There are only presents because of last-minute-guilt, remote shopping, and insane wrapping at midnight.
Do Rappers have this problem when they write songs? I wonder.
Miso bossy and Miso Snoop!
We do not travel to see the lights.
Instead I huddle at home, being a giant lump of coal with a couch instead of a stocking.
Because my tongue hurts. All the time.
My tongue has hurt for over three months now.
I keep eliminating things:
Thinking I had OAS, I stopped eating foods that hurt me. (Oral Allergy Syndome–I thought tomatoes hated me.)
I change a mouth guard, thinking it might have latex.
I stop two new medications–one of which does have associated neuropathy of the tongue as a rare side effect–it’s week three now and I am thinking that isn’t the problem.
Last night, I tried taping my mouth shut only to bite myself in my sleep. (Okay, those of you laughing your asses off, I know what you are thinking, just stop.)
I still have a tongue that feels burned most of the time. I’ve been eating my weight in yogurt–which is sort of a cyclical nightmare. The more I eat, the more I bite myself and hurt my face two ways.
I am now blaming the CPAP. It’s the only thing I haven’t stopped doing. Basically, I have dry mouth from too much air. AIR IS HURTING ME. That has to be the definition of getting old.
My friend is helping me to try and change settings, but if we can’t fix why my tongue feels like a burnt offering, I don’t know what I am going to do.
So, for those of you who have wondered at my absence–and more particularly lack of holiday cheer–there are reasons beyond the usual.
“I’m just a crabby, crabby girl in a blistered-tongue world. Tryin’ to find a reason to celebrate the season!”
I might need to write a rap about that…all I need is a white-girl rapper name. Make your suggestions. I could use a laugh.
P.S. At one point, I had thrush. Let’s not mention the two weeks of drinking Nystatin oral fungal medication–the same ingredient to treat athlete’s foot. Everything tasted like tinfoil and it felt like my tongue was an insert from an old sneaker. Let’s just agree this never happened, shall we? Kind of my approach the 2025 in general–denial and a whole lot of useless salves to cover the wounds and hoping it will all just go away on its own.
In conversation with my mother recently, the subject of what she would like for Christmas this year came up. Thus begins the weirdest new way to celebrate the season.
*****
Trigger Warning: If you have recently lost a loved one and are grieving, I am sorry for your loss. However, this post is very much not intended for you. Unless you need someone to hate. Please, grieve responsibly. Thank you.
“Hey, Mom! Would you like a gift card to Meijer or just some cold hard cash you can use anywhere?” (I’m all about the sentiment of the holiday, dontcha know.)
“Actually, I need a DNR sign for my house. In case I die, I don’t want anybody trying to resuscitate me. It happened to the neighbor and afterward, she just didn’t come back the same.”
“Uh…well what if you fall and die when you aren’t at home? Wouldn’t a bracelet or something on you be better?”
[It only occurs to me later that a tattoo across the forehead would be exceptionally noticeable.]
“I’m already wearing my fall alert monitor. But, since I don’t wear it outside the house, I suppose I could do that.”
From mom’s tone, I can tell she’s still thinking of a sign for her door–or maybe a doormat? Something that reads “Grim Reaper Welcome?”
So many options, but I found this beauty on Zazzle!
It turns out there is a wide variety of I HEART DEATH related merchandise available after Halloween at murderously slashed prices. Though some are totally worth paying an exorbitant price for.
Be warned, the two installments of just $22.49 each is buying you a very tiny invitation to death. The above purchase size buys you 40 cm x 60 cm. Which, in American, is about the size of a large mailer envelope.
And then, because I was curious, I looked on Amazon and lo and behold, found this doormat:
Trust Amazon to have something made to order for every occasion.
Immediately after pulling up this Amazon find, the consumer questions popped up making me laugh despite the grim implications.
“Does it’s design prevent slipping?”
Imagine a product that ensures it becomes immediately useful?
