It’s been a long while. Bit cliched, I know, restarting on New Year’s Day. But I need all the pushing I can get.
KSP did not work out. Maybe because I’m a b&%@#, maybe because of the autism. But basically I couldn’t communicate my needs or my ideas. The break up was a lot worse than I thought. I still cry uncontrollably when I go past that suburb. I’m fairly sure now hat I will never be able to work with people again unless they have a preexisting understanding of autism and or they are paid.
Autism Association didn’t work out. I didn’t like the new directions that management was taking, they didn’t like my threatening to leave. I’ve lost my Guardian angel Faye. She’s not dead but she’s still with the Association so we can’t work together.
I don’t know how Pixabay got this photo of my support worker F.
I haven’t written much since it all fell apart at the KSP writer’s centre. Publishing the book series, the sit com and theatre scripts are all dead in the water now. I don’t know how good any of it was anyway. I never did get the hang of reading between the lines when people speak. Anyway if anything I wrote was that good I wouldn’t have been dumped on mass.
I had a car accident in July, I am pretty much physically recovered, the emotional scars are still problematic for me, Alex, Tabby and to a lesser extent Gavin and Cat. Cat wasn’t there. But she was at her first and now last craft class.
It is hard to believe that Natasha’s school can have deteriorated so far without government intervention. The Principal of the school and the Principal of Senior school left and the school is very rapidly descending into Hell, aided by the exodus of staff and good students. The two men and three women management was relaced by an all female team. If this school is examined closely it will be a major blow to feminism at least the modern version thereof.
In summary, all alive, nothing actually real has happened but our moods are at an all time low because we all feel…
Who knows.
I’ve even stopped taking photos
Wait don’t run. The next one will at least try to be funny.
It is not fair. People, mean people like support workers and my husband, keep asking me if I am working on my comedy project.
I can’t. The next stuff to do involves social media. And I can’t do social media. I’d have to be profound, finding a topic and acting serious forget it, accurate, aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh, or funny, and I can’t be funny, I have toothache. And I have too many people mad at me because I missed appointments and then ghosted on social media. Well not ghosting them exactly. I am avoiding emails and social media so I won’t feel guilty, or scared by reading the death threats. Okay so no one is sending me death threats, not any that I have seen. But they could be, and probably should be. I am really annoying, the fact that I have not received death threats by email or social media is a credit to a judicial system that has scared people out of written threats. Which is why I avoid answering the phone. Although you can record phone calls but I don’t know how. Wait, if you are reading this, I do know how and I record all calls and have the police on speed dial, which I also know how to use, even on my new (only had it a year or two) phone. Be warned.
I was going somewhere with this. Oh, I can’t be funny.
I can’t be funny because the world is sad and people are sad, and then I make a stupid joke and people are even sadder, but they can’t kill me because that would be wrong, on some higher spiritual level that we believe but don’t understand. Actually no, it would be wrong to kill me because then Gavin, who is after all a saint, would be left alone with the children. Shiver noise, the only things on Earth worse than me. Yes, you are. Shut up kids!
So killing me would be wrong and you want to because I made a stupid pointless joke when you were so sad. BTW I always make stupid, pointless jokes because that is my thing. So I don’t want to put people through that because even I am not that evil.
So, no joking. But then, when I am sad I like to read stupid pointless humour to, you know distance myself from the sad. So really I should be putting up more of my stuff. Evil, evil, evil, evil! Forget what I said before I am that evil. And yet not that sexy. I mean the least, the very least you can expect from evil is that alluring, sexy, bad girl vibe. At least until they surprise, surprise suddenly reveal they are really a ghastly old hag and your soul is now doomed for no reason. And I am pre revealed as a ghastly old hag, which was stupid because now your soul isn’t doomed. Which means I have failed again and I can’t have ice cream because I have toothache.
And then I get a notice from Facebook saying that someone has had a birthday, and I missed it. And then I realise, I have no idea who that person is, and then I feel guilty because I don’t know who the person is. And then I worry that it might be one of my kids (a pseudo name they told me about dozens of times that I forgot, and maybe I should reopen the emails to check. And then I realise that knowing for sure it was my child and that I had forgotten them I could never face them again. And then I try avoiding the children until my husband notices and complains.
And its probably just Ken (name changed for plausible deniability). Its always Ken on Facebook. Ken on Facebook and Lapse of Sanity on Email. That’s who they always are, But not always always. It could be a death threat from that psychologist I missed an appointment with. But in my defence, it was a zoom meeting, which is practically social media, Have I told you about me and social media?
