I'm Awesome

I'm doing so much better this weekend, after spending time with friends and family and realizing that I'm not alone. Thank you so much for all of your kind comments and e-mails. I feel the love, and it makes a difference.

I got this text from my friend Becca after a really hard night, and it wasn't anything more than just a few simple words of encouragement and love, and I recognized that I hadn't been telling myself those words, and that's what was missing. I usually joke around that I'm the funniest person I know, and I'm everyone's inspiration, and even though I am saying it to be silly, I think it makes a difference in my attitude. I really think I'm just going to have to remember that I'm the best.

Alright, not "the best." But I'm dealing fairly well with a pretty major thing, and I need to let myself know that I'm doing alright. And also that I'm funny and I tan easily.

I'm also going to have to stop listening to people who make me feel bad. Lame people are just going to be lame. I don't think think they understand RP, and I don't think they want to understand. So, enough about them. More about me, and my near-saintly patience, super soft hair, and that unfailing ability to find the best people in the world to be my friends.

In Which I Answer An E-mail On My Blog About My Far Too Vague Blog Post

Rachel,

Oh, I got the belly laughs from your e-mail. Belly Laughs are way more fun after gaining holiday weight.

So, I guess I've been pretty sad about losing more eyesight. And it's manifesting in ways that make absolutely no sense. Like, when I stepped on a toy in the office, I got so upset that I cleaned out the entire room, and it took me a whole day. This is HIGHLY uncharacteristic of me. Cleaning, I mean. And I've been watching movies like crazy, so I can "remember" them better when my sight is fully gone, even the bad ones I don't care about (hence Mrs. Doubtfire). I've gone back to staying inside a lot, because I'm afraid of car traffic again (even with my cane). So my kids keep begging me to take them to the park, and I come up with excuses, like "Oh, we haven't looked you tube videos of piglets yet!" but Rachel, you can only watch so many piglets. And it's been 75 degrees every day, and I waste it, and then feel horrible.

I don't really want to blog about any of it, because it makes me feel like I'm complaining, and I don't feel complain-y. Just sad. And I think those two things are different, but they don't really come across as different on a blog.

My world just feels like it's closing in, which makes me feel like I should hurry up and be useful. And then I say something like that and want to punch myself, because it implies that blind people aren't useful, and hello, yes, I totally know that they are. My friend Adam, who has RP, is playing a show this Saturday to raise money for disabled veterans with his blind friend Mike (who, by the way, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for a school for blind children.) So if I'm not useful after losing my sight, that is completely on me.

I also feel like I have to be nice to everyone all the time, because once I'm blind I'm going to be very dependent on the information others give me, and if I'm known for being a total b-word, people are going to be like, "Oh yeah, there's no pole there, keep walking" when there very much IS a pole there. And then they'll laugh and run away and I'll just stand there rubbing my nose and wishing I had been nicer, but also wishing they get hit by a car.

It isn't that I have to try really hard to be nice. But sometimes I feel like my life is dependent on my niceness and likability. Which is a weird thing.

I'm just about to wrap up this e-mail, and I realize I should probably just post this on my blog, because it's probably the most real thing I've written since I stopped trying to write a book about losing my sight. And people like real. And maybe if I post this, people will feel less like letting me run into poles.

Yeah, sorry Rachel, this is going public. Also, I hope your "rash" has cleared up. So gross.

Love you,

Renee

I do a great impression of a hot dog

Just to give you an idea of the past two days I've had, tonight I stayed up late to watch Mrs. Doubtfire on TV. And I despise Robin Williams. And what's worse? I LAUGHED at stuff. Like, pretty genuinely. Oi.

If you'd like to schedule an intervention, please note that I'll be home always, because I go nowhere ever. Which is really, very much, the underlying problem.

Also, somebody, besides my husband, needs to know that I knew it was Mrs. Doubtfire in the first two seconds of the movie, when you hear the first note of "Figaro." Scary and sad, and I should not even be proud of that, but I really, really am.

When Smart is Scary

Sometimes Lennon and I do this thing where we pass notes to each other that start off really nice, like "Mom, you are the best," "Lennon, you are a beauty queen," and "Mom you are full of rainbows," and then we get sort of silly and pass notes like, "Mom, you are a beautiful turtle" and "You have hair like a gorilla that is pretty." It's good clean fun.

This morning Harrison wanted a note, and because I was in a silly mood, I wrote, "You are a special butterfly," thinking he can't read it anyway, because he is THREE.

But, you guys, he took that note, and then threw himself on the couch and started crying, like SOBBING, and when I asked him what was wrong, no joke, he says, "I'm NOT a butterfly!"

