The STFU post

I always try to hold my tongue and mince words....right. If you're easily offended, stop reading now because I'm calling this one the STFU post.

Once again autism moms are being bashed in the media for chosing not to vax their kids or vaxing on an alternative schedule. You don't have children so you've never had to make these decisions? Oh okay, you can stop reading, and STFU right here and now.

Both of my children were vaccinated, and both were damaged. They are both adopted and not biologically related so I have two cases of children damaged by vaccines, who have no biological link. So anyone one wants to try to argue that they are both genetically predisposed to have medical issues, you can stop reading, and STFU riiiiight....here.

One of my children became violently ill and AUTISTIC after he was hammered with his 15 month vaccines AND flu shots all at the same time, which collectively had enough mercury to poison a 150 pound person. At the time he weighed ohhhhh less than 30 pounds. This was back in 2001, when the govt realized that there was enough mercury in the vaccines to poison the kids and ordered the mercury to be removed, BUT didn't do a recall and allowed doctors to use up the vaccines they had on the shelves. These were the ones my child got. Yes, I know when my child became autistic. He was exposed to nothing else during this time frame so, yes I know what CAUSED it. So those of you who think that parents don't realize when a new stimulus is introduced and their child becomes damaged,  you are here! Feel free to stop reading, and just STFU.

Fast forward to 2005 when I got my baby girl. I didn't want to be this fanatical mother who didn't get her kids vaccinated so with Raven, I had her vaccines broken down into individual doses. She got her mumps vaccine with no issues. She got her measles vaccine the next month. It appeared for a few days that there were no issues, and she was doing fine. Then one night just before I put her to bed, I noticed she felt warm. In the time it took me to get the thermometer to check her temperature, she went into convulsions and had to be taken to the ER. At the ER, I told them she had the measles component of the vaccine a few days before and asked if that could be the culprit. Oh nooooo they said. It would have been an immediate reaction, not delayed. So I get on WVU's medial database to research this, and there are muliple cases of this happening days after the MMR, AND many children died because they had no symptoms of illness, their parents put them to bed, and they went into convulsions and died. Something like 30 percent of the kids who had seizures went on to have another one, and of those who had a second one, they had a high risk of developing seizure disorder for life. I think I read that it was 70 percent. (Those of you who blindly believe everything nurses tell you can STFU too. Don't get me wrong, I work with a lot of wonderful  nurses, and many of them are smarter than doctors, but there are those who are dumber than hell, and I have no idea how they got through school. And  you know it's true...)

So both of my children have been damaged by vaccines. The United States will not do the test to see if children have heavy metals/ mercury poisoning so I had to send my son's labs to France to get evidence that he has mercury poisoning that could have come from no source. (So there is some science that everyone seems to think it's okay to ignore. ) Yes, he has mercury poisoning that has damaged his brain, and he presents as autistic. One in 68 kids is autistic now. And look at the number of people with Alzheimer's (which looks a lot like adult on-set autism)  which I believe that years of mercury-containing flu shots have contributed too. Yes, vaccines help in a lot of ways, but it's undeniable that we have a lot of problems now that we didn't have years ago. China didn't have an autistic population until we started sending our vaccines over there. There is no autism in Amish communities. Why is it okay to ignore this but not okay to question studies that are funded by  pharmaceutical   industries and backed by our first-do-no-harm-but-if-you-do-first-cover-your-ass government? So those of you who think we are ignoring science, you can STFU too. Science is ignoring us. Studies can be produced to say anything. Anything.

And this recent measles outbreak...blame the concerned autism moms if you want. I understand that you have to have someone to blame other than authority because you are sheeple. But have you wondered why this outbreak started somewhere large and in the public eye, like Disneyland? It hasn't been news in any small towns, just BOOM! Measles in Disneyland! If all of the anti-vaxers were causing so much chaos across the country, why aren't you hearing about his in small towns everywhere. But the media fall out sure has turned the public tide against moms who are just looking out for their kids and has taken a lot of pressure off Big Pharma and Uncle Sam.

 Those of you who blindly trust the government can STFU too. There was a time when Uncle Sam thought it was okay to hand out small pox blankets. Draw your own conclusions, but it's time you fucking QUESTION.

Untitled 1/14/15

Maybe when the spring comes,

I'll roll out of here,

loud and wild like a thundercloud.

