Some Joking Nerdery

I'm taking a graduate linear algebra class this semester. (I'm also taking difference equations, which looks a lot like more advanced linear algebra, at least while it's linear.) During the "lets go through all the stuff you probably learned in undergrad, then forgot, but kinda want to know for this class" phase, one of the things we've covered is linear transformations. T is the variable typically assigned. Linear transformations have kernels/null spaces, which is the stuff from the first set that gets sent to the "zero" point of the second set. These get denoted by a cursive N.

So the null set of a transformation T is  N_T. Now, the joke of NTs being null as in nothing is not even a little bit where I am going. Neurotypicality as a construct is pretty thoroughly terrible, yes, but calling a group of people, even privileged people "null space" as in nothing as the punch line is not my idea of joking nerdery.

Defining a function from people to something, like from people to some sort of directed distance from "exact average brain" or "the brain society is defined for" and pointing out that plenty of people are close enough to it to not have a problem, so are going to be close, but the null space isn't based on being close to the zero point. It's based on the function taking you to exactly the zero point. So  N_T being the empty set with no one in it because no one has exactly that idealized brain amuses me. (Even if it's not exactly one of the ways I think about neurotypicality/averages/social ideals, it's close enough to amuse me.)

The other idea I had was a space of neurotypes, where the zero point represents the idea of neurotypical as default (so basically this is a space that I don't really like, but I recognize it's how society tends to work.) Defining a function for that is honestly even weirder to me than defining it from people to the directed distance thing, though I could maybe make another function from that multi-dimensional directed distance thing to the neurotype labels the brains map to? In that case, N_T would actually be "close enough to that ideal to be privileged by it." That's fairly close to the other way I think about neurotypicality/averages/social ideals.

Neither of those things can actually work as linear transformations, at least partially because I don't think any of the people spaces work as vector spaces, and I'm not entirely sure that any of the spaces I'm mapping into work as vector spaces either, plus there isn't people addition to work like vector addition should. Also  N_T being the kernel of something instead of null space, cause that's two words for the same thing. Probably some funky associations there too.

Two New eThings and Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 22 today!
Woot.

I also have two new things out. (And if suggesting you get them because it's my birthday will work, then consider this said suggestion.)

The first is a short science fiction story.
There is an autistic character. There is a character who is technically a cyborg. There are a bunch of characters who are alien computers. There is no intersection between these categories, and I've been told there's some response to/coverage of the trope where the alien or the robot is like the autistic character.
It's also fun with a smuggler and her friend visiting a planet of sentient computers.

Where None Have Thought to Go is on Amazon.

Cover of "Where None Have Thought to Go." The background is the surface of a "planet" and stars, composite from photos courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. There is a semi-transparent brain and computer chip combination superimposed over the stars, and the title and author are in white text. (Alyssa Hillary is the author.)

I also have a collection of poetry, Poems Can Be Fun(ny). 
It's about what the title suggests: original poetry, humor included.

Cover of "Poems Can Be Fun(ny)" by Alyssa Hillary. The background is an abstract geometric design in pink, blue, and purple by the author, and the title and author name are in black text.

All the things are here, just in case my other stuff sounds interesting. I do have another story with an autistic character already, and she has point of view for the whole story. I also have a (very short) story about a tomato and cheese soup ending the world by consuming it, if ridiculousity if your thing.

Now for stuff that's mostly not self-promotion, and mostly is life updatey stuff.

1) I know, I know. The last three days on my blog have been commercial-ish. Tomorrow's post and the next days post are written and scheduled, and they are not commercial at all.

2) I'm moving back to school today! I'm going to be a teaching assistant, teaching a section of precalculus. That's gonna be pretty cool.

3) Apparently The Queens Readers is just about ready, which is yay because I'm in it. I'm talking about neurodiversity in Tamora Pierce's work. The criticism parts just happened to not fit in with the rest of the essay according to the editors (not sure if I entirely trust that, but I really was disorganized and writing at the last minute so not sure that I distrust it either.) So I really do believe the positives that I said, just remember that there are also negatives that I didn't say. (Like chemical restraint in Cold Fire oh my god, but also realistic terribleness...)

4) I have a paper accepted for the INSPIRe conference that actually connects my disability side and my STEM side, so that's cool. I need to finish actually writing it though.

