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Riverotter's Blog
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I am able to log on again!
posted at 09:24 pm on 10-07-2008
This is such a relief. WP allowed me to log on again. I almost thought I was banned.
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SAD
posted at 09:53 am on 03-24-2008
It's real, people. This winter has been the worst seasonal affective disorder season I have ever experienced. I am surprised that I am still alive. Wow!
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Language aquisition
posted at 09:16 pm on 02-18-2008
I love language, languages, linguistics, etymology, sesquipedalian verbage, Scrabble...yet find it impossible to really communicate most of the time. I am taking ASL 1. Why? So I can "not communicate" with even more people? Same thing with Spanish. Lots of people speak Spanish around here- many of them nearly exclusively. Even if we did speak the same language fluently, that doesn't mean I would be able to communicate with them.
Aargh, aarrggh, aarrgghh!!! All acceptable Scrabble plays!!!
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Stimming my ash off
posted at 08:55 pm on 02-10-2008
I have a particular stim that I do when I am focusing: rubbing the middle of my forehead with the tip of my left ring finger. We had our Ash Wednesday service today (due to this week's blizzard) and during the sermon I realized I was totally smearing my ash cross. Christian...Aspie...that's me.
Forgive me, Lord, for I have stimmed.
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I give up
posted at 11:08 pm on 01-30-2008
It's just too hard to make friends. That's all I have to say about that. Demographics always get in the way. Always.
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I thought I was prepared.
posted at 01:31 pm on 01-27-2008
I haven't been to my former church for months. This is the church for which I used to play keyboard in the Gospel Choir- I had given them two months notice when I quit (in June of 2006) and searched earnestly for my own replacement, thinking I was leaving on good terms...well, apparently not (they still have not found a new keyboard player either, adding to the rancor). A woman I still keep in contact with convinced me to finally go back today, promising to meet me in the lobby and sit with me. I prepared myself: either I would get icy stares, or many hugs. Well, I did not think of the other possibility: many icy hugs- which is exactly what happened.
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This is disturbing my equilibrium!!!
posted at 01:23 pm on 01-23-2008
Last week a pipe broke at work overnight, resulting in half the building being flooded. We have just as many people packed into half the space. Tempers are flaring and construction noise is absolutely destroying me- apparently they had to gut the section of the building where the flood occurred. Since there are tarps everywhere, we have to go "the long way around" to get anywhere...it's been awful. The good thing is it should be over soon but until then- arrrgh!!!
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All they do is photograph each other...
posted at 09:09 am on 01-21-2008
I love to ice skate. I crave it. I am just coordinated enough to be able to skate forwards in a counter-clockwise oval without falling. This occurs on something called an "ice skating rink." So tell me why packs of NT's show up and stand together on the ice photographing each other repeatedly. Do they need to prove to each other that they really went to the rink to skate? I really don't get it. It's not just teenagers- it's families too. The other day a mom was taking photos of her little girl who, instead of smiling like people usually do, was yelling, "Video!" Really charming. The best part is that people seem to regard me as being in the way of their photo opp, as if I am somehow invading their photo studio, instead of them invading the ice skating rink.
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thoughts on waking today
posted at 10:18 pm on 01-16-2008
It looks cold and pretty outside; the actual sunlight (not filtered through cloud) woke me up today so that was good but then I remembered that one of these mornings was supposed to be a good Mercury-viewing day and I ignored that because it's been so cold and especially cloudy, so I suppose I missed Mercury again. It is a very elusive planet.
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DO NOT READ- under any circumstance!
posted at 01:46 pm on 01-01-2008
This is the title of a somewhat-interactive show being currently written- actually it already has been written! It's made up of real, anonymous diary entries sent in to the authors/compilers. Actors will reenact the most painful and hilarious moments of other people's (our!)lives. This concept has totally captured my imagination. Now I am going through years and years worth of painstakingly (or carelessly, at times) written diary entries. Wow- did that stuff really happen to me? WAS that me? Can I find a few entries that seem of somewhat universal interest that are not full of cryptic references that I don't even fully understand? Yes- I have found a few. Yes- I will mail them in! Anonymously!
I am posting this here because I know a lot of Aspies keep diaries or journals. And we can support awareness by getting our lives and our experiences in this show. Not just because I'm currently obsessed with it.
http://www.myspace.com/donotreadtheshow
Submissions:
Diary entries can be sent to: donotreadtheshow@gmail.com or to:
DO NOT READ
PO BOX 5364
Plymouth, MI 48170
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What part of "W4W strictly platonic" don't you understand?
posted at 08:14 pm on 12-28-2007
All my friends moved away. Yes, all of them. My few friends have moved to other cities, other states, and I have been completely incapable of making new friends. Not knowing what else to do, I posted a Craigslist personal ad.
The only seemingly normal response I received, resulted in what I realized was a lesbian date, remarkably similar to and just as awkward as any other date I have ever been on. This chick and I never corresponded again.
I recently posted a new one. "Happily married, all my friends moved away, looking for chick friend" essentially, with a few more details to entice the intellectually interesting yet kayak-friendly friend I am seeking. So who answers, a guy, asking if I am open-minded enough to consider a male friend. Sure, I think to myself slightly reluctantly, and we correspond back and forth a bit. Then he asks to trade pics. Silly! The second person to respond was, again, a guy- asking me to be in his band. Huh. Did I post it in the wrong category? Nope- I double checked. There it is, in the "strictly platonic W4W" section, tucked neatly in between "seekign wrokout buddy" and "Frazzled mom of four" is my sci-fi-reading, music-playing, otter-loving ad. I hope I find a nice friend. It's so hard sometimes.
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Lo siento- mi Espanol no es perfecto.
posted at 09:06 pm on 12-15-2007
I have been a volunteer tutor in an ESL (English as a Second Language) program, helping native Spanish speakers practice their English. It's been a fun challenge. The first half hour of each evening is small talk at whatever level of English competency the particular students have, followed by a structured English grammar lesson (one of my stronger skills), and the third part enforces the grammar lesson with some spoken or written activities.
Each volunteer is assigned one or two (occasionally three) students; with one exception I have always been assigned women. At first I was really nervous because of my glaring lack of social skills (and the tutors get assigned different students every time!), but many of the students in the class are just as nervous because their English is imperfect. They seem to appreciate my matter-of-fact corrections when they are necessary since I'm not judging them, and I have a lot of patience when I need to.
It works out well. They help me practice small talk and other social skills (I'm especially working on not interrupting others and learning how to keep a conversation going), and I help them practice English. I've picked up a little more Spanish along the way too.
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Your permanent record? Think again.
posted at 12:20 am on 12-13-2007
So, I naively thought that schools kept such a thing. I envisioned mine a dusty manila folder hidden away in a back room of the grade school I attended from 1978-1987, inside an ear-shatteringly squeaky metal file cabinet...this school no longer exists as such. The brick and mortar still stands. However, it no longer houses the torture chamber, but instead a library and special needs resource center. How wonderful is that? At any rate, with a little internet sleuthing and only one phone call, I found out that whatever record had existed (most likely only grades and standardized test scores, and I do know what those were- I was looking for a different kind of data) had been destroyed in 1996. Shredded? Bonfire? Whatever. To summarize: A) Nobody cares what happened 29 years ago, good or bad, so stop worrying about it. B)No further generations can have their lives stunted in that awful place. Praise the Lord!! C) I think I'll go there next week and catch up on some important reading, and try to figure out where to go from here. F**k the past! On to the brilliant future.
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