All Day Her Dreams...

30 Things You May Not Know About My Illness

2010-09-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Someone suggested this site, Chronic Babe, which is for women living with chronic illnesses. Chronic means basically an illness you'll have for life, so ADHD, Aspergers, depression and anxiety count. I wanted to participate in this meme on the message board, and I thought I'd crosspost it here, too!

In honor of Invisible Illness Awareness Week, here's my contribution to the "30 things" meme. Want to write your own? Head over to the forum and post!

1. The illness I live with is: ADHD (i'll just focus on the one since i have a few)

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2003

3. But I had symptoms since: preschool, at least, and all through elementary school, high school, and adulthood.

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: trying to find my own ways of doing everything. What seems like an ordinary piece of life for a typical person can be a complicated ordeal for me, such as trying to "pass" for normal at a job interview, sitting still in my college classes, trying not to annoy the people I live with, etc.

5. Most people assume: ADHD is just an excuse about laziness.

6. The hardest part about mornings are: feeling exhausted even though I slept all night, and feeling sort of sick.

7. My favorite medical TV show is: Gray's Anatomy

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: the GPS on my new cell phone! Its prevented me from getting lost about 100 times already! Before I had it, I was always getting lost!

9. The hardest part about nights are: when I am not ready to sleep but everyone is, and when I know I'm going to have to wake up in a short while. I'll try to force myself to go to sleep so I can get enough sleep, but it doesn't work!

10. Each day I take: Celexa, Wellbutrin, and vitamins.

11. Regarding alternative treatments I: wish I could find one that really worked for me and that was affordable.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: I don't know. I am used to myself the way I am. Even though ADHD is a pain, I'm not sure I would want to trade it for a more visible illness, even if it meant I'd get more help for it.

13. Regarding working and career: I'm studying to be a special education teacher, but I'm afraid I'm not going to make it, because my professors tell me I'll have to get straight A's and be super "on the ball" in order to get a job. I am anything but on the ball!

14. People would be surprised to know: I have a really hard time connecting to others. I feel really awkward around people even if I know them really well. Family get togethers are totally hard for me. Its not that I don't love my family. I'd just rather see them one at a time, instead of all together.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: nothing because this has been my reality forever! I guess, knowing about it, its sometimes hard accepting that this is going to be who I am forever. I'm not going to wake up with that missing piece suddenly no longer missing!

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: l! earn to drive. When I was a kid I was told I'd never learn to drive. But I learned when I was 21. Its still sometimes hard for me and some people say I'm a "bad driver," but at least I get around!

17. The commercials about my illness: are mostly about children with ADHD.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: nothing, since I've had it all my life. But I think I miss out on things like socializing.

19. It was really hard to have to give up: n/a because, since I had it all my life, there is nothing really to give up. I've been told to give up caffiene but I cannot part with my Dr. Pepper!

20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: I learned to knit and crochet. Also blogging.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: not know what to do because I was never "normal!"

22. My illness has taught me: to find the things that I am good at and enjoy, and run with them. I may not be able to do some things as well as other people, but I can do other things wonderfully. Also to live life to the fullest. I have a low tolerance for boredom, so I have had a lot of experiences just because I want to try everything!

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "You don't have ADHD. The doctors are wrong. You're fine. You just have to... (try harder, gain more confidence, get over anxiety, stop feeling sorry for yourself, insert your own words here.)"

24. But I love it when people: understand and ask me questions to learn more, instead of just assuming they know better than me or anyone else.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:“Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.”

26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: find the things you are interested, the things you are good at, and the things you love to do, and use those to help you get through. I love writing, so even though I have trouble paying attention in school, my ability to write fascinating reports and give funny presentations gets me through. Everybody has something that makes them shine!

27. Something that has surprised me about paying a living with an illness is: its tough. There's not a lot of help out there for people with an invisible illness. I am usually broke!

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: Diana often talks sense into me. When I think everything is horrible, she helps put it back into perspective, letting me see that its not so bad and that others have gone through similar things.

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: I just learned about it, and I think it is an important thing for people to learn about, not just for my benefit, but for the benefit of the children I work with who have invisible illnesses such as ADHD, autism, OCD, etc.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: thankful that someone cares enough to listen to me!

Well, THAT was exhausting!

2010-04-30T19:07:00.001-07:00

This has been an exhausting couple of days! I'm not going to write exactly why, because I may or may not still have stalker issues. But its just a matter of trying to juggle a bunch of things. Last night I slept at my mom's house, then went at about two to pick up all of the little kids in DuPage, and brought them back to my mom's house. I kept them there until about eight, and then brought them back to DuPage, where I will stay with them until about midnight, and then I will go back to my mom's house for the night. Does that sound complicated?

Its even more complicated because of the fact that Little Bear and Pufferfish were sort of sick.

We stopped at this little chocolate festival near my mom's house, which I thought would be fun for them. I envisioned it involving free samples of chocolate at every booth. No such luck! It was booth after booth of expensive food, nothing free, and a few rinky dink kiddie rides that were also expensive! I spent about twelve bucks on tickets so Rafael and Pufferfish could go on three rides each. Little Bear was saying she wasn't feeling good and didn't want to go on any rides. By the time the other kids got done riding their three rides and getting their faces painted, Little Bear was hollering up a storm! So I told them we would start heading for my mom's.

By the time we were almost to the car, Little Bear broke the news to me that she had to pee... bad! Of course she waited to tell me about it until it was nearly dribbling down her legs... and the only porta potty was way back on the other side of the fest, where we had just spent ten minutes walking from!

I told Little Bear to just hold it a few minutes until we got to my mom's. Little Bear started hollering even more, and then she bumped her head trying to get into the car, and it was a disaster for all involved! She gets like that when she's overtired... she's just one big blob of misfortune!

Finally we got to my mom's, and I left the others in the car so I could rush Little Bear into the bathroom. I showed her where it was, then went back for Rafael and Pufferfish, who had asked me about a bajillion times, "Why do we gotta wait in the car?" ("Because I gotta take Little Bear to the bathroom, I don't have time to get Pufferfish outta the car seat, and I don't want to leave her alone, so just STAY HERE FOR ONE MINUTE PLEASE!")

Unfortunately Little Bear had made it not quite on time to the potty and was hollering that she was cold, so I rifled around my mom's house for some little kid clothes. All I could find was a pair of Sarah -Jo's undies from when she was about six. (Back when they used to spend weekends with me, their dad never remembered to pack them clean clothes, so I started buying underwear and socks and stuff to keep at my house for when they were there.) I gave Little Bear the undies and one of my jammie T-shirts. Problem solved! Little Bear sort of looked like a ghost in the T-shirt that went down to her ankles, but what can ya do?

The rest of the night actually went better. The kids played with my doggie Trixie and visited with my less than enthusiastic kitty Sammy-Joe, and they played with the toys that my mom keeps there for my little cousins. Then they watched some cartoons. I fed them PBJ sandwiches.

You know your parents' lives have changed a lot when you have to scrounge around in their house for things to make PBJ! It was like, "Hmmm, here is some organic peanut butter! Here is some red strawberry marmalade! Here is some Country White Bread! Close enough, I guess!"

Anyway, I finally told them to clean up and we headed for home. Miraculously, all three stayed awake in the car! I got them inside, gave the girls some Motrin, let them lay down, etc. I took their temperatures and found out Pufferfish was 105.8 and Little Bear was 104.7! The rest of the night was spent just trying to cool them down and get them to sleep peacefully!

Its weird because they never had any other symptoms... no sore throats, stuffy noses, nothing!

Anyway, now I am just waiting for Rafael's mom to come get him so I can go back to my mom's for the night! Rafael, by the way, is still up and going strong, watching the old Chipmunks movie (the cartoon version from back in the day) for the second time tonight!

Ugh! I wish I never had to wake up again!

Dreaming About Cottage Cheese, And Other Awkward News!

2010-04-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

I feel like I neglect this blog because I write so much in my other blog about the kids. The kids are just more interesting. There's always something new going on with them! But lately I've sort of been neglecting that blog also.
So whats new with me?

I am now on a new medication, Wellbutrin. Only its not called that. My doctor prescribed me something that is actually supposed to help people quit smoking, but has the same ingredients as Wellbutrin. For some reason it is cheaper in the non-smoking package. The weird thing is, Wellbutrin is an antidepressant, and the doctor prescribed it for me as an ADHD medication. The doctor before her, at the same clinic, originally prescribed me Wellbutrin when I told her I had ADHD, but she said it was for anxiety. And then the doctor I had next (before the one I have now) was just sort of not paying attention, and he said the Wellbutrin was to "energize" me.
I go to the Mental Health Clinic which is for poor people who can't afford their meds. And some of the doctors just act like you're a name on a piece of paper. They don't even look at you when they talk to you. That was how my first two doctors (the one I had to see for intake, and then the next guy) were. They wouldn't even remember me from one day to the next. They would literally say, "Have I seen you before? Are you my patient?" Ugh.
But right now I have a really good doctor, and a really good clinician, so things are going well.
Has anyone else taken Wellbutrin for ADHD or Aspergers?

Another thing is that I went on the South Beach diet for two weeks. It was Diana's idea. She had done it before and lost a ton of weight, and she wanted to try it again. So her, Jimmy and I all went on it!
The first few days were crazy! I felt literally sick to my stomach, achy, like I had the flu, and drowsy! That is because I was addicted to sugar and carbs. The South Beach diet means you have to boycott all sugar and carbs. If you do it by the book, you shouldn't even eat fruit, and even some vegetables are against the rules because they're starchy! But we let ourselves have fruit and vegetables so that we wouldn't starve to death and die, or, like, kill the kids or something. One of the things that was on the GOOD list for the diet was cottage cheese. And I really like cottage cheese, so I was eating it at least once a day, a big bowl of it! (I know that grosses some of you out.) By the fifth or sixth day, I was having dreams about cottage cheese.
I am not joking. I dreamed about cottage cheese.
By the third or fourth day, I was still thinking that I wished I could have some Dr. Pepper and some SunChips and some cookies... but other than that, I felt awesome! I usually feel really tired during the day. But I felt wide awake, and somehow clearer! I had more energy.
Then the two weeks ended (actually I think we lasted ten days) and I went back to eating carbs and sugar, and right away I started feeling tired and listless again.
I know that alot of parents of kids with ADHD and Aspergers put their kids on special diets that affect their behavior. So I looked it up and found that high protein, low carb diets are helpful for people with ADHD or autism. There's an article about it here.
So I think I should go back on a low carb diet. But this time I would just have a little bit of Dr. Pepper and cookies and stuff, to keep from losing my mind.
The only problem is, we eat a ton of carbs and processed food in my house! So I would probably always have to make my meals separately from everyone else. That would be AWKWARD!
One solution I thought of was to follow a low carb diet for breakfast and lunch, while the kids are in school and only Hayden is eating with me. Then at least my brain would be clear for most of the day! At dinner maybe I would eat some carbs, but still try to avoid them.

Right now I am at my mom's house, which I like because I can see Trixie and Sammy-Joe, and I can use the computer as much as I want! Possibly all night! But last time I spent the weekend at my mom's, Lily, the puppy, would not go potty outside. She decided she can only pee for me and me alone. She gets kind of obsessed with me like that. I am hoping this time things will go better and she'll pee like a normal dog!

Do I have a way to end this post? No, I do not.

Happy Easter and a Meme!

2010-04-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! I saw a funny meme in another blog and I thought I'd try it out. What you do is do a Google search on your name and "enjoys." For instance, I searched for "Nicki loves," and here is what I came up with!

Nicki enjoys helping others in ways that are big and small. (True!)

Nicki enjoys sharing her knowledge with all ages. (True!)

Nicki enjoys competing in triathlons, horseback riding, backpacking, and cooking. (Not really!)

Nicki enjoys the variety and pace of publishing. (Does publishing a blog count?)

Nicki enjoys nurturing and chauffeuring her children. (True!)

Nicki enjoys both travel and leisure photography. (Kinda true!)

Nicki enjoys movies and relaxing with friends. (True!)

Nicki enjoys working with children of all ages. (True!)

Nicki enjoys spending time with her three children. (True...)

Nicki enjoys worldwide success. (I wish that was true!)

If you have a blog, Facebook, or something like that, you should try this out!

Okay, everyone, go back to your regularly scheduled Easter amusement!

The Irony Is Killing Me!

2010-03-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Who here thinks it is ironic that I, the blogger with ADHD, could not manage to follow the blogging schedule that I made up for myself?
LOL! Oh well, I guess I can't promise you anything after all... except that I will aim for at least one post a week, and I'll try to make it interesting!
Hey, here is something interesting! I got a tattoo! Its on my left calf. Check it out!

I used to think I'd absolutely never get a tattoo because it would hurt too much... but then I started realizing that, depending on what part of my body I got it on, it might not be too bad for me. Some of you who have been reading for a long time might remember that I used to self-injure and I still struggle with controlling that impulse! Anyway I realized that getting a tattoo would probably be no worse than what I used to do to my own self, and since I have always secretly wished I was brave enough to get a tattoo, I decided to go ahead and do it. Jimmy and Diana were both also getting tattoos, and so was Diana's mom and Tom, so it was a great time to do it!
I chose a heart with angel wings and a halo for obvious reasons... because I love angels and my nickname is Angel! I think it is definitely something that will remain meaningful to me for the rest of my life, and not something that I'll be like, "Oops, I shouldn't have done that," a few years down the line.
It did hurt when the guy was making the tattoo, but not horribly. The kid who was getting a tattoo before me, he was getting it on his back, and he was actually crying because it hurt so bad! But I was able to actually sit there and talk and function and even watch, and it hurt but not excruciatingly. But the weird thing was, then I started to get dizzy and light-headed. This happens to me a lot, usually when I am getting blood drawn but also sometimes when I am just too overtired. I was definitely surprised and embarrassed though, because I had been so proud of myself for being brave and handling the pain well!
I had to take a break and go put some cold water on my face until I felt better. And then I was fine. He was almost finished with the whole tattoo anyway.
So now I am tattooed!
Would I do it again? Definitely! But I'm not going to become one of these people with tattoos everywhere you look. I think there are only a few places I would be willing to get a tattoo. My calf is one of them. Diana wants us to get matching ones on our toes, and I would maybe get a small one on my hand, between my index finger and thumb. But once I had tattoos in all of those places, I'd probably be done forever!
Anyway, it was definitely a life experience I'm glad I tried!
Okay, I am at school now and I have to get going to my class... but thanks for reading!

Angel's Answers!

2010-03-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Its Friday again, and in the schedule I made up off the top of my head, I decided I was going to use Fridays to answer questions about ADHD! Remember though, I'm not a doctor or anything, so any advice I give is based on my own opinions, experience and reserarch.

Q. Does having ADHD make you super creative?
A. Not automatically! But people with ADHD do tend to be pretty right-brained, which means their creative and emotional sides are more developed than their logical sides. Also, many people with ADHD can hyperfocus, which means they can concentrate really hard for a long amount of time. (I know a lot of people think ADHD means you can't concentrate, but it really means you can't control what you concentrate on! So when something is interesting to you, sometimes you have the opposite problem, where you cannot tear your mind away from it!) Having hyperfocus sometimes helps creative people to put a lot of time and effort into creative ideas that they are excited about!

Q. I dropped out of school in high school because I just couldn't do it anymore. Now I am 39, and I just got diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers. I guess that explains all of the problems I had in school! Now, I am thinking about going to college. But would it really be worth it? Won't I have the same problems that I did when I was a kid?
A. I think it will be worth it, if it is what you want to do! I mean, I am doing it! I have both ADHD and Aspergers too, and for me the key to having a good school experience is to study for a career that you are really interested in. Don't force yourself to do something that is torture for you! If you take classes that fascinate you, you'll naturally pay more attention and remember more. You'll have to take some general ed classes too, but even those, you'll be able to pick and choose classes that are interesting to you. You can also get help from the disability office at your school, so you can get help with things like extended time on tests, preferential seating, the option of recording lectures, help with study skills, etc. So, the bottom line is, follow your dream!

Q. I have a roommate who is very messy and disorganized, and hates cleaning. Our house is always a mess, and I get tired of being the one who has to do anything! But I don't like to bring it up, because I know that, because of his ADHD, its not really his fault that he's messy.
A. Your roommate should still share the responsibility of keeping up the house! But you can help to make it a little easier for him. First of all, try to come up with an easy way of organizing your household. It may be really worth it for both of you to chip in some money for a personal organizer who specializes in ADHD!
Try to make cleaning up the house manageable. Avoid clutter like the plague! At a certain time each day, both of you should take just fifteen minutes to pick up around the house as fast as you can! Turn on some loud music if that helps! As for household chores, ask your roommate for input. He may find it easier to pick two or three chores he doesn't mind doing, and have those be his designated chores every day. Or he could mix it up a little by drawing two or three random chores from a jar each day and doing those, to add a touch of interesting-ness to the chore routine!
No matter what, talk to your roommate and try to be honest without being accusing. This is a learning experience for both of you!

Alright, thats the end of my answers for today! If you have questions, feel free to send them to me, and I'll answer them next Friday! Until then, I hope you'll check out my book, Why I Am The Way I Am, available at Lulu.com!

I Have To Keep Writing!

2010-03-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

The other day I was Google searching "blogs + ADHD", looking for blogs similar to mine, written by people with ADHD. I have read a few blogs by adults with autism or Aspergers, and I thought there might be a community of ADHD bloggers out there somewhere.
Well, I found a few blogs... but mostly, people wrote in them once a month, or had stopped writing for months or years!
I guess thats ADHD for you! When you first start something, it is exciting and new and you look forward to it every day, and actually "hyperfocus" or obsess on it. But once it becomes routine, it is hard to keep up the good work! And so ADHD blogs fade away into nothing!
I have been pretty loyal at keeping up my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe!, which is about raising my little nieces. But I have often let this one "fade away" in the past! I want to try not to do that again!
I'm trying to come up with a blogging schedule of days that I will definitely commit to writing in this blog. Here is my idea so far!

Fridays will be Angel's Answers, in which I will answer questions about ADHD. (So send me some questions! You've only got two days left!)

On Mondays, I will share an ADHD-related website, forum or blog I've found.

On Wednesdays, I will share a book or article about ADHD.

All of the rest of the days will be open-forum and I can write about anything I want, or not write at all! But you can count on hearing from me on those three days!
Alright, I'm off to hunt for some more blogs to add to my blogroll! If you know of an interesting ADHD blog, feel free to tell me!
In the mean time, I hope you'll check out the book I wrote about ADHD, called Why I Am The Way I Am!

I Am A Ghost From The Future

2010-03-07T19:40:00.001-08:00

(Cross-posted from Slow Down, Gym Shoe!)

I sometimes babysit for other families, during evenings and weekends, to make extra money. That extra money is my saving grace most of the time! Lately I've been babysitting for an awesome family with two little girls who are 5 and 2. I'll call them Miranda and Eloise Jones. The 5-year-old, Miranda, has Aspergers and ADHD. (Does that sound familiar?)

Mr. and Mrs. Jones know that I have ADHD and Aspergers Syndrome. I told them when I first met Mrs. Jones, when I was "interviewing" to babysit for them. I get along very well with the Jones's. When I get there, and before I go home at the end, we spend literally hours just sitting and talking, about their kids and about life in general.

The last time I babysat for them, Mr. Jones was asking me a lot of questions about my personal experiences with Aspergers Syndrome. He wanted to know if I felt like things were harder for me than for other people. I told him that I have a hard time in social situations, and that I have a lot of anxiety. I told him about my sensory issues, like how loud noises hurt my ears, and how when I was a kid I used to love to walk in the stones along the side of the road because I loved the sound of the crunching, and how I used to spread glue on my desk at school because I craved the feeling of scraping it off with my scissors, and stuff like that. Mr. Jones said he was relieved. I think he was seeing me as a functioning adult and hoping that Miranda will also become a functioning adult.

Looking back on it, I wish I had thought to tell them that, if Miranda is anything like me, she will be able to do anything at all, but at her own pace and in her own way. I didn't learn to drive until I was 21, for instance. Even now, driving is hard for me sometimes. But I do it! I have to come up with survival skills to get through ordinary situations in life. with things like work, I have learned to compensate for my shortcomings by just trying to do the best I can at what I can do. For instance, when I had my first job at age 15 in a fast food restaurant, the experience was a total failure. But my second job was at a K-Mart, when I was 17. I learned to work the cash register very well, by rote. I had trouble whenever new problems came up, like an item without a price or a person's credit card that wouldn't go through, and I was also certain that I didn't want to be promoted any higher than cashier. But my strengths were that I was a fairly quick cashier, and I was extremely friendly and polite. I made sure to give each customer a big smile and a greeting. I was always smiling at that job. Customers could be as rude as they wanted, and I would just smile and be polite and friendly. I actually got lots of compliments on this, and people even told my supervisor how sweet and friendly I was. So when I was slow to learn new things or panicked when small problems occurred, people forgave me for that.

I still have problems with certain things. I have trouble organizing my life. I cannot, for the life of me, keep my bank account from overdrafting. When something happens, like I get into a car accident, I need a lot of help to know how to handle it. But one thing that bothers me is that people in my life, like my parents and Diana, feel it is an all-or-nothing situation. They feel like I should either be completely competent and independent, or I need to have someone to supervise me in every situation. My parents get mad at me because they say I resist their help half the time, and the other half of the the time I am upset if they won't help me. What I wish I could say to family members of people with Aspergers... or any people with special needs, for that matter... is that sometimes I need help and sometimes I don't. Sometimes you may think I can't handle something, when I am certain I can... and if I feel like I can do it, please give me a chance! Sometimes I will be paralyzed by a situation and I will need your help. Please don't do it for me, but guide me through it so that next time I might be able to try it alone. And sometimes there may be things that you are sure I can do, but that I feel like I can't... so give me a gentle push! Let me be as independent as I can be, and let me find my own ways of doing things... but please know that I still might need help some of the time. And if I do need help with something, please let me keep my dignity as an adult, and let me keep my independence in the areas that I'm doing well in.

Maybe next time I see the Jones's, I'll remember to tell them all of that!

Angel's Answers

2010-03-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

Hi! I've been neglecting this blog pretty badly, since I've been writing more often in my personal blog about my nieces. I am trying to set up a schedule for writing in this blog, and writing more often about my ADHD issues instead of just venting about life in general! So I thought, on Fridays, I will answer questions about ADHD. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email me or comment!

Here are three questions for today...

Q. I am in eighth grade. I think I may have ADHD. Actually I'm very sure I have it. How do I tell my parents? Will I have to go to a special doctor?

A. A good place for you to start would be with your guiu adance counselor. He'll be able to talk to you about ADHD and about what is causing you to think you may have it. He can probably give you some information to take home to your parents, or even set up a meeting with them.

If you are having a lot of problems in school, and your teachers think this might be why, you might be able to get tested for ADHD in school. Otherwise your parents might either take you to your regular doctor to get evaluated for ADHD. or to a psychiatrist. Usually the doctor will just ask you a bunch of questions about the troubles you have in school and at home, and she'll want to speak to your parents too. You may also get to do a special test using the computer.

Good luck!

Q. Why do some people not believe that ADHD exists? How do you respond to these people?

A. I think some people don't believe ADHD exists because they can't obviously see it. People with ADHD physically look like everyone else, and their "symptoms" can just appear to be personality traits. For instance, someone might look at a ten-year-old boy who cannot sit still to do his homework, and say he is just an active little boy who wants to be outside playing. If the same little boy is on Little League and has trouble paying attention to the game, some people might think he is "effeminite" or a "geek." A woman who is often late for work and has a messy desk might be considered lazy or irresponsible. Its true that symptoms of ADHD can appear as personality traits in people, but if someone has a whole lot of ADHD-like traits, then it really may be ADHD!

When it comes to people who don't believe in ADHD, I've found that these people often cannot be convinced. People who don't believe in it are often the types of people who are rather close-minded and do not like to hear that they are wrong. I'm sorry if it sounds mean, and I don't mean to speak badly of anyone! My dad and several of my friends do not think ADHD exists or do not think I can have it. I've been diagnosed by five different doctors, in five different methods, and some people still don't believe me! Sometimes you just have to let it go, and avoid the topic with them... or agree to disagree. The only time it can be really harmful is if the person who doesn't believe in ADHD is the parent or guardian of a child who has it... unless the parent or guardian is committed to finding ways to help the child with his ADHD traits, no matter what he decides to call them!

Q. My son is in kindergarten. His teacher complains that he has trouble sitting still, yells out in class, and doesn't follow directions. She thinks he may have ADHD. I asked my son's pediatrician about this, and the pediatrician says kindergarten is way too young to even think about ADHD! I explained this to the teacher, but she keeps insisting that he probably has ADHD and needs medication.

A. I'm not any sort of doctor, obviously, so I can't give you medical advice. I do think it is out of line for your son's teacher to persistently suggest that your son has ADHD... especially if you've already spoken to your pediatrician about it! A kindergartener is still very young, and not all children have the self control to sit quietly and follow directions when they are five years old. For the moment, see if you can work with the teacher on helping your son learn appropriate classroom behavior. Practice being quiet and using listening ears when someone else is talking, and raising your hand when you have something to say during classroom time. Maybe the teacher can post a two-sided sign, with a green side meaning it is okay to talk (like at playtime or times when the kids are working together on something) and a red sign meaning it is time to listen and use hand-raising.
Make sure the teacher is offering enough free time during the day, too! Some classrooms have cut out things like recess, gym class, and free play time. If your son's classroom is like that, he just may be having a hard time sitting and focusing on academic work for that long! Talk to the teacher, or even the principal, about breaking up the day a little bit
The teacher should also be playing up your child's strengths, instead of his weaknesses. Ask her to tell you what your son excels at in the classroom, and what he enjoys.
I'm not saying your little boy definitely doesn't have ADHD. He might! Within the next few years it will become more obvious. He will either learn the routine of school and get used to sitting still, raising his hand to speak, and following directions, or he will start having more trouble as classroom expectations are raised. For now, try to help your child enjoy kindergarten as much as possible. Good luck!

If you have questions of your own, email me or comment, and I will do my best to answer next Friday!
Also, I hope you'll check out my book, Why I Am The Way I Am, which answers more questions about what its like to have ADHD!

My Book: WHY I AM THE WAY I AM

2010-02-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

Hi! If you are new to this site, you may not know that I have published a short book about ADHD. Its called Why I Am The Way I Am, and it offers a simple explanation of what ADHD is and what its like to have it.
Adults with ADHD have often heard things like, "You're just lazy!" or "You just want an excuse!" or "If you can pay attention to your online games for hours, why can't you pay attention to your work?" Why I Am The Way I Am addresses comments like these in a clear and non-confrontational way.
Whether you have just been diagnosed with ADHD and want a way to explain it to others, or you have been dealing with it for years, this is a great book to buy and loan out to others. There is even space, after each chapter, for notes on your thoughts and experiences.
Why I Am The Way I Am can be purchased through Lulu.com

Alive and Kickin'!

2009-05-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

The title of this entry reminds me that today I was playing with Hayden, when she asked me where Abby was. She has a habit of constantly asking where everyone is, like she's taking attendance! I told her I didn't know. Hayden said, "Abby dead!" (She's not some sort of really morbid baby... she just thinks saying "dead" is funny, lately, for some reason.
I told her, "Nope, Abby isn't dead, she's still alive and kicking!"
This confused Hayden to no end! She laughed and said, "Kicking? No! Not kicking! Abby not kicking!"
Anyway, so, yeah, here I am... and I actually had a pretty good weekend. On Friday evening I went to Diana's because Jimmy called me up and told me to come there, and Diana had gotten me a cake and some presents, and the kids had made cards! So that cheered me up!
On Saturday, we went to a party at Jimmy's sister and brother-in-law's house, and ended up staying the night there. Parties at their house are always fun. I'm not much of a "partier" in the usual way, but I do just like to be there and enjoy being in the environment and being around everyone!
On Sunday, Sarah wanted to go to the Lilac Parade, so I ended up taking her and her friend there, and then hanging out at Diana's mom's house for a while. Eventually Diana, Jimmy and the kids also came over, for Megan's birthday party. So that was fun! Plus I got to spend extra time with Clover and the puppies!
Then, today, I was planning to go back to my mom's house, because Jimmy didn't need me to babysit. but I ended up staying and watching them for a little while so Jimmy could go to the store and the laundromat and stuff, and then Sue came over and invited me and the little kids over to her house. So we went there for a while and hung out and had dinner there and everything. Then we came back, and Jimmy and Diana and Sue and Mike went to the gym, and took all of the little kids with them! So me and Brandon are home alone and enjoying the peace and quiet.
Tomorrow I'm gonna try and forage my way back to my mom's so I can do my laundry and clean up and stuff before my mom gets back from England! Plus I miss Trixie and Sammy-Joe so much! On Friday I only thought I was coming back here for a few hours, but it ended up being four days! I was actually in the middle of cuddling with Sammy-Joe when Jimmy called me on Friday. He (Sammy) probably thinks I totally ditched him for something better!
As for my depression, being constantly busy and distracted has definitely helped. But its still there, lurking underneath... like, even when I'm happy, anything can just turn me sad with no warning! I've just been being really careful to keep taking my medication every day and stuff.
Well, Diana and Jimmy and the little kids are home, so I'll close out for now!

Five Seconds LAter...