5) About a year ago, I was going ARGH about a thing with The Feminist Wire and their call for papers, which inspired a proposal for a text chapter. Well, the chapter got accepted and is a good bit of the way written.

6) That whole Accessing The Future thing I talked about the day before yesterday? I think I know what I'm submitting. It's in the same universe and a semi-sequel to Where None Have Thought to Go, but with a more mixed narrative format. (Presenting a piece of tech you see offered to the autistic character in the story to folks on Earth and watching the reactions from quite a few directions, essentially, with some additional side-plot themes that get some more into examining the alien/robot as autistic trope.)

Humorous Dialogue

This is an old dialogue a friend and I did in class. I think it was 10th grade that we did it. The translations into English are as I go through it now, though. A is me, D is him, (random person on the street) was another classmate we grabbed for that purpose. 
Oh, and please suspend disbelief. The events of the dialogue are meant to be bizarre, not realistic.

A: 你好。 (Hi.)

D: 你好。 (Hi.)

A: 你好吗？ (How are you?)

D: 好，你呢？ (Good, you?)

A: 好 ，可是我有问题 。我赢了两张歌剧票。 (Good. But I have a problem. I won two opera tickets.)

D: 那太好了！你跟谁去？ (That's great! Who are you going with?)

A: 我不知道 。 (I don't know.)

D: 你有什么问题？ (What's the problem?)

A: . . . 你有没有护照？ (. . . Do you have a passport?)

D: 有。 为什么？ (Yeah. Why?)

A: 下个周末你想去北京看《猴王》吗？ (Do you want to go to Beijing to see "The Monkey King" next weekend?"

D: 歌剧在北京！那是你的问题吗？ (The opera is in Beijing! Is that your problem?)

A: 对。我有护照， 可是我没有签证。(Yup. I've got a passport, but not a visa.)

D: 你有问题。(You've got a problem.)


下个周末，在北京 (The next weekend, in Beijing.)


D: 我们在哪儿？ (Where are we?)

A: 我不知道。我是美国人！ (I don't know. I'm an American!)

D: 安静。我也是美国人。 (Shut up, I'm American too.)
怎么去北京歌剧？(How do we get to the opera?)

A: 我不知道！ (I don't know!)

D: 我没问你！ 我问了他。请问，怎么去北京歌剧？  (I wasn't asking you! I was asking him. Excuse me, how do we get to the Beijing opera?)

random person on street: 就到了， 你看！ (You're at it- look!)

D: 哎！谢谢！(Oh! Thanks!)

same random person:  别客气！(Don't mention it!)


看歌剧以后 (After the opera)

D: 《猴王》很好！("The Monkey King" was really good!)

A: 我同意。我们回家把。 (I agree. Let's go home.)

D: 怎么去机场？(Where's the airport)

A: 我不知道！ (I don't know!)

D: 你为什么不带地图？ (Why didn't you bring a map?)

A: 我不会看地图因为地图是中国的地图！ (I can't read it map because they're Chinese maps!)

D: 带美国地图把！ (Get an American one!) [I meant to write English, as in language, but, well, language students mess stuff up sometimes.]

A: 我们不在美国， 在中国。(We're not in America, we're in China.)

Strangely "More Severe"

