Laura Cushing

CharLoft is on Skool!

charisma — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 02:58:54 GMT

If you remember our Charloft community fondly from baxk in the LiveJournal days join us on Skool!
This is a free community that will post daily character development prompts.

https://www.skool.com/char-loft-4047

Body and Gender Shaming in a Wal-Mart bathroom

charisma — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 17:05:48 GMT

Yesterday, we were doing our shopping at Wal-Mart when I came to the uncomfortable realization that I had to pee. I'm not a big fan of public restrooms, because of their dubious cleanliness mostly, but hey when you've got to go...

My husband was with me, so I left him to watch the cart and wait for me outside the ladies room and went in to do my thing. As soon as I got in there, a lady confronted me.

"EXCUSE ME SIR!"

I looked around a moment, and then realized she was talking to me. It's not first time I've been misgendered by any means - but I'm surprised by it in the context, as I am in the ladies room.

"Hm?" I say, not bothering to correct her.

"This is a LADIES RESTROOM."

"OKay." Yes, statement of fact. Point?

"You're a man! You can't be in here."

"... first off, I'm not a man, thanks. But even if I had male parts- I could be a trans woman, using the restroom I feel most comfortable in. That's not a bad thing."
"OH yes it is! And you ARE a man. You ain't fooling me--"

And then she starts listing the reasons she KNOWS I am a guy. According to the sage wisdom of some random lady in Wal-Mart, here are the compelling reasons that I am a guy:

-- Too tall to be a woman (I'm six foot)
-- Too fat to be a woman (I weigh 350 lbs)
-- Wearing MAN CLOTHES (a t-shirt, jeans, flip-flops)
-- Unpainted short nails
-- No makeup
--- Short MAN HAIRCUT (in purple no less!)

At this point I was incredulous, but really had to pee so I said "OKay-- now you're just being a weirdo. Can you work out your issues elsewhere, because I really have to pee." and ducked into a stall.

She started yelling how I was the weirdo, and then harrumphed off.

This isn't the first time by any means I've been misgendered, and I've been fat shamed, height shamed, and clothing / makeup / hair shamed all before too. It's the first time they've all come together, and been used as evidence that I didn't belong in the space I was occupying.

I spent most of yesterday feeling bad about myself. Maybe I could put up with the terrible sensory issues that come from having long nails and wearing makeup to make myself more feminine. Maybe I should go back to wearing my hair long even though it's way more comfortable for me to have it short. Maybe I shouldn't have worn a twenty-year old t-shirt that belonged to my deceased father out in public. Maybe my comfortable flip flops should be exchanged for girly ones. I could try harder to lose weight. Slouch like I did in high school to try and fit in better with the height of those around me. I don't try very hard to fit in with society.

Last night, I had the dreams that come after such incidents thanks to my PTSD. I dreamed that I was alone, that I couldn't find my husband or any of our friends, and that I was walking through an unfamiliar place. I tried to stop people to ask where I was, and where I could find those I was looking for, but no one would talk to me- only point and laugh.

This morning I woke up feeling angry. Angry at that lady in the bathroom for her judgment. Angry at myself for falling into old habits of thinking (It must be my fault. I have to fix me. I'm wrong. I'm bad.) Angry that there are so many people in this country facing worse than this just for trying to be who they are.

Writing about this has helped alleviate some of that anger, and I am trying to root out those last bits of shame and fear that I am not ever going to fit in with society. Why would I want to? I want to be me. I like being me. I like my short purple hair. I like being tall. My health is getting better all the time and my weight doesn't hold me back. I like wearing soft, comfortable old clothes. My dad's t-shirt reminds me of my dad. I like keeping my nails short and out of the way because it helps my sensory issues. If anyone doesn't understand that-- well, that's on THEM, not on me.

One month Post Hysterectomy

charisma — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:52:02 GMT

It's been one month since my entire uterus, cervix, tubes and one ovary have been removed laproscopically. I have had remarkably little problems -- everything has healed up nicely, I haven't had a lot of pain, I'm almost entirely back to my routine. I have been feeling very positive about the uterus being gone.

It's been kind of a troublemaker since the beginning. As a teen, I had very heavy and unpredictable periods. As a young adult, I had problems with it in pregnancy - I had to have two c-sections because of it. Also, it was retroverted - that is, facing backwards. The in middle age it started spawning fibroids, and finally became diseased. So will I miss my uterus? Heck no! I know they say that some women experience a certain kind of sadness in losing an organ that marks their female sex and reproduction -- nope, not me. Good bye, and good riddance.

Doctor says with my one remaining ovary, I might still have some cycle symptoms as if I were about to have a period. I guess it will make the futile attempt to spit out an egg on a monthly-ish basis until I hit menopause. Haven't felt any indication of that as yet, but then again I've never had a normal cycle so who knows when if at all that will happen. I have felt some ups and down emotionally as my body adjusts to different hormone levels, but nothing big.

For the first few weeks I had some really bad sweats and clamminess, but that is gone now too.

I am looking forward to warmer weather to get more exercise (though we have been walking around stores, and even a little outside as weather permits). I am really hoping to build up my stamina for events now that some of the health problems are out of the way. I want to be able to vend these muilti-day out of state events that we are starting to look at (for example we will be at Amazicon in DE the weekend of April 7th, three days) without feeling completely dregged out by them. Big bucks, no whammies!

And now that I can lift things and get around again, time to start adding more fresh home cooked meals and less of the frozen and boxed we have been relying on while I was recovering.

It's weird to look forward to cooking and cleaning and exercise, but I am glad to be in the kind of health where I can do that.

Living Drama free - a continual conscious choice

charisma — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 20:33:12 GMT

I grew up in a very drama heavy household. When you are the daughter of a bipolar alcoholic and a narcissistic personality disorder with OCD, you're not getting the drama free childhood package. Someone in our family was always screaming about something - insults, things not done 'right', the crisis of the moment. Everything was a Big Deal. Problems escalated from zero to full blown drama almost instantly at times, with little cause and effect.

It was difficult, if not entirely impossible, to determine what situations would lead to drama. When you are dealing with two people with untreated mental illness who have less than a high school education, there is a lot of blame placing and a lot of lack of understanding of their own responsibility in the situation. As a child I felt helpless to understand the forces that drove my parents, and therefore my life, to these peaks of anger, violence, and blame.

I might be beaten for anything from spilling milk (age 3) to saying I didn't like a birthday present (age 9). I was threatened verbally with everything from being sold to gypsies (very young) to being kicked out of the house (teen) for not doing whatever was expected at me from whichever of them felt like being parental at the time. The problem was there was never any consistency to the rules, or comprehension of how to stay out of 'trouble.' Trouble was whatever they thought you shouldn't be doing at any given minute. I lived in a state of perpetual fear and horror that is a big reason for my c-ptsd today.

As a young adult, I often found myself in dramatic situations of my own. Things just seemed to 'happen to me' and I felt powerless to affect the world around me, due to lack of funds, experience, and in some cases, sanity. I had poor planning skills and untreated mental illness, and a childhood that had not prepared me to function as an adult in the wolrd.

Now I am a middle aged adult, and I live remarkably drama free. I am happy! I am kind. I am helpful. I make conscious choices to be so. How did I arrive at this point?

