Acceptance

Spending a bit of time thinking about my blog yesterday. It's easy to focus on the places and events that make us feel squeamish in life, where we feel we just don't fit in for whatever reason. We don't have the right clothes, the right life style, the right thoughts, we're too different, we don't have enough money etc. There are plenty of these places in life. That feeling of not being enough is often more of an internalized thing than a reality. True shunnings are thankfully rare once out of high school. Yet, our self inflicted feelings of displacement linger and nag until we overcome them or flee the place causing our distress. But, what about the people and places that accept us? The people and places that make it easy for us. Blissful? Once and a while I feel the need for an outpouring of gratitude and this is one of those days.

I have a friend that listens and accepts me quirks and all. I can't seem to freak him out. I can just be me. He sees all that I am and builds me up. Makes me believe I'm wonderful, beautiful, creative, intelligent and awesome. That's a tremendous thing. To be encouraged and accepted for who you are. To have someone support you. That doesn't put your choices in life down, even though others have. Is instead there for you in what way they can be. It's more like a dream of friendship. Only, I am blessed to have this dream be real. It's more than I can wrap my mind around sometimes.

I have a board full of lovely women unified by music. These women have taught me to see the joy in life. I don't believe any of us fit a mold. Some of us are nerds, perhaps. I feel completely at home amongst them, something I have very rarely felt with other women and only in brief moments. With these girls I feel at home always. We encourage each other and root each other on. They are like the family I wish I had. They've given me back the childhood stolen from me by abusive relatives and dared me to dream again, to laugh and play.

I have writers in my life. Amazing expressive souls who encourage me and provide me a place in their world. One of which took the time to email with me, answer some questions. A dialog I still think on to this day and gained much from. Another which has begun an online friendship with me. He's one of those people who has an odd sunshine effect on my demeanor. He's also very encouraging and sees me as "strong." A word I have never before associated with myself.

The thread that runs amongst these people is that they are all very unique, caring individuals. It could be said that everyone has something about them that makes them special. But, I don't believe that to be true. Some people just fucking suck quite frankly. The best people in life just don't fit in boxes. These people direct us and put our focus on what is real. When all is dark we have lost sight of what is true. Our memory has slipped. People who accept us help put us back in place. Through them we realize we're worth caring about and dare we say it pretty neat.

Thank you to all the accepting wonderful people in my life. I am so happy to have met you.

Wanted: Travel Guru

For the last year I have been saving for a trip. Originally, this trip was to be fotc related. Fotc announced their tour much sooner than I expected. So my dream fell by the wayside mostly due to budget and a crisis at work. The person I was taking to the concert became a friend to me of sorts. The best friend I've ever had really. So I rebounded very fast when my fotc dreams were not to be realized. The goal of taking the trip shifted to meeting my friend. Now I'm unsure if I still have a friend. If this is true, there's really nothing for me in this trip.

However, being Aspie I am often wrong in regards to people. If it happens I am not best friendless. I have a plea.

I need a travel guru. I need someone to be the brain I do not possess in this regard. You will be dealing with a multitude of questions and anxieties. Overall your job is to guide me. Oh why put a pretty bow on it? I flat out need someone to take charge and tell me what to do. Make me your bitch! Being told what to do provides an odd comforting solace to me. I have not traveled. Not alone. I once boarded a plane but arrangements were made prior for me. Someone picked me up at the airport and drove me around. I had a couch in a home to crash on. It was all taken care of for me. This was however 15 years ago. Since being on my own I have not traveled further than my car has taken me. I have never made a hotel reservation, flight reservation...etc. I have no idea how one gets from the airport to a hotel. Bus? Walk? Hitchhike? Someone told me you can't bring shampoo on planes? Why? How do I wash my hair? Can my laptop come with me? I don't have a cell phone. How do I communicate with people if my laptop can't come. Clueless does not even describe me. Even if this trip does not happen. Even if I have lost my friend. This is knowledge I need to have as there are others I'd like to one day visit. DM me on twitter if interested. You will have your hands full! I am a neurotic mess. See neuroti-ca blog.

