BlogHer10 Saturday: One of the Best Days of My Life

Like Leelo, it takes me a while to process information and experiences. So I suspect it would have taken me this long to process BlogHer 10's Saturday, even if the weeks that followed the conference weren't unrelentingly full of activities and Seymour travel and weddings and road trips and excursions and weekdaily Thinking Person's Guide to Autism essays and BlogHer articles and Leo SF Weekly stories and Chinese-"interesting" social developments. Now I know what the brown sugar feels like when I pack it into that measuring cup, sweet though it may be.

BlogHer10 Saturday, with Jen and so many other friends, was one of the best days of my life. I only wish Seymour could have been there, too. And I wish Leo knew the role he played, in gifting me so many friendships with people I might otherwise never have met. You are cherished, every last one of you.

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Jen and I hit the ground running again on Saturday but without panicking -- I didn't turn off our alarm this time. I'd spent much of the previous night nuzzling my keyboard in confusion, thinking it was a pillow as I sleepily tried to finish my work shift. Jen eventually came to my rescue work-wise after she finished making friends at the hotel bar around 4 AM. (Where she gets all that energy, I'll never know. Me = friends with ZzzZzz.)

We opened our day with BlogHer's International Activist Blogger Scholarship Recipients Keynote. "Inspiring" is an insufficient word for the experience. If I was a hacker, I would turn the liveblog into a Trojan horse email, one that would freeze the screen of every middle school through college student in this country until they read what these women had to say about how they continue to blog/speak out, and why. I especially appreciated Esra'a Al Shafei's wry humor. I hope she and MidEastYouth.com end up ruling the world. (Benevolently.)

The four scholarship recipients:

Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai, Sri Lanka, publisher of Humanity Ashore
Esra'a Al Shafei, Bahrain, publisher at www.mideastyouth.com
Freshta Basij-Rasikh, Afghanistan, writer for the Afghan Women's Writing Project
Marie Trigona, Argentina, publisher of Latin American Activist

Some tweets from the panel, from me and from other frozen-with-awe audience members:

• @Sassymonkey, she of the Maritimes cred, noted: Reminder: no photography in the International Keynote. It's life or death for these amazing, brave women. #blogher10 
• @Mamacita Speakers like these remind me of how very fortunate we are to be able to write about anything we want, without fear.
• @jennyalice: Esra'a al Shafei "If you're going to piss a lot of people off you better do it very well ."
• MideastYouth.com: "It's giving the LGBT community a platform. It's giving the Kurdish minority a voice too."
• RT @whymommy: International activists at #blogher10: 400 young writers at www.mideastyouth.com -- STUNNING. Go see. 
• "The initial goal for Mideast Youth was to piss off as many dictators as possible"
• RT @ElisaC: RT @dtanton: RT @sassymonkey: Read more about the women on this keynote here: http://bit.ly/bq9ESn #blogher10
• "How to bring bright lights to my eyes: Education is the way" #afghanwomenswritingproject 
• An honor, a privilege: Listening to a writer from the Afghan Women's Writing Project talk about her country, its history, people.

During the panel, we sat with Elizabeth, who writes Just a Girl in the World, recently got the job of her dreams, and makes Memphis sound like a dreamy place to live. Later in the Smores lounge we met Natalie from The Bobby Pin, a sometime trapeze enthusiast and MBA student, who advised us on Yoga classes in San Diego. Both were attending BlogHer as livebloggers. I have followed Natalie and Elizabeth for a while and so have a long-standing opinion of them as the cutest things ever, but they were even more so in person. (In case that sounds patronizing, they are also really damn smart. But so cute!)

Then it was time for Kyra's book signing for Gravity Pulls You In:

This is her serious author face, for Jordan. The women behind her don't seem to be having as much fun.











How Kyra really appeared for most of the signing, with equally pleased Jen. The women behind them are discussing how much fun Kyra is having and wondering why the people lined up for their book signings aren't making them laugh in quite the same way.