1) Therapy. A lot of therapy you guys. Like... a lot. CBT, EMDR, and art therapy. Learning to process all my childhood trauma, and how to express my emotions appropriately and take responsibility for my own actions helped TREMENDOUSLY. I can't stress this enough. You don't have to sit down on a couch to talk to Dr.Freud about your mother. You can read Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies on your Kindle, or see a grief counselor, or start art journaling to explore your emotional states. The important part is to Start. Start somewhere. Move forward. Take responsibility for your own happiness.

2) Medication. Folks, sometimes you need meds. There is no shame in that. If you had diabetes, you would need insulin. If you have high blood pressure, you would take a blood pressure med. Do not fear needing to be medicated for your anxiety, depression, or other mental or mood disorders. Your body might be deficient in certain chemicals, and there's no shame in that. Take responsibilty for your meds - tell the doctor if a med doesn't work right so it can be adjusted, don't just stop taking or stop seeing the doctor. IT took a few YEARS to get my perfect combo of medications down. It was rough at times, no lie. But it was worth it in the end!

3) Going no contact with toxic relations and friends. If someone is putting you down, causing drama in your life, treating you like shit -- cut them loose. Regardless of whether ir is your parent, your child, your spouse. NO CONTACT. Zero. None. If someone knocks on the door and says hello, I'm here to destroy your self esteem and tell you what a horrible person you are -- would you let that stranger in? No? Then don't let your relative in. In this day and age, we are SO globally connected. You can find your true family that will love and support you. Don't hold on to friends or family who don't out of fear that you will never find anyone else. You will!

4) Take responsibility for you. This means your emotional states, your behaviors, how you move through and interact with the world. Find joy in little things. You are worth it. Let go of hate, anger, pain wherever you can - it's only hurting you to hold on to them. Be kind where you can, be supportive where you can, spread love not hate. Every day there are a million little choices to make. Make them conscientiously.

5) Don't engage in drama. Just don't. If you see it happening, walk away. If it tries to follow you screaming its way into your life--- close the door. Hang up the phone. Turn off the computer. Then go do something that makes you happy. You deserve it.

Welcome to the new age

charisma — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 17:02:22 GMT

I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals

I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa oh

I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my system blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age

I woke up with this song stuck in my head. IT was hard to get out of bed this morning. I feel like I am grieving for the loss of a lifelong friend, and in a way I am. Our country will never be the same again. Regardless of which side of history you are on, whether you think this is a necessary shakeup or like me dread the coming loss of human rights and lives... this is a turning point. A pivotal moment.

I wasn't 100% behind Clinton. I would've much preferred Bernie get the democratic nomination. I would have voted wholeheartedly for him. But I did vote for Clinton because I felt it was our best choice to stand against Trump. I couldn't vote for someone who said such vicious horrible things, who planned to build a wall to keep people out and repeal a healthcare system that has been helping me stay alive for the past eight years.

Yet the majority rules and you, the majority, have made your choice. Trump is our president and the republicans control both the house and the senate. I can only hope that if he has some crazy ideas, they will be shut down the way there were those of his party who refused to endorse him for election. Putting the election behind us and working together is what they are calling for... but who is "us" in a Trump society? Everyone but the Latinos? All the rich white males? Anyone who tows the party line?

I have disliked presidents before. I wasn't a fan of Bush and his policies... but I didn't feel DOOMED under his presidency. I didn't feel like we had a possibly unsurvivable path for humanity, that we were the crumbling Roman empire, that we were standing on the precipice of a world wide catastrophe like 1930s Germany.

SO here I suppose I hope for the best, for some sort of miraculous everything will be alright... but at the same time plan for the worse.

These are my promises to myself, to my friends, and to my country in this new age:

1) I will stand up for human rights and equality vocally, physically if necessary, and with an open heart. No matter what policies occur. This includes relgious and political freedom, equal marriage rights, the rights of those who have immigrated to this country to stay here, women's reproductive rights, etc.

2) I will try to find hope, and not despair. I will help others to have hope. I will look for the positives where I can and try to make small bits of hope grow into larger bastions.

3) I will plan for what to do when health care reform is repealed. I will take care of any medical needs I can before the first of the year, and come up with a plan to afford the medicines I need to stay alive and healthy even if I no longer have insurance.

4) I will look for ways to invest money in things that are not the US dollar. Even though we have very little to invest, we need to find something to invest in just in case society and the economy collapses. Something that will retain value if the dollar fails.

5) I will look toward 2018, and what I can do to ensure that we have better choices four years from now.

I can't let depression and fear paralyze me. Either this will somehow work out alright, and we haven't just elected our societal doom - or it will collapse and we will survive through that. Life goes on even in a post Trump society. Until such time as it doesn't, we must all try to make it the best life we can for as many people as we can.

Business Things

charisma — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 17:42:33 GMT

Upcoming events --

Tabernacle Scout Fall Festival - Sunday Oct 23rd

South Jersey Geekfest in Woodbury - Saturday Oct 29th

NJ Gamer Con in Runnamede - December 3-4

We are still looking for a November event. Unfortunately Halloween Comic Fest this year is the same day as Geekfest, so we won't be able to make that.

Things we are currently selling: dice, fandom plush (Pokemon, Mario, Plants vs Zombies, Five Nights at Freddies, etc), fandom necklaces and other jewelry, blind grab pokeballs, cards, etc

Online sales wise, we are still doing our half.com books and etsy. There's a big booksale at the library we're hitting up this week to get more inventory for half. Getting some new exciting dice colors in for shows and for etsy, including some ten dice sets. Need to find some more stores to get our dice into, as that is starting to peter out a bit.

Probably going to run an Etsy sale in preparation for the holidays. It seems to be the gift buying season starts around now.

I need to find some time to sit down and make some more jewelry to put in sets and sell separately as well.

Overall, business things are going well. Still hoping that someday we will be able to afford a van, because having to pack into the hatchback for our events really limits what we can bring inventory wise.

The Nut Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree *

charisma — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 18:30:02 GMT

Looking back at genetics and mental illness in my family paints a harrowing picture. I don't think I would have chosen to have children if i would've understood the genetic legacy I was passing on to them. We never talked about mental illness in our family. When my father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, my mother told us we were never to speak about it to anyone. It was treated like a shameful weakness of his, a family secret that must be protected at all costs.

IN part this may be due to them being a product of an earlier age when mental illness was poorly understood, but I think a large part was due to the way my mother handled life in general. Everything had to appear to be perfect, regardless of how it actually was. The same urge that made her hide my father's diagnosis (and refuse to seek any help for her own issues) is the same urge that made her remove me from school every time they suggested I might need testing. It's the same reason that I wasn't allowed to talk about being beaten with a belt, or that I'd seen my mother and father fight physically. It was the same reason that I was encouraged NOT to have friends over, that we did not throw parties, that we did not really have family friends.

This is what I know about mental illness and suspected mental illness in my family, as far back as I know of. Names omitted for privacy.

(Maternal Grandmother) - has been described to me as shy, had difficulty learning english. Quit school. Did not talk to many people outside her family. Easily manipulated by her sister. She was brilliant with crochet and knitting and cooking, could make anything wihtout a pattern. I highly suspect she was autistic.

