Throwback Thursday- Odd tidbits I'm running into through the way past while I look for some old @bonenado stuff. These bits come from random days through October 2007.
I always feel funky when I learn I've spelled a word wrong for years. Like lavender. I've spelled it lavendar for decades. I like it better with the 'a'. Now I feel out of synch and a tad put off.
I have this special cake recipe that is heavenly and highly adaptable to anything. Takes a cup of buttermilk, so I had Scott bring buttermilk home last night. Oops, forgot we are out of red food coloring from the last colored baking experiment, and three sets leaving me only green, yellow, and blue will never make orange. Oh, well, run into town myself, ten miles one way for a bottle of red food coloring. While I'm there, may as well pick up some pink and purple decorator frosting. Yes, I know... orange and chocolate swirl cake with white icing and pink and purple decorations. That's my Twinkles. And I will seriously make it look cool.
So, I got the batter divided, got the chocolate done, switched to the orange... Oops, a bigger bit of orange flavored splash than I intended, but what the heck. Always good with chocolate. And ~oh no~, the red food coloring bottle wasn't sealed properly at the factory, and laid in the bag soaking the inside of its box. Wow, what a mess. Both my hands are red, my light gray counter has big splotches of bright pink, and boy howdy, that is one dang orange cake. I made up for it with a bunch of yellow.
Smells good, though.
Scott set the catch 'em live trap out again a couple of days ago after we saw an armadillo in the yard late one night in a rain storm. They love the rain because it makes the grubs come up for air, and the armadillos dig up the yard looking for grubs. Welp, forgot all about it. Till just now. We assumed he wouldn't be back because Scott had shot at it in the rain and missed, the sound scared it half to death and it ran like mad. It's funny how fast those things can run. But I guess he came back. Our area is so infested with armadillos now that they lay dead all over the roads, and they aren't indigenous to this state at all. 30 years ago there weren't any. About 20 years ago they started mass migrating across the Ozarks. Now they are thicker than rabbits, skunks, and possums.
Twinkles and Jack. (I conned her into switching to MY team, heh heh. She was on Scott's team. Ah, the competition in this household...)
Jack gets a Mad Science lesson.
I could never be rich or famous. I just don't have the drive to get up out of bed. Well, back in my college days (years of college) I was up commuting by 6 or 7 every morning (an hour drive one way) for 18 hours of classes and 60 hours of work a week during my hardest semesters, but I was just as liable to pop the tab on a can of old skunky beer I found rolling under the seat, too. Yes, at 6 a.m. I do have drive and ambition, but it's this weird skewed sort of driven ambition, more like a Die Hard movie skidding into class or work in dark glasses. I have no idea why I was born a girl, because I'm actually pretty aggressive with this terrible lazy streak. I just mean, after studying people like Johnny Depp and Eddie Izzard and several others who have the grit to create themselves and wind up on top of the heap, I have absolutely no desire to cater to the masses like that, to go through the crap and angst of fame and having to keep a small entourage of people around me at all times to take care of things for me because there is just too much, or to listen to anyone bickering over my idiocy vs. my brilliance. That's all just a big bunch of people needing to get lives, or other people trying to make money off other people's existence via everything from movie critic to E! journalist to paparazzi. I just could care less about that stuff. I'm off watching Spongebob or something.
My hair is almost this short. I bet if I put makeup on I could look almost like this.
One of these days I might just try that.
Oh, yeah, before I forget. Scott has, indeed, confessed that I do scare him, as per an earlier post about my sexual aggression... We were watching My Super Ex-Girlfriend this weekend (free MAX) and I asked him if he was scared of me like that, and he got this look on his face, big eyes, said YES, and quickly turned back to his fantasy stats on the computer. I about fell over laughing at him. And I'm not wacko or anything, but I guess over the 14 years we've been married I've probably displayed just about every emotional outburst we saw in that movie, including throwing a shark through a window, so I imagine I'm pretty lucky he hasn't given up yet. And I've mellowed so much, that helps. I don't know if laughing at him helps, but in some weird way, I think he finds it comforting that someone knows him so well.
