breaking news about AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS!!!!

if you’ve been following my series post, i apologize for interrupting but this is VERY important to me. not only is augusten awesome but he is paving the way for any one that writes about their own life story. i support his efforts and love him to the moon and back.

****LAWSUIT VICTORY FOR AUGUSTEN****

my husband knows how much i love this man so he linked me to the cnn headlines about augusten’s victory. after reading it, i promptly sent augusten an email and then went to his site.

from his site, his statement regarding the outcome:

“I consider this not only a personal victory but a victory for all memoirists. I still maintain that the book is an entirely accurate memoir, and that it was not fictionalized or sensationalized in any way. I did not embellish or invent elements. We had a very strong case because I had the truth on my side.

Contrary to published reports, I did not reveal the family’s real name to any journalists, and I never intended to hurt their feelings. I was just telling my life story.

To clarify, Running With Scissors is still called a memoir. It always has been a memoir, and the family expressly agreed that it will continue to be called one. I was happy to substitute the one word “book” for “memoir” on the Author’s Note page, but it still says “A Memoir” on the cover, and will continue to be truthfully advertised as such. I was also happy to add an additional expression of gratitude to the family in the Acknowledgments, as well as to point out the fact that they remember things differently.

Not one word of the actual memoir itself has been changed or altered in any way. The text is exactly as I wrote it, intended it, and lived it. Running With Scissors was and continues to be the true story of my unusual and remarkable childhood.”

Bravo Augusten!!!

Much Love and Respect to you from me.

i’m going to walk for me, and for them

i had to take our dog and one of the cats to the vet yesterday. the cat was due for rabies and was having problems in the anus area. the dog was having an ear issue which i assumed to be allergies and my assumption was correct.

this post isn’t about the animals though and i want to get this pertinent information out to anyone interested.

while waiting at the vet’s office, i noticed a flyer announcing a community walk for a group called outofthedarkness.org. in a nutshell, this is their deal:

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research and education, and to reaching out to people with mood disorders and those affected by suicide.

By walking in the Out of the Darkness Overnight and the Out of the Darkness Community Walks, you will be helping to support the following:

• Research to improve the understanding of biological, genetic and psychosocial factors that contribute to suicide
• Suicide prevention on college campuses through the dissemination of an educational film, The Truth about Suicide: Real Stories of Depression in College
• National Survivors of Suicide Day conferences, which inform, assist and empower families and friends bereaved by suicide
• Development of national centers that will evaluate the effectiveness of suicide prevention treatments
• Creation of new survivor support groups and strengthening of existing groups through training
• Local suicide prevention programs

i haven’t participated on a “walk” in a very long time. i used to be a yearly diabetes and cancer walker but stopped due to the whole mom/wife thing.

you can visit the site and see if there is a walk in your area. i’m totally doing this one. it’s september 15th in charlotte.

i’ve lost two people to suicide and more to preventable circumstances. if i have anything to do with it, their lives will not have been in vain.

i will remember their names.

have you seen this bird?

he could very well be in your pantry now.

some of you may remember me mentioning trying to sell our parrot, angel. it is not an easy task, selling a parrot. nor is it easy donating a parrot.

i’ve contacted two places in which they place parrots (usually the parrots have been mistreated and develop nasty behaviors just like humans) but they are overloaded with umbrellas. in fact, they said no one should have ever removed umbrellas from their natural habitat. and umbrellas are the better behaved for families parrot.

most parrots operate on a level similar to a three year old child, except they are much smarter. and, they live up to 80 or 90 years. our parrot used to have a real problem with our daughter which was a big reason i’d tried to place him in another family. our daughter worked really hard with him, was patient and she got to a point where she could actually hold him. yeah daughter! seriously, this is not something easily done b/c parrots have great memories.

we are still trying to place our guy b/c our house is too noisy and chaotic. as the adoption people see it, he’s not in nearly as bad of shape as most cases they see.

angel is well rounded, he eats dinner with us, showers with us, plays with the dog. we’ve been working on his habit of screaming and that is getting better. think dog whisperer for parrots.

oh, and he cooks us dinner sometimes.

but we’d still like to find a nice older retired person or persons who have a lot of love and attention to give to only angel. it would be a good and healthy use of your co-dependent tendencies on a deserving soul.

had to add

since i just wrote a post about the superficial, i wanted to provide further proof of why i likes them.

the link below is from their site regarding hulk hogan’s son who was recently in a bad accident. i’ve seen the show a few times and hogan does appear to be a great dad.