I was doing another word puzzle and I was fighting with all my might not to write J in between the DE and the ECT. F was out, T was obviously impossible, but it could not be J. Deject is not a word, it is another example of thinking something is a word because another word sounds like it has a suffix.
Well, I might be wrong. Apparently (according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary) it was first used in the 15th Century, but it is inspecific about how it was used, and it thus may have been, as I suspect, actually dejected. And it was used by someone on CNN, but we all know that American usage of a word is no indication of anything in terms of the English language.
Anywho, in the absence of definitive and accurate proof that someone in authority over the English language i.e., someone who can spell colour has ever used deject in a rational sentence not solely designed to prove the word exists but in the normal run of communication, I continue in my objection. Oh Good Grief, I can hear them now, a million different Gen?’s using the word deject as a replacement for the word depress because no one has ever explained to them that the whole synonym/antonym thing is not exact because many words have nuanced meaning. Pretty has nuances of youth and femininity that beautiful doesn’t’, for example. Dejected is not the same as depressed, I mean they cover a lot of the same ground but there are situations that are better prescribed by one or the other, depress as a clinical term, dejected has connotations of a more urgent desperate but shorter timeline than depressed.
And I am not blaming the young people. I mean how can they be expected to know something that apparently many primary school teachers are oblivious to. Listening to teachers rattle off synonyms and declaring they all had the one meaning. It took all my control not to rush the assembly stage and shake that crazy woman by the throat screaming ‘they are not all interchangeable, they are not the same words.’
Apparently, the importance of teaching children to use different words was more important than actually introducing them to the precision of our language. Dulling down our communication until we have to think of new ways to delineate between subtle differences. That is how language evolves. Evolution through misunderstanding and popularism. Mmmm, I wonder why I, as an autistic person, would be upset that a societal basic should be changeable due to completely random factors?
People expect young people to know things that they have never heard of. This is how we are destroying the world. The more commonly known something is the more people think that they don’t have to explain the thing. Why don’t more people have keepers? Because the keepers would be people. Randomness is pecking your society apart and you don’t care because you can instinctively adapt and we can’t, but you don’t care what happens to people who aren’t you.
I was going somewhere.
Oh yes deject. Dejected is a word. Because it ends in ‘ed’ people assume it is the state resulting from the verb deject. Therefore, by inference create the word deject, which as far as I can tell is not actually ever used.
Within the next decade people will be ‘jecting’ others. ‘Ject’ to be cheerful, the ‘de’; meaning opposite, having been removed.
There is dejected and dejection and I think that’s it.
I am really incensed by this. I mean I had a fight with my daughter during which she successfully proved I am a failure not just as a mother but as a human being. My family is in crisis and my pets are a disobedient rabble. There are wars and extinctions and environmental atrocities. But what really, really sets me off is misuse of the Queen’s English.
Okay so I have been working on…. Whoa this is a long story.
Okay I wanted to sell some books; Autistic Guides to High School. But I’ve been waiting for my illustrator, if you hire an Autistic, ADD, Dyslexic try to make sure they aren’t about to fall into a deep depression, alternately make sure they are not your youngest daughter so you can fire them without fear. It’s been a year. So no books yet.
So anyway they are going to cost money to print, and pay off the bandit illustrator so I needed to make some money preferably while advertising. Right.
I’m now working with a Disabled Arts group; DADAA, so the crazy woman there thought I could do my own shows. That is right I have decided I am a stand up Comedian. Yeah no of course I’m not, look at yeasterday’s video. Anywho, I’m trying to learn to be a comedy genius and it is really hard to I don’t know meet comedians and get on stage. And then we talk about maybe there are other clients of DADAA might want a shot too.
So I can’t find any help for this kind of stuff, workshops and chances to be on stage etc that aren’t terrifying. Try to shop the sitcom I wrote and can’t find a producer, aparrently most West Australians produce documentaries.
I, for some unknown reason, talk to DADAA about my dream for a comedy group. Group meetings weekly where disabled people and maybe even some non-disabled people gather and you know work together towards comedy; writers and comedians. And we get lists of others who can work with us. We bypass all the advice that is not relevent to talented disabled people and just find our own styles. Then we do YouTube videos and Live SHows together.
The DADAA lady wanted to add workshops with professionals, and started reaching out to consultants to help us do it. The first one we contacted took a meeting with us. OMG I don’t even know if I dare use her name here. She’s on the web, TV and is creative director of her own company. She’s interested but too busy and expensive to take us on for free. So she gives us lists of contacts and keeps in touch with advice and pep talks and I mean WOW. So I am getting encouragement from a real celebrity person.
