At last...the weight is slowly beginning to come off.

Got a new splitting maul yesterday...think I sort of scared the salesmen, lol. split a few rounds today, but my body is still weak and wrung out, like a limp noodle. Sucks to be weak!

Idea: make wreaths to sell for holidays.

I want to farm. I don't feel like myself living in the nice house with a standard lawn. I need outside dogs that stay outside most of the time....to be able to grow and harvest and weed and collect eggs and milk and prune and split and plan for the next year....the interconnectedness of rural life....I need that.

I have to find a way to get to there.

Tell me

am i wrong for feeling sad

am i wrong for missing you

am i wrong for thinking that if only i'd been able to find the right things to day

the right things to do

the right social posturing

all the right things i never know what to do

that maybe at least things wouldn't have gone so

horribly bitter

so unlike any way i would ever want anything to be with anyone i know

oh this hurts

i was wrong to love you

and i couldn't help it.....you were so...so...

so just the right color

so just the right music

so just like a puzzle piece that was always supposed to be there

and you are so easy to love.

and i was weak.

you were so like dancing with someone who flows like

like....

maybe like those fish when they spawn

they always know where the other one is

they always move in harmony

the lateral lines allow them to do that

you and i have no lateral lines...so i don't know.

i was wrong to hurt

wrong to cry

wrong to wrestle and fight and struggle

to try to understand

to try to fix, to unbreak, to solve the impossible equation

but even impossible equations have a set range of potential answers

to not be able to believe that you hate me

to not be able to not believe it

god, whatever i did, it was fucking wrong!

wrong to let someone in so close

to those ancient wounds

they all tell me wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong.

they are heartless to say that

i would rather be wrong than heartless.

but

i hurt you

and upset you

and scared you

and made you uncomfortable

in spite of never having wanted to do any of those things

i don't know if i am able to do any things right.

:-/

Almost no appetite. And yet somehow, almost no weight loss. Makes no sense.

More randomness:

Realized that the arrhythmia/palpitations are not occurring only during sleep, I simply notice them a LOT more when I'm asleep. NO caffeine today, so will see if that has been playing a role. Doesn't seem to be actually dangerous, just frightening.

After my second, much nicer drop spindle got broken, I decided I wasn't going to buy a third. These things are expensive! The model that broke looked like this:



Photo is from the shop's website, A Child's Dream Come True. Turkish spindles are nice because the crossbars come apart, leaving a neat center-pull ball of yarn. One does not have to unwind the yarn and roll it into a ball as with standard spindles, and even better, the yarn can be plied directly from that center pull ball very easily. Its labor saving aspects are significant enough to offset the higher price....and to spoil the user into never using a regular spindle again!

So I was pretty upset when I found out that someone had sat on it, breaking the shaft (OK, that sounds all wrong, my mind is in the gutter, but, whatever) so...what was I saying again? Um. Hmmm. Oh yeah, right. Broken spindle. This is the second time a spindle's been broken this way. This time, the break looked like something I could repair....so I glued, clamped, dried, sanded.....and now...an almost new spindle!. :-)

Meh...there was more, but I'm tired, still getting effects of meds wearing off. Later.

Maybe I was angry all along but the medication masked it with storming oceans of pain.

Wow, I've been prickly lately.....one of the apparent joys of sudden discontinuation of this particular med. What I cannot figure out: why (and whether) this is the cause of the palpitations/arrhythmia, which is beginning to make serious inroads into my sleep allocation. They don't seem to be actually hazardous though...the assertive aggressive bitchiness on the other hand...

I am still upset about the Friend's meeting... I feel totally unsupported, and that's not new...but. I don't know. Maybe it's self pity talking here, but I just sort of feel like I was kicked while I was down, yet again. And I feel like they chose my ex over me. Because he doesn't have any kids (other than his grown singleton)...and this is the meeting that pushed the Overpopulation minute through while I was gone one Sunday (yes, in fact, I do feel that way about it-it was well known that our meeting was not in unity on that thing). He doesn't have an autistic 5yo running around and presenting childcare crises. I do. He hasn't been falling apart in public. I have. And if standing aside and letting him harass me in the meeting house isn't too surprising, being taken aside and urged to allow him to engage with my son is just....taking things too far. I am offended and I am hurt.

Even when this situation gets ironed out....I don't know. I just feel betrayed and I wasn't aware of it until I went to the Moscow Friends meeting and remembered what going to meeting used to be like. Before it was an instrument of manipulation. When I could trust people.

Friends (non-Quaker friends) tell me to start going elsewhere...but as anyone who has been reading this blog knows well by now, changes of heart don't come easily for me. Even if I am not able to go to meeting at this time, I am still a Quaker. Maybe a Bad Quaker.....but still...a Quaker.

If there’s one thing that pisses me off in the autism awareness circles (aside from the whole “curing” debacle), it’s when people who are not themselves on the autism spectrum purport to be experts and authorities on the subject ….such experts that they know even more about the topic than autistics do.

(Yes, I am aware that it’s un-PC to call ourselves autistics, but I simply don’t care. I am not going to fucking write “persons with autism” each and every time. We’re autistic and we’re blunt and to the point and as long as some person doesn’t point to me and say, “Oh look, an autistic!” it really does not matter to me, particularly when the topic is being discussed in an impersonal way. After all, I call you “normal” people Normals and just so you know, it isn’t entirely complimentary. Now, back to your regular program of aspie contrariness.)

Look, folks: I don’t care who you are, unless you are autistic yourself, you will never, ever really comprehend it. It’s sort of like how I will never really understand what it is like to be male, or black, or to have cerebral palsy, or to be president, because it is impossible for me to be these things. It wouldn’t matter if I studied maleness for my entire life and gave speeches until I was blue in the face…..I could not really be an expert on being male. For me to suggest otherwise would just be preposterous.

Similarly, I, as an aspie, cannot claim to know what it is like to be (I hate this term) “Low Functioning” autistic (and from now on, I will be using the standard AS, LFA, and HFA to designate these categories. I would like to clarify right here that there I don’t like the labels and that I personally do not consider any of these types of autism to be “better” than another type. If you can’t understand that, then please go read Amanda Bagg’s blog). Also, a person with LFA or HFA cannot know what it is like for me to be aspie. (We might commiserate and compare notes and discuss our various challenges, but still…....

And see, this is something which the so-called experts do not, as a rule, do. They do not come to us and pick our brains and ask for our input and insight. Oh, hell no. They tell us about how and why we think what we do, which I think is pretty fucked up! That sort of thing has a label: hubris. I mean, if an “expert” wants to go and have a mental pissing match with another so-called expert, that’s their business, I guess. Normal people seem to get off on trying to act impressive and self-important….so whatever, fine…go for it. But to get so arrogant as to write books and papers and have speaking engagements on how we think…..to dictate and announce to the world that you know how we think….I guess it makes money and all, but seriously, you folks are imposters.

We are not a species of flora or fauna which cannot speak for itself. Many of us can speak and more of us can write or type. If you really want to know what an autistic thinks, how they perceive things, don’t read a book written by a normal….especially that nasty female normal who writes about aspies and love…she’s a bitch with a vendetta along with being a poseur….ask an autistic person. Most of us don’t bite. I can’t really claim to be one of them, but I promise that I only bite those whom I know and love…and that I don’t bite hard anyway! ;-) We don’t have a disease, we are not contagious, nor are we ignorant of our own thought processes, because the majority of us are highly introspective folk.

And this is why…I’m not sure that I can support this “autism awareness” thing any longer. It’s too much like Autism Speaks, an organization which will not allow any autistics within its ranks, nor are we allowed to give any kind of input on how we feel about their fantasies of “curing autism”. I think we autistics should have a group and call it “Neurotypicalism Speaks”. We can express our disappointment with the shallowness, deceit, cruelty, materialism, etc. exhibited by Normals and talk about how this is a disease which has to be cured because it is killing society and worse, the environment. No normal should be allowed to protest or to be any part of the organization. We should lobby Congress to cure Neurotypicals and point out that most crimes are committed by nasty neuros, and how hard it is to raise these kids, etc…because we, as children and parents and siblings of normal people, know how damaging these folks can be to people such as ourselves. See how stupid that sounds?

