Category Archives: Life In General

Basically, anything that has to do with life in general. :)

#Infodump: A Labour of Love

So, everyone who knows autistics, knows that autistics tend to infodump. We love talking about our passions, our interests, what we’re working on, this fascinating new piece of information we’ve just learned….

Unfortunately, most of the time, people who aren’t autistic themselves get bored listening – or just aren’t interested in the topic in the first place. And of course, with our difficulties with social communication, we can’t always tell when someone is feeling that, so we just keep on pouring out the information on whatever it is that’s caught our attention.

And yet, time and time again, autistics are told that people don’t want to listen to infodumps. That they can’t maintain the interest in the topic for the length of time we go on about it for.

So why do we continue to infodump in the first place?

Continue Reading To Find Out!

To Mimic Is Human

Have you ever found yourself listening to the way you speak, or paying attention to the way you move, and suddenly realize that you’re imitating someone else?

I certainly have, the most recent of which was about five minutes before I started writing this post!

Read on, do! 🙂

Autism is a Delay, Not a Stop

So, the ASNL this semester (spring) has arranged for a yoga for autistics… practice? workshop? whatever…. Four weeks, Sunday mornings. There are a total of five of us there, and like in Social Club, I’m the oldest (although with yoga, our instructor is older than I am). And during this morning’s session (our third), I noticed something interesting.

One of the others there, who is less than half my age… is a lot like I was when I was her age. A lot like I was, at least in social elements (well, from what I’ve been able to tell during the three hours I’ve spent with her so far). Things get blurted out when she thinks of them, no matter how “inappropriate” it may be at the time. She shares details with near strangers that you might think more appropriate to just share with friends. (I mentioned those two items to Mom, and she was nodding and going, “Oh, yes, I remember you being like that”….)

And there is no better way that I can think of to know that I have changed, than to realize that there’s someone else who is like I was, and am not (at least partly) anymore. (I have more restraint about blurting things out, and a bit more restraint about sharing things… although not as much of the latter, witness the very existence of this blog!)

It’s also proof, in living colour, of the “Autism is a Delay, Not a Stop” matter. I’ve changed. I have more awareness now of social appropriateness. I have more impulse control. But I used to be just like her.

We grow, and learn, and change. We just do it at a different rate than allistics/neurotypicals.

Please, parents, specialists, everyone… remember that. Simply being autistic does not mean that we will always behave/act/react the same way as we do now.

‘Later,

🙂 tagÂûght

Nova Scotia, How I Love Thee

So, I’ve been in Nova Scotia for over a week now. I leave in just over 49 hours (from the time I posted this). And I had a wonderful day yesterday. I figured it was time to discuss.

This will be a somewhat long post, talking a bit about my family and a lot about the main/original reason I’m here, which is to do with the Canadian Autism Partnership Project. No details of our discussions – those are confidential – but just how it went, and how the group related to each other, and various bits and pieces.

Read on….

Update on tag’s Haven

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and as a result, I just published a huge post giving a general update on life, the universe, and everything (or at least my life over the last month and a bit!) on tag’s Haven.

The post is titled Update: Apt, Exercise, Camp NaNo July 2015, and also has stuff about my puddy tat there as well. Feel free to wander over if you want to know what I’ve been up to lately! (Though please note that there are a lot of photos, and it’s – as I mentioned above – a fairly long post. The photos are just thumbnails in the post itself, however, so that shouldn’t be a problem.)

‘Later!

🙂 tagÂûght

Stats and #NaNoWriMo 2014

I know, it’s been a while. Sorry, guys. I’ve been… a bit preoccupied with stuff, I’m afraid. Life, the Universe, and Everything. But… two things have happened today. First of all, I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year (of course), and I’ve ended up way ahead of the curve on my word count. 🙂 Check out the details on my Other Blog, at the NaNoWriMo14 tag!

The second thing was that my stats for this site spiked hugely! As in, I’ve got over 1,200 views today!

It seems someone posted a link to one of my posts on Facebook, and I got a ton of visitors. So, whoever you are, thank you very much for that! The more people visit this blog, the more they will hopefully understand and accept about autism, autistics, and people in general. 🙂

Anyway, just wanted to let people know that I’m not dead, that if you want to know what I’m doing this month just pop over to my Other Blog, and to publically thank whoever posted the link on Facebook.

I will likely have a few recommendation posts later this month, because there have been a series of posts on a couple of blogs that I want to bring attention to. But other than that, it’s November, meaning that most of my concentration is given over to NaNoWriMo. *wry smile*

‘Later, all!

🙂 tagAught

Recommendation: Splines Theory by Luna Lindsey

So, I was taking a look at my stats (yay, people are interested in my analysis of the problems with the SD article!), and I noticed a referring link from www.lunalindsey.com. I went, okay, I haven’t seen this before… so I clicked on the link.

The post is titled: Splines Theory: A Spoons Metaphor for Autism. In it, Ms. Lindsey looks at the spoons metaphor for dealing with energy resources with invisible disabilities, and some issues she has with it, and provides a new metaphor for exploring what’s going on that causes us to have energy drains and difficulty changing routines and such. (And a commenter adds another metaphor, for those who aren’t a comfortable with computer-oriented ones.)

It’s a rather interesting look at things, and resonates with me. Quite a bit. It makes sense – even more sense than the spoons metaphor (which is incorporated into the Splines Theory as a whole). I like it.

So I’m recommending this post. 😉

🙂 tagAught

Let’s Talk About: Modes of Thought – Followup

This post is a followup to Let’s Talk About: Imagination and Modes of Thought. Partially because while I wasn’t entirely wrong about my “mode of thought”, I wasn’t exactly correct about it either; and partially because there’s a new Tumblr blog out there called “Autistic Thinking” that I recently stumbled across. The aim of the Autistic Thinking blog is to: “[describe] the different and possibly unusual patterns of thought and perception experienced by autistic people of all types. It’s meant to show how diverse we actually are, compared to the simplified ideas other people have of us”, to quote the blog description. And reading it, I got inspired to write this post, because of my recent ruminations about how exactly I do think.

Want to read my thoughts on this? Go on! 🙂