Sweet As Aspie Pie

Hi

2010-06-14T10:10:00.003-06:00

Hi world. I just checked my email for the first time in awhile. And I saw that I had a happy comment on this bloggy here. And I felt quite cheered.

And I now have fresh resolve to go work on my little teen fiction project-- Alethea as Pie. It is 6 chapters and 10,000 words old so far.

I made the mistake of emailing it to my sister a few weeks ago. She only read the first chapter. Oh. Mmm hmm. It's ok. Why don't you write a fantasy book instead? Fantasy is more interesting. Vampires are so hot right now. You should do that instead. Oh, well, I'm so busy, I'll try to read the rest sometime soon... It's ok. But you should write something with magic or vampires.

Sigh. I am easily discouraged and derailed.

(Plus, I also bought book 12 of the wheel of time series, which neccesitated me re-reading books 1-11, which was another bad time-sucking move on my part. In fact, i am still not done.)

So. Amanda. Pay attention! Please do not forget about poor little Alethea. Find focus! Figure out chapter 7! Help Alethea as Pie to be born. Write the story. Go-go gadget go now.

What you... want with... a woman, who, won't do, what you, say.

2010-01-27T19:30:00.006-07:00

my song is the Rage of JackOffJill and the Sadness of SageFrancis. in highschool, the Sadness used to be Nirvana. that was the song on repeat. if i listen to Nirvana or AAA or Bad Religion now, it's different. not dishonest to still call them favorites, but i only feel the memory and not the Truth that they used to feel like. my Anger has not changed much. but pretty much everything that rang in as Sadness, Defiance, or Irony is just second fiddle nostalgia to SageFrancis now.

in the shower just now, i was thinking about heaven. What you... want with... a woman, who, won't do, what you, say... been singing that line all day. (FT: singling)

heaven and happiness and songs.

i have the very strong songs for sadness and anger. have found that voice in my soul embodied. but, not Happy. there are songs i like that are about being happy, but i don't feel the happiness. i can see it, but singing along to Happy when it doesn't resonate just feels even more empty and sad. I can enjoy a fun happy song but it doesn't CONNECT like the other. there is no truth in the Happiness. i feel more happy inside a sad song because i feel the recognition of something true-correct.

so i imagine heaven as this place of Happy people. and i don't fit there because that is not my song. people exist where they are comfortable.

i just reread what i've written so far and it sounds stupid and not like what i mean to explain at all. sigh. a real song is something tangible...

i feel like this music is felt between people. where you fit. why there are some people that you click with. you have the same songs in your soul. you fit among people that are on your wavelength... sound wave.

you can't have songs that don't match. that is discord. dischord discord.

i want to grow and evolve. my sad used to be nirvana, now it has more layers to it. more wry smiles amidst the pain. i can change the tune but not the song.

churchy people, seem to be fond of blaming music for being a "bad influence" on kids/people. i feel what i feel. and yeah, what i feel a lot of is hate, so i do kinda see their point of view on that. but listening to something happy or "good" that doesn't connect just makes me feel more sad and empty. so i imagine that must be how it works for other people too.

Just So.

2010-01-24T14:09:00.005-07:00

so much so much so much that hurts that aches that grates and so much so much so much noise to filter to block, that is always drowning, drowning, drowning you...

this is why, it means so much, to have things, Just So.

teeny tiny bitty scrap speck of something you can nestle, control, hum, curl, purr inside of. a plan. a plot. a nooked secret. happiness.

yesterday we got take out from this thai place i like. and we got an extra order to have for lunch today. this was happy. something settled. something yummy. something to not have to think about anymore. mmmm curry. zip. done. delicious.

but today, it did not happen Just So. and i got very upset. i am very particular about styrofoam in the microwave. i won't eat stuff microwaved in styrofoam. no! put on plate. warm up. because, styrofoam melts. i can not stop thinking about the little styrofoam molecules that are in the food when food in a styrofoam container gets nuked. i can't eat it. i won't eat it. bad bad ruined yuck.

so that happened. because garret warmed up the food. and then we got in a fight because i wouldn't eat it. and also because i cried. and he was mad i was crying over something so small and stupid like food.

I KNOW IT'S STUPID, OK? doesn't help at all to know that. still feels... crashing, awful, ruined, death. a perfect sandcastle, almost, almost, but CRASH SMASH the wave kills it right before you get there. tiny bits of joy you try try try to carve out of sand, try to hold, try to build, small bits of something to hold onto, but. the universe is bigger. and stronger. and conspiring against you.

that feeling, when you win, when you are ahead of the mean old universe for just a second, and you get to have things how you want them, JUST SO, it's the best feeling ever. content, happy, safe.

always searching for that-- control. happiness. trying to escape the angry helplessness of no control.

Metronome therapy

2009-11-06T17:42:00.002-07:00

You have probably noticed that I'm not so great at fixing my own issues. But, I AM really good at displacing all that energy onto poor Garret.

Anyway, Garret can barely read, blah blah blah. Ok, so, while taking that last class to finish my degree, I came across an interesting study. It was about kids with ADHD. They had made them keep time to a metronome, and there was some fancy thingy that electronically measured their accuracy, and they did that every day for awhile, and tried to improve their accuracy, and then, volia, they had improved focus and they were better at reading.

I excitedly told Garret about this. He's like- um... but I don't have ADD. Sigh. NOT RELEVANT. Tap hand. Keep time. Improve focus. Read better. Gosh, try to keep up here.

I found links to free metronome sounds online. I tried to get him to tap along.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It was one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. If it were not for the tragic aspect of him being my husband, I would have peed myself laughing.

I mean, I knew he was not, like, a good dancer. But, how hard is it to tap your hand/foot/finger to a beat??? For Garret, it is apparently rocket science. He was not even CLOSE. Not only was he off of the beat, he was tapping way more or way less times than it.

Metronome: Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...

Garret: TapTap.Tap....TaTaTAP..Tap.TapTap...Tap.....Tap..Tap.....Tap

I am not exagerating. He was...spastic. AND, oblivious to the fact that he was not even close. It was very disturbing. I was disturbed.

I don't know what it means exactly. But I think his mental difficulties are definately reflected by his inablity to keep time to a simple beat. I am hoping he will continue to try and improve this. He thinks it is stupid and has nothing to do with reading. I have tried to explain to him before how so much of reading is rhthym.

The cat sat on the bat and wore a hat and he was fat and caught a...

You just KNOW the next word is not going to be "paprika." It will probably be "rat." He doesn't get that. He's all-- it might be paprika. NO! NO IT WILL NOT EVER BE PAPRIKA!!!

Reading is part music and rhythm. Just like you can sometimes guess the next note in a song, you can guess the next word in a sentence. I don't really care if he doesn't get that right now, I just want him to work on tapping to a beat. It certainly can't HURT.

11/04/09.

2009-11-04T10:00:00.002-07:00

Still not in a writing mood.
But, hi, and I'm still alive.

I see my last post was about making a goal and accomplishing it-- writing an article. Well, I failed miserably at that. Outlined an article but never finished it. However, I did finally finish my Bachelor's Degree... so, that's pretty good.

I'm very interested in acupressure at the moment. So, been thinking about that a lot, experimenting on myself and Garret.

Ok. Goal #1...

2009-08-16T23:35:00.002-06:00

Ok.
So.
My mom sent me a link about a month ago.
For a magazine contest thingy.

1500 words. Deadline is Sept 6th.

I haven't written anything yet, because no idea has really STRUCK me.

But, my mom pointed out that just doing it would be a good thing. An accomplishment, even if it's just 1500 words of crap.

So i am going to try to work on that.
Come up with 1500 words of SOMETHING at least, within the next 2 weeks.

SEER (Chris. excerpts pages 3 and 5 and 6)

2009-08-16T23:10:00.003-06:00

Today you realize you don’t know any other ME’s… besides ME and FREEDMAN. And Freedman will not abandon you—so what or who do you have to lose by radically changing how you act??

Today a boy got on your bus and he is tall and cute and the-end of the story.

Today he is Chris Palmer, and he is still tall and cute, but he has made fun of you once or twice and hurt your feelings.

Today is more of the same, and so, since Chris Palmer, ALREADY dislikes you; you decide to see if you can, in fact, change the world.

And you decide to start your experiment with this very small piece of the world that has high school and Chris Palmer in it. And you decide that perhaps, the first trick might be to let the craziness in your head peek out MORE, because that is where all the fun is hiding. And so, you decide to think like a stalker and figure out where Chris is all day, because right now you have only noticed that one hour of his day.

Today you almost quit because you feel stupid… but you are very bored… so… you tell yourself sternly that it is perfectly ok to be a stalker, because you are trying an experiment and it is scientific, and anyway, you are not a BAD-stalker because you are not going to kill anyone or watch them undress—you are just stalking during SCHOOL HOURS ONLY, and you are keeping yourself entertained and out of trouble and stuff, and that is very important.

And plus, it is very FUN.

*************

Today is thinking. And it is a very long day.

And you realize that you DO really just want Chris to be happy. And you mean it. And you THOUGHT that you wanted that all along… but maybe you were looking at him too much like a lab rat or a guinea pig.

In the beginning, you weren’t trying to HURT him, but you did not have his best interests at the top of the list, just… sort of near the top. But all that stalking really paid off, because it made you SEE Chris. And even though you do not SEE all of him clear, you DO know a little bit, because you are SURE you SEE the ME-part of Chris peeking out from inside. And now the plan has changed.

Yesterday, you wondered if you could change the world. And you asked God for some help about Chris.

You explained that you did not want God to make him fall in love with you or do anything drastic so you could suck him into an evil plan or anything BAD.

You would just rather try the experiment out on a cute boy instead of an ugly girl—because it is easier to stay focused on a cute boy.

But you will try to remember the ugly girls next. And, they will be happier and less depressed about being ugly if you can introduce them to interesting guys, so it really would be better to try and get Chris on your side first.

But also, you are not OPPOSED to kissing or whatever if it should come up in the future. Just that, it is not your primary goal.

And sad, misfit people are too easy to befriend, so you would really like a good challenge, such as a cute, tall, popular guy. Because outcasts and losers are too close to being ME’s already. So, can’t God help you think of a plan, and can’t he help Chris to notice you a LITTLE?

But now the plan has changed. Because you can see him in there. And now you just want him to GET OUT!

Because you see him enough to love him a little bit, enough to care about him more than your game.

So, today, you pray FOR REAL. Just for Chris and not you at all, and you just ask God to make sure he is happy and becomes himself. And you ask if you can help. And you feel very calm. And you know for sure that something will happen tomorrow, and you tell God to help you say something good and not stupid.

And the next morning, you go to school, and suddenly, in 2nd hour Debate class, you feel like, kNOW it is TIME and you need to GO NOW! And you jump up and ask for a hall pass, and as soon as the door shuts behind you, you start running as fast as you can.

************

Today you ask to have a hall pass, but you don’t want to lie, so you say you are going to the bathroom, and so you tag the bathroom as you run by, so that it is not really a lie, but you only have a few minutes so you can’t actually waste time by going all the way inside.

And today is running, running, running.

And today is reaching the second floor of the school, and jumping up onto a bench.

And today is being thankful for the floor being completely empty, and also for the 30 seconds you get to catch your breath and compose yourself before a door opens and Chris walks in on you.

And you almost scream with delight, but you SMASH that joy down, just a little, because you need to be able to speak—and so it was very good that you saw him first and turned your face away, but kept your arms up like a plane, and now he has come to a dead stop in front of your bench.

And you DROP your expression, and TRY to appear calm-wide-eyed-thoughtful-dreamy-spacey- or whatever. And the 1st thing Chris says is, “How long have you been up there?”

And you HAVE to grin, you just can’t help it, because that is SO funny and you want to put your hands on your hips and yell, “AT LEAST TWO WHOLE WEEKS AND WHAT THE HECK TOOK YOU SO LONG TO PAY ATTENTION!!??”

… but of course you can not scream that in his face because that would be very counter-productive, and just scare him away, but you can’t contain the GRIN, and so you TRY to pay attention to the question and not laugh.

And you SEE that he just means how long have you been standing up on the bench, because you were walking in a circle on the bench with your arms open wide.

And you SEE that if you answer, “20 seconds,” he could get scared that you might have just run all the way there to meet him, which you DID, but if you even calmly say you were waiting for him, that could give much too flirty of an impression as well… and you realize you better say something quick or he will lose interest.

So you simply shrug. And smile. And say, “Because I am a plane.”

And Chris asks another question. And the question is, “Why are you a plane?”

And you SEE that THAT is the EXACT right next-question to KNOW!! Because you KNOW instantly and without thought to respond with, “Because I can fly!”

Chris: “Um… why can you fly?”

Amanda: I was born that way. I don’t know. But I KNOW I can fly. And planes fly. So, since I can fly, I must be a plane.

Chris: But why a plane?

Amanda(keeps walking in a circle): That’s just what I AM… I am a PLANE… I FLY… SEE?

Chris: But why are you a plane right here?
Amanda: I just am. Why, what’s wrong with here?

Chris: Well, why aren’t you in the AIR or something, if you are a PLANE?

Amanda: You mean, like, why don’t I take a bunch of people to Arizona or ship bananas or something?

Chris: Um… yeah. Why don’t you do that?

Amanda: Well. Because I am talking to you right now… I can ship bananas later.

Chris: But why do you want to talk to me right now?

Amanda: Well… don’t you consider yourself more interesting than a banana? I don’t know. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you are just a banana and I am just crazy. But even though I am crazy, I am also a plane, and so I feel confident that you must have a lot of potential as well, and so you must be higher up on the food chain too… because you DID start talking to ME, so there’s hope for you... so… do you want to be a plane too?

Chris: (laughs) Wow… that kind of made sense in a crazy way… sure. I guess so.

Amanda: Then just step up here, onto the bench, or onto that bench there, and you can be a plane too!

Chris: Um… I can’t . I’ve been out of class too long already. HEY! Why aren’t YOU in class??

Amanda(shrugs): I am being a plane instead.

Chris: Oh. Well, ok. Goodbye.

Amanda: Goodbye! (and you do let this smile have a little bit of flirt in it)

And Chris has made an excellent point about the time, and you DO need to be back in class. But the worry does not bother you yet because you are so excited about how well that conversation went, because WOW! That was a LOT of days packed into 5 minutes or however long it was…

And for RIGHT kNOW still, Chris is still the most important thing, and so you do not jump down and run back to class yet because you want to maintain the intrigue you have just built up, so you keep walking in a slow circle with your arms out, until you are SURE he is gone, and THEN you jump down and run as fast as you can back to class, and you HOPE he wonders how long you stayed up there after he left.

SEER (2nd Chris page)

2009-08-15T01:43:00.002-06:00

Today you learn that your “I-AM-SO-HAPPY-JOY-PEEK!” smile, is not clear to other people and that, instead, they see something more like, “THAT-SCARY-NOT-ME-CRAZY-STUPID-FEAR-BAD-KNOW-NOT-YET-KILL-HATE-GIRL-IS-STARING-AT-US!”

…or whatever. But today you decide you just need to go with crazy.

Today you walk by Chris Palmer at lunch with your arms outstretched wide like your smile…

And today… still nothing.

But, TODAY, he notices and says, “Why are you doing that?”

And you face him directly. And pause carefully before you answer. (So he will remember the smile part later.) And you split-grin-smile and you GUSH out your mouth, “I AM A PLANE!”

And he just shakes his head and walks away.

...let your tongue drip down my neck.
razor taste buds chopping at my skin.
tiny chewing chainsaws.
i am smeared across your chin,
swallow pieces of me slowly.
thousands of tiny black fists.
rising up in a wave of thick-tar darkness.
crashing screaming knuckles against my skull.
help me.
wet indifference.
bubbles up from my center.
fighting to spill out my eyes.
i cage it violently with a smile.
too thick to leak between my teeth.
help me rip me tear me break me rape me cut me kick me hit me hate me.
slice me open, i don't care.
just touch me somehow.
i want to suck your insides out.
i want to put them in my mouth.

SEER (J****)

2009-08-15T01:27:00.002-06:00

You meet this girl at church. And her name is J*** or J*** or J**** ****. She changes the spelling a lot while you know her. She says that her Dad loved the ***** and named her after the song, **** and spelled it like that first, but after he drugged and kidnapped her and smuggled her out of Columbia and into America, she started spelling it J***.

Your mother hates her. And she thinks she has a lot of very good reasons, such as, J*** was a pig and ate her grandmother out of house and home, and also that she could speak PERFECT Spanish, and was always lying that she had forgotten it and could only speak English now, just so the government wouldn’t send her back to Columbia, and her psych tests from the foster care system confirmed that she was a sociopath and has zero conscience, and she had had at least one abortion and was probably a prostitute or a drug dealer, or both, since she had been spotted in some questionable circumstances in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.

And all of this makes you hate your mother and want to kill yourself. Because if J*** is BAD, then so are you because you KNOW you are exactly the SAME inside, except for that J*** has more friends, and better social skills.

And your life goes into a huge tail-spin when your parents become her foster parents for awhile. Because they DO go through a lot to try and help her, and she would not have ever gotten a GED or a drivers license without their help, or someone like them, because she was illegal and didn’t have any papers or any way to do stuff like that on her own. But they are just too dissimilar to ever see or understand her, and so they never love her. And your mother says it is blasphemous and sacrilegious for a liar like her to stand up in church and talk about her testimony of the church, because that is just not possible to talk about God and faith and love, and then turn around and do so much EVIL.

And… either your mother is right, and YOU are evil too. Or, God maybe does loves you, and your mother is evil… And NEITHER of these explanations are very satisfactory, and you go dark for a very long time. And you lose faith in God AND your mother AND yourself. Because you can not make sense of it all.

All you see is that you love J*** more than any other girl in the world ever.

She has dark inside her like you do, but she has more actual REASONS for her dark, because your Dad never broke a broomstick over your head, or beat up your brother in front of you and told you it was your fault he was going to hit him because you were too hurt already to get hit anymore.

And you feel guilty, because your life has been very sheltered in comparison, and so, you should not be dark at ALL, but you ARE, and in fact, you are DARKER. And you love J*** because you can maybe SEE those broken pieces sticking out of her, but still, she is NOT dead yet, and the REAL J*** could still be in there sometimes, and the REAL J*** is very fun and happy and beautiful.

But your mom thinks that is just the master manipulator coming out, like how Ted Bundy the serial-killer was so charming, and got women to get into his car voluntarily. And she thinks there is no real J***, and you are just gullible and being taken in by a faker and a good con-artist.

But when you see some thin, white scars on her thigh one day at church, you know that she did that to herself.

And you know why.

And it was the same feeling that made you rip a handful of your hair out in second grade, or hit yourself in the head, or bite the inside of your cheek. But you have never been able to scar your body like her, because you learned that 1st time back in 2nd grade, that you got yelled at for hurting yourself, so you know you have to do it in ways that don’t show.

But your mother prefers to be in denial about her children, or at least you. And so she will NOT-SEE that you are dying like a snail.

And instead, she blames it on every friend you make, which makes it very difficult to make and keep friends. And when you are alone and there are no friends, she blames it on the music you listen to as you lie in your room and cry. And she blames Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Hole and every single thing you like for your depression. And so, when you start to like Rancid, and Bad Religion and punk music… you act very fake HAPPY to mess up her arguments.

And also, it is very lucky that most punk music you like speaks so fast that it is unintelligible to her. And that it also sounds very upbeat, even when it is screaming about how cops are pigs and corporations are raping the world. And for a very long time you HATE your mother with an intensity strong enough to motivate 10,000 serial-killers.

SEER (1st F-word page)

2009-08-15T01:13:00.002-06:00

And when you start school, you don’t know what this “F-word” is that everyone keeps talking about, but you think you should find out because it sounds very important, and like you might be baby-dumb because you don’t know.

And later, when you try to be silly in an attempt to get more information, like, when someone brings up the F-word, you are dumb ON PURPOSE and in an exaggerated manner, and you roll your eyes and say, “Oh, yeah. That crazy F-word... ha ha! What’s the matter with you guys? Are you dumb babies? You don’t like Fun? What’s wrong with Fun? Freedom? Fantastical-Fruit-loops? Fabulous-Frogs? Frog eating Fruit-loops, and Fruit-loop eating Frogs? Gosh, you guys are boring.”

And this does work to some degree, because they jeer at you and say stuff like, “NOOOO! YOU are a dumb baby shit head because that is not F-words!”

And you interrupt, and point out that, um, YEAH, they ARE because they all start with F, duh, making them EXACTLY F-words. So, what, their F-word has the F in the middle? Like beFore? aFter? Yeah, THAT sounds sensible.

And they say, “F**K stupid girl, F**K is the F-word, girl! What kinda mamma you got anyway? Probably some stupid blond bitch that make you a lunch every day, shoot.”

But that is not actually very helpful, because you still do not know what this f**k-word is and what it MEANS, because you have never heard it before you start school. And so you just inform these hooligans that, NO your Mommy is NOT blond, she has dark BROWN hair, but YES she DOES make your lunch every day, because school lunch is gross.

And you have no idea how a WORD can be BAD... unless it is like a spell or magic or something and can actually kill someone with it’s power...

You know about RUDE, and how please and thanks are better than a grunt noise, even though they take more time, but RUDE is just not-polite, and BAD is wrong and evil and not-RIGHT.

And when you are maybe about 6, you are extremely traumatized by your mother and the F-word. You are in Arizona visiting your Grandparents, and there is a girl there for you to play with and she thinks she hears you say f**k, but you don’t, you say some other word, but she thinks you say f**k instead, and so that is how the subject comes up.

And so you ask her about this F-word and hope she will give you a straight answer, and she just tells you that her Mom will spank her butt if she says that word, but that’s all she will tell you, so you guess that she doesn’t know what it means either, and you are a little stunned by this because YOUR MOM has never told you to not say it, and so, you wonder why you don’t just say it all the time, and why your Mommy has never explained about f**k before...

