. Means a threat is eliminated. It means that I will also be horrified to feel blood on my hands again. I will question everything in my life. I will cry. I will scream. I will thrash against it. I will also have survived. Too often in these Holiday Murder stories there is a component of pity offered for the murderer. Just as there is in any murder of the disabled or elderly. It is as if by putting Christmas lights on the murderer they become somehow pitiable more so this time of year. That woman murdered her child and her father. There does not need to be a why. She killed herself. Obviously there was some sort of problem. Its not okay to use that problem as an excuse for why she murdered the child.

It isn’t okay either for people to presume that the Autistic person at their holiday gathering who is withdrawing out of a desperate need to escape sensory overload just needs to stop ruining the holiday gathering, because of course a melt down is so much FUN for us Autists. We really want to be in so much agony that all we can do is scream and cry. Every autistic person who melts down, I fear will die. I fear it.

I see the traditional tree, the gleaming ornaments, and I feel fear. The gothmas tree being black and decked out with my own brand of decoration isn’t just because Black Trees are prettiest to me, and silvery black ornaments look cool on them. It is because I wanted decorations that didn’t leave me with vague sensations of fear. So I modified my tree to suit my needs. The need to not wonder in the slightly stuck in PTSD mode by the omnipresent holiday if mommy or daddy is going to love me this year. If I am the only one who hears rape in the song “Baby it’s cold outside”, if I am so evil because I think hitting is bad. I regress I suppose to the small child who was hungry, desperate, my entire childhood was one big act of desperation, and wondering if I am expendable enough and which of the adults in my life, and as I got older my siblings, was going to be the one to kill me.

My mother was the only one who never said “I will kill you” with words. She still said it with her actions. Choosing my step father over me. She loved him more than me, and warehousing me was more convenient than murder. I got lucky. If they’d thought about it and figured out that at that point no one would’ve even noticed if I was missing, I think I would be dead. My mother may not have had the stomach for it but the rapist she married surely did.

In this moment I recognize why I have eschewed the holidays even with friends for the most part. The family traditions my family has end badly. They end in bloodshed, violence and tears. I cannot stop crying as I write this because I know each keystroke is another child somewhere in this world who is living as I did, or dying as I thought I would. My choice to believe in Santa was a conscious one. I always knew he was fictional but I wanted to believe in the goodness that he represented. I wanted to believe that there was someone somewhere who brought pleasant things. I wanted to not spend my holidays afraid for my life, or any other day. That is what the holidays are to so many people, and myself.

The holidays mean family and togetherness. Family and togetherness mean being tied up in a closet, lying awake at night waiting for one of the adults to get mad and demand the ritual beating. I mean literally the ritualized holiday beating. You knew it would come, the question was not a matter of that but if you would survive. Then you had to endure pretending nothing was wrong while making offerings to the parents, and hoping they were good enough. In my case there were offerings to the people around me for a lot longer. This is why I only buy Christmas gifts for people I want to. There is no obligation now, to survival by having managed a nice enough present. I reclaimed gift giving into something of joy.

Yet I cannot reclaim that little girl, who suffered. I cannot give her grandfather back his last moments and make them pain free, horror free. I cannot give voice to every child who is being abused in some way right now. The amount of violence and hatred that spirals up during the holidays, isn’t because of alcohol. That is an excuse that enables domestic and other forms of violence. It is because we all take time off to be together. This means the victims have no out of the house refuge from their abusers, and a smart abuser uses this to their advantage.

There is no excuse for the Family Traditions I have. There is no excuse at all. I look over to my Gothmas lanterns, my tree, and it still makes me happy, its a creative outlet after all. Nonstandard tree means a lot of customization. I look back in time and remember praying I wouldn’t drop the ornaments as we pretended to be a happy family, praying I didn’t bunch them wrong, praying I did the tinsel right. Praying that this year, God wouldn’t tell my father that I was evil. Praying that this year my mother would let me come home and that I would feel like I belonged. Praying that when people showed up to visit, or claimed to, they either would show up and if they did would not act in a way that hurt me. Praying.

I only miss prayer when I have no power to at least reach out to someone and gift them with my understanding, with the knowledge they are not alone in their suffering.

With the article I linked, I cannot overlook the clear premeditation. The gun she obtained without record of obtaining it. The sending her husband away. Did she just love him more or was it less? It was one or the other. The fact she chose the basement, which would’ve muffled the sounds.

This is the holiday season. Readers, if you are feeling depressed, please remember you can always write me. I may not write back immediately but I will try to. you don’t have to be alone. YOu can also find your local crisis line, and anonymously vent.

If you are an autist, advocate for your need for quiet. Even if it means locking yourself in the bathroom for an hour, take the time you NEED to get away from the overload.

If you are alone, volunteer at a homeless shelter. Go help the people who have less than you do, because you can.