Oh, wait. I strayed from one pet peeve to another. :-/
So, I’m just going to come right out and say it. When you find a person who claims to be an expert on autism, to know how we think, and they are not autistic, THEY ARE A FRAUD. They want your money and your respect. Don’t give them either.

I keep seeing attractive women and then experiencing the odd sensation of the sudden flare of interest dying down like the flame of a paper match.....because my heart knows what it knows...and I cannot argue with it.

i am, however, thankful to no longer be obsessed, so I can't really complain much. Being alone is OK by me...solitude is precious.

Beginning to wonder if this is some kind of sleep disorder that involves the arrhythmia...because it happened again last night, at approximately the same time of night. Hmm.

I am sooo tired and sleep deprived right now.

And....I want to live somewhere else. And to farm. Even if I have to lease land from someone else or work in exchange for growing space....I am tired of jumping through hoops and the endless driving and....I don't know. I just tired of it. I don't want to spend another winter there if I can help it.

It seems like I saw an ad somewhere for 7 acres for 16K. Tomorrow's task (after jumping through hoops to indicate submission, blech!): go to the agricultural extension office and try to find info to come up with a workable business plan.

And: the one good thing to come from today's thoroughly useless trip to CDA: I got some masking fluid. I have had some ideas for a watercolor/mixed media technique and now I can try that out.

Woke up with arrhythmia scaring the bejeezus out of me....around 11 PM last night. I am chagrined to admit that it freaked me out badly enough that going to the ER was the chosen course of action. This was partly due to having just read the side effects of discontinuing the particular medication that I have been off of for a week now....the list is pretty sobering, and I wasn't even aware that quitting a med could wreak such havoc.

Long story short, I need to quit caffeine and be nice to myself, and there isn't a whole lot to worry about. Something called PSVT that I still need to look up.

But being sleep deprived and nauseous/dizzy (side effects of med discontinuation) does make me a little crabby.

Which brings me to the next subject, the Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting. I am a Quaker. A non-theist Quaker, but still....this is the group that I fellowship with. My lack of conviction or certainty in regard to a personal deity doesn't change that this is a source of support, comfort, friendship and meaning in my life. And for the past several months, when I have needed this more than ever.....my ex, who is not only not a Friend but has no real interest in Quakerism, has been attending regularly with the goal of harassing me and alienating me from my support network. At least, that's how I see it.

Don't ask. I tried, fruitlessly. Friends are kind folk who give people the benefit of the doubt. Never mind that the man had been abusive, controlling and toxic to myself and children and that he never came to meeting at all until he ran out of other ways to engage with me. Not. Once. No, that doesn't matter. That is coincidental. And it would be fine if he didn't follow me around like an animal waiting for me to drop dead or start bleeding, despite repeated requests to let me and my son alone.

sigh....it is so hard to write this without feeling and sounding bitter.

I have to protect my son. This is my job and my duty. I feel like I've been pushed out of my Meeting by this man, and everyone stands by, condoning his behavior and asks me what my problem is. Folks, my problem is that this man is hassling me on an almost daily basis, insulting me and begging to go camping with my son, saying that they are "best friends". Sorry, no. A 60 year old man should not be friends with a 16 yo boy. It's (gasp, I had to use that word!) inappropriate....especially when the man has no other close friends and has a controlling and overpowering personality. Oh my. I am becoming a Bad Quaker. :-/

So....I am going to Quarterly. I am printing out the emails where he tells me that I contribute nothing to the Friend's meeting here, that I take and take and give back nothing, that the people there support him and think I am unreasonable. I will have documentation from professionals regarding this man and the effect he has had on my son. I will point out that my son does not want to spend his weekends with this man. Folks, I don't know what else to do. Getting a no-contact order will probably just result in being totally unable to attend meeting. :-/

Just bartered half an hour of help cleaning up before closing for the local pizza place (organic, high quality, not a fast food type- I have my standards!!!) in exchange for wireless, espresso, and a wonderful greek salad. :-)

Seriously considering the art therapy idea. I was in Moscow over the weekend, visting my sister for my birthday (kind of takes some of the sting out of being another year closer to being over the hill), we went to the Moscow farmer's market and visited several of the small shops there.

Random observations:

• Their farmer's market is HUGE and so vibrant! I loved it! There was a potter who was making plates with red kokanee salmon...I wanted one so, so badly, but had no cash on hand, alas.
  
• There are SO many attractive gay women there. It isn't often that I find myself feeling too feminine for comfort.... They are beautiful.
  
• There is a LOT of organic farming going on there, including an organic goat dairy, an organic creamery (cow) and countless organic vegetable farms. Orchards appear to be fewer in number but are present.
  
• Also- there are a lot of potters, artists, and artisans, a lot of emphasis on "green" art and socially concious stuff.
  
• Folks, if I ever move, add Moscow to my list of potential relocation sites....(before it was coastal only)
  
• and, in one of the aforementioned small shops, the owner had an entire (long) wall of paintings, renditions of well known paintings. They were very good. They were done by a death row inmate. The talent going to waste....slated for the executioner's chair, saddens me...which in no way condones whatever crime the guy committed (assuming he wasn't wrongfully convicted!). The father of the shop owner brings art supplies to the inmate. Art therapy for prisoners....not a field I would necessarily be drawn to, but meaningful and noteworthy nonetheless.
  

I have this idea..that ALL art is therapeutic and cathartic. I don't think that we as a society recognize this sufficiently, and particularly when it come to children. We are inclined to view art as a disposable nicety in our schools, a craft whose value is to please the parents with pretty pictures to affix to the fridge. :-/

I don't think I would have been able to endure the late winter and spring without being able to plunge my hands into the clay and made physical embodiments of my pain, to purge it by giving it a physical presence outside of myself. Art is not only not always "nice" and "pretty", it is also essential to any civilization and to every person, whether we recognize it or not. I think that not being able to express oneself is (looking for the right word here) toxic? Nope, that isn't the right word. Oh well. Will fix later.

No, it's more like waking up and finding yourself sitting in the aftermath of some kind of natural disaster. I look around at my life, people ask me what I am going to do...and I honestly do not know what to say. I am speechless on this topic.

I know that I have to sign up for some classes somewhere, or I will lose the 6 month grace period on my student loans. But.....where exactly was I headed, degree wise? I'm not sure I even knew what the hell I was doing. Ugh!!!!

I mean...I have more science credits than I will ever need, because I was headed into botany before realizing that math and chemistry weren't just going to be a long uphill climb (I was prepared for and committed to that), they are virtually impossible for me. I have this really nice IQ and I am somehow totally incapable of it. :-/

So I switched into Fine Art. WTF????? Did I have a long term goal there? I mean, seriously??? The Fine Arts classes didn't mesh with the bus schedule. Perhaps I should have moved to Coeur d'Alene. But.....for whatever foolish reason, I didn't.

Psychology: That's the last place I was headed when life blew up in my face, or when I jumped into life's sewage treatment plant, or whatever the hell you want to call it. It was probably my best chance at getting an actual job, because I suddenly remembered this morning what it was that I had in mind: I wanted to do art therapy, preferably with autistic kids. And now I am left wondering whether a psych degree was the correct direction for me to be going in order to attain that goal, and whether that is truly what I want to do. I don't want to work with groups of kids. One or two or three, OK....I am really more of a one-on-one person, so being an art teacher didn't hold much appeal for me. I also don't want to deal with having to encourage my clients to behave in "appropriate" behaviors and interactions, because generally, it meant that I had to tell that I had to tell them to be inauthentic, that who they were wasn't good enough. They had to strive to be half-hearted imitations of "normal", a status quo that I personally hated myself.