(Maternal Grandfather) - I heard he drank a lot, but was that alcoholism? Unknown
(Maternal Great Aunt) - narcissistic personality disorder (undiagnosed)
(Mother) - narcissistic personality disorder (undaignosed), OCD (undiagnosed), phobias
(Mother's Brother) - alcoholism (at least one of her brothers)
(Mother's Cousin) - possible pedophile, anxiety, 'odd behaviors'

(Paternal Grandmother) - Not sure. She was described as loud, belligerent, and neglectful of her children. Mentally ill?
(Paternal Grandfather) - I know very little about him to be honest, other than he was divorced from my dad's mother.
(Father) - bipolar disorder, alcoholism
(Father's Older Sister) - molested my father, sexually promiscuous, described as 'wild' (mentally ill almost certainly - no idea with what though)
(Father's Younger Sister) - uncertain

(Myself) - autism, c-ptsd (environmental), depression
(My brother) - drug addiction, drinking (alcoholism?), depression
(My second brother) - none
(Niece)- schizophrenia

(My son)- drug addiction, bipolar, possible schitzoaffective disorder, depression, autism (suspected)
(My daughter) - drug addiction, OCD (undiagnosed), narcissistic personality disorder (undiagnosed)
(My daughter) - drug use (addiction?), anxiety, depression

My daughters have children of their own and as I have no contact with them, and they are quite young, it's impossible to tell what they have inherited. But the odds don't look good for them. This makes me feel very guilty some times, for my part in continuing genetics that should've died with me. They could have died with me. Yet they will continue on for gods knows how many generations, causing pain to those who have to live with the illnesses that are their genetic legacy and the circumstances of being raised by a mentally ill parent.

We cannot change the past, nor the present. I had kids. They have kids now. There is nothing that can be done about that.

But I can talk about mental illness, and refuse to sweep it under the family rug. I can leave these writings that future generations might find and know more about what genealogy won't tell them. It won't speak about the family history of breakdowns, suicide attempts, drug rehabilitations and all - those records will all be lost to time. We see our family tree and we like to imagine our ancestors as better versions of ourselves, as a romanticized past.

We never get the apology for their contribution to our genetic cocktail.

But here is mine.

Future generations, I'm sorry.

* the title comes from a saying my mother used way too often any time she felt I was 'acting crazy like my father', or my kids were 'acting crazy like me'

PTSD flare up

charisma — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 20:40:27 GMT

One of the hardest things about PTSD is how it flares up with little or no warning.

Anxiety, hypervigilance, and paranoia hit me hard last night as I was trying to sleep. Every noise amplified, every sound could be something bad happening. My mind went through unlikely scenarios like intruders getting in (Burglars, squirrels, etc), to wondering if I was just dreaming I was here and I was still trapped in my mom's house. The obvious logical explanation that the cats were having their 3 AM pounce fest all through the apartment remained elusively out of reach as I imagined in great detail all the horrible scenarios it could be.

Cue the memories of bad things that had been, complete with auditory, semi-visual, and scent hallucinations. That was when I realized okay, it's the PTSD, and started to do the EMDR techniques of tapping and breathing.

About four am I slept, then woke up from PTSD dreams several times until I woke up when Aus did for work at 7:30. I took some meds and then slept again til 11:30. Took a Klonopin, and tried to spnd as much of the day relaxing as I could to reset my system - but it's still a crap shoot whether or not I will sleep tonight.

I have lost friends over my 'inability to control' the symptoms of my PTSD. It can be inconvenient being friends with someone who might snap at any moment, who might cancel plans at the drop of a hat due to a bad night, etc. I get that.

But It irks me a bit that there are still those who just feel if we worked harder we could contain our symptoms entirely, or 'just get over it.' It doesn't work that way.

I had a pretty good, quiet weekend other than pain from my infected tonail. I was happy and relaxed when I went to bed. There were no signs that it was going to be that kind of night.

PTSD is a bitch. Some days, so am I. But if you ask you can find out why I'm feeling prickly and overwrought, instead of resenting that I am inflicting myself on the world.

Died of an ingrown toenail

charisma — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:18:07 GMT

My family had this terrible way of leaving out the middle part of any story. For years growing up, I heard that my Aunt Edith 'died of an ingrown toenail.' As I sit here with my own ingrown toenail, I fight the irrational thought that I might just die from it at any moment.

The middle of thisl story is she had an ingrown toenail that got infected and she had diabetes and died from complications thereof, no doubt.

I wonder if they just had a flare for the dramatic, or if they thought it would be a more useful lesson without the middle. When I was a preschooler, I had a hard time understanding the urge to 'go', and would often hold it until it was too late. Now I know that the inability to recognize body signals comes from the autism. But back then, I thought it was some personal failing. And my mother in her infinite wisdom said to me quiet seriously "If you don't go to the bathroom, you're going to die."

Cue years of angst any time I was constipated. What if I wasn't going enough and death was right around the corner?

As I get older I think the active avoidance of death has become less of an obssessive priority. I've survived 46 years after all, I must be doing something right. I try to make sure I eat balanced meals when I can, go to the doctor when I need to (though don't get me started on insurance costs) and generally don't do anything stupidly risky. I figure since most of my relatives lived (or are living) good long lives, I've got a genetic good chance.

Provided I don't die of this infected toenail!

My first meme

charisma — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:53:54 GMT

It occurs to me that, long before the internet age, I was exposed to the concept of 'meme' on the playground. Songs and stories and drawings and skills that circulated and spread from schoolyard to schoolyard, and also intergenerationally.

Some of the stories we told were the same stories our older brothers and sisters told; and in turn they had perhaps learned them from parents or even grandparents. My own father had a childhood in the great depression, and some of the earliest stories I remember hearing from him were rhymes he'd learned in his own playground days.

Ooey gooey was a worm.
A mighty worm was he.
He sat upon the railroad tracks
The train he did not see.
Ooey gooey!

And this other lovely bit of nature-

A big brown birdie with a bright red bill
Sat upon my windowsill.
I tempted him in with a piece of bread.
And then I squished his ugly head.

Rhymes from my father always seemed to involve some creature meeting a horrible end, perhaps unsurprising from a boy who grew up in Cleveland. From my mother, who grew up in the same era, I learned what the girls had been singing as they jumped Double Dutch in Philadelphia.

Cindarella , dressed in Yealla (yellow)
Went upstairs to kiss a fella
She made a mistake
Kissed a snake
How many times did she make that mistake?

Interestingly, the cadence used for some of the songs I learned from my parents were re-used in songs learned from my schoolmates. One of the songs my father sang during his navy days, for example, during World War II had a verse I remember that went -

Oh the chicken in the Navy,
They say it is the best,
The men get the asshole,
and the admiral gets the rest!

Followed by a chorus of - gee ma I want to go, but they won't let me go home

In the schoolyard it was a condemnation of school days with

Oh I don't want to go to (name of school)
Gee mom, I want to go
but they won't let me go
Gee mom I want to go home.

The tune was the same, though I don't recognize what either stemmed from.

There were urban legends in the schoolyard. Everyone knew someone who had known someone who really really had spiders in their hair, or in their gum. And some famous person really wound up in the hospital to have a gerbil removed from his butt. And if you said Bloody Mary to the mirror seven times, you just might really get killed like this kid's older brother's friend did. They were those circulated unchecked 'facts', and we had no Snopes in those days so it was a very real IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU because everyone knew a guy who knew a guy who...