If none of that applies, or if all of it does, make a new holiday tradition this year. Do something to either reclaim your holiday from similar circumstance or to share love and joy in new ways. WHile the holidays are arbitrary the need for human companionship, comfort, and to celebrate is not. These are important things and should be done without violence or fear.

You aren’t alone, I am with you and you are with me by the simple act of living. We are alive, and that means you are my new family. Happy Holidays if you celebrate them, and if not, stay warm this winter, enjoy the light displays with their pagan roots and remember the primal need for companionship winter brings out is normal.

Congratulations, you have won the (Genetic) lottery!

While I write this WordPress is under maintenance. I find it amusing, their maintenance and mine overlap. I have been ruminating on this concept for a while now. Its something that I think everyone who is different needs to hear. Since no one is actually normal, I suppose this means it is a thought for us all. Being born means you are not a loser. Growing up and never fitting in to where ostensibly I “should” belong, I always wondered what made me so different. Now that I have the laundry list of genetic flaws, foibles, oddities, cool stuff, and then the bit if information that I am an Autist? I know the reason I am so different but sometimes I find myself questioning the validity of my birth. Why did I matter enough to be born? Was it some God’s will? (I don’t think so, you can think so but Atheist is one of my chosen labels) Was it a random mix up with genetics and somehow my LOSER genes happened? Nope. Genetics and being here prove I am awesome. Sure, my family is made up of people who are functionally not okay with in the rules of society but abuse is not genetic. It is a habitual tradition. Once I take that out of the mix, looking at what my differences provide genetically as if I were a cave person, it all makes sense. Super flexibility. Why would this genetic trait which disables people at a variety of rates from Birth to middle age end up surviving? Well, considering that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome appears to be a dominant disorder, sensitive to wheats (yes wheats. There are types.), and has a high rate of connection to the colder European regions, I am going to suggest being more flexible gave someone the advantage, outside of the eventual circus in hunting, reaching, and gathering food. If you have to climb, stretch and contort in order to get your food, say reaching the last berry in a crevice no one else can? You sure as heck get the sex based on being the person to feed people. Add in the fact that this genetic disorder has saved my life from traumatic injuries, such as broken neck, back, hands etc and it can also NOT disable you. The vascular aspects are a lot more dangerous than the flexibility factors but even then, without the big flashing sign of “I may die if you cut me even if it isn’t a vital area” there is no way to know. Often people with the vascular complications of EDS survive into their middle age. Which means they out live any prehistoric or even medieval counterparts. Shrugging off that “crushing blow” which should have shattered your bones in combat? Priceless. Flexibility also supposedly makes you have better sex, and thus… the genes say? I am awesome. Autism. Yes, I think this is genetic. I think there are variations of flavors with autism, like raspberries and pomegranates. The colors are the same, but they are really different yet someone who has never seen the two juices may go “same” until they taste it. With this analogy only I and my fellow autists get the delicious berry juice. Sorry, you are stuck with orange. I am sure a lot of people reading this will go, “But Kat…” starting with bad grammar. Naughty people. “Autism is new. It’s only existed since that Asperger guy and those other people finally noticed the kids staring at the walls!” Except not. Autism is not new. There are studies, scientific theory, and my personal favorite; stories all with hints of autism, flat out autism, or the dead on descriptions of various sorts of Autist. Most often we are the Changelings. Changelings, for those who do not know, are constructs of children that grow, think and breathe yet never mesh with society. Some never speak. Most have a haunting stare. They just never quite manage to blend into society. These constructs are replacement children tucked into the cradle by the faeries. Some changeling were allowed full lives in society, others had their brains dashed out showing that it isn’t just modern parents who suck when it comes to accepting that their child is different. The entire concept of cataloging where people differ is a very new one. That is why Autism is shown to be something that is newer when it comes to diagnosis. I wouldn’t go back in history for the world because knowing why your brain does what it does matters. Something about Autism bust be recessive, as often an autist would be the only child like them. This means that our ancestors spend entire lives feeling alone, disconnected, and they never had the benefit of googling their differences. I hate the world symptoms for the basics of how my brain functions. My thoughts are not symptoms after all. They just are sparks in the chasm of idea. Obviously the ability for a person with Autism to function in modern society cannot be a direct parallel for someone in the medieval era or cave man days with autism trying to function. For one, a person now has a lot more input to contend with. While in the medieval era there were cities, these cities still shut down when the sun went down, were a lot quieter than ours now, though no doubt they stank worse. The repetitive food choice thing, where texture and smell matter could be lined up with finding better food. I have noticed that my choices go for healthier food. The smell often means food is rotten or will make me sick, so this sensitivity is a survival mechanism. There were less choices to make, and someone who needed to sing while they worked or wanted to learn actually had a lot more benefits and advantages when it came to apprenticing. That passion driven aspect where we want to know everything about something would be in fact a career boost. Go back further and a recent article I won’t link since you can google and wordpress is down, suggests that this driven aspect and the need to remember things in a photographic and spacial way was an advantage for the hunter gatherers. Remembering where the food grows? Vital to survival. Thus again, despite some brain smushing by ignorant pricks genetics bring us here, now. It takes a long time to breed traits INTO the gene pool and both of these genetic conditions? Not recent mutations. It goes further. We have the jock (hunter of the mastadon), the nerd/geek (leader, spiritual guide, berry minder), and every other clique because these are the types of people needed to keep society going as a whole. While I cannot say every person consented to having children, being bred, and so on? I can say that we would not exist if our ancestors were not made of awesome. I am sitting here writing this, curling up from agony into my chair because my ancestors found this stuff useful. We exist, because we are the winners. Losers don’t get laid. Losers don’t have kids. (Okay some still do). Over all genetics is all about the path of the most desirable mate. Instinctually, financially, physically. You must trace your genetics back, and each generation even with parents like mine something about those two people said to the other, “I am your mate, genetic winner and lottery is in my pants. Enter to win!” Civilization grew out of the various people needed to keep it going, and there has always been a space for the geek. The outsider. We’re not so far outside of society after all, just because we are born. It may not always feel like it, but, we’re the best of the best of the best humanity has to offer. On that note? We’re so doomed.