And Grandma comes in and you ask HER about it, and she gives you a very excellent answer, because she is a lunch-lady in Arizona and makes food in the cafeteria, and she knows all about f**k, because the school kids in Arizona say it too!

And she explains that it is just RUDE! Just rude and not-nice! And a not-polite thing to say, so you feel hugely relieved and think that’s all there is to f**k, and so now you want to play some more Monopoly-board-game with your friend.

But Mommy disillusions you very quick, and storms in that room and furious yell-whispers at you! And says she is SO disappointed in you! And HOW could you be so BAD and EMBARRASS her like that in front of GRANDMA!!!

And you are very confused and the mommy does not speak to you for days and gives you the cold shoulder and the silent treatment because you are stupid and bad and evil and apparently there is more to F**K than you realized, and it must have magical evil powers after all.

And the entirety of the mommy’s explanation is this: “Because! Because! Just Because Amanda!! Boys think that they can take all the clothes off of girls that use that word!!”

Which confuses you even more, because, really mom! What kind of a f**king crazy answer is that? That is no f**king reason at all! And, in fact, is one of the f**king stupidest f**king things you will ever f**king hear, ever in your whole f**ked up f**k of a life.

And that is a Fact.

And it is not until HIGH SCHOOL, when you learn more about the Anglo-Saxons and linguistics and the origin of swear words and ideas about honor in your HISTORY classes, and also the idea of, like, ok, like, words, like, as like, FILLER words, like, you know? And how f**k is perfectly fine to say in England, but bloody is very bad, but you can say bloody all bloody day in bloody America and no one gives a f**k, but do NOT say it in England, like, ok?

But high school is still very far away when the f-word first happens to you, so it is very good luck that you find the book Catcher in the Rye when you are in 2nd or 3rd grade... because the main character in that book, Holden Caulfield, helps you figure LIFE out a lot.

For example, he swears LOTS, but also gets mad one time when he sees a “F**k You” written on a wall, and he erases it, because he doesn’t want his little sister to see it, and then he gets very depressed and mad, because there are SO MANY F**k-you’s in the world, he can not rub them all out, and he can not protect her.

And you are pretty young, like his sister, and he is very old, because he is a teenager already and all grown-up, and you feel sad for Holden because he is such a good guy, even though he swears a lot and even though he pays to have sex with a prostitute, but then chickens out and gets beat up by her pimp instead, but STILL he is so nice and you wish you could hug him and tell him thanks for erasing that ONE f**k-you, and even though f**k caught up to you anyway, you are glad he made the effort about that other one.

aug. 13, 2009

2009-08-13T23:18:00.002-06:00

i don't know i don't know i don't know.

....if your bored, then you're boring... the agony and the irony, are killing me well...

alone. is good. it's calmer. less to be angry about.

but, more to be sad.

garret has been gone 4 days? 5? something like that. so, no human contact. (except via computer, but that is not the same and does not count.)

time is all blurry-slurry, the way it goes when there are no reference points to anchor it down.

i have no dreams.

if i possessed more hope or delusion, i'd be a happier person.

i think i WANT to be happier... everyone wants to be happy, right?

(i mean, yeah, ok, i continue to hang around in unhappiness/mediocrity, so psychologically i could be clinging to that on purpose for some stupid reason.

but. as safe or as justifying or as whatever, as plodding misery may be, i'm sure at least part of my brain is bright enough to desire the party line.)

ok. so. happiness = yay, good.

happy people, have goals and dreams.

i don't have a lot of important goals, because, when i make goals, i usually fail, and then i feel even worse.

i don't have any dreams, because i'm not delusional enough. a dream has to have at least a fractional chance of coming true for it to be satisfying to think about.

like, it's no good wishing to win the lottery or that a magical door will suddenly appear in my closet and take me to Narnia. i might have some passing thoughts about that kind of thing- gee, winning a ton of money would be awesome... but, the thought is not going to sustain me.

i used to dream about pretty run of the mill stuff. find soul mate, do awesome stuff together, he'd be smart and successful at something, so would i, have a kid or two, etc.

ok, so that dream is gone. get over it and quit whining, right? except, i don't know how exactly to move forward... i don't know how to get out of the rut that is my life.

i suppose this circles me back to trying to think of a goal to work on...

hmmm. well, i like the idea of writing, but i don't so much write as just talk about myself.

"Writers, write." and i, don't (much).

like, my SEER stuff is something that i have actually written some of, and not just a half-formed idea for something i could write... (i am full of pieces of ideas but no accomplishments.) but like i said, it's basically just an autobiography, not the next teen fiction bestseller.

i suck. i can't even think up any goals, let alone accomplish them. bleh.

Dear (insert name here),

2009-07-29T05:56:00.002-06:00

this is me. talking at you.

ok go, ok go, ready go.

Lisa-
hi lisa from ice-road truckers.

i like you.

i usually don't like tiny people on principle, since i am tall and they bug me like ants.

but you show up gross-old-men-truckers, and that is funny.

and when that chain or whatever broke, and almost hit you in the face and killed you, you laughed, which was kind of awesome.

i like that you are always positive. and i like to watch you, like you are some strange bug creature, because i find it amazing that anyone can be that cheery in the face of both COLD and DRIVING.

Eol-
since you are avoiding me, i might as well say my piece here.

i can tolerate all kinds of ugliness in people. but don't lie to me, BS me, insult my intelligence...

if you are covered in blood, and you tell me you chopped some people up, and you liked it, and you rolled around in their blood and giggled-- i can swallow that.

i can stomach it a LOT easier than a blood-covered-eol giving me a sob story about how he tripped and accidentally gutted someone, and is full of righteous (and affected) indignation that now his knife is dirty...

when i told you that i think you are a dishonest person, that was not some gauntlet thrown down in challenge. that was me saying- i don't care, but don't try to twist your silly realities onto ME. i am not some dumb-as-a-post-Gigi. you can smile encouragingly all you want, and tell me that poo is pudding, but i'm not going to take a bite.

tran-
you are another tiny-person-exception.

yay, cake, air-pat.

i don't really have any thoughts for you atm, because you are one of the few people i actually talk to outside of my head. but, i didn't want you to feel left out.

amy-
i never email you anymore.

it's hard, i don't know what to say or ask.

but i wonder about you and Wolf, and what you are doing, and if you really are happy like it says on facebook. i have nothing new to say, but you are still in my thoughts.

Ick-
LICK!

i miss you.

i hope you are somewhere warm that possesses an adequate number of spoons.

hug, tackle, snug, pounce.

i wanted to take a pic to send you, of a plant in the yard, but garret's camera phone is out of town (with garret).

can you guess?

it's a thistle. quite a monstrous, prickly thing, with little purple flowers.

i am glad you have discovered the pros of warm weather and shorts. i also like to sit in cars that are too hot. there is thrum there.

Krex-
your blog has many tasty words.

at first i thought you were a GENIUS for making up Etsy, as it is the best word ever, (but then i saw it was not your site, just a marketplace.)

still, even though you did not make up Etsy and Racktacular, you have accumulated these delicious things, so, yay.

Garret-
sigh.

i hate you.

because i cannot write anything for you, to you, and i cannot show off for you on a verbal, intellectual level.

You can't appreciate me in this medium.

i hate because we cannot connect or bond through words, and words, books, even song lyrics- that is where all my emotions connect, that is a big part of who i am, and you are missing it.

Carrie-
quit telling me disgusting things.

quit telling me sad things.

quit telling me half-baked ideas, like that i could become a size 2 if i pumped breast milk.

hush and go feed your starving baby.

Jess-
you are one of the stupidest people on the planet.

it will be a TRAVESTY if you become a psychologist, you will ruin so many lives.

for the sake of humanity, please just become a serial killer.

you are a two-faced b**** with no compassion.

i get ill when you speak, you embody everything that is wrong with the world, everything that is wrong with society, everything that is wrong with the mental health system.

please don't pursue psychology, please get hit by a truck.

Becky-
it is weird you have 4 kids and a business.

it makes me feel out of place in my own life... to have known you when we were more like equals, and now to feel that i am still like a child, someone that has not grown up with everyone else.

i am glad you are happy and successful, but jealous too.

UPS man-
i really, really, really hope you bring my new INDO board today.

i waited and waited impatiently yesterday. PLEASE come today. i don't want to wait anymore.

PLEASE!!!!

Dreams about suitcases

2009-07-25T05:54:00.003-06:00

last night (in my dream) there was a house i didn't know, and kizzy, the dog, had gotten out, so i went inside to get the house keys, and then there was an autistic boy i didn't know, and then some old lady showed up and the boy brought a couple of her suitcases up the stairs, and then i carried another couple of her suitcases up the stairs and then she asked me which room i wanted. because there were two rooms with the sheets stripped off of the beds but not made up again yet, like company was expected but had arrived early.

the night before, i dreamed about my own suitcases. my green backpack, my pink luggage, my old navy suitcase that garret now uses. oh, and a generic black duffle bag i don't own. we were trying to fit them all in the trunk of someones car (i think into my parents car in florida, because i think my dad or someone was saying they would not fit, but i got them to fit just fine and there was even room left over in the trunk.)

a dictionary page, of sorts. because, i do so love the dictionary.

2009-06-25T14:19:00.003-06:00

things i often say and what they mean...

there are no cats in america: 1. homesickness, often a juxtaposition of a specific hatred in utah against the way it is better in florida. 2. depression, sadness for the way things are, longing to find that grass that is greener. 3. happy anticipation

for example, if you are coughing and can't breathe, and thinking that the air is hideous and dry and full of pollution, and that you can take lovely deep breaths in florida... well, instead of explaining all that, you might just gesture angrily and huff that there are no cats in america.

or, if you get in an argument and then retreat into yourself, you might notice you are humming that line of song quietly as you stare at nothing.

or, if you are about to go do something fun, or going home for a visit, you might find yourself dancing around, gleefully yelling that there are no cats in america.

i am the dischord in the thrum/i am the thrum in the discord: 1. i feel disconnected, 2. i feel connected when i shouldn't

sometimes i think this when i don't know why i'm angry or upset, or my own actions are confusing me. sometimes i feel arrogant and condescending and mean it like i am too alien for the other person to grasp or they are too small.

a thrum is a droning, monotonous hum. to you, THE Thrum is the sum of all thrum. of life, the universe and everything. the noise and the pulse of it all.

you mean discord as the usual definition, but you also like the idea of a dischord. you think the misspelling puts a discord inside the word as well as emphasizing the definition of a dissonant sound. and it makes you think of string theory, and a musical chord being played wrong.

when you feel like you are a wrong note in the universe, you are a dischord in the thrum.

when you feel either happy, numb, or calm amidst it all, OR if you feel comfort from your rage, OR if violence makes you feel calm, that is all- i am the thrum in the discord.

those 2 took longer to write than i thought... more some other day...

Lake Powell

2009-06-22T01:49:00.001-06:00

i am going to Lake Powell for a couple days.

i will be VERY mad if i do not catch any fish.

i want me some fish.

Bromocriptine (generic Parlodel)

2009-06-12T18:25:00.002-06:00

i took one teeny little 2.5mg pill last night, and i still feel awful.

shortly after taking:
felt mentally fine, even good. super super short but intense waves of headache pain. like, fine for a few minutes then excruciating pain for 5-10 seconds. mild nausea. dry mouth. then, bad taste in mouth. hands and feet became ice-cold. shivering, teeth chattering. twitching of muscles throughout body. painful burning sensation in legs. and almost like my legs were being chewed by squirmy rats. fire-rats.

today:
no headache or nausea. extreme feeling of weakness. i tried to pick up a SPOON and did a double take, because i was so surprised at how HEAVY it was. odd to feel mentally energized, but physically slow and weak. hands and feet still ice-cold. legs now feel mildly tingling, almost like when a body part is just starting to "fall asleep" but not to the painful all-the-way-asleep yet. legs also been cramping/going numb.

least tolerable in order of suckiness:
#1. the cold
#2. weakness
#3. leg burning/numb

happy things

2009-05-24T17:48:00.017-06:00

Garret and I went for a long walk today.
It was nice and humid outside, it rained last night.
We saw 5 baby foxes!
They were brave, came very close to us.

Then Garret made fun of me because I got scared of cows.
They had gotten out of their fence, and onto the paved trail we were on.
Hey! One was a BULL, ok?
With HORNS.
Hey, it COULD have gored me to death.
No need to laugh.
It could have.

Also, Garret decided to cut down some tree branches.
While up on the vantage point of the roof, he discovered that there is a dead deer in the backyard.
We thought the smell was from a dead cat or something.
But, nope. A deer.

I will spare you the sight of the picture.
Instead, here are some pics of my garden:

Peas. (Yes they recovered from the cats eating them.)

Collards.

Radishes are the only things that can be eaten yet. They are SO HOT.

SEER (ponies)

2009-05-22T19:18:00.001-06:00

The 1st journal, the one Mommy started for you, you write in sometimes, when you are 6-8 years old. Some pages you tear up later, like that one about the worst day of your life, and also ones that sound really silly and dumb, like about what boys you are in love with. But some of the pages are left, and here is a copy of one of the last entries...

So, as you can see, you were very into ponies.

So, 5-8yr old Amanda Joy... I want you to know that I am so sorry if there is no pony in your story...

Someday, there will be ponies.

But, if today is not then yet...

I want you to know, that I feel VERY sorry that you have no pony.

I also feel VERY, VERY sorry, if you also at this point, are starting to feel panic because there are also no ponies even close.

And, this time when your parents were telling you to stop asking for a pony, you realized they might not just mean NO, you can’t have a pony today, but NO, you can not ever, ever have a pony ever, until you have earned a million dollars and can go buy yourself a pony with your own money.

And you feel very afraid that they might really mean it.

DON’T WORRY! I know there will be a pony before this story is over… but I also know that it is very hard to feel hopeful about that right now when all the joy has just been crushed out of you.

Which, just proves how much you could really use that pony right now.

I know that you have been trying to get that pony for awhile, and if you have read a very excellent poem by a Mr. Shel Silverstein, about why parents need to give their children ponies, you may be feeling pretty betrayed by Mr. Silverstein right now.

(poem excerpt)

"Be quiet and stop nagging--You're not getting that pony."

And Abigail began to cry and said,"If I don't get that pony I'll die."

And her parents said, "You won't die.No child ever died yet from not getting a pony."

And Abigail felt so bad

That when she got home she went to bed,

And she couldn't eat,

And she couldn't sleep,

And her heart was broken,

And she DID die--

All because of a pony

That her parents wouldn't buy.

Because, you really thought he understood you, but if your parents will not listen to the poem, it does not matter that the poem perfectly explains your feelings about how you know you might die if you do not get a pony.

Because, your parents do not seem to care if you die, as long as you stop being melodramatic and learn that you can’t always have what you want when you want it.

Which, you already understand perfectly, because THAT just says you can’t have a pony now, but in a different way, and you ARE ALREADY AWARE OF THAT PART!

You did not just suddenly realize the pony was missing from this picture.

You would have no reason to question a pony that you had always had. And, if you already HAD the PONY, and would have no reason to OBTAIN said pony, and you already know the part about how you don’t have a pony right now.

And you are trying to learn HOW to get a pony TODAY and not in a million or 17 years because that is really far away, and you already know that waiting makes the reward better, but that is still a very long time to wait, and can’t you just have a very small pony that does not eat much, but could still poop a lot, and you could sell the poop because people put animal poop on their yards, but not dogs, just certain kinds, like hopefully ponies, but you are not sure because no one will answer that part for you right now!

And, so maybe the poem did not mean to be helpful either, because it certainly did not help you, so that was kind of mean, if the poem was just making fun of you, and maybe this Silverstein guy is really not on your side at all, and he was trying to gain your trust just so he could try to trick you into thinking that the pony is not really important because, well, I‘m not really sure why he would do that yet...

But, it seems like if he really wanted to help you, it would have been much more useful if he could have told you how to get your parents to listen to you better, because they could really use some work on that, because they keep saying things that have nothing to do with the subject, and you would really like to know how to help them with that, because you want the other parents to like them, so it would be really useful if you knew how to teach them better, because you are concerned that they do not see basic things...

like, if you had a million dollars already, you would already be smart enough to figure out how to get that pony yourself.

but you have no million dollars, and trying to think of how to get a million dollars, is just the same kind of question as how to get a pony.

so that answer just goes around in a circle, and does not give you any helpful info on how to escape the circle. Also, it would be good if your parents would get that you cannot stop being melodramatic, because that means you are a faker, and you are not faking, you are serious, so why do they keep telling you to stop something that you are not doing in the first place?

and, maybe you need to stop for a minute and think about all this, because this no pony situation might be serious and you need to think what you can try next to get your parents to understand the importance of a pony, like if this is a time for sneaky-ness, you need to think more about that part, because you will have to make sure sneaky-ness is ok to try, and I think it is, because it’s manipulative that you have to watch out for, which also means you are trying to get what you want out of people, but that way is the bad kind, but sneaky is ok sometimes if you are doing it for the person’s own good, and it is definitely in the best interest of your parents to hurry up and get you a pony because that would make you happy and they say they just want you to be happy and go away now, and that would accomplish both of those things exactly, and then everyone would be happy, even the pony.

Sweetie, i know EXACTLY how you feel.

and, 25yr old Amanda Joy? if you are still feeling sad and pony-less, i promise someday we are going to find that pony.

in fact, your pony is just around the corner!

(her name is Sagira and she turned out to be a Sphynx.)

SEER (1st Chris page)

2009-05-22T19:01:00.000-06:00

And then this kid walks onto the bus.

And at the time, you are “the-crazy-girl” on the bus because you can’t control your facial expressions when you hold conversations in your head, so you are always frowning and laughing for no apparent reason because you are living inside your head, and not so much living on the outside.

And your bus driver is a very funny and loud black woman with extravagant fingernails and an extravagant weave of hair on her head. And some days, just looking at her is a shock like a slap.

And you kind of like her, even though she says, “GIRL… YOU CRAZY!! GIRL… YOU AREN’T GOING TO KILL ME ARE YOU? YOU CRAZY GIRL? HEY, YOU RETARDED OR SOMETHING?”

Or something along those lines almost every day, because she is pretty good natured about it, and so you just keep being a crazy retard and laugh when you notice her watching you in her overhead mirror.

And you tell her you aren’t going to kill her, so don’t worry, and you are just fine.

And she may be asks, “GIRL, YOU WANT ATTENTION OR SOMETHING? WHY YOU ACT SO CRAZY? YOU WANT PEOPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU?”

And you think you might have said “yes” or “probably” or “don’t you like attention?” in response.

And she was kind of stumped by that, and you were not friends, but you were not enemies either.

And after that is when Chris Palmer walks onto the bus. And I think it was 10th grade, but I don’t know if it was the first day or the 1st month or when exactly, just for sure that it was 10th grade.

And your head shuts-up with a snap.

And you watch him walk by and sit in the back with the kids that like rap music and are fond of throwing pennies at you.

He is not dressed the way you like boys to look, because you like skater or punk looking guys, and Chris looks very preppy with maybe a little gangster thrown in, which would explain why he wants to sit with the girls with huge-gold earrings and teeth.

He has on pants that are maybe beige or khaki, and his shirt is sort of plaid, and it buttons up the front and has a collar, and his hair is brown and plain- not spiky or long- just medium, and like he might want to put his baseball cap back on, but he can’t because they are not allowed on the bus.

And you just think sadly as he walks by, that it is such a shame that all the tall, cute guys on buses only want to hang out with the Black or Spanish girls. And only white-girls who are slutty or who grew up in a bad neighborhood are allowed in that circle, and NOT you because you are just a White-Girl, and you don’t even sell any hardcore drugs or do anything that might make you a useful Whigger. (Not that you wish to be a whigger, but you aren't qualified regardless.)

And you feel very annoyed by this and you also realize all the skater-punks you actually KNOW are very short and not very interesting.

The one very tall and smart and cute and black football player from Debate class that DID ask you out, has graduated now. And you could not date him last year because you were only 14 and your mother would have killed you.

But… back to Chris… even though you know he is out of your league, and out of your style, he is still the best looking guy on this stupid bus, so you pay attention to him… and he thinks the bus driver is very funny too… and in fact, he is able to charm her so much, that he gets away with wearing a hat most days… just him, and none of the other boys that try…

SEER page..i've lost track. (2nd grade/line-leader epiphany/old writing/desire to erase it all.)

2009-05-22T18:34:00.000-06:00

You write of lot of things in your life, but you do not keep most of them. As you get older, you think that the older writings are silly and stupid and babyish, and so you throw a lot of them away. In 6th and 7th grade, you write a lot of poems that rhyme, and have the same format, lots of couplets. But some of the scraps of notebook paper survived, and when you read your 6th grade self, it is crying the same cry as your 2nd grade self, and also as the 12th grade self, and the college one, and even after that too.

But in 6th grade, what you HEAR is that every kid thinks they are a great poet, and you suck just like all the rest of them, and stop being so melodramatic, and good poetry doesn’t even rhyme anymore anyway, and so… you listen, and you stop. But even if it WAS “tripe,” it was still YOUR tripe and YOUR truth and your life, and those other voices need to shut up.

And in 6th and 7th grade, the poems are titled WAR or FEAR, or another one-word title. Always one word for the title. (And at this time, when I am 28, I can not ever remember writing a single poem in my whole life that had a longer title, but I suppose it is possible.)

And your 7th grade voice writes these lines:

Rain
Small shrunken oceans slide down his cheek,
Restoring the yesterday’s linger and reek

Caked with mud, brittle and dry,
The eyelid recoils away from the eye

Fighting to stand in a world that knocks down,
They shove him into the gutter, in hopes that he’ll drown

They deny his existence, repulsed at the sight,
Quick! Blink away from this child of night.