While we talk, I am searching Amazon for something I can get Mom that speaks to the heart of our conversation without being utterly like buying a toe tag in anticipation.
A gift from the well-intentioned if slightly macabre at heart.
After I send a link and we have a short conversation, we agree. It’s perfect!
In finality, however you celebrate the season, remember, it might be your last. So celebrate it like you really mean it. And make sure your loved ones know you are thinking of them!
Perhaps this subject matter is too bleak, or in poor taste, for you to find this funny. That’s okay. Maybe you will be reassured that, no matter how hard I tried to find a Death Carol, I failed to locate “Have Yourself a Merry Little Deathmas!” And perhaps that is the happiest news of the day.
Then again, I did find this video:
For which you can be eternally grateful! You’re welcome.
I ask myself this after I fell into a blackhole this week watching a marathon of Chinese Soap Opera–56 hours later I’m still trying to figure it out.
How can you watch this many hours and not remember the plot at the end? It’s a mystery.
*****
Life has calmed down–as much as it ever does. I have moments of time available–between loads of laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, boy-child wrangling and working. I should be using that time wisely. I tell myself, “You should be writing.”
But it is so hard to get myself focused. There is something fractured about being me that has worsened over the years.
Have you ever lived your life expecting that ‘someday’ you’d figure things out. You’d wake up and–BAM–you’d have your act together. Life wouldn’t be so hard then? You’d definitely have a handle on being who you are!
I’m fifty-five and it hasn’t happened yet. It is dawning on me that I’m not going to have that life-altering shift of perception–the epiphany that opens wide my mind, steers me toward a better version of myself. Someone who is capable. A real go getter.
And each day I wake up and find I am still just me…it’s hard. Really, really hard.
It is somewhat disappointing to reach this realization. I’m not only not getting any better at life, I may actually be getting incrementally worse. Mostly it feels like I am floundering. I’m a human placeholder in a game I can’t win, playing against formidable forces I can’t see against insurmountable odds…and I think I’m facing the wrong way on the board and possibly missing a few pieces. (This analogy may have gone astray.) What I’m saying is, it is exhausting facing life like this. Some days, I want to give up.
Life can be discouraging that way–if you forget to look for the positives. If you don’t count the sunshine that follows the storm. If you don’t take pleasure in the small victories–like matching all the socks in the laundry. (Throwing out the single ones is just good mental health, in my opinion.) Or watching the fuzzy-butted squirrels outside the kitchen window as they stuff their face with just one more peanut. The smell of clean laundry warm right out of the dryer. Snifffff…ahhhh! (What? It can’t be only me who does this!)
Depression filters the world grayer. Drains the energies. Zaps the mind’s ability to combat the inner demons that tell you “Give up. You can’t beat this.” This inner critic chants in a hateful, hurtful voice spewing a litany of failures on repeat just waiting to bring you down. It is a broken mirror that reflects how much you are not like the person you thought you would be by now. It drowns good intentions in bile and self-loathing.
But, it only wins if you listen. If you believe its lies. It’s false protestations. If you don’t take into account the good you do. The people who love you and the people who you love in return. The worth in facing a day despite every instinct that would have you crawl back into a hole to sleep or fall into a Netflix coma to escape the daily grind.
I struggle to beat back these feelings. To see my worth. To feel it. But, I am still trying. Every day. I try to make good choices–even if that means that having tofu and stir fried vegetables for lunch is my crowning achievement in a day full of suck. That, and I got a shower. And I sat down to my computer to put my feelings into words.
Being who I am hasn’t been easy. I struggle. I fail. But I get back up again.
And maybe, at the end of the day, that is something to be proud of.
If anyone else has hit the doldrums of winter and is in need of encouragement–spring will come. Eventually. And I will join you in a little sun worshiping when it does. Until then, hold on. And remember, you are not alone.
*
You’ve read this far bonus:
I’ve just learned that February First is National Dark Chocolate Day. Dark chocolate is nature’s way of saying, “Yeah, life can be bitter…but it can be a little sweet too. Have a truffle today! You deserve it!”
