I'm Spasticus Autisticus

I am a big, big lover of this song and I was going to just post it on Facebook as my reasonably uninvolved observance of Autism Acceptance Day. But I happened to find an interview with Ian Dury about the song, which disappointedly ended with him sort of apologizing for mentioning autism and saying it's probably "frightening" for parents. I never thought a dead guy could stomp on my heart so hard, but it was the 80s and there wasn't even what there is now in terms of Autistic-identified people who could have told him not to apologize. So I forgive you Ian Dury, like I could ever be mad at you for long.

The main thing about the interview was that he confirmed my gut interpretation of the song, which is what I really want to talk about here.

"On the single bag there's what's supposed to be an explanatory note, which is about my tribe being...knowing our racial creed and paying no heed to such things...it can be rich or poor, disablement can get anybody. It was really about Spasticus being a slave who wished to be free, and I put at the bottom 'We too are determined to be free.' And it's based on--the idea of Spasticus is based on a film called Spartacus which had Kirk Douglas in it, and at the end bit, they say 'Which one of you is Spartacus,' you know--'I'm Spartacus,' then they all go 'I'm Spartacus,' and they hung everybody that confessed."

I've been moving away a lot from identifying as Autistic, and probably not for good reasons, but just because I know professionals are on a mission to take it away from as many people as they can and it's hard for me to want to hold onto it when every time I tell anyone I have autism they seem determined to interrogate and confound the reality of my disabled life. So I've retreated into just being slow and crazy, which are words that are available for all people at no charge; or if I'm feeling a little more political I use old words like feebleminded or very new words like headcrip--again none of these words are technical terms, and aesthetically and emotionally that's a big part of their appeal.

But this worries me the same way the word queer has sometimes worried me. The problem with only identifying with something vaguely and choosing the word for your identity aesthetically is that there's strength in community, identity, and numbers, and if everyone is called something else it's hard to find and hold onto each other, to support each other and try and work together for the things that will benefit people like us.

I have always thought that one of the worst disadvantages disabled people face is how few disabled people there are. Don't get me wrong, there are shitloads of wheelchair users, people with LDs and DDs and MH conditions, D/deaf and blind people and HOH people and people with low vision, people who use crutches and canes, people who don't use anything but have to live differently because they live with chronic illnesses, and, you know, you know a lot of people like this and you can think of all the kinds of "people like this" I have neglected to mention.

But that's all we mostly are--people like this.

I've said there are two kinds of disability and you end up fighting yourself with either one. A person is stigmatized as disabled, seen as unworthy of the things he wants from life, and has to prove himself non-disabled in order to be his own person, no matter how much he may harm himself in the process by doing things he can't do. Or a person isn't considered disabled and has to do things she can't do because everyone expects her to do them and there is no support. It's a trap either way.

Both ways a disabled person is fighting not to be disabled. The second person might have a nostalgia for the stigmas and stereotypes of "visible" disability, because it seems better than getting no support or recognition, but ultimately she feels too guilty to try and get those things. Holy shit I'm tired. What I'm trying to say is, what do disabled people think about themselves?

Basically: they do not think they are disabled.

They either think of it as something they have "overcome" or "risen above" with their accomplishments or just their personality, or they think of it as something nasty and rude to mention, or they think of it as something they don't deserve to claim because their disability isn't real or isn't that bad, or they think of it as a word that, if they used it about themselves, would indicate that they're sad, that they're giving up.

This has real practical effects on "people like us," this nameless population. We're so fucking short on disabled writers, disabled scholars, disabled teachers, disabled staff, disabled activists, disabled doctors (imagine the DSM being written primarily by doctors with mental disabilities)--we're so fucking short on people who have an identity and loyalty to other disabled people. Because we all think the word disabled is bad for us! We all throw it away and when we do that, we have nothing because we only have ourself and whatever word we have for ourself--not disabled, just different; not disabled, just has trouble walking; just crazy, just stupid, just slow--just perfectly individual and unique and alone. But our people need armies and bodies of work.

If I was going to start one organization to help disabled people, its focus would be to help kids with disabilities meet adults who identify as disabled. I've thought this for a year or two and I don't think I have the skillset for that kind of thing but it does pull on me sometimes, because it's not that people like us aren't talented and tender and brave, but that we all hang separately.

Anyway. I'm Spasticus Autisticus, is what I'm trying to say.

discretion

I think this is my #1 song right now, Clayton very sweetly tried to get David Bazan to play it when we saw him on my birthday but I guess he doesn't play it with his current band. Feeling weird about blogging but probably won't make any real decisions until I become employed (this is probably not the best time in American history to set "when I become employed" as a prerequisite for doing something, but oh well).



having no idea that his youngest son was dead
the farmer and his sweet young wife slept soundly in his bed
in the shadow of the mountain as the cattle hung their heads

grazing only feet from where the broken body lay
and would lay undiscovered for another several days
when the farmer would find vultures at their banquet in the hay

the killer traveled eastward in a golden brown sedan
weighing his most recent deviation from the plan
counting down the hours till the sun came up again

hired to hit the farmer by the farmer's asshole son
had not yet decided between poison or a gun
suddenly he realized he would not use either one

I can hear the laughs

I know this is what tumblr is for, but I just covered one of my Lifetime Favorite Songs (literally since I was 12), and, because of the things I have been writing about the last few days, I have been thinking how disability, music, sexuality, and religion all feel to me like sort of the same thing, and this song covers it all which is maybe why it always feels to me like it contains everything I'll ever need to hear.