2009-05-15T12:31:00.001-07:00

Still going back and forth, back and forth. One minute I am feeling fine, the next minute I feel like dying. When is this gonna end? I'm losing my fucking mind. Does anyone have any ideas or advice? Is anyone reading this even??????

Happy Birthday To Me!

2009-05-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Todays my birthday, and I'm actually feeling a little better, at least for now! Last night I went out for dinner with my parents. We went to Pepe's, which is pretty much where we go every year on my birthday because I am crazy about their flan! They have the best flan ever, its SO CREAMY! I could take or leave the food, but the flan makes it all worth while!
Also I opened my presents from my parents last night, which were two pairs of shorts, two shirts, a penguin watch, and a pair of tie dye flip flops. I like the flip flops best because they are tie dyed!
I took 3 Tylenol PMs last night before bed because I wanted to fall asleep fast. It didn't work though... the timing was all off! It took me forever to fall asleep, but now it is morning and I am still dead tired and drowsy and dizzy and everything! SO as soon as I finish writing this I am probably going back to sleep. I also have to somehow go to the bank and deposit some money so my phone doesn't get shut off!
I am so tired... I wanted to sleep through this day, but I actually have things I could be doing today, and now I am too tired cause of the stupid pills! Next time I have to take them way earlier so they will make me fall asleep when I'm ready to go to bed and let me wake up in the morning!
OK, thats all for now!

Lets Just Call It Thursday Cause I Don't Have A Better Title

2009-05-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

I had a brief intermission from life's recent crappiness because I went back to Diana's house for a while today. I mostly played in the backyard with Hayden the whole time. Abby and Brandon came home but wouldn't even look at me, so that was kinda strange... but it was nice to play with Hayden. She was happy just to sit on the swing in the yard and "talk" and sing songs in her little baby way. We discussed why you should not eat rocks or paper, why you should not put an open can of pop in the kangaroo pocket of someone's sweatshirt while they're not looking, and whether it was Gimme or Jimmy who got shot. We also discussed big trucks that go Beep Beep Vroom Vroom, Abby busses, choo choo trains, birds, butterflies, the fact that Abby was playing at Jenna's house, and why you shouldn't drink juice boxes that you find in the grass and that are probably a week old. We found an empty soda can in the grass, and I taught her how to smash it with the heel of her shoe so it would stick to the shoe, so she could stomp around making loud crunchy metal sounds! I held Mijo and gave him lots of cuddles... I've missed that little rat dog! A good time was had by all.
The good feeling lasted until I got in the car to go home, and then I right away felt like dying again. Last night when I was falling asleep I was feeling so lousy, and thoughts of dying kept creeping into my mind... it really is like a fight, where I say to myself, "I just want to be dead. No, no, you don't want to be dead. Yes, I'm just gonna kill myself. No, no, don't do that, everything is gonna be fine. I just wanna die. No, no, you don't." So that was going through my mind all night, until Sammy-Joe came and laid with me and I cuddled him and thought, "Well I can't give this up."
The bottom line is, I know I don't really want to be dead for all of eternity, just yet, but I am hurting! I feel like I am broken. The only thing I can compare it to is the time when I tried to go to school at Southern Illinois and ended up having a breakdown. Its just everything. Its the fact that I'm realizing I'm gonna be 30 years old and have nothing. No home to go to... only a series of places where I'm an expert at wearing out my welcome. No way to finish school. No way to become a foster parent the way I've been planning to my whole life. No insurance to even go to the hospital if I am feeling bad. I'm a free-floater with nothing. And now I've lost my best friend, I can't be in the place I considered my home, my mom is always mad at me when I'm here, and I'm just chemically depressed anyways, can't even focus on trying to cheer myself up. There seems to be no end in sight. So I do, at the moment, I do want to be dead.
My compromise plan is, I've got a bottle of Tylenol PM. I'm just going to sleep through the weekend. I'm going out to dinner with my parents to celebrate my birthday tonight (because tomorrow, on my actual birthday, my mom is leaving for England) and then I'm just going to keep myself in a vegetative state for the weekend. On Monday, I will either hopefully be able to watch the kids, or I'll at least go visit them again, or I'll figure out something else I can do to stay busy. But for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll just have to push my "off" button. I slept through the Y2K night on New Year's Eve of 2000, so why not sleep through my birthday weekend? Works for me!

BINGO!

2009-05-13T21:06:00.001-07:00

I went to my crazy people drop-in and it helped a lot. I felt a lot better while I was there. We played BINGO and I won twice! There were prizes on a table and you got to pick something when you win. I picked an oil painting by number set the first time. The second time, the pickings were much slimmer. I picked a DVD of this movie called The Wilderness Family, which used to be one of my favorites when I was a kid. I wish they had drop-in every day of the week!
Other than that, things are not going well. Diana is very, very mad at me, first of all. Its my own stupid fault because when I am upset I get insecure and tell people too many things. I am not good at keeping things to myself. Also I found out that one of the puppies... the runt of the litter that was never supposed to live in the first place but that we tried so hard to revive... ended up dying. She was my favorite, just because she was so little and because she would cry but she would stop crying when you picked her up. She had these little tiny tan spots on her head that you could barely see. She never wanted to drink much but she loved to cuddle with Clover's paws. When you are already going through depression, the death of a puppy is not helpful.
I am hurting so bad. I just want it to stop.
But I am trying to hatch a plan.

Little Better But...

2009-05-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Still having a hard time. I know this is probably a bad time to be writing about my issues, since I've been working hard at making this a blog about ADHD, but I really think depression is part of ADHD, and a lot of the ADHD blogs I've been reading have had recent entries about depression. And I am definitely going through a hard time right now. Had to dig in my drawers to find a Klonopin to make me fall asleep last night because really bad thoughts were going through my head, imagining killing myself. It wasn't like I was planning to do it or anything, it was like thoughts were just entering my mind on their own. I could be just laying there and suddenly realize I'm imagining walking into the kitchen and swallowing a bunch of pills or something. WTF? So I kept on trying to counteract my bad thoughts by thinking of all of the people who would be sad if I died... my cousins, and Abby and Hayden and Brandon, and Sarah, especially, because they are kids and I wouldn't want to put a trauma in their life like that. And my pets, Sammy-Joe and Trixie and Clover and Mijo. And my parents... The stupid thing is that although my mom acts like she hates me when I'm alive, I know she would be heartbroken if I was dead.
So I just kept reminding myself of all those people and animals... and then I took some Klonopins, and slept all night with really weird dreams.
I guess I'm just lonely. Haven't seen my mom since Saturday, since on the days that I do stay here she's usually not home until I am asleep... and my dad is usually just watching baseball or something... and I'm not supposed to go to Diana's... I could probably go to my aunt's, but I just felt so low in energy... The good thing is my crazy people drop-in group is tonight. And I'm supposed to go out to dinner with my Dad tomorrow night for my birthday. And Facebook distracts me in twenty minute increments. But I am just feeling so bad. Thats the only way to describe it. Bad. I am feeling lousy. Its physically painful.
(Where does depression hurt? Everywhere!)

Having A Rough Time Today

2009-05-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am having a miserable day today! I can't really explain it, but basically I found out something that made the ground drop out from under me. Its like, you live in one version of reality, where people tell you that one thing is true, and then you suddenly find out, its not true at all, and hasn't been true for a long time... but then other people tell you, no, it really is true, everything is fine... and now you are left with no reality that you can, but only an impending feeling of doom. Will this, like other past "crisis", turn out to be okay, and everything will feel normal again, tomorrow? Or is everything seriously different now? It is hard for me to wait and find out. I feel sick.

Strings Attached

2009-05-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

My life is full of ultimatums. I've got ultimatums coming from all sides, all of them ending with, "...or you can't be around us anymore." What do the ultimatum-givers want me to do? Depends on the time, the day, the mood of the people. I wonder what would happen if I started giving ultimatums? If I started saying to people, "If you don't....... then I won't be in your life anymore." What would people do? I have a feeling they would be fine with it. In my life, I'm always the one begging forgiveness, begging for a second chance, apologizing for things I'm not sure I even did... because to other people, I'm not worth keeping around.
It seems like my parents, first and foremost, have only given me two choices throughout my life. I can handle everything in my life perfectly, or I can give up all control of my life over to them. In their eyes, to need help is to be a loser, someone they need to take control of in order to keep society from having to be burdened by me! This is part of the reason why I left home so early when I was a kid. I wanted, desperately, to be free. I knew I couldn't be a fine, upstanding, typical adult... but I didn't want to be a child forever. If I couldn't take care of myself one hundred percent perfectly, it was better to get help from the shelters and social services... who had goals of making people as independent as possible and letting people handle their own lives except for the things they needed help with... than to get help from my parents, who would want me to follow their own script for my life.
The bright spots in my life are the kids, and my pets... but even they are just more things that can be used against me, more things that others can take away from me.
Sometimes I just want to be dead.

My Sensory Bag

2009-05-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

In one of my last posts, I mentioned that I had thought about creating a sensory bag. I thought I'd explain exactly what it is, and what's in it!
Some people with ADHD like to fidget. Other people with ADHD have a lot of anxiety, and still others have different sensory needs. I have all of these! I am a very sensory person. When I was a little kid, I had to touch everything that had any type of texture. At the store I had to feel all of the different fabrics on clothes, especially if they looked soft! At dinner, I was always touching my dad's frosty water glass, driving him crazy! Guess what... I'm still like that!
My sensory bag has lots of different little things in it that I can feel, touch, and fiddle with, and also things that I can smell, taste, and listen to. I don't bring the bag with me everywhere I go. I keep it in my backpack most of the time, and when I am going somewhere such as a class, a movie, or whatever, I choose one or two items to bring with me.
I'll give you some ideas of what is in my sensory bag... and if you want to assemble your own, maybe you can fill it with even more things!
Here's what I have.

Different types of putty and dough that I can mush around in my hands. They have different texture. I have silly putty, glitter putty, play foam (which is like a dough made out of little foam beads, and has a texture sort of like rice krispie treats), and a small container of playdough. Today I just bought some Ice Cream Putty, which is hard to describe. Its a little like silly putty, but dryer.
A small container of lotion... because it feels good on my hands when I'm nervous or itchy, and it has a good smell that cheers me up!
A small slinky... fun to feel, hear and look at!
A kazoo. Although I don't really bring it with me places, because I'd feel a little odd playing a kazoo in public for no apparent reason!
A little ball made out of suction cups.
A small Happy Meal toy that is like a window with some oozy gel in it... fun to look at!
Allergy eye drops... they help when my eyes are itchy (which seems to happen especially when I get nervous) and I also just like the feeling of eye drops. I have no idea why. It started when I was younger and got pink eye and had to get drops every few hours. I just like the cold feeling on my eyeballs! I'm so weird.
A beany bunny... for comfort, and for squeezing.
Chapstick... for my frequently chapped lips, and also because the feeling of putting on chapstick helps me with my anxiety.
Lifesavers and lollipops to suck and crunch on.
A dropper of essential oil. Essential oils are great for aromatherapy on the go. If you bring one of these along, choose a scent that is mild. A lot of essential oils have very strong scents that smell like Vicks Vapor Rub to people who aren't used to the smell. I keep vanilla with me, because it is mild and its one of my favorite scents. Tangerine is also a nice, mild scent. You can take a whiff out of the dropper, or put a few drops on your sleeve or collar to smell.
What else can you think of for your sensory needs?
Here are some links to some of the putties I mentioned... because I was lucky to stumble upon these, but they can be hard to find.

My Glitter Putty came in an egg at Easter, so its hard to find now... but I think this is the same stuff...

A Virtual Piggy Bank!

2009-05-04T09:38:00.001-07:00

I think I've mentioned before that of the hugest problems I have with my ADHD is saving up money. It is really hard for me to manage my money, because I often forget to write things down, I forget to pay bills, and I just suck at math in general. It has been extremely hard for me to save up any amount of money! If I have a hundred dollars, I feel like I have a million dollars, and I tend to spend it all!
The other night I went to church with my aunt, and they were talking about money management. I never knew that the Bible actually offers advice on money management, but apparently, it does! The Bible's take on it is that everyone should have a 10-10-80 plan. It goes like this. Every time you get paid, you take ten percent of your paycheck and put it in a savings account, and you take another ten percent and tithe it to your church. Then you have to figure out how to live off of the other eighty percent.
The point of the pastor talking about this was to encourage people to live below their means, instead of trying to live the best possible lifestyle they can afford. A lot of it as meant for richer people... aka, maybe you should think about owning a $25,000 car instead of a $55,000 car, and things like that. But I figured it could help me a lot as well!
I don't really go to church. I can't sit still for it! But I figured that, when I have a place to live, I'm going to become a foster parent, and caring for children will be kind of like tithing. SO I decided to start saving twenty percent of my income in a non-touchable savings account.
I had heard of this site called Smarty Pig, and I set up an account with them. Basically, you save up a savings goal, and you set up an amount of money you want withdrawn into your Smarty Pig account on a monthly basis. Then, Smarty Pig just does automatic withdrawals from your bank account each month, and saves it up for you! You also get to accumulate interest.
And, here is something else very cool. You can post a link on your website or blog, and other people can donate money to your savings account!
You can get your money out of the account at any time, by closing down your goal and having the money put back in your regular bank account. SO, if you have an emergency, the money will be there!
I think this is a really great way for me to save up money! What do you think?

Taking A Breather From Life...

2009-05-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this from my aunt's house! I came over here earlier today to help out at my cousin's birthday party. Ten preschoolers + lots of cake = chaos! But it was a lot of fun and it was definitely cool to get to meet my cousins' friends!
I ended up staying the night and I'm just hanging out now. It feels good to be taking a break from my regular life! The kids were happy that I was here, they've been so crazy hyper and didn't go to bed until just a few minutes ago!
Tomorrow we're having donuts for breakfast... and then I have a two hour drive ahead of me!
I'll post pictures when I get to a computer where I can upload them!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Can't sleep...

2009-05-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

My anxiety has turned to insomnia. I know its weird to say that I have insomnia when its only 11:23 pm... but when you consider that all day long I've been totally exhausted, feeling like I could fall down and go to sleep in a second, and the fact that I went to bed at nine o'clock, not even having the energy to take a shower first... then its weird that I'm now wide awake at eleven twenty-three pm. I'm at my mom's house and had been trying to sleep up in my old bedroom, but it was impossible. So I've come down to the basement to try and sleep with the TV on, which I know is going to get me shouted at. They hate when I sleep down here. They like me up in my little compartment when I'm here. But I'm supposed to go help out at my little cousin's birthday party tomorrow, and its going to be no good if I'm a zombie from lack of sleep! Usually if I can listen to the TV it at least calms me down enough to sleep.
All the anxiety of the past 28 hours must have pooled up in my system and turned into adrenaline!
I'm going to lay down on the couch now and turn on a Lifetime movie.

Nervous

2009-05-01T16:27:00.001-07:00

My anxiety today is literally turning my insides into spaghetti! Too tired to go into details but basically the past 24 hours have been very, very, very, very, very crappy. I just want to sleep, but it doesn't look like that will be happening any time soon!

How To Straighten A Room... ADHD Style!

2009-04-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

One of my most severe ADHD features is my disorganization and my inability to focus on trying to get organized. Even though I mostly live with Diana, I still maintain a bedroom at my mom's house, which gets very disorganized during the two days a week that I spend there! If you want an idea of how to straighten a room ADHD style, here you go.

1. Decide to straighten the room, usually because someone else is nagging you to do it.

2. Start picking things up off the top of your desk and putting them in drawers.

3. Come across the "sensory box" you assembled about a year ago.

4. Start going through the sensory box and playing with everything in it.

5. Decide to create a sensory bag, which will be like a sensory box except mobile, so you can take it everywhere with you for your sensory needs. Begin working on that right away.

6. Imagine yourself explaining to someone about each item in the sensory bag and how it helps you.

7. Remember you're supposed to be straightening your room.

8. Start to make your bed.

9. Stop halfway through, because you're just going to go to sleep in a few hours anyways.

10. Find some extremely overdue library books under the bed.

11. Wonder if you're even allowed in the library anymore.

12. Decide to go downstairs and order a book on Amazon.com so you'll have something to read... since you can't go to the library!

13. Remember you're supposed to be straightening your room.

14. Shove your backpack and some other items in a corner.

15. Become really sick of straightening your room. Feel desperate to get out of there and do something else.

16. Pace around the room for a few minutes.

17. Have an allergy attack and sneeze about forty times.

18. Shove everything else into drawers and the closet as quickly as you can.

19. Decide your room looks good enough for now, and that you'll work on it some more tomorrow. Or next week.

20. Decide this would make a great blog entry. Go downstairs and get started on that right away.

Now do you see why my room (and my car, and any other place I inhabit) is always messy?

Dropping Into The Drop-In Center

2009-04-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

I found out about this weekly drop-in center through NAMI DuPage. It said it was a drop-in center for people with mental illnesses (including depression and anxiety, bipolar, things like that...) and when I called to ask about it, they described it as a social group where you could do different activities, arts and crafts, go on outings, etc.
Well, I've tried joining several social groups geared towards the general population an they've always been a bust for me. I just really don't fit in anywhere. There are groups for yuppies my age, groups for hippies my age, groups for this and that. But even in groups geared towards my own interests, like volunteering or writing, I've felt like a social mess. So I figured... "I'll give this one a chance."
So, basically, there's a few things of importance.
1. It seems like most of the people there have intellectual disabilities. Later, I found out that many of the people who go there live at a near by group home, and are diagnosed with mental illnesses like depression but also have intellectual disabilities, but the group is specifically for people who have mental illnesses, no matter what else they have. It seemed like most people were people with things like, for example, Down Syndrome.
2. I liked it! Yesterday they had speakers come in who did pet therapy, and brought the pets in. We got to hear about pet therapy and what it does, and we got to play with the dogs. One lady's dog was trained specifically to help people with autism. He's a sensory dog! I need one of those! People were really nice, too.
3. So I totally want to keep going back.
What do you think of that?

I Refuse To Turn 30!!!

2009-04-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

This morning when I was at my mom's, she asked me, "What do you want for your thirtieth birthday?"
My answer?
"I want to not turn thirty!"
I know that a lot of people don't want to turn thirty. Diana, who is six months younger than me, complains about it all the time. Thirty just sounds scary, for some reason, when you've always been in your twenties or younger!
But for me, its different.
See, my friends who have turned thirty or about to, don't like it because they think it makes them feel old. but they're already living as adults. They have homes, and children, and careers, and regular lives. They can handle themselves with maturity, confidence and poise.
(Poise, ugh, I hate that word! Luckily, its something I'll never have!)
My friends who are turning thirty don't sit and rock when they are upset or anxious. they don't pace the floors or bounce against the walls to calm themselves.
They don't have trouble finding words when they talk to people. They don't stammer and look away. They don't walk out of a room to avoid talking to a group of friends and family members because the sight of so many people at once overwhelms them. They don't avoid parties because they can't dance and the loud music hurts their ears.
My friends don't still get yelled at by their parents for being messy. Nobody tells them that they musn't sleep on the couch downstairs, where their cat sleeps, because they will wrinkle the blankets. Nobody tells them they musn't sleep with the TV on, or that they must eat something other than cheddar cheese sandwiches, or that they need to get off the computer. Nobody questions them on how much money they're making, tells them to stop hanging out with their friends, or demands to read their mail.
Nobody looks at them with disgust and says. "You're thirty years old! Act it!"
Some of my friends look young for their age, and when they meet new people, they might hear, "You're thirty? I thought you were more like twenty!"
But nobody starts laughing or choking and saying, "I thought you were about twelve! You're thirty? Seriously? Thirty? Whats wrong with you?"
Every year it gets more and more embarassing to tell people my age.
But telling them I'm thirty is going to be the worst!

Wind Sprinter!

2009-04-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

Usually I take care of my nieces during the week... but Jimmy hasn't been working a lot lately, so I find myself with a bunch of free days! I'm trying to put my days to good use, though. I've found a work-at-home job rewriting articles, for about three bucks an article. (For me, that translates to about fifteen dollars an hour, but they only send me the articles in bunches of five each day.) Also, I've been trying to get a little bit of exercise in!
I have trouble getting exercise, partly because it is just so boring to me. Before I got my driver's license (at age 21) I was really skinny, because I walked or rode my bike everywhere. It was really inconvenient. For instance, if I needed groceries, I'd have to ride or walk to the grocery store, and buy only whatever groceries I could fit in my backpack or carry on my handlebars! But, it was healthy! Now, though, riding my bike seems pointless. People say "go for a bike ride," but where am I supposed to ride to? Just riding around in circles is pointless and boring! I can walk my dog, but that isn't a lot of exercise, since she likes to stop every few feet to pee in each and every yard!
Anyway, one of the articles I rewrote mentioned wind sprinting, which is basically running as hard and fast as you can for a few yards, and then resting for a few minutes, and then doing it again. It keeps your heart rate up and helps raise your metabolism! It works good for me, because it really only takes about twenty minutes out of my day. For instance, today when I was running errands, I just pulled over at the running track, and did two laps of wind sprints. (I know two laps doesn't sound like much, but because I'm out of shape and I hate running, I felt like it was a great start!) Then I just got in my car, went home, and proceeded with my regularly scheduled day.
I can really feel it, still, even though its been hours! My heart feels like its beating differently, and my muscles are sore. It feels good, though, in a way. I really do need to get more exercise, I guess! I'm also going to try to start drinking water. But I am not giving up my Dr. Pepper!

Social Networking For ADHD!

2009-04-14T19:45:00.001-07:00

I'm not quite sure what I would do without the Internet. In a lot of ways, it has opened up the world for me. I have a lot of trouble communicating in "regular" ways, but reading and writing have always been my strong points. The internet has allowed me to explore the world through reading and writing. I've been able to do lots of new things in life... for instance, finding jobs, joining AmeriCorps, taking a bus trip across the country, spending a year in AmeriCorps, finding support groups, joining playgroups with the girls... because I've been able to research it ahead of time without having to speak with anyone right off the bat. It relieves my anxiety when I know what to expect, and it makes me feel like I have choices, and have a little more control over my life.
I really love blogging. I have this blog, and of course I have my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe! Blogging has helped me to look into other people's lives, and to share my own life with other people. It gives me a way to have a social life that I'm comfortable with.
Another thing I love is social networking. I started out with MySpace, and was able to reconnect with a lot of old friends and a lot of my cousins that I had never gotten to meet in real life. More recently, I moved over to Facebook, and thats where I do all my social networking now. For me, social networking means updating everyone I know about things that I am doing and how I am feeling, reading about whats going on in the lives of the people in my life, and playing silly little games with people. It may seem insignificant to many people, but Facebook has helped me to forage connections with a lot of people in my life!
The newest social networking site I've joined is Adder World. Its a lot smaller than Facebook or Myspace. Its part of Ning.com, which is a site that allows anyone to start their own social networking community. It has 866 members already, and includes forums, blogs, discussion groups. etc. Its pretty cool! So if you're looking for a place to discuss ADHD and other topics, and make some new friends across the country, check out the badge below!

Visit ADDer World Anything and Everything ADHD

I'm a Top Health Blogger!

2009-04-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Hayden playing with a bucket this morning as we waited for Abby's bus! It has nothing to do with today's post, but I like it anyway!!!

Hi everyone! I'm excited to announce that I'm now an official Top Health Blogger on Wellsphere. I'm going to be blogging for the ADD And ADHD Community. What that basically means is, while you'll still be able to read every entry I write here, but people will also be able to read the feeds on the Wellsphere site.
On that note, I just wanted to introduce myself to any new readers that may be reading this from Wellsphere. And I'd like to invite anyone who wants to to ask any questions they might have... about me, my profile, my life with ADHD and Aspergers, etc. I'll answer your questions within the next few days!
Right now I'm dead tired... we had a long day today, and everyone in my house is getting sick again. So I think I'm going to shut down the computer and take a short nap!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a great Easter! Mine was awesome! In the morning, I was at Diana's house and helped Brandon, Abby and Hayden with their Easter egg hunt. Then I went to my mom's house, where I stuffed and hid eggs for my little cousins to hunt. My mom had a family Easter party at her house, and I watched my little cousins hunt Easter eggs and played outside with them. After that, I went back to Diana's house for her family Easter party. Basically, I am really full from all of that food!
Sometimes holidays are really hard for me because of a lot of people squashed into small spaces, with everyone talking at once and stuff, and no place to get away for an escape. A lot of people recommend that if you are at someone's house for a holiday you should ask if there is another room you can go to to relax if you need a break from all of the commotion. But in my family, even if a holiday is at my mom's house and I could go up to my room there, my mom would get really pissed if I did that. She would think I was acting like a bratty teenager and should be downstairs socializing at all times. She even gets mad at my dad (who has similar problems like me) if he goes into the basement while people are there!
The good part is it was nice out, so I was able to go outside a lot with two of my cousins, which was better than being outside. They had brought their bikes, scooters, skateboards and other outdoor toys, and they also spent a lot of time running around in the backyard with Trixie! So it was much better than usual for me.
Anyway, I am probably going to sleep soon, cause I gotta watch the girls in the morning! I hope everyone had a great Easter!

Easter Kitty

2009-04-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

My Favorite Thing!

2009-04-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed I made some changes to my blog? I'm really proud of them! I figured out how to change the "skin," and I really like this one. I also tried to make my blog look less crowded. I've been giving my other blog the majority of my attention lately, but I'm going to start working more on this one.
Anyway, I don't have a whole lot to say today (its been kind of a boring day) so I thought I'd share with you my favorite thing in my mom's house. Its my video rocker!
This one isn't one of the fancy ones that can be hooked up to your video game system to make noise and vibrate and stuff. Its just a simple chair, on the ground, and it rocks! But it rocks great... you can rock yourself all the way upside down! My little cousins like to play on it when they come over, and its fine because the chair is sturdy and safe. (It did originally come with a seat belt, for the worry warts among us!)
I have a habit of rocking when I'm sitting down, especially when I'm worried about something. Rocking soothes me. So I really love sitting in my video rocker because I just rock and rock and rock! Today I rocked upside down and just stayed there, upside down, for about half an hour, contemplating life! If I ever get a place to live, I'm going to put it in the living room so I can rock while I watch TV. Right now, its up in my bedroom at my mom's house, so I have to rock with no other activity going on!
You want one? I found a similar one on Amazon. Check it out!

Show Me The Money! Wait, No. You Better Not Show It To Me.

2009-04-08T14:35:00.001-07:00

One major problem I have in life is that I seem to be always broke! Every time I think I have a little bit of money in my pocket, something happens to yank the money out from under me and leave me broke again!
According to the website called Attention Deficit Disorder Resources, adults with ADHD often have problems managing money. Here is what they say are the most common problems:
* Bouncing checks, and losing or not paying bills (Yep, this is me!)
* Impulsive spending or buying things on a whim (Sometimes, mostly on things involving the kids... but I also tend to be an especially impulsive buyer in bookstores!!!)
* Being unable to save for big ticket items such as new dishwashers, vacations, children's college, or retirement (Yeah, I can't save up for the life of me!)
* Losing checks or not keeping track of checkbook balances (I have trouble keeping track of balances... I try to do a lot of it online, but when things don't show up right away, that screws me all up!)
* Being disorganized with papers, making it impossible to locate them at tax time (LOL Oh yes!)
* Large credit card balances (Not really, because I've just never had a credit card that allows a large balance! With the problems I have, I know better than to even try to get a credit card with more than $200 credit on it!)
* Procrastinating doing taxes (Actually I've been pretty good at that in recent years... mostly because I want the refund!)
* Forgetting when the car payment or mortgage is due (Doesn't apply to me, because I own my car!)
* Not earning enough money for survival (Well, I technically don't earn enough money for survival, and can't afford my own place to live, so this covers me!)
* Not saving for the future (Wait, didn't they already mention that one?)

Here's a good example. With Easter coming up, I wanted to get Easter gifts for all the kids in my life. I counted out six little kids... my three little cousins, plus Abby, Hayden, and Emily. For Brandon, Sarah and Megan, I figured I'd just give them candy, since they're getting too old for cheap Easter trinkets! Also, I wanted to get Trixie and Sammy-Joe each something.
I was running low on money, but figured this out in my head... I had $49 in cash that I had saved up for the occasion, plus $39 on my Paypal debt card. I wasn't even going to dip into my regular checking account, and was just going to use the money I'd saved up.
At first, I was doing pretty good! I went to the Dollar Store and got plastic buckets and shovels for all of the little kids, which I figured they could use to play in the sand, water, garden, or whatever over the summer. At Target, I spent an additional $8.00 on packages of large animal shaped Easter eggs, figuring I could stuff them with candy and give them to all of the kids, including the big kids! I didn't really find anything else worthwhile at Target.
Then I decided to stop at Walgreens... and thats when things went horribly awry! They had a whole bunch of cool stuff for about $2.00 each, plus a lot of things that were "buy two, get one free." I thought to myself, "I'll just grab a bunch of stuff, and since its cheap, I know I'll have enough money for it." Because I suck at math, anyway. I got them each some cool toys, plus a couple bags of candy to stuff the eggs with. And a two liter of Dr. Pepper, of course!
When I checked out, it turned out to be $40.00!
I was like, "Huh? How can it be $40?" But when I looked at the receipt, it added up right, even with all of the "three for two" deals and stuff.
I mean, I probably only went over my budget about $20... but to me, that could be a tank of gas, or an oil change, or 2/3 of my car insurance for the month. (Weird how most of my money woes involve my car!)
Its all good though, because over the weekend I'll probably get money from Diana and Jimmy for last Monday and yesterday, and that will replenish my supplies. Except then I'll probably feel like, "Dang I'm rich!" and go spend it all on... I dunno... Dr. Pepper or something.
Maybe I'm just destined to be broke!