And, for anyone needing help, please consider talking to someone. The Lifeline number to call for suicide prevention is now 988 or you can use the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) it is a toll-free hotline in the US. You can check out the webpage at 988Lifeline.org.
I used to scream bloody murder when I was a child. I would shriek so loud, so long, that eventually I would go hoarse. I even developed nodes–tightened knots on my vocal chords. When I finally figured out screaming wasn’t helping me I stopped. This allowed my vocal chords to relax and I discovered I had a deeper register. (As a result, I sing somewhere between contralto and tenor with a hiccup in my falsetto.)
What I couldn’t have told you, even if you had asked, was why. Why did I devolve into a nightmare child shuddering in hysterics? I couldn’t tell you then, but I might be able to tell you now.
I don’t know who you are but you obviously don’t have any school-aged kids at home, or you would understand what level hell you are putting us through. By us, I mean parents who had hopes of getting through this winter alive with our sanity intact. But no. You’ve trapped us in our homes with our children for, FLAKE*, what is it? Ten days now? Eleven? I’ve lost count of how many flaking snow days it’s been. Continue reading What the Flake?→
Nine out of ten people won’t read past this sentence.
You can’t believe how this story turns out!
Who would have thought anything so strange, bright, bold, beautiful, and bouncy could happen here?
Only my real friends will read to the end, and copy and paste this, and dance naked in the rain while singing the theme to the Brady Bunch.
“Here’s the story…of a lovely lady…”
Try not to hate me.
*
CLICK BAIT!
I guess I am as guilty as anyone else. I click the title that leaves me hanging, that asks for, nay, demands attention. A dangling question mark with a spurious answer. Unless it has a mysterious sea creature or a poisonous arachnid that I absolutely must know about before going to bed. (‘Cause that’s not gonna cause nightmares at all!)
What I’m saying is, I’m a sucker for flashy headlines that drag me onto an eye-blistering site with multiple pop-up ads, hidden read-more arrows disguised by embedded commercials. Oh, and let’s not forget the blinking GIFS causing neural disruptions. FUN!
I hate that I fall for these things because they drag me away from real life and important things…like laundry and grocery shopping.*
Sometimes I lie to myself–that following these idiotic stories is in pursuit of knowledge.
I’ve watched videos on the metamorphoses talents of cuttle fish and octopi which change outfits so often they are the aquatic equivalent of The Next Top Model, but underwater.**
Though my favorite videos are by the guy who voiced Dear Kitten Commercials. It’s awesome when he goes off the deep end:
If you’ve got a hook, I’ve probably swallowed it:
Pseudo science dumbed down to bite-sized consumer factoids?
Bring on the quasi science fiction babble about neutrinos emissions formed with pop rocks and microwaved coca-cola.
Something innocuous actually poised to kill or permanently maim mankind?
I swear, everyday someone is ruining a favorite treat with a gross video or unsubstantiated claim about the poisons in our everyday life. My mom sent me one about my favorite ‘Don’t Kill Anyone Today Beverage.”
I read the whole thing, but didn’t see any links to data or studies. But then, I was reading it on a microscopic phone screen while simultaneously trying to keep track of my boy child. Still, who has time to follow up on the facts? Not when there’s all this junk to sift through!
(Google this yourself. I’d break the internet trying this on my old laptop.)
I’d like to say that, knowing the dangers and misrepresentations, I won’t fall for these time wasters any more. But I really don’t have any answers. All I know is that putting the iPhone down for a weekend won’t kill you. Will it?
Hang on…Googles topic…Okay…finds story on the Daily Beast (which is no doubt a reputable news source with a name like that):
DISCLAIMER: if you plan to become a luddite and leave the internet behind, perhaps you should consult a doctor before taking any drastic measures…or take away a teenager’s XBox.