You can really fall, wake up in a ruined house,
wrapped up in a torn-down curtain.
And when I get to hell will the lovely girls come down
to the banks of that red, red river?

I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.

You can take a lot, put back not a thing,
still come home looking thinner.
And when I get to Oz, will the lovely witch come down,
kiss my pale, bleeding brow?

I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.

the hangover show

(I'm too embarrassed to transcribe the spoken parts of it, but if watched I'm pretty sure it will produce lulz.)

Yeah so re the fiction thing, it actually isn't a real awesome project, it's kind of a dumb idea. But I read Bible Camp Bloodbath and it was pretty swell (I would really recommend reading Lockpick Pornography by the same author, it was really important to me when I was in high school) and I got all excited about the idea of posting a book in blog form.

But I don't want to post anything actually good because you know someday I would like to get some books published in real life and get a really small amount of money for them. So I was thinking of posting this weird book I wrote when I was 16-18 which is...okay, maybe I just think this because I wrote it, but I feel like it's a pretty terrible book that has a certain charm.

Do you like Twilight? It's kind of the same thing. I genuinely think that even though all the sequels suck, the first Twilight book and movie are genuinely great in their portrayal of two kind of boring people who have a really boring but really intense relationship. Because that's what it feels like when you're a boring person and you have a crush on another boring person! They come into bio lab and you're like OHHH NOOOO and then a bunch of paper flies up right in front of your crotch and it's terrible. Well that's what my book is like.

I hope someone remembers you

[sometimes I feel like it might seem like attention-seeking to post stuff like this. I do tend to write stuff whenever I'm upset and then finish it later, so just because I post songs like this doesn't mean that whatever it's about is going on now. It isn't in this case.]

If I could just kill half of you and leave the other half alive
so you could walk around and take phone calls but have nothing left to hide
because I'm too responsible to want to destroy your mind
but I'd do it, I'd do it every day if I could

My hands are shaking from nicotine and I like myself that way
so I can walk around and make phone calls and fall down at the end of the day
I can barely write out sentences and you can struggle to read what they say
because I mumble and you can't hear me most of the time

And I hope someone remembers you

I can get dressed and start a mess but there's nothing left to see
and when morning comes they'll find me trampling through the leaves
and maybe someone will call you up but they won't know how to explain
and they'll stutter, they'll stumble on their words from now on

If I was your Secret-Keeper I'd tell everyone where you are
You're smart enough that you'd figure it out and run away but you wouldn't get far
They'd come to your house, they'd take you apart and sell your insides for scrap metal
but you won't die, you don't die most of the time

And I hope someone remembers me most of the time

strength through music

although I guess I don't use a super spaced-out singing style anymore, I used to sound like I was in the Magnetic Fields or Camera Obscura. The first time I heard a Camera Obscura song, when I was about sixteen, it was very strange to hear someone who sounded like me.

I like their more recent stuff but the first album I bought by them was Underachievers Please Try Harder and I like it the best. I think Tracyanne Campbell's singing has become slightly more active since then, and their lyrics have become less irritated and snarky. I always really enjoyed listening to a song like "Keep It Clean":



I guess by now you think I'm weak. I wish you would have said something before now. I wouldn't share a bag of chips with you. In my opinion you don't have a clue. I'm being cruel, I'm being cruel.

There are plenty of lyrics on the album where the narrator of the song is criticizing herself, like in "Suspended From Class," but I really enjoy the songs where she is either saying mean things about someone else, or seeming to criticize herself when she's really criticizing someone else's way of treating her. "Books Written for Girls" is my favorite example of this:



You can compliment me on the style of my hair, give me marks out of ten for the clothes that I wear. You probably thought I had more upstairs. I disappoint you.

"You probably thought I had more upstairs/I disappoint you" is just one of my favorite moments in a song ever. I think I like it because people who are thought to be dumb by other people are always expected to either not be aware of it, or to be too intimidated to say anything. So when Tracyanne sings "I disappoint you" in a voice that sounds a little sad, but also bored, it seems like the biggest fuck you imaginable. Just turning to someone who's patronizing you and saying, "Sorry I'm not as smart as you want me to be," is the ultimate form of defiance especially if you're continuing to present in the way that's made them try to bully you in the first place.

I was thinking of "Oasis" by Amanda Palmer, which is a totally different song in terms of subject matter and sound, but has kind of the same quality. A lot of TV stations refused to play the video because "Oasis" is about a teenage girl being raped at a party, getting an abortion, and having the whole school gossip about her and call her a whore. Well, that's not the offensive part--the offensive part is that it's a really bouncy, cheery-sounding song, and the girl says that she isn't upset about her problems, because she wrote a letter to her favorite band Oasis and they sent her a signed poster.

Despite the events of this spring, I can't help but love Amanda Palmer's post On Abortion, Rape, Art, and Humor which she wrote as a response to being told her song was offensive. She points out that people (especially young people) who are having painful experiences don't just sit around saying "OH I'M IN PAIN, THIS IS SO SERIOUS." No one actually lives like that. And although she didn't say this in so many words, I think it is othering to demand that representations of abortion and rape (or any experience) should always be serious and sad. They happen to all kinds of people, so there isn't only one appropriate attitude or reaction.