Clap my hands and shake the mountains,

shake your home.

But for now, I'm content

to be blanketed by the winter,

dropped into a void

like a tulip bulb

humming with potential

and ignoring the fact

that I'm only nurtured

with bullshit.

Maybe I'll bloom in the spring,

But maybe I'll stay hidden in the dark,

content to be a dud.

You'd forget about me.

You'd drop your expectations.

Eventually, as with all of us,

only the earthworms will remember. 

The ancestors want white poinsettias and lights...

The problem with being psychic is that you're a puppet. I don't know what are really my ideas and which ones have been given to me by whoever comes through. And sometimes what I think I want is in contrast to what the ancestors request.

Every year I put out pictures of the ancestors along with some lights, and I put out the manger scene. I went to get the manger scene down this year, but the ancestors want white poinsettias and white lights instead. They told me to leave the manger scene in the box. And I know why.

I got a small set of lights and  searched several stores for the fake white poinsettias. I can't have the real ones because they are poisonous to cats. Apparently no one has the fake ones anymore. Every time I can't find them, I tell the ancestors it's pointless. They tell me the flowers and lights draw them and bring them peace and will bring me peace. The manger scene, on the other hand is broken. It, like just about everything else in this house and in my heart and in my soul, has been fractured thanks to autism.

 I've been restless over finding these flowers. Finally tonight, after another evening spent searching, I tell the ancestors I give up. We'll have the lights. Then they show me a picture of the flowers they speak of, white poinsettias on an ivy vine, in a tub in the basement. It may be dirty, tucked away in a tote, neglected, but you have what you're searching for already. 

That is just one example of the kinda crap that drives me crazy, and that's just the stuff that comes from my people. There are all these other folks who come, especially if the deaths are tragic. They want answers or have a story to tell, and psychics are the path of least resistance, an outlet.

 The more I read books about spirituality, religion, or magic, the more it stirs these folks up.  This kid from Sandy Hook came to me today. Emilie Parker. I had completely forgotten about that anniversary coming up until she popped up. I had been reading a book about magic, and out of nowhere, she pops up and spells her name. That's how she came to me the night that tragedy happened. All of those babies came...

They came rushing into my room, ushered in by their teacher. I could hear the rustling of their lil feet, and I could hear their whispers. It all happened so quickly that they didn't even realize what happened. The way one of them put it: "He's going to open the door and hit us." This other kid tried to explain to me what happened. He said something like, "The world was over there, and it got picked up and shaken like a snow globe and put back down over here."

None of the kids mentioned their names, but then Emilie popped up right beside my bed, nearly nose to nose with me and such a beautiful child. I don't think I've seen a child with more mesmerizing eyes. This angel came to give me validation that this was a psychic visit and not just a nightmare. She said, "I'm Emilie, but it's spelled differently. E-M-I-L-I-E. You'll see it later, and you'll know." She spelled her name a couple times, trying to force me to remember..

The next morning, I called my mom and told her about the dream. When she got the paper later, she found my Emilie. When I saw her picture, I knew it was her.

These visions, dreams, voices come through sometimes in what seems like random fragments, but it's all connected, like the string of lights, like the white poinsettias on the vine the ancestors were trying to show me. 

This time when she came through, she wasn't rushed or stressed or anything. It was more like a playful thing. Her small voice just coming out of nowhere, spelling out her name again. It gave me chills (this is why I'm always cold), but she only wants us to remember.

I hear you, baby, and I promise not to forget.
http://www.wptv.com/news/news-photo-gallery/sandy-hook-victims-names-list-photos-bios

P!NK

Pink

Listening to Pink

makes me want to throw

a girls-only party,

complete with tutus

and wine and chocolate

and chips and dip

and have human male piñatas

(menatas? penisnatas?)

and beat the hell out of them

with big sticks

while we talk about

how they've beaten holes into us

and made all the good spill out,

leaving only fancily decorated, cracked shells. 

What I find in the Attic

4-5-14

What I Found in the Attic

I found some pictures today when I was cleaning the attic. They were pictures of my great-aunt Glenna and her husband, Paul, taken by Charleston Newspapers and mailed to them along a card thanking her for participating in an interview. Apparently they had interviewed housewives asking if they used a budget. Here was her quote:

"No, I don't fool with one. I found that I spend it all anyway, so I don't worry about it. I spend all my husband's money and save mine for a rainy day. A budget is supposed to be used to tell you how much to spend. In my case, it would just be a record of how much I've spent."

