First signpost late in life

School is time consuming

2010-04-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

So I've been going to school full time for about the last three weeks. It seems like I spend all my time either doing homework or chores and I always seem to have more homework. This is the first time I've gone to school full time since graduating almost 20 years ago, so I'm not in the habit of keeping track of more than one class, and I have three. To make things more fun one class has weeks that run Wednesday to Tuesday, another runs Thursday to Wednesday (with the quiz for the previous week's material available Thursday through Sunday) and my last class runs a normal Monday to Friday. Because of this, once I get everything done in one class, another one starts a new week and it seems like I'm never caught up.

Now if I could just get my kids to realize this and understand when I need to be left alone to do my homework. But maybe, just maybe they'll see me doing mine and think that maybe they should put theirs first too. Ha....who am I kidding, of course they won't.

At least I'm doing OK in the classes I can see scores for so far. But then seeing as how two of the classes are basic intro to computer type classes, if I don't get A's in both of them I'm going to kick myself. The only real challenge is each one has a research paper, on one I have to pick from a list and on the other I have to compare two operating systems. And in both I have to find sources. That will be fun. And of course I have no idea which two operating systems to choose, since I can choose any two, not just one of the big ones that everyone knows. Anyone got any suggestions?

All I can say is wow

2010-03-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, but it's been a busy time since then and much has happened.

Let's start with the bad news first, last May I was laid off from my job at a major aerospace company here in Everett. I'd been with the company 11 years, but I'd just changed careers about a year before and ended up ranked low because of lack of experience in that job. In addition to this, my ex-wife continued to actively avoid paying child support and as of this time owes almost $2000 in unpaid support. She was paying occassionally over the last couple of months, but mainly because her paycheck was being garnished by the state. She's lost that job, and does not appear to be seriously looking for another one.

I've been looking for work without success for almost a year now. I filed for unemployment when my severance ran out and even signed up for ProjectHIRE, a partnership between Washington State DVR and WorkSource. I only got one interview in that entire time, and because I've been out of IT work for almost two years, didn't get the job in the end.

Now for the good news, my wife returned to work both as a substitute teacher at one school district and as a private tutor. This has been just enough to help us just scrape by and not loose the house (but we did get rid of cable and suspend Netflix.) More recently my employer petitioned for Trade Act coverage for their laid off employees, and because of this I'm going back to school. I start next month.

So in short, I lost my job, my wife got two part time jobs and I'm going back to school while my ex is still a dead beat parent. More exciting news to come I'm sure. I may write about ProjectHIRE, dealing with unemployment and the joy of filling out tons of paperwork for a federal program in the next couple of days.

Diagnosis Fail

2009-05-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

So back in 2006 I went in and was put through a neuro-psych evaluation to "rule out" Asperger's. My test results came back and I was given a diagnosis of Asperger's. One thing that I made a point of sharing with the Neuro-psychologist was an email from my mom (she lived hunreds of miles away) that explained that I had stopped progressing in speech at three years old, and then suddenly one day when I was six I started talking like an adult. So for three years my speech was delayed.

Now just recently we went to a psychologist to see about turning my son's school evaluation into a real diagnosis, with testing to back it up. While talking about my history (which does apply to his since I'm his father,) I mentioned this and that I'd thought it was odd that I'd been diagnosised with Asperger's as a speech delay usually rules out Asperger's in favor of just plain old Autism. She was also surprised, as to her not progessing for three years was a significant speech delay. And a significant speech delay is clearly Autism. Now she did say that it is possible for a low-functioning autistic to become high functioning, but because of the requirement for no speech delay an autistic can not magically turn into someone with Asperger's.

The end result is, my diagnosis was most likely sugar coated. But since I've only used the term Asperger's to describe myself when I have to use my official diagnosis for something, this has not changed how I see myself. I am Autistic, and it has always been a part of who I am. And no piece of paper can change that.

Gotta love a double standard

2009-05-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

So, from 1999 until both kids came to live with me in 2008 I paid my ex-wife a LOT of child support. When I was paying on both kids (which I did until 2007) it was over $700 a month, later when my son came to live with me I paid about $150, the difference between what I owed on my daughter and what my ex owed on my son. The one time that I was a couple of weeks late, is was a horrible moral tragedy and I was told that I was personally responsible for her inability to pay her rent on time (she'd been paying rent late for almost a year by then) and everything else that was wrong with her finances was all due to that one late payment (even though she'd had bad finances longer than we'd known each other.)