Other signing attendees included IAmPixieMama, who was there God damn it and no she does not want to be left out, the effervescent NiksMom, and a lovely woman who floats anonymously through the Internet world and is no less loved for that practice.








I took a lot of armslength "dork" pictures. This is me and Stimey, and I am the dork. This is also shortly after I forced her to borrow Paul Collins' Not Even Wrong - very awesome book, worthy of her (and your) attention.

You know who else showed up at Kyra's signing even though she wasn't attending BlogHer or even in NYC but very kindly took the train from CT to come have an IRL meetup even though she was stressing over her class reunion that night which was understandable though unnecessary because she looked fantastic especially since you couldn't see her mountain bike road rash under her beautiful tiered skirt? Susan. Fun! Another dork picture.


 


Since it was too glorious a day to stay inside and since we could see Central Park from the conference hotel, we trotted parkward for lunch (which for me was a NY-style slice of heaven, a.k.a. pizza).














Jordan and Kristen came with us and we passed a lovely lunch sitting and snarking on a bench in Central Park, gazing out at the lake while watching clouds that looked like they were commissioned by Pixar and being rebuffed by disinterested New Yorkers who refused to take our photo. So we asked a tourist instead.







 It's a good thing we shook off the lure of outdoors after Susan had to rush off to her CT reunion (sob, but thanks again for making the trip!), because when we got back to the hotel Jen checked her tweetstream and found out she'd won a free laptop!

Then we found Carol and made our way to the Closing Keynote: Use Your Voice, Your Platform, and Your Power (Full liveblog and video coming soon), featuring:

"Need to Know PBS anchor Alison Stewart moderates a powerhouse panel: Marie Wilson, Founder and President of The White House Project (and creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day!), author and activist Gloria Feldt from Heartfeldt Politics and P. Simran Sethi, Emmy Award-winning journalist, blogger and environmentalist."

It was amazing. Sigh. I soaked up as much as I could about how to kick ass from women who've been doing it for a long time under much less women-friendly circumstances. Two main takeaways: 

• 'Power you don't use is useless.' 
• 'A critical mass of women will move Supreme Court focus from gender to agenda.

And then it was time to hop on the subway and head to Soho for our My Baby Rides the Short Bus reading at Bluestockings bookstore.

Look, my friend Luis! We went to grad school at Syracuse together. He is a longtime NYC resident, guerilla gardener and yoga instructor. We lost touch for a few years which was so wrong, but thanks to the Facebook fairies, we are reunited. And it does feel so good. He was also our photographer for the reading.




I am not sure why this photo is warped, but I love Jen's expression: "Why yes, this is my East Coast literary debut!"

Here is Jen Silverman. She is one of three co-editors on the book. She totally kicks butt. Seriously, don't get in her way. She radiates uncompromising awesomeness.
















Here is Sharis Ingram. She is reading her story What I Said, and What I Didn't Say. Which is mandatory reading for anyone with a child on the mainstreamed or fully included end of the autism spectrum. And she went to the same college as Joss Whedon and Leo's godmother Hayley! Later on she and the other three of us argued over who had the world's greatest husband. Sharis won, but only because she brought hers along as proof.

Here is Jen, reading her story about trying to find a babysitter for her son Jake on Craigslist. She had the audience weeping as they laughed -- quite a trick.

And here is me, not crying during a reading for once. Go me!

Here is part of our wonderful audience (that's Carol talking into the mic) many of whom came all the way form the BlogHer conference in midtown. Thank you all! The house was packed, and it made for good energy.

 We had dinner at a vegan cafe with Jen Silverman and Luis and some friends, bid adieu to Luis and his bike, and shot back to the hotel in time to catch the last hour of CheeseBurgHer. Nom free cheeseburgers! The party was also full of my favorite Jens. Here are two who didn't room with me.

And here we are, right before crashing and Jen needing to leave in the wee hours and did we really pack all that into one day? We really did. Phew.

Attendees, how was your BlogHer Saturday?

