02 April 2009
People. Bother me.
That's all I'm going to say on the subject right now, but god almighty, some individuals, both Aspies AND NT's, and their fucking self-congratulatory, 'LOOK AT ME! ME! ME! ME!' behaviour is enough to set me off on a bloody rampage.
I need to go be productive now....grrrr....Labels: people, self-centredness, self-congratulatory nonsense, stupidity
31 March 2009
Now I've got yet another thing to stare at.
Believe it or not, I've never really looked too closely at my pinky before. Perhaps I should've, cos it does exactly what this blog says it's supposed to.
Seems I also exhibit all the other traits listed, except for the earlobe one. In fact, I daresay I have the most perfect earlobes the world has ever seen.
I foresee myself spending a lot of time in the future staring at people's pinky fingers. As if I wasn't unproductive enough already....Labels: asperger's, autism, blogs
Satan.
I'm supposed to be working. I'm supposed to be productive. But I go off for all of a few minutes to look at some links that were emailed to me, and find not one, but TWO sites with interactive Rubik's cubes advertised on the sides of the pages I was visiting.
In the 80s, these things were the scourge of my existence. You'd think, with how quickly I've always been able to solve them, that they wouldn't eat up TOO much of my time, but no....I have been known to disassemble and reassemble one Rubik's cube hundreds of times in one sitting, before someone intervenes and drags me away from the freakin' thing. And if there's a pile of them lying around someplace in a shop?....well, that would just mean I have to solve each and every one I can get my hands on before leaving.
God DAMN it.
But hey, I have self-control. I closed the tabs.
After doing each one like 10 times, anyway....Labels: obsessions
26 March 2009
(This is from Christmas, obviously. I'm finally getting around to posting it, because, well, I really like this song, and this sentiment)
Call your mother.
In case you haven't figured it out already, I'm Irish. If you are as well, or if your mother or grandmother is (was?) there's a good chance you've heard this song, and there's a good chance that you either (a) cry till you puke at the very mention of the damn thing or, (b) like me, laugh your fucking ass off and torment your Catholic-guilt-ridden friends with it every chance you get.
Yes, I'm a cruel, heartless bitch, get over it.
Oh sure, I'm not going to deny the fact that I'm still mourning the deaths of my grandmothers, or that in the now-unlikely event that my mother pre-deceases me I will bawl my fucking eyes out for a full year and miss her like crazy for the remainder of my living days, but the whole 'guilt' thing so present and unignorable in my Irish Catholic upbringing has grown to seem utterly ridiculous to me, getting more and more so with every day.
My own mother loves this damn song. My own mother loves making people feel guilty. My own mother is a wonderful, decent, Catholic woman who is so damned unhappy, guilt-ridden, and overall hateful of herself that I can barely stand to be around her. She's a Mass-going, God-fearing, child-bearing, overbearing, potato-eating Irish Mother. Her own mother died in 1999 and she's still shelling out money she hasn't got to buy Masses to get the poor woman into Heaven. My Nan is already in Heaven, if there is one, I figure, and neither she nor I was ever too fond of the practice of buying and selling indulgences.
I call my mother. I call her regularly, in fact, and she gives me the regular dose of Irish Catholic Guilt that I haven't been receiving since I stopped going to Church. I called her very recently to remind her that I am not, in fact, going to be spending Christmas with 'the family', a point I've made several times since last year that I felt needed to be driven home at least once more before Christmas Eve. She threw a shit fit. I reminded her of the fight that ensued a few years ago, as they do damn near every year, between me and my father that nearly came to blows. I reminded her, sounding more like her than I ever intended to, that I was just too damned unwell to have to put up with that sort of nonsense this year. I reminded her that I have a boyfriend I would like to spend the holiday with who has put up with enough this year having to deal with me and the aforementioned illnesses and does not need to take part in any 'festivities' the 'family' might have planned. I let her know that I'd give her a ring Christmas day and that her present should be arriving at any second.
She reminded me that we all might be dead next year.
I reminded her that I'm reminded of that every day.
Kids, call your mothers.