This may be the silliest reason to assume a person "more severe" that I have heard yet. Possibly. When "nonspeaking" is used, it's at least referring to an actual autistic trait, and it's one where "nonspeaking" is having that one trait to a greater extent than "selectively mute" is. Most of the ones I see are like that: It's assuming that one specific trait is a reasonable judge of overall severity, which is patently ridiculous, but there is at least an autistic trait in the reasoning somewhere. Or there's a trait of some other disability that the person also has, which isn't autism but it's still based on a disability. That doesn't make these reasons any more accurate, but I can at least see where they come from.
This one, not so much.
Lydia Brown (Autistic Hoya) and I know each other offline. We've known each other for longer than I've been involved with disability stuff, and significantly so. We met at MIT's Splash program in *insert year here, I think Lydia knows.* I don't remember the exact details of how it went, but either she informed me I was autistic or asked me if was aware that I was autistic. I was in one of my "in denial" times, so of course I was not going with "yeah I'm super-duper autistic!"
Anyways, Lydia either tells me or asks me if I'm already aware, then (nonphysically, nonliterally) drags me to lunch with her.
I told someone this story of how I met Lydia. They said, "So, she's more severe than you?"
I don't even know how they got to that conclusion. I said something along the lines of, "There's not really a more severe/less severe strict scale, there's a pile of different traits that come in varying levels and the level of impairment that the traits cause aren't always directly related to the extent that the traits are there and is super-situational. There's often more/less obviously autistic, and there's more/less support needs for any given environment, and sometimes you can come up with an overall more support needs between two people but not always and I'm pretty sure Lydia and I are not a pair where you could do that."
Because yeah, Amy Sequenzia has overall more support needs than I do, for example. So do most five year olds, because, well, they're five. But... coming up with an overall more support needs between Lydia and me? Super-duper situational. I'm going to go with she's better at public speaking, and I'm more able to go to concerts, and we're similarly disorganized due to EF issues though I've had more time to learn to get stuff done anyways without all-nighters thanks to various situational stuff including being a year older.
But that's not really the point, is it? The point is that "This person went up to another person and informed them they were autistic pretty much out of the blue" isn't actually a statement of severity. It requires that the person doing so have some sense of how to tell if another person is autistic or not, and it requires that the autistic person they're finding show at least some traits. You could actually imply that it means I'm more severe if you really wanted to, because I have to be obvious enough for her to notice. But that doesn't actually make sense either because it's different traits that are required for different things going on here.
And I thought it was funny that someone would conclude Lydia was "more severe" based on her being the first not-me person to tell me I'm autistic. That's the big reason I'm writing this, really.
And yes, Lydia said I could write this and use her name/link to her. She also laughed a lot because it is silly.
Also, I've written more serious stuff about functioning labels being fail before, and so have other people. More times than I can link to.

A Poem About Writing a Poem

Old writing time! This was the result of an 8th grade assignment to write a sonnet.

A sonnet I’ve just been assigned to write,
But what to write of I see not.
And as I think –the lack of time begins to bite.
One doable topic, is all I need, I thought.

Time runs out and it’s sink or swim
“I need a topic,” I do shout.
My chances of finding a topic are slim.
I don’t know what to write about!

“What can I write about?” I ask my mom.
She suggests my sister’s fish,
Then a love poem to made-up Tom.
I’d rather write from the view of a dish!

Here is something I did notice:
It all rhymes- I’ll turn in this.

Yes, I have an odd sense of humor. I wrote my "sonnet" about having no clue what to write a sonnet about. I do things like that on a semi-regular basis, actually, and I have evidence right here that I've been doing it at least since I was thirteen.  My "Autistic People Should..." post was actually about me trying to figure out what to write about. (Hey, remember Autistic People Should and Autistic People Are? Those were actually pretty cool things.)

Laaaaaadle

Ladle is a fun word, have some echolalia mixed with ladles. Also known as "Alyssa is echolalic sometimes, and mixed echoladling (echolalia of ladle) with songs sometimes."

I have a little ladle,
I made it out of steel,
I have a little ladle,
It needs to help me deal!


I have a little ladle,
I made it out of dreidles,
And when it's dry and ready,
Oh dreidle I shall ladle.


I'm a laaaaadle to you,
I laaaaaaadle to you,
Yes I'm a ladle to you.


Do rhymes with clue!
Do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue....
(My friend who was watching as I rocked, flapped, and repeated do clue probably about that many times maybe more, commented that we should record that and inform every parent who wanted a gifted kid that this is what they were volunteering for. Which is amusing. And kind of true, since they only specified gifted, not that the kid had to be just gifted and nothing else.)


Some things are meant to ladle,
Some things mean more than they ladled to meee
Last year was incomplete,
This game will end the same unless I ladle,
Found the ladle frame,
No ladles there just a lonely spoon,
If I still felt the same it'd be a ladle....


None of the songs I modified are originally mine. Two are old PONS songs (like, from when their website was on mypodcast.com kind of old,) two are variations of the dreidle song. 