Talking iPads and Autism on Seattle's 97.3 KIRO

I was on Seattle's News Talk 97.3 KIRO yesterday, talking with Luke Burbank about Autism and iPads, along with SF Weekly reporter Ashley Harrell. Ashley went first, my interview is during the second half of the show. As neither Ashley nor I have listened to the interview as it makes us queasy (I still can't listen to March's KQED Forum interview re: My Baby Rides the Short Bus, though a couple of weeks ago I did make it to the point where I start speaking) please let me know how it went!

Also, sincere thanks to everyone who showed such kindness, ire, and solidarity on our family's behalf regarding the rigid and/or nasty comments on Leelo's SF Weekly article, on the newspaper's site and elsewhere. I promise that any time a reader criticizes you by fixating on keywords instead of narrative, and taking your statements out of context, I'll have your back, too.

There Will Be BlogHer. But Not Today.

Sharis Ingram, Jen Silverman, Me, Jen Myers

I said that there would be a BlogHer post. But that was before today turned into Today (multiple unbloggable zeniths, not a day I'll ever forget, watch me compartmentalize like crazy). So here's a pic of us four My Baby Rides the Short Bus ass-kickers from last Saturday's reading at Bluestockings bookstore and activist center in Manhattan. We rocked. Check out the world's greatest little black dress -- now with pockets for chronic fidgeters!

Someone else -- I think A Girl and a Boy -- tweeted their fantasy about having someone else organize their BlogHer10 pix on Flickr. Honey, I hear you.

Directions From BlogHer10 to the My Baby Rides the Short Bus Reading

Are you coming to see Jen Myers, Jen Silverman, Sharis Ingram, and me read our My Baby Rides the Short Bus stories this Saturday night at 7 PM at Bluestockings bookstore in Manhattan? Are you coming from the BlogHer conference? Are you worried about how to get from one point to the other?

No worries, it's actually a simple route. I'm cheap and so will not be taking a taxi -- I'm going to opt for the subway instead, and hope you will follow suit using these directions (give yourself 45 minutes):

From the Hilton:

• Walk three blocks north along Avenue of the Americas/6th Ave to 57th Street station, about 5 mins
• Subway - F - Queens Blvd Express/ 6 Av Local (8 stops), about 15 minutes
• Arrive Second Avenue - Lower East Side - 2nd Ave
• Walk east along Houston, turn right on Allen, walk to Bluestockings at 172 Allen (about 5 minutes from subway station)

I recommend mapping the route yourself using the public transportation directions option in Google Maps so you can visualize it properly. Hopefully an actual NYC resident will verify what I wrote above!


Truly hope to see you there.

So Easy to Love (Modern Times Reading for My Baby Rides the Short Bus)

Honestly, I found it much easier to participate in a radio interview about Leelo than to read a My Baby Rides the Short Bus story about him to a room full of people. Jen thinks the difference is my social awkwardness, but really, I think it's because the radio interview moved too quickly for my emotions to overwhelm me, for me to be at the mercy of my raging love for my son, my fierce need to protect him, yet make other people see him.

No such luck at the Modern Times reading for My Baby Rides the Short Bus. That room, it pulsed with purpose, but also with such deeply conflicted love and sorrow. After three readings, I lost it, completely. I couldn't read when I was supposed to, had to switch places with Jen. I rallied for the Q&A afterwards, probably looked fine. But I felt gutted. And let me tell you why.

Leo has always been easy to love. He's a loving boy, free with his hugs, laughs, and vocal in his desire to spend time with the people he cares about. He wants to cuddle before he gets out of bed in the morning, wants to snuggle whenever he sits next to us, and his reaction to being pleasantly surprised is to jump up and fling his arms around our necks.

And that kind of carefree affection was not what the first three parents spoke about. They spoke about the difficulties of understanding their children, of children who didn't seem to connect at all, though they otherwise seemed so like Leo. Or they spoke of serious medical conditions and complications, of physical challenges and trials like our family has never experienced.

