Wednesday, September 29, 2004

O cruel irony:

Had he been someone else, things might have been different.

Had he not been who he was, I would never have grown to know, let alone love, him.

If I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have truly known what loving someone deeply feels like.

Now that I do know, I'm too stubbornly fixated to settle for what once would have been a LOT more than adequate. The fact that he himself wants nothing whatsoever to do with me makes this all the more irritating.

I also wouldn't have known the total and complete hell of loving someone _that_ much.

Now that I know how much it hurts, even more than I was afraid it would (and I was absolutely terrified), it's veryveryvery hard for me to consider a retry.

And solitude is still satisfying, but it lacks..no, doesn't lack...I don't know. Now that I've tasted the forbidden fruit, the Eden of solidtude just isn't exactly the same anymore.


Tuesday, September 28, 2004

I have been reading everything I can find about autism and Asperger's. The more I read, the more frustrated I become! WHY did they have neurotypical people write *books* on a subject in which they have no first hand experience? It would be like a man observing women in childbirth and then writing a book based on his observations, to alter the behavior of those women and increase understanding of them. He doesn't have any fucking understanding of them! All he sees is the way they are acting. WHY don't they have books on this subject written by autistic people? Or,at least, written by a team of people, at least half of which are autistic, if they just can't handle the thought of an entire book written by an 'insider'. The perspective is so warped and superficial...ugh.

OK, to be fair, there are Temple Grandin and Lianne...can't remember her name and too lazy to search for it...she wrote 'pretending to be normal'. These books are not to be found in the center where I work, with developmentally disabled people (yeah, now this is starting to be a huge joke for me). Instead, there are books of strategies for how to teach them to be normal, and then they admit that they cannot really make a person 'normal'. They can only offer enough of a taste to make one cease being happy and feel deprived...as though that weren't an issue already. This is seen as an improvement? And the books always have this tone, as though the 'subjects' are not quite human, as though they have no feelings. I think they honestly believe that....*Irk*!

Anyway, this should be interesting, because today I go to work at that job and I am really angry about all this already. If one person makes a snide or belittling comment to one of the autistic clients...man I am gonna fucking lose it.....you would not believe what passes for therapy...

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Realization of the day: I don't think there's been a single time in my life when I've fallen for someone, or even had a strong case of 'like', and not had someone pissed off at me about it. Whether it was a jealous (other) male, a family member, a friend, or the guy himself, someone has *always* been ticked at me, every single time. Why is that? I mean, why can't it work out, just once? Is that too goddamned much to ask? Why do I have to feel deeply ashamed and guilty every time I start to feel something for someone?

I can't really say that I feel all that guilty/shameful about sexual matters, but love, now....that is a different story...and it just doesn't make any sense.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

I got another....I don't know what to call this. My friend and published quilt artist , who has great ideas but can't draw them, pays me to put her ideas on paper and to draw them in a pattern format. For example, she might say that she has the really cool idea od a red tailed hawk flying and it's feathers streaming out to merge with the sunset so that you can't say where one beginsd and the other ends. My job is to go and find pictures of hawks, flying at different angles, see which pose she likes, and then draw that my own way, a hawk morphing into a sunset. As I work, I segment it by color; black for the bear's body and head, light brown for the muzzle. I've simplified the process somewhat for brevity...it involves a lot of checking back and altering. When the work is done, she pays me and enlarges or resizes the drawing and makes a trial quilt. That quilt will be used for a book or the cover of a pattern, so essntially, my work is getting published. :-) Also, I will be credited in the book/patterns, if I am to understand correctly. Anyway, she hasn't had any work for me for awhile, but this evening she did. It isn't lucrative but I do enjoy it. Here's her site- Cedar Mountain Design. So anyway, what do you call that, a commission?

I got two library books about Georgia O'Keeffe, big oversized books with beautiful, quality pictures. I am also reading: Ringworld (Larry Niven) and Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck). It seems that this latter is the least depressing of Steinbeck's books that I've read so far. Non fiction (a partial list): The Tiger's Child (Torey Hayden), Orchids Simplified (some cretin cut entire pages out of this book! I hope I don't get blamed for it), Heredity and your family's health (a tome on genetic defects and their implications. Fascinating stuff).

What I'm listening to: Vanessa Mae- Storm is such a great CD that I think I'm going to buy it- Bach, and Elton John, sometimes Crystal Method.

Am I the only one who thinks that feminine products with deodorant smell much worse than the natural, ummm, smell?

What is it with people's hankering for nasty artificial odors? Ew.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Sometimes I want to die. It isn't, by any means, that I'm intending to take action in that direction- I'm not, and since I am in fact here, I had might as well do something with it. It's only that I really can't see living the rest of my life like this.