I can hear her say this. She was such a spitfire, always wound up over something and in stark contrast to her husband's mellow personality. I loved them together. I think my first love was falling in love with their love.

Their last name was Darlington, and she called him by his initials, P.D. Everything that was his (flashlights, tools, etc) was labeled with his initials. His initials were  also on the gifts that he'd bought for her, I guess because she didn't want to forget that he was the giver. She kept every Valentine's candy box, every birthday and Christmas card, and I still have them in his military trunk. She just signed her cards "me".

As I mentioned, she was wild. Her favorite expression was, "Somebody oughta slap the shit outta (fill-in-the-blank)." It pertained to whomever she was upset with that day. She would watch the news, see a story about child abuse, and exclaim, "Now! Somebody oughta slap the shit outta anyone that could hurt a child!" Or she would be watching a talk show and call out, "Somebody oughta slap the shit outta any woman who has four men that could be the daddy of that baby."

She thought that the president, the governor, local politicians, and the water commissioner needed the shit slapped out of them from time to time. When city water came to the holler, she fought hard to not hook up to it and to not pay extra for sewer hook up. I remember her going to every meeting of the Armstrong Creek Public Service District to slap them with her opinion on the issue. I also remember that when she flat out refused to pay, a policeman came and P.D. had to sign their paperwork. I was sure they were taking him to jail.

P.D. took all this in stride. He would meet her rants with quiet replies:

" Now, Glenna."

"Well, I declare."  

"A fellar has a time." Sometimes he would just chuckle.

They did their own thing, and neither of them cared what others thought. In the summertime, he would sit on the porch in just his boxers, and she would wear only a pair of shorts and a bra. They didn't rush to throw on clothes if company was coming. You found them as they were. Glenna cleaned house about twice a year, and they only washed dishes once a week.

But when they did wash the dishes, they always did it together, and it took them most of Saturday night. When she did clean the house, she was very meticulous and would "take out a room" and clean everything in it before putting it back. And even though they sat around the house in their underwear or thread-bare rags, when they did dress up and go out, nobody could exude more class. He wore a fedora and three-piece suits. She could look like a 1940s movie diva. They complimented each other so well. They balanced each other out.

 I've written about them many times, but I don't know that I've ever truly captured them. Maybe they fought. Certainly they did, but I never saw it. They never had kids, but all the kids wanted to hang out at their house because of slow-paced peacefulness they created. Sit on the porch in your underwear for hours drinking beer in the summertime. Hole up in the winter and cook fried potatoes, biscuits, ham, chocolate fudge. She didn't cook big most of the time, but when she did decide to, it was a feast.

They gave me all my ideas about what is supposed to be, a fairy tale. Something that probably wasn't as perfect as it seemed, but my heart can't be convinced of that. My childlike inner self will not allow my adult mind to whittle away at the perfection I've created for them. I measure my own relationships against theirs and come back disappointed. It's not my fault, and it's not his either, but it's not there.

My mind is the attic where I keep these things. Tucked away, protected, untouchable. The basement of my soul, my foundation, is so penetrated by these roots. Penetrated and anchored. Anchored but tied down. I don't know if I can ever leave this house, this land. I don't  know how much of me is me and how much of me is them.

I've spent my adult life searching for, homesick for, something that may have never existed in the first place, and not surprisingly, I've failed. My path is like new vine clinging fiercely to old branches. Branches that died long ago, that would have fallen away and gone back to the earth had the vine not clung so tightly. But the vines are magical and strong. The fairies come out at night and thread those vines along the branches. I know this to be truth because she told me so. I can't let that go.

1/11/14

The sunlight of your spirit
popped behind winter's clouds.
I, who was used to the warmth on my cheeks,
am cut by the record lows, am bone weary.
I should've never closed my eyes.
I should've listened to the forecast.

Hey! Jesus Lizard! Fetch me another daiquiri!

Being compelled to create something constantly that no one may ever want, that no one may ever read, being obsessive-compulsive about needing a writing schedule when there are a million other things that need to be done instead, takes its toll. Being a writer really fucks with your head sometimes. I see why writers go swimming with rocks in their pockets, stick their heads in gas ovens, and any other crazy shit they've done.