We also tackled some very controversial subjects for our time and age. In the fairly early 70s, I repeated along with my girlfriends...

I love you
You love me
Homo Sexu Ality
People think
we're just friends
but we're really
les bi ans!

Until our horrified parents told us to stop before someone believes us. We had no idea what they might believe us about but that made the song all the more fun to sing. An older boy taught us that there was another song about homosexuals (which we still had only the vaguest idea of what they might be), sang to the tune of Strangers in the Night

Homos in the night
Exchanging rubbers
This one's too tight
Must be my brothers.

The only rubber things we knew were rubber cement and erasers, so it didn't make much sense. But it made our parents uneasy, so it became a favorite to sing as well. As we got a little older, and made friends who actually were gay or lesbian, I wondered if too much singing the forbidden songs had 'made them that way' the way that parents said a face would stick if you made it too much. It seemed a mysterious condition to me, something that parents obviously disapproved of-- but at the same time didn't really seem that bad in practice. We had a girl friend who had a girlfriend in the fifth grade. It didn't seem any different than the other I Like You Now We Are Dating relationships that went on at that age.

There were rhymes about other taboo subjects - having a baby out of wedlock (Miss Suzy Had a Baby - she definitely wasn't Mrs. ), killing yourself (Suffocation, suffo suffication - a game we used to play), swallowing drain cleaner (Comet - it makes your mouth feel clean), sex organs (milk, milk, lemonade..) , and so on.

And there were Grosser than Gross jokes, which often took a dirty or sexual turn---

What's Grosser than Gross?
A midget saying Gee, Your Hair smells terrific.

One rhyme that we had learned from older brothers and sisters probably dated from the time of race riots and civil unrest -

Fight, Fight
A Nigger and a White
You're the nigger
and I'm the white.

And there was a little bit of domestic violence in

My mother and your mother were hanging out clothes
My mother punched your mother right in the nose
What color was the blood?

that was used to pick who would go next in a game.

When I read about how kids are doing this or that horrible thing on the internets, I don't really think that this generation is any worse than we were as kids. The playground has just become universal, and the memes easier to spread. In an era where playtime is now often highly structured, and based around parent supervised activities - is it any wonder that they are finding their own place to share their version of the meme / rhyme / story?

Childhood is still childhood.

Blogging 2.0

charisma — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 19:24:10 GMT

Its been a while since i attempted to keep this journal. The cyberworld has moved on from LiveJournals since i first started this some 15+ years ago. But there are now apps to post to this from my phone and Kindle so I shall at least attempt a revival.

They do not seem to offer spell check or work with my phones autocorrect however, so you may see how badly I spell and type when left to my own devices.

RPG dice sale - free shipping!

charisma — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:16:08 GMT

Roll 4 It Dice loves you! <3

Through the Valentine's Day weekend - from now until Monday - use coupon code Love4Dice in our Etsy store to receive FREE SHIPPING on any dice set!

Why not use it to pick up some valentine's dice for your gaming sweetheart?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/219964513/valentines-day-choclates-polyhedral-rpg

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The Christmas songs I hate the most:

charisma — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 19:03:48 GMT

That feed the world one. "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas." Well no shit, there won't be snow in South Carolina either. Also the "Thank god it's them instead of you." Uh... yeah. That's a real nice thought.

"Baby it's cold outside.. say what's in this drink?" AKA the date rape song.

Little St. Nick. Surf rock should have died in the sixties yet we still play this. Why?

Here we come a-wassailing. We aren't in 1800s England. Nothing is wassailing anywhere anymore. Wassailing is likely a verb that should have never happened anyhow.

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas and All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, both for the same reason - that grating false child voice. And then there's the dumb lyrics. Oh and for that matter - "I saw mommy kissing santa claus" - it's your dad, kid. Or at least the milkman. Get over it.

And the worst of all -- Any country music song involving a dead and/or dying person that someone is buying a present for, especially if they're begging for that present because they're also poor. I think there's like fifty of those at this point, or maybe just two that seem like fifty because they're that bad.

We are reviving our writing community!

charisma — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 19:54:27 GMT

Come join us in charloft for daily writing prompts and character fun!

Far From the Maddening Crowd

charisma — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 15:39:53 GMT

There's a fundamental part of human nature, a survival instinct that wants us to form tribes and groups. I'm on team Edward. I'm in the Harry Potter fandom. I'm a gamer. I'm emo. Etc, etc. I have always found a certain revulsion for this concept - partly because I seem to lack the drive to group up with my fellow humans, and partly because groupthink can be so ugly when it gets out of control. Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, describes it so well in his book Cat's Cradle-

A Karass is a network or group of people that unknown to them, are somehow affiliated or linked, in the case of the book by a higher power. But they are the individuals who, upon meeting, you feel like you have known forever. Who help you in some tangible meaningful way to fufill your purpose in life, and whom you help do the same. And then there is the Granfalloon - which is a false Karass a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless. This includes "the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company—and any nation, anytime, anywhere." A proud and meaningless association of human beings.

Perhaps it is partly my aspergers that makes me particularly resistant to the idea of false karass, to granfallooning it up for the sake of feeling connection. I can't feel that connection. I like a movie or show, but I have no desire to be part of a 'fandom'. I play games, but I don't consider myself 'a gamer'. I wonder if it relates to my troubles with executive function - placing things into categories has always been difficult for me. I get words like 'pan' and 'pot' mixed up, for example- and have a hard time understading what defines a cooking container as either. It puzzles me to try and sort the clutter in my living room into meaningful groups. What belongs together? What should reside where?

Yesterday we were at the GameStop, trading in a group of video games that we'd finished playing to get store credit for a game for Aus's birthday. We had a coupon for 50% increase in trade in, which I thought was rather nice, and was pleased with the timing of. The reason for said timing became immediately apparent, as everyone in line before us was using their trade-in to get a new game that had just come out- some version of the Madden football franchise.

The clerk asked if we were trading in for Madden, and of course I blurted the honest truth "No, we have no interest whatsoever in Madden." Collective gasp from the crowd, who suddenly looked at us like we'd grown two heads. Literally every other person was there specifically to trade in to buy this game on its release day. Some had pre-ordered the Super Deluxe version. I asked, knowing Madden to be a long running game series, what made this one so valuable.

The clerk went on about some targeting tackle system, and about how it was likely to be the last one released on the older systems as we move to Ps4 and whatever the newest Xbox is calling itself, etc. So newer, shinier, and so forth. Much better than the older version, really. Totally worth sixty dollars to buy brand new right rightnow. The other clerk, who was wearing an Eagles jersey, chimeed in "I don't even like football but I'm picking it up because I'm going to be bored this weekend with my wife and kids out of town."

Clearly he felt the call of the granfalloon, wanting to be part of the Maddening crowd, rather than be the outsider who was purchasing used games with their credit to get a better deal. We got a lot of looks as we brought up two older ps3 games and a DS game from 2008. Gasp! No Madden! Outsiders, not one of us!

