Notes from the Red Bird House

 A friend texted me last night. Her almost twelve year old son is starting middle school today and she was more than a little stressed. I guess it's somewhat normal for parents to be nervous about such milestones in their children's lives. I mean sixth grade means a bigger school, perhaps switching classrooms, more complex homework assignments, etc, etc. I'm sure there's also some wistfulness about the whole thing. The "My baby's growing up" kinda thing. My friend's concerns last night (and again this morning) were far larger. You see, her son is different. He always has been. Not only is he on "the spectrum," he also has Tourettte's. And he's on the fringes of non-binary. Plus, he lives on the border of Texas and Arkansas in a place that is far from open-minded and falls just below marginally accepting. This is the land of conservative politics (ie Trump), gun rights, big religion, and the concomitant "family values" that i

 Back in the day when I did little except work, drink, and write, I used to write these Top 10 list blogs. David Letterman was still on and doing his so I copied him. Sort of. Anyway, when I didn't have any other halfway brilliant idea, I'd crank out a Top 10 list and call it good. I'd written something and occasionally along the way, writing just that little bit of BS would inspire something far grander. The popularity of said Top 10 list blogs was questionable at best. With the exception of one reader. She was and hopefully still is a sucker for a Top 10 list.  I'm super excited to because that reader is coming to Asheville in October and that gave me a blog idea (I also wanted to procrastinate writing fiction...). I can't wait to show her everything that I love about my new hometown. Well, as much as we can pack into 3 1/2 days. So I thought, why not pour my love of AVL into a Top 10 list? Maybe give her an idea of what we might see and help us prioritize our tim