…and

Nightmare
One drop of frozen happiness in a pool of rapid change,
Then whispered words of the unspeakable—all jumbled and deranged

The mottled darkness in the background declares it’s presence with strangled screams,
With teeth of icy terror, it shreds and tears apart your dreams

Drunken evil stumbles in, with it’s pocked and bloody face,
Raises innocence up to it’s lips and savors in the fleshy taste

Black rain robs imagination of it’s last gentle breath,
Sluiced down into the slimy muck, condemning it to death

Curved lightning dips and swirls in a pale-gray liquid sky,
Silenced by the roaring clouds, the voices cease to cry.

(You were in a Dean Koontz phase, and you stole all of his adjectives.)

And today, is a couple decades later.

And you cringe when you read those early poems, because you are still very hard on yourself, and can’t stand it when you feel silly and stupid. So you still feel a very strong urge to crumple up the paper, and ERASE! ERASE! ERASE!

Because why should you make allowances just because you were 12?

But today is not making allowances, so calm down, it is just about accepting your life, even all the parts that make you cringe to look at.

And today is trying to find the motivation to write another word, when you feel sulky in the knowledge that Amanda-in-ten-years is going to cringe at this....

And, too-day, is remembering that first day. when you had the can-never-escape-stupidness thought... and today is wondering how your life would be different if that thought had never infected your head to plague you...

And Today...

is that day. And you are in second grade.

And you are the line leader.

And you feel smug and prance-y about it. Because being the line-leader is a Very Big Deal. And you are basking in the fun of being in charge.

Your line is now passing by a line of Kindergartners going the opposite way, and you jut your chin in a most superior fashion, and think about what babies Kindergartners are. One girl has her dress caped around her head, and EVERYONE can see her underwear.

You are so much smarter than those babies.

And that is where the gloat chokes you, because next, you see some fifth graders.

And one looks at you.

And the look is very similar to the one you just gave the Kindergartners...

And you see that you look just as dumb to them!!!! And this is not a good thought. You realize that you will probably not be smart in 5th grade either, because there will just be more kids older than you. And you think about how you felt in pre-first, and you notice that at the time, you did not know you were stupid at all! In fact, you felt quite smart!

IN FACT, you felt almost EXACTLY the way you feel now.

And this thought is close to despair, because you realize that every moment you exist, no matter how good it is, it will at some point seem silly and pale in the future. And you will never ever EVER escape Kindergarten (even though you went to pre-first instead), you will still be stuck there forever, no matter how old and wrinkly you get, or even if you live to be a million, you will still be there, and every single moment of Present will always be weak and stupid, because the Past always is, and you can’t escape the Present becoming the Past.

You think that maybe if you could freeze time in a good moment, then you might be ok... but that does not seem likely, and the Future feels destined to shame you.

sound Affect

2009-05-15T12:12:00.000-06:00

sagira is licking her back. rasp, rasp, rasp.

sandpaper scraping a dish, sticky shoes on a dirty floor, it could be anything.

i'm trying to think what the sounds is like. but it could be anything, if you weren't looking. sounds only make sense when you look at them.

she's in the window. to be closer to the sun. and the tree is moving behind her, in some imaginary wind. imaginary, because there is no sound. all fake-y behind the glass.

this is why i like storms. they make things real. loud. punch. demand. attention!

i am unhappy.

everything is too fake and too thick and syrupy. like someone on the phone i am not listening to. huh? what did you say? a tinny voice in my ear... crinkle-up-crush-can-aluminium. aluminium, al-you-mini-um, not aluminum, not tin... an element all it's own, all alone, lone phone, disconnected...

aluminum. lumi like luminous, num like numb...

the echo of metal in my head.
shaking a sheet like sound-effect-thunder.

effect my affect, please?

i am cold.

so many things to do, so many things unfinished.

Gimp girl

2009-05-09T13:12:00.000-06:00

One of my legs is almost an inch shorter than the other. And I keep having pretty awful pain in my right side, which, is perhaps because my scoliosis is crushing something important in there.

So, i got my shoe raised to hopefully fix that.
(scoliosis is 27 degrees in bare feet, 19 degrees with shoes on.)

The Shoe-maker and Doctor both said the change would probably be very hard to get used to... but, so far, it feels quite nice and I don't want to take them off.

GIMP GIRL! It's sort of like a superhero name. :p

Sigh. I'd much rather be Symmetry Girl.

flustered

2009-04-22T15:15:00.000-06:00

butterfly wing in my spider-web mouth.
gnat-slap distracted.
tongue tipped in heartbeat.
tongue tipped in madness.
sword tipped in poison.

pin through a board,
a pinned specimen,
fluttering,
fluttering,
still.

Naming Garret

2009-04-19T22:20:00.000-06:00

yeah, yeah, i know he has a name already.

but i have always hated garret's name. first and last. both are ew.

(we got married, i kept my name.)

names are a Very Big Deal to amanda.

so, i think he needs a new name. because, then i might like him better.

but, i can't just randomly name him something i like from some other context. it doesn't work. (i tried.) he is just not a tyler or a jake or whatever.

so i don't know what to do. i've been quite upset about it. at loose ends. restless.

this week i am testing out: g'LEE!

g for Garret, LEE for his middle name. and Glee because he is usually cheery. also, it is good to shout. gLEE!

i have no better ideas.

mice, MRIs, and maddening sisters.

2009-03-27T19:14:00.000-06:00

i had to wake up early this morning.

apparently, i have some kind of lovely birth defect, and my uterus is abnormal. (Uterine septum or didelphys.) and since it's not formed right, the Dr ordered an MRI of my pelvis to make sure i have two kidneys.

so, i'm thinking- no biggie. i'm old hat at all this MRI stuff. i've had to get them for my teensy little brain tumor thingy.

but. this MRI place is a different one.

and Leif, the very gay receptionist, tells me that i cannot wear my street clothes. this is rather deflating, after i was oh-so-careful to wear a bra with no underwire and pants with no zipper or metal. and so, i am cranky about having to change into a stupid hospital gown, and annoyed i have to carry a big stupid locker key around. i'd rather just carry around my pants.

Leif also seems a bit too cheerful when he informs me that this test will require my vagina to be inserted with a copious amount of KY jelly. he just, you know, (insert inappropriate conspiratorial grin) wanted me to be, you know, aware of that. ew. i was not aware of that. ew. the amanda in my head says, "Thanks, precious!" in a sarcastic Leif-voice.

then some chick takes me back to the MRI machine, and i ask for earplugs. (because MRIs are VERY loud, and i can see a nice big jar of earplugs, and I WANT THEM.) but she says, we'll get to that...

and hands me a syringe.

ew.

so, she goes out of the room. which is appreciated. but i don't know why they always leave you alone SO LONG. every doctors office, they tell you to change clothes or whatever and then never come back. i am always dressed or undressed in less than 30 seconds.

so i sit there and wait, and look longingly at the earplugs.

also, i sneeze.

which is awkward.

do i tell someone i sneezed? well... i sure don't want to apply anymore KY anywhere... um... it's probably not THAT important. i don't think i'll mention i just sneezed it all out.

finally, some guy comes back in the room. and i say, "hi. can i have earplugs now?"

and he says that instead, i can wear earmuffs/earphones and listen to music, and what kind of music do i like?

this is the part where i should have been firm, and said, no! i want earplugs. but i was not prepared for his response. and it was new, un-thought about information.

so i end up strapped in with headphones. plus, this machine does not have the friendly mirror that lets you see out into the room. so it is a little more claustrophobicky, but that is still ok, because i like tight places. but what IS very annoying is the air blowing on my face. it is not blowing symmetrically. it's blowing more on my right eyeball. i close my eyes. but it doesn't really help.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA.

and the machine starts and i have to be still.

i am not excellent at staying still. i am twitchy. fidgety. bouncy. tick-y. when the music finally starts, i realize what a bad idea music is. i try to keep the music in my face and not in my feet. i can feel it in my blood, in my bones. and i worry that my kidneys are dancing around on my insides. i can't relax, because then i'd twitch, so i have to be vigilantly still. which is hard. and takes up a lot of thought-space.

plus, the music is too loud.

1 minute down, 48ish to go.

i said i don't mind being snugged in a tight space, but, i don't like to be snuggy when i'm HOT. and this MRI was very hot.

there was some camera thingy across my hips, and it started to really heat up. and it was hot from the other side too, on my back.

i started to get panicky because it made me feel like i was in an oven.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA. and linkin park is screaming in my ears. DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH. and my right eye is numb with cold. DI DI DI DI DIDIDIDI. and the rest of me is sweating. DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA. and my insides are baking. i'm trapped! i'm trapped! hot! hot! oven! i'm dying oh my gosh they're killing me they're killing me oh no i should NOT have sneezed out that stuff and now my guts are going to burn up and i'm going to die and SHUT UP linkin park, and my ears hurt my ears hurt i want to shake this off my head it's TOO LOUD and i DON'T LIKE HEADPHONES, and WHY DIDN'T I GRAB THOSE EARPLUGS IN THE PRETTY SHINY JAR AND WHAT THE HELL KIND OF NAME IS LEIF ANYWAY!!!!???? DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA!!!!!!!!!!!!

when i got home, i took a nap.

later in the afternoon, i had recuperated. i was dancing around in my room to you-tube videos. i've got a pocket got a pocket full of sunshine.... and then i went out into the living room.

there. was. a. MOUSE.

it was not moving. i thought it must be dead. two cats were in the room, looking unconcerned.

but. it was NOT dead.

i poked it.

and it slowly, oh-so-slowly, turned it's sad little head away from me.

this squicked me out and made me cry.

because i felt like a mean ogre, and the sad little mouse was feebly trying to escape me, but it was dying and could only move it's head and could not muster a proper attempt.

so i felt HORRIBLE. and i cried. and i wanted to put it outside, but i didn't want to touch it when it was still not-dead.

i ran and hid in my room. and cried. and then a friend was on Skype, and she was properly sympathetic and told me to go get a dustpan. i did not think of that. i was all stressing, and forgot that i could get the mouse outside without touching it.

so i went back in the living room. and the mouse was limping a bit, and the cats were batting it around. i scooped the mouse away. (but i patted them and told them they were good kitties.)

i put it on some grass in the sun.

it took a long time to die. i kept checking on it. it was really windy and cold outside. but i hope the grass was a little nicer than with a cat.

when garret finally got home, it was dead. and he scooped it up with the shovel and was going to dump it in the trash, but i said- no!! bury it!

so he did. and i watched through the window. and then he stood for a second over it... which was so cute it made me laugh. and he came back in and i was laughing, and i gasped- did you just pray over that mouse?

and he grinned like i was cute and he said yes, he thought i would like that. (and i did.)

so, that was good.

what was NOT good, was my maddening sister. i was on the phone with her. and i had just gotten over the mouse, and she decides to tell me a horrible story about a baby turtle that she KILLS and crushes with her car in her excitement to reach it.

WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT HORRIBLE STORY!!!???

she was all- i dunno. i was letting you know that i know how you feel.

!!!???

she coulda just said- i know how you feel.

i hung up the phone after that story and cried about the stupid turtle. the poor turtle that had it's eyes squished out of it's head. (yeah, she felt the need for details like that.)

sigh.

but now, garret is making brownies, so things are looking up.

3/22/09

2009-03-22T16:43:00.000-06:00

my brain feels unplugged.

we took the dogs in the truck and went to the place we walk around and Trikke. but it was cold, cold, windy. and i couldn't breathe. got all shaky and faint and sank to the ground. took shallow breaths and all that, and got back to the car and felt some better.

but feel... slow now.

like when i wake up but am not-waked up. zombie-walking-still-asleep-girl.

time stretched out funny. not in sync with reality. more space and time inside my head. making things both faster and slower at once.

i love to watch wind through window-glass. i am inside where it is still. outside is moving, and i am still.

the word wind is inside window. Ow. Ouch. wind. ow. Maybe because wind screams and howls like it is in pain sometimes, when it slams into the zoo-glass and can't come in.

Hi, wind.
Come in, come in.

it is too stuffy in here. dying, stagnant.

outside is moving, and i am still.

a conversation. the parallel thoughts. and the aftermath.

2009-03-09T14:23:00.000-06:00

The catalytic snippet of conversation:

S: I knew you were a surrealist like me :)
Me: no.
...
S: (paraphrasing) it seems like you've studied psychology and philosophy.
Me: i haven't read much philosophy, just a paragraph takes hours to think about, so i rarely make it through a book.
...
S: about philosophy- i know what you mean, but i like that about it, i've always liked to question everything

The internal mental commentary that paralleled at the time:

no. well, whether or not i am a surrealist is irrelevant, as what i said before you accused me of surrealism was not in fact where i was going with my thoughts. so, maybe yes. but no, not this second, and second, as in next not as in time, second, which i've now said in thirds, second, hehe, second, even if i was both a surrealist and if i was being surreal at this time, still and absolutely NO, because i would NOT, and for sure, ever be a surrealist, or an any kind of -ist, LIKE YOU, i would be entirely my own kind of -ist. no.

this is weird, it's almost a civil conversation, if still an impossible one, since she wants to make sentences fight and group all kinds of disagreeable contradictions together... philosophy? what does philosophy have to do with how i talk/type?

that would be me, not what i've read, and TRUST me, i can say that because i know the difference, i have read books so long that i have been completely drowned in the syntax and rhythm, and become an echo echo echo, dream and write and stuck-brain in someone else's words, i do this on purpose sometimes with good books, as it is pretty fascinating, but no, no i am in my own syntax today, and have NOT read anything i got stuck in lately, no philosophy for sure, so my knowledge, or lack thereof, of philosophy is irrelevant.

why does she keep putting things together that do not go? lie lie lies to throw around "I KNOW" and "I CAN TELL" kinds of statements, because she obviously does Not-know. so why doesn't she ask if she suspects, instead of phrasing things with presuppositions that are not true?

sigh. i do Not-know. so i will say- no, Not-why, and also, yes i like philosophy, in an attempt to keep up the conversation and the Civil... i haven't read much philosophy, just a paragraph takes hours to think about, so i rarely make it through a book...

MADMADMADMADMADMADMADMAD. frustratedANGERkick. resignation. sigh. surrender. i have no idea how what i said made her think that i do NOT like to question everything. i simply meant that i am only 29, and so i have not been alive long enough to have had time to think my way through BOOKS, only as far as a few pages. what does that observation have to do with LIKE? of course i like it.

talking to humans is too hard. again with the grouping. i hate being grouped. AND, if you are going to be presumptuous enough to group me in with you... which, would be a mistake... why would you assume- yes, i share that experience with you. we are in the same group. but, unlike you, i enjoy questioning things and like philosophy.

NO. wrong groups again. have backwards. you and i? NOT a group. and also, amanda DOES like to question things, so QUIT trying to outcast her from that group.

sigh. impasse impasse impasse...

The aftermath of thought:

But actually... (and much to my chagrin) after giving it some thought...

i don't like to question everything.

Kind of embarrassing after i got so mad. But I don't.

I like to think, ponder, understand, explore, pick apart to see the guts inside and how they work... but question?

I don't question, challenge, or disbelieve things especially. I am gullible. The streak of blunt honesty in my nature expects the same in return.

If you tell me the sky is blue, i might think- what makes it blue? is the blue i see the same as the blue garret sees? what if what my brain calls pink is what other people see in their head and call blue? where is the line that separates sky from space? what IS sky exactly? not just air, not space...

I think about, I play with, but i rarely doubt any of the random information i know.

So, she was quite right. I do not like to question or challenge or doubt things. I just like to play.

Mostly, this is because things make sense.

I Question humans the most. Because conversations, behavior... is Non-sense.

I know, and can explain, why I do and say everything i do and say.

95% of everything others do and say?

i Do not-Know.

03/05/09

2009-03-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

Garret is on his way home. He's been gone almost 2 weeks. (work.) He has the flu.

i should feel a little sorry for him.

But mostly i just feel a little anxious that he is going to get me sick. And annoyed that i can not pounce and play, and talk at him when he gets here. Because i will have to be nice and considerate, and i do not want to be nice. i have been all alone for a long time and i am BORED and i want to PLAY. And not just watch someone cough feebly and look ill.

i want him to fix the pilot light on the heater that has been off for four days that i cannot fix by myself. and i want him to do something about the dogs, because i feel horribly guilty when i give them food and i know they are bored and want to PLAY too.

sigh.

amanda grudgingly admits kinship with dogs. wolf-growl.

long-handled spoons.

2009-03-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

here is the song loop: Blink182 singing- All the. Small things.

Then... Good Charlotte? I think. Then Good Charlotte breaks in with- The Little Things! The Little Things!

Like an argument. The songs don't get any further than that. Just an interrupting tug-of-war.

All the. small things. The little things! The little things! All the. small things. The little things the little things!!!! All. the. small things. The little things!!! THE LITTLE THINGS!!! All. the. small. things!

Blink182-guy is clearly winning the argument. Other guy is freaking out with eyeliner running down his face. Insistently screaming THE LITTLE THINGS!! while Blink-guy smirks.

Hmm.

I am probably more often eyeliner-guy in an argument.

and/or i do not understand canadians.

(seems like everyone impossible lately is canadian, i'm 5 for 5.)

i first thought that in jest. because, well, even though i don't really know any canadians, i don't think of them as being from another country. they go in the same mental compartment as people from Maine or North Dakota. people who live up in lots of snow. (north is up.)

but... i think there might be something to it. Just this week a Canadian said, you just don't understand our humor up here. And he wasn't talking to me, as in I, so by you he seemed to mean Americans as a collective.

the whole grouping thing is a strange tangent in itself... very unobservant of me to ignore the designation Canadian until someone points out i am not in the group and cannot play. i mean, it's not like i ever thought of myself as canadian, but it never occurred to me it might be relevant in relating to people. culture is such a weird thing.

when i was in 6th grade, i had my head slammed into a wall while walking to class. the three 8th graders, who were black, informed me that- that's for being a white girl. of course i knew i wasn't black before that, but i'd never really noticed before.

i think at this point in my life, if i was to write a list describing who and what i am, i'd put the adjective white on the list. not because i feel any kinship with white people in particular, but just because i have had a few experiences where i was made to feel White. the same with Girl or Woman.

but they are defensive labels. more about what i am not than what i am.

in amanda-speak there is rarely a This, only a Not-That.

i don't think of myself as American so much as Not-French, Not-Colombian.

i don't identify with the group, i just accept the label for it's designation of- OUTCAST.

my exceptions to that are: i AM Aspie. i AM Floridian.

those two are a True instead of just a Not-false.

anyway. i have gotten sidetracked.

All the. Small things...

oh yes, that was what i started to write about. the small, little things. like long-handled spoons.

Here's the thing... cakes.

No, just kidding. Grr, can't stop thinking in other people's quotes. Here is the thing..

spoons.

It might be "bad" that I allow small things to upset me. (Such as pesky canadians.)

But, this minute, it is yay. Turn on a dime... Because little happy things are now.

I have been worried and icky with trap-sleep. When i go to bed angry, i wake up in fists and in a hypnopompic state. Brain all knotted. Last night, i was in a bad mood.

But then, a small little peek-wave gesture turned it all around. And, yay! Joey sent over some warm fuzzies and then- poof, i was deliriously happy. (Literal on the delirium.)

And so, i went off to happy dreamland and not the bad kind. Pretty, floaty hypnagogic stuff.

(Hypnagogic means hallucinating while trying to fall asleep, hypnopompic means hallucinating while getting up. I get lots of hypnopompic stuff, sometimes mixed in with sleep paralysis, and i can't always tell apart sleep and reality. Think- very vivid dreams involving lots of violence, rape, murder, etc.)

I did wake up thinking Sagira was dead, but luckily she was curled up on me, so I could tell that it was just a dream.

I made myself hot-chocolate. With a long-handled spoon. And spent a long time thinking of how much i love long-handled spoons and how happy they make me.

So. Today so far: yay Joey, yay Sagira, yay hot-chocolate, yay SPOONS!

Today's I AM list: i am cold. i am hungry. i am cat. i am bug. i am cute. i am strange. i am smile. i am dark. i am blue light. i am INDO? i am teeny. i am boxed. i am yay.

you should make an I AM list. they are super fun. most fun i think when you write whatever pops in head first to complete the sentences, and don't think too much.

kick-kiss to all who read this,
i am anda

dogs.

2009-02-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

my hands are cold.

my hat is old my teeth are gold i have a shoe i like to hold...

my hands are cold. drenched in blood and turpentine?

i hate dogs. we have dogs. well, garret has dogs. so i have dogs. i think they should go out and play. i want them to run and play. even though i don't like dogs. i feel bad they are in a little fenced in place. but they are big dogs. big-ish. big and strong enough to give me trouble. they don't listen to me. they run and play and won't come back. and i am not a good dog chaser-tackler. so no more play for them i guess. i feel bad about it but i don't know what else to do. Lick'rish snapped the links on her choke chain yesterday. So no more leash. and no more Run-with-no-leash, because they won't come back.

Entropia. Groups. Social navigating.

2009-02-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

First, I want to repeat my favorite explanation of humans/aversion therapy.

There are stupid people that think that if you have problems with getting anxious around humans, or freaking out in the grocery store, or whatever- the solution is to simply be around people MORE, go to the store MORE, and you will see that there is nothing to worry your silly head about and tra la la la, la la, vomit, eye-roll, punch.

This is how Psych-os might help a client with a fear of spiders or elevators. You make them look at a picture of a spider, sit in the same room with a spider, and so on until they are petting a furry tarantula, and letting it run all over them, and saying- hey! wow! spiders are great!

It works because the elevator does not crash, the spider does not rip their throat out.

Humans are not spiders, and if i go to the store MORE, or endure a longer conversation with a human... well, this does nothing except to rip my throat out ten times instead of seven. It just carves the wounds deeper, no chance to heal, the closer the serial-killer gets to the surface.

Not productive at all, as it just reinforces all my beliefs instead of proving them irrational.