I am comfortable from my position as observer, and much freer I believe, than if I wanted to be part of the granfalloons that surround me. I have aspergers. You have aspergers. Does that make us a karass? No, nope, not at all. And I say this as a person who is staring a group for folks on the spectrum. If we find connection in that group, that will be great. But must we have connection because we have the same condition? Of course not. If you've met one person on the spectrum, you've met one person on the spectrum . Long live the individual.

Prejudices that Make Sense

charisma — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 16:34:59 GMT

If we're going to have prejudice, why can't we have prejudices that make sense?

What sense is there in being against a fellow human being based on characteristics they have at birth - skin color, country of origin, sexual orientation? That's just ridiculous- that's like saying I'm totally opposed to left handed people, or brunettes, or people who are over 5'6" tall.

And let's face it, there's not much sense in being against someone's beliefs as long as they're not hurting anyone else with them. If you want to believe in God, or Goddess, or the Space Monkey That Shat Out the World - how does it hurt me, or any other human on this planet? That's cool, believe what you're going to believe. I'm alright with that.

And we shouldn't be prejudiced against someone's financial state - the poor certainly didn't wake up in the morning and want to be poor. And there's plenty of folks who are rich who earned their money and worked hard to be where they are.

But I do have prejudices, and it's time I come clean about what I am prejudiced against.

The Willfully Ignorant
I used to think I was prejudiced against stupidity, but then I had to redefine my thoughts. I'm not against people who have lower than average IQs by any means - there are lots of mentally challenged people who are working very hard to use what they've got and overcome their challenges. What I'm against is willful ignorance, the people who aren't using their brains and making informed decisions, who flaunt the fact that they don't give a shit about the world and their fellow human beings and they'd much rather just care about themselves and what feels good. These are people who act out of animal instincts, who let fear and anger and lust control their lives without giving a second thought to how their decisions affect others. Fuck those people, seriously. I'm prejudiced against willful ignorance, and if you life your life that way, I'm really ashamed to have you as a member of the human race.

The Idle Rich
Bill Gates has his foundations, and JK Rowling gave away so much of her money she's no longer a billionaire. Both of them earned their own money by creating wonderful things that advanced society or culture. And then we have... the Kardashians. What have they done for anyone? Why are they famous? What are they doing that benefits anyone but themselves? Yet the willfully ignorant (see above) hold these idle rich empty headed icons up and worship them. How about revering those who advance society - our inventors, our doctors, our teachers, our bringers of culture? Fuck the idle rich. No wait, if you do that, you'll just add to their celebrity. Let's just ignore them and move on.

Those are my two biggest prejudices, but there are others. I'm pretty not down with most politicians - I'm not talking the nice folks on a local level who are actually caring about the area they govern over, but those on a state and national level who have sold their allegiance to corporate sponsors. Who say one thing, and do another. Who pass legislation blocking marriage equality, only to be caught having gay sex on some island somewhere.

And of course, I'm against corporations -- but I refuse to believe that they are people, so they are not included on this list. See Willful Ignorance for what allows those corporations to control our media, our politics, and our lives.

A Lack of Color

charisma — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 16:31:28 GMT

I can remember being very small, and living in a yellow house with a brown roof. The walls of my bedroom too, were bright and sunny. The living room furniture was colonial, the couch velvety and covered in various country scenes. I could stare at it for hours, making up stories to myself about the tiny people in their carriages and barns and houses. I was the significantly younger child in the family, my brothers being some 15 years older than I am. About the time they left home is about the time the colors started to drain from the house.

Let me explain that this is not entirely metaphorical. As a person on the spectrum, I have always felt a great affinity for color and texture. I can remember the texture of that first couch in my life as surely as if i was sitting on it right now, and the color of my first set of 'big girl' sheets (and the wood of my crib before that, for that matter). My bedroom furniture was bright white and kelly green. Before you think my memory phenomenal, I can't recall what I looked like. I can't remember my mother or father's face. People don't stick the way textures and colors do.

Anyhow I was about 6 or 7 when my brothers moved out, and my grandmother moved in. She had dementia, and often looked up at the blue sky and the white clouds and talked to my grandfather who'd gone up to the sky not long ago. Her clothes were mostly dark, but on her head she wore silky scarves that had color. In her hands she held her knitting, white and purple and green, no longer any pattern but down, down, down. She died in the room that had been my brothers. The EMTs brought her out, stiff as a board, her hands clutched over her chest, colorless as the sheet they pulled up over her.

i suppose it took us all a while to get over it, though no one ever talked about it much in front of me as I was a child. And I kept the nightmares to myself, because I wasn't really that great about communicating. Somewhere around here is the time I was put into Children's Hospital a while, for 'tests' was all my mother would tell me. The only memories I have of that are smells, flashes of light, a clear oxygen tent and white, white sheets.

They decided they would only need one bedroom now, and they could expand the living room now by knocking my bedroom completely out of existence and moving me into my brother's old room. Wouldn't that be great? they said, in that tone that implied I hadn't much of a choice. The new room was bigger after all, and it had A Closet, which my room lacked. Wouldn't that be great? All I knew was they were going to take away the only room I'd ever had, the space I considered my own safe space, and place me into the area where someone had died.

IN the room I went, with a green carpet to match my furniture's green being installed. Isn't this nice? I saw, or hallucinated I saw in my hysteria, the ghost of my grandmother in that room. I can't as an adult tell you one way or the other, but I know as I child I firmly believed I saw it. There, on the dresser, a transparent lady couldn't they see it? Her smile was kind but I was afraid she'd come to take me up into the sky the moment I fell asleep. My mother (and a visiting brother) told me that there was nothing there, I needed to stop being dramatic and just go to bed. So I lay there in the darkness, too terrified to sleep, the sheets up to my neck (I didn't dare pull them over my head because I had to keep an eye on her).

I never saw anything distinct after that night but I do recall a lot of lights and sounds and shapes in the darkness that disturbed me.

I don't recall how many years later it was, when everything started to turn to brown and gray. Wood paneling was in, and my mother had the most wonderful idea (she said) - we'd cover all the walls in paneling and never have to paint inside again. She chose the darkest paneling she could to hide stains. A deep, dark, fake wood brown. I ran my hands over the texture- it didn't feel a bit like wood, being all laminated and slick. And it was so dark. The walls in kitchen, living room, and dining area were covered in it. The windowsills and frames were painted brown to match. The door became brown, heavy steel. I begged them not to do it to my room, but they insisted it had to be paneled. They at least allowed me to choose a color that wasn't brown- but they wouldn't go for anything wild. Gray, pale gray.

The furniture set to match this was shades of brown, and the carpet was dark (orange, I think?). Dark wood china cabinet. Dark orange counters. Brown table, with brown vinyl seat cushions. The couch felt scratchy and fibrous. The dining room chairs stuck to your skin if you dared sit on them in shorts. For a long while, they even drove a brown car.

I became profoundly, but silently, unhappy. I had no way of expressing the depression I'd been spiraling into - this is also about the time I started playing musical schools. Every time a school tried to diagnose me with something (emotionally disturbed, in need of counseling, etc) - my mother moved me to another school with a caution to act more normal this time, and not tell anyone anything as it was none of their business.

The outside of the house too, had to eventually lose its colors. Gone was the bright yellow wood, replaced by somber beige plastic siding and a brown deck. The only refuge of color could be found in the screened porch around back. You could look up and see yellow paint, the same paint that had been used on the exterior of the house. There was a riotous carpet, orange and red, that was a hand-me-down from my aunt I believe. I spent a lot of time in there.

