As anyone with half an eye could tell, the tendrils of my mind have been searching out all the different branches of thought and perspectives on autism. I joined first Aspergia and then wrongplanet.net, tried in vain to jumpstart the local autism support group (mostly because I wnated to meet more of my own kind), tried-even more vainly- to be an advocate for the other autistics at S.L. Start, devoured books (some of which I threw across the room because they'd been written by an ignorant normal with no idea what he was speaking of), signed up for a research study on how autistics think, searched for and read blogs and websites by other aspies and people on the spectrum....the only thing that's been holding me back is that I don't have enough time to pursue it as much as I'd like. More than anything, I've introspected: focused on replaying my childhood in my mind's eye, watching myself, how I felt, what I did, the reasoning, when it was so much more pure and unsullied by the tyranny of the normal world.

Went back and read my old report cards annd school records: "We are working on getting her to speak up so others can hear"...."is well liked but often plays alone on the playground and in the room."....."seems to need a lot of teacher approval and encouragement"..."needs to keep her desk neater". What amazes me are the things that they did NOT write...but I suppose I don't have the time to get into that. All the signs were there.....for those with eyes to see them.

Anyway, I'm getting diverted. If there is one recurring idea that enrages me, it is that autistic people are, by definition, fucked up and need to be fixed, cured, and improved. The notion that any hope for our success in the world is entirely dependent upon our becomign just as nearly 'normal' and 'well adjusted' as we can be. Early diagnosis is pushed emphatically. QUICK!!! Save 'em while you still can! While there's still hope!!! Get therapy!!! I don't know if my son is aspie or not, but I do know this: no therapy. No "fixing". No "cures".

Why can't they see it another way: that an aspie has the potential for genius, more than your average Dick or Jane. That our talents and interests should be observed and encouraged, that these are our gifts and strengths. That our way of thought is valuable, unique, and should be given opportunity to develop. I'm not saying that autistic children should be coddled or babied- quite the reverse! We should be aware of the challenges facing them, but encourage independence as much as possible- REAL independence skills. Education: Waldorf schools, home school or perhaps schools for gifted children. Nearly every aspie I've met yet, online or not, has had huge challenges in school that shut them down or stressed them severely (and I could rant about stupid teachers for a long time, but instead, I have to go to my daughter's school now to deliver something to her).

Ick. I just ate a strawberry (storebought) and it was good until I detected something akin to bleach on it. It was the same with the food I ate this morning, which was boiled in water (city water). The chlorine flavor was positively nauseating. When I bite into pork, I taste/remember the smell of pigpens. I can smell cigarettes long after they've gone up in smoke...not only that they're a cigarette, but to some degree, the quality or type. I work in a deli. I can smell that the bathroom, which is upstairs from us, in a large grocery store, has been fouled. The scent of the new oil, after cleaning the fryer, drives me nuts. I won't even delve into the agony of customers walking by doused with perfume or scent, or worse, a coworker (worse because then I have to smell it all day long).
Okay, so it has reddeming points. I can get almost high off the pleasure of smelling or tasting something I LIKE, such as fruit, flowers, and so on. And I can smell flowers which other people claim are devoid of scent (impending rant....plant breeders are neglecting the scent in favor of flashier gaudier blooms).
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Due to three or more coworkers getting sick, I had to work 7 days in a row at the store. The effect was that I had a meltdown the day before yesterday, was a bundle of nerves yesterday, and today I'm beginning to feel more....controlled. Maybe. All five children are here today, and my 4th just stood next to me and asked "May I have some milk?" three or four times, with the cup stuck in my line of vision, before I was able to comprehend what he was saying. He has a habit of saying the same thing, over and over and over, with the same inflection each time.....eventually it gets through.

Geckos: We now have three leopard geckos, given to us by a guy Tim met at the laundromat. I am still getting used to them. There is something about that that is too strongly reminiscent of serpents for me to pick one up yet....but I sit by the tank and watch them undulate around the ample landscape. We planted a large bon-sai type tree in there, and they climb it or lay underneath it.