Friday, September 17, 2004

This song by Elton John (copyrighted, all rights reserved, yadayadayada...) perfectly expresses the way it feels to be me, to have AS:
-------------------------
Oh, I’m a dark diamond
I’ve turned hard and cold
Once was a jewel with fire in my soul
There’s two sides of a mirror
One I couldn’t break through
Stayed trapped on the inside, wound up losing you

Tell me how does it work?
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I’ve put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself I might understand
But when the wall's built
And the heart hardens
You get a dark diamond
Dark diamond

Oh, I’m a dark diamond
But you’re something else
You read me more than I read myself
The one star I could count on
Only comet I could trust
You burnt through my life to the true meaning of love

Tell me how does it work?
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I’ve put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself I might understand
But when the wall's built
And the heart hardens
You get a dark diamond
Dark diamond
-------------------------------------------

That's the way it is. I'm always the stupid one, the one who makes the stupid mistakes, who doesn't hear the vital facts even thoguh I strain and search for them with all my heart (literally). The one who just doesn't get it, who doesn't understand that when a guy is sitting there smiling at you and has been talking to you for hours, you don't mean a damned thing to him, not even as a friend, even when you can talk to him about anything. Anything, except that you love him. That sad fact reduces you to a trembling, shivering bundle of nerves.

The one who doesn't get that marrying a guy is no guarantee that he won't pick up his ex-wife and bring her back again, or, that it's a possibility, at least. Who doesn't get that you're not good enough to be seen in public with him, only good enough to fuck.

The one who doesn't get that it's easier to sleep over at another gals home rather than to come home to you, his wife. After all, her place is closer to work. It is strictly platonic. Damn, why can't I get that?

Who doesn't get that a guy will lay in your arms and gripe for hours upon end about his (soon to be) ex-wife, rant and rave about her, while you listen patiently and soothe his pain, until he feels well enough to go back to her.

Who doesn't get that what a guy wants, is for a girl who likes him, to act like she doesn't. That they want to chase something, and if they don't have to chase it, it isn't worth having. That you have to be false and coy in order to be decent and worthy of a nice guy, and if you're not, you'll probably get a jerk. If he isn't usually, he'll become one, because you were 'easy'.

Who doesn't get that a guy wants a pretty head full of fluff, especially if she acts like a confident know-it-all.

Who doesn't get that there is no seal of security- not sex, or marriage, or companionship, or statements of love or devotion, or children, or the fact that he's right next to you every night- he can still grind your heart to powder at a moment's notice, and with no real provocation, except that you're there. And, it'll be your own fault. There was a misunderstanding. It was *obvious*. He thought you knew that all along. What are you talking about?!?!?! Of course not! He *told* you. He didn't need to tell you. Anyone would know. Anyone could have figured that one out. Anyone except me......Being me really sucks. There are a _lot_ of things that I don't get.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

So, I decided the other day that art is really the only thing that...let me think of how to word this.....

I don't really mind working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, except that between that and my boys, it doesn't leave much energy or time or thought or, or time left for *seeing* things, so that I can paint or draw. I don't especially begrudge the fact that I barely get by, except that it it leaves me feeling uneasy about rent and bills, etc. What I begrudge is that basically, I live for art and for thought, and there isn't really any time for it. There isn't enough time to soak in the things that I love, their scents and textures and colors and forms and sounds....it all gets drowned in the stuff I sick to death of and by the time I escape from that, I am as drained as a wrung out dishrag, with little ....:searches mind for word:...vitality? creativity? life?....left over from which to pull the art, to really *feel* the subject and to see its essence. There is no passion left, and I am so dispassionate by nature anyway, that I crave it, I long to have feeling, to be excited and enthralled by something.

Anyway, I saw an orchid (yes, the moth orchid) on sale...there were several actually, but I bought this one because it was the sexiest, most passionate looking one of the bunch, the most erotic. It is a beautiful shade of cool blue-pink, with magenta wings and tongue framing and beckoning around the flower's sex organs. I find all flowers sexy, but this is one of the more explicit ones I've seen. I'm only sitting here wishing I'd gotten the white ones with pink/magenta trim. They were more modest thoguh, virginal in a way. They would have been easier to paint- this one's color is hard to match even thoguh I bought two new tubes of watercolor specifically to paint it. I will have to work and experiment to find the precise shade it is. See, if it had been white, I might have eventually loosened up to the point where I'd interject any color I wanted into it. Ultramarine blue orchids..... But with this one, I am so in love with the color that it's hard for me to go past it.

So the plan is thus: to paint this thing, the same plant, until it wilts or the watercolor paper runs out or I have nothing at all left to say about it.

Now, there is another thing, and I hesitate to mention it. When I am satisfied and happy and contented, I don't have much desire to paint. If I am debilitated by pain to the point where I can't eat, sleep, or get out of bed, I can't paint, either. But there is a balance, and it seems that solitude is an essential ingredient. Maybe. I do know that most of the work I've been pleased with has come from times when I was really frustrated and wound up, or longing and pining.

All I've ever really wanted out of life is to be an artist and to love someone. Love is too chancy a business to invest my whole being in. So, I have to do the art, I have to make time for it, or I'll die and be nothing but a time-punching drone with a body.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually capable of having a sustained relationship. I kind of think so, under the right circumstances...and then I wonder, why all the emphasis and worry? I do reasonably well by myself. If things cannot be right, if they cannot be healthy, I would prefer to be by myself. See, I think half of why relationships go sour is due to sheer smothering... But hey, that's just my quirky point of view.