The orange counter surfaces became colorless ecru. The table became black.

I can't look back on my childhood home with any degree of fondness because the walls soaked up all the unhappiness. The colors bled out like any hope of being a happy functional family bled out over the years.

At the end of the sidewalk, by the mailbox, my tiny feet were pressed in cement shortly after I was born. About a year old, and I got set in gray concrete - my name and the date recorded along with those footprints. When my mother dies, I hope they tear down that place.I can't see it ever bringing anything but misery to anyone. But at the very least, I hope that someone will be kind enough to take a sledge hammer to that slab of stone and finally free me from that awful ground.

The Cat Alarm Owner's Manual

charisma — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:36:32 GMT

Did you know that most cats come with an alarm function? Of course, this is of dubious use as they will always be set to Cat Time. Cat Time rarely coincides with Human Time.

Katzen, our cat alarm, wakes my hubby every morning at 6:30. His alarm is set for 7:15, but that's human time, which is clearly Wrong. If he'd just get up in Cat Time, he'd have more time for important morning activities - like petting cats, playing with cats, and letting cats out on the balcony - before doing whatever it is that humans do when they disappear all day.

She knows I don't go to that 'Work' place that Aus goes to, so my cat alarm is set for 9:30. Never mind that I am not a morning person, and I would prefer to wake up about 11 or later. 9:30 is the time the human should get up and by golly the cat alarm is going to do its job and get that human up.

Cat alarms come pre-loaded with the following functions:

The Mew - This is the most basic setting. The mew is a polite reminder that your wake-up call is approaching. If you miss the first mew or two, don't worry- it will repeat itself 1000x times.

The Nudge - For humans that somehow manage to ignore the mew, there is the next level of cat alarm - the Nudge. This is where your cat alarm will helpfully headbutt you, repeatedly, until you get up. Note that you can sometimes activate the snooze function by petting the cat alarm until it settles briefly down. Don't worry though, the cycle will soon restart.

The Sniff - In case you have expired during the night, as evidenced by your ignoring the first two alarm calls, the cat alarm will helpfully sniff your face - eyes, nose, and mouth - to make sure you're still among the living.

The Paw - This is getting to be serious business. The human is not getting up! The cat alarm must resort to its most drastic measures. The Paw starts out much like the nudge, a gentle prod. But it is soon given a bit of claw, to get even the most reluctant humans out of bed and down to the important business of feeding the cat.

The Pounce - Y U NO LISTEN TO CAT ALARM?! The alarm is angry now. It will leap on your chest or belly with full cat alarm weight. We have a 16+ pound model, so you can imagine how uncomfortable this can get.

The cat alarm never fails, and gets quite indignant when it is placed in another room where it can't perform its wake up function. You never know when your kitty will come equipped with a cat alarm, so just consider it a 'bonus' of cat ownership when you find one.

Self-Calming after PTSD dreams

charisma — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 16:15:03 GMT

PTSD dreams are very different than normal dreams. You feel as though you are really experiencing the events - you not only see and hear, but you have the sensation of touch, pain, smell, taste. This dream involved, as many of them do, my abusive ex-husband. Sometimes they are recreations of the actual past traumas - sometimes they have pieces of that, with other components. This one involved me being on a bus with the ex, and him starting to beat a fellow passenger. I tried to stop it, but I wasn't strong enough to pull him off of the guy. So I alerted the bus driver hey, this is happening, you need to call the police, this guy is a dangerous criminal and he's hurting people.

The driver pulls over and the police are there, and we're somehow in the town my ex grew up in, in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The cops there recognize him, and are telling him they remember all the bad things he did in their town so they aren't surprised he's come to this. The ex takes me hostage,and tells me how this is all my fault - he has schizophrenia and he can't help what he does and don't I have any sympathy for him? He produces a small pocket knife saying he will make me see, and begins to carve up my eye. I can feel the knife slip in, the sharp stabbing pain, smell the blood running down my face and taste it as it drips into my mouth.

And then I wake up, and I'm unsure for a bit where I am and what is going on. My body is shaking, my heart is racing, I'm in a cold sweat. There is residual pain in my eye , and I feel it to make sure it is still there. No blood, no blood on my face or in my mouth. A concerned cat is sniffing me. I'm at home, I'm safe here. I start to do the breathing exercises and tapping I've learned in EMDR to calm down enough to go back to sleep.

When I wake up again, I think of what might have caused the PTSD to rear its ugly head. When I'd gone to bed the night before, I was agitated. I'd spent some time in the evening at the library, working on my genealogy research. I was surrounded on all sides at the computers by a family - four children and a mother. The children seemed genetically incapable of sitting still, and the mother was more interested in checking her facebook and messaging friends than disciplining them. So much unpredictable movement,and so much noise surrounding me on all sides wasn't going to end well. But I was making progress on my research and really wanted to continue. I tried to ride it out, figuring the mother would eventually do something or the family would leave. But the children just got more squirmy and loud the more that they saw they were getting away with it and finally I had to give up in disgust.

When I got home I tried to calm myself and play some games, but I was still really irritable and overstimulated. Hyperaware of every sound and movement. These are all warning signs that I am approaching either a sensory meltdown (thanks Asperger's) or ptsd incident (flashback, dream, anxiety attack). I had a bit of a hard time falling asleep, and then I had the dreams. Now today I am doing what I can to return my nervous system to normal. First step is to confront the dreams head on instead of repressing them. When I am fully aware, I go over what happened in them. Which things really happened (taking a trip with my ex to his hometown really happened, though the point at which he held me against my will was much later, and we didn't find out he had schizophrenia until many,many years later) and which things did not really happen (the bus incident, eyeball carving). As I review, I pay attention to my body's signals- when I start to tense up, I stop and relax my muscles. When I am breathing rapid and shallow, I do mindful breathing. I type out what happened, and read through it, this time tapping my arms and keeping my breathing steady.

I read through until it doesn't bother me to read about it, then feeling I have successfully processed the incident, move on to do other things - something calm and pleasant. When I am finished with this post, for example, I will find my tv remote and turn on a nice nature documentary and play a game on my kindle while I watch it.

Secular Humanism

charisma — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 15:29:56 GMT

More often than not, when asked to explain my views on God(s), I will tell people I am an atheist. It is a clean simple answer, if one that makes a few jaws drop. "Aren't you at least agnostic?" - I've heard that one before. To track the history - I was born Catholic, became agnostic when I had reached an age of maturity (High school - they even let me not attend services toward end, which was terribly nice of them considering it was a Catholic school) - tried several Christian denominations to see if I could feel that whole higher power thing others were always talking about, tried Buddhism, read up on everything from Santeria to Judaism -- and felt nothing. No evidence of anything other than a group of humans getting together and doing their thing. Sometimes good things came of that association, but that was about it. A lot of God talk that was meaningless to me, that sometimes led to people being good to each other- and more often it was like an exclusive club. We'll be good to you, if you belong. And I never was good at belonging.