Even though I'd already read their stories and poems, already knew what the writers were going to read, I hadn't prepared myself to hear the stories in the authors' own voices, while seeing their eyes and watching their faces.

Still, I tried to get up and read. But I couldn't. I almost never encounter that kind of public raw, and it took me out. I started crying, started shaking. Hard. No matter how much I appreciate your stories, and how grateful I am to you for sharing them, I'm usually shielded by my computer screen or the written page. Or we're in more casual social situations, where the tone remains light-hearted even if the subject matter does not. The reality of parenting kids like ours rarely stares me in the face like that. Apparently, I'm not quite up to it yet. I'm so sorry.

Thankfully, Jen Silverman snuck up and handed me a magic pastille. Also Jen Myers took my place in the reading roster -- and her story, in case you haven't read it yet, is wittily written though not funny at all. Iz, who was sitting with me, patted my hand and reassured me, told me I'd be fine. I was, by the time Jen finished. I got up, protested that the person who had previously tried to read wasn't actually me, and tore through my story. (Which is partially about meeting Jen, and in hindsight made sense to read after the audience had already made her acquaintance.)

Here's what else happened when I wasn't in hysterics:

Iz and I rode in with one of the other MBRTSB authors, Thida. What a treat! We're going to kidnap her and bring her to Bad Moms Coffee one of these Thursdays.

The My Baby Rides the Short Bus editors, Furies, Fates -- Jen Silverman, Yantra Bertelli, and Sarah Talbot were all more luminous than imagined. They were also all at the end of individual traveling days and were very tired, though they still crackled with supernatural intelligence and energy. I wish we'd had time to sit and chat. Sigh. In another life.

The house was packed! People were poking their heads in through the door, trying to have a look. And the books sold out! (You should buy a copy.)

Iz came. Her Godfather came. Sarah (!) came. People who'd listened to our Forum interview came. Jen's family came, from several different parts of our state. Seymour couldn't come, because he was giving a talk in a different part of our state. (If you came and didn't say hi, please feel free to do so now. :) )

The Q&A after the readings was interesting. One woman said that she taught our children and thought they were wonderful. I lit up, anticipating hearing other nice things, as we rarely get positive feedback that doesn't devolve into "special angel" speak. So of course she devolved into special angel speak, asking if we didn't think our kids had a different purpose, like a 19th century missionary speaking about how the heathens they live among are touched by God. Sarah Talbot respectfully and forcefully disagreed, and I agreed with Sarah. Though I have to wonder if the first woman was using an outmoded verbal toolbox, and could actually have been saying something I'd be interested in hearing, had she used different terms.

Another woman asked about whether My Baby Rides the Short Bus included perspectives from parents of color. She said her son was already challenged by being black, now he has disabilities as well, and on top of that, she keeps getting asked whether she took drugs while she was pregnant with him (several heads exploded, after that statement). Jen Silverman explained that perspective variety was a goal of MBRTSB, and how the deadline had been pushed back several times while they actively tried to recruit authors, but eventually they had to proceed with what they had.

Which is what we all do, isn't it?

-----

If anyone knows who that final mom was or how to contact her, please let me know. I'd love to have a conversation with her, for BlogHer.

My Baby Rides the Short Bus: Our KQED Forum Interview

One of Leo's autism symptoms is delayed processing -- he often needs a couple of beats to respond to a situation, to sort through input and respond appropriately. Like him, my processing is often delayed, which is why it's taken me several days to mentally untangle the onslaught of awesomeness and emotion from last Friday's My Baby Rides the Short Bus events: our KQED Forum interview, and our Modern Times reading.

The radio interview with me, Jennifer Byde Myers, and Sarah Talbot (one of the three MBRTSB editors, who had to call in as she was mid-road trip) went well, I've been told -- I still can't bring myself to listen to it. The studio was cozy and intimate, which made it easy to forget that our conversation would take place in front of thousands of listeners. Jen and Sarah were naturals, on fire, and so well informed  -- plus Jen was supernaturally quick-witted and charismatic; someone needs to give that woman her own talk show. Here's the full episode:



Dave Iverson was a deft moderator, insightful and thoughtful, and I took notes on his methods for August's BlogHer autism panel. He started the interview with a quote that was not actually from the book, in case you were wondering -- it was from my BlogHer essay You May Approach the Short Bus. That was cool.

