play ball

First off, I need to handle some housekeeping.  It has been brought to my attention that some of the things I’ve written about my sister may have sounded like I was being mean or spiteful, and if so then I am sorry for that.  My mother commented about it, which ironically I think kind of proves a lot of the things I’ve said about her being the favorite, but what do I know?  Anyway, the only person I truly approach with malice in my heart while I write is my biological father.  I don’t hate my sister.  I do hate a lot of things that have happened to me because of the different circumstances that we dealt with and the way she was held up to me as a role model.  I apologize if I was hurtful, but I won’t apologize for my opinion about her being the favorite.

 All right, that being done, I can move along and focus on what hopefully will be an awesome day.  Today is Major League Baseball’s official opening day for the 2008 season.  For a heathen like me, Opening Day is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter all rolled into one majestic day.  Unlike the other holidays, I don’t have to put on a polo shirt and try to tune out the sounds of screaming children and comments about how much food there is (I personally guarantee that at every big holiday family lunch, at least one person declares “Look at all this food!”).  I can just watch some baseball, enjoying the memory of the only strong bond I ever had with my biological father.  We didn’t like each other very much, but we both loved baseball.  When you don’t have much in common with your own father, you hold on like hell to whatever you did have.

My day really gets going at 1 this afternoon, when my Yankees kick off the final season at historic Yankee Stadium, baseball’s equivalent of Solomon’s Temple.  I feel certain my loved ones know not to place phone calls to me that do not involve life or death situations while this game is taking place.  Hopefully the Yanks can make this last Opening Day at the big ballpark in the Bronx a victory.

Our dogs are driving me crazy.  I have a hard enough time sleeping the night before Opening Day, but JoJo and A-Rod started their wrestling match about 5 a.m., and I know I won’t be going back to sleep.  Now that I am fully awake, and up writing, they of course have decided to knock off the racket and take a nap.  A-Rod is calming down a little the past few days but he is still in the stage where he wants to show JoJo he’s the king of the dog mountain because he was here first and he’s the boy, the little chauvanist punk.  JoJo is so tiny that she has a hard time adjusting his attitude when he gets too obnoxious with her, so sometimes I hold him still and just let her smack him around a minute, just to even things up some.

By far and away, the two parts of my blogging that people have given me the most positive feedback about are my observations about Southern neurotypical behavior, and my recollections of growing up with undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome.  So in the spirit of giving people what they want, let’s see what my sleepy, unfocused mind can come up with.  Having two small puppies means you get all the sleep deprivation of being a parent without getting any tax deductions.

 Southern NT’s consider every human being on this plant a conversation partner.  On my Wednesday trips to the grocery store with my grandmother, she will inevitably start grilling some fellow shopper as to whether or not they had tried a certain product, and if they liked it.  She will wander up to store employees and begin waxing poetic about a dishwashing liquid they stocked five years ago but no longer offer.  My mom and dad both are like this too.  I envy all of them a little, I have to admit.  They ease with which they navigate the conversational waters is baffling to me, with my eye contact problems, my pedantic speech, my general cluelessness regarding the point of small talk. 

One day, while at Publix with my grandmother, I found her gabbing away to the produce manager.  I knew she would be a minute, so I went to finish up my list.  When I had finally tracked down the mini marshmellows my wife had wanted for her new dessert recipe, I returned to the produce section to round up grandma.  She was still going on and on, and I had no idea what she could have been involved in such a long conversation with the produce guy about. 

I finally pried her away from the produce section.  When I asked her what she was having such a long conversation with the manager about, I figured the answer would be some NT stuff, that she knew his kid/father/mother/inbred uncle.  Maybe that they had praised Jesus together for an hour twenty years ago on a spring Sunday afternoon.  To my astonishment, she told me “I was complaining that the bananas I bought a few weeks ago didn’t get ripe fast enough.”

I am no expert on bananas, but I always thought most people got irritated because their bananas ripened too quickly, often ending up in the trash.

“You spent fifteen minutes telling a guy you got cheesed off that the bananas you got from him ended up having about four times the shelf life of most bananas?  No offense grandma, but we need to find you some better stuff to complain about.”