“TMZ also reports that Nick was discharged this morning, which is awesome news and let’s hope his friend pulls through too. Now if only they’ll tell the real story, that it was the Hulkster that got them out and not the jaws of life. Because, seriously, if you watch the show, Hulk is definitely the kind of dad that would wrestle a submarine for his kids. And he’d win too. Using only his moustache.”

thoughts on autism and other stuff

i was having a discussion recently with someone about autism. it seems there is a push for us to learn more about autism. the statistics are higher now than in the past for children to be born with autism.

i do not know much about autism. i plan to learn more about it even though i am not directly affected. i do not have a family member with any type of disorder such as autism, cerebral palsy, or other of the sort. i do however; have a lot of mental illness and alcoholism on both sides.

with that, i am of the belief that people born with autism or the like are not *different* and should not be treated as if they are special.

stay with me.

i do realize that some need extra help doing certain things and autism can mean your child won’t be on the same track as other children their age. i do not see this as a bad thing. all kids are different and they come to milestones at different times. I also realize that having a child with a disorder can be a huge burden on the family with the extra work.

i would like to believe that if i ever have/had a child with special needs that i would not treat that child as different. we are all born into the world with special needs, some of us more than others are. inasmuch, aren’t we all born *handicapped* in some way or another?

i have a strong sense of duty to children. in that, they need to be given the tools in order to survive in the world. i am including children with autism or cerebral palsy.

the movie, simon birch is a great example of what i am trying to communicate. simon’s mother and father acted like there was something wrong and bad b/c he wasn’t what they expected in a child. simon did not really see himself as that different, and he had a fuller life than his much older parents did. this is how i’d like to think i would parent a child born with special needs.

based on my limited experience, autism allows people to have extra sensory perceptions which i think is darned cool. what if the world learned to accept people with “disorders” (using for lack of a better smarter word) as just another person? meet them where they are. do not make the disorder become who they are as a full person, but the disorder as just an aspect of who they are.

have you ever known someone that a teacher tried to change his or her dominant hand? this was more common in older generations, but if you were a leftie and the teacher “decided it was wrong” therefore trying to make the person be a rightie. that just isn’t right (no pun intended.)

THIS is the point i am trying to convey.

many of these people grow up believing they are inherently wrong b/c their face is contorted or b/c they find certain noises completely unbearable. or b/c they are a left hand dominant.

i wonder who are we to say it’s wrong. what if autism is some form of evolution?

people with autism do great things. there isn’t anything *wrong* with them.

dear god i hope i haven’t offended anyone yet. i am good at that without even trying on most days. (note my warning in the beginning that I have limited experience and knowledge.)

we had a guest at our home several weeks’ back that has a son with cerebral palsy. i could tell that there was something different about him. his speech pattern was sometimes hard to follow but i fell in step with him easily. just like, i do with any person or child. it was late at night and he’d been to a race, and he was very excited about it all. i love kids and i’ve always been drawn to how they think and feel about things. kids are unfettered by human hypothesis, therefore we can learn so much from them.

in past generations, if you gave birth to a mentally challenged child you were advised by “doctors” to put your child in a mental institution. they’d be happier they said. happier, separated from their families that they were born into. i disagree with that notion.

i don’t give a rat’s ass about the statistics, i cannot imagine a person born into a family, and then being removed from that family is going to be happier. i do understand it was a generational learning curve.

just b/c you “look” ok on the outside, it does not mean you are mentally stable and super intelligent. ted bundy “looked ok” on the outside, he was preppy, popular, and communicated easily. as we all know, he was far from “ok.”

perhaps those of us that walk around “looking ok” are really the ones that are a danger to society. who we are begins on the inside of us, not the outside. if you can try and listen to people from their insides and not their outsides, perhaps the world could overcome some very stringent prejudice.

yes, i am flying my hippie flag again. i realize there are “rules” to societies and we are animals and there are things “that will always be done.”

i can’t help but wonder though, “what if….?”