An Erotic Ode to Spray Cheese

Unapparent, yet fervent need. I sit quietly wanting you.

There is nothing else in this moment I desire more. My thoughts seek you out.

I imagine you hard in my mouth. Savoring the taste of your warm spray on my tongue.

I crave you like nothing else. My lust for you consumes me. Come to me...

Everything is here for you. All you could possibly need. Even whole grain crackers.

Fill my mouth and then my body. I want to taste you so badly..

Come to me you cheap fucking bastard whore! Fill me again and again.

I am ravenous. I want you so much...

spray cheese.

Neurotic-ca! (The song Madonna would have written if she was me.)

Submitted for your approval, or at least analysis. One woman, plagued by many neurosis. You have entered "The Neurotic Zone".

My top 20 list of neurosis in no particular order.

1) Clowns!! Clowns are a big one for me. I remember being approached by a clown as a little girl. He had offered to make me a balloon animal "Any kind of animal I wanted." Before I could answer, my grandmother grabbed me by the arm, drug me away and yelled "Get away from that clown, he's going to rape you!" Thus my fear of clowns was born. Plus, they're just plain creepy.

2) Needles!! There's just got to be a better way.

3) Any kind of change! We aspies like our routines and what to expect. When something changes, it shakes our whole world. I want the same thing, every time, the same way please as much as possible. Routine is comforting, change freaks me out!

4) Do not, under any circumstances watch me while I eat. I mean, ever! Please, keep eye contact with me as minimal as possible if you are my dinner companion. There's no rationalization of this one. I just generally feel judged while eating. As if people are thinking.."Yeah, shovel more food in heifer. Your ass is getting fatter by the second." Eating out, I will find a spot as far away from people as I can get. If my back is turned to the room, even better.

5) Are people mad at me? This is a big one. Overall I was not socialized as a child. Add to that, the Aspie inability to decipher people and you have one very lost person. I expend large amounts of time trying to understand others. I find I get it wrong, very wrong much of the time.

6) Magazines in the bathroom with celebrities on the cover. I always have to turn them over and if that doesn't work put a towel over the magazines. I worry that the celebrity pictured will suddenly get an image of me on the toilet if I don't do this. Just imagine, Bob Dylan, he's having a lovely meal and all the sudden "Ack! there's that girl on the toilet again! Why!!" Even though I do know that this is unlikely I prefer to spare Bob Dylan the discomfort, especially since I do have a rather small bladder. I also do not like being stared at.

7) That last bite of banana. No spider is going to lay eggs in my brain thank you very much!

8) Any large gathering of people for unknown purposes. Crowds in general make me uncomfortable. However, if I know why they are gathered together it does offer me some security.

9) Samples in stores that are handed out by people. I prefer the samples to just be free floating. I don't want to have to muster the courage to get free cheese. I would like to just have the cheese and not have to force myself to be social.

10) Confrontation. I am wet myself scared of confrontation. In a cape I do better, but not by much.

11) Too much of the color brown. I don't like the color brown in general. Large concentrations of the color brown can be very unsettling to me.

12) Certain public restrooms. If I have to go in public I prefer it to be at a bookstore.

13) Random pains. Is that cancer? Is my pancreas shutting down? Never go on webmd if you are at all neurotic. Seriously, don't!

14) Cell phones or any other cordless phone. I don't trust technology.

15) White colored vehicles. My eyes don't see white very well. A white vehicle in front of a white building can be virtually invisible to me. Not a good thing. So far no wrecks, but many near misses.

16) Centipedes. I was once told by my mother that if a centipede walks on you it will rot little holes in your skin. I have since found this to be untrue, but the repulsion to them remains.