Gosh I'm sleepy and going to bed, but I guess I wanted to say that "Oasis" and Camera Obscura (and other bands with spaced-out or soft singing, coupled with very direct lyrics), especially the latter, are kind of political/anti-ableist music for me in their very nature. I really like the idea of separating a musical style and what it's supposed to represent from what the lyrics of the song are actually about, because I think this is kind of a way of expressing through music the experience of people who are patronized, or oversimplified, or othered, or misread, because of the way we look and speak. Of course most people think that talking a certain way or moving a certain way always means something, but that's not true. Angry people can sound mellow, sad experiences can be lived in ways other than what's expected.

(this is very 2nd-grade but that's what the Internet is for)

turn off the clocks
turn off the timers
turn off your phones
turn off you're alone

you are mine
outside space and time
the same old lines
inside space and time

turn off your scripts
they don't work on me
they cut me deep inside
where I've got the same old lines

you're mine
'cause we've got the same old lines
you could be me inside
outside of space and time

turn off the clocks
turn off the timers
turn off your bones
turn off

you're alone

(for some reason I always feel very driven to write love songs about scripting/passing and maybe a lot of them. which is actually probably less cheesy than other ideas for concept albums I've had.)

(weird hobgoblin song)

I know you don't want me here
I know you don't want me here

I am the hobgoblin
of little minds
I am the hobgoblin
of your life

You were prepared then I showed up
I just waltzed in while you were all cleaned up

I am the hobgoblin
of little hearts
the kind that last a few hours before
falling apart

'Cause they know they're not wanted here
They know they're not wanted here

You patched up the holes in the ceiling
we came through the floor
You patched up the cracks in the universe
we found one more

You looked me up, you scoped me out
You read up on me and found out what I'm all about

You'll turn around one night
and slump in defeat
we're racing toward you
on a hundred centipede feet

I know you, you little shit, I fucking know you
you piece of shit, I fucking know you, you little freak
I know you don't want me here, I know you don't want me around
you blocked off the whole sky and I came in up from the ground

[a/n: I just developed this whole concept last summer; I feel like I shouldn't even put it on the Internet but it's just...not really fair that I should have to feel that way. I mean, how is this really more "hateful" than what we live with.]

hi kids, exciting development

so, because executive dysfunction is TERRIFIED of me and basically cries into its handkerchief when I'm around, I have finished putting new stuff on my website and reorganizing/writing some new bits for the disability section, something I've been planning on doing all summer, not one but ONE AND A HALF HOURS before my first class of my senior year. Come on you guys! Impressive!

Stuff is still uploading, so don't go to it right this minute that I'm posting it or you will be disappointed. But some possible things of note:

Difficult Cider (2010 musical odds and ends)

Lyrics for all the songs on the website

a terrible zine/diary thing I made two years ago, about something I'm trying to write a (somewhat more politicized) post about right now

On Speaking Badly: An Unintelligible Pop Opera

["It’s kind of, like, hard because, especially with speaking badly, because a lot of people speak badly who don’t have a disability, and I can’t really say that speaking badly is my thing, and that, um, it’s a hundred percent, that everyone who does it has a disability. I do think, though, that I can say that I think people have reactions to bad speaking that are unfair reactions, and I tend to think that those reactions come out of some kind of ableism, whether people can see it or not. Um...it’s analogous, I think, to, sort of, kids telling each other 'you’re so gay,' or sort of policing each other’s gender. And I think, you know, that can be going on in situations where all the kids are cis and straight kids, but there’s still this bogeyman. And I really remember, when I was a kid, that other kids seemed to not really even understand that a gay person was a real kind of person. It was just this sort of monster that we didn’t want to be. And, um, I feel like the same thing can be true with disability--even if people aren’t even outright saying, like, 'you talk like you’re retarded,' or something like that, or, like, 'you walk like a gimp,' I don’t know--but even if people aren’t saying those words, and even if people aren’t thinking about it as being about disability...I think that, um, we have a very deep sense that people who talk differently or move differently are not quite right. And, you know, whether that comes from not liking disabled people, or whether that results in not liking disabled people, I couldn’t really say, but, um, it’s definitely a problem."]

and last but not least, THE AWESOME DISABILITY SECTION, which is not that great actually, it only has like three things on it, but those things include:

Hi, I was just wondering why you keep using words like "ASD" and "autism spectrum disorder" and "autism" and "Autistic" about yourself when it's pretty clear that you have Asperger's and not autism at all.

What should I know about ASD that I'm not learning from pop culture?

this has already been up there for a year, but I still think it's like the best thing I've ever written, so: Pulling Rank and Involuntary Assimilation

also I have a suggested reading page which includes a transcript I made of Ari Ne'eman's awesome interview with Madness Radio, which as you may recall I love, cried about, became friends with him solely on the basis of, and so on and such forth.

Now it's 5:46, it's still not done uploading, except I think all the disability stuff is, but not the music. By six maybe it should be okay?

