OK, I finally had to get headphones with music (NPR). The sniffling, snuffling woman still hasn't learned how to blow her nose, and she's here again, at the same time.

My dog vanished, the person who volunteered to take my kids to school yesterday didn't (I can't get too upset about this since they had no reason to do so except generosity, but it would have been nice to know if they weren't going to), the kids messed up the house while I was at work, and I just feel... all unsettled inside, sort of restless, distracted. Probably it's related to drinking lattes towards the end of my shift (about 8PM). I'll cut that out and see if it helps.

Trouble at work seems to be resolved now: apparently my register was routinely coming up short of money, sometimes as much as $200 short! There is no way I'd ever steal from the store, and when they mentioned this problem to me, they said that they suspected that perhaps I was making mistakes. Mistakes involving deficits of $200??! I asked if the register was ever over, and the answer was no, not really. It seemed that overnight, the bosses and managers were aloof, suspicious, unfriendly, cold......and I could tell that they were getting ready to fire me. I asked all kinds of questions, trying to figure out how in the hell I could be making mistakes like that on a daily basis that woudl lose large amounts of money but not ever add any, and the longer I brooded on it, the clearer it became that it just could not have happened. Someone was/is stealing, and it sure as hell wasn't me, but I had no way to prove it.

I think I have it all figured out. The girl who worked right next to me almost every day was a crackhead...we all knew that (I really think the store out to do mandatory drug testing on all new employees), and she was constantly cleaning my area when I was on break or lunch. Spare money was (isn't anymore, thanks to my bringing the problem to the attention of the bosses) kept in another, unlocked drawer in case we ran out. The amount was enough that yes, $200 could easily have gone missing in a single day. Anyway, this gal disappeared one day, just never showed up for work, and since she's been gone my register has balanced out just fine. The bosses are friendly and relaxed towards me again, and I'm not sweating every second of the day, worrying if this will be the end.....

Lastly, of three large ponderosa pines which are all coming out (orders of the landlord), one is down, and the next two will be coming down this week. He just told me to dig that they're pretty much coming down right on top of my perennial bed. :-( I don't know what to do about that yet....

Arrgh, I am at the library, and everyone is making noise! Grrr! Sniff, snort, snuffle, mumble, sniff, whispering, throat-clearing....oh, it is driving me nuts.

Yeah, I'm irritable. People always tell me to "just tune it out", but I can't. Just the presence of them is bothering me, LOL.

Today is "hick day" in Priest River, part of "spirit week" for the local schools. This means that I can dress up as a hick for work. I am sorely tempted to make a total parody of it, but probably shouldn't (have to retain the job, after all). I don't know where to get a ratty old beer T-shirt or bleach-blonde wig with long stringy hair. Hmmmmm, hmmmmm...... Failing that, I think I can come up with a skin tight T-shirt and a wool plaid shirt....maybe a faded bandana for my hair. And then, the make-up. Abundant eyeliner, mascara, thick and flaking foundation, bright lipstick, and something to make my front teeth look rotten. That would round it all out perfectly, especially with a pack of cigarettes in the pocket of the shirt, or a can of chew, and horrendous grammar. Oh, dear....:giggle: Man, I just can't. They'll have to settle for the boots, work pants, and wool shirt.

Jesus, I wish the woman a chair away from me would go to the bathroom and blow her damned nose!!!!!! OK, now another one sat down right next to me, and she smells strongly like shampoo. I am wondering why someone doesn't manufacture scent-free shampoo, or perhaps I haven't found it. It isn't like hair that is otherwise clean smells bad. Rainwater. I should collect rainwater. I wonder if it would start to get stale and smelly if stored. Not all shampoo smells bad to me....but when everything (shampoo, hair products in general, soaps, deodorants, laundry detergents, hand lotions, etc) is scented.....even if one doesn't wear any other scent such as perfume, you're already bathed in it. I worry about this, whether I smell like flowery dreck to other folks.

It's the strangest thing, I smell other people, but I have no idea what I myself smell like.

Woo-hoo! Looks like the car repair problems will finally be resolved. I was able to procure a credit card. While I posess an inherent antipathy for the things, in this case it appears to be the only choice left, short of groveling ad nauseum until I could get someone to co-sign with me for a loan. Obviously this route is more dignified and independent.
::happy::happy::happy::

Got a few more minutes left (at the library, when Tim left he took his computer, too). I'm finally to a point where I can organize the house, get rid of excess junk, cook what I want to, and regain some sanity. I need to get the strawberries and irises (given to me by a former co-worker) in the ground ASAP.

Groan....it's going to take me a while to walk from here to home to the store and my hips are already sore...before 8 hours of standing on them on concrete. I'd better get home and at least eat something first.

Wait! Do I really want to go through life as a mask, playing a role, a facade? For what? To make other people happy? So they'll like me? That's twisted, because even if it worked (I'm no good at faking in the first place, however much I wear myself out trying), they still wouldn't like *me*, just the flipping mask. No.

And, maybe there aren't people who will like me the way I am, maybe there isn't even one, but it's still better than playing a role, putting on a phony face (at times literally) in lame attempts at inclusion, because in doing so, one sacrifices their own integrity.

I'm not talking about character flaws, issues, things that can be worked on. I think those things are entirely reasonable to strive for improvement in.

Well, I'm offline for a while except for the library (as now). The tomatoes have all been picked ( I think I may have posted that already last time?) and I've been freezing them. The plan for the newly vacated bed they were in is kohlrabi, beets, possibility of kale or even peas...nah, I don't think there's enough time for peas...maybe spinach. The Rosa Rubrifolia seedlings are ready to divide into individual pots, and...let's see, what else....ah yes, the apple seedlings from the "Pink Lady" apple, and the Japanese maple. I am reluctant to plant it until it has been definitely ascertained that I'll be buying the place. Suppose I could buy another, but....pathetic as it sounds, I get pretty attached to my trees and other plant life. My treasured hemerocallis "Brocaded Gown" died this spring despite my best efforts to save it, and I'm still sort of upset about that. I'll probably make an order to Oakes Daylilies and get another one at some point.

I haven't made a lot of progress towards getting my car fixed. This is primarily because I have no major purchases on my credit history. I have no idea how people ever get major purchases on their history so that they then can take out loans or buy on credit (which, to be honest, has never been a priority for me since I view debt with fear and suspicion). I can only conclude that they've all had a parent or friend co-sign for them at some point in their life. And so now, when I see other people driving nice cars (which in my mind, is anything other than a junker), I think about how someone must have loved them very much sometime in their life. It makes me feel very lonely and isolated.

OK, so that's a pretty pathetic way to look at things.....

Well, my car broke down. It blew its head gasket. This is a real pain to deal with, not because I mind walking, but because the children are in need of transportation almost every single day. I need to get a running vehicle very, very soon.

I must have close to 10 gallons of tomatoes on my kitchen table right now. They could probably have stayed on the vines another week or two, but honestly...I didn't feel like I could afford to be wrong. Besides, picking them frees up room for fall crops of greens, beets, carrots...and I'm wondering if I could get away with peas or spinach.

Work is going really well. I love being a cashier, except for the crackheads and the occasional person who is both dumb and rude (an impossibly annoying combo). A guy came in today who had a fresh and clearly inflamed needle mark on his neck. He was all hyped up and jittering through the store...and as he walked away, I watched him. Not only was his color not good, his legs were stick thin, making his socks and shoes look too large for his body. It's sad. Handling all this money...from people like that, makes me extremely glad that I got hepatitis shots when I worked at the hospital. The money is so filthy. It leaves grayish marks all over my hands, gets into the cracks and crevices of my skin...makes me feel defiled. Ick. I don't mean only the money from the druggies, I mean all of it...it's dirty.

What else? Ah...I got a loom...not a little homemade deal that makes potholders or that sits on your table, but an honest to god floor loom, from the thrift store. I just happened to be there when the people who donated it unloaded it from their truck, and snapped it up as soon as it hit the ground, to the tune of $25. The lady who donated it was ticked, said she'd paid over $450 for it, used. I knwo how to weave, and I've always wanted aloom. In fact, I've been intending to build one, but I wasn't quite sure what to use for the heddle. This one had pedals and all that jazz...it also folds up for storage, which is handy. I feel like it was a splurge, but my mom sent me birthday money, so....and it isn't like it was something frivolous. I can use it to make rugs, blankets, shawls, clothing, tableclothes...heck, you can hardly get a new blanket for $25. I sort of wish I had a spinning wheel again, but maybe a few years down the line. For now I can just recycle and make rag rugs.

I've been cooking a lot more from scratch lately, partly due to the surge of fresh vegetables from the garden. A sampling of what we've been eating: fried green tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini, fresh salsa, pasties. I hadn't had a pasty since I was in the Midwest...oh how the memories came flooding back. :-) I've dried about half the peppermint, need to do the other half, and the lemon balm, thyme, marjoram, sage....and to dig up the basil so it wont get frosted.

Midnight already?! Time for bed!

I occasionally wonder what I look like to other people, from the external eye so to speak. I try not to think about this too much. I know that I must look and sound like a total dork. I've seen the videos, and they make me want to hide indoors and never show my face in public again. The disconnect between what I think and the inadequacy of how I'm able to express it in speech (nowhere near as well as I can in writing), the way I feel and the face I present to the world (it seems blank, cold, robotic even when I don't feel that way, or otherwise, caricatured in its extremity), the gap between my inner identity and my external presentation is so wide that I don't feel like I can bridge it.

And I am desperate to share my true self with someone, and to truly know them, but there's this hideous shell around me, and I hate it. I wish I could shed my stuttering, awkward, inept ways like a carapace or an old skin, even if only for a few minutes or days, just long enough to matter, just long enough for someone to see I'm not really this ugly. My heart breaks within these confines, condemned to a solitary existence.