Goats: I let Reflex, the senior buck, into the main herd and penned up all the doelings who are too young or small to be bred. There is going to be some inbreeding and quite a bit of linebreeding going on....but in all honesty, the other buck, while he's of decent quality, just isn't what Reflex is. Reflex is strongly, heavily linebred on Sodium Oaks Sasin. See his pedigree and inbreeding data here. That pedigree contains Sodium Oaks or Shahena'ko (which is strongly based on Sodium Oaks) almost exclusively if you track it back far enough. He is 20.34% inbred, with 7% of that being Sasin, and next two top contributors are Sasin's sire and dam.

:gasp:!! Inbreeding!!!! Egads!!

Not at all. Careful, judicious inbreeding or linebreeding in animals can procure some of the best animals there are. It gives consistency. The caveats: you MUST cull aniamls that are substandard and you must be careful about mating two animals which exhibit the same negative traits (although this applies also with outcrossing).

What is interesting and makes Reflex so special: many Sasin daughters or progeny highly inbred on him are very hocky, as Sasin himself was. The daughters also tend to have overly large teats (a hazard to the doe- they're likelier to get caught on soemthing and torn or injured). But Reflex just happens to have a very wide, open rear leg set, and so do his daughters, and only one of them so far has had huge teats. Most of all, he's a very consistent buck- his daughters usally come out like peas in a pod. Did I mention that he's always had a very calm, gentle, non-aggressive disposition, and his daughters tend to as well?

I love that buck. I can't wait to have another crop of his daughters hit the ground.

A stinging thought occurs to me, unbidden: if he, who smiled at me, who talked for long hours into the night with me, who stood up for me, who helped me when I was too proud to ask, who I could go to with problems to be solved, who worked with me, played with me, who informed me when I was out of line and unreasonable, out of at least ten people to attempt the task, he was the only one who could teach me to drive....He says that he is not, was not, my friend. That we're only aquaintances. My mind still ponders and puzzles over this, agonizes over it, unwilling to digest it whole....but let's not get stuck on that. Here is what niggles at me now:

If I wasn't his friend, after all that, then what about all these other people who don't know me half as well (if that)??? My head swims with grief for a moment.... It seems to me, logically spekaing, that none of them can be friends. They are all aquaintances.

I am depressed. Working at the job I am doing is very hard. The multi-taskign is driving me crazy. Even worse are the coworkers, who insist on insulting me by saying that I am "normal". Shut up!!!! I'm NOT normal. I've never been normal. Tellign me that I am does NOTHING for me, other than to deprive me of any valid reason for being the way I am. When you believe I am normal, you are telling me that I can change the way I am, that I have been this way by choice my entire life....and that's a fucking lie. I can't change that I cringe at sounds and textures and the sudden appearance of people when I haven't been expecting them. That "teamwork" is nearly impossible for me, that what it means to me is to find some task that needs to be done and that I can do all by myself while they all do something else. Etc etc etc...

I don't understand why my diagnosis should be threatening to them. Why are THEY so invested in my being normal? I'm happy the way I am. Well, about as happy as I can be after being warped and castigated by the normal world for not fitting into their narrow little mindset. After everything the "normal" world has done to me, do I want to be one of them? I think NOT...

See, I think that there is a need for us and a place for us in the world. The problem is that they don't recognize that unless and until we do something impressive, and most of us get so battered down that we never even come close to realizing a frgament of our potential.