So I am asking myself whether having a commercial orchard and farm is a realistic goal. I am not even sure what degree I would need to go into some sort of therapeutic art with troubled or disabled kids or people. Hmmm.

Found it! It was in the truck in the "what-if-I-have-to-stay-in-that-place-which-shall-not-be-named-online" bag.. Which sort of indicates how attached I am to that particular article of clothing....lol

If anyone hears some garbled sounds of frustration off in the distance, it's me looking for my fucking Pink Floyd T shirt.

Now, I have no rational reason why I have to find that T shirt. I have a shirt on. I have about 20 other shirts, way more than I need (and I am gonna get rid of them so I can find the one I want when I want it!!!!!!!).

• It is larger than my other shirts.
  
• It is the *softest* T shirt I have.
  
• It's black, and black is my favored color of choice other than a very particular shade of blue.
  
• The design on the front is nice, kind of blurred out.
  
• And here I run out of rational reasons why it has got to be that shirt and not a different one.

Once, several months ago, I thought someone had wound up with it via the community laundry room. Oh, my. I think I scrutinized each and every person here on a daily basis to see if they were wearing it (blush). Of course, I had simply misplaced it, found it a few weeks later (and was SO happy to have it again).

I wish I could say that this sort of behavior was confined to this shirt...alas, that is not the case. When I get attached to a particular necklace or pair of shoes, or jeans, etc.....I will wear it until it literally falls apart. In fact, I have a blanket that is doing exactly that. And I think that's OK.

The thing is---> I need to get rid of all the other stuff. Ha!

I feel like I've just awakened from a very long and grueling dream. Was it the medication (because it sure as hell wasn't helping me)? How could I just wake up and feel absolutely fine like this? Did I finally get enough full nights of sleep? Several stress free days?

I don't know, but whatever it was, I'm glad it's over and I hope that it continues like this.

And...look: I am so, so, sorry. I was a pain in the ass, and I am sorry.

And now.....what to do with the rest of my life?

My latest interest has been rare breed poultry. I have finally, after a lot of deliberation, narrowed myself down to 5 breeds of chickens, and if pressed, I could narrow that down further to just 2-3: Dorking, Chantecler and Sumatra. All three of these are breeds which are in danger of going extinct.

I also want Nene geese....but have no idea where to find them or if they are even available. They are so diminutive and perky looking!

how i long to be a shadow on the wall.......

Something lighter:



This guy cracks me up...and he's a Quaker besides! lmao....

I love use of the umbrellas in this video. They express it so well.

I get to spend tomorrow morning (probably most of it) showing dairy goats! They aren't my goats (although one of the Saanens is for sale, hmmmmm) but it will be so nice to get back into a showring. In fact, not having to stress out so much over the goats will make it a lot more relaxing than it would usually be.

I am tired and feel lousy......but spending an hour or two around caprine friends tonight and getting to work with them tomorrow makes me happy in every sense of the word. :-)

I spend too much time whining and thinking about why I'm unhappy.

Good/interesting/random non-negative things from today:

• I've been spending a lot of time at the fair. It feels so much like home, which isn't as odd as it might sound given that I used to spend all week long there every year, camped out in a tent with my kids, with the goats, all trimmed up for the show. I used to clean up the showring with my herd....and then it wasn't a challenge anymore and it wasn't an official show, so I moved on to the Spokane Interstate fair. I have to say though, that the Interstate fair never felt homey the way this small one did, despite the MUCH better prize money. No non-goat showing friends were there to see me win, so the victories were hollow, meaningless. It's odd how something like that puts priorities into perspective.
  
• I got to check out all the poultry, which was really an eye opener. Things look and feel so much different in real life than they do in a catalog or a picture! What I really liked: the African geese, Aracauna chickens, Wyandotte chickens (all color patterns). The Silkies were cute, and the Cochins were OK....there was another breed, but I am not remembering it right now. I was surprised at how much expression the African geese had in their eyes, especially the gander. The Embdens, which I was very inclined to when reading the catalogs (possibly because of their blue eyes), didn't grab at my (hmmm...soul? heart? mind?) the way that the African geese did. That gander looked so intelligent and sensitive and observant!
  
• Rabbits: the rabbits are charming. I really wish that I weren't allergic to them! I can't even look at them for very long, let alone raise them.
  
• Sheep: All but two of the sheep are of the Suffolk breed. The other two are Katahdins. The owner of those two did not dock the tails. It made my heart smile to see sheep with the tails as they were born with. Some of the Suffolk's tails were docked SO close to the anal sphincter that prolapse seems a distinct concern. I wish the owners would learn to cope with natural tails.
  
• And of course, the goats! There are some pretty Saanens there, a really nice La Mancha doe that I've become fond of. She is large, solid black, and surveys the chaos around her with the calm that is characteristic of her breed. Someone muttered something about the owners clipping the ears off and I quickly righted that misconception (they are born with really small ears, just like people). They were surprised but relieved. ;-) I spent hours petting oats and talking to them. Goats make me feel sane again, calm, as though life is something I can deal with. I am still allergic to them, too....but cannot seem to stay away from them.
  
• Cattle: I don't relate to them very well. They look soft and velvety, but those wet, sloppy muzzles..... (shudder) Why can't they have lips like goats and sheep? I don't know why, but cattle just don't click with me. I tried anyhow, lol.
  
• The exhibits in the main exhibit building: I have got to enter stuff in the fair next year! Where has all the competition gone? Are they disgusted by the prize money, which is the same as it was over 15 years ago? At any rate, someone needs to raise the bar a little....it used to be competitive. Well, except for the goats, lol. Except for Shannon Lloyd and her huge, lovely Saanens, there wasn't much to compete against. She bred/breeds such beautiful goats.....
  
• There is no forestry/natural resources contest this year! Dang!
  
• Checked on my most recent fish sculpture at the Arts Alliance. It has just been bisque fired, and now I have to decide how to glaze it....using cone 6 glazes which are totally unfamiliar to me. Scary, but exciting, too.
  
• Neck was in serious discomfort, to the point where driving was becoming hazardous....i finally went to get help for it, got an anti-inflammatory shot.
  
• And, I picked up an interesting book arguing against the "blank slate" theory in the nature vs nurture debate.
  
• Am now headed off to the warm, relaxing shower and then to retire with the poultry catalog.....
  

Hiked 7 miles today in 2 hours (I'm not counting the 20 minute rest at the top of the hill/mountain) without stopping on the way up.

And I'm trying to come up with a business plan for my orchard/farm idea with my oldest present son, who is really enthused in the idea. We have to figure out how many acres we need to make a decent living, how to deal with the delayed production of standard apple trees, what it is going to cost to get started, etc... Ironically enough, my farming game addiction is paying off here, because the layering techniques that worked so well there can actually be applied to even better effect in real life. What I should do is to clear off one of the "farms" and grid out this plan.

So far I have (listed in order of permanency):

• Standard apple trees planted 30' apart
  
• Hazelnuts, also on a 30' grid staggered between the standard apples.
  
• Dwarf apple trees (M9???) planted on a 6' grid which overlays the previous two.

The dwarf apple trees come into production very early and are short lived. They would be treated as disposable apple trees....much as I hate the idea...and would be removed as the standard apples and hazelnuts grow and need more room. Around every standard apple tree: daffodil and narcissus bulbs in a ring just inside the drip line. Their roots are toxic to voles and pocket gophers and provide some protection for the apple trees. I am wondering if along with providing nectar for pollinators, these could be sold as cutflowers....because the roots and leaves would continue to grow and would actually multiply better without the burden of making seed from the spent flowers. Permaculture methods usually specify a ring of comfrey by the dripline. I have no problem with this. Comfrey is good mulch, a good soil conditioner plant, good pasture for almost any animal and a definite obstacle to quackgrass encroaching on the apple tree's roots. Outside of this double protective ring....some kind of legume (alfalfa? clover? bird's foot trefoil?) and various herbs for pollinators, general orchard health, and possible sales. Possibilities include sweetgrass, thyme, lavender, sweet woodruff, bee balm, chamomile and various mints. These plants tend to encourage the beneficial insect life. Maybe small mounds with single strawberry plants could make a grid which intersects between the dwarf apple trees. Hmmmm. And on this orchard floor, chickens and or geese. I'm a little afraid of geese, having encountered some confrontational types, so I was thinking maybe the smallish, known-for-being-gentle Roman Tufted goose, which is also a rare breed in need of preservation. They're supposed to be good foragers.