Secret Stims

This is a response post to this blog here: http://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/quiet-hands/

 

I have to say I have written about my own abuse until you conform. I was diagnosed as an adult yet I know quiet hands. I think of all the ways I learned to stim in secret. There it is in the fabrics I clothe myself in, the softness of my cat, the texture of my keyboard. I paid ten dollars more for the right texture on the keys I type on. My hairbrush has to be a specific style so I can brush my hair without insanity creeping up my arm from the pain. The sights and sounds, all ways I stim. No one notices a woman smoothing her pants leg, or adjusting the way her blouse fits. So its safe.

I used to think this was a horrible secret, and I used to fight with myself to try to hold back for as long as I could. For me there is also aural stimming. Its not just the flap of hands until I catch myself. I usually make fists to hold back the stim when excited. I need sound and music sometimes just to be euphoric but also to think and process what others are saying.

More ways I stim in secret? The texture of my food. This has become more important as I age. I like creamy things. Soft things. Crunchy is nice too but my skin tears too easily so the rough texture after is a problem. Its all around me. My hair is too long so I keep having to pull it away because it sends the wrong brain signals and is too heavy for my head. I must pet the cats around me, to feel their texture and softness. In the dark without opening my eyes, the slight brush of fur tells me which cat is which. The weight tells me where. I pet them until I dream oruntil my wrists ache and I want to beg the world to stop so that I can endure a bit longer.

My cats know this. I can just tell them both I cannot touch them and they usually wait patiently. Sprite sleeps with two inches between us, her head on my pillow unless I have been really bad about being able to touch her. SOmetimes she wakes me up by wrapping her paws around my arm and tucking herself against me in a soft warm hug. Sometimes I take that pain just for her.

Every time I fight myself to let the stimulation in, I think of my parents. I think of one of the few times my mother got it right without the ambiguity of a follow up disaster. I wrote about it before, the occupational therapist who knew better. Better meaning no skin, horrible pain and a memory that is just a scream. I fight now to not let things ever get so bad that every thought is a scream but I sit here wondering why language must be turned into a homogenous thing. Stimming is language. I do not think about what it means when people talk via movement if they are autistic because its the same language. If they aren’t then I try to either watch them move or their face or try to pick out which tone they are using.

Why am I so aware of the torture children face daily that no one stops? Bullying pervades the schools because teachers can be bullies. I was one but I still see it. Its the little things that crush individuality all in the name of mediocrity. Uniforms, hair cuts, assigned seating. Sometimes the outcome is good but if there is no way to safely ask, because diagnosed or not children like I was learn its not safe before school and learning even begins, the outcome is tragic. Schooling isn’t about the grades but learning. Grades don’t reflect anything but obedience, spitting out knowledge on demand and attendance. Knowledge and Wisdom are not taught together either. Were they ever? I doubt it but I would like to think someday they will be.

I wear velvet pants, silky shirts, soft squishy fabric that feels like it is made out of wound up coils. I touch. I feel. I exist. I am there. Quiet hands… empty mind. I fade away until I am alone and myself returns again. Touch. Feel. Exist.

Looking Back

Sometimes I wonder how I reached the point I am at in life. I have few friends but those I have I value. I have recently shed myself of people who I once considered friends and in retrospect I question why I ever thought this. I logically understand the why, it was a step on this path to knowing that they were bad for me, and that I deserve better. I did not always deserve better. In a way its like watching my mother date an abusive man who was in her eyes good because he just did not hit her. Baby steps. Learning steps.