Regarding Mortality

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From the July 2003 issue of Discover magazine:

• From birth- 44 years, accidents are the leading cause of death in the U.S.
• Included under the definition of accident:unintentional injuries, motor vehicle accidents, and medical errors.
• More people die due to medical errors than from breast cancer, car wrecks, or AIDS.
• Pretty scary thought, eh? We have pink ribbons and mammogram advisories, AIDS education, benefits, research, and so on, and mothers against drunk driving, but no (well, none to my knowledge) organized attempt by the [public at large to curb goof-ups on the part of our doctors.
• In fact, I think it's safe to say that most of us trust our doctors implicitly. If we DO dare to question our doctor's judgement, we can expect to be shot down with a cold stare or an arrogant answer.
• Yet, from reading non-fictional accounts written by interns, residents, and medical doctors, it's quite clear that they're all too aware of their own shortcomings. Therefore, it strikes me as a bit odd that some/many of them will hardly let you get a word in edgewise, even if it's information that they might need to take into consideration in order to make an educated decision.

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Moving Along Here.....

• Congenital defects strike us down in a noticeable way until we hit, say 24 and older. Perhaps it actually makes a good bit of sense to marry late, thereby ensuring longevity for your offspring.
• The real MONSTER is heart disease, the leading cause of death of all Americans, 29.6% of us. One in four...almost one in three.
• In women aged 25 or older, heart disease kills more of us than breast cancer or stroke combined.
• Even in your youth, ages 15-24 (both genders) it's still the fifth leading cause of death.
• After 75, it's #1.
• Cancer's another ugly one, just second to heart disease at 23% of all deaths.

More on this later.......

Spring is coming. I feel it in the pores of my skin, I smell it, so faintly, in the air. I sense it strongly. Most of my goats aren't bred.... Time to plant... I have to find a place....and yet, I don't want to hurry that TOO much; after all, this is a place where I'll be for at least a good chunk of our life... At any rate, I hate contacting people...realtors, landowners, etc. I think the only time where I actively contacted total strangers and was happy about it was when I was calling everyone I could think of, or who was referred to me, about the Sodium Oaks herd (dairy goats). I can't believe that didn't bother me: "Hello, you don't know me, but I heard that you knew something about Sodium Oaks!"

This is one area of aspiness that has always handicapped me: my aversion to making phone calls could almost have been classified as phobic at times. I also actively avoid all sorts of paperwork: bills, even when I have plenty of money, paying rent, all sorts of trivial but important things that involve interacting with a person. I'll avoid them, and then it winds up hurting me.

Case in point: hospital bill- the hospital has called for me twice. I owe them. I can't pay it. I'm scared. What I should do is to call them back, tell them I can't afford it, and set up a payment plan. That is why they called. If I don't do th is, they're going send that bill to a collection agency. I've been telling myself this for the past week or so. I still haven't worked up the nerve to call them. I'm in absolute dread of it. There are a number of other similar medical bills like that.

Again: Paying rent- it's due today. I don't have the money. If I call the landlord, he won't charge me a late fee if I pay it on the 4th, when I get paid. IF my check covers it. I'm afraid to call him. I don't want to, I keep avoiding it.

What I need is to hire someone to handle all this stuff for me, all the bills, and the business phone calls, and....maybe other stuff too. This stuff stresses me so much that it's unreal...

From the QPB Dictionary of ideas: Friendship- mutual benelovence that is independent of sexual or fmaily love. Ancient Greek philospher Aristotle distinguishes three levels of friendship; the useful (friendship as a common enterprise), the pleasant (Friendship as entertaining companionship), and the good or virtuous (friendship as mutual esteem).
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Yeah. Mutual esteem. Entertaining companionship. No matter how hard I try to wrap my brain around this, I still can't see a....a...uhmm...contraindication? contradiction? (something like that) here.

Human interactions leave me baffled, bewildered, and, too often, deeply hurt. I don't think I'll ever really understand the way 'normal people' "just get over it" and sever ties with friends (or aquaintances or whatever). And see, this is why, if I have an ounce of sense in my head, I won't even try to make a real friend with a 'normal person' again. They can't be deep and true and faithful as a friend. They can write a person off without a second thought and not even be faintly sorry for it. It's happened to me since I was a kid...I should start learning from now on. Whatever distance and alienation from people I don't really know might occur, whatever the loss of a potential for a true friendship (and I think that is remote), it can't possibly equal the pain of rejection from someone who's turned on you for either no reason at all, or they don't tell you, or they deny they ever were one(hey, that's a handy way to elude an explanation), or because they don't like your hair or religion or whatever. From now on, they can go find someone else to screw over. :-/

Ack, my hips are burning and just generally making me miserable lately. If I needed motivation to go out and buy some coral calcium, I now have it. :-P The girl I worked with tonight was lazy and left almost all the work to me (whilst I half limped around the deli wincing), and then to add insult to injury, she acted high and mighty and as though I'd ticked her off. :shrug: Yeah, I got irritable, but I do, when I'm in pain, and she did VERY little work.