So I've been reading a little more about dysthymia. Learning the cashiering routine has been a little stressful, and to my extreme chagrin I started crying in front of the customers yesterday (cringe). So today I downed some St John's wort before work, and I felt fine all day. I don't know how long it's going to take before I have medical insurance again, but I think in the meantime, it would be a good idea to adhere strictly to a regimen of St John's wort every day. It makes such a difference, and I sure as hell don't want to start crying in front of people again, ugh!

The thing of it is this: I can hardly remember a time when I haven't felt depressed. If I had to select a time when I felt happy, it would be first or second grade. You can see the difference in my school pictures; I went from this happy little kid to a morose, depressed looking child. Before that, I was undeniably strange, but I was *happy* and strange. This is consistent with the course that dysthymia often takes. It's like....like everything is covered in grey, well, almost everything. When I find something that isn't grey, that I feel strongly about, I get obsessed with it, addicted to the pleasant feeling associated with the activity, object, or person.

And now I wonder, when I feel that way about a person, am I really in love with him/her? Do I love them, or do I love the feelings they evoke in me? Maybe it's why I'm usually content to simply be in their proximity, usually not even broaching anything personal...just soaking up the happy vibes that being near them provides. Maybe I'm selfish that way.

I often fantasize of what it would be like if I were a type of ghost that could see, but not be seen, feel without being felt, hear without being heard, etc and follow the people I love around silently and unnoticed. I think I would be utterly happy with that, creepily enough. I would never have to risk rejection again, I could just be near them, love them, soak in the sound of the voice, a man's scent, and I'd have all the time in the world to hang around and hear their thoughts. I'd never have to grieve the absence of a loved one or to say goodbye, I could just follow along. And again, this seems somewhat selfish to me, because it absents myself from any sort of action except enjoying the aura of the other person. It would take all the pain out of loving someone, and if I think about it, all the responsibility. That's not very mature.

Bringing the thread back around to cashiering, it's actually working out a lot better than I had thought it would. I don't have to multi-task, the interactions with customers are limited to scripts ("Hi, how are you today?", "Thank you, have a nice day", etc), and there are no extended interactions with the other workers throughout the day as there were in the deli. My ability to remember numbers and to associate them with objects will be useful, and I don't have to obsess over sanitation. I was worried that I'd be bored there, but so far that hasn't been a problem. I've been slammed with customers pretty much all day long. One thing I'll need to work on is recognizing people. Today a guy bought a gift card for $100 and said he'd coem back for it. Well, after awhile I realized that not only had he not coem back for it yet, I had no idea what he looked like! Luckily, he was standing right in front of me (blush).

In production in the garden:

plums
green beans
tomatoes (picked red ones already, it's been really hot here)
kale
carrots
beets
eggplants (yeah, that's how hot it's been)
peppers
broccoli
zuchinni
herbs of various sorts, including basil

The onions are spent. I pulled them and replanted the area with carrots and beets for a fall crop. All in all, it isn't doing too badly for 5 small raised beds in their first year of production. The apple and pear trees look like we'll be getting edible fruit this year, as do the European prune plums. It's amazing what a bit of pruning, weeding, and watering can do.

I'm returning to the grocery store. I'll be keeping two of my landscape customers for now, probably dropping one of them after a month or two (the bulk of the work will be finished by then) and keeping the other couple on a long term basis, because I really enjoy working for them. I'm very happy to be going back to the store, albeit slightly apprehensive. I like the landscaping, but the physical nature of the work, while enjoyable, is so taxing that I can't rack up 8 hour workdays on it anyway. I'm lucky if I make 6 without jeapordizing the next days performance. Besides, winter is coming on and I need medical insurance. I'll miss the landscaping, the option for creativity and ideas....but of course I can always implement all that on my own place.

I went to another voc rehab doctor appointment, this time to a psychologist. He seemed like a nice person. Anyway, an array of questions a history, more questions, and he informed me that not only do I have Asperger's, I also have dysthymic depression, another type that is more severe but fairly sporadic in my case, and post traumatic stress disorder. I've known for years I was depressed, that's no surprise, but the PTSD...wow. That actually makes a lot of sense. It really explains the severity and frequency of my panic/anxiety attacks, and a lot of other stuff that I had just attributed to the Asperger's. I am inclined to feel that these two are a bad combination: I get all stressed out and feel liek the world's falling on top of me, can't calm down, can't relax...and then all the aspie issues are not only compounded, but I feel that they actually prevent a rapid recovery from the anxiety. Well, that's my spiel on the matter anyway.

::sirens::...someone got hurt...or a fire? No, ambulance?....God, I hope it isn't one of my kids. That's so selfish of me...whoever it is, someone loves them like I love my own kids. At least they're getting help I guess.

Also, he ran an I.Q. test on me! That was a lot of fun. I wish I had studied for it, though. The worst of it: he recited a string of numbers, and I had to repeat them back to him in reverse order. Arrgh!!! There were too many to visualize easily, and besides the previous strings of numbers got tangled up in it. But there were all sorts of lovely visual puzzles and tests. I told him I juts hope the test doesn't score out lower than my previous one...that would be...disheartening. Numerical proof of diminishing intelligence....

There are a lot of social things I don't understand, but one thing I have noticed is that nearly all people are consistent in nature unless they're seriously mentally whacked or doing drugs, drunk, etc. For example, a person who is strong willed and mouthy in one area of her life will generally be that way elsewhere, too. Someone who bends and twists morality to suit his own ends in the realm of employment or business practices probably isn't going to be a very faithful mate- he'll find a reason why it's OK. People who are violent to animals are generally dangerous and intimidating, especially if they don't feel bad about it or give it a secodn thought, or do so needlessly, out of habit. People who are decent and calm even when they don't have to be, when they're in an advantageous position but decide that they [i]want[/i] to be that way...are probably inherently decent and have good character. People who have all sorts of rotten thing to say about racial minorities, gays, enviro-whackos, etc, are looking for an excuse to depsise humanity...not worth spending 5 minutes with.

That's my logic anyway. I feel sad. I'm tired of kvetching about how I deserve love and don't have it. Screw that. Love isn't something that's deserved anyway. It isn't a package with your name on it that can be plucked up lightly from a table and possessed. We've all seen people who didn't deserve it and got it anyway, just like so many other things in life. Stuff happens. Life, society, circumstances divide. It isn't fair but that's the way it goes. But that blue, that beautiful blue blurs through my mind...and I do feel sad.

Got the tooth pulled. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than the last one. This tooth's roots were fused together at the tips. It had to be cracked apart in pieces, a truly unfun experience. Once I saw the pieces, the reason for the intense toothache was obvious. That tooth was awfully bad...I'm really surprised it didn't give me grief sooner. How many others are lurking in my mouth waiting to pull the same trick? Who knows?

And, I gave up on the bully Whippet idea. After a small amoutn of research and attempts to email local whippet breeders and ask about the bullies, I learned that Bullies apparently are not destroyed at birth immediately, at least, not typically. For one thing, you can't always tell right away at birth. For another, it seems that they go to pet homes. Also, they aren't as common as the article made them sound. Some Whippet breeders had never heard of bullies before. There's hardly an epidemic of them needing to be rescued by the likes of me.

Instead, I adopted a dog from the local animal shelter. I had a gut feeling that if I were patient and didn't get a dog impulsively, I would eventually find one that I really loved. I went into the dog area to view a puppy who was completely uninteresting to me, but in the adjacent pen, Jack Russels? Wow, two Jack Russel Terriers! They were happy to see me. I went in to meet them. One of them ran away as soon as she smelled goat on my pants leg (a goat gave birth that day). The other ran right up and I fell in love. :) Her name is Bebe, 5 years old, completely housebroken, no real vices, loves everyone in the fmaily except for being afraid of the baby who tried to grab/hit her (working on that) and is in every way the best dog I could ask for. I am so happy with her!

Anyway, I'm tired. Heading for bed.

_Oh_My_God._ The worst toothache in my life grabbed me by the face yesterday. I can only describe the pain as 10 on a scale of 1-10, and very similar to an electric shock tapped in directly to a very sensitive facial nerve. Jesus Christ. I went from happy one second to total, quivering, wreck the next. Got to love anxiety attacks + severe pain. Aside from wanting the pain to stop NOW, I found myself longing for something spandex that would squeeze me tightly, or for a lead blanket, or anything confining, to weigh me down, to make me feel safe. Ugh.

And so, for the first time in my life, I drank hard alcohol (Barcadi Rum, 151). It was the only thing that dulled the pain. Nasty stuff...raised up bumps all along my inner cheek and burned my mouth. I cannot conceive of drinking the sutff for pleasure. I mean, exactly what would be the appeal?

---

I've been screwed over by three customers in the past two weeks. And the lesson I've never quite learned is beginning to sink in slightly: if you don't defend yourself from users, they will keep right on using you, and noone else is going to do it for you. You have to defend yourself. It isn't wrong to do so even if the other people get angry and confrontational. In fact, it kind of feels good.

:Relief: The book has been found. I should hurry and read all of it before it gets lost again. Ever notice how boring, non-essential, or superfluous items never seem to get lost? They just clutter space up. For example, if I am non-menstrual, the odds are extremely good that I will find tampons in every crevice of the bathroom, every drawer in my bedroom, in the basket on top of the microwave, in the glove box and (never used) ashtrays in the car, in my baskets of seashells, desk of art supplies, and on various windowsills throughout the house. It's almost as if they breed and place themselves in ideal locations for embarrassment in case anyone ever be brave enough to come and visit me. However, should I commence hemorrhaging with the only clean pair of work pants I have, they will all vanish abruptly. That's right. I swear they feel threatened and scurry off to hard to access places so that you have to go to the store and buy an entire box of companions for them. LOL.

