Try this link. The thing I have to keep reminding myself: ignorant commenters are coming from the same place that this mom, and myself, are coming from. That is, we’re all groping in the darkness just trying to help. So, yes, I honor and recognize that…even as I comment back to a half-dozen of them that Alison didn’t ask them for their advice and there’s no reason for them to phrase their advice as “this solution works” when they have […]

This Covid year has really been one for the books. It’s hard to believe that we can finally start to wrap it up, or at least pretend to. I’m very proud that I basically kept up a weekly autism blog for about five (5!) years before Covid. I’m not proud that I haven’t done so well since. But if I’m ever gonna get back to where I was, I need a bit of a summer reset. And in this case, […]

June 18, 2021 Dar was at Thousand Oaks forever. We fought to get him into a new school. We won. That new school, Via, was great for him. Then Via shut down because of Covid. Via tried distance learning with Dar. He doesn’t do two-way screens. As Covid eased, he went back to Thousand Oaks. But that was no long-term solution…it was just short-term enough for him to finish the “promotion” with the rest of his fellow fifth-graders. The summer […]

May 27, 2021 It was the bath of times, it was the pipe-burst of times. Know what these are? Of course you don’t. Who does? Wait. Of course you do. You read the header. That’s right, it’s two TayMac ZTC100 Thermostat Covers. Now. What the heck are they doing affixed to our mid-century bathtub’s handle fixtures? Funny story, that. And just one more of many on this blog that almost never happen outside the wacky world of autism. Ready? Have […]

5/19/21 Hi! On my other site, bestlovedfilms.com, I’ve been rewatching America’s 200 most canonized, important films. (Don’t ask the criteria; read the site for that.) Anyway, I’m almost done with the 200, and I can confidently say that none of them has shaken me quite so much as The Tree of Life. The phrase “it hits kinda different now” was invented for how I feel now. Mostly, films don’t do that to me. I see it once, I see it […]

May 5, 2021 Let’s fill up this post with pictures! That’s a refreshing change! I promise, I’m going to relate this to autism and Dar. I may even surprise myself! Was it three years ago last week that Avengers: Infinity War came out? Wow, feels like at least six. Which I guess works with what they wanted. Yep, Marvel gave us the coronavirus just to make “the blip” feel more real. I mean, what can’t they do? Was it two […]

Readers know that I took him to a meet-and-greet on April 1. This week was the payoff. The agreement was that I would bring Dar to school every day this week at 8:10 and pick him up at 11:10. On Monday, it felt like I was the only one who’d heard about this. I showed up with a freshly showered, sharp-haircutted, newly-clothed Darwin at 8:05 only to wait…for maybe 20 minutes? I saw several fifth-graders that I recognized despite their […]

April 2, 2021 Hi there and thanks for checking in. Clearly this blog has not been maintaining its former glory of a thousand new words a week. I squarely blame the pandemic. In so so SO many ways, that has been challenging for Darwin and for us and I do not have anywhere near the strength to fully explain all that right this minute. However, I want to honor Autism Awareness Day with a little update and some good news. […]

March 25, 2021 Today, the head of BUSD’s Special Needs Education sent me a new IEP to put Dar in some kind of school on April 12. I have it in writing. GLORY BE!!!!!!!! This is a huge victory. Today I savor this. Today is a great day. YAY and THANK YOU.

March 12, 2021 I’ll be turning 50 over the weekend. Thanks to Dar, feels more like 70. He is screaming hard for an hour a day again. I don’t know anyone going through anything like this. Dar’s condition is soul-sucking. Dar’s autism is abusing us. Whatever you think abuse is, whatever criteria you use, that’s what’s going on here. I can’t talk about it right now. I don’t know when I can. Maybe when conditions change. Thanks to Covid, that […]