A Mother's Love Is A Blessing
(Thomas P Keenan)
An Irish boy was leaving
Leaving his native home
Crossing the broad Atlantic
Once more he wished to roam
And as he was leaving his mother
Who was standing on the quay
She threw her arms around his waist
And this to him did say
A mother's love's a blessing
No matter where you roam
Keep her while she's living
You'll miss her when she's gone
Love her as in childhood
Though feeble, old and grey
For you'll never miss a mother's love
Till she's buried beneath the clay
And as the years go onwards
I'll settle down in life
And choose a nice young colleen
And take her for my wife
And as the babes grow older
And climb around my knee
I'll teach them the very same lesson
That my mother taught to me
A mother's love's a blessing
No matter where you roam
Keep her while she's living
You'll miss her when she's gone
Love her as in childhood
Though feeble, old and grey
For you'll never miss a mother's love
Till she's buried beneath the clay
25 March 2009
If you don't like me, DON'T READ.
I haven't even started promoting this blog yet, but the people who shouldn't be here have already found it on their own. Believe it or not, thanks to this and this alone, because I can't freakin' handle conflict, and am not looking for BS from the past to come flooding into my already-too-stressful present, I nearly took Aspiegoddess down last night, for good.
Then I got my fucking wits about me.
The individuals who have a problem with me are a bit too far in the past to be making an impression on me now. They're a bit too far in the past to still be fixated on me and whether or not I started writing a blog again a few weeks ago. I have fucking Asperger's, get fixated on things all the goddamn time, and even I don't see the sense in this. I am still not entirely sure WHAT it was that transpired a few YEARS ago to start the trouble that attempted to re-surface last night, but at this point, I genuinely don't give a good god damn. IT'S OVER. This is the last acknowledgement I'm going to give to any of this ridiculousness. You no longer exist, at least as far as I'm concerned.
And, so far as anyone ELSE who'd like to start trouble with me on the internet, please, for your own sake, don't bother. I don't entertain that crap at all anymore. You are sad. If you're so bloody bored that you feel the need to waste your time reading the writing of, and interacting with someone you can't stand for whatever reason, please fuck off and find someone equally bored and life-impaired to BS with. This is the internet. They're out there. But as for me, I'm not interested.
 Labels: boredom, bullshit, confrontation, internet, social retardation, stalkers
24 March 2009
You Might Be An Aspie If...
(Some of my favourites off Oddizm Central...see the entire list here)
You might be an Aspie if...
...you find yourself using phrases that you are pretty sure are playing directly from audio tape in your head.
...when someone says, "Now take a minute and picture -in your head- something or other", you wonder why it would be necessary to suggest it, because you always have pictures in your head.
...when you get old you know you will be "an old lady with cats"
...you want to sky-dive or bungee jump, but you wouldn't do it if you had to drive through traffic to get there.
...you automatically mirror other people's voices and even their whole persona, so that you are not sure who you would be today if you had had different people around you.
...you write about one topic like fans, and that makes you think about the time you were in a department store when you were a kid and the display selling fans had one of them blowing air upwards and there was a beach ball bouncing up and down on the air from the fan, and that reminds you of...and then you realize that your worst writing flaw is the run-on sentence.
...on the one hand you think you are the most interesting person you know, but not too many other people are trying to get to know you.
...your boss says, "Do such and such", and you can't do it until you know "why", because you are not going to waste your time on doing something that doesn't make sense.
...people sometimes check you out to see if you really do, "know everything".
...you know the historical derivation of the word, "trivia".
...you get extremely disappointed in yourself if you don't know something when you need to know it because you really *SHOULD* know that.
...you choose the grocery aisle that you go down based on whether or not there are any other people in that aisle.
...one of your instinctive reactions is, "I didn't do anything wrong!".
...if you recognize yourself in the "you might be an Aspie" jokes and you don't know if you should laugh or cry.
...if the thought, "there has to be a pattern to this" is a major theme of your life.
...if you ever stayed with a hobby so long and with such intensity that you hurt yourself. (can you say "carpal tunnel syndrome"?)