This Thing Called a Liebster

I dunno. It's one of those chain blog awards. I got tagged by PDDWorld, which has the honor of being a parent blog I like. That's saying a lot, so go pay attention to them, OK? Cool.
So this one has an image. It looks like this:

Actually a decent image, huh?
Well.
I give 11 random facts about myself. I answer the 11 questions that PDDWorld set me. (If I tag you, you answer the ones that I set you- answer from the person who tags you!) I make 11 new questions for the people I tag. I tag 11 blogs that are either new or have less than 200 followers. So, let's get started:

11 Facts About Me

1. I just graduated from college with a bachelors in math, and am now working on a masters in math while continuing with the bachelors in engineering and Chinese.
2. One of my favorite stims is running something silky between my fingers, hence destroying the satin binding on all my blankets.
3. When allowed a dictionary to look up topic-specific words, I can write at a professional or near-professional level in Chinese on a couple of topics, one of which is neurodiversity.
4. I start/join in on way too many side projects. These include: 
1. Encyclopedia Autistica
2. Allistic/Neurotypical Privilege
3. Disability Reviews
4. F*** Yeah, Stimming
5. Compiling a book of essays, working title With a Capital A.
5. I am well aware that it is not my job to educate anyone (unless it's literally my job, like at Art of Problem Solving...), but I'm a teacher at heart and therefore have this tendency to educate anyways.
6. I really like BBC Sherlock and Eureka.
7. I occasionally write fiction, though I don't think it's very good. I'm currently working on a bit of an Autistic!Sherlock one.
8. I really, really like tea.
9. My sense of smell isn't useless, but it's close to it.
10. I'm face-blind. 
11. The music on my iPod is a kinda weird combination. I've got Disney musicals, Chinese pop, alt rock, old rock... yeah....

Answering 11 Questions From PDDWorld

1. What are three things you CAN NOT live without? 
1. Food.
2. Water.
3. Shelter.
2. When was the last time you cried?                                                                                                     I think the last time I cried was also my most recent mini-meltdown. I was in Chinese tutoring, and my tutor was trying to help me. Apparently I was pronouncing something in the back of my mouth instead of the front of my mouth? It's the reverse of the issue that I had/still have with the "R" sound. It brought up old memories of people trying to help me with my "R" sound but refusing to believe that I couldn't hear the difference in my own speaking between a correct "R" and an incorrect "R" or that I couldn't feel the difference between speaking in the front and back of my mouth. I never did figure out either of those two things. The "R" issue resolved itself because the way they taught us to make it in Chinese I could actually do, but my tutor had trouble with the fact that I couldn't hear the difference in myself or tell the difference between speaking in the front and back of my mouth. She believed me when I couldn't get it each individual way, but the frustration added up with each method she tried and in the end... mini-meltdown, crying and shortness of breath included.
3. Do you secretly have a favorite kid? Uh... I'm 20, and I haven't got any kids. Not applicable.
4. Bath or shower? I'm at college. There are no bathtubs here.
5. If you saw somebody shoplifting, would you say something or pretend you didn't see anything? Say something. Exactly what I say has some level of situation dependence, but say something to someone.
6. Do you have a favorite picture of yourself? When and where was it taken? I really like my 10th grade school picture.
7. Do you have any pets? Nope. 
8. What song is stuck in your head right now? Basically the entire soundtrack of Les Mis is stuck in my head, along with some Dispatch music.
9. Have you ever been arrested? Nope. Have some funny stories involving the police, but none of them involve me being in trouble.
10. Do you think you're a good judge of a person's character? Kind of? I get vibes from people sometimes, and of course, I can get a very good idea very quickly by making sure they know I'm Autistic and AFAB , then disagreeing with them and seeing how they react. If it's because of the autism or the being AFAB and therefore invalid, they are not a good person.
11. When was the last time you laughed until your face hurt? I'm not sure.

Asking 11 Questions

1. How old are you?
2. Why did you start blogging?
3. What is the most frustrating song you have ever had stuck in your head?
4. Do you have a useless talent? (If so, what?)
5. What is something that happened to you where people responded with "Only you could..."
6. Have you read Loud Hands yet? (And if you haven't, WHY NOT?)
7. Do you take things literally?
8. What is the most hilarious rumor that has been spread about you (that you know of and are willing to share?)
9. Do you know any other languages? (Which ones? How proficient?)
10. If money were no object, where would you travel?
11. If money were no object (and hence you could hire people/lobby/etc) what change would you try to make in the world?

Tagging 11 Blogs

In no particular order:

Tiny Grace Notes

Aspie From Maine

Unstrange Mind

The Aspie Side of Life

The Caffeinated Aspie

Balanced Imperfection

Autism Raising Autism

Aspie Writer

Inner Aspie

Musings of an Aspie

K1R2

Flu Vaccine

Trigger Warning: Needles/blood tests in the three paragraphs following the bolded line.
The rest should be OK.
Sarcasm alert on basically the whole post.

