Riffday: catching up edition

Some of you will recognize the source of a couple of these.  I missed a lot while I was buried in school.

1.  On the difference between males and females.  I have one child of each variety, which may not make me an expert, but gives me good stories to tell.  They were/are both equally loud, equally dirty, equally active.  The most obvious difference?  If you have a slumber party of six 10-year-old girls and one of them farts, they will giggle and laugh hysterically and make fart jokes for 5 minutes or so, but then they MOVE ON.  If you have a slumber party with six 10-year-old boys and one of them farts, you can come back an hour later, and they will still be making fart noises and telling stupid potty jokes and laughing like loons.  Come back in another hour?  They're still at it.  I shared this bit of wisdom once when we were with several other couples, and one of the guys said, "Well, once you've reached the pinnacle of humor, where else is there to go?"  I think one might argue that they've reached the nadir or, um, the bottom.  But I wouldn't want to contribute to the lame humor, would I?

2.  On how prayer works.  I've said before that I have no idea how prayer works.  But I'll pass on something I heard Caroline Myss say in a videotape of hers I listened to years ago.  I have no idea whether or not it's true, but I find it intriguing. She said that every time you do something generous or helpful or selfless, you build up a surplus of positive karmic energy.  Sort of like making a deposit in a savings account.  So then when you want to pray for somebody, you have this psychic bank account that you can draw on to distribute positive energy to people or situations you care about.  Interesting, yes?  There's no way to know whether or not she's right, but I like it.  Of course, once you've heard this, if you do something selfless in order to increase your psychic savings account, is it still selfless?

3.  I think I owe an apology to people who are really seriously dealing with friends and relatives who have Asperger's or OCD.  I tease about them, and I do have a few of the symptoms-- especially of Asperger's. And I do believe, based on working in the Special Services office of a school for several years and watching them diagnose kids, that when I was pre-school-ish kindergarten-ish that I would have been diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum.  I was hyperlexic, hyper-introverted, and hyper-sensitive.  But I don't seriously have to deal with it, especially not OCD.  I don't mean to make light of what is a very serious situation for those who do.

4.  I read an article once about a kid with sensory integration issues--which is fairly common among people on the autism spectrum, it has to do with difficulties in learning how to sort through all the sensory data that is thrown at us every second.  This kid was probably seven or so, and his mom related how difficult it used to be to get him dressed, because everything felt too tight and he just wanted it all off.  After working with an occupational therapist, he was able to tolerate wearing clothes because he figured out that (for example), his underwear only felt too tight at first.  If he waited a few minutes, the too-tight feeling would go away.  In other words, sometimes you can get used to your panties being too tight.  Take this bit of wisdom as you will.  I've been thinking about it quite a bit recently.

5.  Cheery-o sent me a book a couple of years ago about forgiveness.  Being a hyper-sensitive sort, it is easy for me to get offended or to get my feelings hurt over little things, and then I just don't know what to do with it.  You can't make a big thing out of a little thing, it leaves you with no friends.  The author of this book (Lewis Smedes) said (I think in the very first chapter), sometimes you don't have to forgive people.  Sometimes you can just let it go.  (silence) (insert pause here)....  (insert another pause....)  (light bulb goes on over my head)  You CAN?  REALLY?  It was news to me, a true life changing moment.  You can just let the little things go.  Who knew?  For those of you who don't have a problem with this, that probably sounds horrible.  All I can say is, I'm better about it now.  And dh is still with me, making him a candidate for sainthood.

I've told you before that I write this blog for me, and this post is proof of it.  I was really struggling with a certain issue when I sat down to type, and by the time I got to the end, I had worked it out. or at least worked out a new perspective on it. *sigh* love that.