Here's what I remember about my participation: I tried to forget that I was on the air, to follow the threads as they emerged, and just have the same conversations we have whenever advocacy come up -- agreeing with Jen and Sarah that having kids with special needs doesn't make us perfect moms and doesn't make our children special angels -- it's not something we chose, even though we're damn good at it. I restated my good fortune in finding a friend like Jen, which prompted Dave Iverson to muse that we all need our own Jennifers (our friends on Twitter agreed). I made a plug for fully funding IDEA and then remembered I was on the radio and stumbled over the acronym (Sarah and Jen helped me out). I choked up about parents of typical kids who think kids with special needs are educational funding parasites. I revisited the dreaded Costco incident, and my helplessness and the other shoppers' seeming indifference during Leelo's raging public tantrum. We talked with callers about finding services for our kids and community for ourselves. I told listeners that I'd like them to focus on the beautiful nine-year-old boy underneath my son's autism diagnosis.

When the interview was over, Dave Iverson seemed touched, and said that he had skimmed My Baby Rides the Short Bus beforehand, but now wanted to read the entire book. Jen and I told him to either go at it slowly, or to get a glass of wine. MBRTSB is important reading, it's revelatory reading -- but it's not light reading.

And now I know how many of our friends listen to KQED at 10AM - a lot, because they emailed and tweeted and called us! It was too bad that the other two My Baby Rides the Short Bus editors, Jen Silverman and Yantra Bertelli, weren't able to join the KQED interview -- but if you want to know some of what they have to say, check out last December's My Baby Rides the Short Bus BlogHer Interview with all three editors.

After the interview, Jen and I waltzed across the street to Coffee Bar, where we enjoyed satiny-sweet Havana lattes and thought that perhaps we had just said important things about kids like ours to people who needed to hear them. It was a nice feeling. Don't we look like we we're feeling nice?

I'll have to try to write about the Modern Times Reading tomorrow...

On the Air and In Person: My Baby Rides the Short Bus

Jennifer Byde Myers, Sarah Talbot, and I will be on KQED's Forum with Dave Iverson tomorrow morning at 10 AM PST, talking about our stories in My Baby Rides the Short Bus!

From the KQED: Forum website

Fri, Mar 12, 2010 -- 10:00 AM

My Baby Rides the Short Bus
Some parents of kids with disabilities say they don't want to be put on a pedestal for taking care of their children. We talk with contributors to an irreverent and honest anthology, "My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities."

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:

• Jennifer Byde Myers, contributor to "My Baby Rides the Short Bus"
• Sarah Talbot, co-editor of "My Baby Rides the Short Bus" and assistant principal at a high school near Seattle
• Shannon Rosa, contributor to "My Baby Rides the Short Bus" and BlogHer contributing editor, parenting children with special needs

And tomorrow night, we'll be reading at Modern Times bookstore in San Francisco, which is only one of this weekend's three Bay Area MBRTSB events:

(Information below swiped outright from Jennifer)

My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities

• Friday, March 12th, 6:30 p.m. at Modern Times, 888 Valencia St., San Francisco
  Featuring local writers Kathy Briccetti, Thida Cornes, Kim Mahler, Jennifer Byde Myers, and Shannon Des Roches Rosa followed by a Q&A session with the authors and co-editors Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman and Sarah Talbot.

• Saturday, March 13th, 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley
  Readings from contributors Marcy Sheiner and Andrea Winninghoff and editors Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman and Sarah Talbot. 

• Sunday, March 14th, 5 p.m. at Green Arcade, 1680 Market Street, San Francisco
  Book release event with editors Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman and Sarah Talbot along with Tomas Moniz (Rad Dad) and Jeremy Adam Smith (The Daddy Shift).