I got two vaccines today- the flu and something else. I don't actually remember what the other one was, but it's one of those ten-ish year ones. It hurts, too. Ah well, vaccination is useful. I quite like this "not getting the flu or pneumonia" thing, really.
And goodness, will I be pissed if I wake up neurotypical tomorrow.
My thing with vaccinations, or really anything involving a needle, is that I can't watch the actual injection. Once it's in, I can look and it's fine, but I can't watch them put it in. I know, it's kind of weird. I really only know about the ability to look after because of blood draws for labs.
Yes, this is apparently TMI about Alyssa's doctors visit fears and oddnesses day, except for the first bit. Sorry, everyone.
The main point of this post was the joke about my being pissed if I wake up neurotypical tomorrow, so don't worry if you don't want to keep reading past that.
I guess it leads into a vaccines don't cause autism thing, but it's 11:30pm, and I'm tired. I had a thing queued that I could have used, but I wanted to make that joke. Today is not a quality day.
So.
Vaccines didn't make me Autistic. Genetics did. Like, a huge portion of my mother's side of the family, right up through a great-grandmother and her sister were/are autistic. If that's not genetics, what is?
But people seem to think that genetically neurotypical people somehow get turned autistic by vaccines.
If vaccines can re-wire brains, I guess it could rewire someone who is genetically autistic to be neurotypical instead.
And if it did that, I would be pissed.
Thankfully, vaccines don't actually rewire brains in either direction.
...
Or do they?
I'll let you know if my sensory processing problems suddenly vanish and I suddenly stop caring about any of my Autistic obsessions and don't get new ones and I don't mind eye contact instead of just being able to fake it well enough no one else can tell and I stop stimming. Yeah, not happening, and I'd be pissed if it did. Unless they could get rid of just the sensory processing issues and leave everything that's because autism. I'm not convinced that it's possible, but it can't make much less sense than a vaccine re-wiring my brain, right?
Of course not.
Not much makes less sense than a vaccine giving me autism.

Just Being Silly

Trigger Warning: murder mentioned in passing, very sarcastic statements of some pretty common autism stereotypes, sarcastically calling autism a zombie...

I met an Autistic friend of mine in meatspace.
While we were out, we met an adult who, among other things, thought that Autism and Asperger's were very different because she knew one person with each and they were very different, despite our explanation that they really weren't, including my usual factoid about the Australian study finding fully 50% of Asperger's and PDD-NOS diagnosed people to actually meet criteria for classic autism, at which point they really aren't that different, at least not as diagnosed. This is a conversation we had typing on my iPad (how stereotypically autistic, typing on an iPad instead of using oral speech... autism wasn't actually the reason, though, and neither of us are great with the iPad keyboard. I prefer physical keyboards, which is why I have one on the iPad I got for my graduation from math- just math, the other majors are two and a half years off yet, and the masters in math three years off.)
Sarcasm alert is in effect for basically the entire chat. We are very sarcastic despite our near-inability to detect sarcasm.
It is reproduced here with permission, but I am not to say who it was with. If you make guesses in the comments, said comments will be deleted, regardless of accuracy.

Me: Clueless much ?
Not Me: Just a taaaaaaad
Me (sarcasm): But autism and Aspergers are just so different! I know, I met one autistic and one person who had Aspergers once!
Not Me (still sarcasm): And it's such a hard diseeeeaaase for parents to deal with!!!!
Me: I know! Even though its not a disease and the reason it's hard is mostly that everyone is clueless. And also the fact that people aren't getting access to services that would actually help the autistic kid to navigate the world...
Not Me (sarcasm!): And I'm obviously soooooooo high-functioning!
Me (Yup, you guessed it- SARCASM, for the 1st half): Of course we are. We're out without any carers. That means we are super duper high functioning. Except... Nope. Neither of us has any executive functioning skills at all. It's hilarious, actually, how not stereotypically high functioning we are. Also how we are sitting next to each other typing at each other. That is so Autistic of us.
Not Me: LOLOL true. And I wrote stuff and go to college, so clearly I'm soooo hi-functioning and intelligent and omg inspirational and doing so welllllllll
Me (I had just failed to notice something off-chat): Hashtag# not paying attention. Of course not. I am hyperfocusing because AUTISM. Which is super scary, as you know.
Not Me: Scaaaaary!!!! It will EaT your children's braaaaaiiiins!!!it will leave only an empty husk!,!,!!
Me: Wait, autism is a zombie? You said it was gonna eat brains. Or are autistic people zombies? Or are autistic people the carriers of autism, which is a zombie?
Not Me: Yes.
Me: Um? Yes to what? I SAID THREE THINGS!
Not Me: That too.
Me: Very funny...
Not Me: :)
Me: :p
Not Me: Did you commit the murder with a gun or with a knife? Yes.
Me: That too.
Not Me: Are you alie or are you dead. Yes.
Me: That too. Because patterns!
Not Me: Paaaaaaaaaaaterns. Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaterns.
Me: So autism is a zombie that hungers for brains and turns Autistics into zombies who hunger for patterns?
Not Me: Yes! That too.