What else: oh, yeah. I quit the other job. I got uhmmm, trying to think of a strong enough word here, so burned out that it wasn't funny. A series of events occrrued that brought me to my utmost limits of patience...but basically, my issue was that I wanted less stress, and to work with people I could related to: autistics. The stress continued, and I was assigned almost exclusively to clients with MR (mental retardation). Don't get me wrong, I liked my clients. I enjoyed working with them. I simply couldn't relate to them as I wanted to, and so working with them was stressful to me. Also-I hesitate to bring this up- I felt uncomfortable in that workplace, as though I didn't belong there, as though I were an outcast, unwelcome. And the thing is, it mostly began after I disclosed the results of my diagnosis. But it wasn't blatant enough for me to call them on the carpet about it. Or maybe they weren't that way at all, maybe I imagined it. I feel like I have failed my clients by quitting. :-(

The very bright side: I can see my children more. BUT, financial issues will come into play. I was comfortably making ends meet by working seven days a week, even if it did drive me out of my mind (or more deeply into it, actually). But my children come first. I have an obligation to them first. Yes. This is right.

Most Admired Men (a short list, which does _not_ include personal figures, for the sake of tact and diplomacy): Albert Einstein, Luther Burbank, Donald Smith.

And why:
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Einstein- Obviously there are a lot of things to admire about Einstein, and I'm not suffieciently educated to go into it all. But, here is what the great mind had to say about religion and the concept of god: "The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events-provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causation really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A god who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object can be responsible fot the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Burbank- a dedicated plant breeder of exceptional honesty and integrity of character. A lifetime of his work has influenced our lives in more ways than we can even conceive of.

Smith- Alpine dairy goat breeder. I never had the privilege of meeting him, but his bloodlines are in virtually all my animals; I simply will not use a buck, except under exceptional circumstances, unless it has a strong Sodium Oaks background. The way I see it, this guy showed up the snobby straight wolrd of French Alpine breeders and showed them that yes, a gay man can beat them in the showring with grade and American animals. I love that.

I heard a blip on the radio a few days ago that really pissed me off: according to a recent poll of americans, the Most Admired Man in this country is George W.Bush. (23%). Now, that annoys me to no end.

• First of all, where the heck am I whenever they have these polls that supposedly are inclusive of all Americans?
• Secondly, I'd like to know a little more about this poll, because that doesn't sound objective to me at all. Was it multiple choice? (ala, check a. Sadaam Hussein, b.Bin Laden, or c. Good old W...)Or some similar collection of celebrities and political figures? How many choices were there, anyway? See, I am not a huge Bill Gates fan, but I'd vote him over George any day, especially if those were basically the only choices aside from a few other people I'd never heard of.
• Were the choices limited to men who were still alive? Otherwise, Jesus or Gandhi didn't make the cut? Hmmmm??? See, I would like to know what te criteria were if it was a multiple choice list.
• It *should* be fill in the blank. Then people could list: "my dad, the greatest, sure loved him" or, "Granpaw", or,"a teacher who mentored me and changed my life", etc etc. Then the choices could be _true_ and _meaningful_ , not mere public heads whom we see on a T.V. screen but whom have little direct personal impact on our lives (well, unless you're headed to Iraq.....or someone you love is...)
• Barring personal figures:our dads, uncles, lovers, teachers, and so forth, if the poll were a simple fill-in-the-blank, is that really what 23% of ostensibly thinking American adults woudl voluntarily choose?
• I mean, what about scientists, doctors who've made medical advances, humanitarian figures, etc? What about artists, musicians, writers, great minds, people who've beat the odds and managed to succeed in the face of adversity? OUt of all the great choices at our disposal, would 23% of us be mindless enough to select the current president? What about past presidents? Jimmy Carter, for example. Nice man.
• My whole point here is that I think the poll was far from objective. If they're gonna blurt it all over the radio, across the country, I'd much rather hear an honest answer. And my guess, at least if it were on a personal level, is that what we'd hear is "Dad".
• I can think of a lot of most admired men on a wider (as opposed to personal) range. Next time, I'll talk about that.