I think back on all of the years I struggled and just wanted any friend at all. I can see myself sitting on the swings alone, watching people. I do this often. All my memories punctuate the aspect of watching as from the age of eight through now there is the blurred shape of the world then the crisp shape of whatever is past my glasses. Even in the memories this is so, whatever I see is drawn into sharper focus that way. I remember watching people, and wondering what it was that made all of the girls come together and laugh over things I still don’t get the joke on. I sometimes think there was not really a joke but a need to pretend that they all mattered. A need to be something. Anything.

I am still socially awkward. In fact in recent years by no longer putting on the act of normalacy it may look like I am more awkward now. I no longer risk dying just to be around people, especially since dying isn’t very fun for anyone to experience or witness. I no longer tolerate people in my life who think that its just enough to close a door, as if an allergen strong enough to put me into anaphalaxis when I breathe it is really stopped by a closed door. If the door was air tight? Maybe. That person was once my best friend. If they read this they may know who they are. I am thinking too on being pushed to do things I am not ready to.

There is a way to invite someone to do something, and there is a way to demand people do things or else. The difference is dramatic. I look back on my life and while I am still very young I have seen over and over again so many people who just want to take and drain no matter the cost. Perhaps it is being disabled that makes the cost something so clear to me, but I do not think so. I think it is simply being alive. The cost can express itself in the form of that person at work who walks into a room and in five seconds you feel drained. They stay too long, they ask too much but society obligates you to not say a word, to act like its fine for people to be that way. They might be obnoxious, rude, or even too polite so that you know they are up to something. THey could also be desperately lonely. Sometimes its okay to leave people in their loneliness.

Sometimes it is okay to tell people too, that solitude is not the same as loneliness. I was asked recently what I want from travel. It is not the tourist hot spot crowded with people but the serene beauty offered by nature. It is the quiet space where few people know to go but holds more beauty than the pastiche of plastic doodads for people to buy and the obligation of what must be seen. While I do want to see the Great Wall of China, the Mona Lisa and of course the Tower of London, I also want to see a backroad in any given country but my own, to listen to the people laughing and talking, and to watch the world.

I look back and I find I am greatly relieved to have found friends when I needed to experience them, and now to lose those people who were not really friends. I am solitary but not alone. I wish I had learned to walk this way long ago. This path of quiet where I reach out to people and they reach back, instead of one of us reaching and falling again and again and being left to wonder why friendship hurts. Friendship is like love. It does not hurt, but feels quite nice.

I look back, and it leaves me looking forward too.

Occupy Hope

I turned off for a while this year. I just needed to shut down. I fought it at first then I let myself drift. Just as I started to come back on the annual depression spree and PTSD kicked in. I did not stop watching the world entirely but the thread was tenuous. I pulled into myself in order to survive and function. I was stolen from by carers. Stupid things. Things. Not important. Some very important. Nothing of greater value than my dolls. That cuts deep still but not as deeply as if they had taken my fine jewelry or had physically harmed me or the cats. The second most important thing out of the myriad is Sprite’s drinking bottle. M has rescued Sprite from being trapped in the house. She recovered her ability before I did.

I have wondered for many years, since I learned about nonviolent protests if I would get to see one happen, without people being maimed. I did. I lived to see peaceful protest in at least one example end successfully. Some people will say that Occupy Wallstreet is using technology to facilitate this but technically savvy does not mean peaceful. It just means youth over all, intelligence and adaptability. I sit here in a world Star Trek dreamed of and I find myself for the first time hopeful. I came back online in the proverbial sense and immediately was innundated with a lot of horrible things, right on my doorstep. Literally.

The police are so corrupt that the Federal Government is trying to investigate but even the mayor of Albuquerque is not allowing this. These words put me in danger to type but I will not stay silent. I read stories, hear stories and feel the brunt of this corruption constantly. GOing out of my house has always frightened me to a point, then my exhusband happened and it became a task where each inch is a mile. This corruption, knowing that if I end up arrested they will find this blog and I will die for it? That shut me down too. I wanted to survive but thriving seemed out of reach.

Yet elsewhere in the world, people are standing in the cold or heat dependent on their local region together. They are working to fight for my freedoms in a way that I wished for so many times. My dream of moving away and being safe stays a possibility because these people fight for their own rights and mine. I do not know what will happen but a part of me knows that the moment a great movement of violence occurs this thing will explode. Its not a matter of time, but a matter of daily choices by millions of people and a single wrong choice is dire. The odds of this staying peaceful are so slim yet we have seen efficacy in this protest that has gone unmatched.