Apple, Desk, Ball!

2009-04-06T17:57:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't been writing in this blog very much lately! I've been focusing so much on my kid blog, but I'm gonna try to write in this one more regularly... not just when I'm having a horrid day!
Anyway, things are going OK. I got food stamps now. Today I had to go to the doctor to see if I could qualify for medical insurance on my LINK card too. It was in the city. You don't get a choice about where you go to or when... they just send you a letter with the date, time and place, and you'd better make it there! I took the train down to the city and walked to the place. The appointment was at 2:00, but can you believe they didn't call me in until almost 4:00? Then the doctor just asked me a few questions. He said the words "Apple, desk, ball," and I was supposed to remember them for the entire time and then repeat them back. I did it... I've done that before. Every time you do an intake for any sort of mental health thing, they ask you to do that. They also ask you if you are seeing things, what the date is, who is the President of the United States. I was like, "Man, these questions are hard, can I poll the audience?"
He also wanted me to stand on my tiptoes and touch my toes.
The appointment took about fifteen minutes. So, basically, I was there for over two hours, but only fifteen minutes of it was actually seeing a doctor!
The reason I want to get Medicaid or Medicare or whatever they're calling it these days is so I can get my medicine. It would be good if they qualify me as disabled, because then I might be able to get help with other things too. The weird thing is, I write pretty well, but in real life I have a lot of problems. If you met me online, you'd think I was really smart, but if you met me in real life, you'd think i was a spazz! Part of this is due to the Aspie tendencies I have. (I don't know if i have real Asperger's Syndrome since I've never been officially diagnosed, but I do definitely have ADHD, and I also have a lot of similarities to Asperger's!) For instance, if you see me walking down the street, you might see me flapping my hands or muttering to myself. You'd think, "There goes a crazy person!" Right? But its really just that I slip into my own world so easily! I might be flapping my hands because I'm actually signing ABC's to myself... I have a weird habit of spelling out my thoughts sometimes. Its a stimming thing. And as for talking to myself, I might be repeating something I recently heard or something I recently said, going over it with myself. I forget that other people can see me. I might be running my hand along a wall as I walk, because I'm always needing to touch things. Today on the way back from the doctor's office, I got into an elevator, and turned and started writing invisible letters on the wall with my finger and humming. It was because I was still so anxious and wound up due to the doctor's appointment, and I was thinking about it and going over it in my head, and wasn't really aware of my own body. Then I turned and realized the other person in the elevator was staring at me! The lady exited quickly and hurried away when the elevator doors opened!
Even people who know me well might not know how much trouble I have. I can hide it for short amounts of time. ESPECIALLY around my parents and other family members... because my mom gets so mad at me, she gets embarassed of me, and its really nervewracking to me. At family gatherings I can often be seen sitting alone because I get so nervous... except for around the little kids. Little kids are so nonjudgemental, they bring out the best in me! Anyway, I can hide my troubles for a while, but they always come sliding out.
One way that my problems cause me trouble is when I have a job. I can usually make a pretty good impression at an interview. I have enough social skills to know that you are supposed to smile, look the person in the eye, sit up straight, speak clearly, act confidently, etc. I can pretend. But once I start a job, it becomes pretty obvious. I get so nervous around new people, I actually get nauseous! I have trouble learning new things and following directions. I have trouble understanding what people tell me to do.
I remember this one job I had for a while when I was about 19. It was at Kids R Us. I thought I could handle working in a store, because it was a kids' store! I was told to do something with the shoes. I don't remember what it was... probably because at the time I didn't fully understand what I was meant to do. I just remember sitting in the stockroom for way too long, basically hiding out, staring at all the shoes and trying desperately to find something I could do. I was also good at going around the store and finding loose things to put back on the racks. But as soon as a customer asked me a question, I would panic! We were supposed to actively go up to customers and ask them if they needed help. But since I was terrified to talk to new people, and I was terrified that I wouldn't know how to answer their questions, I spent more time pretending I didn't see customers and walking in the opposite direction! Every time I had to go to work, I would get so nauseous and sick. Finally, I quit, because I just couldn't take it anymore! I was starting to get depressed from knowing that I was going to be so nervous and confused each day at work!
The people who know best about the problems I encounter are Diana and Jimmy. Especially Diana! Sometimes she's like a translator between me and the rest of the world. She gets me to laugh at myself and she tries to explain things to me. But sometimes she gets aggravated with me too... I embarrass her in public, just like I embarrass my mom.
What I have really is an "invisible" disability... and some people would think I have no disability at all.
Well, at least I can remember those three words... apple, desk, ball!

The worst words

2009-03-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

To me the worst words in the world are "go home..." because I don't have a home.
This occured to me the other day when I went to my mom's house and couldn't get my key to work in the door. In the few minutes before I realized the problem... someone had simply locked the bottom lock, instead of locking the top lock like usual... it all came back to me... that the locks can be changed at any minute. That I always have to be on my best behavior wherever I go, because all I really have is a series of places to hang out in, where if I piss them off they can say "go home" or just change the locks. My whole world can so easily be yanked out from under me. Sometimes it is hard because I want to be sad sometimes, I want to be upset sometimes, but I have to try to be good because my worst nightmare is hearing "get out of here". And even if I did have a house of my own, it wouldn't be much different... because I hate being alone. It is love and friendship I am afraid of losing... and it always seems ao fragile to me.

Mass Confusion

2009-02-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the second worst day of my life!
First of all, Diana's mom's house caught on fire, with Abby and Hayden inside, which you can read about at my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe, if you want to, because I don't want to rewrite the same exact thing twice!
So everyone has been really upset about that.
And yesterday for some reason I was just having a really high-anxiety day in the first place, I just had a horribly nervous and sick feeling all day long.
Then night came, and Diana and Jimmy wanted to go out to see the band Infinity which was playing at a nearby bar. I didn't even want to go in the first place, because I was feeling so anxious and upset, and I just had a horrible feeling. But they kept telling me to just go with, and I also didn't want to be left out, so in the end I decided to go with.
Every time we go to see Infinity Diana likes to go right up in front, in the front row closest to the stage. I used to hate this but I have gotten a lot better. the reason I used to hate it is because I have sensitive ears being that close really, really, really hurts my ears, to the point where I can't even hear the music. Also I hate being squashed in with all those people. Its probably the Aspie part of me that hates these things. But I've gotten a lot better now. The loudness hardly bothers me any more, even at indoor concerts. I can stand in the front row with Diana without feeling like I'm in physical pain anymore, and I've learned to ignore the people around me. What some people don't always understand about me is that i just don't have these certain social skills that other people take for granted. Even stupid little things, like what should I do with my coat, I'm really hot so I should take it off, but should I hold it, or put it on the stage, or find somewhere else for it, or take it back out to the car, or what... sends me into a spinning cycle of anxiety! As for music and crowds, my parents used to take me and my brother to festivals with music all the time when I was little, but I was never one of those kids who would be up front dancing and having fun, even back then. I was always one of those kids who would be up at the top of the hill away from the music, covering my ears because the noise was too loud, and wanting to cry because the darkness and crowds made me scared! Even when I was ten or eleven! I just don't have that in me! But I really thought I have gotten better... I am better at going to the regular bar now where they don't have concerts, even when the music is loud, I have fun there and can play darts or video games or whatever or just sit there and I'm not really as nervous there. And as for the concert, I do like listening to that music, which is music I was probably listening to before Diana ever did, because my uncle used to play it for us in his room and make tapes for us and stuff. It always reminds me of my uncle and my little brother. But I do not, and most likely never will, like to "dance around" or do crowd participation stuff. Its just too much. I am happy to just stand and listen to the music and watch the people playing and all the lights and stuff, and it is just a show to me, and I like it but I am no good at being outwardly socially appropriate or whatever.
So yesterday we were there and Jimmy kept walking away, and i was standing with Diana, and she was dancing, and then she looked at me and got a really disappointed look in her eyes and said, "I miss Anthony." At that moment my spirits crashed to the floor, broke into a million pieces, and got crushed. And then she wanted to go back to the regular bar instead.
So somehow Jimmy and Diana got into a huge fight in the car, in which Jimmy had heard Diana saying something about Anthony and was mad about that, and Diana was saying she thought we weren't having fun at the band and that she was being nice to want to go back to the other bar, and they were just screaming and screaming, and I was covering my ears but could hear Diana keep saying, "and you leave me with Nicki who JUST STANDS THERE?"
The end result was that Jimmy pulled the car into the parking lot of the other bar, jumped out and left us. Then Diana was really upset and crying and yelling, and I said I could drive the car home, but Diana said no, and then she told me to get out and walk home. So I did.
it was only two blocks or so but snowy, and by the time I got home I was spinning like crazy! i went in and saw Jimmy and said, "You left me there and Diana made me get out and walk home, and I never even wanted to go in the first place!" Jimmy said, "Well, sorry," and then I couldn't breathe and couldn't breathe and couldn't breathe. It was the first time I had a WHOLE panic attack, where I couldn't breathe at all and couldn't see or nothing, in like forever. Then Jimmy was holding me and saying, "calm down, calm down, pet the dog, pet the dog!" and thats all I really remember until I saw Diana come home and say, "You didn't come back for me, you just went to bed?"
Then the night continued on and on because I could not sleep at all, I was just laying there and laying there and laying there. Then I fell asleep at like six in the morning, and at six-forty-five Abby was waking me up by climbing on me and jumping on me!And i felt really sick and sore, my head was killing me and my chest was hurting, which is from the anziety attack, because your body freaks out and sends you so much addrenaline that you can't even handle it, and because when you can't breathe your lungs are gasping so much that it makes them sore and makes your rib cage sore and everything. So I mostly slept all day long, and slept and slept and slept, and Jimmy woke me up to eat breakfast and then I went to sleep again.

It all started because of me, that huge fight between them was all because I'm not a regular person. Speaking of Anthony, he used to say Diana shouldn't hang out with me, he didn't want me around, because he said I was like a little old lady and I was no fun.
I'm sorry to everyone, for what I am, and what I am not, and what I just cannot be.

Brand New Day

2009-02-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

So yesterday eventually got better. Me and Diana went and scooped Sarah andher friend Emily up off the street, and went to Burger King to stalk Megan. We ended up going back to Dina's mom's house to hang out for a while, then brought Sarah home with us, and she ended up babysitting the little kids so we could go up to the bar. It was noisy there. We actually walked home, which was really weird because Jimmy usually hates walking and would rather just drive the two blocks home from the bar. but it was nice out and he said we could walk. It was cool. But then he started running from us. He was walking a little ways ahead of us, and we yelled out, "JIMMY!" and he just bolted, and got home like five hours ahead of us somehow! Left us to stumble down the middle of the street saying, "That bastard!"
the weirdest news we found out at the bar is, we sort of know this neighborhood guy who everyone calls Coach for some reason. He's about 24 or so and he was living with his grandfather, who was really old, and taking care of him. So last night we found out that Coach's uncle murdered Coach's grandfather! Diana had seen the article in the paper but since we had never known Coach's last name or his family or anything, she never connected that it was him! So scary, isn't it?
Anyway we are probably going to the farm later today with the kids. It is nice out and the farm is free. I am so tired though I wish I could sleep for twelve hours!!!

:(

2009-02-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

We were gonna go to the zoo today because its so nice out, but instead Jimmy and Diana got in a fight and Diana went to bed and everyone slept all day. I cleaned up the kitchen and living room to try to cheer up Diana but it doesn't work. Oh welll... maybe tomorrow we will do something... I hope so! No I don't WANT to just go by myself, its not the same, and I don't really have anyone else, so shut up!

(EDITED TO ADD: Jimmy wants you to know that he did not sleep all day! He washed the cars and picked up dog poop from the driveway. And Diana thinks this post is like a temper tantrum!)

Long TIme, No Blog!

2009-01-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

Its been quite a long time since i've posted on this blog... almost a month! I guess because my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe, is more of my showing off to the world blog, whereas this is more of my personal blog that not too many people read. I basically just have two readers... Diana, and my aunt! So if something has to be neglected, its usually this one. :(
Anyway, today is Friday, but I'm at my mom's house because Jimmy is watching the kids today, giving me a day off since I had a five-day-long marathon of watching the kids while Diana and Jimmy were in Vegas. I've been busy trying to get a bunch of stuff done. Yesterday was dedicated to doing laundry... Yep, in this house I must dedicate a day to it... writing some articles for Associated Content, and setting up my Amazon shops on Slow Down, Gym Shoe!. Today has been dedicated to everything else. I caught up on most of my blog reading, most of my emails, most of my "get-paid-to" gigs, wrote a few more articles for Associated Content, and am trying to catch up on this blog now! At some point I gotta go out to go to the post office, stop at Target to get a few things, and hopefully get some food. There is NO food here. My parents don't eat here much. So they are out of even the bare essentials, like CHEESE! Wait a minute, there must be peanut butter... maybe I should check for that!
I am starving to death. Here's the plan. Must make a plan. Okay.

1. Eat lunch here.
2. Go to post office.
3. Target.
4. Home. Clean room and put away laundry.

If I stay the night here and go to Diana's in the morning, that will give me a few extra hours here to finish stuff. Right?

I'm so glad its almost the weekend so Diana will be home! I missed her so much while she was in Vegas, and then when she got home we were both so sick it was like being at the brink of death, so we didn't get to enjoy it much. So I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday!

Okay lemme get out of here... Bye!

Wii Love It

2008-12-30T20:54:00.000-08:00

I have a new addiction... Wii bowling! the kids got a Wii for Christmas, but since Jimmy and Brandon have been gone, me and Diana have been using it more than anything! We love to play the Wii Sports game. And the bowling part is my area of expertise! I actually became a "pro" at it and got a virtual medal. I got ten strikes in a row today!
The game also has tennis, baseball, golf, and boxing on it. I avoid boxing and golf if at all possible. But I am getting a little better at baseball and tennis!
What did I do before Wii came along?

Everything I Need!

2008-12-21T19:35:00.001-08:00

I saw this meme where you enter your name, plus the word "needs", into a search engine, and type up the phrases you find. For instance, I put in, "Nicki needs," and came up with...

Nicki needs something to get her in the mood.
Nicki needs someone to talk to.
Nicki needs help!
Nicki needs a man who keeps her on a leash.
Nicki needs everyone's numbers.
Nicki needs a life.
Nicki needs to relax about sex already.
Nicki needs to help out more around the house.
Nicki needs to show at O item A2 on her tax return.
Nicki needs your help.
Nicki needs us.
Nicki needs to find her forever home.
Nicki needs socialization.
Nicki needs an operation now.
Nicki needs me.
Nicki needs inspiration.
Nicki needs to expose herself to more extreme situations.
Nicki needs urgent medical treatment.
Nicki needs to bring forward a motion.
Nicki needs to open her eyes.
Nicki needs her sugar.
Nicki needs underwear.
Nicki needs a parent.
Nicki needs to keep her mouth shut.

Wow, I have a lot of needs, right?

Hypochondriac

2008-12-18T17:31:00.000-08:00

Yay, I finally finished my semester! I just got back from my History test. I cannot believe that I pulled everything off, basically at the last minute! I managed to do a whole chapter of math homework, study for a math test, take a math test, write two major term papers (each about 12 pages long), finish a semester-long Health project, and bullshit my way through an essay test. Does that make me cool?
Now, within the next few days, I just need to clean up my room in time for the guests to come to my mom's house on Christmas, finish all my last-minute Christmas shopping and wrapping, buy and deliver gifts for my angel-tree kids, write a letter to my school asking them to waive the block on my account so I can get my grades and register for next semester, try to register for next semester, and build a gingerbread house with the kids. ;)
In other news, here is something I learned today! If you've been feeling sick lately, do not... I repeat, do not... look up the following symptoms on Google: headaches + earaches + nausea. Because if you do, you will discover that you are most likely dying of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma.
Now I brought you down, let me bring you back up... take a look at my little snow dog!

Christmas Meme

2008-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

Hooty-hoo, I stole a meme from Everyday Adventures! YOu know I love a good meme!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

Ooooh I love them both! But to me, Egg Nog is a special Christmas drink, so I love to drink a lot of it while I can... whereas hot chocolate is readily available all year around, even in the summer if I want it!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

He wraps them, except for a few special big ones he leaves unwrapped!

3. Colored lights on house/tree or white?

Colored, FOR SURE! I love as bright of colors as possible!

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

Not really... My mom does.

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Right around the beginning of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Uh, I don't think we have any specific holiday dishes in my family! My mom's family is Italian, so Italian food is pretty much the catch-all meal for all family gatherings! Although sometimes we get it catered from Brown's Chicken!

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?

When I was 5 or 6 there was nothing I wanted mroe than a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas. I asked Santa Claus for it so many times! Well, Christmas morning came, and there was no Cabbage PAtch doll under rhe tree. My parents kept asking me if I had gotten everything I wanted, and I said Yes, because I was trying to be sweet and polite. Anyway, we always went to my Nona and Bopop's house for Christmas morning, and Santa always left presents there, as well, for my brother and me! And guess what? Santa had left TWO Cabbage PAtch Dolls at Nona's house... a girl one for me and a boy one for my younger brother! I was in Heaven! As I got older I realized that Santa seemed to leave the most extra-special presents at Nona's house instead of at my house. It took me longer to realize, though, that Santa was really Nona and Bopop, and that they always bought the best things for us when my parents couldn't really afford much!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I really, really, really, wanted to believe in Santa, so I forced myself to believe until I was about 11. I think when my younger brother outgrew Santa, I was pretty much trapped into giving Santa up too!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
When I was little my brother and I were always allowed to open our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve, and sometimes one gift each from our parents. Now, usually, we open them all on Christmas morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
I love as gaudy a tree as possible, with lots of homemade ornaments from kids, and ornaments collected over the years.

11. Snow. Love it or dread it?
Its perfect when its snowing but it isn't TOO COLD OUT!

12. Can you ice skate?
Kinda. But my ankles are so weak, they snap!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
When I was little the Cabbage Patch Doll... and once a dollhouse... and once a pogo stick... and once a teddy bear that talked... and more recently, a digital camera!

14. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Being with my loved ones, and carrying on traditions, and making it magical for the little kids!

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Fudge! And marangue cookies.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
When I was little, my favorite tradition was when my dad would read us THe Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. Now I enjoy making reindeer food with my nieces and nephew, writing a letter to Santa Claus with them... and then eating the cookies after the kids go to bed!

17. What tops your Christmas tree?
At Diana's house, a star. At my mom's house, an angel. I prefer angels... for obvious reasons!

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving! I think I get mostly excited about Christmas because I get to give people things. Its a fun time of year for me to show everyone how much they mean to me, by trying to pick out things I think they'll love!

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Silent Night.

20. Candy Canes. Yum or Yuck?
Yum! But I don't like the fruit-flavored ones.

21. What do you want for Christmas?
I do not know! I really don't! I have just about everything I need... except for a place to live. I'm so totally homeless.

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party?
No...

23. Do you dress up for Christmas Eve or wear PJ’s?
Neither. I wear, like, normal clothes, usually. Jeans. Maybe a nicer shirt than usual.

24. Do you own a Santa hat?
Nooooo

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?
These days I seem to just roam around! Usually I spend Christmas Eve with Diana's family, stay the night so I can spend Christmas morning with them and see my nephew and nieces open presents, then go to my mom's house, then go with my parents to my mom's family's Christmas celebration, wherever it is. This year its actually at my mom's house. Jimmy's family also invited me to THEIR Christmas, and I'm hoping I can make it there too... because they even included me in their grab bag! Can you believe it? I made it into a GRAB BAG! I am STILL not allowed in the grab bag with my mom's family... my mom won't allow it. Wah.

And In Other News...

2008-12-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

Nobody seemed to understand why I had such mixed feelings about my brother coming into town. Half of me misses him all the time and is homesick for the months I used to spend with him in California... but the other half of me knows that being around him is more harmful than good. At first he was always just another person I wanted desperately to care about me and to like me... and then eventually I gave up on that, and now I just eye him warily and keep my distance.
He's staying at my mom's house now and seems always to be critiquing me... from what I eat (too much high fructose corn syrup, too much junk) to what I say (I should stop talking, stop asking so many dumb questions, stop talking to the dog because its irritating him...) to when I cough (Oh god, go wash your hands, don't cough on the dog, if I give him bronchitis he's going to be so pissed) to just about everything! Seriously! Plus every discussion has to be about conspiracy theories, about everything from the government to the idea that my parents were morally wrong for making us visit my grandmother in the nursing home when we were children because we shouldn't have had to see a nursing home just because our grandpa, who divorced our grandmother, wasn't taking care of business. (Which doesn't even make sense, in my mind! My grandmother, though schizophrenic, lived independently in her own apartment until I was 12. After that, she broke her hip and entered a nursing home, and my parents did ask us to go visit her one or two weekends a month, which I totally think was appropriate! Plus, her being in there had nothing to do with my Grandpa. He divorced her when my dad was eighteen, but financially supported her until his accidental death, which happened when I was 10 years old... before my grandmother broke her hip and entered the nursing home! So...)
And then, to come home from school last night and find him and my mom drinking wine together at the kitchen table and having a long discussion. And then after he leaves, my mom comes down shaking her head and saying, "Wow, that boy! He's just so knowledgable!"
You'd be alarmed at what passes for knowledge around here!

Revelations

2008-12-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Hows it going? I had a fun day. I made Gak with the kids! If you want to read about our Gakky adventures, visit my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe!
Anyway. Last time I wrote, I was feeling sort of morose. But I am actually feeling better today, a little. You see, the other day in class, my teacher for some reason mentioned a former student she had, a guy with a really severe learning disability, who took about fifteen years to finish his degree program, and then could only teach early childhood classes because he just couldn't academically handle anything beyond that. But he turned out to be an awesome preschool teacher, of course!
The story made me feel better because it made me realize that I'm not in a race here. I do have special needs, and it has always, always, always taken me longer to do things and learn things than it takes the average person. And I always do things in my own way, too. For instance, my parents started teaching me to ride a two-wheeler when I was four or five, but I just couldn't do it the usual way... with my parents running alongside me and then letting go of the back of my bike. It terrified me and I wasn't that great at balancing. They eventually took off my training wheels anyway, and I sort of boycotted my bike for a while.
Eventually, though, I taught myself how to ride a different way. I would sit on my bike, with my feet touching the sidewalk, and I would sort of run along until my wheels were going pretty fast. Then I'd put my feet on the pedals, and off I'd go! For some reason, that way worked for me. And within a few weeks I was able to ride my bike like any other kid, without even using my "running start" method. Pretty much everything in my life has been this way.
So I've been thinking... Maybe I just need to slow down a little! When I was taking part time classes, I always, always, always got A's... because I was able to really focus on the one or two classes I had. I was working six hours a day as a special ed teacher's aide, then going to school at night once or twice a week, and it worked really well for me.
So maybe what I need to do next semester is, just take two classes. Definitely not so many night classes. Its been too hard for me to leave after watching the kids, and then go to school. Plus it was always too tempting to ditch school, when Diana and Jimmy came home and I could hang out with them instead! I just need more balance.
It is my mom who is constantly pressuring me to do more, do more, do more. But I have to ignore her because I know myself better than she does. I know what I can handle. It may take me an extra year or two to get my teaching degree, but so what, right? I really think it is better to slow down, and focus, and get A's in my classes, than to take on a full load, have trouble focusing, be stressed out and tired and sick all the time, and barely pass my classes with C's.
What do you think?

Fate

2008-12-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

My dad has told me a few times that he has a feeling I'll die young... just because I've always been "sickly." (By that he means due to my allergies and asthma and my tendency to catch every cold, cough and flu that comes around!) Sometimes I feel like he's right. Sometimes I feel certain that I am going to die soon, because its the only way I can go. I've been in school forever and it seems unlikely that I'll ever finish, that I'll ever move forward in any way. I feel like I was always meant to be a sad memory, someone everyone will enjoy remembering and missing, more than I am meant to stay alive.
I don't want to die. I want to stay alive for the kids, and for the kids of my own I would someday have. But it just doesn't seem likely. Life is so fragile, isn't it?

Flunking Life!

2008-12-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

I swear to God, I am flunking out of life lately!
Lets count how many stupid things have happened to me lately.
I acquired a large overdraft fee on my bank account, waited too long to pay it, and by the time I went to make a deposit that would put my bank account back into positive numbers, they had closed the account! And now they won't let me reopen a new one because I'm such a failure at banking!
I owe my school $2,000 and if I don't pay it, I won't be able to enroll for next semester.
I am getting bad grades in most of my classes, simply because I forget about my assignments... shit I used to do back in highschool!
Then, today, I had a take-home test I was supposed to turn in, but I grabbed the wrong notebook this morning, so I didn't bring the take-home test with me to school, and therefore didn't turn it in! (Luckily we had a sub, unexpectedly... who ever heard of having a sub in college???... so I couldn't have turned it in anyway, and I get an extra week!)
Plus, last night Diana messaged me to ask me if I could be at her house by 7:45 so she could take Brandon to school, since Jimmy was working. Or had left, or whatever. SO I set my alarm extra early to make sure I would be up and ready. I checked it to make sure it was set. And then... I overslept TWO HOURS because somehow my alarm didn't go off! Or, most likely, I must have turned it off in my sleep, dreaming I was getting up. I do that shit sometimes. So I ended up waking up ten minutes past the time that I was supposed to be at Diana's! Ugh... embarrassing!
And then there are the two times I either left my headlights on or left my car door slightly open in the past week, both times resulting in my battery dying in the parking lot. The first time, Diana ended up having to come rescue me. The second time, I was at school, and got a security guard to give me a jump. But, Jesus H!
If you don't believe I have ADHD, then you must just believe I'm a dumbass, or someone who doesn't give a shit about anything. But those things aren't true. I definitely do give a shit... I just can't hold it together lately!
I need to get back on Adderall. Gotta give that shit another try.

Anyway...
on a more lighthearted note...
I always see those posts where people list the key words that others used to arrive at their blog. So I thought I'd share some of mine. Apparently, my blog is chock full of useful information!
People have come here by searching for...

"puking on formula"

"googleplex the highest number in the world" (and I am the NUMBER ONE on Google for that topic!)

"all day her dreams blog" (Yeah, thats me!)

"is googleplex the highest number" (Another one?)

"Naughty Abby" (Why do I get so many people searching for that?)

"do i need to visit my doctor every three months in order to have my adderall prescription renewed?" (Yes, you do!)

"naughty abby" (Who is this famous Naughty Abby everyone is looking for?)

"Going through my parent's divorce was one of the hardest part of my life. I will never forget that day. I was walking towards my front door when my dad walked out. He was leaving my little brother and mom for the rest of o" (Sorry to hear that!)

"thanks god its blackfriday"

"i suddenly puke" (Me too, sometimes!)

"is the leader coz i got all the sandwiches in my backpack video" (Okaaaaay...)

"Splenda + sugar"

"Snapfish and Oprah"

"stuffed animal speaker from khols"

Well, good to know this blog is making a difference in the lives of many people!

Last Day of NaBloPoMo, Yay!

2008-11-30T15:23:00.001-08:00

Today is my last day of NaBloPoMo! Can you believe it? I finished it successfully1 I hope I win something!
Anyway, here's whats been going down.
Went out to see a band last night with Jimmy and Diana. I at first wasn't going to go because my meds were all messed up and I was feeling sad, but after a while I decided to go so i walked all the way up to the bar (about half an hour walk!) and met them there. It was like 10:42 when I got there! We had a fun time. Then came home, ate some pizza and went to bed.
Today has been more of a lounging around and relaxing day. Last night we put up the Christmas tree, and today we put up some more decorations. we had a fire in the fire place! And Hayden and Abby stayed in their jammies all day long!
In other news, we may be acquiring three more chindren in the household. Brandon's friend's mother has recently became homeless, and moved to the city to stay with friends or something. Diana offered that Brandon's friend could stay here so that they could keep on going to school while their mom looks for a place to live. And somehow, out of that, it turned out that we'll also be taking the friend's younger brother and sister. We have to find out if the school is going to say its okay, but probably they will, since I think in Illinois kids are at least allowed to finish out their school year at the same school, even if they move. If all goes according to plan, there will be six kids living here by next week! With Ben and Claire, the afterschool total will rise to eight, making this a real house of chaos! It should be loads of fun!
Anyway, thanks for sticking with this blog for all of NaBloPoMo! Wish me luck!

Almost Finished With This!