So now there is an order in place where she is required to pay me support. Now that it is her responsibility to pay, it's horribly unfair and her not paying is not responsible for our troubles with things like groceries (which wasn't a problem until after we weren't getting the money she owes my kids.) She always has an excuse and seems to have the view that I'm being unfair when I ask her when she's going to pay.

Back when I was paying, we'd set it up so that I paid her directly. This got the money to her faster, and avoided nasty paperwork and dealing with the state having to collect the money (which could have messed up my credit.) I tried to be fair and give her the same option. As of right now she's five, yes FIVE, months behind.

Now what makes this worse is not only does she not pay and complain that she and her husband are broke when we ask for the money, but then she goes out and spends lots of money taking the kids out to eat and buys them toys and comic books. But she can't be bothered to get them shoes or clothes.

Well, we've had enough. Recently we filed paperwork to open a case with the local office of the Department of Child Support to ask for help collecting child support. I'm now at the point where if I ever hear about "Deadbeat Dads" and the "Poor Moms" from someone I'll give them an earfull about "Deadbeat Moms" seeing as how it seems like no one wants to admit that failing to fulfill responsibility is not a uniquely male trait.

Father's Network

2009-04-24T14:25:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to the monthly Father's Network meeting at the Snohomish County ARC in Everett for the first time. It was nice to get out of the house, but more importantly it was good to hear about the struggles of other fathers with special needs kids as well as get to share my own. There were about 8-10 of us there, and my wife was not there so I had to do all of my own talking.

And that was really the hard part, being social even with a small group can be challenging and tiring. Even more so when most of the people in the room I'd not met before. One thing I did come away with was even though we all had kids with very diffent needs, there were many parts of our lives that were similar. Saturday night is the Snohomish County Father's Network Poker Night. Here's to hoping I have just a good of a time with less of the crash at the end.

Autism Awareness Month

2009-04-01T13:12:00.001-07:00

April is Autism Awareness month, and I am one autistic that boths dreads and anticipates it. It's nice that there is a push to raise awareness of the challenges that those of us who are autistic face in life. Yet at the same time, it's hard to keep calm when groups like "Autism Speaks" use it to further their agenda. Please do me a favor this year, if you are thinking about donating to "Autism Speaks" please don't.

"Autism Speaks" has spent large amounts of money on research, but not research aimed at helping autistics. In the past they have pushed the idea that autism is "caused" by mercury poisoning, mostly pointing to vacceines as the source of the "poisoning." They are currently working on a test for autism, with the goal of a pre-natal test. This goes along with their mission of ending autism forever. Say goodbye to any future Einstein, as if they have their way the next Einsteind will be aborted before they are born.

What autistics need are services and understanding. Not hate and a eugenics program designed to eliminate them. If you want to help, volunteer or donate to groups that actually have autistic adults on their board of directors, such as ASAN

Wow, time sure does fly

2009-02-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

I just realized that it's been a long time since I posted here. So I thought I'd take some time and update the couple of people who once watched this (and have likely lost interest in the last several months.)

Over the summer, my wife and I finally had the stand up in front of everyone wedding, on our one year anniversary. All kinds of things went wrong, and others went right, but nothing went as planned. We didn't get any sleep that night, because we had to leave early that morning and it took all night to get packed and everything in order to be gone for two weeks as my in-laws sent us to Mexico for our honeymoon.

Mexico was a lot of fun, even though I picked up a nasty virus after the end of week one and was sick long after we returned. It was my first trip out of the county (visiting Vancouver BC when I was three doesn't count) and my first time flying in a plane. I thought that watching the wing flaps move was fun, my wife, the seasoned traveler had to use the little white bags they give you for motion sickness issues. She found it ironic. It was very hot and humid, but oddly bearable. The only issue I had was that Diet Coke tastes funny in Mexico (besides being sick that is.)

I tried to get through calculus last fall, and was out of sync all quarter. I was sick the first week, and I'd not taken any classes during summer because of the planned trip and planning the wedding, so I was out of the habit of doing homework. I didn't fail, but I didn't pass either (D is now my least favorite letter.) This quarter I'm getting my English 105 out of the way (and doing much better.) The calculus series that's offered in the evenings will not be available to me until next fall, so I'll fill in with other things until then. I may even take English 205 next quarter if I'm not sick of english already (and if I do then I'll be done with english classes!)

