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Has there ever been something you saw other people do that looked so easy, but seemed impossible to master, some skill, some common thing, like playing guitar? I started teaching myself in 2002.
It took me 24 years to learn to play the guitar chord F and strum to the beat. I have actually been practicing off and on for that long! Many times I thought, It’s a mystery how other can play “F”! How can my hand make this shape? It’s unnatural. I would’ve given up if not for knowing that so many people can do it. One thing william likes to script is, NEVER GIVE UP. He’ll say it back and forth with me or anyone (?) on repeat. Never give up. Ok. I won’t. I want to though. Never give up. With Autism I know that whatever a person says is something someone in the life has said to them, or is still saying to them. Who says, Never Give Up? The F chord itself never gave up on me. It was always waiting to be the 4 in my 1,4,5.

1 Special, Special Needs Aide/Companion of 1 Special Young Adult

I woke up rested! Yay. I remembered that by the end of my time with William yesterday, we were holding or touching hands again, almost constantly. He started leading me around again, bouncing between locations in the house and activities, including the bathroom. His hands are super soft, and smallish because he doesn’t use them for anything but making small fists and punching himself when he’s too frustrated. For this he has a nice, soft helmet to wear, which helps a little bit. This is for sure the hardest part of working with or having kids with Autism, the aggression that’s usually SIB. Some kids also attack care-givers (head-butting, biting, pinching are common), but parents and caregivers REALLY hate to see the SIBs and will do almost anything to avoid them. Usually they give in to a request that they’ve been trying to deny or wait (sometimes you HAVE to wait, like the thing you want literally isn’t there), and they don’t seem to understand that. Where things and people come from, and why, can remain a mystery. And William was probably mystifed that I reappeared after disappearing a few years ago. But he accepted me back. I said some of his favorite scripts and we got to rocking together, smiling with eye contact. We sang happy birthday to him (not his birthday) and I knew to pretend to blow out the candles as we put our hands together. “make a wish!” I know after a year or so with him, I had been trying to push him and his mom to be a little more flexible and resist some of the demands, and I got frustrated. I was spending too much time with him, like long shifts into bedtime. I wanted him to stop gesturing for me to help him blow/pick his nose with tissue, and go the hell to sleep! You keep saying the goodnight script back and forth, but his eyes keep opening back up, or he starts bouncing his leg. When he knows you WANT him to sleep, he cannot. My kids at school were like this too. If they know you WANT them to leave the room, then they’ll stop, and come back in, or stand in the doorway prompted more negative feedback. But last time I worked for William’s mom, I was also working as an RBT, and they’ll all about pushing, versus accepting. They truly believe you can modify dangerous behaviors of people with autism by training them away from it. I don’t think you necessarily can. You can’t even train an alcoholic away from alcohol with sex. And alcohol is just a disease, not an entire brain setup. Although it becomes one. Okay, odd comparison. William hasn’t ever shown any signs of sexuality. His mom said it’s because of all the medication he takes. Also, such a thing as ACES exist. I’m on that continuum of pretty, pastel flags. So holding hands with William isn’t weird, it’s like as with a twin. But I can realize that this is healthy for me, to have human contact. Maybe I also need an achor person! My pets are my anchor, now. That’s why I wish I could bring my dog everywhere. Once I asked to bring my dog to work with William but they said no. Lots of allergies. Let’s all pray to the Cardi B that I find a way to make cash from home enough to live on and care for my anchorage. You know the worst part of onlyfans? You have to socialize and network to grow your paying audience. the horror!

Freedom a little shakey Such a different Sunday than the winter Not worried about writing lessons Going out and about And reuniting with a kid, young adult, call him William I used to be his part-time care-taker/companion and his mother hired me again I haven’t seen William in over 2 years! We both gained weight I have short hair now but I remember exactly how to hang out with him and he was smiling and happy by the time I left He was like a zombie at first But we did some reading of favorite books, listening to favorite songs, singing together (basically the stuff I do as a teacher, but at home), and helping with Acts of Daily Living. William hates to use his hands for anything. That’s pretty common. He’s very strong and very smart. He barely sleeps. So his mom barely sleeps and stepdad doesn’t sleep as good as he would with his wife so someone else needs to be with William He needs an anchor person He freaks out when not attached to the anchor and when the communication fails or doesn’t succeed Like we don’t know what he wants and neither does he He just knows everything feels terrifying (anxiety) and no one is helping and he’s alone in that. His parents are saints, really. His mom is pretty amazing. It felt great to be working for her again. She’s so smart. Also beautiful. And humble. So I’m probably gonna work for her 25 hours a week or so for the next couple months at least. I don’t even mind wiping William’s butt, and usually I get weird about stinky situations and nudity. But William is like a male version of me in some ways that’s hard to explain. We actually do look alike. We both have small, gap teeth in our smile.

