D is for Dumbfuck, That's Good Enough For Me

Once again, I am a total fuckwad. I violated my very own Prime Directive about leaving items on top of my car--namely, that when doing so one must also leave one's keys on top of said item--and now Iz has no lunchbox. Jo saw a lunchbox that fit its description (red, Cookie Monster) lying in the road yesterday, but I went back and it wasn't there. FUCK! It had an Iz painting tucked inside that I never even got to see. Goddammit.

JT left yesterday afternoon, back to McKinney, TX to visit her sister, and then on Thursday back to London to finish her MBA degree. She'll be done with school in December, so if she doesn't find a marriage candidate by then it's back to Ghana. She did get to meet my single, wife-seeking friend JM, but he was being slightly grouchy in his otherwise kind way and anyhow I teased them too much about the matchmaking since I knew they weren't exactly each other's missing piece. Good luck, m'adamfo.

We had a great time, toodling around SF and the local coast (she had never experienced S.F., visited a rocky beach, or seen giant redwood trees). We also had some interesting discussions about Ghana now as opposed to the Ghana I knew 11 years ago. Big changes.

Besides the proliferation of cel phones (land-line based infrastructure doesn't work so well there), she says one of the biggest changes is dress code. In 1991-92, women were expected to dress modestly. Not hijab or burqa modest (southern Ghana is not Muslim), more like school-marm or Moonie modest. These days, she says, urban Ghanaian women don't dress all that differently than American women. Although she was very clear about Ghanaian women knowing better than to wear low-riding pants when their bodies aren't built for it.

Alas, she is gone and now I must get back to writing in increasingly concentric circles around my navel. For instance, it occurs to me that there are many benefits to only accepting friends who are smarter than me. One is that I learn all the time, every day, and don't have to pay money or read to do it. Another is that people assume I'm in my friends' league. Downside is that I always feel like a dumbfuck, and lend credence to this feeling whenever I open my mouth. I could read more, or learn to write faster or think more critically, and I've been trying to keep my mouth shut, but that would take effort, and/or would require piecing my brain back together. In the meantime, people, I appreciate your patience.

Details on brain implosion from a few days back:
--Leelo's super-supervisor Andil, a woman with 20 years in ABA therapy, was very emphatic in telling me that she had doubts about DAN practices and the lack of data underlying it all, and in her experience had never seen any improvement in any child from any of these methods. I muttered something about it being non-invasive and Leelo's truly having digestion problems, but she just pinned me to the wall with her level, skeptical gaze and told me she'd email me some studies.
--I've also been told by many autism professionals that sensory integration therapy is a bag of hooey, and not to bother with it. However, I am in the middle of Temple Grandin's book Thinking In Pictures--a book about autism written by an autistic--and the author asserts that this therapy is incredibly helpful for children all along the autistic spectrum. Another task to research, contemplate, discuss, and then shoehorn into Leelo's schedule.
--JT's arrival: welcome, but ill-timed. One week after Iz and Seymour had returned from San Diego, and just as I was emerging from traveling-and-visitors overload. Immediate plunge into entropy and depression, incapable of lifting a finger to tidy the house in preparation since all objects assumed the weight of gold. Need at least two visitor-free weekends in succession.
--Spanish class not working with the crazy family schedule. Major blow. More synapses atrophying.
--Person with whom I share significant genetic material needing advice about his and his girlfriend's surprise impending family addition. They are both clueless, and are depending on me to show them the way. Um, make sure your kid's not autistic, sleep now.
--Another, smaller, relation is teetering on the edge of a black hole, and no one is doing anything to prepare for preventing her fall (she is under protection now, but that ends with a bang in July). My inquries about what will happen then being greeted with hostility or declarations of the situation's futility.
--Excellent CD made by LH (worshipful praise to you, amiga) not working in my stupid car's player. Iz got hooked on LH's taste in music and poetry and was very vocal about about her distress.
--Other stupid crap that's even duller than the above, but drags me down nonetheless. I have stocked up on some remedies, though--raspberry-jam stuffed shortbread, and those cocaine-laced tortas from La Casita Chilanga. Plus I TiVo'd The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.