I think it is the multigenerational aspect of this protest. IT is not the first generation of protestors alone or just the youth of today but a bridge of various peoples and experiences. Its the right leadership. Its also desperation. The protestor cannot afford to die, to lose their ability to work for having been violent, and no one wants pain. This desperation can turn on itself in a moment yet, peace has prevailed. This is not to say there are not individuals that with in the movement haven’t made mistakes, died from violence with in the camps but that is part of such a large gathering of people. The fact that the police and the government sent spies in says a lot. The rich plan the destruction of the movement, unwittingly fueling this. The one percent… I am at the opposing end of the spectrum just by being disabled and not working.

None of the problems we adults face today are from just our time on this planet. You can be 100 or more years old and some of these issues are generational. Peace as a protest is still very new. I recently spoke to someone about technology being in it’s teenage years, rebelling in it’s creation of anything and everything for a price. Peace is still in it’s infancy. This is the birth.

I am a member of the 99%. I live in daily fear of starvation. I live in daily fear that the police will throw me illegally out of my house. I live in fear that the neighborhood I live in, considered the warzone in a state so poverty stricken and corrupt will explode in violence. It’s been quiet for a few months. Its just a matter of time until the shootouts resume. I do not mean the once a week kind we’ve had but the daily kind, where regardless of the sun people are hunting one another in the streets like sport. I fight for basic medical care and feel guilt in knowing that most of the 99% working or not do not get the same medical coverage because we are deemed less than and subhuman for not being born with money. Money that most often is the result of crimes like bootlegging, or exploitation of people feeling as desperate as I do.

So I am supporting Occupy Wallstreet with my most potent weapon. My words. I cannot go into the streets and protest. I wouldn’t survive the exposure to the sun, cold, rain, etc and dying horribly does not support the movement. However, I can add my voice to the Chorus. I did not dive in head first. I sat back and watched and I am honored to live to see this protest.

A Movie Review and some gushing about accessibility… aka Hugo

Today I went out and saw Hugo, a movie about a boy and his dolly! Not actually joking but that is the premise. In a post war, modernized steampunk Martin Scorsese writes a love letter to silent film and the origins of an industry that for many is omnipresent. Each character talks about how movies are dreams, sometimes to excess but the movie shows us in glorious detail how movies are dreams. I saw the film in 2D, because the 3D process can cause seizures, headaches and other not so fun or movie enhancing issues.

The story is strong, well paced, and it has all the appropriate tear jerker moments. The casting is superb though there is a weak point. As is expected of films with children having to carry the burden of the story there is always one or two actors who aren’t quite good enough. In this case it’s an adult, who decided that playing a character with a disability means that he needs to make that character the opposite of what it was written to be. Sascha Baren Cohen really needs to stop making films. I know he is popular, but this is with the crowd of people who like to watch racist crap, with no plot like Borat. His career should’ve petered out by now.

HIs character steals the scenes in the wrong way, and a figure who should be imposing, as terrifying to small children as the villain from Chitty Chitty bang Bang was when I was a child was to me, turns into a clown. He cannot smile, he cannot walk well so when he runs he crashes through things in an oh so eyeball stabbing way. Obviously Cohen is not entirely responsible for the farcical moments in an otherwise amazing film.

This love letter has amazing visuals, you could see the well thought out space for the three dee effect, and I am guessing here but it seems it would be worth the ticket price. The graphics are seamless, blending with the realities nicely, and the homage to very real film makers is a romantic moment. The two young leads show that if they work their careers correctly they will be superstars. They have that thing, that mixed with talent draws people to them.

This movie I give out of my 10 star rating a 9, the missing star for blatant disablism and the casting of Cohen. As they overlap its saved from eight. This is the best film that has come out thus far this year, though some come very close. Tomorrow I am seeing another film but I know it will be under the shadow of Hugo. This movie will at least vie for the Oscar for best graphics.

When sitting through the half an hour of previews, and creating the preview drinking game (might explain this down below, and yes I do recommend it with Soda or before the movie starts you shall die of alcohol poisoning) I noticed that instead of the single spot for wheelchair users, there are now four in the theatre. This is a standardized set up for each theatre. The chairs are also amazingly comfortable, if you are using the theatre chair. I will update this with an address after my movie watching for the year is complete.

This movie threatre has been amazing about accessibility for the entirety of it’s time, but adding in the option of captions and a myriad of other goodnesses has been amazing to see. The theatre management tries to stay ahead of the curve on technology that lets EVERYONE participate. Now if Hollywood would just catch on to the fact that disabled folks are people… that’d be nifty.

Sylvani

I realized on Monday that it was the year anniversary of Finding Vani on Ebay. The skittish, timid, only would let me of all people near him cat has come a long way. He still has nightmares and yet now he wants me to hold him after. He has stepped into the role of kitty caregiver very well as Sprite just doesn’t have what it takes as often anymore. She’s getting old and needs more care, Sylvani sees to it that we both are taken care of.

