There is that song by Elton John...Sorry seems to be the hardest word. I feel that way a lot, like I'm searching in vain for the elusive, ineffable thing or quality that it'd take for people to love me.

What is it that they want that other women have that I don't? I don't understand it, it doesn't make sense to me. The constant, day to day rejection wears away at me and breaks my heart a little bit at a time. It's demoralizing. I wish I knew what it is. Things like:

Long, painted fingernails: Do men really find these appealing? They look threatening to me, like the woman is armed to claw someone or something. And the color...why should that matter?

Pedicures: Do men even look at a woman's feet? Do they actually care about the cuticles of her toes?? I really sort of doubt it.

Eyeliner: to me, it just looks slutty and cheap and artificial.

Hair: I don't care what anyone says, I'm not bleaching my hair blond for any man. However, it does seem that men like longer hair than what I have, and maybe a more feminine style than what I have. I'm so ticked right now that I'd like to just shave it short, like 1/4"long....but I'm considering letting it grow out to shoulder length, dye auburn highlights (my hair was red when I was little) with henna, and perm it so that it has slight waves (not awful, tight, kinked curls, no).

I don't know....I'm tired of people not liking me the way I am, I hate it.

Maybe if I were blond and stupid and dizzy/ditzy and helpless, and if all I cared about was makeup and visiting and giggling with equally ditzy friends, things would be different for me. I don't know why there's such a prejudice against smart women. It seems to me that a man with balls wouldn't be threatened by an intelligent woman.

Work today: The work itself went OK. But for some reason I don't understand, things got flippy for me after lunchtime. I don't know what you call it, anxiety attacks? Here is a description:

I started going...remote and silent. I wasn't even aware of it until one of the boxboys mentioned it. I believe the word he used was "catatonic". Then I started flapping a little bit, and gradually more..and more. Pretty soon I was flapping a lot. I felt...like my mind was slipping into a daze. Then I begn to have a feeling that I wanted to get out of the deli, to do tasks that would let me walk around and get out of there for a while, but I couldn't. A pressure developed around my chest and I felt a little short of breath, so I started gasping for air periodically. By this time I was not only flapping but also rocking in place (standing) and wanted desperately to go home or just get out of the entire place, for no particular reason except that it was noisy and just...too much.

I made myself a latte and set myself on tasks in the bakery, which has fewer customers and multitasking and chaos. That seemed to help, and after a while, I gradually felt better, but all the rest of the day I felt pretty remote.

Sometimes it's more of a full fledged panic attack, where my heart is pounding so hard that I can't hear much of anything and my hands are shaking really bad and I can't even think, but that's usually when I have soemone truly rotten to work with, like the cheap, rotten-hearted bitch that I wanted to kill (she told me that I stunk-loudly and in front of customers- for aout 4 hours, and I *didn't* stink at all...effing crackhead!!!) or the one when I first started who threatened to slap me because I couldn't process her verbal instructions very well. It isn't usually that bad...

And at times like this, I wonder if maybe I should qualify for some kind of training for a job that would pay better and that I'd be better qualified for.

I finally got my garlic planted...some of it, anyway. I didn't have enough room prepared to plant all the regular sized garlic, but I did get all the elephant garlic in the ground and a little of the standard type.

I'm eating some Haagen Dazs ice cream right now, eggnog flavor. It is so incredibly good that it's almost orgasmic. Oh mannnnn...... Mmmmmm. Ohhhh...I didn't know ice cream could be this good. Even Ben and Jerry's isn't this good. Eeeek! OK, that is enough..I'm getting brain freeze. I'll save the rest of it for when I'm depressed and pessimistic again.

People who know me might be surprised to hear that I experience that sort of extreme pleasure on a very regular basis. Taste....smells.....and particularly visuals, especially colors. Flowers are especially good for color, because of the depth and intensity of the hue. When I see a color that does that for me, it seems to throb and my brain glows with pleasure.....it's almost like getting high (except I never do *that*). The shape, the form, those are OK, but the color is what really hits me. My paintings are like that, too. They have objects- a peach, a flower, a piece of fruit....but it's really about color. My backgrounds are often as bright or brighter than the subject, and the intensity of the color is the type that feeds my brain- it's intense and often pure pigment right from the tube. I don't think other people who look at my work understand that. They see the piece of fruit or whatever and they're looking for a photo-realistic likeness, which was never, ever my intent. It was about color. The subject was only the means of conveying the color, not the point of the painting.

It irritates me when people look at my art and tell me what they think it means or make stupid assumptions. If they want to know what I meant, why don't they ask? They can't read my mind or know what I was thinking or what it is (if the work is not representational). Oh well. That is why if I ever exhibit my work (again) and get reviews or publicity, I don't even want to read it. It would just annoy me.

My third son is currently (finally) being evaluated to ascertain whether or not he also has Asperger's or some other autism spectrum disorder. He is a wonderful kid and I love him just the way he is, but I do want his life to be easier than mine has been. Hell is life as an aspie being held to neurotypical expectations and being punished for not meeting them when you don't even know what they are! it sound rotten to say this (and self-defeatist as well) but I think it's the truth: I don't feel that I will ever really recover from a childhood (including teens and early adulthood) in which I was routinely and systematically penalized for being "different" and berated for not being "normal". I would love to wake up and have teh same self assurance that I had a a small child, before they squished me, but I'm not sure it'll ever happen. I want that for my son, though. He still has that self confidence, and I don't want people to go and take it away from him.

My youngest son (#6) is sleeping. He's sick. I think he's doing well developmentally, meeting all the milestones on time. His father and I are both aspie, so we've wondered what he will turn out like. The only red flag I have seen so far is that his head diameter is over the 90% percentile, while his length is at 40% and his weight is under 5% (which, if you're getting alarmed, is par for the course with my kids- they run small). Rapid head growth in the first two years is really common in autistic children and is one of the things they look for. He's very sociable, though..hasn't seemed to experience any stranger anxiety...he'll smile at almost anyone, and makes good eye contact, is alert and focused on the world around him, not off in a dream world like my lovely #3 son.

My children give me something to live for. I don't know what I'd do without them, probably get some job that was just enough to live on and hole up in a little rustic cabin on a moutain top. I would paint and garden and have animals, but I'd be hiding from the world with all lits cruel people who say and do nasty things. The kids force me to go out and battle my way through every day life and to develop more social skills than I ever would have otherwise- I just don't have a choice.

Charlie is sick and sleeping. The oldest two boys are visiting with a friend, doing social stuff (looking at Christmas lights in the nearest city, my idea of DULL!, but they're really happy)and the house is quiet. I think I'm going to turn this droning, whining machine off and paint or draw....or clean house, heh.

I got the chocolate Mickey. Now he and Minnie are a happy couple. I am more or less leaving the claw machine alone, which means that I still play it occasionally, but not $5 at a time anymore. The vendor who maintains it must have gotten peeved at the toll I was taking: he has packed the animals in so tightly now that they'll hardly budge. Anyway, part of having Asperger's is being prone to obsessions. In my case they can be long-term or short term. I'm trying to make this one of the short term ones. I'll try to discuss obsessions some more when I get off of work tonight.