The care and feeding of an aspie

Some people with Asperger's syndrome call themselves aspies. I think it is kind of a cute way of owning that you have been diagnosed with a mild form of austim.

My 11-year-old daughter has it, but she's never called herself an aspie. She's never really called herself anything because she doesn't like to talk about the diagnosis so much. She thinks the word "Asperger's" sounds like a bad-word sandwich, and she's right -- which is probably why "aspie" has caught on in the first place.

I have learned more about Asperger's in the past eight years than I have about anything else in my life. Still, no matter how much I learn and how much I read, there are no real answers. No one knows where it comes from or what causes it. From all the reading I've done, I know that there are tons of parents out there trying to figure out how to "manage" it by lessening its negatives and accentuating its positives. (For a brain disorder, it does have some nice features. Following rules without a fight comes to mind as a bonus.)

The one thing I can't figure out no matter how much I search is how to help my daughter make friends. No one has cracked that code yet for these kids. Either they don't care much about having friends (my daughter falls into this category) or they are desperately seeking friends, but put them off with the aspie odd behaviors and blunt assessments.

"Your breath stinks" is a perfectly acceptable conversation opener for an aspie. Doesn't get much more blunt than that.

Other kids don't get it and you know what? I don't blame them. Not one bit. If I was a kid with an aspie in my class, I probably wouldn't bother either. It takes a lot to be friends with someone who answers your questions only about half the time, rarely looks at you, never asks you how you are or what you want to do, and thinks a good conversation is recalling a verbatim dinner-table conversation from Thanksgiving three years ago.

I count my blessings that the kids around my daughter have been mostly understanding, but I say an extra thank you for something else: They haven't been cruel. At least not cruel enough to cause my daughter any pain or insecurity.

They just know she's different, even if they don't know why. They know she repeats herself a lot and can be a little rude. They think she's quiet; I'm quite sure some of them think of her as less than they are, even if they can't put it that way exactly. As a mom with the wisdom of childhood behind her, I see it and I know.

I always tell my daughter that I think she'll be very happy when she's an adult, and she can live her life to her own specifications. She'll be labled eccentric, I'm pretty sure of that. Maybe even be one of those odd ladies who lives in an apartment with five cats.

I hope she'll call herself an aspie and smile, even if it is just in her own mirror.

Wanted: One Phone Booth

While cell phones have certainly made pay phones unnecessary, I think there's one piece of equipment that goes along with pay phones that we still need -- phone booths. Let me explain.

I work in a cube farm. I would love for people to think that my glamorous job has me perched in a beautiful office with windows on two sides at Fourth and State with a stunning view of downtown.

I know that no one really thinks that. That's good, because here's the reality. I'm in a little box of a nondescript color with fabric walls. I think it was once beige, but two or three decades of exposure to florescent lighting has tinged it a little pink. It's kind of the color of Pepto Bismol, but not quite as bubble gum.

My window view is behind my back, and it's mostly a panorama of the old Arena, which I think is now called the U.S. Cellular Arena.

About 18 inches away from me is one of my co-workers. Good news: I like her. Bad news: We hear every breath the other one takes.

I know all the ins and outs of her personal life as she does with mine, both because we are friends and also because we can hear EVERY WORD the other one says.

At the farm, we're all in this situation, just in different pairs and combos. We are all on top of each other, monitoring each other's vitals.

Now with this picture painted for you, answer this: How do you call your gynecologist to ask about test results? How do you call the vet for antifungal cream for the dog -- and hope that no one else hears and assumes it is for you?

You grab your cell phone and head for the ... what? We have conference rooms that are used just about nonstop. As a result, you see a lot of people lurking in hallways, trying to have a semi-private conversation and hoping that no one comes by.

If someone does, you shuffle off to another little-used hallway, and again, hope for the best. Yeah, it usually doesn't work out. In fact, I almost always find myself heading down a hallway, just to find someone else there, crouched on the floor, talking on his cell phone. There's one guy in our farm who spends about a third of his day in the hallway.

There's one woman (not in my department) who I have heard talking on her cell phone in the bathroom stall on more than occasion. Ick.

If all of us farmers pooled our funds, we could probably get a phone booth or two pretty cheap. I'm going to check eBay.

And if I like them enough, maybe I'll wedge one into a corner with some windows and just move in.

Coolest kid in the world

The best thing about this story is that I know my son would do this for me.