I lost my head. I took a class with someone she recommended to help us form the group. Improv, I am studying Improv and Stand Up, I am going to study Stand Up. So covid, first his, then mine gets in the way of a meeting, but he seems interested, a working comedian and …. wait for it… WAAPA Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts instructor knows me.
So my agoraphobia meanwhile is out of control but I can go to DADAA, The Dice Club (Greatest D&D shop ever) and the Rosemont Hotel, where my lessons were held. I am extremely proud that when I was all alone I managed to pull back the curtain of my own back door to let a near to bursting dog out, and then the second time managed to dash 2 metres grab a fading rose’s petald and a handful of parsley then run panting back to the house. My own backyard and it took me an hour to stop shaking. The rabbit Whisper was not grateful, he was too angry I gave half the plunder to the rats. But if I really distract myself or close my eyes in the car I can go to these three places.
I grabbed the momentum. My Improv class gave 2 for one tickets to the show in the same venue The Big Hoo-Haa. I took some bigwigs from DADAA. I didn’t die. So I took my youngest daughter, bandit illustrator, P.A., P.R., social critic and all around manager. The steak special for members is big enough the two of rarely finish. It has the coolest drinks, I need my Jim and the Giant Peach, the staff is lovely and The Big Hoo-Haa is fantastic. We go every week, people actually remember me, and they make friendly gestures & don’t run away. I am finally acing being a people. Well my going to live theatre character Nickie is.
So the DADAA lady added taking nervous disabled people to live shows every week to the group idea.
And an Anthology. and a YouTube Channel, and Instagram and so much stuff. She contacted more industry people and they weren’t hostile.
And finally there is an Arts Grant for a Disabled Artist to do a Project for Inclusion. So I am sending in an Application, don’t worry I’m not that delusional there are several available. I wrote the Application, finished the almost 12000 words required, reread it and wrote the less than 12000 characters they actually wanted. Got 3 letters of support from actual professional people who seem to think I am brilliant. My head swelled to ten times its size.
So all gathered I started to try and attach everything. The video was too big to attach, panic, fear, crazy thoughts, husband asleep on couch, kids in bed, what to do. Anyway it has an option to send a URL. I don’t really understand but it has to do with my video already being on the Web. How do I put my video on the web. I checked this blog it worked its on the web. And wonder of wonders it prompts me to copy the URL without me even asking. Done.
Of course then I found out I needed an ABN Australian Business Number. So at midnight I’m filling in forms in the Australian Tax Office website. I have an ABN, I have a registered business name “The Divergent Comedy Project”, I am registered to pay taxes on immaginary future transactions and salaries for two imaginary future employees. In other words, the words of the genius ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, “Mmm, mmm, mmm (I am) a business.” And I have 30 days to get professional advice on whether I need to be rescued.
So Application was to get a video on the web so I could send it to the Arts Council to attempt to win a grant to create a business “The DIvergent Comedy Project” so that disabled people who don’t have the confidence or socisl skills to make it into Comedy could join with other disabled or supposedly non disabled comedians to break into show biz. While also providing some social groups for people who need a fun hobby.
I am not insane. As my 2nd eldest’s shirt says, “You can’t blame me. I was left unsupervised.”
I mean that is all you need to know to know how truly wonderous he is.
He is a real puppy.
And before you worry Charlie and Cherise are both okay.
Cherise is a terrier and therefore not really suited to being an emotional support.
Charlie is not in the best health, his heart is not the best, he’s night blind and deaf. He has short periods of dementia.
Both dogs are so happy to have a puppy to play with.
Charlie Chuckles
Charlie seems to recognise Johnnie…
That’s his name Johnnie, for his dad Jack and his mum Annabelle.
Waiting for Johnnie
Arrived from Sydney
Anyway Charlie seems to know that Johnnie is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, he also understood that Johnnie was his apprentice. We expected a little jealousy but there has been none. Charlie is teaching him all his jobs, he’s protecting him and although he checks in and takes over if necessary, he is living his own life, with me sometimes, playing with the terriers, lying in more comfy spots.
Cherise, on the other hand, thinks she is a much better teacher than Charlie. She tries to take the puppy away for rough housing and barking lessons.
Echo wants to discipline him while he’s young to make sure he is properly cowed. Pixie is vaguely interested and surprisingly kind. Orion is being a jerk and deliberately teasing him.
