9-03-01

Cabbing in from O'Hare, we enter the dawn of September, and the weather pointedly reminds us that the cold isn't far off. The clouds are cloudy. Jagged bolts of lightning split the sky and rain drops kamikaze against the windows. It's been a tiring trip, made more so by the fact that I threw out my back again. Wracked by another painful spasm. And I started my PT last week, but it did nothing. He gave me stretches that didn't do any good loosening my tight back muscles. At least not in the short run. Now I can't even do the exercises because I hurt my back. Isn't life wonderful? We did pick a place and a date for our wedding. It's going to be on October 5th, 2002 at a place called the Whittemore House. It's a beautiful old mansion that's part of Washington University in St. Louis.

One of the more interesting aspects of visiting Elizabeth's family is talking to one of her two brothers Christopher. He is autistic, what is called a high functioning autistic because he can, for the most part, take care of himself. He has a job as a stock clerk at a nursing home. He also searches in the woods around a golf course and collects lost golf balls that he then sells back to the people who lost them for extra money. He owns his own car that he paid for himself. (Since he lives at home and buys very little, he actually has quite a bit of money saved up.) He watches a lot of VH-1 and his other big interest is football. He loves football and also likes hockey and basketball. He paces a lot, and he tends to twitch his hands, and make repetitive movements. He gets anxious and upset when things happen that upset his usual patterns. He also tends to change subjects abruptly. He has an ability that is slightly like Rain Man, in that he always remembers dates and days when he met people or events happened. For example, he'll run into Mrs. Gimchee whom he hasn't seen for years, and he'll tell her that he saw her last on a Tuesday, August 3rd, 1998.

Christopher: "It's not wrong to say that football is a better sport than baseball, is it? Because baseball is boring. I need some violence in my sports. It's hard to buy a house when you don't have enough income. I'm poor, I don't have enough money. It's not illegal to be stingy, is it? I told Ryan if he didn't leave me alone, I'd cut his head off. He's not allowed in my house when I buy it. Can you train snakes? The Undertaker on WWF had a King Cobra that he trained to attack other people."

He doesn't mean to sound violent; he just has difficulty expressing his emotions.