Lying is easy, kissing is hard

I want to know where I go always
I want to know why I go always
I want to go where I go always
I want to go when I go sometimes

In the endless morning when your glasses were broken
I want to stay where you are always
I left you in the evening with the city all glowing
You will keep going till you can't find yourself, that's why I love you

Your mind contracting with your studies and actions
Builds to explosions like pictures of fractals
I want to stop myself from going, from going
I want to stay and I go.

some music spamming

This song was on United States of Tara and I thought it was The Usual (girls being adorable, you know) but then I found out what it was and once I listened to it I realized it has really good lyrics and is really catchy. I am addicted to doubletracking, personally, but I think it can sometimes be a really bad idea--the live videos are so much nicer than the recording because the incredibly usual two sets of fluttery/lacy vocals make it that much harder to tell that it's a mega good song.



It's unfortunate because the whole doubletracking, sincere, really simple tunes sung by a woman thing is actually awesome but it's getting sort of old. At the same time I sometimes feel that the idea that it's old is pretty sexist--I mean, there's a lot more music by men, so when someone is like, "oh, Marina and the Diamonds just sounds like a lot of other people," and so on, it's like...well, Marina and the Diamonds sounds like a lot less people than most male musicians do.

Like, the thing with Kimya Dawson? When I used to actually play music in front of people I knew, they would tell me I sounded like her and I'd be sort of annoyed because that's not how I think of my music and I feel like people have such a small frame of reference for female singers that just because I sing in a talky way, I automatically sound like Kimya Dawson. (The real reason I got started on that track was because of Jenny-Lewis-before-she-was-awful. Saddest sellout EVER. I mean she still sings in a talky way but--everything else sucks. And the singing isn't really as good anymore either, she's trying to fit herself into "good female singing," at least a little.

)

At the same time, even though I don't think Kimya Dawson is amazing (which she arguably could be, she's just not ambitious and settles for making a kind of music that I think is often small) I actually like her music a lot--or I did before everyone decided that Kimya Dawson is dumb because--I don't know, because she was in a mainstream movie, oh no.

But! Mainly! This is about Laura Veirs who I am lately really infatuated with and I think really takes the talk-singing thing to a fantastic conclusion, and doesn't just do it, like Dawson, but does it and makes it beautiful.



I mean, I have a lot of feelings about talk-singing, it's basically my religion. I should explain I don't mean necessarily that the person in question isn't singing--it's about how they pronounce words. I hate absolutely nothing more in the world than mainstream female singing where you pronounce everything with this gooey accent that doesn't sound like the way anyone would really talk. I totally admit that talk-singing is not always a more genuine expression of the way someone talks--I for example don't always pronounce words the same way when I sing that I do when I talk, but this is sort of because my singing voice is the way I would talk if I could. It's like a more intense expression. But it sounds--I don't know, I'm just really infatuated with it, even when it's really really overdramatic talking, like Conor Oberst. I get really mad when I see YouTube covers of good songs that were originally talk-sung (or at least not done in the gooey singing accent) and the 14-year-old girl or whoever has decided to do the gooey accent. NO NO NO.

Like, I know it is maybe frustrating to hear Marina and the Diamonds and Regina Spektor and everyone making such an intense effort to show everyone that they figured out interesting ways to pronounce words--but that is at least, in my opinion, an attempt at getting more directly at the heart of the words. I don't think everyone needs to be trying really hard to not do a gooey accent, some people just have nice vocal tones and they can pronounce words in a way that is just not especially gooey, like Jenny Owen Youngs. But the goo makes me so annoyed; it seems so heartless and unintellectual at the same time.

In addition to all the good reasons to hate Glee, I was also just mega frustrated by the Lea Michelle>Amber Riley fallacy they kept reinforcing in every episode, because Lea Michelle is probably the gooey-ist singer in the entire world, while Amber Riley is not some sort of anti-folk twang junkie, but does actually pronounce consonants.

For the excuse to listen to a lot of TALK-SINGING/weird-singing*, some more videos of people I mentioned above.

Pre-Kimya Dawson comments: If you don't know what this woman sounds like you are probably removed enough from pop culture that you can't possibly care about any of this and are probably wondering when I'll get around to my epic post about stuff that's actually important. But I am including this song because, from what I've heard of hers, I think it's in a way the best. I think that the way she sings and the crowded/pop-culture-reference nature of her songwriting is actually at its strongest when the subject of the song is her really dark experience with alcoholism. For her to sing this song, this way, screws with the whole idea of cuteness--that someone who sounds/talks like Kimya Dawson isn't a grownup with grownup problems--and sort of explodes that fallacy from the inside. The lyrics could be pretty triggering, even aside from the alcoholism, so keep that in mind.







*I'm afraid talk-singing is nowhere near enough broad a term to include everything I'm really talking about. I just sort of mean any kind of singing that is sharp and aggressive--and I think singing in an overly soft/gentle way, like Rose Melberg, is also aggressive.



Actually, please just read this article--Twee as Fuck: The Story of Indie Pop. I know it's Pitchfork but I read it in high school and, as the kids say, it changed my life.

About Kenny

I want to tell you about Kenny. He went to my high school, which I might somewhat flamboyantly refer to as undercover special ed--but it would be more accurate to say that it was a nominal prep school that was not at all difficult to get into, with very small classes, where no one would stop you from lying down on the floor. If you had a kid who, like me or my fake friend Joan, or like Dana or Connor, was obviously not going to cut it in an ordinary school, and if you had a certain amount of money, my school offered an option besides a school specifically for kids with disabilities/mental illnesses/a history of trouble. But there were kids who didn't have any of those things, and just hadn't been able to get into a better prep school. I feel a strange loyalty to the place, although I was incredibly lonely for my last two years due to being a sexual minority who couldn't compensate. It was probably the only school where a person like me could have had close relationships with teachers, learned to succeed academically, and been involved in theater and music; so I'm grateful for that.