17) Time. It's a concept I struggle with immensely. It goes at a snails pace for me. One day can seem like a week. I have to really stay on top of how much time has gone by. If forget I get panicked about bills not being paid, people who haven't written me (are they mad at me?) etc..etc.. This is a particular problem in my work. People want estimates of time their pets will be done. I am obscenely horrible at this. If forced to select a time it's chosen purely out of the air with no expertise at all. I then panic, skip lunch and end up rushing through my day to find I finished the pet 2 hours ahead of schedule. I always feel I am grooming too slowly. It is only my concept of time that makes me feel thus.

18) Food that has fallen out of it's packaging in the refrigerator. I was told as a girl any food out of it's packaging was full of worms. I can't shake it to this day. I think my family just made stuff up to keep me in line, truthfully. Very unhelpful.

19) Abandonment. Another big one! My life has been a parade of people entering and mostly exiting. I get tired of saying goodbye, so this fear pervades my every relationship with another being.

20) Very crowded parking lots. I will park in a lot I am comfortable with and walk several blocks if I have to avoid certain parking lots.

My Artwork

Just a bit of my artwork. Enjoy!

Of dreams and fascinations..

We sit on the precipice. Our legs entwined dangling off rock. I am cradled in his arms, warm and safe, quietly observing the chasm spread before us. It was as if the grand canyon shook off the reigns of it's beauty and favored becoming a desolate pit. The expanse of it stretched beyond the what the eyes could take in. "The Lady of Shallot has a deplorable habit of taking hostages." I tell him. "You really should go."

He holds me tighter, his only response. I listen to the quiet beat of his heart, and relish the soft rise and fall of his chest. A light breeze curls around us. My hair slides across his shoulders moved by gentle currents of air. I open my eyes and face the unfathomable chasm spread before us. I don't want to see it.

His hand squeezes mine. "It's time" he tells me. I feel his breath on my neck. Pink flushes into my white knuckled grasp as my fingers gently uncurl. I consider the bent metal object I had been clutching so tightly. "Why a spoon?" My silent thoughts spoken aloud echo in the desolation. Why would anyone choose such a tool to fill in such wreckage?

"Because change is slow. It won't happen overnight. But, it will happen." He answers as he aids me in scooping in the first spoonful of scorched earth. It tinkles like the sounds of chimes touched by wind and shimmers as sprinkles of sunlight as it descends down into nothing.

"It's all so bleak." I tell him. My hand shakes wanting to drop the spoon. Watch it turn end over end and fade into the deep well of dirt and nothing.

"Only if you let it be."

I take a spoonful of dirt and I drop it in. It fans out, descending as a cloud of dust. I scoop up another, and yet another. I see something tiny, small as a grain of rice, wriggle out of the pores of my skin. It squirms down my leg and falls unto singed burnt rock. A small piece of my self hatred crawling away, disgusting and maggot like. Detached, I watch it go and take in the charred landscape surrounding. "There's so much loss."

"That deficit is not yours but that of what you perceive to be missing."

"How do you not feel the loss of something tangible. When all there is devastation and void?"

He takes my hand and we spoon in one more cloud of dust. It dances in the breeze,glitters in the light and sounds like children's laughter. I put my hand absently down onto the rock beside me. I flinch. Instead of dust I feel grass, soft and alive. I look at these small green sprouts flourishing in my world of destruction. Some dark part of me stirs. I feel more alive with it's awakening. I trace my hand over the tender leaves of grass. The corners of my mouth twitch as I think of tearing them for the ground and burning them. I let the urge pass and I feel it coiling inside me. Waiting. I close my eyes, shudder, and sigh. Peace again. I leave the delicate signs of life to grow and continue to spoon dust into the void.

Holidays-blog therapy

Heavily drugged, someone was talking to me. I faintly recognized the sound of words but not the words themselves. I couldn't move for the world positively swam in a haze of color. My throat burned. My stomach newly empty, it's contents freshly pumped. I succumbed once again to heavy sleep. The voice above me became a gentle lullaby. Syllables mere stepping stones as I danced into dream. The world turned in silent oblivion that Thanksgiving day.