He is sleek, his face is still almost too beautiful to be a real cat’s with those piercing eyes that gleam in spring colors. His legs are thin and graceful, his body long and narrow and his tail is the envy of any cats who spy him through the window.

He still balances curiousity and fear, but he now plays and prances. Since M the carer got herself fired a few months ago he has also been much more comfortable with people. T the carer and he get along very well. He rubs her ankles and mine.

Its been a year and he has adapted much more rapidly than I expected. It took Sprite two years to get with other people beyond myself where he is. I am always special to the cats. That sounds snooty but it is true. There has only been one cat I have met that didn’t like me in a way that it did not like other people. Not William Shakespurr, his anger was brought on by Trauma and even then he still prefered me over people, he just hated us all that much. No idea the cat’s name now but he was very large, and very scary.

While I write this out Sylvani is running around the house staring out the windows. Its his sunrise dance. I think he may be ready to try going outside again. He is curious about it, and he even stuck his nose out the front door recently.

I just wanted to write something happy, without the longing for more tucked away in the Sondheim letter or the general silence.

He’s still an asthmatic, scarred and hurting kitten, but now he’s also on the cups of adulthood. I can see the grown up cat in him. He will grow for another year but his face has reached it’s full maturity. He is a stunning young meow (read it like young man). I will try to get him to pose for pictures soon. He and Sprite both.

 

Sprite is still dealing with that same sick, the unknown untreatable. We’ve got it down to a science. I just wish Science could cure more things. Ah well, she is happy, I am happy. I am. While things are still rough, that is part of living and I am happy to do just that.

Oh and I get new glasses next week. Bifocals. Will I see two Sylvanis and two Sprites while I adapt? I supposedly WILL see what is on paper again. Discrimination based on age has had me since 21 not having bifocals when I needed them.

I still love my dollies,I have a basket of Ghoulias next to me. Well Sprite’s bed full of Ghoulias but she hasn’t been using it so I absconded with it.  I am still trying to move to the land of Anywhere but Here. I have mishaps to tell you all about and adventures. Even when sick, or more so when sick it seems I cannot stop advocating for a minute. I just want to drift for a single year without some kind of giant battle but, Kat’s claws must remain sharp I suppose.

Sondheim

I suppose the title of the post gives away what I am writing about. I am sick. Again. Still? This is a continuation of a sapping sensation which I have no words for. I am exhausted, of course. I haven’t written much in the way of anything lately, just an article about virtual pets and how to choose the best one for you. I really should be doing a lot of things instead of writing what amounts to a love letter to a man old enough to be my Grandfather, but here I am at six AM before I have to run around town to try and keep housing… doing just that.

For those of you reading this who do not know who Stephen Sondheim is, he is a composer and he has written songs that are not just listened to but experienced. I have written before about how music is essential to my being alive, without music I hurt more. Without music I breathe less. Without music I am more aware of the precipices I stand on when afraid. I am still afraid rather often, but then with so many reasons to be I still think I do rather well. Sondheim is the source of one of the few regrets I have when dealing with disability, though this is hardly his fault but that does not stop my longing. If you are not well versed in his work, I recommend Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods for stater courses. If you are, then perhaps its Sundays in the Park with George. I cannot sleep until I write this, so here’s an open letter to Stephen Sondheim:

 

Dear Mr. Sondheim-

You recieve thousands of fan letters everyday I am sure. You recieve requests from people to listen to their music, to let them sing your songs, to become stars in your name. This is not one of those letters. To be a star as you have doubtlessly seen requires quite a bit of luck and I misshuffled the deck for that one. I am writing instead to compliment you, which I am sure you recieve plenty of letters that do this as well. I want to thank you however, from the perspective that few may mention. Thank you from an Autistic Synesthet with PTSD and brain damage who is very easily moved not just by music but by the stories that she ends up seeing, hearing and tasting with in the music. Simply put few composers manage to tell the story in the musical in the notes like you do, most also do not manage to explore the depths of tonality. I do not think I have ever heard an a tonal work from you. I rarely enjoy atonality, personally but it is also the default most use to show strife in the stories of their music.

I do not need to tell you how lucky you are. Via timing of birth, the people you met, the moments that you lived you ended up learning the skills needed to unleash your music on the world. From there again through timing and people, as sucess takes quite a bit of luck and skill to achieve you ended up writing more music than most contemporary composers. Sondheim is in everything. The soundtrack to the fabric of the 20th century has been written in large part by you, from my perspective. Yet I am often left to wonder how someone who has so much privilege manages to capture the minds of so many characters with what appears to be relative ease. The best example of your stepping from perspective to perspective may be Sundays at the Park with George. Your music without words shows the obsession the character has, his need to create fantasy in art based on reality, to make things perfect. Your music too is like the paintings by Seurat, which of course was your intent but you succeed. Seurat’s work is something that draws me in as well. I wish we had more of that.