(The "Not Me" is highly amused by working my blog name into conversations.)

Responding to Person-First Crusaders

I have no issue with person-first language for people who want to be described using it. I have lots of issues, however, with anyone who thinks that it's acceptable to tell me what to call myself or to presume to know what someone else really wants to be called after they have stated otherwise.
That's what a person-first crusader is. A person-first crusader tells me that I am a person with autism after I call myself an Autistic person, or possibly simply an Autistic. I do use Autistic as a noun, sometimes.
And so I, like many other people who prefer to be called Autistic, have a few comebacks up our sleeves for when we run into a person-first crusader. Before I gave my presentation and paper on Autism in China, I prepared a few, just in case. Here they are, meant to be served with a healthy heaping of sarcasm.

• "If y'all devoted half the energy to helping me that you do to telling me what to call myself, we'd not be in anywhere near the dire straits we're in as a community."- Neurodivergent K
• "You seem like a person with rudeness when you tell me what to call myself."-Landon Bryce in I Love Being My Own Autistic Self
• Basically the entirety of "A Person With."
• Especially "You are a person with neurotypicality."
• "I am an Autistic who happens to be experiencing life with personhood!" (Laughing)
• Can I cure your neurotypical?
• Why do you care what I call me?
• Just like I'm a person with femaleness, right?
• What else could I be if I'm Autistic? Are there Autistic cats now?
• No, I think I'm an Autistic Martian. Nice try, though.
• You mean we can detach my brain and I'm still me? I didn't know that!
• Yes, and tomorrow I think I'll be a person without autism. No, wait, it doesn't work that way, does it?
• Only sometimes. Sometimes my autism goes and shaves the dog while I'm still sitting here, and I don't have autism when that happens. It keeps coming back, though.

The Versatile Blogger Award

*faints*
So, E over at The Third Glance decided to nominate me for this. (BTW, I study mechanical engineering, but my research is in the chemical engineering department. I can't do industrial because sensory overload on factory floors.) Once I got through the "Wait, what?" reaction, I figured, hey, sure, I'll do this. So, here be the way it works.

Versatile Blogger Award:

• Thank the person that gave you the award in a blog post & link back to their blog.
• Pass the award on to 15 bloggers you follow.
• Include 7 random things about yourself in your post.
• Include the rules in your post.
• Notify your nominees by leaving a comment on their blog.

Thanks E! You're pretty awesome. And... yeah, I kinda am you. Except different special interests and my parents tended to be decent about it my weirdness. (They have some trouble with the part where autism is behind the weirdness, but oh well.) Anyways, thankies muchly.

And here be 7 random things about me:

1. I have three siblings, all younger, all of whom I held the day they were born. 
2. My favorite color has been purple since forever. Or at least as long as I've been able to communicate one.
3. I started talking when I was six months old, and my favorite word was "AGAIN!"
4. I am good with computers. What this means is that when I mess my computer up, I do so in a way that takes computer skill to accomplish and even more computer skill to fix. Like somehow making part of my bootloader wind up on a flash drive. I still don't really know how that happened.
5. I can do a roundoff, but not a cartwheel. Don't ask.
6. I make a lot of my own clothing because I want to wear clothing that covers me thoroughly, doesn't show my shape, is comfortable, and is reasonably colorful (mostly purpleful.) That's not exactly easy to find in a fashion world that is definitely catering to what guys want to see.
7. I will happily put the same album on repeat for several weeks/months as long as I like the album. Right now I'm listening to everything Amy MacDonald has on her website this way.