Anubis is his best cat friend. He is so gentle with him that Charlie is letting Anubis sleep on his special unicorn. If he gets over excited Anubis lifts his paw and Johnnie immediately sits. In two sessions Anubis taught him sit. He clawlessly swatted him once but that was enough. Johnnie is allowed at least two kisses for greeting and departure, more is Nubie is in the mood.
And best of all Johnnie is here to take over Charlie’s job as unofficial Emotional Support Animal. Except in preparation of my going out into the real world more often Johnny is training to become an official Assistance Animal. He totally blitzed his first lesson and the lady said he is very promising.
Anyway I can’t waste any more time writing I have a puppy to cuddle.
Since I have told you what is going on in my life lots of stuff has happened.
I am not, repeat NOT talking about it, well most of it.
Partially because it was horrible and I don’t wanna.
And partially because I am aware that many, if not all of you have been going through a lot worse.
Although at least you had your sensible, nice, likes you brains. I had my brain which made every awful and even some of the good things really really horrible.
But I am not going to talk about it.
I’m so sorry.
Shut up!
I knew I didn’t want to write this.
I’m having a nap.
Wait, I’ve been up for 4 hours today and I’ve already had an hour’s nap.
And I kinda promised to do this.
Okay, not talking about most of the stuff. But if you can remember eons ago I was persuaded to publish my two books for teens with autism.
You know I spent over a thousand dollars we didn’t really have to spare getting it ready.
And a dispute with a company that should not be named but it is a famous Australian authoress with the word’s writer’s centre appended, meant that my work would no longer be even vanity published.
Others gave me advice on how to print it, but it was all too hard. Especially since my editor who advised me to publish clearly had no idea what autism was and therefore may have not actually read the book, so I had no way to know if it was actually any good at all.
So good news. I have started going to DADAA an Australian organisation that helps disabled artists… You know… Art.
I am going to print my bookie wooks. I am I am I am. Unless the people they have been sent to hate them. But that is not positive.
If there is criticism I will just edit.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I’m not being precious. It’s not that I don’t think they could be improved. I am well aware they could be improved. Just not by me.
I hate editing.
I’m not good at editing.
I’m sleepy.
And hungry. I need icecream.
Hurray, Gavin is getting me icecream.
Where was I?
Okay, so the plan is to try to con some poor unsuspecting publisher to publish my books. If that doesn’t work I’m going to put on a show.
No really, I am going to have a band, disabled of course, and do readings and explain my life and try to be funny on stage and stuff. And raise enough money to buy an IBPSMRCOW or whatever it’s called, little official codey thingy and print some bookie wooks.
Yah!
But before either of those things can happen I have to practice trying to speak in front of an audience. There is a place in Bassendean called The Flying Camel and apparently I will be allowed to do open mic night stand up there.
So if any internet stalkers would like to assassinate me that would be a good time for both of us. The Flying Camel, Bassendean, Western Australia.
Ice cream’s here!
Nummy!
Oh and I am supposed to warn you.
My website is not professional looking. You need a very professional looking website either for self publishing or any publishing. Apparently when people look at my website they are supposed to be impressed with my professionalism and bleuh.
So we worked on my website.
It did not go well.
Which kinda proved it wasn’t my fault.
Hee hee hee!
But it is a work in progress, there will be changes. Major changes.
Not in the content. Gosh I hope the DADAA lady isn’t reading this. There will be no changes in content because if I try to present a professional and polished, and responsible and adultey profile I will get all uptight and I won’t write.
And if I don’t write there won’t be content.
And you will get really bored marvelling at all my new professionalism and will go and look at photos of cats.
Red kitten with Easter colored eggs
I could put up photos of cats, I have cats.
Would you buy my books because I have interesting cats?
Are my cats interesting?
Cat -herine
Is belligerant, stubborn and destructive interesting?
How do I get all that on camera?
Will that still convince people to buy my books, when you consider that there is nothing about cats at all in those books?
Should I write books about cats?
How would cats cope in the modern high school setting?
Am I getting off the track?
It’s okay I can fix this in editting.
Except I hate editing so I’m not going to.
Suffer.
Anyway I think that people are going to have to settle on a professional looking Home Page and maybe some other serious pages that someone sensible might even do for me.
Maybe I can pretend to be reasonable long enough for some gullible person to write a page describing me that didn’t include swearing.
Then important people who do not have time to read will be impressed with my professional looking website. And I can keep writing weird stuff.
And we will have fun.