It scared the crap out of me. Turns out, he knows how to read the word butterfly like a pro.

I'll get to the bottom of this, and report back, because the only other explanation I have right now is temporary demonic possession. Demons are all about creepy premature literacy, I bet.

It's a New Year, Nothing New Here

Happy New Year, Nerds. Nice to see you again.

My lovely sister-in-law, Stephanie, took this picture of our family on our VERY last minute trip to San Diego to see my sister get married. It was such a nice wedding (especially for being planned in about a month). My sister officiated. Lennon dropped petals. Eric played Love Me Tender on the guitar. The groom arranged the bouquet about an hour before the ceremony. It was like a game show. 24-Hour Wedding. No... Matrimony Madness. The Nuptial Games. Ready, Set, Marry. Something like that anyway.

What you're seeing in this picture is the very best faces we were willing to make after getting up at 4:30am to drive six hours and make it in time to find our hotel room, get dressed, and make it to the beach. I'd say we look pretty good, considering.

Santa's List

Nothing like a little bit of last minute Christmas preparation to keep a girl up all night, right? So I made a list of things I needed to get done, and put it on my dresser. It felt more manageable to actually write down "Charge Camera" than to actually go and find the charger and plug the dang thing in.

This morning Harrison somehow got his hands on the list and came into the kitchen to tell me he found Santa's List in my room.

"Let me see it," I said, expecting to see another drawing (which, don't get me wrong, but I can only take so many pictures of monsters eating blood before it becomes sort of ho-hum.)

"NO! It says something you can't see."

"Harrison, let me see it." Now I'm worried it's a receipt I'll need or a bill I intended to ignore until January...

"I don't want you to see." And he runs off down the hall with something behind his back.

So the chase is on. I catch him, and he starts CRYING.

"No Mom, PLEASE DON'T SEE IT!"

I spy my To-Do List, and take it from him, asking him what he thinks it says.

"Santa put my name on there," he sobbed.

And he pointed to his name and started crying again.

Poor thing just learned how to recognize his own name. Unfortunately, he can't read "Need To Buy" as a column header. And it uses an awful lot of the same letters as "Naughty."

All he knew is he had gone through the effort of pulling out a stool, sneaking into my room, and climbing to the top of my dresser to retrieve a toy I took from him, and he found his worst nightmare, calling him out by name.

Funny Girl

We had a church Christmas Party on Friday. It was a dinner/talent(?) show type thing, and when you do that sort of thing with Mormons, you're fairly likely to get one Evolution of Dance, one to three whipped cream pies to the face, a reference to a PG Will Ferrell moment, and at least twenty unnecessary wigs.

During the skit changes (aka waiting for someone to tie shoes to their hands) we had an emcee who told bad holiday-themed jokes. "What falls in the North Pole but doesn't get hurt?" "What do monkeys sing at Christmastime?" "What did Adam say on December 24th?" Yeah, those exact jokes.

So, Lennon is sitting there with us, listening to these terrible jokes fall flat (as they should, even among Mormons), and she is looking clearly frustrated. So, I ask her what's wrong and she says, in her most serious Lennon tone, "These jokes are the worst. I have funnier jokes than that."

I ask her, "Like what?" And she tells me, "Better than that guy's."

Which makes me laugh. And I tell her that I bet she does, and that she should go tell him one during the skit, so he can say it on the next break.

But Lennon is a shy type. Doesn't talk to people she doesn't know. Never in a million years would she actually go up there and tell this guy she could one up him.

Except that, as soon as the curtain opens up, and the boy scouts start singing about tying kids to trees and their cross-dressing leaders (Mormons are weird), Lennon gets up off her chair and heads straight for the stage. I watch her whisper something to the emcee, and he shakes his head no, and she says something else, and he points her back to her seat, and I think to myself, "I shouldn't have said anything. Poor kid."

She comes walking back to her seat, and I just pat her on the head and she looks up at me and shrugs her shoulders. And then I comfort Harrison who is crying because someone is throwing candy at the crowd, and he's nowhere near it.

As the curtain closes, Lennon gets up from her seat and goes straight for the stage again, and I think, "Oh no." But she's looking determined and I figure I should stay out of the affair, because the last thing I want to discourage is perseverance.

But there's no issue. The emcee tells a bad joke, sees Lennon standing there, and he just picks her up so she can reach the mic, announcing that his assistant has a joke too.

"Where do you find a turkey?"

Pause for beat.

"In Turkey."

She is let down off the podium, and as she readjusts her sweater, she walks back to our table, like You're Welcome.