To me it's all really simple. Maybe it's the Asperger's, or maybe the idiots who get their thrills from arguing over moot points are emotionally unhealthy and have nothing better to do with their lives than to be mud slingers, but it seems to me that life really isn't that hard. Arguing over something improvable or speculative is pointless. Putting other people down and condemning them over an idea is shallow, although I risk doing the same thing here by compartmentalizing all of them into the 'idiot' category. But it just amazes me that they can't see themselves being as shallow as monkeys throwing their poop and screeching at each other. I really hate that the internet makes it so easy for the mouthy ones to step out and take over until no one else can say anything intelligent at all.
And then there's this...
Wrong Planet - Your Brain's 'Love Chemicals' may also make you Autistic
I keep *telling* Scott I need more sex... dang. Kind of explains my secret obsession with textured walls, I don't know. Whenever I am really stressed, all I have to do is just vividly imagine putting my face against a textured wall and feeling it with my fingers. If anyone saw me really doing that they'd think I was on drugs and getting off on the wall, but there is nothing sexual about it, it's just a stim. My friends and family don't know the half of how freaky weird I really am. I can see why my mom was so stressed out when I was little. I've learned to hide so much.
(This next bit always makes me sad because I was so sick and so desperately trying to hang on, entertaining myself mocking the beauty industry. No one ever knew how really bad it got or when I cried.)
In the meantime, I'm barely hanging in there rationing the skelaxin I've got left. It does ~nothing~ for neuralgia. But yesterday I fixed up and looked really nice, and it felt really good to get out and do something, which does wonders for the soul.
BTW, I've lost two pounds since we brought that new bathroom scale home. >=D HAHAHAHA!!!! Scott is going to have a run for his money.
And I got pictures. This is the transformation of someone who feels crappy into someone who feels ready to go do something feeling crappy.
First, the idea. Touch of foundation...
Earrings always help my mood. Vaseline on the lips, I'm not into lipstick.
Voila! Ok, ready for a good workout and the library.
The teeth thing-- my mom got a tetracycline shot while I was still a fetus, and it permanently discolored all my teeth. They stopped giving pregnant women those shots a year after I was born. My dentist wants to do the new rage in teeth capping on me, with is the super thin plating they adhere to the tooth after the tooth is roughed up (kind of like tiling a floor, if you've ever seen that done), but it will cost a fortune and my dental insurance won't cover that, plus I'm not working. My teeth and gums are very healthy and I will most likely never have dentures. The question is-- is this procedure worth the cost and torture involved? I think I'd like to try it eventually, but I don't want to look like a nerd with fake teeth. They say they can make them look imperfect now, so that they don't look like bright white piano keys, which would look horrendous with my complexion, even with makeup, so I could get them in off-white. It's something I've kicked around for several years, and I'm glad I've waited this long because the technology has leapt light years over what it was just ten years ago. But still... I'm not the one who has to look at my teeth. And honestly, I don't give a crap, I have met so many people with gross and missing teeth and it never bothered me, even though I myself am obsessive when it comes to mouth hygiene. But I think if I ever sell something I write, maybe I'll look into it.
And I've always wondered-- are my bones the same color as my teeth because of that shot?
And I think my eyes will always look 'sleepy' now. Neither one has ever quite recovered from the Bell's Palsy, which started 3 years ago. Someone once asked me, after looking at a picture of me, if I were sick when it was taken. Nope, actually felt good that day, but my eyes just don't look perky any more.
Even just sitting in a chair at home doing NOTHING the fandom is still embroiled in a war raging around ~moi~. Amazing.
To everyone I know who is puny right now...
THIS is why I blog privately. I can't tell you how many people out there are just waiting for stuff like this to go public so they can start ripping and shredding the two of us again. I had to stop hanging on message boards because of this kind of crap. People love a good train wreck, and if there's not one out there to gape over, they'll make one up.