(edited out because I wanted to retain the post but not the rest of the crap)

Depressed. I don't even want to talk about it.

Dreamed that I was in a happy relationship with a woman. And then, she wanted to dump me and I was begging her to stay and try to work things out. Ugh!!!

And---> I regularly have dreams about being pregnant or having a baby. I don't know if it's that being a mother has become so much a part of my identity that I can't give up the whole pregnancy thing or if it has to do with trying to process and grieve over not being able to bear children anymore. For all the complaining that I've heard from a lot of women, I loved being pregnant. I loved it...all of it...except maybe for the fatigue. Sometimes I think that it was the coziness of having a little being enclosed within my own body...always with me, experiencing most of the same things, sharing everything from my food to the adrenaline and cortisol coursing through my system when I almost stepped on a snake. There was always someone to talk to. It was maybe the only time in my life when I didn't feel alone for extended periods of time.

And when I read that, it seems so codependent, so pathological. :-( All I can say is that there was something about the experience that nurtured me just as I nurtured those children.

I'm so stupid over you. I don't blame you for being disgusted with me....I am disgusted with myself. :-/

I have no idea how or why this happened, but man, I've got it bad.

Random stuff:

• I don't think there's any hope for me. Not saying this because I'm sad....but because it's true.
  
• And I don't know what to do anymore. You told me to take care of myself and I've been trying as hard as I can to do that....although the dark side of me says that you didn't even mean it, it was just a polite, cliche thing to say. And I'll keep trying, but in all honesty, it seems pretty pointless sometimes...a lot of times.
  
• Mickinnick sucks during the summer. I would not have guessed that a trail that is so interesting in the middle of winter could be so terribly dull in the summer, but I hate it. It's hot and sunny and dry with very little variety in plant life. Sooo.....
  
• Gold Hill--->It doesn't take much imagination to see that it'd *suck* during the winter, but right now....the only way it could be better is if it were situated on the Pacific coast with mists, fogs, mushrooms, epiphytic ferns and so on...oh, and the sound of the ocean in the far background. I found saprophytic orchids...some other saprophyte....a lot of lichens to draw....and when I got to the top at last, I found what it felt like to really smile again. :-)
  
• There have got to be other trails right under my nose as well....in an area like this, there must be others that don't entail driving for an hour. Monday, get maps from Forest Service.
  
• And then there's my canoe. It's about time for me to learn the fine art of repairing fiberglass.....

And another thing: Monarch Mtn is LOUD on Saturday mornings. If I was looking for a place to wind down, this is not it. Unfortunately, my favored hide out, Common Knowledge, is closed on weekends. Ugh!

Not only am I all broken up over a man who doesn't like me as a person or want to associate with me in any way at all, the situation has degenerated to the point where I am afraid to look at him for fear of seeing....disgust? disdain? etc in his eyes. It is idiotic for me to get an anxiety attack from being in the same (LARGE) room he is in.

This is so fucked up it's surreal, and I hate it. I hate it. I never wanted things to be this way. This is the sort of bizarre stuff that does not happen to normal people. And I'm sorry to say it, but I hate the way my life is. Not just now, but as a whole, I hate it.

I do like fishing, as long as there's someone to take the hook out for me. It isn't that I'm unwilling, but that I'm afraid of hurting the fish. I remember my oldest son used to say that fish don't feel pain.....I don't believe that. Of course they feel pain, and I don't want my fumbling attempts at hook removal to rip something open.

They have such appealing faces.... I can never get their faces quite right.

Sorry.

I love this song.

I was ready to go to sleep, and then I watched an episode of House in which the 5 stages of grieving were mentioned repeatedly. Crap. Now my mind's awake and brooding again....ugh! I read about these stages in Mother Earth News when I was a teen....because Elizabeth Kubler Ross looked old to me then, I didn't pay a lot of attention to her article. I thought it was something old people had to deal with. I didn't know that life was about to smack me down hard within the next year or two, that I'd never be that innocent, happy and optimistic again or that grief may or may not involve people kicking the bucket. I never thought I'd become a cynic.

For reference, proper notation, avoidance of plagiarism, and general usefulness: Kubler Ross and the five stages of grief. I particularly like this quote:

"People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as wening flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one."

And that makes me feel better.....

I don't want to be a bitter, cynical thing...I want to be the happy, free bird that I used to be. I wish I knew how to get back to being that person again. But it was...what....almost 22 years ago? We grow, we change. Life changes us.

I sent the appeal letter in, feeling the need to at least try, and now await the verdict with a swimmy stomach and trembling nerves.....

I still don't know what to do. It's tempting to send in the petition and hope it goes through, take it philosophically if it doesn't. But:

If it doesn't go through, it's going to feel like another rejection. And that's going to crush me (more). I'll feel like a failure (more than I already do, I mean). I don't know if I can afford to risk being rejected as a student.

God, what a whiny ass I am. Ugh!!!!

On the other hand, if it does get accepted....I'll be scared to death all semester that I might fall apart and fail (again). Sometimes anxiety is a good thing. And jesus christ, how can I fail two classes that I already took 75% of (how did I manage to fail them in the first place?)? No way can I fail Abnormal Psych and Western Art History I again. God, the other students didn't even think about the course material! I didn't fail because I was unintelligent...my grades were fine until....until crap happened. I ran out of gas, and money. I ran out of the will to live. Crap could happen again.

Crap can always happen again. How do I find the courage to takes risks again, to plan ahead for more than a couple of days in advance? How do I learn to trust myself again, after failing so spectacularly?


And how...how.......how can I ever trust myself to be vulnerable, to take that chance, ever again? Is anyone, and I mean anyone, ever going to get closer to me than arm's length? I can't......even......imagine. No....I don't think so. No, it hurts too fucking much and I'm so tired of always being the fool.

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I'm not saying this to try to make you feel bad....I was messed up before and I'm still messed up now. It's just, I don't see any point in trying any longer. I used to believe, I used to hope. Those things are dead in me now. You did what you had to do and I'm sure you had your reasons. I knew the risks as soon as I fell for you....it's why I was such a terrified bundle of nerves...because I knew exactly what was coming down the pike. But....i love you. So I chose it anyway.

Now this is fascinating: Why the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome will disappear. This is as it should be and more accurately represents Asperger's as part of a continuum rather than a pigeonhole. I suspect that some aspies are going to be disenchanted with being in the same broad category as LFA and HFA people. To those people, I say get over yourself and do some serious introspection on self loathing of autistic traits and such. Hating on other auties isn't OK. What, are you going to divorce yourself from the entire human race while you're at it??

While I have and value a relatively high IQ, I don't for a minute think that I am a better person than the so called LFA who sits and rocks in the corner. How can we say that a person who is non verbal is retarded simply because they don't speak? That's a stupid assumption. How can we assume that someone who is preoccupied with coping with sensory overload and god only knows what sort of anxiety is retarded? People like this may be disinterested, unable to get past the panic/overload, thinking about much more interesting to them stuff, etc. I honestly believe that many autistics are inaccurately labeled as being of low intelligence simply because it is difficult to test them accurately. However....I also think that there is more, so much more, to life and personhood than raw intelligence, and that we do ourselves and all of life a disservice when we value people based on IQ.

Back to the subject at hand, I am especially intrigued by and interested in the new "Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive-Related, and Trauma-Related Disorders." See this link for more. I will be very relieved if they can somehow manage to partition war induced PTSD from other trauma types. There is a difference between the two and at present, finding books or info that will be helpful for me is difficult, because all the PTSD books I've found so far have been geared towards war veterans and their wives...which is worthy, but un-useful for me. I will be following these changes with interest...