2008-11-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

Yay, NaBloPoMo is almost over! Tomorrow is the last day!
For lack of anything else new to tell you, I wanted to share one of my newest obsessions... Swap-Bot! This is a site where you can sign up to participate in swaps through the mail. Different swaps have different themes and time limits and everything.
I'm about to mail off my first swap thing on Monday! I participated in a Little Tootsies sock swap, swapping pairs of socks for kids. (When you first start out on Swap-Bot, you're a Newbie, and a lot of swaps aren't open to Newbies, so you have to take what you can get!) I bought a pair of Dora the Explorer socks and a pair of Hello Kitty socks for a 2-year-old girl somewhere in the world. And someone else is going to be sending some socks to me for Abby! I'm also participating in a lip gloss/balm swap, a bad day kit swap, a holiday gift swap, and a sticker sheet swap. Its just something fun and fairly inexpensive to do!
If you'd like to come join in on some swaps, you totally should! Or just come visit my profile!
Okay! I've probably been on the computer enough for one day! Talk to you tomorrow... on the FINAL DAY OF NABLOPOMO!

Thank God Its Black Friday... AGAIN!

2008-11-28T13:03:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! It seems like just a few weeks ago I posted Thank God Its Black Friday, and now here I am posting the same thing again! For the past several years, on Black Friday my mom and I have gotten up at the butt-track of dawn to hit the door buster sales. This year we did it again, getting up at 3:30 in the morning! I did get some great deals. I got something for Brandon (which I will probably give him for his birthday, sparing me an extra few weeks to find something for him for Christmas) and things for Abby, Hayden, and even Emily! Black Friday is a great time to get my Christmas shopping started... then all I have to do is fill in the blanks for whatever I didn't manage to find!

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Mine was super! I went to Diana's mom's house and had Thanksgiving dinner there. The food was delicious, and even though the family was still pissed-off about the fact that Hayden went with Jimmy, we managed to have fun! And we still had time to drive to the city to Jimmy's parents' house, where we spent the rest of our Thanksgiving. Then I drove home, made it home by 11:15 or so, and got to bed by midnight... only to wake up at 3:30, of course!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! not sure whether I'll get back in time to blog for Thanksgiving, because we might not be home until late! Everything in the house is in an uproar because Jimmy is taking Hayden to his family's Thanksgiving, and we are going to diana's mom's thanksgiving, but Diana's mom's family wanted us to bring Hayden there. So its going to be a fun day, right? I'll update more later.

Thanksgiving Glitter

full House

2008-11-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Speed blogging because I'm so tired today! I watched the kids from across the street, plus Brandon, Abby, and Hayden, today. I took them all to Legoland with the free tickets we acquired from that Disney Vacation Club sales pitch. I'm really glad we got in for free, because I definitely don't think it would have been worth the $14 per kid and $17 per sdult! Basically there is one ride, a 4-D movie, a spot where you can see how Legos are made, and a playroom with a climbing structure and lots of Lego toys. I mean, it was pretty cool, but not $75 worth of cool!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, can you believe it? This year has been going so fast. I'm totally broke... cashed in my coins from my coin bottle yeesterday, and just spen the last $14 of that on a haircut for Brandon, which turned out crappy. Hope I cn afford Christmas!

Weird Day!

2008-11-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

This was a strange day! Me and Hayden were supposed to go to a playgroup today, but it got cancelled, and so we went to a nearby library instead. Iwas planning to leave a little bit before 11, so we could go home and meet abby's bus. But when I got out to my car, it wouldn't start! The battery was dead! thinking fast, I called Diana to tell her I might not be able to get home to meet the bus, so she could try to call the school and have them keep Abby. I went inside and asked the library people if they had jumper cables. They gave me this tiny little battery charger thing to plug into my cigarette lighter. But it didn't work! Next I called my Roadside Assistance. They said someone would come give me a jump... in about an hour and a half! I was like, "Aw hell no!" Luckily, Diana called me and said she had found jumper cables! So she came to the library to jump me. but she has a loaner car, and we couldn't find the battery in it! We literally couldn't find anything that looked like a battery. We did find some sort of red thing that had a "plus" on it. Diana thought maybe we could try hooking up the positive clippy thing to that, grounding the negative clippy thing on something metal, and trying it that way. But we were a little afraid we'd blow ourselves up! Then some dude came along and told us that yes we could do it that way! So we successfully jumped my car and went on our way.
The rest of the day progressed normally. Then Diana came home and we all went to the mall to get the kids' picture taken together! At first, Hayden totally wouldn't sit for a picture, but finally they put her in a little toy sled and she sat. In the picture, you can't even tell she's in a sled! Its pretty cool!
Then Diana thought she had lost her purse, and we searched for it for about an hour. But it turned out that her purse was in the car, and her keys and ID card were in the pocket of my sweatshirt! Hmmm....
So now we are all home, and the kids are getting ready for bed.
Tomorrow should be a "fun" day because I am watching the kids across the street as well as these kids. We're gonna go to Legoland!
Yay, NaBloPoMo is almost over, and I've msde it so far!!!

My Ear!!!!!

2008-11-24T20:12:00.000-08:00

Shoot, I almost forgot to blog today! Woulda blown NaBloPoMo on the 24th day! That would have sucked!
Anyway my ear hurts so bad right now, I have no clue why! It feels like its spreading to my brain!
The bad news of the day is that Diana's mom went to the hospital for some tests today, they found a clogged artery, and she had to go for emergency heart surgery. The good news is she's okay. The operation was quick, and she has to spend the night at the hospital, but she should be fine! So weird, isn't it... she's young, only in her forties. She's a single mother of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old. Really freaks you out.
OMG I have to log out now, my ear hurts so bad, I'm gonna lose my mind! More later, okay?

WIll This Miracle Mist Work?

2008-11-23T19:49:00.001-08:00

I am hoping to win some of this Miracle Wist that is being offered in a giveaway over on Moomette's Magnificents. The giveaway is for Mighty Miracle Mist. Apparently it is a special mist that you can spray in a room, and it will magically change a child's behavior!
Okay... so its probably not real magic. I mean, its water and confetti, in a special bottle. But the power of suggestion is strong for kids! According to the directions, you explain to the children in the room that you are going to spray a magical spray, and now everyone must behave in a certain way. (The potions offered are Good Thinking& Paying Attention, Good Night, COoperation & Sharing, and Kind VOice & Good Manners.) With the spray in the air, the children will focus on their behavior!
I hope I win it, so I can see if it really works!

Sunday, Sunday...

2008-11-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty good day! I went to Diana's, and while the big kids were over at their friends' house across the street, we took Hayden to the mall to get her pictures done. She thought we were crazy and psychotic to want her to stand still for her picture, though, and it was hard as hell to get a good shot where she wasn't trying to run right out of the studio! Some good shots were managed, though... You can see a sampling at my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe! On Tuesday night, we're going to try to take all three of the kids back there to get their pictures taken together!
We ate lunch in the mall, and then we came back home, and that was pretty much the jist of it! Now it feels like its late as hell, but its really only 6:00!
I think part of my lack of energy is due to the fact that its pitch black by five-thirty now! Really sucks. I'm not a big fan of winter. I wish it could get snowy for just a few weeks, long enough to cover Christmas and New Years... and then it could go straight to spring!
Oh well, when I am the boss of the world I will certainly change things! ;)
NaBloPoMo is almost over, dude, and I've managed to post every single day so far! Thats pretty cool, isn't it? Too bad I couldn't keep up with NaNoWriMo... but I did get a good start on my memoir!

Memoir, Continued...

2008-11-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

Like A Regular Kid...

Over the summer, I have changed into a new person. When I ended my sophomore year, I was a wiry, immature kid with not many friends and barely any social skills. But I have learned a little bit about myself. I made friends with Jason, Andrea and Joe, and learned that there were people in this world that thought I was “cool.” I made friends with the homeless people, and learned that there were people who thought I was wonderful, and who loved having me around. I almost succeeded in getting myself moved out of my parents’ home, failed, got in huge trouble instead, and learned that I could survive anything.
Right before school starts, I began wearing a red bandana headband around my head. To this day I have no idea why I decided to wear it, except that Al, one of the homeless guys, always wore one. Maybe it was a symbol of solidarity with him and the other homeless people who I was barely ever able to see anymore. At any rate, that bandana changes many things for me at school. Because I wear a bandana, people who have never noticed me before suddenly start noticing me, and thinking I am cool. Even my gym teacher from last year… a man who seemed thoroughly annoyed by my lack of athletic skills and the lack of acceptance I got from the other kids… now greets me when he seesme in the hallway. “Hi, Hippie Girl,” he calls, or, “Smile, Hippie!”
I am in a different gym class this year. My teacher was Mr. Mozack, a more easy-going guy who doesn’t really care one way or another if I participate in gym. Last year I reluctantly participated in all of the horrible sports that were foisted upon me. My strategy had consisted mostly of holding perfectly still, doing nothing, trying to remain unnoticed, so nobody would kick a ball my way or expect me to whack a hockey puck. (I did, somehow, get a reputation for having a mean underhand volleyball serve, a secret weapon for whatever team I happened to be on!) This year, in Mozack’s class, I don’t even bother to pretend. I just sit on the sidelines and watch the other kids play, wearing my spotless gym uniform and my bandana. Mozack doesn’t seem to mind; he seems mildly amused by me. One day, he assigns people to teams by pointing at them and then pointing to the side of the gym they should go to. When he gets to me, he grins and points up at the ceiling. The other kids laugh along with me as I head to my usual spot on the sidelines.
Maybe my bandana has magical powers!

However, some random school rule apparently mandates that nobody can wear bandanas. The administrators are constantly telling me to take it off. Usually I just pull it off until I get out of their site, and then put it back on. But one day one of the administrators sees me wearing it and tells me, “If I see you wearing that thing again, you’re going to have in-school suspension.”
I keep it off. I’m not ready to be that rebellious!
That day in gym class, one of the girls in my class, a girl with long bleach-blond hair whom I’ve never had any other classes before, asks me, “Where’s your bandana?”
“I can’t wear it anymore or I’ll get in-school suspension,” I say.
“Aw, man, that sucks!” says the girl. “That was, like, your trademark!”
The girl, whose name I find out is Carla, talks to me just about every day after that. She thinks its funny that I just sit out of class every day, instead of participating in gym. She tells me that she would sit out, but she got in huge trouble last year, and got kicked out of school, and had to go to the Life Skills and Educational Alternatives Program. When she tells me about LEAP, it sounds pretty cool, and I wish I could go there. She says it was basically just one classroom, and kids worked independently all day long, and all the teachers gave her special privileges because she was nice to them.
Sometimes, Carla does sit out with me. We spend all gym period talking, or we play Dirty Hangman. Dirty Hangman is just like regular Hangman, except you spell out dirty words or swear words.
We find out we have the same lunch hour, too, which happily means the end of my sitting all alone at lunch! Now I sit with Carla and her friends, who happen to be the stoners of the school. Me and Carla barely ever eat lunch, except when the cafeteria is serving Stuffed Shells or Fried Chicken. The rest of the time we subsist on sodas and junk food from the vending machines. Or we order things piece-meal from the cafeteria. For instance, if the hot lunch being served is Salisbury Steak, mashed potatoes, carrots, and bread pudding, we’re likely to go through the line and order plates full of mashed potatoes and several servings of bread pudding. The lunch ladies have trouble figuring out what to charge us for these weird meals, and often let us take the food for free.
Being Carla’s friend also means I finally have a reason to use my off-campus lunch privilege! I always had it before, but I never really had anywhere to go. Now, after me and Carla finish eating lunch, we walk with the other stoners to a neighborhood playground, where everyone except me smokes cigarettes.
School is no longer a miserable experience for me. I feel almost like a normal kid.

Adding to my normal kid experience is the fact that I have made friends with those girls in the park… the ones who helped me escape from the bicycle cop, at the end of the summer. They are a few years younger than me, but I have always been young for my age, so the difference is barely noticeable. One girl in particular, Lena, becomes like a best friend to me. I go to her house every day after school, and spend most of my weekends there too. During the day, we ride our bikes all over God’s green earth, in sun or rain or snow, often ending up at the park, where the neighborhood stoner kids hang out at the same band shell where me and the homeless people watched the bands play on the Fourth of July. It is a convenient spot for me, because the homeless people still hang out there. Many of the stoner kids have befriended them. So, I can actually visit with them, while blending in with the other kids for safety!
Ironically, Lena is not allowed to be at the park either, because over the summer her mother caught her smoking there. So whenever we go there, it is a huge conspiracy, and we have to concoct stories to tell her parents about where we were. (Since we barely ever go to my house, all I ever have to tell my parents is, “I was hanging out with Lena.”)
Lena and I like to go into the Mexican grocery store in town, and buy Cokes in glass bottles, and little packaged cups of flan. We like to go into the regular grocery store to get free samples and to steal pieces of candy from the bulk bins. We like to climb up onto the windowsill of the bars and watch the people get drunk at four o’clock in the afternoon. We try to dye our hair with food coloring. (It seems to work, except when we get caught in the rain on our bikes, and the food coloring rinses out of our hair, leaving rainbow streaks down our faces!) We go to the thrift store and search for random items of clothing that nobody but us will think is cool. At night we lie in her double bed and listen to her stepdad’s classic rock records over and over, all night long.

Towards the end of the first semester, my school has a poetry slam. I have recently written a long, rambling poem called “Crazy Eyes,” which is supposed to be about my experiences of hanging out with the homeless people and then being taken away from them. The thinly-disguised girl in the poem is “wild, lonely, hungry, free,” and always seems happy, even when she is seen eating from Dumpsters and hanging out with bums. When she is taken away from the streets, she becomes miserable, and cries all the time. The poem ends with the lines, “But street kids don’t die, they multiply. Ain’t that what you used to say? And you know, kid, you’ll be okay… someday.”
My English teacher is blown away by my poem, and she enters it in the school’s poetry slam, which has been set up by the Writer’s Club… a club I actually attended myself a few times during freshman year, but had trouble sitting still and paying attention for. My whole English class gets to go to the poetry slam instead of having regular class, just because I’m going to be in it. I read my poem aloud. The audience claps wildly, and I end up winning third place. For a while I am famous around the school, with kids I don’t know coming up to me in the hallway to congratulate me and tell me they liked my poem.
I am happy… blissfully happy… and I wish it would never end!

Lethargic

2008-11-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

FOr some reason I am having a really weird few days and really can't do anything but sleep! Last night when I came home I checked my email and then just laid down and passed out for all night long. This morning I got up and went to pick up some groceries, and got my dog from the kennel, and then when I came home I had this long list of other things I was going to do, including working a lot on the homework I've been neglecting... but I was gonna watch the movie "Juno" first because I saw it was on TV and its one of my favorites. After Juno was over I just passed out again, and slept for several hours! Whenever I tried to think about getting up and doing something, I ended up DREAMING that I Was doing it, instead! The onlt thing that finally got me up was, I had to pee really bad. Then thought I'd check in here. My mind feels really foggy, almost like I'm drunk or something! I'm so tired I just want to go back to sleep. I just feel so weird and achy and dreamy.
And the other thing is, today when my cat wouldn't come sit with me on the couch, I burst into tears and cried hysterically for about ten minutes! We had spent so much time together in the past few days while Trixie has been gone, because he's spent every possible moment on the couch... even when I was gone, whenever I came home from Diana's or school or wherever, I'd find him on the couch. And all night long sleeping cuddled up with me. So when I got home with Trixie and I saw him run back to his box, it broke my heart! I went and picked him up and tried to carry him out to the couch, but he hissed, and thats when I started crying like crazy.
Weird. Should I just consider today a "sick day" and let myself lie around and sleep, and get back on top of things tomorrow? Or am I really losing my mind!

Worn out

2008-11-21T19:20:00.001-08:00

I think I really have to work on my health problems, or something. Lately I feel so worn-out and run-down, no matter how much sleep I get. My bones feel sore, like I have the flu, all the time. I can't sustain my interest on anything. Even reading, watching TV, eating, and using the computer are things I have to convince myself to do, because if I had a choice I would just stay under the covers and ignore even thigns that usually bring me happiness.
I was reading in this book, Healing ADHD, that people with ADHD benefit from a high-protein and low-barb diet, and exercise, and also Adderall. So what I need to do, I think, is make nutrition changes, try to get exercise at least a few times a week, and go back to the doctor to renew my old Adderall prescription. If I just sign up at Diana's doctor's office, it will be a lot easier for me to make the monthly appointments, because I could just go in the morning once a month and bring Hayden with me, instead of having to worry about finding time to get all the way out to McHenry to see my old doctor!

Today was a pretty good day. Bobby and Candice didn't come, so I just had the little girls. Plsu Diana and Jimmy were home for the day. Diana had the day off because it was the day after her birthday, and she went to the midnight showing of "Twilight" last night, so she was catching up on her sleep! So it was a really mellow, low-key day.
I am probably unfortunately not going to get to see much of them this weekend, because I am getting Trixie and housesitting/petsitting all weekend. But over Thanksgiving weekend I'll probably be there most of the time!

Tomorrow I am planning on getting Trixie from the kennel. I am sort of sad for Sammy-Joe, because he's really enjoyed having just me and him together, just like the old days. We've really hunkered down together in the basement and just spent all of our free time together. I am really hoping that when Trixie comes home, Sammy-Joe doesn't retreat back into his little room. It would break my heart!

OK C-Ya...

Another Little Piece of my Memoir

2008-11-20T21:37:00.000-08:00

"Prisoner of Injustice"
The rest of the summer creeps by miserably slowly, because I’m barely ever allowed out of the house. I do manage to see the homeless people a few times, though. I fI spot a twenty-minute increment that I can use to get up to the park and back, I take it, riding up as fast as I can to say “hello” and exchange a few words with my friends, and then riding back, putting my bike away and returning to the house as if I were never gone. I become sleuth-like, convinced that every car I see is an undercover cop who has my mom’s phone number.
One day, I actually get permission from my mom to ride my bike up to the library. I go to the library and get enough books to help me pass my time in lock-down more quickly. On my way back from the library, I cut through a shopping plaza that has a grocery store where David and Don often raid the Dumpster. I ride through the alley behind the grocery store. To my delight, David is there! I drop my bike and run to him.
My mom has not given me a time to be home by, so I spend some time hanging out with David in the shopping plaza. We walk through the grocery store, enjoying free samples. We browse through the used bookstore, and window shop at Radio Shack. We get sodas at Brown’s Chicken. Mostly, we talk. I’ve been so lonely, and it feels awesome to have someone to talk to, to really talk to. David listens to my every word.
As we come out of Brown’s Chicken, I see a cop car driving slowly through the parking lot. Officer Dean is in the passenger seat.
“They’re looking for me,” I gasp, my heart jumping.
“No, they’re not,” says David. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Trust me, my mom has them convinced I’m a crazy juvenile delinquent,” I tell him. “I gotta go.” I hug him quickly before I jump on my bike and ride home.

“You better call Mom,” says my brother, as I walk into the house. “She’s looking for you.”
I call her at work. “Did the police bring you home?” she asks.
“What? No! Why would the police bring me home?”
“I called the library and had you paged, but you weren’t there,” says my mom.
“I was there! I have twenty books in my backpack,” I point out. “When did you call? Cause I stopped at the used book store on my way home. And I got a soda at Brown’s Chicken cause I was thirsty.”
“Fine,” says Mom. “Next time, you need to either come straight home, or call to let me know where you are.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I know hanging out with David was a dangerous thing to do, especially when this was the first time I’ve been allowed out alone. But I’ve been so lonely, with nobody to talk to, for the past few weeks. Most days I spend hours and hours just sitting at the kitchen table, reading or drawing, because there is nothing else to do. That hour I spent with David, just hanging out and talking, means so much to me. It was totally worth the risk.

That summer, my brother, who is not quite fourteen yet, gets caught twice with pot. The first time my mom finds a whole shoe box in his room with bowls, rolling papers, and other paraphanalia. My dad has taken my brother, his friend and I to a music store, while I looked at weird instruments like harmonicas and bongos, while the others tried out all the guitars. As we walk in the door, my mom meets us and tells my brothers friend and I to get lost. As I retreat up to my room, I can hear her demanding, “What is this?” and my brother laughing nervously.
However, she believes him when he tells her that he has only smoked weed once or twice. She makes him throw away his stuff, and grounds him for a day or two.
The second time, when she finds actual weed in my brother’s room, my mom threatens to shave his head and make him spend every day after school at the library once school starts. “You’ll be a little library geek,” my mom says. But they’re all empty threats. Nobody keeps my brother at home. Nobody takes him to a psychiatrist. Nobody looks at him strangely every time he speaks.
“Its not fair,” I lament to my brother, one of the times when he’s actually grounded. “You get caught with weed, and barely anything happens. I get caught being friends with homeless people, which isn’t even against the law, and I nearly get sent to the looney bin. Does that make sense?”
“Nicki, Mom and Dad would like it better if you were smoking weed. That’s normal. That’s something most kids do,” says my brother. “Talking to homeless people is not normal. It’s weird, and it’s gross.”
“That’s what nobody understands! They’re not weird or gross at all! They’re just regular people. Nice people. Some of them are the nicest people I ever met,” I say.
“That’s why people think you’re crazy,” sighs my brother. “Trust me. Just start smoking weed, or drinking, instead of hanging out with bums. You’ll be better off.”
It actually makes a little sense. My mom would probably rather me get in trouble for something she did herself when she was a kid, something we can all laugh about later in life. But I tried smoking regular cigarettes once, and I didn’t see what the point was. It burned my lungs and made me cough for days. Besides, I’d have to have friends who smoked weed, in order to smoke it myself. And I don’t have any friends at all. And then, there’s the minor issue of weed being illegal. When I got caught being friends with homeless people, I got in huge trouble with my parents and they managed to get the police on their side. But if I got caught by the cops with weed, I‘d be in even bigger trouble, and I could even end up in Audy Home with Jason!

I still write to Jason, all the time. I write to him more often than I write to Joe and Andrea, mostly because every time I send Jason a letter, he sends one back to me within a week. Our letters are long and rambling. Sometimes we start them out with, “Dear fellow prisoner of injustice,’ because that’s how we see ourselves, as victims of an adult world that doesn’t understand us.

Right before school starts, I have one more close call with my secret trips out to see the homeless people. It’s a weekend, and I once again get permission to go to the library. Since I don’t really have any friends, the library is the only place I can justify leaving the house for.
On the way home from the library, I cut through the park so I can say hello to the homeless people. I’m always nervous now, to the point of being paranoid. It has changed things between me and them. They invite me to sit down and relax, but I am fidgety, my eyes darting around everywhere, and I won’t even get off my bike.
But maybe I’m paranoid for a good reason, because after I’ve been there by the homeless people for about five minutes, I see a cop on a bike riding towards us. I yell goodbye to my friends and take off on my bike, certain the cop is going to chase me.
I look back and see that the bike cop has stopped to talk to the homeless people. Any minute now, he’ll come after me, I’m sure!
Some girls I don’t know are walking a few yards in front of me. I ride up behind them, and jump off my bike. “Let me walk with you, okay? Just until I get away from this cop,” I say breathlessly.
The girls stare at me. One of them nods and says, “Okay.”
“I’m not a killer or anything,” I assure them. “I just got in trouble with the cops a while back, and I’m not supposed to be around here.”
I walk with them, trying to blend in, until we are safely out of the park, and out of the bike cop’s site. I thank the girls, jump on my bike, and ride home.
For the first time in my life, I am excited for school to start. I have always hated school, but at least it will give me six hours a day to be out of the house, around other people, having some sort of freedom.

Tired

2008-11-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

Just too tired to post much today. I don't know why! Mostly I've been doing homework, and just hunkering down with my cat, Sammy-Joe. Since Trixie has been gone, Sammy-Joe has been prowling around a lot more, and cuddling with me on the couch. He seems to treasure sleeping on the couch and slept there all night with me last night. I'm actually going to be sort of sad when Trixie comes home, because this has been like having my kitty back!
Really, thats it for now, just gonna sit around and read for a while I guess. Okay?

Fifty-Fifty

2008-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

So today was a strange day, to say the least!
The first weird thing that happened was I got to Diana's house about twenty minutes earlier than I usually do. I must have flown above the traffic or something!
Once I got there, I realized Abby wasn't there. I had thought she had the day off of school, and was planning on taking her to this one gymnastics open gym that we never would have been able to make it to if she had school. I was like, "I thought Abby didn't have school," and Diana gasped, and I thought she was shitting me! But it turns out, since the day was a half day for the other kids in the district, only the kids who go to afternoon kindergarten classes had school. The morning class kids had the day off!
So I went to Abby's school, beat the bus there, and waited for her in her kindergarten classroom. She was all freaked out. I guess she thought being at school when she wasn't supposed to be was a horrid thing, and the classroom would swallow her up forever, or something!
Anyway, the day went smoother for the rest of the day. We went to the gymnastics thing, which was hella cool. They even had trapeze bars and things! They had a trapeze where you could swing on it, and then drop into a pit of foam cubes. Check this out...

Abby was in Heaven!
They also had tunnels to crawl through, and lots of trampolines, which Hayden loved. But Hayden's favorite part, I think, was another foam cube pit, where she could slide down a Little Tykes slide like the one we have in the yard, and land in the pit! At first she was scared to do it, so I got into the pit so I could catch her. Then she absolutely loved it, and kept signing "more, more, more" so that I'd shove her out of the pit and let her get back on the slide! The reason I had to shove her out of the pit was because, once I was in there, it was nearly impossible for me to get out! I found that out the hard way. The foam cubes are designed to be thick enough to support small bodies, so little kids can climb around in there, and can actually get themselves out of the pit by climbing up on the cubes. But for a heavy adult... impossible! I eventually had to belly-flop onto a mat that was in the pit for kids to jump on, and then I crawled from there onto shore!
So. At least the girls had a fun morning, and Abby is already begging me to take her back next Wednesday. I guess we can probably go back any Wednesdays that she doesn't have school. There's no school next Wednesday, and then there will be winter vacation, so thats probably just enough to keep it special for her!
Anyway. The afternoon went downhill when I picked up Bobby and Candice, the two kids I babysit in the afternoons. Bobby was in rare form from the time I picked him up, laughing maniacally and everything else. At one point I told him he could watch this one show, "If Walls Could Talk," or something like that, and then he'd have to turn off the TV and do something else. So I guess Abby saw a commercial, thought the show was over, and took it upon herself to turn off the TV. Then Bobby took it upon himself to turn it back on, so Abby started pummeling him, and he hit her back. I sent Abby to her room and sent Bobby to the corner, telling both of them that they shouldn't have been hitting. I had an extra talk with Bobby, reminding him that he is bigger than Abby, and to her he is almost like a grown-up, so it is very scary to her if he hits her, plus he can hurt her badly. I know its just his impulse control problems, but still, he can't be hitting five-year-olds, even if he does have Aspergers!
The thing that made it worse was Brandon getting into the scene and screaming at Bobby and getting upset. I told Brandon to let me handle it, I know he's just sticking up for his sister, but just let me be the grown-up. Then I went into Abby's room to have a talk with her about hitting. She was fine and was hiding under her covers but started laughing when I came in. But as soon as I told her she should come out of her room and that she and Bobby needed to apologize to each other, she started screaming bloody murder again.
So I tell her to come out whenever she's ready.
Meanwhile, Brandon has somehow got the story mixed up in that he thinks the whole scuffle started because it was "Abby's turn" to watch TV, so he himself has gone into the living room and started watching his own show. Then Bobby goes in and switches it back to the show that I had told him he could watch, which was, in fact, not over. SO Brandon starts yelling that its Abby's turn to watch TV... even though he's the one watching, and Abby is in her room crying.
By that time Diana's mom and younger sisters had come over, so it seemed like there were about ninety people in the house! On one hand, it was a welcome distraction, because Sarah and Megan started playing with all of the kids and everything and distracting them from their arguing. But then Abby comes out of her room to apologize to Bobby, and Bobby apologizes to her, and then Brandon starts getting upset about the bruise on Abby's head, and starts yelling at Bobby again, and I once again start explaining that Bobby got in trouble already and Bobby got talked to and Bobby's mom is going to hear about what happened and if Bobby does it again he will be in much bigger trouble. But by this time Abby has started screaming again, making me have to practically shout to explain that nobody is allowed to hit, and even though Bobby is in bigger trouble because he is bigger, Abby should not be hitting anyone.Then Brandon puts his arm around Abby and says, "Lets just go," and tries to lead her away, looking disdainfully back at me. The kid makes it ten times harder for me because he wants to be the authority figure, he wants everyone to have to listen to him, but he doesn't want to have to listen to anyone!!!
Ugh.
So, yeah. Not sure what to do about that. On Monday (which I think is the next time Bobby and Candice will be here) I'm going to sit all the kids down together, including Brandon, and explain the household rules once again, including the part where no other kids should be talking when one kid is being disciplined for something. It should be between that kid, and me, and possibly whatever kid was the victim, if there was one. No third or fourth parties should jump in and attempt to discipline each other. I wish this would go for all times, because half the time when its just ABby and Brandon and me, and I'm trying to tell Abby to do something, he's either sticking up for her and comforting her and trying to take her away from me, or he's telling her twisted things like, "IF you don't pick up your toys Nicki is going to call the police and you can go to jail!"
I like Bobby and Claire... I even like Bobby, because he really is a good kid most of the time. His busdriver says he's her favorite kid that she's ever met in twenty years of driving school busses. He loves to converse with adults, learn new things, and listen. He really is a good kid. He's always so nice to Hayden, and would never be rough with her. Because its just clear to him that Hayden is a baby, and he has to be gentle with her. With a bigger, more rambunctious kid like Abby, I think he forgets that she is also much littler and younger than him! His main problem is that he just doesn't know how to act around other kids. And I wish coming to our house could be more of a positive thing for him. He goes to a special school for kids on the autism spectrum, but realistically he's one of the most "high-functioning" kids there, and he knows it. I mean, this kid has Asperger's Syndrome, can sit down and converse with you, can understand rules even if he has trouble controlling his impulses, can do work on a much higher level than his grade level. But he's in classes with kids who have more like classic autism, where they don't have any way of communicating at all, are not toilet trained, etc. My house is one of the only places where he gets to interact with "regular" kids. I would like it to be good for him. I would like him to feel like he has friends here. But instead, I feel like, between him, Abby and Brandon, I'm constantly putting out fires!