And I'll finish with the best news that has happened since my last post here. In January, after dragging her feet for months, my ex wife and I went into court and entered an agree on change in custody. I am now the custodial parent of my kids. The only sticking point was she didn't want to pay child support, she didn't get out of it, but has yet to make a payment. If she doesn't start soon then someone at the Office of Support Enforcement will end up making her life unpleasant.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to update more often in the future.

School Update

2008-06-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I just finished another quarter of school, one more math class behind me. After a very tough quarter with getting mostly C's on the tests, I managed to pull an A- on the final, which gave me a final grade of B+ (I got an attendance bonus to bring the B I earned up to a B+.)

And that is the last of the pre-requisit math. Next fall I start Calculus, and from then on everything affects more than just my overall GPA.

Daylight Savings doesn't really save

2008-03-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

I've always hated Daylight Savings time. I'm not big on change and I love when I have a regular steady schedule, so it's just not fun to change the time on the clock twice a year, just because someone somewhere thinks that it makes people use less energy. My dislike of change is not unusual amoung the autistic community.

Today, what is at the top of the news on Yahoo!? Why it's a story about how Daylight Savings doesn't save on energy costs. In fact not only does it not save, but more energy is used during Daylight Savings, then when the same area Standard Time during the summer. In Indiana, where they just recently started changing to Daylight Savings time, politicians had promised that changing would save consumers a total of about $7 million a year in energy costs. A recent study showed that the truth is more like spending an additional $8.6 million per year. Now admittedly that does average about $3.19 a year for each house, but think of the principle here. We've been told for decades that Daylight Savings was to SAVE money on energy.

This kind of news really is upsetting. I mean I could handle that I get messed up twice a year and go through tons of stress and many nights shorts lots and lots of sleep if it was for something good. But now I learn that not only is it not useful in any way, but they knew that it might not be working as advertised as far back as 1976. For some reason this is not surprising at all.

What a difference accomodations make

2007-11-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

I have two failed attempts at college behind me. Both attempts, one in 1994-1995 and the other in 2000, were before I knew that I was autistic. Tests were difficult, and when I was taking someone outside of one of my special interests it was even more difficult to get through.

Now I'm trying again with accomodations. I get to take tests in a quiet room and I get extra time so I'm not rushed (worrying about how much time is left can really slow you down, even more so when you sometimes have to read a question several times to understand it.) This didn't slow me much in high school but, as my AP teachers noticed when I bombed my AP tests, sometimes it did.

Since I'm working full time, I'm going to school part time (only one class at a time.) As a parent and the main bread winning of the family I can't afford to cut back on hours at work or take an educational leave. This quarter I'm taking a math class (with many more in my future.) When I took math in 2000 I didn't do so well. But this time, at about halfway through, I'm holding at about 92%, which is much more in line with how I did in high school than 2000 was. This class doesn't count at all though, other than to get me into pre-calculus, which will then get me into the needed calculus.

And for some reason it's not a surprise that even though the disability center director tries to meet with the autistic students at my school regularly as a group there's been no success at getting us all together so far this quarter. Maybe we'll meet before the winter break, maybe not.

Over stimulation

2007-09-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel sorry for my wife.

Yesterday we went shopping at a discount grocery store almost 20 miles from home. This was intended to be a major shop for a month's worth of groceries.

By the end of the shopping I was tired, run down and having a hard time finding a good safe stim that didn't drive her crazy. (I tried to click the clicker pen I had about half way through or so, but it got on her nerves quickly.)

Really it was a combination of several things. Stores seem to always have lots and lots of bright florescent lights. Even with sunglasses on I can only take a certain amount of time in that kind of environment, and we were there for over 4 hours. Those who've known me a long time know that I've always disliked bright light, always hid for as much of the daylight hours as I could get away with.

Add to this the stress of being around tons of people I don't know (the store was packed) and tons of physical discomfort from being on my feet that long (I have hypermobile joints, it hurts to be on my feet without a break for that long.) Put it all together and by the time we got home it took lots of effort to get through just putting away the perishable foods (the rest were left sitting on the kitchen floor to deal with later.)

And that was my Sunday. We got started late, so nothing that I'd planned or hoped to do got done. Well, atleast I got a good foot massage before bed.

Doing too much

2007-09-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

It's so easy sometimes to do too much without taking a break to recharge.

Right now my wife and I are trying to fix up a second property that we own to sell it. It's a lot of hard work, and I try to help as much as I can, but I've found myself doing too much way too often.