I am still not over plasma-girl and my desire to stab her. So, clearly, humans in real time (and in the same room) are too big of a poisonous snakey-spider.

But Garret thinks talking to online people is good. Because he says if i just read books i am meaner, less coherent, and expect people to have more mind reading capabilities.

Online people are slowed-down-spiders. So sometimes they are not so bad. But I still have a lot of tantrums from the frustrations of them.

Like in this game I play, Entropia. There are a bunch of players grouped into a "society," of which I am a part. Some I like, some I feel neutral-ish toward, and a few I can't stand.

Now, I think most people feel dislike towards at least a few people... but this does not seem to significantly impair them. They just are like-- uh, yeah, I hate that dude, and they go on about their day.

I do not know this trick.

It seems like a useful trick.

For the most part, I think I have coped ok with the people I can't stand. But this is due to them either not being on that much or to us both mostly ignoring each other.

However, I then went and joined a team with seven other people. (All from the "society.") The 8 of us are in a hunting competition that lasts about 4 weeks. Week three just started and I am really having a hard time.

I shouldn't be, it's not like we have to talk all that much. But we still have to talk some. I can not completely ignore my teammates. So, I keep getting frustrated because I hate one of them. I shall nickname the hated one Spider.

So why do I hate her? At first, I thought I needed to untangle some deep WHY in the web of my hate. But it's not very deep or complicated.

The Aspie rants I have read about evil NTs... the kind of person they mean by that stereotype. I think that is all she is and why I have such a problem.

It started out as dislike. She was nonsensical. Then I noticed a couple lies. (Or she incorrectly answered direct questions, if you prefer, but my brain calls that lying.) That strengthened the dislike. For the most part we ignored each other. She knew I disliked her, she'd acknowledged it, but she did not seem troubled about resolving things.

I feel like i made a couple of efforts. And then there was some stuff i disagreed with her about, and i tried to explain that i was not pouting just because i hate her, that ok, yeah i hate her, but i was disagreeing for other reasons.

(I had a problem with another person in the society, who also talked a lot of non-sense. It turned out they were just very good at playing human, and when pressed they were able to communicate with me, and I finally understood them a bit. And so it worked out, and I consider them a friend now.)

With Spider, that never happened, each attempt at communication just makes me increasingly frustrated, as it is harder and harder to believe there is anything inside her skull but blood.

Here is the part that is most upsetting and hard to make sense of--- when it is just the two of us, we are our barely civil selves. Then, when another team member comes on, she's VERY nice to me. I find this very disturbing, this playing to an audience.

A friend of mine (named Candy CAKE!) helped me with this because i thought i was going crazy (er). Candy said she was at a party once and this girl#1 was talking to her and then a girl#2 came in the door, and girl#1 left in mid-sentence to go talk to girl#2 who was a very popular person.

So this story clued me in to the possibility that Spider is like a vapid middle-schooler. And she wants the "popular guys" in the society to like her.

But still, i am not so sure, because that is so silly i can not type it with a straight face.

And i don't see how pretending to be nice to me would make anyone like her. Like, they are going to think, wow she's so nice, even to cantankerous crazy girls, she should be my new BFF??? I like other people because they are funny or clever, not because they go around showering others with insincere wishes and compliments.

Whatever her odd motives, it is very taxing to be around her. The fakeness is unsettling. If she is not going to turn out to be clever or have sense, I wish we could just go back to mutual dislike.

I have been in the elevator too long. A week and a half left, lets see how much more i can bleed.

Freudian Types

2009-02-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

Not that I put a lot of stock in Freud. But, since what I mean is basically a Freudian slip in written form, I call them FTs.

Over a year ago, I had a brief writing frenzy. I was away from my computer when it really took hold. Furious scribbles on a plane, scraps of paper. When I got home, I tried to write on the computer, but it stopped. So I went back to pen and paper.

For a couple weeks, I did nothing else, I could think of nothing else. I just kept filling up paper. But around the 3rd or 4th pack of typing paper, I started trying to sort through it all, typed up some bits.

I had written without reading, just gushgushgushrace on the pages. And I discovered all sorts of cool stuff. Ideas tangled into ideas.

Most of my misspellings were not simply spelling the word wrong, but trying to throw another word or idea in.

Mid-word capitalization was also significant, and odd spacing. Those ones don't transfer to computer typing, holding down a shift key, or a space bar, is too deliberate for them to slip in... but I have found that the spelling kind does.

If I am really trying to get an idea out, I look at the keys, not the page, and don't correct any mistakes until the end.

When I look back, it's easy to tell what is a spelling mistake and what is an actual FT.

Hehe, that sentence was a good example. Here's what I typed raw:

when i look back it is reasy to tell whick whicj are spelling mistakes and when are actal fts

So, I guess you could call reasy and whicj FTs, but they are not really interesting enough. Real easy and which just. Actal is an actual mistake... I think. I suspect subconscious deliberateness since I found it funny. Whick was a tangential thought about Ick, since I first explained FTs to him.

Spellcheck found 2 FTs:
tangeled: tangled into and gelled
delibratness: deliberate brattiness

She's a real character, that one!

2009-02-07T01:56:00.000-07:00

I just read this blog: http://www.thewayandvirtue.com/emotional-deficit/#comment-126 and so I was thinking about so-called emotional deficit.

In particular, the reason I will cry or have a tantrum about some character in a book, but if a "real" person has a child die, or tells me of some tragic injustice, I don't care. I don't feel anything for them. I'd just as soon shoot them in the face.

They are not real.

That is the short answer.

I don't know why they are fake. Perhaps they are not fake to each other. I am supposedly bad at reading people. Perhaps there are hundreds of little communications that I miss, that flesh out the literal-three-dimensional into multi-emotional dimensions as well.

In a book, a good book anyway, people are Real. You know everything important about them. You know WHY they choose to do each action. This makes it very easy to pick sides, to like them or hate them. You know how you are supposed to feel.

So part of the reason "real" humans are fake, is because I don't understand them, I don't know them, I don't get them, they are flat, boring dolls.

I don't have oodles of feeling for people I DO know either, but I definitely have more. The more I know about someone, the more likely it is that I might care.

An interesting category is online people. People I "know" but not really. Just words on a page. This makes them very like a book. Each paragraph more Real than a fake-3D-person.

The state of being where you can see that you SHOULD, but can't grasp humans as real, is often what i mean when i say i feel disconnected.

logic-know says: real.
feel-know says: not.

This should not make sense.

Because CATS are ALWAYS real. So a person should feel the same. I have never met a fake cat or a fake dog. People are warm and breathing just like that. So, if only as an animal, they ought to register as real, as a presence.

Textures

2009-02-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

There are many rules.

Plastic for oil and grease. Plastic forks for spaghetti, spoons for grits with butter. Metal for cold things, but the metal should be smooth, no tiny nicks. The taste of cold metal is as important as the ice cream itself.

Garret thinks a fork is a fork. And does not understand that there are good forks and bad forks. He judges food by TASTE and disregards texture. Which is like picking out shoes only by color and not by size. Strange.

Orange juice TASTES much better than Milk. Milk doesn't have an interesting flavor at all. But orange juice is ROUGH and Milk is SMOOTH. Milk is a silky cocoon, orange juice is a sandpaper pick-axe.

Garret and I went to the grocery store last night. We don't have a lot of money, so we need to get cheap food. He gets frustrated because I am not happy with the cheap foods he likes.

I confess, that I am using money, or lack thereof, as an excuse to drink milk and eat crappy food. My body feels icky.

The thing is, when I want to eat a Smooth-Spicy, other food will just make me mad. Before I figured out what I was doing, years ago, I used to eat and eat and eat. I would be full but still thinking I was "hungry" because I was craving a certain thing.

Now I understand that if I WANT masaman curry, I should not eat pizza, because that will not help. So now, if I want masaman curry, and there is none, then I just don't eat.

Garret and I fight about this. He thinks I should eat every day, and gets annoyed when I don't want to. I get mad because I don't want to end up eating everything in the house, because, since it is all the wrong thing, I might keep pacing and eating in search of some curry that isn't there.

I do agree I need to drink water everyday. I have been bad about that, and did get dehydrated. But it is just so COLD, and the water comes out of the sink so COLD, and even if you turn it hot, the faucet is COLD and the water that comes out first is COLD and it makes my fingers go numb and I hate it I hate it, I will drink more water in the summer.

So, I do not know what to do about Garret and food.

Also, I don't quite think he believes me about the milk/gluten stuff affecting me, making my body feel blah. He says he does, but I feel somewhat... patronized.

My brain-tongue feels dulled. Licked sick.

It takes me a long time to construct a sentence, because my Head just trip-skips aHead, from song lyric to movie scene to book line... and for the most part, I love this. Because it is a twisty path to follow. A Headlong rush down rabbit holes. Head, long, long, long path to get to... where? the Cheshire cat says it doesn't matter which road you take if you don't know where you are Headed.... i am lost right now in the fun, but such an effort to stay linear, on the path of the end of this sentence, trying to screen out lines from Fight Club-- telling me it would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, way back from when i typed- licked sick. i have missed a dozen side-tunnel-stories trying to type this end here, and there are too many twists for the breadcrumbs, what's the way back, what's the way back? lost in the caves forever.

Angry sleeping. Homicidal ideation. and Mental music videos.

2009-02-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

I woke up in fists. Hands and feet, right and left. Left-hand is the most angry though. If this were a book, that would be important. People in books rarely notice irrelevant information. Sadly, this is not a book, and most of my passing curiosities will never be explained, or useful in figuring out who murdered whom.

Though, if I were in a book it would not be a Mystery novel, because I hate those, and, really, who would be a murderer in my own book besides ME?

(Damn. I just realized I had a FT a minute ago. It took me three tries to spell important. Impotent kept getting mixed in... Much to my chagrin, my left fist has now relaxed, now that I have acknowledged it's feelings. Blah. Fine! Mr. Left-Fist, i am listening now. Yeah, yeah, it's important that you feel impotent, having no control makes me angry. Helpless. You, as the left fist, are the most angry- since you are the non-dominant hand, and so you feel even more impotent than the right. Grrr! If you weren't the hand I'd slap you! This is SO not where i was going with this blog... and now my beginning is all wrong, since i DID figure out the point of the Left-fist thing...)

Ah. Well, I guess you can see my problem with Mystery novels.

Robin Williams, in the voice of the genie in Aladdin, says Well, I feel sheepish in an attempt to get us back on track.

You see, that movie, Aladdin, was on in the waiting room of the plasma place, which is where I last had an internal-rage-tantrum.

Garret was donating plasma, and he took me with him. I read in the car for the first two hours, but then the sun went down, and it was too cold to stay in the car. I tried. So I went in and got the spot in the corner with my back to a wall. It was loud and tense, but I was doing okay. Trying to think about other things, trying to read my book, and I calmed down a bit.

But then this girl had a death wish.

Because there were literally dozens of empty seats, and she wanted to press in right on top of me. Standing up! With her foot on the chair RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

I stared at her a little. But she wouldn't go away. And my body was vibrating with adrenaline, and sitting in that cold wash of rage that floods my blood. And she wouldn't go away.

And I got very angry.

I finally stomped up and across the room from her, and I hated myself with every step. She challenged me, she threatened me, and I was a coward. I didn't twist my fingers into her hair and slam it into the wall, I didn't punch her in the face, I didn't stab a pencil into her neck. I wasn't even brave enough to yell at her, to tell her to get out of my space.

I was afraid. There were a lot of other people in the room. They would have attacked me, stopped me. I am a weak and cowardly person. Oh, and also a bully, because I am not sure what I would have done if there had been no witnesses. I probably would have still been a baby, but the likelihood of fighting her would have definitely gone up if she was alone.

So I just stared at her, and got lightheaded.

Garret finally came out and we went to the car. And I screamed at amanda some more, and tried to shame her into action, but she was still weak.

Garret put music on for me, which was a rare thing, since he doesn't like music. First he made the mistake of trying to tell me it was reasonable to not want to be put in jail, but he must have noticed reason was not the best way to calm me down.

Luckily, Jack off Jill was in the CD player, and it is excellent music to set homicidal fantasies to.

(Can't find just the song on YouTube, not without a bunch of stupid pictures. It doesn't look right if you watch-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJaPcdRGc-o )

I listened to it on repeat a zillion times.

For homicidal ideation to be a successful deterrent to actual homicide, it helps to really immerse yourself in the fantasy. My brain is not easily tricked into this though. It knows that girl is not really dead and still wants to go kill her.

But I have a nice mental-music-video made up. And it is soothing to watch. There is a duality in this song that helps me, appeals to me. The chorus is- Drown drown drown myself, drown drown, drown myself.

I have to drown myself inside myself quite a lot. Most of amanda is not fit for human consumption, and i have to keep her locked away. i drown her, shove her down, smother her under the surface... this song knows the secret of that, and the trick of it.

You must promise-- shhh. not now, not now, someday. someday, someday when I am queen you can... and of course the best part of the music video in my head is when the RAGE finally gets to stab back with each drumbeat, and the ocean gets turned inside out, and the drowning is literal because of all the other people's blood.

Hush, baby.... Hush, baby.... Hush baby, go (back) to sleep.

How are you?

2009-02-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

It's a fairly basic question.

Or so I hear.

But it gets me every time.

Stumped like rain forests, as Francis might say. It surprises me, how I continue to be surprised, over and over, by the same things.

a baby playing peek-a-boo.

Now, some people, hesitate over this question because they know the answer is supposed to be, "fine" but perhaps they are not fine, they are depressed, and sometimes you cannot say you are depressed when people ask, because they are not really asking and don't really care.

This is not my problem.

I am perfectly capable of telling someone-- I am ragingly homicidal, not that you care.

My problem is just that I become confused by the question. Each time. Even though I have worked this all out before...

How are you- still hits me each time as-- How is it that you are? How ARE you? How are you YOU? How are you existing? How do you BE?

And so I get very distracted by that answer and my How.

How are you feeling? What is your current physical or emotional state? Questions like THAT don't slow me down at all. But even though I KNOW- How are you- is one of those questions, I can't skip to the end, I have to take the scenic-synapse-route.

What's up? Is another one that throws me off. I have seen human #1 say-- What's up. And then, human #2 replies with-- What's up. And then they change the subject...

So I think-- What's up-- might be my least favorite one, because it can just mean hello. But then other times it can mean-- How are you?

But, back to peek-a-book.

The really LOVELY thing about synapses stuck in a loop?

Looping back lovely things is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. YAY CAKE!!!!

CAKE. pony? Chicka!

Each of those three-- CAKE, pony?, and Chicka!-- trigger a happy-slap to the brain.

Cake and pony both have to do with a time I was sad, and then a friend cheered me up. The memory of the YAY!! of the moment, somehow got attached to those words for me. Very Pavlovian I suppose.

Anyway, cake and pony started from a specific event, and they are now on their way to being Chicka's. Chicka does not have a story attached to it, it is just a word I yell or mutter when I am feeling happy. After awhile, the happiness must have stuck, because now Chicka has the power to incite happiness, not just express it.

Garret and I can be driving/riding in a car. I might feel annoyed or neutral or anxious. Then, he yells, CHICKA!!!

instant HAPPY!!! i laugh. then, sometimes if i am mad, i swat it off like a fly and try to focus on what i was CHICKA!!! laugh! on, on... on what i was talking about before Garret deciCHICKACHICKA!!!! laugh! what? what i was CHICKA!! laugh. ok. yes, yes. chicka. ok, chicka.

My brain may have to run a lot of laps around Whazzups and How r u's... but it can remain entertained by the thought of CAKE!!! for a good twenty minutes.

I have a frightening temper, but it can not stand in the face of someone sweetly asking me, Pony?

And I can still feel a delightful little jolt of surprise when people pop out from behind pillows, and I get to laugh myself sick as a baby, content to watch the trick for hours.

hol

2009-01-31T15:39:00.000-07:00

we watched some tv the other day. (you, garret, and i.) a 1 hour show from the science channel about the hawking paradox.

i firmly refused to believe information/things can cease to exist anywhere, and think they must just be somewhere else, not bliped out of being completely. you and garret were more undecided. well, less adamant anyway... you like to oppose me for fun sometimes.

and this was fun, or a close thing.

so, mid-show, you were very much on hawking's side, because you thought all this erasing indicated time travel to be quite possible, as the past was not even THERE and quite able to be re-written, no re- about it.

i liked some of this train of thought, but still could not swallow it Hole, as AMANDA was. and were, and will.

(the show then ended with hawking saying that he was wrong about information, it doesn't get destroyed, but only because there are parallel universes, and everything with a black hole in it will eventually disappear, including the black holes, leaving only the one universe.... amanda does not think this is the wHole picture either.)

no. what amanda liked best was a side comment and not a point at all. there are millions and billions of black holes, that we can see in space, of varying sizes... with infinity going both ways, there could be millions and billions of black holes in this room, in your cup of coffee, inside your head.

INSIDE MY HEAD!!!

garret was not too excited. he just said- yeah amanda. you probably have more in you head than most people.

but you liked this idea almost as much as i.

and, in case a black hole sucked the memory from your brain already... very possible since this all occurred inside my head... i thought i should tell you the story.

GUESS...

2009-01-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

NO.

she screams, she screams, she screams. amanda hates people. amanda hates guessing. amanda hates the word GUESS, and people who want her to guess, and people who say "guess what..." and don't ever complete the thought until 5 minutes later, and amanda* hopes serial killers find these people and slowly kill them, and revive them, and them kill them again, and that the nice serial killer will grin at them and say... GUESS what I am going to do to you next....

because THEN i bet they would get to feel what it is like to have your brain not shut off.

like amanda, when someone annoyingly says, guess what i saw when i opened the refrigerator...

and her brain starts to yell at her...

mold! mouse! cheese! milk! eggs! light! cold! ketchup! mustard! mayo! dead-guy! brain! tongue! roast! fish! chicken! money! phone! sandwich! butter! juice! orange! celery! lettuce! leftover-gravy...

all too-fast, too-fast and panicky because she does not know. and she does not like to not-know.

and the yelling does not stop until the sadist says... nothing.

which is extra upsetting because her brain had not thought of that answer yet.

i don't want to guess. i don't want to have to run through all the possibilities. and if someone says guess, that is what i have to do. if they don't just TELL me, i have to think of every possibility before it is safe to let that thought go.

and even then, amanda can't really be SURE she has though of everything, and she might have to wake up 2 weeks later, thinking MEATLOAF! because she left it off the list.

so.

i want that nice serial killer to find them.

and smile at them.

and say- guess what happens next.

and see if they can NOT-think about it.

jerks.

(*freudian typed my own name as aMADa four times before i noticed and could then spell it amanda. plus, kept spelling brain as bain.)

Sea Writer, Sea Writer, See-Righter, Sea Writer...

2009-01-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

rachel, who is not really a rachel but a Joey, reminded me about amanda today...

so i came to see her. and talk to us.

i am thinking of ick and telepathy and z-coil shoes...

now, this is obviously just a blog about me and not a heavily trafficked site, but i put up the little google ad thingys in the beginning, and now i LOVE them.

in fact, most of the reason i have not written a blog since the last one is because: talking about those springy shoes made Z-coil shoes appear. Magic!

...the computer is sending me secret messages. :)

change of subject.

i was in florida for christmas. it was happy and warm. i got married.

garret is getting smarter about asking me the right questions... like instead of, "do you love me?" asking stuff like-- "do you like it better when i am here" or "would you kill people for me?"

i need more tangible yes/no questions.

OH! a very sad thing i found out is that black panthers do not really live in the florida everglades. i am highly traumatized by this. at least, there are no documented cases of them, just people who say they have seen them, who are probably wrong, and saw a black bobcat or something.

and that even "real" black panthers (leopards or jaguars) are actually a very dark brown.

i think i shall stubbornly go back to believing in black panthers until i forget this fact.

Spring

2008-11-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

but what springs from my mindspring is... just that. it's a line from an email a friend wrote me. and i woke up 8 minutes ago, back at 3:25am with it running through my head. what springs from my mindspring what springs from my mindspring... i like the turn of phrase.

i have been thinking about it for a couple days because i'm not sure what kind of spring he was thinking of. and i haven't asked because then i would know, and it's more fun to play with it instead (for the moment). what springs from my mindspring, what springs from my mindspring...

See, the first thing that sprang to mind when he sprung the mindspring on me was a metal coil kind of spring. Exploding from the head like a Jack-in-the-box Athena.

Later i thought of those stupid looking shoes that have a big exposed spring coil attached to the heal, you know, put a spring in your step. I don't think that is their actual advertising slogan but it should be. That was a very satisfactory thought, as Athena was now able to bounce forth in springy sneakers.

When I woke up just now it was a teeny little spring. The kind that you feel compelled to press together when you autopsy a pen, and that can ZING quite a distance when it pops out of your fingers. It is probably the image i got because i have been wound too tight like a spring and the pen has a connection to writing, and here i am writing. I am unwinding the spring.

But before all that, back to 3 seconds after reading what springs from my mindspring, my second thought was that it could be the water kind of spring. Water gushing up and soaking in and spreading out works well in the analogy too.

Perhaps Winter is the problem with my mindSpring... mandaBear in hibernation.

The Smear my Dear is in Your Ear

2008-11-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

they cut the tree down across the street.

and now there is too much sky. too much sky is in my eye. and today is Rain. i like rain. but today is Rain and cold and blurry. blurry, blurry, slurry. everything wrong and melty. the world has gone sideways and wrong. sense and perspective are in the wrong place.

maybe i am having a skitzophrenic episode. i am paranoid and feeling like i have special communication abilities with machines. there is an Army in the washing machine and a Gossip in my computer. logic and illogic keep flipping, spinning.

garret keeps talking at me-- What's wrong? Why are you mad? Let's talk and make up. But i do not want to talk. i am not mad at him, or i was/am not until he forces his existence into my awareness. i am neutral in his general direction. if only he would just HUSH. he keeps TALK TALK TALKING and he is loud and clang. loud and clang and scrape my brain. and- Can I give you a hug? Why do you get mad when I touch you? and because it HURTS it HURTS. and i don't know. just is sandpaper-bleed-scrape-grate right now.

we went for a walk and the sky was wrong, and the trees were wrong, and the clouds were wrong. wrong and too close and just LOOKING at them was like a bad little shock.