Transformed
And as a tantalising tease, I have another piece of good news coming.
I may have written a blog post, that taken out of context, you know, if someone was picky, might be just a teeny tiny bit not complimentary about the youngest of my spawn.
Ah, but you point out, she’s not likely to read it.
True. And that is why I did such a foolhardy and dangerous thing.
But I forgot two important things:
All the professionals in our lives have been nagging me to restart blogging and the family has caught on and are echoing those sentiments. Even if they suggest I mess around with my stupid blog, they are encouraging me in their own way.
I have a problem with honesty.
Not a sensible approach to honesty, like
Being honest,
Saving others feelings and my hide with white lies,
Lying freely.
But an insane version of honesty where:
I lie for fun all the time, always making sure people know, after the joke, that I was lying.
I mangle the truth so it is the truth from the perspective of the listener, making sure not to lie. For example for new age people who reject Autism as a thing I might reference Indigo child. Or if fainting will cause a hysterical over reaction ‘he is very tired’. Or they have agreed not to scream and cover their ears when I ask what they want to do that day and I describe them as making progress in their search for employment, not a lie.
I tell everybody and anybody that even looks at me damaging truths that get me treated for stuff I probably need treatment for but I don’t wanna. I have to be completely honest with people about any symptoms or things like that or I start to hide and isolate and you know become the real me; a feral hermit crab with a sociopathic need to hide everything.
Plus something I have been told is acceptable in the writing world; exaggerating certain characteristics to make a character out of people I know.
That may be acceptable to writers but it is not always acceptable to my two youngest kids, or my MOTHER. I mean the two youngest love the idea of it, they love it when I do it to their sisters but…
I am supposed to be blogging and I wrote a blog post, so that is a good thing the family want to know about. But the very next question is what was it about. So I could lie, but I couldn’t actually let an outright lie stand because well the insanity I have previously written about.
So every time I see Tasha I feel a terrible need to blurt out what I have written.
I even broke down and showed Tash the scorpio picture. She hated it, but then she was really nice and gave me art tips and I feel really, really guilty.
So I could probably write a blog post about how wonderful Tasha can be. The interesting talks we have, how talented she is, how proud I am her.
But that’s not funny, and it gets old and boring fast.
So I shouldn’t write about my kids, says MOTHER.
But, well, yes, but…
They shouldn’t annoy when I am near a computer.
Anyway how else am I supposed to deal with the fact that I am living with my MOTHER, 4 adultish daughters and my husband who’s disability makes it difficult for him to remember or communicate. And we are all at home all the time. And they still want to sleep in my bed if they get upset over night, not Mum, not yet, oh my God, Mum could want to sleep, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Stop making me think things like this, you are bad people.
Mum
And sitting on my lap and asking for cuddles, again not Mum, she doesn’t like people cuddling people, that is what dogs are for, “honestly Lisa, you were not brought up like this!”
And having millions of therapists and confusing reality and U tube and refusing to obey the government, actually that last one is just Mum, she does not like being told what to do, she doesn’t care who you are; doctor, politician, police officer, she knows her own mind. Except she doesn’t and sometimes she just fights because… I don’t know, because she can.
Did I mention that they are at home all the time? Tasha now goes out to college 6 hours a week 8 with travelling bringing her total leaving the house per week to an average of 10 hours. Beating Cat at 7, Tab at 8 and Alex at 6, Tash and Cat’s absences cost me half that time in Gavin absences, and 4 of Tab and Alex’s out of the house is with me. I go out 5. And this is a week, although we are all trying to go out more, although we have been trying for the last ten years so…
Okay, right here I have to draw your attention to the fact that each of my daughters is locked into this unremitting chaos with her insane family too. Four, young geniuses (its been tested) with incredible talents, and the weirdest quirks and problems, not to mention the hormones of young women are stuck together. And despite all the wonderful things I have said about autism, the variation and idiosyncratic nature of the effects of this disability make cohabitation, well difficult. Probably not as much as living with a neurotypical person, or is that just my MOTHER.
To sum up:
My kids are not as bad as I make them out to be.
My kids are under pressure by our situation too and should be given some slack.
My Mother is mean.
So, I presume you are expecting me to pick on my family less. Wrong! I am going to continue to make fun of my entire family, mwa ha ha ha.
Because I am under a lot of pressure and it leaks out, nobody in this family wants me to be upset I get scarily self destructive,
NOBODY wants me to get angry I get scary, so I have to laugh.
Oh and because I am evil, I almost forgot.