During my tenth-grade year they built a new arts building and from then until I graduated that's where I spent most of my time. The whole building was carpeted and there were different hallways where I liked to sit on the floor, against the wall, and write in a notebook or read. I liked the halls in the basement, near the practice rooms, or near the room where my Latin classes were. I also liked the ground floor--I liked to wedge myself in next to the radiator, or maybe on top of the radiator, I forget, but so I could see out the window. There was an anemic field between the arts building and the main high school building, which had been built when my school had less money, and was uglier.

The Dean of Students moved to the arts building and she would let some of us hang out in her office; in twelfth grade I started spending a lot of time sleeping and doing work on her couch. That is also the year that a certain group of ninth- and tenth-grade boys, who kept their guitars in her office, would sit out by the radiator where I had spent most of my time the year before. They would play songs by Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and the Who. Kenny was one of the better guitarists and he had a haunting, pale voice, that sounded like a girl's when I was asleep.

I only spoke to Kenny a few times but he is one of the reasons I became interested in meeting other people with ASD--although he didn't say he had it, he only didn't deny. I was asking him a lot of questions one day while he played "I Can See for Miles" in the Dean's office by himself:

"Hey, do you have anything wrong with you?"

"No."

"I mean, I was wondering if you had Asperger's"

"Oh yeah, well, that."

Kenny had words he liked to use, and his face was always scrunched up in a way that looked like he was in pain. One reason I enjoyed talking to him was that I would start out just seeing the way his face looked on the surface, and thinking that he must be scared, or concentrating, or something; but then I could almost see through the surface of his face, and see that he had all kinds of feelings like everyone else. And then also, of course, the more Kenny played, the more his hands scrambled along the fretboard, the more his face loosened up.

Kenny was a nice kid but what I have to say isn't really about Kenny; it's about Mrs. C., the chorus teacher, and it's about the other boys who played guitar. Kenny was just himself. The words he used were the words that the boys who played guitar would say with him, in between songs. It's about all the kids who were in chorus, because--well, I have to explain about Kenny's stimming. Kenny played a lot of instruments, although I'm pretty sure he stimmed more instruments than he played. What I mean is that while Kenny flapped and stuff, the major things he did with his hands when they were not on a real-life guitar or piano were to manically play imaginary guitars, pianos, basses, violas, and saxophones. The saxophone was the one that got the most positive response, when Kenny got so explosive in chorus one day that no other instrument was good enough and he raised his hands to his face and pressed with stunning accuracy the invisible keys, and blew. The kids in chorus came close to applauding, while Mrs. C. laughed delightedly.

Before you ask, I know what it is like when people are laughing at the way someone moves. That is not what this was. Kenny's words, his stim-instruments, and his more standard flapping and jumping were considered interesting, impressive, and cool. They were not "meaningless repetitive behaviors"--everyone could see what they were about. Backstage before a performance, Kenny flapped at the people around him and we indicated we were nervous, and excitable, too.

Not everyone gets what Kenny got--I didn't get what Kenny got, and I had the same disability at the same school--but I still like thinking about him and explaining it to myself. I think this is pretty much a beacon of how things can be, proof that a person who's different can be seamlessly integrated into the whole without smashing himself into a normal shape, and without anyone else thinking they're doing him a favor. No one was doing Kenny a favor; Kenny was awesome.

One time Kenny did Mrs. C. a favor. He and a few of the other boys were going to sing a special song in the spring concert--I think it was "My Girl," something with very close harmony. It was a small school, meaning teachers did what they could with the talent they had, and I'm guessing Kenny with his incredible precision was going to be the rock who stayed in place when other boys muddled up and down. Kenny's singing was accompanied always by, at the very least, very stiff, sharp, tall conducting movements, his hands pinched together like beaks. At the very least. On the day of the last rehearsal, Mrs. C. said, "Kenny--for the actual concert, can you tone it down? Can you keep it in?" Kenny agreed. Whenever someone tries to explain to me that people make fun of kids who stim in public, as a way of proving that such and such ableist and abusive policy is okay...I just want to show those people Mrs. C.

Mrs. C. liked Kenny's stimming.

She knew that he had to do it.

She didn't think he did it to be annoying or to make people laugh or to get attention. At the same time, if people did laugh or pay attention, she didn't think that was inappropriate; Kenny's stimming wasn't an embarrassment, it was cool.

Mrs. C. knew that some parents would be distracted by Kenny's stimming and that it wasn't part of what was considered to be appropriate behavior for a concert. So she asked Kenny not to do it--in a way that made it obvious he was doing something difficult as a favor to everyone else, not in a way that implied this was a reasonable thing to expect from him all the time.

Kenny worked hard; he sang well and stayed still for the whole set of songs and then he and his friends dashed to their seats, coming down from the risers; Kenny was grinning at his friends, rolling his eyes to show how exhausted he was, wringing the hell out of his hands.

I really want to be in Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri's marriage

(Sorry I haven't really been posting at all. I'm ruminating on something that will be epic, though.)