I don't usually have the morning news on, but this morning CBS is making a huge deal about early autism screening, with the shocking revelation that the numbers have rocketed up to a possible one in 150 people being affected with autism. I'm sitting here in mild amusement... and a bit of my own shock. The understanding is, as stated so succinctly in this very unhelpful online article at
"When it comes to understanding autism, more questions remain than answers. But the importance of early intervention is a certainty. Numerous studies have shown that appropriate behavioral interventions implemented early and aggressively in children diagnosed with autism or an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can improve the daily and long-term functioning and intellectual development of these children."
What that says to ME is-- We've got to get these kids standardized as quickly as possible because neuro-diversity is NOT acceptable in our society of franchising and corporations and government audited public schools.
Part of the very controversial behavioral 'treatment' for this obviously devastating brain dysfunction is forcing children to perform and interact at the behest of punishments. If you are not familiar with this form of treatment, schools used it for years and some still are, and they encouraged parents to cooperate by using it at home. And it's funny that 'treatment' is needed when they hardly know yet the outcomes of what they do to these kids.
Long-Term, Multimodal Treatment of a Child With Asperger’s Syndrome and Comorbid Disruptive Behavior Problems: A Case Illustration Brian T. Wymbs and Jessica A. Robb, State University of New York at Buffalo, Andrea M. Chronis, University of Maryland, College Park, Greta M. Massetti, Gregory A. Fabiano, Frances W. Arnold, Anne-Christina Brice, Elizabeth M. Gnagy, William E. Pelham Jr., Lisa Burrows-MacLean, and Martin T. Hoffman, State University of New York at Buffalo Despite Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) becoming a widely recognized disorder on the pervasive developmental spectrum, surprisingly few studies have assessed the utility of psychosocial and/or pharmacological treatments for children with AS. Further, studies have not examined the effects of treatment on disruptive behavior problems commonly exhibited by children with AS. This case study demonstrates the positive effects of an intensive, long-term, multimodal treatment targeting the symptoms and functional impairment of a school-age male with AS and comorbid disruptive behavior problems. Components of the comprehensive treatment included a behavioral summer treatment program, behavioral parent and teacher training, and medication. Results highlight the potential efficacy of treating the chronic functional impairments of AS and associated behavior problems with an intensive, long-term, multimodal treatment.
I grew up being abused and forced into a behavioral norm, without understanding one shred of it. It took most of my adult life and a sociology degree, heavily punctuated with psychology and anthropology, for me to understand the big picture of how I'm supposed to fit in and why I'm not forgiven for not fitting in. I had to learn to PRETEND to be someone else, and I was very miserable doing that. If you were to take a normal child and put them through this behavioral process and teach them to be someone they're not, that would be considered brain washing, abuse, and torture in our society. But it's *ok* to do that to neuro-diverse children. Put them on drugs and force them through a social system. Don't adapt anything to the child.
The problem with catching higher functioning Austism Spectrum Disorder is that some kids can snap in and out of eye contact, verbal interaction, smiling, being social. I was weird, but I actually made it through the public school system WITHOUT ASSISTANCE. Yes, teachers were begging my parents to get me some help, yes, it was very hard for me to make friends and fit into the curriculum and figure out what was going on, but you know what? I'm *o*k*. The hardest thing I faced every day was other kids being mean to me, which lasted for years. The hardest thing a neuro-diverse person faces is an intolerant society that doesn't allow for deviations from the 'norm'. It doesn't matter how smart a person might be, if they don't smile and look at you on cue, something is 'wrong' with them. They might have the insight to solve a major world problem one day, but if they don't chatter with other children and enjoy chaotic and noisy atmospheres during recess and parties and such, they need to be 'fixed'. It's BAD when an ASD child enjoys being alone or does weird things like rocking or hand twitching, even if that child actually understands the theory of the math or science they're being taught better than the teacher. But you never know that if you don't encourage the child to verbalize without adverse consequences. You can't ~mold~ ASD children into being socially acceptable without causing long term damage on that their psyches.