I hit a low this morning and went walking four miles in the rain to cheer myself up. I imagine jumping off the bridge into the calm, green river. I imagine taking a whole bottle of pills and climbing into a bubble bath. I wonder if either would be enough to do you in or if it would just fuck your head up really good and make someone else have to change your diapers for the rest of your life. I'm not contemplating my own suicide, but figuring out how to kill off characters. I have killed off characters with the pills and the bathtub before. I'm undecided about the river. I think he would survive that so I'll blow him up in a truck instead.

I'm constantly trying to work things out. In traffic, on the way to work, I picture a million ways the car could crash, spin out of control, flip upside-down on the railroad tracks. If one tiny patch of road decides to be icy, if a semi comes over on a car the size of mine,  BOOM! I see the whole explosion. And I like speed. Speeding is the closest thing to flying, and once I'm flying, I'm in the zone. My head starts making up stories to entertain myself, and the only thing that can pull an ADHD kid out of an imaginary lala-land  is something that sparkles or flashes or makes sudden noise...like blue and red lights with sirens.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"No, last thing I remember doing was closing one eye and  using a pincher grasp to pretend I was moving that airplane across the sky. And now I've lost my airplane. So thanks for that..."

Voices, characters, ideas that demand attention swim in my head all the time, and when I tune in to them, I'm completely oblivious to the real people who are standing there, telling me things that I probably need to know. The playful folks and children do get through to me. My energy just latches on to theirs. Like my 9-year-old daughter telling me that she's worried that the solid-black cat is not sleeping well because he has dark circles under his eyes. She says she can tell he has dark circles because his eyes are puffy underneath. She also says that if she looks close enough into the solid-black fur, she can see his stripes. That cat is blacker than the ace of spades. There are no stripes. If you point this out to her, she will shrug her shoulders and say, "Well maybe he's a panther (pronounced pan-fur)." There is always an explanation that is not what is. The escape from reality. Thank Jesus.

And speaking of Jesus. Tonight at dinner my mind started fixating on Jesus lizards, and if we could had one, what all could we make him do. I thought about his for a while before I blurted out mid-dinner conversation about god-only-knows-what, "Hey! If I had a Jesus Lizard, I could be like: Hey! Jesus lizard! Go turn off my bath water. Or I could float on my raft in the pool and be like: Hey! Jesus lizard! Go bring me another daiquiri."

My daughter joined in: "Or I could say, 'Hey! Jesus Lizard! Find me the soap.'"

"I'd make my Jesus lizard help with the dishes. I'd say, 'Hey! Jesus lizard! Turn down the hot water! Bring me a dish towel!.'"

We were giggling and having a good time and drawing mean looks from this evening's church crowd, when her dad brought up reality again.

"Just because he can walk on water, doesn't mean he'd be able to turn off your bath water or carry heavy things," he said.

"Yeah," I said. Game over.  The kid and I sat there for a while like little deflated balloons. "But how do you know what he can do? You've never had a Jesus lizard."

"Can we get a Jesus lizard for a pet, Mama?"

"You Google that, baby, and let me know."

The waitress came over and brought my salad. We had waited forever. "I'm sorry the food is so late!" she said. "Do y'all like brownies?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm gonna bring  y'all some brownies."

Ok and I nodded and thanked her, but in my head was screaming: Yes! Bring me a special brownie with the "salad" already in it. Wink, wink.  Or: It's a good thing  you offered me a brownie cause I was about to flip this table over, smash some dishes against the wall, and stomp in  your windpipe with my boot. But that brownie is gonna fix everything.  

Nobody would choose this lifestyle: Your head running circles and working overtime for no pay, while you are struggling to find time to write down what is being said because you just can't not.  If I got to choose, I would be content sitting on the couch all day, watching soap operas, and napping with the cat. I would work one job that pays the bills and be happy with that. Maybe I'd meditate without voices in my head making up perverted poetry or telling me who needs to be killed off next and how it's going to happen.

I read an article on writing recently that said as an affirmation, you should tell yourself daily that you are a writer no matter what. It doesn't matter if you are published. It doesn't matter if you have an agent. It doesn't matter if you are  making money at it. If you must write, then you are a writer no matter what. It can't be helped. (Oh sure, with medication, maybe, but that would make you not really you, and then who would you be?) So I guess this is my long-winded way of saying that nothing is ever going to fucking change, even though it's a new year. Happy New Year!