Then all I need to do is get another PT job that ideally I could do from home. Some type of gig work. Or customer service.
I was wanting to try being a baker in the bakery, and applied 3 times, even went there (bomb ass bread). Wow that sourdough bread is perfect. But with William we were reading “In the Night Kitchen,” where Mickey floats away toward the moon and brings the milk to the bakers for the morning cake, and I realized “Awake all night… the bakers life… I can’t work past midnight, facts. They probably also pay less than 20/hour. It probably won’t work out.

I think it’s okay to only have a 1-2 month plan right now. I love hanging out with William, and it’s easy most of the time. I definitely got frustrated with him before, but his parents are always around, and I can get them, and we can all feel frustrated together.

I also went to see this Palestinian American activist named Naora, actually I forgot her name, but she was off the charts amazing It was so inspiring and real It was an the university I got lucky with parking.

Antichristianity

When I was age 9 or 10, my family talked about getting a dog, but somehow i started worrying, that the dog we got might be, disguised, the actual Antichrist, mostly based on lessons in Childrens’ Church, and I remember worrying about this while falling asleep Upstairs in the bedroom with the low eaves that we shared, my sister asleep having her own worrysome dreams and dreamy worries. Now I know that there are at least a half dozen Christs, and twice that many Antichrists, and they only come in human form. Their disguises are pathetic. They’re easy to identify, but hard to kill. The church officially called Christ’s teaching heresy and after they killed him, they set to killing anyone spreading ideas like that: love, brother and sisterhood, equality, equity, abolition of slavery- those ideas make us terrorists to them.

Last night, I was doomscrolling, thinking about how IDK if I can take much more of THIS. Overwhelming, endless bad news, no end in sight. No justice on the horizon, no leaders that can lead us, we can agree, I bet that it looks dreary and firey as hell. The depression resulting from KNOWING that this many people need rescued (including us) and they’re double tapping on help vehicles that might try to arrive with service that could help us sustain the wounds (especially those ones that are low-impact over stretches of interminable time, with loss after loss piling up, skeletons, remains and absolute treachery. I’ve never felt so rapable, so killable, so silencable, so female before. I’ve never understood until this moment that poor people aint shit to them. Like, “go throw the bodies in the lake, son. Nah, even the crawdads won’t want em.” I wasn’t sure before if I mattered in the scheme of powerful things, and now I see where we stand, face to fucking face with tanks. I escaped through movies a lot over the years, but escape is a (forgiveable) waste of time. Beauty can be a blinder for people. Everyone likes you when you’re pretty, so you don’t see how cruelly ugly people treat each other. Last night before I went to sleep, thank God I saw that AI or modified (in some way) video of the Pope Leo kicking Trump’s arse in the MMA fighting ring?! Man, that pulled me out of the doomscrolling zone. I watched it like 15 times. Then I fell asleep and dreamed that there was violence between a childhood friend of mine, Melissa, and someone else (also possibly Melissa, but my ex-girlfriend Jamila was an idea in this dream that I woke with). So Melissa kept attacking someone, or someone kept attacking her. At first I was laughing, I liked it. The person who got punched deserved it. Stupid mf. They were asking for it. Then Missy threw a few more punches, and it was like whoa whoa whoa, let her get up…. let her get up. But we couldn’t get away from Missy. Realizing I was staff, I tried to call for help, but goddamn if Missy kept finding us and attacking Missy again. Melissa was a best friend of mine in 1986. We were little kids and we were also “lovers?” We’d played little girl games. Now Melissa is a staunch republican and has a different name, and she’s not Pissy Missy anymore. And no one bullies her anymore. And I don’t hurt her feelings anymore. And I also can’t save her.

Migrant bloggers! I’m starting to consider taking down my substack, but it stinks! Why’d they have to ruin it? They ruin fuckin everything. Who’s They? The owners of everything we try to use for connection, sharing knowledge, and socialization. They have to pour poison down its throat. Pretty soon they’ll come and ruin this, ruin any chance of using the internet to express humanity. Goddamit. Who are these Nazis that substack purportedly platforms? Are they really getting inshitificationed? Are they going to shit on us? I didn’t know Nazis could write more than a few sentences, so Idk how the hell some Nazis joined substack. And I heard they (substack) are platforming (new verb) what’s his name: Tate? Some asshole. Well, so much for that. I’ve written so many blogs, and I saved a lot of them. I want to download my shit on substack and sign off for good. But I got my family to get on there to follow me and now they like it! This process and wherever you are in it, it’s easy to look back at people, even your own family, who’s a few steps behind you (still has Amazon Prime, still shops at Target, doesn’t hate Elon Musk, uses ChatGPT to look up the easiest shit, enjoys convenience if the price of it isn’t obvious and they can ignore it for awhile longer. Then you’re out here like a lunatic— don’t shop there!@. don’t use that! And people are like (rightly so), don’t fuckin judge me. but we should keep judging them. because people who judged me got through to me. This was partly possible because I’m so wishy washy (like soap), and have the audacity to cast off old skins. I’m willing to change. And even change back. My core (whom I can hardly know) is essential and timeless (whatever time is). Anyway, is it my own wish for convenience that I don’t want to delete my stuff on substack instantly? Well, yes. I’ll get to it. Because I get to things! Everyone in my family gets to it, even if we’re extremely defensive at first. Words repeat in my head. The worms of my brain work independently, and for free.