I have to decide whether or not to go back into college this fall. I need to make the credits up and there are a ton of other very, very pressing reasons why I have to go back to school. Also, there are things such as self respect, dignity and pride...as well as having something to keep my mind off stuff. I should re-enroll, even if it's only for a couple of classes.

And then I think about today. I spent more than half nearly all of the day (I don't even want to talk about the night) trying to exist for another hour or two. And that scares me.... I cannot afford to fail a third semester. In so many ways, I cannot afford that.

I have less than a day to decide.

--> Link is fixed...sorry about that.

This is a useful, informative and very interesting site about rare breeds of livestock and poultry.

Fighting off the blues, I am trying to redirect my thoughts towards what kinds of poultry would be well suited to foraging under the apple orchard I would like to have someday. The breed(s) should be good foragers, hardy, calm/gentle/or at least not aggressive, dual purpose (produce both eggs and meat in meaningful quantities), and ideally, rare, endangered, or not very common. This last is because I intend to raise the chickens for more than one year and to hatch out chicks. I am concerned about breeds of animals going extinct...the Dorking chicken, for example, has been around since Roman times, and it is now listed as "threatened". The breed is noted for being calm, gentle, with delicious meat and laying eggs even in the winter. For those who haven't raised chickens before, eggs are a seasonal product unless you want to use light and timers and burn your chickens out at an early age. Winter farm eggs are a very worthwhile commodity, as is winter milk.

Or how about the Chantecler, a breed bred in Quebec to withstand extreme cold and to produce eggs in winter as well as meat? They have a "massive structure" as well as being "calm, gentle and personable". Preserving a rare genepool was never so practical! Eggs in winter from a pleasant bird that doesn't need extra care to survive in the cold, with nice, meaty roosters: what more could someone in my climate want from a chicken?

Also--->if the hens go broody, I might end up with more chicks than I can use. Having uncommon-rare breeds would make my chicks more salable. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know....counting my eggs before they hatch and all that jazz......

There is no consolation. Life hurts. I hurt, and it keeps on hurting.

The memory of how you used to light up when you saw me passes unbidden through my mind and I ache...I try not to think of how it is now, not to compare, to push the why why whys into the background and stay busy, to run away from the pain.

I think of how gentle you were, are....how even though I never see you anymore, you are still alive somewhere, alive, not like him. And a part of me wonders for a moment if you are real, or if this is something I imagined, like a dream that only seems real but isn't. Maybe I am crazy. I think of the cell phone. If the number is real.....no. Don't call. I am not crazy, not crazy, not crazynotcrazy. I did not make this shit up. The fish...the fish is there, above my heart. Breathe....you're not crazy, it's real.

I'm too intense and it scares people. Probably moreso because of that expressionless aspie veneer, so seemingly dispassionate. To find such a boiling, writhing, often contradictory and explosive stew of emotion on what had seemed such a calm, safe place, is enough to cause people to flee screaming into the distance. It's too unexpected, too much to deal with.

I saw it today, in the eyes of a woman I've admired for some time...that look. Like yours. That quick flash of panic light in the eyes. I hadn't said anything to her today, but women are savvier than men, and she knows, has known, that I like her. She has a partner and I am content to let her alone, having wounds that still bleed me dry (though never dry enough, it seems).

I scare people and that hurts. I scare people despite having no ill will at all towards them. I look backwards in time and see...that it's always been this way, since I can remember anyhow...and years of subsequent pain have only deepened and expanded my intensity, so as to make human relations ever more hopeless.

What I have to accept is that I'm not going to able to express myself with people. Not in speech, not in touch, nor in love or in bed. I have to find other outlets: art...writing. Not in the context of a relationship with a person, because I either scare them away, or I find myself aching for the same kind of intensity.
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Pain, trauma, does things to the human psyche. It's as though every wound, every gash, opens up more surface area to ache, to hurt....to feel, to appreciate, to savor. And in this way, it can be a tremendous gift. How could I experience the kind of ecstasy I do at the simplest things, if I were able to take them for granted, if I had never been deprived of them? Surely the sky is bluer and the grass greener for a prisoner in solitary confinement than it's ever been for you and I, who see it every day.

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You see, you are still my muse even though we haven't spoken for months.....I cannot think without speaking to you in my mind....could I breathe if my every breath didn't sigh or whisper your name? I don't know. I don't know.

This is a reminder to myself, because I want to discuss the overpopulation minute which was presented at the Annual Session of PNYM. More later.

Need to start revising and filling in details on the other blog now, a little bit at a time.

Wow. I'm getting rusty on my HTML coding. That's so sad. :-/

This song speaks for me so well.

Sorry folks. I cannot bear to hear or even think about that song today.....

Early morning realization: I need a routine.

Why do I always pick shy, timid, half wild things that other people would rather not put the time and effort into?

Seriously: whether it's goats or dogs or cats or humans, I don't have a lot of use for something that loves and befriends everyone indiscriminately. Extreme friendliness and extroversion is a trait prized by a lot of people, but for some reason, it turns me off.

Sprite: one of my favorite does, she'd been abused, starved, and bred so young that it stunted her growth. She had a ugly face and the whites of her eyes showed and she was all but impossible to handle when I bought her. She also had a perfect udder and a stunning pedigree....but in all honesty, there were others who were similarly priced who might have been a better value with less hassle. Sprite was a problem child in spades. The seller was amazed that I was able to walk her to my vehicle without some kind of disastrous escapade- she was that wild and fearful. She couldn't be handled, milking was a complete nightmare and it was clear that something really bad had messed her up. She was probably predisposed to being nervous anyway, but....Sprite was very, very intelligent. Most goats don't ever forget abuse or aversive experiences and the smarter they are, the harder it is for them. Dumb animals just forget. Seriously, they do.

I had to invest a lot of time just to get her to come into the milking parlor, and she always, until the day she died, kicked like a bitch from hell when she was on the milking stand. I don't know what happened to her, but it must have happened on a milking stand. :-( Once she was finally tamed (to me anyway), she became my favorite doe. When I was blue or sad, she knew. She'd crook her head over my shoulder and give me a goat hug, or just lean into me as I cried on her furry neck. I was devoted to her...somehow her trust meant so much more to me than that of the does who'd been hand fed from birth. She was five times more trouble than any of the others and a lot less pretty but....I don't know. Nobody else could take her place.

I put so much time and effort into taming wild eyed goats....and in all honesty, I never felt that a second of that time was wasted. It always makes me sad to hear that someone has put an animal down because it had issues that they didn't want to work with, that they didn't even try to work with.

Wow. I think my devotion to k.d. has just been usurped.

Brandi Carlile is phenomenal. WOW.

A relatively productive day so far....

Cleaned.

Did laundry (more to do) but didn't fold it yet...

Met with service coordinator.

Got the phone working again and gave the approval stamp to White's boots to rebuild my ladies smokejumpers...

Shopped for dinner (didn't make it yet).

And----> Got my art desk cleaned off and supplies organized and all put in one place so that I can actually make stuff and find what I need. Hopefully my 5 yo goes to sleep at a reasonable hour so I can work, having made a tidy and pleasant workspace.
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I have way, way too much extraneous stuff that I don't use. Sometime this week, would like to get rid of a LOT of it, not just a token amount.

And it looks like I don't need to stress or worry, so....

Am now a little freaked and anxious.....breathe...calm...calm......

Wait: I am not ugly, it is just that I am not *pretty*. What's more, I don't want to be pretty...except that I wish I was pretty to you...and that's kind of stupid. People (myself included) have to be what they are and who they are. It's about integrity towards oneself.

I think about all the women I've been attracted to. Most of them haven't been pretty, and they'd look silly in a dress with makeup and foo-foo hair. Most of them didn't have barbie-doll figures, either, because I'm not attracted to barbie dolls.