...if the word "logic" goes right to your heart but the word "love" usually bounces off of it.
...if you say, to your adult autistic child, in a stressed moment,"I hate my life", and he/she answers, "I know, you complain all the time."
...if you think cataclysm is a really great word. Catamaran, catatonic, catalyst, Catalan, catalogue, catastrophe all great words, and they start with CAT, which is neat, too. Patagonia is a neat word, too. And sassafras.
...if you are a 43 year old woman and you just can't make hair-spray work for you.
...if you think an old fashioned egg beater is a very cool toy.
...you are trying to think of how to use the phrase:
"horror vacuii", because it's a real cool concept (and it comes from one of your special interests) and sort of describes the way you organize your living area...
...one of your favorite hobbies is "autie spotting".
...another one is dog watching...not unlike bird watching...you keep track of all the breeds you have seen in real life, like: "Guess what? I saw a Keeshond today!!"
...You get irritated when people come up to talk to you when you are doing something important like; staring at a wall, trying to find a space in your mind that is not overwhelmed by noise and imposing people with their desire to converse.
...You might be an Aspie if you have been, or are, married to one.
...you always liked the phrase "deja vu" and have experienced it, of course, but you were really happy when you learned about,
"jamais vu", because it's always nice to know that the psychologists have picked pretty sounding French words to describe your problems.
After thinking about "jamais vu", you think about, "rien vu", and wonder if you just invented a new phrase.....
Je jamais vu rien, je deja vu rien jamais.
And you think that "jamais vu" might be what happens when you see your neighbor outside in his or her pajamas. And then you think, "wow, I sure am funny." I am. Funny.
...your teacher commands every one in the room to pair-off to discuss a topic and you are extremely relieved that no one wants to be your partner.
...you think "Cure Autism Now" ought to be called "Eliminate Autistics Now" and it makes you mad.
... You find it extraordinarily annoying to hear someone say the same thing multiple times, but you do that same thing yourself, that is, say things multiple times. Did I tell you that I hate hearing other people say things multiple times, but that I do the very same thing? Multiple times?
...when you sat down at your desk in highschool and tried to arrange things even Jerry Lewis couldn't have done it as smoothly.
…you almost go into a panic when you discover that a picture or other wall-mounted item is hanging 1° off perpendicular, and you feel compelled to straighten it out, even if it's not in your own home.
…you not only line things up, you always line them up in a symmetrical arrangement.
…you tend to regard the world as your personal scientific experiment, with you playing Mad Scientist to the hilt.
…after many lectures from your father that it's important for a man to "bring home the bacon," you blow your first paycheck on bacon, and can't get it when Dad blows his top as you cart your load into the kitchen.
...if you are told you are funny (without having intended) you ruminate about it for weeks, replay your writings in your head and try to find the parts, you might find funny, is you would not know they were not meant funny.
... you come out of the grocery store and get all flappy because it is haling and you did not bring your umbrella, and a child in a car waves back and smiles
...you pass by a playground and see a nonverbal child you know playing with sand and water. You join in and have absolutely no problems with spending hours there, not speaking a word, and the two of you not even looking at each other.
...instead you have a very vocal and animated talk with the tomcat from downstairs - all in cat-language, of course.
...you get asked "if we could talk about something different" when you rattle on on one of your interests and you nod and start on another interest of yours.
...you insist on your view on fairness even when anyone else thinks you have gone mad.
...you keep bumping into people but the only time you actually remember to apologize is when you bump into a tree.
...your aunt had an accident while she was out with the dog, and you ask if the dog is alright.
...if you spend hours trying to figure out how someone could find a meaning in your words that was not there.
...if you do your walks and excercises at night because it is quiet then and hardly anyone else around.
...if your brain decides to take a leave when ever you are asked to do an unpleasant task.
...if you are invited to a party and spend the whole afternoon playing with the kids there.
...people come to you with all their problems because you are such a good listener, but their problems just make no sense to you.
...you collect stuffed felines and have more than 300 and know the names of all of them (and their personalities) but you still mix up your relatives.