There should be an easy path back to a normal life. A life unplugged and free from anxiety-inducing ersatz drama. One where you don’t jump at every text DING like a Pavlovian pooch or fall for sleezy, but alluring, tabloid-esque, ALL CAP article headlines. There must be a way back to normal!
But that’s a story for another day. I’ve got the car packed to go camping and a teenager waiting for his car ride away from electronic distractions.
Hopefully we will both survive to meme another day.***
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Okay, I really hate doing laundry and grocery shopping so it doesn’t take much to distract me from a task…oh look, a SQUIRREL!
**You know that an Underwater reality show is in the works somewhere. Hosts will be Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid and Charlie the Tuna from the Star Kist commercials.
***I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while. And to do a much better job of it than this. Sorry.
I grew up expecting to be somebody special…someday. This is both wonderful and terrible, hopeful and sad. Mostly, it just gets in the way of being somebody now. Looking for the arrival of an idealized self, you can’t see the greatness in everyday heroics because there is no spangled outfit or magic amulet to show you how great you are. I blame my childhood.
Thanks to Nick-Perks of Deviant Art for permission for this absolutely perfect expression of my inner self.
*
As an overly imaginative little girl, I envisioned all sorts of futures. I was the conduit for every character I read or saw on television. I would adopt a persona and play dramatic roles for an audience of one. I was Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie long before Elizabeth Gilbert stole the role I was destined to play. (I wanted the blue hair ribbons, darn it.)Life is rarely kind to such dreamers.*
I had a giant, wall-sized mirror in my childhood bedroom—it covered a massive hole in the brickwork. After dark, mice would crawl up behind the giant glass pane and scratch at the edges trying to get into my room.** I was both terrified and mesmerized by that mirror; it held all my hopes and fears.
Thanks to J. Hilla for this depiction of my inner child.
Unlike the magic mirror in Snow White—my looking glass never made dire predictions. It was more like the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter lore. It was a stage for my heart’s desire: a place where I could be the hero of my own epic adventures. What you don’t realize as a child? Most superheroes have a tragic back story that propels them to become super in the first place.***
I marched back and forth in front of that mirror transforming into whatever television character I was enchanted with at the time. One of my earliest superhero flashbacks is wanting to be Wonder Woman. Maybe it was because, as Diana Prince, she had dark hair and glasses, like me. I made tinfoil bracelets to ward off bullets—making “pi-too pi-too” noises as I deflected imaginary attacks. I would spin in circles until I fell over dizzy and giggling.
Linda Carter marched onto the tv screen as Wonder Woman from 1975-1979—finally representing everything the 1970’s said a woman could be. Wonder Woman was strong and sexy—a woman who had all the power and could whip men until they cowered at her shiny red boots. An excellent role model for a prepubescent girl. Um…uh…yeah. Anyway...
Liberated from http://www.soapchat.net. I’m hoping they don’t: a. notice, b. mind, c. have legal rights and the energy to sue…
At the time, I didn’t question wearing a skimpy outfit and go-go boots as the appropriate wardrobe for a crime fighter. In my defense, I was eight at the time. I desperately wanted to be the heroine who saves the day. Honestly, I’ve never really outgrown those early impulses.
As television programming changed, so did the sophistication of my dreams. Since I couldn’t be reborn as an Amazon, perhaps I could become super via technology? From 1976 to 1978, Lindsey Wagner followed on the celebrity that was the Six Million Dollar Man—who, in today’s currency, would barely register as any level of super being.
The Bionic Woman was my first taste of a regular person who became super-human through the advancement of cybernetics. Looking back, the sound effects and ‘action’ sequences of speeded up film look laughable, but back then, I ran everywhere emitting “da…da…da…da…da…” for high-speed sound effects or making “SprooooooIIiiiing” noises while jumping off the couch. (My brother and I owe my mother apologies for what we did to her furniture.) My hero complex would not be complete if I did not include a certain spectacular trio who entered our homes as black silhouettes surrounded by flames.