See when you are autistic you need to take more breaks than others. But it often feels bad, because this is only the case when working on something that is not a special interest. And sometimes it can seem like the others (even those who know about autism) are resentful of your need to rest more often. So it's easy to end up in a total fog, unable to think.

It's pretty easy to tell when I'm doing too much. My language skills start to get poor. I'm slow to respond to requests and can't think for myself. Once dinner showed up and was set out for everyone to just grab some when they were hungry. I was sitting down by where the food was and didn't notice the food, or that I was hungry, until my wife told me to eat after the food was half gone.

Busy week

2007-08-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

Last week was a busy one for me.

It was my son's last week of summer school. He was there not because he'd failed anything, but as a way of making the transistion to next year easier. The first half his old teacher was there, and the second half was lead by the teacher he'll have in the fall. So now his new teacher will not be a surprise, and he dislikes surprises more than I do.

Early in the week I finally met with someone from the Services for Students with Disabilites (or SSD) office. My past attempts at college have ended in failure, but they say that third time's the charm. But then this time I also have a diagnosis and with that access to accomodations. After the meeting I took my placement test again. This time was different than when I did it 7 years ago. I used one of the private testing rooms available in the SSD office. Not only was I in a quiet room (thankfully not elbow to elbow with a bunch of noisy fellow students) but I was able to turn the light off, ridding myself of the horrid abuse known as florescent lights. I placed at the max level for English, and did better than before on Math (but still not as high as I'd have wished.) Now all I need to do is get registered for class and start learning.

Last week ended with getting married. That may not appear to have much to do with autism, but it does. I got married. I, an autistic adult who has troubles in social situations, am now married. So for those of you who are parents of autistic boys, and those of you who are autistic men who are still single, IT CAN BE DONE. The hard part is finding someone who cares for you the way you are. Someone who will try to understand you, but not try to make you "normal" at the same time.

Everyone is different

2007-07-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

No two people are exactly the same, and that goes for those of us that are autistic. It's something that sometimes I have to remember.

You see my son and I are not matching up on milestones as he's growing up. This is something that is hard to realize sometimes. He just finished the second grade and is 8 years old. When I was in the second grade and 8 years old I was reading anything I could get my hands on. I'd discovered a wonderful place called the Seattle Public Library and I'd found the fiction section.

Yet now I'm struggling to get my son to even try to read, and it's not easy he doesn't often want to sit still long enough to read even a couple of pages. I was reading the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein at his age and all he'll read if at all is Dr. Seuss (Green Eggs and Ham is his favorite, so at least there's something we have in common.)

He has been lucky though in one respect. Technology. When I was his age home computers where rare (I didn't know anyone with one when I was 8) and the only home video games were Atari 2400's. Just like me he is drawn to both, and was excelling at video games when he was 4 years old, even though he could not read the text telling him what to do. He's also learned how to work a computer very quickly, and has had an old Mac in his room for years.

Of course this is not the only differences between us, but they are amoung the biggest ones. I just hope that he discovers the true joy of reading, and he's been getting much better since I shared with him one of the tricks I used long ago, so maybe he'll catch up and if he catches up just half as fast as I dashed ahead in reading, he'll be ahead of his peers before too long.

Hugging

2007-06-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

I recently learned that there is a whole series of unwritten rules about hugging, rules that in 35 years of life, everyone just assumed that I knew and was purposely not following. This of course was not the case, but one of the bad parts of being autistic is not knowing these unwritten rules and not being able to figure them out on your own.

For me a hug was a hug and all hugs were created equal. I had no understanding of the difference between the "I'm just being polite" hug and the "best friends" hug or even the "I barely know you" hug. To make things worse for me, I'm sensory seeking for touch, so I love to squeese and be squeesed, so being hugged has always been a good feeling.

My fiance gave me a quick tutorial on hugging a few weeks back. She'd realized, as she learned more about autism, that the reason I'd been hugging in what seemed to be a creepy way, was that I didn't know the rules. So now I have the added joy of having to think when someone hugs me, "what kind of hug is this?" and "where is the let go of me sign?" Of course there is an advantage for her, now she's the only one who gets hugs from me that are undistracted by thinking about the rules.

Dealing with the Ex

2007-06-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

My ex-wife, and the mother of my children, is about as neurotypical as they come. She is great at social interactions, even if she has a total lack of tack (but seeing as she's proud of her level of tack I suspect that it's on purpose.) She often has troubles understand why I or our son do some of the things we do. She also has a habit of picking and choosing what information she retains (i.e. her version of events is more inline with her wish and less in line with facts.)