...you are at a tour at a science museum and can't help correcting your touring guide on matters of quantum mechanics.
...university students came to you when you were under 12 to get help with their science work.
...whenever someone freaks out about a spider, snake, mouse, angry dog etc. they will call you because you can deal with almost all animals. 5 extra points if they have your number on speed dial, 10 extra points if police is one of them.
...you don't realize that people call you names because "stupid idiot" has nothing to do with you.
...you tell your friends the same stories all over because you can't remember having told them before.
...you understand a certain figure of speech because it was explained to you, but you still wonder what idiot could come up with something like that.
...you consider the pleasantries of others just a waste of time.
...you follow rules to the letter - but only if they make sense to you.
..if your standard reply to any "when" questions is "In a moment" but your definition of a moment never agrees with anyone else.
...you still remember poems you learned at school 25 years ago.
...when someone says she's "in love" with her new bathroom deco it takes you a moment to realize that was not meant literally. 10 extra points if you've already called up the local psych.
...As a child you believed anything your family told you because you didn't comprehend the concept of lying or "teasing". So if your older brother tells you that clouds are floating rocks you believe him until you learn otherwise in school.
...you hear a cheesy playground poem and feel like responding "THAT'S MUSICAL LEGUME, YA CHOWDERHEAD!"
...you've ever been told you have the brains of the Professor and the coordination of Gilligan. (Add 10 points if they had to tell you who Gilligan is)
...you pass up the swimsuit calendars for one featuring Nobel Prize winners.
...you need a sedative when you go to an ice-cream parlour with more than two flavors.
...every couple of months you have a chuckle over the sword-on-the-table scene in "Get Smart" even though the last time you saw it was over 30 years ago
... you speak in Monty-Python and Get Smart quotes. So if someone says they'll meet you at the corner, you say, "Ah! The old meeting me at the corner trick, eh!"
...You gave up on ever convincing people that you are not odd ages ago. You now just live your life and to hell with anyone who thinks it strange.
...You go outside and are instantly mobbed by animals, because animals always love you. They sense something different about you and that makes them feel safe and happy.
...You can read animals better than you can read humans.
...You refer to what is supposedly your own species as "Humans".. or worse, "Homo Sapiens Sapiens". Extra points for times you shake your head and mutter "Humans...." when you see some example of social behavior that you find unattractive, like bullying or extreme faddishness, or being boistrously over-social. Extra points if those times happen more than one time a day.
...You quit smoking, not because you're worried about lung cancer, but because you're tired of setting your hair on fire.
Ouch. Ouchouchouchouch.Labels: asperger's, humour
Not just for vegans....what vegetarians need to know about RENNET....
I gave up cheese and other dairy products for the simple facts that they're high-fat, lactose-containing, high-cholesterol, non-necessary fillers. I'm not one of these crazy mad vegans who believes that consuming milk is on par with eating steak when it comes to animal abuse. I just have naturally elevated cholesterol, a lactose intolerance, and the metabolism of a slug, so I figure it's probably in my best interest to lay off the dairy. (I'm not getting into the cruelty that does in fact exist on most commercial dairy farms....this is meant to be a short, to-the-point entry.....though you had better believe I will get back to that at a later date)
There's another reason to skip the cheese in your veggie diet, though, besides your soaring cholesterol and your expanding waistline. That other reason is rennet. Rennet is used in the production of all cheeses not specifically labelled 'vegetarian', and if you went veggie because of the cute, furry animal faces on the PeTA website, you might not be too thrilled to learn what rennet's made from. Quite frankly, I'd let it slip my mind as well. Just one more reason I'm glad to have gone vegan....Labels: cheese, truth, vegan, vegetarian
23 March 2009
Oh, just spill it already!