Charlie’s Angels dominated the airwaves from 1976-1981 finally exhibiting *cough, cough* attainable qualities of superhero-dom: athleticism, skill, and wit. That they looked good in a bikini and frequently wore one to fight crime is only more impressive now when I know how hard it is to find a swimsuit you can swim in none less run and tackle bad guys wearing one! (The heroine is wearing the bikini in the preceding analogy…but now that I think of it…it would be much funnier the other way around.)
I asked the internet to find “Bad Guys in Heels” but it gave this instead:
Sorry, got distracted there for a minute. What were we talking about? Right. Becoming super.
Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, and Charlie’s Angels were the quintessence of female power and prominent pulchritude—women I so badly wanted to grow up to be. There is just one, tiny problem with this, as it turns out.
Being a superhero in the 70’s required that a woman be multi-talented, super intelligent or powerful, and it helped that you were *ahem* well-endowed with superspeed, a lasso of truth, surgical enhancements or have an invisible billionaire backer with a voice to melt butter. No biggie. One thing all of these super women have in common though is only obvious by its absence. None of them are mothers.
Apparently, one can either be a superhero—strong, confident, and kicking ass in man-devouring footwear—or you can be a mom. I tried, but I couldn’t think of a single superhero of my generation where that was possible. This is a big problem when it comes to finding your inner super qualities.
Being any kind of mother is incredibly hard work. It is mostly filled with endless, thankless, and unrewarding tasks and—unless you are some kind of Stepford Saint-of-the-Year with built-in lack of aspirations—parenting kind of sucks. Anyone who has ever changed a diarrhea diaper will tell you how un-fun it can be! But, it is particularly hard to feel that you are living up your super-mom potential when the son or daughter you are raising has autism. Don’t get me wrong, autism is not the bad guy here. It’s the character-building plot twist that makes you want to be a super mom in the first place!
No, the evil villain in this story is the irrational effing voice in your head telling you that every action or inaction has the power to make the difference for your changeling child. I call my villain ‘The Heckler’ and its voice is particularly shrill and nasal. (Think Fran Drescher on helium wielding a chain saw.) You search for therapies, solutions, answers to meet your child in a maelstrom of unknown and unseen terrors. No matter how far you come, you can only see how far you have yet to go, or worse, how far you’ve fallen short of your ideal. It’s Sisyphean motherhood at best.
I don’t want to whine about the challenges of parenting on the spectrum. What I am talking about is being able to look at my actions through a kinder mirror. One where I see that, though my accomplishments may not be as death-defying as stopping bullets with a bracelet, they are equally amazing and wonder-worthy. But how?
One of my favorite Curly Girl designs by the artist Leigh Standley, says this so much better than I can:
I have the honest authorization to use this artwork. I know! Squee! I just about fainted with glee when I got the okay! Go Leigh Standley!
Seriously, Autism parenting would be so much easier if I had super powers!
This got me to thinking.
What if?
What if…I drew my character on paper? Give her magical gadgets and abilities…and a cool catch phrase? That’s it! What I need to do is…become super! But what super powers would I give her to make me believe in her heroism? What would make the perfect Autism Mom?
Super Autism Mom Checklist
Autism Mom needs…
Emo Vaulting—the ability to leap toward compassion in a single bound. (Or maybe a lasso of empathy to throttle idiots who lack any?)
Psychic Powers to know why in the world her kid is doing ‘X’ repeatedly so she can stop going crazy and let him be. (I’m looking at you Exit 59.)
HyperSonicSensitive Precognition—the ability to detect and avoid sensory overload meltdowns!
Rx Defensive Measures—an emergency bandolier of psychiatric medication on hand at all times—for herself or her kid, as needed. These prescriptions would magically fill themselves before running out and would be totally covered by insurance.
Supercomputer Implants that would remember all the I.E.P. goals, meetings, and doctors’ appointments. Now before you can say ‘iPhone’…it is also a time machine to be able to go back and attend anything accidentally scheduled for the same day. Plus it survives a bath in the toilet and a trip down the laundry chute!