I am fascinated with what your music and stories tell me about you as a person. You and your writing partners tuck away life lessons without morality rather often, the lessons are hidden in the inner workings of the plots of the stories but each song stands alone in strength and beauty. Each song is texturally different, but underneath it all there is a consistent style in the instrument choices and perhaps pacing that tells me when its Sondheim. I started to look into who wrote the music I like so much recently. Your work dominates my mind when my own music is not enough. (Of course I write music, just like most who contact you in some manner).

 

Kateryna Fury

End Note:

No I will never track down a mailing address for Sondheim. Its Sondheim after all, but my mind won’t leave me be until I write and write and write again. The timing is bad. I am not sure if its the impending birthday on Friday, my connecting that a lot of the best songs that I always ‘need’ had the same underbelly or the increased potency of the larger synesthetic moments but I just want to reach out sometimes and talk to the people who create things.

Part of it is my looking to see who composed what and finding its Sondheim and not Webber that I like. I have less and less want, enjoyment or love of Webber’s works. It doesn’t help that at least on the surface of the media Webber is unpleasant but his work lacks the ability to be worn, sung, and used without degradation through time or just general wear and tear. Sondheim’s does not. Maybe its the french horn use or the violin use or the right singers? Maybe? I doubt it since some of Sondheim’s works are overly sung by singers trying to make a name. Ill abused notes, that still withstand the test of time.

Perhaps it is just the way the music makes my brain respond? This is likely. I see rivers, trees, I feel things, I do not escape but grow stronger. I gain a better childhood with some songs, I get my dreams of singing without the pain in others, I feel loved with even more. Not all music makes me whole, complete, and sometimes even his songs show me the swiss cheese holes in my life experiences but I discovered Sondheim is the only composer who can sway me consistently.

His music is the only music that leaves me dreaming of the what if. I am not sure if that is good or bad, to dream of the what if. To dream that my moments on the stage didn’t end with just a few steps. To dream that I could still move my body in dance, outside of my head my feet going where they are supposed to. To dream. (No he did not write the Impossible Dream, he just inspires them). I dance again in my waking dreams to Sondheim. I do not do that much anymore.

With this unshakable sick my mortality is there again, whispering its awareness in my ears. Maybe this is my realizing how much I still want to do. I’m dreaming again. I considered auditions at a theatre today.

Maybe its that I do sing when alone, perhaps with people again but adult range changes from injuries make me hesitate there as does my lack of air. I can’t hold the notes like I used to… but… maybe its that a lot of that is coming back.

Maybe.

I am going to go try to sleep again, dreams of Demon Barbers await me. Either way, I am just grateful that Sondheim’s music is in my life. I hope in two hundred years his music is sharing breaths with other composers of past Eras. He’s the only composer who I think will last from our century as composition is not treated as the artform it is anymore.

Make New Memories, Remember the Old!

Thanks to everyone here who helped me either via moral support or in other ways, things are stable for now. The sudden increases in price and the borax poisoning have me apartment hunting but this is going pretty well. I was given some tips on how to fast forward my Section 8 application. Doctor’s note about the need to move and I should be okay. My anthrax resurgence was minor, it went away really quickly, and even Sprite is improving.

I wanted to make sure I said that first before getting into the nitty gritty memory stuff. I don’t think this post needs a trigger warning at this point but if I am wrong and you are triggered, as always tell me and I will mark it.

Amid the help has been toys. Yes, toys. I found wonderful things, from completing my Monster High collection (for where I want to be) and getting the fanciest Barbie in Jeans of all things, on through zoobles. If you don’t know what zoobles are they are female marketed Bakugan. If that isn’t clear, think Pokemon and popples (or carebears) having bastard children. Cute, cute bastard children.

Note: For those with hearing difficulties the words she says do not matter just look at the toy and what she shows it doing. This is one of the zoobles I own.

I don’t know what it is about the positive memories but they are much harder to dig out than a weed in my garden or a bad memory. I think it is the rarity perhaps? The sheer amount of things burying them that is bad is often overwhelming and the pay off has not been worth it before. Maybe its just time, but I think actively playing has given me more happy in my regular time, despite stress. Stress is a part of life for all of us no matter what we do and I think more adults should play.

Last night as I lay in bed rolling the zoobles across the bed and watching Sylvani swat them back my way, one popped up. Catlin, a feline zooble, has the same colorings as the popple from my childhood. It was dark, I could barely see as I had no power again. Shortly after I managed to sleep. I had not slept for three days, something that had me upset. I dreamed about my BunBun, the antique plush rabbit and Pretty Bit the Popple.