Though Atheist is a simple label to use to save time and end discussions, when it comes down to it I can also further define myself as a secular humanist. I am all for treating human beings kindly, justly, and with care - simply because we are human. Being good to each other because it is the human thing to do. We all share this human condition. I believe that human beings should have the right to little things like clean water, food, shelter, medical care, and a political system in which they can do things like vote, marry, own property, and make a difference. A lot of countries, my own included, lack in some of those areas. Maybe we we spent more time worrying about higher powers and started using our own human power for good purposes instead of doing things like waging war, we'd be in a much better place as a species.

I can't change the world, though. I can only change my section of it. I try to be kind to others when I can be. I educate myself about the issues, and act when there is a positive action I can take. I don't believe I will be rewarded for this in some 'next life', or that it will necessarily bring me any reward in this. The reward is all internal - I feel like a decent human being when I am able to help others. I feel like a decent human being when I learn more about our world, when I learn more about what it means to be human.

And that is reward enough.

Family Tree

charisma — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 20:35:32 GMT

My genealogy notes so far- figured I should organize these to make my search easier.

Father - Francis Robert Bates Born June 1st 1929
Died March 13 2001
Birthplace - Cleveland Ohio
Occupation - Welder
Served in Navy during WWII and Korea
Naval records - (Need to re-find these)

1940 Census lists him as living with --
Steven George - his stepfather
Sylvia N George - his mother
Edith Bates - older sister age 13
Francis Bates - himself, age 11

Sylvia - (aunt Sally) younger half-sister, age 4

Sylvia Nora Orr and David Bates - Paternal Grandparents (My dad's parents)
Sylvia born 1905 married at 21 years old when married
David born 1901 married at age 26
Married in Releyville, VA
David's Occupation - Chauffeur
Sylvia's Occupation - Bookbinder

Divorced date ?? (less than four years married)

David Bates - born 1901
Father born in Wales
Mother born in Virginia

1930 census lists him as a divorced truck driver living at 1643 E. 73rd Street Cleveland
1935 same residence

1940 census - David is remarried to Ruth (last name?)
Rented home
highest education - 7th grade
Income 900
Hours worked week previous 24
Occupation - Truck driver
Wife's occupation - machine operator

Paternal Great-Grandparents:
Sylvia Orr's parents -
Archie Orr and Nora Donahue
Cleveland city directory 1922 lists Archie Orr - m auto mech h10419 Sommerset
Archie = Archibald?
Nora- no info so far.

David Bates parents-
Vannie (Vambeline? Vanbeline?) Varner and Herbert Bates
Vannie born in Virgina (mom virgina born, dad england?), Herbert born in Wales

Herbert arrived in USA 1 July 1882 - age 22 (birthdate 1860?)
Event Type: Birth Registration
Registration Quarter: Oct-Nov-Dec
Registration Year: 1860
Registration District: Merthyr Tydfil
County: Glamorganshire
Event Place: Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales
Volume: 11A
Page: 284
Line Number: 93 ( "England and Wales, Birth Registration Index, 1837-1920", index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/2NC5-GV3 : accessed 01 Jul 2014), Herbert Bates, 1860. )
(Herbert's birth cert - get it from here? http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ )

Married in Chicago 21 February 1895
Vannie Varner (38) and Herbert Bates (34)
Herbert's occupation - cook

1910 census - (Vannie's correct age, Herbert's really 49 or so?)
Herbert 43
Vannie 54
Martha 13
David 9 (my grandfather)

1920 census -
Herbert 60
Vannie 65
Cleveland ward C2,
Herbert's occupation - steward on boat

1930 census -
Herbert 69
Vannie 74
Herbert's occupation - proprietor used furniture store

(1940 census? Death dates?)

===================================================================================
Mother -
Angelina DiGregorio
born June 5th, 1929

1930 Census-
Joseph - 48 (my grandfather)
Maria 32 (my grandmother)
Anthony J 13 (uncle Tony)
Louis D 11 (uncle Louie)
Joseph 3 4/12 (uncle Joe)
Angeline 9/12 (mom)
Joseph's occupation - hat maker in hat factory

Maternal Grandparents-
Joseph DiGregorio and Mary Dagostino
Joseph immigration year - 1903 / Naturalization 29 June 1915
Marry immigration year - 1910?

Joseph (Guiseppe) DiGregorio born Spet 17, 1881 Italy (montinero...something)

emigrated from Naples, Italy on a ship called the Campromau?(sp?) arrived in Boston Oct 31, 1903

First wife Donata (grandma's sister) - married ?
1915 naturalization papers list Donata as spouse, no children yet.
Donata - born 1892, died 19 March 1922 30 years old of pneumonia in Philly
Donata's last name is given as DeGregorio on death cert (de vs di)

Mary (Maria/Madiuch) Dagostino
born ? died 1975?76?
(DEGREGORIO, MARIA was born 04 June 1897, received Social Security number 161-50-3938 (indicating Pennsylvania) and, Death Master File says, died August 1975 2,111,211 ) -is this her? Again with the de/di? did she die in 1975 or 1976?

Parents -
Father Luigi Dagostino
Mother Bernadina Santaro

--
Check into http://ssdmf.info/ and http://sortedbyname.com/

For Herbert

charisma — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 23:53:50 GMT

132 years exactly
separate us on this day.
You, 21, freshly arrived
in the country where
I will in 88 years be born.

I wonder if your eyes
that scan the horizon
are hazel eyes--
my father's inheritances
two generations later?

If your body bears
the fat genes that will
engulf me and if hope is genetic--
if that survives long enough
to be my legacy as well?

I wonder what you would think
of your life, in slips of paper
birth and death bookending
marriage and censuses?
Of this paper no longer pulp
but light and dark
electronically delivered
at a search, at a click?

No picture of you survives. No memory in the mind
of anyone living can say if on that first
of July the wind blew through your
brown / blonde / black hair. If you stood
tall, or slumped, if you carried a valise
lifted with ease over a strong back
or a bundle, carried weary.

Is your face my face?
Would we recognize each other,
blood call to blood?

As you stand there
and I sit here
can you imagine
as I imagine
time stretching
both forward
and back

Can we know each other, in passing?
Can you love that you have never seen
as your bone, your blood, your future/past
Can you be immortal, if only in retrospect
in the whisper trail of clues
you and I will both leave behind?

Has anyone before
wrote you a poem? Will they write one
for me, when I am like you--
memory, paper, and dust.

Poetry

charisma — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 20:31:15 GMT

In the poetry mooc I am taking, there was an exercise to write lines then work them into two or three or four sentence poems. So here's what I wound up doing... finished poems at the very end.

in the gym a tramp-stamped woman half naked on the treadmill
my body surrounded by stacks of books my cluttered mind grasping for words
a red ripe tomato fallen from the garden's green vine
six nights sleepless, the seventh day wakeless
cat vomit in the hallway cat shit in the box cat hair on the sofa cat love in spite
fortunately misfortune favored some other fool

Tramp-stamped woman
naked on the treadmill
working breakfast out
breathing sweat in

Surrounded by stacks of books
My cluttered mind
grasps and holds
only these words

A red ripe tomato
fallen from the garden's
green vine sits in black soil
waiting to be eaten.

Six nights sleepless
the seventh day wakeless
and you---- tell me, what
did you dream?

Cat vomt in the hallway.
Cat shit overflows the box.
Cat hair covers the sofa.
Cat love, in spite, warms hearts.