Dear Jason Noyes,

(An elegy/ode to you, or to Alcoholism, and to couples that drink in the dawn of each day)

Hi buddy, hi love… Jay Jase. How’s it going for you in heaven? Skateboarding with the homies, bourbon on ice, and swimming with sharks every day? Did Young Money join you yet? (your Frenchie, he loved you). Young Money was a good boy. I couldn’t believe you left him.

I COULD believe that you left me. I never expected anyone TO stay with me. Or did I leave you first? I did. fuck. I’m sorry. I had to, though.

My bottom line was homelessness.

I can’t be homeless, man. But I could answer when you call me on the cell phone (the free one they gave you), flirting, drinking out of a paper bag in the cold (it’s not allowed in the shelter), and asking me to come back to Brooklyn. (Hell no).

I enjoyed arguing with you about life, and being a little scared of you. I liked making you a little scared of me. Because I deserved to feel these things after All the psychic molotov cocktails I hurled at the chain of receding threats, threatening me with love.

I wasn’t the chic who was sexiest or the most cool or fun, but I was your last commitment. The gay one. The dyke. The mean one. Remember me? We were friends more than anything. Not good friends, more like frenemies. Like Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie. No, like Gaga’s, “Bad Romance.”

No, like “Bar Flies,” starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Watching it together, laughing. Girl, don’t eat the green corn.

I still start every day grinding beans for coffee, adding cream, and sugar, honey, or syrup.

Then, after I write for awhile, some hours, (unless I have to go to work), I mix Cutty Shark or similar blend of scotch with seltzer water and orange juice, just a small one. Then I’ll write a bit more, or walk my dog, and then I might nap.

Around 2pm, I wake up and make this drink again, this time with green, Indonesian kratom powder- real caffeine.

Yeah, I still smoke good herbs, too. It’s still sad how we don’t stop.

Can sad be funny?—like your choosing the bottom shelf, plastic, Gallon of Evan Williams. Clinking ice in the glass, 10 AM, had the both of us feeling optimistic. We’d be cracking jokes, me trying to hug you. When I let you hit the joint just once, you became convinced that I’m a dude because you were crazy. You said, You can just tell me, I promise I won’t be mad.

[My mom keeps saying that I’m an alcoholic. I think that she’s just as bad as me, and should worry about herself while I worry about me.]

I love my favorite drink, and so did you. And anyone who loves a drinker

can tell you: second place is the place you take to the drink.

I liked second place. I didn’t want first place. I wouldn’t win first place. I wasn’t going for that. This was something unspeakable that needed to be. So in the beginning, I brought a Irish coffee to you at your job. We stood sipping them behind the moving truck.

I don’t love Irish Coffee, but it was my lie to you saying: you can drink with me. Which changed, naturally. If you die, we can’t drink together!?

I don’t know what I was going for. I didn’t care, I guess. It was stupid of me to marry you, and everyone knew it. You knew it. You did it for me, anyway. Tiny black diamond ring. Or was it for you? Afterwards, we clung to it, but marriage is a technicality afterall. And so is getting divorced.

4 or 5 years later (I try not to remember the year), To this morning, if I could, I would text you in the city Saying, WYD, HYD? With a decent picture of me going *cheers Title it, I still love you, babe.

There’s another Jason Noyes out there, a commercial photographer You were an artist, but a bastard and a drunk. That guy (who’s still alive) shoots things like stock footage for sale. Your photography was radically humiliating. It was porn (can porn be art?)

Of me and everyone else. And I hope all the film was destroyed when your family’s basement flooded. But if someone finds it, the better for the legacy you’d want. Your photography was sex, that’s what you made, that’s what you wanted to sell.

But I saw your childhood pictures in Baltimore. And that’s the kid I recognized in your smile. That’s who I believed in, not you per say. And not me, either. Being losers together was companionable, and I’ll always miss you, Jase.

Not your temper or your ignorance and ego, but your silliness, and humility, where we were both kids, trying to figure this sex thing out, or not Until basically I told you, Go Watch Porn or Something, Leave me alone and you did, thank you. Or you didn’t, thank you, for that, too. I don’t think I was any more gay than you. Maybe I am. Who cares, anyway?

And do you see Mitch Hedberg on the regular up there? Now amongst bad angels you play.