Memoir, Continued...

2008-11-18T19:52:00.001-08:00

I don't know if I'm going to be up to date with NaNoWriMo, but I've decided to keep on writing and posting my memoir anyway, as often as I can. So here is the next chapter in my amazing life story!

The next day my parents take the day off of work. I am used to mu mom coming and going from her work as she pleases. She’s one of the bosses in her office and she can pretty much set her own hours, by now. But my dad rarely, if ever, misses work. Even when he’s sick, he makes himself go. So its freaky that today he’s taken the morning off!
“I told them my daughter is very sick, and I need to take her to the doctor,” says my dad.
That makes me bristle. “I’m not sick.”
“You are, you’re very sick,” says my dad.
How can you ev en spend time around people who believe you are crazy? People who refuse to understand what you ar going through, or how they have caused you any pain, and instead try to tell you that its all in your brain? Every moment is extremely awkward. I feel like I’m being watched under a microscope.

The meeting with the psychiatrist takes place at the Bridge Youth Services, a place I’ve gotten very familiar with over the years. When I was thirteen years old, the summer after my dad got his DUI, my family started going to the Bridge for family counseling The Bridge was a program through the township, the only place my parents could afford at the time because it offered sliding scale fees. I think it was my dad’s idea to go there. After his DUI, he was sentenced to go through rehab for alcoholism, and he joined AA as well. He became a very introspective person. He worried about how his drinking in the past had affected my brother and me.
Anyway, we went to a few family counseling sessions there. Our counselor, Wendy, would talk with us all together as a family, then just with our parents, and then just with my brother and me, and then back to all of us again. I remember we acted cheerful and high-spirited during the sessions, cracking lots of jokes and using lots of sarcasm, making Wendy laugh and causing her to comment that we were actually a ver close and strong family. But I think it was really the opposite. Even in counseling, we couldn’t face each other, we couldn’t be truthful, so we laughed instead.
During one of the sessions, my brother brought up some argument he’d had with my mom. On the way home my mom scolded my brother, telling him he shouldn’t have brought that up because it was between him and her. My dad protested, pointing out that the point of family counseling was for us to be able to work through our problems. My parents got into one of their many arguments, and my mom accused the rest of us of ganging up on her. When we got home, she didn’t get out of the car. My brother and I went upstairs to my bedroom, and we watched out the window as Mom drove away.
So it must have come as a relief to everyone, at the next session, when Wendy announced that she wanted to start seeing me by myself. The rest of them were obviously healthy and secure individuals, and were free to go about their lives. I was the Problem Child.
From then on, I went to counseling with Wendy once a week, on and off. I sort of liked having someone to just sit and talk with for an hour a week, who listened and took notes, and sometimes gave me advice. But every so often my mom just stopped makng appointments for me, or stopped bringing me to the appointments I already had. She said it was because I wasn’t getting any “better.” Whenever my school work got a little worse, or I acted more argumentative than usual, my mom would make me an appointment with Wendy, and bring me back to the Bridge.

So, it doesn’t surprise me now that the psychiatrist my parents are dragging me to is somehow mixed up with the Bridge.
Wendy is there to introduce us all to the good doctor, a skinny, balding man in a suit and tie. He shakes hands with us all, smiling as if this is a happy occasion, and leads us into one of the meeting rooms. I slump in my chair. The doctor, whose name is Dr, Gamze, asks my parents what has been going on that has caused them so much concern.
I stare at the floor, my eyes dropping, pretending to be anywhere else but here. My mom does the talking.
“Nicki has always been very withdrawn,” my mom says. “She argues a lot with us, an then she’ll just go up to her room and slam her door. Her school work has been very poor over the last few years. Its like she’s not even trying. She’s been disappearing a lot, going off all day and then refusing to tell us where she’s been. And then, the other day, my husband went looking for her and found her hanging out with these carnival people. So he dragged her home and we screamed at her and grounded her. The next day I called home, and my son told me Nicki was gone. I left work and went looking for her, and found her hanging out at the park with three homeless men. I dragged her home again, and told her she wasn’t to leave the house. A couple hours later, I got a phone call from the police. She’d gone up to the police station, and basically told them we abused her, and they were about to take her away.”
“She made allegations of abuse?” asked Gamze.
“Well, we don’t know what she told them, She was just refusing to see us, refusing to go home with us.”
Gamze nodded, scribbling in his notepad.
“I had this realization, as I was brushing my teeth this morning, that all this started when she got her period,” says my mom. “I’m thinking it could be hormonal.”
I want to fall through the floor.
“I’m going to make an appointment with a…”
“A gynecologist?” interjects Dr, Gamze.
“Well, an internist, and get it all done,” replies my mom.
“No way,” I speak up. “I won’t go.” It’s bad enough having to talk to the psychiatrist. I don’t want anyone actually touching me!
My mom shoots me an irritated look.
Dr. Gamze asks my parents about my family history, and I barely pay attention while my dad tells him about my schizophrenic grandmother. My dad’s family tree is actually filled with people who either drank themselves crazy or just acted nutty but never got diagnosed. And my mom’s side, too, for that matter. But my poor grandma always ends up taking all the blame when anyone asks about our family’s history.
Finally, Dr. Gamze tells my parents he wants to talk to me alone. I don’t look up as they reluctantly leave the room.
“So,” says Dr. Gamze. “Do you want to tell me your feelings on all of this?”
I sit up and look at him. “Its complicated,” I say.
“Well, I don’t know, maybe its not all that complicated,” says Dr. Gamze. “Why don’t you try me? I’m smarter than I look!”
I laugh, surprised.
The doctor grins at me. “See, when you first came in here, I thought for sure I Was looking at a very depressed young lady. You were kind of like this.” He demonstrates how I looked, slumping in his chair and staring at the floor. “But as soon as they left the room, you were like a whole new person! You’re sitting up, you’re smiling, you’re making eye contact. I think you’re just very angry at your parents.”
I nod. “I am angry at them.”
“And why is that?”
“They’re ating like I’m crazy,” I say.
“I don’t think anyone thinks your crazy. I think they’re just worried about you.” He has this fast way of talking, almost brushing my words out of his way as he speaks. “Now, these homeless people you’ve been hanging out with, how did you meet them?”
I shrug. “I just sort of started talking to them at the train depot, and they were nice.”
“Really, What kinds of things do you talk about with them?”
“Just anything, I guess. School, and life, and whatever. They like to talk to me. They say I add sanity to their lives.”
“Uh-huh. Are you sexually active, Nicki?” the doctor blurts out.
I shake my head fiercely.
“No? Not at all? And these homeless men, did you ever kiss them or hug them or anything? Were any of them your boyfriend?”
The conversation is officially grossing me out. “NO,” I say. “Its not like that. They’re more like big brothers to me.”
“Right. So this business with the police station, where you didn’t want to go home with your parents, what was that all about?”
I half-heartedly explain my fears about being “put away,” and my feelings of emptiness if I had to stay away from the homeless people. I don’t bother to go into detail this time. I’ve told my life story so many times in the past twenty-four hours, its starting to seem watered-down.
“I see, I see,” says Dr. Gamze. “Well, what I think is, you’re having a little trouble separating from your mother, and she’s having a little trouble separating from you. How does that sound?”
It sounds completely wrong, and totally out of context with the conversation we just had. But it sounds like something that won’t get me thrown in a hospital or put on medication. So I just nod and smile.
“Great!” says Dr. Gamze. “So, I’m going to call your parents in here, right now, and I’m going to tell them that you’re really going to try harder to get along at home. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say.

I sit in the waiting room while Dr. Gamze confers alone with my parents. After a few minutes, they all come out together, and Dr. Gamze shakes all of our hands again as he bids us goodbye.
As soon as we get out the door, my dad says, “That was pretty bogus!”
“Yeah,” I agree. “That dude was a freak.”

Speak up!

2008-11-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

So today was a pretty good day! I got a lot of homework finished. I went to my conference with my Social Justice teacher, who said I'm getting anywhere between an A and a C, depending on how I do on this report. (No pressure there, right?) So I've been working hard on it. She actually gave me things I need to improve on in my report, which is weird, because usually teachers think my writing is great! Ugh.
And she said I have to start speaking up more in class. She said that when I do say something, the things I say show that I've been listening really hard and I know exactly whats going on, and my ideas are good, but that I mostly keep them to myself too much.
In every class I take, teachers say something along those lines. Its called "class participation" and its really hard for me. Although I am good at expressing myself in writing, I am not very good at expressing myself in spoken words. In fact, I am horrible at it! I took a Speech class, and I'm even okay at that, when I have lots of time to organize and think about what I'm going to say. Thats more like writing. But spontaneous speaking is hard for me. When I open my mouth, mish-mash comes out! I'm so bad at it that I actually hate ordering my own things at the bar, because first of all I have trouble getting people to actually acknowledge that I'm standing there wanting to say something, and then I'm terrified of actually talking!
Plus in my Social Justice class there are so many STRONG personalities. You know the type. The type that just FEEL like they have SO much to say, and that EVERYONE should shut up and listen to them. The kind that make their voices heard in every interaction in class, and will argue with you just for the sake of arguing with you, just for the sake of showing everyone how strong their personality is and how much they have to say. You know that kind of person? My classroom is full of them!
I actually told that to my teacher when she asked me why I don't speak up in class. She started laughing and rolling her eyes and saying, "I know, I know, I've been having problems with those people all semester." Seriouisly. The kind of people where, if you say the sky is blue, need to speak up and say, "Actually, sometimes its dark blue, and sometimes its gray, and by the way, I painted it that way!"

In other neeeeeeeeeeeeews.....
I got two voicemail messages from my older brother today. Yep. Haven't heard from him in so long, I was sure he was in jail somewhere! And you never know, he might have just gotten out of jail somewhere, because thats when he usually calls me... a few weeks after he's out of jail, once he's gotten someplace to live and some sort of job. He likes to leave me messages saying how his life is great, he's doing great, he's got a job, he's off drugs, he's quitting drinking, everything is legal. He likes to put his phone up to the stereo at the end of the voicemail message so that I can hear what he's listening to. (If I actually do answer the phone, half of the phone call goes like, "Listen to this song, this describes me totally," followed by some sort of hip-hop or heavy metal blasting into my ear. So, yeah. Apparently he's still in Wisconsin, has a full-time job, and has everything he needs, including a computer, and he says he'll email me when he learns how to. And by the way, don't tell his phone number to that bitch who calls herself his stepdaughter, because he doesn't want her to know where he is.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I Think We're Alone Now...

2008-11-17T19:22:00.000-08:00

Housesitting for my parents this week, remember? So I just got home from school, and I'm here with Sammy-Joe. Poor little Trixie is in the kennel! :( This is going to be a sucky, lonely week in certain ways. I don't think I have ever stayed alone in this house without a dog of some sort! When Chopper was alive, I always watched her, and the last time I house sat I watched Trixie. I think maybe I housesat once between the times when Chopper died and Trixie moved in, but Sammy-Joe was a lot more active them and would come out and sit with me and follow me around and stuff. Now he just sits in his own room and waits for me to come in there and talk to him! I tried bringing him out here to the computer/TV section of the basement but he ran back into "his" little section. :(
So this should be fun!
I'm so, so, so, so, so, so, so tired today for some reason. Plus today was kind of a rough day with the kids, at least with Abby. She's been a real smart alec lately. Today she was playing with her BArbie dolls and had turned the entire living room into Barbie Doll Hell! So a little while before we had to leave to get the afterschool kids, I told her she needed to pick up her toy in a few minutes. So then when it was time to clean up she was pretty much just ignoring me. I told her she needed to either clean up her toys now, or be sent to the corner and lose a sticker and still have to clean up. So she went to the corner. So she did her five minutes in the corner and then came out, and still wouldn't pick up her toys! I told her, "They need to be picked up now, before we go to get Claire. If I'm the one to pick them up, I'm going to take them away and you won't be allowed to play with them anymore." She said, "Thats fine, cause I have better things to play with anyway." So I did clean them up, and towards the end she did jump in and put away like three things, but I took the toys away anyway and put them in Diana's room.
I know cleaning up sucks and is boring, and I'm not even as irritated by the fact that she didn't want to clean up and was putting it off, because I know I still am kind of like that! But the thing that bothered me was her flippant attitude of just ignoring me when I was telling her to clean up, then cheerfully going into the corner, then saying she didn't care whether I took her toys away because she had better things to play with anyway!
Plus then I got Ben and Claire, and Jimmy was home early, which always makes me a little nervous because then I feel like I gotta not only watch all of the kids and keep them safe and happy, but also keep them from irritating Jimmy, which is pretty hard when you have five high-spirited kids jumping around! So when Claire and Abby are running up and down the hallway, or they shake the table too much while they're coloring, or Hayden spills her cereal or Abby spills her pop or Ben just is Ben... and all of these things really did happen today... Jimmy gets mad and I feel like he's thinking, "Nicki sucks because she's not keeping all these kids out of my way." So at any rate its nerve-wrecking! Plus since Ben isn't allowed to play violent video games, and he has absolutely no interest in anything other than violent video games, he's often a total pain in the ass. He'll listen if you talk to him. For instance he kept turning the TV back to the Cartoon Network when I wasn't watching, and its something he's not supposed to watch. So finally I said, "This is showing me that I just can't trust you and I'm going to have to watch you more closely," and he said, "You can trust me," and then he stayed with Nickelodeon or whatever. I wish it was warm weather again, because then they all just played out in the yard together and it was much better.
Oh well... I don't know what I'm going to do for the remainder of the night but I'm probably going to sleep down here because I hate being in the rest of the house when nobody is here!

Recipe For OCB Parfait!

2008-11-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight for dinner we went to Old Country Buffet... me, Diana, Jimmy, Brandon, Mauricio, Abby, Hayden and Sarah. I think the secret behind buffet is that they offer tons of starchy comfort foods like mac-n-cheese, mashed potatoes, french fries, pizza, spaghetti, etc, so that ou'll hopefully fill up fast and not eat them out of house and home.
My favorite part of eating at OCB is the desserts, of course! Today I came up with a parfait, which Sarah nicknamed the Heart Attack In A Cup. Here's what you do...

1. Get a drinking cup from the drink section of the restaurant, and head over to the dessrt section.

2. Spoon in a layer of chocolate pudding, followed by a layer of vanilla pudding.

3. Add a layer of soft serve ice cream... either vanilla, chocolate, or swirl.

4. Add a layer of hot fudge cake.

5. finish by adding some "whipped topping".

6. If you feel like, it, sprinkle with sundae toppings such as crushed oreas, nuts, or whatever.

Yum, yum!

Brandon and Mauricio used my idea of taking a cup from the drink section, but they decided to make rootbeer floats, by filling their cups with vanilla ice cream and then adding rootbeer from the soda fountain! (However, they then grossed me out by adding sugar and Splenda that they found on the table!)

Oh, but now my stomach hurts so bad! Bleh!

Hungover

2008-11-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

Last night was hella cool because I went to the bar with Jimmy and Diana. We were only planning to go have one or two drinks and come home, but we ended up staying until closing time! We mostly played darts, and one time I beat Jimmy AND Tommy AND Diana! It was a hella cool night but too bad everyone was hungover for the entire day. Oh well it was all worth it!!!

Here's A Freebie Alert For You!

2008-11-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

Diana just tipped me off that Oprah and Snapfish are giving away free twenty page photo albums with your downloaded photos to anyone who wants one, until next Sunday! They did used to have a link on the Snapfish homepage that said, "Are you from Oprah" or something like that, but they took it down... I guess because too many of their general customers were clicking on it and getting the deal! But if you click here, you can get in on the deal!
Just thought I'd pass that along... some special NaBloPoMo info!
I'm downloading some photos right now. I'm gonna make my mom a photo album of our Disney Cruise, as a Christmas present! I bet she'll think its hella cool! Either that or she'll think its totally stupid, but she'll at least pretend its hella cool!
Okay, gotta run. Holla!

I Own The Library

2008-11-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

At least, I should! I should own stock in that place! I'm basically subsidizing it with all of the overdue fines I pay! I haven't gone to the library in a looooong time, but I went today to turn in a bunch of overdue materials I'd been procrastinating about returning. SO how much did I owe? Eighty bucks!
Yep. Eighty. You heard me right.
But don't make fun of me, At least I owned up to it, went and returned my stuff and paid my fines, so I could get some books for myself and some books for the kids. Unlike some people, who can't even set foot in the library anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

myspace glitters

Tomorrow is Friday. I'm so glad! Except its actually going to be the beginning of a rough week. The P's are leaving for Hawaii on Monday, and I am supposedly housesitting for them. Which is sort of a weird issue within itself. I always used to housesit for them before, and also take care of the animals. But they decided they were going to put the animals in the kennel. I balked, because I hate the idea of the poor animals being in the kennel... but they said, since I am going to be watching the girls and then going to school, I wouldn't have time to come home and take Trixie to the bathroom. ANd no way were they going to let me bring Trixie to DIana's house! I've been told I am too mentally ill to be responsible for a dog. Ugh. So she's going in the kennel. And originally they said I was going to have to stay at DIana's house the whole time, since there was "no reason" for me to be here if I wasn't going to be petsitting. But then they eventually changed their minds again and said they would put Trixie in the kennel, and leave Sammy-Joe out, so I would have to be here at the house to take care of Sammy-Joe anyway, but they still won't leave Trixie with me!
Ugh. Do you see how my life is ridiculous?
Makes me angry, and frustrated and sad.

A little better...

2008-11-12T20:33:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I am feeling a little better today, much more calmed down! I have managed to catch up with s few things in the past twenty-four hours. My room is clean, so I don't have to worry about that any more for a while. I did my math presentation today, and it went well, so thats out of the way. And today during Hayden's nap time I managed to get a whole lot of my Social Justice report written. I still have to catch up on my math homework, I am most likely going to flunk a History quiz tomorrow, and there is no way I'll be able to pay my tuition, but thats beside the point!
In other news, today as I was driving to school, a spider swung down on a web from the ceiling of my car, just to the left of my head. I freaked out and swatted at it, and it fell, and for the rest of the day I felt like I had spiders crawling all over me! Spiders gross me out, but I'm always getting bitten by them. Its weird. Its like they're attracted to me, or something!

In Tears....

2008-11-11T16:31:00.000-08:00

So I've decided to take a break from typing up my NaNoWriMo entries for a while... I'm still writing plenty, in my notebook, but trying to type up the entries and post them here each day takes up a lot of time and energy that I don't really have. At some point, maybe weekly, I will catch up with my typing!
At any rate you want to know why I am in tears... its probably because I left my meds at Diana's so didn't take them today, and I think I forgot to take them yesterday too... plus I've had a horrible sinus infection for about a week now, with bronchitis coming in... so I've just been feeling horribly run down and sneezy and achy and everything. Plus stressed out because I have all of these huge projects coming up in my classes, plus I still owe my school $2,000 for tuition, plus this and that and this and that, and I'm just not good at juggling it all!
Then last night, after watching the kids all day long and going directly to school afterwards, I come home to find a special little note saying how I spend all of my time "blogging" and I need to clean my room before I use the computer. (With a sidenote, yeah I am blogging RIGHT NOW, but to say I spend ALL of my time blogging is a huge exaggeration! I type fast. Each blog entry takes me about ten minutes. So really, maybe an hour a week, tops, blogging. An hour.)The special little note was followed up by an angry lecture about how I am a freeloader who contributes nothing, and how I will soon find all of my things out in the front yard.
So today I got up and went to school, then after school came home and spent the next four hours doing laundry while working on one of my big projects for school. Finished my laundry and then went upstairs to spend the next two hours working so hard at cleaning my room (ended up throwing away about two garbage bags full of stuff) while also sneezing and coughing so bad, I basically filled up a third garbage bag with Kleenexes as I cleaned because I was sneezing so much! Like nonstop, sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze. Part of it is because I'm allergic to mold and dust, and my room is directly connected to the attic (in order to go to the attic people actually have to go into my closet!) which is filled with mold and dust. Plus then I eventually noticed someone had left the attic door open, which was probably making it way worse. So by the time I'm done, I'm literally sweating and my nose is bleeding and everything else. And just tired and feeling gross and horrible and sad.
But my room is clean as hell. (Just don't open the desk drawers... I'm gonna clean those out next week!)
But instead of feeling happy about my accomplishment, I just feel suicidal. I mean it, dude. About ninety times I had to stop and take deep breathes and coach myself to keep from melting into a sobbing, sneezing, bleeding heap.
Because lets face it, and lets be truthful here. I been pushing myself to the point of exhaustion, and still can't do good enough. I cannot turn around without hearing how I should be spending less time with these kids and more time with those kids, how I should be doing more of this and less of that, how while its mildly commendable that I've done this, it would be much preferred if I just did that instead.

For example. I watch Abby and Hayden all day long three days a week, plus Brandon after school, plus two additional kids after school as well, and if you add up the hours I watch them all during the week its 30 hours, which is close to a full time job. Plus going to school full time, plus homework. Which is, in my mind, A LOT!

But in my mom's eyes, its all nothing, because she equates my watching the kids as something I'm doing for my own self because of my illogical priorities or whatever, and any time I spend trying to plan interesting or fun things for the kids also counts as my own wasting of time, according to my mom. Any time I spend at Diana's house on the weekends is considered recreation in my mom's eyes, so whether I am spending time there babysitting the kids, or helping out at all, or doing my homework, or participating in normal household activities such as going to the store or farting into the wind or whatever, thats considered by my mom to be recreation. In her mind I am just this irresponsible person leading this happy-go-lucky life.

And I don't really have anything to show for life, nothing that matters. In my mind I have Brandon and Abby and Hayden to show for it, but in my mom's eyes thats nothing. In most of my family's eyes thats nothing.

And they make it so clear, my parents, that I am the one thing standing in their way of happiness. That if I wasn't around, they could have so much more extra space in their house, they'd have so few responsibilities, they could move to Tennessee or wherever. They already assume that when I finish school I'm going to move with them to wherever, because I will not be able to take care of myself.

I don't know. There are so many things I Wish I could explain here. My mom has the luxury of being a perfectionist, but I cannot be. Whether it is my ADHD that gets in the way, or whether you believe thats just an excuse and ADHD isn't real (Jimmy thinks I don't have ADHD, but then again, Jimmy doesn't even believe that Ben is autistic or that Danny has Down Syndrome!!!) I don't have a perfect bone in my body. My life consists of coming up with coping skills, and strategies, and tricks, and hopes and prayers and wishes. I can't be perfect. I can't make my mom happy. I can't make ANYBODY happy. I can try, like I did today, work so hard that I wind up sick and in tears, but I will always be forty cents short of a dollar.

And then when I try to expain, people are like, "OOOOH POOOOOOOOOOR YOU, right? POOOOR you!"

So.

Benadryl is kicking in. Goodnight.

Grounded

2008-11-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

Its my night at my mom's house and I am grounded from blogging. Can you believe that shit? I just came home to find a note by the computer saying I'm grounded until I clean my room. Dude. I'm 29. Ugh.
So no NaNoWriMo tonight... I have major catching up to do tomorrow... after my room is clean!
UGH!
My life is ridiculous, isn't it?

nablopomo day 9

2008-11-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is yet another quick post before bed. Today we went to Jimmy's nephew's birthday party in the city. It was fun. Jimmy's family is always nice to me and I'm always happy when we get to go to their house. But I'm always sorta sad when its time to leave cause I can never be sure I'll ever see any of them again, if Jimmy and Diana break up for good! :{
Diana's new car has a DVD player in it so it makes long car trips a lot easier for the kids! Today in the car they watched Kung Fu Panda! It cuts way down on the "Are we there yet"s and the complaining! But we might be getting rid of that car on Monday.
I'm still sick, bleh! But feeling a lot better than yesterday!
Okay, i'll post LOTS more tomorrow, at nap time, probably!

Nablopomo

2008-11-08T16:41:00.001-08:00

This is going to be a short post just to keep me e going for naBloPoMo. I'm wicked sick and was up all night last night walking the halls because I was having trouble breathing. I did manage to get 20 more pages of my life story written in a spiral notebook, but I haven't typed it up yet, so i'm not gonna post it here. This afternoon we went to watch Sarah sing in a concert, then went and played at a playground in our old neighborhood for a while. It was freezing cold out! They redid the whole playground and made it a lot cooler than it used to be back when we used to bring Brandon there whn he was little.
Now we are home and Jimmy is here and we are having order-out for dinner. I am getting mosticolli!
I will type more of my story tomorrow!!

hayden wrote this:
mmn/nn

NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo Day 7

2008-11-07T18:23:00.001-08:00

(...continued)

I tell all of this to Officer Dean now. He is sympathetic, but since no laws have really been broken, there is nothing he can do. So he tells me he’s going to pass me along to a social worker who works for the police station.
Her name is Sarah, and in my mind she looks just like Elaine from “Seinfield.” She has her own office, with a couch on it, and I sit on that couch while I tell her the whole story that I just told to Officer Dean. Except, Sarah asks a lot more questions than Officer Dean did. Mostly she wants to know why. Why am I crying? Why don’t I want to go home? Why does my mom yell at me so much? Why do I like hanging out with the homeless people? Why don’t I have friends at school? Why, why, why?
She thinks its weird that, on the very day my mom caught me escaping my grounding and hanging out with the homeless people, the very day it became clear that I was in deep trouble, is the very day that I decided to show up at the police station asking for help.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe its more than a coincidence. But its not just that I’m angry at my parents and don’t want to follow rules, like Sarah seems to think. Its just that, with the homeless people, I had a sort of community behind me, people who liked me and supported me. If my parents take that away from me… and I’m certain they will…there will be nothing to make my life bearable. And now, with them angrier than ever at me and hinting that I’m crazy, I will be more alone than ever before.
Try as I might, I cannot get Sarah to understand this. I cannot put my feelings into words that she can easily transfer into her notepad.
But I must get through to her somehow, because finally she tells me, “Okay, you don’t have to go home. You’re not going back there.” She tells me I’ll be going to a group home until the social services people can figure out what to do with me. It will most likely take thirty days, she explains, and then a judge will decide whether I should go home or stay in foster care. In the mean time, she brings me to a small room with nothing but a chair in it… and locks me in!
There is nothing for me to do but pace around frantically in the room. There are mirrors on the walls, and I peer into them to determine whether they are those secret window-mirrors. (They are, but there’s nobody in the other room looking back at me,(
I am freaking out. This is really happening! I am really leaving home, not as a runaway, but as a legitimate person! I imagine that thirty days will be just long enough to change everything. Maybe I will get to switch schools. Maybe someone will help me do better in school, instead of screaming at me. Maybe someone will help me find friends. Maybe, if I do go home after thirty days, someone will have helped my mom to not hate me so much. And maybe, even if she does still hate me, I will be strong enough to handle it.
The door to the little room opens, and Sarah walks in. Her face is angry. “Nicki, your parents are here, and you’re going home with them,” she declares. “You can’t go to a group home. You’ll never make it.”
What? I burst into fresh tears. “But you said I didn’t have to go back there! You promised!” I wail.
“I never promised anything,” snaps Sarah.
“It was just a trick, wasn’t it! You just told me that to trick me so I’d sit still while you called my parents!” The betrayal is shocking to me. I really did think Sarah was going to help me.
“That’s not true,” she protests. “I spoke to your parent and heard what they had to say, and I decided you’d be better off going home.”
“Well, I’m not going home! You can’t make me!” I shout. But my bravery quickly gives way to more tears, and I beg, “Please don’t make me go back! Please let me go somewhere else! Just for a while!”
Sarah sighs and walks out, locking me in again.
I go to the corner of the room and sink onto the floor. I pull my knees to my chest, and bawl into my arms, wiping my snotty nose on the sleeves of my sweatshirt. I cry and cry. It is as if my heart has broken open, and the pain is spilling out.
Then the door opens, and an angel from Heaven walks in.
“Nicki, this is Liz. She’s from the Bridge Youth Services. She’s here to talk with you and help you work things out with your parents,” says Sarah. She lets the lady in, and shuts the door once more.
The new lady, Liz, is young and pretty. She has on jeans and wears her hair in a ponytail, and her face doesn’t look angry. She glances around the room, and then sits down on the chair. “What’s going on?” she asks.
I look up at her. “She lied to me! That lady lied to me! She said I wouldn’t have to go home, and now my parents are here!”
“That’s really upsetting to you, isn’t it,” says Liz.
“Yes! I don’t want to go home! My mom thinks I’m crazy! And now Sarah thinks I’m crazy too!”
“You don’t seem crazy to me,” says Liz. “In fact, you seem very smart!”
I calm down a little at that. Liz’s voice is friendly and gentle, not suspicious and angry.
I tell her my story once more. I am getting tired of telling it, though. So I give her the abbreviated version. My mom hates me. School sucks. The homeless people loved me, were nice to me, and gave me a place to belong. Now I am going to be kept away from them, and I am in more trouble than ever, and I don’t have anywhere to turn to.
“I don’t have any control over whether you go home,” says Liz. “But since it looks like you are going to have to go home with your parents, I’d like to try to help make it easier for you.”
“But they think I’m crazy! They’re going to send me to a mental hospital,” I remind her.
“I talked to your parents, and they said they’re not going to do that. Your mom was very upset when she said that,” says Liz.
“If they send me home, I could just run away, maybe.”
“That’s right, you could,” Liz agrees. “Have you thought about how that would work? Do you know where you would go?”
I think about my old plan to run away to the north woods of Wisconsin. But I am not a little kid anymore, and I know I won’t be able to survive long by recycling cans and eating vending machine foods. I think about California, and how I almost ran away to there, but now that option isn’t open any more either. Jason is in Audy Home, and the others are in Michigan. I could run away to Michigan, but I don’t have much money saved up and I have no idea how I’d get there. And although I wish I could just stay with the homeless people and live with them, I know its impossible. I’d quickly get found, and then my friends would get in trouble for helping me.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I’d find somewhere.”
“How about if we make a deal with your parents that you’ll go home tonight, and you won’t run away tonight?” says Liz.
“Fine,” I say. I am running out of steam. It is getting late. My stomach hurts. I’ve been defeated.

