Assessing My Brain Damage

During my time in a spinal cord injury rehabilitation center I had to do all kinds of rehab (hence the name of the center, where I lived for 40 days).  Every day I had physical therapy, occupational therapy, and—ugh—speech therapy.

My speech therapist, who I met with every day at 1:00pm, basically had the job of seeing to what extent my brain had been damaged during my car accident.  She quickly realized that it hadn’t been damaged at all, so instead of going through pointless drills she began giving me math worksheets and things like that, things that were still pretty pointless, but at least not mindless.

She was a really nice lady, but unfortunately I don’t even remember her name.

But I do remember another speech therapist’s name.

Kay.

One day I went to speech therapy to find that my regular therapist was gone for a week.  I was greeted by Kay, a woman who spoke to me in a tone that one might use with…scratch that, it was a tone one should never use with anybody.  A condescending tone that made it seem that she assumed that I had suffered terrible brain damage.

“What’s your name?” she asked me in a slow, over-expressive, I know this is a tough question manner.

“Abby…”

She pointed to my dad, who was sitting across the room.

“Good.  What’s that man’s name?” she asked in the same tone.  Ten seconds into our session and I already felt like screaming at this woman.

“Dal…”

“And he is your…”

“Father…”

“Good! Your regular therapist is gone for a week.  Where did she go?”

“I don’t know; she didn’t tell me she was leaving.”

“She’s in another state.  Is she in Oregon, Texas, or Arizona?”

“I don’t know; she never told me.”

“She’s in Texas.”

The rest of the session went on like this, me with a tone saying, I’m not stupid and her mocking me with every question with a tone that seemed to say, Oh, yes you are.  I honestly don’t know how I didn’t hit the woman.

The next day I went to speech therapy again, dreading it but hoping it would be a bit more challenging.

The first question I was asked was, “What is my name?”

Shoot.  I had actually forgotten this woman’s name.  Maybe I had blocked it out of my memory like so much of the other trauma I had recently experienced.

“I don’t remember.”

“It’s also a letter of the alphabet.”

I briefly tried to think of what it could be, but wasn’t fast enough.

“Is it Dee, Elle, or Kay?”

“Kay.”

“Good!”

That was the last day I went to speech therapy.

No one likes condescension.  One day a young man with cerebral palsy came into rehab, and I couldn’t even imagine how people must have talked to him.  He looked and talked like someone with a severe mental handicap, but his brain functioned just as well as mine.

My experience as a “handicapped” person is something I now draw from every time I come into contact with someone different than me.  Who knows what any given person’s brain is truly capable of.

My Superbowl Barbie

I was a disappointed when I learned that I would be in Australia during Superbowl XLVI.  Not that I had much to be disappointed about.  I mean, I was going to Australia.  But this was the first year I'd really paid much attention to football.  I always watch the Superbowl because it's the thing to do, which I think is why many people watch it, but this was my first year in Michigan.

One difference between Ann Arbor and San Diego: Ann Arbor cares a lot more about football.  I went from living in an apartment with four other people who didn't care very much to a house with eight other people, many of whom care a lot.  And my interest was further piqued when the 49ers, my family's team, started doing really well...and kept doing really well.

So when the Superbowl neared, I put it together that I would miss it.  Who knew if Australians even watched football?  When the 49ers lost and it was determined that the Superbowl would be the Patriots vs. the Giants I didn't feel so bad, but it still would have been fun to watch the game with my football-loving roommates.

But I went to Australia, I snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef, I held a koala, and I forgot all about football.  I just assumed that I wouldn't even watch the game until my aunt's friend Diane who we were visiting in Tasmania asked if we would want to watch it.  So we planned to watch the game at Diane's house and invite a couple people over.

I learned how little Australians care about football when we asked our friend Tim if he wanted to come watch the Superbowl with us.

"The Superbowl of what?" he asked me.

"...of...American football..."

"What is that?"

"It's the..." I had never had to explain this before.  "Championship of football."

"Oh, okay, sure."

