h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Y'know, there are some people who get paid for being who they am.
Their narrow interests just happen to be one of them things that gets them a potload of money and then they get to go on their way, doing their thing, protected by lawyers, guns and money... well, you know what I mean. It never hurts to throw in a Warren Zevon reference every once in awhile, either.

But them what of us whose interests are considered "eccentric" or "time-wasting", we gets to languish in obscurity or get picked on and tortured by the lowest common denominator of the "normals". We might score higher than most of these hooligans on the IQ tests, but they have jobs and families and college degrees and a certain social standing amongst their own. So, we are fair game, because we don't fit in. We get accused of being "lazy" or "weird" or "perverted" or "uppity".

Then, sometime along about 1994, some smart-ass doctor comes up with a name for it, Asperger's Syndrome, and the abuse continues. Not only is the stupid name a running joke in the TV sitcoms, but in the wake of the ADHD scare of the eighties and nineties and the MMR thing about severe autistics, Asperger's becomes just another "excuse".
There are even supposedly lucid normal people who want to "cure" AS or test for Aspie or Autistic fetuses and give the parents and society the option of aborting them.

You can't win for losing. Normals can't see that if they can tolerate aberrent behavior from sport figures, rock stars, movie actors, computer entrepreneurs and clergy, then it wouldn't take much adjustment to actually look at the people they deal with on a daily basis as individuals, instead of relying on "culture" to pigeon hole everyone.

The only thing that can truly save Aspies from the hoi and polloi is for them to become a marketing target. Once some anus head in a company finds a product that Aspies all like to buy, then we'll get all kinds of attention, perhaps even our own television show and t-shirts...

In the meantime, even those of us who receive professional attention are playthings of the social workers and the "scientists", 3/4s of each I wouldn't trust with a sick kitten.

And them of us who are stuck swimming in the tides of the "real" world are expecting to trim our behavior in order not to disturb the "lives" of the stupid "normals", half of whom have never had a true interest in anything in their lives that two dozen of their "group" also didn't share.

One of the bright lights in the life of an Aspie is that whatever we truly care about, nothing in fashion, religion or grope think can change it. That's be whom we is, set in stone.

And I think a little consistency is a useful thing in a society full of trends, fads and forgettable flares of notoriety.

Which reminds me, God Bless Jan Hammer.

Wo tr
Sometimes reading your stuff gets uncomfortably voyeuristic.
I know two people diagnosed with Asperger's, and know *of* another couple. They all seem pretty different to me. I also know a few other people diagnosed with other things (Bipolar Disorder, Tourette's, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) who seem more like some of the people who've purportedly got something different, if you get my drift.
About the only thing they've really all got in common, though, is that they all fume impotently about the labels they're given.
Your point about normality is well made. Well-adjusted people simply aren't. It's just that they're short of bandwidth.
You seem in a heavy mood today, albeit a prolific one. Is it wistful rambling or manic prattling, I wonder, as you stream this out? I never can tell, but the pictures you paint are some of the clearest to be seen here. Voyeurism, all right.
You take care now. Make sure it's all cathartic, and not worming deeper into someplace you don't need to go.
God knows what Jan Hammer's got to do with it, mind.
Pin

I had just gotten a CD of some of his early stuff and read his bio online. He's always done his own thing and gotten a lot of awards for it, all of it richly deserved.

Has someone been getting at you recently, tonsil?

I've never heard of either Warren Zevon or Jan Hammer. A quick search shows that they're musicians, but's that's as much as I know.

I don't think that Aspergers receives a great deal of notice over here.

http://www.businessballs.com/ethics.htm

Dear Sigmund and friends,
Pardon me, my name is Andmymare and I seem to have fallen out of Logicus' world into here led by my curiosity, and the fact you're large enough to weave his words around.
I'm at work and have to go to lunch in a few minutes but damn. Your writing about your work is fascinating; it reads like a scene from "Metropolis". I have written a couple of things about Asperger's; just seeing that word has sparked me to come back here and read this (please!). My nephew has Asperger's syndrome and I realized within the last year that I am right on his little wavelength sometimes...more about the culture mental health later (if you will allow). I don't usually pop in people's private journals; I live over in Poetry but I peeked because I keep good company.
Later
Andmymare

High, Andmymare!
Welcome anytime. It gets a little lonely wandering around in Aspyness sometimes. Other times I'm quite happy to be with myself.


, Warren Zevon wrote "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns, and Money", and "Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner".
He is most famous for dying recently and quite publicly. He was part of the crew with Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne.

Jan Hammer is one of the most prolific keyboardists and guitarists in recording history, composing most of what he plays. He is most famous for creating the theme song and most of the episode music (during the first three seasons) for "Miami Vice".

"Has someone been getting at you recently, tonsil?"

Nah, not really. Just one of those fart bubbles that surfaces in the bathtub of thought. I have a Google news alert set up for the word Aspergers and some of the crap people write just makes me pray for the idiots who sit on their bums and pretend to think with words.

I hope you don't end up praying for me as an idjit who sits on her bum.
I just wanted to share my perceptions with you, as there are very few people I can talk to about this....
and as a person trying to write poetry I noticed more similarities between meself and my nephew who is NOT a WALKING DIAGNOSIS but a brilliant lad who is a cuss to live with!
Andmymare
Lynda

I didn't know you could set up a Google news alert! Is the process idiot-proof?

Uh, only if you spell the subject correclty.
On the other hand, with some topics, I set up an alert for common misplellings.

No, mymare, I weren't referring to you.
Making friends with your relatives is always fun. And having the perception to notice something that their parents might not is exemplary and laudatory... which is just down the hall, to the left.

"I just wanted to share my perceptions with you, as there are very few people I can talk to about this...."

Gotcha. Just don't be too touchy, as I have a tendency to be blunt when I am not being oblivious.

One of the advantages of personal journals is that you can legitimately be selfish.

(and when he's not being blunt he's pretty sharp)