As anyone that's dealt with me for any significant amount of time knows, I am nothing if not blunt. If I don't like you, you know it (unless of course, you're really, really stupid.....a fairly common phenomenon these days) If I have a problem with your conduct or with a comment you passed to me, you will hear about it. If you think you've got BO or suffer from extreme halitosis, if you want an honest opinion on your new girlfriend, or if you really want to know if those jeans make your ass look big, I am the one to ask, because I will let you know the truth, whether you like it or not. And I consider this a good thing. After all, when you're dealing with me, you know where you stand. I could care less about your feelings at the moment, because in the long run, you're going to learn the truth anyway, and your warm fuzzies are going to be short lived regardless. Best remedy the situation now, rather than go on however long in blissful ignorance. I am not being nasty, I am doing your sorry ass a service.
Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one that feels this way.
People these days seem far more interested in what others think of them at present than in being honest. They don't particularly care how soon after they depart other people realise they're full of shit, they just don't want to have to deal with the 'awkward situation' sometimes brought about by telling the truth. They think this makes them sensitive people. I think this makes them pussies. I don't know about you, but I can tell pretty quickly when someone's bullshitting me. I think I was gifted with that ability pretty much since birth, but given the amount of BS I catch on a regular basis, I've become a master at sniffing it out the moment it leaves a person's pie hole. Sometimes it's more subtle, usually in the form of lying by omission, but lately, more and more people have taken to blatantly lying....and not even so much to preserve others' feelings as to cover their own pansy asses.
Anyway, I am fucking sick of it. I learned to take blatant insult early on, and while I don't like it, it sure goes down easier than flat out lies. Insult is petty and specific. Lying insults my intelligence.
I'm not sure what my point is here, but I think I've made it well enough....feel free to ignore me if you want....pussy!Labels: honesty, social retardation
18 March 2009
Inspirational photo of the day
 Labels: photos
To function or not to function?
That's the question. And more these days than ever, it's really a question for everyone, not just people with Asperger's. But Aspies are all I'm concerned about at the moment....this is a loaded enough topic, if I start ranting about neurotypicals as well, I'll be here ranting for a week straight. I'm pretty sure it's going to get close to that anyway, so....umm...be warned.
I will mention one thing that both Aspies and NT's who refuse to function properly have in common....they're big, whiney, self-serving, Mama's crybabies. They have an excuse for everything, and every last one of those excuses is accepted by whomever they're dishing them to. I take exception to a LOT that's becoming the norm in today's society, but one of the biggest ones is people's overall refusal to take responsibility. For their actions, for their jobs, for their lives. Everything's someone else's fault (Mom and Dad are often the ones the blame falls on, unless of course, it's Mom and Dad they're crying to), the fault of 'situation', or the fault of their fucking faulty equipment. And as many of these excuses that regular people can generate, Aspies....well, not only can they generate 20X more of them, OTHER people are more than happy to generate them FOR them. Hell, they're so bloody helpless they don't even have to make up their own excuses a lot of the time. And they make me SICK.
I am not a positive example for many things, but I am more than willing to hold myself up as the poster child for AS functionality. I wasn't diagnosed till 2000. I lived quite a while before then. You don't need to know HOW long, only that it was long, long, ago, in a land far, far, away. When I first started school, two things were automatically noticed about me - I was very smart, and I was very, VERY strange. That's pretty much exactly how it was put. Asperger's was unheard of, but autism wasn't, and I was tested for it....it seemed extremely likely, given the fact that I was obviously NOT functional socially (at the age of around 5 or so, when you know, kids are just soooooo developed in that area), but oddly talented in a few very narrow areas. However, that idea was quickly dropped when I didn't fit some necessary criteria, and I was simply labelled as 'weird'. They didn't stay satisfied with that, however, and I ended up mandated into therapy for a few other issues, most notably hypergraphia (look it up), disruptive meltdowns, and a bit later on, VIOLENT meltdowns. To make a long story short, I was diagosed and un-diagnosed with everything under the sun, but at the end of the day, everyone came up blank, except for a few minor diagnoses, namely mild OCD and panic disorder. So after years of scratching their heads, the geniuses decided they had no clue as to what was wrong with me, only that SOMETHING was, and in the process of coming up with this brilliant theory, I and my parents were told over and over and over again that I was probably never going to be able to fully function as an adult. The geniuses gave various examples of why, and continually lamented how my ridiculous IQ was going to go completely to waste, since....well...I was quite simply never going to amount to anything.