More Murphy's law: so far, I have had the following parts replaced on my car in the past 2-3 weeeks:

• right front axle
• tie rods
• spark plugs and wires
• fuel filter
• air filter
• rear wheel bearing
• rear brakes
• calipers for rear brakes

In the past year, I have replaced the gas tank, the battery, the alternator and the tires. And now, guess what? Having just fixed the brakes, the master cylinder went out! Just my luck, heh. I have to laugh because really, what else can I do? I'm just thankful that the master cylinder didn't go out while I was driving the van with the children in it. Also, I am becoming somewhat nervous about something in the engine going bad. And the thing of it is, this vehicle is only 11 years old! It's the nicest car I've ever had and the thing is falling apart every other day.

Horticulture: Yesterday I planted St John's wort (ornamental, though possibly useful medicinally), a European hazelnut, another kniphofia, 2 columbines, and a heuchera. I've decided where to site the Japanese Maple, but will wait on that until fall. The maple has already had a disadvantaged life and I don't want to stress it out too badly by planting it in midsummer. The only reason I was willing to transplant the hazelnut was that it was an absolute steal ($16 for a 4 foot tree/shrub), and was ball and burlap, so more prone to drying out if left unplanted. I also am guilty of deeply coveting a lovely gingko biloba that was 40% off. The original price was $49.99, so even at 40% off, that's still, what? some $30? Also, I don't have any place to put it.

Hummm. I need to set up that other blog with comments by haloscan. I don't like the blogger comments, because it takes you away from the page, whereas with Haloscan, you get a pop-up window (which has annoying qualities of its own, I'll concede) that you can click out of and still have the original page intact. Oh, whatever. It isn't like I've got oodles of comments anyway, heh. Megan took off some time ago.

I keep meaning to draw or paint, but between work and doctor appointments (which are typically grouped in one day so as to save gas and time) and cleaning (oh, haha, that's funny) and getting the car worked on, there just doesn't seem to be any free time. When there is, I feel obligated to clean the damned house.

Actually, what happened is that I misplaced this fascinating book I was reading: Why We Get Sick. It's been gone for a couple of weeks now, and I am supremely frustrated. It was one of the most interesting things I've laid my hands on for some time. There were some important appointment cards tucked among the pages, but I think I've attended all the appointments by now. The aggravation of having lost this is consuming me. :shrug: Anyway, it's good incentive for cleaning the house. I'm thinking it might be in the car, now. The car is crammed full of gardening tools and debris from eating snacks (fruit, Luna bars, granola bars, coffee, wasabi peas) and mail that I'm dreading to open (dumb, huh) that to be perfectly honest, I can't find much of anything in there. I should just empty it out, categorize all the useful contents and process them, and put the pertinent contents back into the car after ascertaining that the book is not, in fact, in there.

And I'm also trying to think of income generating possibilities for winter (more on that later), for when the yard work dies down.

Shit. BF got drunk again (after nearly a year of staying sober). Looks like I'm probably going to be single again. Back to 7 day workweeks. Got to love alcoholism. Fact of the matter is, I just don't think there is an easy path through life (and at times, I wonder why people mind getting sick and dying so badly- I mean, sure it's painful, but....am I missing something here?).

Which reminds me: I saw the movie Children of Men recently. I think the movie portrays with some accuracy what the world would be like without children. The primary reason people behave ethically when there is no fear of a god or of retribution is because they have children. Why not trash the earth? Because the next generation should know what brids are, they should be able to walk through a forest and pick the flowers and chase the butterflies as we did in childhood. Why not nuke it all? The children. The drive to reproduce and to preserve the future for the carriers of our genetic material is incredibly strong. In a very real sense, I think it is the reason for our existence.

Being aspie or whatever the heck is wrong with me is like living life behind a pane of glass. I talk to people, they talk to me, but most of the time, I don't think that what I say really gets through to them, and their words frequently lack depth to me, so perhaps it's the same for me. I would hope that the world isn't actually as shallow as it appears to me, but I have no real basis for that kind of optimism. People touch me, most of the time it feels invasive. I touch them, most of the time I'd rather not touch them, or touching them does nothing for me. Hugs are particularly awkward that way. Kissing...ugh....I don't want to talk about kissing. I think one of my most prevalent erotic fantasies is to kiss someone and really enjoy it, for it to having meaning and color. I would like to be close to another person, but it's like pressing my face to the pane of glass with them on the other side.

I don't know. I suppose I'm just bored and frustrated. This town is so boring. And I so tired of feeling isolated from people when they're all around me.

Someday, I'd like to see Elton John in concert. I'd like to thank him for his music, for the consolation it's given me, for all the times when I wanted to off myself and his music helped pull me through. I don't know exactly why his music has this quality for me, but the best way I can express it is this: he vocalizes pain so well, he makes it liquid and beautiful, and having done so, he makes it also seem bearable. It's like having a sympathetic friend who's there with no questions asked, just a CD or a cassette slipped into the player, who knows how badly life can suck and understands what it's like to be an outcast (albeit for different reasons, but I have a soft spot for outcasts in general).

Lawns

---

I've ranted before about the senselessness of planting, watering, fertilizing and harvesting a crop which cannot be eaten or used for anything, and which doesn't even provide much enjoyment- just work and a way to use up perfectly nice land and soil. I suppose I shouldn't complain, because mowing lawns is now my livelihood. However, I never realized how frightfully extravagant grass is until now. One yard I care for is pretty big...maybe an acre all told. There are trees and shrubs and flowerbeds and spigots that have to be maneuvered around. With a riding lawnmower, mowing the whole lawn takes me about 2 hours, maybe 3 (I like to do a nice job, and as I said, there is a lot of maneuvering). If it were a flat, square plot with no obstacles, of course it could be done in half an hour, probably. Weedwhacking the areas the mower can't get to takes another 2-3 hours at least, but this only has to be done once for every 3 times the lawn is mown (thank goodness!). I hate the weedwhacking because it endangers my eyes with flying objects (yes, I do wear eye protection). That lawn has to be mowed at least once a week! If it gets longer, then the walk behind mower is pulled out, because it has a bag and the riding mower doesn't. The grass clippings would kill the lawn (which doesn't sound like a half bad idea to me). Mowing this lawn manually takes me a very long time, especially since it requires constantly emptying the bag.

So- at about $40 a week, this is $160 a month, a pretty hefty price to pay for a patch of green lawn, in my opinion. For a summers worth of lawn mowing, you could buy rhododendrons and hydrangeas and fruit trees and daylilies and all manner of wonderful things, plus bark mulch and landscape cloth so they wouldn't need much weeding and grass wouldn't grow. After a few summers like that, you could have quite the showcase, while your neighbors would continue to have the same, ordinary, boring, and ex$pen$ive lawn that everyone else has. I haven't figured in the costs of planting the lawn of herbicies or fertilizer, either...

The yard could have a monoculture of grass that is useful mainly for earthworms and small insects (which are fastidiously sprayed against)and only seasonally attractive, or it could have a variety of plants to provide interest throughout the year as well as providing food and shelter and habitat for birds, butterflies, wildlife, and of course, humans.

I don't understand it.

All right, I'll say it. I don't think I've been fair to the manager, the one that I thought hated me. I think what it might be is that I've got a somewhat abrasive, forthright personality, and a near inability to conceal conflicts or problems, whereas the last thing he wanted to hear about was more problems. The way I looked at it was this: how can the problem be resolved if it's never addressed or brought into the light? And I still feel that way, actually. I think at least 90% of the problems in that deli could have been solved quickly by simply being discussed openly. Sweeping shit under the rug doesn't hide the smell.

It has also come to my attention that he didn't lie to me, the new cashier was already hired when I'd applied.

Water under the bridge, but I wanted to fix what I'd said before, because teh more I looked at it, the more I realized I hadn't been quite fair.

I'm still a little ticked that they won't hire me back, though. A mere glance at the deli is all it takes to confirm that they need either me or someone who will actually care about the place. On the other hand, maybe, for those three years, I wore myself out, imagining that everything had to be stocked and fresh and pretty and all that jazz, getting stressed and cranky all that time for nothing, because they don't really seem to care. The fourth of July is coming, Timber days is coming....it's going to get really danged interesting there, and I'll be standing back with a raised eyebrow smirking inwardly and wondering why I got so freaked out once upon a time.

The gardening and yard work is going really well, paying about the same as what I got at a regular job, but with fewer hours, I get to call the shots, I get to be 100% honest and ethical, when I feel sick or really crappy, I can go home, if a customer is insufferably rude or a job is too hard, I have the choice not to do it.....in a lot of ways, it's pretty ideal. Besides, I get plenty of solitude and get to work with plants all day long. People give me cuttings and divisions of their plants....I can see that I'll quickly run out of space to plant them in.

I've decided a few other things, too. I want to get a dog, and to hell with the bulldog and the "friend" that sold my goats. If I can, I'm getting a "bully" whippet instead. These dogs are being destroyed simply because they can't run. They're nice dogs, just...genetically different. I sympathize with that, so I'm going to do my darnedest to rescue one. Also, it's a matter of time before I run out of space to plant things here. I can still fit in another peach or pear tree if I esplaier them against the house, and hazelnuts, if I plant them along the boundary between us and the neighbors. There is room to expand the strawberry bed, and maybe room for several of many rubrifolia rose seedlings. Two of the apple trees died, so I'll be replacing them. However, what it comes down to is this: I'm going to have to prioritize, and to focus on the plants that I really want. And one of the things I really want more of is daylilies. Tulips and daffodils are nice, and of course I'll still be placing an order to McClure and Zimmerman (or Brent and Becky's bulbs, or both), but it looks like the order to Oakes daylilies will be first. Also, because teh space is so short and food crops are a priority, but I haven't the willpower to eschew flowering plants, I'm going to combine my perennial flowers and herbs with vegetable beds, as well as making the most of the space under and around the trees. NO LAWN. (saving rants about lawns for another day!)

::Sigh:: Enough of the pity parties. Crying over it isn't going to get me anywhere.