Por que? Por que. Por que? Por que.

and he keeps teasing me, for all my idiot-ness. which i AM mad about for the second i remember it. i am mad because it scares me, it scares me when i do stupid things and when i am crazy and paranoid, and when they world looks wrong, and all my head will do is sing Seuss at me, and the world melts on windows and even though i know this is a Look, it Sounds wrong all the same. The Smear is in my EAR.

and i do not like it.

it is like... sometimes my internal Volume Control dial gets spun. and the new reality is in a different place than the day before. and sometimes everything goes too quiet and numb and i can not hear or feel as well, and then i NEED crush hugs and lots of talking and energy to help me adjust it back. but today is not that day. today is the other direction. and everything is TOO MUCH and i need creepy tip-toe voices and NO TOUCH!

For M. L. Eizl

2008-10-28T14:53:00.000-06:00

Hi. It's Tuesday, October 28th, 2:55pm. And i just read both of your comments about 30 seconds ago.

Sometimes I lose interest in myself, she grinned, it's the closest explanation I can think of as to why I have not checked my blog in months...

And I am sorry I missed your wave hello, although, since I do not see a way to email you back today, I probably would not have 2 months ago either.

So know that it made me feel very smiley to know someone read me and got me, though I do hope not quite "TOTALLY," because I long to be mysterious and complex. :)

I do not really have a new life yet, I was just happy in the moment I posted last.

But be assured that I am much more O.K. than K.O..

In fact, OK might be my new favorite word this week. I was reading the dictionary 2 days ago and noticed it. I can't remember ever knowing about OK before, but whether i knew it before and forgot, or if it really was knew for the first time... the knew felt new regardless, and that is always very fun.

(OK stands for "oll korrect," a deliberate misspell of "all correct".) I love OK's brattyness. I did not know it was such a snotty little punk before.

Eizl sounds like Easel, and maybe a bit like Gargamel's cat too. An easel with a painting of Azrael on it perhaps.

Delirious

2008-08-19T19:37:00.001-06:00

(ly happy.)

Ha! Tricked you.

Yep, just wanted to say it for the record.... in this moment i am deliriously happy.

yay. bink. shmoo.

Sameness

2008-08-16T01:41:00.000-06:00

depressed, depressed, depressed, repressed, smothered, suffocating, numb, such ACHE.

hate, hate, hate, hate, want, want, want, WANT.

i feel so bad i could be almost certain i am bipolar, since i feel sure the sludging baseline of depression i lived in just a bit ago was MANIA compared to this. but no, probably not. probably just a check box. i am moved, slotted, allotted from "depressed" to "very depressed." yeah, that "very" really captures the difference. i should enjoy this i suppose, it could get even worse, any minute now this memory could seem like mania when juxtaposed with the future hell of tomorrow.

hurt. restless. lonely. numb, numb, numb. i don't understand how the physical body survives. i still breathe, my heart still beats. it is surreal. it seems the brain ought to stop it and strike me dead from the pain.

i was pretty hyper from the melatonin. but i have been feeling blah for awhile, i don't think it is just recoil. just the same the same the same. messes with no solutions. hating that my story is not a fairy tale with a happy ending. i cannot change i cannot fix i cannot save i cannot i cannot i cannot.

Melatonin again

2008-08-14T08:32:00.000-06:00

man, was it like this before??? (i am not reading my first post on melatonin until after i write this.)

so... i forget what i have and haven't said. um, so, i have been off melatonin for a bit, because it seemed to be not working as well, so i have been taking breaks and then going back on, and so i haven't taken it for awhile and then i did last night.

i also am on day 4 back off of gluten/milk.

so first, going to sleep- i lay in bed laughing for a good half hour.

eyes closed, smiling i kept saying, "yaaaay! bacon!" in this teensey little voice and then laughing and laughing. sometimes i would add, "dogs don't know it's not bacon" or "i smell like bacon!!" laugh. settle down. yay bacon. repeat. it kept being super funny to me.

then i was almost asleep and garret or a cat or something made a very small noise, and i screamed, "AHHHH!" and my eyes flew open and i was all jumpy.

then i fell asleep, i don't remember any dreams. then i woke up about 4am, all tense and jittery and i feel very chatty still, 4 hours later. i just want to talk and talk and write and talk and YAY BACON! and my face and my muscles are all tight and i am twitchy.

Crisis mode- Hooray!! (not sarcasm)

2008-08-13T15:10:00.000-06:00

ok, so i'm feeling slightly less dramatic. if i look too closely at my life, it still seems pretty depressing, yeah... endlessly so- BUT i'm trying not to think about it. also, i caved and had lots of milk, and then spent the last week trying to kick it again. so my crazed junkie withdrawal symptoms probably haven't been too helpful. plus i'm off the melatonin.... hmmm. gotta remember to take that tonight.

so, ironically, i have been wishing for a crisis.

seriously.

(now, one might think i am IN a crisis mode, what with all my whining and black depression. not so. this is just the tedium of everyday.)

a nice little earthquake or something. someone should die, start gushing blood, lose a limb or two. that would be awesome... why? because!!! i totally rock in an actual crisis.

here's my theory- so, pretty much all the time, my body FEELS like there is a crisis. fight or flight, that kind of thing. my sensory crap is constantly freaking out. i'm tense, poised to spring, ready to kill the bad guy... except of course, there never is a bad guy. i'm always "overreacting." the noise that just made me jump was NOT a gunshot or even anything remotely threatening... but my heart is pounding, i am SURE there is DANGERDANGERDANGER!!!

are you imagining this?

so, your body is telling you DANGERDANGER!!! but since you are unfortunately not a complete idiot-- your more logical brain can see there is nothing wrong. it tries to assure you that you are freaking out over nothing, just the phone ringing, the cat shifting it's weight. the UPS man has left several packages without mishap- it is very unlikely he will suddenly decide to break in the house and stab you, so it seems a little silly to hide under the bed when he knocks on the door...

but you do. you hide. and you coil your fists.

and the anger is just so huge after awhile, all that coiled adrenaline... wanting something to hit, to fight. but there is only you. stupid, stupid you, freaking out over nothing.

so most of the time, you are the object of all that anger, because it has to go somewhere. and your body's stupidity in creating it in the first place makes it easy to hate yourself for being such a pointless, illogical creature. you and whoever is unlucky or crazy enough to stay in your path.

but here is the wonderful thing about crises... there is something to DO.

instead of a spinning, helpless, pointless-- DANGERDANGER!!! with no one to kill, attack, fight to the death, spinning, spinning, no where to go, turning back in on myself, self-destruction, circling, circling.... there is a beautiful clarity. there is PLAN, KNOW, DIRECTION, GO GO GO

green means go.

i love green.

garret woke me up out of a dead sleep a few weeks ago, and said, "i need you to drive me to the hospital." it was terrific. i usually throw a fit if someone tries to wake me up, takes me a long time, i get tangled in dreams, sure that waking up means death to me. i also have never driven the huge van he has because it is big and scary and i hadn't driven at all in about a year, and of course i hate people and doctors, so there were several "small" things i would have been angry and stressed about under other circumstances. but he looked really bad and i didn't know what was wrong, so i blissfully thought there was a chance he was going to die, and i was able to function perfectly. (btw, he's fine now. had surgery that day and was home later.)

i remember zac as a baby in his car seat, laughing and laughing over a shel silverstein poem i had just told him--

when the light is green you go, when the light is red you stop, but what do you do when the light turns blue, with orange and lavender spots?

he kept doing a big exaggerated shrug as he asked orange and lavender spots??? and then bursting into laughter.

what do i do?

shrug. i dream of hurricanes. i dream of florida. i dream of green lights.

green means GO!

Garret

2008-08-05T14:35:00.000-06:00

so i live with this guy garret. he's nice, he's tall, blah blah. he loves me, i hate him.

people have pointed out to me that i am being rather mean and that i should either marry the guy or move out.

people also make the mistake of bringing up ex-husband mike. for some reason, people do not believe me when i try to explain about mike and they think i was madly infatuated with him. not so. i thought he was highly irritating when i first met him. but then he liked me, and that was kind of cute, so i did want to keep him around so he could tell me how awesome i was. but i never really liked him that much.

so. the REASON i married him??

i had nowhere to live and nowhere to go. end of reason.

then after we got married i felt kind of guilty about that so i tried to make it work out. i was drama, he was drama. he lied, i yelled. so there were some valid reasons for leaving him, but did i decide to leave for any of those valid reasons? not really.

the REASON i suddenly left??

i was bored. so i left. end of reason.

people try to contrast garret and mike to me-- garret is a nice guy, mike was a jerk, blah blah. but from my perspective they are EXACTLY the same: some guy i am stuck with because i'm too much of a nutcase to take care of myself and i don't want to be homeless.

i do not have any other options right now. when i left mike, i had a car, i was feeling sort of stable, i was able to keep a job for awhile. i don't have that now. no money, no car, no way i could keep a job for more than a week or two. that pretty much limits the options to stay or die. not good.

A picture of a picture...

2008-07-22T12:57:00.000-06:00

Today is pictures.

Ick sent me a picture of a pacing tiger in a cage... and I thought-- wow. that is a great picture of him.

Which got me thinking about photos and images. Because Ick is a person who has to live in a house, not a corporeal tiger.

And i thought about photos of me. i have noticed that most people don't like photos of themselves. i don't either. But i don't like certain photos, because, i am not IN them.

Photos in which i look nice/presentable/have makeup on-- these are "good" pictures according to my family/friends. However, i best like ones that i feel capture me or a mood- which are usually the pictures that they label odd, depressing, goofy, or strange.

For example, this is not a "good" picture of me. No makeup or smile, you can't even see my face, just my poor taste in pajama bottoms...

but my brain yells, "THERE'S AMANDA!" to me when i look at this one-- evokes more recognition than a "good" picture.

i am in the left ankle, in the angry-fisting-toes...

when i am "hiding" is when you can see me best.

Gluten. and Milk-Poetry

2008-07-14T13:17:00.000-06:00

I do not fully understand the whole gluten/autism thing. They guess that in some people, gluten makes opioid peptides, and this is the Wiki explanation for opioid peptides:

Opioid Peptides are short sequences of amino acids which mimic the effect of opiates in the brain. Opioid peptides may be produced by the body itself, for example endorphins, or be absorbed from partially digested food (casomorphins, exorphins and rubiscolins). The effect of these peptides vary, but they all resemble opiates. The opioid food peptides have lengths of typically 4-8 amino acids. The body's own opioids are generally much longer.
Brain opioid peptide systems are known to play an important role in motivation, emotion, attachment behaviour, the response to stress and pain, and the control of food intake.

My motivation, emotion, and stress/pain response is wacky. My sleep patterns are screwy too, and i read this other blog where the girl said her sleep was also all tied into her gluten thing.

bread is nice, but it's just food-- i don't feel particularly attached to it. MILK, however, is a very different thing. i need milk. i love milk. when i am mad, i want milk to drink to calm down and i hum when i drink it. if there is no milk at 3am, this is an emergency-- it is not a problem that can wait until morning-- i need to be taken to the store at 3am.

i had a awful period of a few months where milk tasted sour to me. this was very bad, as i still CRAVED it, but then i'd drink it and it just didn't taste right, so i would just think about it all the time and be depressed about it. (i was taking medication at the time, which may or may not have been the reason for the milk tasting bad. haven't taken any kind of medication besides aspirin/Tylenol for a few years now.)

it occurred to me that perhaps this it a rather dramatic way to feel about milk... and that most people are not inclined to dedicate sonnets to it, or think about it quite so much...

i have eaten low-carb for periods of time in the past, but i just can't seem to do without milk. if i have one little taste, i need MORE, so it's an all or nothing kind of thing. i have not had any milk today... so this is day one of going cold-turkey. i'm trying to write this down for the record...

i wonder if this means i am more susceptible to opiate addiction? maybe some morphine could get me off the milk ;p

Sage F ight Club Escape Artist

2008-06-16T06:34:00.000-06:00

in the two places at once. tyler isn't here. tyler went away. tyler's gone. but in disassociated-manda-land, ALL the magic is in the breakdown, baby.

not a genius, just a genie-- poof i'm gone.

Sage Francis. A healthy distrust of sea lions...

2008-06-13T16:08:00.000-06:00

i don't have a very large music repertoire. when i like something, i listen to it for months sometimes... so the same few songs can keep me interested for years.

today is sage francis on repeat.

mental-music-video, over and over... that haunting melody of sea-lion, that so captures that trudging numbness i hear all the time, the what? huh? why-should-singer-care part that i just want to lie down and drown in, that takes so much effort to pull away from.

building the same sand-castle over and over. watching it melt into the sea over and over. firing into the sand, nothing tangible to shoot down...

so many times i have heard it... and the girl's voice at the beginning still startles me sometimes, it sounds to me so like my own, i'm always disconcerted. how did i get into the song? wait. where am i? who is where and which is real...

my wooden arms are too tired to pull off the armor. too tired to remember why i should care. but Being only among songs is not where i want to BE, only where i am.

Another shower

2008-06-09T12:18:00.000-06:00

Maybe the emotion is leaking from my head and affecting the physical world. I was just in the shower, thinking, and the shower-head kind of exploded and gushed sideways and loud. The startle of it almost made me cry. But I didn't. But almost. And then when i picked up the shampoo, tried to pour it into my hand, i almost missed because my hand was shaking so. But i didn't miss. But almost. Sometimes i think i am all calmed down, and then i will notice how i can barely hold a towel, how i don't feel the weak and shaky until i see the towel shake.

i am racing and racing, my thoughts are pacing. i am egg. i am fragile. i am so full of thoughts and talking. Poor little caged thoughts.

i spoke to someone yesterday. they said-- i am a quiet person.
and i said-- why?

because i really wanted to know. because i wanted there to be a REASON.
but all they said back was-- because i just am.

which was not a very exciting or dramatic response. and i tried to pretend a bit, that there might be more to it, because of course, if you are quiet, and then you give a long-winded explanation as to why that is so, well, that is not very quiet. but i do not think they said "because i just am" to be ironic or funny, i think that was just the end of the story. which was disappointing.

all the real-life people i know are still imaginary in every other sense.

who are you?

Showers

2008-06-08T12:19:00.000-06:00

A semblance of a dremblence of a trembling, dreaming, dead. Assemblence of remembrance, of a deadened teeming head. Dead-end dreaming, alone not team-ing. Seeming, seaming, almost meaning, almost meaning, at the cusp of MEANING, but no such gleaning ever quite, ever quite...

I have a lot of conversations in the shower. Oh wait, sense and order. Um, yes, lets post the email first then get to the postscript...

i think of W. writing down that he wanted a popcorn snack. if i hadn't had reading so early, i think my life would have been so much different. i wouldn't have had a way to understand and connect and communicate with the humans. when the kids have tantrums, i wish they could write it down, tell me they want a popcorn snack... when i am angry, writing is so much closer to reach than spoken words.

i've been thinking how all my interactions read like a scrip. (you know how i imagine conversations with people and how they might go.) i wouldn't actually explain it to the people at the school, since that would be too much talking about myself, but i pretend that maybe we'd become friends in the future, or a conversation would come up where i could ask and explain and compare/contrast my way with theirs, because maybe theirs is the same?

my notice of things is heightened at the school. how i do all those little things that people do without noticing, like breathing, blinking. when i say hello to someone-- it is: person approaching, should acknowledge, crap, relax, make eye contact, smile, say hello, they asked me something... laugh, cock head to the side, grin, say yeah, roll eyes, look amused...

i think about all my affectation. the grin and roll eyes. i play it all out like i think i'm supposed to, and i wonder a lot if other people hear all that stuff in their head or if it really just comes naturally, unthinkingly. i match my behavior, responses, to scripts i know-- books i've read, tv i've seen.

So i wrote that to someone this morning. Just took a shower. I have lots of conversations in the shower. In-my-head-conversations, not actual conversations of course, I am not that kind of movie. One reason I don't write more often, is that, sadly, I don't have a lot of new thoughts. I like to think about the same things over and over. I am stuck on this script thought. Hopefully writing it down (again) will "get it out of my system" a little.

I have heard that it's "a girl thing" to act out conversations internally. Any girls out there care to comment? I spend an awful lot of time on just one sentence. Playing it over and over. How much smile? How much laugh? This way? This way? And when i get it "RIGHT" I like to keep playing it over, because it makes me feel calm to know i have it perfect, and i feel so witty and clever when i get a conversation, or part of a conversation just right, i like to just keep having it over and over and clapping with delight at myself.

Sigh. Self-depreciating grin. Except, i don't really FEEL self-depreciating. I FEEL yay-yay-lets-do-it-again!!! But I also feel somewhat obligated to make some, "I am such a dork" type comment, because that's what humans do.... YAY YAY AGAIN! ;p

Skipping stones... swimming in sink

2008-05-17T10:01:00.000-06:00

i am wish-to-talk-but-have-no-beginning. oh-my, oh-my, who ate my pie. i am at the top of a mountain, about to fall downhill. it is a day for appreciation and resentment. i feel right now that humans are likable and nice and i want to play with them... but i am no-verbal and slow-verbal and hi-gerbil today.

i can't talk properly to people i like. people in a specific function, are easy-- like store clerks & librarians. polite voice, smile, smile, fake as needed. but chit-chat is so much harder with people i do not hate. feels like lying. and i hate lying. so mostly i am awkward and silent and "quiet."

this is because i don't want to talk about the weather or trade sarcastic insults back and forth. one good thing about garret is that i don't feel embarrassed saying whatever pops into my head, but he doesn't really respond in kind. he just tolerates....

Me: HI! pounce. meow. (accompanied by an actual pounce.)

G: Hi.

Me: make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold! that has been stuck in my head for three days, it keeps singing over and over and i always hated it. we had to sing that in Brownies in 3rd grade, which is like Girl Scouts, but smaller, and i guess more tasty and impish, but we still had to sell cookies, not brownies. Don't you think those are perfectly stupid lyrics? I asked the grown-up which was which. She said the old ones were gold, but i don't think that makes sense. Seems like old goes more with sliver, because that gets tarnish on it if you neglect it, and the song is about not forgetting the old friends you already have. And if BOTH are your friends, then they ought to both be the same thing. One shouldn't be more valuable than the other, and silver can't ever become gold. So no matter how long the new friend stays around, even after 20 years they would just be a chunk of silver, so that's dumb. New friends can become old, so i always thought the line ought to be one's a diamond and the other coal... because coal is valuable and it can become a diamond.

G: i see.

Except, I don't know that he does. I think he just likes to say "i see" a lot. And i know i should be grateful i have someone to pounce on and tell what's on my mind... but i wish i had someone who could pick up the thread of conversation and knot it.

And most of the stuff running through my head is stuff like that-- disjointed, not exactly connected to anything else. The game i like is to say all the random stuff i am thinking, and have the other person say stuff, and then connect things.

I don't know how to play "regular conversation."

Melatonin

2008-05-07T04:56:00.000-06:00

Well, the good news is that I have a Sagira in my lap... but the crap is that i'm back in utah.

(Hmmm. I did just notice that I am thinking in capital I's, but even so, "i'm" back in utah. Apparently, it's that much of a downer.)

I did not bother to sleep last night since my plane was scheduled to leave early, and we had to leave for the airport at 4am. It took me until 3 to finish packing, as I had put it off in favor of playing MarioParty8 with my brother-- (it's the easiest video game he owns.)

SO, I should be VERY tired right now. I should be happily asleep at 4am and NOT wide awake.

But unfortunately, and duh, I am a bit of an idiot.

My mom read this article about Melatonin, so I got some yesterday. And, even though I have somewhere important to be today at 9am, and even though I was already plenty tired to sleep tonight, I unwisely decided to take a pill before bed. I have fallen asleep a few times but then the DREAMS woke me. Here's a summary of one:

As a child, I witness an altercation between a strange man and a little girl at my grandparents house. (Then skip ahead a few years.) A year before Papa's death, in 1994, I find the bones of that little girl. Nothing comes of it because then he dies, and so no one can pay attention to my stories of bones because they are too grieved about Papa. Then circumstances come to light that indicate Papa may NOT have died of a heart attack (like he did in real life) but that there may have been foul play. There is a sense of danger. I am in danger. Then I am in a strange place with many people. They are in white and their backs are toward me. We are all looking out a window that shows the front window of my own house. I turn to a girl next to me and I ask her if she can see plants in the window. I ask her if they are green and yellow and purple. She says yes, and this is a bad thing. I grab her hands and look at her and intensely ask-- How do I get better? Her face gets blurry and melts off her head. I turn to the back of another person, and I put my arms around him, but he morphs into someone else, someone scary, a women with gray hair and dark, deep eyes who grabs my hands and wants me to believe her, insists it is not her fault. I am afraid, and then I am somewhere else. I am rocking on the floor talking to my grandmother and she is sorry she didn't believe me about the bones and I am crying (and I can feel all of it, complete with drool running down my chin) and I am hitting the floor and screaming, "I saw him HIT that little girl, I saw him HIT that little girl!"

...And that's where I woke up with my heart racing. (2nd dream had Audrey Hepburn in it, and my mom was an English teacher.)

Now, it is possible that how I feel right now might be due to other stuff- like I am just extra tired or something. My throat is all closed up from being back in the 6th most polluted city in the USA, so that can't help my sleep either. But, I am giving the credit to the Melatonin for now.

I feel both tense and in a good mood. Possibly similar to a ton of caffeine? Zoloft? I can't relax, but I don't mind. That makes me suspicious. I think- shouldn't I mind? My brain and body are definitely in disagreement right now.