It took me a very short time, once I remembered what she was and what I used to do with her to google and find out what she was called and if they have remade her. New Popples aren’t so nice. So I will try to get a cheaper apartment so I can find a Pretty Bit popple on ebay sometime.

I used to use her storage pocket for food I snuck to bed, I used to use her and Bunbun for secrets. She was taken away because of the food. I wasn’t eating enough then and it turns out i am not now.

The doctor’s ordered caloric calculations has brought out a number that is far too low. I need to eat more, which means moving for that too. The most I eat in a day is 11oo calories. The least? 750. Which is brain self devouring level. I obviously cannot cut anything out, and this includes my Soda which has replaced water. I have doubled how much I eat over the last year as well! Needlessly, I am shocked by the number and am going to try to eat even more. I struggle with this but I think gardening and growing my own food will help. More pay off maybe?

I tried to eat beef again. My fingers are so stiff and I think the beef triggered my insomnia. I realized, after sleeping, I haven’t had this much issue with sleep both getting and staying there, since I quit beef. It was an experiment. I threw away left overs out of self preservation. I didn’t buy more, I still have frozen meat in my freezer.

Finally, I am taking a risk here and I am publicly declaring something I maybe shouldn’t. The casemanager who once helped me get settled and back on my feet no longer works with me as she has not been doing her job. Not only have I reached a point of self sufficiency but, I have found her gossiping about her other clients and myself disheartening. There was another incident but I am flying solo now. I won’t say more here out of respect for her but I will say this, she violated several federal laws and I expect she will end up in prison. I am just happy to be progressing to a point where I am possibly going to work again.

I do think she may have made things worse with the Failgiving agency that I am leaving. Medicaid is being very slow about the transfer but it is of course time for the new budgets, so everything slows down. Its normal, so right after the Government gets on the point with budgeting we’ll be golden and I will be transferred.

I may be moving to another state but I will not move to Wisconsin. Georgia is on my shitlist too. Wisconsin is far worse of course, because they are undermining education. I believe in 10 years, barring a civil war (I believe that will happen first) New Mexico will no longer be the worst in education consistently. Wisconsin will boot us up a few spaces on the failing our children and failing the future of the US stats.

So, that is stuff here.

More fun stuff, due to being able to eat (Thank you again!) I invested a little in some plants, and I now have portable Blue and Raspberry bushes as well as Strawberries and Garlic. One of my small rosebushes I had left to die because I couldn’t do the gardening is still alive, as well. I am pleased to say I have no idea what color it is. If it made it through winter, it deserves care though.

I am going to try and prune the tree and in ground rosebush before the end of the month too. They really need the TLC. Maybe I can even get my windchime down. The tree grew into it but I think the branch died.

Things are back to normal again. I am surprised at how quickly, but I used my resources. I am trying to help other people as well with some negative situations and I think I know what to do with the 10 pounds of ground beef I cannot eat. Homeless shelter may be able to take it.

 

Fury is Furious

I am trying to find a $600 dollar RV. The US government shut down will cut off my medication, food, and rent. With my landlord’s ever growing hostility and their case manager already trying to steal my drugs, I am feeling that growing terror in my chest, it says run. RUN.

I will know by Friday the 4th if I am homeless again. If anyone can magic wand me a running RV, though, that’d be fantastic. I don’t know how I’ll get in or around in it, the wheelchair accessible ones don’t come for 600. I do know I’d at least have shelter, and that is something. Plus if I own it, then, no rent after registration fees and insurance. Little bit better maybe.

No idea.

I am so angry with the Government right now. The constant betrayal of we the people, the US has not been a democracy for a long time. The middle class has fallen and now those who were poor are a new level of underclass.

 

I am tired of being expendable. I am tired of someone else owning my shelter. I am just plain tired.

 

I am tired of shootings over food in my neighborhood, I am tired of the news not reporting the badness here. I am tired of that instinct that has been poking at me going “flee. Flee. You;’ll die here.”

I am tired of things like being poisoned by my damned apartment manager. No shitting. I am poisoned. I stay I die. Literal. I am tired of hanging by a thread. I cannot hold on when I am holding at the whims of other people.

I am tired of struggling. I know that will never stop but, I am furious. I already started packing boxes, until I found out that the first caregiver didn’t think to MOVE things (which I told her to do) before having people put my lift in the shed. No.. instead? The lift is held up  over glass by a litterbox.

I cannot get help to move it either because the new apartment manager, while not MEAN, is useless. He is always sick or hurt and NEVER can fix anything.

I am tired of having to go “Yeah, I need help again.”

I need help again. This is not the something coming I had hoped for. What I had been going to announce is fallen through. I had been starting a business with someone. Except, the US gov stopped THAT too. This someone cannot help me either, they got reamed as well.

What do I do? Its not like I can contact any agencies to help me, and I surely am not going to let myself loose everything again. I will never live in a house I do not own again.