It's been four years since I've been that low. But, that once was enough. The term scared straight comes to mind. Such an abysmal a failure are the systems we mirthfully convince ourselves help people. Once you catch a glimpse of what help entails, you'll never let yourself traipse that dark path again. You may have thoughts, but they will forever remain only thoughts thereafter. Too dire are the consequences. Unless, being denied food, sleeping on a hard bench and being drugged to incapacitation around positively disgusting masturbating men strikes your fancy.

Holidays have become dangerous curves in my landscape. Expectations of incredible joy mingled with a seed of demon nightmare. My family wields a blade, sharp and ready by Thanksgiving. By Christmas the meat cleaver becomes a sword. I am blamed for everything beyond my capacity. I am the bringer of all worldly woes. A hell bound whore, deviant scum and a abomination meant to be aborted. I am reminded and reminded. I remember my grandmothers grand imaginings. From outside the closet door, she spoke to me in the tune of verse that exists in no bible. She penned her own holy book. I believed it to be factual and law. In that prestigious document, she tore hope and dream from my being. I lay curled at the bottom of the closet, clinging to the small bit of light coming from the door crack and I listened. I absorbed. I believed. Her most toxic bile. Worst of all I believed. I was God's mistake to be corrected only in flame. Born of rape I should not be. My mere existence caused great family ruin. My every social faux pas a sin. As an aspie I make many social blunders and they are constant. She would set light to every instance to illuminate my every social failure. She damned me to forever question my every word to another person. To live in fear of simple speech. I am type cast in their lives as an unfeeling lunatic meant to be caged if not destroyed. Destruction is their innate delight and they do it well. I keep my distance as a result.

Children are meant to dream very large unfathomable dreams. I remember lying in bed and wondering what love felt like. What did it feel like to be really truly loved? Is love even real? To this day I remain unsure. I dreamt of things children should have. I dreamt of someone to hold me when I cry. A person who would simply allow the sadness to fill me and to hold me through it. To touch my hair and to show me they didn't hate me once my tears ceased. I dreamt of a life without constant consequence. No more scalding water. Never again waking to a pillow over my face as I slept. I dreamt of what might lay beyond our home, our town. My world was so closed to what lay beyond. My family disallowed me to have friends and to later date insisting it was just a way to invite the devil into your home. My life was restricted to my room and an 8 foot privacy fenced back yard replete with barbed wire garnish on top. That was what I knew of the world. I dreamt of travel, of other places and of simply more. I dreamt of a friend to share those things with me and the knowledge of how to make a friend. I wanted a friend most of all.

Holidays are very empty days. Christmas morning my boyfriend unwraps his gifts, the dog is given a special treat and then it's a day of tv and waiting. I pace a quiet home while my boyfriend lies comatose. I wait for the world to come back to life from it's underground state. It's a day of little to quiet the thoughts. Those thoughts can get bad if I let them, but I won't let them. Never again. I try to stay busy. I start a hundred creative projects. Keep the mind busy above all.

This year I have managed Thanksgiving, albeit very drunkenly. Not a great solution, but a seductively quick one. My Christmas this year, for the first time perhaps ever, had traces of life. I had a list to give to this year. I got three gifts from co-workers, a parade of treats from clients, and a very nice gift from a fellow fotc fangirl. My home is decked with Christmas cards from my fotc fan family. Christmas morning I awoke fevered and sick to find Christmas greetings from someone I never expected. Very slowly little sips of my dreams are trickling in. I am becoming more numb to the rule of my family. They read me the riot act Christmas day and I was able to let it go. Actually let it go. Their hold is weakening and my resolve to cling to broken people lessening. I dream of a place where the child and the adult version of me meet. I hold her as she has always wanted, as I still want. I hold her with total acceptance. I tell her how wonderful life will be. How wonderful she is, for she really is. How she is not wrong and most of all that she should just hang on to see it all. It will happen for her, for me, for us. It's slow, but it will be. So hang on. I tell her. Just... hang... on.