Since I'm too amped up to sleep anymore, here I am... so... here's what I noticed so far that was interesting/unusual to me:

First, the dreams were VIVID. Much more intense than my average.

Second, they were still somewhat nonsensical and dreamlike, but they had a definite PLOT. This is unlike my average dreaming, which is usually more of an endless wandering of ideas rather than an actual story.

Third, there was a sense of TIME. I thought in dates, like 1994, and the dates and time made sense, wasn't so loose/expanding. My Papa (grandpa) really did die in 1995 of a heart attack, though none of the other events corresponded to reality.

Fourth, and the most shocking to experience-- in all the dreams I recall having tonight, I had a fixed sense of identity. Usually I shift in and out of 1st/3rd person, and sometimes I am myself and sometimes I am the other characters in the dream. The usual sense is fluid and hazy, not concrete. i am usually everything/everywhere in a dream, and I am not used to being just Amanda. Also relating to this is-

Fifth, I spoke. Sometimes my dreams have conversation in them, but mostly there is just a sense of things being said. A sense and understanding of motives/intent without actual speaking. Usually I just know what's going on.

Florida

2008-04-30T16:21:00.000-06:00

So.

I am in Florida for a few more days.

I'm tired of wanting something so much, yet having no way to obtain it. Apartment rent here is as much as a house payment... Sigh. If only I had been born somewhere like Cuba, then I would have been TRAPPED somewhere tropical, and then I never would have been able to make a stupid mistake like moving to Utah! Plus, I like dark eyes and hair. So, a tall Cuban guy would be handy to have around too...

I've been scrapbooking for my mom, plus I made a giant visual aid for Zac, for his report on the Bermuda Triangle. Yesterday I cut down a bunch of palm fronds for my Grandmother. She complained about all her coconuts, so I cut some of those down too, but then she said wistfully, "Well... those were the good ones". Then, today she mentioned them again and said maybe I should cut down some more. She is quite impossible.

Zac wants me to play Wii with him, though I don't know why since I am so bad at it. He also enjoys trying to teach me to Ripstick. That I can understand the appeal of, since I scream and fall off a lot, which makes him laugh.

Hips.

2008-04-20T16:13:00.000-06:00

so, when scooched all the way under bed, flat on my back, i can just fit my fist in between my face and the bed. this is ok, but even better would be if i could curl on my side... shoulders will behave-- they don't exactly pop out of joint, but i can put my arm underneath me in that way that angles them... so i can almost curl, but my hips need about another inch. hope it is not non-negotiable bone, and that fat will do... (i think i could jam myself sideways, but i have not tried it as i would probably get stuck.)

was under the bed today because bathtub got too cold, and Sagira jumped into the bathtub to see if i was ok, and that made me cry very hard because she is terrified of the evil, scary bath. was in the bathtub because my feet were muddy. my feet were muddy because i took my shoes off when i was watering the garden, and watering the garden was very distressing because the water was up too high and the pressure was too much for the little baby things that have sprouted, and i got upset that they were dying and drowning and being washed away, and garret wouldn't turn the water down. he says i always get extra nuts/emotional before i go to FL. this is probably an accurate observation.

getting a bed that is higher off the ground is not a good solution, because i do not like beds to be too high off the ground, and if anything, wish mine were lower. plus, i can not afford a new bed anyway. i had an excellent wooden toy-chest when i was a kid. a bigger version of that would be nice to bug-up in. one with a nice smell, pine or something.

Skype

2008-04-18T03:21:00.003-06:00

My brain is skitz. My brain is skitz. My brain is skittish and on the fritz... Got Skype today, which was a New Thing. And so there was Too Much today. Can't look at too many New Things because it is overwhelming. "Oh Amanda, don't be silly, it's not hard, just a simple download!"

Sigh. Not about hard. About looking at a New Thing. Everything online is full of crap and sideshow. Blah to skim through to get to the point of it all.

I am neglecting people. Haven't checked email. Too many New in the Inbox. Haven't returned phone calls. Sigh. Sigh.

Can't sleep from skitz-brain.

One of my many problems is... I play so well, so well, no one can tell... I seem just fine. I can talk, smile. Yay, good monkey. Sigh. SO MUCH effort to play monkey. I am tired all the time. People think, well, it does not LOOK hard, so it must not BE hard. Ah. Yes. Lovely logic, that.

Sorry Zhekai... (that i never responded to this)

2008-04-18T02:42:00.000-06:00

zhekai said...
Cool:) I've enjoyed reading your blog. I also get the word interpretation thing...someone says 'I have misgivings' and my brain will tell me all the double-entendres and possible interpretations. So i'll think:1)Miss Givings, what about Mr and Mrs Givings? I hear they're a very giving family, etc.2) Mis-givings sounds like you tried to give something to someone, but you messed up, etc. I find that hilarious....but nobody else does, so i've learned to not say such things.Can I ask if you relate to something else?:I seem to have two modes of expression. My natural thoughts and ways of talking are very chaotic for others, so i try to make everything very ordered and logical. It means i'm always explaining myself...So i have to choose between speaking naturally and being misunderstood, or being understood but turning everything into a really boring explanation that nobody wants to hear!!!It's very frustrating. And the irony is that ordinary people, even if they dimly understand what i'm saying, don't appreciate it in the same way.Thanks for responding!

(except. it's not really never since i'm responding. but. it's still been a while.)

yes. my brain will insist on telling me every possible meaning of something before i can move onto another thought. Ms. Givings indeed. i find #2 hilarious too. people are always looking at me like i am a hopeless dork.
Me: But don't you GET IT???!!!
Them: Yep. It's NOT FUNNY.
Me: I think you are not getting it. (this part muttered secretly in my head.)

I noticed I do something and am not sure if all humans universally do this too- when people speak to me, I have to repeat the sentence internally before i HEAR it. Sometimes this results in long, long pauses before i respond because I have to get through the Givings family Tree, then listen to a detour about the book The Giving Tree. Green cover. I like green. And then I have to "read" back the last thing said to me.

And yes, I have what I think of as my natural voice and then the "correct" way to talk. I always feel like I don't really speak English, I am just constantly translating. People miss the one version and are bored by the dissection process of the other. Like today, people were talking and I asked an either/or question-- "oh, are you collecting this or that?" and the answer was a both. so then i said they collected stone birds. but that did not make sense. they were like, what the hell is a stone bird? (the expression "kill two birds with one stone" combined itself into one stone, and then paralleled to the "both" in question.)

To me, that's not a joke, not trying to get a laugh exactly, just feel like it conveys lots of idea tangled into a short thing. But it doesn't really. I have "met" a couple Aspies online who get my twisted shorthand and love to talk in a combination of amanda-speak and them-too-speak, but most people do not appreciate it. Which, i can understand, because the explanation of things bores me too, the fun is in the breadcrumbs... play with me... follow me...

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

2008-03-20T14:33:00.000-06:00

i read it last night. i thought it was supposed to be about a kid with Asperger's, because that's what it said on the back of the audiobook. (i got the audiobook first, for Garret.) the hardcopy was checked out at the library then. but the book-book doesn't say Asperger's on the jacket description, just autism.

either way, it was a pretty good book.

i decided i don't like the audiobook version though. i listened to the first bit of that, because Garret said, "You have to listen to this."

So I did.

the guy who reads the audiobook goes too slow and thoughtful. the book-book was MUCH better. and it had excellent diagrams and footnotes. the syntax was flesh and not choke, and it raced into my head very nice, so that was the part i liked best.

but i feel a little unresolved about Wellington-the-Dog getting stabbed with a garden fork. i guess that's why the author made him a poodle, so i wouldn't have to be too distressed about it. because no one likes poodles.

Fear. Anger. Quitting.

2008-03-13T11:46:00.000-06:00

My heart is racing, I'm shaking & dizzy. It's like a weird, in-between panic attack. I'm not gasping for air or having chest pains like a full-blown panic attack-- just shaking, shaking.

I'm afraid 100% of the time, and since I hate that, I end up angry 100% of the time, since anger is slightly better.

Online people ought to be safer. They aren't as real. They're nicely two-dimensional. I get just as angry and afraid from online confrontation though.

Garret always asks me just what exactly it is that I think people are going to do... I don't know.

I just hate this sick, awful feeling. And I can't stand very much of it. So I quit most things. Because most things deal with people. And people cause it.

I am often afraid that I'm going to be a serial killer. When I think about people dying and screaming, I feel calmer. Soothed. It makes me laugh. Makes the anger and the panic stop.

Stupid people who think I'm beneath them...

2008-02-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

First off, stupid people can be delightful. I will forever and absolutely love Joey from high school for believing that M&Ms expand in your stomach and if you eat too many you can die, and also for lacking the math skills necessary to buy drugs.

But I really get annoyed by idiots that think they are the shiny penny.

The people who keep explaining things to me that I already grasp, when they are SO missing the point.

Just like slutty-girl in the 7th grade lunch line, who gasped and said, "Like, you are in THAT class? I thought you, were like, in the OTHER special ed, with like, retards."

Slutty-girl was very helpful. She made me realize that many of my perfectly intelligent sentences were actually mistaken for nonsense by those in the genetic kiddie-pool.

But I still have this problem with adults, all these years later.

I am not sure what to do with it sometimes because I find the motivations of people to be strange. What is the point of someone talking to me if all they want to do is act like everything is going over my head and I should tremble in awe of their superior mediocrity??? Seriously? WHY? They have self-esteem issues and need to pretend they are smart?

I don't get it. It really bothers me when I don't know why people are messing with me. I just can't see the point and it stresses me out. I want to solve the puzzle of it.

I also get into trouble because I assume OTHER people are secretly smart, since I get misjudged so often. Sadly, this is not usually the case, but I get tangled up in a lot of paranoia before I figure that out...

Me vs. All There Is To Say

2008-02-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

This could possibly also be thought of as Aspie vs NT, but I don't know that for sure, so For Sure is is just the blog title for today.

ME: fish fish dead fish. gaping eyed. dead breath fish. image slam: hook lip jerk, head crash fill impotent sensless repeat repeat reap eat repeat. struggling shocked fish. fading glassy eye slap. sloe death. flap. flap. gasping trap. sir, i believe he's been struck in the eye with a mackrel. blink open reality, things are ALWAYS REPEAT. reap what you eat. beefit's what's for dinner? fish.

All there is to Say/Explain out loud: I feel hurt.

My head is filled with nonsense. You cannot come in. I am so tired. English is not enough.

Executive dysfunction

2008-02-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

Really Amanda, i thought you possessed better powers of observation than this.

i KNOW!!! i'm retarded.

grrr. we have been aware of AS for 5 months now. have read the term executive dysfunction. have even googled it before and skimmed some deffinitions... but it wasn't until just now, when i read the term in conjunction with MOTIVATION that i really paid attention.

sigh.

of course, it might also be that i have walked into the kitchen over 20 times today: thought about how my stomach is growling. that i feel hungry. seen that there are no clean pans. thought about pizza. thought about washing a pan. stomach growls again. i walk out of the kitchen. repeat. repeat. repeat.

i swear i would starve to death without intervention.

i don't know. i don't want to take medication. and i hate psychologists. i don't know if anything could really help me anyway... :( but i wish there was a good neuropsychologist nearby that had actually heard of AS so that i could at least ask.

Seer page 14

2008-01-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

TIME

After you quit being stupid and learn to read, you notice you are very stupid with time. Sometime around age 2-5, Mommy and Daddy and School and Church, ALL have clocks and time that confuse you, and all try to show you how to read a clock. A smart girl like you that could read at 1, should certainly be able to tell time, so stop being stupid and pay attention. But you never really master this skill. You never learn to like wearing a watch. And even when you are in high school, and in Spanish class, you do very poorly, because one of the first things you learn in Spanish is how to tell time in Spanish, and the test papers always have drawings of clocks, and only a few pictures of digital-clocks that just TELL you what the time is in ENGLISH. And no one will believe that a fourteen year old girl can’t tell time, and think that you must just not know the Spanish, and are making excuses. But actually, you are just stupid when it comes to clocks and telling time. And this is a very big theme throughout your life.

And before you are introduced to clocks, you are mostly always happy.

(And when you break all the clocks, you will be happy again.)

But today is not time yet, so today is: Mommy has a giant hourglass.

It is as big as you are, but still below Mommy’s hip. And you love to watch all that sand pour and pour, and flip over and pour again. Like a figure 8 that spins. You love to spin. Especially in the chair by the window, but you cracked your chin open doing that, and it bled a lot. But the hourglass is a nice, safe, spin, because it is so slow.

And I can stop time! Or at least the sand. But, when the sand stops, the second hand on the clock still ticks, and I don’t understand that. But I think if may be I was small enough to fit inside the hourglass completely, and I had the clock in my hand, like a wristwatch, I bet that watch WOULD stop. And also, I can not make time go backward when I flip it over, even if I do it very fast, or before it is all the way done. The time still just goes forward and not back and forth like a seesaw, like it should.

But you still think about the space INSIDE the glass, and if, IT is going backwards inside the glass, and only forwards on the outside where you are. And you suspect that other clock is getting in the way, but Mommy will not take the hourglass outside, and it is too big and heavy for you to carry by yourself.

Later she gets 2 smaller hourglasses. I like to play with them too, and I hope that Mommy will collect LOTS of hourglasses, but… she does not. And she seems to be bored of hourglasses now, so maybe it was just a phase, because now Mommy wants an Atlas statue instead of another hourglass. (But later, she will get a melted-looking clock like Dali drew, and you will love that almost as much as hourglasses.)

And here is the important thing to know about statues--- I am the statue of The Thinker. I sit. I ponder. (But Daddy says— No, that is Dobie Gillis’s statue, which is a character on an old black and white T.V. show called The many loves of Dobie Gillis that they play on Nick at Night, but for real… it is MINE too.) I rest my chin on my fist and THINK.

But not everyone has the same statue. And you can really learn a lot about someone by what statue they think of themselves as. Like Mommy, she likes the statue of Atlas. But NOT a triumphant or happy kind of Atlas—just the sad one of Atlas being crushed down by the heavy world on his shoulders, the one where he is struggling, and looks like his legs are going to give out any second, but they don’t, because he is a statue, so he is trapped and frozen in that last second of crushing pain. And Mommy says she LOVES that statue because Atlas looks exactly how Mommy feels, and you are in middle or high school when she tells you that last part, the WHY she loves Atlas, and it makes you feel very sad for Mommy.

And you think they should make Atlas with a removable world, so sometimes you could lift the world off, and turn him upside-down on his head, and let him do a handstand for a while… Or make an Atlas that twirls the world on one finger like a basketball… or something.

(And this is why you read Atlas Shrugged later in life, because it has such an interesting title, but in that book, Atlas shrugs with indifference or apathy or even hatred for the world, because he shrugs so that the world will FALL and DIE because he is tired of holding those stupid losers up.)

But back at 2-8 age, you are just thinking that Atlas is not in any real danger of being crushed, because the world is surrounded by so much SPACE, his legs would just be floating along behind the earth, because, what could he be standing ON? The Moon? An invisible planet? You don't think holding the world would be too much trouble with zero gravity to help you.

But. You DO worry that the earth will float away from Atlas...

and he will be left behind.

All alone. In all that space.

Which came first? Egg the Chicken on.

2008-01-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

i feel thoughtful.

i have been thinking about this dream, a dream that wasn't even mine, but i was in it. and i had this feeling that real life was going to end like the dream. and it just did.

so when that first struck me, 10 minutes ago, i wondered if i caused it to happen because i had been feeling anxious/suspicious about the dream to begin with... but i am pretty sure i would have reacted the same as i did regardless.

so i am thinking about winning and losing, backing down, saving face, etc.

i would rather be right than happy.

now, i can see that that's idiotic... because logically, if i am UNhappy, then i am losing anyway, right? i don't know why i persist in this. but i know it to be true about myself. i have my own strange rules about things and my own definitions of WINNING. maybe it's a dissociating thing because i feel perfectly calm, not sad, just calm. but i know that yesterday i would have been sad.

i like things to be black and white, clear cut. ultimatums are things that are easy. you ask a question, someone gives you an answer...

i end a lot of arguments with, "Fine. You can win then."

i guess i just don't count my own loss all the time. if we BOTH lose, then i still feel ok. apparently, i would make an excellent suicide bomber.

i have nothing (new) to say (still)

2007-12-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

this is from march 2007. but it is today too. and my "current mood" is still soulless:

ocean filled marbles
The rage of seventy-three oceans are in my head, all compressed to the size of a marble. Like a black hole. Such an extreme of gravity, density, pressing chunks of matter the size of the earth into a fingernail's thickness. I am collapsing in on myself. My body thinks it's a fist. I keep forgetting to breathe. Even my lungs are clenched and knotted.

I am a song on repeat.

Always lost. Always angry. A construction of rage, using the same adjectives over and over.

I am a song on repeat.

I should have been an Artist-- channeling my pain into dark beauty. But I can't paint. I can't sing. I can't even find words to catalogue and dissect it. Everything I write tastes the same.

I am a song on repeat.

I can't even think of an original metaphor. The ocean? How trite is that? But nothing else feels quite like the tide knocking you over as it drags at your ankles. Nothing else I know has such a sense of power and such a lack of conscience. Cool wet choking apathy. It is the only truth that comes close, cliché or not. I can remember being very young and touching the foam on the waves as it melted beneath my fingers. This was before the Disney movie came out, but I'd read the story of the little mermaid. Dead mermaids become foam on the waves. There always seemed to be such an endless amount of foam. I remember feeling sad about all those dead mermaids, and also feeling sad because it meant that they all died without ever being happy. I would imagine the little mermaid standing over the prince and his wife with the knife, right before she kills herself. At age four, I thought that was really stupid of her. She should have stabbed that prince jerk. Plus, I thought stabbing herself was really melodramatic and needlessly painful. I suppose I was a lot smarter at four… So silly. As if a few drops of blood could drain out an ocean. I know it doesn't work, but it feels like it should. A pressure inside my skull that I ought to be able to release, like popping a blister. But everything, any and all attempts, just feed it. Just make the black hole denser. Me, stupider.

I am a song on repeat.

I used to "feed the waves" at the beach-- with my hands full of sand and anticipation, and i liked how the waves licked my fingers. I thought of the ocean like a hungry wild-animal, so i fed it sand to appease it. But it was always still hungry. Just like that marble still rolls smugly around in my head, untouched, and even if I were to smash my skull open and claw it to mush, I doubt I could reach it. I am a song on repeat.

Symmetry

2007-12-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

Symmetry. I think about symmetry a lot, because i am not very symmetrical. Well, sure, maybe in an OCD way... but i mean literally. (don't i always?)

i know most people have one slightly bigger side of their body, which they only notice when they have to buy shoes or a bra... but the left side of my body irritates me more often than that. my left leg is longer than the other one and i walk weird, but people don't notice. "people never notice anything."

anyway, i have been thinking a lot about my 3rd grade science project, which was about the halves of the brain. and the visual object lesson was several pictures of faces in the middle of the board, and a small mirror... and people were supposed to put the mirror up to the mid-line of the face so that you could see what a person would look like with 2 left halves of their face, or 2 right halves. perfect symmetry.

now, the point of my science project wasn't supposed to have anything to do with this next part, but this next part is what i remember best...

one of the pictures i had was of ted bundy. (yes, we had an extra picture of ted bundy lying around in the garage.) and the others were just of neighbors or people from church who let me take their picture.

so, the guy who seemed like normal-happy-church-guy looked fine both ways. 2 rights or 2 lefts... he looked about the same. still nice and happy either way. but ted bundy was rather more dramatic. if you doubled his face one way, he looked normal. and when doubled the other way he looked evil and psycho. i mean, it was shockingly noticeable, and many kids and adults commented on this fact, not just me.

so, i don't really know where i am going with this, but i thought about this a lot later on-- like when you learn how humans are attracted to symmetry, and how we instinctively know that symmetry means healthier and more genetically viable.

when i did the mirror thing and saw the 2 Ted Bundys... i asked if that meant there was a nice Ted was trapped inside the brain with the other one... but i heard back, "No. He is all bad now."

But i still worried about it.

i'm not incapable like a stroke victim or anything... But, i only use half of my face to make expressions.

SEER-- drawing from High School era

2007-12-10T07:49:00.001-07:00

Day is for day, Night is for night.

2007-12-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Amanda is not: sleep at night.
Am i stuck in a book again?
Fight, fight, fight all night... like Go Dog, GO!
??
i am INDO board. i am Watch-the-Tree-lights-dance. i am Listen to XM music on TV... and why, why do i get sucked into Infomercials??? but i really do think i want a Trikke... it looks so cool and swoopy-swervy... i am Sure i must need one... but i could just want to be Warm-and-happy-people-riding-near-a-beach and not cold-and-dark-snow-outside, like i Am.
can a Trikke ride in snow? go! go! go in snow? there is a ski kind too but i don't want that one, just the wheel kind, because i am not talking about SERIOUS snow, just the sidewalk kind.

Do you like my hat?
Do you like my hat?
Do you like my hat?

No. I do not.

SEER page 42

2007-12-08T00:26:00.000-07:00

SALT

Today, I do not like Salt. I only like paprika. Mommy makes very excellent mashed potatoes, and she splashes beautiful RED paprika across the surface before she puts the bowl on the table. I like to scoop out the part that has drippy gold melts of butter and RED paprika SPLASH across all the white. I don’t know how long this day is or when it starts, but at first, Mommy would put the scoop on the plate for me, and now, sometimes I have to stop hogging all the butter and share.

And Today the radio plays Push It by Salt-N-Pepa all the day. And you love Salt-iN-Pepper! You think they have a great name. You have never considered salting your pepper, because you are not really a fan of pepper… but maybe that is because your pepper just needs SALT!!! But, you decide that Pepper, even salted Pepper, is not good all alone. However, SUGAR, is very different, and you like to eat that plain just fine.