They finally stopped saying that after awhile, though, and there's a reason for that. I decided to prove them wrong. It was just that simple. Because while these overeducated eejits were spewing their theories and laments, my old-school Irish mother and a couple of highly effective and very ancient Nuns were giving me the what-for. THEIR mantra was as follows - 'You're so goddamn smart...DO SOMETHING WITH IT.' And as annoying as that was, along with their insistence that I at least try to PRETEND to make eye contact, and for christ's sake, STOP crossing my arms across my chest, I couldn't help but listen. If there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that I was smart, AND resourceful. No one else might've gotten just how hard I'd had to work to even go about my school day in the questionable manner that I did, but I certainly got it. I might've been able to speed read, memorize things on sight, and play piano by ear, but so many of the things other kids did without thinking, I had to struggle with on a daily basis. And I fucking well DID it, to the best of my ability. So if I could do that...the sky was the limit. If only I bothered to push myself.
I got my first paying job at the age of 11, lying and telling people I was 15. I was freakin' gigantic, so it worked like a charm. There went their theory that I'd never be able to work. (The only time I've stopped since, by the way, was briefly in 2002 and 2006, while I was seriously ill. By 'briefly', I mean a few months) I not only didn't drop out of school, I became more overeducated than any of the overeducated eejits who swore I WOULD drop out, and yes, worked full-time the whole time. I started living on my own at an unusually young age, and not only managed to care for myself (in some less-than-ideal situations, mind you), but also developed a near-compulsion to care for others. And no, I'm not saying I'm something special. In fact, I'm a pretty run-of-the-mill unmedicated bipolar, xanax-popping, panic-attack-having, obsessive-compulsive Aspie broad in a vintage dress. What I DO have is a shitload of drive, and what I DON'T have is a truckload of excuses. And THAT is what makes all the difference.
Both before and after you're diagnosed, if you have Asperger's, you don't even have to try to find excuses for your 'issues'. People will give them to you. Undiagnosed, you're smart but 'weird'...people shrug off a lot because you're just 'not quite right'. Diagnosed....well, you're freaking AUTISTIC...which, NEWSFLASH, to most IDIOT people, is synonymous with RETARDED. I for one would really like it if one day people would see AS for what it is, which is NOT a disability or a synonym for RETARD or NUTCASE, but simply a neurological difference that renders people neither better nor worse than anyone else. (I don't very well expect them to accept our natural superiority just yet....it has to be revealed to them slowly) However, the longer Aspies use their natural, and dare I say friggin' AWESOME, differences as an excuse to be lifelong babies who need to be cared for and coddled, and basically not even TRY to function, the longer people are going to look at all of us as disabled. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly not fucking disabled. I'm one of the best at my job, I'm more functional than most NT's I know, and not only do I not need to be taken care of, I'm usually the one people come to when THEY need to be taken care of. And NO, I haven't gotten over all of my AS 'issues'. HARDLY. You'll come to realise just how much I HAVEN'T gotten over many of them the more I write here. And while I can't be certain, I don't think I started out with just a 'mild case' of AS, either. Even though I very recently reached one very scary milestone birthday, I STILL have trouble with eye contact. Freak out at being touched by strangers or unexpectedly by anyone else. Have a list as long as your arm of materials I cannot tolerate wearing. Actually start having a meltdown if caught off-guard in precip and/or cold wind. I could go on, but you get the idea. What I mean to say is, while I'm well aware that there are people who TRULY can't function, I haven't met too many of them. If I can manage, so can you. It's not easy, but neither is being a loser who's dependent on others for damn near everything....ESPECIALLY when you're smart enough to know what you're missing. Nobody said you had to be a proper social butterfly....you never WILL be if you have Asperger's. And nobody said you had to....or for that matter, ever COULD, rid yourself of all your 'symptoms' (for lack of a better word). But basically, if I can function, so can your sorry ass. The only thing standing in your way is laziness.Labels: asperger's, functionality, laziness
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