Guards Against Humanity Cloaking Device—an invisible shield of imperviousness so narrowed-eyed onlookers and snide remarks would slip right past her when she takes her child out in public.
A Cone of Silence would descend so that screaming fits would calm to a dull roar and wrap the sufferer in a soothing cocoon of sensory deprivation so outbursts would subside in half the time. This will work for the child too.
What else? Oh, I know, let’s add:
Telekinetic Magic Belt that would dispense a flare gun, a fire extinguisher, a tourniquet, you know—the usual ‘whatever’—needed on a given day in Autism Parenting. It would miraculously produce whatever special item your autism adventure demands—like Dora’s backpack, but less creepy.
Our super heroine is almost complete. Almost fully armed for the battle of her life. All she needs is one…more…thing…
The Unbreakable Mirror of Truth.
Autism Mom would carry a magic mirror so that, whenever the evil inner demons start chanting her failures, she can hold it up and it will reveal the super mom she truly is. Instead of unwashed hair and sweatpants camouflage, she will shine for all the world to see.
[Note: The Mirror of Truth will also show her as several pounds lighter because, come on, don’t we all really want that super power!?]
Looking super silly!
Anyway, she is the me I want to see when I look in the mirror.
And…
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot.
Every Autism Mom deserves a nice tiara.
Just because.
I recently re-watched the pilot episode of Wonder Woman and was struck by the advice Queen Hippolyta gives Diana before sending her out into the world. Words we autism moms should all live by:
“Go in peace, my daughter. And remember, that, in the world of ordinary mortals, you are a wonder woman!”
We truly are.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Dreams, by their nature, only exist if one suspends all disbelief and evidence to the contrary. This is why they rarely survive waking.
**Mirror, Mirror, on the wall. What the [bleep] doth creep and crawl?
***Again with the blessing and the curse analogies. Man, am I heavy-handed today. My bucket of overwrought symbolism overfloweth.
Spring still isn’t here. Do you know how I know this? Two words: Slug Brain.
*
I have an uninvited guest who invades my corpus callosum during cold weather. Let’s call him Sluggo–assuming the copyright statutes on the Popeye franchise has lapsed. Apparently, Sluggo has decided to turn my brain into a collective.*
He has invited friends and they are slowly taking over the only unused space available–the squishy crevices in my cerebellum. He and his cohort hog the remote–watching the home shopping network at top volume. And for some reasons, their fearless leader keeps insisting that cheese is a fruit. Sluggo is one pushy mollusk.
There’s popcorn everywhere and somebody drank the last of the orange juice, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me. I forget to look on the way to the bathroom and, invariably, there is a slippery trail threatening to break my neck. (The less said about this, the better.) Someone is going to get hurt.**
Anyway, if anyone wonders when the blog will finally start generating a buzz with it’s cutting-edge content and thought-provoking insights, ask yourself this: When will the gastropod extravaganza end and things can get back to normal?
Only Sluggo knows and he’s not talking.***
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*Resistance is futile…and leaves a slimy trail.
**I hurt my brain trying to understand the difference between a gastropod with a shell (snail) and one without (slug). And since that is the major difference between the two, that is saying something. I’m just not sure what…
February is the grayest month of the year and I can prove it; even my cooking is suffering a major depressive disorder.
***
I love to throw things into a pot and see what happens. Sometimes I end up with a miraculous, delicious invention that could hold it’s own in a modest kitchen stadium.
Sometimes…
And then, there are those unfortunate choices we live to regret.*
Dinner started out as basic boiled root vegetables. I had carrots, potatoes, onions, a red cabbage. I figured, “Ah heck, who cares if everything is vaguely pink?”
…then I remembered I had the makings of a nice green curry. So, I just kept tossing things in: peas, peppers, coriander, lemon grass, fish sauce, chicken, coconut milk…
Unintentional Red Cabbage Massacre
Red cabbage is so good in many things, but not as a visual aid in Green Curry Recipes. And purple curry is just WRONG!