 Excitement!

Leaving You Well Informed. But Definitely Leaving.

February ground me into a fine powder, especially the last two weeks. And I was relatively lucky - I did not have pneumonia, nor kids with pneumonia. But I was still operating below capacity, which is why I'm only now passing along this important information about the very best current literary and online resources for autism families:

The lucid and insightful Kyra Anderson, co-editor of the new autism and parenting collection Gravity Pulls You In, recently let me interview her for BlogHer. I cannot stress how valuable I found the collection of "perspectives on parenting children on the autism spectrum," how touched I was by the parents' love for their children, and how much I wish this book had been available when Leelo was first diagnosed. Here's Kyra on why the book needed to be:

"Vicki [Forman] and I started talking about putting together a literary collection of writing about parenting kids on the spectrum where the writing was about autism and wasn't about autism, where the stories transported us to somewhere deeper, somewhere transformative. We thought about how many families were affected by autism and all the people whose lives intersected with theirs: extended family, neighbors, friends, teachers, therapists. We knew we couldn’t be the only ones who'd want to read it."

I am greatly enjoying the privilege (such a privilege) of interviewing strong smart advocates like Kyra, Vicki Forman, Alison Singer, plus Yantra Bertelli, Jen Silverman, and Sarah Talbot for BlogHer, and  hope you enjoy reading what they have to say.

My (and your) next BlogHer interview treat is Susan Senator, who through Making Peace With Autism was the first person to give me permission to focus on Leelo, not just his diagnosis. Susan has a new book coming out at the end of the month, The Autism Mom's Survival Guide. It is another much-needed dose of positivity for autism parents. If you have questions for Susan, please leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to incorporate them into the interview.

As long as we're talking about the very best literary resources for parents of kids with autism, I have to plug Bertelli's, Silverman's, and Talbot's My Baby Rides the Short Bus, and not just because it includes a story of mine. Though My Baby Rides the Short Bus focuses on all kinds of quirky kids, not just those with autism, its stark honesty and examples of advocacy in action complement Gravity Pulls You In's love and grace and The Autism Mom's Survival Guide's cultivated positivity. (Bonus: Jennyalice and I are going to be reading our stories from MBRTSB next week, in San Francisco. Please come!)

I recommend all three books as a set, for anyone who loves or works with a person with autism, but especially for parents of children with a new diagnosis.

Another resource for autism parents and families is the latest issue of Disability Studies Quarterly, which focuses on autism and neurodiversity. The list of contributors is impressive, and includes my friends Susan Etlinger and Kristina Chew. Please pass it on to anyone who needs a good autism resource now, or while their (your) three books above are on order.

I'll tell you what else is helpful for autism parents (or indeed any parents): taking a break. I'm hightailing it out of town this weekend, and I'm dragging two autism mom friends with me. Two very smart, sexy, also extremely tired autism mom friends. We're roadtripping to Los Angeles. We're staying at the damn Beverly Hilton (super discount mojo FTW!). We're going to my brother-in-law's amazing new restaurant in Culver City, and we're meeting three other smart sexy friends there. We'll go see museums. We may see tar pits. I suspect there will be as much sleeping as drunk tweeting. But I'm not taking any autism books with me, no matter how fantastic.

Where I'm Writing When I'm Not Writing Here

The busyness of the past two weeks has been a big wow. Lots of work hiccups keeping me & the rest of the team on our toes, a cool business trip for Seymour, a birthday party for Mali, lots of visits from relatives and friends, BlogHer parties, soccer tournaments for Iz, excellent behavior & new developments from Leo, and very little sleep for me. The result: I declared this past Sunday's tired "unprecedented." I didn't win anything, though, except the satisfaction of getting some decent writing out on other internet spaces besides this one:

On BlogHer, I interviewed Jen Silverman, Sarah Talbot, and Yantra Bertelli, editors of the wonderful new book about parenting our children with special needs, My Baby Rides the Short Bus. Here's Yantra's take on why the book matters:

I hope our book helps its readers to stretch their definitions of inclusion and helps complicate mainstream ideas around individualism that silence or obscure the ways children are connected to their families and societies. Inclusion is a process and the work is never ending.

