Diagnosis: Awesome

It's not my policy to respond to ignorance, except for the occasional, "I'm sorry, but you are hopelessly misinformed," when the occasion warrants it. So as the talk continues to fizzle over Michael Savage's assessment of autism, its fraudulence and overdiagnosis, I won't respond to it. I will simply relish the fact that as his insipid blather echoes across YouTube, autism awareness gains momentum, misunderstood children benefit, the ultimate irony materializes. ***

I think some more about what it is to overdiagnose a disease, and who are the ones who determine rampant overdiagnoses. Physicians? Statisticians? Or shock jocks living out their attention deprivation over the radiowaves?

I wonder if any of these people know what it is like to live with someone who is undiagnosed. What it is like to see your parents puzzled, grievous, blaming themselves when their son, who is perfectly verbal, smolders to a teary-eyed mess when it's time to go to pre-school, who bawls his eyes out at a parade, his hands covering his ears as the fire trucks blaze by, when all the other children are raucous, opening their shirt-tails for free candy.

***

I don't know what good Mr. Savage thinks could possibly come from telling an autistic child to man up and stop acting like a fool.

I only know that I watched my brother stand up proudly at his high school graduation last year, turning his tassel from one side of his flatboard cap to the other as he received his honors diploma, and then hugging all the people, the coaches, the teachers, his family who never ever gave up on a boy with autism. I wonder how he learned how to hug.

Happy 20th Birthday, Baby Brother.

She Gave Up Her Scrunchies for This Man

In every house, there is a certain drawer full of shame. I have to believe this is so. I must believe this is so, because the chagrin that the drawer chock full o' scrunchies in my mother's bathroom would be too unbearable should this cask be unique to my family. Years have passed, my parents separated, I went to college, the scrunchies drawer still remained. A sizable bathroom drawer, devoted entirely to ribbony, ruffley hair ties. No longer cool post 1994. In fact, I believe that movie with Toni Colette and Cameron Diaz, about the two sisters, what was that called? ::checks IMDB for verification:: Oh yeah, "In Her Shoes," well anyway. I think there's a line in there that says, "1994 called, it wants its scrunchie back." My mother never got the call. My mother is not one of those sentimental to a fault people, nor is she a true pack rat. She's just very busy. Not a busy body, her time is just divided and spoken for, and she doesn't get around much to projects like throwing away expired coupons, liquidating the garage of busted hoses, and TOSSING THE SCRUNCHIES FOR THE LOVE OF DEBBIE GIBSON.

My mother got remarried on Saturday. Lovely, lovely affair. I think she and her new hub are so happy together. BFFs with so much in common, it's just plain uncanny. Prior to the wedding, my mother informed me that she had "cleaned out the scrunchie drawer." Cleaned out as in totally evacuated all traces of scrunchiness. Except for the green one that she wore to Trader Joe's with me on Friday. It took everything I had not to say anything, like, please, can you not? Scrunchie it up? Since it was her special weekend and all. But now she's packing for her honeymoon and if that green scrunchie somehow makes it into her suitcase, I beg of you, please be kind to her. It's all she's got left of her life as a single girl.

***

Doesn't it look like my family doesn't want to formally annex The Others yet? I think we're just awkward.

Melissa Leigh Got Married Not Long Ago

The title of the chapter of my life's story, the chapter where college started to get good for me is called "Melissa," and therein lies an introduction to a sparkley-eyed lass with a quick smile and a heart full of compassion and hope. She, from Chautauqua, with the long hippie hair and the buckle sandals, would be my co-RA. And eventually one of my bestest girlfriends.Earlier this month, Melissa married her bestest boyfriend. It was a beautiful affair, marked by a comfortable kind of love, the kind that Melissa and her man Chris share, the kind that diffused to every hot molecule of air in that backyard in Chautauqua, where vows were said, where friends were reunited, where an abundance of blessings was palpable.