The issue I am struggling with is the conflict between society's demands on me (be pretty, be feminine, be attractive to men) and who I really am (not very feminine, very outdoorsy and rustic). I have been coerced into "pretty" before...it was pure misery and I couldn't wait to wash that crap off of my face, to get back into jeans and brush those silly curls out of my hair. It sucked.

I can't base my self image on what other people want me to look like. When I wear my Carhartts and a button down shirt, tie and jacket....I might not be pretty, but somehow, it looks good. And more importantly, I feel comfortable and at home in my own skin...

How could anyone look as bad as I do and have such cute kids?

I was going to write about my hyperactive mind and how it runs negative feedback loops incessantly.....but after seeing a bunch of recent photos of myself...

I can't stand the way I look. I wish that I had a good chin. Guess we can't all be beautiful, but combined with social awkwardness and gawky, ungraceful movements...it's just painful. The only thing I have going for me is my body (which needs work but is not beyond redemption), but I get so tired of being seen as a body, as something to have sex with. It makes me nauseous to feel that way.

And my sister, who looks so much like me, only slightly different, is beautiful. It's so hard not to resent her for that. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
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The sad truth of it is that I'm a dyke who happens to be hopelessly in love with a man. This is not a situation that can end well. No happiness in sight. And yes, I am now depressed again.

OK, so bear with me here, because I know, dear readers, that you're probably sick and tired of k.d. lang by now....

But consider, please, after listening to what she says.....

What would happen, what could happen, if I gave that kind of care, attention and dedication to my art? To raising my children?

How about you? What gifts do you have that could be developed so much more, that could enrich the world, if you nurtured them more? How much potential gets lost in the fracas of day to day life because we let it slip through our fingers?

I have nothing to bitch about today. The yard is festooned with the large cones of Pinus monticola, which I have been collecting to draw and to have around simply because I like pine cones, lichens, sea shells, stones and similar objects...

Made a really nice soup last night that my kids are still raving over, telling me I could win a contest with it. It's nice to have fans ;-)

All of the gardens are doing fairly well, considering the kind of fitful on/off attention they've had from me.

And now I'm going to make summer rolls.

I still feel the same way about you, still miss you....but am starting to feel stronger, more grounded, less inclined to put up with bullshit from anyone, more centered and secure in my own identity as opposed to trying to please people and being what they want me to be. Maybe these six months of trauma and grief and angst and general falling apart were what I needed to feel and cry over and finally begin to grow past all the crap that's been smothering me for so long.

i feel fragile...like an anxiety attack is waiting to finish me off.

There isn't any solace to be found in this world. Unless I carve it out for myself, it simply doesn't exist otherwise, because other people can't be counted on to provide it. Oh, maybe temporarily....but sooner or later, the axe falls and it hurts. It hurts so much more than never having had it in the first place.

I write too much.

I guess one of the things that is hurting me now is the slow, growing realization that I am never going to get to talk to you again. It isn't a matter of being patient or waiting some length of time, it just is not going to happen at all. I have fucked things up too badly. There isn't a way to fix it anymore so that we can be relaxed and friendly around one another anymore, is there?

Maybe things are not the way I have been interpreting them.

I found pottery studio space at the Arts Alliance and within 15 minutes (or less!) was making a fish sculpture. I feel sane again, feel like myself for a change. :-) I wish that I could get your feedback while I'm working, but.....this cannot be. I wish I had been able to articulate what you meant to me, when I still had a chance to talk to you, when you still heard me. I just took all of that for granted. I was such a fool, such a coward.

Things are strange now. Now I think back on all the times you were near me, and I didn't breathe more deeply, when I heard your voice, and I could have listened more than I did...when I wasn't afraid to look into your eyes, but I simply didn't. Those are the things that pain me.

********************************************

Dinner....salad. Arugula, spinach, romaine, fennel...radicchio, olives, blue cheese cubes, and pear gorgonzola or huckleberry vinaigrette dressing. I should make something else. I have free range ground beef. But...it reminds me of you. Cooking reminds me of you. Of all the things that I would like to make....to eat with you. And then....then it is only my son and I. I am not hungry...will make him something to eat. I think about how, before things got this way....I was passionate about food and made so many good things. I loved it because I'd pretend I was cooking for you....it seems so long ago. So long ago.

I miss you so much...and am sorry for the things I said last week. I was upset.

I love you. Maybe someday, I will love you differently, with less intensity, in an as-a-person way. Today is not that day. And despite all the pain, I am thankful to have had the experience of feeling this way, of finding that my heart is able to open up fully, that it hadn't been scarred shut after all. It hurts. It does. But I am thankful.

Sometimes I feel that my every experience is painted or tinted with the color of pain.

I just planted a LOT of vegetable plants...mostly in your dreaded nightshade family...(I love eggplant)....and am now in so much pain that the idea of having an apple orchard seems as ludicrous as being able to talk easily with you again. What was I thinking???

On the bright side...bought my kids each a tuberous begonia plant. They were thrilled...the begonia flowers are huge and flamboyant, even the leaves are attractive. I showed them how to transplant them into bigger pots, and some leaves and tops broke off....so I showed them how to root those. This seems magical to them, as it did to me when I first learned about it. :-)I love my kids....and I think it is so cool that they like plants too.

Another side income to supplement orchard idea: raising chickens (they are cheapest when the chicks are straight run, i.e. both male and female without being checked for gender) that are of breeds whose feathers are desired for fly tying. A quick check online shows that a smallish bundle of feathers (not, for example, an entire hackle) goes for $5-6, and that at least one of the breeds is both an egg layer as well as a good forager, which is what I need for keeping on top of weeds and insects in an orchard floor. So I could grow the chicks out to butchering size, use the roosters for my own meat (sidestepping butchering and food handling regs required for outside sale), sell their feathers, and get eggs from the hens. I think this is the best poultry option so far.

More research: sweetgrass appears to be a very good crop. $80 K per acre, fairly easy to grow, steady market, no spoilage. It looks like an acre of intensively managed dwarf apple trees might be enough, with a transition to semi dwarf trees and possibly standards....if one also grew sweetgrass and strawberries. Probably grow garlic as well as crop failure insurance....garlic always makes it.

Still researching apple varieties for flavor, texture, storage qualities, historical interest, disease resistance, suitability for this climate, etc...just in case I somehow figure out a way to start a small organic apple orchard/farm. So far, it looks as though a person could live very comfortably on 2 acres of intensively managed apple trees. Of course, the earliest marketable crop would be produced within 3 years of planting, and it typically takes a little time to prepare the land before planting. The trees don't come into serious production until 5 years after planting. That means that I'd have to find something to produce income during the interim:

• Strawberries: a relatively high value crop (especially if organic since they're one of the most chemically sprayed fruits) that bears the same year it is planted and can continue to bear reliably during subsequent years with attention to weeding, etc. It's also labor intensive to harvest and weed, and the berries spoil rapidly if there isn't an immediate market. Probably the best choice of the things I've thought of so far.
  
  
• Eggs/chicken: a good supplement to the apple trees because the chickens eat codling moth larvae and also help weed around the trees. However, probably best treated as a supplement rather than as a main crop, because I don't want to mess with killing hundreds of chickens.
  
  
• Specialty birds??? Chukars? Partridges? Pheasants?
  
  
• Herbs: the beauty of this idea is that I'd planned on underplanting the orchard with herbs anyway. As far as providing income though.....lavender? Sweetgrass? Possibly an assortment of herbs marketed to the gourmet restaurants in the area.
  
  
• Winter squash and pumpkins: I have experience in this, the pumpkins sell out during Halloween and winter squash seems to be a trendy food right now...as well as a good way to age fresh manure so that it can be used for other crops.
  
  
• Garlic, onions: both pretty reliable, easy to grow crops which can be braided for higher value. I like the fact that as with winter squash, they don't spoil right away.
  
