Author Archive

your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful

The thing about not-being-a-person is: They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all. They will have no idea who they are talking to. You yourself will start to forget, too. They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them. You will do math, constantly. How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this project to succeed? How much honesty can I afford? How much dishonesty will kill me? What is the cost of coming out? Is there a way to delay, soften, transmute? How long can I survive as half a person? Ever since the world ended ... I don't go out as much. People that I once befriended, just don't bother to stay in touch. Things that used to seem so splendid, don't really matter today. It's just as well the world ended -- it wasn't working anyway. Your dreams will be reduced down to breathing. [Read More]

on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More

Are All “Truths” Equally Valid? Comparing the AoAers to Kesey’s Cuckoo

It seems a silly question to ask, given the self-evident answer: we know that all beliefs and opinions are not equally valid. Obviously, it's important to acknowledge that the person who believe so...[Read More]

on 11/30/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Forget False Dichotomies: The Bell Curve of the Autism Community

Diane Yapko writes an interesting piece at PsychCentral on neurodiversity, noting that the stark contrasts that many would place, neurodiversity versus cure, on the autism community, really don't...[Read More]

on 11/19/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

When a Line of Toys Is Just Playtime

There's lots about this parenting gig that I find delightful.  Toys, and watching the kids playing with them, has to be one of the more fun bits.  My kids line things up.  Even when I knew it wa...[Read More]

on 10/28/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Community over Cacophony: Navigating the Online Autism Community

Dictionary definition:  "Noun: A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds: 'a cacophony of deafening alarm bells'; 'a cacophony of architectural styles'." The online autism community often feels like a...[Read More]

on 10/19/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Choosing How We View the World and Our Place In It

Here, in West Texas, the heat's still on.  It's fair week here, so we've had the typical showers that everyone associates with fair week(never mind that we always forget when it doesn't rain).  We a...[Read More]

on 09/16/10 | No Comments | Read More

On a Countdown and Deeper Thoughts on the Autism Box People Make

It's winking, don't you think?  Or it forgot to put makeup on one side; that's what this sunflower makes me think. So, I thought I'd share it. One week and the girls return to school.  Okay, one ...[Read More]

on 08/24/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Value of Ideas and the Willingness to Let Go of Certainty

I've been thinking about the value of ideas today.  I've been thinking about how we parse language, how we see the world in ways that confirm our belief systems. We look for connections, for exp...[Read More]

on 07/27/10 | No Comments | Read More

Working, Working … In Which I Make Progress

See that gap between the second and third mulberries?  That right there, my friends, is progress.  It better be progress as it took a couple hours yesterday to do. I am currently fortifying mys...[Read More]

on 07/20/10 | No Comments | Read More

Robots for Therapy and the Lack of Empathy Myth

"Empathy is one of those skills autistic children typically lack; this boy wasn’t supposed to be aware of his teachers’ frustration." --"The New Face of Autism Therapy" The idea that autistics la...[Read More]

on 06/10/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Language, Rhetoric, and Expression: There’s Power There

Language is a peculiar thing.  It can be twisted, turned, spinned, mangled, mutilated.  Connotation and denotation are explicitly different things, and we rarely stick to the denotative meaning (and...[Read More]

on 03/17/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Diversity and Inclusion: How Society Fails Us All, How We Fail Ourselves

Leave aside for the moment your immediate foray into divisions, into the ideas of a neurodiversity movement. Leave aside for a moment the split into camps of curing and not curing, the false dichotomi...[Read More]

on 03/3/10 | 3 Comments | Read More