Dame Edna

I was a bit cross with the new pope, not because he isn’t perfectly nice but because he is zooming around Europe in the popemobile, which darling old Pope John Paul II had promised to me. He knew I adored it and it would have been the perfect vehicle for travelling around the United States on my next big tour. -- Dame Edna

Every time I hear that voice saying, "Hello, Possums!" I just crack up. And feel total delight honestly. Is that so wrong? Yes, I do love this wonderful transvestite, I really do. She's like that grandma/grandpa (?), neighbor coffee lady/man (?) that we all need. Now, Dame Edna, she knows the Power of Pure Ridiculousness. She really does. Look at that violet hair, look at those glasses! Holy cow, I just got glasses for the first time, and if I had had an opportunity to select from the "Dame Edna Collection", I would definitely have chosen these ones. "She" is just completely delightful in her mocking of our society, and yet when she leaves your television presence you feel lifted up. I think that may be some kind of endorphin feeling you get from total hysterical laughter. (Which is excellent, because then we don't have to actually EXERCISE to get that endorphin thing going. Whoosh! That was close!)

So, here I stand, proud in my love for Dame Edna, Phyllis Dillar, Rosemarie, and any other creature that I will find in the future who belongs in their category. These are my mentors, my television mothers, my friends that make it okay for me to be sarcastic and laugh at the difficult, stressful life that I have. We all NEED Dame Edna. Don't try to argue with me that we don't. You will be WRONG. (Actually, pretty much any point you argue with me will be ending in that same sort of way... Sorry...)

My son Alex, my sweet little boy of nearly 14, all 5'4" of him, yep, he's my height, is still a little boy in his heart. He does his best, going from class to class in jr. high. But, he's struggling right now. But, he doesn't have what most junior high kids struggle from. Acne? Nope-- he's got my skin, lucky dog. Nervous around girls? Not particularly. Wanting to dress cool? He's starting to care, I guess, but only to wear what he likes, not what's "stylin'". He could not care less about stylin', let me tell you.

So, what is my adolescent boy worried about? What makes him struggle? You'd never guess unless you were a Mommy of an adolescent autistic boy, who's trying so hard to fit in and understand this world around him that's still a lot more Mars than it is Earth. His biggest struggles, day in and day out at school are those five precious minutes walking from class to class in the hallways.

Now, for me, these moments were always priceless. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that these were pure opportunity for flirting with as many guys as I could fit into that five minute period. By the time I got to class, after getting my flirt on so much, I was EXHAUSTED. But, enough about me. This is about Alex.

The kids are loud, working hard to catch each other's attention without appearing to be trying to. That in itself is difficult to even type up. Let alone say it. Let alone explain it to Alex. He just knows it's LOUD. The boys, who are still not noticing the girls much, love this opportunity to fart, swear, belch loudly, and in all other "boy language" impress other boys. Which will lead to loud laughter and high fives all around! Yeah, man! Nice one! Suhhhhhhweeeeeeeeeeeet!!! How do I know this language, this BoySpeak? Four brothers. That alone should tell you. I have heard my share of adolescent brothers farting, swearing, belching, and doing other disgusting things billions of times. I'm sure there's a portion of my brain where all of that Boy Stuff is just tattooed in there. Never to be removed by any method, including electroshock or lobotomy.

But to Alex, who says "Excuse me" when he farts or belches, and doesn't recognize swear words, let alone use them-- he's still working on the basics of the English language-- this is just pure loudness and he HATES IT. It's TOO [DAMN] LOUD FOR MY BOY. Yes, I inserted the "damn". Alex would never use it. It's a biblical term, therefore, not in my swearing portion of language. That portion will be discussed at a later time. Just know, that any term, used in any biblical fashion, is fair game with me. No guilt required!

My boy, who's gotten used to walking between classes seven times a day, five days a week, has just gotten completely overloaded, not because it's loud, I think he's learning to tune that out as much as possible. What's hard, is that the kids, especially the guys, want to be HIS FRIENDS. Yes, this should be a wonderful thing! A marvelous thing! But, to Alex, these loud guys, who he generally likes, in quieter, more controlled settings, say different stuff and do different stuff between classes every day! For Alex, who likes his life to stay the same as much as possible (which is impossible, by the way), all of these different things they are saying, or yelling, or whatever, they are never the same, from day to day, between 1st period Monday to 1st period Tuesday. And so on.