When our son started having troubles socializing appropriately and was behind in speaking, she was quick to blame me. She had many stories of imagined abuse and other horror stories, but in her mind everything was my fault. She's the kind of person who rarely if ever accepts responsibility for their actions. At first we thought of him as some sort of ADHD, as that is the label I had as a child and he was identical to how I'd been at the same age (the differences between us didn't show until he was six, the point when I suddenly started talking with the ability and vocabulary of an adult after three years of no improvement in ability.)

When our son was in Kindergarten the school he was in told us that they didn't know what was going on with him, and refused to attempt to do so themselves (even though they are required to in our state if they suspect something.) We were told that we had to take him to a doctor, or they'd keep treating him as an unknown. By this time someone else I knew had pointed out that my son was similar to her son at the same age, and her son was diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum. This started me thinking that this was the case. We took him to the doctor and he was referred to a neurologist. The neurologist determined that he had ODD (oppositional defiance disorder after only spending 15 minutes with him.) This confused me some, but if it was true then at the time that meant that I also had ODD (even if that didn't seem like the correct fit.) Later our son changed schools, and they evaluated him when the data from the old district didn't match what they were seeing and determined he was on the spectrum. I took this information and went to my doctor and got referred to a neuro-psychologist who tested me and officially diagnosed me with "Classic Asperger's."

Now my ex believes that I obsessed on having to have something wrong with me, and that I manufactured being AS myself. Even though I told her about the testing and the results, she refuses to remember that I was tested and that the results are official. She also seems to think that our son was label ADHD by a professional, when it was me saying "he must be ADHD, because that's what I was labeled with and he's just like I was." Seems that to her what I said was "He has ADHD, I wish I was like him when I was young."

This of course is a clear example of what trying to talk with her has been like. No matter what I say, she hears what she wants. It was always a cause of stress on our marriage, and every time I said "that's not what I said" she'd say that it was what she heard, so she was right I was lying. And the same troubles communicating continue today. Saying I had plans and couldn't take the kids extra once three years ago means I don't want to be involved in the kids' lives today. But good news is, she did agree that our son is better off living with me and he'll be moving at the end of the school year. Soon he will not spend most of his time hidden away in a dark room hiding from the sensory assault that is what his mother considers normal light and sounds. But I bet the communications challenges will continue.

Stims

2007-06-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

One thing that is often a part of being autistic is the need to stim.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming

Stimming is a jargon term for a stereotypy, a repetitive body movement that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner. It is one of the symptoms listed by the DSM IV for autism, although it is observed in about 10 percent of non-autistic young children. Many autistics have no stims.[1] Common forms of stimming among people with autism include hand flapping, body spinning or rocking, lining up or spinning toys or other objects, echolalia, perseveration, and repeating rote phrases

I'm not sure about the 10% figure for non-autistics, but people with ASD clearly stim at a much higher rate. Stims are also not limited to body movement, playing a CD or even the same song over and over can be a stim. Stimming is much more than the above article claims.

For me, stimming has a calming affect that is more than just relieving stress. Sometimes I stim because I need the distraction in order to be able to pay attention. Sometimes I'm not able to focus on one sound over the others without stimming. I have troubles when there are several sounds going on around me and I need to pay attention to just one, sometimes stimming makes it easier to focus on and separate the one sound I need from the others. And other times I have no idea that I'm stimming, or even why. When this happens it has been known to drive my fiance crazy (to her credit she loves me, quirks and all.)

My common stims are rocking back and forth, bouncing a knee (or foot tapping,) listening to a CD or song on repeat, and of course all kinds of hand flapping, tapping, wringing and fidgeting. Less common are spinning, walking back and forth or in circles, chewing on the insides of my mouth and stacking things. My son also rocks back and forth and flaps his hands and listens to music on repeat. He also chews on his fingers and clothes and feels the need to taste everything (and I mean everything.) Good news is, he does not make his fingers bleed (and I don't bleed when I chew on the inside of my mouth,) but he does do a number on his shirts. Somehow I'll figure out how to copy what my mom did to get me to stop chewing on my fingers and clothes, hopefully I do so soon (replacing shirts every month or so is expensive.)

I've learned the hard way that trying to not stim is bad. If I don't stim I become less functional. It's just a fact of life for me, so I just let it happen and no longer try to stop it when I notice. So the next time you see someone sitting down, rocking back and forth while flapping their hands, remember that it might be someone like me.

