Month: June 2013

Strange Dreams, and Some Thoughts on Current Events

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strange dreams

Maybe I’m going to have to give those subliminal mind-improvement MP3s a rest.  The next time I have a dream in which the showcased event is an old high school nemesis dancing on the dinner table at a swanky event sans trou and waving Mr. Willy in the wind, I might just have to think about staying awake at night.   The night before last was even weirder.  I find myself telling my mother that my sister can change her own diaper (as far as I know, she’s a tad bit scatterbrained, but not in adult diapers yet) and not to call it a “diaper,” but to call it “pants.”

adult_diaper

Note to self: 160-180# refers to the size of the wearer, not the amount of human effluvia it will hold.

Oh, yay.  Sigmund Freud would have an ever loving field day with me.  Then again, every mental health specialist I’ve ever seen has probably made some interesting notes.  Just don’t let my Prozac script run out and things should be OK.

suffer

I’m not entirely surprised by today’s turn of current events.  I can’t say I support the concept of gay marriage, my primary reason (morality aside) being I don’t buy the argument that one’s “orientation” is something outside of one’s control, any more than any other aspect of one’s behavior is out of one’s control.  I also don’t buy into behavior or “orientation” being a civil rights issue.  The members of NAMBLA will tell you that their “orientation” is toward little boys, and that they can’t help their behavior because they didn’t “choose” their orientation, so does that make pedophilia OK?

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Using the “‘orientation’ absolves me from being accountable for my behavior” argument, I could rationalize that my “orientation” is to attempt to do the nasty with every fine young stud I see between the ages of 25 and 50. I can’t help it. That’s how I’m oriented. I didn’t choose it.   So to take that rationalization to its logical conclusion, my desire to be every hot young-to-moderately middle-aged dude’s naughty cougar fantasy should be celebrated, encouraged and subsidized.  I should be able to marry as many men as I like, so that when their willies don’t work anymore it doesn’t matter because I can just choose another stud from the stable.  Why can’t I engage in polyandry?   That’s how I’m oriented. I didn’t choose it.

See how dippy that sounds when straight people try to use the same argument to legitimize their own personal selfish choices?

If I choose to engage in promiscuous behavior, I could almost rationalize that because I’m married to a guy with ED- or if I choose to do the honorable, not so easy thing and live in involuntary celibacy because it’s the right thing to do, that choice is on me.  If I decided I wanted to get involved in intimate relationships with multiple men to make my life more tolerable and fun, the rest of society shouldn’t have to celebrate it, encourage it, or subsidize it, or even make it sound legitimate and healthy.

The whole idea behind marriage isn’t so much for personal happiness and all that fairy tale crap as it is a long term commitment between a man and a woman (ostensibly but not always for the purpose of begetting and raising children)- even when that commitment involves illness, non-functional equipment or dealing with a spouse who was raised by wolves.  It’s more like joining the army versus “forever after in happy land.”  You’re in it even when it sucks.

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Even so, before one might consider me a gay-basher or a homophobe, I really don’t care what other people do in the dark- as long as I don’t have to pay for it, or watch it, and it doesn’t involve me.  Then again I’m not gay, so I admit it’s hard to see it from their point of view.  I generally don’t get along with women very well to begin with, with few exceptions (most of my friends are guys) and frankly there’s nothing any woman’s got that I want.   I’m straight, though I’ve been pretty much living without any kind of action for a number of years, so I guess in practical application, I would be a “none of the above.”  I guess love is where you find it, and at this point in my life that’s a dead horse regardless of my “orientation”- unless it involves battery powered devices.

Different strokes for different folks, and I’m cool with that.  I don’t care if a person has the hots for a Ford Escort as long as I don’t have to watch, and I don’t have to call it normal.   I don’t have a problem with what other people do or who they think they are for the most part, but I do have a big problem with trying to make behavior choices a civil rights issue.

Attitude, Middle-Aged Angst, and DNR

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IMG_20130611_210636

I’ve said it before, but since my offspring has more or less achieved the high holy goals of parenting, which are being potty trained, literate and gainfully employed, I am somewhat free to enjoy my second adolescence.

Now that I have a pretty bad ass replica of Théophile Steinlen’s Chat Noir on my calf, I want one more tat. I will wait until fall/winter time to do it, because in the summer two weeks worth of workouts outside of the pool are just too hot.  One bad thing about getting a tat if you prefer aquatic exercise, is you can’t get in the pool for two weeks until the tat is pretty much healed.

I have a DNR on file–  meaning that I do not want to be resuscitated should my heart stop and I’m on my way to the Dirt Nap.  No heroics.  If it’s time for me to die, let my sorry carcass go.  I don’t want to live through a dramatic resuscitation effort only to suck up resources for years- being chronically ill and mindlessly drooling away in some nursing home if that can at all be avoided.   Having one’s DNR tattooed on one’s left chest area (on Hello Kitty’s dress no less- and I’ll have the lettering done in either bright red or black so it’s even more obvious) should drive the point home.

I figure if I’m going to die anyway, why prolong the process?  Maybe it’s a morbid thought, but I want people to be crystal clear that it’s fine by me to keep me off the machines and to let me just die with some comfort and dignity.