PSA: I suck at everything

So, recently lurker commented and asked me to explain how autism benefits me. I've never claimed that ASD benefits me, so I'm wondering why someone would ask this. Maybe they're really asking something else. But first, a rundown!

I'm Not Special, You Guys

1. ACADEMICS! I'm not failing out of college (yet) and I have an average IQ. In terms of college I succeed in spite of ASD, not because of it; I have to fight myself every step of the way to keep my head above water. And, if you were wondering, I don't do extremely well. I guess my IQ is an ASD IQ since there is a 20-to-40-point gap between my verbal and performance IQs? But it's not really an "aptitude" since it's a pretty normal IQ.

2. WRITING AND MUSIC! Admittedly I am a good singer and I'm good at writing music and prose. Part of the singing (not being tone-deaf and having a nice color) is just like being white or having long fingers. But obviously I've developed a style and I am precise and this is from intense interest and practice. My writing ability is from intensity too.

I think you could make an argument that these things come from ASD, since people with ASD are more likely to get deeply absorbed in things. I'm sort of reluctant to concede this because many people who don't have ASD can become deeply absorbed in things as well. I certainly wasn't born with writing ability the way I was born stimmy, or something like that.

3. FEELINGS! Even though I don't write because I have ASD, I do experience a pull towards writing that is like the pull I feel towards counting change. I'd characterize that feeling, and the satisfaction in putting things cleanly together and moving through them again (reading or playing) as an ASD feeling. This doesn't objectively benefit me at all and probably makes me write slower and linger over things that are done. However, I enjoy it a lot.

Something else subjective: I usually don't refer to myself as having synesthesia since that seems to imply something more hardcore than what I experience. But color hits me hard emotionally, and sound is accessible as visual information (not bright colors; the important thing is the shade, pattern, and edges), sometimes to an overpowering and shiveringly beautiful degree. This, and a certain stiffness and shakiness that comes out of prayer and a few other things, is my primary relationship to God. This strikes me as a DD, if not specifically ASD, sensitivity, and it's one I'm very grateful for.

Post-Rundown

Even though I love shivering and colors a lot, I don't really think they can be related to my "functioning level" or be related to whether anyone is mildly or severely affected. They are just feelings and they don't help me look after myself or produce anything. And they are the only part of my ASD that I think is good. This has always been the case. I have never made a post claiming that ASD "benefits" me.

Therefore, I don't really understand why lurker would come on here and ask me how ASD benefits me. It's kind of like if someone came up to me and asked how I liked living on Mars. I don't know what to say because the question appears to be directed at someone who is not me.

Obviously I cannot explain his reasons and maybe he will be willing to do so, but I have a theory of my own. Several months ago I wrote a post called ASD Savants/Disability Redemption in which I suggested that ASD people are expected to prove ourselves really skilled at something (and/or "not really disabled") in order to be viewed as valuable human beings. Maybe if someone has been exposed to a lot of disability-redemption rhetoric, they are so used to the equation skill=valuable=life is worth living that as soon as they hear someone with ASD claiming life is worth living, they just fill in the skill part automatically and imagine it's there.

Well, okay, public statement: ASD doesn't provide me with any skills. And...I really love being alive.

No One's Ever Going to be Endlessly Alive

When I was younger (i.e. until like a year ago, let's be totally honest) I used to think that I should become a rock star because then I could move as much as I want and no one would notice. But then when I make videos like this I spend the entire time being like "STOP TOE-WALKING YOU LITTLE CREEP!" Because unfortunately it turns out there is some sort of divide between what looks DD and what looks like someone who just really likes music (and is awesome).

Disclaimer: I know that if you're a Diagnosis Police Officer you will be like, "There isn't any toe-walking in this video! You're the most made-up Autistic person ever!" That's because I'm trying not to. I mean, I know I shouldn't try not to, but I do, and maybe as I get older I'll be less of a twerp about this stuff.



I think I can't stand the way I feel
I can smash in all the doors but it's not real
And I know, I know, I know, I know how you feel
I know, I know, I know, I know it's not real

I think I can't help the way I am
You can hate it all you want but it's the same
And I know, I know, I know it's just how I am
I know, I know, I know we're not the same

I'm not real and that's okay
I'm really calm with my place
Remember, you are always tender
Remember, it doesn't mean what you think

Because no one's ever going to be endlessly alive

If my palms are the only sensitive parts
I have left I will scrape them on all the doors
'Cause I know, I know I've got to squeeze it out
The rest of me, I'll use it till it stops

I'm not real and that's okay
I'm really calm with my place
Remember, you are always tender
And remember, it doesn't mean what you think

Because no one's ever going to be endlessly alive

I think I can't stand the way I feel
I can smash in all your doors but it's not real
And I know, I know, I know, I know how you feel
But I know, I know, I know, I know it's not real

I know much more than I let on

yeah, pretty much

ETA: Zoe said I should add a warning because this video has strobing. It gets really bad at about 1:57.

Pop songs are so much better at saying things than I am

Seriously, isn't this AWESOME? I've liked it for a long time but it just occurred to me to take it in a particular way.