  
• Sheep? I don't know if I want to deal with sheep. On the other hand, they would now the grass under the trees, which would obviate the herbicides and mechanical mowing which are usually utilized in orchards. The market for organic lamb is probably limited. To sell the wool, I would have to keep the sheep in very clean conditions so that their fleeces wouldn't get matted and full of chaff and debris.
  
  
• Angora goats: Can be shorn, unlike cashmere goats, and there is a better market for mohair than for wool in my opinion as a handspinner. However, nothing can defoliate an orchard faster than a herd of goats!!! I would have to have a bombproof way to ensure that they never, ever got into the orchard. They would be a nice outlet for the prunings....If I had a way to mow between rows, I could cut the vegetation for hay....rather than having them (or sheep) graze it.
  

sigh...pipe dreams are fun. :-/

I miss you. I'm so ashamed of myself...for being so weak, for not having the strength to get back to my feet....for not knowing the right things to do, the right things to say. Maybe there weren't any right things to say or do.

I know that I've become the classic textbook case of a person with Asperger's in love, an easily visible and accessible example of why relationships just can't work for people like me. That should hurt me....but it doesn't. I'm so used to being a case study, and all my energy is focused on making it through the day...

I feel like...like the thing inside that makes me want to live, to see and breathe and eat and work and play....it's just died. I'm like a necklace that someone's pulled all the string out of.

I never thought I'd ever feel this way about anyone again. I thought it died and was buried with him when they closed the lid of the coffin. I don't say that for pity....that's not what I mean....what I mean is, I lived for so long without it, for almost 15 years. How did I live for so long like that? Knowing he was gone, not expecting anything but a lifetime of filling in hours and days and weeks and years until I might see him again....it seems like there were times when I was motivated and happy and satisfied with life.....

I don't know how to get there again. It seems a world away.

Caffeine induced enhanced panic attacks. Time to transition to decaf. :-/

It is unreasonable for this to hurt as much as it does. If anything's ever hurt like this before, I sure as hell don't remember it..... I've never held you, never touched you, and this shouldn't have hurt for more than a week or two at most. This is craziness.

I feel nauseous, like I can't breathe....I can't live like this. This is just nuts.

Would someone reputable in the psych field please, please, please discredit Maxine Aston? This bitch is a quack, and she has devoted her career to destroying the lives of people with Asperger's syndrome, probably after encountering one or two bad apples in the bunch. She needs to be very publicly denounced as the cunt with a vendetta that she is.

Note to Maxine: Generalizations are lame.

This is a link I want to look at later so I am storing it here until then: http://agsci.psu.edu/tfpg

Run away from the hurt, girl. Run fast, fill up the time with stuff and stress and people and things to see and places to go. Don't stop and don't rest, run....run. Fill your mind, your time up with things that you like, things to eat, things to do, things to watch and pay attention to, and try to fill your vision with a haze of happiness. Crowd it out like a child barricading a door with stuffed animals against the nameless horrors on the other side.

Because when you stop, when it finds you, it will gut you and leave you screaming in pain, pain that only you can see or feel. Pain that rends your soul and your heart in tatters and leaves your body an empty shell.

Don't look at him

don't see the way

that he looks right through you

right past you

as if you were the ghost

that you long to be.

Pretend with all your might.....

that you don't see him either.

Anything else is just superfluous. There's nothing else to say. There's nothing else. Life is pain.

i hurt.

I need to get shitfaced drunk...and I can't tonight. Damn.

A Case of You - k.d. lang - Hymms of the 49th Parallel

I meant to work on some kind of art today...either on paper or with clay...but....nothing matters.

I am constantly questioned and challenged to come up with some kind of a plan for the future. I want to farm....on a small scale (20 acres or less)...and sometimes I feel together enough to try to come up with plans or ideas for crops, marketing strategies, location, timing, etc....but you know, it's just a pipe dream. I don't have any land to plant on, any money to lease land or any ideas for how to make this actually happen.

I want to do art, pottery. Meh. My art's no good and I know it.

I feel so gutted and useless...so crippled by this state of inertia.

I try to look towards the future, and I see....nothing. It's like driving in a blinding snowstorm or in a fog so thick that you can barely see the tail lights in front of you...except that everyone else is driving safely at freeway speeds. It's just me who's creeping along at 25 miles an hour, just me with the poor visibility, and they're all honking their horns and cussing me out or at best, wondering what's wrong with me. Some days I can see a little farther than others, but always, the fog's there to some degree. Always, I can't drive very fast. It's so frustrating.

Trying to find the words.....

Every day that goes by in which I don't function well, every time I fall apart again...seems to validate your assessment of me...and I feel worth a little bit less each time. I worked so hard...and now I feel myself eroding away slowly, slowly, as this quiet voice behind me whispers silently.....he was right...he knew...yes...he was right.

Sometimes I really hate myself. And they always say that I'm a very special worthwhile person, that I have all these valuable qualities.....but they're just doing their job. It's their job to make me feel better...it isn't true. I'm a loser.

In Defense of Obsession

Throughout the course of my life, people have given me grief for my intense, admittedly obsessive interests, or perseverations as they're known in clinical-speak, particularly in the cure-autism circles. I hate that word, because it looks so much like something having to do with perversions and because these people tend to think that there is in fact something perverse about being intensely, singlemindedly interested in something. It's as though they advocate a level of interest that lacks commitment and depth, and anything else is pathological and unhealthy.

When I look at the world this way, when I think of what it would be like to be that way, something like panic starts fluttering about frantically inside of me...my chest tightens, my brain feels anxious, hyper....I cannot imagine what it would be like to live a life without the kind of passion and mental involvement that I experience....the thought is horrible beyond words. Frankly, I would not want to live in the sort of halfhearted mental world they describe to me. It would be like...almost like having a lobotomy. :shudder: Awful....so awful.

What can they live for? What gives their lives meaning? What on earth is the point, the motivation to keep slogging away?

Oh, that's right. Life is easier for them (maybe- I am skeptical about this, but many of them seem fairly placid, so I'll take their word for it for now). Does their world consist entirely of social connections, social games, social status competition and (sigh) social bonding? Does everything they do (or most of it?) revolve around social constructs, on the shaky, fragile world of human interaction?

It seems to me that shunning would be an even more severe punishment in that light....and frankly, it's impossible for me to be objective on this tangent right now, so I'll just skip it. I don't see how people could endure it if it were more painful, more weighty than what I'm already experiencing. Nobody would survive. Anyway...moving along here......
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I don't know how to describe the amount of mental pleasure- not in a sexual sense, although if I had to choose, it would be better than sex- that I derive from being intensely, profoundly interested in something. What it is doesn't matter particularly, but for me, obsessions in adulthood tend to be things which can be categorized, mentally mapped out, visualized and played with mentally in a visual mental world. They often involve living organisms- plants or animals....and those have more holding power since plants and animals calm and nurture me when humans do not, so that I am benefiting on more than one level.

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And then there are the times....when I get obsessed about people.....
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Nine times out of ten, maybe even 19 times out of 20, it's just a temporary infatuation thing, because frankly, most people aren't truly interesting enough to stay obsessed over for very long. I don't mean that in a bad way.....it's just that obsession is like a powerful machine that eats a lot of gas, or like a fire that needs a lot of fuel and oxygen. When the fuel or air runs out, the fire dies down. When a person is just a pretty face without very much depth, there isn't a lot of fuel. Some folks are good, decent people in an attractive package....from there, it mellows into a friendship or they become one of those people who are like a comfortable old T shirt. Sometimes a person seems more mysterious than they really are...they're like a puzzle that you can't put down until you've figured it out. And then....then they're not so intriguing anymore. Then they'd better have some other redeeming qualities to lend some staying power to the relationship..or maybe, if they're intelligent and have good intuition, they'll retain a little mystery, a little hard to get....just to keep the interest level up. Maybe, if it's to be a very long term kind of thing, they'll embark on some common interest or activity.