Well, I give up. This blankety blank machine has erased TWO of my posts. :furious: and both times, I was *almost* done. IRK!!!!!!

I see you.
I see you as you really are, under the mask, aside from the pretense, YOU, the real you.
YOU, stripped of the facades,
of politeness,
of the way you want to be seen.
(Yes, I see that too).
It may well be that I see more than you care to admit.
Perhaps you resent it?
I see yous that the rest of the world does not.
Dark, happy. Sparkling, stressed and dull. Faults and good things.
But at any rate, I do see you.
And I accept you for what you are, like you for what you are...
For I can see that it isn't as simplistic as black/white, good/bad...
It is only that you are what you are.
Yes.
The real you.
Accept it.....please, if you do nothing else....accept that.

Arrrgh....I can't feel anything. I still feel numb inside.

Sometimes, I feel like I don't know what I want anymore, and my life feels so gray, so blah. I could almost shake up the world or do something extreme, just to get a reaction, just to make me feel something....anything...anything not to feel like this. Isn't birth control great?? :-/ Where is the sense in being momentarily infertile if you also feel like some kind of an android with absolutely no interest in the world around you?

I get rude and witty and sarcastic when I'm like this....as if by being sharp and cutting, I could whittle away some of the shell from around me, or provoke someone else into breaking me out of it. Ack....maybe it is just that I've been stressed.....

For once, I'm not in a bad mood anymore. I was earlier, but that was before I got an Xmas gift certificate from my boss, AND my paycheck (woohoo!!)...enabling me to splurge on groceries. Now, understand: my idea of splurging is to buy a beef roast for $7.06. Yeah, I'm happy. :-) The boss is a cool guy. He wants us to work, but hey, that's what he hired us for, isn't it? I mean, when have you met a prospective employer who says, "I'm looking for a few motivated people to sit on their asses and shoot the bull all day long." ??

Recommended sites:
wrongplanet IMHO, this is THE aspie site.
triton (server for my websites...well...I like it...sort of...)

and reading: Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams. If I could afford this, I'd buy three copies: one for my my employer's library (they WORK with autistic people, they should have an insider's PERSPECTIVE of autism...it'd make all the difference in the world), one for the local library, and one for myself, which I'd loan out liberally.

Current mood: very sad. I feel very discouraged and disheartened by the number of friends who have either dumped me or were apparently not ever friends in the first place. (And at this point, I'm not sure which it is, and it really doesn't matter). It hurts, immensely, to think that some of the people that I thought were extremely trustworthy, that I would have trusted with my life, were phony, that they were only pretending to be my friends. I think mostly, it's that...well, I believed in them. I trusted them. And above all, I thought they were *different*. I wanted to believe that the world wasn't entirely made up of phonies....Are the only genuine people in the world autistic or otherwise very different? The thought troubles me. I want to think that the answer is "no".

:anxiety: The father of my 3 youngest children is threatening to take them all away from me and move across the country. Now, I may not be the most perfect mother on the face of this planet...I won't even begin to claim that I am. But what I can say is that I do love them....and I feel like I have bent over backwards to try and be as fair as possible, to them and to their father, to maintain a level of fairness throughout the parting of ways...and I don't feel like it's been returned.