This is my face
Covered in freckles, with the occasional spot and some veins
This is my body
Covered in skin, and not all of it you can see
And this is my mind
It goes over and over the same old lines
And this is my brain
Its torturous analytical thoughts make me go insane

And I use mouthwash, sometimes I floss
I've got a family and I drink cups of tea
I've got nostalgic pavements and I've got familiar faces
I've got mixed-up memories and I've got favorite places

And I'm singing uh-oh on a Friday night
And I hope everything's gonna be all right

This is my face
I've got a thousand opinions and not the time to try to explain
And this is my body
No matter how you try and disable it, yes I'll still be here
And this is my mind
And although you try to infringe you cannot confine
And this is my brain
And even if you try and hold me back there's nothing that you can gain

'Cause I use mouthwash, sometimes I floss
I've got a family I drink cups of tea
I've got nostalgic pavements and I've got familiar faces
I've got mixed-up memories and I've got favorite places

And I'm singing uh-oh on a Friday night
And I hope everything's gonna be all right

repeat ad infinitum, since this is a pop song

(By the way thanks for stroking my fragile ego, I think I was feeling about six years old when I made that post. Now Todd has explained to me that I can get sitemeter so I don't have to ask.)

I couldn't resist

however: I just got this email from my parents with a list a mile long of everything I'm supposed to do. Today my friend John and I ran away and wandered around Lorain County going to garage sales and diners. I figured out that I'm always behind on everything I'm supposed to do anyway, so I might as well try to clear my mind and feel genuinely joyful when I'm procrastinating. I just sat in John's car staring at the God light. Yesterday my friend Liam and I climbed on top of one of the dining halls and watched DVDs on my computer, then walked to the Laundromat in the middle of the night and talked about how next year, when we're roommates, we're going to go to the Laundromat even though it's more expensive, because we like Laundromats. Then we snuck into Finney Chapel when it was dark and closed, and knelt in the pews and talked about morals, and lay down on the stage and sang Christmas songs.

When I have a social life, I feel like it's better than anyone else's.

Were the World Mine

I just watched this really strange, good movie, Were the World Mine (well I watched it on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but I've been stimming out on it since then so it's basically like I've been watching it nonstop for the past three days). It's about a gay teenage boy who is put upon in every possible way--he goes to a private school where he's bullied by jocks, he lives in a small town where everyone is cartoonishly homophobic, his mom thinks he's ruining her life, and he has a crush on the only jock who doesn't bully him, who appears to be straight. But never fear, Timothy is a boss singer, and relaxes by indulging in ridiculously awesome fantasy sequences.



If you can't tell from this video that this is practically the best movie ever made, I should emphasize that it's not "fabulous." I think they tried to market it that way because one of the posters features Tanner Cohen making a dramatic facial expression on top of what I think is a marquee. I really prefer this poster, which better evokes how sad and weird the movie is:



To me the word "fabulous" means something where feminine gay men are used as a joke or a harmless spectacle, and not treated as real people. This isn't the case in Were the World Mine at all. Timothy is a passive but angry character, and the fantasy in the above video isn't harmless at all; in context, it's actually rather mean-spirited and bitter. Timothy casts the jocks he loathes as the comically swishy backup dancers in his fantasies, making them caricatures of the mannerisms and identity they bully him for having. When he calls the demasculinized jocks "fairies" it's not supposed to be a quirky pun; it's an assertion of the dominance he doesn't have in real life.

He ends up getting it in real life, though; about an hour into the movie, Timothy is looking through an old edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is being performed as a musical at his school, when he finds a recipe for the love spell used in the play. After following the directions, he produces a flower that squirts juice onto people's eyes and makes them fall in love with the first person they see. Timothy uses it to make Jonathan, the guy he likes, fall in love with him, but when people react negatively to their relationship, Timothy gets pissed off and makes all the homophobic people he knows fall in love with someone of the same sex.

This causes trouble because people get attacked for being gay, especially because the spell makes them really dopey and prone to public displays of affection. Also, Timothy only has two friends, a boy and a really annoying girl who have a crush on each other, and he accidentally made the boy fall in love with him. Timothy's drama teacher, who's implied to be a lesbian and some sort of magical being, is the only person who knows what's going on. She eventually convinces Timothy that what he's doing is wrong, and he reluctantly undoes the spell. This sounds like it might be depressing, but a)for some reason the spell has made it so no one is homophobic anymore, and b)it turns out Jonathan was actually gay in the first place.

I didn't mind Jonathan being gay--it had been sort of set up the whole time--but I thought it was cheesy that everyone stopped being homophobic. Also the homophobia was really cheesy in general; there's more than one scene in the movie where someone dourly turns to Timothy's mom and says, "Your son is a homosexual?" I don't really think these aspects of the movie are a huge deal, though, and I'm puzzled that I've seen reviews describing the movie as really awful in parts and good in others. I'd say it's mostly awesome and the weaknesses don't detract that much from how good it is.

This one clip that I keep watching over and over is the scene where Timothy auditions for the musical. He starts out singing nervously, but his confidence builds thanks to the encouragement of the ambiguously gay, ambiguously magical drama teacher; then, halfway through, the scene transforms into a blue-tinged fantasy sequence where Jonathan and Timothy walk through the halls with the jocks lurking creepily in the background.