So our Superbowl party commenced with me and my aunt being the only ones who had been paying any attention to the season.  Now that was a first.  I had to explain the rules of the game of football to people.  That was a change considering that at past Superbowl parties I have been one of the people with the least football knowledge.  Tim and Nan, Diane's 87-year-old neighbor, needed the most explanation.

"Why do they keep stopping?"

"Why are they wearing all those pads and helmets?  Rugby players don't use those."

Dave, a rare Australian with some football knowledge, explained to us how rugby players are so much tougher than football players that years ago when two American football players came to play rugby in Australia one lasted a day and the other lasted two weeks.

Tim brought potato salad, and Dave brought sausages, or bangers, as they call them.  After Madonna's halftime show he threw them on the barbie.  All the Australians had been telling us that we needed to go to a barbie, and it seemed to be all many of them did on the weekends.  We were glad to have that checked off our list of things we needed to do during our trip.  No, there were no shrimps on our barbie, but we still had a taste of Australia.  And I think the Australians had a little taste of America, too.

And it really was quintessential Australian and American culture colliding: our Superbowl Barbie.

Ruth, the Cookie Connoisseur

Last weekend I went to my grandmother’s memorial service. Many members of my family shared touching stories about her, and many of them centered on her love of baking. This is a hobby that has been passed down from my grandma to my mom to me. However, I honestly think that grandma’s love of baking was second to her love of eating said baked goods.

She had the biggest sweet tooth out of anyone I know. When my brothers and I sold boxes of chocolates for fundraisers, we didn’t even have to leave the house. Grandma would buy the chocolates, one or two boxes at a time, until they were all gone.

I wasn’t Grandma’s favorite grandchild, but I was appreciated when I would bake, which I did quite often when we lived in the same house in Eureka. Every time I started baking I would wonder, How long until Grandma comes into the kitchen? It was usually no longer than thirty minutes.

“What are you making, Abby?”

“Oh, I love chocolate…”

“Am I allowed to have one?”

Many times Grandma would be too full to eat more than a few bites of her dinner, but would leave the kitchen with two or three cookies.

As everyone knows, the best time for baking or anyone who loves sweets is the holiday season. Every year when I came home from college for Christmas Break I would spend the entire week leading up to Christmas baking.

Grandma loved this. She would circle around the island in the kitchen a few times, eying the plates and plates full of cookies and other baked goods. Last Christmas was perhaps the greatest of all for Grandma. My mom had already made three different kinds of cookies, and I made four more different kinds as well as little dog biscuits for Reese and Tandy.

So eight huge plates of cookies—molasses, mint chocolate chip, sugar, and more—filled the kitchen when Grandma made her way out from her room. I was still busy baking as she circled around, not even saying hi to my dad and little brother. Cookies were the important thing right now.

After a few minutes she asked, “What are these ones here?”, pointing to the dog biscuits.

“Oh, don’t eat those ones, grandma. Those are dog biscuits,” I told her, although I knew my brother and dad would have preferred that I didn’t tell her.

“Oh, you’re kidding!” she said.

“No, grandma. I’m not kidding. They are dog biscuits,” I said as she picked one up.

And lifted it toward her mouth.

My dad, my brother, and I all looked at each other… Is she going to do it?!

Grandma took a bite.

Carl, Dad, and I immediately ran outside because we couldn’t control our laughter.

“I told her they were dog biscuits! Twice!”

Out of all the plates of amazing cookies, Grandma had chosen a rock-hard little dog treat.

Later that day Carl, who was Grandma’s favorite even though he loved to taunt her, went into her room and asked how the cookie was.

“Oh, it was okay,” she replied. “But it was a little bit dry.”

My grandma was a pretty picky eater. She wasn’t afraid to say that my dad’s pizza wasn’t as good as Pizza Hut or that my mom’s salmon made her gag. But after the dog biscuit incident, every time my grandma complained about their cooking, my dad had to resist the urge to say, “Well, what do you know? You eat dog food.”

"Grandma, why are you eating my cookies?"

She Doesn't Even Go Here!

I graduated from college in May.  I was so ready to be done with that place and start the next chapter in my life.