On Body Impolitic, I described my unapologetic efforts to equip my daughters for a life-long fight against a culture that wants them to hate their bodies:

I do my best to teach my two daughters to celebrate their beautiful and very different bodies just as they are. I talk about any problems of my own in terms of health, not moral failure. I do not hide my body, nor make excuses for it. And I stock my girls’ everyday lives with strong, confident women who talk about their bodies with practicality and humor, because I believe a positive body image is learned, like table manners or martial arts.

On (Never) Too Many Cooks, I laid out a recipe for one of my family's favorite meals, Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Rice Vermicelli:

My kids call this scrumptious all-in-one meal "Vietnamese pork bowl." It's a crowd pleaser: gluten and dairy free, vegetable gateway for picky eaters, straightforward preparation, and its three-hour process is done in spurts with lots of interstitial free time to pull apart brawling children—and oh my goodness is it delicious. Even my picky son with autism can be coaxed into nibbling on one of the carrot sticks.

And on Can I Sit With You?, I got to enjoy the fruits of a solid month of badgering Michael Procopio for another story, as he sent us The Horror of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (So I didn't write this one. But I did solicit, copyedit, and post it!)

As the two cute-as-can-be children of Dick Van Dyke’s character, Caractacus Potts, Jeremy and Jemima were the manifestation of my two greatest childhood fears — abandonment and replacement. Where did these children come from? I squirmed in discomfort every time they screeched, “Daddy! Daddy!” I simply could not accept that these were Mr. Van Dyke’s children, because as far as I was concerned, Dick Van Dyke was named Bert [from Mary Poppins] and already had two children.

Time for some sleep, though I once again failed to get to bed before midnight. I'll try to get up some details from the past two weeks, perhaps tomorrow.

Goodbye and Good Riddance to the R-Word

Our culture is finally starting to clue in: "retarded" is increasingly off-limits as a casual pejorative. This mindset shift is the result of activism like The R-Word campaign, and as evidenced by last week's epsiode of Glee, it's taking hold. As I wrote for BlogHer:

The word "retarded" was never mentioned once, not even with regards to Becky [who has Down syndrome], even though Glee's writers sub-specialize in creative taunting. I don't know if the writers sidestepped the term because of anti-r-word activism or because it is increasingly simply not done, but it was noticeably absent. Let's hope this omission represents a cultural trend on the upswing.

This is not to say it's not used. But it's also increasingly not tolerated. My friend Emily recently came across a website called "Retarded in Love," and was not alone in letting the blogger know she didn't appreciate her use of the term:

It would be thoughtful of you to change the title of your blog…yes, this probably comes across as uptight oldness or just plain uptight, but people who actually are labeled as retarded cannot defend themselves when someone uses this term for amusement. While the word itself should not be used as a label, it is still, and we all know exactly what it means. It’s painful to people who love someone who is intellectually disabled to see a word like this used for humor by someone who is patently not intellectually disabled. If you must use a term that refers to cognitive deficiency as a result of being overwhelmed by love or made a fool of by love, I suggest “Stupid, ” as in “Stupid in Love.” God knows that’s enough of a norm to avoid being offensive.

Are there circumstances where using the r-word is acceptable? Parents and advocates in the disability and special needs communities have been known to take advantage of its shock value, to effect change, precisely because it's now taboo. In the new collection My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids With Disabilities (in which Jennyalice and I both have stories, which I had to read slowly because almost every story made me cry with knowing, helpless rage, and which you should distribute widely as a holiday gift), Chloe Eudaly describes the desperation that drove her to use the word on her son Henry's transition team -- they wanted to put her previously happily included son in an inappropriate placement: a segregated special ed classroom (you know, like Leo's):

...sensing impending defeat, I dropped the R-bomb ... I pointed out that the best way to learn a language or skill was immersion, and what the self-contained classroom was but retarded immersion?