Besides, working for myself is going OK. I have a voc rehab appt tomorrow. I want to see if I can get into college. The notion of becoming a botanist/horticulturist is more appealing all the time, now that the mystique of working in a hospital has been breached somewhat.

Plants: I just got "curly Wurly" a corkscrew rush. If you like cool, strange plants, this is an inexpensive one and well worth trying. Also, Alcea Nigra (black hollyhock). The vegetable garden: eggplants, more tomatoes (heirloom varieties), peppers, romanesco broccoli/cauliflower, golden beets, red russian kale, white russian kale, yellow crookneck squash, rogue vif d'etampes pumpkin, a winter squash of my own breeding, zucchini, and...I don't know..other stuff, heh. I just realized that my bean seeds (black valentine) got wet and I need to hurry and plant them.

In bloom: Salvia (both the culinary type and a red ornamental type), allium rosacae, geranium (Bowles Blue is actually purple, people), dicentra spectabilis, centaurea, aquilegia, bellis, many irises, oxeye daisies, hydrangea, and a single hellebore. Indoors, the phaleonopsis orchid has two ethereal white blooms- stunning.

I think the garden and gardening work for other people is what keeps me alive and sane these days.

I am still blue (heartbroken) over the goats. Losing Reflex would have been bad enough, but for almost the entire herd to be gone....and for meat....it leaves me almost mute with pain. Twelve years of life, love, passion, and hard work down the drain.

And here I am planting and landscaping this place like an idiot. I haven't bought it yet. What asurance do I have that I'll actually be able to buy it? I still don't have a job yet...or not a steady one. I've been filling in here and there with odd jobs, which is better than nothing. Nothing seems worthwhile anymore. I'm tired of trying to get people to like me, tired of getting burned. There's no purpose to life except for the children.

As for me, I'm a failure. All the things I wanted to do in life or to get out of it have miscarried: art, love, animals, being a doctor, being anything at all, staying married, living out in the country......the only thing that hasn't completely failed is the kids.

I hate it that the fucking developers, realtors, and rich people from other places have driven the prices up so high. I'm boxed into living in town, surrounded by the place I love which I can't own a part of, because of greed. I saw an ad today, 20 acres with a shop and utilities for $250 K!!! There is not even a house on it, and the ad reads: "Buy 20 acres for the price of ten!". WTF??!!

There doesn't seem to be a way out.

So I'm thinking about possibly just going to work for myself, doing yard work, gardening, minor landscaping, errands and such. I haven't had any bites yet on the several job applications I've distributed, and I *love* working outside, doing yard work. Hey, it's worth a try- it's not like I'm working anywhere else.

Speaking of gardens, a lot of stuff is in bloom now: aquilegia (note- plant more of these from seed, they're very reliable and worthwhile), dicentra (also really nice), violas galore, a single white narcissus (the others have finished already, along with all the tulips), a hellebore, and most excitingly, a kniphofia. This last is also known as "red hot poker plant". I've wanted one for a while because it's both freaky and sexy. The cherry, pear, plum, and apple trees are all blooming or have finished, and I'm worried about them, because I've seen very few bees or other pollinators this year, only the occasional wasps and a lone hummingbird. I've planted food crops as well: 'Chioggia' beets, broccoli (sorry, just the store brand), various tomatoes, red and yellow onions, two concord grape vines, rhubarb, scotch green curled kale....and I think that's all.

I got to go see the goats (the four that are left) tonight and it put me in a better mood. They're not all gone, at least, even if none of the ones that are there were my favorites, they're something, and being with them makes me feel sane again.

Going to bloom soon: sage(the culinary sort), eremurus, roses, peonies, stachys, and alliums (the ornamental sort). After awhile the daylilies should be coming into play along with the irises. I also have a phaleonopsis orchid that I'm quite attached to. I bought it for myself almost two years ago for my birthday, and after it's first round of blooming, I somehow managed to almost kill it and just barely kept it alive for some time. Now it's recovered and is about to bloom. :-) I don't know why orchids seem so precious....

Wow, it's about time the thing started working again. In case you're wondering, what finally did it was changing the browser setting to "identify as Internet Explorer" (I use Opera).

Anyway, at this point, my life sucks so badly that I'm sort of wishign soemone would just kill me off and be done with it. I can't bear having little bits of me cut away one at a time. Since I posted last, the following have occurred:

--> The woman that I thought was my best friend basically quit communicating with me. I tried to call her and her answering machine said she wasn't taking any calls. She had told me to call her that day, so I can only conclude that she was avoiding me and putting me off. She does not consider me a close friend as I do her. Once more, I am a mere aquaintance. I left a few messages on her answering machine, but she never called back, so I quit trying. Screw it. I'm coming to the slow and very painful realization that I don't actually have any female friends at all, and I don't think I have any male friends that aren't attracted to me. In other words, no friends...not really...everyone's just an aquaintance. The world is so formally and coldly polite.

--> Another 'friend' had boarded all of my goats for me. I had previously arranged to sell her several other goats, and she already had them and their papers, but she hadn't paid me for them. Anyway, so she agreed to board my goats with the stipulation that any offspring born would be hers. This was fine by me, because I didn't have a place to put any of the goats that I already had a loved, let alone new ones. Everything seemed fine. I went out there and trimmed all their feet, helped her out with them, and it all seemed OK. Then one day I came home to a letter on my door, which said that I had given her all the goats, and why was I saying she was boarding them out, she was going to sue me, and she had already sold a few of them, including my buck, Reflex. Now, if there was one goat that I loved above all the rest, it was Reflex. I raised him from a 3 day old kid, he was a tiny quadruplet when I got him so he lived in the house for a while...I bottle fed him...he grew up to a huge mature buck, but he was always my baby. I loved that buck just like other people do their dogs or cats or horses. He was always sweet and gentle with me... Anyway, she said he was mean to her and she sold him at the livestock auction right before Cinco De Mayo- in other words, he was probably bought up for meat and his bones are in a barbecue pit somewhere. She went on to say that she was about to sell the others, too, all of them, if I didn't find some way to get rid of them all NOW. I managed to rescue the children's three goats....how could I tell them their pets had been sold for meat? I am still devastated over Reflex and the others. My beautiful black beauties, that I spent so time time and work breeding...lost, dead...I failed them, and they were always there for me when I needed them. I don't know how she could do this to me without even warning me first or giving me half a chance. Why did she agree to board them if she couldn't cope with it, she sounded really optimistic about it when I took them there. The entire thing just makes me miserable.

She must have felt a little guilty, because she said that she would "make me a deal" on a bulldog puppy (she breeds bulldogs) with the money from the sale of the goats. But I just saw her today, and sure enough, most of the does went to the auction, except for one taht she kept for herself, and no word at all of the puppy. I felt too broken to even ask...screw it.....

-->Two days after I found our Reflex had been sold for meat, I was getting ready for work when my boss called me. Stupid me, I thought mayeb there was a crisis of some kidn and she need me to come in early or something (which I would have been willing to do). Nah...she was calling to tell me not to come in at all. She said I wasn't learning quickly enough and the other workers felt like they were running behind all the time and having to pick up my slack. I'd been trying to tell her that I was having trouble with the training for weeks...people kept telling me contradictory stuff. Or otherwise I'd be in the middle of doing something and another worker ("M" was especially bad about this) would run over frantically and stop me and tell me that I had to hurry and do something else NOW. I'd try to tell her that my scheduled chore list said that I was supposed be doing what I was already doing at this time, but by that time, she was gone, or she would just ignore me. She would do this sort of t hing to me several time in the course of a day. If I had a question, she wouldn't even listen, just talked over me and bossed me around without answering what I asked. I tried to tell my boss that I was having a problem, but I got the very distinct feeling that I had better not complain about "M", because if I did, it would be MY problem. Bleah..and I was just starting to feel like I was getting the hang of things, too...it was starting to make sense. Screw it....

-->So I tried to go back to the store (I know, I know....)to see if they'd re-hire me. The manager said that he didn't have any openings right now, but he'd think about it. A day or two later, someone pointed out to me that the gal who worked in the meat department had left, and maybe they could use me there, so I asked. "Nope, don't need you, got it covered." The deli is a disaster. I haven't seen it this dysfunctional in a very long time. Nope, they still don't need me. Went in two days ago, and they had a brand new cashier- the position I applied for and for which he said he didn't have any openings. Screw it....

The only good things are that the main boss saw to it that I finally got my reference (thank you!). I don't think that manager (the same one who lied to me about not having any openings) would ever have given it to me otherwise. The man just does not like me, and I'm not sure why, except that I have an unbiblically strong personality for a woman. There are other strong women in that store, but maybe I'm too honest and too blunt. Also, I applied for unemployment, and maybe, just maybe, I'll get it. I've applied for a few other jobs and haven't gotten any bites yet. The truth of it is that I feel so battered by the events of the past month that I hardly care what happens to me anymore.

I mean, other than homelessness or something happening to one of the kids, what else is there to lose? Oh, please don't let anything happen to the kids....

Work Dammit!!!!!!

Recognition

---

It's what distinguishes between someone familar and a potential threat. I don't know about neurotypicals, but I'm guessing that they're similar in this regard. People are generally treated with coolness and mistrust unless I know them already or some kind of a bond is forged, usually based on some commonality. Our kids play together, or we share similar interests or ideals, or we have a dear friend in common, etc. If we don't know a person and there are no obvious signs or reasons why we might want to know them, we tend to be curt and briefly polite, the bare minimum necessary before moving on to our tasks of the day.

We establish and reinforce recognition of familiar people by social cues such as eye contact, small cues such as a nod of the head or a wink, a wave, or a verbal greeting. Then the recognition might be further reinforced (and usually is) by social niceties and ritual, such as "Hello, how are you doing?" and small talk. A social bond is reaffirmed and strengthened with each such interaction, provided of course that it is a positive experience for both parties.