But somehow come August I found myself on campus again... sleeping in my old roommate's bed in her on-campus apartment right across from our old apartment.  So much for moving on with my life.

The first day of classes I showed up in all of my old professors' offices and even went to a couple of their classes.  Everyone who saw me was confused... "Wait, didn't you graduate?"  "Abby, what are you doing here?"  "Shouldn't you be working or something?"

A devoted Mean Girls fan, one line kept ringing in my head--"She doesn't even go here!"

I stayed at Point Loma Nazarene University for the first week and a half of the fall semester.  After I had thoroughly worn out my welcome, it was finally time to move on.  On to Ann Arbor, where I would finally be getting a job and being an "adult."

So I moved into my new where I live primarily with University of Michigan graduate students.  "What are you going to school for?" a couple of them asked me when we met.  "Umm... I'm not actually in school right now..."

I got a job at a cafe on the UM campus, which also just happens to be two blocks from my house.  Since my work is on campus, I even have a UM ID card.

Every single person I meet automatically assumes I am a UM student.  I wear my Michigan shirt, hang out with students, go to the bars that students frequent... and basically do everything I can to make it seem like I am a student.

Every single time someone asks me what I'm majoring in or what year I am, the same thing pops into my head--"She doesn't even go here!"

Fortunately Tina Fey has yet to show up and kick me out.  Maybe someday I'll stop pretending I'm still in college, but until then I'm just trying to bake my cake full of rainbows and smiles, hoping we can all eat and be happy.

At a UM football game in the student section with my housemate Andrew, a real UM student

Why Michigan? Why not?

Go Blue...

During my senior year of college I had regular meetings with my unofficial life coach. My future, which had once seemed so clear and straight-forward, was now completely open-ended, and I just needed someone to talk things through with.

“What do you want to do?” he would ask me.

“Well, I think I want to edit books… in the long run…”

“Well, what is your number one concern?”

“I don’t want to move back to Eureka.”

This was my biggest fear. That I would get stuck. Don’t get me wrong; I love my hometown. I just think it would be a dead end for me. Not saying it’s that way for everyone; I have plenty of friends with great jobs and great lives in Eureka… I just don’t think I could really thrive there.

And so I applied to dozens of publishing jobs during my last semester of college. They were all over the place – New York, Boston, Chicago, Oregon, Florida, and I think I even applied to a couple in England and Australia.

My good friend Julianne and I had a dream of moving to New York together (okay, we still do). It was a simple plan, really:

1. Get jobs in New York.

2. Find an apartment.

3. Go out every weekend and mingle with wealthy businessmen.

I even looked at apartments in New York. “Let’s live near Central Park!” she suggested. It was a plan.

It was about March when, after not being contacted by a single company I had applied to (aside from the occasional “we have received your application” email), that I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was technically qualified for all the jobs I applied to, but honestly, I didn’t have a chance with Simon & Schuster, Random House, McGraw Hill, Hearst Magazines… I was reaching for the stars, which is a good thing, but I had no real backup plan.

So May came, and it was time for graduation. When people asked me what I was doing with my life, I had to tell them the truth, which I had finally come to accept: “I’m moving back to Eureka for probably just a year. Going to work, save some money, then get a job, move somewhere…”

I put it off for as long as I could. After graduation I stayed in San Diego for another week. Then I stayed with Julianne in San Jose for a week and a half. Then after going to Eureka for a few days I went back to the Bay Area. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I lived there now. I applied to a few jobs in Eureka, but I was spending so much time elsewhere that I didn’t invest much time into the job search.

A little over a month after my college graduation I was sitting at home with my friend Hannah, who was going to the University of Michigan for grad school in the fall. Half-jokingly, one of us said something about me looking for jobs in Ann Arbor. My laptop was right there, so I went onto a couple job boards and applied to a couple of editorial jobs.

The next day I left for Africa, and it was while on that mission trip that I really decided that I needed to move away from Eureka. I love new people and new places, and that is precisely what I cannot find in my hometown. So, on the drive back from the San Francisco airport, I told my parents: “I think I’m going to move to Michigan.”