Talking about anything seems to be as basic a physical need for most Southern NT’s as oxygen is.  My wife once commented to me that she wanted a car with OnStar so that if she got bored in traffic, she would be able to talk to someone.  Yikes.

One thing people who talk too much like to talk about most is how much they like to talk.  Yeah, because it wasn’t obvious or anything.  The fact that you wandered up to me and bored with me with your life history from fetus until just now didn’t clue me in to the fact that you’re a needy blabbermouth.

Being an Asperger is sort of like living in this semi-permeable bubble.  It is sometimes a prison, sometimes a sanctuary, but if you need to, you can usually move through the membrane and know that you will be able to go back.  Sometimes by choice, sometimes by force.

 When I was really young, I think I was around four or five or so, I was in a church nursery accident that resulted in my Asperger literal interpretation sparking off the claustrophobia that would follow me all my life.

Like most churches, the one we attended when I was small offered a nursery so that parents could get some peace and quiet under the guise that it was good for kids’ social development.  All church nurseries should have a sign on the door reading, “We’ll look after your little brat so you can have at least one hour a week to yourselves.”

My cousin Jamie, who is a year younger than me, was usually in the nursery with  me.  The two of us had a running feud with a pair of twins, Eric and Aaron, who were almost exactly Jamie’s age.  Jamie and Aaron were both big dudes for that age, and they would exchange amateur haymakers, while me and Eric fought in the lightweight division.  Ironically, it was Aaron who caused my injury, although I guess you could say I brought it on myself by being a jerk to his brother. 

Like all church nurseries, this one had no shortage of toys that could double as weapons in the hands of an angry kid.  Aaron picked up a small plastic Mickey Mouse jack in the box, and heaved it with all his might.  It caught me right between the eyes, just at the top of the bridge of my nose, and Mickey’s pointy plastic limbs split me open.  At any age, seeing your own blood storming a red rain down your face is traumatic.  Being so young, I really freaked out.

The woman in charge of the nursery immediately sent for my mother and began pressing tissues on the wound, trying to slow the bleeding.  She also had to try to keep me from hyperventilating.

When my mother arrived, in a panic of course, the woman looking after me said, “Betty Anne, I think he’s going to need some stitches.  It’s a pretty bad cut and they better stitch it up.”

My only experience with stitches and stitching things up had come while watching my grandmother sew clothes for my aunt and mother, making this or that alteration while explaining the process to my fascinated Asperger mind.  So naturally, I interpreted the nursery teacher’s comments literally and assumed I was going to the hospital to be run underneath a sewing machine.

“NO NO NO!!! Don’t let them put me under that sewing machine!”  I screamed for all I was worth.  I’m sure they all thought I was nuts or just stupid, but I was processing the information in the only way my mind could.

After a car ride to the hospital that I’m sure must have been unpleasant for all involved, we awaited the doctor’s arrival.  My entire family attempted to explain the process of getting stitches, but my mind would not be swayed.  They were going to try to hem my face the way my grandma hemmed up my granddad’s pant legs.  I threw a fit for history, screaming, kicking, raising general hell.  The medical staff knew they couldn’t do the procedure with me flailing about, so they put me in a restraining apparatus that resembled a Native American papoose.  Then a cloth with a small square cut out was placed over the cut, covering my face in the process.  Seeing the cloth confirmed my suspicions that I would be stitched up like a torn pair of slacks.  I began to hyperventilate again, sucking the cloth partially into my mouth as I pulled in the stale air in rasping gasps.  With me restrained, the doctor decided to have a little fun with me, albeit sadistic fun at a small child’s expense.

“Yep, we’re about to run you under the sewing machine, Derek.”

I found out years later my grandma had taken the doctor aside and given him a right old bollocking for doing that to me.  Thanks, grandma.

Hours later, I was back at our house, and Aaron’s father brought Aaron over to apologize.  I actually felt bad for the guy, even though he had split my grille open, because it was obvious his father had whipped his butt proper.  My mom told me to walk with Aaron back to his father’s car to show there were no hard feelings.  Aaron got back into his old man’s car and I braced my hand against it to lean in and say goodbye to his father.  Aaron accidentally closed my hand in the door.

All in all, it was a pretty lousy day.

Tags: asperger, asperger's syndrome, baseball, claustrophobia, morkie, new york yankees, opening day, poodle, southerners