And now to nominate people! (Just because I nominate you doesn't mean you have to participate. I'm guessing most of you probably won't. I know it's meme ish/chain letter ish, but it seemed like a fun one to me. And it seemed like a way to spread the blogger love. So I'm doing it, and I really don't care at all if you do or not. )
In no particular order despite the numbers:

1. The Third Glance. Because I AM HER. Not really, but yeah. She's a PhD student in some sort of sciency thing so far as I can gather, and she is really cool. She writes good stuff, and gets all the points.
2. Autistic Hoya. She goes to Georgetown, and she is partly responsible for my ever managing to accept the fact that I'm autistic and that this is OK. She also gets all the points. And yes, I have read every post she wrote on that site.
3. Neurodivergent K. She's actually on both tumblr and blogger, and she is made of win. She is autisileptic (autistic and epileptic, I think the word is her invention) and likes dancing and gymnastics. TW because triggering stuff happens to her, she talks about it, and she doesn't blunt her anger.
4. Just Stimming. Uh, she runs the Loud Hands project. And that means she is awesome. She also writes good stuff.
5. The 3 R's: Reading, 'riting, and Rambling. You may now gasp. She does not talk about autism. She is an English teacher. She talks about stuff related to teaching fairly often, and about stuff related to her opinions on various things too.
6. I Still Find It So Hard. He has been through pretty much everything and is somehow still here. I am very impressed. And he talks about a lot of things, so versatile just makes sense. TW because triggering stuff happens to him, he talks about it, and he doesn't blunt his anger.
7. The ASAN Blog They aren't going to take it, I think, because they are way more professional than this meme-ish award, but you should still read them. Because... It's the autistic self advocacy network. Meaning they say stuff that actual autistic people think by way of it only being actual autistic people.
8. Emily Willingham I don't know much about her, but she approaches autism issues from the "I'm a science writer and I know what I'm talking about with these things," and she is apparently the science editor for my next nomination...
9. The Thinking Person's Guide To Autism. They're awesome. They use actual autistic people and the use research and I should probably get a move on donating a copy of their book to my university library like I promised Autistic Hoya I would...
10. Countering. Written by a mother of three, all of whom are apparently on the spectrum. She seems pretty cool.
11. Emma's Hope Book. Another of the fairly few parent blogs I actually like. Warning that some of the earliest posts are not quite so awesome, but it's been good for a while. She's not afraid to look at past mistakes either, and some of the times she does that are among her best posts.
12. Ableist S*** My Mom Says This is a submission based Tumblr blog about ableist things people say. It doesn't exactly publish regularly, but what it has is good.
13. Ballastexistenz. Written by Amanda, a non-speaking autistic woman. She talks about important things. She also makes a good example of the fact that the kid you think is low-functioning probably does understand what you're saying. I'll probably be citing her in that paper I'm talking about writing.
14. Existence is Wonderful. I found this on Amanda's blogroll. She's autistic too, but her writing isn't all (or even mostly) about autism. She writes about lots of geeky stuff that I find awesome, though, and I like to share awesomeness.
15. Ableism and Ability Ethics and Governance . It's about ableism and ability, as the title suggests. It's pretty cool. It has good information.

Autism Linked to Breathing (sarcasm alert)

So, there is this blog called Yeah. Good Times. It's written by a mother of two, and one of the two is autistic. Usually, the idea of anything written by a parent of an autistic kid kind of scares me, since they are the source of so much tragedy rhetoric. But... this specific article, at the least, is AWESOME, and what I've seen of her other stuff is great too!. It's a spoof study based on the fact that every autistic is born to a mother who breathed during pregnancy. The sarcasm is dripping so thick, they went and said this was an important link, doing so with a (presumably fake) quote by one Jennifer McCarthy, who she called ``Professor of Hyperbole and Disinformation at Johns Hopkins University" and credited with leading this study. I laughed so hard when I read this. Have at the article. Also have at the comments. Everyone was laughing about it and having a good time last I checked.

http://yeahgoodtimes.blogspot.com/2012/05/new-study-shows-autism-linked-to-moms.html

Broken Phone

I wrote this for creative writing a couple years ago. I think it's the intro to something a la Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I love that series!

RING!