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I have to try to get a better outlook.  Granted there have been some incidents in the recent past that have completely pissed me off and demoralized me but I’ve gone through a lot worse.  I may not have much but I do have a healthy sarcastic streak, and comedy is indeed the flipside of tragedy.

Negative-Attitude

I have to change this stuff.

I’ve fallen back into the age old pattern of letting people simply walk all over me.  It’s bad that I’m so used to being a doormat that I have to consciously think about confronting people when they are just plain being assholes.  What is so wrong about calling out the conspicuous douchebag?  I’m sure that my megadouche detection skills are just as good if not better than most people’s, given that I have had exposure to more than my fair share of megadouches in my lifetime.

 

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This is what I want to say to Jerry when he whines about food.  Unfortunately, when he isn’t in the mood for the entreé du soir, it means I either end up going out for subs or to the Chinese joint for his hineyness.  Last week I got to get him a sub, and then a replacement sub, when the zit faced high school kids working the evening shift at Jersey Mike’s committed the unforgivable sin: his Philly cheese steak had green peppers on it.  You’d have thought it was anthrax the way he reacted to a few green peppers. They weren’t even the hot peppers, which if you ask me are quite nice on a Philly cheese steak, among a plethora of other things.  But green peppers?  If you don’t like them, pick them off.  As rude as Jerry is in restaurants, green peppers are the least of his worries.  I bet fast food workers see condescending assholes like Jerry from a mile away.

I’m sure Jerry’s gotten things far worse than a few green peppers on his sandwiches.  Saliva, semen and boogers come to mind.  I understand the longing for passive-aggressive revenge more than most.  I might not actually perpetrate vengeful acts, but I fantasize about them a lot.

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If thinking about passive-aggressive revenge is just as bad as actually perpetrating it, I’m in big trouble.

Voice

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voice1

I understand the mechanics – to a degree.

God has a sense of humor.  Many people on the autistic spectrum struggle with language, especially with making one’s use of language audience appropriate. As a hyperlexic I deal with verbal language much more easily than many people on the spectrum, but I still have my limitations.  I understand what I mean to say and I understand the vocabulary I use, but not everyone else does.  I prefer to communicate in writing for this reason.  Writing allows me to organize my thoughts more effectively and to communicate more clearly.  Writing also takes away that awkward non-verbal factor that can distract and vex me as well.   I talk with people all day on the phone (again, don’t have to deal much in the non-verbal there) but when the day is done I really don’t have much left to say.  I’m usually all talked out by noon, especially here lately that I’m stuck doing two people’s jobs again, so I’m craving my solitary time away from the idiots and inquiring minds.

chatty_kathy

Call me back when you know what the hell you want, dipshit…

The humor in this is that somehow I ended up with a loud, resonant speaking voice that carries, and a broad (almost four octave) vocal range.  I studied classical voice for a number of years, and was even the lead singer in a heavy metal band for awhile.  The two are not nearly as far apart as most might think, and classical technique will keep you from destroying your vocal cords.   When I was in high school I performed a capella in a hall that seats 1,000 without amplification.  The people in the back could hear just fine.  Oh, yes, you bet your sweet bippy. In spite of my bad sinuses and history of bronchitis and pneumonia, I can project.  Just ask my son.

Even though I can communicate relatively articulately (especially when non-verbals are out of the equation) every morning I have to fight the temptation to simply choose not to communicate.  With anyone (except maybe the dogs and cats, because they can’t fend for themselves, because they don’t have thumbs.) Definitely not with humans.

I don’t know if it’s an Asperger’s thing or just my own personal frustration with dealing with people in general.  I’m not specifically incensed with stupid people or angry people or people who want stuff, although I very seldom speak with anyone that isn’t in at least one of those categories.  I pretty much don’t want to talk to anyone.  I especially don’t want to have to fulfill anyone’s request, placate anyone’s anger, or explain the obvious to the stupid for awhile, but I will have to start right in again in the morning, just like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill every morning only for it to roll back down to the foot of the hill to start all over again.

homerchokebart

There are too many times when I’m afraid to use my voice.  Too often I stay silent either out of self preservation, fear or expediency.  My own cynicism and sense of “why does it matter anyway,” keeps me from saying what I should when I should speak out.

When my emotions kick in – especially when I am angry, insulted or outraged, I lose what eloquence I thought I may have had.  At that point my silence is a result of not finding the words, of not being able to express my loathing, fear or outrage in a coherent and logical way.  The voice loses its connection with my rational mind, and a breathless, mindless silence is the result.

I guess if I were to continue on the cynical rant, I might as well be resigned to the fact that since nobody gives a rat’s ass about my opinion except me, then why bother sharing it?

It might be funny.  It might be twisted.  Somebody might get some entertainment value out of the things I say.  Maybe.

Today I got to see yet another medical specialist- an endocrinologist- to try to figure out why my blood sugar is so damned hard to control even though I’m trying to do all the “right” things.  Of course he took more blood and pee and he’s going to do more tests the other doctors didn’t do, etc.  This Dr. thinks I could have a thyroid and/or adrenal issue that’s playing into my sugar control as well as the lingering fatigue and the depressive funk that just won’t go away.  I’m not holding my breath.

I’m thankful I can communicate.  Sometimes it’s everything I can do to communicate- but God had a sense of humor when he gave me a voice.