-----OK, here is the problem-----

Some of us, specifically people on the autism spectrum, often don't recognize people by sight part or most of the time. It's called prosopagnosia. Recognition of people is based on other cues such as the surrounding environment (you know that it is the same girl who always makes your espressos, because you and she are in the same setting every morning), clothing (especially uniforms), voice, scent, hair color and style, body size and shape, or a combination of such factors. The face may be recognized in a secondary way, as an assist, but not the primary means of identification. What this means is that if I see a co-worker in an unfamiliar setting, say, a large store 50 miles away from here, I probably will not realize it is them. Most people treat those whom they do not recognize as potential enemies/threats, or as non-interesting. If a person I know goes on a major diet or changes their hair style or color drastically, the same thing can happen, even in the familiar setting. I do recognize faces to some degree, but I don't think it is very refined. Only the most beloved, utterly fmailiar, or truly fear-inspiring faces seem to imprint strongly on my brain. I can draw well, but if you were to ask me to draw a face of someone I love, I'd have trouble remembering what their face looked like. I would get the clothing, body posture, hair, facial hair, and basic details down, but fine details (shape and size of nose, shape and set of eyes, mouth, etc) would be absent or inaccurate.

In other words, people with prosopagnosia are very likely to either be friendly to everyone they see, or to treat everyone in a distant, hands off manner unless the other party initiates the recognition process (and then you feel pretty foolish and embarrassed). Recognition and the social bonds reinforced by it are likely to be impaired for people such as myself.

Blooming: Tulip Turkestanica, native wild Violas, and the "assorted" Narcissus mix from Walmart. "Assorted mix" my ass....the package showed all sorts of different types of daffodils, and I'm not complaining too much, but they're all (so far, anyway) your basic golden trumpets. Ah well...at least they actually bloomed. I think I'm going to discontinue buying those plastic bags of peta moss with a bulb or two in them. It seems that whatever garden supply vendor I get them from, they don't usually grow at all. I'd rather pay more and get soemthign reliable and true to name.

My life is absolutely meaningless. I'm a failure in every sense of the word. Why am I even here? I mean, since I was in grade school, I've been trying to convince myself that my life won't always be this sucky, that eventually, it'll get better....and folks, it just isn't happening. In fact, it could just be my perspective, but from here, it seems to be going downhill at a fairly steady rate.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I wish that I were like you people. I wish that my heart were colder and less attached, that I could forget people at the drop of a hat, that I could crush others beneath my feet like ants and not feel bad about it, only because they wer ein my way and it feels good. No....no. I don't want to be like that. I like ants.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The world is full of plastic people, they're/you're like a bunch of dumb Barbie and Ken dolls, distinguished primarily by clothing and accessories. Collect them all!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This world is just crammed full of aquaintances pretending to be friends, mocking me with their superficial representations of caring, of sentiment that doesn't exist. Platitudes, drivel, politeness. God, how I hate phony people.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Lastly, I've been thinking about this today: I don't know what it's like in other countries, but it seems to me that what I'll be describing (attempting to, anyway), could be an American phenomenon. There is a tendency to heroize people who defy the odds, and the tougher the odds are against them, the greater the admiration, if they succedd. This is a country built from people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and it's what we expect. America's built on the premise that class distinctions, limitations of all sorts, don't apply here, that these are rules meant to be broken.

Conversely, people (conservatives, actually) tend to despise and revile and even seek to punish those who, for whatever reason, can't beat the odds. Born without arms and legs? You'll be referred to a Reader's Digest article about some dude born limbless from birth who refuses to use a wheelchair and competes in the Olympics (the regular ones, not Special Olympics). You're on disability? What, you can't wiggle your body into a chair and conduct business over a speaker phone? Earn your keep, loser!!! It doesn't really matter whether the reason you're behind is physical, developmental, financial, or if you were raised by drug addicted parents on the wrong side of the tracks. Someone, somewhere has succeeded from similar circumstances, and so you're expected to as well. It also isn't enough to do better than you were before, you have to do as well or better than other successful people.

Think I'm exaggerating? Go ahead and troll some forum with a lot of republicans or anti-government sorts. Ask them how in the hell they expect disabled or disadvantaged people to survive without Social Security or various programs that presently sustain them. Get back to me please, and compare.

I'm scared. I was supposed to amount to something and I haven't. I don't want to spend my whole life doing things that I'm not naturally suited to, forcing myself to strain to adapt to their world....

And I can hear you, normals, out there saying that I can't expect the world to accomodate me teh way I am, that I'll have to conform, that everyone else has to bend and adjust to fit in, so what makes me think I'm any different? The thing is, I don't think you understand what that entails, the extent of what you're asking. It's akin to expecting a man to adopt the female role for 8.5 hours a day, to such an extreme degree, that he doesn't betray his masculine gender at all during that time. Would you ask any man to do that for 42.5 hours per week until he was in his 60s? (although at this rate, I'll probably die before I hit retirement age- they keep bumping it up). Most guys would get bruned out pretty quickly under those conditions, especially if 99% of available jobs demanded the exact same thing, that he conceal and mask his gender and dress, speak, and behave in every way as though he were perfectly female.

That's what it's like for me. I never asked to be born aspie, but it's a huge strain to try to be normal all of the time. It fucks up all the rest of my life to do so, but I suppose tha I really haven't a choice.

Maybe I'm not really good for anything.

Today was Orientation for the new job (even though I've been working there since the 19th). I had to sit for 8 hours (punctuated, to be fair, with regular breaks and such) in a fairly uncomfortable chair and absorb lots of information (much of which I had already learned, but there was enough new material that I couldn't just safely zone out, either). At first it was OK. But after several hours, the 16 year odl girl across from me began to fidget endlessly with her necklace. The sight of it swinging back and forth disrupted my vision.....I put a sheaf of paper between her necklace and my line of sight, and that helped, but I'm sure it looked strange. Then the lady next to me began to bounce her leg, and it made a sort of impatient sound and well as providing visual distraction. This was worse, because just beyond her was the teacher, and I couldn't easily block the vision of the neighboring gal and still see the teacher or the projector screen. Meanwhile, the seat just seemed to get more and more uncomfortable.

When I finally got home, my muscles were all tense and pinchy feeling, so I decided to go back to the health club and take a soak in the whirlpool. There will be about an hour of time left before they close once I get there. Soooo......I get to the club, get the locker key, and go to the ladie's locker room. A woman in scrubs is in a stretching position, the one meant to stretch the hip joints (as you might imagine, I am well acquainted with this exercise). I put the stuff I won't need in the locker, and as she coems out of the stretch I ask her if she also works for the hospital, etc. She talks to me, but something about me must be strange, because she eyes me in a.....uneasy but polite fashion and makes her getaway ASAP. I must have done something.....

But, I shrug this off and get into the shower. I already had my swimwear on under my street clothes: a swimsuit and a cute little pair of hawaiian print shorts which are slightly tight. They're made of some kind of water resistant, unstretchy material. I know that I should take the swimwear off when I shower, but the shower curtain isn't wide enough to cover the doorway without leaving a 2-3" gap. I'm scared someone will see my pudgy body. Worse, they might not know I'm in the shower. What if they draw the curtain back entirely before they see I'm there?? So I shower by degrees, which is to say that most of me gets washed, but in segments, before being hastily reclothed again. Upon entering the spa area, I noticed two other women in the pool, and I'm relieved very much when I see that they've left it and are doing a post-soak shower. I push the button to turn on the jets and happily immerse myself in the hot, HOT water. I've been cold for most of the day....oh, it is so nice. I soak in there for a long time and eventually get bored. I experiment with the various jets to try to massage my stiff neck (it can't be doen without submerging my nose, in other words, not really at all). I see that only 15 minutes have elapsed. Huh. I should have exercised a little bit first. I'm so fat, 135# now when I used to be 115#. I think about my friend and how I should coordinate our schedules somehow. I rarely exercise because I'm afraid and painfully self-conscious. What if my clothes are wrong? What kind of clothes do I need? What if I sweat and start to smell? What if I do things wrong or slowly or I look like a dork or a wimp (I am seriously out of shape). Maybe I should get into shape first somewhat and then come here as well. Maybe I should start bicycling again. My own bike is trashed. The front rim is all bent and skewed. If I could get it fixed, I could ride it again. I used to be so buff. I think about when I rode some 14, 15 miles or more a day with the kids in a trailer behind me. The thing is, I just don't have the time for that now. I think for a while about ways I could schedule time for riding my bike and which roads would be good.

I process all this for a while, and then the jets stop of their own accord, and I realize that I need to pee. The restroom is the only real choice, but I'm terrified of running into someone. In the water, under all that foam, it doesn't matter. Out of the water.....I don't want to see anyone, or for anyone to see me. Still, I don't have a choice. I go towards the door timidly. Just as I'm about to open it, a girl enters and pokes her head in. She's very young and pretty and trim, and even more terrifyingly, she looks very reserved and quiet. She sees me, and I retreat into one of the showers, because I don't know what else to do. I stand there in the shower feeling quite foolish. She's gone, and I wonder if the coast is clear, can I go to the bathroom yet. I look through the glass of the door, don't see the girl, so I make a run for the bathroom. Now I have another problem. These cute little shorts are still tight, and now they're wet. They're amazingly hard to peel off. As I'm doing so, I suddenly realize that I'm not just my thoughts and an inner voice speaking its monologue....I have a body, and the body is attached to me. How awkward and unfortunate. Now, I'm still all wet. The toilet....what if I get it wet? (mental picture of some hapless person, like that young girl, sitting down on a soppping wet toilet seat). I spy the toilet seat covers. Yeah, these are especially useful at a time like this, thinks I. My very wet fingers tear the cover at first, but at last I coax it out of the dispenser, mostly intact, and spread it carefully over the seat. Now I can sit down, and I do so. Upon arising, there's a problem. The seat cover has adhered itself to my buns. A panic begins to form as I try to peel it off. It disintegrates into small, wet pieces of paper. What if I have to come out of the restroom covered in bits of white paper stuck to my body? Eeek! This is bad, bad, bad news. I pick at all the paper until it seems that I've divested myself of most of it. The seat is covered in splodges of wet paper, too. Damn. I get some fresh toilet paper and clean off the seat carefully. It's quite a relief when the toilet washes all that hateful paper down its throat. Now: the shorts. I eye them distrustfully. Well, OK, let's give it a go. I put my feet through the holes and maneuver the garment just past my knees. At that point, it begins to stick and roll up...there is just no way in heck that I'll be able to get them back on, but I try anyway. What will I do? Seem here's the thing. Unlike my normal aspie self, I have forced myself to shave under my arms, and the entirety of my legs. But we all have limits, and going around with an itchy, bristly crotch is one of mine. I haven't shaved there, and I don't especially intend to. Without the shorts, though, that hair will show. How will I get out of the bathroom? Someone might see me. I finally settle for holding the damp shorts in front of me, peekign aroudn corners, and, seeing noone, getting back into the pool quickly. I fling the impractical, teenage-girl-intended shorts off into the corner where my towel is, and reflect that the towel will give me a convenient escape route back out of the pool. I can just wrap it around my waist.