MAIN IDEAS

good main ideas for writing:

-This information is funny or amusing -This information is valuable and why -other people will get something out of this -compare and contrast somebody else’s ideas or different writers (grad school thesis type essay -Here’s why you shouldn’t do this or that -Here’s a perspective or angle that’s not really out there so far -Here’s a description of something I saw, tasted, *insert sensory -Here’s a troublesome concern -Ode to something I value -Ode to someone or group of people I value -Anything about animals

bad main ideas:

-ransome notes -Look how funny and smart I am -How everyone hates you and you’re worthless -Look how stupid this person or these people are -Look at how we’re *better in some way -You should be scared of this and worry about it, too -Why you should buy this thing or service that you don’t need -Why people don’t deserve welfare

wild dogs can’t be broken

I dreamed about a fairy dog who started as a kitten no leash, in the city I worry for her and pet her and she grows under my hands and eyes into a tall, lean afgan or russian grayhound. or a whippet, but undernourished, like a rescue but with airy, celestial hair (someone’s beloved)

The fairy dog was magical and as soon as it grew into young adult size (within a matter of 10 or so seconds), it bounded away from me, wildly. There were other small kittens and potential pets in the dream, And I’m all of them, Think how I crashed out and got fired last week I may be starved of care and nourishment, I may have been running a marathon for these kids in the orphanage showing up every day and not taking a break to pee I was chained up there to my salary and to profit-based non-profit rules and regulations, the first of which is, don’t show your humanity Don’t show your animal nature. That you need to rest or eat or that you’re scared or that something warrants flee, freeze, or fight or barking if nothing else, but not calmly continuing on like that bearing everything patiently, marching toward a dead end wall: salary dead end. “Oh get more degrees…”. No. Work harder in some way! No. Put in more time. No. Get 2 jobs.

no.

Who says no? The executive director of my personhood. We have retired from formally teaching students under 18. We didn’t quit because of the kids, though. But we won’t do it anymore.

I find myself humming around the house. Petting my pets for hours. Gazing at the wall, watching sunlight and shadows. Rent will always be due, and I could pay more than I’m worth for taking a few weeks on loan (but I do pay taxes, so UC was mine to begin with, or something)– It’s not fraud. I need food, housing, and health care to survive.

Even if I fucked up! Even if I crashed out! Even if I said things most adults would dread to yell, like a crazy case of tourette’s or something, I was shameless. Swearing at kids smfh.

It wasn’t all my fault though. to the bitches i left behind i wana say (you know) FUCK YOU BITCHES always on your damn phones fuck you guys couldn’t watch the kids for 10 minutes when i’m there i was doing too much angelic, insubstantial, skeletal

and that is what i’m done with psychologically, most of all. I’m ABOSLUTELY NOT AI. don’t want to be, never will be. Deal with humanity. Like the “New Deal” … make jobs and income… fuck. IT WOULD BE SO EASY FOR THEM, TOO. THE MONEY to improve our lives by 500% would be pennies to them. to the rich, of course. the ones who still think that they can make us like them. scare us enough. they never try another strategy.

they’re mud and we’re horses

Don’tcha know, I’m talking about a revolution! Sounds like a whisper. Poor people gonna rise up and take their share/take what’s theirs. (t.c.)

Meanwhile, Reasons to change professions: No one would hire me if I actually tell them what I said The job is too hard I’m not healthy doing this job (teaching) I hate America Barely making ends meet anyway

so then what!? I was in control for over a year, at least, of mostly good behavior not swearing or being rude to anyone. I did so much better with … what… surviving my teammates. Teammates. I tried. Over a year ago, I truly believed I could avoid this by trying harder. In the spring, something inside me changes. I turn unpredictable, I’m depressed, I’m nasty. I lose patience. I hate men. I hate working. I hate driving. I hate my boss. I hate my teammates. And apparently I hate my kids. DO all adults lose it with kids sometimes? Maybe so. But there are levels to what they say and do. And kids can remember it forever. I remember my parents getting mad at me. My parents were mad a lot, it seems Maybe all parents are. I’ve not been able to control my anger in the workplace in spring. Spring I’m like, fuck you. and fuck trump and every stupid patriarchal hierarchy fuck school and shit i stop giving afå but that lands me here. I’ve tried a lot of women’s work jobs. I hate them all. Receptionist wasn’t too bad, but I was rude there, too. Although, maybe all receptionists are secretly rude and hang up on people on a bad day? I had a really bad day, from the inside out, and from the outside in. The school is terrible. I’m glad to escape. Dreary depressing sick making place. Laurie says I should work from home, and she’s pretty smart. Maybe that’s it. Maybe even leaving to go places is exhausting. And gas… 5/gallon. My car: 2-3 years left on it, if I don’t bang it up more. No prospects look great.