When grown-ups say “AMANDA! You are A PILL!” …you agree and think you are probably a SUGAR pill and NOT the vitamin kind.

Today, we go to Joseph Smith’s house for dinner. Joe is Mommy’s professor at Law School. (Mommy graduates Law School when I am 7, so I was probably 6 at this dinner.) Joe is blind and has a guide dog. I already like Joe, because one time he gave Mommy a pack of stickers. The stickers were ALL purple circles, and he said he got it for her because she was so color-coordinated. And Mommy laughed and didn’t understand the joke, but I DID and thought Joe was very funny, and I was excited to meet him and his dog-eyes. And Joe’s wife makes HOMEMADE mashed potatoes, which sounds very yummy, because you love mashed potatoes… And since Joe is blind, he probably has a more developed sense of taste, because you know blind people sometimes have better sense after they lose their eyes. But the wife makes GROSS mashed potatoes. They are LUMPY and you like SMOOTH. And PLUS, no paprika. And PLUS, no golden river of butter! And you know your mother is a much better cook because she knows that instant potatoes from a can are much smoother, and therefore, BETTER. And you ask about Paprika, and there isn’t any, and Mommy probably gives you a LOOK to BE POLITE! And so you just use some salt, and you discover that SALT… DOES, in fact, help. And you feel sorry that Joe does not have a Mommy to make him really GOOD mashed potatoes, but maybe he can TASTE so well, that his (same) potatoes ARE good.

And later, you realize why people think, “salt of the earth” is a good thing to be. Because salt is pretty good.

And later, you notice that sometimes people forget salt all by itself is gross.
“...if I were blind, I would know what you are...”
—Schemendrick the Magician (when he greets the Last Unicorn)
And you SEE that you HEAR a different meaning in that than most people, just like most people can not see the unicorn in the movie and instead just see a white horse.

And I wonder what else I am missing by not being blind.

Rain

2007-12-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

The icy sidewalks were melted this morning. And it was raining drops so fine that i could breathe them in. I went for a walk and i could BREATHE. Not that it was quite nice enough to forgive Utah for not being Florida, but still, it was so nice to have rain and be able to pretend a little. And all the trees were looking black and wicked because they are are leafless and bony now, and so they were scratching up against the sky in a nice way, and it was not oppressively cloudy but just the right amount, enough to erase the horrible, suffocating mountains and give me the illusion of SKY.

SEER page 40

2007-12-07T03:11:00.000-07:00

…because TODAY, you SEE the Prism-Prison

SMASH!
(and SMASH! needs 10,000 more pages to be big enough to see how big the explosion was, but that would waste a lot of ink, so you need to stop and imagine it, because I do not have a paper that big anyway)

And the RAINBOW breaks out, and it is the most beautiful thing you have EVER SEEN.

SUN+GLASS+RAINBOW+DANCING+HAPPY-SCREAM!!

!!!!SCREAM-SMASH!!!!

and you can not speak. and you can not move. and you are FORCED to BE STILL by the power in front of you.

Because there is just so much LIGHT and so much JOY and so much so much that your brain WILL explode if there IS ANY MORE.

And you SEE a glimpse of WHY, MAY BE the WOW! and the dancing-joy-rainbow-song had to tone all of that down before you reached it, but also had to turn the volume louder for Mommy because also may be she would not have noticed otherwise, because you SEE that she is much less impressed that you are, even though she got to see MORE miracle.

And inside your head you hear the voice of King Haggard, from the Last-Unicorn-Movie, when he says:

“…they FILL me, with JOY…”

when he explains WHY he stole all those unicorns and put them in the sea, which is one sentence of why sometimes you love King Haggard the best, even though he is the BAD guy in the movie, because you know EXACTLY how he feels when he whispers that, and you long for a unicorn too, but the movie teaches you that unicorns are just not as good in a cage, even if the cage is as big as the whole ocean, because the BEST part is when the unicorns go FREE and spill out of the sea, and run and RUN and run back into the world, even though that part lasts for only a few seconds in the movie, it is the part that you watch the WHOLE movie FOR, because THAT is the good part.

And you remember how Mommy is a girl that really knows how to horde/hold onto a turtle.

And NOT so much a turtle-freer-sharer.

Mommy, in fact, is more of a CATCH-THOSE-UNICORNS!!! kind of person, quite a bit of the time. Just like King Haggard, but still nicer and prettier.

SEER page 39

2007-12-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

...still

SEER page 38

2007-12-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe Forever.

SEER page 37

2007-12-07T02:53:00.000-07:00

Today, GOOD-Mommy gives me a present!

Present: Pre like baby or preemie. And sent by Mommy. And Pre… ZENT! Like, if you add a flourish or whip it out from behind your back, like Mommy does, so you remember that this is not birthday or Christmas day.

The name of the present sounds like PRIZZAM. (But later you learn it is spelled Prism.) And it is a small, triangle, piece of glass. And GOOD-Mommy explains that if you are careful, and can find the trick, you can see the rainbow inside, AND also, get the rainbow to come out of the glass. And GOOD-Mommy got the prism-present just for you for know reason! Just because she likes you! And she thought it was COOL! (like cool-interesting)

Prizzam: PRI like a PRIson, and also like an I AM is inside of the prison, and also ZZ like a trapped bee, buZZing and trying to escape. And the I AM part is a rainbow, and it is trying to escape the Prism-Prison.

And then Today is 2 to 5 years later. And you notice that 2 to 5 or 5-10 is how people say it when they get a prison sentence. And that a life-sentence means different amounts of time depending on what state the prison is in, and is not always the same as the lifespan of the prisoner. Which does not sound very fair, but Mommy says is TRUE regardless, and she knows because she is in Law School.

You think about how people’s Mommy and Daddies always cry about their kids being sent to prison, even when they admit their kid was BAD and did something WRONG, may be because Moms and Dads SEE how the SON and the I are trapped in the word prison, and they want to pry their kid out-apart because they want them to get I and SON and PRY and PRISON all straightened out and free again, instead of all tangled up and trapped in un-happy together.

But still Today, is only as far as you know that the sentence is 2-5 for the rainbow in prism.

And today, you have played and played with that prizzam(*line drawn through word, but blog format won't allow that) prism(*line also drawn through prism) Glass and tried and tried to coax that rainbow out. And sometimes in the 2 to 5, when you LOOK HARD, you can see a HINT of what MIGHT be a rainbow.

And some days, in the 2-5, this is the rest of the sentence:
…and I put a skittles next to the rainbow-glass to see if the rainbows will want to play together, since the rainbow-glass will not come out for just me yet, but I CAN taste the rainbow in the skittles, so I have decided to consult the skittles about how to play with rainbow-in-the-glass, and may be if I put them next to each other, and leave them alone, and then spy on them, I will catch both rainbows (the skittles and the prism) out playing…

Or Today… I tell Rainbow-glass that is does not have to do any tricks today if it is not up to it, because that’s ok, and I still like it anyway, and I still like for it to just sit in my window because I SEE that it at least wants to look out the window more than it wants to sit in a dark drawer, and I like to look out the window too.

And Today I add that I wish I could go play outside too, and tell Rainbow-glass that I will take it outside tomorrow. But since for today we have to play-inside, I will tell it about the solar system on the wall of my room that GOOD-Mommy pinned up near the ceiling. And I tell Rainbow-glass that it might want to consider a career as an astronaut, like I am, because then, the SPACE you get to PLAY in is pretty much unlimited, because it is also your JOB and so you get to work at playing in space all the time! And then Mommy walks into my room, and wants to know who I am talking to, and asks me very curious…

Mommy: What are you doing?

And I shrug and feel silly-awkward-baby-dumb and I say…

Amanda: I am just playing pretend.

Mommy (smiles): Oh! What are you pretending?

Amanda: Um… teacher, I guess.

Mommy: Oh. Who are you teaching?

Amanda: My room.

Mommy: You mean the TOYS in the room?

Amanda: Just… (shrug) my room. But, yeah, I guess the toys too.

Mommy: Oh. Ok… Well, I guess I’ll let you keep playing then?

Amanda (relieved): OK! Bye Mommy!

(But you didn’t really mean the toys so much… and MY ROOM and MY SPACE are common themes/problems in your story. Notice that farmer, astronaut, and horse trainer sound good to you—but never cop or fireman… at least, not until you are older and discover the book Fahrenheit 451, because THOSE fireman are a kind you have never heard of, and when you read that book you will have to re-think what you know about fireman, and re-consider your career options.)

BUT! Today, you are not that far yet, and it is still the 2-5 sentence.

And Today, you are somewhere in the house, but not in your ROOM… and… you hear Mommy SCREEEAM!!
From.

inside…

Your Room.

And you RUN as fast as you possible can.

But just as you ALMOST REACH the door to your room, Mommy cries out in sad-dismay-disappointment kind of noise.

Just like something has been horrible killed!

But Mommy looks ok… because now you SEE HER filling up the doorway.

And Mommy tells you that she is SO SORRY to disappoint you, and she is so sorry you just missed it… but… the thing is… there were just RAINBOWS all over your room, but they all stopped before you got here. (AND THEN) Mommy looks back in to the room, and says… (still disappointed sounding) well… I guess there is still just a speck left on that wall… but she wishes you had been here a couple seconds ago because…

(And this is where you SHOVE past Mommy into that ROOM NOW!)

Before you miss that last speck too!

WAIT!!!
WAIT! PLEASE!!!! RAINBOW-GLASS!
WAIT FOR ME!!!

…and you must be GOOD-dead in this part. Because you are SURE time stood still…

SEER page 31

2007-12-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Today one of your favorite foods is spaghetti-o’s in a can. You love the spaghetti-o’s with meatballs! And you are big enough now to open the can, dump them in a bowl, and warm them in the microwave, and eat them, all by yourself. And you like to make this delicious lunch for yourself quite often.

And today is saving meatballs. Just in case. Because meatballs are the best part. And you really don’t know WHY you want to save the meatballs yet, because what you really want is some kind of unicorn-bait to put in the yard so you can catch a unicorn. And you do not think unicorns are carnivorous, because horses are not. But you reason, that unicorns might be part LION, like their tails, and lions DO eat meat… so maybe unicorns DO like spaghetti-o’s or meatballs! And you think on this some more…

And Today, you get caught with a paper napkin full of cold meatballs, with the sauce licked off, walking out the door. And a puzzled and amused Daddy stops you, because he sees you take the meatball pile out of the microwave, where you had left it, (because bugs can’t get into either the microwave or the refrigerator when it is shut, but they CAN get to food ANYWHERE else) and you are asked to explain (to Daddy) just what it is you think you are doing?!

And you are pretty nonplussed about what he means, so you just answer,
“They are messier with the sauce on.”

Daddy: But… are those meatballs? And also, aren’t you going to turn the microwave ON before you take them out?

Amanda: Oh, no. They are easier to carry cold.

Daddy now starts to sound annoyed or perplexed.

Daddy: But… WHY DO YOU WANT COLD MEATBALLS??

I start to get nervous.

Amanda: Well, I don’t know, I guess first I liked hot best, but then I found out cold are good too, at least I like them cold anyway, and plus easier to carry, because hot rips the napkin and won’t carry as many, and is it ok if I go outside now?

Daddy: Well, SURE! I guess… go on outside then.

And he shakes his head, but not like he is angry or like you have done anything BAD, so you shrug too, and go out the back door of grandmother’s house, which is your house too at the time because you live there today… And you find that you need to eat a couple of the meatballs, so you can free one hand, to be able to turn the doorknob and open the door. And you wish you could open the door with your feet, and think you should work on developing that skill… just in case, next time your hands are full of meatballs again...

Genie in a bottle.

2007-12-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Dreamed last night. (Or day, since I read Mansfield Park and so didn't go to sleep until just before dawn.) I dreamed i was obsessed with Genies. Djinni? And i was sitting at a school desk, but it was not a school setting. Some one's house, and there were lots of people milling around. My brother was sitting at a desk in front of me, turned around in the seat, and i was telling him all about Genies and bottles filled up with them. And I kept getting yelled at for talking, but not by a teacher because there wasn't one, i guess by family, because my mom and dad were there, and some other extended family i dislike and/or barely know/knew. And so i wasn't allowed to talk to him anymore and i had to go into the kitchen and sit and my back was to the room and i hate that and people kept walking behind me and tripping over me or putting there hand on my shoulder to steady themselves and i got way stressed and went outside, and got yelled at by my dad, i can't remember what he said, just everyone was mad at me for going outside and making a scene.

anyway, it was an upsetting dream. and i got in a fight with Garret afterward because i yelled at him when i was trying to think and he kept interrupting me, and so he was mad and so then i just wanted it to be resolved and over, and i really hate that people don't accept that and think i am pouting or being manipulative or whatever because really and truly i just want people to GO AWAY and they WON'T and then things DO turn into a huge fight because they keep talking and the more they keep talking at me the more agitated i get so that then i AM mad. it's so stupid but i keep repeating this pattern with multiple people. sometimes i will say ANYTHING to make them LEAVE, i am mean and say horrible things just so they will get mad enough to leave me alone, and so i FAKE being all mad and scream and have to throw a fit so they will SHUT-UP, and then i do not feel the least bit bad about it. (we really didn't get in THAT bad of a fight today, i was just thinking about the whole pattern of it as i was lying under the bed) all i feel when someone stalks off crying or slams the front door on me is CALM. nice peaceful calm RELIEF. it seems like a lot of unnecessary drama. if people would just go away in the first place and wait for me to return instead of following me around and talking through doors or whatever, then they would be happier and i would be happier and so why don't people just LISTEN when i explain (later when i can talk) that they should just let me crawl under the bed and talk to the cat?

See, this i why i don't believe OTHER people now when they say they are not mad, because since people don't leave ME alone, it must mean THEY are really mad when they say they are not, because otherwise, why do they disbelieve me?

SEER page 29

2007-11-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

Every day in Pre-first that it is time to play DRAW now, you WATCH Patrick very close. Because you keep hearing about how Patrick is the stupidest one in the class. Even TEACHERS whisper about it! Because you know that when they call him Patrick-is-SLOW they are trying to say STUPID-Patrick in a nice way.

And YOU SEE that Patrick never ever will play-draw house or play-draw tree or play-draw ANYTHING at all but stick people. Just STICK PEOPLE. ALL DRAW DAY LONG. Like this:

And I get very fascinated with paTRICK and his TRICK people!

I see that Patrick does not listen to all the kids at the table who say he is stupid and that his stick people are crazy-crack-baby-heads, and that stick people should have arms and necks, for instance, and not just LEGS sprouting right out of HEADS.

I see that Patrick looks pretty content. May be even Happy. He still likes his stick people even if they are stupid. And I decide, NOT to throw a crayon at Patrick like the other boy just did, but instead,

I CHOOSE…

ASK PATRICK.

And this next part is not all EXACT word for word, but GIST the important parts.

Amanda: um… Why do the legs come out of the heads?
(I’m not sure if Patrick looks up yet, or just keeps drawing.)

Patrick: Because. That is where their legs ARE.

(And this makes LOTS of sense! So I get very excited, and smile big, and start to squeal and laugh!)

Patrick: (does a little frown)

(Oh-no! He thinks I am laughing AT HIM, I must talk more so he understands I am not! I am laughing at myself and all the other kids and even TEACHERS that have missed this very obvious and excellent point! We all thought PATRICK was the slow-one!!! Oh-my! How funny that WE are SLOW and HE is the GENIUS!!!!)

Amanda: KNOW! KNOW-NO! I SEE it now! I SEE I SEE! I see (gasp for air) why they just have legs and heads! But, what do you DO when they have to pick something UP????

(And I am breathless with anticipation!)

Patrick: How big?

Amanda: What??

(Patrick is very patient, even though this girl is pretty slow, and he looks right at Amanda now, for SURE in this part)

Patrick: HOW BIG? Like, is it something they can pick up with teeth?

(And I look closer at the picture…)
Amanda: Like that guy! How did he put his hat on????

(Patrick looks at Amanda like she is SLOW, as in, mentally retarded, but does not laugh at her and is STILL kind, just a little shocked)

Patrick: He came with the hat.

Amanda: HE CAME WITH THE HAT!!!! OH!!!!! (Amanda is bouncing in the seat now.) BUT!!! WHAT IF HE WANTS TO TAKE THE HAT OFF!!!

Patrick: Why?

Amanda: WHO CARES WHY? HOW IS HE GOING TO GET THAT HAT OFF????!!!!!!!!!

Patrick (grins) : I guess... I guess he would bounce it off! Or get that other one to take it off with his teeth!

Amanda: OH! But… what if the other one is not tall enough? Or if it is stuck down too-tight on his head and won’t bounce off good?? What if he is all alone? What will he DO????

(And now Patrick stares down at the picture….)And Patrick draws a Miracle.
Patrick: There! Now he will always be ok!

And now, HAT-MAN has FEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amanda: BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But that might have been the wrong word to yell. Because even though you and Patrick are best friends and so happy and laughing so hard, and now Patrick is seeing if he can DRAW without ARMS, because you have pointed out that it is VERY unfair to draw armless stick people, when you yourself have arms AND hands and so Patrick is going NUTS with his teeth and his feet, but his shoes are in the way, which is WHY he had to use ARMS in the first place to DRAW anyway, and you are BOTH trying to find out WHY or WHEN ANYONE ever, ever, actually NEEDS an arm ever, and where is the point at which arms are REAL essential? And WHAT IF one arm? And WHAT IF three? And what if you just roll-play on the ground, and are only a head? Or one eye? Or an eye and a tooth? AND THIS IS TOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!

And TOO MUCH FUN!

…is usually when someone feels compelled to stop you.

Which is what happens next.

Because you don’t get why everyone says, “What-if?” is a baby game and SO STUPID and POINTLESS! Because you think it is pretty FUN! And you are so pleased to learn Patrick is secretly a genius undercover. And you just KNOW that Patrick could rival Picasso, or at least Matisse, if he is just allowed to get to his toes NOW!

But he is not allowed.

Because everyone in the classroom is looking your way. And some of them are looking very surprised, because may be they have never even heard Patrick laugh or even talk. And some of them look dumbfounded or may be shocked. And, apparently, you are not learning properly, because it is TIME to BE QUIET and DRAW now!

So you be very quiet, but also tiptoe over to the teacher and try to explain that Patrick is SMART-Patrick, and not slow at all, and is in the wrong class, and needs to be in the smart-gifted-special-class like you get to go to twice a week, because Patrick is the smartest person you have met at this school EVER, or at least so far, and that is including TEACHERS!!! Can you believe it?

But the teacher does NOT believe it. And you have to GO SIT DOWN and BE QUIET NOW!!! And you start to panic, because you don’t want her to be MAD, and you whisper in DESPERATION!!
…but! but there is a REASON for the no-arms!!!

But that is ENOUGH! AMANDA! DO YOU WANT A TIME-OUT????

And when you say yes, please, you would love some time-out to explain, the teacher sighs and says, no, not that kind of time-out, the punishment kind, and you do not really see how TIME-out is a punishment, because Mommy and Daddy have never made you be punished that way, but you remember that time-out is code for when teachers actually mean time-to-sit-in-the-front-and-feel-shame-and-learn-embarrassed because the other kids are allowed to smirk and laugh at you. So you sigh and give up. And you go back and sit down. But you smile at Patrick, and may be wave at him a little. And he may be waves back with his foot, or he could have just been trying to put his feet behind his head. But you two are too BAD still, so you can’t sit at the same table.

And it was ok to talk to Patrick when he was at your table, but you can’t talk to him so much now, and the other kids don’t believe that Patrick is smart, they instead think YOU are NOT SMART and YOU are STUPID too.

And this next part is very, very, bad.

Because you choose WRONG.

At the time, you think there are only 2 choices, and the choices are:
1. Choose-Patrick
2. Choose-Be-Smart

Because you do not SEE the WRONG yet, and that Patrick and Be-Smart IS the same, and that Patrick AND Be-Smart is ONE choice, not 2 opposing ones.

But… you were only 5 that day, and even though you chose wrong and stupid, you were try-do-try-best-do-can-see. And you wanted to be smart so much that you chose it OVER Patrick that day, but may be that does not make you BAD, because you were trying to be good, and did not screw up on purpose. The problem is, you think the adults and the world must be smarter and must know more than you do, and so you LISTEN to them.

But when you ARE be what you have, you ARE being have, and you ARE behaving, but most people use behave to mean “obey ME instead!” and NOT be what you have at all, and so this can be confusing, when you hear “behave!” all the time and you ARE!

I am behave! I behave! (MIS-behave is an intentional-bad, and you are NOT bad by intention.)

But what you see then, is that people either speak wrong or you are broken, and so you try to see and learn how you are wrong and NOT really hearing, “oh-no! Be ME in your stead! instead!” from all the adults around you.

And today you have not forgotten about Snails, but... you are very angry. They won’t get off the sidewalk, no matter how far you put them back in the grass, and you keep stepping on them or running them over with your bike, no matter how much you try not to. And they make a HORRIBLE CRUNCH noise that you HATE. And you HATE that they are making you feel guilty, and it is their own stupid fault you keep killing them. And you HATE snails, you HATE them. And you pick one up and throw it as hard as you can at the wall of your house, and the crunch makes you cry and you feel horrible and you HATE yourself.