Every time I made the mistake of looking at my meal, I felt like an institutional stew from a psych ward was staring back at me.
At least it tasted okay…as long as you closed your eyes.
Dessert was not so lucky.
It’s been a long week. My son has had more snow days, half-days and doctor’s visits than usual. I’m starting to twitch trying to keep him occupied.
So, I decided to make some cupcakes…from a box mix.
I think to myself, “You can’t go wrong with a box mix.”**
Then I remembered I wanted to try mixing in a box of pudding…so I go to the internet.
I whip everything together. Plunk some festive papers in the cupcake tray and pop those bad boys in the oven for forty-five minutes at 350 degrees, just like the cobbled-together recipe online says.
I’m watching reruns of Supernatural. The Winchesters battle God’s sister for the sake of the universe and the loving scent of vanilla wafts through the house. The oven is so warm that I can feel my toes thawing.
All is well with the world.
I searched for images of ‘Supernatural Cupcakes’ thinking I’d find Sam and Dean draped in suggestive poses covered in pastry. Alas, I did not. But the internet did not disappoint. Admire these hexed treats. I’m in awe of you, Justina Kropp/Pinterest.
Time passes. I’m distracted by a noise, pause my show, and I get up to check it out when I realize there is still about fifteen minutes left on the oven timer…
And that’s when it hits me.
Cupcakes are not cakes. Not really. They are precocious infants that might someday grow up to be real desserts.
And they don’t take 45 minutes to bake.
Surprisingly, what I took out of the oven wasn’t entirely inedible.***
“I’ll just make a fantastic frosting and hide my crimes.” I say, with desperate bravado, the hallmark of self delusion.
Back to the internet I go…because I am a slow learner.
I wanted to make a ganache…a rich, chocolatey, mouth-gasm of a frosting.
Ganache, for those of you who don’t know, is fecking awesome when done correctly.
That last part is important.
This is what I made instead:
This really needs the sound track to the shower scene from Psycho. That’s how big a tragedy this was.
“How bad were these cupcakes?” You ask.
I’ll show you.
Exhibit A:
I gave my teenage son a choice…cupcake or mango.
I myself was curious to learn whether there was any kind of sugary confection my son would turn down.
This was his answer….
Yeah. That’s pretty damning.
So, I did the only thing a sad baker can do.
(Besides eat two anyway because. Denial!)
Good Bye, nasty garbage cakes!
They clung to the tray as if saying, “We’re not that bad…give us a chance.”
But no. Sometimes, it’s better, healthier, to let go of the things we cannot change.
And that includes damaged baked goods.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Recipes, like horses, should never be changed mid-stream.
**I was wrong. Horribly, disastrously wrong. This was the monstrous amalgamation of inattention paired with random recipe Googling–creating a cake-tastrophy.
I was going to title this 2017 – A Year in the Crapper and include an appropriate photo, but my friends tell me I overshare.
So, here’s my modified letter to the world:
2017 KINDA SUCKED
Like burnt-pan-of-forgotten-soup-boiled-drySUCKED.
How bad a cook am I? I burned soup, people. That’s how bad!
It took a whole year of bad things happening for me to put my finger on exactly what was wrong…
2017 – LIKE TREE-EATS-ROOF KINDA SUCKS!
Yeah, yeah. Having a tree drop on your house in a sh*t storm was a pretty big effing clue. But you could just chalk that up to really bad luck and shrug it off. If it weren’t for all those bad juju kinda things that kept happening.
I TRIED 2017. I REALLY DID.
I tried traveling to exotic locations and exploring for fun and adventure. I generally learned there is a diminishing return on happiness. The farther away we got from home, the more likely we were going to need an E.R. trip or an intervention. We are now circling the drain of 2017 and sticking mostly to home as a result.
CAMP CADILLAC – For when you finally admit tent camping isn’t for you!
My son loves to go places and sleep outdoors.
Or so I thought.