The rest of the evening is a blur. I walk with Liz back to Sarah’s office, where my parents are waiting. Sarah and Liz ask to talk to my parents alone, and I am banished to the hallway, where Officer Dean babysits me for a while. I am in a weird state of having lost all control over the situation, and it makes my mind spin. I joke with Officer Dean. I tell him I ate food from the Dumpster. I tell him that I went on the carnival rides for free. I tell him I almost ran away to California with some kids I met at the train station. “Do you know Jason Rees?” I ask.
“Yes, I know Jason very well,” says Officer Dean.
“How about Erick Quinn? Do you know him?” I ask. Erick pops into my mind because he sort of reminds me of Jason. They’re both bald-headed.
“Yes, I know Erick also. Those aren’t really the types of guys you should be hanging out with,” says Officer Dean. “They’re bad guys.”
“Why? What did they do, kill someone?” I wonder.
“No, but eventually they probably will,” says Officer Dean.
“Not me! They won’t kill me! They’re my friends,” I assure him.
Sarah. Liz, and my parents come out of Sarah’s office, before Officer Dean can convince me that Erick and Jason are murderers waiting to strike.
“Come on, lets go,” says my mom.
I follow them out, turning to wave goodbye to Officer Dean. He shakes his head in bemusement as he waves back at me.
We leave the police station. The reality of the situation hits me once again, and I feel like puking.

When we get home, my parents tell me that first thing in the morning they are taking me to see a doctor.
“What kind of doctor?” I demand.
“Well, a psychiatrist,” says my mom.
“I don’t want to see a psychiatrist!” I protest.
“Tough,” says my mom. “We have to find out what’s wrong with you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I grumble. “I hate doctors.”
“Oh, you’ll be seeing plenty of doctors,” sing-songs my dad.
They take my shoes, and the heavy thermal sweatshirt that I always keep with me even when its hot out. I have never been good about parting with my things. As a little kid, I used to bawl when I outgrew my sneakers and other clothes. Now, I cry again and beg for my things back… or just a little more time to say goodbye to them… but my parents snatch them away from me and throw them in the garbage. The image of my stuff in the trash nearly drives me crazy, and I cry hysterically. I’ve lost all of my friends, and now I’m even losing my sneakers and sweatshirt. My mom threatens to take away my backpack, too, but she doesn’t. She’s probably afraid that would really send me over the edge. I cry myself to sleep.

NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo Day 6

2008-11-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

Somebody Help

I tell my parents that the people I was with at the park are all carnival workers. I tell them I became friendly with the carnies yesterday, and stopped to talk to a few people I recognized. I feel bad for disowning the homeless people, but I know they would understand.
“Why would you be hanging out with a bunch of carnival people?” My mom is disgusted. “These people are the epitome of white trash!”
“They’re nice,” I protest.
I get grounded. I’m supposed to stay home and spend the day cleaning my room, which is alarmingly messy.
Grounding doesn’t really bother me, though. I am used to being grounded. I get grounded left and right. It seems to me that my parents, busy with their own complicated lives, have put strict rules into place so they won’t actually have to supervise us. As long as we appear to be following the seemingly strict rules, my brother and I are free to run wild. For instance, my younger brother has been drinking and smoking weed since he was ten, but as long as he comes home for dinner each day and acts respectful, our parents assume all is well.
The only reason I get grounded more than my brother is because I have trouble with the simple, unwritten rules like, “Do well in school,” and “keep your room clean,” and “appear to fit in.”
At any rate, all being grounded means to me is that I’ll have to get home early, before my mom gets home from work.
So on Monday I ride my bike back up to the park and search out the homeless people. We hang out in a picnic shelter inconveniently located right next to the police station. It is a small crowd today. David, Pat and Harold have gone off somewhere, so its just Don and Al and me. Later, Kurt shows up. Kurt brings a whole shopping cart of sub sandwiches in plastic packages, which he says he got from the Dumpster. Don says he won’t eat Kurt’s sandwiches because he doesn’t think Kurt is a very good judge of whether food is fresh enough to eat. That hurts Kurt’s feelings, and he sulks. So I eat one of the sandwiches to make him feel better. Al eats a few, too. Al will eat anything. Don makes hot dogs on the grill, and I am sitting on top of a picnic table next to him, eating a hot dog wrapped Wonder Bread, when I see my mom’s van pull up.
“Oh, shit!” I moan.
I stuff the rest of my hot dog into my mouth, and walk over to her, waving like there is nothing wrong.
My mom gets out of the van, shouting, “You little bitch!”
She grabs my bicycle and tries to force it into the back of the van, all the while screaming at me. I stand and watch her, my heart pounding in my ears.
The bike won’t fit in the back of the van, no matter how she tries to wedge it in. Finally she throws it to the ground and yells, “Get on your bike and ride home!”
I get on my bike, and ride over to my friends, stopping only to say, “I’m in trouble! I gotta go, but I might come back!” Then I ride crazily across the grass, past the bandshell and through the parking lot. As I cross the street, I see my mom coming up the next side street. She’s on her cell phone, looking pissed. I feel like I’m in some sort of movie, being chased by Mobsters or FBI agents. I cross the train tracks, fly through the alley behind the grocery store, down the street and up the driveway of my house. My mom’s van is hot on my tracks. As she pulls into the driveway, I drop my bike and run into the house, intent on getting up to the relative safety of my bedroom.
I am still on the stairs when my mom gets into the house. “You are not to leave this house!” she shouts. “Your room is a mess!”
“Okay!” I reply.
“If you keep acting like this, we’re going to have to get help,” Mom snaps.
“Good!” I would be glad for my family to get help. I picture a helpful person who
will teach me how to fit into the world, and teach my parents how to be… nice.
My mom follows me halfway up the stairs. “Did you hear what I said?” We’re going to put you away!”
I go into my bedroom and slam my door behind me.
The image of being put away is completely different from the one I had of getting help.
My paternal grandmother is schizophrenic. I don’t know her very well, because my parents have always kept their distance from her. Divorced from my grandfather, she lived in an apartment building for retirees up until a few years ago, when my dad and my uncle put her in a nursing home after she kept breaking her hip. We only see her when it’s a holiday or someone’s birthday.
The only reason I even know that she is schizophrenic is because my mom finally told my brother, my cousin and I, one day when she heard us making fun of the way Grandma acted. “You know, Grandma is schizophrenic,” she announced, stopping us in our tracks.
Much later, as an adult, I will start to learn bits and pieces of my grandmother’s story. I will find out that Grandma had what they then called a nervous breakdown, when my aunt was still a baby and my dad wasn’t even born yet. My grandfather had her put into a mental hospital, where she spent many years on and off. According to one story, my Grandma once threatened to kill her children. She was given several rounds of electroshock therapy, lots of different medications, and other forms of treatment that were considered the norm back in the 50’s and 60’s, But it all did more harm than good.
At this point, though, all I know about my schizophrenic grandmother is that her children… my dad and his siblings… can’t stand her. Most of the things she says are met with eye rolls and sighs of, “Have you been taking your medication?”
One of the things she used to be paranoid about, ironically, was the idea that people are plotting to put her away. But since that very thing actually happened to her many times, I don’t think was so crazy for her to be afraid of it happening again.
I don’t want to be put away.
Its now-or-never time, I decide. I’m going to have to come up with a way to get myself out of this situation, out of this family that doesn’t really want me, out of this world where everyone thinks I’m horrible. I’m going to get help.

My mom has gone back to work, so there is no reason for me to sneak out. I just walk out, get on my bike, and leave.
I ride back towards the park. On my way there, I spot Pat and Lorenzo in the alley behind the grocery store. I nearly crash my bicycle trying to get to them. Sweaty and tear-streaked, I cry to Pat, “I’m not gonna stay with my parents any more! They think I’m crazy! They hate me! I’m not going back!”
“Don’t worry.” Says Lorenzo. “You can stay with us!”
Pat gives him a dirty look. To me she says, “Whats going on, honey? What happened now?”
I quickly tell her the story, in a way that probably doesn’t make much sense. I am confused. I am upset. I am freaking myself out.
“We’ll find Ramirez,” Pat decides, setting her mouth in a firm line. “He’ll know what to do.”
Pat walks with me to the police station. I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting my mom to come down the street in her minivan, hanging her head out the window to scream at me.
Finally we get to the safety of the police station. I insist on bringing my bicycle all the way inside the police station, so my mom can’t drive past and find out that I’m here.
Pat waits with me until the juvenile offer, a youngish guy who reminds me of a football player for some reason, comes and urges me to to his office with him.
Then Pat stands up, smiling at me. “You’lll be fine, little one. I’m sorry I can’t
help you more. I can barely take care of myself.” She kisses me on the head before she leaves.
I follow the cop, who says his name is Officer Dean. He brings me into his office. The first thing he says to me is, “So what’s going on? You don’t want to follow your parents’ rules?”
I scowl, shaking my head. “That’s not it. They don’t really have a lot of rules, anyway. They just hate me. My mom, especially. And I just don’t want to be there.”
“What makes you think your mom hates you?” asks Officer Dean.
I recant some examples of things my mom has said and done that make me pretty sure she hates me. The times when she has called me a loser, the times she has stood over me and screamed at me about my school work. I tell him about a time when my parents got into a huge fight. We were all going to go out for dinner, and my mom suggested Mexican food. I suggested fried chicken. My dad agreed that we should go for fried chicken, because he remembered that I had told him several days ago that I was craving it, and he’d promised me we would get some the next time we went out for dinner. My mom threw a fit. “She’s a little princess! She gets anything she wants!” my mom snapped.
“How about we stop at Taco Bell on the way,” said my dad. “That way you can have tacos, and Nicki can have fried chicken.”
“I don’t want Taco Bell! I want real Mexican food!” retorted my mom, storming into her bedroom.
Wounded, I started to cry. My dad tried to reassure me. “She only says those things to hurt you. So if you just act like it doesn’t bother you, she’ll stop,” he said.
It was meant to comfort me, but something about his words made me feel sick to my stomach. It was one thing to believe that my mom hated me, and even to wonder if I was such a bad person that I deserved to be hated. But hearing my dad basically confirm that my mom got some sort of satisfaction out of hurting me… that was different.

(to be continued...)

NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo Day 5!!!

2008-11-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

(...continued)
From then on, every morning after my parents leave for work, I get up and ride my bike for forty-five minutes to get to the forest preserve. I have to ride down a very busy street, with no sidewalks, during morning rush hour. It is the first time I’ve ever ridden in traffic like a car, and each time a car or truck passes me I feel like I’ve narrowly escaped death. Eventually, David will show me a way to get there using a bike path that weaves underneath the library, across the golf course, and through the other side of the forest preserve. It will be a lot safer, and it will save me fifteen minutes each way. But until then, I risk life and limb twice a day to hang out with my friends.

When I was a little kid, my parents and my brother and I used to spend some time every summer at a resort up in northern Wisconsin. My dad had essentially grown up around the resort, and knew it like the back of his hand. He would lead my brother and I on long hikes through the woods, showing us secret places that he’d discovered as a kid. We used to love to hike to the quarry and search for Fools Gold and other treasures. We’d play outside of our cabin in huge valleys that my dad said were left there a million years ago by icebergs back when the whole world was nothing but water. We’d look for bear and deer tracks, and train chipmunks to take peanuts from our hands. Those summer get-aways were the highlight of my life when I was a kid. Every single year, when it was time to go home I would bawl my eyes out. My feeling of homesickness for Wisconsin would last much longer than the usual end-of-vacation blues. I would be severely depressed for weeks, and even after school started and life had moved on I would still be pining away for the north woods. I would doodle on my school work, “I Love Wisconsin,” and draw pictures of frowning faces shedding tears.
My mom used to reassure me that we’d always go back to Wisconsin the next summer, so instead of feeling sad to leave the place I should concentrate on looking forward to going back. But then one summer we didn’t go back. It was the summer after my dad got his DUI and lost his job, so maybe the reason we didn’t go was because we couldn’t afford it. But even after my parents got back on their feet and their financial situation wasn’t so touch-and-go, we never went back. It broke my heart. By the time I meet the homeless people, it has been five years since I’ve been up there. But I can still close my eyes and remember it as if I were there just yesterday.
So, when my friends up and move to the forest preserve, I am happy. Its not quite the northern woods. No matter where you are in the forest preserve, you can still see litter on the ground and hear the sounds of traffic. Its not like Wisconsin, where it was possible to hear the silence. But still, its woodsy. I feel like I’m camping, or like we’re Gypsies or Indians.
Sometimes Don or David take me for walks through the woods, and I enjoy that little bit of nature, even though walks usually end in the circle of the forest preserve. The Circle, as it is called, is more of a party spot for hippies and stoners than a place to enjoy the great outdoors. Its fun, though. At the Circle I watch the older kids play guitars and kick around hacky sacks, and I play with all of their puppies. Hippies, it seems, are constantly getting new puppies, which wear bandanas and accompany them everywhere.
One time, as Don and I walk back through the woods to where the others are, we run into two guys Don seems to know. It is a little strange to just encounter two guys standing around in the middle of the woods. They offer Don a joint, and he takes it. When the guys offer it to me, Don shakes his head and tells them, “She doesn’t smoke. She’s just like a little sister to everyone… she tags along with us, and we don’t let her drink or smoke or anything like that.”
I watch Don pass around the joint with the other guys. I wonder if maybe, hundreds of years ago, Native Americans stood in this very spot and smoked a peace pipe!

One day, I am at the forest preserve, when about ten squad cars from the sheriff’s department pull up. I am the one who spots them coming up the road, and I point them out to the others. Don tells me, “Don’t worry, they’re not here for us. We’re not doing anything wrong.” But then all ten squad cars turn and drive straight across the grass towards us! I know for sure we’re in trouble. They park all around the picnic shelter, trapping us.
I look at Don, panicked, but he just tells me, “Its no big deal. They won’t even notice you.”
Don is wrong again. They do notice me! “What are you, some sort of a runaway?” they demand. “Are you sleeping with these guys?”
“No!” I scowl. “They’re my friends! And I’m not a runaway. I just don’t like to be at home much.”
“Why do you want to hang out with a bunch of homeless drunks?” asks one of the cops. “Its one thing to be nice to people, but come on! You should be hanging out with kids your own age!”
“I don’t have any friends my own age,” I tell him.
“Well, make some,” he replies.
Like its that easy.
“Other kids don’t like me,” I try to explain.
“Why not?”
“They think I’m crazy.”
“Maybe you are crazy,” says the cop. “Go home, and don’t come back here any more.”

The cops kick all of the homeless people out of the forest preserve, so there is no reason for me to go back there anyway. It is the Fourth of July weekend, and the carnival is coming to town! There will be a festival with bands playing and food vendors and everything else, at the park right by my house. The homeless people transplant themselves to the park, where they can enjoy the festivities without really being noticed.
I transplant myself to the park, too. Don has gotten a job at the carnival, running one of the rides. He saves some of the tickets people give him for the ride, and sneaks them to me and David so we can get on rides for free. I love carnival rides, but David is the only one who will go on them with me. The others say that they’re too old and the rides make them sick.
We have a feast on Saturday, a feast of food from the grocery store Dumpster, which seems to be overflowing this weekend. Harold makes steak and potatoes on the grill, and there is salad and pie, and a group of the people at the next picnic table offer to share their beer and soda with us. When it gets dark, we sit and watch a Beatles tribute band, and eat raw cookie dough from a tube. After the band comes the fireworks! It is as close to Heaven as I can imagine.
I am supposed to be home by midnight tonight, but I long to stay and sleep at the park with the homeless people. It doesn’t occur to me that the carnival will shut down by midnight. The bands will pack up and leave, and the crowds of people will head home long before I do, I imagine that the festivities will go on all night long without me.

In the morning, when I get to the park, I can’t find any of my friends. Some people are setting up equipment on the band shell, though, and I notice that they keep on looking quizzically into the bushes below. So, when the people aren’t looking, I duck into the bushes and find Harold sleeping there.
I shake him awake. His eyes fly open. “Jesus Christ, don’t wake a person like that!” he snaps. “I almost flashed back to Vietnam! I could have killed you!”
“”No, you wouldn’t.”
“I could have! Never wake a sleeping bum,” he admonishes me.
“Sorry,” I say. “But these people were staring at you, and I was afraid they’d call the cops!”
“What people?”
“Them!” I look up.
They are staring down at us.
“Shit,” moans Harold.
We crawl out of the bushes as casually as we can.
Its overcast and rainy, and the day definitely doesn’t look as promising as yesterday was. The carnival is supposed to start at noon, but we hear from some of the food vendors that if its still rainy or if lightning is spotted they’ll just cancel the whole thing.
The others show up, and we gather under the beer tent to peer out at the dismal day. When, by noon, it is hailing, the food vendors crowd under the tent with us. They share the food they aren’t going to be able to sell now. A clown gets drunk and tells me dirty jokes. I laugh hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all, until Harold gabs me. “Repeat after me,” he says. “I am under control!”
“I am under control!” I can’t even say it without laughing.

By three o’clock the rain has stopped and it is sunny again. I hear my name being called, and look up to see my dad walking across the park towards me. I feel the blood drain from my face.
“Do you know that guy, Nicki?” asks david.
“That’s my dad,” I sigh,

NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo Day 4

2008-11-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

I hope you are all enjoying reading the untold story of my life! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them, and I will answer them in subsequent posts!

Almost Homeless

I still hang out at the train station every day after school. Only now, I’m more than just a casual observer. I’ve become friends with the homeless people, and I talk to them all the time.
The lady with the collie dog is Pat, and her dog is Lady. Pat’s mother was blind, and Lady was her seeing eye dog. When Pat’s mother died, Pat took Lady, and now they’re homeless together.
There’s also Don and David, two guys in their thirties who I always see riding their bikes around town; Al, who dresses in an army jacket and a red bandana; and old Chester, who looks like a drunk version of Santa Claus.
I still don’t know them very well, but I talk to them every day after school. I tell them about school, show them my messed-up homework and tests, and read them the letters I get from Joe, Andrea and Jason. (Ramirez did forward my letter to Jason, who turned out to be in Audy Home waiting for his trial. I heard back from Jason right away, and now he and I keep in even closer touch than I do with the other kids. Jason told me that the incident he got arrested for supposedly happened back when he was fourteen, and lived with his mother in an apartment complex in Palatine. Then eleven-year-old who was molested is a boy who is fourteen now, and just recently told his parents that Jason did horrible things to him years ago. But Jason swears to me that he didn’t do it, and I believe him. I cannot bring myself that Jason would do anything like that, even at age fourteen!)
As the weather starts to get warmer, I don’t see the homeless people at the train depot as much. I figure maybe the cops told them they can’t hang around here anymore. I’ve heard rumors that the cops are going to start arresting anyone who is in the train depot and doesn’t have a ticket. I’ve thought about buying a round-trip ticket to the next town, and keeping it with me just in case the cops bother me. But they never seem to notice me at all… not even Ramirez, who should notice me by now!
One day Pat shows up at the train depot, and she tells me that everyone else has been hanging out at the Hill. She borrows a notebook and a pen from my backpack, and draws me a map of how to get there, by cutting through the commuter parking lot and walking up the bike path. I look at the map, and recognize the directions to a place I know as the Reservoir. My little brother and I are never supposed to go there, because my mom heard somewhere that its gang territory. I mean, I guess some junior high kids who claim to be in a gang hang out there once in a while, and I’ve heard of an occasional fight happening there, but that’s about it. My brother goes there all the time with his friends, to skateboard. I go there once in a while, randomly, but there’s not a whole lot to do there if you’re all by yourself! I remember there is a big hill there, and once when I was younger I climbed to the top of it and rolled all the way down.

The next day, I venture over to the Reservoir. I find, on the top of the Hill, a little playground I’ve never noticed before, and a picnic shelter where a bunch of people… some I Know from the train depot and others who I’ve never seen before… are sitting around. Pat’s collie dog, Lady, runs up to greet me.Its like a secret picnic! There’s a radio playing, and food laid out on the tables.
“Nicki! Glad you found us!” says Pat. She introduces me to the people I don’t know, and everyone acts happy to meet me.
From that moment on, a new routine starts for me. Every day after school, I go straight to the Hill to be with my friends. They’re always happy to see me, and I find myself actually feeling cheerful during my school days. No longer does every day stretch out unpleasantly in front of me, with a lonely school day followed by a lonely afternoon and a depressing evening at home. Now I have this one bright spot in my day, something to get me through all the rest.
Don uses his food stamps at 7-Eleven to get me YooHoos and Slurpees. Lorenzo, a 50-year-old Mexican man who says I remind him of his nieces, teaches me to play Crazy Eights, and lets me win more often than not. Al, the guy with the army jacket and the bandana, loves to listen to the Oldies station, and quizzes me on who sang what. The Oldies station tends to play the same songs every day, so after a while of being schooled by Al, I can actually name most of the song’s artists correctly. David is goofy and always makes me laugh, especially when he’s drunk! Harold is forty-nine and comes from Florida, and he and Pat are like the parents of the whole group. They always look out for me, ask me how school is going, and urge me to try harder to get along at home.
There’s one day that sticks out in my mind the most. It is a chilly day, and I am wearing a heavy thermal sweatshirt as I walk up to the Hill after school. The people have started a fire on the grill, partly to keep warm and partly to cook with. Lady runs to jump on me, everyone says hi to me, and Al laughs for no apparent reason as he hands me a warm tuna fish sandwich.
At one of the tables, Harold is peeling potatoes with a pocket knife. A few days ago I noticed Harold peeling potatoes in this way, so I swiped a potato peeler from the home ec room at my school. They have about fifty of them there, anyway! Now, I pull it out of my backpack and push it across the table towards Harold, saying, “I got you something!”
Harold stops peeling. He looks suspiciously at me. “And where did you get this?” he drawls.
I shrug. “Found it somewhere?”
He shakes his head, picking up the peeler and staring at it. “We’re bad influences on you, aren’t we!”
“No, not Nicki. She’s an angel sent from Heaven,” Don interjects.
I laugh.
Harold winks at me/ “But seriously, Nicki. We are so glad to have you with us. You add so much sanity to our lives.”
My happiness might pick me up and carry me into the clouds, like a real angel!

Another person I think of as my friend is Kurt… but he’s around a lot less often than the others. Kurt is only twenty-four, the youngest of the homeless people that I know. He’s skinny, has shaggy hair and glasses, and often has a blank look on his face. I’ve seen him around town a lot. The first time I see him at the Hill, I ask Pat, “Who is that?”
She replies in a low voice, “That’s Kurt, and you don’t go near him. He sniffs glue.”
Her warning is partly true. Kurt inhales toluene, which David tells me is a chemical that makes paint dry quickly. Kurt calls it “tolly.” He can often be seen holding a tolly-soaked cloth up to his nose and mouth, and breathing it in. When he’s been sniffing a lot of it, his eyes glaze over and he seems to forget how to talk.
But I like Kurt. When he’s not tolly-ed out of his mind, he’s always nice to me, in a more detached sort of way than the others. I have to work hard to get Kurt’s attention, so when I do, it’s a great moment!
One day I see Kurt in town, in front of the liquor store, with his friend Erick Quinn. For some reason that day I am not up at the Hill, but am just wandering around town. It is a windy day, so windy that the signs in the parking lot of the liquor store are shaking and spinning like crazy! I spread my arms and spin around and around, pretending to be caught in a tornado. Kurt and Erick laugh at me, and I am happy about making them laugh.
The next day, up at the Hill, Kurt reports to me that Erick thinks I like him. “Erick said,. `Nicki said hi to me. I think she likes me,’” says Kurt. “But I told him, `Nicki says hi to everyone! That doesn’t mean she likes you!’”
“Yeah, I say hi to everyone,” I agree.

Another time, after we’ve moved out to the forest preserve, it starts raining hard, and Kurt offers to give me a ride back into town. He has a car, which he will own for a week or two before it mysteriously disappears. Our dilemma is, I have my bike with me, and we have to make it somehow fit into Kurt’s trunk. Kurt tries fruitlessly to get it all the way into the trunk, but it sticks out the back, and I am afraid it will fall out while we’re driving.
“We need a string or something,” suggests Kurt.
“Yeah, a string,” I agree.
\ I follow him as he heads back towards the others to look for string. “If we get pulled over, you should tel them I’m your little sister, so I don’t get in trouble,” I tell him. “Okay? Will you?”
“Sure! Cause you are my little sister,” says Kurt. He touches the back of my neck. “Right? Are you my little sister?”
“Of course!” I reply gleefully. I am overjoyed at Kurt’s nomination of me as his little sis. That’s the kind of kid I am… I’m grateful for any kindness or affection I can get.

Shortly after school ends for the summer, the cops kick all of the homeless people off the Hill. I am not there when it happens, but David tells me it was Ramirez who delivered the news that they have a week to find a new place to hang out. People walking on the bike trail, or bringing their children to play on the playground, have been complaining about the homeless people being there. If they don’t leave within a week, they’ll be arrested. I don’t know what for, because the Hill is a public place that is supposed to be open to everyone, but David says Ramirez made it clear that we weren’t welcome there. “Out of sight, out of mind,” were Ramirez’s exact words, according to David.
The homeless people decide to move their gypsy cam out to Deer Grove Forest Preserve, which has picnic shelters just like at the Hill. Its pretty far away, on the outskirts of town, but David says I’ll be able to get there on my bike. He draws me a map detailing how to get to the forest preserve, and how to ride down the bike trail to find the picnic shelter they’ve chosen to move to.
(to be continued...)

NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo Day 3

2008-11-03T19:50:00.001-08:00

California, Part One

When I get to the train station, there’s something different. Someone, actually, or three someones. Three kids who look just a little older than me. The lady with the collie dog is handing wrapped sandwiches to a tall boy with a shaved head and a skinny, dark-haired boy. A girl, chubby and blond, is rubbing her hair with a towel.
“I can’t believe I just washed my hair in a train station!” the girl giggles.
“You better get used to it,” says the shaved-head boy. He runs a hand over his own head and laughs. “I don’t have that problem!”
The dark-haired boy turns and looks at me. “Hey, what are you, a spy or something? Come over here and talk to us!”
My heart drops into my stomach. I’ve been watching the kids, trying to hide behind my Earth Science textbook.
Reading my mind, the boy says, “Yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t turned a page in that book since you sat down!”
I feel my face grow hot. I thought I was being so sneaky, with my book!
“Its okay,” says the boy. “Come over here and talk to us. What’s your name?”
I put my Earth Science book in my backpack and walk over to where the kids and the homeless people are sitting. I tell them, “Nicki.”
“I’m Joe,” says the boy. “And this is Jason and Andrea. We’re just passing through here on our way to California.”
“California?” I echo. My fingers twitch at my sides.
Joe doesn’t seem to notice. “Yep. Can you believe we’re from Michigan?” He pulls out his state ID from his back pocket to show me. “I was fast asleep last night, when these two showed up at my house, like, ‘Wanna go with me to California?’”
“Where are you going?” Andrea asks me.
I look at her. “Uh, no where, right now!”
She raises her eyebrows. “I mean, where are you taking the train to?”
The homeless people turn to look at me. I guess they’ve been wondering the same thing. Where am I going?
“I’m not really waiting for a train,” I admit. “I Just like to come here.”
“You like to come here?” Jason interjects. “Why?”
I sigh. “I dunno. I just don’t like being alone.”
Joe puts an arm around my shoulder. “Nobody likes being alone. You know what? You should come with us to California. Then you’ll never have to be alone again!”
I laugh. “I can’t go to California!”
“Why not?” demands Jason.
“Because, I got school, and…” I can’t really think of anything. School? I hate school. School hates me. My family? Sick of me.
“Think about it,” says Jason.
Andrea’s eyes widen. “You should go with us. We can stick together. You know why? Cause we’re both girls!”
“How are you gonna get there?” I wonder. “Are you gonna walk all the way to California?”
“What? Hell no,” Jason laughs. “We’re gonna hitchhike.”
“I thought nobody picks up hitchhikers anymore,” I say.
“Truck drivers do,” Andrea tells me. “We rode in a truck most of the way from Michigan. Didn’t we, you guys? Jason rode in front, and me and Joe rode in the back part.”
“The sleeper,” Joe adds.
“Right, the sleeper! You should see the sleepers truck drivers have! The one we rode in, it was like an apartment! He had a bed back there, and a refrigerator, and a TV, and video games!”
“Awesome!” I try to imagine riding in the back of a truck. My dad is a truck driver, but, ironically, I’ve never ridden in his truck. He says his company doesn’t allow it due to insurance problems. I’ve always thought it would be a lot of fun to ride in one.
“This is my first time being on the road like this,” says Andrea. “We’ve been gone for three days. The first night, Joe and Andrea sat me down and told me every good thing and every bad thing about running away, so I’d be sure I wanted to go.”
“You should really think about it,” says Jason. “Seriously. You only live once, you know?”
“You know what they’re gonna do?” Andrea scowls. “They’ll take you with them, and leave me here.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” I protest.
Jason and Joe look at each other. “You wanna bet?” they hoot.
“But seriously.” Jason puts an arm around Andrea, and looks at me. “This girl here is like a sister to me. I would never leave her behind. I would never let anything bad happen to her.”
A cop walks in just then. He’s wearing a long yellow raincoat, and he’s all wet. My heart drops. I’ve seen this cop before… I think his name is Ramirez… coming into the train station to kick out all the homeless people who are, technically, loitering or trespassing or something. So far, he’s never noticed me. But this time, he looks right at me.
“I need to see your ID,” he says. “And yours and yours and yours.”
I fish my school ID out of my backpack, my hands shaking, and give it to Ramirez. Joe and Jason give him their state ID’s. Andrea tells him she lost hers. She tells him that her name is Kelly, and that she’s seventeen, which for some reason is the age of majority in Michigan.
“What are you doing here?” Ramirez asks me. “Are you with them?”
“No, she’s not,” Jason answers for me. “We just met her today.”
“I’m waiting for my big brother,” I say. “He’s supposed to be coming on the train from Mount Prospect.”
It’s easy for me to lie about having a big brother, because I wish so much for it to be true. I used to have a neighbor, a twenty-two-year-old headbanger named Charlie, who I pretended was my big brother. After school, I would bang on his front door, and he’d let me come in and watch “Beavis And Butthead” in his living room. Or we’d go into the backyard, and he’d strum his guitar while I played with his dog Floppy. When I used to go to Charlie’s house, I’d brag to everyone at school about how I had a cool big brother named Charlie who played the guitar. One of my teachers got concerned once and asked me if I was ever afraid of Charlie.
“No way!” I told her. “Why would I be afraid of my big brother? He loves me!”
Even back then I was unhappy at home. I was always wandering around the neighborhood, bothering people, because I hated to be at home. I used to talk about running away, and Charlie would tell me not to. He would lecture me on how it was dangerous, and how I should just wait a few more years until I was old enough to move out on my own legitimately. In reality, Charlie probably thought I was just a pesty kid who wouldn’t go away. But he spent time with me, and talked to me, and that meant everything to me.
Eventually, Charlie moved away… to Mount Prospect.
Now, I imagine that Charlie really is coming on the train to see me. And Ramirez believes my story, maybe because I half believe it myself!
“You three get outta here,” he tells my new friends.
They laugh as they walk out, waving goodbye to me.
“Will we see you tomorrow?” Jason calls over his shoulder.
I nod. I can’t wait.

The next day, as soon as the school bus drops me off, I sprint back top the train station. To my relief, Jason, Joe and Andrea are already waiting for me there.
“Did you think about coming with us?” asks Jason.
I have thought about it all day long. It was impossible to even try to do school work today. My mind and heart have been racing. But in the end, I am still not sure I should go to California. And I am leaning in the direction of not going. It is weird that I have daydreamed since I was a little kid about running away and having a new start, and now that I actually have the chance to do it, I’m not sure I want to.
Why?
“I just don’t want to maek my mom cry,” I explain. And, despite the fact that she often treats me as if she hates me, I believe she would cry. If I died, for instance, or just disappeared, When I’m here, I’m the bane of her existence, but if I was gone, it would break her heart. Its an irritating truth.
“Did she ever make you cry?” asks Joe.
“Yeah, but still…” I twitch my fingers nervously.
Andrea nods. “I know exactly what you mean. No matter what your mom does to you, you don’t want to make her cry. Maybe it’s a girl thing.” She smiles at me. “Now you’re gonna make me cry, thinking about my mom!” ‘
Joe groans. “Girls…”
“Maybe you guys all could just stay here,” I suggest.
Jason throws his head back and laughs. “Hell, no! I’ve lived in this town before, and I’m not staying here a minute more than I have to!”
“Then will you send me post cards?” I ask. Despite having only known them for less than twenty-four hours, these three street kids are the best… the only… actual friends I have. I don’t want them to just fade away.
“OF course,” says Jason. “And if you write down your phone number, we’ll call you when we can. You ever change your mind about coming to California, you’ll know where to find us.”
“But I can’t hitchhike by myself,” I point out. “I’d get lost. I’d end up in Maine, or someplace weird like that!”
“I’ll come back and get you, and we’ll go together,” says Jason.

Jason and Joe go off in search of a store that sells rolling papers and tobacco, and me and Andrea wander around the train depot, talking. Andrea tells me that she and the guys spent the night in the basement of Jason’s mother’s and stepfather’s house.
“We talked about you all night long,” says Andrea.
“For real?” I can’t imagine anyone being able to talk about me for that long!
“For real,” says Andrea. “I think Jason likes you.”
“Why?” I blurt out.
Andrea laughs. “Cause you’re cool!”
“I’m cool?” I’m in Heaven! I have three friends, genuinely cool older kids, and they think I’m cool! And I haven’t done anything besides be myself. Unbelievable! Just my luck that they’re leaving forever tomorrow.

When Jason and Joe come back with their cigarette rolling paraphernalia, we sit outside by the train track and talk. We talk about everything, tell each other our life stories, and goof around, until evening comes and I have to leave. Before I go, I get my notebook from my backpack and write my name, address and phone number three times. I give ach of my new friends a copy. Our friendship has grown quickly and fiercely, and it seems backwards to me that I may never see them again.

The phone is ringing when I walk into my house. My parents are not home yet, so I answer it.
“Nicki?” says Andrea. “Guess what? I’m going home!”
“What? How? When?” I stammer. It only took me fifteen minutes to walk home from the train depot. How could everything have changed that quickly?
“After you left, I called my friend back in Michigan, and she told me that my mom is really sick. So I decided to go home. I called the police, and they’re coming to pick me up,” Andrea explains.
“I’m gonna come say goodbye to you again!” I tell Andrea, “And you gotta give me your address at your mom’s house!”
“Okay, but the cops are coming for me right now, so you better hurry,” she replies.
I hang up the phone and run all the way back to the train depot.
Officer Ramirez is there, talking to Andrea. I burst in, shouting, “Andrea!” we run to each other and hug, hanging on for dear life.
Ramirez stares at us. “How do you know each other? Are you a runaway too?”
“No, I just met her yesterday,” I remind him.
“Didn’t you meet those other people here yesterday, too?” asks Ramirez.
It takes me a minute to realize that Ramirez doesn’t know Andrea is the same person as the girl we called “Kelly” yesterday. I shrug, and say, “Uh… yep!”
“Where are Jason and Joe?” I whisper to Andrea, while Ramirez is talking into his radio.
“They took off so the cops won’t find them,’ says Andrea. “They could get in big trouble for helping me run away!”
“That sucks,” I say.
“I know. Oh my God, I’m gonna miss you so much! Maybe you can come visit me in Michigan.”
“I will,” I promise.
“Andrea,” says Ramirez, “time to go.” He touches his handcuffs absentmindedly.
“Are you gonna handcuff me?” asks Ramirez.
Ramirez looks alarmed and says, “No.”
I watch him lead my friend out of the train depot. I stand at the window and look out as Ramirez opens the back door of his squad car for her. My eyes tear up.
The homeless woman, the one with the collie dog, comes up behind me and puts her arms around me. “Its better this way,” she says. “That little girl would have never made it on the streets.”

The next day, Andrea calls me from Michigan to tell me she made it home. She had to wait until one in the morning, in a holding room at the police station, for her mom to drive down from Michigan. She tells me that Joe and Jason got caught by the cops, but her mom didn’t press charges on them for helping Andrea to run away. In fact, Andrea’s mom begrudgingly gave Joe a ride back to Michigan, although now that they are back Andrea isn’t allowed to see him anymore.
“What about Jason?” I ask. I’m sure that Jason, the self-appointed leader of the group, went on to California by himself.
Andrea’s voice lowers. “Oh my God, he’s going to jail for a long time!”
That is definitely not what I am expecting to hear. “Jason? What? Why? I thought your mom didn’t press charges on him!”
“She didn’t,” says Andrea. “He had an old warrant. You’ll never believe this, but he molested an eleven-year-old kid.”
“No way!” I picture the energetic bald-headed boy who made me laugh and who swore he’d hitchhike all the way back to Illinois to get me if I ever changed my mind about going to California.
“Yeah. I didn’t get to talk to him, so I don’t know much about it. All I know is, when Ramirez brought me to the police station, I saw another cop bringing Jason in in handcuffs. I yelled out to Jason, and the cop said, `Ask your boyfriend why he raped an eleven-year-old!’”
“Do you think he really did it?” I ask.
“I dunno. I never thought he would do something like that,” Andrea replies. “And I’ve known Jason a long time. But I guess you never know for sure.” Before I can respond, she adds, “My mom wants me to get off the phone now cause its long distance, but I’m gonna write to you, okay? My mom didn’t want me to, at first, but I told her how cool you are. I told her you’re the one who first made me think about going home, when you were talking about making your mom cry.”
“For real?” I say.
“Yep.”
The irony could kill me.

I promise myself I’ll keep in touch with all three of the other kids, one way or another. I write to Andrea and Joe, and I buy a prepaid phone card so I can call them from the payphone at the train depot.
I write a letter to Jason, too. I don’t mention what Andrea told me, but I tell him that I heard he got arrested and that I hope he’s okay. I don’t know how I feel about the reason Jason was arrested. Its hard for me to imagine how a kid, just a little older than me, could do something like that. I figure, if Jason writes back to me this time, I’ll write to him again and ask him for an explanation.
I don’t know exactly where Jason is now, though. So I mail the first letter to Ramirez at the Palatine police station, including a note begging him to forward it to Jason for me.
My life is different now. I am different. Its like I’ve been given a glimpse into an alternate universe, where people give a shit about me, where people think I’m cool just the way I am. When I keep in touch with Andrea and the boys, I feel like I’m keeping that universe alive. And maybe someday, when we’re a little older and don’t have to be runaways, Jason and Joe and Andrea and me really will make it to California.
For real.

Weekend Update

2008-11-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether to post my NaNoWriMo posts in the same posts with my regular update posts, but I guess I'll just do them separately.
Had a pretty cool weekend this weekend! On Saturday we mostly just hung around the house, and then on Saturday night I took Sarah, Brandon, and Brandon's friend Mauricio to this hoomeless simulation thing at a near by church. We were supposed to do it with this one church that was going to have lots of families participating, but for some reason we went there and nobody was there, and I was all freaked out that once again I screwed something up and got the info wrong or something, and I didn't want to disappoint the kids. I remembered there was another, smaller church doing it with just their youth group, so we went there, and they let us be there as their "guests." The people at that church were very nice. It was a cool experience. THey did a little activity where everyone had to think about their "Safety net" of people they could go to for help if they were in danger of becoming homeless, and write the names on sheets of toilet paper.
We slept outside in the front yard of the church. SOme people had brought tents, but we chose to use cardboard to make our own dwellings. I was so proud of Brandon and Mauricio because they got really into it, worked together and made this really cool little house out of two refrigerator boxes. They even made a little window thing by connecting the two boxes with a flap. They added smaller boxes on the sides, to balance it out and keep it from tipping over. They both slept in it, and had their DS games and Halloween candy in there.
It wasn't the most perfect night ever though. It was warm out for November, so we weren't really cold or anything. But at about two am Sarah started freaking out, and ended up calling her mom to come get her. (She lives about a block away from that church!)Then it started raining, melting our cardboard, so we had to go inside and sleep in the chapel! Which turned out to be pretty cool within itself because we got to wake up surrounded by sun shining in through the stained glass windows. I knew Brandon would love it, because he's a very visual person. (He later described it to someone as, "a wall of color." The other bad thing was that Mauricio's mom called at 7:30 wanting Mauricio to come home right away to watch his siblings, which sort of sucked because it wasn't fair to Brandon. So I was sort of mean to Mauricio... I mean I tried to be nice about it but I was like, "Well I can't really take you home this very minute, maybe you should call and see if they can come and get you." Because who tells their kid they can go on an overnight like this, and then calls at the crack of dawn and wants them to be driven home right away? Besides... Brandon really wanted to stay, and whenever Brandon is actually showing enthusiasm about something, I totally don't want to blow it! So we stayed and ate breakfast with them.
I liked that church and I want to go back. I was thinking of starting to go to church again, and this one is a United Church of Christ church which is about a step more conservative than the Unitarian ones I usually lean towards, and since there's no Unitarian church close to us, I had been wanting to try United Church of Christ. Plus I really love the idea of how they run their youth programs.
Anyway. Sunday afternoon Sarah watched the other kids for a while, and me and Diana walked up to the bar and met Jimmy and drank and played darts. It was unnerving to get drunk that early in the day, only because we had to return home to a household full of kids who were still awake and required supervision. It was like, "Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh...." Abby especially was in rare form. When she was in the bathtub with Hayden she had me and Diana and Sarah cracking up like crazy because she was just yelling out the weirdest things. She was like, "I'm having siezures!" and "I'm putting up my middle finger and so is Hayden!" and "You suck dirty beans that you got from the garbage can!" Oh man it was bizarreeeeeee!
So it was a really good weekend. I was sad for it to end. I'm always sad when the weekends end. Aren't you?

Day 2 of Nablopomo/Nanowrimo!

2008-11-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Train Depot Makes A Great Afterschool Hangout

After school most kids hang out with their friends at their houses or their friends’ houses, or at after school clubs, or wherever. But I hang out at the train depot.
The Palatine train depot is a grungy place. Other towns around us have turned their own train depots into centers of the communities, with beautiful architecture and fancy coffee shops, giant fountains, and big, old-fashioned clock towers. The Palatine train depot, though, is just the way it was back in the seventies. Housed in a nearly abandoned strip mall on the outskirts of downtown, it’s a boxy room surrounded by greasy, graffitti-streaked windows. You have to pay a dime to go to the bathroom there. I am not sure who is making money off of that!
It’s a dismal place, but I like it. I come here every day after school. I sit on the stairs and read library books or do my homework. I watch everything and everyone, like a fly on the wall. Hiding behind a book, I can people-watch forever!
There are basically four kinds of people that can be found in the train depot. In the mornings and evenings, the place fills up with well-dressed commuters, who go back and forth from the city for work. They move quickly and have their schedules timed perfectly so that they don’t have to waste too many moments sitting around the depot. When they do have to wait a while for their trains, they sit gingerly on the hard orange fiberglass chairs and don’t make eye contact.
There are some people who only ride the trains for special occasions, like to go shopping downtown. They’re even more well-dressed than the commuters. They usually arrive in groups, showing up early and chatting loudly with their friends. Taking the train is a big event for them, just as exciting as wherever it is they’re going to.
There are a lot of people who ride the train because they don’t have cars, or don’t even have driver’s licenses. These are mostly guys, blue collar men who wear work clothes or jeans and T-shirts. Usually they’re not even taking the train all the way into the city, but only going to one of the neighboring town sa few stops away, to hang out with friends, go to appointments, or get to work. These guys, if they come through the train station enough to get used to seeing me there, are friendlier than any of the other train riders. These guys will say “hi” to me as they pass me, even bringing me sodas sometimes. If you ever need change for the payphone or a dollar for some food, thee guys are the ones to ask. They have change jingling in their pockets, and they’ll give it to you, feeling good about being just a little better off than you.
Then there are the people who hang out in the train station all day long,w ithout ever going anywhere. They just hang out, hiding beers and bottles of vodka in bags or under jackets when the commuters are around, smoking cigarettes even though the sign on the wall says not to. They’re there because they’re homeless, and the train depot is one of the few places around that they probably won’t get kicked out of.
Its them that I watch and listen to the most. The older woman with the big collie dog, who always has snacks in her bag that she hands out to the others. The man who looks just like Santa Claus, except in a dirty overcoat and work boots. The younger guys who alternately joke and fight with each other. And the occasional random crazy person who rants and raves about nothing in particular.
Of all the people around the train depot, it is the homeless people who I probably would be grouped in with… the misfits with no place to go. It doesn’t occur to me to be sad about the idea that I have to go to the people among the lowest ranks of society in order to feel like I belong.

First Day of NaBloPoMo/NaNoWriMo

2008-11-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of naBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo, and I am ready to post the first part of my life story! Before I begin, let me explain that I am writing this story in present tense, as it occurs to the character (me). Events are described as much as possible in the way that I experienced it at the times that they happened. Other people involved could probably tell the same events in completely different ways, and I would probably even describe them differently if I was telling about them in hindsight instead of in present tense. I invite all of the readers to experience the following story through the eyes of a young child.

Prologue: Two Worlds

I am little, maybe two years old, strapped into my car seat… the brown one that I will have to give up eventually so my new baby brother will be able to use it instead. My parents are fighting in the front seat. My mom is driving. I’m not paying attention to their fight. Its become like white noise to me, something I hear almost every day. The sound of their arguing lulls me to sleep at night. Now, I only snap to attention when the car screeches to a halt, whipping me forward in my car seat. My dad gets out of the car, slamming his door behind him. The car quickly pulls away from the curb again.
I lean forward and demand, “Where’s Daddy going?”
“Who knows,” replies my mom.
I twist around to watch him walking off, in the opposite direction from us.

I am four and my mom has woken me up in the middle of the night, so suddenly that it feels like I woke up already sitting in the wooden chair in the living room, with my mom shoving my shoes on over my footie pajamas. The world is filled with noise. People talking, my brother crying, a horn blaring outside.
My dad’s friend comes to the front door and peers through the screen at us, and my mom shouts at him. She hustles my brother and I into the car. We drive away from the house. I look out the window, but the darkness makes everything look unfamiliar.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” I ask, again and again. I cannot fathom why we are all out here in the middle of the night, driving in what seems to be circles.

I am seven, and when the fighting starts, I know my job in life is to take care of my five-year-old brother. He gets scared, and he cries, when they fight. I remember that I used to feel like that, too, when I was little. Now that I am big, I just feel exasperated, annoyed at them for disrupting our lives and making my brother cry. Even when they’re not fighting, anger sits like fog around the house, making it hard to digest your breakfast cereal, hard to care about school, hard to fall asleep at night.
If its day time when the fights break out, I take my brother’s hand and quickly lead him up to my bedroom, where I can calm him down and get him to play games with me until they shut up. If its nighttime, my brother runs into my room and gets in bed with me, and I tell him stories until we both fall asleep.

I am eight, I am nine, I am ten. I live int wo worlds at once. In one world, my family is great. My mom is on the PTA, and runs her own business from home, and volunteers in our classrooms. We have a dog, and a swing set in our back yard, and every summer we go on vacation as a family.
In the other world, things are different.
I have a feeling that my family is “weird,” and I want us to be “normal.” I try to do things I think “normal” people do. Unfortunately, I have no real idea about “normal” people, except for things I’ve seen on TV and read about in books. I leave marbles and jacks out in the yard, because for some reason I think “normal” kids play with those things.
Maybe I am the weirdest one in my family, after all! I know I’m different from the other kids at school. Unlike the other girls my age, I don’t care much about boys, clothes, makeup, or music. I prefer the sandbox, the swingset, and my Barbie dolls. I am the messiest kid in my class. My desk is like the Bermuda triangle, filled with random papers and school supplies, books, projects and assignments that somehow never made it to the teacher’s desk, even used Kleenexes and snack wrappers. I get in trouble for reading when I’m supposed to be paying attention in class. When the teacher catches me reading and scolds me for it, I get sneakier and bring a book into the classroom bathroom when I’m bored. I can stay in there and read for quite a while before the teacher notices me missing and bangs on the bathroom door. I daydream. I spread glue all over my desk, because I’m bored. I have trouble sitting still a lot. I irritate the teachers and the other kids by constantly swinging my feet under my desk, or drumming my fingers. I know the American Sign Language alphabet, and when I’m bored or nervous my hands wiggle and flutter at my sides, spelling out my thoughts.

I am eleven years old, and the whole world hates me. The kids at school make fun of me because of my wild hair, because I dress and act differently, and because I have so much trouble doing the work in class. The teacher gets irritated with me because I can’t seem to finish my work on time.
The worst is when I actually do my homework, but forget to turn it in. Then, of course, I forget that I forgot to turn it in. The teacher makes us correct each other’s homework, by passing papers out randomly and then calling out the answers so we can mark them right or wrong. If she passes out the papers, and she’s one short, she knows that someone didn’t turn in their homework. She collects the papers again, has us all stand up, and reads off the names on the homework sheets. As your name is called, you’re supposed to sit down. I’m left standing, red-faced, my fingers spelling out “Oh shit” at my sides.
My parents still fight constantly, but my brother is bigger now and doesn’t need me to take care of him, so he hates me too. Once, a year or two ago, he asked me, “When are you going to start acting like a big sister?” We’ve both noticed that, as we’ve gotten older, he’s seemed to pass me up. He understands things that I don’t. The world doesn’t bewilder him, the way it does me. He is popular at school, and he’s embarrassed to be seen by me.
My mom’s hate for me, though, is the worst. She glares at me and shouts at me, about my failing grades, about my messy room, about the fact that I have no friends. “You don’t try,” she says. “I think you make yourself ugly on purpose,” she snaps, or “No wonder nobody likes you,” or “You’re killing this family!”
Its possible that my dad doesn’t hate me. He barely ever yells at me. My dad is cool. He has two jobs, and sometimes he takes my brother and I to work with him. At one job, he delivers pet supplies to grocery stores, and my brother and I love to go to the warehouse and help him “call orders.” We love to ride in the back of the delivery van, and go into the secret Employees Only sections of the grocery stores. His other job is at a gas station, and we spend a lot of Saturday nights there. My dad buys us sodas or chocolate milks, and candy bars, and we pester the high school guys who work there, or jump on the hose out front to make the bell ring. My dad doesn’t yell at us much. Not even at me. My mom says I am just like him. (Usually she says it when she tell something she hates about me. As in, “You’re a slob just like your father!”)
I’m eleven and the world hates me. I make plans to run away from home, probably to northern Wisconsin, where we spend a happy week each summer. My mind connects Wisconsin with happiness, with feeling like I belong somewhere. I think that Wisconsin is a magical state, and if I could only stay there forever, I’d feel happy. Someday, I will ride my bike up to Wisconsin. I pour over the State Farm US Almanac I stole from my parents’ room, tracing the roads and plotting my route. I’ll collect tin cans and recycle them for money to survive. I’ll eat candy bars from vending machines, because they’re cheap. I’ll live in the woods, and swim in the lake to keep clean. The only thing that worries me is the idea of winter, where everything freezes over. Its even colder there than it is here in Chicago! The threat of winter ahead is the only thing that keeps me from running away from home in the spring, summer or fall.

I am twelve when my mom shakes me awake in the middle of the night to tell me, “Dad’s in jail. I have to go bail him out. Stay awake in case your brother wakes up.”
Thinking I’m dreaming, I reply, “Okay. What’d he do?”
“Drunk driving,” says my mom, and then she leaves. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, until I hear them both storm in through the back door.
From then on, the fighting is almost constant. My mom tells my brother and I that they might get a divorce.
“I want to stay with Dad!” I say quickly.
But my mom says, “No, you’re both going with me.”
Despite that, I find myself hoping for a divorce. I may be one of the only kids in the world who wants their parents to split up. I am sure I will go straight to hell for that. But, for me, a divorce might mean moving to a new house, where I could switch schools, and have a fresh start at a place where the kids and teachers don’t know to hate me yet. I swear to myself that, if I get to go to a new school, I’ll do better. I’ll try harder. I’ll make friends. And maybe on the weekend my dad will pick my brother and I up and do fun things with us.
Maybe my parents will even get remarried, and I’ll have two more chances at having a family that likes me! I especially hope for an older stepbrother or stepsister who will look out for me and teach me things, and a much younger brother or sister who will look up to me.
I know I’m weird for wishing for these things. But I just want, so badly, to belong somewhere!

Instead, my parents stay unhappily married, still always fighting or ignoring each other. My dad loses his driver’s license because of the DUI, and consequently loses his job. My mom gets two jobs to support us. Stressed out, she yells at me more and more. “You’re a loser just like your dad!” she yells.
The kids at school make fun of me more than ever, and my grades go down. I get insomnia. At night I lie awake, tossing and turning, unable to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. I wake up each morning with horrid headaches, nausea, and a sense of impending doom. Sometimes I beg my mom to let me stay home, but mostly I just stagger to the school bus half asleep, and go back to sleep in my first period class, laying my head on my desk.
“Stop acting like this!” my mom tells me, some mornings when I sit in the kitchen, bleary-eyed and miserable, my hair disheveled and my clothes wrinkled. “You come from a fine home! A fine home!”
Everyone hates me, and I wish I could disappear. Like in my dreams where, when something bad happens, I just fly away up into the clouds, where nobody can reach me.

And For My Next Trick...

2008-10-30T19:35:00.001-07:00

Now that the backpack project is over, I have come up with yet another obsession that will last me about a month! Actually two obsessions. I am going to simutaneously participate in NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo for the month of November!
Basically NaNoWriMo is a contest where you write a novel in one month. You try to write about 1,567 words a day, resulting in a full-length novel at the end of the month. And NaBloPoMo is a similar contest where you commit to writing a blog entry every single day that month! SO I am combining the two. I am going to write my life story. Every day I will post a section of it as my daily blog entry.
Be sure to tune in each day! The first entry will be posted the day after Halloween!
I'll still be posting normal things too, so you may find two entries on some days. Lucky you!

In other words... no word from the girls or their dad. I tried calling him and texting him but my calls and texts were ignored. Even my texts to Melissa were ignored, and when I called her she wouldn't say anything at all! Its obvious I'm never going to see them again. I don't know what I'm going to do, except wait it out. Melissa is old enough to call me herself if she needs something or if she's in trouble or just wants to talk, so hopefully we won't completely lose contact.

Ugh.

On the bright side... tomorrow is Halloween!

Halloween Animations

You Want A Piece of This, Ese?

2008-10-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ugh, what a long weekend, I feel like I'm gonna pass out at any minute! It was mostly good though!
First of all, Saturday was Make A Difference Day, and some new friends and I collected and assembled 21 backpacks full of books, toys, personal hygiene items, and comfort items for kids entering foster care. Here's a picture of me by a van loaded with all of the backpacks!

so, that was a good experience, definitely!
On Sunday we planned on going to Boo At The Zoo, and we decided to stop and get Melissa and Maggie as well. Brandon had called Melissa's cell phone and asked if she and Maggie could go, and then on the way there I called to double check that it was okay.
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know a little about Melissa and Maggie, but if you don't, I'll try to sum it up quickly.
Their mother: A woman who seemed to try hard but eventually succumbed to her crack addiction and abandoned her kids to the foster care system.
Their dad: fought for several years to get them out of the foster care system and to get custody of him, but REALLY isn't that great of a person. Emotionally unstable and an alcoholic, he can be very intimidating. He's cut off all connections the girls have ever had with family members, former foster parents, etc... and the only reason he still lets ME see them (I was a friend of their mother when they were very small) is because he thinks somehow I'm going to be his girlfriend and marry him. He also wanted to get Diana to be his girlfriend, right after Diana left her husband, and it got to the point where Diana had to ask him to leave her house one night when he came to visit, because he was intimidating her.

OK. So we pull up in the parking lot, and I call Melissa's phone because we're running sort of late and we want to get to the zoo ASAP so we won't miss the Halloween festivities. So Melissa comes running down, but their dad follows them, and Maggie is at the top of the stairs of the apartment building, trying to prevent their dad from coming down. I go up to see what is going on, and their dad tells me, "Maggie seems to think I won't let her go if I see who is taking her." I say, "Its okay, Maggie, nothing is wrong," and start leading Maggie down to the car, where Diana and Jimmy and the kids are waiting.
Their dad sees Jimmy and starts screaming for Melissa to get out of the car, and then goes to Jimmy and starts yelling, "Ese! You want a piece of me?" and making fists at him. We were all stunned... partially because Jimmy is Korean, so we didn't know what all the "ese" business was about.
Melissa and Maggie were crying hysterically, the other kids were getting scared, and nobody knew what to do... so we just drove away.
It was so horrible. Dude, it was like a nightmare! We think their dad was probably drunk, and that leads back to a whole nother story. We've had a lot of drama regarding the girls and their dad. And after this, its almost certain that I probably won't be allowed by their father to see them anymore.
I managed to enjoy the zoo after that... although obviously my mind was elsewhere! But I tried to put it out of my mind for a while. It was hard though. We were all traumatized by what had just happened. we've always tried to sort of protect the kids from knowing about the kind of person Melissa and Maggie's dad is, but now Brandon couldn't stop talking about it. He was afraid that the girls were in danger, and wanted to know why we couldn't do something about it to protect the girls. He said, "Melissa and Maggie are such nice kids, and living with their dad is going to make them all screwed up!" He was so worried about it. He just kept talking about it, throughout the day, about how worried he was about the girls and how scary it had been when their dad started yelling and threatening Jimmy.
I'm still trying to figure this situation out.