But you meet a lizard, and it makes you feel better, because if you are too rough when you catch lizards, you will snap their tails off, and the tails will bleed and wave horribly around in the air, BUT the tails always grow BACK, so you do not have to feel very bad about it. Just a little bad for the sting of pain, but not BAD for KILLING anything. It’s just the same as when you cut off a fingernail, except you don’t bleed then. And there are so many lizards, you can make a new friend each day. Which is a little sad, but when you put lizards in a glass jar, even with grass and bugs and holes punched to breathe, you can’t keep them for more than a day or two, or they WILL die. So, you just catch some each day and sometimes you catch the SAME ones a lot, and that is happy, and then they get used to you, and will sit on your shoulder for short periods of time, because they learn you will chase and catch them if they run, but if they are nice, you feel bad for them and let them get back to playing quicker. And sometimes, in very rare cases, one will let you feed it a bug, and not run when you pet it, and stretch it’s head out to you. And if they bite your ears or your hair you talk soft and tell them it’s ok, because lizard bites don’t hurt anyway, and you want them to like you. But you mostly like the baby lizards or the medium ones which you think are the girls… because the biggest lizards, which you think are the boys, have a red flap of skin that expands when they breathe out, and they also hiss at you, and so you are a little afraid of them. And the good thing about lizards is that they are so fast, they run away from feet and don’t let people step on them. But the bad thing about being friends with the lizards in your yard, is that one time, a lizard you were very good friends with, did NOT run away from you, because he trusted you, and you were BAD and DID step on him, but it was ok, because you prayed VERY HARD to GOD that the lizard would NOT DIE, because God could just not kill him for trusting you, and you told God that you knew Jesus was may be just for man-kind and not for lizard-kind and you did not want to be sacrilegious, but you did not want the lizard to die, and you begged God to just hurt you instead and make the lizard ok and help the lizard to forgive you… and the lizard DID make up with you and DID run off and play in the grass, and you KNEW he was alright, and you were so relieved, because you could have sworn you had crushed his stomach, and he wasn’t breathing right, but may be he was just in shock or something (like mommy said), or may be just God is a big lizard fan and loves them too and made the lizard better (like I say).

And today, in pre-first, you look up.

And Patrick has ARMS on every person in his pictures now. But ALL of them are dead like this:

And you KNOW and you SEE that Patrick is DYING.

And you close your eyes and put your head down.

And you are ashamed. And you may be cry some.

But you do not look up at Patrick anymore.

Because it is easier to hide tears when your head looks down.

And you are MEAN to Patrick after that. Because you think he should see how to hide better so you could still be friends in secret. But Patrick does not pick up on this, and just sees and thinks that you HATE him for REAL. Which is now true. Even though you did not mean to end up at HATE.

(again.)
And for the next 20 years—you spend a lot of time being very mixed up in life.

SEER page 179

2007-11-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

TV at 3am is not all infomercials and The Nanny reruns... You flip through forensic shows, crime dramas, serial killer documentaries...

And you remember that you are already a killer.

A serial-killer.

A serial-snail-killer.

Because you did not stop after just one snail.

SEER page 28

2007-11-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

and time goes black...

(audio clip on youtube.com/seerseeher)

Alice and Frank

2007-11-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

Some people like to point out that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor and not the monster. The monster was just "Frankenstein's monster" and it didn't have a name of it's own. But I don't really care about it. I figure if Mary Shelley wanted people to get her book right, then she should have given it a name of it's own. Plus, I have not actually read the book so i am not very attached to it. Plus, lots of diseases get named after the doctors that discovered them, so why not monsters?

I am perfectly ok with calling Frankensteins as i see them.

But, Alice, is a whole other story.

And one i get very annoyed about. Possibly because i have to deal with it so much more than the Frankenstein thing, which i suppose i should be grateful for, if i took intent into consideration, but really, i'd rather be called Frankenstein than Alice. In fact, it is really surprising how often Alice gets mentioned to me, especially if you look at my real-people friend ratio. But people seem to give me odd looks and say things like, "ooookay ALICE! haha! you are weird." or something like that. especially when they first meet me. and, i suppose they don't mean it as an insult, because Alice wasn't a TROLL or anything... but... I do not like Alice.

She is a bug. Lice. A lice. A nasty little bug that gets into Wonderland and all it's crazy fun, and she's not BAD exactly, but she is terribly normal and not in a good way. And so, if people wish to express my oddness, then they really should not call me ALice. I am Wonderland. I am the Mad Hatter, the White Queen, gosh, pick almost ANYTHING else in the books, even some treacle, but NOT Alice.

SEER page 24

2007-11-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Or today:

You wonder how the snails get out. You see that there are lots of EMPTY shells in the yard, and also big snails and little snails. So at first, you think the unicorn-snails grow up and move into the empty BIG shells. And you don’t know WHY the big snails move out, because you don’t see any shells that are bigger for them to move into. But you play with snails for a long time and collect lots of the empty shells, and put them by smaller snails in case they need to move, or just want to move into a different color house, because white is so pretty, and most of the empty shells are white. And one time you ask an adult if the Unicorn-snails get big and use the empty shells you leave out for them. But they laugh and say NO, because they are like a different animal, because they are different species of snails. And one time, you notice that you have never seen a BIG snail in a white house, only in brown houses, and you wonder about snail-death, and if it hurts, and WHY is the SHELL still in your yard if the snail is somewhere else, and if the snail is dead, then why doesn’t the shell disappear too? And you don’t WORRY about this too much, you are just very curious.

And then, you think of SLUGS.

But you have never seen a slug, only snails and empty snail shells. So you hope, that may be SLUGS are some of the SNAILS that got too big for the shell and ESCAPED!!!

And at this time, you feel very excited and curious and smart for thinking of this. But at another time, you will just feel stupid and ignorant.

Like this day:

Amanda is playing outside... (and the page goes black)

SEER page 22

2007-11-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Or today:

More PLAY with CLAW on the slide! And you see that CLAW wants to be outside the shell almost all the time now. But you do not think it would be a good idea to break his shell open for him, because you see that it might kill him if you try to help.

And for just a second, you wonder how the snails get out.

So you just PLAY and slide, and swing, but not too much swing, because you hate actually SWINGING back and forth. And you never got the knack of jumping off in the air like some kids can do. You just like to twist the chain up tight and then un-spin, but CLAW does not like either way. In fact, what CLAW loves the most, is PLAY with the GRASS. He sure loves that grass next to the slide. But he gets going pretty quick when he is happy and having a good time, so you have to keep a close eye on him, so he won’t get lost. But you can get away with ONE slide down on your stomach before he gets too far away, just like that day the picture was taken, and in fact, that may be the EXACT day you remember, but it might be the day after too, because there were lots of days with the slide and with CLAW.

SEER page 17-20

2007-11-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

*All I have is a cheap and CRAPPY digital camera. But I wanted to read aloud some parts of SEER because some things work better on paper and some work better aloud. So I am just playing around with it.

Pages 17-20 can be heard on YouTube.

youtube.com/SeerSeeHer

Memory. Time. Reality. Space. Dimensions.

2007-11-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

I think about time travel and memory a lot, just because I find them interesting. The lines between imagination, reality, dreams, and all kinds of things can seem clear sometimes and sometime blurry.

I don't know if my memory is faulty, or if I just pay attention to different details than others. But I don't seem to be on the same page as others either way. People who work in the court system or watch TV know that "eyewitness" testimony can be inaccurate.

But for me personally, I seem to get Time all mixed up. My unchecked memory will skip all over the place, age wise. When I write, I switch between I and You all the time, but I usually mean Me. I can't naturally keep my tense straight either. Since my brain is usually flipping from age 5 to age 25 and back again, I will use past, present, and future tenses all mixed up in the same sentence.

I don't know if anyone or everyone has a similar experience, but I am trying to play around with writing stuff right now that can illustrate some of how I feel. At times I feel that time or time travel is a potential secret our brains posses. Not in the sense of imagination, but more to do with Memory. Like a virtual reality game or something. Maybe not like actually GOING anywhere, but being able to SEE everything all at the same time.

Noise

2007-11-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

So i want to be on the computer. There are lots of entertaining and useful things to do on here. But i really hate white noise. And so i hate being on a computer for too long because of the whine. And once it starts to bug me, then i start to hear ALL the machines. And my roomate is not a fan of me unpluging all the TVs and computers, because it resets all the Tivo or something... but even if i go in my room and put the covers over my head i can still hear it and even if i turn music on i can hear it underneath. and someone really needs to invent earplugs that don't hurt ears, because i hate earplugs too because after 20 minutes or so, my ears start to throb, and then i'm back to shaking my head like a crazy person.

SEER page 16

2007-11-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

And today is pre-first class and Ms. Rand:

And the paste-eater does not seem very FUN-SMART or even SMART-FUN. He draws his stick people like this:

Instead of how like you are supposed to draw stick people.

And you SEE his name is Patrick and everyone calls him STUPID-Patrick, and says he got held back from 1st grade because he is stupid and draws stupid stick people the WRONG right-way. And you SEE that all these other kids in the class are may be not special like you are. And that you are 5 years old and got put in Pre-first cLast because you are TOO-SMART-BECAUSE-YOU-CAN-READ-ALL-READY, but everyone else in the cLass is 6 years old and TOO-DUMB-BECAUSE-THEY-CAN-NOT-READ-YET, and so they can not go to first grade.

But also, the 6’s are not mature enough for 1st grade learning, which is also the problem with you, so you can’t play first grade yet either, just like the 6’s, even though you are smarter.

And you are not sure if you should be complimented or insulted by this assessment.

But you SEE, that for sure, being STUPID, is a very big deal. And a VERY BAD-WRONG thing to be. So you are determined to NOT BE stupid EVER! And you decide to watch these characters real close, to learn all you can about stupid people, so you do not ever Be-Stupid, and Make-Stupid-Mistakes, if at all possible, because you are SURE you want to learn how to BE-SMART the most thing of all.

And so far, you KNOW:

--play more with books

--watch out for anything stupid

--and may be start with watch Stupid-Patrick for the trick

Or today is:

Sunshine! The Beach! The Ocean!

You find a giant black rock at the beach that CLAW might like. CLAW has been looking sad in his water-bowl. You SEE that this may be because his rocks are too small and they keep falling down and CLAW has to float and swim all day to not-drown. And you also see, that if you pour too much water out of the bowl so that the rocks are always above water, CLAW seems to be bored, and kind of like he might need a BIGROCK… one that he could climb, but also have room to swim sometimes too. And now is when you SEE the big-black-and-possible-perfect-rock-tower for CLAW. And somehow you just KNOW that this is the rock!!!

And the-end of or-today.

SEER page 15

2007-11-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

But. Maybe that is not today.

Maybe today is:

Your pet turtle ran away.

Or today is:

GOOD-Daddy brought home a present! A turtle for know reason! Just for you! It was a very small turtle that could fit inside one of your hands. At this time, you love the InspectorGadget cartoon, which has an Inspector, and Go! Go!, and gadgets, and a Penny, and a puppy, and a Dr.Claw’s Fist! Your favorite part is Dr.Claw, because you always hope to see more of him, but all you have seen so-far is his fist and the back of his chair. And so, when Daddy hands you the turtle for the very first time, and it is inside it’s shell, the first thing you want is to get a better look at that turtle, so you can learn it’s name. But the turtle does not come out. And you get very excited!! Because you SEE that this turtle is just like Dr. Claw, except you do not-know if he can grow-up to be a Dr. or if he is a boy… but you do hope he has claws, because you should be able to find out that part. You ask GOOD-Daddy if he knows. (And daddy says yes about claws, but no idea about if he is a boy.) And you KNOW for sure that the name of your turtle IS CLAW. (You might have named him Dr. Claw first, but someone might have pointed out that doctors have to have a diploma to get an honorific, and you are not sure about claw even being a doctor yet in the first place, so you do not make him a diploma.) So his name is CLAW, at least for now, but you will consider changing it to Dr.CLAW, if in the future you ever see him being a doctor or if you find his diploma.

And the-end.
For today.

SEER page 12

2007-11-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

Either Smart Or Stupid?

So I am 4 now, and I get to go to school when I am 5. But today I went to school BEFORE I get to go for real, because they had to do a test to see if there is something wrong with me. The problem is, none of the other 4 year old kids can read, so I have to get a test so they know what to do with me. But the test was pretty fun, because they just made me read and play and talk. I was not good at throwing the bean-bags, but I liked the part when the man had me name as many words as I could as in 30 seconds or a minute, and I started thinking of a pirate story, so I remember I yelled: Parrot! Pirate! Eye! Patch! Bird! Peg! Leg! A! and! The! Or! At! Wall! Boat! Ocean! Sea! Waterfall! Floor! Chair! Pencil! Desk! Man! … and so on like that, just yelling any words I wanted and that was lots of fun even though he was kind of stern looking and not too-fun to play with. And also someone else, a lady, took me outside to show me the play-ground, but that was maybe a test too. But I didn’t care, I just want to hurry and get to play on the playground already!

And later, I found out that they don’t know if they should put me in Kindergarten with the babies or in first-grade with the grown-up kids. So finally, they put me in Pre-first, which is an in-between class, and my teacher’s name is Ms. Rand…

Bad pink! Under analyze better, you monkey!

2007-11-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

So of course I hear, "YOU OVER ANALYZE!" pretty constantly. Because apparently, too much thinking is a bad thing especially if you let others know. The vast, blind, drooling people-majority achieve their smug average-supremacy by having a trick in their brain that allows them to function without any thought. Like animal instinct. But some humans (me) are that poor monkey that got dyed pink by some mean researcher and then thrown in with the other monkeys and ripped apart. Except for humans have jail, so most pink-monkey-humans do not get to REAL die, just slow die from very teeny bites and meanness.

Now, this is not too special because everyone has a sad story, so you are not suppose to talk about it because that is complaining and it is bad to think about yourself too much because that is being selfish or self-centered or both. And I know that rule. But... it is very hard to know what to do. Like with over analyzing. Because... I can't know what is in anyone elses brain, so I am my only frame of reference. And even with lots of thinking to find the clues, and careful attention to TV dramas and psychology texts... i still don't really get how to stop thinking.

I mean, I know not to bring it up. And not ask too many questions... but then... i still don't know what to DO or how to ACT. My brain just gets kind of paralyzed and can't DO. Not just sometimes, but with pretty much every question and situation i have to deal with.

Like yesterday, I got asked this question:
"Hey Amanda, are you going to bed or are you going to stay up and read more?"

Now, I was flummoxed. And didn't speak for 30 seconds. And the person raised their eyebrows and laughed and said, "C'mon, its not a hard question!"

But it SO was. Because the Yes-Nos in the sentence FIGHT, because both things were not really but sort of true together, because I was going to read in bed. But, I couldn't just SAY, "I'm going to read in bed." Because that short of an answer didn't occur to me until 30 seconds into the whole confused train of thought. I really have to suspiciously unravel questions like that and they make me so ANGRY because they take so much time and why can't people talk sense and in nice black/white, yes/no phrased questions???? Because they are humans and that's just how it works.

But knowing all the right answers doesn't help them to make any more sense.

B LOG... sniff...

2007-11-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

i am terribly traumatized. Blog means Weblog. We blog? Why are WE blogging? what's going on? what are we talking about... oh. WEB LOG. I am SO disappointed because i thought Blog was Blah-blah plus Log, like a log of rants, rambling, and BLAH......

and i know i heard that from somewhere, and more than once, so apparently everyone is just joking and trying to be clever.

which i hate. because i am super bad at the whole joking concept.

and it has really sucked my fun out. because... it is ok to dance around singing the "blah-blah-blog!" song if that is the REAL definition, but not so much if you are tricked into the unfunny joke train, where everyone keeps making the same dumb joke and NONE of you are funny.

and i hate it when people think i am trying to be funny and just failing, because mostly i am forced to play off stupidity as "oh i was just trying to be funny" because having an inner dork is much more acceptable than having inner stupidity.

i try to play dork up a lot.

SEER page 6

2007-11-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Now, I do not have any REAL memory of I, Amanda Joy, being born, but I KNOW it happened, because, duh, here I am. One day, you find a blank book, well mostly blank, but the first three pages are filled in, and you LOVE to read this book, but you do not actually put anything in it yourself until you are much older, because the first entry you write is dated when you are six years old. You just read the first three pages over and over and hope Mommy will write more… but she says it’s your life, and that is when you realize that this is not just a made up story, but that these pages are TRUE!! And you probably clap your hand to your forehead or gape your jaw open or something, because you realize how dumb you have been, because you thought Mommy just wanted to be a writer and was practicing her talent and pursuing a secret dream… but as it turns out, that was not the case.

Personal Journal of Amanda Joy as kept by her parents….

March 3, 1980.
I am very frustrated by the demands society places on me. Why can’t I do what I want to do? Mommy wants me to eat some sort of blah stuff from a jar when I make it very clear that I want to eat the same thing Daddy is (green chilie burritos). Mommy’s learning though… today I had soup and cottage cheese with crackers instead of that yucky “High Meat Beef Dinner”. One point for me. I like to kick my ball around and read but I hate to sit still in church. Yesterday, with that new schedule I caused such a ruckus they had to bring me home. (Ha! Ha!) Papa, Grandmother and Jill came home from Utah last night. I went to Papa’s house today because our heater is off and had such a good time with Aunt Jill. I love Aunt Jill—she makes funny noises and plays with me a lot.

August 20, 1980.
Gee, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in here! Sorry, but I’ve been so busy Got back from visiting my Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth in Arizona a few weeks ago—I can’t stand my cousin Alex—he’s a brat! I liked seeing everyone out there but I sorta got sick from something—I don’t know what. Had a bad time for about 6 weeks. I’m better now. “Joel” and “Ju Ju” are home from school for a couple weeks—they are amazed at how well I can speak—what did they expect!? I can make sentences very well and like to pick out the letters O, P, & T on stop signs and things. I’m also becoming a very good cook and housekeeper.

June 19, 1981.
I thought Mommy would never get around to writing in this journal again—I know I keep her busy but this is ridiculous! So much has happened since the last entry that I don’t even know where to begin. My vocabulary, of course, is about as good as Mommy’s. I’m a little more polite though—I have to keep reminding her to say “yes m’am” instead of “uh-huh” or “yeah” she’s pretty hard to train. My best friend in the whole world is Jessie Staska. I love her. We try to play at least once a week and we, of course, see each other in the nursery on Sundays. When Jessie’s not available I have plenty of other friends to play with. I have a whole army of imaginary friends that hang around. BooBoo & Bobbie are the main ones but Big John-John and Little John-John are usually around too. Little John-John always does everything bad. BoopieDoo and her mommy BettySue come over sometimes. Back-back and Baseball do too. I have lots of them. This week has been a very important one for me. Jessie and I started swimming lessons on Monday. My teacher was Doug; Jessie’s teacher was Pam. It has been a very hard week. I screamed and fought the whole time during my first lesson. After that I begged and pleaded with Mommy not to make me go. I told her that the car wouldn’t start, that Doug was sick, that there were bees and whales and green sharks in the pool, but she made me go anyway. Today was the last day. I was still very “ascared” but I listened to my teacher & really started moving along. In order to complete my lessons I had to be dropped off the diving board and find the side of the pool. I did it two times with no problem! Afterwards Doug game me a certificate that says “I’m a Minnow.” I am so proud of myself.

The only REAL memories you have left are just fragments, so you DO remember the fear, fear that you were going to drown. But you don’t remember what you said exactly about bees or whales, you just KNEW there was something hiding in that water that wanted to kill you. So you guessed that it might be something that would want to eat you, the little minnow fish, and so maybe it could be a shark, if you were supposed to be a minnow. And so, I DO recall telling Mommy there was a SHARK!! And doing a scared run-dance with my feet, but then having to get in the car anyway and drive to the pool because the scared run-dance did not work. And the second REAL thing you remember is Boo-boo and Bobbie. You can SEE those two girls right now in your head. They looked like identical twins, and they had long, straight-brown hair. ALL your imaginary friends came in pairs of some kind...

SEER page 4

2007-11-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

That’s us.

(her/me/you/I/Amanda)

SEER page 3

2007-11-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

The first problem with you is vocabulary. And also maybe that you don’t have vocal cords to speak, even if you did know English, which you don’t, but you are going to need to, because Mommy and Daddy are not bi-lingual, just American.

So the first problem, is, that you cannot read the title of this, your own book. (This one right here that I am writing you.) The second problem, is that I/you am now 28, and so even when you learn to read, I will not have found you yet to tell you about it, and you will still have 26&1/2 years to wait. So… sorry about that.

Hopefully, the whole time-travel thing will get solved soon and all your confusion about God, and free-will, and good and evil, and the dinosaurs, and aliens, and the space-time continuum, and the speed of light will be cleared up better too, but for now, you’ll have to start here.

-I

How retarded am I?

2007-11-13T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I JUST put this little pagie here, trying to preen in my feel of organization and savvy-- (woohoo i made a blog all by myself instead of just using a blog feature on some other site, blah, blah) --and this is how retarded i am...

i thought, hey, i should round up all the random posties i have made in the last month so they are all HERE! and then... i got all panicky because i didn't want to CHEAT because posting something i had already written BEFORE was so totally CHEATING and i got all stressed about it...

and i freaking love to call everything retarded, which i may have to address if any stupid people read this, but hopefully the whole world has watched South Park by now, and already learned that moral from Timmy.

The Lingo

2007-11-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

So, the first time I heard the term Aspie and... wait, no. the FIRST time I heard Aspie, lets be honest and not creative here... I just thought "oooh look, like AS PIE! Hey pie is good. Aspie! Aspie! YAY FOR PIE!!!"

and then I read about what an Aspie is, definition wise, and I thought... "oh. my. I AM AN ASPIE!"

and then i thought... hey... that rhymes...

BUT THE POINT, which i am forgetting, IS that definitions are important to know... so this is first... (or like, fifth, but yeah)

ASPIE: means a person with Aspergers Syndrome. But Aspie is way cuter and friendlier than SYNDROME, and plus shorter to type.

NT: means a person who is Neurotypical, or NOT an Aspie. This threw me at first because I thought it might mean "NOT typical" and if NTs are normal and typical, then they should just get one letter, but maybe an N or a T made up "NT" and that is why it is so confusing.

I am going to Label some posts Aspie and some NT because when I speak in what i feel is my REAL voice, most people tend to think i am being silly or melodramatic or stupid or purposely difficult... so I have tried to learn to be and speak "NT" way, which I always just thought of as "learning to fake human" before I heard the term Aspie.