More soaking, ahh......Then the young, perfect body girl comes back in. I don't loook at her. She has on a bikini and a perfectly flat stomach. Good thing the jets are on. My body's under the water, this body that I'm tied to. I don't talk to her because frankly, not only do I not know what to say, but for soem reason, I am petrified of this girl. She leaves soon, and I realize what teh problem is: this nice, new job has given me enough days off in a row that I feel like myself again, for the first time in months. I'm not dead inside, I'm still here. But it's a tradeoff, see....because the more I feel like myself, the more my social skills go down the drain. Left to myself, I probably could easily become agoraphobic, and I know this. It's part of why I do work instead of getting on disability. If I work almost every day, like I did at the store, where I rarely got two days off in a row, I both develop and maintain the social skills. But then we see the tradeoff agian, because I become an automaton, I've got no passion, I don't feel like myself, I'm lost, no sense of being centered.

I can have me or I can have the social skills. Having both is just a really fine line.

Well, I still miss working at the store. The new job is OK, and they treat me a whole lot better, but I don't think I'm going to be able to sink my heart into it like I did the store. I'll just be putting my time in and going home. And really, this is the way it shoudl be, I suppose, but it has no passion, no drive, no depth or color. So even though it's challenging and fairly active, I'll be bored to some degree, as I always am in any facet of life that lacks color. If they wanted me back at the store, I know inside that I'd go back at the drop of a hat...but I think that's unlikely to occur. They didn't miss me, (and at times, I can see why) and I don't think they'll be longing for my return either (heh).

(if my typing is messed up, it's because I'm typing without glasses)

So, since the work lacks passion, I'm back to getting obsessed with plants again. Today I planted:

• 1Dicentra Spectabilis
• 2 Astibles
• 1 Sempervivium
• and 6 sweet woodruff (too lazy to look up the proper name

I still have rhubarb, gladioli, and strawberry plants left to take of ASAP, and it's high time to start planting starts of tomatoes. Oh! and onion sets. I think I bought about 200 of them, and have no space at all prepared for them yet (not too bright, huh?).

Perhaps what I'd really like is to pursue a degree in botany or horticulture. Plants are almost as calming as goats, but unlike goats, you can make a decent living from a botanty/horticultural related field.

I planted 4 apple trees (malus)for the espalier tunnel/arch, and while I was purchasing them, some hippie/mountain woman type of female shopper walked up and started in commenting about my apple trees. I told her what I was doing with them, and she took a step back and said rather critically, "Oh, well you don't care about the apples, then." I replied that the trees would fruit just fine, in fact, remarkably well for the space used and size of the trees. Then she started telling me, very authoritatively, about pollinaters, that I shoudl make sure my apples woudl pollinate one another or I would not get any fruit. Hello, bitch, but do I look like I was born yesterday? How often does a total newbie undertake making an espaliered arch of trees?? And who in the hell do you think you are? I told her that the four I had shoudl be sufficient, but they were merely the beginnimg of the project, which will incorporate 8-12 trees total. (more superflous preaching about pollinaters) Finally I just told her, rather shortly, "Besides, I live in town. There are lots of apple trees there, and I'm sure there will be plenty of pollinaters even if I didn't have any. She looked doubtful and wished me good luck and walked away. ::irk!!!::

Wait:

em·pa·thy (?m'p?-th?)
1:Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.
2:The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.

sym·pa·thy (s?m'p?-th?)

1. a: relationship or an affinity between people or things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other.

b:Mutual understanding or affection arising from this relationship or affinity.

2. a:The act or power of sharing the feelings of another.

b:feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the distress of another; compassion or commiseration. Often used in the plural.

3.Harmonious agreement; accord: He is in sympathy with their beliefs.

4.A feeling of loyalty; allegiance. Often used in the plural: His sympathies lie with his family.

5.Physiology. A relation between parts or organs by which a disease or disorder in one induces an effect in the other.
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Sympathy is what I feel at times, not empathy. The two seem like almost the same thing, but they're not.

Nah, I don't lack empathy, I'm just highly selective. With someone I care about, seeing them hurt will freak me out (although most of the time, I'm able to handle the situation and then fall apart later) whereas with other people, it's not that I'm happy they're hurt or that I don't care, but I either intellectualize the event (thinking about physiological details) or feel uncomfortable (a girl having cramps or a guy crying because he's in serous pain). So I think that I could be a decent phlebotomist. The question is, is that all I want to be? And the answer, of course, is no, but it'll have to do for now.

These grunt jobs are all about memorization of routine and minimal applied thought. Thinking too hard gets you in trouble. So although they're nice to me, the pay is a little better (debatable, since I might have gotten a raise by summer, had I stayed at the store), the benefits are good, etc etc, I think that ultimately, it isn't a position which I'll be happy maintaining for a long time. Stair step, yes. Resting place, no.

I still feel sad about not working at the store. I had seen enough to know that none of us mean anything, but having it hit home and happen to you is quite a blow, and I apparently had a lot of emotional investment in the place. The whole discrimination issue still gets my goat, it was wrong in every sense of the word, but I don't have the heart to fight it. What irks me the most is that my Asperger's syndrome was not the reason I couldn't work in the bakery, and I knew it. It was an excuse. The real reason was plain and simple, self interest; I would have felt better if they'd just come out and said so instead of making a personal slight out of it.

It's so crazy, because the biggest issue that I did have with that bakery was the amount of lifting. It killed my hips, but I was willing to do it because I loved the work. So it's ironic that the two full time bakery workers have both had foot injuries (which would interfere with lifting things quickly and moving around rapidly).

No, the real reason was that I was becoming too much of a pain, too much of a threat. I wouldn't shut up about things like sanitation and customer service and safety. Those issues couldn't be countered easily, so they just ran me off instead. I wonder how many other workers will have to leave, how long it'll go on, before the underlying problems become apparent, and if, even then, they'll actually be dealt with.

Anyhoo, it was a blessing in disguise. I needed to do something else with my life, but I felt like it'd be disloyal to leave. Now I can look around for that new direction, whatever it is. If I lived closer to Spokane, I'd go apply at White's boots.

I've decided that I don't ever want to grow old (as in, old enough to lose my independence). I don't care if people love and visit me or not. I don't ever, ever want to live in an old folk's home (spare me the pretty sounding labels, it is what it is). I thought old folks physically attacked the nurses because they were senile. Heck, has anyone considered that maybe they're just really pissed off about being where they're at? I mean, is that a possibility? Most of them seem to have broken hearts and broken spirits, like they've stoppped caring, stopped seeing, stopped thinking. Put me down like an old dog that you love, but *don't* abandon me in some antiseptic hellhole, even a nice one. I don't want to ever see a mental hospital...I'm sure that I would have nightnmares for years fearing that some moron would send me to one for my "disease".

Um, yeah, OK. So, as you can see, the job isn't exactly a perfect fit for me. I'm going to have to try to make it work though, because I am frankly too stressed to look for anything else. I guess I'll try to go ahead and take the phlebotomy classes in the summer. Wait- do they need to be empathetic, too? Is empathy something that I can fake or role play if I script it? People are constantly telling me that I seem nice or "sweet" (that's a laugh), etc, so I think that I must not look as cold as I feel. I'm nice to the goats when I do stuff (tattooing, disbudding, etc)to them, so maybe I could translate that to people.

See, this is what I'm talking about. I try and I try to find a place where I fit like a puzzle piece, and instead, I don't fit anywhere. I have to pretend that I fit when I'm actually more of a chameleon, and it sucks. I'm tired of having to pretend, or having to try hard not to flap or stim or makes strange sounds. Deal with it! You people do all sorts of stuff that makes absolutely no sense to me, like asking me how I am and then walking away before I can answer, or wearing really uncomfortable clothing, or caring more about what a person looks like than who they really are, or intimidating people who haven't even done anything wrong yet, and I have to deal with it even though it drives me crazy, even when it's actually hurting or confusing me. Most of the stuff I do is just strange, it doesn't hurt anyone.

I'm going to spend my whole life looking for a place where I can just relax and be what I am, and it isn't going to happen. Cripes.