Or, as another Short Bus author Amber Taylor wrote about her son Brave, who has Down syndrome:

We would get an array of questions and comments along the lines of "When are you going to institutionalize him" and ... "Why isn't he walking yet?" To which I would reply, in my most June Cleaver sort of voice, "Because he's retarded, you ass!" I blurt it out in that way because when a person is being a jerk, and I say "special" or "has needs," "Down syndrome," et cetera, it doesn't seem to sink in. When I blurt out "he's retarded," they get all red-faced and embarrassed, and I enjoy their discomfort.

And finally, there are those who, like The Pioneer Woman, have spent their lives loving someone with cognitive or developmental challenges, and use the word in a purely descriptive fashion. While I wish PW would update her terminology, as I said in that same Glee post:

...I know that The Pioneer Woman uses the word 'retarded,' but her affectionate descriptions of [her brother] Mike -- as just another complicated person who happens to have developmental challenges -- temper her non-malicious use of an outdated label.

The r-word is still around, but it's on its way out. You can help extinguish negative r-word behavior, by politely pointing out its inappropriateness while anticipating some defensiveness. I know you're all strong good smart people with nice thick skin, who understand how important it is to stand up for people like Leo who can't defend themselves. My thanks, in advance.

Better Than Flowers on Mother's Day

For New York City area mamas and the people who love them:

Mamabration!

Sunday, May 10, 2009
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Bluestockings bookstore
172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington
New York, NY

Get down with these irreverent and thought-provoking mamas as they read and perform in celebration of motherhood:

Christen Clifford is a writer and performer in New York. She has written for Nerve, Salon and the Huffington Post. She is a storyteller for the Moth and her solo show BabyLove ran for three months off Broadway and was a critic’s pick in Time Out and New York Magazine. She is married to writer McKenzie Wark and is the proud mother of Felix and Vera. More at www.christenclifford.com, and twitter.com/cd_clifford.

Ayun Halliday is the author of four self-mocking memoirs, No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late, The Big Rumpus, Job Hopper and Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste, and a brand spanking new children's book, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo. In her spare time, she is the Chief Primatologist & sole staff member of the quarterly zine, The East Village Inky, as well as BUST magazine's Mother Superior columnist. Ayun lives in Brooklyn with her husband, playwright Greg Kotis and their increasingly well-documented children. Dare to be Heinie and visit www.AyunHalliday.com!

Born in Portimao, raised in Rockland, and residing in Brooklyn, Tomasia Kastner emerged from New York City's spoken word renaissance, where she shared the stage with Saul Williams. A captivating lyricist, Tomasia has brought audiences to their feet at such esteemed venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Hammerstein Ballroom. Tomasia opened up for Gil Scott-Heron, has performed with the likes of Me'Shell N'DegeOcello who called her "…too funky..." and has shared the stage with Mos Def who exclaimed "She's really good!" as well as Mums the Schemer (Oz) who declared, "She's like a female Rakim!" Tomasia recently released an album entitled Death of the Fresh with DJ Stef-Eye as their latest incarnation FISHEYE.

As Sharon Kwik has a severe case of writers' block when it comes to composing bios, her four year old son, Macèo, has written one for her: "I am a nice woman. I work, I play, and I play with my son."

Victoria Law is a writer, mother, and photographer. Since 2002, she has worked with women incarcerated nationwide to produce Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison. Her writings have appeared in Hip Mama, off our backs, make/shift magazine and Left Turn. Her new book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women is the culmination of 8 years of research, writing and listening to the stories of women incarcerated nationwide.

Jennifer Silverman is a recovering journalist, mama of two rambunctious sons, agitator and co-editor of the forthcoming anthology My Baby Rides the Short Bus (PM Press, 2009). Her writing about mothering her son with autism has appeared in Hip Mama and off our backs, and the ‘zine version of Short Bus, among others. She resides in Queens, NY.


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