“Unh?” Josh groaned. He picked up his cell phone, which was still broken in two pieces, and answered it. “S’ret, are you aware this phone is in two pieces?”

“I’m sure the story of how your phone broke is very interesting, but there’s a bigger problem right now.”

“No, not really. I dropped it. What’s interesting is that it’s now working, which it never did before I dropped it. So, why are you calling me at three am? ”

“Right… You might want to sit down,” S’ret answered.

“I’m still lying down! You woke me up. Now spit it out before I hang up and go back to sleep,” Josh said.

“Did I ever tell you that S’ret isn’t my whole name? It’s really Wosret.”

“Don’t care.”

“Would you care if I was an Egyptian goddess?”

“I’d say you were crazy and soon to receive a knuckle sandwich. As soon as I see you, you’re getting one.” This had to be a bad joke, a really bad joke.

“Doubtful. Anyways, I am. And we need a mortal- no danger, but it’s got to be a mortal with no magic whatsoever. A musician would be nice.”

“What the @%*# for?!” Josh demanded. “I don’t trust people who say there’s no danger until I know what I’m going to be doing. Plus I still think you’re crazy.”

“It’s complicated. Would I get anything weird embedded in me if I suddenly appeared six cubits to your right?”

“As opposed to something normal embedded in you?! How much is a cubit?”

“Sorry, old units. How’s ten feet to your right?”

“S’ret, that would be inside a tree. Don’t do that, not that you could.”

“Okay, give me coordinates relative to you so I can show up without putting two things in one place,” S’ret said.

“Two feet in front of me is good.”

“Thanks. I’ll explain in person. See you.”

Josh heard the click that meant S’ret had hung up on him. He cursed. Then S’ret was standing in two feet in front of him- probably a hallucination, but whatever. He punched her in the face, hard. She didn’t flinch, and it didn’t leave a mark. Definitely a hallucination.

“I admit that I probably deserved that. I didn’t break this the best way possible, but it’s kind of an emergency. It’s also complicated. Can I explain on the way?”

Josh stared. Well, why not? “Sure. Let’s make this hallucination interesting. Where too?”

“Not somewhere you can define in English. We’d need three or four extra dimensions, plus a way of naming other universes by how they are arranged in those dimensions. Take my hand now.”

He did. Then everything was gone, except S’ret was still next to him. “What the…”

“It’s fine. We’re between universes right now. So, the explanation. There’s this instrument- sort of a cross between a trombone and a harp by your terms. It’s got an enchantment on it so that if someone has any magic, trying to play it will burn that someone to a crisp. Thing is, we need it played or else a bunch of worlds are going to have big problems.”

“So I play a weird instrument, save some worlds, go home, and that’s it?” Josh asked.

“Well, no. It’s a bit more complicated. But you’ll be fine,” S’ret said.

A world appeared. Josh felt like he had stepped into a mosaic of Ancient Egypt and Greece. “Are those the pyramids?”

“Sort of. Your pyramids were based on these.. We’re going to that building though.” S’ret pointed across the river that was probably the Nile, at what appeared to be the Statue of Zeus.

“But that’s Greek! And it got destroyed!”

“Not here it didn’t. And Zeus is in charge of this mess, so we meet at his place. We’ll probably wind up visiting Athena at the Parthenon later, but we’ve got to bring you to the head honcho first.

A Silly Poem

I've written some heavy stuff, and I'll be writing more heavy stuff, but I do sometimes like to have fun. So have something fun I wrote about what madness can ensue when you're acting like you're still at camp after getting home.

Back From Camp:

Just back from camp and singing grace

People thinking I’m from outer space.

Clap clap, tap tap tap, clap move over

Clap up tap switch slam CRASH!

Played the cup game, broke the glass

I should’ve known that fun couldn’t last.

Now I’m back from camp and singing grace

People thinking I’m from outer space.

Buddy board, flushie buddy, hopper, and unit,

Will someone tell me where’s the med kit?

Never mind, I’m home today

But in my head the camp words stay.

And I’m back from camp, still singing grace

People thinking I’m from outer space.

And finally- I understand how,

This song is NCA, it doesn’t matter now!

Someone called out Purple

And today I didn’t turn.

I’m back long enough to not sing grace

But people still think I’m from outer space.

I’m back long enough to not sing grace

But people still think I’m from outer space.