Back to the old folks again, I sort of wonder about the whole empathy thing. I wonder if normal people actually care, or if they are just awfully good at pretending that they care? If they truly care, how can they endure it? Because I, being autistic and supposedly lacking in empathy and theory of mind, am driven to distraction by things that I observe (in the way of treatment of other people). If they are so superior in their empathy, then how in the hell can they stand it? It seems that if I'm bothered by it, their own reaction would be even more, but that isn't at all what I see. This makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

I got a new Elton John CD (Empty Sky) and am enjoying it. It really doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy.... :-)

My new job starts on Monday, which leaves me only 2 days off work before the stress begins again. I'm hoping to make the strawberry bed(s) tomorrow, including amending the soil, and then make any seed/bulb/plant orders. Hmmm. I also want to make an arched "tunnel" of apple trees in the front yard, but when I think about it, I should probably start buying the place first. Even if I get the trees cheaply, for example, $20 each, if I get 10 of them (which would be half the length of the tunnel planned, but the more I think about it, I don't want the entire length anyway) that'd be $240 for the trees alone, not counting metal rebar supports to train the trees up, or the boulders to protect the trees closest to the street from the encroachment of careless winter snowplows, or other associated expenses. Not counting the rocks, it'll be at least a $300 investment. Also, it is best to plant the trees in the fall, not spring. I think I will wait and order the trees with tax refund money and have them shipped in the fall. I do need to order the strawberry plants though.

I still want to paint before I start working again, but the sad truth is that there just isn't a whole lot of passion or drive in my soul lately. When I do paint/draw, people end up wrecking the half completed works anyway, so really, why waste my time?! Oh, that's just an excuse. I should quit whining and just knuckle down and do it.

sigh.....I still miss my old workplace....pathetic....

We're having a debate on a forum about eugenics and prospective gay fetuses. Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is. Maybe it's because I'm strange and non-standard issue anyway, but I think it'd be kind of neat to have a gay kid (OK, so flame away). I certainly wouldn't opt to abort or to have some sort of a "cure" administered in utero. Normal people with their ideals of a 100% normal world scare teh livign bejeezuz out of me.....Seems to me that one day, they're going to obliterate all the rest of us through one means or another.

To the end of the line, start to finish, I am still a Hill. No one can take that from me; it's written in my genes. No amount of degradation or homelessness or poverty can erase it; it will still be there. It is my birthright, oldest child of two oldest children, and I won't be robbed of it. I'm not talking about money, it's about identity and familial pride. It's easy to forget in this wilderness settled by a handful of immigrant families, by people who probably weren't all that bright before they started inbreeding.

What is a Hill?

We are eccentric and idiosyncratic, and for the most part, make no apologies for it.
We are, as a rule, intelligent.
We actually enjoy listening to classical music, and in fact this is probably the type that comes to our minds first if we hear the word "music".
We play chess, read books, collect things, and enjoy outdoor activities aside from team sports.
We frequently have bad knees, sinus problems, allergies, and few close friends.
We are concerned with education, status, and having a respectable job and position.
We like fine things: not necessarily brand new things, but good things. Actually, for a family that tends towards valuing good things, we're fairly frugal. We have a word for new, unnecessary, cheaply produced items: "crapola".
We appreciate culture, although the family could fairly be labeled "WASPy".
And then there's the Hill family humor...I'm not going to try to explain this.

Someday, I'll live near my family again. Until then, I'll maintain my identity. Which really, when you're a clannish Hill, is sort of uncomfortable, away from the fold.

Something I am noticing lately is that not only does my ability for coherent, intelligible speech fade away under stress and pressure, but the intake also becomes impaired. Usually a little bit of it gets through, in single word soundbites. (reference the post from Nov 13th on this page).

Examples from today: I went to the autism specialist who has been evaluating my tyhird son for a possible autism spectrum disorder. Preliminary findings are PDD-NOS, with possible Asperger's, pending I.Q. test. I relayed the recent happenings at my former workplace (yesterday was my last day) to him. I told him that essentially, I had a meltdown due to my manager nitpicking me, and also that even though I had been told that I would work in the bakery and would be trained for it, this hadn't happened, and the reason I had been given was because of my hyperfocusing,(which from my point of view, is pretty much necessary in doing any kind of fine detail work, particularly artistic detail work.) (At times like this, I really wish that I had become a surgeon, where the hyperfocusing would be a tremendous asset. Nobody in their right mind would complain that a surgeon paid too much attention to their task at hand.) a component of the Asperger's syndrome. I also told him that once I had calmed down from the meltdown, I realized that I'd made a mistake, and I begged them to let me stay, or to place me in a different position, or whatever, but it was to no avail. Having put in my 2 weeks notice, I had to go, period. I didn't feel that the whole thing was entirely kosher, particularly the part where a disablity was used as an excuse not to promote me where it'd be promised, or to move me if necessary.

Here is what I remember from what he said:

"Possible lawsuit

wrongful termination

hostile work environment (if he only knew!!!! I didn't tell him a tenth of it!)

People at job service building would be the ones to talk to

Idaho favors employers over employees

Everybody has their niche; what can be a liability in one place can be a huge strength in another.

If they hadn't told me that they were going to train me for an area, and then reneged on it, it would be a different story.

I'm sorry you were treated that way."


There was considerably more meat to the conversation than that, but for the most part, I remember only single words and key phrases.

And I hate to say this, but I think that I probably do this all the time, and especially when I'm upset. Certainly people get nasty to me, but I think it's also quite possible that my brain highlights primarily the most upsetting, disturbing things in BIG RED LETTERS and that at times, it's 95% of what I remember, just the highlighted stuff (which of course is generally highlighted because it set my alarm bells ringing). In other words, the positive stuff, the things that could be potentially nourishing to my soul or useful in terms of context or balancing out the negatives, go in one ear and out the other, and almost the only stuff I retain is often of an insulting, painful, traumatic, or otherwise freaky nature. It isn't that I do this intentionally, it just happens that way. It probably isn't all that surprising that I'm frequently depressed. :-/

If only I could stockpile *nice* memories and replay them over and over again. For some reason though, I have to ration out the nice memories that I do have. If I play them more than a few times, they fade in strength or I find it harder to remember them...no, that isn't exactly right. It's like they lose their clarity and strength, sort of like a can a pop goes stale after you open it. The bad memories, on the other hand, gain power and strength with each repetition, unless they're tied to a breakdown, in which I typically remember almost nothing at all except for a foggy gray haze and nothingness, like a living death that you gradually came out of.

The thing is, I don't think people realize...when they say something really mean to me, I don't just hear it once. I hear it hundreds or even thousands of times, cutting me down, making me hate them, and each time it's almost as fresh and brightly sharp as the first time.....when really, maybe they were just having a bad day and didn't mean it much.

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Or maybe I just give them too much credit. I need to stop hashing all this over, because I am getting seriously enraged. I hate losing my temper, it's disgraceful...and every time I make a snide, sarcastic little comment, any satisfaction or relief I may feel at the time is offset by the shame and self-loathing I'll experience later on (couldn't pass up the opportunity to say that nasty little thing, could you? No, you couldn't just keep your mouth shut and maintain your dignity. You had to return the favor and get them back. Are you happy yet? You're just as bad as they are...yadayadayada).
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A few years ago, there was a guy that I really and truly loved. I mean I loved him like there was no tomorrow. I can only hope that someday, I'll be able to feel that sort of intensity again, and hopefully for someone who can return it (because if it's one sided again, I don't think I could make it), but if I don't, I feel somewhat grateful (if sad) that I was able to experience that intensity and degree of color once. Anyway, I sort of knew he didn't feel the same way, and that was OK, but I did think he was my friend, and that was enough. Except, he wasn't my friend. We talked about everything under the sun, we spent hours visiting, playing games, doing stuff together, talking about our hopes and dreams, but as he said later, he wasn't a friend...just an aquaintance. If he had come across as a friend, he didn't mean it that way. He was just trying to be nice. I don't have any words to describe how much that hurt. I think he should have just put a bullet in my head. It would have been kinder.

And now, I sort of feel that way again. I don't trust people like I used to. They're all just full of shit, trying to be nice, pretending they're my friends, so they can go home and pat themselves on the backs for their own benevolence. I thought I meant something, I thought I mattered...even if it was only a little bit. And I don't...not a speck.

Color me disillusioned.
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I haven't given my bosses enough credit. They don't hate me, I just felt that way. If they're ignorant of the things that go on in the deli, it's because they've got the whole rest of the store to worry about, and they're trusting the managers of our section to ensure that things go as they should. Moreover, the bosses are inherently nice, decent people. In other words, the managers I've been speaking of are screwing them over behind their backs. It isn't the store itself that's the problem. There is a manager who's supposed to oversee the deli managers, but he's got so much else to worry about that he doesn't want to hear or think about the deli.

Our department might bring in a lot of money, but it's seperated from the rest of the store by that counter. I think the absolute best thing that could happen to the deli in terms of layout would be the move the displays that are blocking off the end of the deli. Having an open pathway, where they'd never be 100% certain that someone (i.e., a boss) wasn't entering or standing beyond their range of vision there, would make a lot of difference.

It would also help if they'd develop the habit of coming in the store at random, unexpected times dressed in ordinary clothes. I don't know ho wmany times I've coem in on my days off or at night, walked by the deli, and noticed crowds of customers standing there being ingnored (or waited on by only one person while two others were chatting happily in the back), or no chicken cooked or cooking or even being thought about, at 5:00-6:00 PM (our best hours in terms of selling chicken) or workers just goofing off or standing around "because there's nothing else to do". (I'm sorry, but you can *always* find something to do).

One of the curses of having AS is that my minds obsesses and broods over things (usually upsetting or disturbing things) that normal people apparently can think about for a short time and then either choose not to think about any longer or simply stop thinking about spontaneously. My mind doesn't work that way. It chews over stuff as relentlessly as a cow regurgitating its cud or a kid gnawing on the same old wad of gum all day long. Except, sometimes the same thing will bother me for days or weeks on end and I just cannot get rid of it unless I resolve it or it gets replaced with something else more absorbing or disturbing.