The transition starts when Jonathan hears Timothy and the teacher singing, and peers into the room. We know from earlier shots that Timothy is standing next to the drama teacher, who is playing the piano. But from Jonathan's perspective, we see this:



In the same moment, Timothy begins to sing by himself: "We fairies that do run/From the presence of the sun/We follow darkness/Like a dream." This moment just about breaks my heart--the ache in his voice when he says "fairies," the fact that there is no "we fairies" because he doesn't know anyone gay except himself, the surprising accuracy of the lyrics when applied to gay people, especially gay kids; but largely the shot, in which Timothy is looking very cool but also very small, talented but alone.

He was smiling through his own personal hell

So I remembered all my terribly abandoned plans about Lent, and I still stand by my decision to start writing here again, but my plan to think more seriously about God hasn't really happened as much as I'd like. So I'm going to try to write something that is to some extent--hopefully--about morality.

I think goodness is hard for me to understand. I've said this before and I'll illustrate with a story that is, in retrospect, really funny. Also I'm going to use fake names because it makes me feel special. I'm pretty much the jester of the Lord.

When I was in twelfth grade, I read some articles about the musical Spring Awakening and got really excited about it. I didn't have many friends so I ended up asking my parents if one of them would take me, and my dad agreed to take me. Unfortunately, when I came back from winter break, before I'd seen it, this one girl Emily, who was really strange but popular among the theater kids, had already become obsessed with Spring Awakening and she and her friends would constantly go and do student rush. It was sort of frustrating because I was in this awkward position where I desperately wanted to be friends with Emily and the other kids, but I just wasn't, and now I felt that I wasn't allowed to like Spring Awakening, because they liked it.

In an unrelated turn of events, soon after winter break I realized that I had a huge crush on Emily. I'd be about to brush my teeth and then I would just be standing there completely still, thinking about her, and I couldn't even turn on my toothbrush because the sound would upset me too much in my fragile state. Once I skipped play rehearsal because I got really scared that instead of my lines, I would just accidentally start yelling, "I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH EMILY." I was incredibly anxious and miserable and twitchy, and just incredibly, incredibly guilty that I felt this way--and if you understand why this is about to be funny, then maybe you have seen Spring Awakening and you know that there's a character who acts exactly like my high school self:



When I (now reluctantly) went to see the musical with my dad, I was so extremely taken in and destroyed by what happened to the Amanda Forest Vivian doppleganger that I went into this weird stunned state for hours, and yelled at one of my teachers for not counting so I could keep up with her during an instrumental performance that happened later that night. I bought a t-shirt and a CD, but as soon as I got home I put them away in a drawer because I felt like I couldn't be into Emily and her friends' thing. It would just seem like I was copying. Which sort of sucked because I think it would have been really helpful for me to be able to listen to it, given the subject matter. Basically as soon as I graduated, I became a superfan for the whole summer.

But in February, when I was really in the depths of my Emily obsession, and basically hating myself and crying in the car on the way home from school (here's a really hilarious journal entry I wrote around that time, if you're curious), one of Emily's friends, Karen (I know, I'm so good at making up names), developed a huge crush on Gideon Glick, one of the cast members of Spring Awakening. Every time they went to the stage door, she would try to talk to him as much as possible, etc. etc., or sometimes she was too shy to go and Emily would have to go and get a message for Karen, etc. etc. Now, Gideon Glick looks like this:



I know you can't know for sure, but Gideon Glick is a guy who, if I found out he didn't like making out with girls, I wouldn't be all that surprised.

But Karen was.

Gideon Glick did an interview where he mentioned that he didn't like making out with girls, and Karen was fucking despondent! I mean, she was sort of joking, but also sort of not. She sat on the couch in the green room and all their friends clustered around her expressing their sympathy, while Karen nodded sadly and squished her hands together.

So, let's review: Karen was very dramatically expressing her unrequited love for a gay dude (a gay dude out of the many dudes in the world, who by and large like girls) who she didn't really know in real life, and everyone felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, I was unrequitedly in love with the bizarre but fascinating and very moving Emily, a person I saw every day, who I was forced to talk to on a regular basis while I pretended nothing was wrong, because if anyone found out, it would just mean that I was really gross and creepy and a predator.

I wanted to punch Karen in the face. Because I wanted to punch her in the face so much, I figured that it would be really, really charitable, and exactly the kind of thing God wanted me to do, if I went up to her before English class and said, "Oh, hey, Karen, I'm sorry about that guy you like." So I did.

Karen blinked and said snottily, "Oh, Gideon Glick? Oh...well, it's okay." She shrugged with the air of someone who has too much pain to share with anyone else; she sighed, and settled again into her limp Gideon-Glick-is-gay posture, against the wall across from the door of the class.

I almost went into some sort of fit of rage. What the fuck, Karen! I tried so hard to be charitable to you! I totally pushed down all of the totally horrible and intense and sad feelings that I have every day about Emily, and I tried to care about your stupid crush on some obviously gay actor in a musical, when I don't even know you very well! What the fuck!

Ever since this happened, it is sometimes hard for me to decide how good is too good. The problem with striving for the best is that sometimes the best simply isn't possible, and trying to do something really good might just result in you being really, really angry and, well...less Christlike. Like many people who are disabled, and also probably many college students who aren't perfectly suited to the way college is, I spend a lot of my energy just trying to think about how to get through the day. And I guess it's hard for me to decide how much to take "getting through the day" into account when I am making decisions. I mean, sometimes I think I take that so much into account, that I forget about goodness. But I'm also afraid of trying so hard to be good that I end up just really angry, if that makes sense.