You know, I just can't imagine, as a girl, and now grown woman (I'm trying to pull that particular image off while in public-- there's absolutely no maturity here to prove that...), how it would be to have the same friends say the very same things to me between the same classes from day to day, year to year. It doesn't make sense. And it would be incredibly BORING! It's the very changing, and unknown, unanticipated nature of this that makes it so exciting to kids of this age range, which they now medically refer to as "ADD", I call it KIDHOOD. Anyway, it goes against all that is normal in jr high and high school to have these things not be changing.

This nature of things, this normalcy, if you will, stresses him out, almost to beyond tolerating. He NEEDS sameness. He NEEDS quiet. He NEEDS to know what to expect, so that he can figure out what it is he's supposed to do in reaction. But, if the game keeps changing, how can he figure out what he's supposed to do? Well, how???

Let's just throw a sporting example out here, trust me it will suck, I don't know sports. But, if you were playing baseball, and one inning had three outs, and another had two and another had 12, and some games had nine innings and some had four and some had six, how would any of us know, players or their Mom's and Dad's, what on earth was going on? We'd be looking back and forth at each other, saying, "Didn't the last inning have four outs? What's going on? How many outs does this team get??? Oh, hold up, it's five outs, so maybe the next inning it's six?? Maybe???" The world in general would not tolerate this incessant changing for very long. Because there are some things that simply have to be played by rules, rules that we can count on, rules that we can be sure of.

Life though, is not that way. So, to Alex, who's trying so hard to play a part in life's games, like going to each class, there's just utter confusion at the lack of sameness. Once he thinks he knows what's up, the chair gets yanked out from under him, and it all starts again. He can NEVER figure it out. And he hates it. Do you blame him? I certainly don't. But, you also can't change all people in the world to function in a way that makes him comfortable. I often wish that I could. But, he is having to learn, in a painful way, how things change, and change, and CHANGE, AND CHANGE AND CHANGE!!! YIKES!

Now, I have made no inquiries about this, but I can be pretty sure that my good friend Dame Edna would be happy to loan Alex the Popemobile (is she ever gets ahold of it) to get between classes, just to get out of all of that confusion. For her it's the perfect vehicle for all the world to see her stunning self, doing her perfect "queenly" (oops!) wave. But, to Alex, this would just block out all the noise, all the confusion, all the changing from moment to moment, as the world goes around. In fact, I'm fairly sure that Alex, in all of his sweet naturedness, would probably offer other kids rides, or maybe just start mowing kids down in the halls, so they would get out of his way and stop ruining this trail from 1st period to 2nd.

My poor innocent baby. Truly. My heart breaks for him. My heart breaks even more that I cannot stand as sentinel for him, between classes, each and every day, and maintain a three foot radius around him so no one could bump him, attempt to speak to him, or throw off his schedule that he's so painfully trying to maintain. His entire level of equilibrium is constantly thrown off. There's just no way to fix it, except to try to help him learn to adapt. And adapting is THE MOST DIFFICULT element of autism.

Sure, my kids have learned to speak, and even express themselves well. They have great senses of humor. For them, they are already ahead of maybe 85% of other autistic kids, for which I feel incredibly blessed. I guess they were wired to be able to do that, despite the autism. It's certainly nothing that I can imagine I contributed to, besides talk up a storm every day of their lives. They may have learned to talk, just to make me stop talking. Totally possible, my friends. But, they still have autism. Even "high-functioning autism". But, no matter what title you put in front of AUTISM, it is still AUTISM. You can even say Asperger's Disorder, but baby, believe me, it's still AUTISM. And its painful. To my child, and to me, to see my child in pain.

There's nothing worse than knowing you can no longer protect your child from the world. Even if he needs protecting from really nice kids who just want to include him in the day to day moments.

Thanks, kids, for trying. Please, keep trying. And we will continue to work with Alex so that he can adapt yet again to something that will require him to do things in what he will interpret as completely backwards. Or Back-Ass-Wards as we like to call it. (You know "ass" was in the Bible! Get off your high horse!)

Finally, I will let Dame Edna have the last word--

"Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century."

AMEN.