The zoo was fun, though. I love it when we all do things together. We spent most of the day there and ate lunch there and everything. It was freezing cold though!!!

So then last night Diana and Jimmy and I went to the bar for a while. It helped to defragment my mind. We mostly played darts. Jimmy claims that I beat him once at cricket, but it was only because he gave me about fifty extra chances at the end. I really did beat Diana twice though! And we tied once. It was a lot of fun!

Today, I am exhausted, but its been pretty easy. The other little girl I babysit afterschool is spending the whole day with us because there's no school. I had to take her to her dentist appointment this morning, and the office was right by the mall, so after the dentist we spent the rest of the morning at the mall in the play area. Now Hayden is taking her nappy, and the other two are playing dolls and watching TV. I have to get the girl's brother at four, and thats when the hardest part of the day will start!

I will keep you updated on the girls!

She Looks Just Like You!

2008-10-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

Today I took Hayden with me to the gas station to get some pumpkin seeds (which we later planted in the backyard to produce magical tiny pumpkins that will grow there on Friday!)When we went to pay, the lady behind the counter commented on how cute Hayden was. Then she said, "Oh my goodness, she looks just like you! So much like you! Wow!"
I didn't tell her that there is no blood relation between me and Hayden. I just said, "You think so?" and took it as a compliment! After all, who wouldn't want to be told that this little person looks just like them?

(By the way, my other blog is going to be out of commission for a few days, because I didn't pay my subscription! Wah!)

Long Weekend, BIG headache!

2008-10-21T13:04:00.001-07:00

Oh man, I have the worst headache today, and all I want to do is sleep! I've been having a lot of headaches lately, but this one must be especially tough because I took some Tylenol and it still didn't go away! I need Vicadin or something! ;)
It was kind of a long weekend because Diana and Jimmy were fighting again and everyone was upset. We didn't do much except sleep. Jimmy took the baby for a while on Saturday, then brought her back, then took her again on Sunday for dinner with his family, and brought her back again, so at least we got kind of a break because the smallest and most troublesome member of the household was away! But we missed her! When Jimmy first came to take her on Saturday, he was planning to take the big kids too, but they didn't want to go, so then he said he'd just take her overnight at his house. I started crying just at the thought of the baby being gone overnight! I don't know why it bothers me so much, when the big kids used to go with their dad all the time and it never bothered me. I guess because with them it was more of a positive thing, like, "Thank God Tony is actually spending some time with them and being a dad to them," whereas with Hayden it just feels like she's getting separated out of the rest of the familyand going to live a different life without us!!!
AW MAN my head hurts so bad I'm going to throw up! I was hoping to do my laundry and catch up on reading all my blogs today, but just trying to look at the bright computer screen is killing me!!!!!!!!1

Homesick

2008-10-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm homesick for the ocean! Its like it changed something inside of me. Weird that it will probably be years before I see it again...

Don't Know

2008-10-15T10:14:00.001-07:00

I am having sort of a bad day because it just feels like everyone is angry and it feels like the ground is shifting out from under me or something. I just feel weird and bad and yucky today. I took Hayden this morning to see a show at the library with singing and stuff, and she liked it a lot. After we got Abby from the bus Jimmy came home cause he wanted to take them to see their grandma today. So they had lunch and then he took them, and I was sort of glad because i am so sad today I am feeling nervous and worried all day long and it is hard to be cheerful for them. I have to get Ben and Claire in a few hours and I am dreading it, and then I have to go to school and I am dreading that. I just want to crawl under a rock somewhere and cry for about five hours and then I'll feel better. I don't know why I'm having such a bad day!!! I just feel like when I came back from florida everyone is angry at me and everything has changed. I just feel so weird today. Major anxiety. :( Today when we were having lunch Abby said "Its good to have you back Nicki!" I love those little kids so much. Sometimes they're the only reason why I try to hold my mind together. Why is everyone angry? why does everything feel so yucky?

If you want to see something more cheerful check ouot my other blog, Slow down Gym Shoe, where I posted my pics from the cruise! I can't look at them now though cause its gonna make me cry. :(

Is it a full moon or what?

2008-10-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

Dude, yesterday was such a weird day because, between Brandon and Mauricio and I, we saw three car accidents happen in the same area, within a few hours of each other. The first one happened as I was driving to go pick up the two big kids I babysit after school. As I drove down the rode, I heard screeching and a bang behind me, looked in my rearview mirror, and saw that a car making a left turn into my lane had crashed into the car behind me. I continued on my merry way, ladadadadadadada, and went to the library to wait for Candice. As Abby and Hayden and I hung around outside the library with all of the young juvenile delinquents who congregate there (plus we saw Mauricio there, that juvenile delinquent!) we saw a car pull out of the parking lot of the school and crash into a car that was driving down the street. That was bizarro! Then, at dinner time, Brandon told us he had seen a car accident happen too, in a different intersection in the same area! weird, right?
Last night was fun after that because I went to the bar with Diana and Jimmy. I had cherry bombs and played darts and it was fun! Today we mostly just hung around the house and recovered. Jimmy had to work today, and when he came home he brought me one of those things that you can plug into your computer, that gives you more UPC ports! I've been wishing for one of those, because on my laptop I only have 2 ports and I have to pick and choose which things I want to plug in. For instance, I cannot print something off of my flash drive, while using my mouse at the same time. I would have to unplug my mouse in order to plug in my printer. With this little thing, now I can plug in four extra things! He also gave me a laser pointer that also works for presentations. Like if you're putting a computer presentation up on a projector, you can use the device to flip the pages, and use the laser pointer part to point. Isn't that cool? I can't wait until I can use it for school sometime!
So I broke my toe the other day and it REALLY hurts! You wouldn't think it would hurt much, since its only a toe, but it actually shoots pain up through my whole foot! I can barely walk on it at all. Bleh.
OK I think I am going to go to sleep now!

All My Obsessions!

2008-09-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows I'm happiest in life when I have something to be obsessed with... and right now I have two new obsessions going on!
The first one is more of a short-term obsession. This weekend was a lot of fun because we spent most of it outside! We went to the Safety Fair on Friday and got to take a tour of the jail. I've been to the jail lots of times to visit Nick and Anthony, but this time we got to take a behind-the-scenes tour! We saw the cells where people stay, the pods, the gym, etc. (The weirdest thing was that Diana and I had brought Brandon, Abby, Hayden and Maricio, and Anthony is actually in that jail right now! But the kids don't know it yet. He's really screwed up this time and is going to be in jail for a looooooooooooooooong time, so we're sort of postponing telling the kids until they really need to know. Its been several weeks and so far they have asked a little bit about him, but haven't really been dying of curiosity or anything. He's been in and out of their lives so they're used to suddenly not seeing him for a while. At any rate, it was strange that he was there somewhere, and the kids were actually inside the jail.) But obviously thats not my obsession. The next day, Sarah came over and we were trying to make a movie about everyday life in the household. We filmed the whole thing with the camcorder feature on my digital camera, so it could be uploaded to the computer. We got tons of random, every-day footage. Large chunks of it were actually filmed from the garage roof! I'm working on getting it all put together into one movie, but its taking fifty million years to get it from the camera to the computer, and then from the computer to the video editor! I love photos and videos. I have a very visual mind and I love looking at that kind of thing. Sometimes in life, when I'm happy, I'm secretly imagining how the scene would look in a photo or a movie! I know, I'm so weird!
My other obsession is that Make A Difference Day is coming up and I've always wanted to do something for it, but never was able to. So this year I came up with the idea of putting together backpacks for kids in foster care. Like, the minute they get taken away from wherever and are in the foster care system, they usually don't have a lot of their own things with them and end up using other people's stuff for at least the first few days. This would be a backpack full of things just for them, that they could keep, and would have things to get them through what they need to do (such as personal hygiene things) and things that would comfort them or entertain them (such as toys, books, stuffed animals for comfort, etc.) When I started it, it was mainly something I figured I could do with all of the kids in my house, to get them involved in Make A Difference Day, and maybe we'd be able to donate four or five backpacks. Well, I ended up posting about it on some Meetup.com groups that I belong to, and now a whole bunch of people have volunteered to get involved! Five full backpacks already exist in the world, 35 children's books have been collected in order to be put into the backpacks, and more things are being gathered every day! A church has been offered up as a drop off place for the backpacks and an assembly place for the big project day in which all of the other backpacks will be put together. A second branch of the project might be getting started in Mundelein. And its not even October yet! I am trying to spread the word through Facebook and Myspace and my blog and other places. It feels really cool to realize that an idea I came up with is taking off like this!
So, as far as that goes, things have been going really well. I'll keep you posted!

Blogging Takes Forever

2008-09-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

It took me about ten million years to write my blog entry on SLow Down, Gym Shoe today... It was the captions on the pictures that kept messing me up! I put them all in, but every time I tried to save the entry, it kept on rearranging the captions so that they made no sense! I finally just erased all of the captions. Oh well.
So, last night went badly when I came here to my mom's house. They just grilled me and grilled me and grilled me about my finances! Don't you think thats sort of rude? They're not coming from a place like, "How are things? Can we help?" so we can't even pretend that they're just trying to be interested. They're coming from a place of, "Are you screwing up? We know you're screwing up. You must be screwing up. We will catch you screwing up." They do things like go through my mail when I'm not here. They have always been like that. I try to take Diana's advice and remember that they're just humans, but it is very hard when my mom has always made it clear that she has the power to take everything away from me. She uses that power to control me. As long as my stuff, and my cat, are still here, she can say, "Do this or I'll throw your cat out on the street." It gives me a horribly nervous stomach just thinking about it. I mean, I'll always be a little behind in my finances, but so is everyone! I handle it! I don't need people rifling through my mail so that they can have the priviledge of pointing out how much better they are than me. You know?
In better news, school is going really good for me. I'm getting A'z in three of my classes. The fourth one, math, is harder, but I can probably at least get a B in the end!
OK I'm going to go and try to catch up on some other things. Just checking in! Have a great day!

Long Time, No See!

2008-09-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm back! Did ya miss me? Diana's friend Dez came over, along with her new puppy, who I forgot we are watching this weekend. He's a little black lab puppy, my favorite kind! Floppy and soft, with a white spot on his chest. Unfortunately, he peed on the carpet as his first order of business in the house. And then Mijo seconded that motion. And Abby woke up because of all the dogs barking. And I had two Dr. Peppers and cannot sleep. I put a blanket over Tiger's cage cause thats how he knows its time for bed.

I'm Trying!

2008-09-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

Trying really hard not to be lonely! Diana and Jimmy went to drop Brandon off at his friends' hosue at 7:30, and they ended up going out and not coming home. :( I fall for it every time! ;) So I'm here blogging and trying not to be lonely or feel hurt. But its kinda a bummer because tomorrow I'm supposed to get Melissa and Maggie. Not that I don't want to get them! I do want to see them, and especially tomorrow because its Melissa's birthday! But I'm sort of exhausted. I spent the entire day Thursday doing homework, then today watched the kids from 8 am on. I spend half my time alone doing homework, the other half with kids, and zero with grown ups. I actually try to get here early in the mornings because I crave the chance to hang out with Diana for that twenty or so minutes before she goes to work, even though its usually hectic cause she's trying to get ready and everything. And I'm totally sad that now I go to school right after they come home, because I really miss the time when we'd all be together. Its the best part of the day. Now I rarely am here for it. I was looking forward to Friday cause, yay, I actually get to hang out... but they stayed for half an hour, then took off. :( Its cool and everything, but I just don't feel like going to bed, waking up and spending another day alone with a group of kids. Ya know?
In other news, we have to do this Health Improvement project for my Health Project and pick one goal we want to work on all semester. I'm picking stopping cutting, and finding better ways of dealing with things. And so far, I'm doing pretty good on that goal, because I have an appointment with a counselor on Tuesday, ANd i'm gonna start going to church. UCC church. On Sunday. I hope.

Crazy Days!

2008-09-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started officially watching those two new afterschool kids. You can read all about it at my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe! If you want too! It went pretty good. The only bad thing is that I'm supposed to pick up the girl at around 3:15 at her school, and then pick up the boy, whose bus doesn't get there until about 4:00! So thats about forty-five minutes of car time for Abby and Hayden. Its worked out okay so far though, because we went inside the kids' house to play for a while while we waited for the boy's bus last time, so Abby and Hayden enjoyed that. Hayden especially enjoyed it because they had a cat! I was carrying her, and when we walked into the apartment and she spotted the cat, she started laughing and saying, "Oh, oh!" and wiggling to be put down. I put her down, and she ran right up to the cat, waving her arms and babbling, and started hugging and petting him! The cat, to his credit, was very patient, and just laid there and didn't move and let the baby pet him. It was so funny how excited Hayden was to see the kitty! And Abby really likes playing with the girl. She's 9, but small and young for her age, and they get along really well! Yesterday the girl fit right in with Abby and her two little neighborhood friends, and they were happy as can be. So I think this is going to work out good!
I totally ditched my class last night. The kids' mom was supposed to get to the house at 6:00, and that was right when I would have had to leave, so I thought it would be okay, but then as time went on I started thinking, "She'll get here at six but she's not just going to instantly materialize back into her car with the kids and disappear! She'll probably want to talk, and it will take a while for the kids to get ready, and by then it will be later. I don't want to go into school late because sometimes thats even worse than missing it all together!" So I thought I would ditch just this one day. Then the mom and kids actually left by like 6:06, so I still could have gone to school. But by then, my mind was set on staying! So I stayed and ate hot dogs and ended up spending the night.
Now I'm getting ready to go to my Writing For Social Justice class. Its a tough class, because we have a four-page essay due just about every week! I got an A on my first essay already, though.
So I should probably be packing it up and getting it moving right about now, huh?

Swamped

2008-09-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

Man my eyes are seeing double, because I've been on the computer ever since I got home from school today! I had a ton of things to do! I was planning on going to Diana's ronight, but since I still have things to do here, I'm probably just gonna sleep here, and stay there on Thursday night. I can literally barely see!
So tomorrow is my first real day of watching the two new kids I'm gonna watch. You can read more about it at my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe, if you want! The good thing is I will barely ever actually encounter their mom, since I'm going to pick them up after school each day, and someone else will pick them up and take them home at the end of the day!
I'm homesick for Diana's house now. I shoulda just gone there. But I still got some homework to do, plus I gotta put away my laundry, plus straighten out all my bags and stuff for tomorrow. Ugh! But it'll be okay, right?
Sorry this is gonna be a short post. Just passing through on my way to go finish the laundry!

Crapppppppy Crap Crap

2008-09-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

It is a horrid horrid horrid horrid night and I am trying awfully hard not to fall apart. The day with the little kids was good but then after Jimmy and Diana came home all hell broke loose. It all started cause Abby got Treasure Box this week but then she wanted two treasures instead of one, and kept arguing about it, so I told her she had to pick one or zero, and she picked zero. So later on she said she wanted to choose just one, and I said fine but not right now because now you're going to have to wait until I feel like going back out there, just because I wanted her to have to be a little sad that she had to wait for it now. Then it just went on and on and on, and Diana was getting mad at me, and Abby was being rude and went in the corner, etc, etc, etc.
Meanwhile Diana and Jimmy were tring to decide whether to go up to the fest in Wheaton, except it was raining, and finally during dinner Diana was still mad and then said she just felt like going by herself or with one or two of the kids because she didn't want to drag Hayden out. Abby said she wanted to go with so DIana said OK, and then Jimmy said I should go to, me, Nicki, should go, and DIana yelled "No!" and they got in a huge fight and Jimmy stormed out and drove away. Then Diana wouldn't talk to me and she got both the little kids ready and she left too. I dont know whaat I did so bad but I think it was partly because the other day Eric called me and But it all comes down to I'm just another person making diana miserble everyday just by being here. And now everyone is gone even the little kids and I thought Jimmy went to get Brandon but actually Diana went to pick him up an bring him with to the fest and not bring me and Jimmy not coming back an deveryone is mad at me and I didn' mean to do nothing. I try so hard to make evryone happy I swear I try so hard to do good things with the little kids, then I come home and I clean up the house and put out the garbage and make the kids do their chores and put away all the toys and try to make it look nice so the clutter wont make diana mad and sometimes she says i do a good job but i know its never enoug causethey still fight and get mad and then diana gets mad at me and its just like when i was a little kid, cause they are fighting and abby runs to me just like my little brother used to do, and i tell her dont think about it just think other things. And she was so rude today Abby was just right after diana came back, and i know diana thinks i'm starting to do a horrid job watching abby and brandon because they don't hardly listen.
I want really bad to rip my skin off and I NEED to but I am not, you would be so proud because I haven't at all, not even a little, because I dont want to not live ehre and not see the kids. even if everyone hates me at least i got them, and the y DO listen most of the time, its just when they get anxious and overwhelmed that they start snapping, just like everyone else.
Diana threw away abby's book, which abby worked hella hard on at school and drew all the pictures and was so proud of it and was gonna call her grandma and tell her she was an illustrator, and diana threw it away in the garbage cause she was mad, I took it out and put it in my backpack. I am so sad today and everyne hates me and i just wish was deead and tomorrow i have to go get MELISSA AND Maggie, i'm gonna take bran and abby and hayden wit me i hope but i can't bring the girls here because i think thats why she got so mad part of it anyway. But i don't have much money and i don't know wht to do with them and i think its gonna rain so we might just go to the mall.
please got let me feel better and not everone mad at meplease please please i always try don't I? I nver mean to make people angry but somehow I'm poison, i'm the devil, i wreck everything and make them all go away.

Diana Saves My Life

2008-09-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well she didn't really aave my life, but she usually manages to save my mind. My mind tends to spiral. Here are some instances.
For one thing, I had an Ipass notice, and when I looked it up on the computer it said I owed about a thousand dollars or something like that. Not owning one thousand dollars, I figured I'd pay it off little by little throughout the course of my life. But I never really have any money to spare, aside from the $300 I once sent them when I got my stimulate check from the government. So the fines tended to grow and grow. So Diana said she'd call them for me and try to straighten it out. She's much better at talking to people than I am. Diana called them and said she was my sister and that I have Ass-Burger syndrome (my original disorder before ADHD) and have trouble talking on the phone and keeping papers straight and things like that. So it turned out, I may not owe anything at all, because my big mistake was putting the wrong license plate number when I filled out the form for the Ipass! In fact, somehow I might be getting money back! Diana managed to straighten all that out for me. I guess I could have asked my mom to help me with it, but when Diana helps me I manage to still have my dignity, and instead of feeling like a huge failure for not being able to handle something, I just feel like a person who needs a little help with some things.
Another thing is, Diana can always talk me down from my spirals. She helps me see things better. For instance, when I am upset because my mom is always interrogating me about things (such as the Ipass thing, for instance, and my room being messy, and things like that) because of my disability and my history of my mom threatening to have me locked up or threatening to get custody of me and be in charge of me forever and things like that, when my mom interrogates me or yells at me or even gives me advice, I feel very threatened and nervous. But Diana talks to me and reminds me that everyone's mom does that, even her own mom. She says her mom always interrogates her on things like how she is taking care of the kids, and whatnot. Most people just sigh and put up with it because its their mother, but because of my past history I tend to think its a huge, threatening thing. Diana reminds me that I'm just a person like everyone else, I'm not even really dependent on my parents that much anymore, and I should just sigh and deal with my mom like everyone else does. Hearing Diana put it into normal perspective for me makes me feel much better about things.
So today I am having a pretty good day, even though my mom is at home, because she gets to take days off whenever she feels like it. I am going to clean my room today and throw a lot of things away. I'm going to get a lot of things done today in the six hours I have between right now and my night class. I am going to remember that I'm a grown-up, and even though I have a disability and need help with some things, I am really competent at other things, and I can get by on my own, and my mom is just a human being and not some all-powerful person who can have me locked up somehow.

I haven't been blogging as much in here lately because, between school and the kids, I've been pretty busy! I might get even busier, too! These two school-age kids are going to start coming over to be babysat by me after school. Plus some lady emailed me to see if her young kids could start coming in mid-October. By now, I'm starting to wish I could just take the little kids and not the school-agers, because the school-agers are presenting all sorts of problems. Not their behavior, but mostly their mom. They aren't allowed to eat anything with dyes, which is OK, but they also are not allowed to watch cable TV or play video games other than E-rated ones, or play video games at all for longer than 20 minutes. The reason that makes things difficult is that the kids in my house are allowed to do those things, so it will be hard to tell two kids that they aren't allowed to do what everyone else is doing. I'm going to try to keep them all busy with homework, plus plan afterschool activities and things, and hopefully give them all options other than video games and cable TV. We'll see if it works out.
Plus I have to go pick up the schoolagers every day. I have to get the boy from the bus at his house, and the girl from her school. This isn't a big problem, BUT, if the two littler kids start coming, the problem will be that I won't be able to fit everyone else in my car! As it is, I won't be able to fit Brandon! It will be like playing Tetris!
I figure, if the two little kids do come, I can have Brandon watch Abby for half an hour or so each day while I go pick up the school agers. I can wedge Hayden, the two school agers, and the two new little kids, into my car for that short ride. But if we ever wanted to go anywhere else, for any reason, we'd be screwed!
Oh well, it will all work itself out in the long run. I won't worry about it yet. Right?

School Daze

2008-09-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

So, last night was my first class at Roosevelt, and this morning was my second class! I have a third class tonight, and then on Monday I start my fourth class. So far, I like Roosevelt a lot! It was a really hard choice to transfer over to Roosevelt from Northeastern, especially because Roosevelt is a private university and costs a lot more. My financial aid covers most of it, luckily, but I was nervous that it wouldn't be worth it. Well, I have a really good feeling that I made the right choice, this time! The school is just much nicer than Northeastern was, and people in general are more friendly. At Northeastern there was always a feeling of being overcrowded. In classes, you were always elbow-to-elbow with the other people, and even having to steal chairs from other classrooms, or people would have to be sitting in the aisles or on the floor or whatever. Seriously! And the people in the different offices, the people who were supposed to help you, they were always rude and cranky. And so far at this school, people have been so friendly and helpful, and the classes are smaller and have more space. Its much nicer! I'm really happy about it.
Last night was my math class, which is actually a class about teaching math to kids. It was sort of fun because we got to do Tanagrams and things. Basically they teach us math in the same way that we'll be teaching it to kids, so that we understand it well enough to pass it along. The class this morning was Writing For Social Justice, which is a class where we'll be doing tons of research and essay writing. This is good, because writing is the thing I do best in school! Being able to write good essays has saved me from failing lots of classes. I think I'll get an A in that class, and learn a lot! Now the last two classes I have are History (tonight) and Health For Educators (tomorrow.) Its going to be a cool semester!
Tomorrow is also an exciting day because this lady and her two kids are coming over to meet me, Brandon, Abby and Hayden, and then the kids might start coming for after school care starting in a few weeks. I already wrote all about that in my other blog, Slow Down, Gym Shoe, so I won't bore you again with the details of that! Plus, this weekend the circus is coming into town, and in the morning I'm going to take Hayden over to the park to see the elephants raise the tent with their trunks! I hope its not raining then.
Well, I gotta go, because I got a lot to get done before my evening class tonight! See ya soon!

Here I am again!

2008-09-02T19:29:00.001-07:00

A little while ago I was getting more and more panicky about starting school tomorrow and not being able to spend as much time at Diana's. I was even in tears thinking about it! I don't know why it makes me so sad, but I think part of it is because this time of year, the feeling of starting a new school, the feeling of everything sort of shifting around me, etc, is similar to the circumstances when I had a huge nervous breakdown type thing two years ago when I tried to go to college at Southern Ilinois. I had my own apartment there and everything, it was beautiful, there were deer in my front yard everyday... and I lasted three days, because I just couldn't stop having panic and depression problems. Even now, when I think about it, part of me feels sad that I messed up and couldn't stay in that beautiful place with the deer, but part of me starts feeling panicky again just at the thought of being so far away and being all alone.
I guess its just the feeling of everything I love being gone, which has happened a lot in my life... you are relatively happy in life, you are with people you care about, and then it all melts away and you're left alone.
So I was feeling really sad and nervous, and then Diana called me and coincedentally cheered me up! She said BRandon had to do some sort of getting to know each other project at school, and for people in his family he mentioned me right there with his parents and sisters and everyone else! And Diana also said that Jimmy's mom called and mentioned that on Labor Day, when Jimmy totally hauled ass to go see his parents and didn't want the rest of us to come, that she missed everyone, and she even said me specifically! SO now I feel much better and more secure. I mean I feel much better! Everything is going to be okay. Right?
Now I'm getting ready to go up in my room for the night. My mom just got home from work now and ugh its not going well. She just keeps interrogating me. She keeps asking me things like, "Did you get your school books yet? WHy not?" Because I had mentioned before that I don't think my financial aid is going to cover everything this year. And I think she was trying to get me to ask her to borrow some money, so then she can say, "Oh, what, Diana and Jimmy aren't paying you, are they?" Which they are but I just suck at saving money. I told her I just didn't get them yet because I didn't go to class yet and I want to make sure of what books are being used. But actually, I had a plan. I went on the school's website and found out all of the books I need. Only my math book is a lot, its $172 or something alarming like that, but I found out I can check it out from the Schaumburg Library. I can actually check out the other books from there too! So its all good. And I can recheck them out as much as I can, or I can just wait until I can spare the $172. Perfect, right?
OK I'm gonna get going. But. By the way. If you want to help me balance out the $1,000 that apparently financial aid won't cover at this school (I guess because its not a state school) you can click on these articles. I get paid for writing them, about $4-5 per article, but I also get paid everytime someone reads them and rates them. So, if you see any that interest you, check them out! I will be adding more every day!

Girls with ADHD: A Different Kind of Deficit
Statistics show that boys are 3 to 9 times more likely than girls to have ADHD. Yet, in adults, ADHD occurs equally among men and women. Why aren't girls being diagnosed, and who is paying the price?
View more »

Angelo Secchi - the Scientist that History Forgot
Many people assume that religion and science contradict each other. But some of science's biggest discoveries were made by a Jesuit priest!
View more »

Reading to Infants and Toddlers - What and How to Read to Your Baby
Reading to an infant or toddler is much different from reading to a preschooler. But if you choose the right books, you'll be on the right path to raising a bookworm!
View more »
The Twelve Days of Summer by Jan Andrews
Don't just read this book to your child! Enjoy it together, and then use the story to do interesting projects together,
View more »
The Twelve Days of Summer by Jan Andrews
Don't just read this book to your child! Enjoy it together, and then use the story to do interesting projects together,
View more »
Creating a Sensory Box for Your Child
Some kids just love to get messy! A sensory box will allow them to get elbow-deep in messy fun!
View more »
Activity Themes for Family Fun
Use themes to come up with activity ideas for your whole family to enjoy!
View more »
Activity Themes for Family Fun
Use themes to come up with activity ideas for your whole family to enjoy!
View more »

You can also visit my Associated Content Profile to subscribe and get updated whenever I write anything new!

Life, As We Know It...

2008-09-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

I'm having sort of a rough day because tomorrow I start school. I like school and I'm happy about starting at Roosevelt, so thats not the problem. The problem is that I'm taking a lot of night classes. I have night classes four days a week. That means, most likely, I'll just be going back to my mom's after class on those four days, instead of staying at Diana's. I know it sounds like no big deal, but you know how I hate changes, right? So I've gotten so used to being at Diana's. My favorite part of the day is when Diana and Jimmy get home and everyone is together! And now, just when they get home, I'm going to have to leave, go to school, and then go back to my mom's. I don't know why I feel so sad about it but I just do. I mean its not like much ever really happens on weekday evenings, but I just like being part of the household. It can be really lonely at my mom's house, because usually they work late, and then when they get home they just want to watch TV, or my mom wants to interrogate me or yell at me about things. I'm just going to miss being at Diana's and being actually part of things. Last night I was practically having a panic attack when I was thinking about it!
Anyway this morning I woke up when Abby climbed onto the couch and hogged the whole thing, so I moved to the other couch, then Diana came out and asked to use the blanket I had, so I gave it to her and found another one, then Hayden came running down the hallway and yelled, "Ba-ba!" and pointed at the kitchen, so I picked her up and made her a bottle. I set her down on one end of the long couch to drink her bottle, and I lay down on the other end. Hayden chugged down her bottle like she was starving to death! Then she stood up and leaped across the couch to my end! I thought she was going to want to play for the next four hours, but she actually cuddled up next to me and went right to sleep in my arms. It was so sweet! I couldn't sleep much though because I just kept listening to her breathing and wondering if I should give her her puffer. (Hey, she really is a Pufferfish now!)
Over the weekend I took a lot of pictures of Hayden with my cellphone, mostly trying to entertain myself. In honor of Hayden being sick with RSV, I made a movie with all of the pics I took over the last few days. Check this out!

My Montage 9/2/08