Sensory Intergration Disorder

2007-06-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sensory Integration Disorder is commonly co-morbid with autism. My son has issues with sound still, something I've gotten used to as I've gotten older, but sometimes a surprise sound or some tones can bother me. He often will place his hands over his ears and scream "Too loud" in hopes that I'll make it go away. This make going to the movies a challenge sometimes. He and I both like watching a movie on the big screen, but often the sound is turned up so loud in the theater that he has his hands over his ears most of the movie and I sometimes wince in pain at times during the movie.

In addition to troubles with sound comes troubles with light. It can be bright light, or unnatural light like florescent or both. We both have troubles with both. He seems to be mildly affected by bright light, and more seriously by large tube florescents (luckily for us the compact florescent lights that replace normal light bulbs don't bother us most of the time, poorly made ones can be a problem.) I'm the reverse, bright light bothers me greatly and florescents much less so.

For me, florescent lights that trouble me make me dizzy and I start to feel sick to my stomach. One place that does bother me is OfficeMax. If I walk in the door, I start to feel dizzy right away and over time it gets worse.

Bright light can be worse. First I can't see as well, everything gets fuzzy and often my eyes close automatically. If the exposure continues then I can get a headache that can be described as a migraine. The pain can get so bad that I can't function until I've gone and hidden in a quiet and dark room for awhile. This happened to me yesterday. Someone turned on a light near my desk. It was a bright florescent light and it shined right into my eyes. I have a reasonable accomodation in requiring a lowered lighting level. I had a telecon meeting to attend, and by the time it was finished (sitting under the light for close to two hours) I was in pain and feeling ill. I was pretty out of it and went searching for somewhere dark. I did find somewhere and got the overload handled. I also contacted management, the light were turned off, not long before I had to leave the office for the day.

This occurrence brings up another issue, how ethical is it to use someone's disability to try to get one's way? The co-worker who turned the lights on wants me to move. He wants the four desk area for himself, even though it was built for my job-role not his, and never mind that I'm one of two and he's all by himself no team mates or direct peers. He tried to suggest a place for me to move that would have put me in reflected sunlight much of the day (it had a direct line to a window. He's been pushing to have the area cleared so he can have it to himself for over a week.

Socializing

2007-05-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes socializing can be a challenge, and there is an upper limit to how much of it I can do in a day. This Memorial Day weekend contained a good balanced amount of socializing, but I was still a little overloaded at the end.

We stayed home Friday night, and Saturday was pretty lazy. We went out Saturday night, dinner at Billy McHale's and then dancing and drinks at the China Clipper. Sam's favorite band was playing at the China Clipper (which is why we went.) We had fun, and she had a bit to drink. It's nice to be with someone who likes to dance again.

Sunday we stayed in bed too long again, but we were able to get everything together to go to Collin and Ria's for a BBQ. Spent hours with my friends, who all really like Sam. This makes me happy, as they didn't approve of Robin, and they were right about her. One thing I've learned is to trust my friends when it comes to others motives and whether it's a good idea to have anything to do with someone.

We again stayed in bed late on Monday, but we did get moving before we were too late. Sam's mom and step-dad had a BBQ and we had to get out to Gold Bar for that. It was fun for the most part, even if there were people there that I didn't know well yet. The sun was too bright, but I was able to deal with that some.

I learned something, when you make it clear that you don't want to do something, you still sometimes have to do it. Sam's mom's best friend just signed up to sell Mary Kaye products, and she did the sales pitch thing. I didn't want to have to put stuff on my face, but I had to do it anyway. I sometimes have troubles understanding what's being said, and I was told to put down the little game I was stimming with. Soon after my ability to fully understand what was going on was gone and I could grasp what we were doing. So Sam did everything for me. Problem is what ever she put on my face made it start to itch all over. So I started to scratch, a lot. They had me try to wipe it all off, but that only helped a little. Even now it itches a little, but I'm able to distact myself some.

I was able to get a little bit of Runescape in before bed last night. But not enough, I really need my downtime. I'm rocking back and forth, got my knee bouncing and have Peace and Love Inc. on repeat and I'm still not able to focus on anything for long.

Hello

2007-05-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

I must be crazy, cuz here I am starting another blog on another system.

Oh well, the plan with this one is to only write here about things having to do with Autism.

Whether it is something that happened to me, something with my son, or something going on in the world, as long as it relates to autism in some way I'll blog about it here.

And this gives me an account here so I can try to keep up with a couple of old friends who moved their blogs here and don't visit where I spend much of my time anymore.