Brown Recluse

I've noticed something that's kinda troubling.  Since I've been laid off, I've essentially never left the house.

This is not a good sign.  While I'm still blogging, still podcasting, still Twittering, still doing alla the online stuff I usually do, I'm not going anywhere, outside of the occasional cigarette run.

How the heck do I get up to speed on a new job, or even find a new job, when I don't even leave the house?  Add to that, it's not particularly good for me to just sit at home all day.  Should really get out and go somewhere, anywhere, just to break the cycle.

I'm very much lacking in social skills, and if I don't exercise what little I have, I lose them.  Happened once, a few years back.  Wasn't pretty.

This reclusive behavior has really gotta stop.  The Internet is not the world.  Even if the world outside is cold, it's still the world.

(sigh)

Four Walls Around Me

Listening to an old James Taylor song (there's another kind?), "Bartender's Blues:"

I need four walls around me, to hold my life,, to keep me from going astray,

And a Honky-Tonk Angel to hold me tight, to keep me from slippin' away.

Yeah, that's about right. Right now I'm laid off from work, and I know I could well do better finding a job somewhere else. Even in good times, this is a bad place to be unemployed. And these aren't good times. But here, I have all my stuff in messy piles around me, and I have a pretty good idea where it all is. That's important to me.

The other day, I was watching "Mozart & the Whale" on my DVD player. (Got it from Netflix, and now my sister's mad I signed up for it. Oh, well, just wanted to see that one film.) At one point in the film, Isabelle cleans up Donald's (thoroughly filthy) apartment. She even replaced his (slimy) shower curtain. Donald comes home and sees all that neatness, and freaks out. "I thought you'd like it," Isabelle says, bewildered. And Donald shouts, "You stole my life!"

Aspie thing. You wouldn't understand.

Or maybe you would?

Giving what you can

As I've mentioned, I don't make much. I don't have much to give. I don't suppose many people do.

Dave Taylor on Twitter suggested an organization called DonorsChoose.org, which has mechanisms for creating a donation widget so my readers can donate to small and specific projects, intended to help teachers help students in small but important ways. That's what that "Grizzly's Growls Challenge" gadget is for.

Iif you can give a few bucks, click on the widget and take a look at some of the projects I thought particularly appropriate; projects to help with reading, for special needs kids, for Autistic kids. Every little bit helps, and completing any of these projects isn't out of reach, a little bit at a time.

Up to you. I really hate asking for stuff. But since I could, I put this thingie up to ask for me. There's one on the Podcast page, too, of course.

Check it out at least. Thanks.

Grizzly

The New Wave

Wanted to share with you an article from "New York Magazine," I think, that is as balanced as possible a representation of What Goes On with all the groups with positions on the Autism Spectrum. The article brought tears to my eyes. Wish I had written it.

New York Magazine Article: The New Wave of Autism Rights Activists

This is a lot of what I've been trying to explain for the last couple years. But I'm not a journalist, I'm a blogger. Someday, I gotta learn how to write. Again.

OhMiGod, is She podcasting?

Just wanted to let you know, my friend TR Kelley is starting a new podcast, called "Radio Calico." Just put up the very first show. Just based on what I've heard and seen from her before, it ought to be fun and interesting, and just a bit odd. Which is what will make it fun and interesting. Not at all as staid and conservative as myself.

Congrats, TR, and I hope you have as much fun with it as I have!

Sidekick needed

I really do kinda need a co-host.

I've been struggling along, doing what I do, for more than a year. And
I've managed, and somehow, some people like listening, God love ya.

But it's hard to sustain. And it's hard to come up with content that will
inspire larger-scale interest out of what remains of my braincells after
too many years of cigarettes and beer.

Beyond content, though, I really need to refresh my point of view. For
too long, I've been on my own. I don't mind that. But I don't exactly
love it, either. Often I can't make sense of what I see of other folks
behavior. And often someone else might be able to say, "Oh, that's just
about this stuff," or "They're trying to tell you that..." or "It really
has nothing to do with you.

Also, I really haven't done very well at staying informed as to what's
happening out in the Real World. That's a problem as to new content, and
making sense of the current content. I'm not running out of topics to
talk about on the show, I have millions of topics. I just don't know what
they are.

I think I explained rather well in my last show what characteristics a
woman would need to be able to survive me, much less manage a real
relationship. I think some of those same characteristics would be needed
by my co-host. A sense of humor, and the ability to figure out mine.
Nearly infinite patience. The skills to explain other folks to me, even
when it seems like stuff that shouldn't need explaining. The obvious
stuff is what I have the hardest time with.

Writing skills, to be able to contribute worthwhile content. Reading and
reviewing skills, to help make sense of my content. A savvy perception of
the state of the world, what seems to be happening now, and what's liable
to come next.

I'm not easy to understand or to talk to. And no one much is easy for me
to understand or talk to. But if there is someone like that, I gotta find
'em.

And if this talented and supportive individual also turned out to be an
attractive female, well, what'd be wrong with that? ;-)

I may be old, but I ain't quite dead yet.

Autism, Asperger, Zen, And How Real Life Really Sucks

Well, gee, so people with autism spectrum disorders -don't- have the most education on autism???

If you want to understand any Spectrum, by definition you need to understand all the colors, and not just one color, one little piece through one filter that happens to be a pleasant "color" and is easy to deal with. Everybody likes blue, because it's a color frequency nobody can really see very clearly.

So, yeah, they get to deal with all of us -- all of our quirks and foibles and annoying habits -- because if they want to get autistic kids to the point where they become autistic adults, they really ought to know what autistic adults are like, and how we survived long enough to get to be Us.

I'm sure there are any number of fund-raising organizations who'd be more than glad to tell them a shortcut or an easy political effort formula they can follow. Usually involves beatings or locking kids in closets and whatnot, but hey, if that's their thing, they're asking in the wrong venue.

If they want autistic kids to get to where we are, they have to follow the narrow road and the straight gate. It isn't easy, it sure as hell isn't easy to explain, and if they think they can find an easy guide down the right path, they haven't been paying attention. There isn't one.

I sure as hell hope they figure that out, and are willing to pay the exhorbitant price to get here. And I'm not done yet. And I will probably never be done. But that's okay, because somebody was smart enough to make sure those tools were in the hands of the person who had to handle them.

That person was me. That person is the autistic person themselves. Parents get old and can't keep up. Parents die, as one of mine did. I can do what I've (barely) managed to do, because I had the tools to hand, and I did what was necessary to survive this long.

So if they want to live in the real world and deal with what it takes to get where we are, let them come here and ask specific questions. If they want magic, I'm sure the Amazing Lovass will be more than happy to wave some hands and show some smoke and mirrors.

They're asking the wrong questions, because they're afraid of the right answers.

And that makes me a pure, high-quality asshole, because nobody wants what I've said to be true, me included. "And yet it moves," as Galileo is supposed to have said. The truth has an annoying quality in the most demanding circumstances of remaining the truth.