Instead, what I found was photographic evidence that my son just likes a variety of places he can write calendars–or, if not writing them, he is contemplating it with a fistful of markers or crayons awaiting his next fix.
My son discovered a love of popcorn. That was a new obsession.
This really was his primary food source in 2017
Camping meant lots of time spent popping this way.
But despite the happiness campaign the people at Orville Redenbacher are pitching, popcorn can’t fix everything.
If you squint you can make out my son’s favorite pastime. Hunting for calendars a thousand years from now.
Not even calendars can do that.
It also took me nearly a year of misery to realize something…
Gun Lake Reprieve – Momentary Bliss
Despite the occasional flashes of joy and happiness I managed to capture…
Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him NOT to eat this cookie so I could take this fuzzy image? You can’t!
In most of the photos I took of my son…he was not smiling.
Seriously, he really did love this place. But his face doesn’t show it!
He was there. But he was an unwilling participant in:
Mommy’s Campaign for Happiness and Symptom Control.
Millenium Park only reached a tepid level of joy.
If 2017 were a fairytale–it was the Hans-Christian-Andersen-dark-with-a-side-of-maniacal-laughter kind. And it would have opened with this line…
THERE ONCE WAS A HAPPY BOY…whose mother tried to address his recurring rage-outs with a wave of pharmaceutical fixes.
This was his most common expression–a mixture of Why? and Please Stop!
We tried several different combinations of psychiatric panaceas. If a drug caused a side effect, we gave a pill to fix the side effect – or in theory, that’s what it was supposed to do. Instead, it produced yet more side effects that, surprise, surprise, we’d try to address with more medication.
It was the loopiest, saddest, roller coaster of a year you can imagine.
Part of me wanted to believe this was a transition year. That turning thirteen and becoming a dreaded teenager was the root of this particular evil. But after several incidents of biting in school this fall, I decided to stop the massively medicated merry-go-round–at least in part.
We backed off the majority of his drug trials. He is back on the two drugs that have the fewest complications and I just deal with side effects that only have him crawling up the walls and not sleeping instead of the combo-platter pharmacopeia backlash that produced jittery anxiety, biting, and head bashing, among other things.
I now take comfort in momentary joys–as rare as a solar eclipse and therefore exponentially more cherished in their singularity.
Does he understand the significance of the earth’s shadow blocking the sun? I do not know. But he enjoyed a day out and that was good enough for me.
But when added up in seconds, the joys of 2017 could not outweigh the sorrows.
In this year, I have watched my happy boy transform in a downward spiral of misery and depression, taking me with him.
THERE’S NO MAP TO A HAPPY PLACE FROM HERE!
Then I had to leave my job to take care of him. Because, once he outgrew his handlers, I was the only one who could get him off the bus.
I left a good place to work for a life of uncertainty and near-poverty that allows me to work from home in the hours that my son is in school.
The only upside to this stress? I have spent less time developing an ulcer over the toilet tank of a government where The Great Evil and his Cabal of Cackling Soulless Ones are stirring a sh*t stew for the masses to swallow.
So, 2017–that’s it! I am out of it: Out of work. Out of patience. And now, out of time.
I AM DONE, 2017.
SERIOUSLY.
I AM DONE WITH YOU.
I am coasting the rest of this year and hope that 2018 has some upside that I just can’t foresee or imagine. But I doubt it.*
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*In a traditional end-of-year review, I usually take a light-hearted look at the craziness of my life. 2017 hasn’t been so much crazy-fun as it has been crazy-needs-to-be-committed. I’m not going to pretend otherwise and that’s my gift to you. Some years, all you can give is the honest truth…even if it is wrapped in a craptastic bow.**
**Seriously, though, being sick with cough and congestion this past week may have affected this year’s letter. Perhaps after I finish coughing up a lung, I’ll find my happy place again?
*Hack*
*Hurk…Gag…Harrrung*
*Ptui!*
Or, maybe not.
“This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the End…of 2017!”
TheDustSeason 