The main reason is because I am evil; Mwa ha ha ha.
I think that if you completely ignore your parents’ yelling at you, you can’t hold a grudge about being yelled at. Either they made a polite suggestion that you are free to ignore and thus no hard feelings, they expressed their feelings as fellow housemates and you successfully dissuaded them from continuing the discussion making you the winner so being gracious would be appropriate, or they are your parents, they clothe and feed you and have just spent a fortune on a course for you and maybe you could at least listen to their politely couched complaints before shooting them down with a onslaught of vitriol before silencing them with an implicit threat to be too upset to attend class or if not at least not punish us for the rest of the day for daring to question your aggressive outburst of the previous evening.
Okay so that was as clear as mud. I mean I actually pride myself on my ability to rack up the word count without getting anything said but this time I want an opinion.
So, the situation: 17 year old female with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder, Hyperflexion and a temper that rivals a volcano. She is a Scorpio, I mean if you read about Scorpios; sting in the tail, flaring temper, epic ability to carry a grudge, can kill with a single fiery flash from their eyes, deadly poison… I need to stop; she is my child.
Disclaimer
I am a Piscean raised by an Aquarian and a Leo, a good quiet little depressive who wouldn’t say ‘boo’. My husband is a Piscean and in some ways wishier and washier than even me. Older daughters; Pisces, Aries and Virgo. They have issues with violent or aggressive outbursts but only when semi conscious under the pressure of autistic overload. Deliberately yelling down their parents while in their right mind, very, very unlikely.
So my youngest may not be too bad compared to regular humans. But in my experience; Oh My Goodness, she stands up for herself, I can’t cope. So crazed, poison spitting cobra compared to our family. What a polite young woman compared to her peers.
Okay disclaimer done. I came home last night after an evening playing Dungeons and Dragons with Alex, Tab and strangers. It was a lovely evening, we were very sucessful in our quests, everybody was friendly etcetera but we were amongst strangers; so Tabby couldn’t speak for 45 mins and later paced where I couldn’t see her but people came and told me about, Alex stuttered and then hid under the table and I shook, stuttered and dug my fingernails into parts of me. We had had a bad week and we were not alone at home, that is how we, well I think you can call it cope.
So we were in a good mood but edged with anxiety. Gavin drives, we don’t, so he had been out of the house for 35 minutes. Madame had gone to bed, early, without taking her medication. She was asked to come out and take her pills, she was not asleep anyway. She screamed at everyone. She ranted at being roused, she raged at her sister’s incompetence at not providing her with milk in a timely manner, she spat venom at the suggestion she may reduce her volume. And then she went to bed. Collective sigh of relief and nervous laughter.
I promised myself I was going to wait until after her class this afternoon to point out to her that her tone and manner of the evening before had been disproportionately aggressive given the complete lack of opposition. She started her course Wednesday. She has a class each on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so Friday afternoon would give her 5 days to hate me after my completely unjustifiable complaint.
But, well, you know…
She came out this morning prickly and already irate. She started a tirade about her sister’s incompetence at providing milk, this time the milk tasted funny. So I bit.
“Sweetheart, last night you were a bit aggressive.”
This elicited a tirade of why I was wrong; she had not raised her voice, she had been woken up because I had taken Dad away at the wrong time, her sisters were too thoughtless they had not left enough milk in the cup, they put the refilled cup in the wrong place, Tabby had fetched the milk when she had specifically ordered Cat to do it, they had dared to try and give excuses instead of grovelled apologies, she Tasha had been inconvenienced and disobeyed.
With her imminent class on my mind I dropped it.
Later I asked my husband why Tasha was well being aggressive and avoiding me.
“She hasn’t forgiven you for telling her off.”
“That was telling her off, she shouted me down.”
“That was enough for Tasha.”
But, but…
She won, I lost, why am I being punished?
I know children have rights. But…
Well I’ll fix her. Next month I’ll be 50 and then it will be senior abuse.
Not that that will stop her but I will have the moral high ground. I know I already have the moral high ground, but next month my high ground will be higher. And then I can look down from my high ground and say in a calm and assured voice…
“Yes Tash, sorry Natasha, I mean Madam, I apologise most profusely for not jumping high or far enough when you commanded.”
And I am safe to complain online as she finds everything I write boring unless Cat is in the room and denigrates my writing first in which case she pretends she wants to listen. But neither of them will actually seek out anything I have written.
Shhhhhhhhhhh. I did not write any inflammatory garbage about my youngest daughter on my stupid blog. I promise.
autistsix 