I finished not one but TWO beaded necklaces and a set of earrings last night. It's odd but I don't like most commercially available jewelry. It's never what I want. So I make my own, and then it fits me. It is mine as someone else's work can never be.

Phalaenopsis are one of the sexiest things I've ever seen. Trying to decide if they outdo their namesake. :grin:

I have a lot of bitchy things I could say tonight but I think I'll spare it for now...ah, somethign good: I didn't *lose* a single game of chess tinight at the chess club! (Did I mention that I started up a chess club in this dead little town? Yes, I did. Predictably, attendance is minimal, but so far, people DO come.)





Thursday, September 09, 2004

And then, there is the comfortable lovable old shirt feeling. It's sort of the way I feel about my favorite blanket. Someone seems and feels right and comfy. This is a nice state of being, and it can be quite lasting also. It is calm and soothing like a good warm bath or shower that you want to stay in all day long. As long as the sense of security and safety is maintained and my mind is challenged and fed, I can be very, very content in this state.
For example: Relationships.

I have a few patterns
  • Become infatuated with someone. I don't usally approach or tell them. It wears off in a month or so. Were the person to respond positively I would panic and feel turned off....it is just a fantasy thing, not something I intend to follow through on at ALL.
  • Or, if someone gets interested in me first, again, chances are very good that I will freak out and try to establish distance.
  • Getting absolutely obsessed with someone and falling for them completely, so that even their most irritating traits seem valid. This is a long term deal, usually, and can be a near fatal condition. Thankfully it doesn't happen often. I spose it's what the call love. Or perhaps not....whatever it is, it hurts a lot but also makes me very happy at times
  • Clinginess: if at any time in any relationship the other person should start to act clingy I have a strong tendency to throw them off just as quickly as I would a snake writhing up my arm, to run as fast as I can and not look back. This is unfortunate....but I feel really smothered very easily.
  • Most of the time I simply get tired of a person. Of course, this happens a lot faster if they get emotionally demanding or clingy at all. But, even to me, it seems a bit unreasonable, especially since I have a distinct habit of getting clingy amd attached to someone, myself. But, if I feel that the other person's feelings are more intense than I'm prepared to deal with, I back off and cool down...I can't say that I really like that side of me.....
Currently: I feel anxious. I am having a harder and harder time concealing/controlling distinctively Aspie/autistic traits. If I suppress one stim, another one surfaces, immediately. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I *mind* the stims, for my own sake....but I often snap into an awareness that I am rocking or finger flapping and that someone is looking at me, or that the way I just said that didn't have much inflection at all...or that soemone is laughing or staring at me for an unknown reason. It's unnerving, and all I really want is to be able to be myself and be at peace with that. Goddammit, I am *SICK* of having to squelch myself all the time, of having to conform. I just don't feel like I can do it any longer.

And what really sucks is that most of the people I have broached this subject with (only a few) seem to think it is just a new phase and that I do not have it....they do not understand......they cannot see me for who I am....they have always tried to cram me into a mold of who they want me to be, aughhhh!!!!!!

Things finally make sense though. To be continued.....

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Love is like a cancer of the soul. From time to time I thik that I've gone into remission and am recovering, but it always reawakens, discontent to let me heal, leaves me pale and shaking. I'm so tired of loving you.

The only good thing I can say about it is that it frees me up, in a way....because I don't have to be absolutely phobic of getting hurt. After all, noone could hurt me more than you have.... so in a way, I can kick up my heels and really enjoy myself, get close to someone without getting all neurotic and obsessive. And I think, consequently, that I actually have a better chance now, than ever before, to have a real, balanced and healthy relationship. Being phobic of rejection automatically skews the balance towards the other party, places them in a position of complete power, the power to turn you away and break your heart into a million tiny fragments at the slightest whim or ripple of irritation. I'm not sure I ever want to walk on those eggshells again. There must be a better way.....and perhaps I'm finding it.
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On other notes..... I think I want to see about getting an official confirmation (or denial) of whether or not I have Asperger's. My entire life, I've wondered what was wrong with other people, _or_ what was wrong with me, because something has sure as heck been out of sync, and I'm pretty sure it's me. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm defective...I think that no matter what, the world's always going to seem a little fucked up to me. I just do not comprehend the way people operate, why they insist on all sorts of social niceties that are essentially dishonest. I don't understand their motivations, their nastiness, or, for thast matter, their insincere friendliness. I realize that I'm weird, but it would be nice to have some closure on the subject and a categorzied set to my weirdness, a way to say, "well, this is why X never made sense to me" and "This is why I find Y intolerable".

Also, it's gotten to the point where I'm having panic attacks on almost a daily basis. I'm not sure if it's overload from too many people, too much stress or sensory input, or what....but I'm kind of hoping that there's a reasonable answer that can be dealt with and settled.