A week later I had a room in a house. I signed the lease and began searching for jobs. Before I arrived in Michigan, I had three job interviews lined up. The first one, at a café a few blocks away from my house, was less than 12 hours after I arrived in Ann Arbor.

So now I have a new home. I’m in a house with new roommates, in a city with new faces, and I work at a café with people who have become my new friends. It’s an adventure. It may not be my typical adventure, but it’s still new and exciting… and I really think that life isn’t about your circumstances—whether you live in San Diego or Ann Arbor, whether you’re an editorial assistant for Random House or a barista at Glass House Café, you get out of life whatever you put into it.

Stop Watching Me Pee: My Recurring Dream

Everyone has a recurring dream, right?  Your teeth are all falling out, you are being chased, you're falling, you show up to school naked...  They all have meanings; I've seen them in dream dictionaries and online.

However, I have never been able to find my recurring dream, and I just had it again last night.  Here it is:

I am going to the bathroom and someone is watching me.

It sounds unpleasant, but sometimes I don't really mind.  Last night I was in a public restroom stall, and there was no wall in between my stall and the one next to it, so my neighbor and I were having a conversation.  As a matter of fact, the person sitting on the toilet next to me just happened to be an attractive young man, and we were actually flirting while using the restroom.  I was having a great time, but I guess I got a little nervous because I unrolled the toilet paper all over the place.

It's not always an attractive male watching, though.  I remember one other time it was, but he was peeping through a hole at me, so I didn't really like that.  Other spectators have included my mother, a creepy old man, and a cute little girl.  Usually the location is a public restroom, but others have included a locker room, my own bathroom, and bathrooms at various houses.

Recently I had a dream that I was using a public restroom at a park and no one else was in the bathroom except for a seagull.  "At least the seagull isn't looking at me," I thought to myself.  Right then, the seagull cocked its head and looked straight into my eyes.

None of my friends are professional dream interpreters, but some have speculated that my recurring dream may mean that I have a lack of privacy in my life.  The closest dream in a dream dictionary I have been able to find is the public nudity dream, which supposedly means that the dreamer is hiding something and is afraid of being exposed...

I know I already used this picture on this blog, but it seemed fitting.

My African Husband

Foreign men love American girls.  I know this is a bit of a generalization, but it's something I have experienced over and over again with Mexican men, French men, Asian men, German men, Indian men, Norwegian men... and, most recently, Ghanaian men.

I recently returned from a mission trip to Ghana, and one thing I noticed was how enamored the people were of our light skin, American accents, and especially of those of us girls who have blonde hair.

One day I was in the marketplace in Tamale, the city where we were staying, when a man who owned one of the shops asked me my name and where I was from.

"It was very nice to meet you, Abby," he said.  "You should come back to my shop sometime; I would love to see you."

"Yeah!"  I said.  Yeah right.

The next day my brother and Tomi, another girl who came on the trip to Ghana, were walking down the main road in Tamale a man stopped them.  It was the same man from the day before, and he had recognized my brother.  I guess it makes sense; it is probably pretty rare to see a 6'6" white man in Ghana.

"Where is the girl you were with yesterday?" he asked Syd.  "Debbie?  I think her name was Debbie?"

"Oh," said Tomi.  "Abby?"

"Yes, Abby!"

"That's his sister," she said, pointing to Syd.

"Oh!" the man said to Syd.  "I want to be your brother!"

The rest of their conversation consisted of the man trying to convince Syd to bring me by his shop, as he intended to marry me.  He offered to give Syd things in exchange for bringing me to him.

Finally Syd agreed so that the man would stop pestering him.  "Okay, I will bring her to your shop tomorrow."

"But what time?"

"What time do you get there?  8 or 9?  Okay, I will bring her at 10."

Great, my brother sold me to a Ghanaian.  He doesn't even know what the man offered him; he says he couldn't understand.

"Okay," the man said.  "And if she doesn't come, I'll know the answer was 'no'."

Who knows what that man was thinking the next day when I didn't show up.  Perhaps he had already moved on to the next blonde tourist.  Or maybe I still have a husband just waiting for me in his little shop in Tamale, Ghana.