For M. L. Eizl

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.

Sameness

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.

Skipping stones... swimming in sink

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."

Hips.

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

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)

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

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.

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

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...

Which came first? Egg the Chicken on.

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.

Day is for day, Night is for night.

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.

Genie in a bottle.

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?

Alice and Frank

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.

Noise

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.

Bad pink! Under analyze better, you monkey!

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...

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.

How retarded am I?

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.