People often tell me that I think too much. I don't know what they're talking about. I think constantly, ravenously. My brain never stops, and it's always hungry unless I'm seriously exhausted or drugged (as after a birth). I don't know what they mean. Aren't they thinking all the time, too? This is hard for me to conceive of. I mean, if I just sat here and wrote about absolutely everything that came to my mind, I'd be here all day long, all the time. one of the reasons I value my sleep is that it allows me a rest and often I can think about things other than what I've been obsessing about (yeah, I think in my sleep, too, but it's less oppressive then). In fact, a lot of the purpose of having this site is it's function as an outlet, an overflow valve.

So, the end result of all this is that if something is bothering me deeply, it's going to drive me absolutely crazy until I get it resolved or settled somewhat.
Depression drives me to the edge of suicide.
Little niggling remarks by other people replay themselves over and over again like a harrassing message on a broken answering mnachine that I can't unplug.
Fears and worries grow and snowball out of all proportion and then I have anxiety/panic attacks.
I generally take a low risk policy towards social interactions, knowing that I can't afford to invest too much; if I let them hurt me, the costs will be too high, and I'll be paying it while they just shrug me off and forget about me.
Other people get a little blue, I get so depressed that I fall apart and can't function.
Little things, little stresses, worry me until I'm just a nervous wreck, expecting something disastrous to occur at every turn.

And I have go to find a way to deal with this, to be able to calm down. I know what I need, but it isn't going to happen for me. The goats- they help, but I can't have them here. Gardening helps. Exercise helps. I need to start finding things that help and cultivating them.

Another thing that would be good is to develop a routine/structure for my homelife. Routine and order is very comforting.

Damn, I'm gonna miss that job. Oh yeah, I got the job at the hospital. I decided against taking the CNA classes, it was just too much added stress at this time. Starting the new job is going to be about all I can handle for a few months. I think I'll go ahead and take the phlebotomy classes in the summer though, if I can.

So I went to the mandatory CNA class meeting (mandatory if you want to take the classes, that is). I'm undecided.

For:

• Being a CNA would be a great stepping stone into other medical/nursing areas, such as an LPN, RN, or nurse practitioner or possibly (yeah right) a doctor.
• It pays well and there will always be a demand and a serious need for CNAs.
• For the right person, it could be a very fulfilling, rewarding job.
• I'd get to work in a hospital. I love hospitals.
• There's the distinct possibility of specializing in developmental disabilities or autism spectrum disorders, especially with the increased awareness and improved detection or those of us who would have flown under the radar before.
• working as a CNA could settle, once and for all, the question of whether or not I belong in the medical field.

Problems:

• You're not allowed to miss a single day of class except under the most extreme circumstances. Hospitalization of family members is not among those reasons. If Charlie ends up in the hospital again with breathing problems, I'd flunk the class. I couldn't go on a vacation unless I did it before the class or afterwards.
• The classes are 9-5, Monday-Friday. That's a lot more time per week than I'd thought. No offense, folks, but I honestly thought that CNA classes entailed basic adult diaper changing and care techniques and first aid/CPR (which I already took before)and that was about it. This is a little more involved than I had guessed.
• What this means is that I either won't be able to work or my work hours would be severely curtailed. The only thing I can think of that would work is if I stayed at the store and worked as a cashier from 6-10 PM and then 8 hour days on Saturday and Sunday. If I did that, I'd miss only four hour (36 hours per week compared to the 40 I do now), but honestly, I don't think they're going to let me be a cashier.
• Lastly, I'm having serious doubts as to whether I have the correct temperament necessary to be a CNA. It isn't that I never care for people, because I do, but I am selective, and then when I do care about people, I get too deeply attached. I have this fear (which, in thinking about the problems I've been having at my soon to be former job, isn't all that unfounded)that people would be mean/rude/violent to me and I'd get really stressed out. If I can't hack working at a store, I don't know if I'd be able to take care of old men who pinch me and irrational women with Alzheimers who slap me for no good reason, simply because they're deranged.

One ray of hope: They are also having a phlebotomy class this summer, and I do think that I would be better suited to being a phlebotomist than a CNA. There is less prolonged personal interaction, and my fine motor skills (which have served me well in art, cake decorating, and artificial insemination) would come in handy there. I am gentle, I don't like to hurt people, but blood doesn't bother me. There aren't as many job opening for phlebotomists, but I have a hunch that I'd be better off doing that instead.

My job interview at the hospital (kitchen) is tomorrow. I should be apprehensive/anticipatory, but as it is, I'm just depressed and dispirited. I don't even have a written reference to bring with me, and god only knows what kind of reference they got over the phone, if they even called. Dammit, I know I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't that bad. The things that other people did to me- threatening to hit me, calling me names, telling me I shouldn't have a baby because I have Asperger's (I had it anyway, and he seems just fine), forcing me to work when I was in a lot of pain; I never did these things to anyone else, and I'm sure that the people who did them have, by and large, left with high recommendations, or are still at the place, still getting away with it because they're beyond reproach. Alright, so now I'm obsessing over the whole fairness/unfairness thing, and it isn't getting me anywhere but upset. I'll stop.

I hate it. It seems that no matter where I go, there just isn't going to be any place in the world for me where I'll really belong or fit in or be wanted. I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of hoping people will like me.

Shit. What a whiny pity party. At this rate, I might as well dig out the Hank Williams and Dwight Yoakum. ::disgust::

Today's song: sorry seems to be the hardest word

I'm sitting here trying to think of something else to write about, something other than

• work
• my love life
• autism/asperger's syndrome and all the different ways it can fuck up your life
• or just the generalized frustrations of my everyday life

and I'm drawing a blank.

Now I'm listening to Elton's "Blue Eyes". I love this song...I love it so much....because the sound of it reminds me of someone. Ha, ha. ;-) Noone will guess. ::smirk::

Well, I don't think they care at all that I'm leaving. Workers like me are a commodity, disposable. It hurts my feelings, becaue I feel like I've put a lot of myself into this store, like I've tried my very hardest to improve my performance and to look for ways that things could be streamlined or made simpler or more efficient. I've come in when I was so sick I could hardly function. I came in when I had a newborn baby that was nursing. The baby went to the daycare and I pumped my milk. That seems kind of wrogn to me, but I had to keep my job, or none of us, including the baby, would have had a place to live. And now, seeing that they don't care about me at all, I wish I could go back in time and hold that tiny baby and find something else to do. Geez....I'm going to start crying again and my eyes have been foggy for days now as as it is. I'm such a dork....who else cries like this about their job? Anyway, back to the topic here....I worked when my hips were killing me and I could hardly walk (please note here that the assistant manager went out of her way to order me to do things that would entail me walking all the way to the other side of the deli, to within a foot or two of where she was standing, even though she knew I was in serious pain and she was *right* there), I've filled in for other people when they quit or got sick or just flaked out, I even had an abortion because in part, I was terrified that they would fire me or ask me to leave if they knew I was pregnant (I didn't know at the time that pregnant women could work back there, and at the time, my hips were already causing serious pain, so I couldn't fathom what it would be like with the added strain of carrying a baby. What I did know is that they wouldn't cut me any slack.) And the day after the abortion, I was right there, broken up, barely holding it together, because I really did want that baby. I actually got vigorously questioned as to why I hadn't been there on the day of the event itself. (No, I didn't tell the manager who asked, but it seriously freaked me out and upset me.) Every day after that, I had to look at hundreds of sweet little newborn babies and just grieve and hold it together.

I've worked holidays so that other people could enjoy theirs, weekends, whenever they needed me, I'd work if I possibly could. I mean, I have consistently gone the extra mile, and given this place all I had to give, and they don't care if I stay or go. I mean nothing.

So, something happened at work. I'm not going to go into detail, because nobody would care anyway. What I will say is that it's been a cumulative thing and that the deli/bakery is just seething with hostility that goes more or less unspoken most of the time. When I read that and look at it, I think, "wow, that doesn't sound like a very good place for an aspie to stumble around in", and it's not. I'm just not good at this stuff. I like things out in the open, direct, up front, honest, and as ethical as practically possible, plus I don't have the fine tuned social skills that would be the grease to lubricate so many squeaking, grating wheels and gears. I've tried, I have....and it's been torturing me. I get no appreciation for my work, there are just these weird vibes of suspicion ,uch of the time, and it's massively uncomfortable. I just don't want to be anxious for hours on end anymore. I'm too stressed already, and I can't take it.

Anyway, very unexpectedly, this event happened, and I just broke. And I'm sitting here now thinking, because I remeber when I was a little snotty several months ago, and I caused another girl to cry (it was not intentional, but yeah, I was definitely meaner than I needed to be). I almost got fired for that, because she was crying over it. Both my managers have brought me to tears in the past month or so, unnecessarily, I didn't deserve it (OK, so that's subjective and debatable), neither of them got talked to about it, and they sure as hell weren't even sorry. They're never sorry for anything, no matter what they do. The big bosses apologize, but not these gals. I guess they think they're so perfect that they're always right. I think it takes a lot for a person to apologize. I always meant to tell the girl I hurt that I was sorry, but I never worked up the nerve to. And now I feel bad about that, even though she isn't there any more. Anyway, I've said it before: if you want me to hate you, humiliate me in public, and crying in public is one of the most embarrassing things on earth for me.

So I just cried and cried, and I wanted to walk out right there. It took all my self control not to...I just couldn't bear the thought of going back to that deli....and I had alreayd been a little burned out before all this anyway, and so with a heavy heart, I put in my two weeks notice.

And I don't know why I did this (except that maybe I was tired of being treated like shit and having to put up with the constant cavalier treatment back there), because I love that store. The whole next day, my heart was sinking (even thoguh I was still pissed off, upset, and hurt), because I am attached to the place.

Oh, you know what, just fuck it.... I give so much of myself to this place, and they don't even care. They don't even see it. Why am I crying about this? They don't deserve me if they can't treat me in a halfway decent manner and at least listen to what their own empoyees have to say once in a while. Forget it...just forget it.

Dang....I hate change.