Rarely....like the title of this blog...very, very rarely.....someone comes along who's like...like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly into your soul. Like a pair of jeans that you put on for the first time, and they feel like they've always been in your closet. Like...like so much a part of your life that they feel as irreplaceable as one of your own hands. It's just right, in such a profound way that it's absolutely terrifying. And you want to run but no, you can't move away. And then...then you know that you're screwed....that this is deeper than any obsession will ever be, stronger, inescapable. Because unlike the others, this time, it isn't going to fade out into disinterest. This time, it grows into devotion, the sort of devotion that leaves you feeling like a faithful old dog, like a boulder embedded deep and immovable into the earth.

And that......that is not an obsession. I don't know what to call it, but it's awful and the only thing really worth living for...at the same time.

Let it go, Jen. Let. It. Go. Just let it drift away.

Don't analyze it anymore, don't pick it apart, berate and punish yourself any more. Just let go of it.....let go of the pain.

Been making pottery...and since I have no access to a pottery studio, nor kiln....and have been thinking about barrel firing....I haven't been making many fish. Have only made one since exiting the ceramics class. Without a wheel or a canvas covered table, I've been making pinched and coiled pots. When time permits, will post an image of one of them.

This is so humiliating....I hate being weak. I hate having to ask people to be patient with me, to understand that I'm not up to par, to hope that they don't see that my eyes are leaking or on the verge of it....

All my life's training has been towards being strong, towards surviving, enduring, finding the next handhold when people say there isn't one, hanging on when others say I should bail. I don't like the physical weakness that comes along with being small and female (which is why splitting wood gives me such a rush), but have consoled myself with the notion that others are bigger and stronger, but I'm tougher, can take more pain, can stick it out when they start whining......

And now...

now.........

now........after being hit and slapped and laughed at and insulted and shocked with a stun gun, seeing my animals killed before my eyes...after being half starved and exhausted and played out and hypothermic and going through the absolute hell of four childbirths, after almost bleeding out, being cheated on, raped, and everything else that I don't even want to ever think about again......and still coming up fighting......after all that...I've been subjugated and tamed by someone simply refusing to speak to me.

This is awful. I've been broken before....but never like this. No fist, no words, could ever hurt me as much as your silence. This, my not-friend, is very, very bitter.

These lyrics are so perfect....

I don't have much of anything worthwhile to say tonight. Maybe I never did. Maybe, like all of us, I only wanted to think that my voice, my perspective, was unique and worthwhile, even though there are so many of us that that can hardly be true...only, none of us want to face it, because otherwise, why bother?

I thought.....I thought things were different. I thought that I had value as a person, as a friend, that my voice meant something, that what I thought mattered. It doesn't. I thought....so many things. I was so wrong. So wrong about so much.

I only write here because I have no other place to scream and cry and struggle. People are tired of it and I am tired of trying to tell them the same old thing in new ways, to voice the pain in a way that will get some kind of a different answer that might help...but there's no help. I write here because I can't talk to you, because I mean so little that you don't ever want to hear the sound of my voice again. When I see you, I wish that I could shrink my presence into nothingness so that my existence would not affront you....that I could hide, hide from this pain, from this world, find a safe place silent and without this not-belonging, this not-welcome, not-fitting in. It hurts beyond words anyway...there are no words.

Things are shattered, and I can't fix them. The pieces don't fit together and I get so tired, so tired...they don't come together in any kind of coherent way....and I don't know why I can't give it up, why I have to try so hard to make sense of it, when it's driving me out of my mind....they all say I have to just accept that it won't make sense, but all my sense of security in life, of trust in other people, of my own ability to read them, to interpret what they say and do and mean, it's all been obliterated. It was all only an illusion. People are so dangerous, and yet we need them, so deadly, and yet we love them, when the ones we love the most possess the strongest venom.

It just doesn't stop hurting. No matter what I do, it doesn't really ever stop. I don't know what to do anymore.

My body rebels, screams out the pain that I will my mind not to feel, retches up the horror that I try so hard to deny, to push out of my conscious mind. I try to live, to move on....my body isn't having it....betrays me.

And I try to tell myself that in time, this will ease, that it'll end...that something somewhere will give, because this is too much for too long. But my body knows that I'm lying.

And the irony of it all....that just when I'd turned my back on the entire male population, when the thought of being mounted and having my body invaded by a penis made me cringe and shudder...I fell more hopelessly than ever for.....a man. For a man so gentle, so kind, so thoughtful, that I couldn't be afraid of him. Whose movements were so quiet and unobtrusive and non-threatening that I knew to the core of my being that I would never be afraid of him.

Just when I had worked up the courage to confront the unwelcome idea that maybe I hadn't ever fit the mold because I wasn't straight, when I'd come to terms with that idea. When I'd decided that maybe that was OK.

I feel like my soul has been ripped open and let to spill out on the ground.

Yesterday.....

Sigh....I really struggle with this....with feeling judged and defensive and misunderstood. Most of the people who interact with me in any sort of depth at all acknowledge that I'm depressed. What they don't seem to comprehend is that I cannot simply choose to snap out of it. I think they're confusing tripping over a crack in a sidewalk with falling into a smelly manhole that lacks a ladder to climb back out of. As though I would choose to be in this humiliating condition...what the hell are they thinking? Why does our society have such a pervasive tendency to view any sort of misfortune as being deserved or as evidence of character flaws and poor choices.

And, OK, so there we go: "poor choices". You know, I didn't expect to fall for you, and maybe it was a choice, maybe it wasn't...but I just can't bring myself to regret feeling the way I did and still do for you. The situation is unfortunate, painful, awkward, hopeless, yes....but love is never wrong, and love is never a poor choice. Yeah, there you have it- the diehard cynic is a hopeless romantic in disguise. :-/

Oh, and stubborn, too....

Coming Back to Life -Pink Floyd - Lyrics

Despair envelopes me
Recedes

I am adrift in a sea of nothingness
devoid of meaning
or purpose

Hope is only an idea
like the distant
far gone memory of land

Life flows around
above
and beneath me

That is another world.
Apart.

Man, this is the worst case I have ever had. :-( sigh......

JOHN CALE - Broken Bird 1982 (Allen Lanier keyboards BLUE OYSTER CULT)

Union Station And Alison Krauss - It Doesn't Matter

I am like a bird that flies into a window over and over again..... :-(

Regarding Asperger's and Disclosure: the dilemma

In support of disclosure:

• People will understand why you engage in certain odd behaviors and are less likely to take a "flat" emotional affect as a personal insult. They might even be more understanding of little quirks and cut you a little bit of slack.
  
• Also, honesty is crucial, and pretending to be something you aren't is an awful way to have to live. Spectrumites should not have to be closeted.
  
• Disclosure also allows one to provide information and examples such as Temple Grandin to educate people and to give insight into why you're so fucking weird.
  
• In the workplace, disclosure prevents people from being able to fire you for autistic behaviors...although many employers will make end runs around this and eventually fire you anyway or find ways to induce you to quit.
  
• Neurodiversity rocks! Don't live in shame! We're equal!

Against disclosure:

Most people, having little to no knowledge of or experience with Asperger's, will insist that you do not have it and that you are "normal", not realizing that most people on the autism spectrum really don't like or want to be "normal", because normal life seems incredibly boring to many of us. Therefore, they will tell you that it is all in your head (which it is, but not in the way they're saying) or that you have been misdiagnosed. As if the shrinks, physicians and other experts are far more fallible and uninformed than they are....
• Also, if they do believe that you have it, they may begin to discount your perspective, experiences, etc, because you don't think the way they do.
  
• Many mistake autism as a "mental illness" which it is not and our populace is still very prejudiced against any type of mental illness.
  
• Many people have this idea that all autistics are retarded
  
• or brilliant
  
• Or savants.
  
• Many people avoid interaction with those who are perceived as not being normal. This is part of the herd mentality. I always say that I don't care about those people anyway, because I don't wants to be friends with them to begin with if they're that way....but honestly, it still hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot.

I've been cleaning and planting and transplanting and making important phone calls and all kinds of other responsible stuff... I should post pictures......