Fortunately misfortune favored
some other fool
so I escaped blameless
unscathed by trial or time

phone ringing in an empty room
is no one left to answer?

phone ringing in an empty room
awaiting answers

phone ringing in an empty room
the curtains drawn

I'm asleep on skis
my life the slope

I'm asleep on skis;
are you the tree or the pole?

I'm asleep on skis
awaking to face-first snow

The rain fell all afternoon
Tonight the gutter barrel
reflects on the moon

The rain fell all afternoon
washing out our plans

The rain fell all afternoon
and you, my umbrella
inverted n the wind

-------------------------------
Surrounded by stacks of books
my cluttered mind grasps
and holds only these words.

The rain fell all afternoon
and you my umbrella
inverted by the wind

Fortunately fortune misfavored
some other fool and I escaped
unscathed by trial or time

phone ceaselessly ringing
an empty room
awaiting answers

The rain fell all afternoon ;and by night
our gutter barrel reflects on the moon

Working with Sensory Overload

charisma — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 17:00:18 GMT

Every once in a while, I dream about being able to hold a regular 9-to-5 type job. Where I would be able to make a meaningful income, and contribute to our household funds. Maybe something has changed since the last time I tried - I'm diagnosed now, I know more about aspergers and ptsd and I have various coping mechanisms that I didn't have when I was younger and tried to work 'like normal people.' I get the thought that maybe I should try again, surely it wouldn't be too bad, and maybe I'm just exaggerating the problems because it's been so long since I tried...

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to spend an extended period of time in an office environment. Our car, Elwood Elantra, needed some work done - and our mechanic is nice enough to pick it up at Aus's work (because we only have the one car and Aus doesn't drive). I sat in Aus's office while waiting for the car to be ready. Now there are a lot of times I will pick up Aus from work, and lurk for maybe an hour or two in his office while waiting for him to be done. His boss is very nice and doesn't seem to mind me lurking around, perhaps because I am quiet and unintrusive. I play with my Kindle or phone, and just wait out the time.

For the first two hours or so, it went pretty much the same. Aus got me a nice drink of water, and I sat and played with my kindle. I wasn't feeling particularly well, but that was because it was before noon and I never feel entirely right in mornings. Then I had to go to the bathroom, and that was when the trouble started. Stepping out of Aus's office, one can hear the sales floor- where people in cubicles are supposed to be working, but more often than not you can hear them chattering loudly to each other about various things. It's a bit overwhelming. Then I stepped into the small woman's room - and the smells started to get to me.

Not to get TMI, but I have a very keen sense of smell, and when someone is menstruating, there is a very distinct odor of stale blood and hormones no matter how clean the person is. The entire bathroom stank of blood, likely emanating from the trash can. To a normal sense, I'm sure it smelled just fine - it wasn't that the rest room was -dirty understand, it was just that smell. I turned on the fan and that didn't help- just blew the smell around more. This made me feel like I was going to vomit so I hastily finished my business and went back to Aus's office.

Now my senses were on high alert. I heard the hum of the flourecent overhead lights, the whirr of the air conditioner system, the clacking of keyboard and the computer's electrical sounds. Time for lunch came around (about three hours since I'd been there) so Aus took me to wait in the break room while he walked to a nearby Subway to buy us some lunch. One of Aus's co-workers came in, and introduced herself. I tried my best to be social and make small talk, and to remember to stop doing that after a while when she had her food so she could eat. Then Aus's boss came in and ased if Aus had kicked me out so he could have lunch ( a joke, it took me a moment to realize) so I laughed, and then informed him about Aus going to pick up our lunch. I remembered to thank him for allowing me to lurk today and told him about our car being in need of repair.

And fortunately remembered to stop talking so he could eat his sandwich. Oddly enough, the only communication between him and the co-worker (who I later found out was the sales manager) was a nod, before they went to their various lunch eatings. I found myself second guessing my social interactions - had I been too chatty? Are breakrooms like bathrooms where you must try to let the other person conduct their business in silence and not bother them? I was very nervous about having messed this up by the time Aus returned with food.

Food was good, and I talked quietly to Aus as we ate which calmed me down some. He told me about some blackberry bushes he passed, and I wondered if they were ripe for picking and if we might go there for fresh blackberries (after checking of course, to make sure they are the edible type). My stomach was still upset though, and the food was sitting in there like a lead weight.

Back to his office for more waiting, and now my senses are excruciating. The lights are giving me a headache, every noise is dragging on my nerves, and I can't get settled with kindle or phone. I put my headphones in, and I try to just watch a show to get my self involved in something that would keep my brain from overloading. After about six hours, it was the end of the day and we were picked up to go get our car. Then we had to socialize with the car folks and get our business conducted.

When we got home I was so exhausted and overwhelmed I just needed to lie in the dark and after a little bit of food, took a three hour nap. Then when it was time to sleep that night, I slept over ten hours, and woke up still somewhat disoriented.

Conclusion - we all have our skillsets, and working in an office is not within mine. Autism is called a spectrum condition for a reason. Just because some folks with aspergers can work outside the home, doesn't mean all can. Realizing that this is not the kind of environment I can function well in helps me to understand myself better, and to focus on the things I can do. Things I can do from a nice, quiet, apartment with natural light and no one talking.

Speaking on the Spectrum

charisma — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 16:30:47 GMT

One of my goals for this year (and I know the year's half over, but it's been a while in the planning) is to start a group at our library for folks on the autism spectrum and those who love them (family members, friends, etc). It wouldn't be a parent-with-autism vent group as so often happens with these things, but more focused toward learning more about autism and what it means throughout one's life. I'm going to call the group Speaking on the Spectrum because it will be topic-focused. Every (month? two weeks?) meeting will have a topic focus. I think the structure will go something like this....

Greeting/settling in
Open topic discussion (anyone who has things they want to talk about / ask about)
Specific Topic discussion / questions
Presentation

The presentation would be someone talking about their special interest, or about a book on autism they've read, or whatever. Our library has a great deal of resources - there are some very helpful books in our autism section, and I'd love for the community to be more aware of them. It could also be a section where we could bring in some guest speakers if I am able to swing that. I am in the process of having this approved by the library (I have to check in to see what times / dates they have available and where in the process we are, in fact) so I don't know when it would start but it's something I really want to do.

So for example, a meeting would go something like this... everyone would talk and settle in and introduce new folks and whahaveyou. Then people would have open discussion - someone could talk about a problem they had that week, or a new thing they tried, or whatever they'd like. Then we'd do a topic - such as Overstimulation and how to prevent meltdowns from it, or Improving your Executive Functions, or whatever. I or someone else will have researched the topic and present an information sheet, or lead the discussion. Then we'd have a presentation - say someone has a special interest in trains, they could give a talk about what interests them about it. Or if someone has read a relevant book they'd like to share as a resource, etc.

The only rules I can think of so far are that it will be adults only - you can be a parent of a child on the spectrum, but no kids running about during the meeting. You don't have to be an adult on the spectrum to attend though- you can just be a friend or family member or otherwise interested party. Oh and I don't know how to put this one within a ruleset but no crackpot theories - autism is not caused by vaccines, crystals aren't going to 'cure' it, etc.

Does this sound like a good structure for a meeting?