I was not a mean child, but I learned to be mean to survive. I was not a stupid child, but I learned to dumb down so I wouldn't intimidate others. I was not socially inept until I was judged. I can run intellectual circles around most of the people I went to school with, and can easily use logic to show that social diversity and cooperation is vital to societal health, but very few people I know care about stuff like that. I don't shop for clothes or decorations for my home. I don't yak on the phone and read popular magazines. I don't worry about how I look or what people think of me. I don't often visit at other people's houses, and I even less invite people to my house. As an adult, I find that other adults either instinctively dislike me or take to my quirkiness and think it's 'cute'.
I realize I have problems interacting with others, and I'm working with a psychologist on that. The more I learn about my Asperger's, the more comfortable I feel. The more comfortable I feel, the easier it is for me to interact. THAT IS THE KEY. I was made to feel uncomfortable about myself ever since I was a toddler. I never did anything 'right'. The spotlight was on me being the odd one out everywhere I went. I was told I was embarrassing.
Imagine putting a 'normal' child through that. You know how they come out, they wind up in counseling as adults, coming to grips with the verbal abuse, it scars them for life and ruins their self esteem.
So why in the world are we spotlighting autism and spectrum disorders now like it's some big panic attack? Oh, we must screen our children every 6 months to make sure they don't have it. They need 'early intervention' so they can be 'fixed'.
No. They need love and acceptance. They need to know that they're ok. Would you tell a Down Syndrome child they don't do anything right and they're embarrassing? No? Then why in the world would you tell a kid with autism there is something 'wrong' with them? That's quite a stigma to live with.
We KNOW there is something 'wrong' with us. It doesn't need to be said over and over. It doesn't need to become a national freak out. It doesn't need to be something terrible that is ruining your hopes and dreams for your child.
Actually, I think the 'normals' are terrified that we are taking over... heh heh...
Just make it easy for your child to connect to you when they're ready. Have YOUR behaviors in place. Be kind. Be thoughtful of your child's discomfort. Don't race the clock to reach a developmental goal. ENJOY your child for who they are. If you truly love your child unconditionally, your child will feel that. You don't have to be rewarded back with behaviors that make YOU feel good. If you need that so badly, get a dog. If you are taking it personally that your child won't look at you or hug you, you have your own self esteem problems, and those *will* get in the way of loving your child.
I learned to behave normally on my own. I've learned to reap natural rewards for doing that. I don't feel I have to respond on cue or perform for people who are so shallow that they can't get over someone not smiling at them. I nearly lost a job once because someone complained I wasn't smiling. In my eyes, that was cruel. It's cruel when someone can disrupt MY life so much over something so trivial. I could have just suffered a death in the family for all they knew. In my experience, the people who expect social responses on cue are the shallowest people on this earth, and when they have hard times, maybe they'll figure out what it all means.
In the meantime, the nation is panicking over toddlers not smiling or making eye contact... GOOD GRIEF.
I just also want to mention that expecting children with neuro-diverse challenges to perform like 'normals' is actually requiring them to be BETTER than normal kids. Not only do they have to deal with their challenge and the stigma of being 'broken', but they have to perform for the public with that handicap and pass for normal. If you don't have ASD, you have no idea how difficult it is to be forced to make eye contact when you're coping with everything in your head being over stimulated and channeled around extra processing. What you might take for granted as simple instinctive social interaction has to consciously be logically explained and theoretically supported in the ASD neural network, even if it's only a reduction to "I must do this so someone won't hate me or punish me."
But it's all about pleasing the normals, isn't it?
Happy Halloween!
Scott says I look stoned.
Ok, that's it for today. There's lots more I'll never share. A fandom publicly raging and mocking. A friend slipping away. Great swaths of engulfing sadness.