What to do? Prisoner's dilemma? Be nicey-nice and hope it all works out and that he is only testing me for a reaction? Retaliate before he nails me first? :-( What?

I am very unhappy about this, and I am trying to remain level headed and not sink into a blame-game or a place where I demonize the other party.

All I can say is that I would never take them and move across the country with them where he couldn't see them, or couldn't afford to. I wouldn't even move an hour or two away. I have too much regard for what was good in our history and for the happiness and stability of the children to do that. I guess it was naive of me to think that this was a mutual thing. :-( :disillusioned:

observation: grey, silver, and to a lesser degree white or black cars are more difficult to see in foggy or rainy weather. Less safe, imho.

AND...I am really, REALLY, REALLY MAD. The guy that I dumped some time ago had five goats from me at his place (two of them were his). Once I dumped him, he quit feeding them and now he says they are starving to death and he will butcher them if I don't go up there and get them. As though I could magically materialize them to me....he lives wayyyy up on a mountain, up a road that is very dangerous in winter for my car....and the last thing I want is to get stuck in the snow or mud at his place (ack!!!!). This is the man, by the way, who claimed he "could not" butcher or kill something, yet he is threatening to do just that, who criticized their thinness (they were wormy) and gave my ex an earful about that....in fact, he cursed him. (May the curse return upon you, you fucking hypocrite!!!!) I *cannot* drive up there. I have been searching almost frantically for people to help me with this... At this point, I'm going to call either the animal rescue place or the cops. He has neighbors who come down to town several times a week, one of whom is a longtime friend of mine and knows ewhere my other goats are. There is simply no excuse for this except that he is punishing me for dumping him. God, what an *ASSHOLE*. (On second thought, no. That's a slight against the anus, a perfectly servicable organ.) There are not adequate words for my displeasure.......>:-X

I miss my children. I have to find a way to be with them more often....

Chess club tonight, I'm at the library waiting for other players (if any) to show.

I am trying hard to.....strike a balance. See, here is the issue: I'm already really weird/different. I know that. I go through cycles. Sometimes it's more pronounced. Since working 7 days a week, splitting up with my long-term partner after 7-8 years, and not having the restorative daily time with the goats, I have been a _lot_ more stressed. Heck...I don't like to admit it, but living independently is very, very difficult for me. The bills, the little thigns that have to be dealt with, the phone calls, juggling everything...and I don't really mean financially or emotionally. Just having to coordinate all that is not as easy for me as it would be for your average Jill. Throw being a single mother into the mix, plus two jobs...and it gets worse. I am proud of myself, that I've actually been able to do it alone, without state aid or handouts (well, except for the food bank occasionally).

However, there is a backlash: the stress comes to bite me in the butt. I've always stimmed, ever since I can remember. The difference is that I now stim constantly, at least one sort of stim and maybe two, and openly, in public. I *need* to stim. My social deficits are much more apparent since I am now forced to interact socially on a more or less perpetual basis (my idea of hell!!!). I am constantly on the line.... True, my social skills are better now than ever before, even though ironically the lack of them is more glaring than before. I'm also, in many ways, more blatantly weird than ever before, and NO!, I'm not doing it on purpose.

BUT I am tired of feeling defensive over who I am, tired of even trying to be normal (futile if anything ever was....I don't even know what normal is, how they think is a mystery to me...) tired of being ashamed of my self, of my identity, of the creative, wacky soul that I really am. I *like* who I am. I *accept* it. There is a beauty to autism, and I embrace it. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel deeply happy and content; partly because I've finally found another soul that I understand, *one* soul in the world that I can connect to....and partly because I feel at peace- the answers have been found, and I'm OK. Ermmm...those two are interrelated.

I don't like the way normal people are. I *hate* their dishonesty, their sneakiness, their subtleties, their emphasis on phony ritual niceness and insincerities. I DON'T get on their case, even though wehat they do infects and permeates the entire world with their taint. WHY in the heck can't they return the favor and leave me alone, to be the way I am, without undue criticism?